te perfume inseparable from my memories of her,
became perceptible, and seemed as of old to Intoxicate me. The lock
clicked ... and I was free.

Karamaneh rose swiftly to her feet as I stood up and outstretched my
cramped arms. For one delirious moment her bewitching face was close
to mine, and the dictates of madness almost ruled; but I clenched my
teeth and turned sharply aside. I could not trust myself to speak.

With Fu-Manchu's marmoset again gambolling before us, we walked
through the curtained doorway into the room beyond. It was in
darkness, but I could see the slave-girl in front of me, a slim
silhouette, as she walked to a screened window, and, opening the
screen in the manner of a folding door, also threw up the window.

"Look!" she whispered.

I crept forward and stood beside her. I found myself looking down into
the Museum Street from a first-floor window! Belated traffic still
passed along New Oxford Street on the left, but not a solitary figure
was visible to the right, as far as I could see, and that was nearly
to the railings of the Museum. Immediately opposite, in one of the
flats which I had noticed earlier in the evening, another window was
opened. I turned, and in the reflected light saw that Karamaneh held a
cord in her hand. Our glances met in the semi-darkness.

She began to haul the cord into the window, and, looking upward, I
perceived that it was looped in some way over the telegraph cables
which crossed the street at that point. It was a slender cord, and it
appeared to be passed across a joint in the cables almost immediately
above the centre of the roadway. As it was hauled in, a second and
stronger line attached to it was pulled, in turn, over the cables, and
thence in by the window. Karamaneh twisted a length of it around a
metal bracket fastened in the wall, and placed a light wooden crossbar
in my hand.

"Make sure that there is no one in the street," she said, craning out
and looking to right and left, "then _swing across_. The length of the
rope is just sufficient to enable you to swing through the open window
opposite, and there is a mattress inside to drop upon. But release the
bar immediately, or you may be dragged back. The door of the room in
which you will find yourself is unlocked, and you have only to walk
down the stairs and out into the street."

I peered at the crossbar in my hand, then looked hard at the girl
beside me. I missed something of the old fire of her nat