was following.
With a word to Balator who explained where, on his return, he could
find them, Amory turned with Rollo, and slipped through the crowd.
Having reasons of his own for getting back to the hall below, Amory
was prepared to speed well the interview with "the little brown 'un"
who, he supposed, was Jarvo.
It was Jarvo--Jarvo, in a state of excitement, profound and
incredible. The little man, from the annoyingly serene mode of mind
in which he had left them, was become, for him, almost agitated. He
sprang up from a divan in the great dressing-room of their apartment
and approached Amory almost without greeting.
"Adon, adon," he said earnestly, "you must leave the palace at
once--at once. But to-night!"
Amory hunted for his pipe, found and lighted it, pressing a
cigarette upon Jarvo who accepted, and held it, alight, in the palm
of his hand.
"To-night," he repeated, as if it were a game.
"Ah well, now," said Amory reasonably, "why, Jarvo? And we so
comfortable."
The little man looked at Amory beseechingly.
"I know what I know," he said earnestly, "many things will happen.
There is danger about the palace to-night--danger it may be for you.
I do not know all, but I come to warn you, and to warn the adon who
has been kind to us. You have brought us here when we were alone in
America," said Jarvo simply. "Akko and I will help you now. It was
Akko who remembered the tower."
Amory looked down at the bowl of his pipe, and shook his vestas in
their box, and turned his eyes to Rollo, listening near by with an
air of the most intense abstraction. Yes, all these things were
real. They were all real, and here was he, Amory, smoking. And yet
what was all this amazing talk about danger in the palace, and being
warned, and remembering the tower?
"Anybody would think I was Crass, writing head-lines," he told
himself, and blew a cloud of smoke through which to look at Jarvo.
"What are you talking about?" he demanded sternly.
Jarvo had a little key in his hand, which he shook. The key was on a
slender, carved ring, and it jingled. And when he offered it to him
Amory abstractedly took it.
"See, adon," said Jarvo, "see! In the ilex grove on the road that we
took last night there is a white tower--it may be that you have
noticed it to-day. That tower is empty, and this is the key. There
may be guards, but I shall know how to pass among them. You must
come with me there to-night, the three. Even then it
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