.

Amory laughed.

"No, indeed," he said. Amory had once lived in the South, and he
accented the "no" very takingly. "I came myself," he volunteered.

"I thought," explained Antoinette, "that maybe he opened a door in
the dark, and you walked out. It _is_ rather funny that you should
be here."

"You are here, you know," suggested Amory doubtfully.

"But I may be a cannibal princess," Antoinette demurely pointed out.
It was not that her astonishment was decreasing; but why--modernity
and the democracy spoke within her--waste the possibilities of a
situation merely because it chances to be astonishing? Moments of
mystery are rare enough, in all conscience; and when they do arrive
all the world misses them by trying to understand them. Which is
manifestly ungrateful and stupid. They do these things better in
Yaque.

"You maybe," agreed Amory evenly, "though I don't know that I ever
met a desert island princess in a dinner frock. But then, I am a
beginner in desert islands."

"Are you an American?" inquired Antoinette earnestly.

Amory looked up at the frowning facade of the king's palace, and he
could have found it in his heart to believe his own answer.

"I'm the ghost," he confessed, "of a poor beggar of a Phoenician who
used to make water-jars in Sidon. I have been condemned to plow the
high seas and explore the tall mountains until I find the Pitiful
Princess. She must be up at the very peak, in distress, and I--"

Amory stopped and looked desperately about him. Would St. George
never come? How was he, Amory, to be accountable for what he told if
he were left here alone in these extraordinary circumstances?

Then Antoinette lightly clapped her hands.

"A ghost!" she exclaimed with pleasure. "Miss Holland hoped the
place was haunted. A Phoenician ghost with an Alabama accent."

She had said "Miss Holland hoped."

"Aren't you--aren't you Miss Holland?" demanded Amory promptly, a
joyful note of uncertainty in his voice.

Antoinette shook her head.

"No," she said, "though I don't know why I should tell you that."

From Amory's soul rolled a burden that left him treading air on
Mount Khalak. She was not Miss Holland. What did he care how long
St. George stayed away?

"I am Tobias Amory," he said, "of New York. Most people don't know
about the Sidonian ghost part. But I've told you because I thought,
perhaps, you might be the Pitiful Princess."

Antoinette's heart was beating pleasantly. Of New York