iting for further parley. It was a long way yet,
but the car devoured the road as if she were starving. At last we saw a
single light to the left, and then a bunch of lights huddled together
in a mountain-ringed plain, half a mile or so beyond. To my annoyance I
had to slacken speed for a flock of belated and bewildered sheep, just
as we were nearing the first light, but in a moment we would have shot
ahead again, had not my attention been caught by the sharp yelping of a
little dog.

It was not the defiant yap of an enemy to motors, but rather a glad
welcome; and the thin shred of sound was curiously familiar. Instead of
putting on speed, I stopped dead in the middle of the road.

"Whist! Airole, is that you?" I called.

In an instant a tiny black form was making wild springs at the car,
trying to get in. It was Airole and no other.

"This is where they are," I said. "In that house, yonder. If it hadn't
been for the dog, we'd have gone on, and--" It wasn't worth while to
finish.

I drove to the side and stopped the engine. The Countess would go with
me, of course, and it was better that she should; for she was the girl's
aunt, and this was the pass her foolishness had brought her to.

Airole pattered before us, leaping at the shut door of a rough,
two-story house of dark stone. I knocked; no one came, and I pounded
again. If there had been no answer that time, I meant to try and break
the door in with my shoulder, which has had some experience as a
battering ram and perhaps those inside guessed at my intentions, for
there followed a scrambling sound. A bolt was slipped back, and then a
tall Montenegrin, belted and armed with knife and big revolver, blocked
up the doorway.

I tried him in Italian. No use; he jabbered protests in Slavic, with a
wife peeping curiously over his shoulder, as the Countess peeped over
mine. Finally, to save time and somebody's blood, perhaps, I offered an
Austrian note and it proved a passport. They let us go in; and entering,
I heard Miss Destrey's voice raised in fear or anger, behind another
closed door.

Then most of the blood in my body seemed to spring to my head, and I
have no very distinct recollection of anything more, till I found that
I had done to that second door what I'd meant to do to the first, and
that Maida had run straight into my arms.

"My darling!" I heard myself exclaiming. I know that I held her tight
against my heart for an instant, saying, "Thank Heaven!"