to have amused the high gods watching through the windows
of the stars.

"Go back!" came in a whisper from Karamaneh.

I saw the red lips moving and read a dreadful horror in the widely
opened eyes, in those eyes like pools of mystery to taunt the thirsty
soul. The world of realities was slipping past me; I seemed to be losing
my hold on things actual; I had built up an Eastern palace about myself
and Karamaneh wherein, the world shut out, I might pass the hours in
reading the mystery of those dark eyes. Nayland Smith brought me sharply
to my senses.

"Steady with the light, Petrie!" he hissed in my ear. "My skepticism has
been shaken, to-night, but I am taking no chances."

He moved from my side and forward toward that lovely, unreal figure
which stood immediately before the model's throne and its background
of plush curtains. Karamaneh started forward to meet him, suppressing a
little cry, whose real anguish could not have been simulated.

"Go back! go back!" she whispered urgently, and thrust out her hands
against Smith's breast. "For God's sake, go back! I have risked my life
to come here to-night. He knows, and is ready!"...

The words were spoken with passionate intensity, and Nayland Smith
hesitated. To my nostrils was wafted that faint, delightful perfume
which, since one night, two years ago, it had come to disturb my senses,
had taunted me many times as the mirage taunts the parched Sahara
traveler. I took a step forward.

"Don't move!" snapped Smith.

Karamaneh clutched frenziedly at the lapels of his coat.

"Listen to me!" she said, beseechingly and stamped one little foot upon
the floor--"listen to me! You are a clever man, but you know nothing of
a woman's heart--nothing--nothing--if seeing me, hearing me, knowing,
as you do know, I risk, you can doubt that I speak the truth. And I tell
you that it is death to go behind those curtains--that he..."

"That's what I wanted to know!" snapped Smith. His voice quivered with
excitement.

Suddenly grasping Karamaneh by the waist, he lifted her and set her
aside; then in three bounds he was on to the model's throne and had torn
the Plush curtains bodily from their fastenings.

How it occurred I cannot hope to make dear, for here my recollections
merge into a chaos. I know that Smith seemed to topple forward amid the
purple billows of velvet, and his muffled cry came to me:

"Petrie! My God, Petrie!"...

The pale face of Karamaneh looked up into mi