ay, warily.

And then something swift and dark sped by, bounding on light and
flying feet; something that must have come from my forest. It was
The Jinnee! God be praised, it was The Jinnee, his dark robe giving
an odd effect of flying, his eyes living vengeance, his face like
Fate carved in ebony.

I saw him leap, and close in upon the horror; I heard a sort of
wolfish yapping. The Black Death disappeared. And then I, too, was
falling, falling into infinite blackness and blankness, with one red
flash when I struck my head.

Half-conscious, half-hearing, altogether unseeing, I thought there
were two Voices near me. I couldn't understand what they said. One
of the Voices was gently and persistently applying cold and soothing
applications to my forehead. Another Voice chafed my hands. I
thought one said, "Achmet," and the other replied, "Sahib." I knew I
must be dreaming. But it was a pleasant dream enough.

Quite suddenly somebody said in good, anxious English:

"Thank God! you are better!"

I had opened my eyes. There was the whish-whish-whishing little
brook, the good brown pines, with their heavenly odor. And there was
the face of Nicholas Jelnik, bent over me. And beside him, gravely
concerned and troubled, Boris.

I looked from one to the other, both so clear-eyed, so kind, so
_safe_; and then I remembered.

"Sophy! Sophy!" He had his arms around me, in a close, protecting
clasp, while Boris pawed my skirts, and cried over me in loving,
honest dog fashion, and licked my wet cheek with his affectionate
tongue. I slipped my arm around the big dog's neck, and clung to the
two of them. And it seemed to me that while I clung thus, with my
head bent and my face hidden, one of them kissed my hair.

"It never occurred to me--that there might be danger for you," he
was whispering. "To have that horror come near you--oh, my God! Oh,
my God!"

I was terrified at sight of his face, dead-white, with eyes of
steel, and straight lips, and pinched nostrils; the terrible face of
the avenging white man, a face as inexorable as judgment. I hid my
own before it, and trembled; and yet was glad that I had seen it.

I stammered: "There was--a devil--and then a Jinnee came. And I
heard--sounds. Then I fell. Did--did The Jinnee--" My voice died in
my throat.

His eyes were ice, his mouth a grim, pale line.

"That has been attended to," he said composedly.

He blamed himself for having been thoughtless. "But I was so glad