to
have you come here, that afternoon, that I could think of nothing
else!" And it seemed that this particular bit of woodland was his,
bought because its quiet beauty pleased him. He was in the habit of
coming here frequently; it had never occurred to him that danger
could lurk near it.

"I thought I heard--somebody calling somebody else 'Achmet.'" I told
him, confusedly. "And there was a Jinnee, really there was. And two
Voices. Who brought me here? Did you find me, over there?"

"You were not hard to carry," he said evasively.

"But The Jinnee?"

"The Jinnee did exactly what a good Jinnee always does, his duty.
Having done it, he disappeared. Didn't I tell you you're not to
think of what's happened? It is finished," said Mr. Jelnik,
peremptorily.

I asked no more questions.

"Do you think you are able to walk now?" he asked.

I tried to, with shaking knees. At the edge of the field I grew
faint again, and staggered, and was unpleasantly sick.

"You simply cannot appear in Hynds House in this shape, and invite
comment and question," said Mr. Jelnik, anxiously. His fine brows
wrinkled. "I have it: you will stop at my house for a few minutes,
and I'll give you a cordial, that will put you to rights."

I went staggering along beside him, making desperate efforts to hold
myself erect. The pathway squirmed and wriggled like a snake, the
trees and bushes bowed, the sky bobbed up and down.

He took me by by-paths so cunningly hidden that you might pass up
and down the highroad daily and never suspect their existence. We
went between cassenas and cedars and young laurels, branchy to the
roots. And then I was walking down a path bordered with Lombardy
poplars; and then I was sitting on a couch in Mr. Jelnik's
living-room, while he bathed my face with scented water, and
afterward held a small glass to my lips. The fluid I swallowed went
tingling through my whole body like friendly fire.

I stole a woman-glance around the room that The Author had been so
anxious to investigate. It was altogether a man's room, the scoured
floor partly covered with a handsome rug, and the divan on which I
was sitting covered with another. On both sides of the big fireplace
were crowded book-shelves, above which hung weapons gathered from
the four corners of the earth. There were two or three deep,
comfortable arm-chairs, a square table, a couple of Winchesters in a
corner, and near the window a flat, old-fashioned desk, above which