air-haired lady the
broken coin, my sign, and she will remember her word to me. Verily,
for the sign's sake, she will follow without fear."

"The master is not ill, then?"

"In his body he is well. But of the spirit of man, and what help he
needs, there is but one judge, namely, God."

"He has need of me?"

"He sends the token by me, Achmet." And he stood there with a
motionless patience, waiting.

Achmet! I remembered an afternoon in the Enchanted Wood, and that
name ringing in my ears--Achmet!

"I will follow you," I said. And instantly The Jinnee pushed open
the unlocked door of the spring-house and stepped inside.

I hesitated for a moment, turning my head toward Hynds House,
blazing with lights. I could hear voices, laughter, snatches of
song. From the kitchen Mary Magdalen's great, rich, unctuous laugh
rolled out like an organ peal. Silhouetted against the lighted
library window was one of our big black cats, with an arched back
and an uplifted and expressive tail.

"I wait," said a quiet voice. And, clutching Boris by the collar, I
stepped inside the door.

It was dark in there; only a faint and broken light came through the
one window, set high in the wall. Boris's eyes were balls of fire,
and his feet made a stealthy, scuffling sound on the flagged floor.
The little spring bubbling in its stone basin was like a whispering,
secretive voice.

Achmet stooped down, over in one corner. Then, shading a very modern
flash-light with a fold of his robe, he showed me one of the square
flags lifted, and a black hole yawning in the floor.

I backed away. With a crooked, sly smile, The Jinnee snapped his
fingers at Boris. The big dog jerked himself free of my hand and
disappeared.

"Now!" said The Jinnee. And like one in a dream I gathered my
lace-trimmed skirts in my hand and backed down a spider-web stairway
that barely gave one foothold. Achmet waited until I reached the
bottom, then he, too, backed in, and I heard the flagstone fall to
over my head.

There was a moment of utter and awful blackness and stillness. I was
upon the point of shrieking, when something cold and friendly
touched my hand: Boris was nosing me. The Jinnee, at the bottom of
the steps, showed the light.

We were in a circular shaft, narrowing upward like an inverted
funnel. It was quite clean and dry, lined with hard cement.
Branching from it were two wedge-shaped openings, just wide enough
to allow one person at a time to walk t