bride worth (in her father's eyes) her weight in gold.

It was to try to reduce this excessive valuation that the young
cutthroat visited his father's house. During the night two families, one
of whom had a feud with the host and another with the guest, each
attended by an army of merry brigands, fell upon the sleeping homestead,
murdered everybody except Liosha, who managed to escape, plundered
everything plunderable, money, valuables, household goods and live
stock, and then set fire to the house and everything within sight that
could burn. After which they marched away singing patriotic hymns. When
they had gone Liosha crept out of the cave wherein she had hidden, and
surveyed the scene of desolation.

"I tell you, I felt just mad," said Liosha at this stage of the story.

* * * * *

I remember Barbara and Doria staring at her open-mouthed. Instead of
fainting or going into hysterics or losing her wits at the sight of the
annihilation of her entire kith and kin--including her bridegroom to
be--and of her whole worldly possessions, Liosha "felt just mad," which
as all the world knows is the American vernacular for feeling very
angry.

"It was enough to turn any woman into a raving lunatic," gasped Barbara.

"Guess it didn't turn me," replied Liosha contemptuously.

"But what did you do?" asked Dora.

"I sat down on a stone and thought how I could get even with that
crowd." She bit her lip and her soft brown eyes hardened.

[Illustration: Where the lonely figure in black and white sat
brooding.]

"And that's where we came in, don't you see?" interposed Jaffery
hastily.

You can imagine the scene. The two Englishmen, one gigantic, red and
hairy, the other wiry and hawk-like, jogging up the mountain path on
ragged ponies and suddenly emerging onto that plateau of despair where
the lonely figure in black and white sat brooding.

Under such unusual conditions, it was not difficult to form
acquaintance. She told her story to the two horror-stricken men. British
instinct cried out for justice. They would take her straight to the Vali
or whatever authority ruled in the wild land, so that punishment should
be inflicted on the murderers. But she laughed at them. It would take an
army to dislodge her enemies from their mountain fastnesses. And who
could send an army but the Sultan, a most unlikely person to trouble his
head over the massacre of a few Christians? As for a local governm