Minutes--or could it have been only seconds?--passed. From below her
came Tinker's frightened neigh. She could hear him stamping in the
undergrowth. But she had no further thought of going to him. That spot
with all its terrors held her chained.

Suddenly from behind her there came a loud report--a nerve-shattering
sound. She whizzed round. He had a gun, then. She had not seen that he
had a gun.

But what had happened? What? What? She was trembling so that she could
barely stand, yet she forced her quaking limbs to move. Back she
stumbled, back through the glaring sunlight. Once she fell, and saw a
lizard--or was it a scorpion?--flick from her path. And then she was up
again, panting, sobbing, utterly unnerved, but struggling with all her
failing strength to reach the ruined temple, to see for herself what lay
there.

An awful silence brooded across the stony space. It was as though a
curse had fallen upon it. She tried to lift her voice, to call to Noel,
to make some sound in the stillness. But her throat was powerless.

She thought he must be dead. She thought that her brain had tricked her,
that she had only dreamed of the coming of the second man, had dreamed
of the gun-shot, had dreamed all but those dreadful gleaming eyes coming
stealthily nearer and nearer out of the dark.

Again she tried to call, and again piteously she failed. She reached the
temple staggering, her hands stretched gropingly before her. And even as
she did so, the silence was rent by a sound that convinced her wholly
that she was indeed dreaming--a sound that echoed and echoed through the
gloom, making her pulses leap again in spite of her--the sound of a
ringing British laugh.

She fell against the broken marble of the doorway, her hands pressed
fast over her face. She was struggling with herself, consciously
striving to nerve herself to go in and find his dead body. Of any
personal danger she was past thinking. Had the tawny body of their enemy
sprung out upon her then she would scarcely have known fear.

And so when Noel came suddenly to her, caught her hands into his own,
making her look up, his brown face bent close to hers, she simply gazed
at him uncomprehendingly, not believing that she saw him.

Swift concern flashed into his eyes. He drew her to him and held her in
his arms. "Olga,--Olga dear, don't you know me?" he said. "You've had a
beastly fright, haven't you? But the brute's dead, and no one else is
any the worse. Th