himself, but he felt that storms belonged more
naturally to his adventurous lot.

* * * * *

But it was characteristic of Falconer when once committed to a plan
not to open his mind to the objections which besieged it. So that
night, at the fall of dark, as the two young men motored forth
together, he maintained a stolid resolution which refused to look
back. The approach of the danger was tuning up his nerves, and
whatever his common sense might think about it, his youth and pluck
greeted the adventure with a quickening heart and a rash warmth of
blood.

Both young men were resolute and confident. Either would have been
more than human if he had not looked a trifle askance upon the other
and wished to thunder that he had been able to go into it alone and
to have tasted the intoxication of delivering the girl single-handed
out of the den of thieves. But the success of the plan was
paramount, as Billy reminded himself.

He found himself hoping wildly that she would see him as well as
Falconer.

"She has probably forgotten all about me," he thought ruefully. "She
won't remember that dance with me, nor that chat next morning. I'm
just an Also Met. She won't even perceive me. She'll see that
sandy-haired deliverer--and she'll tell him how right he was and how
good to come after her----"

Thus jealousy darkly painted his undoing. "But, darn it, I had to
ask him!" Thus he downed his ungenerous thoughts. "It needed two men
at least--and besides, I don't want any handicap of gratitude in
this."

They left the automobile in the Mohammedan graveyard with exact and
impressive instructions. And then they stole back among the gloomy
trees and ghostly tombs to where the canal washed the foot of the
little terraces, and there the one-eyed man sat waiting in the
canoe, a figure of profound misanthropy.

Silently he lifted a stricken but set countenance, and they climbed
in and the three paddled off, approaching the back of the palace
with wary eyes, for they were afraid that a guard might now be set
upon the walls. But Billy had argued that Kerissen was unaware of
Fritzi's knowledge of Arlee's identity; in fact she had at first
supposed her a willing supplanter like herself, and so he would not
be apprehensive of any of her revelations. And he did not dream that
Fritzi's rescuers were interested in Arlee.

At the strip of path the canoe made softly to shore and the two
young men climbed out,