next great salon.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark he saw that it was not utter
blackness, but that some wan light from the paler night without
faintly penetrated through those jealously guarded windows--windows
not so heavily screened, he had been told, as those upon the front
of the palace, for these were upon the court. He found time for a
flash of horror at this stifling barricade as he made his hurried
way through the room and stepped out into the little anteroom
beyond.

Here he paused, for he knew that to the left, ahead of him, was the
curtained opening into the long salon upon the street, and within
that, Fritzi had warned him, a eunuch sometimes slept or Seniha
occasionally came from her small salon to play on the piano there
and lingered apparently in wait. But no one seemed stirring, and
Billy stole to the door on his right, opening on the encased stairs,
and found it locked. Hurriedly he pried at it with a burglarious
tool, and then a sudden outburst sounded overhead.

There was a racket of hurrying feet and then a muffled explosion of
a shot. A hoarse voice yelled. Another shot, and then a thud of
something falling.

Desperately Billy fired his gun into the lock. The noise did not
matter now and might serve to divert the fight from Falconer.
Throwing his weight against the shattered lock, he bounded up the
narrow stairs and raced down the long hall to the door that was
brightly gilded. From beyond, but fainter now, came the sounds of
conflict. With a heart beating to suffocation he flung open the door
and rushed into that room.

CHAPTER XIV

IN THE ROSE ROOM

Candles flared on the table but not a figure greeted his eye. The
room was deathly still; nothing stirred but the long draperies
fluttering in the wind.

"Arlee!" he whispered in a voice strained with excitement. "Arlee
Beecher, are you here?... Arlee!"

No voice answered. No motion revealed her. Only the candle flames
danced drunkenly in a puff of air, flaunting their secret knowledge
of the tenant they had lighted.

He darted to the tumbled bed and flung aside the covers; he looked
beneath it and beneath the couch; he sent a candle's light traveling
about the empty whiteness of the bath. No little figure, pitifully
silenced, was, hidden there. The room was empty. And all the while
that din sounded somewhere beyond them--running feet and strident
yells.

"He's got her!" thought Billy, and first his heart leaped and t