im there by chance; he ascribed the
delivery of Fritzi's message to sheer miracle, and his presence
under the walls that night to wanton adventure, with only a
half-thought that she was involved.

Stoutly he dwelt upon Falconer's part in the attack the next night,
and upon the entire reasonableness of his abandonment of the trail.
He put it down to his own mulishness that he had hung on and had
learned through the little boy of her removal from the palace.

He interrupted himself then with questions, and she told him of her
strange trip down the Nile in the _dahabiyeh_, under guard of the
old woman and the Nubian. "But how did you come?" she demanded.

"Well, I just swung on to the same train he was in," said Billy.
"And I got out at Assiout because he'd bought a ticket there, but I
couldn't see a thing of him in the darkness and confusion of the
station, and I had a horrid feeling that he'd gone somewhere else,
the Lord knew where, to you. But the Imp--that's the little Arab boy
who adopted me and my cause--went racing up and down, and he got a
glimpse of the Captain tearing off on a horse and behind him a man
loping along with a bundle on a donkey, and the Imp raced behind him
and yelled he'd dropped something. The man went back to look, and
the Imp ran alongside him, asking him for work as a donkey boy. The
fellow shook him off, but that had delayed him, and though we lost
the horseman we kept the donkey-man in sight and followed him on to
the village. I reconnoitered while the Imp stole these two
camels--jolly good ones they are--and while I was trying to make out
where you were, for there were lights in several windows, I suddenly
heard your voice and then I saw a glare of fire. Well, my revolver
was a passport.... Now, how about that fire? What started it?"

"I did; he--he was trying to make love to me," she answered
breathlessly, "and I just got to the candles."

"Are you burned at all? Truthfully now? I never stopped to ask."

"If I am, I don't know it," she laughed tremulously. Then, "Isn't
this _crazy_!" she burst forth with.

"It's--it's off the beaten track," Billy B. Hill admitted. "It's a
jump back into the Middle Ages." His note of laughter joined hers as
they sat staring owlishly at each other through the dark of the
after-storm.

A little longer they talked, their questions and answers flitting
back and forth over those six strange days; then, as the excitement
waned, Billy heard a sleepy litt