old you--we are prisoners."

"Surely you can tell him that I am a guest--you can _bribe_ him to
turn his head, to let me slip by----"

"He would be shot if he let you out that street door. He has his
orders to keep the ladies in their quarters and it is death to him
to disobey. That is the discipline--and the discipline has no
mercy--particularly upon the native soldiers." His tone held
bitterness. "It is useless to resist the soldiers. You must resign
yourself to remain a guest until I can obtain word to one who can
render assistance.... Will it be so hard?" he added sympathetically,
as she stood silent, her lips pressed quiveringly together. "My
sister will do everything----"

"Of course I can't stay here," broke in Arlee in her clear, positive
young tones. "I must get back to the Evershams--and we are going up
the Nile to-morrow morning. Can you get a message to that doctor _at
once_? And have someone go and telephone from the next house to the
consul and ambassador--and I'll write them notes, too."

Her voice broke suddenly. On what wings of folly she had come alone
to this place! Her bright adventure was a stupid scrape. Oh, what
mischance--what mischance! She was chokingly ashamed of the
predicament--to be penned up by a quarantine in a Moslem household.
She was angry, defiant and humiliated at once. What would the
Evershams say--and Robert Falconer----

* * * * *

She had never waited for anything as she waited for the answers to
the passionately urgent notes she sent out. She had written the
doctor, the ambassador, the consul, the Evershams. And then she
walked up and down, up and down that long, dim room which grew
darker and darker with the fading light and counted off the seconds
and the minutes and the hours with her pulsing heart beats. She had
never known there was such suspense in the world. It was comparable
to nothing in her girl's life--the only faint analogy was in the old
school-time when she thought she had failed in the history
examination and her roommate had gone to the office to find out for
her. She remembered walking the floor then, in a silly panic of
fear. But she had not failed--she had just squeaked through and it
would be like that now. Someone would come to tell her that
everything was all right and laugh with her at her foolish fright.
But underneath this strain of fervent reassurance ran a cold little
current like an underground brook, a seeping c