been a
wiser investment of his mortal moments than any virtuous plunge into
single-hearted duty.

But Ryder did not calculate. He could not, with Aimee under that
beast's hand. His heart and soul were possessed with her danger and
his heart and soul carried his body instinctively back from the
dancing girl's advance, and he whispered, "I must go. There is no
time--"

She flung back her fiery-hued head with a gesture of intolerable
rage. Her eyes were lightnings.

"Dog of a Christian!" she said chokingly and flew to the doors.

Back she thrust the heavy hangings, turning a quick key in the lock
and wrenching the door wide. And before Ryder could understand,
before he could bring himself to realize that she was not simply
violently expelling him from her room, she gave a shriek that rang
wildly down the long-unseen corridors.

At the top of her lungs, with one hand out to thrust him back or
cling to him if he attempted to pass, she shrieked again and again.

Instantly there came a running of feet.

CHAPTER XIX

AN INTERRUPTION

When Hamdi Bey had taken Aimee back to her apartments he pulled
sharply upon a bellcord. In a few moments the slave woman, Fatima,
made her appearance, no kindly-eyed old crone like Miriam, but a
sallow, furtive-faced creature, with an old disfiguring scar across
a cheek.

The general pointed to the wet and fainting girl huddling weakly
upon the divan.

"Your new mistress has met with an accident, out boating--a curse
upon me for gratifying forbidden caprice!" he said crisply. "Be
silent of this and array her quickly in garments of rest. I will
return."

Very hurriedly he took himself and his own wet condition away. He
was furious, through and through. What a night--what a wedding
night! Scandal and frustration... a bride with a desperate lover...
a bride who, herself, drew revolvers and threatened.

It was beyond any old tale of the palace. For less, girls had had
his father's dagger driven through their hearts--his grandfather, at
a mere whisper from a eunuch, had given his favorite to the lion.
The whisper was found incorrect at a later--too late--date, and the
eunuch had furnished the lion another meal.

His modern leniency in this case would have outraged his ancestors.

But it was not in the bey's nature to deal the finishing stroke to
anything so soft and lovely as Aimee. He had no intention of
depriving himself of her. If she were red with guilt he would feign