d the old
sword scar upon her cheek, and he had a hold over her through her
ambition for a son. But Fatima was a woman. And she--or some other
who would see that drenched satin would be curious of that boating
story....

And of course they could find out from the boatman.

It occurred to him to go and see the boatman and order him away so
that afterward the man could say he had been sent off duty, and the
story of a nocturnal river trip would not appear too incredible. It
was a small concession to stop gossip's mouth.

So drawing on a swinging military cloak, the general stole down
through the stair of the water entrance into the lower hall, where
the pale light gleamed through the cross-barred iron of the gate and
the gatekeeper slept like a log in his muffling cloak.

The soundness of that slumber--loudly attested by the fumes of
wine--afforded the general a profound pleasure. He took the man's
keys softly, and went to the gate; it afforded him less pleasure to
observe that the gate was unlocked, but he put this down to the
keeper's muddleheadedness.

Carefully he turned the lock and pocketed the keys--for a lesson to
the man's overdeep sleep in the morning and to attest his own
presence there that night; then he went back and brought out an oar,
which he placed conspicuously beside the smallest boat, drawn up
just within the gates.

He was afraid to alter the boat's position lest the noise should
prove too wakening, but he considered he had laid an artistic
foundation for his story and with a gratifying sense of triumph he
mounted the stairs.

He was not conscious of fatigue. He had always been a wiry,
indefatigable person, and the alarms and emotions of this night had
cleared his head of its wines and drowsiness. He felt the sense of
tense, highstrung power which came to him in war, in fighting, in
any element of danger.

Youth! He snapped his fingers at it. Youth was buried in
his masonry--and helpless in its shuttered room. Power was
master--power, craft, subtlety.

But his elation ebbed as he crossed again that long drawing room
with its faded flowers about the marriage throne, and its abandoned
table with its cloth askew, its crystal disarrayed, its candles
gutted and spent.

The memory of that insolent moment when a man's hand had gripped
him, had whirled him from Aimee--when a man's voice and gun had
threatened him--that memory was too overpowering for even his
triumph over the invader to lay w