knew that he was a strong enough swimmer to save Aimee, or
he might even terrorize the watchman into furnishing a boat.

She did not question but guided him swiftly through the arch that
led down into the banqueting hall. Twice that day she had gone down
those stairs. Once in her bridal state, her eyes shining, her cheeks
glowing with the wild joy of Ryder's arrival and dreams of escape,
and again, scarcely an hour gone by, she had descended them, tense
and desperate, her revolver at the general's head, seeking vainly
Ryder's rescue.

And now a third time, a guilty, reckless fugitive in the night, she
stole down those stairs into the many-columned hall where she had
been feted in state among her guests. Here her only knowledge was of
the stone corridor and the locked door through which the bey had led
her, but Ryder knew the way that Aziza had brought him and he turned
cautiously toward those wide, curving stairs.

Keeping Aimee a few steps behind him, he went down the soft carpet
and peered out at the bottom towards the water gate. He saw no bars;
the gate was open and against the pale square of the water were the
black silhouettes of the general and the gateman, both leaning out
at some splashing in the river.

He knew a boy's reckless impulse to shove them both in. It was an
unholy thought his better judgment rejected--unless driven to
it--yet some prankish element in his roused recklessness would not
have deplored the necessity.

If they looked about--!

But they did not stir as, with Aimee's cold hand in his, he made the
tiptoed descent and slipped softly about the corner of the steps.
Then, instead of going on down the hall to some hiding place in the
ruins, he took a suddenly revealed, sharper turn into a narrow
passage just beyond the stairs.

It might lead to another gate, some service entrance, perhaps, it
ran so straight and direct between its walls.

Intuitively that excavator's sense of his defined the direction.
They were going parallel with the river, although a little way back
from the water wall, and in the direction of the men's part of the
palace, the selamlik.

He recalled the selamlik vaguely as an irregular mass of buildings,
and though the formal entrance was of course through the garden from
the avenue, there was a narrow side street or lane leading back to
the water's edge between this part of the palace and the nest
building, and very likely there was some entrance on that lane.