had been
agonizing over another girl--that the escapade she thought so
intimate a lark had been a trick to see the other--that the young
creature whose loveliness she so innocently praised had been her
rival, drawing Jack from her....

McLean would speak clearly to Ryder about this and seal his lips....
But first he would have to be found.

He became conscious that he had been a long time silent, following
these thoughts, while Jinny waited.

"I'll do everything I can to find out about that fire," he told her.
"I mean, about any discovery of Jack in the palace," he quickly
amended as her face was touched with instant question. "And I'll see
if any one in Cairo knows where he is. Then if nothing turns up I'll
just pop out to his diggings in the morning and make sure he's all
right.... I'll get back that night and telephone you. And until
then, not a word about it. Much better not."

"Not a word," Jinny promised. "And if you should happen to find out
anything to-night--"

"I'll let you know at once. Well, rather. But don't count on that.
The old boy is out in his tombs, dusting off his mummies. You may
get a letter, yourself, in the morning," he threw out with
heartening inspiration, "And while you are reading it, I'll be
tearing along to the infernal desert--"

He had brought the smile to her eyes as well as lips. Bright and
reassured and comfortably dependent upon his resourceful strength,
she took her leave.

But there was no smile remaining upon Andrew McLean's visage.

Twenty-four hours. Two nights and a day.... And the girl was dead
and in her grave--Moslems wasted no time before interment--and Jack
was--where?

CHAPTER XXIII

IN THE DESERT

Clinging to that plunging horse Ryder made little attempt at first
to guide the flight. It was enough to keep himself in the saddle and
Aimee in his arms while every galloping moment flung a farther
distance between them and that palace of horror.

His heart was beating in a wild, triumphant exultation. Glorious to
be out under the free sky, the wind in his face, the open world
ahead! He felt one with that dashing creature beneath him.

And Aimee was in his arms, untouched, unhurt, out from the power of
that sinister man and the expectation of dread things.

The moment was a supreme and glorious emotion.

They were headed south. And to Ryder's exhilaration this seemed
good. Cairo offered no hiding place for that fugitive girl. Even the
harbor that