ter about us, a trio
strangely met, and one to have amused the high gods watching through
the windows of the stars.

"Go back!" came in a whisper from Karamaneh.

I saw the red lips moving and read a dreadful horror in the widely
opened eyes, in those eyes like pools of mystery to taunt the thirsty
soul. The world of realities was slipping past me; I seemed to be
losing my hold on things actual; I had built up an Eastern palace
about myself and Karamaneh, wherein, the world shut out, I might pass
the hours in reading the mystery of those dark eyes. Nayland Smith
brought me sharply to my senses.

"Steady with the light, Petrie!" he hissed in my ear. "My scepticism
has been shaken to-night, but I am taking no chances."

He moved from my side and forward toward that lovely, unreal figure
which stood immediately before the model's throne and its background
of plush curtains. Karamaneh started forward to meet him, suppressing
a little cry, whose real anguish could not have been simulated.

"Go back! go back!" she whispered urgently, and thrust out her hands
against Smith's breast. "For God's sake, go back! I have risked my
life to come here to-night. _He knows_, and is ready...."

The words were spoken with passionate intensity, and Nayland Smith
hesitated. To my nostrils was wafted that faint, delightful perfume
which, since one night, two years ago, it had come to disturb my
senses, had taunted me many times as the mirage taunts the parched
Sahara traveller. I took a step forward.

"Don't move!" snapped Smith.

Karamaneh clutched frenziedly at the lapels of his coat.

"Listen to me!" she said beseechingly, and stamped one little foot
upon the floor--"listen to me! You are a clever man, but you know
nothing of a woman's heart--nothing--_nothing_--if seeing me, hearing
me, knowing, as you do know, what I risk, you can doubt that I speak
the truth. And I tell you that it is death to go behind those
curtains--that _he_...."

"That's what I wanted to know!" snapped Smith. His voice quivered with
excitement.

Suddenly grasping Karamaneh by the waist, he lifted her and set her
aside; then in three bounds he was on to the model's throne and had
torn the plush curtains bodily from their fastenings.

How it occurred I cannot hope to make clear, for here my recollections
merge into a chaos. I know that Smith seemed to topple forward amid
the purple billows of velvet, and his muffled cry came to me:

"Petrie! My God,