w,
close, very close, and sitting with her back to me, was Karamaneh!

She, who, in my dreams, I always saw, was ever seeing, in an Eastern
dress, with gold bands about her white ankles, with jewel-laden
fingers, with jewels in her hair, wore now a fashionable costume and a
hat that could only have been produced in Paris. Karamaneh was the one
Oriental woman I had ever known who could wear European clothes; and
as I watched that exquisite profile, I thought that Delilah must have
been just such another as this; that, excepting the Empress Poppae,
history has record of no woman who, looking so innocent, was yet so
utterly vile.

"Yes, my dear," Slattin was saying, and through his monocle ogling his
beautiful visitor, "I shall be ready for you to-morrow night."

I felt Smith start at the words.

"There will be a sufficient number of men?"

Karamaneh put the question in a strangely listless way.

"My dear little girl," replied Slattin, rising and standing looking
down at her, with his gold tooth twinkling in the lamplight, "there
will be a whole division, if a whole division is necessary."

He sought to take her white gloved hand, which rested upon the chair
arm; but she evaded the attempt with seeming artlessness, and stood
up. Slattin fixed his bold gaze upon her.

"So now, give me my orders," he said.

"I am not prepared to do so, yet," replied the girl composedly; "but
now that I know you are ready, I can make my plans."

She glided past him to the door, avoiding his outstretched arm with an
artless art which made me writhe; for once I had been the willing
victim of all these wiles.

"But--" began Slattin.

"I will ring you up in less than half an hour," said Karamaneh; and
without further ceremony, she opened the door.

I still had my eyes glued to the aperture in the blind, when Smith
began tugging at my arm.

"Down! you fool!" he hissed sharply; "if she sees us, all is lost!"

Realizing this, and none too soon, I turned, and rather clumsily
followed my friend. I dislodged a piece of granite in my descent; but,
fortunately Slattin had gone out into the hall and could not well have
heard it.

We were crouching around an angle of the house, when a flood of light
poured down the steps, and Karamaneh rapidly descended. I had a
glimpse of a dark-faced man who evidently had opened the door for her;
then all my thoughts were centred upon that graceful figure receding
from me in the direction of the aven