pon the mystery beyond the
sky-line, but Pagratide and Von Ritz were vigilant, to the end that
their tete-a-tetes were few.

Neither Benton nor Cara had alluded to the man's overbold assertion that
he would find a way. It was a futile thing said in eagerness. The day of
the dance, the last day they could hope for together, came unprefaced by
development. To-morrow she must take up her journey and her duty: her
holiday would be at its end. It was all the greater reason why this
evening should be memorable. He should think of her afterward as he saw
her to-night, and it pleased her that in the irresponsibility of the
maskers she should appear to him in the garb of vagabond liberty, since
in fact freedom was impossible to her.

As the kaleidoscope of the first dance sifted and shifted its pattern of
color, three men stood by the door, scanning the disguised figures with
watchful eyes.

One of the three was fantastically arrayed as a cannibal chief, in brown
fleshings, with cuffs upon his ankles, gaudy decorations about his neck,
and huge rings in nose and ears.

The second man was a Bedouin: a camel-driver of the Libyan Desert. From
the black horsehair circlet on his temples a turban-scarf fell to his
shoulders. He was wrapped in a brown cashmere cloak which dropped
domino-like to his ankles. Shaggy brows ran in an unbroken line from
temple to temple, masking his eyes, while a fierce mustache and beard
obliterated the contour of his lower face. His cheek-bones and forehead
showed, under some dye, as dark as leather, and as his gaze searchingly
raked the crowds, he fingered a string of Moslem prayer-beads.

The third man was conspicuous in ordinary dress. Save for the decoration
of the Order of Takavo, suspended by a crimson ribbon on his
shirt-front, and the Star of Galavia, on the left lapel of his coat,
there was no break in the black and white scheme of his evening clothes.
Von Ritz had told the truth. He was not disguised. He stood, his arms
folded on his breast, towering above the Fiji Islander, possibly a
quarter of an inch taller than the Bedouin. A half-amused smile lurked
in his steady eyes--the smile of unwavering brows and dispassionately
steady mouth-line.

The cannibal chief waved his hand. "Bright the lamps shone o'er fair
women and brave men!" he declaimed, in a disguised voice; then scowled
about him villainously, remembering that an affable quoting of Lord
Byron is incompatible with the qualities of