uide. Amshar was
crouching behind Mrs. Falchion, and clinging to her skirts in abject
fear. The Arab threatened with a knife. He could not get at Amshar
without thrusting Mrs. Falchion aside, and, as I said, the wall was
narrow. He was bent like a tiger about to spring.

Seeing Mrs. Falchion and Amshar apart from the others,--Mrs. Falchion
having insisted on crossing this narrow and precipitous wall,--he had
suddenly rushed after them. As he did so, Miss Treherne saw him, and
cried out. Mrs. Falchion faced round swiftly, and then came this tragic
situation.

Some one must die.

Seeing that Mrs. Falchion made no effort to dislodge Amshar from her
skirts, the Arab presently leaped forward. Mrs. Falchion's arms went out
suddenly, and she caught the wrist that held the dagger. Then there
was an instant's struggle. It was Mrs. Falchion's life now, as well as
Amshar's. They swayed. They hung on the edge of the rocky chasm. Then
we lost the gleam of the knife, and the Arab shivered, and toppled over.
Mrs. Falchion would have gone with him, but Amshar caught her about
the waist, and saved her from the fall which would have killed her as
certainly as it killed the Arab lying at the bottom of the tank. She had
managed to turn the knife in the Arab's hand against his own breast, and
then suddenly pressed her body against it; but the impulse of the act
came near carrying her over also.

Amshar was kneeling at her feet, and kissing her gown gratefully. She
pushed him away with her foot, and, coolly turning aside, began to
arrange her hair. As I approached her, she glanced down at the Arab.
"Horrible! horrible!" she said. I remembered that these were her words
when her husband was lifted from the sea to the 'Fulvia'.

Not ungently, she refused my hand or any assistance, and came down among
the rest of the party. I could not but feel a strange wonder at the
powerful side of her character just shown--her courage, her cool daring.
In her face now there was a look of annoyance, and possibly disgust, as
well as of triumph--so natural in cases of physical prowess. Everybody
offered congratulations, but she only showed real pleasure, and that
mutely, at those of Miss Treherne. To the rest of us she said: "One had
to save one's self, and Amshar was a coward."

And so this woman, whose hardness of heart and excessive cruelty
Hungerford and I were keeping from the world, was now made into a
heroine, around whom a halo of romance would s