aste of a strong liqueur. It came to him that he was
alone among strangers, and that what he did now would be known but to
himself and to these strangers. What it was that he wished to do he
did not know, but he felt a sudden lifting up and freedom from
restraint. The spirit of adventure awoke in him and tugged at his
sleeve, and he was conscious of a desire to gratify it and put it to
the test.

"'Alone upon the house-tops,'" he began. Then he laughed and clambered
hurriedly down the steep hill-side. "It's the moonlight," he explained
to the blank walls and overhanging lattices, "and the place and the
music of the song. It might be one of the Arabian nights, and I Haroun
al Raschid. _And_ if I don't get back to the hotel I shall make a
fool of myself."

He reached the Albion very warm and breathless, with stumbling and
groping in the dark, and instead of going immediately to bed told the
waiter to bring him some cool drink out on the terrace of the
smoking-room. There were two men sitting there in the moonlight, and
as he came forward one of them nodded to him silently.

"Oh, good-evening, Mr. Meakim!" Holcombe said, gayly, with the spirit
of the night still upon him. "I've been having adventures." He
laughed, and stooped to brush the dirt from his knickerbockers and
stockings. "I went up to the palace to see the town by moonlight, and
tried to find my way back alone, and fell down three times."

Meakim shook his head gravely. "You'd better be careful at night,
sir," he said. "The governor has just said that the Sultan won't be
responsible for the lives of foreigners at night 'unless accompanied
by soldier and lantern.'"

"Yes, and the legations sent word that they wouldn't have it," broke
in the other man. "They said they'd hold him responsible anyway."

There was a silence, and Meakim moved in some slight uneasiness. "Mr.
Holcombe, do you know Mr. Carroll?" he said.

Carroll half rose from his chair, but Holcombe was dragging another
toward him, and so did not have a hand to give him.

"How are you, Carroll?" he said, pleasantly.

The night was warm, and Holcombe was tired after his rambles, and so
he sank back in the low wicker chair contentedly enough, and when the
first cool drink was finished he clapped his hands for another, and
then another, while the two men sat at the table beside him and
avoided such topics as would be unfair to any of them.

"And yet," said Holcombe, after the first half-hour ha