ing his fez to a pulp, raved at her as she crouched in a
corner with something a-glitter in her hand. "Send in thy wife who
ambles like a camel in foal, and whose ankles are thick enough to serve
as prop to a falling house."

"Thou fool," hissed the man with sweat pouring down his face, and who
through the working of his oriental mind already felt the swish of the
whip about his shoulders, and the agony of the desert fly's bite on his
flagellated anatomy. "It is _Hahmed_--the great _Hahmed_, who orders
thee to his presence. It is thy chance, thou fool--it is------"

And his dull eyes brightened, and his sensual month widened in a grin
as the girl sprang to her feet and sped to a mirror on the opposite
side of the room.

"Dullard," she cried, as she pulled her clothing furiously from her,
and stood with nothing but a plain coloured shawl of gauze covered in
tinsel twined about her slim waist, "why hast thou wasted precious
moments? Why has thou imperilled my chance by infuriating the great
man? Out of my way, thou snail."

And as she fled precipitately from the room she caught the man by the
throat and flung him against the wall with the ease of muscle trained
to the last point.

"Ow!" exclaimed Ali 'Assan at the apparition in the doorway with the
flaming henna head and taut brown body, with long, thin, brown arms
stretched down stiff as ramrods to the sides, and "Ow!" he said again,
as she suddenly moved and again stood still with the gleaming orange
eyes fixed on his host, who looked at her for an instant, and looked
away again to the far corner, as he indifferently lit a cigarette.

And then La Belle danced for all she was worth, and for all she knew,
whilst the guest watched in sensual enjoyment, and the host took not
the slightest notice.

Nearer she came, and nearer still, until the pungent odour of the
insufferable Eastern perfume of which the body is musk, suddenly struck
the nostrils of the man for whom she danced, bringing a slight frown to
his face, and causing him to thoughtlessly raise his right hand, which,
as perhaps the reader may not know, is an oriental sign of appreciation.

A flash of triumph swept across the face of the woman, who was
absolutely on the wrong tack, as she sidled so near that her bare limbs
almost touched the flowing cloak which swept round the man. His mind
was full of his exquisite, delicate, tantalising, fastidious wife, his
body ached for her, his soul fainted for ev