up her bag, she
too crossed the street and disappeared up a narrower one, halting for a
moment at the sight of a man standing with bent head in the attitude of
prayer and the beads of Allah hanging from the hands crossed upon the
breast.

Jilt's intuition was intense, and never once in all her life had it
failed her, and though to her all Eastern men seemed exactly alike in
the moonlight, yet her inner consciousness began to tap ont a message
of warning, and the bristles of her self-protection to rise at the
threatenings of danger.

"Bother!" however, was her only comment as, keeping the star ahead, she
walked steadily onward.

But she made a silent, strenuous, but unavailing struggle when
something white and soft was slipped over her head and a hand placed
firmly upon her mouth, as she felt herself lifted in a pair of strong
arms and carried some considerable distance until she heard the click
of a key, the opening and shutting of a door, and her captor's soft
footfall through what seemed to be a deserted house.

She stood perfectly still when planted on her feet, and looked around
her when the cloth had been removed from about her head.

White was her face indeed, but a little smile twisted the corner of her
mouth as she noted the oriental luxury of the room in which she stood.

Ornate could hardly describe it so offensive was it in its
multitudinous hangings, mirrors, lamps, and clutter of stools, tables,
divans, and couches, inlaid or plastered with glittering sequins, bits
of glass, and coloured imitation jewels.

But scorn simply blazed in the great blue eyes as she looked into those
of a man standing in front of the one and only door to the whole
apartment.

"You brute!" she said undiplomatically and in French as he moved a few
steps nearer and salaamed deeply. "Why, you're the man who followed me
from the restaurant to-day! What do you want? Backsheesh? I haven't
any so you had better let me go at once unless you want the police
after you! You can't treat English women in this off-hand way with
impunity, I can assure you. Open the door immediately if you please!"

Poor little Jill, who by involuntarily harking back to the insular
belief that the veriest heathen will quake in unison with the British
culprit at the mere threat of British law, showed the absolute
yarborough she held in this game, the stakes of which she guessed were
something more precious than life itself, and in which she held n