The Moonlit Way: A Novel

  XXVII

  THE MOONLIT WAY

  Barres whistled and sang alternately as he tied his evening tie beforehis looking glass.

  "_And I care not, I, Who ever she be I could not love her more!_"

  he chanted gaily, examining the effect and buttoning his whitewaistcoat.

  Westmore, loitering near and waiting for him, referred again,indignantly, to Renoux's report concerning the presence of Freund andLehr at the Northbrook railway station.

  "If I catch them hanging around Thessa," he said, "I'll certainly beatthem up, Garry.

  "Deal with anything of that sort directly; that's always the best way.No use arguing with a Hun. When he misbehaves, beat him up. It's theonly thing he understands."

  "Well, it's all right for us to do it now, as long as the FrenchGovernment knows where Thessa is," remarked Barres, drawing a whiteclove-carnation through his buttonhole. "But what do you think of thatdirty swine, Tauscher, planning wholesale murder like that? Isn't itthe fine flower of Prussianism? There's the real and porcine boche foryou, sombre, savage, stupidly ferocious, swinishly persistent, butnever quite cunning enough, never sufficiently subtle in planning hisfilthy and murderous holocausts."

  Westmore nodded:

  "Quite right. The _Lusitania_ and Belgium cost the Hun the respect ofcivilisation, and are driving the civilised world into a commonunderstanding. We'll go in before long; don't worry."

  They descended the stairs together just as dinner was announced.

  Mrs. Barres said laughingly to her son:

  "Your father is still fishing, I suppose, so in spite of hisadmonition to me by letter this morning, I sent over one of the menwith some thermos bottles and a very nice supper. He grumbles, but healways likes it."

  "I wonder what Mr. Barres will think of me," ventured Dulcie. "He leftsuch a pretty little rod for me. Thessa and I have been examining it.I'd like to go, only--" she added with a wistful smile, "I have neverbeen to a real party."

  "Of course you're going to the Gerhardts'," insisted Lee, laughing."Dad is absurd about his fishing. I don't believe any girl ever livedwho'd prefer fishing on that foggy lake at night to dancing at such aparty as you are going to to-night."

  "Aren't you going?" asked Thessalie, but Lee shook her head, stillsmiling.

  "We have two young setters down with distemper, and mother and Ialways sit up with our dogs under such circumstances."

  Personal devotion of this sort was new to Thessalie. Mrs. Barres andLee told her all about the dreaded contagion and how very dreadful anepidemic might be in a kennel of such finely bred dogs as was thewell-known Foreland Kennels.

  Dog talk absorbed everybody during dinner. Mrs. Barres and Lee wereintensely interested in Thessalie's description of the Grand DukeCyril's Russian wolfhounds, with which she had coursed and hunted as achild.

  Once she spoke, also, of those strange, pathetic, melancholyIshmaelites, pitiable outcasts of their race--the pariah dogs ofConstantinople. For, somehow, while dressing that evening, the distantcomplaint of a tethered beagle had made her think of Stamboul. And sheremembered that night so long ago on the moonlit deck of the _Mirage_,where she had stood with Ferez Bey while, from the unseen, monstrouscity close at hand, arose the endless wailing of homeless dogs.

  How strange it was, too, to think that the owner of the _Mirage_should this night be her host here in the Western World, yet remainunconscious that he had ever before entertained her.

  * * * * *

  Before coffee had been served in the entrance hall, the kennel mastersent in word that one of the pups, a promising Blue Belton, had turnedvery sick indeed, and would Mrs. Barres come to the kennels as soon asconvenient.

  It was enough for Mrs. Barres and for Lee; they both excusedthemselves without further ceremony and went away together to thekennels, apparently quite oblivious of their delicate dinner gowns andslippers.

  "I've seen my mother ruin many a gown on such errands," remarkedGarry, smiling. "No use offering yourself as substitute; my motherwould as soon abandon her own sick baby to strangers as turn over anailing pup to anybody except Lee and herself."

  "I think that is very splendid," murmured Dulcie, relinquishing hercoffee cup to Garry and suffering a maid to invest her with a scarfand light silk wrap.

  "My mother _is_ splendid," said Garry in a low voice. "You will seeher prove it some day, I hope."

  The girl turned her lovely head, curiously, not understanding. Garrylaughed, but his voice was not quite steady when he said:

  "But it all depends on you, Dulcie, how splendid my mother may proveherself."

  "On _me_!"

  "On your--kindness."

  "My--_kindness_!"

  Thessalie came up in her pretty carnation-rose cloak, esquired by theenraptured Westmore, expressing admiration for the clothing adorningthe very obvious object of his devotion:

  "All girls can't wear a thing like that cloak," he was explainingproudly; "now it would look like the devil on you, Dulcie, with yourcoppery hair and----"

  "What exquisite tact!" shrugged Thessalie, already a trifle restiveunder his constant attendance and unremitting admiration. "Can't you,out of your richly redundant vocabulary, find something civil to sayto Dulcie?"

  But Dulcie, still preoccupied with what Barres had said, merely gaveher an absent-minded smile and walked slowly out beside her to theporch, where the headlights of a touring car threw two broad beams ofgold across the lawn.

  It was a swift, short run through the valley northward among thehills, and very soon the yellow lights of Northbrook summer homesdotted the darkness ahead, and cars were speeding in from everydirection--from Ilderness, Wythem, East and South Gorloch--carryingguests for the Gerhardts' moonlight spectacle and dance.

  Apropos of the promised spectacle, Barres observed to Dulcie thatthere happened to be no moon, and consequently no moonlight, but thegirl, now delightfully excited by glimpses of Hohenlinden festoonedwith electricity, gaily reproached him for being literal.

  "If one is happy," she said, "a word is enough to satisfy one'simagination. If they call it a moonlight spectacle, I shall certainlysee moonlight whether it's there or not!"

  "They may call it heaven, too, if they like," he said, "and I'llbelieve it--if you are there."

  At that she blushed furiously:

  "Oh, Garry! You don't mean it, and it's silly to say it!"

  "I mean it all right," he muttered, as the car swung in through thegreat ornamental gates of Hohenlinden. "The trouble is that I mean somuch--and _you_ mean so much to me--that I don't know how to expressit."

  The girl, her face charmingly aglow, looked straight in front of herout of enchanted eyes, but her heart's soft violence in her breastleft her breathless and mute; and when the car stopped she scarcelydared rest her hand on the arm which Barres presented to guide her inher descent to earth.

  It may have been partly the magnificence of Hohenlinden that sothrillingly overwhelmed her as she seated herself with Garry on themarble terrace of an amphitheatre among brilliant throngs alreadygathered to witness the eagerly discussed spectacle.

  And it really was a bewilderingly beautiful scene, there under thesummer stars, where a thousand rosy lanterns hung tinting the stillwaters of the little stream that wound through the clipped greenswardwhich was the stage.

  The foliage of a young woodland walled in this vernal scene; theauditorium was a semi-circle of amber marble--rows of low benches,tier on tier, rising to a level with the lawn above.

  The lantern light glowed on pretty shoulders and bare arms, on lacesand silks and splendid jewels, and stained the sombre black of the menwith vague warm hues of rose.

  Westmore, leaning over to address Barres, said with an amused air:

  "You know, Garry, it's Corot Mandel who is putting on this thing forthe Gerhardts."

  "Certainly I know it," nodded Barres. "Didn't he try to get Thessa forit?"

  Thessalie, whose colour was high and whose dark
eyes, roaming, hadgrown very brilliant, suddenly held out her hand to one of two menwho, traversing the inclined aisle beside her, halted to salute her.

  "Your name was on our lips," she said gaily. "How do you do, Mr.Mandel! How do you do, Mr. Trenor! Are you going to amaze us with amiracle in this enchanting place?"

  The two men paid their respects to her, and, with unfeignedastonishment and admiration, to Dulcie, whom they recognised only whenThessalie named her with delighted malice.

  "Oh, I say, Miss Soane," began Mandel, leaning on the back of themarble seat, "you and Miss Dunois might have helped me a lot if I'dknown you were to be in this neighbourhood."

  Esme Trenor bent over Barres, dropping his voice:

  "We had to use a couple of Broadway hacks--you'll recognise 'emthrough their paint--you understand?--the two that New York screamsfor. It's too bad. Corot wanted something unfamiliarly beautiful andyoung and fresh. But these Northbrook amateurs are incrediblyamateurish."

  Thessalie was chattering away with Corot Mandel and Westmore; EsmeTrenor gazed upon Dulcie in wonder not unmixed with chagrin:

  "You've never forgiven me, Dulcie, have you?"

  "For what?" she inquired indifferently.

  "For not discovering you when I should have."

  She smiled, but the polite effort and her detachment of all interestin him were painfully visible to Esme.

  "I'm sorry you still remember me so unkindly," he murmured.

  "But I never do remember you at all," she explained so candidly thatBarres was obliged to avert his amused face, and Esme Trenor reddenedto the roots of his elaborate hair. Mandel, with a wry grin, linkedhis arm in Trenor's and drew him away toward the flight of steps whichwas the stage entrance to the dressing rooms below.

  "Good-bye!" he said, waving his hat. "Hope you'll like my moonlightfrolic!"

  "Where's your bally moon!" demanded Westmore.

  As he spoke, an unseen orchestra began to play "_Au Claire de laLune_," and, behind the woods, silhouetting every trunk and branch andtwig, the glittering edge of a huge, silvery moon appeared.

  Slowly it rose, flashing a broad path of light across the lawn,reflected in the still little river. And when it was in the positionproperly arranged for it, some local Joshua--probably CorotMandel--arrested its further motion, and it hung there, flooding thestage with a witching lustre.

  All at once the stage swarmed with supple, glimmering shapes: Oberonand Titania came flitting down through the trees; Puck, scintillatinglike a dragon-fly, dropped on the sward, seemingly out of nowhere.

  It was a wonderfully beautiful ballet, with an unseen chorus singingfrom within the woods like a thousand seraphim.

  As for the play itself, which began with the calm and silveredriver suddenly swarming alive with water-nymphs, it had to do,spasmodically, with the love of the fairy crown-prince for the veryattractive water-nymph, Ythali. This nimble lady, otherwise, wasfiercely wooed by the King of the Mud-turtles, a most horrid andsprawling shape, but a clever foil--with his army of river-rats,minks and crabs--to the nymphs and wood fairies.

  Also, the music was refreshingly charming, the singing excellent, andthe story interesting enough to keep the audience amused until theend.

  There was, of course, much moonlight dancing, much frolicking in thewater, few clothes on the Broadway principals, fewer on the chorus,and apparently no scruples about discarding even these.

  But the whole spectacle was so unreal, so spectral, that its shadowybeauty robbed it of offence.

  That sort of thing had made Corot Mandel famous. He calculated to thewidth of a moonbeam just how far he could go. And he never went ahair's breadth farther.

  Thessalie looked on with flushed cheeks and parted lips, absorbed init all with the savant eyes of a professional. She also had oncecoolly decided how far her beauty and talent and adolescent effronterycould carry her gay disdain of man. And she had flouted him withindifferent eyes and dainty nose uplifted--mocked him and hisconventions, with a few roubles in her dressing-room--slapped thecollective face of his sex with her insolent loveliness, and carelesssmile.

  Perhaps, as she sat there watching the fairy scene, she remembered herostrich and the German Embassy, and the aged Von-der-Goltz Pasha, allover jewels and gold, peeping at her through thick spectacles underhis red fez.

  Perhaps she thought of Ferez, too, and maybe it was thought of himthat caused her smooth young shoulders the slightest of shivers, asthough a harsh breeze had chilled her skin.

  As for Dulcie, she was in the seventh heaven, thrilled with the dreamybeauty of it all and the exquisite phantoms floating on the greenswardunder her enraptured eyes.

  No other thought possessed her save sheer delight in this revelationof pure enchantment.

  So intent, so still she became, leaning a little forward in her place,that Barres found her far more interesting and wonderful to watch thanMandel's cunningly contrived illusions in the artificial moonlightbelow.

  And now Titania's trumpets sounded from the woods, warning all of theimpending dawn. Suddenly the magic fairy moon vanished like the flameof a blown-out candle; a faint, rosy light grew through the trees,revealing an empty stage and a river on which floated a single swan.

  Then, from somewhere, a distant cock-crow rang through the dawn. Theplay was ended.

  Two splendid orchestras were alternating on the vast marble terracesof Hohenlinden, where hundreds of dancers moved under the whiteradiance of a huge silvery moon overhead--another contrivance ofMandel's--for the splendid sphere aglow with white fire had somehowbeen suspended above the linden trees so that no poles and no wireswere visible against the starry sky.

  And in its milky flood of light the dancers moved amid a wilderness offlowers or thronged the supper-rooms within, where Teutonicarchitectural and decorative magnificence reigned in one vast,incredible, indigestible gastronomic apotheosis of German kultur.

  Barres, for the moment, dancing with Thessalie, pressed her fingerswith mischievous tenderness and whispered:

  "The moonlit way once more with you, Thessa! Do you remember our firstdance?"

  "Can I ever thank God enough for that night's folly!" she said, withsuch sudden emotion that his smile altered as he looked into her darkeyes.

  "Yet that dance by moonlight exiled you," he said.

  "Do you realise what it saved me from, too? And what it has givenme?"

  He wondered whether she included Westmore in the gift. The musicceased at that moment, and, though the other orchestra began, theystrolled along the flowering balustrade of the terrace together untilthey encountered Dulcie and Westmore.

  "Have you spoken to your hostess?" inquired Westmore. "She's overyonder on a dais, enthroned like Germania or a Metropolitan OperaValkyrie. Dulcie and I have paid our homage."

  So Barres and Thessalie went away to comply with the requiredformality; and, when they returned from the rite, they found EsmeTrenor and Corot Mandel cornering Dulcie under a flowering orange treewhile Westmore, beside her, chatted with a most engaging woman whoproved, later, to be a practising physician.

  Esme was saying languidly, that anybody could fly into a temper andkick his neighbours, but that indifference to physical violence was acondition of mind attained only by the spiritual intellect of thepsychic adept.

  "Passivism," he added with a wave of his lank fingers, "is the firstplane to be attained on the journey toward Nirvana. Therefore, I am apacifist and this silly war does not interest me in the slightest."

  The very engaging woman, who had been chatting with Westmore, lookedaround at Esme Trenor, evidently much amused.

  "I imagined that you were a pacifist," she said. "I fancy, Mr. Mandel,also, is one."

  "Indeed, I am, madam!" said Corot Mandel. "I've plenty to do in lifewithout strutting around and bawling for blood at the top of mylungs!"

  "Thank heaven," added Esme, "the President has kept us out of war.This business of butchering others never appealed to me--except forthe slightly unpleasant sensations which I exp
erience when I read thedetails."

  "Oh. Then unpleasant sensations so appeal to you?" inquired Westmore,very red.

  "Well, they _are_ sensations, you know," drawled Esme. "And, for a manwho experiences few sensations of any sort, even unpleasant ones arepleasurable."

  Mandel yawned and said:

  "The war is an outrageous bore. All wars are stupid to a man oftemperament. Therefore, I'm a pacifist. And I had rather live underPrussian domination than rush about the country with a gun and sixtypounds of luggage on my back!"

  He looked heavily at Dulcie, who had slipped out of the corner on theterrace, where he and Esme had penned her.

  "There are other things to do more interesting than jabbing bayonetsinto Germans," he remarked. "Did you say you hadn't any dance to spareus, Miss Soane? Nor you either, Miss Dunois? Oh, well." He cast adisgusted glance at Barres, squinted at Westmore through his greasymonocle in hostile silence; then, taking Esme's arm, made them all atoo profound obeisance and sauntered away along the terrace.

  "What a pair of beasts!" said Westmore. "They make me actually ill!"

  Barres shrugged and turned to the very engaging lady beside him:

  "What do you think of that breed of human, doctor?" he inquired.

  She smiled at Barres and said:

  "Several of my own patients who are suffering from the same form ofpsycho-neurotic trouble are also peace-at-any-price pacifists. They donot come to me to be cured of their pacifism. On the contrary, theycherish it most tenderly. In examining them for other troubles Ihappened upon what appeared to me a very close relation between thepeculiar attitude of the peace-at-any-price pacifist and a certaintype of unconscious pervert."

  "That passivism is perversion does not surprise me," remarked Barres.

  "Well," she said, "the pacifist is not conscious of his realdesires and therefore cannot be termed a true pervert. But thevery term, passivism, is usually significant and goes very deeppsychologically. In analysing my patients I struck against a buriedimpulse in them to suffer tyrannous treatment from an omnipotentmaster. The impulse was so strong that it amounted to a craving andtried to absorb all the psychic material within its reach. They didnot recognise the original impulse, because that had long ago beencrushed down by the exactions of civilised life. Nevertheless,they were tortured and teased, made unsettled and wretched by asomething which continually baffled them. Deep under the upper crustof their personalities was concealed a seething desire to becompletely, inevitably, relentlessly, unreservedly overwhelmed by asubjugation from which there was no escape."

  She turned to Westmore:

  "It's purely pathological, the condition of those two self-confessedpacifists. The pacifist loves suffering. The ordinary normal personavoids suffering when possible. He endures it only when somethingnecessary or desirable cannot be gained in any other way. He mayundergo agony at the mere thought of it. His bravery consists infacing danger and pain in spite of fear. But the extreme passivist,who is really an unconscious pervert, loves to dream of martyrdom andsuffering. It must be a suffering, however, which is forced upon him,and it must be a personal matter, not impersonal and general, as inwar. And he loves to contemplate a condition of complete captivity--ofirresponsible passivity, in which all resistance is in vain."

  "Do you know, they disgust me, those two!" said Westmore angrily. "Inever could endure anything abnormal. And now that I know Esme is--andthat big lout, Mandel--I'll keep away from them. Do you blame me,doctor?"

  "Well," she said, much amused and turning to go, "they're veryinteresting to physicians, you know--these non-resisting, pacifisticperverts. But outside a sanatorium I shouldn't expect them to be verypopular." And she laughed and joined a big, good-looking man who hadcome to seek her, and who wore, in his buttonhole, the button of theFrench Legion of Honour.

  Thessalie had strolled forward along the terrace by herself,interested in the pretty spectacle and the play of light on jewels andgowns.

  Westmore, busy in expressing to Barres his opinion of Esme and Mandel,did not at the moment miss Thessalie, who continued to saunter onalong the balustrade of the terrace, under the blossoming row oforange trees.

  Just below her was another terrace and an oval pool set with tiny jetswhich seemed to spray the basin with liquid silver. Silvery fish, too,were swimming in it near the surface, sometimes flinging themselvesclear out of water as though intoxicated by the unwonted lustre whichflooded their crystal pool.

  To see them nearer, Thessalie ran lightly down the steps and walkedtoward the shimmering basin. And at the same time the head andshoulders of a man in evening dress, his bosom crossed by a sash ofwatered red silk, appeared climbing nimbly from a still lower level.

  She watched him step swiftly upon the terrace and cross it diagonally,walking in her direction toward the stone stairs which she had justdescended. Then, paying him no further attention, she looked down intothe water.

  He came along very near to where she stood, gazing into thepool--peered at her curiously--was already passing at her veryelbow--when something made her lift her head and look around at him.

  The mock moonlight struck full across his features; and the shock ofseeing him drove every vestige of colour from her own face.

  The man halted, staring at her in unfeigned amazement. Suddenly hesnarled at her, baring his teeth in her shrinking face.

  "_Kismet dir!_" he whispered, "it ees _you_!... Nihla Quellen!_Now_ I begin onderstan'!... Yas, I now onderstan' who arrange itthat they haf arrest my good frien', Tauscher! It ees _you_, then!Von Igel he has tol' me, look out once eef she escape--thees yoongleopardess----"

  "Ferez!" Thessalie's young figure stiffened and the colour flamed inher cheeks.

  "You leopardess!" he repeated, every tooth a-grin again with rage,"you misbegotten slut of a hunting cheetah! So thees is 'ow youstrike!... Ver' well. Yas, I see 'ow it ees you strike at----"

  "Ferez!" she cried. "Listen to _me_!"

  "I 'ear you! Allez!"

  "Ferez Bey! I am not afraid of you!"

  "Ees it so?"

  "Yes, it is so. I _never_ have been afraid of you! Not even there onthe deck of the _Mirage_, that night when you tapped the hilt of yourKurdish knife and spoke of Seraglio Point! Nor when your scared spyshot at me in the corridor of the Tenth Street house; nor afterward atDragon Court! Nor now! Do you understand, Eurasian jackal! Nor _now_!Anybody can see what _Heruli_ whelped you! What are you doing inAmerica? Kassim Pasha is your den, where your _rayah_ loll and scratchin the sun! It is their _Keyeff_! And yours!"

  She took a quick step toward him, her eyes flashing, her white handclenched:

  "_Allah Kerim_--do you say? _El Hamdu Lillah!_ Do you take yourselffor the _muezzin_ of all jackals, then, howling blasphemies from some_minaret_ in the hills? Do you understand what they'd do to you inthe _Hirka-i-Sherif Jamesi_? Because you are _nothing_; do youhear?--nothing but an Eurasian assassin! And Moslem and Christianalike know where _you_ belong among the lost pariahs of Stamboul!"

  The girl was utterly transfigured. Whatever of the Orient was in her,now blazed white hot.

  "What have I done to you, Ferez? What have I ever done to you thatyou, even from my childhood, come always stepping noiselessly at myskirt's edge?--always padding behind me at my heels, silent, sinister,whimpering with bared teeth for the courage to bite which God deniesyou!"

  The man stood almost motionless, moistening his dry lips with histongue, but his eyes moved continually, stealing uneasy glances aroundhim and upward, where, on the main terrace above them, the heads ofthe throng passed and repassed.

  "Nihla," he said, "for all thees scorn and abuse of me, you know, inthe false heart of you, why it ees so if I have seek you."

  "You dealer in lies! You would have sold me to d'Eblis! You thoughtyou _had_ sold me! You were paid for it, too!"

  "An' still!" He looked at her furtively.

  "What do you mean? You conspired with d'Eblis to ruin me, soul andbody! You involved me in your treacherous propaganda in
Paris. Throughyou I am an exile. If I go back to my own country, I shall go to ashameful death. You have blackened my honour in my country's eyes. Butthat was not enough. No! You thought me sufficiently broken, degraded,terrified to listen to any proposition from you. You sent your agentsto me with offers of money if I would betray my country. Finding Iwould not, you whined and threatened. Then, like the Eurasian dog youare, you tried to bargain. You were eager to offer me anything if Iwould keep quiet and not interfere----"

  "Nihla!"

  "What?" she said, contemptuously.

  "In spite of thees--of all you say--I have love you!"

  "Liar!" she retorted wrathfully. "Do you dare say that to me, whom youhave already tried to murder?"

  "I say it. Yas. Eef it has not been so then you were dead long time."

  "You--you are trying to tell me that you spared me!" she demandedscornfully.

  "It ees so. Alexandre--d'Eblis, you know?--long time since he wouldhave safety for us all--thees way. Non! Je ne pourrais pas vouz tuer,moi! It ees not in my heart, Nihla.... Because I have love you longtime--ver' long time."

  "Because you have _feared_ me long time, ver' long time!" she mockedhim. "That is why, Ferez--because you are afraid; because you are onlya jackal. And jackals never kill. No!"

  "You say thees-a to me, Nihla?"

  "Yes, I say it. You're a coward! And I'll tell you something more. Iam going to make a complete statement to the French Government. Ishall relate everything I know about d'Eblis, Bolo Effendi, a certainbureaucrat, an Italian politician, a Swiss banker, old Von-der-GoltzPasha, Heimholz, Von-der-Hohe Pasha, and you, my Ferez--and you,also!

  HE CAME TOWARD HER STEALTHILY]

  "Do you know what France will do to d'Eblis and his scoundrel friends?Do you guess what these duped Americans will do to Bolo Effendi? Andto you? And to Von Papen and Boy-ed and Von Igel--yes, and toBernstorff and his whole murderous herd of Germans? And can youimagine what my own doubly duped Government will surely, surely do,some day, to you, Ferez?"

  She laughed, but her dark eyes fairly glittered:

  "_My_ martyrdom is ending, God be thanked! And then I shall be free toserve where my heart is ... in Alsace!... Alsace!--forever French!"

  In the white light she saw the sweat break out on the man'sforehead--saw him grope for his handkerchief--and draw out a knifeinstead--never taking his eyes off her.

  She turned to run; but he had already blocked the way to the stonesteps; and now he came creeping toward her, white as a cadaver,distracted from sheer terror, and rubbing the knife flat against histhigh.

  "So you shall do thees--a filth to me--eh, Nihla?" he whispered withblanched lips. "It ees on me, your frien', you spring to keel me, eh,my leopardess? Ver' well. But firs' I teach you somethings you don'know!--thees-a way, my Nihla!"

  He came toward her stealthily, moving more swiftly as she put thestone basin of the pool between them and cast an agonised glance up atthe distant terrace.

  "Jim!" she cried frantically. "Jim! Help me, Jim!"

  The gay din of the music above drowned her cry; she fled as Ferezdarted toward her, but again he doubled and sprang back to bar thestone steps, and she halted, white and breathless, yet poised forinstant flight.

  Again and again she called out desperately for aid; the noise of theorchestra smothered her cry. And if, indeed, anybody from the terraceabove chanced to glance down, it is likely that they supposed thesetwo were skylarking merrymakers at some irresponsible game ofcatch-who-can.

  Suddenly Thessalie remembered the lower level, where the automobileswere parked, and from which Ferez had first appeared. She could escapethat way. There were the steps, not very far behind her. The nextinstant she turned and ran like a deer.

  And after her sped Ferez, his broad, thin-bladed knife pressed flatagainst the crimson sash across his breast, his dead-white visagedistorted with that blind, convulsive fear which makes murderers outof cowards.