ath.

If he should learn that the little dancer had visited her! If he
should discover that she was playing a game with him!




CHAPTER X

A MAID AND A MESSAGE


The March hare would have been a feeble comparison for Billy Hill's
madness if Robert Falconer could have seen him that Saturday
morning, that same Saturday on which Arlee was essaying her daring
role, for Billy Hill was sitting in the sun upon a camp stool, a
white helmet upon his head, an easel before him, and upon the easel
a square of blank canvas, and in Billy's left hand was a box of oils
and in his right a brush. And the camp stool upon which Billy was
stationed was planted directly before the small, high-arched door of
the Kerissen palace and in plain view of the larger door a few feet
to the right.

It had all followed upon acquaintance with the one-eyed man.

Taciturn in the beginning and suspicious of Billy's questionings,
that dark-skinned individual had at first betrayed abyssmal
ignorance of all save the virtues of stuffed crocodiles, but
convinced at last that this was no trap, but a genuine situation
from which he could profit, his greed overcame his native caution,
and through the aid of his jerky English and Billy's jagged Arabic
a certain measure of confidence was exchanged.

The one-eyed man then recollected that he had noticed a Turkish
officer and an American girl returning together to the hotel upon
that Wednesday afternoon. He had stared, because truly it was
amazing, even for American madness--and also the young girl was
beautiful. "A wild gazelle," was his word for her. The man was
Captain Kerissen. He was known to all the city--well known, he
was--in a certain way. It was not a good way for the ladies. Yes, he
had a motor car--a grand, gray car. (Billy remembered that the fatal
limousine had been gray.) It was well known that he had bought it
for a foreign woman whom he had brought from over-seas and installed
in the palace of his fathers. Yes, he knew well where that palace
was. His brother's wife's uncle was a eunuch there, 