THE GIRL FROM THE HAREM
He was dumb with the shock. Then, "Who are you?" he demanded. "And where is she—where is Arlee Beecher?"
On her own face the astonishment grew. "What you mean? Frederick—he not send you?" she gasped, and then as the outcries grew louder and louder behind them she gripped convulsively at his arms. "Oh, quick! come away—quick, quick!" she besought.
"I came for Arlee Beecher—an American girl. Isn't she held here? Isn't she back there?"
"What you going to do? What——"
"I'm going to get her!" he said fiercely. "Tell me——"
He had caught her and unconsciously shook her as if to shake the words out of her. Furiously she struggled with him.
"Let me go. No, no, she is not there! No one is there! You are gone crazy to stay! They will kill me if they catch me—they will fire over the wall. Oh, for God's sake, help me quick!"
"She's not there?" he repeated stupidly, and then at her vehement "No, no! I tell you no!" he drew a breath of deep astonishment and chagrin, and turned to stow her safely low in the boat. Hurriedly he and the one-eyed man bent over their paddles, and very swiftly the long, dark canoe went gliding down the stream, but not any too swiftly, for in an instant they heard a triumphant yell behind them, and then light, thudding feet along the path.
Steadily Billy urged the canoe forward with powerful strokes that seemed to be lifting it out of the water at each impulse, and they swept past a wall that reaching to the river bank must block their pursuers for a time, and though there was a path after that, there was soon another wall, and no more pursuit along the water edge. But every opening ahead now might mean an ambush, and as soon as a narrow lane showed between the houses to the left, the one-eyed man steered swiftly there and Billy sprang out with the girl and they raced through the lane into the adjoining street.
He looked up and down it; either they had got out at the wrong lane or the cab they had ordered to be in waiting had failed them, but there was no time for speculation and they walked on as fast as they could without the appearance of flight. The stray loiterers on the dark street stared curiously as they passed, to see a young American in gray tweeds, his cap pulled over his eyes, with a woman in the Mohammedan wrap and mantle, but no one stopped them, and in another minute they saw a lonely cab rattling through the streets and climbed quickly in.
"And now, for Heaven's sake, tell me all about it!" besought Billy B. Hill, staring curiously at his most unforeseen companion.
With a deep-drawn sigh of relief she had snuggled back against the cushioned seat, and now she flung off the shrouding mantle and looked up to meet his gaze with a smile of excited triumph.
She had the prettiest teeth he had ever seen, lovely little rows of pearls, and the biggest and brightest of dark eyes with wide lashes curling dramatically back. Even in the thrill and elation of the moment there was a spark of provocation in those eyes for the good-looking young man who stared down at her, and Billy would have been a very wooden young man, indeed, if he had not felt a tingling excitement in this unexpected capture, for all the destruction of his romantic plans. So this, he thought rapidly, was the foreign girl in Kerissen's house, and Arlee, bless her little golden head, was safe where she planned, in Alexandria. A warm glow of happiness enveloped him at that.
"Now tell me all about it," he demanded again. "You are running away from Kerissen?"
"Oh, yes," she cried eagerly. "You must not let him catch us. We are safe—yes?"
"I should rather think so," Billy laughed. "And there's a gun in my pocket that says so.... And so you sent me that message to-day by that little native girl? How in the world did that happen?"
"That girl is one who will do a little for money, you understand," said the Viennese, "and I have told her to look sharp out for a foreign gentleman who come to save me. You see I have sent for a friend, and I think that he—but never mind. That girl she come running this afternoon to where I am shut in way back in the palace, and she say that a foreign gentleman is painting a picture out in the street, and he stare very cunning at her. So I tell her to find out if he is the one for me, and to tell him to come quick this night. She was afraid to take note—afraid the eunuch catch her. So she went to you. She told afterwards that you ask her if there is any strange lady there anxious to get away, and she give you the message and my handkerchief and you say you will come—and my, how you give me one great surprise!"
"And a great disappointment," said Billy grinning.
"Oh, no, no," she denied, eyes and lips all mischievous smiles. "I say to myself, 'My God! That is a fine-looking young man! He and I will have something to say to each other'—h'm?"
"Now who in the world are you?" demanded Billy bluntly. "And how did you happen to get into all this?"
Volubly she told. She dwelt at picturesque length upon her shining place upon the Viennese stage; she recounted her triumphs, she prophesied the joy of the playgoers at her return to them. Darkly she expatiated upon the villainy of the Turkish Captain, who had lured her to such incarceration. Gleefully she displayed the diamonds upon her small person which she was extracting from that affair.
"Not so bad, after all—h'm?" she demanded, in a brazen little content. "Maybe that prison time make good for me," and Billy shook his head and chuckled outright at the little baggage.
But through his amusement a prick of uneasiness was felt. The picture she had painted of the Captain corroborated his wildest imaginings.
"You're dead sure you know all that was going on in that palace?" he demanded. "There wasn't any American girl coaxed into it on some pretext?"
He wanted merely the reassurance of her answer, but to his surprise and growing alarm she hesitated, looking at him half fearfully and half ashamedly. "Oh, I—I don't know about that," she murmured, with evasive eyes. "An American girl—very light hair—yes?"
"Very light hair—Oh, good God!" He leaned forward, gripping her wrist as if afraid she would spring out of the carriage. "You said she wasn't there," he thrust at her in a voice that rasped.
"I said I don't know—don't know any such name you say. I never hear it. You hurt me—take your hand away."
"Not till you tell me." But he loosened his harsh grip. "Now tell me all you know—please tell me all you know," he besought with a sudden melting into desperate entreaty. Worriedly he stared at this curious little kitten-thing beside him on whose truth now that other girl's life was resting.
"Well, I tell you true I do not know that name," began Fritzi Baroff, with a little sullen dignity over her shame. "And I saved your life, for it was death for you to go back to that palace. You heard them coming for us. You would have got yourself killed and that little girl would be no better. Now I can tell you how to help her."
"All right—tell me," said the young American in a tense voice. "Tell me everything you know about it," and Fritzi told him, throwing aside all pretense of her uncertainty about Arlee, revealing every detail of the situation that she knew.
And from the heights of his gay relief Billy Hill was flung back into the deeps of desperate indignation. The anger that had surged up in him that afternoon when he had felt his fears confirmed flamed up in him now in a fire of fury. His blood was boiling.... Arlee Beecher in the power of that Turkish devil! Arlee Beecher prisoned within that ghastly palace! It was unreal. It was monstrous.... That radiant girl he had danced with, that teasing little sprite, half flouting, half flirting. Why, the thing was unthinkable!
He put a hand on the dancer's arm. "We must go to the consul at once," he said. "We must get her out to-night."
"Consul!" The girl gave a short, derisive laugh. "This is no matter for consuls, my young friend. The law is slow, and by the time that law will stand knocking upon the palace doorstep, your little girl with the fair hair will be buried very deep and fast—I think she would not be the first woman bricked into those black walls.... You must go about this yourself.... You are in love with her—yes?" she added impertinently, with keen, uptilted eyes.
"That's another story," Billy curtly informed her. He made no attempt to analyze his feeling for Arlee Beecher. She had enchanted him in those two days that he had known her. She had obsessed his thoughts in those two days of her disappearance. Now that he was aware of her peril every selfish thought was overwhelmed in burning indignation. He told himself that he would do as much for any girl in her situation, and, indeed, so hot ran his rage and so dearly did his young blood love rash adventure and high-handed justice, that there was some honest excuse for the statement!
"Zut! A man does not risk his neck for a matter of indifference!" said the little Baroff sagely, her knowing eyes on Billy's grim young face. "So I am to be the sister to you—the Platonic friend—h'm?" she observed with droll resignation. "Never mind—I will help you get her out as you got me—Gott sei dank! There is a way, I think—if you are not too particular about that neck. I will tell you all and draw you a plan when we get to a hotel."
But before they got to a hotel there was an obstacle or two to be overcome. A lady in Mohammedan wraps might not be exactly persona grata at fashionable hotels at midnight. Casting off the wrap Fritzi revealed herself in a little pongee frock that appeared to be suitable for traveling, and with two veils and Billy's cap for a foundation she produced an effect of headgear not unlike that of some bedraped tourists.
"I arrived on the night train," she stated as they drew up before the shining hotel. "It is late now for that night train—but we waited for my luggage, which you will observe is lost. So I pay for my room in the advance—I think you had better give me some money for that—I have nothing but these," and she indicated her flashing diamonds.
"My name," said Billy, handing over some sovereigns with the first ray of humor since her revelation to him, "my name, if you should care to address me, is Hill—William B. Hill."
"William B. Hill," she echoed with an air of elaborate precision, and then flashed a saucy smile at him as he helped her out of the carriage. "What you call Billy, eh?"
"You've got it," he replied in resignation.
"Hill—that means a mountain," she commented. "A mountain of good luck for me—h'm? And that B—what is that for?"
"My middle name," said Billy patiently, as they reached the door the Arab doorman was holding open for them.
Absently she laughed. Her dark eyes were sparkling at the vision of the safe and shining hotel, the dear familiar luxury, the sounds and sights of her lost Continental life. A few late arrivals from some dance gave a touch of animation to the wide rooms, and Fritzi's eyes clung delightedly to the group.
"God, how happy I am!" she sighed.
Billy was busy avoiding the clerk's knowing scrutiny. It was the same clerk he had coerced with real cigars to enlighten him concerning Arlee Beecher, and he felt that that clerk was thinking things about him now, mistaken and misguided things, about his predilections for the ladies. Philosophically he wondered where they had better try after this.
But he underestimated the battery of Fritzi's charms, or else the serene assurance of her manner.
"My letters—letters for Baroff," she demanded of the clerk. "None yet. Then my room, please.... But I sent a wire from Alexandria. That stupid maid," she turned to explain to Billy, her air the last stand of outraged patience. "She is at the train looking for that luggage she lost," she added to the clerk, and thereupon she proceeded to arrange for the arrival of the fictitious maid whom Billy heard himself agreeing to go back and fetch if she did not turn up soon, and to engage a room for herself—a much nicer room than Billy himself was occupying—then handed over Billy's sovereigns and turned happily away jingling the huge key of her room.
"It is a miracle!" she cried again, exultant triumph in every pretty line of her. "My heart dances, my blood is singing—Oh, if I were on the stage now, the music crashing, the lights upon me, the house packed! I would enchant them! I would dance myself mad.... Ah, what you say now—shall we have a little bottle of champagne to drink to our better acquaintance, Mr. Billy?"
"Not this evening," said the unemotional young man. "You are going to sit down at this desk and draw me those plans of the palace."
Petulantly she shrugged at her rescuer. "How stupid—to-morrow you may not have that chance for the champagne," she observed. "You think of nothing but to go back and get killed, then? And I must help you? Very well. Here, I will draw it for you and I will tell you all I know."
She sat down at a desk and began working out the diagrams, and at last she handed the paper to Billy, who sat beside her, and pointed out the rooms and scribbled the words on them for his aid.
"It is very simple," she said. "That first square is for the court, and the next square is for the garden. The hall of banquets comes so, between them, and the hall is two stories tall, and across the top of that, from the selamlik to the harem, runs that little secret passage. And at the end of it, here, is the little panel into the rose room where she is, and beside the panel outside in the passage are the little steps that go up to that tower room, where they put me on the top. And from that top room I broke out a locked door on the roof—that is how I got away. I climbed down at the end of the harem from one roof to another where it is unfinished.... The rose room is here on the garden, but the windows have bars, and those bars are too strong for breaking. I have tried it! There is no way out but the secret way by that passage into the men's wing, or the other way through the door into the long hall and down the little stairs into the anteroom below. How Seniha hated me when I made laughter and noise and talk going up and down those stairs to my motor car!"
She laughed impishly, pointing out Seniha's rooms, facing on the street, and contributing several bizarre anecdotes of the palace life. But Billy was not to be diverted, and went over the plans again and again, before the diminished number of lights and the hoverings of the attendant Arabs recalled the lateness of the hour to his absorption.
But late as they were they were not the only occupants of the lift. Returning from a masquerade, a domino over his arm, stood Falconer. Civilly enough he returned Billy's greeting, with no apparent awareness of the little lady in pongee, but Billy was conscious that her flaunting caliber had been promptly registered. And to his annoyance the actress raised big eyes of reproach to him.
"No champagne for me, after all, Mr. Billy!" she sighed. "You are not very good for a celebration—h'm?... Well, then—good night."
Her parting smile as she left the car adroitly included the tall aristocratic young Englishman with the little moustache.
Sharply Billy turned to him. "Come up to my room, please. I have something to say to you."
In silence Falconer followed. Billy flung shut the door, drew a long breath, and turned to him.
"Do you know where I got that girl?" he demanded.
It took several seconds of Falconer's level-lidded look of distaste to bring home the realization.
"Oh, see here," he protested, "wait till you understand this thing.... I pulled that girl over Kerissen's back wall at ten o'clock to-night. I thought she was Miss Beecher, but a mistake had been made and the wrong girl arrived. But the point is this—Arlee Beecher is in that palace. This girl saw her and talked with her last night. Now we've got to get her out. It's a two-man job," said Billy, "or you'd better believe I'd never have come to you again."
He had given it like a punch, and it knocked the breath out of Falconer for one floored instant. But he was no open-mouthed believer. The thing was more unthinkable to him than to Billy's romantic and adventurous mind, and the very notion was so revolting that he fought it stoutly.
From beginning to end Billy hammered over the story as he knew it, explaining, arguing, debating, and then he drew out the plans of the palace and flung them on the table by Falconer while he continued his excited tramping up and down the room.
Falconer studied the plans, worried his moustache, stared at Billy's tense and resolute face, and took up the plans again, his own chin stubborn.
"Granted there's a girl—you can't be sure it's Miss Beecher," he maintained doggedly. "This Baroff girl had no idea of her name. Now Miss Beecher would have told her name, the very first thing, it appears to me, and the names of her friends in Cairo, asking for the Baroff's offices in getting a letter to me—us."
"She may have been too hurried to get to it. She had so many questions to ask. And she probably expected to see the girl again the next day or night."
"Possibly," said Falconer without conviction.
"But where, then, is Miss Beecher?"
"We may hear from her to-morrow morning."
"We won't," said Billy.
Falconer was silent.
"Good Lord!" the American burst out, "there can't be two girls in Cairo with blue eyes and fair hair whom Kerissen could have lured there last Wednesday! There can't be two girls with chaperons departing up the Nile! Why—why—the whole thing's as clear to me—as—as a house afire!"
"I don't share your conviction."
"Very well, then, if you don't think it is Miss Beecher, you don't have to go into this thing. If you can feel satisfied to lay the matter before the ambassador and let that unknown girl wait for the arm of the law to reach her, you are at perfect liberty, of course, to do so." Billy was growing colder and colder in tone as he grew hotter and hotter in his anger.
Falconer said nothing. He was a very plucky young man, but he had no liking at all for strange and unlawful escapades. He didn't particularly mind risking his neck, but he liked to do it in accredited ways, in polo, for instance, or climbing Swiss peaks, or swimming dangerous currents.... But he was young—and he had red hair. And he remembered Arlee Beecher. These three days had not been happy ones for him, even sustained as he was by righteous indignation. And if there was any chance that this prisoned girl was Arlee, as this infatuated American was so furiously sure—He reflected that Billy was doing the sporting thing in giving him the chance of it.
"I'll join you," he said shortly. "I can't let it go, you know, if there's a chance of its being Miss Beecher."
"Good!" said Billy, holding out his hand and the two young men clasped silently, eyeing each other with a certain mutual respect though with no great increase of liking.
"Now, this is my idea," Billy went on, and proceeded to develop it, while Falconer carefully studied the plans and made a shrewd suggestion here and there.
It was late in the morning when they parted.
"You must muzzle that Baroff girl," was Falconer's parting caution. "We must keep this thing deuced quiet, you know."
"Of course. He shan't get wind of it ahead."
"Not only that. We mustn't have talk afterwards. It would kill the girl, you know."
Billy nodded. "She would hate it, I expect."
"Hate it? My word, it would finish her—a tale of that kind going the rounds.... She could never live it down."
"Live it down? It would set her up in conversation for the rest of her life!" Billy chuckled softly. "That is, if it comes out all right—and that's the only way I can imagine its coming out."
With one hand on the door Falconer paused to stare back at him. "You don't mean she'd want to tell about it!" he ejaculated with unplumbed horror.
Billy was suddenly sobered. "Well, nobody but you and I and the Baroff know it now," he said, "and I think we can keep the Baroff's mouth shut.... I'll see her in the morning. You'd better get in a nap to-morrow, and I will, too, for we'll want steady nerves. Good night; I'm glad you're going with me."
"I'm damned if I'm glad," said the honest Englishman, with a wry grin. "If we get our throats cut, I hope Miss Beecher will return from the desert in time for our obsequies."
"Something in that red-headed chap I like after all," soliloquized Billy B. Hill, as he turned toward his long-deferred repose. "Hanged if he hasn't grit to go into a thing on an off chance!... Now, as for me, I'm sure."