The night again was as silent as a grave. In vain they listened for some sound beyond the locked door till finally they gave it up and returned to the comfortable warmth of their suite.
That night Robert tossed about nervously until he despaired of sleeping. He envied the professor, whose measured breathing he could hear from the adjoining room. Later he dropped off into troubled slumber and dreamed once more of the maid of the desert.
This time the scene was a different one, the palace garden the setting instead of the desert. Step by step the incident of that evening was enacted again with this difference: in some strange manner he could see all that occurred in a garden which was on the other side of the wall with the locked door.
A maid—his maid—emerged from a door in the palace and hurried across the garden. Reaching the wall she fumbled among a mass of vines which clung to its side. She pulled something from behind them which he could not at first make out in the shadow. As she propped it against the wall he recognized it as a small ladder.
This she mounted quickly, looking back several times as if fearing pursuit. Just as she reached the top of the wall a man ran out of the doorway from which she had first appeared, and looked around swiftly. He was immediately joined by another. Both caught sight of the girl as she paused to drop on the other side of the wall.
Held by some invisible force Robert found it impossible to go to her assistance. He was obliged to remain merely a spectator.
The girl’s pursuers dashed across the garden and scrambled over the wall after her. She tripped over her long gown and fell. Before she could recover, one of them was upon her.
Together they lifted her struggling form and carried it back toward the massive door in the wall. There they halted while one of them fitted a key to the lock. A moment later it swung open. Just as they were taking her through the door, she screamed, and one of her captors clapped his hand over her mouth roughly. Then the door shut softly, but the sound of a heavy lock shot home reached Robert.
With the shutting of the door Robert suddenly was released from his trance. With a mighty bound he made for the wall—only to find himself standing awake in the middle of the floor of his bedchamber!
The vividness of his dream had left him trembling with excitement. He felt convinced that he had just visioned a review of the actual events of earlier in the evening. Prompted by the impulse of the moment, and realizing the impossibility of further sleep that night, Robert donned his clothes and quietly passed out into the garden.