“By Allah!  There must be some deep cause here!” ejaculated the Master, his eyes smoldering.  “I intend to work my will, but I am a man of reason.  You are entitled to a hearing state your objection, sir.  Speak up!”

The captain’s answer was to raise his right hand and to loosen the cords securing the celluloid mask.  As the Master watched, steadying his nerves against the shock of what he felt must be a nameless horror underneath, Alden tore away the mask and threw it upon the table.

“Here is my reason, sir,” said he very quietly, “for not permitting Lombardo, or any other man here, to dress my wound.”

“Good God!” exclaimed the Master, shaken clean out of his aplomb.  The shock he had expected had come to him, but in far other guise than he had counted on.  With clenched fists and widening eyes he peered at Alden.

The face he now suddenly beheld, under the clear white light of the cabin, was not the hideous, mangled wreck of humanity—­The Kaiser’s Masterpiece—­he had expected to see.

No—­far, and very far from that!

It was the face of a woman.  One of the most beautiful women his eyes ever had rested on.

CHAPTER XII

THE WOMAN OF ADVENTURE

A moment’s utter silence followed.  The woman, with another gesture, drew off the aviator’s cap she had worn; she pulled away the tight-fitting toupee that had been drawn over her head and that had masked her hair under its masculine disguise.  With deft fingers she shook out the masses of that hair—­fine, dark masses that flowed down over her shoulders in streams of silken glory.

“Now you see me as I am!” said she, her voice low and just a little trembling, but wholly brave.  “Now, perhaps, you understand!”

“I—­but you—­” stammered the Master, for the first time in all his life completely at a loss, dazed, staggered.

“Now you understand why I couldn’t—­wouldn’t—­let Dr. Lombardo dress my wound.”

“By the power of Allah!  What does all this mean?” The Master’s voice had grown hoarse, unsteady.  “A woman—­here—!”

“Yes, a woman!  The woman your expedition needs and must have, if death and sickness happen, as happen they will The woman you would never have allowed to come—­the woman who determined to come at all hazards, even death itself.  The woman who—­”

“But, Lord Almighty!  Your papers!  Your decorations!”

“Quite genuine,” she answered, smiling at him with dark eyes, unafraid.  Through all his dazed astonishment he saw the wonder of those eyes, the perfect oval of that face, the warm, rich tints of her skin even though overspread with the pallor of suffering.

“Madam,” said he, trying to rally, “this is past all words No explanation can make amends for such deception.  Still, the secret is yet yours—­and mine.  Until I decide what to do, it must be respected.”