So far, he believed, he had been unobserved.  In Yussuf’s silence he had absolute confidence....  But of course there were a hundred other chances—­some spying, back-stairs eye, some curious, straining ear....

And for this matter of the boating mishap—­he cursed himself now, as he combed up his fair mustaches and settled a scarlet fez upon his thinned thatch of graying hair, cursed himself roundly for his malicious resort to that old oubliette.  Anything else would have done to frighten and overwhelm her and yet he had gratified his dramatic itch—­and now had paid for it with that idiotic story of the boating expedition.

He had reason to trust Fatima—­there was history behind the old sword scar upon her cheek, and he had a hold over her through her ambition for a son.  But Fatima was a woman.  And she—­or some other who would see that drenched satin would be curious of that boating story....

And of course they could find out from the boatman.

It occurred to him to go and see the boatman and order him away so that afterward the man could say he had been sent off duty, and the story of a nocturnal river trip would not appear too incredible.  It was a small concession to stop gossip’s mouth.

So drawing on a swinging military cloak, the general stole down through the stair of the water entrance into the lower hall, where the pale light gleamed through the cross-barred iron of the gate and the gatekeeper slept like a log in his muffling cloak.

The soundness of that slumber—­loudly attested by the fumes of wine—­afforded the general a profound pleasure.  He took the man’s keys softly, and went to the gate; it afforded him less pleasure to observe that the gate was unlocked, but he put this down to the keeper’s muddleheadedness.

Carefully he turned the lock and pocketed the keys—­for a lesson to the man’s overdeep sleep in the morning and to attest his own presence there that night; then he went back and brought out an oar, which he placed conspicuously beside the smallest boat, drawn up just within the gates.

He was afraid to alter the boat’s position lest the noise should prove too wakening, but he considered he had laid an artistic foundation for his story and with a gratifying sense of triumph he mounted the stairs.

He was not conscious of fatigue.  He had always been a wiry, indefatigable person, and the alarms and emotions of this night had cleared his head of its wines and drowsiness.  He felt the sense of tense, highstrung power which came to him in war, in fighting, in any element of danger.

Youth!  He snapped his fingers at it.  Youth was buried in his masonry—­and helpless in its shuttered room.  Power was master—­power, craft, subtlety.

But his elation ebbed as he crossed again that long drawing room with its faded flowers about the marriage throne, and its abandoned table with its cloth askew, its crystal disarrayed, its candles gutted and spent.