“I say, is Ryder back?”

He knew, in the moment’s pause, how tight suspense was gripping him.  Then Thatcher glanced toward the black yawning mouth of a tomb entrance.

“Why, yes—­he’s down there.”  He added.  “Been a bit sick.  Complains of the sun.”

For a moment his relief was so great that McLean did not believe in it.  Jack here—­Jack absolutely safe—­

Mechanically he put, “When did he come in?”

“When?” Thatcher hesitated, trying to recall.  “Oh, night before last—­rode in after dark.”  He added reassuringly, as the other swung about towards the tomb, “He says there’s nothing really wrong with him.  There’s no temperature.”

McLean nodded.  His relief now was acutely compounded with disgust.  He felt no lightning leap of thanksgiving that his friend was safe, but rather that flash of irritated reaction which makes the primitive parent smack a recovered child.

Not a thing in the world the matter!  A mare’s nest—­just as he had prophesied to Miss Jeffries.  Why in heaven’s name hadn’t Jack the decency to send that over-anxious young lady a card when he abandoned town so suddenly?...  Not that McLean blamed Miss Jeffries.  Given the masquerade and Jack’s disappearance and a zealous feminine interest her concern was perfectly natural.

But McLean had left a busy office and taken an anxious and uncomfortable excursion, and his voice had no genial ring as he shouted his friend’s name down the dark entrance of the tomb shaft.

In a moment he heard a voice shouting hollowly back, then a wavering spot of light appeared upon the inclined floor and Ryder’s figure emerged like an apparition from the gloom.

“I say!  That you, Andy?”

Evidently he had been snatched from sleep.  His dark hair was rumpled, his face flushed, and he yawned with complete frankness.

McLean knew a sudden yearning to put an arm about him....  Dear old Jack....  Dear, irresponsible scamp....  His reaction of the irritation vanished....  It was so darned good to see the old chap again....

He muttered something about being in the vicinity while Ryder, rousing to hostship, called directions to the cook boy to bring a tray of luncheon.

“It’s cool down here,” he told McLean, leading the way back.

It was cool indeed, in the Hall of Offerings.  It was also, McLean thought, satisfying a recovered appetite, a trifle depressing.

They sat in a small island of light in an ocean of gloom while about them shadowy columns towered to indistinguishable heights and half-seen carvings projected their strange suggestions.

It seemed incongruous to be smoking cigarettes so unconcernedly at the feet of the ancient gods.

But McLean’s feeling of depression might have been due to his renewed awareness of catastrophe.  For though Jack was here, safe and sound enough, although a bit unlike himself in manner, yet Jack had been at that confounded reception in a woman’s rig and Jack had seen the girl and talked with her—­apparently on terms of understanding.