Giddily the room whirled about Aimee....  In the candle light, leaping in the rush of conflict, she saw the bey and the black, and their distorted shadows in a goblin blur....  And beneath them she saw Ryder, helpless, his hands and feet pinioned....  With the madness of despair she rushed forward, but the general intercepted her.

“He is quite helpless....  You need not be alarmed for my safety, madame!”

The cold, biting fury of his voice steadied her.  She saw his face was distorted, livid with anger.  His breathing was stertorous.

She stood helplessly by the table; the general turned and looked down upon the face of the man who had dared to violate the sanctity of his harem and attempt to steal his bride; beyond the man’s head Yussuf, the black, was squatting with a grinning, dog-like watchfulness.

But Ryder did not require watching.  That sash had been tied strongly about his hands and feet.  He was as helpless as a baby.

But the peculiar flavor of his helplessness was not so much fear before the fanatic fury of this man he had outraged, although he had a clear notion that his position was not enviably secure, but a bitter, black chagrin.

To have had the game in his hands and have bungled it!  To have been surprised by that simple strategy, taken off his guard by a feigned collapse!  The wily old Turk for all his champagne had the clearer, quicker brain....

To have let him get to Aimee and call in his black!  To have been thrown, disarmed....  It was crass stupidity.  It was outrageous mismanagement, abominable, maddening....

And Aimee must pay for it.  He tried to think very quickly what could best clear her.

He fixed his eyes on those glittering eyes, staring down upon him.

“I realize I owe you an explanation,” he said grimly.  “If you will let me tell you—­”

The bey turned to Aimee with a smile that was the lifting of a lip and the distention of his nostrils.

“This fool thinks he has the time to talk—­his English.”

Desperately Ryder grasped for his vernacular.  “I want to tell you—­why I came.  This—­this young lady doesn’t know me.”

Past the general he shot a look of warning at the girl.

“I was trying to get hold of her for her family in France—­She is really a French girl.  Tewfick Pasha is not her father but her—­” he could not find the word and dropped into English.  “Her step-father—­do you understand?  And he had no business to marry her off, so I tried to steal her for the French family.  It was a mad attempt which has failed—­but for which the young lady should not be blamed.  She had never seen me before.  She had no idea I was here.”

After a pause, “A remarkable story,” said the general distinctly.  He turned about to the table and drank off the last of a glass of champagne, then wiped his mouth with the back of a hand that trembled.