He turned back to stand over his prostrate invader.  “Now, you—­you dog of Satan,” he snarled in a sudden snapping of restraint, “how did you get here?  Who admitted you?”

And at that, for all his trussed and helpless plight, Jack Ryder grinned.  He moved his head slightly.  “That blackbird of yours here.”

“Yussuf—­never!”

“The very one.  But he didn’t know it—­I was in that black mantle—­and veil.”

“Oh, the mantle, I had forgot.  So you stole in, disguised, to violate my hospitality, to outrage my harem, to gaze upon the forbidden faces of women and to steal the bride—­”

“I tell you I was trying to rescue the girl for her French family.  She is French and Tewfick Pasha is only—­”

“And what is that to me?  Do I—­” the bey broke off and then turned to the silent girl who stood leaning towards them, a trembling ghost in white.

“And you, my little one,” he murmured sardonically with a savage irony of restraint, “you, the little dove secluded from the world, who trembled at a kiss, the crystal vase who had never reflected the blush of love, whose virginal praises I was chanting when I was so oddly assaulted, do you support this idiot’s story?”

Mechanically her head moved in assent, her eyes, dilated with fear, were like the dark, fascinated eyes of some helpless bird.

“You never saw this young man?” the bey pursued.  “And yet you were ready to run off with him—­a pretty character you give yourself, my snowdrop!—­and you liked his eyes and hastened to obey?”

Aimee was silent.  From his ignominy upon the floor Ryder hastened to interpose.

“It is true she had never seen me, but I had already written to her and acquainted her with the story.  I tried to reach her first through her father but that was useless so I resorted to these desperate means.”

“Oh you wrote!  And you told her you would be here, and murder her husband—­”

“I told her nothing of the kind.  She didn’t know that I was coming until I spoke to her here, and then she had no idea that I was going to wait and carry her off—­”

“In the name of Allah!  Do you take me for a dolt, an ass?  You, with your writing and your masquerade and your secrets!  Do any families try to recover their relatives with such means?  Daughter or step-daughter, it is nothing to me—­”

“But it is true,” Aimee insisted, in a trembling voice.  “My father was Paul Delcasse—­”

“Yahrak Kiddisak man rabbabk—­curse the man who brought thee up!  Delcasse or devil, it is Tewfick Pasha who is your step-father, your guardian, who gave you to me for wife—­what has your genealogy to do with this affront upon my honor?”

“But he did not intend to affront your honor—­only to aid the family in France—­”

“I ask you again, do I resemble an ass that you should put such a burden of lies upon me?  As if I did not know why young men risked their lives, in the dead of night, in other men’s rooms!  If I did not know what turns their brains to mush and their hearts to leading strings!  And you—­you—­you little white rose of seclusion—!”