He started to seat himself beside her, but in that instant she was on her feet.  With all the courage in her beating heart she whipped out that revolver and pointed it at him.

“If you call—­I shoot,” she said breathlessly.

The round mouth of the gun shook ever so slightly in the excited hand gripping it, but in the blazing look she turned on him was the unshaken, imperious passion of a woman swept absolutely beyond all fear.

Meeting that look Hamdi Bey stood extremely still and made no sound.

“There are plenty of shots—­for you, at the first noise, and for the servants, if they come,” she went on in that fierce undertone, and then, passionately, “What did you do to him?  Take me to him—­at once!”

Irresolutely the man stood and looked up at her under his half-lowered lids.  He was near enough for a spring—­and yet if that excited finger should press....  The girl was capable of anything.  She was possessed....  And men had died of such accidents before that....

“May I speak?” he murmured, in a tone scarcely audible, yet preserving somehow its flavor of sardonic amusement.

“Under your breath.  One sound, remember—­and I am a very good shot.”

“But what a wife,” he sighed.  “All the talents—­”

“I tell you that I will see him for myself.  Take me to him, this moment—­”

“Shall I give orders and have him brought here?  He is quite safe, I assure you.”

“Orders?  If you summon a servant I will shoot.  No, lead the way, and I will follow you.  And if you make one sound—­one false move—­”

Decidedly the girl was possessed.  She stood there like a white image of war, her hand on that infernal automatic....  He hesitated, gnawed his mustache, then swung sullenly upon his heel.

Like some fantastic sculpture from an Amazonian triumph, they crossed the long drawing-room, the erect, gilt-braided general preceding, very slowly, the white-clad feminine creature, who held one hand extended, with something boring almost into his shoulder blades.

He did not lead her down the long stairs, past the guarding eunuch.  He took, instead, an inner way through the late supper room which led down into the pillared hall of banquets.  That way was safe of servants now; crossing the pillared hall there were no more sounds of late work from the service quarters beyond.  Oblivious of the wild developments of that wedding reception, the tired servants, stuffed with the last pasty, warmed with the last surreptitious drop of wine, were asleep at last.

Outside the door in the stone wall the bey took down the lantern which so short a time before he had replaced upon its nail and lighted its still smoking wick.  He had not restored the key to Yussuf, and he drew it now from his pocket and fitted it into the lock, drawing back the door.

“These stairs are steep,” he murmured.  “I hardly like you to descend them unaided, but if you insist—­”