She clapped her two ringed hands to smother the impish joy of her laugh.  “A warning to those who can be warned—­he will not be so eager for another stripe from that same stick!—­It was his cousin, Seniha Hanum—­Satan devour her!—­who made this marriage.  Always she hated me....  But now I will tell you how to get to her.  Look out, with me.”

Kneeling at the gate, over the dark flow of the water, she drew him down beside her, and thrusting out her veiled head, she pointed upward and to the right to a jutting balcony of mashrubiyeh, where a pale light showed through the fretwork.

“There—­you see?  That is my room.  And if you climb up, I can let you in....  There...  Up,” she repeated in English, resolved to make certain.

“I see.  I can get there,” he assured her, measuring with his eye the dim distance.

“At once,” she said.  “I will be there.  I cannot take you with me through the upper hall—­it is dangerous even for me to be caught.  But no eunuch wants my displeasure.”

He could believe it, watching the subtle, malicious daring of her face.  Even in the gloom he caught the steady-lidded arrogance of her kohl-darkened eyes and the bold insolence of a high cheek bone.  She had a hint of gypsy....

“And you can get me in?  You’re a wonder!” he whispered.  “I can’t thank you enough—­”

“Rid me of her,” said the girl swiftly.  “But not—­not him.  You must swear—­what is it that Christians swear by?” she broke off to demand.  “By the grave of your father?  Yes?  You will swear not to hurt him, to hurt Hamdi, by the grave of your father?  Yes?”

Ryder nodded quickly.  His father, to be sure, was in no grave at all.  He was, allowing hastily for the difference in time, in his treasurer’s cage at the bank in East Middleton, but he did not wait to explain this to the girl.

“I swear it,” he repeated.  “I won’t hurt your Hamdi, since that’s your condition.  But we’re wasting time—­”

“Up, then.  And if you fall down—­do like this.”

Smiling mischievously, she made the gesture of swimming.  “Allah go with thee—­and with me also,” he heard her murmur, as he stepped out to the ledge of the entrance, twisted himself agilely about and climbing up the opened gate swung himself up to the stone carving overhead.

Below him, he heard the gate swing shut.  He did not hear her lock it.  Fervently he hoped she had not, since it was a possible exit for any one in a hurry, but at any rate, he need not worry about a way out of the place until he had got into it again.

And the getting in was not any too simple.  It was work for a mountain goat, he reflected, after a short interval devoted to tentative reaches and balancing and digging in of hands and feet.  The distances were far greater than the first-glimpsed, foreshortened perspective had allowed him to guess, and there was only the starlight to illumine the gray face of the palace.