And stretching out her arms on each side and giving herself a little shake, Jill laughed ever so softly in pure exuberance of that feeling of freedom, which seems to make an air pocket all about you and in the middle of which you float contentedly, oblivious of the winds raging on the outside.

So glancing up at the red star, and once more picking up her bag, she too crossed the street and disappeared up a narrower one, halting for a moment at the sight of a man standing with bent head in the attitude of prayer and the beads of Allah hanging from the hands crossed upon the breast.

Jilt’s intuition was intense, and never once in all her life had it failed her, and though to her all Eastern men seemed exactly alike in the moonlight, yet her inner consciousness began to tap ont a message of warning, and the bristles of her self-protection to rise at the threatenings of danger.

“Bother!” however, was her only comment as, keeping the star ahead, she walked steadily onward.

But she made a silent, strenuous, but unavailing struggle when something white and soft was slipped over her head and a hand placed firmly upon her mouth, as she felt herself lifted in a pair of strong arms and carried some considerable distance until she heard the click of a key, the opening and shutting of a door, and her captor’s soft footfall through what seemed to be a deserted house.

She stood perfectly still when planted on her feet, and looked around her when the cloth had been removed from about her head.

White was her face indeed, but a little smile twisted the corner of her mouth as she noted the oriental luxury of the room in which she stood.

Ornate could hardly describe it so offensive was it in its multitudinous hangings, mirrors, lamps, and clutter of stools, tables, divans, and couches, inlaid or plastered with glittering sequins, bits of glass, and coloured imitation jewels.

But scorn simply blazed in the great blue eyes as she looked into those of a man standing in front of the one and only door to the whole apartment.

“You brute!” she said undiplomatically and in French as he moved a few steps nearer and salaamed deeply.  “Why, you’re the man who followed me from the restaurant to-day!  What do you want?  Backsheesh?  I haven’t any so you had better let me go at once unless you want the police after you!  You can’t treat English women in this off-hand way with impunity, I can assure you.  Open the door immediately if you please!”

Poor little Jill, who by involuntarily harking back to the insular belief that the veriest heathen will quake in unison with the British culprit at the mere threat of British law, showed the absolute yarborough she held in this game, the stakes of which she guessed were something more precious than life itself, and in which she held not a single winning card.

“Let not Madame cause herself worry,” answered the oriental also in French, as he approached nearer still, his eyes ablaze with passion of sorts as be looked the girl up and down from head to foot.  “The police—­the law—­you are in Egypt, Madame, or I should say Mademoiselle I think.  Money! when a man holds heaven itself within his grasp, does he open his hand to grasp a passing cloud?”