Very, very beautiful, but somehow giving an impression of masquerade.

“Your so valuable dressing-case is behind those cushions, Mademoiselle, but you shall have things of gold to adorn your apartment, at least for a time.  I tire easily even of the most perfect fruit, but I have friends, oh, many who are not so easily wearied!”

The man paused a moment as though awaiting some outburst, but none forthcoming continued the enlightening discourse.

“Who am I?—­that will you know shortly.  A merry chase you gave me this afternoon, and even baffled me for a time, but surely I have not enjoyed an hour so much for many a day.  You are unique, therefore not to be run to earth by a common black dog, otherwise I could have secured you earlier in the day and by now------”

The man’s lips, of an almost negroid fullness, curved in a smile, the abomination of which sent a little shudder from Jill’s high held head to her steady little feet.

“But I have you now, beautiful maiden, and if you will not bend to my will, I will break you to it, even if I spoil your satin skin and the soles of your small feet by the lash of the whip!”

“So!” said Jill after an interval in which the atmosphere, charged with the electricity of anger, lust, scorn, and all the kindred sisters of evilness, resembled what might be the result of a cross between a spitting cat and a wireless installation.  “So!  Am I to understand that you have vulgarly kidnapped me—­and are holding me not for ransom, but for your evil pleasures and those of your friends?”

“Quite so, Mademoiselle!  Your words are as clear as the stream running through a certain oasis which long I coveted, but which fell to my greatest enemy because he had a few more piastres than I—­and maybe a little more diplomacy—­a man who would kill me if he could but find the excuse, the moral breeder of camels, the fanatic son of Solomon, Hahmed the great, Hahmed the most noble—­pah!”

For one brief second Jill’s eyes scanned the sensual face in front, but seeing nothing more subtle than an intense hatred therein for the absent man, shrugged her shoulders and then flung up her hand sharply as the man’s hand suddenly fastened on her wrist.

“Let go my hand at once,” she said as indifferently as though she were asking for a glass of water, but she wrenched herself free and fled behind a divan almost hidden in a bower of growing tropical plants as the man let go at her command to suddenly grip her about the waist.

“I shall scream the place down, and bite, and kick, and scratch, if you touch me again.”

For one moment they looked at each other across the pile of silken cushions, the dark shining leaves of the plants throwing up the girl’s wonderful colouring, the white petals of a flower falling like snow about her as she stood waiting for the next move in the exceedingly dangerous game in which she was taking part.