She had the prettiest teeth he had ever seen, lovely little rows of pearls, and the biggest and brightest of dark eyes with wide lashes curling dramatically back.  Even in the thrill and elation of the moment there was a spark of provocation in those eyes for the good-looking young man who stared down at her, and Billy would have been a very wooden young man, indeed, if he had not felt a tingling excitement in this unexpected capture, for all the destruction of his romantic plans.  So this, he thought rapidly, was the foreign girl in Kerissen’s house, and Arlee, bless her little golden head, was safe where she planned, in Alexandria.  A warm glow of happiness enveloped him at that.

“Now tell me all about it,” he demanded again.  “You are running away from Kerissen?”

“Oh, yes,” she cried eagerly.  “You must not let him catch us.  We are safe—­yes?”

“I should rather think so,” Billy laughed.  “And there’s a gun in my pocket that says so....  And so you sent me that message to-day by that little native girl?  How in the world did that happen?”

“That girl is one who will do a little for money, you understand,” said the Viennese, “and I have told her to look sharp out for a foreign gentleman who come to save me.  You see I have sent for a friend, and I think that he—­but never mind.  That girl she come running this afternoon to where I am shut in way back in the palace, and she say that a foreign gentleman is painting a picture out in the street, and he stare very cunning at her.  So I tell her to find out if he is the one for me, and to tell him to come quick this night.  She was afraid to take note—­afraid the eunuch catch her.  So she went to you.  She told afterwards that you ask her if there is any strange lady there anxious to get away, and she give you the message and my handkerchief and you say you will come—­and my, how you give me one great surprise!”

“And a great disappointment,” said Billy grinning.

“Oh, no, no,” she denied, eyes and lips all mischievous smiles.  “I say to myself, ’My God!  That is a fine-looking young man!  He and I will have something to say to each other’—­h’m?”

“Now who in the world are you?” demanded Billy bluntly.  “And how did you happen to get into all this?”

Volubly she told.  She dwelt at picturesque length upon her shining place upon the Viennese stage; she recounted her triumphs, she prophesied the joy of the playgoers at her return to them.  Darkly she expatiated upon the villainy of the Turkish Captain, who had lured her to such incarceration.  Gleefully she displayed the diamonds upon her small person which she was extracting from that affair.

“Not so bad, after all—­h’m?” she demanded, in a brazen little content.  “Maybe that prison time make good for me,” and Billy shook his head and chuckled outright at the little baggage.

But through his amusement a prick of uneasiness was felt.  The picture she had painted of the Captain corroborated his wildest imaginings.