But from what Billy heard of balls and hunters and “seasons,” he gleaned that being poor as church mice, for these five titled girls, meant merely an effort in keeping up with the things they felt should be theirs by right divine.  And as Billy listened, feeling the force of the girl’s attraction, the charm of her serene confidence and the pleasant air of security and well-being that hedged her in, he stole a covert glance at Falconer’s unrevealing countenance and reflected that it was rather a stormy day for that young man when he became entangled with the fortunes of little Miss Beecher.  It was also a stormy day for himself, but he felt that storms belonged more naturally to his adventurous lot.

* * * * *

But it was characteristic of Falconer when once committed to a plan not to open his mind to the objections which besieged it.  So that night, at the fall of dark, as the two young men motored forth together, he maintained a stolid resolution which refused to look back.  The approach of the danger was tuning up his nerves, and whatever his common sense might think about it, his youth and pluck greeted the adventure with a quickening heart and a rash warmth of blood.

Both young men were resolute and confident.  Either would have been more than human if he had not looked a trifle askance upon the other and wished to thunder that he had been able to go into it alone and to have tasted the intoxication of delivering the girl single-handed out of the den of thieves.  But the success of the plan was paramount, as Billy reminded himself.

He found himself hoping wildly that she would see him as well as Falconer.

“She has probably forgotten all about me,” he thought ruefully.  “She won’t remember that dance with me, nor that chat next morning.  I’m just an Also Met.  She won’t even perceive me.  She’ll see that sandy-haired deliverer—­and she’ll tell him how right he was and how good to come after her——­”

Thus jealousy darkly painted his undoing.  “But, darn it, I had to ask him!” Thus he downed his ungenerous thoughts.  “It needed two men at least—­and besides, I don’t want any handicap of gratitude in this.”

They left the automobile in the Mohammedan graveyard with exact and impressive instructions.  And then they stole back among the gloomy trees and ghostly tombs to where the canal washed the foot of the little terraces, and there the one-eyed man sat waiting in the canoe, a figure of profound misanthropy.

Silently he lifted a stricken but set countenance, and they climbed in and the three paddled off, approaching the back of the palace with wary eyes, for they were afraid that a guard might now be set upon the walls.  But Billy had argued that Kerissen was unaware of Fritzi’s knowledge of Arlee’s identity; in fact she had at first supposed her a willing supplanter like herself, and so he would not be apprehensive of any of her revelations.  And he did not dream that Fritzi’s rescuers were interested in Arlee.