A dozen rods farther on the Arab was awaiting him in the canoe.  Billy’s mood did not invite conversation and he did not linger now for the other’s explanations, but calling to him to wait he made in through the cemetery, dodging warily from tomb to tomb, till he reached the entrance of the main road.

The motor was gone.  He satisfied himself of that, and a wave of rejoicing surged through him.  That motor was to wait till one or the other arrived with the girl and then leave with all speed, while the other was to be left to the slower canoe.  He was sure, now, that Falconer had succeeded in carrying the thing through and Billy’s heart warmed to him.  Then, for the first time, he felt something numb and queer about his left arm and putting his hand on it he found the sopping sleeve was torn and a warm ooze of blood welling through the cold water from the canal.

“Gosh, the chap winged me!” was his startled exclamation.  “Feels as if it’s going to sleep—­glad it didn’t go back on me in the ditch, there.”  Then he pressed back into the shadows for he saw a figure edging forward beyond the corner of a tomb.  After a moment’s hesitation it came directly toward him.  He saw it was Robert Falconer.

Foreboding gripped him and he could scarcely keep himself from shouting his eager question, but he hurried forward till the two stood face to face and then, “Where is she?  Did you get her?” burst from him, and “Have you got her?  Is she all right?” came at the same instant from Falconer.

Blankly they stared at each other and a cold sense of failure went over and over Billy like a sea.  His voice shook with this new, sickening fear.  “Didn’t you see her at all?”

“Did you?” counter-demanded Falconer, and Billy stammered, “Why no I—­I found the room empty.  And I thought you were safely off with her.”

“Safely off!” said Falconer grimly.  “I got in all right, though there must be a new lock on the door of that room up top, but I made some noise about it and ran plump into a fellow half way down the stairs.  I threw him the rest of the way down, and he fired and brought a couple of others swarming up at me but I got out on the roofs again and gave them the slip.  They went tearing back along the wing toward the garden the way I’d come and I went toward the street and got down.”

“Got down! How did you get down?”

“Over those bay-window places,” said the Englishman briefly.  “I tied that cord I had to one of the doddering old cornices to start with.  It wasn’t any trick at all.”

“Three stories,” Billy shot in.

“And you’d no better luck, it seems?” Falconer inquired.

“No, I came up from below and found the room empty—­but disheveled, so I thought you were off with her sure.  And just then the Captain came in the panel places—­just back from chasing you along the roof, I guess, for I’d been hearing the racket—­and another fellow with him and we had a scrimmage and I got away through the men’s wing.”