Basil went out to him in the outer hall, and, as I listened from within, I immediately heard high words.  It was like a spark applied to tinder; a fierce quarrel blazed up instantly between them.

“How dare you show yourself here?” began Basil Annesley.

“Who are you to prevent me?  I come to demand the restoration of that which belongs to me.  Take my message to those two ladies and say I will have my boy,” replied my lord.

“Do not try to impose on me, Lord Blackadder.  It is the most impudent pretence; you know perfectly well he is not here.”

“I will not bandy words with you.  Go in, you men, both of you, Tiler and Falfani, and seize the child.  Force your way in, push that blackguard aside!” he roared in a perfect paroxysm of passion.

I could not possibly hold aloof, but called for help from the hotel people, and, with them at my back, rushed out to add my protest against this intemperate conduct.

A free fight had already begun.  The three assailants, Ralph Blackadder behind egging them on, had thrown themselves upon Basil, who stood sturdily at bay with his back to the wall, daring them to come on, and prepared to strike out at the first man who touched him.

“At him!  Give it him!  Throw him out!” cried Ralph passionately.  But even as he spoke his voice weakened, he halted abruptly; his hands went up into the air, his body swayed to and fro, his strength left him completely, and he fell to the ground in sudden and complete collapse.  When they picked him up, there was froth mixed with blood upon his lips, he breathed once or twice heavily, stertorously, and then with one long-drawn gasp died in the arms of his two men.

It was an apoplectic seizure, the doctors told us later, brought on by excessive nervous irritation of the brain.

Here was a sudden and unexpected denouement, a terribly dramatic end to our troubles if we could but clear up the horrible uncertainty remaining.

What had become of my sister and little Ralph?

While the servants of the hotel attended to the stricken man, Basil Annesley plied the detectives with eager questions.  He urged them to tell all they knew; it should be made worth their while; they no longer owed allegiance to their late employer.  He entreated them to withhold nothing.  Where and how had Lord Blackadder met Henriette?  What had he done with her?  Where was she now?

We could get nothing out of these men; they refused to answer our questions from sheer mulish obstinacy, as we thought at first, but we saw at length that they did not understand us.  What were we driving at?  They assured us they had seen no lady, nor had the unfortunate peer accosted any one, or interfered with any one on his way between the two hotels.  He had come straight from the Villa Shereef to the Hotel Atlas, racing down at a run, pausing nowhere, addressing no one on the road.