Their white clothes shone in the darkness to guide her; they cut across the square and vanished in one of those dark alleys she had already remarked.  Miss Gregory straightened her felt hat, took a fresh grip of the stout umbrella, and followed determinedly.  The corner of the alley shut out the lights behind her; tall walls with scarce windows fast shuttered hemmed her in; the vast night of the tropics drooped its shadow over her.  Through it all she plodded at the gait familiar to many varieties of men from Poughkeepsie to Pekin, a squat, resolute figure, reckless alike of risk and ridicule, an unheroic heroine.  There reached her from time to time the noises that prevail in those places—­noises filtering thinly through shutters, the pad of footsteps, and once—­it seemed to come from some roof invisible above her—­the sound of sobbing, abandoned, strangled, heart-shaking sobs.  She frowned and went on.

A spot where the way forked made her hesitate; the men she was following were no longer in sight.  But as she pondered there came to guide her a sudden cry, clear and poignant, the shout of a startled man.  It was from the right-hand path, and promptly, as though on a summons, she bent her grey head and broke into a run in the direction of it.  As she ran, pounding valiantly, she groped in her pocket for a dog-whistle she had with her; she took it in her lips, and, never ceasing to run, blew shrill call upon call.  Her umbrella was poised for war, but, rounding a corner, she saw that her whistling had done its work; three white jackets were making off at top-speed.  It takes little to alarm a thief; Miss Gregory had counted on that.

It was not till she fell over him that she was aware of the man on the ground, who rolled over and cried out at the movement.  She put a steady hand on him.

“Are you hurt?” she asked eagerly.

He groaned; his face was a pale blur against the earth.

“They’ve got me,” he said.  “They stuck a knife in my back.  I’m bleeding; I’m bleeding.”

“Get up,” bade Miss Gregory.  “Bleeding or not, we must get away from here.  Up you get.”

She pulled him to a sitting position, and he screamed and resisted, but Miss Gregory was his master.  By voice and force she brought him upright; he could stand alone, and seemed surprised to find it out.

“Take my arm,” she ordered him.  “Lean on it; don t be afraid.  Now, where are your rooms?”

“On this way,” he sobbed.

Evidently he had an ugly wound, for at each few steps he had to stop and rest, and sometimes he swayed, and Miss Gregory had to hold him up.  His breath came hastily; he was soft with terror.  “They’ll come back! they’ll come back!” he gabbled, tottering on his feet.

“They’re coming now; I can hear them,” replied Miss Gregory grimly.  “Here, lean in this doorway behind me, man.  Stop that whimpering, will you!  Now, keep close.”