Truly, this was a singular household.  In turn, Graywater Park had been a fortress, a monastery, and a manor-house.  Now, in the extensive crypt below the former chapel, in an atmosphere artificially raised to a suitably stuffy temperature, were housed the strange pets brought by our eccentric host from distant lands.  In one cage was an African lioness, a beautiful and powerful beast, docile as a cat.  Housed under other arches were two surly hyenas, goats from the White Nile, and an antelope of Kordofan.  In a stable opening upon the garden were a pair of beautiful desert gazelles, and near to them, two cranes and a marabout.  The leopards, whose howling now disturbed the night, were in a large, cell-like cage immediately below the spot where of old the chapel alter had stood.

And here were we an odd party in odd environment.  I sought to make out the time by my watch, but the growing dusk rendered it impossible.  Then, unheralded by any sound, Karamaneh entered by the door which during the past twenty minutes had been the focus of my gaze.  The gathering darkness precluded the possibility of my observing with certainty, but I think a soft blush stole to her cheeks as those glorious dark eyes rested upon me.

The beauty of Karamaneh was not of the typed which is enhanced by artificial lighting; it was the beauty of the palm and the pomegranate blossom, the beauty which flowers beneath merciless suns, which expands, like the lotus, under the skies of the East.  But there, in the dusk, as she came towards me, she looked exquisitely lovely, and graceful with the grace of the desert gazelles which I had seen earlier in the evening.  I cannot describe her dress; I only know that she seemed very wonderful—­so wonderful that a pang; almost of terror, smote my heart, because such sweetness should belong to me.

And then, from the shadows masking the other side of the old hall, emerged the black figure of Homopoulo, and our odd trio obediently paced into the somber dining-room.

A large lamp burned in the center of the table; a shaded candle was placed before each diner; and the subdued light made play upon the snowy napery and fine old silver without dispersing the gloom about us.  Indeed, if anything, it seemed to render it more remarkable, and the table became a lighted oasis in the desert of the huge apartment.  One could barely discern the suits of armor and trophies which ornamented the paneled walls; and I never failed to start nervously when the butler appeared, somber and silent, at my elbow.

Sir Lionel Barton’s penchant for strange visitors, of which we had had experience in the past, was exemplified in the person of Homopoulo.  I gathered that the butler (who, I must admit, seemed thoroughly to comprehend his duties) had entered the service of Sir Lionel during the time that the latter was pursuing his celebrated excavations upon the traditional site of the Daedalian Labyrinth in Crete.  It was during this expedition that the death of a distant relative had made him master of Graywater Park; and the event seemingly had inspired the eccentric baronet to engage a suitable factotum.