“Now!” she said.

The Arabs stepped away and she came and stood between us, looking down at one and then the other.

“There isn’t a place in Africa,” she said, “that you can hide in where the Sultan’s men can’t find you!  There isn’t a British officer in Africa who would believe you if you told what has happened in this room tonight!  Yet Lord Montdidier will believe you—­he knows you presumably, and certainly he knows me!  So tell Lord Montdidier exactly what has happened!  Assure him with my compliments that his throat and yours shall be cut as surely as you dare set out after that ivory without signing my agreement first.  Tell Lord Montdidier he may be friends with me if he cares to.  As his friend I will help make him rich for life!  As his enemy, I will make Africa too hot and dangerous to hold him!  Let him choose!”

She stepped back and, without troubling to turn away, put powder on her nose and chin.

“Now let them up!” she said.

The Arabs lifted us to our feet.

“Loose them!”

The expert of the three slipped the knots like a wizard doing parlor tricks; but I noticed that the other two held their knives extremely cautiously.  We should have been dead men if we had made a pugnacious motion.

“Now you may go!  Unless Lord Montdidier agrees with me, the only safety for any of you is away from Africa!  Go and tell him!  Go!”

“I’ll give you your answer now!” said Will.

“No, you don’t!” said I, remembering Monty’s urgent admonition to tell her nothing and ask no questions.  “Come away, Will!  There’s nothing to be gained by talking back!”

“Right you are!” he said, laughing like a boy again—­this time like a boy whose fight has been broken off without his seeking or consent.  Like me, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped blood from his neck.  The sight of his own blood—­even such a little trickle as that—­has peculiar effect an a man.

“By Jiminy, she has scratched the wrong dog’s ear!” he growled to me as we went to the door together.

“They’re all in there!” I said excitedly, when the door slammed shut behind us.  “Hurry down and get me a gun!  I’ll hold the door while you run for police and have ’em l arrested!”

“Piffle!” he said.  “Come on!  Three Sultan’s witnesses and two lone white women against us two—­come away!  Come away!”

Monty and Fred were still out, so we went to our own room.

“I’m wondering,” I said, “what Monty will say.”

“I’m not!” said Will.  “I’m not troubling, either!  I’m not going to tell Monty a blessed word!  See here—­she thinks she knows where some o’ that ivory is.  Maybe the government of German East Africa is in on the deal, and maybe not; that makes no present difference.  She thinks she’s wise.  And she has fixed up with the Sultan to have him claim it when found, so’s she’ll get a fat slice of the melon.