That seemed satisfactory to the owner of the voice.  The scuffling was renewed, and in a moment she had burst through the crude curtains with two women clinging to her, and stood there with her brown hair falling on her shoulders and her dress all disarrayed but looking simply serene in contrast to the women who tried to restrain her.  They tried once or twice to thrust her back through the curtain, although clearly determined to do her no injury; but she held her ground easily.  At a rough guess it was tennis and boating that had done more for her muscles than ever strenuous housework did for the Armenians.

“Who are you?” she asked, and Will laughed with delight.

“I reckon you’ll be Miss Vanderman?’ suggested Fred in outrageous Yankee accent.  She stared hard at him.

“I am Miss Vanderman.  Who are you, please.

I sat down on the great stone they had rolled over the trap, for even in that flickering, smoky light I could see that this young woman was incarnate loveliness as well as health and strength.  Will was our only ladies’ man (for Fred is no more than random troubadour, decamping before any love-affair gets serious).  The thought conjured visions of Maga, and what she might do.  For about ten seconds my head swam, and I could hardly keep my feet.

Will left the opening bars of the overture to Fred, with rather the air of a man who lets a trout have line.  And Fred blundered in contentedly.

“I’ll allow my name is Oakes—­Fred Oakes,” he said.

“Please explain!” She looked from one to the other of us.

“We three are American towerists, going the grand trip.” (Remember, a score of Armenians were listening.  Fred’s intention was at least as much to continue their contentment as to extract humor from the situation.) “You being reported missing we allowed to pick you up and run you in to Tarsus.  Air you agreeable?”

The women were still clinging to her as if their whole future depended on keeping her prisoner, yet without hurt.  She looked down at them pathetically, and then at the men, who were showing no disposition to order her release.

“I don’t understand in the least yet.  I find you bewildering.  Can you contrive to let us talk for a few minutes alone?”

“You bet your young life I can!”

Fred stepped to the wall beside us, but we none of us drew pistol yet.  We had no right to presume we were not among friends.

“Thirty minutes interlude!” he announced.  “The man who stands in this room one minute from now, or who comes back to the room without my leave, is not my friend, and shall learn what that means!”

He repeated the soft insinuation in Armenian, and then in Turkish because he knows that language best.  There is not an Armenian who has not been compelled to learn Turkish for all official purposes, and unconsciously they gave obedience to the hated conquerors’ tongue, repressing the desire to argue that wells perennially in Armenian breasts.  They had not been long enough enjoying stolen liberty to overcome yet the full effects of Turkish rule.