The guardian of the door, not a little astounded, snatched in his turn at the jewel, and seeming perfectly satisfied after a prolonged scrutiny, stood aside and motioned the two to enter, and shutting the door behind them and ordering them to stand where they were until he returned from his dangerous mission of disobeying, by breaking in upon his master's privacy, stalked off with much dignity into the perfumed, half-lit, enormous hall. Now if only he had been afflicted with one iota of the curiosity apportioned by time to Lot's wife, that man might have been alive even to this day. But he neither turned his head nor pricked his ears, thereby failing to note that with the lightning methods of the eel the comely flower had in some miraculous way slipped from her all enveloping sheath of draperies to stand revealed a wiry, glistening-with-oil youth, who, without a moment's pause, with knife in teeth, and as silently as a lizard, glided across the dividing yards of Persian carpet separating him from his quarry. Across the hall and through endless deserted rooms they passed, the companion of the camouflage maiden bringing up the rear. Right to the far quarter of the house they went, one after the other, and the guardian of the house felt little more than a pin-prick when, just as his hand pulled aside the curtain screening a door, the youth behind him raising his right arm drove the knife clean under the left shoulder blade, catching the dead body as it fell backwards to lay it noiselessly upon the floor just as his friend appeared upon the scene. "It was well done, O! brother--neatly, and with strength--leaving no trace of blood to speak of. But now must we proceed with cunning, else may we too be lying lifeless upon our backs. Take even thy knife, my brother, 'twere a pity to leave it in yon carcase!" Indifferently turning the body over, the boy drew the knife, as indifferently wiping it on the dead man's raiment, and stood for a moment as still as any one of the exotic specimens of statuary which ornamented the whole house. Truly and implicitly had the orders of the master been obeyed; there was no sound of any living thing in or near the place, so that after a few whispered words the curtain was gently pulled back and the door opened just as gently inch by inch. For a long minute the two men peered in through the crack, their eyes searching swiftly for sign of him whom they searched. Unavailing at first, until with a motion of the head the younger one pointed. "Look! Yonder he sleeps!" The room was still brilliantly lighted by the many lamps hanging from the ceilings and the walls, but the shadow of the great mass of growing plants fell upon the divan upon which Jill had sat some few hours ago.