“A block at the gate,” said Cecil in a voice of subdued eagerness, and presently the caravan moved on again, and the travellers became conscious of the hum of a great city all around them. But there was nothing to tell them where they were. The babel of many tongues which met their ears might belong to almost any city in the East; and the call of a muezzin, which forced itself upon their hearing from the minaret of a mosque as they passed along, was as little distinctive. Immediately afterwards they turned into a stone-paved court, passed through various doorways and passages, and finally stopped in another courtyard. One of the agas drew back the curtains, and Cecil, with beating heart, allowed herself to be helped down, and looked round in a tumult of anticipation. What she expected to see she could not have told, but the reality which met her eyes was disappointing. It was neither familiar nor out of the way, merely the inner court of an ordinary whitewashed house, which, for all its distinctive peculiarities, might have been found in any city of South-Western Asia or Northern Africa. Above was a stormy sky, in which black rolling clouds were fast obscuring the rays of the setting sun. Standing beside the mule were the two agas, engaged in giving confidential directions to a middle-aged negress of a peculiarly stolid and sturdy type, while Um Yusuf, just helped down from her perch, was sitting on the ground and groaning out that she had the cramp all over her limbs. There was no sign of the friendly Kurdish ladies, no trace of any inhabitants other than their own party in the house. As Cecil realised this, the agas, having finished their colloquy, led the mule out of the yard, and the prisoners found themselves left alone with the negress, who motioned to them silently to follow her. They obeyed disconsolately enough, and she led them through several passages to a tiny room with one window high up in the wall. Here she left them, returning presently to bring in coffee and a dish of food, uncertain in its nature and by no means captivating in its appearance, and then departing again. Um Yusuf slipped out immediately, and Cecil divined that she was going to try her powers of fascination on their guide. But she returned discouraged. “She not tell anything,” she observed, morosely. “Worse than the Kurds; they not able to talk. There! you hear, mademoiselle? She lock us in.” The grating of the ponderous key in its complicated lock was distinctly audible, and Cecil resigned herself with a sigh to the hard fact that it was absolutely impossible to obtain any clue to their whereabouts that night. When they had partaken of their untempting repast, Um Yusuf unrolled and spread out the bedding, but the storm had begun, and the gusts of wind which shook the house were so violent that neither she nor her mistress felt inclined to sleep.