She did not stop to think. She had begun the task almost before she had thought out the details, and was fumbling in Zulfkar's pockets as he lay. And there were two bottles of paraffin in the corner; that was because he had brought one home, and the market-woman another by mistake. So much the better, so much the bigger blaze. Then out into the street, not forgetting a box of safety matches--strange companions to such a task. She knew her way well, having wandered free enough as a child before the lot was drawn, the die cast which sent her to suckle babes. Yet, being a woman beset by a thousand superstitious fears, it needed all her courage ere she found herself face to face with the thin wooden partition surrounding the steep stair leading upwards. How many times had she not listened to feet ascending those unseen stairs, and heard the tinkle of laughter as the unseen door above opened? Well, it would blaze finely, and cut off at once all means of escape. A devilish plan indeed, and the leaping flames, ere she left them to their task, showed the face of a fiend incarnate. And so to wait for the few minutes before the whole world must know that the saffron and the rose daintiness was doomed. No more laughter--no more lovers--that would be for her, Lâzîzan, not for the other with her cold sneers. A licking tongue of flame showed for an instant and made her pray Heaven none might see it too soon. Then a crackle, a puff of smoke, next a cry of fire, but, thank Heaven, only from the broad path. And what good were the running feet, what good the shouts of the crowd in which her shrouded figure passed unnoticed, unless the upper storey had wings? For the stairs must be gone--hopelessly gone--by this time. More than the stairs, for with one sudden blaze the lath-and-plaster house seemed to melt like ice itself before the sheet of flame which the soft night wind bent riverwards. And still the top storey slept, or was it suffocated? No! there was some one at the window--some one gesticulating wildly. A man--not a woman. "Throw yourself down!" cried an authoritative foreign voice, "'tis your only chance." Surely, since the ice melted visibly during the sudden hush which fell upon the jostling crowd. "Throw yourself down!" came the order again; "we'll catch you if we can. Stand back, good people." "Quick! it's your last chance," came the inexorable voice once more. Then there was a leap, a scream--a crash, as in his despair the man overleapt the mark and fell among the parting crowd. Fell right at Lâzîzan's feet face uppermost. And it was the face of the handsome stranger--of her lover. Her shriek echoed his as she flung herself beside him. And at the sound something white and ghostlike slipped back from the window with a tinkle of laughter. "Burfâni! Burfâni!" shouted the crowd. "Drop gently--we'll save you! Burfâni! Burfâni!"