So Saunders went, glad enough to get into the outer air. He slammed the great iron door behind him as if he were glad, too, to disassociate himself from King and all foolishness. Like many another first-class man, King sheds friends as a cat sheds fur going under a gate. They grow again and quit again and don't seem to make much difference. The instant the door slammed King continued down the line with his left wrist held high so that the occupant of each cell in turn could see the bracelet. “May God be with thee!” came the instant greeting from each cell until down toward the farther end. The occupants of the last six cells were silent. Numbers had been chalked roughly on the doors. With wetted fingers he rubbed out the chalk marks on the last six doors, and he had scarcely finished doing that when Ismail strode in, slamming the great iron door behind him, jangling a bunch of keys and looking more than ever like somebody out of the Old Testament. “Open every door except those whose numbers I have rubbed out!” King ordered him. Ismail proceeded to obey as if that were the least improbable order in all the world. It took him two minutes to select the pass-key and determine how it worked, then the doors flew open one after another in quick succession. “Come out!” he growled. “Come out!--Come out!” although King had not ordered that. King went and stood under the center light with his left arm bared. The prisoners, emerging like dead men out of tombs, blinked at the bright light--saw him--then the bracelet--and saluted. “May God be with thee!” growled each of them. They stood still then, awaiting fresh developments. It did not seem to occur to any one of them as strange that a British officer in khaki uniform should be sporting Yasmini's talisman; the thing was apparently sufficient explanation in itself. “Ye all know this?” he asked, holding up his wrist. “Whose is this?” “Hers!” The answer was monosyllabic and instant from all thirty throats. “May Allah guard her, sleeping and awake!” added one or two of them. King lit a cheroot and made mental note of the wisdom of referring to her by pronoun, not by name. “And I? Who am I?” he asked, since it saves worlds of trouble to have the other side state the case. The Secret Service was not designed for giving information, but discovering it. “Her messenger! Who else? Thou art he who shall take us to the 'Hills'! She promised!” “How did she know ye were in this jail?” he asked them, and one of the Hillmen laughed like a jackal, showing yellow eye-teeth. The others cackled in chorus after him. “Answer that riddle thyself--or else ask her! Who are we? Bats, that can see in the night? Spirits, who can hear through walls? Nay, we be plain men of the mountains!” “But where were ye when she promised?”