No one replied to his observation, and he went towards the gate, the other men following him, with Lady Haigh, uninvited and unnoticed, close at their heels. One of the doors was opened as they advanced, and they found themselves face to face with their old friend, the official who had met them on their first arrival in the city, and introduced them to their present quarters. Now he looked uneasy and as though ashamed of the business on which he had come, while at his side was a hard-faced, eager man, whom the English recognised as one of Fath-ud-Din’s chief supporters among the Amirs. “Peace be upon you!” said Stratford. “And upon thee be peace!” was the stereotyped reply. “Will you not enter and eat bread with us?” asked Stratford. “My lord’s servants are commanded not to enter his house, nor yet to break bread with him and his young men,” returned the official, “for their errand demands haste. Is the gracious lord, the Queen of England’s Envoy, yet recovered of his sickness?” “No, he is still indisposed, and I am here in his place,” said Stratford, restraining his impatience with an effort. “Will my lord command his own servants to withdraw a space?” pursued the ambassador, evidently embarrassed, “for I have to mention one who belongs to the great lord’s household.” Stratford signed to the servants to withdraw a little, but intimated that Dick and Fitz were equally interested with himself in the matter now to be disclosed, while Kustendjian was necessary as interpreter. This having been made clear, they waited with breathless eagerness, for the ambassador seemed very much at a loss for words. “My lord knows,” he said at last, “that the English doctor lady came this day to visit the household of our lord the King?” “I know that she received an urgent message in the Queen’s name entreating her to come to the Palace, and that she hastened thither at once,” said Stratford. The official seemed to find a difficulty in proceeding, and his colleague took up the tale. “However that may be,” he said, “the doctor lady is now in the hands of our lord the King.” “And how is that, pray?” asked Stratford. “Since when has the King of Ethiopia adopted the plan of getting women into his power by false messages, and then kidnapping them?” “In dealing with enemies and infidels, our lord the King pays more heed to the end than to the means,” said the Amir. “So it seems,” said Stratford, drily; “but does he fight with women?” “Nay,” said the official, plucking up courage to speak again; “he fights with men, and therefore it is that we are here.” “The King is evidently in need of money, and requires a ransom,” said Stratford, turning to the rest, and speaking with an airy confidence which he was far from feeling. “How much does he want?” he asked of the messengers. “Our lord desires not money, nor does he war with women,” repeated the Amir. “In exchange for the woman he requires a man.”