"I get it!" exclaimed Farrell. "The garden paradise into which hasheesh-drugged devotees were tossed while unconscious, so that when they awoke they would believe themselves to be in the Moslem heaven of cool water, beautiful women, and forbidden wine?" "Precisely, my excellent blockhead! I drink to your wit!" said d'Artois with a smile that flashed over the edge of his cup of cold coffee. "And your Antoinette is bedeviled in some way by a garden like that of Hassan al Sabbah, the master of those assassins who terrorized all Syria and Persia, centuries ago." Farrell grimaced. "Worse and worse yet! Hasn't this old city of Bayonne got enough ghosts and devils in its own right, lurking under the blood-soaked foundations of the citadel, without importing them from Asia?" His eyes shifted to the clustered simitars and yataghans, kreeses and kampilans, darts and assegais that adorned the walls of the study. "Now if they were men, we might do something about it!" "Have no fear on that score," assured d'Artois. "We find that every phantom as malignantly directed as this ghostly garden has a man pulling the strings--a flesh-and-blood man you can neatly riddle with bullets, or slice asunder with some of those toys up there on the wall." Farrell smiled grimly and took heart. "Reasonable, at that. And now, suppose that we drop in and see what Antoinette has to say about her newly acquired gift of Arabic speech. It took me several years to learn that fluently." "Barbarian!" scoffed d'Artois. "It is too early. You with your military hours----" "And you're another," countered Farrell. "Working the clock around. But see if you can persuade Félice to scramble some eggs, at least a pound of bacon, and perhaps a stack of waffles." "_Magnifique!_" agreed d'Artois. "Some of those barbarous American customs of yours are not utterly vile. And since you so kindly sent me an electric waffle-iron, _à l'Américain_--but as a lover, you are most unconvincing! At six of the morning, you howl for food--utterly out of keeping! Romance is dead, slain by such as you." "Ghosts," submitted Farrell, "can not be fought on an empty stomach." * * * * * Breakfast stemmed Farrell's impatience for a while; but as they lingered over the brandy-laden coffee, he proposed again that they set out at once to call on Antoinette Delatour. "Or at least, let's stretch our legs and get the air. I'll be turning flip-flops if I don't get going." "The air, then," agreed d'Artois. "Look! It is but little past eight."