"What is it the Afghan poets say? 'Kissed lips lose no sweetness, but renew their freshness with the moon.' Certainly if you have ever been kissed, little bud, you have lost no dew.... Delicious.... I shall hurry back." He cast a hard look down at her as she sat there, her arms drooping at her sides. He looked about the room as if consideringly, then nodded at an unseen door at the right. "Fatima is there if you want lights or assistance.... And Alsamit, Yussuf's brother, is at the other door beyond. Do not stir, little bird. I shall be back very soon." "And he--you promised--" "I shall not hurt a hair of his head." But he was smiling evilly in the darkness as he drew shut the door and returned to the bound figure by the guarding black. For a moment he stood silent, considering, while Yussuf looked up with glistening-eyed intentness like an eager dog ready for the word of attack. Then in hasty Turkish the general gave his directions and the black nodded and strode to a portière, jerking it down, which he wrapped about Ryder's helpless form. Then he hoisted his burden over his huge shoulder and bore it on after the general. Across the great room they went and down the long stairs up which that day a most complacent Hamdi Bey had escorted his just-glimpsed bride. Now at the bottom of the stairs a shadowy figure of a sleeping eunuch was stretched. Hamdi Bey spoke sharply, giving a quick order. The black scrambled to his feet, yawned, nodded, and strode away into the main vestibule and out into the garden to investigate a shadow which the general had just reported, and when he was out of sight the general and Yussuf, with his unwieldy burden, came quietly down the stairs and turned back into a long, dark hall. For a moment they paused outside a wide, many-columned banqueting room, and there Hamdi Bey stood listening, straining attentive ears for the faint sounds from the service quarters on the other side of the room. He caught the guttural of a half inaudible voice, and the wash of water and clink of a dish, showing that the belated work of the reception was going draggingly on, but it was all far away and invisible. Satisfied he went on a few steps to a pointed door set in the heavy stone. From a nail he took down a lantern of heavy, fretted brass and lighted it, not without some difficulty, for his hands were still trembling. Then he took from the black a cumbersome key which he fitted into the lock and turned heavily. Drawing back the door he motioned Yussuf ahead, and followed, drawing the door shut. Down a steep, stone spiral stair they went, and at the bottom, at the general's order, the black set Ryder down from his shoulder and flung aside the portière.