Alfieri almost screeched the words. He was in a frenzy of passion. This woman had ever the power to drive him beyond bounds. He hated her now with an intensity born of derided love. The Governor would have stormed at him, but Mrs. Haxton accepted the challenge too promptly. "I admit nothing," she cried with a sudden shrillness. "If admissions are necessary I shall wait until Abdullah confronts you. Then, when I have told my story, he shall tell his." "Who cares for Abdullah!" came the retort. "Not I. It is well, indeed, to appeal to the testimony of an unknown Arab." "You shall have the opportunity of refuting him," said. Mrs. Haxton. "He is in Massowah. But that is a question for such tribunal as may exist in this lawless town. Your Excellency's decision is final?" she added, turning to the Governor. "Absolutely irrevocable, signora. You see how it stands--my orders are explicit." "Their explicitness is as nothing compared to the clearness of the next mandate you will receive from Rome," she blazed out. "Was it according to your orders that an English lady was carried off by brigands, simply to glut the vengeance of my discarded Beppo? You spoke of confederates, Signor Marchetti. What of the confederacy that permits this man to be your guest while your officers are making mock search for him in the bazaar? Your judges, even such as they are, will laugh him out of court when he tries to substantiate the charge he has brought against Baron von Kerber. Poor, love-sick fool!--to gratify his spite he attacks his rival with false evidence rather than let it be known that a woman twisted him round her little finger. Look at him now; he would strike me dead, if he dared; but he cannot answer me." Alfieri leaped to his feet. His voice rose to a cracked falsetto. "You hear, you hear!" was his cry. "She robbed me of the papyrus, yet boasts of it. She is a thief, self-confessed." Mrs. Haxton also sprang up. Her physical dread of the man had yielded to the triumph of having cornered him. "Truly I hope his Excellency hears," she said. "If I am to blame for the loss of your papers, why is Baron von Kerber in prison on your testimony?" "You are both in league," he almost screamed. "I was blind, infatuated, at Assouan. It was the Austrian who planned my undoing, and you, his paramour, who cajoled me out of my senses." "I refuse to stay here and be insulted by such a coward," she said, gathering her skirts as though she intended to take her departure instantly. "But it will be a fine story that Signor Fenshawe cables from Aden when he tells how the Governor of Massowah aided and abetted this half-crazy poltroon in onslaughts on defenseless women. It was not enough that Italian law should be misused to further his ends, but the scum of the bazaar is enlisted under his banner, and he is supported by the authorities in an act that would be reprobated by any half-savage state in existence."