What now followed she could not see. It was all the work of a moment. But the next instant she saw the elder man raise his arm as if to strike with his dagger. Tristan staggered and fell, and the other was about to strike him through when, with a wild, frantic outcry of terror, she rushed between them, arresting the blow ere it could fall. "Hellayne!" A cry in which Tristan's smothered feelings broke through every restraint winged itself from the mouth of the fallen man. "Tristan!" came the hysterical response. Roger had hurled his wife aside, his eyes flaming like live coals under their bushy brows. Those whom Hellayne had summoned to Tristan's aid, when she first arrived on the scene of the conflict, unacquainted with the cause of the quarrel and doubtful which side to aid, stood idly by, since with Tristan's fall there seemed to be no farther demand for their services, nor did Roger's towering stature invite interference. In the heat of the conflict with its attendant turmoil none of those immediately concerned had remarked a procession approaching from the distance which now emerged from the shadow of the great arch into the moonlit thoroughfare. It was headed by four giant Nubians, carrying a litter on silver poles, from between the half-shut silken curtains of which peered the face of a woman. In its wake marched a score of Ethiopians in fantastic livery, their broad, naked scimitars glistening ominously in the moonlight. The litter and its escort arrived but just in time. Ere Laval's blade could pierce the heart of his prostrate victim, Theodora had leaped from her litter and thrown her saffron scarf over the prostrate youth. With all the outlines of her beautiful form revealed through the thin robe of spangled gauze she faced the irate aggressor and her voice cut like steel as she said: "Dare to touch him beneath this scarf! This man is mine." Laval drew back, but his glaring eyes, his parted lips and his labored breath argued little in favor of the fallen man, even though the blow was, for the moment, averted. With foam-flecked lips he turned to Theodora. "This man is mine! His life is forfeit. Stand back, that I may wipe this blot from my escutcheon." Theodora faced the speaker undauntedly. Ere he could reply, a woman's voice shrieked. "Save him! Save him! He is innocent! He has done naught amiss!" Hellayne, whom the Count had hurled against the masonry of the arch, bruising her until she was barely able to support herself, at this moment threw herself between them. [Illustration: "Thrown her saffron scarf over the prostrate youth"] "Who is this woman?" Theodora turned to Tristan's assailant. "Who is this woman?" Hellayne's eyes silently questioned Tristan. Laval's sardonic laughter pealed through the silence.