"Good morning," I said; "can I assist you in any way?"

She came to her feet like a startled deer, and flung away from me with
the lithe movement of some Eastern dancing-girl.

Now came the sun, and its heralding rays struck sparks from the jewels
upon the white fingers of this woman who wore the garments of a
mendicant. My heart gave a great leap. It was with difficulty that I
controlled my voice.

"There is no cause for alarm," I added.

She stood watching me; even through the coarse veil I could see how
her eyes glittered. I stooped and picked up the net.

"Oh!" The whispered word was scarcely audible; but it was enough. I
doubted no longer.

"This is a net for bird-snaring," I said. "What strange bird are you
seeking, _Kâramanèh_?"

With a passionate gesture Kâramanèh snatched off the veil, and with it
the ugly black hat. The cloud of wonderful intractable hair came
rumpling about her face, and her glorious eyes blazed out upon me. How
beautiful they were, with the dark beauty of an Egyptian night; how
often had they looked into mine in dreams!

To labour against a ceaseless yearning for a woman whom one knows, upon
evidence that none but a fool might reject, to be worthless--evil; is
there any torture to which the soul of man is subject, more pitiless?
Yet this was my lot, for what past sins assigned to me I was unable to
conjecture; and this was the woman, this lovely slave of a monster, this
creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

"I suppose you will declare that you do not know me!" I said harshly.

Her lips trembled, but she made no reply.

"It is very convenient to forget, sometimes," I ran on bitterly, then
checked myself, for I knew that my words were prompted by a feckless
desire to hear her defence, by a fool's hope that it might be an
acceptable one. I looked again at the net contrivance in my hand; it
had a strong spring fitted to it and a line attached. Quite obviously
it was intended for snaring. "What were you about to do?" I demanded
sharply; but in my heart, poor fool that I was, I found admiration for
the exquisite arch of Kâramanèh's lips, and reproach because they were
so tremulous.

She spoke then.

"Dr. Petrie--"

"Well?"

"You seem to be--angry with me, not so much because--of what I do, as
because I do not remember you. Yet--"

"Kindly do not revert to the matter," I interrupted. "You have chosen,
very conveniently, to forget that once we were friends. Please
yourself; but answer my question."

She clasped her hands with a sort of wild abandon.

"Why do you treat me so?" she cried. She had the most fascinating
accent imaginable. "Throw me into prison, kill me if you like for what
I have done!" She stamped her foot. "For what I have done! But do not
torture me, try to drive me mad with your reproaches--that I forget
you! I tell you--again I tell you--that until you came one night, last
week, to rescue some one from"--(there was the old trick of hesitating
before the name of Fu-Manchu)--"from _him_, I had never, never seen
you!"

The dark eyes looked into mine, afire with a positive hunger for
belief--or so I was sorely tempted to suppose. But the facts were
against her.

"Such a declaration is worthless," I said, as coldly as I could. "You
are a traitress; you betray those who are mad enough to trust you--"

"I am no traitress!" she blazed at me. Her eyes were magnificent.

"This is mere nonsense. You think that it will pay you better to serve
Fu-Manchu than to remain true to your friends. Your 'slavery'--for I
take it you are posing as a slave again--is evidently not very harsh.
You serve Fu-Manchu, lure men to their destruction, and in return he
loads you with jewels, lavishes gifts--"

"Ah! so!"

She sprang forward, raising flaming eyes to mine; her lips were
slightly parted. With that wild abandon which betrayed the desert
blood in her veins, she wrenched open the neck of her bodice and
slipped a soft shoulder free of the garment. She twisted around, so
that the white skin was but inches removed from me.

"These are some of the gifts that he lavishes upon me!"

I clenched my teeth. Insane thoughts flooded my mind. For that creamy
skin was wealed with the marks of the lash!

She turned, quickly rearranging her dress, and watching me the while.
I could not trust myself to speak for a moment, then--

"If I am a stranger to you, as you claim, why do you give me your
confidence?" I asked.

"I have known you long enough to trust you!" she said simply, and
turned her head aside.

"Then why do you serve this inhuman monster?"

She snapped her fingers oddly, and looked up at me from under her
lashes. "Why do you question me if you think that everything I say is
a lie?"

It was a lesson in logic--from a woman! I changed the subject.

"Tell me what you came here to do," I demanded.

She pointed to the net in my hands.

"To catch birds; you have said so yourself."

"What bird?"

She shrugged her shoulders.