"Besides--I warn you! You tell Kagig anything against me an' Kagig
is at once your enemy!"
I nodded, and tried to look afraid. Perhaps the speculation that
the last boast started in my mind helped give me a look that
convinced her.
Fred began calling again.
"You go!" she ordered imperiously, with a last effort to impress
me with her mental predominance. "Go quickly!"
I made motions of hand and face as nearly suggestive of underhanded
cunning as I could compass, and climbed out through the window without
further invitation. Seeing me emerge, Fred beckoned from fifty yards
away and turned his back. Morning was just beginning to descend
into the valley, suddenly bright from having finished all the dawn
delays among the crags higher up; but there were deep shadows here
and especially where one roof overhung another.
Jumping from roof to roof to follow Fred, I was suddenly brought
up short by a figure in shadow that gesticulated wildly without
speaking. It was below me, in a narrow, shallow runway between
two houses, and I had been so impressed by my interview with Maga
that assassination was the first thought ready to mind. I sprang
aside and tried to check myself, missed footing, and fell into the
very runway I had tried to avoid.
A friend unmistakable, Anna--Gloria's self-constituted maid--ran
out of the darkest shadow and kept me from scrambling to my feet.
"Wait!" she whispered. "Don't be seen talking to me. Listen!"
My ankle pained considerably and I was out of breath. I was willing
enough to lie there.
"Maga has made a plot to betray Zeitoon! She has been talking with
that Turkish colonel who was captured. I don't know what the plot
is, but I listened through a chink in the wall of the prison, and
I heard him promise that she should have Will Yerkes!"
"What else did you hear?"
"Nothing else. There was wind whistling, and the straw made a noise."
At that moment Fred chose to turn his head to see whether I was
following. Not seeing me, he came back over the roofs, shouting
to know what had happened. I got to my feet but, although he hardly
looks the part, he is as active as a boy, and he had scrambled to
a higher roof that commanded a view of my runway before my twisted
ankle would permit me to escape.
"So that's it, eh? A woman!"
"Keep an eye on Miss Gloria!" I whispered to Anna, and she ducked
and ran.
If I had had presence of mind I would have accepted the insinuation,
and turned the joke on Fred. Instead, I denied it hotly like a fool,
and nothing could have fed the fires of his spirit of raillery
more surely.
"I've unearthed a plot," I began, limping along beside him.
"No, sir! It was I who unearthed the two of you!"
"See here, Fred--"
"Look? I'd be ashamed! No, no--I wasn't looking!"
"Fred, I'm serious!"
"Entanglements with women are always serious!"
"I tell you, that girl Maga--"
"Two of 'em, eh? Worser and worser! You'll have Will jealous into
the bargain!"
"Have it your own way, then!" I said, savage with pain (and the reasons
he did not hesitate to assign to my strained ankle were simply
scandalous). "I'll wait until I find a man with honest ears."
"Try Kagig!" he advised me dryly.
And Kagig I did try. We came on him at our end of the bridge that
overhung the Jihun River. Our party were waiting on the far side,
and Fred hurried over to join them. Kagig was listening to the reports
of a dozen men, and while I waited to get his ear I could see Fred
telling his great joke to the party. It was easy to see that Gloria
Vanderman did not enjoy the joke; nor did I blame her. I did not
blame her for sending word there and then to Anna that her services
would not be required any more.
As soon as Kagig saw me he dismissed the other men in various directions
and made to start across the bridge. I called to him to wait, and
walked beside him.
"I've uncovered a plot, Kagig," I began. "Maga Jhaere has been talking
with the Turkish prisoner."
"I know it. I sent her to talk with him!"
"She has bargained with him to betray Zeitoon!"
For answer to that Kagig turned his head and stared sharply at me--then
went off into peals of diabolic laughter. He had not a word
to offer. He simply utterly, absolutely, unqualifiedly disbelieved
me--or else chose to have it appear so.
Chapter Eighteen
"Per terram et aquam."