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arm. I seized it in both my rough hands.
    “They have set you a task which you fear and hate!” she faltered.
    “Aye,” I almost laughed, “but I’ll fool them yet! Zuleika, tell me — what is the meaning of all this?”
    She glanced fearfully around her.
    “I do not know all” — she hesitated — “your plight is all my fault but I — I hoped — Steephen, I have watched you every time you came to Yun Shatu’s for months. You did not see me but I saw you, and I saw in you, not the broken sot your rags proclaimed, but a wounded soul, a soul bruised terribly on the ramparts of life. And from my heart I pitied you. Then when Hassim abused you that day” — again tears started to her eyes — “I could not bear it and I knew how you suffered for want of hashish. So I paid Yun Shatu, and going to the Master I — I — oh, you will hate me for this!” she sobbed.
    “No — no — never —”
    “I told him that you were a man who might be of use to him and begged him to have Yun Shatu supply you with what you needed. He had already noticed you, for his is the eye of the slaver and all the world is his slave market! So he bade Yun Shatu do as I asked; and now — better if you had remained as you were, my friend.”
    “No! No!” I exclaimed. “I have known a few days of regeneration, even if it was false! I have stood before you as a man, and that is worth all else!”
    And all that I felt for her must have looked forth from my eyes, for she dropped hers and flushed. Ask me not how love comes to a man; but I knew that I loved Zuleika — had loved this mysterious oriental girl since first I saw her — and somehow I felt that she, in a measure, returned my affection. This realization made blacker and more barren the road I had chosen; yet — for pure love must ever strengthen a man — it nerved me to what I must do.
    “Zuleika,” I said, speaking hurriedly, “time flies and there are things I must learn; tell me — who are you and why do you remain in this den of Hades?”
    “I am Zuleika — that is all I know. I am Circassian by blood and birth; when I was very little I was captured in a Turkish raid and raised in a Stamboul harem; while I was yet too young to marry, my master gave me as a present to — to Him .”
    “And who is he — this skull-faced man?”
    “He is Kathulos of Egypt — that is all I know. My master.”
    “An Egyptian? Then what is he doing in London — why all this mystery?”
    She intertwined her fingers nervously.
    “Steephen, please speak lower; always there is someone listening everywhere. I do not know who the Master is or why he is here or why he does these things. I swear by Allah! If I knew I would tell you. Sometimes distinguished-looking men come here to the room where the Master receives them — not the room where you saw him — and he makes me dance before them and afterward flirt with them a little. And always I must repeat exactly what they say to me. That is what I must always do — in Turkey, in the Barbary States, in Egypt, in France and in England. The Master taught me French and English and educated me in many ways himself. He is the greatest sorcerer in all the world and knows all ancient magic and everything.”
    “Zuleika,” I said, “my race is soon run, but let me get you out of this — come with me and I swear I’ll get you away from this fiend!”
    She shuddered and hid her face.
    “No, no, I cannot!”
    “Zuleika,” I asked gently, “what hold has he over you, child — dope also?”
    “No, no!” she whimpered. “I do not know — I do not know — but I cannot — I never can escape him!”
    I sat, baffled for a few moments; then I asked, “Zuleika, where are we right now?”
    “This building is a deserted storehouse back of the Temple of Silence.”
    “I thought so. What is in the chests in the tunnel?”
    “I do not know.”
    Then suddenly she began weeping softly. “You too, a slave, like me — you who are so strong and