Geoffrey looked from one to the other for explanation.

"Won't you tell me what has happened?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact, nothing has happened," Ralph replied. "A little time ago Tchigorsky outlined a bold stroke on the part of the foe. He suggested that it was possible, without removing a single bolt or bar, to spirit away one of the family, who would never be heard of again. Tchigorsky was making no prophesy; he was speaking from knowledge. Well, the attempt has been made and it has failed."

"Who was the victim, uncle?"

"Your cousin, Vera. Sit down, my boy; if you go plunging about like that you will ruin everything. Did I not tell you that the attempt had been made and had failed? Vera is safe for a long time to come."

Geoffrey dropped into his seat again.

"How did you manage it, uncle?" he asked.

Ralph gave the details. He told the story dryly.

"So I not only prevented the dastardly attempt to carry Vera away," he concluded, "but I baffled the foe altogether. There was not the slightest suspicion that I was on the stairs except by the merest accident."

"But you say that Marion was with Vera?"

"She was. That nimble wit of hers led her to suspect danger. But Marion could not have averted the tragedy. A slender girl like her could have done nothing against a strong and determined foe. If necessary, she would have been carried off and they would have killed two birds with one stone."

Geoffrey shuddered. He was sick of the whole business. For the moment he was a prey to utter despair. It seemed hopeless to fight against a foe like this, a foe striking in the dark and almost moving invisibly.

"Some one ought to watch that room," he said.

"It is unnecessary. I am supposed to be sleeping close by. Already the foe has learned that I slumber with one eye open. Don't be cast down, Geoffrey. Two more of the enemy are on their way to Yorkshire, and when they are here the mouth of the net is going to close. I pledge you my word that no further harm shall come to anybody. And Tchigorsky will say the same."

"On my head be it," Tchigorsky muttered. He twisted a cigarette dexterously with his long fingers.

"There is nothing to fear," he said, "nothing with ordinary vigilance. The danger will come when the time for defence has passed and it is our turn to attack. Then there will be danger for the three of us here. Shall we go to bed?"

"I could not sleep for a king's ransom," said Geoffrey.

"Then we will chat and smoke awhile," said Tchigorsky. "If you like, I will go on with the history of our adventures in Lassa."

Geoffrey assented eagerly. Tchigorsky proceeded in a whirl of cigarette smoke.

"We knew we were doomed. We could see our fate in those smiling, merciless eyes. That woman had lived among civilized people; she knew Western life; she had passed in Society almost for an Englishwoman.

"But she was native at heart; all her feelings were with her people. All the past could not save us. She meant us to die, and die with the most horrible torture under her very own eyes. Her life in India was a masquerade—this was her real existence.

"'You fancy you are the first,' she said. 'Did you ever know a Russian traveler, Voski by name? He was very like you.'

"I recollected the man. I had met him years before, and had discussed this very Lassa trip.

"'Yes,' I said, for it was useless to hold up our disguises any longer. 'What of him?'

"'He came here,' the princess said. 'He learned some of our secrets. Then it was found out and he had to walk the Black Valley. He died.'

"All this was news to me. So astonished was I that I blurted out the truth. Only a year before, long after Voski was supposed to be dead, I had met him in London. When I mentioned Lassa he changed the subject and refused to continue the conversation. I fancied that he suspected me of chaffing him. Now I know that he had been through the horrors of the Black Valley and—escaped.

"The eyes of the princess blazed when she heard this. She was a wild devastating fury. It seemed almost impossible to believe that I had seen her in a tea gown at Simla, chattering Society platitudes in a white sahib's bungalow. And I bitterly regretted betraying myself, because I knew that, wherever he was, Voski would be hunted down and killed, as they were seeking to kill me, as they would slay Ralph Ravenspur, only they have not recognized him."

"Hence the changed face and the glasses?" Geoffrey asked.

"You have guessed it," said Ralph. "I did not want to be known. I am only a poor demented idiot, a fool who cumbers the ground."

"I had betrayed Voski without doing any good to myself," Tchigorsky resumed. "If any harm has come to him, I am his murderer. Presently the princess calmed down, and the old cruel mocking light came back to her eyes. We were speaking English by this time—a language utterly unknown to the awestruck, open-mouthed priests around us.

"'Let us pretend that this is my drawing room in India, and that I am entertaining you at tea,' she said. 'Later you shall know something of me in my real character. I suppose you recognized the risks that you ran?'

"'Perfectly,' I replied. 'We are going to be done to death in barbarous fashion, because we have come here and learned your secrets as your husband did.'

"I could afford this shot. I could afford to say anything. We were going to perish by a death the horror of which is beyond all words, and had I pulled the nose of the princess, had I strangled her as she sat there, the punishment could have been made no worse.

"'Take care,' she said, 'you are in my power. What do you mean?'

"'I mean that your husband penetrated the secrets of Buddha, and that you married him so as to regain those secrets. There were papers and the like, or he would merely have been assassinated in the ordinary vulgar manner, and there would have been an end of the business. Your husband has got an inkling of this and that is why he has hidden the documents and refuses to give them up; he would be murdered if he did.'

"'You are a bold man,' the princess said.

"'Not at all,' I replied. 'A man can only die once. Would you say that the condemned murderer was rash for attempting to pick the pocket of the gaoler, even for attempting to murder him? What I say and what I do matters nothing. And you know that I am telling the truth.'

"The princess smiled. My friend Ralph here will remember that smile."

"I could see then," Ralph muttered, "and I do remember it."

"'Very well,' the princess replied, 'you are candid and I will be the same. What you have said about my husband is perfectly true. I did marry him to recover those papers. And when I accidently let out the truth that I was not outcast of my tribe he saw his danger. He is safe till those papers are mine. And then I shall kill him.

"'And yet I love that man—I shall be desolate without him. But my religion and my people come first. For them I lose my caste, for them I degrade myself by becoming the wife of a white sahib, for them I shall eventually die. And yet I love my husband. Ay, you cannot command the human heart.'

"At this I laughed. The princess joined me.

"'You think I have no heart,' she said, 'but you are mistaken. You shall see. For the present I have my duty to perform. I do it thus.'

"She rose to her feet and clapped her hands and spoke in terse, vigorous sentences. A minute later we were bound and our disguises slipped from us. And there for the present you must be content to leave us. To-morrow I shall tell the rest."

Tchigorsky rose and yawned, but Geoffrey would fain have had more.

"The princess," he said; "at least tell me if I know her."

"Of course you do. Princess Zara is the woman who calls herself Mrs. Mona May."