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"Suppose we go into the hotel and have late tea, Mlle. Dorian." "Yes. Very well. But please do not call me that. It is not my name." Stuart was on the point of saying, "Zara el-Khala then," but checked himself in the nick of time. He might hold communication with the enemy, but at least he would give away no information. "I am called Miska," she added. "Will you please call me Miska?"
A muffled report came, a flash out of the blackness of the river tunnel, and a bullet passed through the end of the cabinet upon which his hand was resting, smashing an ivory statuette and shattering the glass. Hurriedly he slid the cabinet into place again and stood with his back to it, arms outstretched. "Miska!" he said and a note of yet deeper despair had crept into the harsh voice.
I beg pardon, Lieutenant " Miska begged, and very, very gently stroked his master's quivering knees with his big hard palms. But Lieutenant Kadar heard him not. Neither did he feel the heavy hand resting on his knees. For, opposite him, young Meltzar was still sitting with a flat, black, round head on his neck on which the Rakoczy March was ingraved in spirals.
"This is unbearable!" cried a Major, who had been severely wounded, from the other end of the long ward. "Carry the man out." But the Major spoke German, and Miska was more than ever at sea.
You didn't come across such a kind-hearted master twice in your life. The many, many slices of salami that the Lieutenant always had given him from his own store of provisions, the gentle, cordial words that Miska had heard him whisper to every wounded man all the memories of the long, bloody months he had gone through dully beside his master almost like a comrade, rose to his mind.
Dusk had drawn a grey mantle over the East-End streets when Miska, discharging the cab in which she had come from Victoria, hurried furtively along a narrow alley tending Thamesward. Unconsciously she crossed a certain line a line invisible except upon a map of London which lay upon the table of the Assistant Commissioner in New Scotland Yard the line forming the "red circle" of M. Gaston Max.
"Ah!" cried Max "'The Scorpion. Chunda Lal, for some obscure personal reason, not entirely unconnected with Miska, enabled me to make my escape in order that I might lead you to the house. Therefore we may look upon Chunda Lal, as well as Miska, in the light of an accomplice " "Eh, bien! a spy in the camp!
No! for me do not fear. I put the keys back and he will think you have opened the lock by some trick " "Miska!" "Oh, no more!" She slipped from his arms, crossed and reopened the lacquered door, revealing a corridor dimly lighted. Stuart followed and looked along the corridor. "Right to the end," she whispered, "and down the steps.
Suddenly he dropped upon one knee before her, took her hand and kissed it, gently. "I am your slave," he said, his voice shaken with emotion. "For myself I ask nothing only your pity." He rose, opened the door by which Miska had entered the room and went down into the cellars. She watched him silently, half fearfully, yet her eyes were filled with compassionate tears.
I shall know that you are near me, if " "And then?" "I will ask your aid." Her voice was very low. "And if it is written that I succeed?" Miska averted her head. "Oh, Chunda Lal ... I cannot." She hid her face in her hands. Chunda Lal stood watching her for a moment in silence, then he turned toward the cellar door, and then again to Miska.
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