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Anstice heard Iris give a faint gasp at his side; but now his blood was up and he had no tie, unexpected, had happened to him Suddenly he too was prinificently primitive Gone was all the veneer of civilization, the humanity which bids a er the educated, travelledin honourable and decorous ways He was the cave-dweller, the hold because it held his woht to the very end, and count his life well spent if it were yielded up in her service But he did not mean to die He es who clamoured without, then let red death stalk between the sword of the victor

Another fierce face at the --a pair of hawk-like eyes flashing haughty challenge, a sinewy hand raising a revolver in deliberate ai out, so swiftly that thisfrom theas one runs a film off a reel of pictures

But there were others--many others--to take his place Up and up they came till there was a whole phalanx of ene in horrid snarlsshot after shot rang out, but by marvellous luck none touched the defenders, who on their side eers couldover the sill and without atterip of iron, whose ured hi Anstice a prisoner he hoped to make opportunity for others to force an entrance; and as Anstice had involuntarily dropped the revolver as the steel-like fingers crushed his wrist, the fate of the little garrison hung, for a second, in the balance

"Iris--shoot--quick!" Quite unconscious of the name he used Anstice raised his voice in a desperate shout; and the girl heard and obeyed in the sa the revolver she had just loaded she fired once, twice, with fingers which did not even trele the Bedouin released his hold and fell back through the , dislodging theup the ladder behind hiether in a confused mass into the courtyard below