He tore aside the clinging
vines and fronds, and his breath sucked in at the sight of a heavy iron
door set in the narrow mouth that opened in the granite wall. McGrath's fingers were trembling as they swept over the metal, and
behind him he could hear Ali breathing heavily. Some of the white man's
excitement had imparted itself to the Arab. McGrath's hands found the
three knobs, forming the apices of a triangle--mere protuberances,
not apparent to the sight. Controlling his jumping nerves, he pressed
them as Ballville had instructed him, and felt each give slightly at
the third pressure. Then, holding his breath, he grasped the bar that
was welded in the middle of the door, and pulled. Smoothly, on oiled
hinges, the massive portal swung open. They looked into a wide tunnel that ended in another door, this a
grille of steel bars. The tunnel was not dark; it was clean and roomy,
and the ceiling had been pierced to allow light to enter, the holes
covered with screens to keep out insects and reptiles. But through the
grille he glimpsed something that sent him racing along the tunnel, his
heart almost bursting through his ribs. Ali was close at his heels. *       *       *       *       *

The grille-door was not locked. It swung outward under his fingers. He
stood motionless, almost stunned with the impact of his emotions. His eyes were dazzled by a gleam of gold; a sunbeam slanted down
through the pierced rock roof and struck mellow fire from the glorious
profusion of golden hair that flowed over the white arm that pillowed
the beautiful head on the carved oak table. "_Constance!_" It was a cry of hunger and yearning that burst from his
livid lips. Echoing the cry, the girl started up, staring wildly, her hands at her
temples, her lambent hair rippling over her shoulders. To his dizzy
gaze she seemed to float in an aureole of golden light. "Bristol! Bristol McGrath!" she echoed his call with a haunting,
incredulous cry. Then she was in his arms, her white arms clutching him
in a frantic embrace, as if she feared he were but a phantom that might
vanish from her. For the moment the world ceased to exist for Bristol McGrath. He might
have been blind, deaf and dumb to the universe at large. His dazed
brain was cognizant only of the woman in his arms, his senses drunken
with the softness and fragrance of her, his soul stunned with the
overwhelming realization of a dream he had thought dead and vanished
for ever. When he could think consecutively again, he shook himself like a man
coming out of a trance, and stared stupidly around him. He was in a
wide chamber, cut in the solid rock. Like the tunnel, it was illumined
from above, and the air was fresh and clean. There were chairs,
tables and a hammock, carpets on the rocky floor, cans of food and a
water-cooler. Ballville had not failed to provide for his captive's
comfort. McGrath glanced around at the Arab, and saw him beyond the
grille. Considerately he had not intruded upon their reunion. "Three years!" the girl was sobbing. "Three years I've waited. I knew
you'd come! I knew it! But we must be careful, my darling. Richard will
kill you if he finds you--kill us both!" "He's beyond killing anyone," answered McGrath. "But just the same,
we've got to get out of here." Her eyes flared with new terror. "Yes! John De Albor! Ballville was afraid of him. That's why he locked
me in here. He said he'd sent for you. I was afraid for you----"

"Ali!" McGrath called. "Come in here. We're getting out of here now,
and we'd better take some water and food with us. We may have to hide
in the swamps for----"

Abruptly Constance shrieked, tore herself from her lover's arms. And
McGrath, frozen by the sudden, awful fear in her wide eyes, felt
the dull jolting impact of a savage blow at the base of his skull. Consciousness did not leave him, but a strange paralysis gripped him. He dropped like an empty sack on the stone floor and lay there like a
dead man, helplessly staring up at the scene which tinged his brain
with madness--Constance struggling frenziedly in the grasp of the man
he had known as Ali ibn Suleyman, now terribly transformed. The man had thrown off his turban and glasses. And in the murky whites
of his eyes, McGrath read the truth with its grisly implications--the
man was not an Arab. He was a negroid mixed breed. Yet some of his
blood must have been Arab, for there was a slightly Semitic cast to his
countenance, and this cast, together with his oriental garb and his
perfect acting of his part, had made him seem genuine. But now all this
was discarded and the negroid strain was uppermost; even his voice,
which had enunciated the sonorous Arabic, was now the throaty gutturals
of the negro. "You've killed him!" the girl sobbed hysterically, striving vainly to
break away from the cruel fingers that prisoned her white wrists. "He's not dead yet," laughed the octoroon. "The fool quaffed drugged
brandy--a drug found only in the Zambebwei jungles. It lies inactive in
the system until made effective by a sharp blow on a nerve center." "Please do something for him!" she begged. The fellow laughed brutally. "Why should I? He has served his purpose. Let him lie there until the
swamp insects have picked his bones. I should like to watch that--but
we will be far away before nightfall." His eyes blazed with the bestial
gratification of possession. The sight of this white beauty struggling
in his grasp seemed to rouse all the jungle lust in the man. McGrath's
wrath and agony found expression only in his bloodshot eyes. He could
not move hand or foot. "It was well I returned alone to the Manor," laughed the octoroon. "I
stole up to the window while this fool talked with Richard Ballville. The thought came to me to let him lead me to the place where you were
hidden. It had never occurred to me that there was a hiding-place in
the swamp. I had the Arab's coat, slippers and turban; I had thought I
might use them sometime. The glasses helped, too. It was not difficult
to make an Arab out of myself. This man had never seen John De Albor. I was born in East Africa and grew up a slave in the house of an
Arab--before I ran away and wandered to the land of Zambebwei. "But enough. We must go. The drum has been muttering all day. The
blacks are restless. I promised them a sacrifice to Zemba. I was
going to use the Arab, but by the time I had tortured out of him the
information I desired, he was no longer fit for a sacrifice. Well, let
them bang their silly drum. They'd like to have _you_ for the Bride of
Zemba, but they don't know I've found you. I have a motor-boat hidden
on the river five miles from here----"

"You fool!" shrieked Constance, struggling passionately. "Do you think
you can carry a white girl down the river, like a slave?" "I have a drug which will make you like a dead woman," he said. "You
will lie in the bottom of the boat, covered by sacks.