have set a quarantine upon us!"




CHAPTER IV

A SORRY GUEST


"A quarantine?" said Arlee Beecher, in a perfectly flat little
voice.

Again the young man exercised his power of gesture, his dark eyes
seeming to plead his own helpless desire to mitigate his words.

"Truly a quarantine. It is tyranny, but what can one do? They will
hear nothing--they set their guard and it is finished--_bien
simple_. We are their prisoners."

"Prisoners?" Her mind appeared but a hollow echo of his words. Her
heart was dropping, dropping sickishly, into unending space. Then
meaning stabbed her like a dentist's needle, and a pandemonium of
incredulity and revolt clamored through every nerve in her body.
"Why you can't mean--I'm going back to the hotel this instant! I
haven't seen your servant!"

"That is nothing to them. They have no reason--heads of pigs! No one
must leave or they shoot--the tyrants, the imbecile tyrants! But
their day will not be forever--Islam will not endure----"