about four inches high,
lay in her hand. She held it up to the light. It was half full of a
colourless liquid like water. We read the label--"Prussic Acid. Poison";
and an ugly fear took the place of vague conjecture.

"Who has eaten this?" R. asked in scanty Arabic.

"Anna" (I), replied Tahara.

The remedy of hot boiled milk rushed into both our heads at once, but
Tahara was again beginning in a fresh agony, which was now more
persistent than only terrified; and choking off her stream of words, we
managed to gather, that what she wanted was to go herself with me into
the city, at once, to Miss Z----. Now a few drops of prussic acid of
course meant that she had not long to live, and yet there were no
symptoms of poisoning so far as we could gather at present. She might
have taken it in a diluted form certainly. The whole thing was possibly
wild imagination on her part. At any rate Miss Z---- would understand
her, and that we could not do.

I hurried on my boots, questioning as to whether the woman really meant
that S`lam had poisoned her. R. helped Tahara wind her long white woollen
haik round her. In two minutes I was ready. Tahara slipped into her
slippers, and, with the white shrouded figure clinging to me, in the
fast-deepening dusk we started.

It took fully twenty minutes to walk from Jinan Dolero to the house in
the middle of the city where the lady missionaries lived and had a
dispensary. Miss Z---- had had some medical experience, and was a clever
woman. She understood, probably as far as any European can understand,
the Moorish character; and it was with some confidence--possibly on the
part of us both--that we set out. But the way seemed lengthy; I knew that
S`lam would be there long before we could arrive: through the city there
are at least three intricate ways by which the house is reached, and my
heart sank as I reflected that there was every chance of Miss Z---- and
S`lam's taking another way than our own, and thus missing us. Meanwhile,
it was growing darker every moment. Would the city gate still be open
when we reached it? Was it not certain to be shut when we wanted to
return?

Tahara hung on to my arm and hand. There had been rain, and we both
slipped about in the dark, and splashed into unseen pools; she took off
her pink slippers and carried them in one hand, and paddled along on her
bare feet at a Moorish woman's top speed, still shaking with terror.
Three or four times, dark as it was, sh