o come in. For a moment or two, after we got
her up into the room, all her old terror seemed to return; she was unable
to speak, and collapsed upon the floor--a ghastly colour. Briefly
explaining to Miss Z---- that Tahara believed herself to be poisoned, we
knelt down on the floor and examined her. There were no apparent symptoms
of poisoning--none; she was only cold and terrified beyond words. Miss
Z---- did her best to calm her, and laughed away her fears, hoping to get
rid of the state of panic which her condition suggested more than any
poisoning.

The next thing to be done was to persuade Tahara to explain matters to
Miss Z----. This might have been easy enough at Jinan Dolero with S`lam
out of the way; but here, feeling that he and Maman were under the very
windows, her terror was abject, and I almost gave up hope of getting a
syllable out of her.

We shut every window, we shut the door, we pulled down the blinds, to
satisfy her; we even stopped up the ventilation-holes; and then she still
hesitated and trembled.

At last, crouched on the floor, Miss Z---- kneeling by her, Tahara, with
her mouth at Miss Z----'s ear, murmured her tale in Arabic, while I
wished I could understand. _S`lam had given her poison. People in the
city had spoken against her and said evil things about her. S`lam was
jealous. He had been very angry. They had quarrelled, and he had poisoned
her. But he must never, never, on any account, know that she had been to
the tabiba's to tell the tale. If S`lam suspected that Tahara knew he had
tried to poison her, and had told us of it--well, her life was not worth
a flus._ Even I knew that. Then in a fresh agony of terror she crouched
on the floor. I told her to show Miss Z---- the bottle. Now to part with
the bottle, or to run the faintest risk of S`lam's seeing it, was
evidently a nightmare to the poor girl. If he ever found out that she had
taken it and brought it to Miss Z---- . . .

We wasted many precious moments in trying to persuade Tahara to take it
out of her belt, where it lay concealed, and show it to Miss Z----. She
looked at the curtains, at the door. Could S`lam possibly see? At last,
more or less by force, I got possession of it, handed it to Miss Z----
with one hand, and kept Tahara still on the floor with the other.

The stopper of the bottle, Miss Z---- thought, had a suspicious smell,
but she gave it as her verdict that the bottle itself contained nothing
but water. She recog