With a quick, sudden movement, Alicia drew off the jewel, and flung it from her in the direction farthest from the door by which she had entered. It was a bait, and it took. Every one made a rush in that direction. Alicia was free—released from the grasping hands which had held her as in a vice. She took advantage of the moment, and rushed to the door which opened on the stair without stopping to say salám. She would have forgotten to snatch up her umbrella had she not intuitively seized on it as a weapon of defence. Alicia rushed so hurriedly down the stair that she nearly fell in her haste. She could hear the bibis above quarrelling over the jewel which she had flung away, which all coveted, but only one could possess. As Alicia, panting with excitement and heat, sped first across the inner then the outer court-yard, she thrust her prize—black locket and dirty rag—within the body of her bridal dress above her heart, she was so much afraid that in her haste she should drop that which had cost her so dear. Alicia’s troubles were not ended even when with a sense of relief she passed through the second door and found herself outside the fort. There was her little doli indeed in the place where she had left it, but to her utter dismay Alicia could see neither Robin nor the kahars. Where could they be? In vain the lady called aloud, in vain she gazed from side to side; no one replied, and no one appeared. “What on earth shall I do!” exclaimed the poor girl. “I cannot possibly return home with no one to carry me.” There stood Alicia, trembling and perplexed, in her bridal satin, utterly alone, whilst noisy voices, both from within the fort and the adjacent native town, made her equally afraid to return to the first, or to attempt to pass through the other. The sun, now very powerful, was blazing above her, and fears of _coup-de-soleil_ were added to other alarms. It was the most miserable moment that Alicia had ever yet known in the course of her life; never before had she experienced such a sense of helplessness and desolation. “I must get home somehow,” she murmured, after looking again and again in every direction for her faithless kahars; “some one may attack me for the sake of my jewels, and I am so utterly unprotected! O Robin, Robin! why did you thus desert me? I must try to make my way back on foot, but not through the town, oh, not through the town, though I suppose that must be the shortest way. I must go by the road, but I am not sure in what direction our bungalow lies. How dreadful it would be should I take the wrong turn! I cannot stand still under this fiery sun. I have heard that when exposed to its heat it is safer to walk, still safer to run; but if I run I shall attract more attention, and may be but going faster away from my home. Oh, if I had only any one to protect and guide me!” exclaimed the poor young wife.