“It was you who put me in the way of doing anything,” was Alicia’s reply. “I am a coward, and should never to-day have ventured into the fort at all had you not given me courage, and helped by your counsels and prayers.” “Our exotic has climbed bravely,” said Robin, glancing at his father. “Did I not foretell that it would soon smile down on us all?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XVI WATER! WATER! KRIPÁ DÉ, in the hands of his enemies, at first struggling madly, then yielding to a force which he had no power to resist, was dragged away toward the fort. As the shorter route through the town was taken, the crowd of excited Hindus around him grew larger as the party hurried on with their prey. Wild cries and howlings resounded on every side. Now and then a blow was given to the helpless captive, which made him feel sensibly how utterly he was at the mercy of superstitious fanatics, to whom breaking of caste, especially by a Brahmin, appeared a horrible crime. Kripá Dé had become an object of contempt to those who, a day before, might have fallen prostrate at his feet. The persecuted youth made no attempt to address the crowd—his voice would have been lost in the uproar; but he lifted up his heart in silent prayer. It was less a prayer for deliverance than for strength to keep faithful unto death. Kripá Dé knew that a terrible ordeal might be before him—that, once within the walls of the fort, he might have to suffer what nature shrank from, and he mistrusted his own power to endure; but the poor lad in his misery cast himself on a power greater than his own. “O Lord, let me not deny Thee! let me rather die than deny Thee!” was the converts silent but fervent supplication. It was at once the cry of fear and the prayer of faith. Not all of the excited crowd were permitted to enter the court-yard of the fort; and of those who pressed in, but few were suffered to pass the second door, which led to the women’s apartments, which formed the most private part of the building. To this part Thákar Dás resolved to take his prisoner, woman’s entreaties, reproaches, and curses being, he thought, more likely to be effectual in shaking the convert’s resolution than the threats and even the violence of man. Kripá Dé, after being rudely pushed up the steep dark stair, had on the upper platform to face the anger and the insults of the women, as well as to answer the stern interrogations of the chief of the fort. “Where have you been since you left us on pretence of making a pilgrimage?” “With friends,” replied Kripá Dé, as soon as he was able to speak. “Friends! beef-eaters! slayers of the sacred cow! Hast thou eaten with them, vile wretch? Hast thou blackened the faces of thy family, hast thou disgraced thy dead mother, and cast dust on the grave of thy father, by eating with the impure?”