What did it mean--that sudden silence? Had they suffocated the poor girl, or had they slain her by some more sudden and deadly stroke? Helen tried hard to maintain her composure; but her dread increased, and she tottered back to the mats that served her for a couch, to sink down, trembling in every limb. It was a terrible ordeal, and the more she realised the horrors of her position the more deeply she regretted her conduct to Murad. For evidently beneath his thin veneer of European manners the Rajah was a remorseless Eastern tyrant, ready to do anything--to sacrifice anything to obtain his wishes. Unknowingly, or rather carelessly, and with her customary indifference, she had made this man her determined pursuer; and as she thought this, she turned faint, feeling that her position was hopeless in the extreme; and for the moment she felt as if she would go mad. A violent flood of tears relieved her overburdened brain, and at last she sat up, thinking of her chances of escape, and wondering whether she had let her imagination run riot, and the girl was after all only in a fresh place of confinement. She decided to take this hopeful view of the case; and feeling better, her eyes lit upon the food that had been brought in, and of which she partook, not so much from choice as from a belief in its being necessary for her strength, which she feared might fail her at any time, perhaps in the direst moment of her need. Seating herself, then, beside the food, she was trying to eat, when the door was again opened, and one of the women entered quietly, bearing a lighted English lamp. Helen eagerly questioned her respecting her late companion; but the woman either did not or professed not to understand, merely placing the tall lamp upon a mat on the floor, and hurrying away, seeming as it were to disappear in the gloom on the other side of the lamp, and directly after she heard the door close. She sat listening, but all was very still. The sun had sunk, and the darkness was coming on so rapidly that she felt thankful for the lamp; and then she turned longingly towards the water and wine that had been brought to her, but which she shrank from touching lest they should happen to contain some drug. Her thirst seemed to increase at the very sight of the drinking-vessels; and the more she tried wrench away her eyes, the more they sought the large native bottles and cups. "I cannot bear it!" she panted at last, and bending down, she took the vessel containing the water, poured some out, and after tasting it suspiciously, with her throat growing parched with intense longing, she felt satisfied that the water was pure, and drank a long and hearty draught. She set the cup down with a sigh of pleasure; and then her blood ran cold, for her sigh seemed to be echoed from out of the gloom near the door.