It was necessary to dismount in the courtyard, and to ascend to the Governor’s palace by a winding path cut in the rock and varied by several flights of steps. There was considerable difficulty in conveying Sir Dugald’s litter up this path, and what remained of the luggage had also to be carried up piece by piece, at a large expenditure of time and trouble. When the palace was once reached, however, there was no fault to find with the rooms allotted to the Mission. It was evident that they had remained uninhabited for some time, and they were rather dirty, rather dilapidated, and particularly bare of furniture; but they were large and airy, and, as Stratford and Dick noticed with great satisfaction, the apartments appropriated to the ladies, which had formed part of the original harem, could only be approached by a passage from their own portion of the building. Behind, they looked out on a terrace formed by the top of the ramparts, beneath which the cliff fell steep and unbroken to the desert below. It was an alarming experience to come suddenly to the brink of this declivity, from which the unwary were protected merely by a crumbling parapet, and Rahah only consented to contemplate it when standing at least six yards from the edge, and holding firmly to her mistress’s clothes. Returning from the terrace into the harem, Georgia began to examine the waifs and strays of luggage which had been cast up with her on this hill-top. Sir Dugald had been conveyed into one of the inner rooms, and Lady Haigh, with the assistance of Chanda Lal, was engaged in making him comfortable. In the large hall, into which the other rooms opened, lay a confused heap of boxes and cases, just as they had been left by the porters who had carried them in. “Let us see what we have, Rahah,” said Georgia to her handmaid. “You had my dressing-case and my small medicine-chest on the mule with you, so they are safe, at any rate, and your own clothes too. That box there has books in it, I know, and here are our folding-chairs. I don’t see any of my clothes--any of my own things at all, in fact. I shall have to borrow some from Lady Haigh, for I see that two of her tin boxes are there. Those cases are Sir Dugald’s, of course; and now there are only these two great boxes left, marked with my name. What can they have in them? Nothing very useful, I’m afraid--no dresses, at any rate. Just borrow a hammer and chisel from Chanda Lal, Rahah. He was opening a packing-case a minute ago.” Returning quickly with the desired implements, Rahah forced open part of the lid of one of the boxes. “Medical stores!” said Georgia, bringing out a packet of cotton-wool, and a tin case containing a roll of prepared india-rubber. “I might be going to start a dispensary up here. Well, we are satisfactorily provided with medicines and surgical appliances, at any rate. Now the other box, Rahah. I only wish there was the slightest possibility of finding some of my clothes in it.”