“I must see this Khadija,” said Georgia to herself, as her eyes wandered over the desert, “and find out whether anything will induce her to sell her secret. I might introduce myself to her as a sister in the craft--Abd-ur-Rahim and his men would bear me out--and suggest an interchange of ideas. There must be quite a number of things I could tell her, and I could set her up with a few medicines. The effects would be wonderful to her. But then, she might not care for remedies, and I am certainly not going to put more poisons into her hands. I fancy that killing is more in her line than curing. What was it that Rahah told me she said when a girl asked her for a love-philtre? ‘I shall make no love-philtre but one, and that will be for my Rose of the World to give her bridegroom on the marriage-night.’ I’m afraid she would not care about the opportunity of doing kindnesses. She must be fond of the girl Zeynab--perhaps it might be possible to work upon her feelings through her. At any rate, I must see her; but how am I to manage it? Dick would be very angry if I went without telling him, and yet I am sure he would prevent my going if he knew of it. But I will go, even if I have to break with Dick about it. To leave Sir Dugald to die, and make Lady Haigh a widow, when I knew where the remedy was to be found, just for fear of vexing Dick, would be shameful. I shall be obliged to oppose him some day, and it is a good thing to do it for the first time in such an absolutely righteous cause. There can be no doubt whatever as to my being in the right this time, but I’m sure he won’t see it. I do wish people would be a little more reasonable!” She was tapping her stethoscope impatiently against the stones as she spoke, and it slipped suddenly from her fingers and rolled over the edge of the parapet. Looking after it, she saw that, instead of dropping or rolling down into the plain, as she had expected, it had lodged on a projection in the cliff, not more than twenty feet below the parapet, where a few tufts of withered-looking grass had found holding-ground. Still, it was quite beyond her power to reach it. “How careless of me!” she said, with deep vexation. “My dear old hospital stethoscope! I wonder whether it could be reached from here? I think a man with a rope might be able to get it. How much astonished Dick would be if I asked him to go down for it! I wonder whether he would go? He would send one of the servants, I should think. It would be quite easy to let him down and draw him up again. What a convenient little shelf that is! It would be rather a good place to put the treaty in, for if they catch Mr Anstruther and find he has not got it, they may come back and make another search. I wonder whether it would be safe? I don’t think the cover would show among that grass.” Leaning over the parapet, she scanned the face of the cliff, and raised herself to her former position with some disappointment.