Khadija was vanquished. With a grunt she wrapped her head in her veil, and sat down on the floor at the head of the bed, while Georgia and Rahah proceeded with their preparations, the carved chest in which Zeynab’s best clothes were kept serving as an impromptu operating-table. The poor little patient grew paler and paler as she caught sight of one horror after another, for she insisted on raising herself on her elbow to look at everything, and demanded that Rahah should show her the instruments one by one. Georgia put a stop to this at once, but the child’s terror was already so extreme that nothing but the determination not to allow Khadija to triumph kept her from entreating the doctor lady to postpone the operation. She looked up with a pitiful smile when the chloroform was about to be administered, and seemed almost ready to beg for a respite; but Khadija was leaning forward and scanning her face keenly, on the alert to take advantage of the slightest willingness to yield, and she said with a little gasp-- “O doctor lady, I am not frightened. Go on, O girl.” But when the chloroform had taken effect, and Rahah moved aside a little to enable Georgia to reach the patient more easily, Khadija caught a glimpse of her charge and sprang up. “Thou hast killed her, O doctor lady! Alas, my Rose of the World, that thy Khadija should have given thee into the hands of the infidel!” and she was about to shake the child violently, in the hope of restoring her to consciousness; but Georgia’s patience was at an end. “Take her out,” she said sharply to Rahah, to the intense delight of the handmaiden; and before Khadija realised what was happening to her, she was outside the door, and the door was bolted on the inside, while Rahah assured her emphatically through the crack that the child was alive, and would remain so if she would only keep quiet, but that if she made any noise or disturbance the worst results might confidently be expected to ensue. Terrified by the realisation of the fact that her darling was now absolutely in the power of the strangers, Khadija crouched silently at the door and made no sign, while in the respite afforded by her exclusion from the room, Georgia, with Rahah’s assistance, performed her task speedily and successfully. The splinter was extracted and the broken bone set, after which the wound was carefully dressed, with the aid of appliances such as had never been seen in Ethiopia before, and Rahah contemplated the result with pride.