Trembling, Ahalya submitted; and, as Fidá rose, she sank upon the divan, face downward, nor could any intreaty induce her to lift her head again. So they parted, without a word; and, at the zenana door, Fidá found Churi, excited and uneasy. He hailed the Asra’s appearance with infinite relief. “Mahendra will be here in a breath. I had nearly come for thee.” Fidá smiled at him out of shining eyes. “Ah, Churi, had I a thousand rubies, they should all be thine!” “Thou fool!” rose to Churi’s lips. But he only said: “Verily, the danger is worth rubies, even of the value of thine. Is this thing to be done again?” “Again and yet again! until—” Fidá’s face darkened, “until I pay my price—of death.” But Fidá as yet was far from death. Overcome with weariness he returned to his bed, and slept for nearly six hours before he woke to the new joy of light and living. That day he was as a man drunk. His exhilaration was boundless. He walked upon air. His eyes shone, his voice rang triumphant with love. The world was at its climax. She was his. What mattered dishonor? What mattered treachery, slavery, or the old, forgotten curse? Love, youth, the world, were his. Should he ask more? With the evening came his answer. With all this, he had still little enough; for the King ruled in his zenana, and Fidá began to know something of the sinner’s suffering. She was beyond the protection of him to whom by right of soul she belonged. She was beyond him; and yet, second by second, he must suffer for and with her. He wept and raved and clenched his shaking hands in the madness of jealousy at this retribution of the wrong he had done. In the new day, as he came to gaze upon the tranquil face of his conqueror, his whole being was stirred with wonder that such things as were in his heart could lie there unsuspected. But Rai-Khizar-Pál could not know the heart of his slave, nor how, with night, hope came again. As soon as Churi went on guard at midnight, Fidá appeared in the antechamber, unstrung and reckless. He would have rushed past the eunuch without a word, but that he was forcibly restrained. This action, on the part of his one ally, goaded Fidá fairly to madness; and, without speaking, he flung himself into a fierce struggle with the eunuch, whose strength, however, he presently discovered to be very great. When both of them were all but exhausted, the Asra, coming to himself, fell back, staring hopelessly at his opponent, and murmuring, more to himself than to Churi: “Thou traitor! Oh, miserable! Have I sold my birthright for this!” “Madman!” retorted Churi, “thinkest thou there is no reason in what I do? I serve our lady. She bade me deny thee entrance.” “It is not true!” “By Krishna, I swear it.” “Ahalya!” Fidá’s face grew deathlike. “Neila came to me at dusk. The Ranee is sick and shaken with grief and fear. Thou canst not see her—yet.” “_Yet!_”