Drink!" and she held the water to her lips.
Rachel obeyed her eagerly.

"Oh! it is good," she said.

"But how came we here out of that rushing crowd ?" Before she answered, muttering "After the mistress, the maid," Nehushta swallowed a deep draught of water in her turn, which, indeed, she needed sorely.

Then she told her all.
"Oh! Nou," said Rachel, "how strong and brave you are! But for you I should be dead." "But for God, you mean, mistress, for I hold that He sent that knife-point home." "Did you kill the man ?" asked Rachel.
"I think that he died by a dagger-thrust as Anna foretold," she answered evasively; "and that reminds me that I had better clean the knife, since blood on the blade is evidence against its owner." Then drawing the dagger from its hiding-place she rubbed it with dust, which she took from a loop-hole, and polished it bright with a piece of hide.
Scarcely was this task accomplished to Nehushta's satisfaction when her quick ears caught a sound.
"For your life, be silent," she whispered, and laid her face sideways to a crack in the cement floor and listened.

Well might she listen, for below were three soldiers searching for her and her mistress.
"The old fellow swore that he saw a Libyan woman carrying a lady down this street," said one of them, the petty officer in charge, to his companion, "and there was but a single brown-skin in the lot; so if they aren't here I don't know where they can be." "Well," grumbled one of the soldiers, "this place is as empty as a drum, so we may as well be going.