There stood Alicia, trembling and perplexed, in her bridal satin, utterly alone, whilst noisy voices, both from within the fort and the adjacent native town, made her equally afraid to return to the first, or to attempt to pass through the other. The sun, now very powerful, was blazing above her, and fears of coup-de-soleil were added to other alarms. It was the most miserable moment that Alicia had ever yet known in the course of her life; never before had she experienced such a sense of helplessness and desolation.
“I must get home somehow,” she murmured, after looking again and again in every direction for her faithless kahars; “some one may attack me for the sake of my jewels, and I am so utterly unprotected! O Robin, Robin! why did you thus desert me? I must try to make my way back on foot, but not through the town, oh, not through the town, though I suppose that must be the shortest way. I must go by the road, but I am not sure in what direction our bungalow lies. How dreadful it would be should I take the wrong turn! I cannot stand still under this fiery sun. I have heard that when exposed to its heat it is safer to walk, still safer to run; but if I run I shall attract more attention, and may be but going faster away from my home. Oh, if I had only any one to protect and guide me!” exclaimed the poor young wife.
The sound of her own words seemed to reproach her for want of faith. Alicia felt that she was only craving the support of an earthly arm, and was forgetting in her terror that arm which is ever stretched out to help the servants of God. “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” flashed on the memory of Alicia. Her exclamations of distress now took the form of prayer. “Lord, save me, help me, guide me!” she repeated again and again as she sped on her way, the rough road marring her slippers, hurting and almost burning her feet. There was comfort in uttering that incoherent prayer, solace in realizing that wherever she might go there was a protecting wing above her. Alicia did not look much around her; she dreaded meeting the wondering stare of natives whom she might pass on the road. But very few people were abroad—here a wandering fakir, there two or three peasants weeding the fields on which the crops were almost ripe for the harvest, which is usually gathered in April. No one molested the poor young wanderer.
At length Alicia reached a place where the road divided. There were two paths before her, both equally dusty and glaring, and she knew not which to take. Alicia stood still, utterly perplexed. Again the prayer for guidance burst from her lips, and then she turned to the right. Before her stretched a long straight road, white with dust and glare, and bordered with cactus. On that road, to Alicia’s inexpressible joy and relief, she saw forms which she instantly recognized. Their backs were turned towards her, and they were at a considerable distance; but well did Alicia know the brown tattu on which her father-in-law was mounted; familiar and dear to her eyes was the tall form in a sun-helmet which walked at his side.
Alicia eagerly ran forward, attempting to call out as she ran; but voice and breath failed her, and she was only able to gasp out, “Harold, Harold!” in tones too feeble to reach the ear of her husband. Alicia ran on, then paused to call again, her heart beating so violently that she pressed her hand over it to still its throbbing. A third call, which rose into a cry, burst from her parched lips. At the distance which separated husband from wife it was inaudible to any but Harold; but love’s quick ear caught the sound of the dear familiar voice. Harold turned round, saw his wife, and hurried back to meet her, with an expression of surprise, anxiety, and almost terror on his pale face. Seeing Alicia alone, strangely attired and greatly excited, a horrible suspicion flashed across the young man’s mind that the effect of sunstroke had turned his poor bride’s brain. In no other way could Harold account for finding her thus—at some distance from home, unattended, arrayed in white satin, and running as if for her life. Harold hastened to meet her, and the poor frightened dove threw herself into his arms, and burst into a passionate flood of tears. This still further alarmed her husband, who mistook the expression of joy and relief for one of distress. Alicia’s face was crimson with the exertion of running in the heat, her slight frame trembled violently; but even at that moment there was a tone of triumph in her sobbed-out words, “I have it—I have it—safe in my bosom!”
“What have you, my love, my life?” asked Harold; but he did not press for a reply. His only thought was how to get his afflicted wife safe home. Mr. Hartley, who had turned to see the cause of Harold’s suddenly quitting his side, had ridden back to the spot where his son and Alicia were standing, and shared the surprise and alarm of young Hartley. The missionary threw himself off his pony with all the energy of youth, and bade Harold place Alicia upon it. The agitated girl was lifted to the saddle and supported on it by her husband, who spoke to her gentle words of soothing, as he might have done to a frightened child. Very slowly the party proceeded homewards, Harold holding a white umbrella over the head of his wife. He did not ask any questions; but as soon as the short burst of crying was over, and Alicia had recovered her breath, she was eager to recount her adventures.
“You wonder at seeing me in such a strange dress; but Robin said that my best chance of getting into the fort was to go in my wedding attire. How absurd it must look!”
“So it is Robin whom I have to thank for this!” exclaimed Harold angrily. “I shall take care not to leave you under the care of such a hare-brained mad-cap again.”
“But Robin was right, quite right!” laughed Alicia. “I did get into the fort, and I did get the locket out of the hands of the Hindu bibis!”
“What locket? you speak in riddles, my love.”