“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. There’ll be fun presently which I don’t want to miss.”
“It was the black woman who knifed our friend Rufus, wasn’t it—in the theatre there?” asked the third soldier.
“They say so; but as he was trodden as flat as a roof-board, and they had to take him up in pieces, it is difficult to know the truth of that matter. Anyhow his mates are anxious to get the lady, and I should be sorry to die as she will, when they do, or her mistress either. They have leave to finish them in their own fashion.”
“Hadn’t we best be going?” said the first soldier, who evidently was anxious to keep some appointment.
“Hullo!” exclaimed the second, a sharp-eyed fellow, “there’s a stair; we had better just look up it.”