"That is a woman, Ramûa," he whispered.
Ramûa, white to the lips, grasped his arm. "Go! Go to her, Charmides!" she responded, a breathless fear coming on her.
"What is it, Ramûa? What is thy thought?" questioned the Greek.
"I do not know. Go thou, Charmides! Haste! Haste! She falls!"
Thereupon Charmides went, slowly at first, still staring in a half-puzzled way at the little heap of bruised flesh that now lay inert upon the bricks below. Then his pace quickened, for he realized the woman's need. Along the gallery and down the stairs he ran, and then, at breakneck pace, crossed the space between the wounded creature and the door-way of the tenement. Ramûa, straining her eyes after him, saw him bend over the fallen one, and then thought that a cry came from his lips.
Hardly a cry, more a groan of utter horror it was. Charmides' heart was in his throat. For a second the blue eyes closed to shut out the pitiable sight, and then opened again upon Baba. It was Baba that lay there before him: Baba who, mangled as she was, had, in the gray dawn, crawled out from the bodies among which she lay in the temple, and since then had come upon her hands and knees, inch by inch, foot by foot, all across the Great City, to her old home, to him that stood over her now. She had allowed herself the untold luxury of unconsciousness only when the journey's end was reached, when at last she was at the door-way of the place of her early poverty, her great happiness, her life-sorrow.
Charmides knelt beside her, and, with a little quiver in which pity and fear for her were evenly mingled, lifted her in his arms. She stained his tunic with blood; but presently he perceived that this blood was not all Baba's own. It was caked in clots upon her torn garments; it smeared her rich sandals; it matted her hair. Yet on her body there was, so far as he could yet determine, only one wound—a deep stab in the back of her left shoulder. From this the blood had almost ceased to flow, coming only in a little trickle when she drew a longer breath than usual.
Charmides bore the light form, face downward, towards the stairs of the tenement, thinking rapidly as he went. A horrible sight, truly, to lay before Ramûa. Yet Ramûa must see it. Carry her into those rooms where Istar lay in the delirium of the plague, he dared not. Nowhere else—yes, there was one other place. There was the home of Baba's master. Should he take her there before Ramûa guessed her identity? Ribâta's house would be open to her. And yet—and yet—it was here that Baba herself had chosen to come, as she might well believe, in death. That mute appeal could not be withstood. Here, because she had asked it, she must remain.
Step by step up the stairs to the gallery he bore the pathetic burden. At the top of the flight stood Ramûa, face colorless, eyes wide with a fear that she would not admit to herself. Charmides, looking up, met the look, answered it, and saw his wife's hands go up to her head.
"Charmides! It is not—" she stopped.