When it was over, when men crowded round and dragged her enemy back, when the pressing need was past, her courage fell from her like a mantle.  She sank down upon the steps, a trembling, hysterical woman, and began to cry.

Some one bent over her, some one whispered soothing words, some one drew the revolver out of her weak grasp.  Looking up, she saw the old native beggar upon whom she had thought to bestow her charity.

“Oh, Nick!” she gasped.  “Nick!” And there stopped in sudden misgiving.  Was this grotesque figure indeed Nick?  Could it be—­this man who had sat at the Residency gates for weeks, this man to whom she had so often tossed an alms?

Her brain had begun to reel, but she clung to the central idea, as one in deep waters clinging to a spar.

“Speak to me!” she entreated.  “Only speak to me!”

But before he could answer, Bobby Fraser pushed suddenly forward, bent over, lifted her.  “You are not hurt, Miss Roscoe?” he questioned anxiously, deep concern on his kindly face.  “The damned swine didn’t touch you?  There!  Come back into the palace.  You’re the bravest girl I ever met.”

He began to help her up the steps, but though she was spent and near to fainting she resisted him.

“That man—­” she faltered.  “Don’t—­don’t let him go!”

“Certainly not,” said Bobby promptly.  “Here, you old scarecrow, come and lend a hand!”

But the old scarecrow apparently had other plans for himself, for he had already vanished from the scene as swiftly and noiselessly as a shadow from a sheet.

“He is gone!” wailed Muriel.  “He is gone!  Oh, why did you let him go?”

“He’ll turn up again,” said Bobby consolingly.  “That sort of chap always does.  I say, how ghastly you look!  Take my arm!  You are not going to faint, are you?  Ah, here is Colonel Cathcart!  Miss Roscoe isn’t hurt, sir—­only upset.  Can’t we get her back to the palace?”

They bore her back between them, and left her to be tended by the women.  She was not unconscious, but the shock had utterly unstrung her.  She lay with closed eyes, listening vaguely to the buzz of excited comment about her, and wondering, wondering with an aching heart, why he had gone.

No one seemed to know exactly what had taken place, and she was too exhausted to tell.  Possibly she would hot have told in any case.  It was known only that an attempt had been made upon the life of the British Resident, Sir Reginald Bassett, and it was surmised that Muriel had realised the murderous intention in time to frustrate it.  Certainly a native had tried to help her, but since the native had disappeared, his share in the conflict was not regarded as very great.  As a matter of fact, the light had been too uncertain and the struggle too confused for even the eye-witnesses to know with any certainty what had taken place.  Theories and speculations were many and various, but not one of them went near to the truth.