The man’s eyes shone as he felt the trembling of the girl, and he pressed her, tempting her, revelling after the strange way of the East in the agony of the defeat his victory would bring him.

“And to save the life of the white man, thou opening bud of the passion flower, wilt thou not come unto such a love as mine; to the shadowed corners of my palaces, to the fragrance of my courts, wilt thou not?”

Then a strange thing happened, unheeded by the two sorely tormented souls.

A great form crashed across the path behind them, followed by the bounding passage of a herd of deer; and from all around came the sounds of animals fleeing in panic, as Leonie lifted her face to the man’s with a desperate resolve in her stricken eyes.

And the man, reading the answer, bowed his head to her stone cold hands and crushed them to his heart.

“Thou wilt marry me—­to-night?”

“For the sake of the man I love,” came the steady answer; “to save his life I will be—­your—­your wife.  No, wait!  On these conditions.  That he is set free and shown a way to safety—­that I follow him in secret—­and see that he is safe—­and that you tell him that I am dead.  Swear that to me before your gods and I will keep my promise; swear that you will tell him that I am dead.”

And Madhu, the son of princes, put both hands to his forehead and bowed before the woman; then stood erect, with hands upraised to heaven, silent, wrestling with temptation; and having won, he spoke, his face transfigured, his eyes half closed in agony.

“Thou star of heaven!  Thou highest point of the Everlasting Hills, behold hast thy great love triumphed.  I love thee, but my heart could hold no wife who loved another as thou hast shown thou lovest this man.  I——­”

But, alas!  Leonie, swept off her balance in her great relief, broke across his words.

“Let us hasten quickly, quickly.  You will tell the priest; you will help me to set him—­the man I love—­free.  Oh, come quickly, quickly!”

In her callous but uncalculated desire to use this man as a lever wherewith to heave aside the mountain of trouble which threatened to overwhelm Jan Cuxson; and, with the inexplicable cruelty of the woman who loves, and will blissfully put a whole community to torture as long as her beloved is saved a single hurt, she asked the one impossible thing.

He moved so quickly, fiercely, closely to her that she backed until she stood in a patch of moonlight which shone upon her face.

Higher she raised her face, and still higher, as she looked back straight into the eyes intent on hers.

And Madhu Krishnaghar laughed savagely as he looked down upon her.

“Go!” he commanded; “go up the path to the temple gate to meet thy fate.  The Mother claims thee, and may thy blood and the blood of the white man who has stolen thee from me flow upon her altar before she shakes the earth in the fury of her displeasure.”