“You are safe for a time,” said Haidee, as she stood facing the man she had delivered from death, and presented to his gaze a combination of beauty, grace, and resolution, until his heart beat quicker, and he felt as if he could fall upon his knees at her feet and pour out his thanks in passionate language. “This was formerly a private temple, and here Moghul Singh has often come to pray to the god of his faith. One night the diamond eyes of the idol which lies on the floor below, were stolen, and the King ordered the temple to be closed, and never more used. It is shunned now—nobody ever comes here. It is to this place that I would draw Moghul Singh, that you may slay him—slay him like a dog in the place that is cursed, and leave his carrion as food for the foul things that creep and crawl.”
She spoke passionately. The fire in her eyes burnt brilliantly, and she drew her breath quickly. She was no longer the mild, gentle woman, but looked like a fury panting for revenge. Harper noticed this, and said, soothingly:
“Don’t agitate yourself, Haidee. Have patience, and your day will dawn.”
In an instant she had changed. The love-light came into her eyes again, and the stern expression of her face softened.
“Ah, forgive me,” she murmured, taking his hand and drooping her head; “my wrongs are great, my desire for vengeance uncontrollable. But to you, my lord, my master, I would be gentle as the dove. Could I but see this villain writhing in the throes of death, I should watch him with joy in my heart, and when he was dead, I should feel that my mission was ended, and henceforth it was poor Haidee’s duty to be only your loving slave.”
“Not slave, Haidee, but sister; though you should remember that you are a woman, and this terrible feeling which you are nursing is not good—it is unwomanly. Leave this wretch to the retribution that is sure, sooner or later, to overtake him.”
She let his hand fall, and recoiled with a cry of mingled pain and rage, and was the fury again.
“Would you play me false, now that I have saved you? Is it not out of my very womanhood that my desire for vengeance comes? Does not the mad cry of my father still ring in my ears? Does not the blood of my murdered sister, and brother, and lover, cry aloud for vengeance? Let my heart turn to steel, let my own blood become a burning poison that shall gall and canker me night and day if I allow my slaughtered kin to go unavenged. You have promised to right my wrongs—you dare not break that promise. Your life is mine, since I gave it back to you. I snatch you from the jaws of death—have I not a right to demand something in return? Remember that in my veins runs the hot blood of an Eastern woman; my country people are not as yours are. We can melt with love, or rise to a passion of wrath which you English people know nothing of.”
Her stern energy startled Harper. It was like the sudden bursting of a thunder-cloud, where, a moment before, all was serenity. Yet even in her passion she looked beautiful, if dangerous; and her nature, strange as it was, aroused in the young officer a feeling of enthusiastic admiration.