Zillah sought the adjacent apartment of Layah. Upon the ground lay the prostrate form of the girl. A pool of blood told the story of her sacrifice, not to Astarte, but to friendship; to that love of woman for woman, holier than the debauched heathenism of the world ever conceived or tried to express through its rituals.
Zillah flung herself upon the body: "It is too much! too much! O my Layah! my sister! my mother! speak to me!" She kissed the silent lips, that seemed to smile at the touch, and gave into hers the last lingering warmth that had been life.
Scarcely knowing what she did, she took up the dead girl's veil and ran from the apartment; not through her own, but directly into the court. With stumbling feet she sought her pavilion.
"There goes her handmaid," said a priest.
"A graceful shape, which the veil cannot hide. The new priestess will come out soon," said another.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Zillah's soul now impelled her to hasten her flight. She must not be captured. For what could she live in Tyre but to grace the pride of Rubaal, insolent as he was insignificant? Then the memory of Layah, who had given her life to encourage her in fleeing such a fate, would be a perpetual rebuke. She would see the dead girl's face always in remonstrance. Layah would become to her a jinn, a demon, her human love turned to ghostly hate.
Nor was this all. Zillah conceived of herself as having broken faith with Astarte in not rendering the sacrifice. She could not now be a priestess of the goddess. Astarte, if a real divinity, would strike her dead the first time she attempted to minister at her altar.