"Save me?—from what?"
Leonie turned and faced this splendid lover, shivering slightly as a low moaning wind rustled the leaves of the trees and stirred the undergrowth.
"Even from death!"
"Death?" she said quietly, looking straight into the man's eyes. "Death—for me? Why I thought I was being willed to the temple to make sacrifice to your god?"
"To-night thou must surely die unless I save thee."
"Oh! you are mistaken," came the quick, decisive reply. "Why, if I was murdered, the whole Empire would be up in arms."
"The British Raj would not know," was the quiet answer.
"Oh! but——"
"You have not seen the Fort of Agra, the sad, dead palace. There, in the dungeons, is a beam stretched across the hidden wells and marked with the fret of a rope. Many a beautiful woman has swung from that beam by neck, or feet, or wrists, and her body dropped through the well into the Holy Jumna without the knowledge of any save her master and her executioner."
"Oh!—oh! don't——"