"Could not kill the feringhee?" and the hate in the old mutiny word was terrible to hear. "What else should I do to him who has stolen the sun from my sky, the fragrance from my rose?"
The man seized her by the wrist, and, pulling her to him, bent down, whispering soft, passionate words.
"Shall I tell thee, love flower, what love is? It is the gold of noon, and the silver of night, the might of the lion, and the soft cooing of the gentle dove. As the slender vine around the straight palm, so will my love twine around thy heart. Yea, and even as the banyan tree sends out branches to draw dew from the rounded breast of earth, my love shall yearn towards thee. Day and her lover, Night, with the Dawn and the Sunset their children; the stag and the gentle doe, with their fierce horned offspring, and their offspring as round and smooth even as thy throat. So will our union be, for behold, my love for thee is so surpassing that our sons could but be of the most perfect manhood, and our daughter, why, she will be after thine own fashioning."
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."