"She is safe, O white man, safe and unharmed. Take her, keep her—carry her by the—the short road without the—the temple gates—to—happiness, I give her—to—you—because I—I love—her—for ever!"
There was a moment's terrible silence in which the two men stood divided, yet united, in their great love for the one woman.
The native of India put his hand to his forehead and salaamed before the woman for whom he had sacrificed all, then turned slowly around towards the place where the image of his god had so lately stood.
"Kali!" he called, and his young voice was as the clashing of golden bells at sunset. "Kali! Mother of all—I come!"
And unwitting of the great reward awaiting those who attain everlasting peace through the victory of the greater love, he crashed face downwards, dead, upon the flower-strewn floor, and passed for ever into the safe keeping of the one and only God.
CHAPTER LI
"When the day breaks and the shadows flee away!"—The Bible.
Jan Cuxson lifted Leonie's face to the light of the moon, and caught his breath at the sight of the turned back eyes and drooping mouth.
This was the outcome of it all! This was how she was left to him; saved from physical hurt but with her mind for ever bound by the will of yon dead priest. Hypnotised, mesmerised, to be under the influence of the Goddess of Destruction until her death; maybe to pass her life in the security of a padded cell; she, his Leonie, his love, his wife-to-be.
He crushed her in fierce despair against his heart as the ground moved gently under his feet, and prayed aloud to his God to bring the riven walls down upon them there in the moonlight, that in merciful death the awful fate of his beloved might be lifted from her.