With a cry of unspeakable joy I sprang from the boat, and would have flung myself at her feet to kiss her hand or the hem of her garment, but she drew back with a look of apprehension.
"Touch me not," she said gravely, "for by the custom of our land I am holy. Until to-morrow at sunset I am consecrated to The Giver."
"Pardon my ignorance," I responded rather crestfallen. "Your will shall be my law. I only wished to manifest my eternal gratitude and devotion to you."
"Kneel not to me," she rejoined, "but rather to The Giver, who has so strangely brought us together. How many ages we might have wandered from world to world without finding each other again!"
"You think we have met before then?" I enquired eagerly, for the same thought had been haunting my own mind. It seemed to me that I had known Alumion always.
"Assuredly," she replied, "for you and I are kindred souls who have been separated in another world, by death or evil; and now that we have met again, let us be faithful and loving to each other."
"Nothing shall separate us any more."
The words had scarcely passed my lips when the same terrible cry which I had heard once before sounded from the interior of the grotto.
Alumion called or rather sang out a response to the cry, which I did not understand, then said to me in her ordinary voice,
"It is Siloo. I must go now and give him food."