The Virginian lifted his shoulders indifferently, and ascended to discover a wide footpath running inland between dark walls of shrubbery, but quite deserted. He stopped with a whistle of vexation, peering to right and left. "What the deuce!" he said aloud. "Is this another of their confounded tricks?"
A low and marvellously sweet laugh sounded at his elbow, and he turned with a start and a flutter of his pulses. "Naraini!" he cried.
It had been impossible to mistake the gracious lines of that slight, round figure, cloaked though it was in many thicknesses of white veiling. She had stolen upon him without a sound, and seemed pleased with the completeness of his surprise, for she laughed again before he spoke.
"Tell me not thou art disappointed, O my king!" she said, placing a soft hand firmly upon his arm. "Didst thou hope to meet another here?"
"Nay, how should I expect thee?" His voice was gentle though he steeled his heart against her fascinations; for now he had a use for her. "Had Dulla Dad conveyed me to the palace, then I should have remembered thy promise to ride with me to Kathiapur. But, being brought to this place…"
"Then thou didst wish to ride with me?" She nodded approval and satisfaction. "That is altogether as I would have it be, Lord of my Heart. By this have I proven thee, for thou hast consented to approach the Gateway, not altogether because the Voice hath summoned thee, but likewise, I think, because thine own heart urged thee. Nay, but tell me, King of my Soul, did it not leap a little at the thought of meeting me?"
With a quick gesture she threw her veil aside and lifted her incomparably fair face to his, and he was conscious that he trembled a little, and that his voice shook as he answered evasively: "Thou shouldst know, Ranee."
"Ahi! Then am I a happy woman, to think that, though thou wert in open mutiny against the Voice, when I called, thou didst yield…. And thou art ready?"
"Am I not here?"
"Now of a verity do I know that thou art a man, my king!—a Rajput, a son of kings, and … my husband!" Pitched to a minor, thrilling key, her accents were as musical as the singing of a 'cello. "For thou dost know what thou must dare this night of nights, and he is a brave man who can dare so much, unfaltering. Tell me thou art not afraid, my king?"