The moon shone forth glorious indeed, but the body of my friend and the body of my foe alike lay motionless.
Then the bayonet thicket was parted yet once more, and the form of a woman thickly veiled and wrapped in a mantle appeared in the open.
With a swift, gliding motion she crossed the space; looked once at me and then towards the quiet bodies in the moonlight.
She passed the Mad Man’s lifeless form and spurned it contemptuously with her foot. Then she turned to where Zobo lay, with upturned face and staring eyes, before her. Motionless as he, she stayed an instant; then, with an indescribably graceful gesture, she took her cloak from her shoulders, and spread it over Edba’s victim.
Once more she faced me, flinging back the veil that shrouded her, and I saw that she was none other than Lah, the Queen.
What happened next is only dimly present in my remembrance. As in a dream, I knew that her lips met mine; that my bonds fell from me at her touch, and that I walked a free man once more, but not firmly, because of weakness, towards the bodies of the dead.
My hand instinctively sought Zobo’s heart; and without surprise, because in my weak state nothing could have surprised me, I found that it still beat, though faintly.
“Come,” said Lah, imperiously; “I have risked more than you dream of to come thus, and at this hour, and to you. My life with your life trembles in the balance. Now,—even at this moment,—Agno himself may come, and then no power of mine could save us. Leave here the body of my servant to die as he would wish, at my command, for me.”
These words I remember sounded in my ears, and more, but I had never yet left a fallen friend in trouble, still less would I desert now one who had all but given his life for mine.
Something of this I said to her, and seeing that I was bent upon my purpose, Lah bade me lift the wounded soldier.