Alone, crouching near the water's edge, she held out her cockle-shell with its blown wisp of light.
"Oh Lamp of my life, flame of my heart," she addressed it, just above her breath, "sail safely through the wavelets and answer truly what fate awaits me now? Will Mai Lakshmi grant the blessing I crave?"
With a gentle push, she set it afloat; then, kneeling close against the building, deep in shadow, she covered her face and prayed, childish incoherent prayers, for some solution of her difficult problem that would be best, alike, for her and Roy.
But curiosity was claimant. She must see.... She must know....
Springing up, she stood near the coping, one hand on a low abutment, all her conscious being centred on the adventuring flame that swayed and curtsied at the caprice of the wind. The effect of her concentration was almost hypnotic: as if her soul, deserting her still body, flickered away there on the water; as if every threat of wind or wavelet struck at her very life....
Footsteps passed, and voices; but the sounds scarcely reached her brain. The wind freshened sharply; and the impact of two ripples almost capsized her chirágh. It dipped—it vanished....
With a low sound of dismay she craned forward; lost her balance, and would have fallen headlong ... but that masculine fingers closed on her arm and pulled her backward—just in time.
"Roy!" she breathed, without turning her eyes from the water—for the precious flame had reappeared. "Look, there it is—safe...!"
"But what of you, little sister, had not I stayed to watch the fate of your Dewáli lamp?"
The words were spoken in the vernacular—and not in the voice of Roy. Startled, she drew back and faced a man of less than middle height, bare-headed, wearing the orange-pink draperies of an ascetic. In the half dark she could just discern the colour and the necklace of carved beads that hung almost to his waist.