As for Arúna—left alone—she leaned again on the low abutment, but the hypnotic spell was broken: only acute anxiety remained. For the lamp of her life had made scant progress; and now she was aware of a disturbance in the water, little ominous whirlpools not caused by wind. Presently there emerged a long shadow, like a black expanse of rock:—unmistakably a mugger. And in that moment she felt exquisitely grateful to the hand that had seized her in the nick of time. The next—she wrung her own together with a low, shivering cry.
For as the brute rose into fuller view, her chirágh rose with it—and so remained; stranded high and dry somewhere near the horny shoulder; tilted sideways, she judged from the slope of the flame; the oil, its life-blood, trickling away. And as the mugger moved leisurely on, in the wrong direction, breaking up the gold network of reflections, she had her answer—or no answer. The lamp was neither wrecked nor shattered; but it would never, now, reach the farther shore. Mai Lakshmi's face was turned away in simple indifference, from the plea of a mere waverer between two worlds, who ventured to set her lamp on the waters, not so much in faith as in a mute gesture of despair....
She came very near despair, as she crouched sobbing there in the shadow—not entirely for the fate of her lamp, but in simple reaction from the mingled excitements and emotions of the evening ...
It was only a few minutes—though it seemed an age—before she felt Roy's hand on her shoulder and heard his voice, troubled and tender beneath its surface note of command.
"Arúna—what the—get up. Don't cry like that—you mustn't...."
She obeyed instinctively; and stood there, like a chidden child, battling with her sobs.
"Where's the thing? What's happened?" he asked, seeming to disregard her effort at control.
"There—over there. Look ... the mugger!"
"Mugger?" He sighted it. "Well, I'm—the thieving brute!" Humour lurked in his voice—more tonic than sympathy; yet in a sense, more upsetting. Her tragedy had its vein of the ludicrous; and at his hint of it, tears trembled into laughter; laughter into tears. The impact unsteadied her afresh; and she covered her face again shaken with sobs.
"Arúna—my dear—you mustn't, I tell you...." More tenderness now than command.