“HE KNELT IN A RAPT SILENCE BESIDE HER”
Then he saw, far up above his head, something dark and still outstretched upon the surface of the rock. He caught his breath, then covered his mouth with his hands lest a cry escape him. Slowly and carefully he climbed up to the surface of the rock. A moment, on its edge, he paused irresolute, then crept on his knees towards the sleeping girl.
For a long time he knelt in a rapt silence beside her, his eyes fixed, entranced, upon her face.
She was slumbering as calmly as a child, and her upturned face, with the moon-rays upon it, was wondrously, ethereally beautiful. Awed, reverential, Koma gazed upon the picture, then soundlessly he crept back to the edge of the rock and clambered down. Once more he stood on the ground below. His face had a strange, strained expression, and in his eyes gleamed a new light.
“I cannot awaken her,” he said to himself, “and oh, ye gods! how beautiful she has grown!”
For a time he stood there without moving, plunged in reverie. Then his eyes, wandering mechanically towards the bay, fell on a series of lights on the shore below. They were one behind the other, and swung back and forth. In an instant he recognized them. The next moment he had thrust his own light into the cavern.
“They will not come this way,” he assured himself. “This ancient path is little known save to the priests. Yet—if they should!”
He clinched his hands tensely at his side and stood off a few paces, looking up at the top of the rock.
“It is very high up, and—they might not see. As I did—they might pass by.”