The girl loosened the rope for an inch or two, and the Prince was lowered with a sickening feeling in his heart as he realised his position a hundred feet above the stone street.
"I can see you plainly," said the girl in hard and husky tones. "If you make an attempt to climb to your balcony, I will at once loosen the rope. Is it possible you have not suspected who I am, and why I am here?"
The Prince was dizzy. He had whirled gently around in one direction for some time, but now the motion ceased, and he began to revolve with equal gentleness in the other direction, like the body of a man who is hanged.
A sharp memory pierced his brain.
"Meela is dead," he cried, with a gasp in his breath. "She was drowned.
You are flesh and blood. Tell me you are not her spirit?"
"I cannot tell you that," answered the girl. "My own spirit seemed to leave me when the body of my sister was brought from the canal at the foot of our garden. You know the place well; you know the gate and the steps. I think her spirit then took the place of my own. Ever since that day I have lived only for revenge, and now, Prince Padema, the hour I have waited for is come."
An agonising cry for help rang through the silent street, but there was no answer to the call.
"It is useless," said the girl calmly. "It will be accounted an accident. Your servant bought the rope that will be found with you. Any one who knows you will have an explanation ready for what has happened. No one will suspect me, and I want you to know that your death will be unavenged, prince though you are."
"You are a demon," he cried.
She watched him silently as he stealthily climbed up the rope. He did not appear sufficiently to realise how visible his body was against the still luminous sky. When he was within a foot of his balcony she loosened the rope, and again he sunk to where he had been before, and hung there exhausted by his futile effort.