“Then, as soon as the last of the performers had cleared the cave, I followed my guide, and with a throbbing head, and full of a sense of strange sickness, I went to the house where I was staying.
“I lay down upon my bed, but could not sleep; and as early as I dared I went round to my little Martarae’s home—Martarae was her native name. Her mother met me, said that the child would not come out in the sun to-day, that I might see her for a moment if I pleased, but that she was not very well.
“Sweet little soul! I found her lying on her little bed, with a proud light in her eyes, and a very flushed face.
“A fortnight later the light flesh wounds were healed. She showed me her breast, confided to me the story, and asked me if I did not think she had much to be proud of.
“‘Will you keep a secret?’ I asked her. She gave me her promise, and I told her how I had seen the whole thing, and all my fears for her.
“A week later she was orphaned. Her mother was stung by a deadly scorpion, and died in an hour, and I made the child my care.
“She has travelled everywhere with me ever since, and you see how fair and sweet she is, and how beautifully she speaks our English. She is barely twelve, is naturally gifted, and is the very light of my life.”
“Would she let me see her breast, Ralph, do you think?” Hammond asked.
Bastin smiled, and spoke a word to the child, and she, rising to her feet and smiling back at him, unfastened the broach at her throat, and, laying back her breast-covering, showed the gleaming, shiny scars. Then as she re-covered her chest, she said softly:
“Ralph has taught me that those gods were evil; but though I shall ever wear this cross in the flesh of my breast, I shall ever love the Christ who died on the world’s great cross at Calvary.”