k and lime ever reared by the hand of a genius for
house-making. The shadow lay on the grass like those ghastly
sun-pictures so called, yet more like moon-born things; and then the
solemn silence, only relieved to be deepened by the occasional to-hoo!
was oppressive to him, as if a medium for some footsteps to startle him
into superstition. Yet he was drawn towards the horrid dungeon in spite
of his very self. Janet's story would come at last, he thought, to a
termination which would justify his own suspicions. And even there
before him was evidence in the same direction; for having thrown
himself, as if by an effort, into the shade of the dungeon, he could see
beyond its verge, and by, as it were, looking round the corner, the body
of the dark-faced Aditi. She had, no doubt, come stealthily from the
house, and was postured in an attitude far deeper in humiliation and
adjuration than we practise in our land. Her face was covered by her
hands; for, in truth, she could see nothing through these mere
light-permitting slips of a brick's width, wherewith this horrible hole
was supplied, as if by a relaxation of severity in its last stage of
perfect inhumanity. No, nothing could be seen, but something might be
heard; yea, the most piteous moans that ever burst from an oppressed
heart, and yet so soft, so uncomplaining, as if the sufferer found no
fault with aught in the world but herself. Then Aditi's sounds were
something like responses, rising as the internal sounds rose, and as
they died away--a jabbering wail of an Eastern tongue. Aminadab, blunt
though he was, and fonder of pork than poetry, and of scriptural
quotations--which he had always at his tongue's end for conclaves of
weavers--than impassioned sentiments, rising at the inspiring touch of
this strange world's endless and ever-occurring occasions, was
impressed. He looked over the dark abode, up at the moon, then at the
prostrate Ady, and thought of the distance between that prisoner and the
gay palace where she was brought up, with its paradise of flowers, and
aromas, and singing birds of gold and azure--far away, far away. And
then that blood-written oath--oh, so literally fulfilled and obeyed! But
the thought was evanescent from very fear. Nor was his nervousness
unjustified; for, even as he turned his head, he saw a figure wrapped up
in a dark cloak, and surmounted by a white coil of pure linen, as he
thought, emerging from the clump of thick trees that stood on