re surprise.

"'Are you a man?' she asked at length, stupidly.

"He smiled yet. 'No,' he answered gently. 'But oh, you are
beautiful!'

"She replied nothing at first, and he went on with a soft
voice like the voice of a tender child. 'I saw you in the
water long ago, I looking up to you, you looking down to
where I was hidden. I smiled to you and reached my hand,
but there was no smile on your face, and I did not dare
take you till--till this time. Then your hands were
stretched forward, and as I clasped them you sank to me,--my
beloved! my beloved!'

"His brown face glowed upon his words with a fire of
worship. She started back from him with a quick terror,
hands clasped and lips parted.

"'Tell me,' she cried, 'tell me, where am I? What is this
place? Am I dead at last?'

"He soothed her. 'You are in my country,' he said very
gently. 'Now it is your country, as I am yours. You are not
dead but living, and brimming with the love I languish for;
and here you will stay with me, and we will love one
another very tenderly in the heart of my gloom, and you
will be my bride.

"'Oh, listen to me!' he cried, when she would have
answered. 'Many slim and delicate girls have come to me
through the mirror of the pool, but none such as you, with
a warm soul floating on your face and a bosom aching for
love. When first I saw you I yearned for you, I coveted
you. The thought of you was my food and drink, and stayed
my eyes from sleep; I set my spell on the waters that they
should slumber and hold your image unbroken, and now I have
you; you are here with me. You are mine.'

"He was glowing with a kind of eagerness it hurts one to
rebuff, and she watched him, her fears under control, with
a growing wonder.

"'Yes,' she said slowly. 'It must be true, then--that old
tale. You are Tagalash!'

"He smiled. I am Tagalash,' he answered.

"'But,' she said, 'I am white!' For no one had ever heard
of any but Kafir brides for Tagalash.

"He shrank a little, but smiled yet beseechingly, as he
would have her cease that part of the tale.

"'You are so beautiful,' he urged, come with me to my
house, will you not?'

"But that she would not do, and moved not from her place on
the grassed knoll throughout her stay in the shadows--
something like a week.

"'I am the wife of Johannes Olivier,' she said, and her
words sounded foolish in her own ears. 'I am a wife,' she
persisted, there in that dead land of the black gods. 'I
w