like
snakes, weaving in and out of the burnished hair which spread itself
fanwise on the water about her knees.

Save for the thinnest, finest silk bathing dress which clung to the
perfect body, as does the soft fragrant skin to the peach, she was nude,
and so unaware of eyes upon her that the man held his breath, fearing she
might spy him in the shade.

He knew, as everyone knows, that through the criminal teaching of the
girl-child in Europe, she would have had it instilled into her mind as
soon as it was capable of understanding, that the slightly draped _tout
ensemble_ of her glorious body was something to be thoroughly well
ashamed of, though on other occasions, by means of slit skirts and
excessive decolletage, she could expose in sections just as much as she
liked to the eyes of any alien waiter who hung over her with the sauce,
or any chauffeur who helped her into a car.

Her eyes were wide and staring straight in his direction, and that she
was asleep he had not the faintest idea.

So clearly was she outlined against the rock that every line of the
lovely limbs, every exquisite curve of the beautiful bosom showed as
plainly as if she had been standing in the broad light of noon as she
stepped out of the pool.

With face upturned, and arms outstretched to the moon, she stood
undulating slightly with the exquisite movements of the nautch girl,
which has nothing to do with the _danse de ventre_ and other such
disgusting muscular exhibitions.

Watch a spider's thread floating in the air at dawn, then you will get
some idea of the gentle, supple, alluring movement.

The wind, blowing up before the storm, blew against her hair, and it
streamed out in front of her; her arms, twining and twisting, slid in and
out of the silky mass until she appeared to have at least four; her
exquisite feet seemed to beat upon a human figure which was really
nothing but the shadow of the rock behind her, and Jan Cuxson, in the
shadows, suddenly smote his forehead as she lifted up her voice and cried:

"Kali! Kali! Kali!"

The word thrice repeated rose softly on the night air, but struck like a
hammer upon the ears of the man who, in studying the brain, had found
himself often and inextricably entangled in the religions and mysteries
of the East.

"My God!" he whispered, "My God, she is asleep and----"

But he never moved as Leonie suddenly showed that she was aware of his
presence.

It was not that she saw him, or tha