ul as a dog, and far more intelligent
than many humans, rapped the ground smartly with the end of his trunk.

Having been told by his beloved master to stand where he was until his
return, and being obedient even unto death, he did not move; but he
eyed the form which had slipped in through the gates with dislike, and
shuffled his feet in distrust as the man disappeared behind the cypress
trees.

It was only a foolish curiosity-bitten _shudra_; a wretched member of
the lowest and most servile class, who, passing on his way to his
miserable hovel, had noticed the gate open at the untoward hour of
midnight, and the absence of the ferocious _durwans_.

His low caste, which is the least of all, had prevented him, up to this
day, from entering what he thought must surely be paradise; and now he
took the risk and slipped in, not only stricken with curiosity, but
obsessed with a desire to tell a wonderful tale to his patient wife and
four sons, who, because they were _his_ sons, were doomed to remain of
the lowest servile caste; as would be their sons far, oh! far beyond
the third and fourth generation.

How was he to know that a woman with unveiled face was visiting the
tomb at midnight, or that she was beloved by his master whose word was
life, or death, to those who served him.

Leonie passed through the silver gates into the tomb, and stood beside
the marble, flower-strewn sarcophagi, which lie side by side, and over
which, day and night, hangs a lighted lamp.

She did not move when a whispered golden sound fell gently through the
shadows. Like a cobweb thread, so fine it was; like a thread of gold,
so sweet it was; rising and falling, to rise again in one throbbing cry
of love, pleading, insisting, despairing.

The echoes caught and held it in the dim corners of the marble cupola,
and answered cry with cry until the place seemed full of the sobbing of
lost souls. Back and forth, at the girl's feet and around her head,
surging over the dead lovers, beating against the walls and roof, to
die away, sobbing, sobbing like a weary child.

Leonie, transfixed with ecstasy, stretched out her hands to catch the
dying notes; and for that infinitesimal fraction of a second, when the
golden sound crossed the boundary of human sense, felt as though she
stood upon the edge of eternity.

She turned to see the driver of elephants standing like a bronze statue
outside the doorway; but speak she could not in that dim place fragr