t into
the man's eyes which had been fixed intently on the nape of her neck.

She gave a little sigh, drew out the dagger and let fall the plaited
glory of her hair, and lifting the garlands from about her neck threw
them out on to the waters; then with a native woman's movement pulled
the _sari_ backwards from her head, and unwound it from her shoulders
which gleamed like ivory in the moonlight. Slowly, but without
hesitation, even as the man dropped his shawl and long white garment
upon the waters, she untwined the _sari_ from about her body, dropped
it across a _suttee_ stone, and the dagger upon the step behind, and
stood swaying gently with naught but the sheeting about her waist and
limbs.

The man, naked save for a loin cloth, stood like some splendid bronze
statue two steps lower; straight as a pine was Madhu, the descendant of
princes, with a width of shoulder most unusual in the native of India,
and which served to emphasise the slimness of the waist. Muscle
rippled under the bronze skin of back, and chest, and limbs; and
between the breasts gleamed the painted symbol of his religion, just as
it shone between the brows.

The lean face with its hawk nose, and curved mouth set close in a
straight line, had the look of an eagle as he stood gazing up at the
girl with burning eyes, in which fanaticism, heightened by the lapping
movement of the holy water about his knees, warred with an overwhelming
passion roused by the slenderness of the white girl's waist, the
virginity of her beautiful breast, and the satin whiteness of her skin.

And she placed her hand in his and followed him submissively down the
steps.

The waters bathed her ankles, her knees, her waist, as she made a cup
of her two hands and drank of the holy water; the jackals yelled from
the far shore, and the unseemly body of a dead youth floated past face
downwards a few yards away.

For some long minutes she stood with her face uplifted, then dipping
her hands again into the water raised them and poured it upon her head
until she glittered as though beset with diamonds. Strange little
movements she made to right and left with both hands, circles she drew
on the face of the waters, and the man within an inch of her beautiful
body stood with arms folded hiding his hard clenched hands.

Raising both arms straight above her head she called aloud in answer to
the spirit which moved her:

"Flowing on, devoted to it," she cried in the soft words