e
for fear of tightening the thongs, sat almost numb with anxiety as he
wondered if his luck would hold at the crucial moment.

Except for the crash of the frightened animals as they fought their way
through the undergrowth, there was no sound whatever in the place, but
as the moon took her seat above the exact centre of where once had been
the temple roof, he moved, and leant forward as far as the two feet of
raw hide would allow him, and from between his clenched teeth there
came one word:

"_Hell_!"

For the silence had been suddenly broken by a girl's sharp, hysterical
laugh, and though the sound was but a travesty, yet it was surely
Leonie's laugh.

Twisting his arms in the space the two feet of raw hide allowed him,
the slow, sure, desperate man with a mute appeal to _his_ God, sought
and caught the iron ring in his hands.

And in the jungle clearing where the fire smouldered dimly, and the
coolies, flat on their faces from abject terror, refused to move, Madhu
Krishnaghar sat, garbed as a servant, his brain in a whirl of religion
and hate, and his heart filled with love of the white girl he had sent
to certain death.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet, and tearing his raiment from him flung
it wide, and stood nude save for the loin cloth about the slender
middle, and the turban which outlined his tortured face, looking like
some lost bronze statue in the deserted places of the jungle. He
raised his hands to heaven and prayed.

"O Mother, spare her! O great god, have pity upon her," and the
suddenly risen wind took up his words and lifted them above the tree
tops, wafting them perhaps--and why not--to the God of Infinite Love.

Yet even as he prayed Leonie crept up to the doorway of the temple,
staring unblinkingly at the far end of the interior illuminated by the
flickering wicks of the hundreds of little lights. She inhaled deeply,
and half closed her glaring eyes as the overpowering sickly perfume of
flowers, and some other indescribably sickening odour went to her head
like cheap wine.

"Yes?" she said questioningly, although no sound had broken the intense
stillness, and stood quite still with her head a little on one side,
then dropped to one knee and commenced to unlace her high boots, the
slap of the laces pulled through the holes cutting the silence like a
knife.

With her hands clasped to her breast, and walking on the tips of her
bare toes, she moved through the shadows towards the light,