that she, not understanding, had taken the sharp tone as a
rebuke, he said, "If I had been alone, Gulab, I'd have been troubled
sorely, but perhaps the gods have sent you to help out."

"Ah, yes, God pulled our paths together. And if Bootea is but a
sacrifice that will be a favour, she is happy."

If the girl had been of a white race, in her abandon of love she would
have laid her lips against his, but the women of Hind do not kiss.

The big plate of burnished silver slid, as if pushed by celestial
fingers, across the azure dome toward the loomed walls of the Ghats
that it would cross to dip into the sea, the Indian Ocean, and mile
upon mile was picked from the front and laid behind by the grey as he
strode with untiring swing toward his bed that waited on the high
plateau of Poona.

The night-jars, even the bats, had stilled their wings and slept in the
limbs of the neem or the pipal, and the air that had borne the soft
perfume of blossoms, and the pungent breath of jasmine, had chilled and
grown heavy from the pressure of advancing night.

The two on the grey rode sleepily; the Gulab warm and happy, cuddled in
the protecting cloak, and Barlow grim, oppressed by fatigue and the
mental strain of feared disaster. Now the muscles of the horse rippled
in heavier toil, and his hoofs beat the earth in shorted stride; the
way was rising from the plain as it approached the plateau that was
like an immense shelf let into the wall of the world above the lowland;
a shelf that held jewels, topaz and diamonds, that glinted their red
and yellow lights, and upon which rested giant pearls, the moonlight
silvering the domes and minarets of white palaces and mosques of Poona.
The dark hill upon which rested the Temple of Parvati threw its black
outline against the sky, and like a burnished helmet glowed the golden
dome beneath which sat the alabaster goddess. At their feet, strung
out between forbidding banks of clay and sand, ran a molten stream of
silver, the sleepy waters of the Muta.

"By Jove!" and Barlow, suddenly cognisant that he had practically
arrived at the end of his ride, that the windmill of Don Quixote stood
yonder on the hill, realised that in a sense, so far as Bootea was
concerned, he had just drifted. Now he asked: "I'm afraid, little
girl, your Sahib is somewhat of a fool, for I have not asked where you
want me to take you."

"Yonder, Sahib," and her eyes were turned toward the jewelled hill.

As they ro