he door.

And from without he could hear a chorus of a thousand voices, its
burden being, "The _Kurban_!"

Barlow turned, one foot in the sunshine and one in the cloister's
gloom, and kissed Bootea; and she could feel his hot tears upon her
cheek.

Once more he pleaded, "Renounce this dreadful sacrifice."

But the girl smiled up into his face, saying, "I die happily, husband.
Perhaps Indra will permit Bootea to come back in spirit to the Sahib."

The High Priest strode to the entrance of the cloister, his eyes
holding the abstraction of one moving in another world; he seemed
oblivious of the Englishman's presence as he said:

"Come forth, ye who seek _kailas_ through Omkar."

As Barlow staggered, almost blind, over the stony path from the
cloister, he saw the group of sixteen Brahmins, their foreheads and
arms carrying the white bars of Siva.

Then Bootea was led by the priest down to the cold merciless stone
Linga, where she, at a word from the priest, knelt in obeisance, a
barbaric outburst of music from horn and drum clamouring a salute.

When Bootea arose to her feet the priest tendered her some _mhowa_
spirit in a cocoanut shell, but the girl, disdaining its stimulation,
poured it in a libation upon the Linga.

From the amphitheatre of the enclosing hills thirty thousand voices
rose in one thundering chorus of "Jae, jae, Omkar!" and, "To Omkar the
_Kurban_!"

Many pressed forward, mad fanaticism in their eyes, and held out at
arm's length toward the girl bracelets and ornaments to be touched by
her fingers as a beneficence.

But Swami Sarasvati waved them back, and turning to Bootea tendered
her, with bowed head, the _pan supari_ (betel nut in a leaf) as an
admonition that the ceremony had ceased, and there was nothing left but
the sacrifice.

As the girl with firm step turned to the path that led up through shrub
and jungle growth to the ledge where fluttered the white flag, a tumult
of approbation went up from the multitude at her brave devotion. Then
a solemn hush enwrapped the bowl of the hills, and the eyes of the
thousands were fixed upon the jutting shelf of rock.

A dirge-like cadence, a mighty gasp of, "Ah, Kuda!" sounded as a slim
figure, white robed, like a wraith, appeared on the ledge, and from her
hand whirled down to the rocks below a cocoanut, cast in sacrifice;
next a hand-mirror, its glass shimmering flickers of gold from the
sunlight.

For five seconds the white-clothed figur