ures, the delights which civilization afforded to those who
possessed it. Yet, his entering upon such enjoyment, if it were ever
effected,--as at that moment it seemed in a fair way to be,--he owed to
Lindela. What was to become of her, for she could never return to her
nation? She had thrown away everything, this high-born daughter of a
race of kings; had risked her life daily, to save the life of a
stranger--and that for love. Yes, that was love indeed! he thought. She
was a brown-skinned savage, but she was a splendid woman--with mind and
character as noble as her own magnificent physique. She would be a
delightful, a perfect companion during those wild, free forest
marches--day after day, night after night, fraught with peril and
hardship at every step, but--how would civilization affect her? Would it
not ruin that grand character, even as it had ruined really noble
natures before her,--for there is such a thing as the "noble savage,"
although we grant the product to be a scarce one. And with all this was
entwined the thought of Lilith Ormskirk.

Well, sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, had always been his
guiding maxim, and for the present, as he took his way down the mountain
side--the great crags rising higher and higher to the moon, the black
billowy roll of the forest country drawing nearer and nearer, the voices
of the wild creatures of the waste, raised weird and ravening on the
night, the thunderous boom of the voice of the forest king ever and anon
dominating all others--Laurence felt conscious of a wild, exhilarating
sense of freedom. There was music in these sounds after the ghastly,
awed silence of the horrible place from which he had been delivered.
And, was it due on his part to the frame of mind of the hardened
adventurer, trained to take things as they come, the good with the
ill--but never, during the days and weeks that followed, did the
daughter of the line of the Ba-gcatya kings feel moved to any qualm of
regret over the sacrifice of name and home and country which she had
made for this man's sake.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"A DEEP--A SOLITARY GRAVE."

They were now on the other slope of the great mountain chain which shut
in the Ba-gcatya country on that side, and, judging by the landmarks, it
seemed to Laurence that the surroundings wore an aspect not absolutely
unfamiliar, and that they could not be far out of the way by which he
had been brought in a captive. There was the same bro