e grass-grown stones, and the
image of a female deity carved in bas-relief upon a huge block of
granite.

Nude was the woman carved out of stone, and of so dark a blue as to be
almost black; with tongue protruding and hair in waving masses, through
which were thrust four arms; garlanded with skulls she danced wantonly
upon the body of a man, with two hands raised in blessing, in the third
a knife, in the fourth a bleeding head.

Kali! Kali! Kali!

If only Jan Cuxson had been able to do something, anything, what a mint
of trouble he would have saved himself and others, but instead, he
stood rooted to a spot just inside the door, incapable of moving hand
or foot, held by a force he did not even guess at, and therefore could
not fight, watching Leonie as she moved slowly forward, as though she
were walking in her sleep towards the blood-stained altar.

"So will she always come," murmured the old priest as he laid his hand
caressingly upon his well-beloved pupil. "So will she always come.
Love? Pah! who fears the love of man in the Black One's temple? Who?"

And there was no answer from the shrouded future.

Leonie stood still, quite still, unconscious of the eyes about her, and
everything save the terrible problem she was trying to solve.

Then suddenly she cried aloud, and the words, like wings, beat against
the roof and walls.

"I know!" she cried, "I know! I know!"

And whirling round towards the spell-bound man, she turned her hands,
palm downwards, with a wonderful eastern gesture of renunciation, and
crumpled into a heap before the altar, and the three watching figures
stole noiselessly back into the secret places of the temple as Cuxson,
freed, strode hastily up to his beloved.

He gathered up the unconscious girl as tenderly as a woman, oh! a good
deal more so, and turning her face to his shoulder, carried her out of
the temple; stopping for a second to hold her more securely in his left
arm as he bent to pick up something which glittered in the moonlight: a
piece of orange silk heavily embroidered in silver, for which Leonie
had ransacked the Old, the New, and the Lal Bazaars; a bit of her
ayah's _sari_ torn and caught in a sundri breather. "And she stayed
behind on the boat," said Jan to himself, with a flash of inspiration
as he turned the thing over in his hand, and slipped it into his pocket.

And though his heart ached over his beloved's mental and physical
distress, he inwardly rejoiced a