cries of sensuous
delight.

Straight up the steps ran Leonie, and into the interior of the temple,
just as a priest, a lad, with his face twitching spasmodically, and
calling upon his god, fell dead at her feet, smitten by the force of
his religion.

Leonie, throwing up her arms, laughed as she put her cut and bleeding
foot upon the boy's neck--laughed until the place pealed and echoed
with the unseemly clamour, causing the crowds outside, held only in
check by the mental force of the handful of priests, to strain against
the invisible hypnotic barrier, and cry to high heaven for a sacrifice.

Then Leonie turned about and ran out on to the terrace, standing a
ghastly, beautiful figure before the multitude; and only a pair of
monkey eyes, in a pock-marked face, hidden by the deep shadows of a
corner inside the temple, saw the high priest with _roomal_ in hand,
creep stealthily up behind the girl.

No one in the tumult heard the growling of the elements; no one noticed
the clouds bent on enveloping the moon; no one but the pock-marked
woman understood what was towards for the appeasing of the outraged god.

"Blood!" screamed the tight packed ranks; "a sacrifice of blood! Kali
is hungry! Kali is thirsty! Give unto the Black Mother that which she
demands!"

Leonie flung up both arms and laughed, even as the high priest drew
back one step, scowling at the averted sacrifice.

"A sacrifice!" went up the cry from thousands of throats; "a sacrifice!
a sacrifice!"

Again Leonie flung out both arms, and, just as the _roomal_ was
slipping over the small head, with the scream of a tigress whose cub is
in danger, the ayah leapt straight at her beloved child, wrenching the
knotted handkerchief from the priest's hand.

A horrible cry of disappointed blood lust shook the very earth; drums
beat, horns screamed, daggers flashed in the dense mass, and fingers
met round many a throat.

They were mad indeed the people, but none so mad as Leonie as she stood
with feet apart glaring down at the ayah's sleek head, which she held
by the hair, in one hand.

So mad was she that the priests drew back as from one divine; all but
the high-caste youth who stood unnoticed amongst them and who advanced
one step as Leonie raised her face to the moon.

"She of the full moon," she chanted, "was the first worshipped one with
depths of days, of nights. They who, O worshipful one, gratify thee
with offerings, those well doers are entered i