hough to thrust aside some obstacle.

The priest laughed softly.

"O babe in wisdom! Behold, thou shalt not be bound, yet shalt thou not
stir beyond yon temple wall until she come, and with her the son of
princes who yearns for her; then shall I lift my will from thee and tie
thee to the wall that thou mayst behold the double sacrifice of _love_
and _life_ made to Kali the Terrible."

The priest was gone, and Jan Cuxson sat down upon a fallen block of
masonry, covering his face with his wounded hands; and faintly from the
temple echoed the voice of the priest as he prayed to his god before
projecting his will across the space that divided him from the white
woman.

Only for a little moment of despondency, and then he sat back and shook
his great shoulders with the light of battle in his eyes, and grim
determination in every line of the powerful jaw.

How he was going to circumvent the priest and save his beloved he did
not know--he had no plan, but--he was going to pull it off.

"The son of princes," he said, addressing a monkey which had flung a
stick at him from the top of the wall, "why I'd trust my dear,
bewitched or not, with a thousand sons of princes. I love her and she
loves me, you gibbering bit of fur, and d'you think _anything_ could
stand against _that_. Let her come! Just let her be within reach of
my arms, _then_ you'll see what you will see. Let the priest play into
my hands, and bring her here, the sooner the better, for _that_ is
exactly what _I_ want."

And he laughed as he refilled his pipe, blessing the old priest for his
consideration in annexing naught but his rifle and revolver.

Which is just about the simplest way of starting to get out of a tight
corner.

Ignoring all obstacles, owning to no defeat. The splendid heritage of
the English speaking race.

CHAPTER XLII

"A good name is better than precious ointment."--_The Bible_.

"And in its light the Star of Love aglow,
Shone with her beacon fire, a guide
and guardian still."--_Dante's Inferno_.

In the middle of the night Leonie lay face downwards upon her bed in
the great Eastern Hotel.

All the luggage she had brought with her from England was stacked
around the small room, and even in the dressing-room; in fact, there
was that unfinished, unpacked air about the whole place which is
inseparable from anyone in India who is in the throes of going home.

She had returned on the wings of panic from Ben