y, and bars me from all that I desire? Nay,
you _shall_ listen, and you _shall_ answer! You _will_, will you not?"

The voice had dropped from the pitch of fierce denunciation to the
sound as of a deep river flowing in pleasant places, and Leonie nodded
mutely, succumbing, as is the way of woman, to the entrancing pastime
of playing with fire.

She closed her eyes and clasped her hands tightly together when the
man, stepping across the barriers of interracial convention, came and
stood just behind her shoulder without touching her withal, and spoke
in his own tongue.

"Ah, woman, I would call thee wife. Behold, I have much to offer: a
great name, vast wealth, palaces, broad lands, jewels, elephants,
villages; the esteem of my people, the love of my father and of my
mother, of whom I am the only son. All of which is nothing, nothing
compared with my love for thee. A love as virgin as the snow upon the
Everlasting Hills, swifter than Mother Ganges, deeper than the Indian
Ocean, and higher than the vault of heaven. What matter custom, or
law, or regulation, or colour, when such a love as mine is offered?
Thou as my wife, _thou_, and thy children my only children. Am I not
beautiful? even as beautiful a male as thou art a female? Would not
the days and the nights, the months and the years be as
heaven--together? _Love me_--nay! say but that I may call thee wife.
Give me thy promise and I will save thee!"

"Save me?--from what?"

Leonie turned and faced this splendid lover, shivering slightly as a
low moaning wind rustled the leaves of the trees and stirred the
undergrowth.

"Even from death!"

"Death?" she said quietly, looking straight into the man's eyes.
"_Death_--for _me_? Why I thought I was being willed to the temple to
make sacrifice to your god?"

"To-night thou must surely die unless I save thee."

"Oh! you are mistaken," came the quick, decisive reply. "Why, if I was
murdered, the whole Empire would be up in arms."

"The British Raj would not know," was the quiet answer.

"Oh! but----"

"You have not seen the Fort of Agra, the sad, dead palace. There, in
the dungeons, is a beam stretched across the hidden wells and marked
with the fret of a rope. Many a beautiful woman has swung from that
beam by neck, or feet, or wrists, and her body dropped through the well
into the Holy Jumna without the knowledge of any save her master and
her executioner."

"Oh!--oh! don't----"

"Twice," conti