hing, wed him in the shadow of death."

And Leonie, catching the look in his eyes and the set of the mouth,
knew that he meant what he said; and she laid her hand on his arm, so
that his agony was increased a thousandfold as he looked down upon her
whom he had lost.

"You would not, could not do _that_?" she whispered.

"Could not kill the _feringhee_?" and the hate in the old mutiny word
was terrible to hear. "What else should I do to him who has stolen the
sun from my sky, the fragrance from my rose?"

The man seized her by the wrist, and, pulling her to him, bent down,
whispering soft, passionate words.

"Shall I tell thee, love flower, what love is? It is the gold of noon,
and the silver of night, the might of the lion, and the soft cooing of
the gentle dove. As the slender vine around the straight palm, so will
my love twine around thy heart. Yea, and even as the banyan tree sends
out branches to draw dew from the rounded breast of earth, my love
shall yearn towards thee. Day and her lover, Night, with the Dawn and
the Sunset their children; the stag and the gentle doe, with their
fierce horned offspring, and their offspring as round and smooth even
as thy throat. So will our union be, for behold, my love for thee is
so surpassing that our sons could but be of the most perfect manhood,
and our daughter, why, she will be after thine own fashioning."

The man's eyes shone as he felt the trembling of the girl, and he
pressed her, tempting her, revelling after the strange way of the East
in the agony of the defeat his victory would bring him.

"And to save the life of the white man, thou opening bud of the passion
flower, wilt thou not come unto such a love as mine; to the shadowed
corners of my palaces, to the fragrance of my courts, wilt thou not?"

Then a strange thing happened, unheeded by the two sorely tormented
souls.

A great form crashed across the path behind them, followed by the
bounding passage of a herd of deer; and from all around came the sounds
of animals fleeing in panic, as Leonie lifted her face to the man's
with a desperate resolve in her stricken eyes.

And the man, reading the answer, bowed his head to her stone cold hands
and crushed them to his heart.

"Thou wilt marry _me_--_to-night_?"

"For the sake of the man I love," came the steady answer; "to save his
life I will be--your--your wife. No, wait! On these conditions. That
he is set free and shown a way to safety--that