pended
h'on an' clear'eaded."

The Principal sighed under the sudden inrush of relief which had come
to her at the mention of her favourite pupil.

She loved Leonie with a love quite separate from her affection for all
the young souls in her charge, and secretly admired the strength of
will which more than once had been pitted against her own; moreover,
accustomed to the quiet monotonous passage of time, she suddenly
realised that she needed someone young and energetic in this emergency.

And the girl she needed in her distress was kneeling on her bed with
arms upraised above her head.

The dying moon was slowly withdrawing her waning silvery light from the
billowing mass of tawny hair, tumbling in lavender-scented masses
around the girl; lingering for a moment on the eyes staring from under
the unblinking eyelids, and for a second upon the glint of even teeth
showing through the lips moving in prayer.

And then she spoke, in the eerie tones of those who talk in their
sleep; and the words were even those of India's most holy writ,
sonorous and full of a surpassing dignity, rising and falling as she
knelt motionless, her eyelids slowly closing upon the terrible staring
eyes.

"The sacrifice . . ." she chanted monotonously, "with voice, hearing,
mind, I make oblation. To this sacrifice . . . let the gods come well
willing!"

And as the moon sank to rest there was no sound save for a little sigh
as Leonie, with closed eyes and white hands clasped upon her breast,
stretched herself upon the bed, then with a violent movement sat up,
and wide awake stared about the room.

"Yes?" she whispered. "Yes?"

And her strange eyes, with pin-point pupils in a yellow green circle,
seemed to follow something which crept slowly round the bare walls as
far as the chintz window-curtain moving softly in the breeze of the
coming dawn. The room was full of shadows thrown by a creeper
festooned outside the wide-open window; soft whisperings brought from
the distant corners of the earth by the restless ocean filled the air,
as she hastily twisted her hair into two great plaits with steady hands.

Then she slipped quietly to the edge of the bed and searched with her
bare feet for the crimson slippers; searched fearfully as though afraid
of what they might touch whilst her eyes glanced this way and that
through the shadowed room.

"Who is calling me?" she whispered. "Who wants me?"

But there was no sound save for the whisperin