“Loving the white girl child with the great strange love of the servant of India for the offspring of the feringhee, the ayah had secretly brought the babe in the absence of the mem-sahib upon visits of farewell, that I might dedicate her to the goddess, binding her in spirit for ever to the land of her birth.”

The white man sat in silence when the old man sprang to his feet, standing relentless and formidable in the light of the one lamp.

“See’st thou?  See’st thou, sahib, my sin?  The sacrifice was within my hands, and yet I spared the child because of the woman’s beseechings.  I hesitated, yea!  I even asked a sign.  Aye! and the sign was good, twice pleasing to the Goddess of Death, for behold the owl hooted not, neither was the voice of the jackal uplifted as the doe, coming from the right, looked through the open door.

“With the high caste woman I made covenant, that her male child in return for his life should be a servant of the Black One, obeying in all things the mandates of her priests.

“And I held those sleeping babes upon my arm, and within the lips of the girl child I placed the goor, the sacred sugar, and around her neck the roomal, the noose of sacrifice.  And I cut the sign of Kali between the breasts of the man child and between the breasts of the woman child, and marked him between the brows with her blood, and marked her upon the forehead with his blood, so that his mind should be her mind.  And her will I bent to my will, that her eyes should open in sleep at the light of the full moon, and that she should go forth upon the mission of the Black One, making sacrifice to the spouse of Siva.

“And yet, though she be bound to the secret temple and to Kali, and to the son of princes until death shall release her, the Great Mother is not pleased, nay, her wrath is terrible at the averted sacrifice, and India, my land, has suffered through my fault.”

The priest stood motionless, staring down unseeingly upon the man at his feet who spoke softly.

“And what became of the white child?”

“The white child, the infant feringhee?  She lay asleep in my arms with eyes wide open, and the high caste woman, picking up a jewel, even one of the colour and shape of cat’s eye, smeared it with the blood of the kid, placed it above the heart of Kali, and then hung it by a slender golden chain about the neck of the woman child.  And the women, content, departed, bearing with them the united babes, but since that ill-begotten night my land has travailed in agony, stricken with plague and pestilence and famine!”

“And?” Cuxson scarcely breathed the word.

The light of the moon slipped over the ruined wall, drawing a nimbus round the old white head as the tall thin figure in the snow-white garments swayed slightly.

“I waited for the command of Kali, and after many years I sent my beloved disciple, the son of princes, across the Black Water to bring the white woman by the force of his will back to the land of her birth and up to the altar steps.  And now I wait—­I wait—­for a little, little while.”