“With her last breath she bade me search the tomb.”  Until now Atma had not observed that they were in the shadow of Sangita’s tomb.  The vines were torn from its ancient portal, which hung open on broken hinge.

“Go,” said Bertram, but Atma would first staunch and bind his wound.

At length he might leave him, and then lifting the door and the trailing vines aside to allow the moonlight to penetrate he looked in.  A moment later he had entered.  He remained long, so long that Bertram, uneasy and suffering, called him again and again, but without response.  Half an hour—­an hour passed, and then he feebly and painfully crept to the doorway of the tomb.  He saw Atma prostrate on the damp sepulchral mould, his face buried in his hands, and beside him lay still, and cold, and lifeless, a girl attired in bridal finery, with jewels gleaming on her dark hair and on her stiffening arms.  It was Moti.

Ah, the worms were gloating,
This is by-and-bye.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Far retired in the woody recesses to the south of Jummoo, thither come by a winding labyrinth of ways were the fugitives.  Bertram, languid and pale, lay on a couch of moss and leaves built by his friend.  His gaze rested on Atma with compassion, for he knew that his wound was of the spirit, and he feared that without a balm the sore must be mortal.  The soul dies sometimes before we say of the man “he is dead,” and at that strange death we shudder lest it should know no awakening.

Atma sat near by, dumb and unheeding.  His fingers toyed idly with a Pearl, on which he gazed as if seeing other forms than those about him.  For many hours he was silent, rising at times to proffer food and water to the wounded man, but oblivious of his own needs, and only half-conscious that he was not alone.  Daylight faded and stars came out before he spoke, addressing none and looking away into silence:—­

“O swift-winged Time,
Bearing to what unknown estate,
What silent clime,
The burden of our hopes and fears,
The story of our smiles and tears,
And hapless fate?

Those vanished days,
Their golden light can none restore;
Those sovereign rays
That set o’er western seas to-night,
This tranquil moon that shines so bright,
Have paled before
Returning in their time, but, oh! 
The golden light of long ago
Returns no more.

This little Pearl,
Of water born, shall year by year
Imprison in its tiny sphere
Those fleeting tints whose mystic strife
And shadowy whirl
Of colour seem a form of life;
Nor ever shall their sea-born home
Dissolve in foam;
But this frail build of love and trust
Will sink to dust.”