The holy man was about to assume his squatting posture in the center of the court, as usual, when from out of the sarcophagus rose languidly a form, shrouded in white.  The form stretched its lovely arms, white as alabaster, and presently the hands rubbed a pair of sleepy eyes.  Then the form sat down within the sarcophagus, laid its arms on the rim, and wearily hid its face in them.

The watcher was the most dumfounded holy man in all India.  For the first time in his hypocritical life he found faith in himself, in his puerile rites.  He had conjured up yonder spirit, unaided, alone.  He rose, turned, and never a holy man ran faster.  When he arrived, panting and voiceless, at the village well, where natives were coming and going with water in goatskins and jars and copper vessels, he fell upon his face, rose to his knees, and poured hands full of dust upon his head.

“Ai, ai!” he called.  “It is almost done, my children.  The first sign has come from the gods.  I have brought you in human form the ancient priestess!” And he really believed he had.  “O my children, my little ones, my kids!  I have brought her who will now attend to the sacred fires; for these alone will restore the city as of old, the fat corn, the plentitude of fruit.  Since the coming of the lion two rains ago the leopard and the striped one have forsaken their lairs.  One bullock a month is better than fire, together with the kids and the children.  Ai!” More dust.

Naturally the villagers set down their water skins and jars and copper vessels and flocked about this exceptional holy man.  They wanted to believe him, but for years nothing had happened but the advent of the lion, whence no one exactly knew, though the holy man had not been backward in claiming it was due to his nearness to the god Vishnu.

They followed him eagerly to the temple.  What they beheld transfixed them.  A woman with skin like the petals of the lotus and hair like corn sat in the sacred sarcophagus and braided her hair, gazing the while toward the bright sun.

The intake of many breaths produced a sound.  Kathlyn turned instantly toward this sound, for a moment expecting the return of the lion.  Immediately holy man and villagers threw themselves upon the ground, striking their foreheads against the damp clay.  The alien spirit still ruled the substance; Kathlyn eyed them in mild astonishment, not at all alarmed.

“Ai!” shrilled the holy man, springing to his feet.  “Ai!  She is our ancient priestess, rising from her tomb of centuries!  Ai, ai!  O thou unholy children, to doubt my word!  Behold!  Henceforth she shall share the temple with the lion, and later she will give us prosperity, and my name shall ever be in your households.”

Having secured a priestess, he was now determined that he should not lose her.  The future was roseate indeed, and when he took his next pilgrimage to holy Benares they would bestrew his pathway with lotus flowers.