The day arose brightly upon the valley of Cashmire. It came in all the
splendid majesty of light, bathing in hues of gold the summits of the
Indian Caucasus: it came in all the renovating influence of warmth,
raising the blossom the night-breeze had laid low; it shed the dews of
heaven upon the towering head of the mighty banyan, and steeped in
liquid silver the flowers of the vesanti creeper; pervading, with a
genial and delicious power, the most remote recess, the most minute
production of nature, and pouring upon the face of the earth, the
beneficent influence of that Being from whose word it proceeded. But the
day brought no solace in its dawn, no joy in its course, to him, who, in
the scale of creation, came nearest in his nature to the Creator;--it
brightened not his thoughts; it revived not his hopes; and, for him, its
beams shone, its dews fell, in vain.
The minister of the religion of peace arose from his harassing slumber
with an heart heavy and troubled, with a frame chilled and unrefreshed.
He arose, agitated by that vague consciousness of misery, which
disturbs, without being understood, when the mind, suddenly awakened
from the transient suspension of its powers, has not yet regained its
full vigour of perception, nor the memory collected and arranged the
freshly traced records of some stranger woe, and when the faculty of
suffering, alone remains to us in all its original force and activity.
Agitated by the tumults of passion, distracted by the suspicions of
jealousy, torn by the anguish of remorse, and humbled by the
consciousness of weakness, the Missionary now felt the full extent of
his progressive and obstinate illusion, in the consequences it had
already produced; he felt that the heart which once opens itself to the
admission of a strong passion, is closed against every other impression,
and that objects obtain or lose their influence, only in proportion as
they are connected with, or remote from, its interest. Love was now to
him what his religion had once been, and the strongest feeling that
rules the human heart stood opposed to the most powerful opinion which
governs the human mind:--the conflict was terrific, and proportioned in
obstinacy and vigour to the strength of the character in which it was
sustained. Knowing no solace in his misery but what arose from the
belief that the secret of his weakness was known only to Heaven and to
himself, he resolved not to trust its preservation to the issue of
chance; but, ere the dreadful passions which shook his soul could
realize their fatal influence in crime; ere the fluctuating emotions
which degraded his mind could resolve themselves into iniquity; ere he
debased the life which sin had not yet polluted, or broke the vows which
were revered, even while they were endangered, he determined to fly the
scenes of his temptation, and to cling to the cross for his redemption
and support. Yet still, with an heart vibrating from the recent
convulsion of its most powerful feelings, he remained irresolute even in
his resolution. Convinced of the imperious necessity which urged him to
leave, for ever, the object of a passion which opposed itself equally to
his temporal and to his eternal welfare; to leave for ever, those scenes
which had cherished and witnessed its progress; he still doubted whether
he should again, and for the last time, behold her, whose falsehood it
was his interest to believe, and his misery to suspect. Now governed by
conscience and by jealousy; now by tenderness and passion--the alternate
victim of feeling and religion, of love and of opinion; he continued
(wretched in his indecision) to wander amidst the voluptuous shades of
his perilous seclusion; hoping that chance might betray him into the
presence of his dangerous and faithless disciple, and vowing
premeditatedly to avoid her, or to behold her only to upbraid, to
admonish, and to leave her for ever. The day, as it passed on, vainly
told to his unheeding senses its rapid flight in all the sweet
gradations of light and odour, in beams less ardent, and in gales more
balmy; till the Missionary, unconsciously descending a path worn away
through a gigantic mass of pine-covered rocks, found himself, at the
setting of the sun, near the too well remembered stream of evening
worship. He started and shuddered, and involuntarily recoiled; and that
fatal moment when he had first seized the up-raised arm of the
idolatrous Priestess, rushed to his recollection: the hour--the
place--the stream which had since so often reflected in its course the
pastor and the proselyte--the tree which had so often shaded their
fervid brows when the glow which suffused them was not all the influence
of season--the sun, whose descending beam had so often been the herald
of their felicity--all looked, all was now, as it had been then,
unaltered and unchanged. The Missionary gazed around him, and sighed
profoundly: “All here,” he said, “still breathes of peace, as when,
myself at peace with all the world, I first beheld this scene of
tranquil loveliness. All here remains the same. O man! it is then thy
dreadful prerogative alone, to sustain that change of all thy powers
which leaves thee a stranger to thyself, lost in the wild vicissitude of
feelings, to which thy past experience can prove no guide, thy reason
lend no light: one fixed immutable law of harmony and order, regulates
and governs the whole system of unintelligent creatures; but thou, in
thy fatal pre-eminence, makest no part in the splendid mechanism of
nature: exclusive and distinct among the works of thy Creator, to thee
alone is granted a self-existing principle of intellectual pain; a
solitary privilege of moral suffering. Vicegerent of Heaven! thou rulest
all that breathes, save only thyself: and boasting a ray of the divine
intelligence, thou art the slave of instinct, thy principle of action a
selfish impulse, and thy restraint an inscrutable necessity.”--He paused
for a moment, and raising his eyes to the sun, which was descending in
all the magnificence of retiring light, still apostrophizing the species
to which he belonged, and whose imperfections he felt he epitomized in
himself, he continued: “That orb, which rises brightly on thy budding
hopes, sets with a changeless lustre on their bloom’s destruction; but,
in the brief interval of time in which it performs its wonted course,
in uninterrupted order, what are the sad transitions by which the mind
of man is subject! what are the countless shades of hope and fear, of
shame and triumph, of rapture and despair, by which he may be depressed
or elevated, ennobled or debased!” He sighed profoundly, as he concluded
a picture of which he was himself the unfortunate original; and,
withdrawing his eyes from the receding sun, he threw them, with the
looks of one who fears an intrusion upon his solitary misery, in that
line where a gentle rustling in the leaves had called his attention. The
branches, thick and interlaced, slowly unclasped their folds, and thrown
lightly back on either side, by a small and delicate hand, the
Priestess of Brahma issued from their dusky shade; her form lighted up
by the crimson rays of that life-giving power, to which she was at this
hour wont to offer her vesper homage. She had that day officiated in the
Pagoda, where she served, and she was habited in sacerdotal vestments,
but there was in her look more of the tender solicitude of an expecting
heart, than the tranquil devotion of a soul which religion only
occupied. Advancing with a rapid, yet doubtful step, she cast round her
eyes with a look timid, tender, and apprehensive, as if she wished and
feared, and hoped and dreaded the presence of some expected object--then
pausing, she drew aside her veil, lest the almost impalpable web should
intercept the fancied sound which expectation hung on. Thus, as she
stood animated by suspenseful love, glowing with the hues of heaven, her
up-held veil floating, like a sun-tinged vapour, round her; she looked
like the tender vision which descends upon Passion’s dream, like the
splendid image, to whose creation Genius entrusts its own immortality.
O woman! Nature, which made you fair, made you fairest in the expression
of this her best feeling; and the most perfect loveliness of a cold
insensibility becomes revolting and deformed, compared to that
intelligence of beauty which rushes upon the countenance from the heart
that is filled with a pure and ardent affection: then thought breathes
upon the lip, independent of sound; and the eye images in a glance, all
that the soul could feel in an age!
Unseen, though haply not unexpected, the Missionary stood lost in
gazing, and finely illustrated the doctrine which gave birth to his
recent soliloquy; for in a moment, thought was changed into emotion, and
musing into passion; resolves were shaken, vows were cancelled,
sufferings were forgotten; on earth he saw only her, whom a moment
before he had hoped never to behold again; and from the world of
feelings which had torn his heart, one only now throbbed in its rapid
pulse--it was the consciousness of being loved! He saw it in the look,
intently fixed upon the path he was wont to take: he saw it on the
cheek which lost or caught its colouring from sounds scarce audible: he
saw it in the air, the attitude; he saw it in the very respiration,
which gave a tremulous and unequal undulation to the consecrated
vestment which shaded, with religious mystery, the vestal’s hallowed
bosom. Sight became to him the governing sense of his existence; and the
image which fascinated his eye, absorbed and ruled every faculty of his
mind. A moment would decide his destiny--the least movement, and he was
discovered to Luxima: a look turned, or a smile directed towards him,
and the virtues of his life would avail him nothing.--He trembled, he
shuddered!--Love was not only opposed to religion, to reason--in his
belief, it was at that moment opposed to his eternal salvation! Suddenly
struck by the horrible conviction, he turned his eyes away, and implored
the assistance of that Heaven he had abandoned. The voice of Luxima came
between him and his God. His prayer died, unfinished, on his lips. He
paused, he listened; but that voice, sweet and plaintive as it was,
addressed not him--its murmuring sounds, broken and soft, seemed only
intended for another; for one who had sprung from behind a clump of
trees, and had fallen at her feet--It was the Prince Solyman Sheko!! The
Missionary stood transfixed, as though a blast from Heaven had withered
up his being!
Luxima, apparently agitated by amazement and terror, seemed to
expostulate; but in a voice so tremulous and low, that it scarcely could
have reached the ear it was intended for.
“Hear me,” said the Prince, abruptly interrupting her, and holding the
drapery of her robe, as if he feared she would escape him; “hear me! I
who have lived only to command, now stoop to solicit; yet it is no
ordinary suitor who pleads timidly at thy feet, desponding while he
supplicates--it is one resolved to know the _best_ or _worst_--to
conquer thee, or to subdue himself. Amidst the dreams of glory, amidst
the tumults of a warrior’s life, the fame of thy unrivalled beauty
reached my ear. I saw thee in the temple of thy gods, and offered to
thee that homage thou dost reserve for them. From that moment my soul
was thine. Thy loveliness hung upon me like a spell; and still I
loitered ’midst the scenes thy presence consecrates, while duty and
ambition, my fame and glory, vainly called me hence. Thy absence from
the temple where thou dost preside, not more adoring than adored; thy
holy seclusion, which all lament, and none dare violate, which even a
Mussulman respects, blasted my hopes and crossed my dearest views: till
yesterday a mandate from my father left to my heart no time for cool
deliberation. With the shades of evening I sought the consecrated grove
forbidden to the foot of man; and for the first time presented myself to
eyes whose first glance fixed my destiny. Amazed and trembling, thou
didst seem to hear me in pity and disdain; then thou didst supplicate my
absence--yet still I lingered; but thou didst weep, and I obeyed the
omnipotence of those sacred tears--yet, ere I reached the camp, I cursed
my weakness, and, listening only to my imperious passion, returned to
seek and sue, perhaps, to conquer and be blessed! But in thy stead, I
saw, or fancied that I saw, some prying Brahmin, some jealous guardian
of the vestal Priestess, placed in these shades to guard and to preserve
her from the unhallowed homage of human adoration, as if none but the
God she served was worthy to possess her. For thy sake, not for mine, I
fled: but now, while all thy brethren are engaged, performing in their
temples their solemn evening worship, I come to offer mine to thee. The
sun has _their_ vows--thou hast mine. They offer to its benignant
influence, prayers of gratitude. Oh! let mine cease to be prayers of
supplication; for I, like them, am zealous in my idolatry; and thus,
like them, devote what yet remains of my existence to my idol’s
service.” He ceased, and gazed, and sighed.
Luxima had heard him in silence, which was only interrupted by broken
exclamations of impatience and apprehension; for her attitude imaged the
very act of flight. The averted head, the advanced step, the strained
eye, the timid disorder of her countenance, all intimated the agitation
of a mind, which seemed labouring under the expectation of some
approaching evil. A pause of a moment ensued; and the Prince, construing
her silence and emotion as his wishes directed, would have taken her
hand. The indignant glance of Luxima met his. There were, in his eyes,
more terrors than his words conveyed. She would have fled. The arms of
the unhallowed infidel were extended to inclose in their fold the sacred
form of the vestal Priestess; but an arm, stronger than his, defeated
the sacrilegious effort, and seizing him in its mighty grasp, flung him
to a considerable distance. The Mussulman was stunned: amazement,
consternation, and rage, mingled in his darkened countenance. He drew a
dagger from his girdle, and flew at the intruder--who suddenly darted
forward to ward off the death-blow which threatened him; and, seizing
the up-raised arm of the infuriate Prince, he struggled with his
strength, and wrenching the weapon from the hand that brandished it,
flung it in the air. Then, with a look dignified and calm, he said,
“Young stranger, thou wouldest have dishonoured thyself, and destroyed
me. I have saved thee from the double crime; give Heaven thanks: return
whence thou camest; and respect, in future, the sacred asylum of
innocence, which thy presence and thy professions alike violate.”
The Prince, struck, but not daunted, by a firmness so unexpected,
replied, with indignation in his look, and rage storming on his brow,
“And who art thou, insolent! who thus darest command? By thy garb and
air, thou seemest some adventurer from the West, some wretched
Christian, unconscious that, for the first time, thou art in the
presence of a Prince.”
The large dark eye of the Missionary rolled over the form of the youth
in haughtiness and pity. His lips trembled with a rage scarcely stifled,
his countenance blazed with the indignant feelings which agitated his
mind. He struggled religiously against himself; but the saintly effort
was unequal to combat the human impulse--he paused to recover his
wonted equanimity of manner, and then returned:
“Who am I, thou wouldest know? I am, like thee, young Prince, a man,
alive to the dignity of his nature as man, resolved, as able, to defend
it; with sinews no less braced than thine, a heart as bold, an arm as
strongly nerved; descended, like thyself, from royal race, and born,
perhaps like thee, for toil and warfare, for danger and for conquest:
but views of higher aim than those which kings are slaves to, replaced a
worldly, with a heavenly object; and he, whom thou hast dared to call a
wretch, tramples beneath his feet the idle baubles for which thy kindred
steep their hands in brothers’ blood; great in the independence of a
soul which God informs, and none but God can move!” The Missionary
paused--the grandeur of his imperious air fading gradually away, like
the declining glories of an evening sky, as all their lustre melts in
the solemn tints of twilight. His eyes fell to the earth, and a cast of
meekness subdued the fire of their glance, and smoothed the lowering
furrow of his close-knit brow.
“Prince,” he added, “thou didst ask me, who I am.--I am a Christian
Missionary, lowly and poor, who wandered from a distant land, to spread
the truth my soul adores, to do what good I can, and still to live in
peace and Christian love with thee and all mankind!” He ceased.
Wonder and amazement, shame and disappointment, mingled in the
expressive countenance of the Mussulman: he remained silent, alternately
directing his glance towards the Missionary, who stood awfully meek and
grandly humble before him, and to Luxima, who, faint and almost
lifeless, leaned against the trunk of a tree, beaming amidst its dark
foliage like a spirit of air, whom the power of enchantment had
spell-bound in the dusky shade. The young and ardent Solyman had nothing
to oppose to the speech of the Missionary, and offered no reply; but
rushing by him, he fell at the feet of the Priestess. “Fair creature,”
he said, “knowest thou this wondrous stranger, and has he any influence
o’er thy mind? for though I hate him as an infidel, yet I would kneel to
him, if he could but move thee in my favour.”
“And what wouldst thou of a Brahmin’s daughter, and a consecrated
vestal?” interrupted the Missionary, trembling with agitation; while
Luxima hid her blushing face in her veil.
“I would possess her affections!” returned the impassioned Solyman.
“She has none to bestow,” said the Missionary, in a faltering voice;
“her soul is wedded to Heaven.”
“Perhaps thou lovest her thyself,” said the Prince, rising from the feet
of Luxima, and darting a searching glance at the Missionary; who
replied, while a crimson glow suffused itself even to his brow, “I love
her in Christian charity, as I am bound to love all mankind.”
“And nothing more?” demanded the Prince, with a piercing look.
“Nothing more?” faintly demanded Luxima, turning on him eyes which
melted with tenderness and apprehension, as if her soul hung upon his
reply.
“Nothing more!” said the Monk, faintly.
“Swear it then,” returned Solyman, while his eyes ran over the anxious
countenance of the drooping Neophyte, who stood pale and sad, chasing
away with her long hair the tears which swelled to her eyes; “swear it,
Christian, by the God you serve.”
“And by what compulsion am I to obey thy orders,” said the Missionary
vehemently, and in unsubdued emotion, “and profane the name of the Most
High, by taking it in vain, because a boy desires it?”
“Boy! boy!” reiterated the Prince, his lips quivering with rage; then,
suddenly recovering himself, he waved his head, and smiled
contemptuously; and turning his eyes on Luxima, whose loveliness became
more attractive from the tender emotion of her varying countenance, he
said, “Beautiful Hindu! it is now for thee to decide! Haply thou knowest
this Christian; perhaps thou lovest him! as it is most certain that he
loves thee. I also love thee: judge then between us. With me thou mayst
one day reign upon the throne of India, and yet become the empress of
thine own people; what he can proffer thee, besides his love, I know
not.”
“Besides his love!” faintly repeated Luxima; and a sigh, which came from
her heart, lingered long and trembling on her lips, while she turned her
full eyes upon the Missionary.
“Ah! thou lovest him then?” demanded the Prince, in strong and unsubdued
emotion.
“It is my religion now to do so,” replied the Indian, trembling and
covered with blushes; and chasing away her timid tears, she added
faintly, “Heaven has spoken through his lips to my soul.”
A long pause ensued; the eyes of each seemed studiously turned from the
other; and all were alike engrossed by their own secret emotions.
Solyman was the first to terminate a silence almost awful.
“Unfortunate Indian!” exclaimed the Prince, with a look of mingled anger
and compassion; “thou art then a Christian, and an apostate from thy
religion, and must _forfeit cast_.”
At this denunciation, so dreadful, Luxima uttered a shriek, and fell at
his feet, pale, trembling, and in disorder. “Mercy!” she exclaimed,
“mercy! recall those dreadful words. Oh! I am not a Christian! not _all_
a Christian! His God indeed is mine; but Brahma still receives my
homage: I am still his Priestess, and bound by holy vows to serve him;
then save me from my nation’s dreadful curse. It is in thy power only to
draw it on my head: for here, hidden from all human eyes, I listen to
the precepts of this holy man, in innocence and truth.”
The Prince gazed on her for a moment, lovely as she lay at his feet, in
softness and in tears; then concealing his face in his robe, he seemed
for some time to struggle with himself; at last he exclaimed, “Unhappy
Indian, thou hast my pity! and if from others thou hast nought to hope,
from me thou hast nought to fear.” Again he paused and sighed
profoundly; and then, in a low voice, added, “Farewell! Though I have
but thrice beheld thy peerless beauty, I would have placed the universe
at thy feet, had I been its master; but the son of the royal Daara
cannot deign to struggle, in unequal rivalship, with an obscure and
unknown Christian wanderer. Yet still remember, should the imprudence of
thy Christian lover expose thee to the rage of Brahminical intolerance;
or thy apostacy call down thy nation’s wrath upon thy head; or should
aught else endanger thee; seek me where thou mayest, I promise thee
protection and defence.” Then, without directing a glance at the
Missionary, he moved with dignity away; and mounting a Tartar horse,
whose bridle was thrown over the trunk of a distant tree, he was in a
moment out of sight.
The Missionary, overwhelmed, as if for the first time his secret were
revealed even to himself, stood transfixed in the attitude in which the
Prince’s last speech had left him; his arms were folded in the dark
drapery of his robe; his eyes cast to the earth; and in his countenance
were mingled expressions of shame and triumph, of passion and remorse,
of joy and apprehension. Luxima too remained in the suppliant attitude
in which she had thrown herself at the Prince’s feet; not daring to
raise those eyes in which a thousand opposite expressions blended their
rays. Solyman had called the Missionary her _lover_; and this epithet,
by a strange contrariety of feeling and of prejudice, at once human and
divine, religious and tender, filled her ardent soul with joy and with
remorse. The affectionate, the impassioned woman triumphed; but the
pure, the consecrated vestal shuddered; and though she still believed
her own feelings resembled the pious tenderness of _mystic love_, yet
she trembled to expose them even to herself, and remained buried in
confusion and in shame. A long and awful pause ensued, and the silent
softness of the twilight no longer echoed the faintest sound; all around
resembled the still repose of nature, ere the eternal breath had warmed
it into life and animation; but all within the souls of the solitary
tenants of shades so tranquil was tumult and agitation. At last, Luxima,
creeping towards the Missionary, in a faint and tender voice, pronounced
the dear and sacred epithet of “Father!” He started at the sound, and,
turning away his head, sighed profoundly. “Look on me,” said Luxima,
timidly; “it is thy child, thy proselyte, who kneels at thy feet; the
wrath of Heaven is about to fall heavily on her head; the gods she has
abandoned are armed against her; and the Heaven, to which thou hast
lured the apostate, opens not to receive and to protect her.” She took
the drapery of his robe as she spoke, and wept in its folds. She was
struck to the soul by the cold resistance of his manner; and beholding
not the passions which convulsed his countenance, she guessed not at
those which agitated his mind. The instinctive tenderness and delicacy
of a woman, whose secret has escaped her, ere an equal confidence has
sanctioned the avowal of her love, was deeply wounded; and not knowing
that man, who has so little power over the mere impulse of passion,
could subdue, confine, and resist the expressions of his sentiments,
she believed that the unguarded discovery of her own feelings had
awakened the abhorrence of a soul so pure and so abstracted as the
Christian’s; and, after a pause, which sighs only interrupted, she
added, “And have I also sinned against thee, for whose sake I have dared
the wrath of the gods of my fathers; and, in declaring the existence of
that divine love, enchanting and sublime, which thou hast taught me to
feel, that mysterious pledge for the assurance of heavenly bliss, by
which an object on earth, precious and united, yet distinct from our own
soul, can----”
“Luxima! Luxima!” interrupted he, in wild and uncontrollable emotion,
nor daring to meet the look which accompanied words so dangerous,
“cease, as you value my eternal happiness. You know not what you do, nor
what you say. You are confounding ideas which should be eternally
distinct and separate: you deceive yourself, and you destroy me! The
innocence of your nature, your years, your sex, the purity of your
feelings, and your soul, must save you; but I! I!--Fatal creature! it
must not be! Farewell, Luxima!--O Luxima! on earth at least we meet no
more!” As he spoke, he disengaged his hand from the clasp of hers, and
would have fled.
“Hear me,” she said, in a faltering voice, and clinging to his robe;
“hear me! and then let me die!”
The Missionary heard and shuddered: he knew that the idea of death was
ever welcome to an Indian’s mind; and, that the crime of suicide to
which despair might urge its victim, was sanctioned by the religion of
the country, by its customs and its laws[9]. He paused, he trembled, and
turning slowly round, fearfully beheld almost lifeless at his feet, the
young, the innocent, and lovely woman, who, for his sake, had refused a
throne; who, for his sake, was ready to embrace death. “Let you die,
Luxima?” he repeated, in a softened voice; and seating himself on a
bank beside her, he chased away with her veil, the tears which hung
trembling on her faded cheek--“Let you die?”
“And wherefore should I live?” she replied with a sigh. “Thou hast torn
from me the solace of my own religion; and, when I lose thee, when I no
longer look upon or hear thee, who can promise that the faith, to which
thou hast won me from the altars of my ancient gods, will remain to
sooth my suffering soul? and, O father! though it should, must I worship
alone and secretly, amidst my kindred and my friends; or, must I, by a
public profession of apostacy, lose my cast, and wander wretched and an
alien in distant wilds, my nation’s curse and shame? Oh! no; ’t were
best, ere that, I died! for now I shall become a link between thy soul
and a better, purer state of things; spotless and unpolluted, I shall
reach the realms of peace, and a part of thyself will have gone before
thee to the bosom of that great Spirit, of which we are alike
emanations. O father!” she added, with a mixture of despair and passion
in her look and voice, “’t were best that _now_ I died; and that I died
for _thee_.”
“For me, Luxima! for me!” repeated the Missionary, in a frenzied accent,
and borne away by a variety of contending and powerful emotions--“die
for me! and yet it is denied _me_ even to _live_ for thee!--And live I
not for thee? O woman! alike fatal and terrific to my senses and my
soul, thou hast offered thy life as a purchase of my secret--and it is
thine! Now then, behold prostrate at thy feet, one who, till this
dreadful moment, never bent his knee to ought but God alone; behold,
thus grovelling on the earth, the destruction thou hast effected, the
ruin thou hast made! behold the unfortunate, whose force has submitted
to thy weakness; whom thou hast dragged from the proudest eminence of
sanctity and virtue, to receive the law of his existence from thy look,
the hope of his felicity from thy smile; for know, frail as thou mayst
be, in all thy fatal fondness, he is frailer still; and that thou, who
lovest with all a seraph’s purity, art beloved with all the sinful
tyranny of human passion, strengthened by restraint, and energized by
being combated. Now then, all consecrated as thou art to heaven; all
pure and vestal by thy vows and life; save, if thou canst, the wretch
whom thou hast made; for, lost alike to heaven and to himself, he looks
alone _to thee_ for his redemption!” As he spoke, he fell prostrate and
almost lifeless on the earth: for two days no food had passed his lips;
for two nights no sleep had closed his eyes; passion and honour,
religion and love, opposed their conflicts in his mind; nature sunk
beneath the struggle, and he lay lifeless at the feet of her who had for
ever destroyed the tranquillity of his conscience, and rendered
valueless the sacrifices of his hitherto pure, sinless, and self-denying
life.
Luxima, trembling and terrified, yet blessed in her sufferings, and
energized by those strong affections which open an infinite resource to
woman in the hour of her trial, gently raised his head from the earth
and chafed his forehead with the drops which a neighbouring lotos-leaf
had treasured from the dews of the morning. He loved her; he had told
her so; and she again repeated in her felicity, as she had done in her
despair, “It were best that now I died!”