146 AMRA. 



" Hah ! " said the Brahman, stepping back, " it is then as I fear- 

 ed ! and this is well too!" he muttered; "Heaven required a 

 victim !" 



He moved slowly to the door, and called his daughter with a loud 

 voice: Amra heard and trembled in the recesses of her apartments. 

 The voice was her father's but the tones of that voice made her soul 

 sicken with fear; and, drawing her drapery round to conceal that 

 alteration in her lovely form which was but too apparent, she canu 

 forth with faltering steps. 



Approach, said the Brahman, fixing his eyes upon her, while those 

 ofFaizi, after the first eager glance, remained riveted to the earth. 

 She drew near with affright, and gazed wildly from one to the other. 



" Ay, look well upon him, whom dost thou behold ? " 



" My father, Ah, spare me ! " 



" Is he your husband ? " 



" Govinda, alas speak for us ! " 



"Fool!" he grasped her supplicating hands, "say but the 

 word are you a wife ? " 



" I am, I am his, before the face of heaven ! " 



" No," he dropped her hands and spoke in a rapid and broken 

 voice: "No, heaven disclaims the monstrous mixture; hell itself 

 rejects it. Had he been the meanest among the sons of Brahma, I 

 had borne it : but an Infidel, a base-born Moslem, has contaminated 

 the stream of my life. Accursed was the hour when he came beneath 

 my roof, like a treacherous fox and a ravening wolf, to betray and to 

 destroy. Accursed was the hour, which mingled the blood of Na- 

 rayna with that of the son of a slave. Shall I live to look upon a 

 race of outcasts, abhorred on earth and excommunicate from heaven, 

 and say, ' These are the offspring of Sarma ? ' Miserable girl, thou 

 wert preordained a sacrifice ! Die, and thine infamy perish with 

 thee ! " Even while he spoke he snatched up the poniard which 

 lay at his feet, but this he needed not : the blow was already struck 

 home, and to her very heart. Before the vengeful steel could read) 

 her, she fell, without a cry a groan senseless, and, as it seemed, 

 lifeless, upon the earth. 



Faizi, almost with a shriek, sprang forward ; but the old man inter- 

 posed : and, with the strong grasp of supernatural strength the 

 strength of despair held him back. Meantime the women, alarm- 

 ed by his eries, rushed wildly in, and bore away in their arms the 

 insensible form of Amra. Faizi strove to follow ; but, at a sign from 

 the Brahman, the door was quickly closed and fastened within, so 

 that it resisted all his efforts to force it. He turned almost fiercely 



