Something unusual was in the air although no one could clearly explain what it was; something was to happen although no one could name the hour or the day!
Rice, and flowers, and jewels cemented with blood had been thrust into and pressed down until they completely filled the great crack which had suddenly appeared before the altar of the oldest and most venerated image of Kali, the Goddess of Destruction, in the Holy City; and the foreigner had been warned not to place his profane foot within the precincts of the city upon this night of the full moon.
The native laughed as he sprang to his feet, standing bare and exceeding beautiful beside the indescribable graven images; and he laughed as he searched in the folds of his turban, and having found the pellets bent down and pressed them between Leonie's teeth, then jerked her to her feet, steadying her with his eyes.
He flung her back against the kiosk wall, and encircling her with his arms drove them fiercely down and against her as he met his splendid teeth in the whiteness of her shoulder--in love; and taking her hand sped with her to the inner places of the city, shouting as he ran in the frenzy of his religion.
"Neither let her take thee with her eyelids."--_The Bible_. "And making a tinkling with their feet."--_The Bible_.
The bazaars were moving in one solid mass in the direction of, but not to, the Cow Temple.
For hours the endless streams had moved inch by inch through the narrow streets lined with shops and gaily painted houses, towards the heart of India's Holy City.
Young women and old, young men and old, children, fakirs and holy men pressed patiently forward, impelled and called by some mystic summons they could not explain.
There was no pushing nor striving, neither was there laughter nor any kind of merry-making, although a flower garland hung around every neck, although the multi-coloured raiment was of the best and cleanest and brightest, and the different marks of the different religious sects shone as though fresh painted between the eyes and upon the face and body.
The holy cows walked slowly with the people, hung with garlands and painted on the face and sides; holding up the traffic as, unafraid, they snuffled their velvety muzzles in the unguarded baskets of grain, and pushed their way unconcernedly and by holy right across the human stream into the Cow Temple as they passed the ever-open door.