The High Priest strode to the entrance of the cloister, his eyes holding the abstraction of one moving in another world; he seemed oblivious of the Englishman's presence as he said:
"Come forth, ye who seek _kailas_ through Omkar."
As Barlow staggered, almost blind, over the stony path from the cloister, he saw the group of sixteen Brahmins, their foreheads and arms carrying the white bars of Siva.
Then Bootea was led by the priest down to the cold merciless stone Linga, where she, at a word from the priest, knelt in obeisance, a barbaric outburst of music from horn and drum clamouring a salute.
When Bootea arose to her feet the priest tendered her some _mhowa_ spirit in a cocoanut shell, but the girl, disdaining its stimulation, poured it in a libation upon the Linga.
From the amphitheatre of the enclosing hills thirty thousand voices rose in one thundering chorus of "Jae, jae, Omkar!" and, "To Omkar the _Kurban_!"
Many pressed forward, mad fanaticism in their eyes, and held out at arm's length toward the girl bracelets and ornaments to be touched by her fingers as a beneficence.
But Swami Sarasvati waved them back, and turning to Bootea tendered her, with bowed head, the _pan supari_ (betel nut in a leaf) as an admonition that the ceremony had ceased, and there was nothing left but the sacrifice.
As the girl with firm step turned to the path that led up through shrub and jungle growth to the ledge where fluttered the white flag, a tumult of approbation went up from the multitude at her brave devotion. Then a solemn hush enwrapped the bowl of the hills, and the eyes of the thousands were fixed upon the jutting shelf of rock.
A dirge-like cadence, a mighty gasp of, "Ah, Kuda!" sounded as a slim figure, white robed, like a wraith, appeared on the ledge, and from her hand whirled down to the rocks below a cocoanut, cast in sacrifice; next a hand-mirror, its glass shimmering flickers of gold from the sunlight.
For five seconds the white-clothed figure disappeared in the shrouding bushes; men held their breath, and women gasped and clutched at their throats as if they choked.
Then they saw her again, arms high held as though she reached for God. And as the white-draped, slender form came hurtling through the air women swooned and men closed their eyes and shuddered.