"Even as I plunged the sacrificial knife into the neck of the unworthy sacrifice, I heard footsteps as of one running swiftly; and behold, there came a low caste, pock-marked woman up the middle of the temple, who flung herself at the feet of Kali, laying a sleeping babe upon the altar steps."
"Ah!" barely whispered Jan Cuxson with his eyes fixed upon the fanatical old face.
"And behold, the low caste woman was ayah in the services of one, even a great colonel-sahib, who, being raised above his fellows, was hastening back across the Black Water to his own land, taking with him his one wife, and the one child of their union.
"Loving the white girl child with the great strange love of the servant of India for the offspring of the _feringhee_, the ayah had secretly brought the babe in the absence of the mem-sahib upon visits of farewell, that I might dedicate her to the goddess, binding her in spirit for ever to the land of her birth."
The white man sat in silence when the old man sprang to his feet, standing relentless and formidable in the light of the one lamp.
"See'st thou? See'st thou, sahib, my sin? The sacrifice was within my hands, and yet I spared the child because of the woman's beseechings. I hesitated, yea! I even asked a sign. Aye! and the sign was good, twice pleasing to the Goddess of Death, for behold the owl hooted not, neither was the voice of the jackal uplifted as the doe, coming from the _right_, looked through the open door.
"With the high caste woman I made covenant, that her male child in return for his life should be a servant of the Black One, obeying in all things the mandates of her priests.
"And I held those sleeping babes upon my arm, and within the lips of the girl child I placed the _goor_, the sacred sugar, and around her neck the _roomal_, the noose of sacrifice. And I cut the sign of Kali between the breasts of the man child and between the breasts of the woman child, and marked him between the brows with her blood, and marked her upon the forehead with his blood, so that his mind should be her mind. And her will I bent to _my_ will, that her eyes should open in sleep at the light of the full moon, and that she should go forth upon the mission of the Black One, making sacrifice to the spouse of Siva.