"Fool!" and she sprang up--"fool! Yes, I am a fool to have trusted you--trust a liar to lie!" and she laughed bitterly. "See, I have given you my all, I have given my soul for you, worthless as you are, and you are mine. You say you are going for a short time and that you will come back to me. You lie, and you know it! You never mean to come back. To think that you should perjure yourself at such a moment! You are mine, I say; I have paid too great a price for you. Where you go, I am; where you live, there shall I be. We shall never part--never--until that which we call death comes between us!" "Be sensible! I will give you plenty." "Ah, heart of stone! It is nothing but gold with you. Yes, I will buy you. Here, take this. Is it a fair price?" and, unclasping the bracelet, she tossed it to him with an imperial gesture, and it fell with a tinkling crash on the polished wood of the floor. Hawkshawe paled to an ashy gray. He raised his hand as if to strike the proud face before him, but his eyes sank as he met Ma Mie's fearless gaze, and his hand slowly drooped again. Then he stooped and picked up the bracelet. "It is worth ten thousand," he murmured to himself, and the elvish light in his eyes answered the wicked sparkle of rubies in his hand. Gathering up her robe, Ma Mie stepped out of the room with a breaking heart and head held erect and defiant, and when Hawkshawe looked up he was alone. He slipped the jewel into his pocket, and, going to a side-table, poured himself out a glass of brandy, and then another and another, and while he stood near the table drinking feverishly Ma Mie watched him through the curtain from the door of her room, her hand clasping the jade hilt of the stiletto she wore at her girdle. "Ah!" she thought aloud, "I could kill him now as he soddens himself with drink. But he is mine, and---- Oh, the shame of it! I love him! He is mine, and will remain mine if I have to drag his soul to hell!" CHAPTER VIII. THE SIRKAR'S SALT. Have I not eaten the Sirkar's salt? Wherefore then shall I tell a lie? Wherefore lie? Nay, mine oath is true, True as above us spreads the sky. We lost, but a traitor hand was there, And the soldier fell in the liar's snare. _Lays of the Punjab_.