On the morrow, they could see her last sunrise without emotion, save as it announced a holyday and a joyous relief from labor. Fair girls would come to see a sister’s agony, and leaning caressingly on the arms of their betrothed, would exchange love-tokens by her death-bed. She would be tossing helpless on her fiery rack of torture, with the flames licking up greedily her dark hair, once bound with roses. Lovers, sitting under the broad shade, would converse of her happy release, as they plaited each other’s shining locks with jessamine for the dance. And then she should see the rigid features of her loved protector blackening under the flames, as they hissing rose to receive her in their fiery arms—curling like a serpent to enfold her. Her parching thirst would be heightened by the volumes of smoke rising from the burning, smouldering limbs of Nikaiyah. But the mothers would recline under the boughs of the opposite forest, and feed their children with soft, cooling fruits of the orange-tree. Why was not Demetros—known but too late—why was he not there to console her? Alas! were these not the ravings of madness? Yes, mad—mad! Why is not her lover too a god to preserve her: and senseless she repeats the old song of the Bayadere. She was saved, though a mere dancing-girl; why not an innocent virgin? Thus the poor girl sings the song of the God and the Bayadere, lost in the wild charm of the harmony and the picture, too flattering, of preservation. “So the choir, without compassion, But increase at heart her grief; And with eager hands extended, She leaps into the fiery death. But the God-youth now arises, From the circling flames removed, Clasping in his arms protecting, Soars upward with his well-beloved. The Gods are pleased with sinners repenting; And raise their once-lost children, immortal, With fiery arms to heaven above.” * * * * * “Ganga!” mingles with the dying echoes. What is it? That voice!