Her heart palpitated; she was struck with a sudden suspicion. The voice was evidently disguised, but, to her quick ear, could not be mistaken: it was that of the Brahmin. Her brain flashed with instant conviction, as if the deity had lighted up her soul with a positive revelation. The impulse was irresistible. The illusions of superstition vanished, and she felt herself in the meshes of the betrayer. She gasped for breath; she spoke not; she groped for a resting-place, and her arm fell upon the pedestal of the idol. “Come,” said the voice, in a gentle whisper; “why this delay? The god is impatient, and he is not used to be slighted: where he honours, he expects obedience. Come!” “Avaunt! deceiver,” she cried. “You have marked me for your victim. I am betrayed. Why should the divinity of Somnat assume the form of an aged and deformed Brahmin, when he might clothe himself in the fairest garb of mortal flesh? My dream is past. I am your dupe. Away, and leave me. Never will I submit to pollution by one who makes religion a pander to his odious passions. A light has broken upon me. The deity has indeed heard my supplication, and saved me from the machinations of one who will swell the ranks of the Asuras, amid the darkness of Lóhángáráká.”[4] The Brahmin, finding himself foiled, quitted his expected victim in a fury of disappointment. She stood alone, leaning on the image, rapt in a trance of painful abstraction. Suddenly she felt the idol totter; a noise was heard from within, like the hissing of ten thousand serpents, immediately after which fire issued from the nose and mouth of the image, and fell in thick showers around. The whole temple was illuminated, and the door instantly became visible to the worshipper. She darted forward in spite of every impediment, and at length succeeded in gaining the entrance. She felt the pure breath of heaven upon her burning brow, and rejoiced in her escape. Reaching her home at length, in a tumult of hope and anxiety, she found that her husband had gone to that land where “there is time no longer.” FOOTNOTES: [2] This is stated in the Zein-ool-Maasir. [3] The Maha Yug, or great Divine Age, is the longest of the Hindoo astronomical periods, containing a cycle of four million three hundred and twenty thousand years. [4] The last of the thrice seven hells of the Hindoos. Lóhángáráká signifies hot iron coals. CHAPTER IV.