At length the chant came to an end. Fidá felt a breath of relief; for self-control was becoming difficult. Now, at last, he was seized by the stalwart young Brahmans and lifted, like a log of wood, up and up till he was laid on his back on top of the great heap of unlit firewood. A hoarse shout went up from the people gathered below. Fidá’s heart throbbed to suffocation. His hair was literally rising on his head; but he made no movement, nor did he utter any sound. Even in his horror he remembered the behavior of women enduring the suttee, and the memory shamed him into stillness. Under the fierce rays of the sun, now in mid-sky, he closed his eyes and waited—waited for the first crackling flame to leap upon his flesh. Evidently the time for this had not yet come. Again the priests were praying those endless, senseless, Vedic prayers, to Indra, to Vishnu, to Agni—Agni, the fire-god. How long he lay upon the pyre Fidá did not know. It was at once a century and a second. Then the voices of the priests were still. Once more he was seized by the head and the feet and lifted to the ground. There his ropes were cut. He was free again. Trembling and faint, he found himself facing the King’s minister, who was smiling at him still. “The captive did not know,” he murmured, “that our sacrifices are bloodless.” Fidá felt himself redden, and the next instant met the eyes of the Rajah, who was staring at him in amazement: “Knew you not? told they you not? Didst fear such a death? It was a needless fear. Human blood stains not the altars of our gods. You, the foremost of our captives, were laid upon the altar of Indra as a sign that we attribute all our victories to him. That ceremony is over. You are free to depart from the sacrifice.” And, with a friendly gesture, the Rajah turned away again, and Fidá knew himself dismissed. It was not now so easy a task to force his way through the dense crowd; for this time they did not voluntarily make way for him. He was fiercely possessed with the desire, however, to escape from this mob who had been unconscious witnesses of what he felt to be his cowardice. And, after a persistent pushing and edging, he found himself beyond the people and in front of that doorway where he had dismounted the night before. Here Ragunáth had stood and watched him, but had not then read his soul; or, if he had, had found there nothing of which an Asra might be ashamed. Now!—Coward or not, that Asra was leaning up against the palace wall, gone very faint, even his knees trembling with the reaction of a strain that had been greater than he realized.