The night wind spoke. It told her that the catastrophe she had just witnessed destroyed every hope of escape she might have had, for with Zeemit her best friend had gone. She heard Jewan Bukht’s voice in the wind--a voice malignant and cruel. “I will return to-night, and then we will see who conquers!” Those were his parting words. As the wind repeated them to her, it called her back to a sense of her awful danger. Her almost stilled heart sprang into life again. It throbbed with the wildness of fear and horror at what the consequences might be if he returned. She could foil him yet; in her hands she held her own life. An effort of will, and she could snap the “silver thread” and break the “golden bowl.” Three paces forward, and a plunge down into the dark depth, whence had rolled the bodies of Zeemit and Wanna. Were it not better to die than to live to shame and misery? When all hope has fled, when everything that can make life endurable has gone, has not the time come to die? She thought this. And the moaning wind answered her, and said “Yes.” A plunge, a rapid descent, a terrific shock, and then the end. She looked up to the silent stars. They seemed to look down pityingly on her. Mentally her gaze wandered beyond the stars, to the plains of peace, to the White Throne of Mercy and Justice, and she put up a prayer for forgiveness. Be still, wild heart! cease, oh, throbbing brain! death is merciful. She took a step forward--she closed her eyes--she threw up her arms; and, bending her body, she was about to take the fatal leap, when a voice reached her. Not of the wind this time, but a human voice, that cried for help, that told of pain. She went down on her knees. She peered over the broken verandah into the darkness. She could see nothing. The voice had ceased, and there was silence again, save that the “ivy rustled and the wind moaned.” FOOTNOTE: [5] When the Hindoos wish to express a thorough loathing and contempt for anything, they spit upon the ground, and make a peculiar movement with the lips. During the mutiny, and for long afterwards, it was common for the native servants in the European houses, when ordered to do anything, to spit upon the ground when they thought their masters were not looking. The language put into the mouth of Wanna, and the ferocity depicted, are by no means an exaggeration. In fact, words would almost fail to accurately express the inhuman hatred for the English, which the natives--men and women--took every opportunity of displaying during the revolt. CHAPTER XVII. FOR LIFE AND LOVE. The cry that came up out of the darkness, and stayed Flora Meredith in the very act of self murder, was uttered by one who had been miraculously saved from an awful death.