Once more the neophyte, led this time by the high priest in person, is paraded before the seated watchers: once more he is obliged to pass the girl who embodies all that life has held for him in the past, before ambition and the lust of sacerdotal power turned him from love and joy. She alone might have the key, perchance, to unlock the door he has so resolutely shut. She has the key, and with a courage born of desperate abandon to love and passion she dares to use it. She breaks from her place, and fiercely casts herself at her whilom lover’s feet. She grovels in abasement, she implores--then, snatching a hope from the indecision which she sees written on his face, she cajoles. The priests, angry and scandalised at this sacrilegious irruption, seize her and carry her off. But she eludes them, and ere the [Illustration] neophyte has time to steel himself, she is again before him dancing with an allurement, a provocative abandon meant for him alone, which shakes his resolution to its depths. A second time the priests seize her; a second time with desperate cunning she evades their grasp and returns to her passionate attack. The young man is torn with fierce emotions; an unequal battle rages in him, love and life contending with his pride and sense of duty. And as he gazes on the beseeching figure before him, ambition, lust of power, and all his new resolves slip unregarded from him. Everything that life holds seems centred in the swaying figure of the girl before him, fount of all the hot-blooded memories which now sweep unresisted over him. With sudden determination he tears the priestly vestments from his shoulders, and with glad capitulation yields himself to the triumphant embrace of his mistress. Together they dash for freedom. But their passage is barred, priests and fakirs wrench them apart, and the young man is carried off into durance. The crowd disperses silently, and the agonised girl finds herself confronted by the high priest and two of his attendants. A third brings manacles and these are fastened upon the prisoner’s wrists. Then, in obedience to the high priest’s directions, the door of a cavern in the side of one rocky cliff is unlocked, and the janitors depart. The girl is left alone, and in the dreadful silence which ensues she collapses in terror before the lotus pool. The shrine is bathed in moonlight, when at length the prostrate girl rouses herself from the torpor of despair. Her wits returning, she seeks a way of escape. She tries the gates, but they are fastened close and withstand her frenzied shaking. Vainly she looks for other outlet: the high walls are insurmountable. But suddenly she espies the low doorway in the rock. She hesitates for a moment: it scarce looks to open on an avenue of escape. But at least it offers a chance, and on a quick impulse she rolls the obstacle aside. [Illustration]