Yet, as always, my hesitancies were whisked aside like dust when my mind framed a picture of Yasma, Yasma as she had radiantly flitted along the dim wooded lanes, Yasma as she had clung to me in a storm of sad emotion. And love, the blinding, all-powerful master, came as always to silence the protests of reason; I was flooded once more with tenderness and yearning, was held once more as in a magic mood; and the little remembered things Yasma had said, and the things Yasma had done, the dimpling smiles that played across her face and even the petulant frowns, her quaint little manner of nodding when happy, the puckish creasing of merriment about the corners of her lips, and the pitiful sadness of her half-closed tearful eyes, had all a part in weaving the halo that enveloped her. And so it was useless to struggle, useless to seek to unravel that web which time and chance and my own passions had wound about me. Even had I known that Yasma and I were to be wedded and the next moment hurled together over a precipice, I would hardly have had the strength to check our fatal course. No! for the sake of my own peace of mind, as well as because dark and powerful forces were stirring within me, I would have had to yield to the enchantment and fuse the two fierce currents of our lives. And so profound was my longing for Yasma that, despite the moment's misgivings, it seemed that an incalculable epoch must pass before the crescent could expand into the full moon. CHAPTER XVII _AT THE TIME OF THE FULL MOON_ A wedding among the Ibandru is celebrated by twenty-four hours of feasting and rejoicing. All members of the tribe are invited, and all are expected to participate; no one is permitted to labor in the fields or at home; from dawn until dawn the village is delivered into the hands of the merrymakers. Bonfires are lighted at night, and weird and picturesque dances executed; songs are sung by day, and races run, and games of strength and skill find favor; prayers are uttered, orations made, stories told, and poems intoned. And as the supreme mark of the occasion, a privilege that combines pleasure with consecration, the elders of the tribe pass the jugs of "sacru," a local intoxicant made from the roots of a starchy herb; and all are urged to drink out of respect for the wedded pair. Judged by the quantity of "sacru" consumed when Yasma and I were married, the respect in which we were held was enormous. Had the beverage not been withheld during the first two or three hours of the festivities, many of the reverential ones would not have been in a condition to appreciate anything that went on.