7.

So, as he spake, a glow of dreadful pride Inflamed his cheek: with quick and angry stride He moved toward the pile,

And raised his hand to hush the crowd, and cried, "Bring forth the murderer!" At the Rajah's voice, Calmly, and like a man whom fear had stunned, Ladurlad came, obedient to the call;

But Kailyal started at the sound,

And gave a womanly shriek, and back she drew,
And eagerly she rolled her eyes around,
As if to seek for aid, albeit she knew
No aid could there be found.

8.

It chanced that near her, on the river-brink,
The sculptured form of Marriataly stood:
It was an Idol roughly hewn of wood,
Artless and mean and rude:

The Goddess of the poor was she;
None else regarded her with piety.
But, when that holy Image Kailyal viewed,
To that she sprung, to that she clung;
On her own Goddess, with close-clasping arms,
For life the maiden hung.

9.

They seized the maid; with unrelenting grasp They bruised her tender limbs:

She, nothing yielding, to this only hope

Clings with the strength of frenzy and despair. She screams not now, she breathes not now, She sends not up one vow,

She forms not in her soul one secret prayer; All thought, all feeling, and all powers of life, In the one effort centring. Wrathful they With tug and strain would force the maid away: Didst thou, O Marriataly! see their strife? In pity didst thou see the suffering maid? Or was thine anger kindled, that rude hands Assailed thy holy Image? - for, behold, The holy Image shakes!

10.

Irreverently bold, they deem the maid
Relaxed her stubborn hold,

And now with force redoubled drag their prey;
And now the rooted Idol to their sway
Bends, yields; and now it falls. But then they

scream;

For, lo! they feel the crumbling bank give way, And all are plunged into the stream.

11.

"She hath escaped my will!" Kehama cried; "She hath escaped, but thou art here:

I have thee still,

The worser criminal!"

And on Ladurlad, while he spake, severe
He fixed his dreadful frown.

Lit the protruded brow, the gathered front, The steady eye of wrath.

12.

But, while the fearful silence yet endured,
Ladurlad roused himself:

Ere yet the voice of destiny,

Which trembled on the Rajah's lips, was loosed, Eager he interposed,

As if despair had wakened him to hope: "Mercy! oh, mercy! only in defence, Only instinctively,

Only to save my child, I smote the Prince. King of the world, be merciful!

Crush me, but torture not!"

13.

The Man-Almighty deigned him no reply: Still he stood silent; in no human mood Of mercy, in no hesitating thought Of right and justice. At the length he raised His brow, yet unrelaxed; his lips unclosed; And, uttered from the heart,

With the whole feeling of his soul enforced, The gathered vengeance came.

14.

"I charm thy life

From the weapons of strife,

From stone and from wood,

From fire and from flood,

From the serpent's tooth,

And the beasts of blood:
From Sickness I charm thee,
And Time shall not harm thee;
But Earth, which is mine,
Its fruits shall deny thee;
And Water shall hear me,
And know thee and fly thee;
And the Winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee,

And the Dews shall not wet thee
When they fall nigh thee;
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee in vain ;
Thou shalt live in thy pain,
While Kehama shall reign,
With a fire in thy heart,

And a fire in thy brdin

;

And Sleep shall obey me,

And visit thee never;

And the Curse shall be on thee

For ever and ever."

15.

There where the Curse had stricken him,

There stood the miserable man;

There stood Ladurlad, with loose-hanging arms, And eyes of idiot wandering.

He heard the river flow;

He heard the crumbling of the pile;
He heard the wind which showered
The thin, white ashes round.

There motionless he stood,

As if he hoped it were a dream,
And feared to move, lest he should prove
The actual misery;

And still at times he met Kehama's eye,-
Kehama's eye, that fastened on him still.

III.

THE RECOVERY.

1.

THE Rajah turned toward the pile again: Loud rose the song of death from all the crowd; Their din the instruments begin,

And once again join in

With overwhelming sound.

Ladurlad starts,

he looks around:

What hast thou here in view,

O wretched man! in this disastrous scene? The soldier train, the Bramins who renew Their ministry around the funeral pyre, The empty palanquins,

The dimly-fading fire.