8.

Listening, Ladurlad lay in his despair,

If Kailyal slept; for wherefore should she share Her father's wretchedness, which none could cure? Better alone to suffer: he must bear

The burden of his Curse; but why endure The unavailing presence of her grief? She, too, apart from him, might find relief: For dead the Rajah deemed her; and, as thus Already she his dread revenge had fled, So might she still escape, and live secure.

9.

Gently he lifts his head,

And Kailyal does not feel;

Gently he rises up, she slumbers still;
Gently he steals away with silent tread.
Anon she started, for she felt him gone;
She called, and, through the stillness of the night,
His step was heard in flight.

Mistrustful for a moment of the sound,
She listens, till the step is heard no more;

But then she knows that he indeed is gone,

And with a thrilling shriek she rushes on. The darkness and the wood impede her speed:

She lifts her voice again,

"Ladurlad!" – and again, alike in vain,

And with a louder cry

Straining its tone to hoarseness: far away,

Selfish in misery,

He heard the call, and faster did he fly.

10.

She leans against that tree whose jutting bough Smote her so rudely. Her poor heart, How audibly it panted,

With sudden stop and start!

Her breath, how short and painfully it came! Hark! all is still around her;

And the night so utterly dark,

She opened her eyes, and she closed them, And the blackness and blank were the same.

11.

'Twas like a dream of horror; and she stood Half doubting whether all indeed were true. A Tiger's howl, loud echoing through the wood, Roused her: the dreadful sound she knew, And turned instinctively to what she feared. Far off the Tiger's hungry howl was heard: A nearer horror met the maiden's view; For right before her a dim form appeared, A human form in that black night, Distinctly shaped by its own lurid light, Such light as the sickly Moon is seen to shed Through spell-raised fogs,—a bloody, baleful red.

12.

That Spectre fixed his eyes upon her full: The light which shone in their accursed orbs

Was like a light from Hell;

And it grew deeper, kindling with the view.
She could not turn her sight

From that infernal gaze, which like a spell Bound her, and held her rooted to the ground. It palsied every power;

Her limbs availed her not in that dread hour;
There was no moving thence;
Thought, memory, sense, were gone:
She heard not now the Tiger's nearer cry ;
She thought not on her father now;
Her cold heart's blood ran back;

Her hand lay senseless on the bough it clasped;
Her feet were motionless;

Her fascinated eyes

Like the stone eyeballs of a statue fixed, Yet conscious of the sight that blasted them.

13.

The wind is abroad;
It opens the clouds:
Scattered before the gale,

They skurry through the sky;

And the darkness, retiring, rolls over the vale. The Stars in their beauty come forth on high; And through the dark-blue night

The Moon rides on triumphant, broad, and bright. Distinct and darkening in her light

Appears that Spectre foul:

The moonbeam gives his face and form to sight,

The shape of man,

The living form and face of Arvalan!
His hands are spread to clasp her.

14.

But at that sight of dread the Maid awoke: As if a lightning-stroke

Had burst the spell of fear,

Away she broke all franticly, and fled. There stood a temple near, beside the way, An open fane of Pollear, gentle God, To whom the travellers for protection pray. With elephantine head and eye severe, Here stood his image, such as when he seized And tore the rebel Giant from the ground,

With mighty trunk wreathed round

His impotent bulk, and on his tusks, on high Impaled upheld him between earth and sky.

15.

Thither the affrighted Maiden sped her flight, And she hath reached the place of sanctuary; And now within the temple in despite, Yea, even before the altar, in his sight, Hath Arvalan, with fleshly arm of might, Seized her. That instant the insulted God Caught him aloft, and from his sinuous grasp, As if from some tort catapult let loose, Over the forest hurled him all abroad.

16.

O'ercome with dread,

She tarried not to see what heavenly Power Had saved her in that hour;

Breathless and faint she fled.

And now her foot struck on the knotted root Of a broad manchineel; and there the Maid Fell senselessly beneath the deadly shade.

VI.

CASYAPA.

1.

SHALL this, then, be thy fate, O lovely Maid? Thus, Kailyal, must thy sorrows then be ended? Her face upon the ground,

Her arms at length extended,

There, like a corpse, behold her laid
Beneath the deadly shade!

What if the hungry Tiger, prowling by,
Should snuff his banquet nigh?
Alas! Death needs not now his ministry:
The baleful boughs hang o'er her,
The poison dews descend.
What Power will now restore her?
What God will be her friend?

2.

Bright and so beautiful was that fair night,