Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/221

 heard nothing save my own hard breathing. I felt that I had not yet strength to rise and leave the terrace as I had purposed doing.

Finally Angulimala spoke, and the gentle, and even sad, note in his voice surprised me to such a degree that I was almost terrified, and started involuntarily.

"And so it would have happened," said he, "and thou, the tender, gentle wife, who has assuredly never wilfully injured even the meanest of creatures, wouldst now have been in alliance with the vilest of human beings, a wretch whose hands drip blood. Yes, the murder of thy husband would have burdened thy conscience and would now be spinning its black Karma threads on the downward path, on into the infernal world—that is, so it would have been, if thou hadst now been speaking to the robber Angulimala."

I didn't know whether I could believe my ears. To whom else had I spoken then? It was certainly the voice of Angulimala, even if with that wonderful change of tone; and as I turned abruptly round, now thoroughly dismayed, and looked intently at him, it was beyond all doubt the robber-chieftain who stood before me, even if, in his whole bearing, another character seemed to be expressed than that which on the previous day had held me in its fearful thrall.

"But no fear, noble lady," he added, "all this has not happened. Nothing has happened, not any more than if thou hadst addressed thy speech to this tree."

These words were as puzzling to me as those that had preceded them. But so much I understood, that, for some reason, he had given up his plan of vengeance on Satagira.

After I had worked myself up through frightful inner struggles to such an unnatural pitch of crime, this sudden