Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/142

 entire population of Kamt to guard it and me, I yet would creep out and find my way to her, and I tell you Kesh-ta would not fail twice."

Exhausted, she sank back, half fainting, on the ground, while deathlike silence reigned around; one by one every member of the jury dropped his lotus flower before him, and the judges, having taken count, pronounced solemnly the word "Guilty!"

Then Ur-tasen rose and delivered judgment.

"Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! thou art accursed! Thy crime is heinous before the gods! Thy very thoughts pollute the land of Kamt.

"Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! thou art accursed. Be thy name for ever erased from the land that bare [sic] thee. May the memory of thee be cast out of the land, for thou art trebly accursed.

"Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! thou are accursed! The gods decree that thou be cast out for ever beyond the gates of Kamt, into the valley of death, where dwell neither bird nor beast, where neither fruit nor tree doth grow, and where thy soul and body, rotting in the arid sand, shall become a prey for ever to the loathsome carrion of the desert."

Kesh-ta's answer to this terrible fiat was one loud and prolonged laugh. I felt almost paralysed with the horror of the scene. My mind persistently conjured up before me the vision of the lonely desert strewn with whitening bones, the vultures and screeching jackals, and the loathsome cannibal who once had been just such a living, breathing, picturesque man as these now before me. The woman's crime was horrible, but she was human, and above all, she was a woman. Trouble seemed to have unhinged her mind, and the thought to me was loathsome that so irresponsible a being should suffer such appalling punishment.