Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/313

 She paused perplexed, then added with an odd look at Hugh:

"Canst jump, oh, beloved of the gods?"

He laughed gaily, merrily, as I had heard him laugh of old.

"Can I?" he asserted triumphantly, and with gesture and action hardly befitting the solemn majesty of the temple of Isis, Hugh made a sudden grab for the drooping acacia, and brought down a perfect shower of white petals, as the floral canopy trembled with the shock.

"Homely happiness is hard to get," he said with a laugh, "but it well repays the effort; the scent of the acacia is very sweet."

She was laughingly shaking her golden tresses, to which the white petals persistently clung.

"It was hard," she said, "but see! how pretty it looks; now, I wonder, what would look well beside it." "These orange blossoms are pretty."

"Yes! … they are pretty…. Wouldst like a cluster? … In Kamt we call them wedded bliss…. Dost want it in the posy?" she asked with a quaint anxious tone in her voice.

"No!" he said abruptly.

The moon must have sunk down very low behind the distant hills of Kamt, and the temple of Isis was dark, only the fitful glow of one of the sanctuary lamps lit up the dainty scene before me. Hugh, I could see, still had himself in absolute control. How long that would last I could not say. I considered that he owed no allegiance to the woman who had planned his murder; the sacrilegious marriage had not been completed, and I, feeble, half-paralysed as I was, had yet the strength to pray that beautiful Neit-akrit would make my friend forget the fateful hour of dawn.