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 CHAPTER XXIII

THE SNAKE'S DECREE

, crouching on the ground with the rest, but in spirit uplifted and thrilled by the intensity of his relief and exultation, glanced upward, over his shoulder, at the small, erect figure standing alone and above him under the gilded canopy of the howdah.

Even through the gauze of her veil he could see how her eyes shone. Her breast, beneath the glittering scales, heaved; her whole frame quivered with the ecstasy of her triumph.

She had conquered—his dear Divinity! Had vanquished this mob of the discontented, the rebellious, and the sceptical, even as, at her first coming, she had enslaved his own soul.

Her victory was complete; and Chun, freed suddenly from the crushing burden of his anxiety and fear for her, found in her success an intoxication and a delight more potent than any achievement of his own could ever have pro- duced. The knowledge that it was through him that the woman he so loved had attained to this pinnacle of ascendancy over the inhabitants of