Nothing can harm her.
It is written."
"And I was never told!"
She lived, lived, and all the terrors he had evoked for her were as
naught! Umballa was not above superstition himself for all his
European training. Surely this girl of the white people was imbued
with something more than mortal. She lived!
"Go on!" he said, his voice subdued as was his soul.
"The white goddess by mistake took Ramabai's goblet and was about to
drink when the majordomo seized the goblet and drained the poison
himself. He confessed everything, where the king was, where you were.
They are again hunting through the city for you. For the present you
must hide with me."
"The white woman must die," said Umballa in a voice like one being
strangled.
To this the priests agreed without hesitation. This white woman whom
the people were calling a goddess was a deadly menace to that scepter
of theirs, superstition.
"What has gone is a pact?"
"A pact, Durga Ram," said the chief priest. With Ramabai spreading
Christianity, the abhorred creed which gave people liberty of person
and thought, the future of his own religion stood in imminent danger.
"A pact," he reflected. "To you, Durga Ram, the throne; to us half the
treasury and all the ancient rites of our creed restored.
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