CHAPTER VIII.
Homeward.
Slowly and wearily Kapalkundala turned her steps homeward. Slowly and wearily she plodded her way back. The reason was she had been wrapt up in deep thought and meditation. The news of Luthfunnisha wrought a change in the stream of her thoughts. She was ready for self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice for whom?—for Luthfunnisha?—Oh, No!
Kapalkundala was by nature endowed with a Tantrick's instincts. As the Tantrick always feels remorseless in sacrificing other's lives to earn the good graces of the Kalika, so Kapalkundala was ever ready to lay down her own life for the same purpose. It was not like the Kapalik that her whole existence was treated as a mere abstraction for the attainment of divine favour. But the perception of the practice of piety and devotion to the Divine Energy as manifest in Kalika with her own eyes and ears, by night and day, as well as her habitual religious observances inspired in her a considerable portion of her reverential feelings towards the deity. She conceived the idea of Kali as the ruler of the creation and the bestower of salvation. Imbued with soft tender feelings, she could not bear to see the altar of the goddes dyed red in human blood. But, in no other particulars, would she permit of any
