Ever veiléd things are best.'
"When the eve deepened they were in a forest, a single star overhead shone through the gloom, and was reflected in the water. Looking upward the king asked for the third time:
"'How shall the days of my life be glorious and shine like the stars?'
"Ere she plunged beneath the flood to vanish forever, his guide answered:
"'Love, like the star, the shade of eve,
Seclusion, heavenly rest,
And calm, for these things interweave
The bowers of the Blest?'
"The king was now at the river's secret source, and on the bank above the deep pool he saw a man of a more princely aspect than any he had ever known. He stood grand and divine, extending his hand with a most benignant smile, and the story goes that the king perceived that he held a luminous gem, some say a diamond and some an emerald—both stones, as has often been proved, having magical potency. I cannot tell what it was, but the king reached out his own hand to touch it, when instantly, he knew not how, it seemed that something, a Resolve, a Desire, who can say what, went from him into the bright orb, bearing which the creature of light arose through the air, ascending higher and higher, bearing the jewel which shone like the everlasting stars. And the king knew that his soul's life had gone to other regions beyond the knowledge and speech of men.
"The magical skiff bore him swiftly down the stream and disappeared as he stepped from it to his palace. And tradition has it that his heaviness of heart was gone from that night, and that his soul increased in excellence and beauty, but that of its hidden life he was ever averse to tell."