He played on a slender reed of bamboo, blowing with his mouth; and he called the cattle to come home to rest, for it was the cow-dust hour, and the sun was setting.
When the King of Death was close by the perfect boy stopped playing, and looked at him riding on the long, long back of his slow-moving grey-black buffalo.
“What an old, old man you are!” said the perfect boy; “never have I seen you before. Who are you?”
“You have seen my messengers,” said the King. “I am Death, who sent to fetch you to my kingdom. Why did you not come?”
“I told your messengers,” said the boy. “It was quite true. It is very kind of you to want to take me to your kingdom; but I do not wish any other life. I love this life very much, and I am so happy. I love my father and my mother, and all the men-and-women people, and the children-people, and the beast-people, and bird-people in this good life that I know. You stay with us too. See, I will ask my mother to make room for you in our own little hut.” But the King of Death shook his head.
“I have a kingdom, and I come to take you to it. Come, make no trouble. Get up behind me on the buffalo; we must be back before to-morrow’s day.”
“And I say again, I will not come,” said the boy, standing firm. “See, I appeal to Shiva to protect me;” and he put out his hand to the large pebble of black stone, Shiva’s symbol, which had been brought to the shrine from the great sacred river of the West Country.
Then the King of Death was angry, and he laid hands on the boy to take him by force; and he dragged him away, so that the symbol of Shiva fell to the ground.
And now Shiva himself, the great god, was angered, and his voice thundered forth, ordering the King of Death back to the Kingdom of Death. “And you shall not return to the world of the-things-that-pass, till I bid you,” said Shiva.
So back went the old king on his slow-moving, grey-black buffalo. And the boy was happy, and life was again full of love and goodness as before, in his world of the-things-that-pass.