“Yes, I was the King. You pointed out my duty to me, and I did it; otherwise I never would have reached here.”
“And the Princess?”
“Is quite happy,” replied the King. “She rules my realm with her husband, and both are wise.”
“Have you found happiness?” asked Lanis.
“Yes!—and so will you, when you strike your harp,” answered the King.
Lanis struck the golden strings of his harp, and immediately all his weariness and sorrow passed away, and he felt glad and joyful. At the sound of the music, he changed from an old man into a noble-looking youth—the same Lanis who had sung to the King.
“Ah, I have indeed found happiness,” he cried; “but still, I feel I want something more.”
“I know what you want,” said the King. “Look!”
And Lanis, looking up, saw his mother, with a calm expression of joy upon her face, coming towards him, with outstretched arms. All the white-robed spirits around struck their golden harps and sang the most beautiful songs that were ever heard, while mother and son embraced, and far off the palace of the great King shone like a bright star.
Lanis also struck his harp, and, with the earthly monarch and his mother, went singing onward through the lovely fields, to kneel before the King, who had thus drawn him onward, through sorrow and sadness, to find his happiness at length in the land which we mortals call the Kingdom of Shadows but which wise men know as the Kingdom of Eternal Light.