Why was not humanity like the birds, accepting the Great Mystery of generation as differing not one whit from other functions of Life?
There lay the puzzle. What sin was it that the woman had committed in the dawn of days!
Yea! the dawn came fast! Below the distant verge of sight the bright-hued riders of the Day were galloping hard, each bringing his pennant to the battle of Light and Darkness.
Blue upon gray, violet tinting the blue, so passing to red, flaming to orange. Then with one throb of primrose----
Light!
He felt the thrill of it--that endless quiver of the ether waves passing on and on regardless of him, around him, through him, in him--felt it in a sudden answering shiver of nerve, and vein, and muscle, as he stood up, absorbed utterly in adoration.
"Thy blessing O my father!" came a voice beside him.
"May thy sacrifice be propitious O my daughter!" he replied mechanically.
"And may the King-of-Kings live forever! His slave kisses the dust of his footsteps."
He turned hastily, kingship coming back to him at once, to recognise Âtma Devi. Crouching at his feet, the wet folds of her widow's shroud clung to every curve of her supple body. After a night spent in fruitless inquiry she had come to the tank at the earliest point of dawn to wander fruitlessly in search round its shores; so after a hasty performance of her sacrifices, she was on her way cityward again when she had seen the solitary figure, and, guessing instinctively that it was the King--for his habits were known to all his people--had come to test her suspicion and so, perchance, gain direct speech of someone from whom, surely, she might hear the truth. But his first words checked her.