With a little shriek of dismay, half-real, half-pretended, the girl gathered the sleeping child in her arms and disappeared into the huts.
"The wheel slackens on its pivot," muttered the old woman, stooping again over the still form on the bed. "I must get her to Mother Earth, as a seed to the soil, ere it stops."
She stood at the gap and called. The fine fretwork of the acacia branches showed against the growing blue of the sky. The little golden puffs sent their violet perfume into the air. A bird sat among them, chirruping to its mate.
"Come," she said, and the tall bearded man followed her meekly. Together--he at the head, she at the feet--they laid Saraswati on the ground with the dead child, half-hidden in her veil, still between her and the great stretch of harvest beyond.
Suddenly, roused by the movement, she stirred slightly, and the big black eyes opened. Dhun Devi gripped the man's hand as if to detain him.
"The child--is it well with the child?" came in a faint voice.
Dhun Devi's clasp gripped firmer; a look recalling long past years came to her face.
"Yea, mother, it is well; thy son sleeps in thine arms."
Then, craning up from her crooked old age to reach his ear, she whispered swiftly:
"Say 'tis so if thou art a man, and bid her God-speed on her journey."