“Has my daughter your leave to depart, Maharaj?”
“Certainly, friend, though it is of her I come to speak. May I behold the face of the maiden? A Brahmani has no need to veil it. They are not secluded like the Toorki women.”
“Unveil before the Presence, my daughter, Radha.”
The guest started at the name so familiar to him in his devotions.
“It is singular, in view of my errand, that you should have given her this holy name, Pandit-ji.”
“She deserves it for the devoted love that she bears to Sri Krishna,” returned her father. “Of her face I say nothing, but her heart is flawless.”
“It is well!” said the priest Nilkant Rai, and turned gravely to Radha.
Many were the devidasis, the nautch girls of the God, in the Temple of Jagannath. His eyes, deep and glowing, were no strangers to beauty, for the fairest were gathered like flowers to adorn the altars of the God, to dance and sing before his divine dreams, in all things to abide his will.
Six thousand priests serve Sri Krishna as Jagannath, Lord of the Universe, at Chaki, for great is his splendour. The Raja of Dulai, royal though he be, is the sweeper of his house. More than twenty thousand men and women do his pleasure, and of the glories of his temple who can speak?
But never had Nilkant Rai beheld such beauty as trembled before him then—darkly lovely, whitely fair, the very arrows of desire shooting from the bow of her sweet lips, half-child, half-woman, wholly desirable.