“You swear it is the Prince. But why? Why do you not lie to save him if you are the King’s woman?”
“Because his mother has trampled me to the earth. I am the Indian woman—the mother of the younger, who is dead and safe. She jeered at me—she mocked me. It is time I should see her suffer. Suffer now as I have suffered, Maya the Queen!”
This was reasonable—this was like the women he had known. His doubt was gone—he laughed aloud.
“Then feed full of vengeance!” he cried, and drove his knife through the child’s heart.
For a moment Sundari wavered where she stood, but she held herself and was rigid as the dead.
“Tha-du! Well done!” she said with an awful smile. “The tree is broken, the roots cut. And now for us women—our fate, O master?”
“Wait here,” he answered. “Let not a hair of their heads be touched. Both are fair. The two for me. For the rest draw lots when all is done.”
The uproar surged away. The two stood by the dead boy. So swift had been his death that he lay as though he still slept—the black lashes pressed upon his cheek.
With the heredity of their different races upon them, neither wept. But silently the Queen opened her arms; wide as a woman that entreats she opened them to the Indian Queen, and speechlessly the two clung together. For a while neither spoke.
“My sister!” said Maya the Queen. And again, “O great of heart!”