She turned from the dawn-light to the light in the face of the Queen. It was well. Led by such a hand, she could present herself without fear before the Lords of Life and Death—she and the child. She smiled. Life is good, but death, which is more life, is better. The son of the King was safe, but her own son safer.
When the conqueror reentered the chamber, he found the dead Queen guarding the dead child, and across her feet, as not worthy to lie beside her, was the body of the Indian woman, most beautiful in death.
FIRE OF BEAUTY
(Salutation to Ganesa the Lord of Wisdom, and to Saraswate the Lady of Sweet Speech!)
This story was composed by the Brahmin Visravas, that dweller on the banks of holy Kashi; and though the events it records are long past, yet it is absolutely and immutably true because, by the power of his yoga, he summoned up every scene before him, and beheld the persons moving and speaking as in life. Thus he had naught to do but to set down what befell.
What follows, that hath he seen.
I
Wide was the plain, the morning sun shining full upon it, drinking up the dew as the Divine drinks up the spirit of man. Far it stretched, resembling the ocean, and riding upon it like a stately ship was the league-long Rock of Chitor. It is certainly by the favour of the Gods that this great fortress of the Rajput Kings thus rises from the plain, leagues in length, noble in height; and very strange it is to see the flat earth fall away from it like waters from the bows of a boat, as it soars into the sky with its burden of palaces and towers.
Here dwelt the Queen Padmini and her husband Bhimsi, the Rana of the Rajputs.