“For he shall conquer the earth!” he cried, “and the trampling of his elephants be heard like thunder, and Kosala shall be his kingdom and Maghada prostrate before his feet, and riches and glory shall be the slaves of the Conqueror for ever and ever!”
And the Maharani said:
“For ever and ever? Yet there is death.”
And Prajapati hid her face.
And the dream-readers, looking up with reverence where they knelt before their diagrams and circles, answered:
“Great Lady, there are riches that Death cannot thieve. There are conquests that Time does not triumph over. There is an Empire that passes not away. What the fate of this child is to be we cannot yet tell. It bewilders us, for great and auspicious as are the signs, they are not plain reading as is the custom. It may be that the child shall be a sage, dominating the souls of men, ruling by pure wisdom, a conqueror——”
But here the Maharaja broke in, in anger:
“Be silent, for this I will not have! The men of my race are Kshatriyas, warriors. The Brahman, the ascetic, the hermit, have their sacred uses, and may the guardian Gods forbid that I should disparage their merit—but my son is my son and a warrior, and if the signs are great, it is a warrior’s greatness I claim for him, for in my family is no other known or considered.”
But still the dream-readers lingered in doubt.
“Great sir, there is more to be told, strange and very wonderful. Two ways lie before the child to be, and in which he will walk we cannot say. If, when he is of age to judge, he beholds a sick man, an old man, a dead man, and a holy monk, then great and wide is his kingdom but not of this world. And if he see not these signs, he shall be a king of the earth, magnificent in riches, glory and power. Therefore it is in the hand of his father to choose what he shall see or not see. The dream is read.”