Smiling, gasping out these words of one of his childhood’s games, that was, in fact, an epic of the pilgrimage of life, Bhavani, holy among men, slipped away out of existence, perhaps ascending in Sakra’s own chariot, that had so often awaited him in his young imagination.
Till long after he knew that Bhavani was gone from him, Oman knelt there, by the bed, gazing blindly on the still, waxen face. Presently he became aware that there were others in the room. Slaves crept in and out, and brought doctors and officials, and those who were to care for the high dead. Then, dazed and bowed down with his weight of grief, Oman rose and passed out, through the palace, between little knots of whispering men who made way for him and looked after him, longing but not daring to question. He left the palace behind and went on to the duty that was his. The heart in him bled. There were no thoughts of help or of comfort in his brain; yet he knew that none but him could tell the woman of their common woe. So he turned toward the water-palace, where he was always admitted without delay.
Zenaide was in the wide, central court of her dwelling, lying on a pile of cushions placed beside the marble pool. In her hand she held a piece of millet cake, which she had been crumbling for the fishes in the water. At Oman’s entrance, however, she rose, and went to him, hastily. As she looked into his face, Oman, without speaking, watched her expression change from gayety to wonder, and so to fear, till he knew that there was not much to put into words. Now she reached out both her hands, and Oman took them into his own.
“Tell me,” she said, faintly.
“Dost thou not know?” he asked, his voice seeming to him to come from another world.
“Bhavani,—” she began; but her voice broke.
“There is no longer a Bhavani,” he answered, wondering at himself for the speech.
She took it quietly, letting his hands drop from hers, and turning away so that, for some seconds, he could not see her face. Then she moved nearer him again, and said, in tones not natural, but still well controlled: “Come, let us go into a smaller room.”
Oman assented in silence; and she led the way down a short passage to that apartment in which they had held their first interview, many years before. And there she caused him to sit down upon the broad divan, while she took her place at his knee. Again, in their woe, their hands met. And then Zenaide, bowing her head, let tears come. Oman could not weep. His grief was deeper: far more terrible, indeed, than he had believed it could be. His own great creed brought him no comfort.