Dawn, white, mistlike, broke slowly upon the world, over the plains of Dhár, where, to the south of the city, two armies were encamped: one, that which guarded the city walls, the joined forces of the Lords of Dhár and of Mandu; the other, Omar el-Asra, with five thousand Mohammedan warriors out of Delhi. In the earliest dim shadow of daylight these two armies stirred, woke, and swiftly prepared them for the day; till, when the first shafts of the sun tipped the Indian spear-heads with red fire, there rose from either line a low, deep battle-cry,—from the Indian ranks the oath of the gods: “May the bright bolts of Indra, the discus of Vishnu, the lingam of Siva protect us to-day!” and from the other side the cry that was echoing over all the civilized world, from Granada to Benares, the great shibboleth of conquest and carnage, before which the earth bowed: “La-Ilaha-il-lal-laha!” “There is no god but Allah!” a god of violence and death. And while these shouts still echoed to the sky, the two lines began a slow advance, till, ere they met, a great cloud of sun-bright dust whirled up and around them, and the haze of impending battle closed them in from mortal sight.
Light lifted itself also over the swift-flowing, holy Narmáda, on the north bank of which stood the man and the woman, hand in hand, silently watching the coming of the day. They were exhausted with the horror and the travail of the long night; but their minds were now above the physical state. That no longer mattered. Fidá stood staring at the slowly lightening waters, his face fixed and very stern. Ahalya also was still, leaning on the arm of her lover, her eyes closed. She was not praying, nor did she even think. Of what was there to think? The past lay behind them, ended. Of the future there was none. The present was painless. Like Fidá, she was tacitly waiting for the first rays of the sun to mark that spot in the water where It must come.
Just before the first finger of gold was raised over the Vindhyas, just before the armies in distant Dhár began their advance, Fidá turned to Ahalya beside him, and murmured, softly:
“Beloved, it is too terrible for thee. I cannot let thee die here, thus. See, it is cold, this mountain water. It comes from far above.”
“Hush, Fidá. We are to go up together. Thou hast promised it,” she replied quietly, her lips barely moving.
Fidá uttered a groan. “It is not I—it is not for myself I falter. But thou—there is no sickness upon thee—”
“Look! look, beloved, it is the sun! See where it makes a bed of gold upon the stream! Lift me up, Fidá—carry me out—carry me out and lay me there—upon our golden bed.”
She turned to him, and he, looking into her upraised face, could urge no more. Lifting her, with a last effort, gazing the while deep into her unrepentant eyes, he sought for the last time her lips, and then—with a setting of all his muscles—stepped forward into the stream. The rush of water, even near the shore, was very swift. It was scarce up to his waist, no more than covering Ahalya’s ankles, when, suddenly, he knew that he could not breast the current. There was a second of agonized realization—a scream from the woman as she was plunged into the icy flood. Then came a moment’s struggle with the resistless, irresistible force, which at one time covered the whirling bodies and again exposed them to the air. Suddenly Ahalya was swept into the arms of Fidá. With the last instinct of life, the hold of each tightened about the other. Then, in the tumult of the running river, came a mighty stillness. The current might toss them as it would. They were alone and one, and there was for them a moment of indissoluble peace before they were called up to answer for their deed.