And now, upon the plain of Dhár, the battle-lines had met, and were mingled in an inextricable mass. Those watching from on high—Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, and Allah—might, in the hideous mêlée, have been able to distinguish one single combat, short, swift, decisive. There, in the midst of the shouts, shrieks, and yells, encompassed by flashing weapons and life-streams running red, two men, Omar el-Asra and Rai-Khizar-Pál of Mandu, met together, fighting mace and mace, and, later, sword and sword. One moment, only, in that chaos of duels, did this endure. Then the great Rajah, husband of Ahalya the beautiful, conqueror of an Asra prince, plunged forward from his saddle, his skull cloven in two by the keen blade of the Mohammedan warrior.
Thus, in that fair April morning, by devious ways, four souls that had been closely bound in their earth-life, went up and met together at the throne of the dread judge:—Rai-Khizar-Pál, his sceptre laid down forever; Ragunáth, his faithless minister, passion-spent at last; and finally, still hand-in-hand, still unrepentant of their love, Fidá of Yemen and the Ranee Ahalya, not now flushed with the sweet rose-hue of her Iran.
BOOK II
SOUL-FIRE
“‘... Yes, who am I? God wot!
How often have I prayed to Heaven to tell me!—
Who am I, God?—But Heaven itself is mute.
Yet this I do know: whatsoe’er I be,
Hero or weakling, demigod or beast,
I am the outcast child of the bright Sun