Night, and a great quiet. A chamber of gold set with jewels glittering
in the moonlight that came down some secret way, borne on a cool breath
from the sea.
She lay alone in the golden place, and the jewels watched her like eyes.
Was it terror, was it love that possessed her? A thousand images blurred
her closed eyes—He, the Beautiful, with peacock crown, with eyes that
draw the soul, with lips of indescribable sweetness. It could not be
that she should lie close to the heart of the God. How dare flesh and
blood aspire to that mystic marriage? Must they not perish in the awful
contact? And, if it could be, how return to earth after that ecstasy?
“May I know and die!” she prayed. “Oh, let me not pass unknowing! Let me
know and die!”
And as the minutes dropped by, this prayer was all her thought, and it
possessed her being.
Then, dividing the darkness, she heard the voice of a Flute very far
off. Like a silver mist, it spread vaporous, a small fine music, but
growing, drawing nearer, and, as it strengthened, clear drops of music
fell through this mist like honey from the black bees’ comb. It crept
about her brain and steeped her eyes as if in poppy juice, so sweet, so
gliding, most infinitely wooing as it grew and filled the air with
peace.
And in this high marvel was a blissful safety beyond all words, more
sweet and delectable than any man may tell. The grace of his Childhood,
of the dearworthy passage of his blessed Feet among men, returned to her
with a joy that melted her heart with love. And so she rose and stood
upon her feet, as one called, trembling with blissful longing.
Far down the long ways, passing through pools of moonlight and dark,
came One whom the music followed. His face could not at first be seen;
about him was a leopard skin. Naked but for this, beautiful and slender,
his silent feet moved onward. Like one utterly alone in a great forest,
he came,—slowly,—lost in some unutterable thought, made audible in
sweet sound.
The Bride, the Lover, and between them, the music and the moonlight
only. She would have knelt, but her feet were fixed; and he drew near
with unseeing eyes—O Beautiful, O wholly desirable, to draw the hearts
of men! And still the Face Divine was hidden.
But as he drew near and would have passed, she cried aloud with a
passionate glad cry, “My Lord indeed!” rejoicing suddenly.
And he turned and looked upon his Bride with heavens in his eyes. And as
she saw what no words can utter, she fell upon his feet and lay, slain
sweetly with a bliss more keen than any pain.
* * * * *
But the Brahman, Nilkant Rai, waiting behind the pillar to seize his
prey, had heard and seen nothing of the Glory.
As she fell, he sprang like a tiger on a fawn, and lifted the fair dead
body, and stumbled in the trailing hair, and knew his vileness
conquered. And in that moment the Eye of Destruction opened upon him the
beam that withers worlds and hurls them like shriveled leaves into the
Abyss.
And he dropped her and stumbled screaming into the dark, a leper white
as snow.
But when they came in the dawn to implore the will of the God from the
happy lips that his had blessed, the Bride lay at rest on the dim
straight golden bed, and between her breasts was a Flute set with
strange jewels that no man could name. Nor shall they ever; for when
they laid her body on the pyre they left this Flute in her bosom.