veliest is gone; and let us die, Zoora, mare of Zurvan my
betrothed, for what is dying to us, O Zoora, who cherish beyond all that
which death has taken?'

So spake she to Zoora the mare, kissing her, and running her fingers
through the long white mane of the mare. Then she stooped to the body of
her betrothed, and toiled with it to lift it across the crimson
saddle-cloth that was on the back of Zoora; and the mare knelt to her,
that she might lay on her back the body of Zurvan; when that was done,
Bhanavar paced beside Zoora the mare, weeping and caressing her,
reminding her of the deeds of Zurvan, and the battles she had borne him
to, and his greatness and his gentleness. And the mare went without
leading. It was broad light when they had passed the glade and the covert
of the wood. Before them, between great mountains, glimmered a space of
rolling grass fed to deep greenness by many brooks. The shadow of a
mountain was over it, and one slant of the rising sun, down a glade of
the mountain, touched the green tent of the Emir, where it stood a little
apart from the others of his tribe. Goats and asses of the tribe were
pasturing in the quiet, but save them nothing moved among the tents, and
it was deep peacefulness. Bhanavar led Zoora slowly before the tent of
the Emir, and disburdened Zoora of the helpless weight, and spread the
long fair limbs of the youth lengthwise across the threshold of the
Emir's tent, sitting away from it with clasped hands, regarding it. Ere
long the Emir came forth, and his foot was on the body of his son, and he
knew death on the chin and the eyes of Zurvan, his sole son. Now the Emir
was old, and with the shock of that sight the world darkened before him,
and he gave forth a groan and stumbled over the sunken breast of Zurvan,
and stretched over him as one without life. When Bhanavar saw that old
man stretched over the body of his son, she sickened, and her ear was
filled with the wailings of grief that would arise, and she stood up and
stole away from the habitations of the tribe, stricken with her guilt,
and wandered beyond the mountains, knowing not whither she went, looking
on no living thing, for the sight of a thing that moved was hateful to
her, and all sounds were sounds of lamentation for a great loss.

Now, she had wandered on alone two days and two nights, and nigh morn she
was seized with a swoon of weariness, and fell forward with her face to
the earth, and lay there prostrate,