Mocking this popular outburst of feeling, with an august shake of
his head and a contemptuous sneer, Pundarik stood up, and flung this
question to the assembly; "What is there superior to words?" In a moment
the hall lapsed into silence again.

Then with a marvellous display of learning, he proved that the Word was
in the beginning, that the Word was God. He piled up quotations from
scriptures, and built a high altar for the Word to be seated above all
that there is in heaven and in earth. He repeated that question in his
mighty voice: "What is there superior to words?"

Proudly he looked around him. None dared to accept his challenge, and
he slowly took his seat like a lion who had just made a full meal of
its victim. The pandits shouted, Bravo! The king remained silent with
wonder, and the poet Shekhar felt himself of no account by the side of
this stupendous learning. The assembly broke up for that day.

Next day Shekhar began his song. It was of that day when the pipings of
love's flute startled for the first time the hushed air of the Vrinda
forest. The shepherd women did not know who was the player or whence
came the music. Sometimes it seemed to come from the heart of the south
wind, and sometimes from the straying clouds of the hilltops. It came
with a message of tryst from the land of the sunrise, and it floated
from the verge of sunset with its sigh of sorrow. The stars seemed to
be the stops of the instrument that flooded the dreams of the night
with melody. The music seemed to burst all at once from all sides,
from fields and groves, from the shady lanes and lonely roads, from the
melting blue of the sky, from the shimmering green of the grass. They
neither knew its meaning nor could they find words to give utterance
to the desire of their hearts. Tears filled their eyes, and their life
seemed to long for a death that would be its consummation.

Shekhar forgot his audience, forgot the trial of his strength with a
rival. He stood alone amid his thoughts that rustled and quivered round
him like leaves in a summer breeze, and sang the Song of the Flute. He
had in his mind the vision of an image that had taken its shape from a
shadow, and the echo of a faint tinkling sound of a distant footstep.

He took his seat. His hearers trembled with the sadness of an
indefinable delight, immense and vague, and they forgot to applaud
him. As this feeling died away Pundarik stood up before the throne
and challenged hi