hearing the gurgle of the sacred waters from the Cow's
Mouth, where the great tank shone under the custard-apple boughs; and,
at peace with all the world, he read in the Scripture which affirms the
transience of all things drifting across the thought of the Supreme like
clouds upon the surface of the Ocean.

(Ahi! that loveliness is also illusion!)

Her women placed about the Queen--that Lotus of Women--a robe of silk
of which none could say that it was green or blue, the noble colours so
mingled into each other under the latticed gold work of Kashi. They set
the jewels on her head, and wide thin rings of gold heavy with great
pearls in her ears. Upon the swell of her bosom they clasped the
necklace of table emeralds, large, deep, and full of green lights, which
is the token of the Chitor queens. Upon her slender ankles they placed
the chooris of pure soft gold, set also with grass-green emeralds, and
the delicate souls of her feet they reddened with lac. Nor were her arms
forgotten, but loaded with bangles so free from alloy that they could be
bent between the hands of a child. Then with fine paste they painted the
Symbol between her dark brows, and, rising, she shone divine as a nymph
of heaven who should cause the righteous to stumble in his austerities
and arrest even the glances of Gods.

(Ahi! that the Transient should be so fair!)

II

Now it was the hour that the Rana should visit her; for since the coming
of the Lotus Lady, he had forgotten his other women, and in her was all
his heart. He came from the Hall of Audience where petitions were heard,
and justice done to rich and poor; and as he came, the Queen, hearing
his step on the stone, dismissed her women, and smiling to know her
loveliness, bowed before him, even as the Goddess Uma bows before Him
who is her other half.

Now he was a tall man, with the falcon look of the Hill Rajputs, and
moustaches that curled up to his eyes, lion-waisted and lean in the
flanks like Arjoon himself, a very ruler of men; and as he came, his
hand was on the hilt of the sword that showed beneath his gold coat of
khincob. On the high cushions he sat, and the Rani a step beneath him;
and she said, raising her lotus eyes:--

"Speak, Aryaputra, (son of a noble father)--what hath befallen?"

And he, looking upon her beauty with fear, replied,--

"It is thy beauty, O wife, that brings disaster."

"And how is this?" she asked very earnestly.

For a moment he paused, re