of the Queen; but around them
surged the war, and she was hedged with swords like a rose in the
thickets.

Very full of wine, dull with feasting and lust and surprised, the
Moslems fled across the plains, streaming in a broken rabble, cursing
and shouting like low-caste women; and the Rajputs, wiping their swords,
returned from the pursuit and laughed upon each other.

But what shall be said of the joy of the King and of her who had
imagined this thing, instructed of the Goddess who is the other half of
her Lord?

So the procession returned, singing, to Chitor with those Two in the
midst; but among the dogs that fled was Allah-u-Din, his face blackened
with shame and wrath, the curses choking in his foul throat.

(Aid! that the evil still walk the ways of the world!)

V

So the time went by and the beauty of the Queen grew, and her King could
see none but hers. Like the moon she obscured the stars, and every day
he remembered her wisdom, her valour, and his soul did homage at her
feet, and there was great content in Chitor.

It chanced one day that the Queen, looking from her high window that
like an eagle's nest overhung the precipice, saw, on the plain beneath,
a train of men, walking like ants, and each carried a basket on his
back, and behind them was a cloud of dust like a great army. Already the
city was astir because of this thing, and the rumours came thick and the
spies were sent out.

In the dark they returned, and the Rana entered the bower of Padmini,
his eyes burning like coal with hate and wrath, and he flung his arm
round his wife like a shield.

"He is returned, and in power. Counsel me again, O wife, for great is
thy wisdom!"

But she answered only this,--

"Fight, for this time it is to the death."

Then each day she watched bow the baskets of earth, emptied upon the
plain at first, made nothing, an ant heap whereat fools might laugh. But
each day as the trains of men came, spilling their baskets, the great
earthworks grew and their height mounted. Day after day the Rajputs rode
forth and slew; and as they slew it seemed that all the teeming millions
of the earth came forth to take the places of the slain. And the Rajputs
fell also, and under the pennons the thundering forces returned daily,
thinned of their best.

(A hi! that Evil rules the world as God!)

And still the earth grew up to the heights, and the protection of the
hills was slowly withdrawn from Chitor, for on the heigh