, where the little, bold-eye gekko
lizards slipped like narrow, green flags through the golden, perfumed
fretwork of the chandela bushes and wild parrots screeched overhead with
burnished wings; and there she met Madusadan, captain of horse, whom she
had summoned by a scribbled note earlier in the day, and her veil
slipped, and her white feet were like trembling flowers, and she pressed
her red mouth on his and rested in his arms like a tired child.

_The road of desire runs beneath the feet all day and all night,
says the tale. There is no beginning to this road, nor end. Out
of the nowhere it comes, vanishing, yet never vanishing in the
nowhere; renewing each morning, after nights of love, the
eternal miracle, the never-ending virginity of passion._

_You cannot end the endless chain of it, says the tale. You
cannot hush the murmur of the sea which fills the air, rising
to the white, beckoning finger of Chandra, the Moon._

_Love's play is worship._

_Love's achievement is a rite._

_Love's secret is never read._

_Always around the corner is another light, a new light--golden,
twinkling, mocking, like the will-o'-the-wisp._

_Reach to it--as you never will--and there is the end of the
chain, the end of the tale._

_LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_

"You broke your faith, faithless woman!" said Vikramavati as he saw
Vasantasena in the arms of Madusadan, captain of horse.

The girl smiled.

"It was you who spoke of love," she replied, "not I."

"I tried to conquer your love by the greatness of my own love."

"As a fool tries to take out a thorn in his foot by a thorn in his
hand."

"I gave you freedom. I gave you the wealth of all Hindustan, the wealth
of the outer lands. I gave you my soul, my heart, my body, my strength,
my ambition, my faith, my secret self."

"You gave me everything--because you love me. I gave you
nothing--because I do not love you."

"Love can do the impossible," gravely said the captain of horse, while
Vasantasena nestled more closely to his arms. "It was because of love
that Vishnu, the Creator, changed into a dwarf and descended to the
lowermost regions, and there captured Bali, the Raja of Heaven and of
Earth. It was because of love that, as Ramachandra, helped by the monkey
folk, he built a bridge between India and Ceylon, and that, as Krishna,
he lifted up the great mountain Golonddhan in the