Her eyes shone like temple lights as she spoke thus in a voice which sounded like sweetest music. Then she raised her hand and pointed over the dark tops of the sinsapa trees to where the Milky Way, with a soft radiance upon it as of glowing alabaster, lay along the dark purple star-sown field of heaven.
“Look there, Kamanita,” she cried, “the heavenly Gunga! Let us swear by its silver waters—which feed the lotus seas of yonder fields of the blest—to fix our whole souls upon the preparing of an eternal home there for our love.”
Strangely moved, completely carried out of myself, and agitated to the very depths of my being, I raised my hand to hers, and our hearts thrilled as one at the divine thought that, at that instant, in endless immensities of space, high above the storm of this earthly existence, a double bud of the life of eternal love had come into being.
As though with the effort her strength was exhausted, Vasitthi sank into my arms, where, after having pressed yet another lingering farewell kiss upon my lips, she lay to all appearance lifeless.
I put her softly into Medini’s arms, mounted my horse, and rode away without once venturing to look round.
IX
Under the Constellation of the Robbers
When I again reached the village in which my followers had taken up their quarters for the night, I did not hesitate to wake them; and, at least a couple of hours before sunrise, the caravan was on its way.
On the twelfth day, about the hour of noon, we reached a very charming valley in the wooded region of the Vedisas. A small river, clear as crystal, wound slowly through the green meadows; the gentle slopes were timbered with blossoming underwood which spread an aromatic odour all around; somewhere about the middle of the extended valley bottom, and not far from the little river, there stood a nyagrodha tree, whose impenetrable leafy dome cast a black shadow on the emerald mead beneath, and which, supported by its thousand secondary trunks, formed a grove, wherein ten caravans like mine could easily have found shelter.
I remembered the spot perfectly from our journey out, and had already decided on it as a camping-place. So a halt was made. The tired oxen waded out into the stream and drank greedily of the cooling waters, the better, by and by, to enjoy the tender grass on the banks. The men refreshed themselves with a bath, and, collecting some withered branches, proceeded to light a fire at which to cook their rice; whilst I—also reanimated by a bath—flung myself down at full length where the shadows lay deepest, with a root of the chief trunk as headrest, in order to think of Vasitthi, and soon, in very truth, to dream of her. Led by the hand of my beloved, I floated away through the fields of Paradise.
A great outcry brought me abruptly back to rude reality. As though a wicked magician had suffered them to grow up out of the soil, armed men swarmed about us, and the neighbouring thickets added constantly to their numbers. They were already at the wagons, which I had ordered to be drawn up in a circle round the tree, and had begun to fight with my people, who were practised in the handling of arms, and defended themselves bravely. I was soon in the thick of the fight. Several robbers fell by my hand. Suddenly, I saw before me a tall, bearded man of horrible aspect, the upper part of his body naked, and about his neck a triple row of human thumbs. Like a flash, the knowledge came to me: “This is Angulimala, the cruel, bloodthirsty robber, who makes of the villages blackened rooftrees; of the towns, heaps of smoking ruins; of the wide lands, desert wastes; who does away with innocent people and hangs their thumbs about his neck.” And I believed my last hour was come. As a matter of fact, the monster at once struck my sword out of my hand—a feat with which I would have credited no being of flesh and blood. Soon I lay on the ground, fettered hand and foot. Round about me all my people were killed save one, an old servant of my father’s, who was overpowered by numbers, and, like myself, had been made prisoner without a wound. Gathered in groups round about us, under the shady roof of the gigantic tree, the robbers indulged themselves to their hearts’ content. The crystal chain with the tiger’s eye, which, as I have already mentioned to thee, was torn apart in the struggle with Satagira—the chain which my good mother had at parting hung round my neck as an amulet—was rent from me by Angulimala’s murderous hand. But much more distressing was the loss of the asoka flower, which I had constantly carried over my heart since that night on the terrace. Not far from me, I believed I could see it, a little red flame in the trampled grass, on the very spot where the youngest robbers ran hither and thither, carrying to the revellers the streaming flesh of beeves which had been hastily slaughtered and roasted, and, what was even more agreeable to the thirsty passions of that bestial throng, calabashes filled with spirits. It was to me as though they trampled on my heart every time I saw my poor asoka flower disappear under their foul feet, to reappear a moment later less luminous than before, till at length I could see it no longer. And I wondered whether Vasitthi now stood beneath the sorrowless tree, pleading for news. How good, if she were, that it could not tell her where I
