The child’s first sensation was one of extreme peace. Pain had left him; and the eyes, half curious, half horrified, that had watched him through the night, were gone. The early air came fresh and sweet to his dry lips; and it seemed to act on him as a powerful narcotic. He grew languorous and drowsy. The spirit within him was still; yet, somewhere, there was a tension. He could not quite give himself up to insensibility. Was it habit:—the old sense of rising at this hour to prepare the sacrifice? Not that. The Vedic ritual, and all its infinite detail, lay quite outside his path just now. No; it was rather a curious sense of expectation, of waiting for something to come—what, he neither knew nor asked. But the waiting was not long. From out of that clear, vermilion dawn-light, came flying a tiny, gray bird,—Spirit-bird, Hindoos call it,—slender-necked, clean-winged. This, hovering for an instant about the entrance to the veranda, darted suddenly in and plunged, quivering, into Oman’s breast. The boy gave a faint cry—expressive of unutterable things—and laid his two hands with greatest gentleness upon the soft feathers, caressing the creature, and uttering to it little, inarticulate sounds. With the coming of this bird it was as if his being was suddenly complete. Now, for the moment, happy with a happiness that is beyond mortals, still clasping to his breast the feathered thing, which, under his touch, lay perfectly still, he closed his hot and aching eyes and slept. CHAPTER III HIS SOLITUDE