These things considered, one strange act of his extreme youth must also be recorded. When, after three or four days of expectancy and dread, the bodies of those two who had drowned themselves together were washed ashore, by Narmáda waters, many miles to the west, Manava, following the old Hindoo superstition, prepared to burn the body of the Ranee there on the shore, and to erect over her a fitting tomb, where, on the anniversary of her death, a sacrifice might take place for the salvation of her soul. Young Bhavani, then under the close supervision of instructors, heard, in some way, of this plan of the regent, went to him in the council hall, and commanded, by the blood of his father that flowed in his veins, that the body of Fidá should be burned with that of Ahalya, and their ashes buried together. Manava heard him in shocked silence; and then explained that a Ranee might not be so dishonored. Useless objection. Bhavani insisted. And, after a time, he won his way. Thus, now, for thirty years, the two had slept in a little stone temple, by the bank of the river which still chanted in their dead ears its plashing song. Since the death of Rai-Khizar there had been no war in Mandu. After the battle on the plain of Dhár, in which, in spite of the fall of one of the Indian leaders, the Mohammedans had sustained a heavy defeat, the invaders had not again penetrated so far into Malwa. They were still within their northern strongholds; and the Dekkhan, hearing naught of the crossing of the Gunga, nor of Agra, nor Benares, the merciless conquest of the holy of holies, went its way placidly, catching not so much as an echo of the far-ringing warcry of the men of Yemen with their Prophet’s sword. The relations between Dhár and Mandu, always of the friendliest, had been further cemented by the marriage of Bhavani with a daughter of the neighboring province. But, happily for Bhavani’s views, the brother state had no enemy against whom Mandu was supposed to take part.