She turned to him, and he, looking into her upraised face, could urge no more. Lifting her, with a last effort, gazing the while deep into her unrepentant eyes, he sought for the last time her lips, and then—with a setting of all his muscles—stepped forward into the stream. The rush of water, even near the shore, was very swift. It was scarce up to his waist, no more than covering Ahalya’s ankles, when, suddenly, he knew that he could not breast the current. There was a second of agonized realization—a scream from the woman as she was plunged into the icy flood. Then came a moment’s struggle with the resistless, irresistible force, which at one time covered the whirling bodies and again exposed them to the air. Suddenly Ahalya was swept into the arms of Fidá. With the last instinct of life, the hold of each tightened about the other. Then, in the tumult of the running river, came a mighty stillness. The current might toss them as it would. They were alone and one, and there was for them a moment of indissoluble peace before they were called up to answer for their deed. * * * * * And now, upon the plain of Dhár, the battle-lines had met, and were mingled in an inextricable mass. Those watching from on high—Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, and Allah—might, in the hideous mêlée, have been able to distinguish one single combat, short, swift, decisive. There, in the midst of the shouts, shrieks, and yells, encompassed by flashing weapons and life-streams running red, two men, Omar el-Asra and Rai-Khizar-Pál of Mandu, met together, fighting mace and mace, and, later, sword and sword. One moment, only, in that chaos of duels, did this endure. Then the great Rajah, husband of Ahalya the beautiful, conqueror of an Asra prince, plunged forward from his saddle, his skull cloven in two by the keen blade of the Mohammedan warrior. Thus, in that fair April morning, by devious ways, four souls that had been closely bound in their earth-life, went up and met together at the throne of the dread judge:—Rai-Khizar-Pál, his sceptre laid down forever; Ragunáth, his faithless minister, passion-spent at last; and finally, still hand-in-hand, still unrepentant of their love, Fidá of Yemen and the Ranee Ahalya, not now flushed with the sweet rose-hue of her Iran. BOOK II SOUL-FIRE “‘... Yes, who am I? God wot! How often have I prayed to Heaven to tell me!— Who am I, God?—But Heaven itself is mute. Yet this I do know: whatsoe’er I be, Hero or weakling, demigod or beast, I am the outcast child of the bright Sun That longs for home!— A bundle of sorrow, weeping for the light That stretches out its radiant arms in vain And yearns for me!’” —GERHARDT HAUPTMANN, “The Sunken Bell,” Act V. CHAPTER I THE SON OF GOKARNA