“Noble father, I am content. I have no more ‘And yets’ with which to wound your ear. My lord leaves me neither by night or day, except when I entreat him to try his strength with Ananda and Devadatta and the Sakya lords. And this is wisdom. We strained too tight upon the fetters and they ate into his soul. This freedom among the young lords is well. My noble father, I entreat you to give him what liberty you can, for it is good. Never now do I see him submerged in the cold dreams that stole him from us. Those strange voices call him no more, the hands have ceased to beckon. He is ours—yours and mine and the child’s, and of the child is all his talk and thought. He shall ride with sword and lance and be a King of Kings. So we say—one to the other.” She looked up with tears of pure joy trembling like shed diamonds on her long black lashes, and the Maharaja, grave with delight, replied: “So it shall be! What!—the kingdom of Maghada is ruled by a foolish man—the King Bimbisara,—why shall not my son oust him as we gather strength? Ha! are not we too of the Arya—the great fighting people, and may not one elephant subdue another! Daughter, I would have you breathe these things in my son’s ear, and thrill him with hope of great splendours for the child.” She answered eagerly. “Father, I have done—I do it. I say each day—‘Give him his inheritance, my lord. Let all good that you gain be his, for he is yours and ours,’ and always he replies: ‘Could I find the whole world’s Pearl it would be for my great father, for you and for the child. Be content, wife, for my heart is with my own people.’” And as she spoke his words the tears of gladness brimmed and fell on the crystals and jade and amber in her golden lap and the Raja clapped his hands together and shouted for joy. “Ha, ha! we have won him! O auspicious daughter, dip your hands in my treasury and take at your will. What reward is enough for your beauty and wisdom? But now be cautious”—[There he became grave and weighty]—“guard your health and your person as the deposit of a King, and all shall be well. And the day is not far distant when we shall laugh at the sickly foretelling that said if he saw death, pain or old age he would flee into the jungle. What! Shall not my son have strength to face the common lot of man like a great King! But not yet—not yet! We will go warily.” And the wise Princess saw that beneath his triumph he was not even yet wholly reassured. But she herself was content. So when Siddhartha returned flushed and gay from riding and shooting by the parks of Rohini with the great bow in his hand and quiver at his shoulder, a glittering glorious young warrior, she clung about him shining with bliss so that it appeared that visible rays surrounded her as they do the Dawn Maiden when she, standing, flings her golden arrows about the world from the peaks of Himalaya. And with his arms about her in their chamber of marble he said: