And at long last he aroused himself and the Paradise was empty of all but a broad moonlight that lay in glories of light and shadow on trees and waters and there was deep silence. For the women, ashamed and terrified, had slipt noiselessly away and so back to the city, and far off down a long glade his chariot and wearied horses stood waiting in marble patience, and Channa sat beside them his head bowed upon his raised knees like an embodied grief. Very slowly the horses paced through the city, and that also was empty of all but moonlight, for not a living soul went or came in the quiet, and the pacing of the horses echoed loudly down the empty ways. And not a word was spoken as they went, but when they reached the House of the Garden, a woman ran out to meet them veiled like a ghost in the moonlight, and cried aloud. “O happy Prince, and happiest,—the Gods are good to this glad House and to you, for on the bosom of the Princess lies your first-born son.” And at these words a strange trembling seized him, so that for a moment he hid his face in his hands. Then pale in the moonlight he said these words: “A fetter, a fetter is set upon me, therefore call the child Rahula, a Fetter.” CHAPTER VI NOW at the birth of her son, so great was the joy of the Princess that life and death were little things in her eyes, black rocks submerged in bright water glittering with sunshine, and every day she blossomed more beautiful and the child in her arms was like the star shining within the moon’s crescent. And seeing this what could the nobility of Siddhartha do otherwise than hide his grief and deep searchings of a heart tossed like waves in a mighty wind. Beautiful in his eyes was the tenderness of the lovely mother and her eyes dwelling upon him and the child, but terrible also remembering that at any moment the bright picture of life might break asunder and disclose beneath the lurking horror of death and the dark and unknown hereafter. For if the Gods with their utmost forethought had made the world so full of shameful things, what wise man could trust such unskilful workmen for the world to come, and no hope was left anywhere. He sat much alone by Rohini, his gaze dwelling on the silver peaks far off and serene in blue air, and at his feet little fish darted in the transparency of the pure waters, and the pheasant would lead her brood to his unmoving feet, and the shimmering peacocks feed beside him. And when the wild white swans spread snowy vans above his head, taking wing for the mountains and for far lands beyond that he knew not, it seemed in his deep musings that all these happy creatures were subject to a law they knew and obeyed with content and that their life was better than his own.