“That son would not be the child of my Queens, and most of all of Maya, the Great Lady. Dear he might be, but not so dear; and, moreover, you both, my ladies, have heard the word of the wandering Rishi, the wise ascetic, who prophesied that in this city, in this fortunate palace, should a child be born, a ruler of men, a King among Kings.” “May it be here and now!” said the lady Maya. And again, softly: “May we be found worthy!” There was a long silence and only Rohini, the river, talked of sweet secret things as she went her way. And presently the Maharaja added: “I think it will not be!” And a large tear pearled itself on the long lashes of Prajapati and spilt down the bloom of her cheek as she watched her baby daughter in the arms of a dark-skinned nurse lulling her to sleep with strange and wistful songs of the native people, by the lotuses on the great marble tank in the shade of the pippalas. And presently the evening came, gliding with silent steps through the woods and along the waters, veiled as a maid who steals to meet her star-eyed lover. And having beheld the pomps of sunset, the mountains withdrew into their mysteries and a star stood on each of their summits for guard, and in a great peace the moon floated upward, resplendent. Then the beauty of heaven and earth became marvellous and remote, and the earth was no longer for men but Gods. Now that night Maya, the Great Lady, asleep beside her lord in the pleasure pavilion when moonlight blanched the dewy lawns like snow, dreamed a dream. Nor was it the first. This lady was vision-haunted. Her eyes, her ears, were open to all the starry influences to all the weeping of winds and the tales the reeds whisper to one another in lonely places. But this dream came, not flitting ghostly along the ways of sleep nor with the morning dissolving cloud-like, illusive, scarcely to be grasped or recorded, more a feeling than a thought, but clear, majestic, terrible and beautiful, so that she found herself (and knew not how) sitting up, awake, aware, breathless, as it were a Queen to whom has been made a great annunciation from equal powers. And, with an awakening hand laid upon her husband, she spoke, nor did her voice tremble: