Hindustan, the wealth of the outer lands. I gave you my soul, my heart, my body, my strength, my ambition, my faith, my secret self."

"You gave me everything—because you love me. I gave you nothing—because I do not love you."

"Love can do the impossible," gravely said the captain of horse, while Vasantasena nestled more closely to his arms. "It was because of love that Vishnu, the Creator, changed into a dwarf and descended to the lowermost regions, and there captured Bali, the Raja of Heaven and of Earth. It was because of love that, as Ramachandra, helped by the monkey folk, he built a bridge between India and Ceylon, and that, as Krishna, he lifted up the great mountain Golonddhan in the palm of his hand as an umbrella with which to shield his loved one against the splintering, merciless rays of Surya, the Sun, the jealous, yellow god.

"Love can do all things—except one. For love can never create love, wise king. Love can force the stream to flow up-hill, but it cannot create the stream when there is no water."

Silence dropped like a shadow of fate, and Vikramavati turned slowly and walked toward the palace.

"To-morrow," he said over his shoulder, in an even, passionless voice, "you shall die a death of lingering agony."

Madusadan laughed lightly.

"There is neither to-day nor to-morrow nor yesterday for those who love," he replied. "There is only the pigeon-blue of the sunlit sky, the crimson and gold of the harvest-fields, the laughter of the far waters. Love fills the cup of infinity."

"To-morrow you will be dead," the king repeated dully.

And again Madusadan laughed lightly.

"And what then, O wise king, trained in the rigid logic of Brahmin and Parohitas?" he asked. "Will our death do away with the fact that once we lived and, living, loved each other? Will the scarlet of our death wipe out the streaked gray of your jealousy? Will our death give you the love of Vasantasena, which never was yours in life? Will our death rob our souls of the memory of the great sweetness which was ours, the beauty, the glory, the never-ending thrill of fulfillment?"

"Love ceases with death."

"Love, wise king, is unswayed by the rhythm of either life—or death. Love—that surges day after day, night after night, as year after year the breast of the earth heaves to the spring song of the ripening rice, to the golden fruit of the mango groves.

"Death? A fig for it, wise king!

"Let me but live until to-morrow in the arms of my loved one, and the sweetness of our love shall be an unbreakable chain—on through a thousand deaths, a thousand new births, straight into Nirvana—into Brahm's silver soul!"

"Ahee!" echoed Vasantasena. "Let death come and the wind of life lull; let the light fail and the flowers wilt and droop; let the stars gutter out one by one and the cosmos crumble in the gray storm of final oblivion—yet will our love be an unbreakable chain, defying you, O king—defying the world—defying the very gods—"

"But not defying the laws of nature, as interpreted by a wise Brahmin!" a shrill, age-cracked voice broke in, and Deo Singh, the old prime minister who had come down the garden trail on silent, slippered feet, stepped into the open.

"No! By Shiva and by Shiva! Not the laws of nature, the eternal laws of logic, as interpreted by a priest well versed in Sruti and Smriti—in revelation and tradition. Not the laws of nature, rational and evidential, physical and metaphysical, analytical and synthetical, philosophical, and philological, as expounded by a Parohita familiar with the Vedas and the blessed wisdom of the ancient Upanishads of Hind!"

He salaamed low before Vikramavati.

"It is written in the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Books, the Lay of Brahm the Lord, that each crime shall find condign punishment, be it committed by high caste or low caste, by prince or peasant, by raja or ryot. To each his punishment, says the Karma, which is fate!"

"And—these two?" demanded Vikramavati. "What punishment shall be meted out to the faithless woman and the faithless captain of horse, Brahmin?"

Deo Singh spread out his fingers like the sticks of a fan.

"They have chosen their own sentence, these worshipers of Kartikeya, God of Rogues and Rascals," he chuckled. "Of a chain they spoke. An unbreakable chain that defies all laws, except belike"—again he laughed deep in his throat—"the wise laws of nature. Weld them together with such a chain, forged by a master smith, made so strong that not even a tough-thewed captain of horse may break it with the clouting muscles of his arms and back. A chain, ten feet long, so that they may never be far away from each other, so that they may always be able to slake the hot, turbulent thirst of love, so that they may never have to wait for the thrill of fulfillment as a beggar waits at life's feast, so that day and night, each hour, each minute, each second they may revel in the sunshine of their love, so that never they may have to stand helpless before the flood-tide of their desire.

"Grant them their wish, O king, being wise and merciful; and then lock them into a room containing the choicest food, the sweetest drinks, the whitest flowers, the softest, silkenest couch draped with purple and gold. A room such as lovers dream of—and fools! Leave them there together for three days, three nights, three sobbing, crunching, killing eternities! With no sound, no touch, no scent, no taste, but their own voices, their own hearts and souls and minds and bodies! And at the end of the three days——"

"Yes?" asked Vikramavati.

"They will have suffered the worst punishment, the worst agony on earth. Slowly, slowly for three days, three nights, three eternities, they will have watched the honey of their love turn, drop by drop, into gall. Their passion—slowly, slowly—will turn into loathing; their desire into disgust. For no love in the world can survive the chain of monotony!"

Thus it was done.

A chain of unbreakable steel, ten feet long, was welded to the girl's right wrist and the man's left, and they were locked into a house—a house such as lovers dream of—that was guarded day and night by armed warriors, who let none within hailing distance, whose windows were shuttered and curtained so that not even the golden eye of the sun might look in, and around which a vast circular clearing had been made with torch and spade and scimitar so that neither bird nor insect nor beast of forest and jungle might live there and no sound drift into the lovers' room except, perhaps, the crooning sob of the dawn wind; and at the end of the third night carefully, stealthily, silently the king and the Brahmin walked up to the house and pressed their ears against the keyhole, and they heard the man's voice saying:

"I love you, little flower of my happiness! I love you—you who are all my dreams come true! When I look into your face the sun rises, and the waters bring the call of the deep, and the boat of my life rocks on the dancing waves of passion!"

And then the girl's answer, clear, serene:

"And I love you, Madusadan, captain of horse! You have broken the fetters of my loneliness, the shackles of my longing! I waited, waited, waited—but you came, and I shall never let you go again! You have banished all the drab, sad dreams of the past! You have made your heart a prison for my love, and you have tossed away the key into the turbulent whirlpool of my eternal desire!"