The Keepers of the People

1015He had had, indeed, but little comfort of her; and his thoughts turned more and more to Ruth: she had been more to him than any other woman, more than the maid of Kafiristan, his first love; and even still she filled his rare dreams. But he had not forgotten the Child of the Hills: since he might not find rest from his labours in the love of loves, he would find what ease he might in the pleasure of fondness; he grew a little impatient for the appointed day of their meeting; and he blamed himself for having over-reckoned the time that the Princess Agnes would hold him. He believed that this fierce child would divert him, and lighten his heart; he was at any rate assured that she was beautiful; and he set out in the twilight of the evening on which would rise the tenth moon after their meeting at the spring, with the desire for her strong in his heart.

1016The first glimmer of its horn rising above the mountain of Indra struck a gleam from the burnished gold of his helmet, his sword clinked against his knee, and its hilt tinkled against the fine rings of his Eastern coat of mail, as he strode down the path to the spring. He stopped before the little basin, and flung down a bag of gold. At the chink of the metal on the ground the girl came out of the bushes on the right, a shine of gray against their shadow, and said softly, in her clear, girlish voice, “I come to you empty-handed, O Prince; for empty-handed shall I go away from you — along the last path.”

1017He caught her off her feet, her shoulders rising golden into a moonray, and kissed her with the fierce kisses with which she would be kissed, saying, “Think not of the last path, child. The path through the roses is long.”

1018“Ah, yes,” she murmured; “it shall be long, very long.”

1019He wrapped his flame-coloured mantle round her, and swung her lightly on to his shoulder. As he bore her away, she wailed a far-echoing farewell across the woods, and an answering wail rang back from a score of throats. On the rising ground his mute body-guard was awaiting him; he set her before him on the saddle, and rode up the pass.