with it weakly, like a far echo that groweth fainter, ‘Bhanavar!  Bhanavar!  Bhanavar!’ Then a change came over him, and the pain of the poison and the passion of the death-throe, and he was wistful of her no more; but she lay by him, embracing him, and in the last violence of his anguish he hugged her to his breast.  Then it was over, and he sank.  And the twain were as a great wave heaving upon the shore; lo, part is wasted where it falleth; part draweth back into the waters.  So was it!

Now the chill of dawn breathed blue on the lake and was astir among the dewy leaves of the wood, when Bhanavar arose from the body of the youth, and as she rose she saw that his mare Zoora, his father’s first gift, was snuffing at the ear of her dead master, and pawing him.  At that sight the tears poured from her eyelids, and she sobbed out to the mare, ’O Zoora! never mare bore nobler burden on her back than thou in Zurvan my betrothed.  Zoora! thou weepest, for death is first known to thee in the dearest thing that was thine; as to me, in the dearest that was mine!  And O Zoora, steed of Zurvan my betrothed, there’s no loveliness for us in life, for the loveliest is gone; and let us die, Zoora, mare of Zurvan my betrothed, for what is dying to us, O Zoora, who cherish beyond all that which death has taken?’

So spake she to Zoora the mare, kissing her, and running her fingers through the long white mane of the mare.  Then she stooped to the body of her betrothed, and toiled with it to lift it across the crimson saddle-cloth that was on the back of Zoora; and the mare knelt to her, that she might lay on her back the body of Zurvan; when that was done, Bhanavar paced beside Zoora the mare, weeping and caressing her, reminding her of the deeds of Zurvan, and the battles she had borne him to, and his greatness and his gentleness.  And the mare went without leading.  It was broad light when they had passed the glade and the covert of the wood.  Before them, between great mountains, glimmered a space of rolling grass fed to deep greenness by many brooks.  The shadow of a mountain was over it, and one slant of the rising sun, down a glade of the mountain, touched the green tent of the Emir, where it stood a little apart from the others of his tribe.  Goats and asses of the tribe were pasturing in the quiet, but save them nothing moved among the tents, and it was deep peacefulness.  Bhanavar led Zoora slowly before the tent of the Emir, and disburdened Zoora of the helpless weight, and spread the long fair limbs of the youth lengthwise across the threshold of the Emir’s tent, sitting away from it with clasped hands, regarding it.  Ere long the Emir came forth, and his foot was on the body of his son, and he knew death on the chin and the eyes of Zurvan, his sole son.  Now the Emir was old, and with the shock of that sight the world darkened before him, and he gave forth a groan and stumbled over the sunken breast of Zurvan, and stretched over him as one without life.  When Bhanavar saw that