The old man lifted his head for a moment as the ascetic came closer, and then he continued as before.  He was reading the “Legend of the Great King of Glory.”  Parvati listened to it, comprehending with the swift intuition and subtlety of a mystic the inner meaning of the Wonderful Wheel, the elephant Treasure, the Lake and palace of Righteousness.  He followed the speaker, understanding all until he came to the meditation of the King:  then he heard with vibrating heart, how “the Great King of Glory entered the golden chamber, and set himself down on the silver couch.  And he let his mind pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of Love:  and so the second quarter, and so the third, and so the fourth.  And thus the whole wide world, above below, around and everywhere, did he continue to pervade with heart of Love, far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure.”  When the old Bhikshu had ended, Parvati rose up, and went back again into the forest.  He had found the secret of the True—­to leave behind the vistas, and enter into the Being.  Another legend rose up in his mind, a fairy legend of righteousness, expanding and filling the universe, a vision beautiful and full of old enchantment; his heart sang within him.  He seated himself again under the banyan tree; he rose up in soul; he saw before him images, long-forgotten, of those who suffer in the sorrowful old earth; he saw the desolation and loneliness of old age, the insults to the captive, the misery of the leper and outcast, the chill horror and darkness of life in a dungeon.  He drank in all their sorrow.  For his heart he went out to them.  Love, a fierce and tender flame arose; pity, a breath from the vast; sympathy, born of unity.  This triple fire sent forth its rays; they surrounded those dark souls; they pervaded them; they beat down oppression.

While Parvati, with spiritual magic, sent forth the healing powers, far away at that moment, in his hall, a king sat enthroned.  A captive was bound before him; bound, but proud, defiant, unconquerable of soul.  There was silence in the hall until the king spake the doom, the torture, for this ancient enemy.  The king spake:  “I had thought to do some fierce thing to thee, and so end thy days, my enemy.  But, I remember with sorrow, the great wrongs we have done to each other, and the hearts made sore by our hatred.  I shall do no more wrong to thee.  Thou art free to depart.  Do what thou wilt.  I will make restitution to thee as far as may be for thy ruined state.”  Then the soul no might could conquer was conquered, and the knees were bowed; his pride was overcome.  “My brother!” he said, and could say no more.

To watch for years a little narrow slit high up in the dark cell, so high that he could not reach up and look out; and there to see daily a little change from blue to dark in the sky had withered that prisoner’s soul.  The bitter tears came no more; hardly even sorrow; only a dull, dead feeling.  But that day a great groan burst from him:  he heard outside the laugh of a child who was playing and gathering flowers under the high, grey walls:  then it all came over him, the divine things missed, the light, the glory, and the beauty that the earth puts forth for her children.  The narrow slit was darkened:  half of a little bronze face appeared.