It was the refusal on the part of the monarch who celebrated the Feast of Victory, to come to the rescue of his brother king that enabled the Moslem to triumph. The besieged sovereign implores his lady to fly. She answers in the spirit of ancient Hindu chivalry:—
Oh! never,—never will this heart
Be sever'd, Love! to beat apart!
I fear not Death, tho' fierce he be,
When thus I cling, mine own to thee!
For in the forest's green retreat,
Where leafy branches twine and meet,
Tho' wildly round dread Agni roars,
Like angry surge by rock-girt shores,
The soft gazelle of liquid eye
Leaves not her mate alone to die!
The funeral pyre consumes the lovers, and the tale ends with the disappointed Moslem's entry into the doomed city.
High flames the fiercely kindling pyre
Like Rudra's all consuming ire;
And many a spark ascends on high
Like light-wing'd birds which wildly fly
Or gayly sweep along the sky;
The Rishi with his gods is there
But weeps as swells his solemn pray'r,
And all around the brightening glow
Lights hueless cheek and pallid brow!
And there be murmured voice of wail,
Like mournful sigh of mid-night gale,
'And must he die so young, so brave,
'Is there no god above to save!'
There is a hush:— a warrior stands
Fast by that pyre of blazing brands;
With all a warrior's fearless pride
He shrinks not from the fiery tide,
