"The deer can suffer no more. For the tigers, he does
not fear them. He runs in green woods now where there is none to
hunt. He is up and away. The Blessed One was once a deer as
gentle as yours."
But still the child wept, and the Queen broke down utterly. "Oh,
if life be a dream, let us wake, let us wake!" she sobbed. "For
evil things walk in it that cannot live in the light. Or let us
dream deeper and forget. Go, little son, yet stay - for who can
tell what waits us when the King comes. Let us meet him here."
For she believed that Dwaymenau would certainly carry the tale of
her speech to the King, and, if so, what hope but death together?
That night, after the feasting, when the girls were dancing the
dance of the fairies and spirits, in gold dresses, winged on the
legs and shoulders, and high, gold-spired and pinnacled caps, the
King missed the little Prince, Ananda, and asked why he was
absent.
No one answered, the women looking upon each other, until
Dwaymenau, sitting beside him, glimmering with rough pearls and
rubies, spoke smoothly: "Lord, worshipped and beloved, the two
boys quarreled this day, and Ananda's deer attacked our Mindon.
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