Thus he prayed, not kneeling, since the god cared only for his soul:
"Oh, Lord Brahma, Creator, hear me! Thou who madest me knowest whither I
came and whither I go; but I, who am as the wind that bloweth as thou
listeth, as a flower that springeth up in the night and unseen fadeth in
the midday heat, I know not thy purpose nor the end for which I am. Lord
Brahma, teach me, for my soul panteth after knowledge. Show me the path
which I must tread, for I am weary with dreams. Teach me to serve my
people--be it hand in hand with the Stranger and his gods, be it alone.
Teach me to act, and that right soon; for my childhood days are spent and
my man's arm heavy with idleness. Send me forth--but not alone--not alone,
Lord Brahma, for I am heart-sick of loneliness. Give me my comrade, my
comrade who shall be more to me than--"
He stopped and, obeying an impulse stronger than himself, lifted his face
to the idol. It had vanished. In its place stood a woman.
At another and cooler moment, with a mind filled with other thoughts, with
a heart untroubled by new and all-powerful emotions, he would have known
her, if only from hearsay, for what she was. But with that passionate
prayer upon his lips, she was for him the answer, a divine recognition of
his need and of his lately recognized loneliness.
Tall, slender, with a pale, transparent complexion, touched like a young
rose with the faintest color, dark, grave eyes and hair that seemed a part
of the obscured god, whose pure lines, though foreign, harmonized in every
detail with the classic beauty of her surroundings, she stood and watched
him, as he watched her, in perfect silence.
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