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26 Destruction fasts and prays sorrowing for thee: go and tend him.”

And Uma ran to her mother, wrathful. … “An old Priest-man fell at my feet, Mother,” she said, “and said unto me words which are not fit to be heard by me before my maidens.”

So Uma’s Father went out forthwith, and finding Narod—for he it was, the Mischief Man turned Priest in old-age, he heard the wondrous God-news about his daughter.

Shiva, it seemed, lived a life of prayer and fasting—close by in the Cave of the Cow’s mouth.

“Send Uma to tend him,” said Narod, “and haply he will look and love, and they be man and wife once more.”

Thus Uma was sent to Shiva, and tended him night and day; and the woman’s love for the thing that she tended, grew in her heart.

But Shiva, full of self-pity for loss of a jewel which he might better have preserved (for this was his thought), saw not that same jewel lying burnished and re-beautified in the dust at his feet. And Uma’s heart was sad, till even the Great God himself was moved to pity, and sent the little God of Love to wake