Page:Indian tales of the great ones.djvu/81

Rh the Rajput woman was wont to go through fire to meet her lord who had died in battle. And they left them enough wood and fire for the sacrifice.

And the women wore their most beautiful garments, to walk down to the vaults, a long line of beauty and courage led by the queen of beauty, the Lotus-Lady herself.

And now it was the turn of the men. And the King and his sons and his brave knights all strove as to who should be first to meet single-handed the enemy at the gates. And they cast lots: and went one by one clad in the Rajput saffron robe of conquest: and single-handed each hewed his way through the gates, strewing the moat and outworks with the bodies of the slain.

But Ayeshi, his beloved son, had the King sent secretly beforehand to a