Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/197

 young and juicy saplings. Alas! the hind entangled herself in the snare of a hunter. In vain did her mate work with tine and hoof to burst the bonds that fettered his love, though he laboured ceaselessly till the enemy—man—approached. Then he faced the foe with lowered antlers, and the deadly spear soon ended the lives of both.

Farther yet, and a pair of golden eagles were building their eyrie high up in savage mountain fastnesses, hanging over the blue abysses of the Himalayas, and circling round its snowy pinnacles.

As two dolphins they ploughed the boundless expanse of old ocean's salty flood.

Yes, once they even grew as two palms on an island in the midst of the seas, their roots intertwined in the cool sand of the shore, and their tops rustling together in the cool sea-breeze.

Thus did they two, companions in so many wanderings, linger in the shade of the Coral Tree, and, day by day, enjoy the sweets of memory exhaled by its fragrant blossoms.

For, even as a royal couple, in pursuit of amusement and knowledge, have many things related to them by the court story-teller—now the life-story of a king, again a simple village tale—at one time, an heroic poem; at another, a legend of ancient days or, it may be, a fable of some animal, or a fairy tale—and all the while know that, however often it pleases them to listen, there is no fear that this prince of story-tellers will ever be at a loss for matter, because the treasury of his legendary knowledge and his own inventive ability are both inexhaustible—so these two were able to say to themselves: "However often and however long we may linger here, ay, even if it were for an eternity, there is no danger that these blossoms will ever