Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/29

 thine expression thou art—I need only tell thee that thou hast probably never seen the Curnapada and the Gitamarga so perfectly mastered.

Then she did something that I had never seen, and of which I had not even heard. She took, I must tell thee, two golden balls, and while her feet moved in the dance to the tinkling of the jewels she wore, she made the balls spring so rapidly in lightning-like lines, that one saw but, as it were, the golden bars of a cage in which a wondrous bird hopped daintily to and fro.

It was at this point that our eyes suddenly met.

And to this day, O stranger, I do not understand how it was that I did not instantly drop dead, to be reborn in a heaven of bliss. It may well be, however, that my deeds done in a former life, the fruits of which I have to enjoy in this, were not yet exhausted. Indeed, this balance from my wanderings in the past has, in very truth, carried me safely through various mortal dangers down to the present day, and will, I trust and expect, suffice for a long time to come.

But to return. At this instant one of the balls, which had hitherto been so obedient to her, escaped and flew in a mighty curve down from the stage. Many young folks rushed to seize it. I reached it at the same moment as another youthful, richly dressed man, and we flew at one another, because neither was willing to yield it. Owing to my absolute familiarity with the tricks of the wrestler, I succeeded in tripping him up; but he, in order to hold me back, caught at the crystal chain which I wore round my neck, and to which an amulet was attached. The chain snapped, he went crashing to the earth, and I secured the ball. In a fury, he sprang up and hurled the chain at my feet. The amulet was a tiger-eye, no very specially