Page:Rudyard Kipling - A diversity of creatures.djvu/238

226 the very gardens where the Palace stood. They are larger gardens than Shalimar here'—he pointed with his chin up the lines—'or Shahdera across the river.

'Next day there was a darkness in the streets, because all the city's multitude were clad in black garments, and they spoke as a man speaks in the presence of his dead—all those multitudes. In the eyes, in the air, and in the heart, there was blackness. I saw it. But that is not my tale.

'After ceremonies had been accomplished, and word had gone out to the Kings of the Earth that they should come and mourn, the new King—the dead King's son—gave commandment that his father's body should be laid, coffined, in a certain Temple which is near the river. There are no idols in that Temple; neither any carvings, nor paintings, nor gildings. It is all grey stone, of one colour as though it were cut out of the live rock. It is larger than—yes, than the Durbar Sahib at Amritsar, even though the Akal Bunga and the Baba-Atal were added. How old it may be God knows. It is the Sahibs' most sacred Temple.

'In that place, by the new King's commandment, they made, as it were, a shrine for a saint, with lighted candles at the head and the feet of the Dead, and duly appointed watchers for every hour of the day and the night, until the dead King should be taken to the place of his fathers, which is at Wanidza.

'When all was in order, the new King said,