they forget, this word: that never yet has man sung, painted,
prophesied, made a woman happy, nor in any way woven finer the spirit
of his time, but that God first covenanted with his mother for the
gift--and, more often than not, the gift was startled into its supreme
expression by the daughter of another.... All in a sentence, it summed
at last, to Bedient alone,--a flaming sentence for all women to hear:
_Only through the potential greatness of women can come the militant
greatness of men_.

And so things appeared unto him to do, as he watched the miracle of the
moon bringing forth the lineaments of the old _God-Mother_; and so the
cliff became his Sinai. On this last night, for a moment at least, he
felt as must an immortal lover who has seen clearly the way of
chivalry--the task which was to be, as the Hindus say, the fruit of his
birth.... Thus he would go down, face glowing with new and luminous
resolves.... And once dawn was breaking as he descended, and the whir
of wings aroused him. Looking upward he saw (as did Another of
visions), in the red beauty of morning--a flock of swans flying off to
the South.

* * * * *

Gobind must not be forgotten--old Gobind, who appeared in Preshbend at
certain seasons, and sat down in the shade of a camphor-tree, old and
gnarled as he; but a sumptuous refuge, as, in truth was Gobind in the
spirit. The natives said that the austerities of Gobind were the envy
of the gods; that he could hold still the blood in his veins from dusk
to dawn; and make the listener understand many wonderful things about
himself and the meaning of life.