They reached the Burying Ground. It was a lovely spot. Fallen into
disuse, the bewitching grace of carelessness was added to the
architectural beauty of the tombs. The verdure was rank, and luxuriant
trees and marble tombs alike were festooned with clematis and jasmine.
Here they were pleased to find Nawab Khan and the servant, whom he
dismissed on their arrival, and himself guided them to an old tomb
simpler in form than the rest, but more tenderly and beautifully clothed
in moss and wild flowers than any. They sat down while the Nawab related
the story of the maiden whose goodness it commemorated.
"Sangita," said he, "was a princess of incomparable beauty and
surpassing gentleness. Her spirit was humble; and as the heavenly
streams of wisdom and virtue seek lowly places, her nature shone every
day with a purer lustre. She loved tenderly a gazelle which she had
reared, and which was the companion of her happy hours. It was not of
the King's flocks but had been found in Sangita's own garden, and none
knew who had brought it there. The talkative people, noting the sagacity
of the pretty creature and the tender solicitude of its mistress, who
crowned it anew with garlands every morning and fed it with sweetest
milk and the loveliest flower buds, whispered to one another of its
mysterious appearance, and alleged for it miraculous origin. One day as
it fed among lilies, the princess near by, overcome by the heat,
slumbered. She slept long and heavily, and when she awoke her favourite
was nowhere to be seen. Calling and weeping, she wandered through vale
and glade, searching the hare's covert, but starting back, for she
descried a viper there; peering into the den of a wild beast and
shuddering, for it was strewn with bones; hastening to a gorgeous clump
of bloom where she thought it might have rested, but the splendid
blossoms were poisonous and she turned away. All the dark, damp,
dangerous night she sought, and it was morning when she found the gentle
creature stretched on the moss, its piteous eyes glazed over with death,
for it had been pursued and had sunk from exhaustion.
In delirious ravings Sangita told her people that when she knelt on the
moss, and, wringing her hands, bewailed that it had not sought the
shelter of a Secure Resting Place, the gazelle reproached her.
'I know not of that country,' it said, 'it is not here.' And this, although the wild speech of a fevered brain, gained credit
with the populace, and the Wild Gazelle cherished by the good princess
became a memory fraught with awe and superstition. For me, I believe
that the devout and good heart utters wisdom unawares, and that the
tongue habituated to golden speech may drop riches even when the light
of reason is withdrawn. The sickness of Sangita was mortal, but her mind
cleared before she expired, and she then obtained from the King her
father a promise that over her ashes should be erected a lodge whose
door, never fastened, might afford a Haven of Retreat such as her
fevered dream desired!"