"Not yet, O Gunesh. But all goes well. 'Twill come with the dawn, like many another. And fear not, O my child. 'Tis a son. The stars and the omens are agreed."

A faint bleat made her set the cresset nearer. "What hast thou there, O Gunesh?"

"The firstling, mother. 'Twas in the fold. I have brought it hither for safety."

The old woman's face shone with delight.

"A ewe lamb! 'Tis another omen; and there is luck in the house to-night; for as the ewe lamb to the fold so is the male child to the hearth. Have no fear, O Gunesh! Have no fear!"

She laid one wrinkled hand on her son's arm, and, with the lamp held high in the other, gazed fondly on his face, curiously like her own--the same refined, aquiline features and narrow forehead; but the man's was less alert than the woman's, and softer, especially now as he stood hesitating.

"And--and--Veru?" he asked, somewhat sheepishly.

His mother shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, Veru! She is well enough. She suffers, but that is the woman's part. 'Twould have been better for her years ago. But she will forget. All women do, and the omens are good--"

A querulous complaint from within, followed by women's voices, made her pause.

"I must return. Folk are so ignorant nowadays, I wonder aught comes right. But thou needst not fear, my son; the old mother knows it all. So! the lamps are lit, the flowers strewn, the spices burned, the chants raised duly. The Great Ones must needs be pleased; and look you, Guneshwa! the sun comes back with the dawn."

"Yea, mother," he answered, meekly, "and sure the firstling shows luck."

When she left him he threw some straw in one corner for the ewe, and guided the tottering lamb towards it, smiling to himself over the frail, ridiculous attempts at escape made by the little creature. The bleats subsided into contented silence, and he groped a stumbling way up the narrow steps leading to the flat, square roof of his house. There he sat down, his back against the parapet wall which gave seclusion to the women's court below, whence a glimmer of light and a murmur of voices reached eyes and ears. The rest was darkness and silence.

"With the dawn," he muttered--"it will come with the dawn."

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