And when she saw him she cried, “An old mortal song heard floating from a tent of skin, as we rode, I and mine, through a camping-place at night.” From that day she was always either singing wild and melancholy songs or else watching him with that gaze of animal reverie.
“I am so little to you,” he went on, “and you are so much to me—dawn, and sunset, tranquility, and speech, and solitude.”
“Am I so much?” she said; “say it many times!” and her eyes seemed to brighten and her breast heaved with joy.
Often he would bring her the beautiful skins of animals, and she would walk to and fro on them, laughing to feel their softness under her feet. Sometimes she would pause and ask suddenly, “Will you weep for me when we have parted?” and he would answer, “I will die then;” and she would go on rubbing her feet to and fro in the soft skin.
And so Dhoya grew tranquil and gentle, and Change seemed still to have forgotten them, having so much on her hands. The stars rose and set watching them smiling together, and the tides ebbed and flowed, bringing mutability to all save them. But always everything changes, save only the fear of Change.
One evening as they sat in the inner portion of the cave, watching through the opening the paling of the sky and the darkening of the leaves, and counting the budding stars, Dhoya suddenly saw stand before him the dark outline of him he fought on the lake sand, and heard at the same instant his companion sigh.
The stranger approached a little, and said, “Dhoya we have fought heretofore, and now I have come to play chess against thee, for well thou knowest, dear to the perfect warrior after war is chess.”
“And when we have played, Dhoya, we will name the stake.”
“Do not play,” whispered his companion at his side.
But Dhoya, being filled with his anger fit at the sight of his enemy, answered, “I will play, and I know well the stake you mean, and I name this for mine, that I may again have my knee on your chest and my hands on your throat, and that you will not again change into a bundle of wet reeds.” His companion lay down on a skin and began to cry a little.
Dhoya felt sure of winning. He had often played in his boyhood, before the time of his anger fits, with his masters of the galley; and besides, he could always return to his hands and his weapons once more.