That evening when her husband, the Brahman's son, had finished his meal,
too excited almost to eat, and had gone to the golden bed in the bed-
chamber strewn with flowers, he said to himself: "To-night I shall
surely know who this beautiful lady is in the palace with the seven
wings."
The princess took for her the food that was left over by her husband,
and slowly entered the bed-chamber. She had to answer that night the
question, which was the beautiful lady who lived in the palace with
the seven wings. And as she went up to the bed to tell him she found a
serpent had crept out of the flowers and had bitten the Brahman's son.
Her boy-husband was lying on the bed of flowers, with face pale in
death.
My heart suddenly ceased to throb, and I asked with choking voice: "What
then? "
Grannie said; "Then . . ."
But what is the use of going on any further with the story? It would
only lead on to what was more and more impossible. The boy of seven did
not know that, if there were some "What then? " after death, no
grandmother of a grandmother could tell us all about it.
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