The eighth child was the one Kans was waiting for. He had the parents in a cell and a guard on the door.
At midnight everything in the prison went to sleep at once — the guards, the locks, the chains. Vasudev picked the child up in a basket and walked out.
The Yamuna was in flood. He stepped in anyway, holding the basket over his head, and the water rose to his neck and then — the way it is told — touched the child's foot and went down.
He left him in Gokul, took the girl who was born there the same night, and walked back into the cell and let the door close behind him.
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