The ninth vibration and other stories

The ninth vibration and other stories Page 1

by L. Adams Beck

  Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer

  THE NINTH VIBRATION AND OTHER STORIES

  By L. Adams Beck

  CONTENTS:

  THE NINTH VIBRATION

  THE INTERPRETER A ROMANCE OF THE EAST

  THE INCOMPARABLE LADY A STORY OF CHINA WITH A MORAL

  THE HATRED OF THE QUEEN A STORY OF BURMA

  FIRE OF BEAUTY

  THE BUILDING OF THE TAJ MAHAL

  "HOW GREAT IS THE GLORY OF KWANNON!"

  "THE ROUND-FACED BEAUTY"

  THE NINTH VIBRATION

  There is a place uplifted nine thousand feet in purest air where oneof the most ancient tracks in the world runs from India into Tibet.It leaves Simla of the Imperial councils by a stately road; it passesbeyond, but now narrowing, climbing higher beside the khuds or steepdrops to the precipitous valleys beneath, and the rumor of Simla growsdistant and the way is quiet, for, owing to the danger of driving horsesabove the khuds, such baggage as you own must be carried by coolies, andyou yourself must either ride on horseback or in the little horselesscarriage of the Orient, here drawn and pushed by four men. And presentlythe deodars darken the way with a solemn presence, for--

  "These are the Friars of the wood, The Brethren of the Solitude Hooded and grave--"

  their breath most austerely pure in the gradually chilling air. Theircompanies increase and now the way is through a great wood where ithas become a trail and no more, and still it climbs for many miles andfinally a rambling bungalow, small and low, is sighted in the deeps ofthe trees, a mountain stream from unknown heights falling beside it. Andthis is known as the House in the Woods. Very few people are permittedto go there, for the owner has no care for money and makes no provisionfor guests. You must take your own servant and the khansamah will cookyou such simple food as men expect in the wilds, and that is all. Youstay as long as you please and when you leave not even a gift to thekhansamah is permitted.

  I had been staying in Ranipur of the plains while I considered thequestion of getting to Upper Kashmir by the route from Simla along theold way to Chinese Tibet where I would touch Shipki in the DalaiLama's territory and then pass on to Zanskar and so down to Kashmir--atremendous route through the Himalaya and a crowning experience ofthe mightiest mountain scenery in the world. I was at Ranipur for thepurpose of consulting my old friend Olesen, now an irrigation officialin the Rampur district--a man who had made this journey and nearly losthis life in doing it. It is not now perhaps so dangerous as it was, andmy life was of no particular value to any one but myself, and the planinterested me.

  I pass over the long discussions of ways and means in the blinding heatof Ranipur. Olesen put all his knowledge at my service and never uttereda word of the envy that must have filled him as he looked at thedistant snows cool and luminous in blue air, and, shrugging good-naturedshoulders, spoke of the work that lay before him on the burningplains until the terrible summer should drag itself to a close. We hadvanquished the details and were smoking in comparative silence one nighton the veranda, when he said in his slow reflective way;

  "You don't like the average hotel, Ormond, and you'll like it still lessup Simla way with all the Simla crowd of grass-widows and fellows outfor as good a time as they can cram into the hot weather. I wonder if Icould get you a permit for The House in the Woods while you re waitingto fix up your men and route for Shipki."

  He explained and of course I jumped at the chance. It belonged, he said,to a man named Rup Singh, a pandit, or learned man of Ranipur. He hadalways spent the summer there, but age and failing health made thisimpossible now, and under certain conditions he would occasionally allowpeople known to friends of his own to put up there.

  "And Rup Singh and I are very good friends," Olesen said; "I won hisheart by discovering the lost Sukh Mandir, or Hall of Pleasure, builtmany centuries ago by a Maharao of Ranipur for a summer retreat in thegreat woods far beyond Simla. There are lots of legends about it here inRanipur. They call it The House of Beauty. Rup Singh's ancestor had beena close friend of the Maharao and was with him to the end, and that'swhy he himself sets such store on the place. You have a good chance if Iask for a permit.

  "He told me the story and since it is the heart of my own I give itbriefly. Many centuries ago the Ranipur Kingdom was ruled by the MaharaoRai Singh a prince of the great lunar house of the Rajputs. Expectinga bride from some far away kingdom (the name of this is unrecorded)he built the Hall of Pleasure as a summer palace, a house of rare andcostly beauty. A certain great chamber he lined with carved figures ofthe Gods and their stories, almost unsurpassed for truth and life. So,with the pine trees whispering about it the secret they sigh to tell,he hoped to create an earthly Paradise with this Queen in whom allloveliness was perfected. And then some mysterious tragedy ended allhis hopes. It was rumoured that when the Princess came to his court,she was, by some terrible mistake, received with insult and offered theposition only of one of his women. After that nothing was known. Certainonly is it that he fled to the hills, to the home of his broken hope,and there ended his days in solitude, save for the attendance of twofaithful friends who would not abandon him even in the ghostly quiet ofthe winter when the pine boughs were heavy with snow and a spectral moonstared at the panthers shuffling through the white wastes beneath. Ofthese two Rup Singh's ancestor was one. And in his thirty fifth yearthe Maharao died and his beauty and strength passed into legend and hiskingdom was taken by another and the jungle crept silently over his Hallof Pleasure and the story ended.

  "There was not a memory of the place up there," Olesen went on."Certainly I never heard anything of it when I went up to the Shipkiin 1904. But I had been able to be useful to Rup Singh and he gave me apermit for The House in the Woods, and I stopped there for a few days'shooting. I remember that day so well. I was wandering in the densewoods while my men got their midday grub, and I missed the trail somehowand found myself in a part where the trees were dark and thick and thesilence heavy as lead. It was as if the trees were on guard--they stoodshoulder to shoulder and stopped the way. Well, I halted, and had anotion there was something beyond that made me doubt whether to go on.I must have stood there five minutes hesitating. Then I pushed on,bruising the thick ferns under my shooting boots and stooping under theknotted boughs. Suddenly I tramped out of the jungle into a clearing,and lo and behold a ruined House, with blocks of marble lying all aboutit, and carved pillars and a great roof all being slowly smotheredby the jungle. The weirdest thing you ever saw. I climbed some fallencolumns to get a better look, and as I did I saw a face flash by at thearch of a broken window. I sang out in Hindustani, but no answer: onlythe echo from the woods. Somehow that dampened my ardour, and I didn'tgo in to what seemed like a great ruined hall for the place was soeerie and lonely, and looked mighty snaky into the bargain. So I cameingloriously away and told Rup Singh. And his whole face changed. 'Thatis The House of Beauty,' he said. 'All my life have I sought it and invain. For, friend of my soul, a man must lose himself that he may findhimself and what lies beyond, and the trodden path has ever been mydoom. And you who have not sought have seen. Most strange are the wayof the Gods'. Later on I knew this was why he had always gone up yearly,thinking and dreaming God knows what. He and I tried for the placetogether, but in vain and the whole thing is like a dream. Twice he haslet friends of mine stay at The House in the Woods, and I think he won'trefuse now."

  "Did he ever tell you the story?"

  "Never. I only know what I've picked up here. Some horrible mistakeabout the Rani that drove the man almost mad with remorse. I've heardbits here and there. There's nothing so vital as tradition in India."

  "I wonder'. what re
ally happened."

  "That we shall never know. I got a little old picture of theMaharao--said to be painted by a Pahari artist. It's not likely to beauthentic, but you never can tell. A Brahman sold it to me that he mightcomplete his daughter's dowry, and hated doing it."

  "May I see it?"

  "Why certainly. Not a very good light, but--can do," as the Chinks say.

  He brought it out rolled in silk stuff and I carried it under thehanging lamp. A beautiful young man indeed, with the air of racethese people have beyond all others;--a cold haughty face, immovablydignified. He sat with his hands resting lightly on the arms of hischair of State. A crescent of rubies clasped the folds of the turban andfrom this sprang an aigrette scattering splendours. The magnificent hiltof a sword was ready beside him. The face was not only beautiful butarresting.

  "A strange picture," I said. "The artist has captured the man himself.I can see him trampling on any one who opposed him, and suffering in thesame cold secret way. It ought to be authentic if it isn't. Don't youknow any more?"

  "Nothing. Well--to bed, and tomorrow I'll see Rup Singh."

  I was glad when he returned with the permission. I was to be verycareful, he said, to make no allusion to the lost palace, for two womenwere staying at the House in the Woods--a mother and daughter to whomRup Singh had granted hospitality because of an obligation he musthonor. But with true Oriental distrust of women he had thought fit tomake no confidence to them. I promised and asked Olesen if he knew them.

  "Slightly. Canadians of Danish blood like my own. Their name is Ingmar.Some people think the daughter good-looking. The mother is supposedto be clever; keen on occult subjects which she came back to India tostudy. The husband was a great naturalist and the kindest of men. Healmost lived in the jungle and the natives had all sorts of rumoursabout his powers. You know what they are. They said the birds and beastsfollowed him about. Any old thing starts a legend."

  "What was the connection with Rup Singh?"

  "He was in difficulties and undeservedly, and Ingmar generously lenthim money at a critical time, trusting to his honour for repayment. Likemost Orientals he never forgets a good turn and would do anything forany of the family--except trust the women with any secret he valued. Thefather is long dead. By the way Rup Singh gave me a queer message foryou. He said; 'Tell the Sahib these words--"Let him who finds water inthe desert share his cup with him who dies of thirst." He is certainlygetting very old. I don't suppose he knew himself what he meant."

  I certainly did not. However my way was thus smoothed for me and I tookthe upward road, leaving Olesen to the long ungrateful toil of the manwho devotes his life to India without sufficient time or knowledge tomake his way to the inner chambers of her beauty. There is no hardermistress unless you hold the pass-key to her mysteries, there is none ofwhom so little can be told in words but who kindles so deep a passion.Necessity sometimes takes me from that enchanted land, but when thelatest dawns are shining in my skies I shall make my feeble way back toher and die at her worshipped feet. So I went up from Kalka.

  I have never liked Simla. It is beautiful enough--eight thousand feetup in the grip of the great hills looking toward the snows, the famoussummer home of the Indian Government. Much diplomacy is whisperedon Observatory Hill and many are the lighter diversions of which Mr.Kipling and lesser men have written. But Simla is also a gateway to manythings--to the mighty deodar forests that clothe the foot-hills of themountains, to Kulu, to the eternal snows, to the old, old bridle waythat leads up to the Shipki Pass and the mysteries of Tibet--and to thestrange things told in this story. So I passed through with scarcely aglance at the busy gayety of the little streets and the tiny shopswhere the pretty ladies buy their rouge and powder. I was attended bymy servant Ali Khan, a Mohammedan from Nagpur, sent up with me by Olesenwith strong recommendation. He was a stout walker, so too am I, and aninveterate dislike to the man-drawn carriage whenever my own legs wouldserve me decided me to walk the sixteen miles to the House in the Woods,sending on the baggage. Ali Khan despatched it and prepared to followme, the fine cool air of the hills giving us a zest.

  "Subhan Alla! (Praise be to God!) the air is sweet!" he said, steppingout behind me. "What time does the Sahib look to reach the House?"

  "About five or six. Now, Ali Khan, strike out of the road. You know theway."

  So we struck up into the glorious pine woods, mountains all about us.Here and there as we climbed higher was a little bank of forgottensnow, but spring had triumphed and everywhere was the waving grace ofmaiden-hair ferns, banks of violets and strangely beautiful little wildflowers. These woods are full of panthers, but in day time the onlyprecaution necessary is to take no dog,--a dainty they cannot resist.The air was exquisite with the sun-warm scent of pines, and here andthere the trees broke away disclosing mighty ranges of hills coveredwith rich blue shadows like the bloom on a plum,--the clouds chasing thesunshine over the mountain sides and the dark green velvet of the robeof pines. I looked across ravines that did not seem gigantic and yet thevillages on the other side were like a handful of peas, so tremendouswas the scale. I stood now and then to see the rhododendrons, foresttrees here with great trunks and massive boughs glowing with blood-redblossom, and time went by and I took no count of it, so glorious was theclimb.

  It must have been hours later when it struck me that the sun was gettinglow and that by now we should be nearing The House in the Woods. I saidas much to Ali Khan. He looked perplexed and agreed. We had reacheda comparatively level place, the trail faint but apparent, and itsurprised me that we heard no sound of life from the dense wood whereour goal must be.

  "I know not, Presence," he said. "May his face be blackened thatdirected me. I thought surely I could not miss the way, and yet-"

  We cast back and could see no trail forking from the one we were on.There was nothing for it but to trust to luck and push on. But I beganto be uneasy and so was the man. I had stupidly forgotten to unpackmy revolver, and worse, we had no food, and the mountain air is anappetiser, and at night the woods have their dangers, apart from beingabsolutely trackless. We had not met a living being since we left theroad and there seemed no likelihood of asking for directions. I stoppedno longer for views but went steadily on, Ali Khan keeping up a runningfire of low-voiced invocations and lamentations. And now it was dusk andthe position decidedly unpleasant.

  It was at that moment I saw a woman before us walking lightly andsteadily under the pines. She must have struck into the trail fromthe side for she never could have kept before us all the way. A nativewoman, but wearing the all-concealing boorka, more like a town dwellerthan a woman of the hills. I put on speed and Ali Khan, now very tired,toiled on behind me as I came up with her and courteously asked theway. Her face was entirely hidden, but the answering voice was clear andsweet. I made up my mind she was young, for it had the bird-like thrillof youth.

  "If the Presence continues to follow this path he will arrive. It is notfar. They wait for him."

  That was all. It left me with a desire to see the veiled face. We passedon and Ali Khan looked fearfully back.

  "Ajaib! (Wonderful!) A strange place to meet one of the purdah-nashin(veiled women)" he muttered. "What would she be doing up here in theheights? She walked like a Khanam (khan's wife) and I saw the gleam ofgold under the boorka."

  I turned with some curiosity as he spoke, and lo! there was no humanbeing in sight. She had disappeared from the track behind us and it wasimpossible to say where. The darkening trees were beginning to hold thedusk and it seemed unimaginable that a woman should leave the way andtake to the dangers of the woods.

  "Puna-i-Khoda--God protect us!" said Ali Khan in a shuddering whisper."She was a devil of the wilds. Press on, Sahib. We should not be here inthe dark."

  There was nothing else to do. We made the best speed we could, and thetrees grew more dense and the trail fainter between the close trunks,and so the night came bewildering with the expectation that we must passthe night unfed and unarmed in the cold of th
e heights. They might sendout a search party from The House in the Woods--that was still a hope,if there were no other. And then, very gradually and wonderfully themoon dawned over the tree tops and flooded the wood with mysterioussilver lights and about her rolled the majesty of the stars. We pressedon into the heart of the night. From the dense black depths we emergedat last. An open glade lay before us--the trees falling back to rightand left to disclose--what?

  A long low house of marble, unlit, silent, bathed in pale splendour andshadow. About it stood great deodars, clothed in clouds of the whiteblossoming clematis, ghostly and still. Acacias hung motionless trailsof heavily scented bloom as if carved in ivory. It was all silent asdeath. A flight of nobly sculptured steps led up to a broad veranda anda wide open door with darkness behind it. Nothing more.

  I forced myself to shout in Hindustani--the cry seeming a brutal outrageupon the night, and an echo came back numbed in the black woods. I triedonce more and in vain. We stood absorbed also into the silence.

  "Ya Alla! it is a house of the dead!" whispered Ali Khan, shuddering atmy shoulder,--and even as the words left his lips I understood where wewere. "It is the Sukh Mandir." I said. "It is the House of the Maharaoof Ranipur."

  It was impossible to be in Ranipur and hear nothing of the dead houseof the forest and Ali Khan had heard--God only knows what tales. In histerror all discipline, all the inborn respect of the native forsook him,and without word or sign he turned and fled along the track, crashingthrough the forest blind and mad with fear. It would have been insanityto follow him, and in India the first rule of life is that the Sahibshows no fear, so I left him to his fate whatever it might be, believingat the same time that a little reflection and dread of the lonely forestwould bring him to heel quickly.

  I stood there and the stillness flowed like water about me. It wasas though I floated upon it--bathed in quiet. My thoughts adjustedthemselves. Possibly it was not the Sukh Mandir. Olesen had spoken ofruin. I could see none. At least it was shelter from the chill which isalways present at these heights when the sun sets,--and it was beautifulas a house not made with hands. There was a sense of awe but no fear asI went slowly up the great steps and into the gloom beyond and so gainedthe hall.

  The moon went with me and from a carven arch filled with marble traceryrained radiance that revealed and hid. Pillars stood about me, wonderfulwith horses ramping forward as in the Siva Temple at Vellore. Theyappeared to spring from the pillars into the gloom urged by invisibleriders, the effect barbarously rich and strange--motion arrested, struckdumb in a violent gesture, and behind them impenetrable darkness. Icould not see the end of this hall--for the moon did not reach it, butlooking up I beheld the walls fretted in great panels into the utmostsplendour of sculpture, encircling the stories of the Gods amid atwining and under-weaving of leaves and flowers. It was more like atemple than a dwelling. Siva, as Nataraja the Cosmic Dancer, the Rhythmof the Universe, danced before me, flinging out his arms in the passionof creation. Kama, the Indian Eros, bore his bow strung with honey-sweetblack bees that typify the heart's desire. Krishna the Beloved smiledabove the herd-maidens adoring at his feet. Ganesha the Elephant-Headed,sat in massive calm, wreathing his wise trunk about him. And many more.But all these so far as I could see tended to one centre panel largerthan any, representing two life-size figures of a dim beauty. At firstI could scarcely distinguish one from the other in the upward-reflectedlight, and then, even as I stood, the moving moon revealed the two asif floating in vapor. At once I recognized the subject--I had seen italready in the ruined temple of Ranipur, though the details differed.Parvati, the Divine Daughter of the Himalaya, the Emanation of themighty mountains, seated upon a throne, listening to a girl who playedon a Pan pipe before her. The goddess sat, her chin leaned upon herhand, her shoulders slightly inclined in a pose of gentle sweetness,looking down upon the girl at her feet, absorbed in the music of thehills and lonely places. A band of jewels, richly wrought, clasped theveil on her brows, and below the bare bosom a glorious girdle clothedher with loops and strings and tassels of jewels that fell to herknees--her only garment.

  The girl was a lovely image of young womanhood, the proud swell of thebreast tapering to the slim waist and long limbs easily folded as shehalf reclined at the divine feet, her lips pressed to the pipe. Itssilent music mysteriously banished fear. The sleep must be sweetindeed that would come under the guardianship of these two faircreatures--their gracious influence was dewy in the air. I resolved thatI would spend the night beside them. Now with the march of the moon dimvistas of the walls beyond sprang into being. Strange mythologies--theincarnations of Vishnu the Preserver, the Pastoral of Krishna theBeautiful. I promised myself that next day I would sketch some of theloveliness about me. But the moon was passing on her way--I folded thecoat I carried into a pillow and lay down at the feet of the goddess andher nymph. Then a moonlit quiet I slept in a dream of peace.

  Sleep annihilates time. Was it long or short when I woke like a manfloating up to the surface from tranquil deeps? That I cannot tell, butonce more I possessed myself and every sense was on guard.

  My hearing first. Bare feet were coming, falling softly as leaves, butunmistakable. There was a dim whispering but I could hear no word. Irose on my elbow and looked down the long hall. Nothing. The moonlightlay in pools of light and seas of shadow on the floor, and the feet drewnearer. Was I afraid? I cannot tell, but a deep expectation possessedme as the sound grew like the rustle of grasses parted in a flutteringbreeze, and now a girl came swiftly up the steps, irradiate in themoonlight, and passing up the hall stood beside me. I could see herrobe, her feet bare from the jungle, but her face wavered and changedand re-united like the face of a dream woman. I could not fix it forone moment, yet knew this was the messenger for whom I had waited allmy life--for whom one strange experience, not to be told at present, hadprepared me in early manhood. Words came, and I said:

  "Is this a dream?"

  "No. We meet in the Ninth Vibration. All here is true."

  "Is a dream never true?"

  "Sometimes it is the echo of the Ninth Vibration and therefore aharmonic of truth. You are awake now. It is the day-time that is thesleep of the soul. You are in the Lower Perception, wherein the truthbehind the veil of what men call Reality is perceived."

  "Can I ascend?"

  "I cannot tell. That is for you, not me.

  "What do I perceive tonight?"

  "The Present as it is in the Eternal. Say no more. Come with me."

  She stretched her hand and took mine with the assurance of a goddess,and we went up the hall where the night had been deepest between thegreat pillars.

  Now it is very clear to me that in every land men, when the doors ofperception are opened, will see what we call the Supernatural clothedin the image in which that country has accepted it. Blake, the mightymystic, will see the Angels of the Revelation, driving their terribleway above Lambeth--it is not common nor unclean. The fisherman, plyinghis coracle on the Thames will behold the consecration of the great newAbbey of Westminster celebrated with mass and chant and awful lightsin the dead mid-noon of night by that Apostle who is the Rock of theChurch. Before him who wanders in Thessaly Pan will brush the dewylawns and slim-girt Artemis pursue the flying hart. In the pale gold ofEgyptian sands the heavy brows of Osiris crowned with the pshent willbrood above the seer and the veil of Isis tremble to the lifting. Forall this is the rhythm to which the souls of men are attuned and in thatvibration they will see, and no other, since in this the very mountainsand trees of the land are rooted. So here, where our remote ancestorsworshipped the Gods of Nature, we must needs stand before the MysticMother of India, the divine daughter of the Himalaya.

  How shall I describe the world we entered? The carvings upon the wallshad taken life--they had descended. It was a gathering of the dreams menhave dreamed here of the Gods, yet most real and actual. They watched ina serenity that set them apart in an atmosphere of their own--forms ofindistinct majesty and august beauty, absolute, si
mple, and everlasting.I saw them as one sees reflections in rippled water--no more. Butall faces turned to the place where now a green and flowering leafageenshrined and partly hid the living Nature Goddess, as she listened toa voice that was not dumb to me. I saw her face only in glimpses of anindescribable sweetness, but an influence came from her presence likethe scent of rainy pine forests, the coolness that breathes from greatrivers, the passion of Spring when she breaks on the world with a waveof flowers. Healing and life flowed from it. Understanding also. Itseemed I could interpret the very silence of the trees outside into theexpression of their inner life, the running of the green life-blood intheir veins, the delicate trembling of their finger-tips.

  My companion and I were not heeded. We stood hand in hand like childrenwho have innocently strayed into a palace, gazing in wonderment. Theaugust life went its way upon its own occasions, and, if we would, wemight watch. Then the voice, clear and cold, proceeding, as it were,with some story begun before we had strayed into the Presence, the wholeassembly listening in silence.

  "--and as it has been so it will be, for the Law will have the blindsoul carried into a body which is a record of the sins it has committed,and will not suffer that soul to escape from rebirth into bodies untilit has seen the truth--"

  And even as this was said and I listened, knowing myself on the verge ofsome great knowledge, I felt sleep beginning to weigh upon my eyelids.The sound blurred, flowed unsyllabled as a stream, the girl's hand grewlight in mine; she was fading, becoming unreal; I saw her eyes likefaint stars in a mist. They were gone. Arms seemed to receive me--to layme to sleep and I sank below consciousness, and the night took me.

  When I awoke the radiant arrows of the morning were shooting into thelong hall where I lay, but as I rose and looked about me, strange--moststrange, ruin encircled me everywhere. The blue sky was the roof. What Ihad thought a palace lost in the jungle, fit to receive its King shouldhe enter, was now a broken hall of State; the shattered pillars werefestooned with waving weeds, the many coloured lantana grew between thefallen blocks of marble. Even the sculptures on the walls were difficultto decipher. Faintly I could trace a hand, a foot, the orb of awoman's bosom, the gracious outline of some young God, standing above acrouching worshipper. No more. Yes, and now I saw above me as the dawntouched it the form of the Dweller in the Windhya Hills, Parvati theBeautiful, leaning softly over something breathing music at her feet.Yet I knew I could trace the almost obliterated sculpture only becauseI had already seen it defined in perfect beauty. A deep crack ran acrossthe marble; it was weathered and stained by many rains, and little fernsgrew in the crevices, but I could reconstruct every line from my ownknowledge. And how? The Parvati of Ranipur differed in many importantdetails. She stood, bending forward, wheras this sweet Lady sat. Herattendants were small satyr-like spirits of the wilds, piping andfluting, in place of the reclining maiden. The sweeping scrolls of agreat halo encircled her whole person. Then how could I tell what thisnearly obliterated carving had been? I groped for the answer and couldnot find it. I doubted--

  "Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten of the insane root That takes the reason captive?"

  Memory rushed over me like the sea over dry sands. A girl--there hadbeen a girl--we had stood with clasped hands to hear a strange music,but in spite of the spiritual intimacy of those moments I could notrecall her face. I saw it cloudy against a background of night anddream, the eyes remote as stars, and so it eluded me. Only her presenceand her words survived; "We meet in the Ninth Vibration. All here istrue." But the Ninth Vibration itself was dream-land. I had never heardthe phrase--I could not tell what was meant, nor whether my apprehensionwas true or false. I knew only that the night had taken her and the dawndenied her, and that, dream or no dream, I stood there with a pang ofloss that even now leaves me wordless.

  A bird sang outside in the acacias, clear and shrill for day, and thisawakened my senses and lowered me to the plane where I became aware ofcold and hunger, and was chilled with dew. I passed down the tumbledsteps that had been a stately ascent the night before and made my wayinto the jungle by the trail, small and lost in fern, by which we hadcome. Again I wandered, and it was high noon before I heard mule bellsat a distance, and, thus guided, struck down through the green tangleto find myself, wearied but safe, upon the bridle way that leads to Faguand the far Shipki. Two coolies then directed me to The House in theWoods.

  All was anxiety there. Ali Khan had arrived in the night, having foundhis way under the guidance of blind flight and fear. He had brought thenews that I was lost in the jungle and amid the dwellings of demons. Itwas, of course, hopeless to search in the dark, though the khansamah andhis man had gone as far as they dared with lanterns and shouting,and with the daylight they tried again and were even now away. It wasuseless to reproach the man even if I had cared to do so. His ready pleawas that as far as men were concerned he was as brave as any (whichwas true enough as I had reason to know later) but that when it came todevilry the Twelve Imaums themselves would think twice before facing it.

  "Inshalla ta-Alla! (If the sublime God wills!) this unworthy one willone day show the Protector of the poor, that he is a respectable personand no coward, but it is only the Sahibs who laugh in the face ofdevils."

  He went off to prepare me some food, consumed with curiosity as to myadventures, and when I had eaten I found my tiny whitewashed cell, forthe room was little more, and slept for hours.

  Late in the afternoon I waked and looked out. A low but glowingsunlight suffused the wild garden reclaimed from the strangle-hold ofthe jungle and hemmed in with rocks and forest. A few simple flowers hadbeen planted here and there, but its chief beauty was a mountain stream,brown and clear as the eyes of a dog, that fell from a crag above intoa rocky basin, maidenhair ferns growing in such masses about it thatit was henceforward scarcely more than a woodland voice. Beside it twogreat deodars spread their canopies, and there a woman sat in a lowchair, a girl beside her reading aloud. She had thrown her hat off andthe sunshine turned her massed dark hair to bronze. That was all I couldsee. I went out and joined them, taking the note of introduction whichOlesen had given me.

  I pass over the unessentials of my story; their friendly greetings andsympathy for my adventure. It set us at ease at once and I knew my staywould be the happier for their presence though it is not every woman onewould choose as a companion in the great mountain country. But whatis germane to my purpose must be told, and of this a part is thepersonality of Brynhild Ingmar. That she was beautiful I never doubted,though I have heard it disputed and smiled inwardly as the disputantsurged lip and cheek and shades of rose and lily, weighing andappraising. Let me describe her as I saw her or, rather, as I can,adding that even without all this she must still have been beautifulbecause of the deep significance to those who had eyes to see orfeel some mysterious element which mingled itself with her presencecomparable only to the delight which the power and spiritual essence ofNature inspires in all but the dullest minds. I know I cannot hope toconvey this in words. It means little if I say I thought of all quietlovely solitary things when I looked into her calm eyes,--that when shemoved it was like clear springs renewed by flowing, that she seemed theperfect flowering of a day in June, for these are phrases. Does Natureknow her wonders when she shines in her strength? Does a woman know theinfinite meanings her beauty may have for the beholder? I cannot tell.Nor can I tell if I saw this girl as she may have seemed to those whoread only the letter of the book and are blind to its spirit, or in thedeepest sense as she really was in the sight of That which created herand of which she was a part. Surely it is a proof of the divinity oflove that in and for a moment it lifts the veil of so-called reality andshows each to the other mysteriously perfect and inspiring as the worldwill never see them, but as they exist in the Eternal, and in the sightof those who have learnt that the material is but the dream, and thevision of love the truth.

  I will say then, for the alphabet of what I knew but cannot tell, thatshe
had the low broad brows of a Greek Nature Goddess, the hair sweptback wing-like from the temples and massed with a noble luxuriance. Itlay like rippled bronze, suggesting something strong and serene in itsessence. Her eyes were clear and gray as water, the mouth sweetly curvedabove a resolute chin. It was a face which recalled a modelling inmarble rather than the charming pastel and aquarelle of a young woman'scolouring, and somehow I thought of it less as the beauty of a womanthan as some sexless emanation of natural things, and this impressionwas strengthened by her height and the long limbs, slender and strong asthose of some youth trained in the pentathlon, subject to the severestdiscipline until all that was superfluous was fined away and the perfectform expressing the true being emerged. The body was thus more beautifulthan the face, and I may note in passing that this is often the case,because the face is more directly the index of the restless and unhappysoul within and can attain true beauty only when the soul is in harmonywith its source.

  She was a little like her pale and wearied mother. She might resembleher still more when the sorrow of this world that worketh death shouldhave had its will of her. I had yet to learn that this would neverbe--that she had found the open door of escape.

  We three spent much time together in the days that followed. I nevertired of their company and I think they did not tire of mine, formy wanderings through the world and my studies in the ancient Indianliteratures and faiths with the Pandit Devaswami were of interest tothem both though in entirely different ways. Mrs. Ingmar was a woman whocentred all her interests in books and chiefly in the scientific formsof occult research. She was no believer in anything outside the rangeof what she called human experience. The evidences had convinced her ofnothing but a force as yet unclassified in the scientific categories andall her interest lay in the undeveloped powers of brain which might bediscovered in the course of ignorant and credulous experiment. We mettherefore on the common ground of rejection of the so-called occultismof the day, though I knew even then, and how infinitely better now, thather constructions were wholly misleading.

  Nearly all day she would lie in her chair under the deodars by thedelicate splash and ripple of the stream. Living imprisoned in thecrystal sphere of the intellect she saw the world outside, painted infew but distinct colours, small, comprehensible, moving on a logicalorbit. I never knew her posed for an explanation. She had the contentedatheism of a certain type of French mind and found as much ease in it asanother kind of sweet woman does in her rosary and confessional.

  "I cannot interest Brynhild," she said, when I knew her better. "She hasno affinity with science. She is simply a nature worshipper, and in suchplaces as this she seems to draw life from the inanimate life about her.I have sometimes wondered whether she might not be developed into a kindof bridge between the articulate and the inarticulate, so well does sheunderstand trees and flowers. Her father was like that--he had all sortsof strange power with animals and plants, and thought he had more thanhe had. He could never realize that the energy of nature is merelymechanical."

  "You think all energy is mechanical?"

  "Certainly. We shall lay our finger on the mainspring one day andthe mystery will disappear. But as for Brynhild--I gave her the besteducation possible and yet she has never understood the conception of auniverse moving on mathematical laws to which we must submit in body andmind. She has the oddest ideas. I would not willingly say of a child ofmine that she is a mystic, and yet--"

  She shook her head compassionately. But I scarcely heard. My eyes werefixed on Brynhild, who stood apart, looking steadily out over the snows.It was a glorious sunset, the west vibrating with gorgeous colour spiltover in torrents that flooded the sky, Terrible splendours--hues forwhich we have no thought--no name. I had not thought of it as musicuntil I saw her face but she listened as well as saw, and her expressionchanged as it changes when the pomp of a great orchestra breaks upon thesilence. It flashed to the chords of blood-red and gold that was burningfire. It softened through the fugue of woven crimson gold and flame, tothe melancholy minor of ashes-of-roses and paling green, and so throughall the dying glories that faded slowly to a tranquil grey and leftthe world to the silver melody of one sole star that dawned above theineffable heights of the snows. Then she listened as a child does toa bird, entranced, with a smile like a butterfly on her parted lips. Inever saw such a power of quiet.

  She and I were walking next day among the forest ways, the pine-scentedsunshine dappling the dropped frondage. We had been speaking of hermother. "It is such a misfortune for her," she said thoughtfully, "thatI am not clever. She should have had a daughter who could have sharedher thoughts. She analyses everything, reasons about everything, andthat is quite out of my reach."

  She moved beside me with her wonderful light step--the poise and balanceof a nymph in the Parthenon frieze.

  "How do you see things?"

  "See? That is the right word. I see things--I never reason about them.They are. For her they move like figures in a sum. For me every one ofthem is a window through which one may look to what is beyond."

  "To where?"

  "To what they really are--not what they seem."

  I looked at her with interest.

  "Did you ever hear of the double vision?"

  For this is a subject on which the spiritually learned men of India,like the great mystics of all the faiths, have much to say. I hadlistened with bewilderment and doubt to the expositions of my Panditon this very head. Her simple words seemed for a moment the echo of hisdeep and searching thought. Yet it surely could not be. Impossible.

  "Never. What does it mean?" She raised clear unveiled eyes. "You mustforgive me for being so stupid, but it is my mother who is at home withall these scientific phrases. I know none of them."

  "It means that for some people the material universe--the things we seewith our eyes--is only a mirage, or say, a symbol, which either hidesor shadows forth the eternal truth. And in that sense they see things asthey really are, not as they seem to the rest of us. And whether this isthe statement of a truth or the wildest of dreams, I cannot tell."

  She did not answer for a moment; then said;

  "Are there people who believe this--know it?"

  "Certainly. There are people who believe that thought is the only realthing--that the whole universe is thought made visible. That we createwith our thoughts the very body by which we shall re-act on the universein lives to be.

  "Do you believe it?"

  "I don't know. Do you?"

  She paused; looked at me, and then went on:

  "You see, I don't think things out. I only feel. But this cannotinterest you."

  I felt she was eluding the question. She began to interest me more thanany one I had ever known. She had extraordinary power of a sort. Once,in the woods, where I was reading in so deep a shade that she neversaw me, I had an amazing vision of her. She stood in a glade with thesunlight and shade about her; she had no hat and a sunbeam turned herhair to pale bronze. A small bright April shower was falling through thesun, and she stood in pure light that reflected itself in every leaf andgrass-blade. But it was nothing of all this that arrested me,beautiful as it was. She stood as though life were for the momentsuspended;--then, very softly, she made a low musical sound, infinitelywooing, from scarcely parted lips, and instantly I saw a bird of azureplumage flutter down and settle on her shoulder, pluming himself therein happy security. Again she called softly and another followed thefirst. Two flew to her feet, two more to her breast and hand. Theycaressed her, clung to her, drew some joyous influence from herpresence. She stood in the glittering rain like Spring with her birdsabout her--a wonderful sight. Then, raising one hand gently with thefingers thrown back she uttered a different note, perfectly sweet andintimate, and the branches parted and a young deer with full bright eyesfixed on her advanced and pushed a soft muzzle into her hand.

  In my astonishment I moved, however slightly, and the picture broke up.The deer sprang back into the trees, the birds fluttered up in a hurryof feathe
rs, and she turned calm eyes upon me, as unstartled as if shehad known all the time that I was there.

  "You should not have breathed," she said smiling. "They must have utterquiet."

  I rose up and joined her.

  "It is a marvel. I can scarcely believe my eyes. How do you do it?"

  "My father taught me. They come. How can I tell?"

  She turned away and left me. I thought long over this episode. Irecalled words heard in the place of my studies--words I had dismissedwithout any care at the moment. "To those who see, nothing is alien.They move in the same vibration with all that has life, be it in birdor flower. And in the Uttermost also, for all things are One. For suchthere is no death."

  That was beyond me still, but I watched her with profound interest. Sherecalled also words I had half forgotten--

  "There was nought above me and nought below, My childhood had not learnt to know; For what are the voices of birds, Aye, and of beasts, but words, our words,-- Only so much more sweet."

  That might have been written of her. And more.

  She had found one day in the woods a flower of a sort I had once seenin the warm damp forests below Darjiling--ivory white and shaped like adove in flight. She wore it that evening on her bosom. A week later shewore what I took to be another.

  "You have had luck," I said; "I never heard of such a thing being seenso high up, and you have found it twice."

  "No, it is the same."

  "The same? Impossible. You found it more than a week ago." "I know. Itis ten days. Flowers don't die when one understands them--not as mostpeople think."

  Her mother looked up and said fretfully:

  "Since she was a child Brynhild has had that odd idea. That flower isdead and withered. Throw it away, child. It looks hideous."

  Was it glamour? What was it? I saw the flower dewy fresh in her bosomShe smiled and turned away.

  It was that very evening she left the veranda where we were sitting inthe subdued light of a little lamp and passed beyond where the ray cutthe darkness. She went down the perspective of trees to the edge of heclearing and I rose to follow for it seemed absolutely unsafe that sheshould be on the verge of the panther-haunted woods alone. Mrs. Ingmarturned a page of her book serenely;

  "She will not like it if you go. I cannot imagine that she should cometo harm. She always goes her own way--light or dark."

  I returned to my seat and watched steadfastly. At first I could seenothing but as my sight adjusted itself I saw her a long way down theclearing that opened the snows, and quite certainly also I saw somethinglike a huge dog detach itself from the woods and bound to her feet. Itmingled with her dark dress and I lost it. Mrs. Ingmar said, seeing myanxiety but nothing else; "Her father was just the same;--he had no fearof anything that lives. No doubt some people have that power. I havenever seen her attract birds and beasts as he certainly did, but she isquite as fond of them."

  I could not understand her blindness--what I myself had seen raisedquestions I found unanswerable, and her mother saw nothing! Which of uswas right? presently she came back slowly and I ventured no word.

  A woodland sorcery, innocent as the dawn, hovered about her. What wasit? Did the mere love of these creatures make a bond between her souland theirs, or was the ancient dream true and could she at times movein the same vibration? I thought of her as a wood-spirit sometimes, anexpression herself of some passion of beauty in Nature, a thought ofsnows and starry nights and flowing rivers made visible in flesh. It issurely when seized with the urge of some primeval yearning which inman is merely sexual that Nature conceives her fair forms and manifeststhem, for there is a correspondence that runs through all creation.

  Here I ask myself--Did I love her? In a sense, yes, deeply, but not inthe common reading of the phrase. I have trembled with delight beforethe wild and terrible splendour of the Himalayan heights-; low goldenmoons have steeped my soul longing, but I did not think of these thingsas mine in any narrow sense, nor so desire them. They were Angels of theEvangel of beauty. So too was she. She had none of the "silken nets andtraps of adamant," she was no sister of the "girls of mild silver or offurious gold;"--but fair, strong, and her own, a dweller in the House ofQuiet. I did not covet her. I loved her.

  Days passed. There came a night when the winds were loosed--no moon,the stars flickering like blown tapers through driven clouds, the treesswaying and lamenting.

  "There will be rain tomorrow." Mrs. Ingmar said, as we parted for thenight. I closed my door. Some great cat of the woods was crying harshlyoutside my window, the sound receding towards the bridle way. I slept ina dream of tossing seas and ships labouring among them.

  With the sense of a summons I waked--I cannot tell when. Unmistakable,as if I were called by name. I rose and dressed, and heard distinctlybare feet passing my door. I opened it noiselessly and looked out intothe little passage way that made for the entry, and saw nothing butpools of darkness and a dim light from the square of the window at theend. But the wind had swept the sky clear with its flying bosom and wassleeping now in its high places and the air was filled with a mild moonyradiance and a great stillness.

  Now let me speak with restraint and exactness. I was not afraid but feltas I imagine a dog feels in the presence of his master, conscious of apurpose, a will entirely above his own and incomprehensible, yet tobe obeyed without question. I followed my reading of the command,bewildered but docile, and understanding nothing but that I was called.

  The lights were out. The house dead silent; the familiar verandaghostly in the night. And now I saw a white figure at the head of thesteps--Brynhild. She turned and looked over her shoulder, her facepale in the moon, and made the same gesture with which she summoned herbirds. I knew her meaning, for now we were moving in the same rhythm,and followed as she took the lead. How shall I describe that strangenight in the jungle. There were fire-flies or dancing points of lightthat recalled them. Perhaps she was only thinking them--only thinkingthe moon and the quiet, for we were in the world where thought is theone reality. But they went with us in a cloud and faintly lighted ourway. There were exquisite wafts of perfume from hidden flowers breathingtheir dreams to the night. Here and there a drowsy bird stirred andchirped from the roof of darkness, a low note of content that greetedher passing. It was a path intricate and winding and how long we went,and where, I cannot tell. But at last she stooped and parting the boughsbefore her we stepped into an open space, and before us--I knew it--Iknew it!--The House of Beauty.

  She paused at the foot of the great marble steps and looked at me.

  "We have met here already."

  I did not wonder--I could not. In the Ninth vibration surprise hadceased to be. Why had I not recognized her before--O dull of heart! Thatwas my only thought. We walk blindfold through the profound darkness ofmaterial nature, the blinder because we believe we see it. It is onlywhen the doors of the material are closed that the world appears to manas it exists in the eternal truth.

  "Did you know this?" I asked, trembling before mystery.

  "I knew it, because I am awake. You forgot it in the dull sleep which wecall daily life. But we were here and THEY began the story of the Kingwho made this house. Tonight we shall hear it. It he story of Beautywandering through the world and the world received her not. We hear itin this place because here he agonized for what he knew too late."

  "Was that our only meeting?"

  "We meet every night, but you forget when the day brings the sleep ofthe soul.--You do not sink deep enough into rest to remember. You floaton the surface where the little bubbles of foolish dream are about youand I cannot reach you then."

  "How can I compel myself to the deeps?"

  "You cannot. It will come. But when you have passed up the bridleway and beyond the Shipki, stop at Gyumur. There is the Monastery ofTashigong, and there one will meet you--

  "His name?"

  "Stephen Clifden. He will tell you what you desire to know. Continue onthen with him to Yarkhand. There in the Ninth Vibrati
on we shall meetagain. It is a long journey but you will be content."

  "Do you certainly know that we shall meet again?"

  "When you have learnt, we can meet when we will. He will teach youthe Laya Yoga. You should not linger here in the woods any longer. Youshould go on. In three days it will be possible."

  "But how have you learnt--a girl and young?"

  "Through a close union with Nature--that is one of the three roads. ButI know little as yet. Now take my hand and come.

  "One last question. Is this house ruined and abject as I have seen it inthe daylight, or royal and the house of Gods as we see it now? Which istruth?"

  "In the day you saw it in the empty illusion of blind thought. Tonight,eternally lovely as in the thought of the man who made it. Nothing thatis beautiful is lost, though in the sight of the unwise it seems to die.Death is in the eyes we look through--when they are cleansed we see Lifeonly. Now take my hand and come. Delay no more."

  She caught my hand and we entered the dim magnificence of the greathall. The moon entered with us.

  Instantly I had the feeling of supernatural presence. Yet I only writethis in deference to common use, for it was absolutely natural--more sothan any I have met in the state called daily life. It was a thing inwhich I had a part, and if this was supernatural so also was I.

  Again I saw the Dark One, the Beloved, the young Krishna, above thewomen who loved him. He motioned with his hand as we passed, as thoughhe waved us smiling on our way. Again the dancers moved in a rhythmictread to the feet of the mountain Goddess--again we followed to whereshe bent to hear. But now, solemn listening faces crowded in the shadowsabout her, grave eyes fixed immovably upon what lay at her feet--a man,submerged in the pure light that fell from her presence, his dark facestark and fine, lips locked, eyes shut, arms flung out cross-wise inutter abandonment, like a figure of grief invisibly crucified upon hisshame. I stopped a few feet from him, arrested by a barrier I could notpass. Was it sleep or death or some mysterious state that partook ofboth? Not sleep, for there was no flutter of breath. Not death--no rigidimmobility struck chill into the air. It was the state of subjectionwhere the spirit set free lies tranced in the mighty influences whichsurround us invisibly until we have entered, though but for a moment,the Ninth Vibration.

  And now, with these Listeners about us, a clear voice began and stirredthe air with music. I have since been asked in what tongue it spoke andcould only answer that it reached my ears in the words of my childhood,and that I know whatever that language had been it would so have reachedme.

  "Great Lady, hear the story of this man's fall, for it is the story ofman. Be pitiful to the blind eyes and give them light."

  There was long since in Ranipur a mighty King and at his birth the wisemen declared that unless he cast aside all passions that debase thesoul, relinquishing the lower desires for the higher until a Princessladen with great gifts should come to be his bride, he would experiencegreat and terrible misfortunes. And his royal parents did what theycould to possess him with this belief, but they died before he reachedmanhood. Behold him then, a young King in his palace, surrounded withsplendour. How should he withstand the passionate crying of the flesh orbelieve that through pleasure comes satiety and the loss of that in thespirit whereby alone pleasure can be enjoyed? For his gift was thathe could win all hearts. They swarmed round him like hiving bees andhovered about him like butterflies. Sometimes he brushed them off. Oftenhe caressed them, and when this happened, each thought proudly "I am theRoyal Favourite. There is none other than me."

  Also the Princess delayed who would be the crest-jewel of the crown,bringing with her all good and the blessing of the High Gods, and inconsequence of all these things the King took such pleasures as hecould, and they were many, not knowing they darken the inner eye wherebywhat is royal is known through disguises.

  (Most pitiful to see, beneath the close-shut lids of the man at thefeet of the Dweller in the Heights, tears forced themselves, as thougha corpse dead to all else lived only to anguish. They flowed likeblood-drops upon his face as he lay enduring, and the voice proceeded.)What was the charm of the King? Was it his stately height and strength?Or his faithless gayety? Or his voice, deep and soft as the sitar whenit sings of love? His women said--some one thing, some another, but noneof these ladies were of royal blood, and therefore they knew not.

  Now one day, the all-privileged jester of the King, said, laughingharshly:

  "Maharaj, you divert yourself. But how if, while we feast and play, theFar Away Princess glided past and was gone, unknown and unwelcomed?"

  And the King replied:

  "Fool, content yourself. I shall know my Princess, but she delays solong that I weary."

  Now in a far away country was a Princess, daughter of the Greatest,and her Father hesitated to give her in marriage to such a King for allreported that he was faithless of heart, but having seen his portraitshe loved him and fled in disguise from the palaces of her Father, andbeing captured she was brought before the King in Ranipur.

  He sat upon a cloth of gold and about him was the game he had killed inhunting, in great masses of ruffled fur and plumage, and he turned thebeauty of his face carelessly upon her, and as the Princess looked uponhim, her heart yearned to him, and he said in his voice that was likethe male string of the sitar:

  "Little slave, what is your desire?"

  Then she saw that the long journey had scarred her feet and dimmed herhair with dust, and that the King's eyes, worn with days and nights ofpleasure did not pierce her disguise. Now in her land it is a customthat the blood royal must not proclaim itself, so she folded her handsand said gently:

  "A place in the household of the King." And he, hearing that the Waitingslave of his chief favorite Jayashri was dead, gave her that place. Sothe Princess attended on those ladies, courteous and obedient to allauthority as beseemed her royalty, and she braided her bright hair sothat it hid the little crowns which the Princesses of her Housemust wear always in token of their rank, and every day her patiencestrengthened.

  Sometimes the King, carelessly desiring her laughing face and sad eyes,would send for her to wile away an hour, and he would say; "Dance,little slave, and tell me stories of the far countries. You quite unlikemy Women, doubtless because you are a slave."

  And she thought--"No, but because I am a Princess,"--but this she didnot say. She laughed and told him the most marvellous stories in theworld until he laid his head upon her warm bosom, dreaming awake.

  There were stories of the great Himalayan solitudes where in the winternights the white tiger stares at the witches' dance of the NorthernLights dazzled by the hurtling of their myriad spears. And she toldhow the King-eagle, hanging motionless over the peaks of Gaurisankar,watches with golden eyes for his prey, and falling like a plummetstrikes its life out with his clawed heel and, screaming with triumph,bears it to his fierce mate in her cranny of the rocks.

  "A gallant story!" the King would say. "More!" Then she told of thetropical heats and the stealthy deadly creatures of forest and jungle,and the blue lotus of Buddha swaying on the still lagoon,--And she spokeof loves of men and women, their passion and pain and joy. And when shetold of their fidelity and valour and honour that death cannot quench,her voice was like the song of a minstrel, for she had read all thestories of the ages and the heart of a Princess told her the rest. Andthe King listened unwearying though he believed this was but a slave.

  (The face of the man at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights twitchedin a white agony. Pearls of sweat were distilled upon his brows, buthe moved neither hand nor foot, enduring as in a flame of fire. And thevoice continued.)

  So one day, in the misty green of the Spring, while she rested at hisfeet in the garden Pavilion, he said to her:

  "Little slave, why do you love me?"

  And she answered proudly:

  "Because you have the heart of a King."

  He replied slowly;

  "Of the women who have loved me none gave this reason,
though they gavemany."

  She laid her cheek on his hand.

  "That is the true reason."

  But he drew it away and was vaguely troubled, for her words, he knewnot why, reminded him of the Far Away Princess and of things he had longforgotten, and he said; "What does a slave know of the hearts of Kings?"And that night he slept or waked alone.

  Winter was at hand with its blue and cloudless days, and she wascommanded to meet the King where the lake lay still and shining like anecstasy of bliss, and she waited with her chin dropped into the cup ofher hands, looking over the water with eyes that did not see, for herwhole soul said; "How long O my Sovereign Lord, how long before you knowthe truth and we enter together into our Kingdom?"

  As she sat she heard the King's step, and the colour stole up into herface in a flush like the earliest sunrise. "He is coming," she said; andagain; "He loves me."

  So he came beside the water, walking slowly. But the King was not alone.His arm embraced the latest-come beauty from Samarkhand, and, with hishead bent, he whispered in her willing ear.

  Then clasping her hands, the Princess drew a long sobbing breath, and heturned and his eyes grew hard as blue steel.

  "Go, slave," he cried. "What place have you in Kings' gardens? Go. Letme see you no more."

  (The man lying at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights, raised a heavyarm and flung it above his head, despairing, and it fell again on thecross of his torment. And the voice went on.)

  And as he said this, her heart broke; and she went and her feet wereweary. So she took the wise book she loved and unrolled it until shecame to a certain passage, and this she read twice; "If the heart ofa slave be broken it may be mended with jewels and soft words, but theheart of a Princess can be healed only by the King who broke it, or inYamapura, the City under the Sunset where they make all things new. Now,Yama, the Lord of this City, is the Lord of Death." And having thus readthe Princess rolled the book and put it from her.

  And next day, the King said to his women; "Send for her," for his heartsmote him and he desired to atone royally for the shame of his speech.And they sought and came back saying;

  "Maharaj, she is gone. We cannot find her."

  Fear grew in the heart of the King--a nameless dread, and he said,"Search." And again they sought and returned and the King was stridingup and down the great hall and none dared cross his path. But,trembling, they told him, and he replied; "Search again. I will not loseher, and, slave though be, she shall be my Queen."

  So they ran, dispersing to the Four Quarters, and King strode up anddown the hall, and Loneliness kept step with him and clasped his handand looked his eyes.

  Then the youngest of the women entered with a tale to tell. "Majesty,we have found her. She lies beside the lake. When the birds fled thismorning she fled with them, but upon a longer journey. Even to Yamapura,the City under the Sunset."

  And the King said; "Let none follow." And he strode forth swiftly, whitewith thoughts he dared not think.

  The Princess lay among the gold of the fallen leaves. All was gold,for her bright hair was out-spread in shining waves and in it shone theglory of the hidden crown. On her face was no smile--only at last wasrevealed the patience she had covered with laughter so long that eventhe voice of the King could not now break it into joy. The hands thathad clung, the swift feet that had run beside his, the tender body,mighty to serve and to love, lay within touch but farther away than theuttermost star was the Far Away Princess, known and loved too late.

  And he said; "My Princess--O my Princess!" and laid his head on her coldbosom.

  "Too late!" a harsh Voice croaked beside him, and it was the voice ofthe Jester who mocks at all things. "Too late! O madness, to despisethe blood royal because it humbled itself to service and so was doublyroyal. The Far Away Princess came laden with great gifts, and to her theKing's gift was the wage of a slave and a broken heart. Cast your crownand sceptre in the dust, O King--O King of Fools."

  (The man at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights moved. Some dim wordshaped upon his locked lips. She listened in a divine calm. It seemedthat the very Gods drew nearer. Again the man essayed speech, the bodydead, life only in the words that none could hear. The voice went on.)

  But the Princess flying wearily because of the sore wound in her heart,came at last to the City under the Sunset, where the Lord of Death rulesin the House of Quiet, and was there received with royal honours for inthat land are no disguises. And she knelt before the Secret One and ina voice broken with agony entreated him to heal her. And with veiled andpitying eyes he looked upon her, for many and grievous as are the woundshe has healed this was more grievous still. And he said;

  "Princess, I cannot, But this I can do--I can give a new heart in a newbirth--happy and careless as the heart of a child. Take this escape fromthe anguish you endure and be at peace."

  But the Princess, white with pain, asked only;

  "In this new heart and birth, is there room for the King?"

  And the Lord of Peace replied;

  "None. He too will be forgotten."

  Then she rose to her feet.

  "I will endure and when he comes I will serve him once more. If he willhe shall heal me, and if not I will endure for ever."

  And He who is veiled replied;

  "In this sacred City no pain may disturb the air, therefore you mustwait outside in the chill and the dark. Think better, Princess! Also,he must pass through many rebirths, because he beheld the face of Beautyunveiled and knew her not. And when he comes he will be weary and weakas a new-born child, and no more a great King." And the Princess smiled;

  "Then he will need me the more," she said; "I will wait and kiss thefeet of my King."

  "And the Lord of Death was silent. So she went outside into the darknessof the spaces, and the souls free passed her like homing doves, and shesat with her hands clasped over the sore wound in her heart, watchingthe earthward way. And the Princess is keeping still the day of her longpatience."

  The voice ceased. And there was a great silence, and the listening facesdrew nearer.

  Then the Dweller in the Heights spoke in a voice soft as the falling ofsnow in the quiet of frost and moon. I could have wept myself blind withjoy to hear that music. More I dare not say.

  "He is in the Lower State of Perception. He sorrows for his loss. Lethim have one instant's light that still he may hope."

  She bowed above the man, gazing upon him as a mother might upon hersleeping child. The dead eyelids stirred, lifted, a faint gleam showedbeneath them, an unspeakable weariness. I thought they would fallunsatisfied. Suddenly he saw What looked upon him, and a terror ofjoy no tongue can tell flashed over the dark mirror of his face. Hestretched a faint hand to touch her feet, a sobbing sigh died upon hislips, and once more the swooning sleep took him. He lay as a dead manbefore the Assembly.

  "The night is far spent," a voice said, from I know not where. And Iknew it was said not only for the sleeper but for all, for though theflying feet of Beauty seem for a moment to outspeed us she will one daywait our coming and gather us to her bosom.

  As before, the vision spread outward like rings in a broken reflectionin water. I saw the girl beside me, but her hand grew light in mine. Ifelt it no longer. I heard the roaring wind in the trees, or was it agreat voice thundering in my ears? Sleep took me. I waked in my littleroom.

  Strange and sad--I saw her next day and did not remember her whom of allthings I desired to know. I remembered the vision and knew that whetherin dream or waking I had heard an eternal truth. I longed with a greatlonging to meet my beautiful companion, and she stood at my side and Iwas blind.

  Now that I have climbed a little higher on the Mount of Vision it seemseven to myself that this could not be. Yet it was, and it is true of notthis only but of how much else!

  She knew me. I learnt that later, but she made no sign. Her simplicitieshad carried her far beyond and above me, to places where only the wingedthings attain--"as a bird among the bird-droves of G
od."

  I have since known that this power of direct simplicity in her was whyamong the great mountains we beheld the Divine as the emanation ofthe terrible beauty about us. We cannot see it as it is--only in someshadowing forth, gathering sufficient strength for manifestation fromthe spiritual atoms that haunt the region where that form has been forages the accepted vehicle of adoration. But I was now to set forth tofind another knowledge--to seek the Beauty that blinds us to all other.Next day the man who was directing my preparations for travel sent meword from Simla that all was ready and I could start two days later. Itold my friends the time of parting was near.

  "But it was no surprise to me," I added, "for I had heard already thatin a very few days I should be on my way."

  Mrs. Ingmar was more than kind. She laid a frail hand on mine.

  "We shall miss you indeed. If it is possible to send us word of youradventures in those wild solitudes I hope you will do it. Of courseaviation will soon lay bare their secrets and leave them no mysteries,so you don't go too soon. One may worship science and yet feel itinjures the beauty of the world. But what is beauty compared withknowledge?"

  "Do you never regret it?" I asked.

  "Never, dear Mr. Ormond. I am a worshipper of hard facts and howeverhideous they may be I prefer them to the prismatic colours of romance."

  Brynhild, smiling, quoted;

  "Their science roamed from star to star And than itself found nothing greater. What wonder? In a Leyden jar They bottled the Creator?"

  "There is nothing greater than science," said Mrs. Ingmar with softreverence. "The mind of man is the foot-rule of the universe."

  She meditated for a moment and then added that my kind interests intheir plans decided her to tell me that she would be returning toEurope and then to Canada in a few months with a favourite niece as hercompanion while Brynhild would remain in India with friends in Mooltanfor a time. I looked eagerly at her but she was lost in her own thoughtsand it was evidently not the time to say more.

  If I had hoped for a vision before I left the neighbourhood of thatstrange House of Beauty where a spirit imprisoned appeared to await theday of enlightenment I was disappointed. These things do not happen asone expects or would choose. The wind bloweth where it listeth until thelaws which govern the inner life are understood, and then we would notchoose if we could for we know that all is better than well. In thisworld, either in the blinded sight of daily life or in the clarity ofthe true sight I have not since seen it, but that has mattered little,for having heard an authentic word within its walls I have passed on myway elsewhere.

  Next day a letter from Olesen reached me.

  "Dear Ormond, I hope you have had a good time at the House in the Woods.I saw Rup Singh a few days ago and he wrote the odd message I enclose.You know what these natives are, even the most sensible of them, and youwill humour the old fellow for he ages very fast and I think is breakingup. But this was not what I wanted to say. I had a letter from a man Ihad not seen for years--a fellow called Stephen Clifden, who lives inKashmir. As a matter of fact I had forgotten his existence but evidentlyhe has not repaid the compliment for he writes as follows--No, I hadbetter send you the note and you can do as you please. I am rushed offmy legs with work and the heat is hell with the lid off. And-"

  But the rest was of no interest except to a friend of years' standing. Iread Rup Singh's message first. It was written in his own tongue.

  "To the Honoured One who has attained to the favour of the Favourable.

  "You have with open eyes seen what this humble one has dreamed buthas not known. If the thing be possible, write me this word that I maydepart in peace. 'With that one who in a former birth you loved all iswell. Fear nothing for him. The way is long but at the end the lamps oflove are lit and the Unstruck music is sounded. He lies at the feet ofMercy and there awaits his hour.' And if it be not possible to writethese words, write nothing, O Honoured, for though it be in the hells mysoul shall find my King, and again I shall serve him as once I served."

  I understood, and wrote those words as he had written them. Strangemystery of life--that I who had not known should see, and that this manwhose fidelity had not deserted his broken King in his utter downfallshould have sought with passion for one sight of the beloved face acrossthe waters of death and sought in vain. I thought of those Buddhistwords of Seneca--"The soul may be and is in the mass of men drugged andsilenced by the seductions of sense and the deceptions of the world.But if, in some moment of detachment and elation, when its captors andjailors relax their guard, it can escape their clutches, it will seek atonce the region of its birth and its true home."

  Well--the shell must break before the bird can fly, and the time drewnear for the faithful servant to seek his lord. My message reached himin time and gladdened him.

  I turned then to Clifden's letter.

  "Dear Olesen, you will have forgotten me, and feeling sure of this Ishould scarcely have intruded a letter into your busy life were it notthat I remember your good-nature as a thing unforgettable though so manyyears have gone by. I hear of you sometimes when Sleigh comes up theSind valley, for I often camp at Sonamarg and above the Zoji La andfarther. I want you to give a message to a man you know who shouldbe expecting to hear from me. Tell him I shall be at the TashigongMonastery when he reaches Gyumur beyond the Shipki. Tell him I have theinformation he wants and I will willingly go on with him to Yarkhandand his destination. He need not arrange for men beyond Gyumur. Allis fixed. So sorry to bother you, old man, but I don't know Ormond'saddress, except that he was with you and has gone up Simla way. And ofcourse he will be keen to hear the thing is settled."

  Amazing. I remembered the message I had heard and this man's wordsrang true and kindly, but what could it mean? I really did not questionfarther than this for now I could not doubt that I was guided. Strongerhands than mine had me in charge, and it only remained for me to setforth in confidence and joy to an end that as yet I could not discern. Iturned my face gladly to the wonder of the mountains.

  Gladly--but with a reservation. I was leaving a friend and one whom Idimly felt might one day be more than a friend--Brynhild Ingmar. Thatproblem must be met before I could take my way. I thought much of whatmight be said at parting. True, she had the deepest attraction for me,but true also that I now beheld a quest stretching out into the unknownwhich I must accept in the spirit of the knight errant. Dare I thenbind my heart to any allegiance which would pledge me to a futureinconsistent with what lay before me? How could I tell what shemight think of the things which to me were now real and external--therevelation of the only reality that underlies all the seeming. Life cannever be the same for the man who has penetrated to this, and though itmay seem a hard saying there can be but a maimed understanding betweenhim and those who still walk amid the phantoms of death and decay.

  Her sympathy with nature was deep and wonderful but might it not be thatthough the earth was eloquent to her the skies were silent? I was buta beginner myself--I knew little indeed. Dare I risk that little in asweet companionship which would sink me into the contentment of thelife lived by the happily deluded between the cradle and the grave andperhaps close to me for ever that still sphere where my highest hopeabides? I had much to ponder, for how could I lose her out of mylife--though I knew not at all whether she who had so much to make herhappiness would give me a single thought when I was gone.

  If all this seem the very uttermost of selfish vanity, forgive a man whograsped in his hand a treasure so new, so wonderful that he walkedin fear and doubt lest it should slip away and leave him in a worlddarkened for ever by the torment of the knowledge that it might havebeen his and he had bartered it for the mess of pottage that has boughtso many birthrights since Jacob bargained with his weary brother inthe tents of Lahai-roi. I thought I would come back later with myprize gained and throwing it at her feet ask her wisdom in return, forwhatever I might not know I knew well she was wiser than I except inthat one shining of the light from Eleusis. I walked alone in
the woodsthinking of these things and no answer satisfied me.

  I did not see her alone until the day I left, for I was compelled by thearrangements I was making to go down to Simla for a night. And now thelast morning had come with golden sun--shot mists rolling upward todisclose the far white billows of the sea of eternity, the mountainsawaking to their enormous joys. The trees were dripping glory to thesteaming earth; it flowed like rivers into their most secret recesses,moss and flower, fern and leaf floated upon the waves of light revealingtheir inmost soul in triumphant gladness. Far off across the valleysa cuckoo was calling--the very voice of spring, and in the green worldabove my head a bird sang, a feathered joy, so clear, so passionate thatI thought the great summer morning listened in silence to his raptureringing through the woods. I waited until the Jubilate was ended andthen went in to bid good-bye to my friends.

  Mrs. Ingmar bid me the kindest farewell and I left her serene in thenegation of all beauty, all hope save that of a world run on the linesof a model municipality, disease a memory, sewerage, light and airsystems perfected, the charted brain sending its costless messages tothe outer parts of the habitable globe, and at least a hundred yearsof life with a decent cremation at the end of it assured to everyeugenically born citizen. No more. But I have long ceased to regretthat others use their own eyes whether clear or dim. Better the merestglimmer of light perceived thus than the hearsay of the revelations ofothers. And by the broken fragments of a bewildered hope a man shalleventually reach the goal and rejoice in that dawn where the morningstars sing together and the sons of God shout for joy. It must come, forit is already here.

  Brynhild walked with me through the long glades in the fresh thin airto the bridle road where my men and ponies waited, eager to be off. Westood at last in the fringe of trees on a small height which commandedthe way;--a high uplifted path cut along the shoulders of the hills andon the left the sheer drop of the valleys. Perhaps seven or eight feetin width and dignified by the name of the Great Hindustan and Tibet Roadit ran winding far away into Wonderland. Looking down into the valleys,so far beneath that the solitudes seem to wall them in I thought of allthe strange caravans which have taken this way with tinkle of bellsand laughter now so long silenced, and as I looked I saw a lost littlemonastery in a giant crevice, solitary as a planet on the outermost ringof the system, and remembrance flashed into my mind and I said;

  "I have marching orders that have countermanded my own plans. I am tojourney to the Buddhist Monastery of Tashigong, and there meet a friendwho will tell me what is necessary that I may travel to Yarkhand andbeyond. It will be long before I see Kashmir."

  In those crystal clear eyes I saw a something new to me--a faint smile,half pitying, half sad;

  "Who told you, and where?"

  "A girl in a strange place. A woman who has twice guided me--"

  I broke off. Her smile perplexed me. I could not tell what to say. Sherepeated in a soft undertone;

  "Great Lady, be pitiful to the blind eyes and give them light."

  And instantly I knew. O blind--blind! Was the unhappy King of the storyduller of heart than I? And shame possessed me. Here was the chrysoberylthat all day hides its secret in deeps of lucid green but when the nightcomes flames with its fiery ecstasy of crimson to the moon, and I--I hadbeen complacently considering whether I might not blunt my own spiritualinstinct by companionship with her, while she had been my guide, asinfinitely beyond me in insight as she was in all things beautiful. Icould have kissed her feet in my deep repentance. True it is that thegateway of the high places is reverence and he who cannot bow his headshall receive no crown. I saw that my long travel in search of knowledgewould have been utterly vain if I had not learnt that lesson there andthen. In those moments of silence I learnt it once and for ever.

  She stood by me breathing the liquid morning air, her face turned uponthe eternal snows. I caught her hand in a recognition that mighthave ended years of parting, and its warm youth vibrated in mine, theforetaste of all understanding, all unions, of love that asks nothing,that fears nothing, that has no petition to make. She raised her eyes tomine and her tears were a rainbow of hope. So we stood in silence thatwas more than any words, and the golden moments went by. I knew her nowfor what she was, one of whom it might have been written;

  "I come from where night falls clearer Than your morning sun can rise; From an earth that to heaven draws nearer Than your visions of Paradise,-- For the dreams that your dreamers dream We behold them with open eyes."

  With open eyes! Later I asked the nature of the strange bond that hadcalled her to my side.

  "I do not understand that fully myself," she said--"That is part of theknowledge we must wait for. But you have the eyes that see, and that isa tie nothing can break. I had waited long in the House of Beauty foryou. I guided you there. But between you and me there is also love."

  I stretched an eager hand but she repelled it gently, drawing back alittle. "Not love of each other though we are friends and in the futuremay be infinitely more. But--have you ever seen a drawing of Blake's--ayoung man stretching his arms to a white swan which flies from him onwings he cannot stay? That is the story of both our lives. We long tobe joined in this life, here and now, to an unspeakable beauty and powerwhose true believers we are because we have seen and known. There is nolove so binding as the same purpose. Perhaps that is the only true love.And so we shall never be apart though we may never in this world betogether again in what is called companionship."

  "We shall meet," I said confidently. She smiled and was silent.

  "Do we follow a will-o'-the wisp in parting? Do we give up the substancefor the shadow? Shall I stay?"

  She laughed joyously;

  "We give a single rose for a rose-tree that bears seven times seven.Daily I see more, and you are going where you will be instructed. As youknow my mother prefers for a time to have my cousin with her to help herwith the book she means to write. So I shall have time to myself. Whatdo you think I shall do?"

  "Blow away on a great wind. Ride on the crests of tossing waves. Catch astar to light the fireflies!"

  She laughed like a bird's song.

  "Wrong--wrong! I shall be a student. All I know as yet has come to meby intuition, but there is Law as well as Love and I will learn. I havedrifted like a happy cloud before the wind. Now I will learn to be thewind that blows the clouds."

  I looked at her in astonishment. If a flower had desired the same thingit could scarcely have seemed more incredible, for I had thought herwhole life and nature instinctive not intellective. She smiled as onewho has a beloved secret to keep.

  "When you have gained what in this country they call The Knowledge ofRegeneration, come back and ask me what I have learnt."

  She would say no more of that and turned to another matter, speakingwith earnestness;

  "Before you came here I had a message for you, and Stephen Clifdenwill tell you the same thing when you meet. Believe it for it is true.Remember always that the psychical is not the mystical and that what weseek is not marvel but vision. These two things are very far apart, solet the first with all its dangers pass you by, for our way lies to theheights, and for us there is only one danger--that of turning back andlosing what the whole world cannot give in exchange. I have never seenStephen Clifden but I know much of him. He is a safe guide--a man whohas had much and strange sorrow which has brought him joy that cannot betold. He will take you to those who know the things that you desire. Iwish I might have gone too."

  Something in the sweetness of her voice, its high passion, the strongbeauty of her presence woke a poignant longing in my heart. I said;

  "I cannot leave you. You are the only guide I can follow. Let us searchtogether--you always on before."

  "Your way lies there," she pointed to the high mountains. "And mine tothe plains, and if we chose our own we should wander. But we shallmeet again in the way and time that will be best and with knowledgeso enlarged that what we have seen already will be like an empty d
reamcompared to daylight truth. If you knew what waits for you you would notdelay one moment."

  She stood radiant beneath the deodars, a figure of Hope, pointingsteadily to the heights. I knew her words were true though as yet Icould not tell how. I knew that whereas we had seen the Wonderful inbeautiful though local forms there is a plane where the Formless may beapprehended in clear dream and solemn vision-the meeting of spirit withSpirit. What that revelation would mean I could not guess--how shouldI?--but I knew the illusion we call death and decay would wither beforeit. There is a music above and beyond the Ninth Vibration though I mustlove those words for ever for what their hidden meaning gave me.

  I took her hand and held it. Strange--beyond all strangeness that thatstory of an ancient sorrow should have made us what we were to eachother--should have opened to me the gates of that Country where shewandered content. For the first time I had realized in its fulness theloveliness of this crystal nature, clear as flowing water to receive andtransmit the light--itself a prophecy and fulfilment of some higher racewhich will one day inhabit our world when it has learnt the true values.She drew a flower from her breast and gave it to me. It lies before mewhite and living as I write these words.

  I sprang down the road and mounted, giving the word to march. The menshouted and strode on--our faces to the Shipki Pass and what lay beyond.

  We had parted.

  Once, twice, I looked back, and standing in full sunlight, she waved herhand.

  We turned the angle of the rocks.

  What I found--what she found is a story strange and beautiful whichI may tell one day to those who care to hear. That for me there werepauses, hesitancies, dreads, on the way I am not concerned to deny,for so it must always be with the roots of the old beliefs of fear andignorance buried in the soil of our hearts and ready to throw out theirpoisonous fibres. But there was never doubt. For myself I have longforgotten the meaning of that word in anything that is of real value.

  Do not let it be thought that the treasure is reserved for the few orthose of special gifts. And it is as free to the West as to the Eastthough I own it lies nearer to the surface in the Orient where thespiritual genius of the people makes it possible and the greater andmore faithful teachers are found. It is not without meaning that all thefaiths of the world have dawned in those sunrise skies. Yet it is withinreach of all and asks only recognition, for the universe has been themine of its jewels--

  "Median gold it holds, and silver from Atropatene, Ruby and emerald from Hindustan, and Bactrian agate, Bright with beryl and pearl, sardonyx and sapphire."-- and more that cannot be uttered-- the Lights and Perfections.

  So for all seekers I pray this prayer--beautiful in its sonorous Latin,but noble in all the tongues;

  "Supplico tibi, Pater et Dux--I pray Thee, Guide of our vision, thatwe may remember the nobleness with which Thou hast endowed us, and thatThou wouldest be always on our right and on our left in the motion ofour wills, that we may be purged from the contagion of the body and theaffections of the brute and overcome and rule them. And I pray alsothat Thou wouldest drive away the blinding darkness from the eyes of oursouls that we may know well what is to be held for divine and what formortal."

  "The nobleness with which Thou hast endowed us-" this, and not thecry of the miserable sinner whose very repentance is no virtue but theconsequence of failure and weakness is the strong music to which we mustmarch.

  And the way is open to the mountains.

 

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