f him. What is the
subject?"

She hesitated; then chose her words as if for a beginner;--"It is the
Blessed One preaching to the Tree-Spirits. See how eagerly they lean
from the boughs to listen. This other relief represents him in the state
of mystic vision. Here he is drowned in peace. See how it overflows from
the closed eyes; the closed lips. The air is filled with his quiet."

"What is he dreaming?"

"Not dreaming--seeing. Peace. He sits at the point where time and
infinity meet. To attain that vision was the aim of the monks who lived
here."

"Did they attain?" I found myself speaking as if she could certainly
answer.

"A few. There was one, Vasettha, the Brahman, a young man who had
renounced all his possessions and riches, and seated here before this
image of the Blessed One, he fell often into the mystic state. He had a
strange vision at one time of the future of India, which will surely be
fulfilled. He did not forget it in his rebirths. He remembers-"

She broke off suddenly and said with forced indifference,--"He would sit
here often looking out over the mountains; the monks sat at his feet to
hear. He became abbot while still young. But his story is a sad one."

"I entreat you to tell me."

She looked away over the mountains. "While he was abbot here,--still a
young man,--a famous Chinese Pilgrim came down through Kashmir to visit
the Holy Places in India. The abbot went forward with him to Peshawar,
that he might make him welcome. And there came a dancer to Peshawar,
named Lilavanti, most beautiful! I dare not tell you her beauty. I
tremble now to think-"

Again she paused, and again the faint creeping sense of mystery invaded
me.

She resumed;--

"The abbot saw her and he loved her. He was young still, you remember.
She was a woman of the Hindu faith and hated Buddhism. It swept him down
into the lower worlds of storm and desire. He fled with Lilavanti and
never returned here. So in his rebirth he fell-"

She stopped dead; her face pale as death.

"How do you know? Where have you read it? If I could only find what you
find and know what you know! The East is like an open book to you. Tell
me the rest."

"How should I know any more?" she said hurriedly. "We must be going
back. You should study the plans of this place at Peshawar. They were
very learned monks who lived here. It is famous for learning."

The life had gone out of her words-out of the ruins. There was no more
to be said.