ke, was dark under it, flowing in a deep smooth
blackness of shadow, and everything awaited--what? And even while I
looked, the moon floated serenely above the peak, and all was bathed in
pure light, the water rippling and shining in broken silver and pearl.
So had Vanna floated into my sky, luminous, sweet, remote. I did not
question my heart any more. I knew I loved her.

Two days later I rode into Srinagar, and could scarcely see the wild
beauty of that strange Venice of the East, my heart was so beating
in my eyes. I rode past the lovely wooden bridges where the balconied
houses totter to each other across the canals in dim splendour of
carving and age; where the many-coloured native life crowds down to the
river steps and cleanses its flower-bright robes, its gold-bright brass
vessels in the shining stream, and my heart said only--Vanna, Vanna!

One day, one thought, of her absence had taught me what she was to me,
and if humility and patient endeavor could raise me to her feet, I was
resolved that I would spend my life in labor and think it well spent.

My servant dismounted and led his horse, asking from every one where the
"Kedarnath" could be found, and eager black eyes sparkled and two little
bronze images detached themselves from the crowd of boys, and ran, fleet
as fauns, before us.

Above the last bridge the Jhelum broadens out into a stately river,
controlled at one side by the banked walk known as the Bund, with the
Club House upon it and the line of houseboats beneath. Here the visitors
flutter up and down and exchange the gossip, the bridge appointments,
the little dinners that sit so incongruously on the pure Orient that is
Kashmir.

She would not be here. My heart told me that, and sure enough the boys
were leading across the bridge and by a quiet shady way to one of the
many backwaters that the great river makes in the enchanting city. There
is one waterway stretching on afar to the Dal Lake. It looks like a
river--it is the very haunt of peace. Under those mighty chenar, or
plane trees, that are the glory of Kashmir, clouding the water with deep
green shadows, the sun can scarcely pierce, save in a dipping sparkle
here and there to intensify the green gloom. The murmur of the city, the
chatter of the club, are hundreds of miles away. We rode downward under
the towering trees, and dismounting, saw a little houseboat tethered to
the bank. It was not of the richer sort that haunts the Bund, where t