on its knees,
screaming dumbly--you could see the despair in the staring eyes, but
all was drowned in the thunder of Tibetan drums. No mercy--no escape.
Horrible!"

"Even in Europe the drum is awful," I said. "Do you remember in the
French Revolution how they Drowned the victims' voices in a thunder roll
of drums?"

"I shall always see the face of the child, hunted down to hell, falling
on its knees, and screaming without a sound, when I hear the drum. But
listen--a flute! Now if that were the Flute of Krishna you would have to
follow. Let us come!"

I could hear nothing of it, but she insisted and we followed the music,
inaudible to me, up the slopes of the garden that is the foot-hill of
the mighty mountain of Mahadeo, and still I could hear nothing. And
Vanna told me strange stories of the Apollo of India whom all hearts
must adore, even as the herd-girls adored him in his golden youth by
Jumna river and in the pastures of Brindaban.

Next day we were climbing the hill to the ruins where the evil magician
brought the King's daughter nightly to his will, flying low under a
golden moon. Vanna took my arm and I pulled her laughing up the steepest
flowery slopes until we reached the height, and lo! the arched windows
were eyeless and a lonely breeze blowing through the cloisters, and the
beautiful yellowish stone arches supported nothing and were but frames
for the blue of far lake and mountain and the divine sky. We climbed
the broken stairs where the lizards went by like flashes, and had I the
tongue of men and angels I could not tell the wonder that lay before
us,--the whole wide valley of Kashmir in summer glory, with its scented
breeze singing, singing above it.

We sat on the crushed aromatic herbs and among the wild roses and looked
down.

"To think," she said, "that we might have died and never seen it!"

There followed a long silence. I thought she was tired, and would not
break it. Suddenly she spoke in a strange voice, low and toneless;

"The story of this place. She was the Princess Padmavati, and her home
was in Ayodhya. When she woke and found herself here by the lake she was
so terrified that she flung herself in and was drowned. They held her
back, but she died."

"How do you know?"

"Because a wandering monk came to the abbey of Tahkt-i-Bahi near
Peshawar and told Vasettha the Abbot."

I had nearly spoilt all by an exclamation, but I held myself back. I saw
she was dreaming awake and was u