e sunlight behind until it was like
a dim eye glimmering in the velvet blackness. The air was dank and
cold and presently obscene with the smell of bats, and alive with
their wings, as they came sweeping about us, gibbering and squeaking.
I thought of the rush of the ghosts, blown like dead leaves in the
Odyssey. And then a small rock chamber branched off, and in this, lit by
a bit of burning wood, we saw the bones of a holy man who lived and died
there four hundred years ago. Think of it! He lived there always, with
the slow dropping of water from the dead weight of the mountain above
his head, drop by drop tolling the minutes away: the little groping feet
through the cave that would bring him food and drink, hurrying into
the warmth and sunlight again, and his only companion the sacred Lingam
which means the Creative Energy that sets the worlds dancing for joy
round the sun--that, and the black solitude to sit down beside him.
Surely his bones can hardly be dryer and colder now than they were then!
There must be strange ecstasies in such a life--wild visions in the
dark, or it could never be endured.

And so, in marches of about ten miles a day, we came to Pahlgam on the
banks of the dancing Lidar. There was now only three weeks left of the
time she had promised. After a few days at Pahlgam the march would turn
and bend its way back to Srinagar, and to--what? I could not believe it
was to separation--in her lovely kindness she had grown so close to me
that, even for the sake of friendship, I believed our paths must run
together to the end, and there were moments when I could still half
convince myself that I had grown as necessary to her as she was to me.
No--not as necessary, for she was life and soul to me, but a part of her
daily experience that she valued and would not easily part with. That
evening we were sitting outside the tents, near the camp fire, of pine
logs and cones, the leaping flames making the night beautiful with gold
and leaping sparks, in an attempt to reach the mellow splendours of the
moon. The men, in various attitudes of rest, were lying about, and one
had been telling a story which had just ended in excitement and loud
applause.

"These are Mahomedans," said Vanna, "and it is only a story of love and
fighting like the Arabian Nights. If they had been Hindus, it might
well have been of Krishna or of Rama and Sita. Their faith comes from an
earlier time and they still see visions. The Moslem is