The way is long, it leads among the stars. How should I roam that shimmering vault of night? How halt where yon bright orb his lamp uprears In glistering chains of light, To list 'mid ringing spheres for that strange psalm? The sum of agony were surely this-- To hear the Blessed Wind 'mid waving palm; The pearly gates to miss Whose glorious light is not of moon nor sun; To list the river's flow, and stand undone. Light of the Realms of bliss, be Thou mine eye; So shall my homeless soul, when death is nigh, With joy a mansion in the heavens descry." CHAPTER IX. As Atma drew near to the confines of Kashmir he trod a secluded vale, and followed the windings of a broad stream whose banks were thickly wooded. As he pursued his way through a thicket he heard voices in gay converse, and stayed his steps until, peering through the heavy foliage, he descried below the overhanging river-bank two dark-eyed girls. They were seated on a broad stone, and one laved her feet in the water and bent over the swift current; but the head of the other, wreathed in scarlet blossoms, was uplifted, and in the bright face half turned towards him he recognized an attendant of Moti. She listened as if suspecting his approach, but soon apparently satisfied, she resumed her light chatter with her companion. Atma heard his own name, and gathered that they sought him. He made himself known, and the elder, who was Nama, the Maharanee's trusted servant, related how her mistress greatly desiring a sprig of White Ak, a tree of great virtue in incantations, had commissioned her to obtain it in the forest near by. She had also been charged, she said, to meet Atma Singh, and bring her illustrious mistress tidings of his welfare.