It was midday on the height. Overhead blazed a September sun, infinitely brilliant. The plateau, bathed in gold, lay drowsy in the noontide. Below, a few shreds of silvery cloud clung about the rocks, veiling higher mysteries from the lower world. The loneliness was absolute. Neither eagle nor cormorant dared the sun at this hour; and it seemed as if living things had never existed here. Not one world-murmur sent its vibration through the tranquil atmosphere. Man and the works of man were forgotten or undreamed-of. Here was such peace as the flesh-clothed spirit cannot know: the peace that terrifies, because it was declared primevally of God. Up to this height from the depths below came Oman, mounting slowly, all but overcome with the long toil of nearly twenty hours. From the torrent, through cloud fringes, out of forest darkness came he, upborne by his strange will. Reaching at last the level, he walked on it till he emerged from the trees into an open space, on one side of which rose the rocky wall of the peak, pierced with its little caves. Far to the east, down the long, slow slope, twenty-five hundred feet below, the lake lay glittering with golden ripples. Beyond it hills rolled, on and on, till, in the far morning-land, they ended in a deep, violet mist. Here, in the open, Oman paused and looked. As he stood, gaunt and tall, clad in the floating, tattered raiment of some long-dead Bhikkhu, in his right hand a stout staff, in his left a small bag of millet—Poussa’s gift, the two spirits in him looking out through his great eyes, there was no suggestion of triumph about him. He was overcome by the wonderful beauty of the surrounding scene; but he also betrayed a terrible fatigue, the fatigue of mind, as well as of body. The mountain lazily surveyed him as he stood, and perceived that he carried the key to the gate of solitude. He was not to be denied admittance. Deserted of mankind he had come unto Nature, asking shelter from the world; and Nature, pitying, could not refuse. Still actuated by the spirit that seemed distinct from himself, Oman moved slowly toward the rocky ridge, and entered one of the caves that pierced it. Here was a place that would shelter him from storms; and here, should nights prove cold, a fire would always live. In the cave’s mouth he sat, for a long time, musing on the possibilities of making an abode in this strange place. There seemed to be only one vital lack. There was no sign of water anywhere about. Should that not exist, he must descend again. This thought caused his heart fairly to sink. Obeying a quick impulse, he set out in search of water; and it was nearly an hour before, fifty feet down the eastern slope, he found a spring that sent a tiny, falling thread down in the direction of the lake, till it was lost under the earth, a long way below.