“There was not a memory of the place up there,” Olesen went on. “Certainly I never heard anything of it when I went up to the Shipki in 1904. But I had been able to be useful to Rup Singh and he gave me a permit for The House in the Woods, and I stopped there for a few days’ shooting. I remember that day so well. I was wandering in the dense woods while my men got their midday grub, and I missed the trail somehow and found myself in a part where the trees were dark and thick and the silence heavy as lead. It was as if the trees were on guard--they stood shoulder to shoulder and stopped the way. Well, I halted, and had a notion there was something beyond that made me doubt whether to go on. I must have stood there five minutes hesitating. Then I pushed on, bruising the thick ferns under my shooting boots and stooping under the knotted boughs. Suddenly I tramped out of the jungle into a clearing, and lo and behold a ruined House, with blocks of marble lying all about it, and carved pillars and a great roof all being slowly smothered by the jungle. The weirdest thing you ever saw. I climbed some fallen columns to get a better look, and as I did I saw a face flash by at the arch of a broken window. I sang out in Hindustani, but no answer: only the echo from the woods. Somehow that dampened my ardour, and I didn’t go in to what seemed like a great ruined hall for the place was so eerie and lonely, and looked mighty snaky into the bargain. So I came ingloriously away and told Rup Singh. And his whole face changed. ‘That is The House of Beauty,’ he said. ‘All my life have I sought it and in vain. For, friend of my soul, a man must lose himself that he may find himself and what lies beyond, and the trodden path has ever been my doom. And you who have not sought have seen. Most strange are the way of the Gods’. Later on I knew this was why he had always gone up yearly, thinking and dreaming God knows what. He and I tried for the place together, but in vain and the whole thing is like a dream. Twice he has let friends of mine stay at The House in the Woods, and I think he won’t refuse now.” “Did he ever tell you the story?” “Never. I only know what I’ve picked up here. Some horrible mistake about the Rani that drove the man almost mad with remorse. I’ve heard bits here and there. There’s nothing so vital as tradition in India.” “I wonder’. what really happened.” “That we shall never know. I got a little old picture of the Maharao--said to be painted by a Pahari artist. It’s not likely to be authentic, but you never can tell. A Brahman sold it to me that he might complete his daughter’s dowry, and hated doing it.” “May I see it?” “Why certainly. Not a very good light, but--can do,” as the Chinks say.