“Isn’t that all India?” she said; “that dull reiterated sound? It half stupefies, half maddens. Once at Darjiling I saw the Lamas’ Devil Dance--the soul, a white-faced child with eyes unnaturally enlarged, fleeing among a rabble of devils--the evil passions. It fled wildly here and there and every way was blocked. The child fell 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 unconscious of what she said.