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."