Only her presence and her words sur- vived; "We
meet in the Ninth Vibration. All here is true." But the Ninth
Vibration itself was dream-land. I had never heard the phrase - I
could not tell what was meant, nor whether my apprehension was
true or false. I knew only that the night had taken her and the
dawn denied her, and that, dream or no dream, I stood there with
a pang of loss that even now leaves me wordless.
A bird sang outside in the acacias, clear and shrill for day, and
this awakened my senses and lowered me to the plane where I
became aware of cold and hunger, and was chilled with dew. I
passed down the tumbled steps that had been a stately ascent the
night before and made my way into the jungle by the trail, small
and lost in fern, by which we had come. Again I wandered, and it
was high noon before I heard mule bells at a distance, and, thus
guided, struck down through the green tangle to find myself,
wearied but safe, upon the bridle way that leads to Fagu and the
far Shipki. Two coolies then directed me to The House in the
Woods.
All was anxiety there.
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