And all
sinking gently into ruin that in a century more would confound it
with the roots of the mountains.
Grey and wonderful, it clung to the heights and looked with
eyeless windows at the past. Somehow I found it infinitely
pathetic; the very faith it expressed is dead in India, and none
left so poor to do it reverence.
But Vanna knew her way. Unerringly she led me from point to
point, and she was visibly at home in the intricacies. Such
knowledge in a young woman bewildered me. Could she have studied
the plans in the Museum? How else should she know where the abbot
lived, or where the refractory brothers were punished?
Once I missed her, while I stooped to examine some scroll-work,
and following, found her before one of the few images of the
Buddha that the rapacious Museum had spared - a singularly
beautiful bas-relief, the hand raised to enforce the truth the
calm lips were speaking, the drapery falling in stately folds to
the bare feet. As I came up, she had an air as if she had just
ceased from movement, and I had a distinct feeling that she had
knelt before it - I saw the look of worship! The thing troubled
me like a dream, haunting, impossible, but real.
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