But the sound of his own voice was strange in the land of dreams, and with that he awoke.  It was evening, and he arose and looked at the silent and frowning cliff, and even passed his hand over its face to convince himself that he was still awake.  A significance attached itself to his dream, and he pondered it long and wisely.  The teachings of the founder of his Faith came into his mind, and the lesson of his vision seemed plain.  He resolved to trust the conduct of his steps to an unseen Guidance, and reverently owned that a Benign Presence had watched his slumbers.  As he reflected, a belief grew that this massive rock marked not only a halting place in his journey, but a chief interval in his life.

“The way,” he said, “is very long.  Of what use but to mislead in that course is my bodily sight, which bids me doubt the reality of all the higher truths which my inner consciousness affirms?”

The stars were coming out, and looking upward he remembered his childhood’s hope that beyond their radiant ranks was the Home of Spirits, and thus he prayed: 

“Father of Lights, these lesser beacons hide,
My way is long, this desert plain is wide,
Darken mine eyes so I behold my guide.

The way is long, it leads among the stars. 
How should I roam that shimmering vault of night? 
How halt where yon bright orb his lamp uprears
In glistering chains of light,
To list ’mid ringing spheres for that strange psalm? 
The sum of agony were surely this—­
To hear the Blessed Wind ’mid waving palm;
The pearly gates to miss
Whose glorious light is not of moon nor sun;
To list the river’s flow, and stand undone.

Light of the Realms of bliss, be Thou mine eye;
So shall my homeless soul, when death is nigh,
With joy a mansion in the heavens descry.”

CHAPTER IX.

As Atma drew near to the confines of Kashmir he trod a secluded vale, and followed the windings of a broad stream whose banks were thickly wooded.  As he pursued his way through a thicket he heard voices in gay converse, and stayed his steps until, peering through the heavy foliage, he descried below the overhanging river-bank two dark-eyed girls.  They were seated on a broad stone, and one laved her feet in the water and bent over the swift current; but the head of the other, wreathed in scarlet blossoms, was uplifted, and in the bright face half turned towards him he recognized an attendant of Moti.  She listened as if suspecting his approach, but soon apparently satisfied, she resumed her light chatter with her companion.  Atma heard his own name, and gathered that they sought him.  He made himself known, and the elder, who was Nama, the Maharanee’s trusted servant, related how her mistress greatly desiring a sprig of White Ak, a tree of great virtue in incantations, had commissioned her to obtain it in the forest near by.  She had also been charged, she said, to meet Atma Singh, and bring her illustrious mistress tidings of his welfare.