“Diamonds are better than spades,” I answered.  “And nearly all my cards are black ones.  Besides, I can’t count, it wants so much thinking.  Can’t you come over here and play for me?”

He shook his head, and I thought that again he laughed.”  No,” he replied, “that is against the law of the game.  You must play for yourself.  Think it out.”

He uttered these words very emphatically and with so strange an intonation that they dissipated the rest of the dream, and I remember no more of it.  But I did “think it out;” and I found it was a parable; of Karma.

—­Atcham, Dec. 7, 1883

XX.  The Panic-Struck Pack-Horse

Out of a veil of palpitating mist there arose before me in my sleep the image of a colossal and precipitous cliff; standing sheer up against a sky of cloud and sea-mist, the tops of the granite peaks being merged and hidden in the vapor.  At the foot of the precipice beat a wild sea, tossing and flecked with foam; and out of the flying spray rose sharp splinters of granite, standing like spearheads about the base of the solid rock.  As I looked, something stirred far off in the distance, like a fly crawling over the smooth crag.  Fixing my gaze upon it I became aware that there was at a great height above the sea, midway between sky and water, a narrow unprotected footpath winding up and down irregularly along the side of the mighty cliff;—­a slender, sloping path, horrible to look at, like a rope or a thread stretched mid-air, hanging between heaven and the hungry foam.  One by one, came towards me along this awful path a procession of horses, drawing tall narrow carts filled with bales of merchandise.  The horses moved along the edge of the crag as though they clung to it, their bodies aslant towards the wall of granite on their right, their legs moving with the precision of creatures feeling and grasping every step.  Like deer they moved,—­ not like horses, and as they advanced, the carts they drew swayed behind them, and I thought every jolt would hurl them over the precipice.  Fascinated I watched,—­I could not choose but watch.  At length came a grey horse, not drawing a cart, but carrying something on his back,—­on a pack-saddle apparently.  Like the rest he came on stealthily, sniffing every inch of the terrible way, until, just at the worst and giddiest point he paused, hesitated, and seemed about to turn.—–­I saw him back himself in a crouching attitude against the wall of rock behind him, lowering his haunches, and rearing his head in a strange manner.  The idea flashed on me that he would certainly turn, and then—­what could happen?  More horses were advancing, and two beasts could not possibly pass each other on that narrow ledge!  But I was totally unprepared for the ghastly thing that actually did happen.  The miserable horse had been seized with the awful mountain-madness that