“You will see more some day. Some might not even have seen that.”
“Does it grow here?”
“This is the first I have seen. It is said to grow only where the gods walk. Do you know that throughout all India Kashmir is said to be holy ground? It was called long ago the land of the gods, and of strange, but not evil, sorceries. Great marvels were seen here.”
I felt the labyrinthine enchantments of that enchanted land were closing about me—a slender web, grey, almost impalpable, finer than fairy silk, was winding itself about my feet. My eyes were opening to things I had not dreamed. She saw my thought.
“Yes, you could not have seen even that much of him in Peshawar. You did not know then.”
“He was not there,” I answered, falling half unconsciously into her tone.
“He is always there—everywhere, and when he plays, all who hear must follow. He was the Pied Piper in Hamelin, he was Pan in Hellas. You will hear his wild fluting in many strange places when you know how to listen. When one has seen him the rest comes soon. And then you will follow.”
“Not away from you, Vanna.”
“From the marriage feast, from the Table of the Lord,” she said, smiling strangely. “The man who wrote that spoke of another call, but it is the same—Krishna or Christ. When we hear the music we follow. And we may lose or gain heaven.”
It might have been her compelling personality—it might have been the marvels of beauty about me, but I knew well I had entered at some mystic gate. A pass word had been spoken for me—I was vouched for and might go in. Only a little way as yet. Enchanted forests lay beyond, and perilous seas, but there were hints, breaths like the wafting of the garments of unspeakable Presences. My talk with Vanna grew less personal, and more introspective. I felt the touch of her finger-tips leading me along the ways of Quiet—my feet brushed a shining dew. Once, in the twilight under the chenar trees, I saw a white gleaming and thought it a swiftly passing Being, but when in haste I gained the tree I found there only a Ninefold flower, white as a spirit in the evening calm. I would not gather it but told Vanna what I had seen.