Westward they traveled, westward, ever westward. The way was dark and
sometimes dreary, and Eline felt like one awakened from a beautiful
dream before it was ended.
Through the pine forests, over mountains, in deep valleys, and by mighty
streams they traveled. Ever they had the harp to cheer the way, to urge
their footsteps onward. For the path was untrodden where they went.
"There is a path," the harper said, "a pleasant path and broad, but the
journey is long and we must hasten on our way. To the setting sun, to
the gleaming sea, we must go; nor may we seek a beaten track lest we be
too late."
A river there was in whose waters were reflected pictures of all that
surrounded them--such crystal clear reflections that sometimes it seemed
as if they looked at real things in the water mirrored in the things
around them.
[Illustration]
And on the waters grew beautiful lotus-flowers, lilies with cup-shaped
leaves. In the blue and white petals of the lotus also there seemed to
be reflections, so clear were they. The musician plucked one of the
cup-like lily-pads and filled it with the water for Eline.
The still surface of the water shone like silver in its green cup as
Eline held it. Then the musician played. Soft and low and sweet were the
notes of that wonderful harp. Scarcely they rippled the surface of the
water, and yet they vibrated, trembled, spread, until picture after
picture came to the surface of the water in colors of every hue.
Scarcely may it be told what Eline saw in the magic cup in the water of
remembrance. She seemed to see herself--and yet another--in picture after
picture. Now she saw herself as part of a golden sea of selves which
made but one self, so lifelike were they, so glorious was their unity.
Then in life after life Eline seemed to see her other selves living and
loving and working, sleeping and suffering and struggling. She saw that
on a day she had made her great resolve to help the world. "I will
return! I will! I will!"
And now she knew what things they were she had seemed to remember in the
king's garden of delight. Joyously, eagerly, willingly, she saw that she
had determined to return to earth in body after body, to help the men
of sorrow who struggled and slumbered and suffered. She saw that she had
before so done; that her work remained unfinished, to be begun again
where she had laid it down. There was suffering shown to her in the cup;
there were sorrow and grief and pain. But she saw that it must all be,
and was content. For at other times she had desired just such things
that she might know how others felt them, that she might help them the
more with understanding. Happiness she had taken to give to others, and
she must repay the debt. She saw that all things were just, and when the
musician said in a low voice:
"Will you yet proceed?"
"I will!" she said.
"Then drink the cup," he said, "Drink!"
She drained the green cup of the lotus leaf until scarcely a drop
remained, and with that draught she forgot all things that had been--the
garden, the king, the journey and the vision, and the master
harper--all were forgotten. Only there remained a dim remembrance as of a
dream at dawn forgotten.
[Illustration: DOMES AND SPIRES]