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Leaving for a moment the direct path, which climbs to the crest of the hill past the Buddhist caves and cisterns, we walk along a dainty terrace lined with champak and sandalwood trees and passing under a carved stone gateway halt before the shrine dedicated to Shivaji's family goddess.
Some fell into the jaws of lions, some were crushed by monstrous serpents, some trampled by elephants at the command of native princes, some perished of hunger, and some of thirst; some, encountering smooth-browed and dark-tressed girls wreathing their hair with the champak blossom or bathing by moonlight in lotus-mantled tanks, forsook their quest, and led thenceforth idyllic lives in groves of banian and of palm.
For there were no flowers to be seen at all, but only trees. And even of trees, there were only four kinds, champak, and shála, and nyagrodha, and bamboo. But every kind of tree was multiplied many times, and each was a very giant, and a marvel of its kind.
What was an ode anyway? Once he recited the "Lines to an Indian Air," his voice trembling a little, for the words were almost sacred. She pondered for a space and then said: "What are champak odors?" David didn't know. He had never thought of inquiring. "Isn't that odd," she murmured. "That would have been the first thing I would have wanted to know. Champak?
And the rising moon which she was watching touched her with a faint lustre, lighting up like a lamp the great gem in her hair, and making the champak blossom that floated in the hollow of her bosom's wave glimmer like the foam on a midnight sea.
He held it for a moment as delicately as if it were a fragile bit of glass, something that his huge fingers might crush by touching. Then he reached over and laid it on the bed beside her and said, looking Hilton in the eyes, "Tell her, the slip av a saint she is, if the breakin' av me bones, or the lettin' av me blood's what'll set all right at Champak Hill, let her mind be aisy aw yis!"
He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their true relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one mystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the brain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences of sweet-smelling roots, and scented pollen-laden flowers, or aromatic balms, and of dark and fragrant woods, of spikenard that sickens, of hovenia that makes men mad, and of aloes that are said to be able to expel melancholy from the soul.
There was a loud booming sound, the dyke was loosed, the ravine split into the swollen stream its choking mouthful of earth and rock; and a minute afterwards the path was clear to the top of Champak Hill. To it came the unharmed children and their mother, who, from the warm peak sent the wild duck "to the rose o' the valley," which, till the message came, was trembling on the stem of life.
Soon afterwards they were all on their way all save Hilton, whose duty was beside this other danger, for the old nurse said that, "like as not," her life would hang upon the news from Champak Hill; and if ill came, his place was beside the speechless traveller on the Brink. In a few hours the rescuers stood on the top of Champak Hill, looking down.
He held it for a moment as delicately as if it were a fragile bit of glass, something that his huge fingers might crush by touching. Then he reached over and laid it on the bed beside her and said, looking Hilton in the eyes, "Tell her, the slip av a saint she is, if the breakin' av me bones, or the lettin' av me blood's what'll set all right at Champak Hill, let her mind be aisy aw yis!"
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