before facing it.

"Inshalla ta-Alla! (If the sublime God wills!) this unworthy one will
one day show the Protector of the poor, that he is a respectable person
and no coward, but it is only the Sahibs who laugh in the face of
devils."

He went off to prepare me some food, consumed with curiosity as to my
adventures, and when I had eaten I found my tiny whitewashed cell, for
the room was little more, and slept for hours.

Late in the afternoon I waked and looked out. A low but glowing
sunlight suffused the wild garden reclaimed from the strangle-hold of
the jungle and hemmed in with rocks and forest. A few simple flowers had
been planted here and there, but its chief beauty was a mountain stream,
brown and clear as the eyes of a dog, that fell from a crag above into
a rocky basin, maidenhair ferns growing in such masses about it that
it was henceforward scarcely more than a woodland voice. Beside it two
great deodars spread their canopies, and there a woman sat in a low
chair, a girl beside her reading aloud. She had thrown her hat off and
the sunshine turned her massed dark hair to bronze. That was all I could
see. I went out and joined them, taking the note of introduction which
Olesen had given me.

I pass over the unessentials of my story; their friendly greetings and
sympathy for my adventure. It set us at ease at once and I knew my stay
would be the happier for their presence though it is not every woman one
would choose as a companion in the great mountain country. But what
is germane to my purpose must be told, and of this a part is the
personality of Brynhild Ingmar. That she was beautiful I never doubted,
though I have heard it disputed and smiled inwardly as the disputants
urged lip and cheek and shades of rose and lily, weighing and
appraising. Let me describe her as I saw her or, rather, as I can,
adding that even without all this she must still have been beautiful
because of the deep significance to those who had eyes to see or
feel some mysterious element which mingled itself with her presence
comparable only to the delight which the power and spiritual essence of
Nature inspires in all but the dullest minds. I know I cannot hope to
convey this in words. It means little if I say I thought of all quiet
lovely solitary things when I looked into her calm eyes,--that when she
moved it was like clear springs renewed by flowing, that she seemed the
perfect flowering of a day in June, for these are phrases.