d glory before
this maid. All beauty shines within her hidden eyes."

And having uttered this the music became wordless once more, but it
still flowed on more and more softly like a river that flows into the
far distance.

The Emperor stared at the mats, musing--the light of the lamp was
burning low. His heart said within him;

"This maiden, cast like a flower from the hand of Kwannon Sama, will I
see."

And as he said this the music had faded away into a thread-like
smallness, and when after long thought he raised his august head, he was
alone save for the Dainagon, sleeping on the mats behind him, and the
chamber was in darkness. Semimaru had departed in silence, and His
Majesty, looking forth into the broad moonlight, could see the track of
his feet upon the shining snow, and the music came back very thinly like
spring rain in the trees. Once more he looked at the whiteness of the
night, and then, stretching his august person on the mats, he slept amid
dreams of sweet sound.

The next day, forbidding any to follow save the Dainagon, His Majesty
went forth upon the frozen snow where the sun shone in a blinding
whiteness. They followed the track of Semimaru's feet far under the pine
trees so heavy with their load of snow that they were bowed as if with
fruit. And the track led on and the air was so still that the cracking
of a bough was like the blow of a hammer, and the sliding of a load of
snow from a branch like the fall of an avalanche. Nor did they speak as
they went. They listened, nor could they say for what.

Then, when they had gone a very great way, the track ceased suddenly,
as if cut off, and at this spot, under the pines furred with snow, His
Majesty became aware of a perfume so sweet that it was as though all the
flowers of the earth haunted the place with their presence, and a music
like the biwa of Semimaru was heard in the tree tops. This sounded far
off like the whispering of rain when it falls in very small leaves, and
presently it died away, and a voice followed after, singing, alone in
the woods, so that the silence appeared to have been created that such a
music might possess the world. So the Emperor stopped instantly, and the
Dainagon behind him and he heard these words.

"In me the Heavenly Lotos grew,
The fibres ran from head to feet,
And my heart was the august Blossom.
Therefore the sweetness flowed through the veins of my flesh,
And I breathed peace upon all the