ing. She sang first of the emptiness before the worlds were
made. She sang of the birth of peoples; of the history of peoples.

She sang of India as the mother of all speech, song, race and knowledge;
of truths that every great thinker since the world's beginning has
propounded; and of India as the home of all of them, until, whether you
would or not, at least you seemed to see the undeniable truth of that.

And then, in a weird, wild, melancholy minor key came the story of the
_Kali-Yug_--the age of darkness creeping over India, condemning her for
her sins. She sang of India under the hoof of ugliness and ignorance and
plague, and yet of a few who kept the old light burning in secret--of
hidden books, and of stuff that men call magic handed down the centuries
from lip to lip in caves and temple cellars and mountain fastnesses,
wherever the mysteries were safe from profane eyes.

And then the key changed again, striking that fundamental middle F that
is the mother-note of all the voices of nature and, as Indians maintain,
of the music of the spheres as well. Music and song and dance became
laughter. Doubt vanished, for there seemed nothing left to doubt, as she
began to sing of India rising at last, again triumphant over darkness,
mother of the world and of all the nations of the world, awake,
unconquerable.

Never was another song like that one! Nor was there ever such a climax.
As she finished on a chord of triumph that seemed like a new spirit
bursting the bonds of ancient mystery and sank to the floor among her
women, there stood the Gray Mahatma in their midst, not naked any
longer, but clothed from head to heel in a saffron-colored robe, and
without his paste of ashes.

He stood like a statue with folded arms, his yellow eyes blazing and his
look like a lion's; and how he had entered the room I confess I don't
know to this hour, nor does Athelstan King, who is a trained observer of
unusual happenings. Both doors were closed, and I will take oath that
neither had been opened since the women entered.

"Peace!" was his first word, spoken like one in authority, who ordered
peace and dared to do it.

He stood looking for more than a minute at King and me with, I think,
just a flicker of scorn on his thin lips, as if he were wondering
whether we were men enough to face the ordeal before us. Then
indefinably, yet quite perceptibly his mood changed and his appearance
with it. He held his right hand out.

"Will yo