ack, with her own dark hair for her only
decoration, tied in a knot around her head like a cloud of misty
intoxication, and floating about her shoulders in confusion. And she
looked at me with questioning eyes that shone bright in the moon's
rays, and said naively, with a smile that almost broke my heart in
two: Now I am within a little of being equal to Chaturika? Is the maid
a substitute for the queen that has disappeared?

And as I gazed at her in rapture without giving any answer, she said
again: See! now we will float for a little while among the
moon-lotuses, before we say good-bye. And this is thy surprise. And it
is a delight that I keep for myself alone, and very few indeed are
privileged to share it: but to-night, I am the lady of thy dream, and
I will not do my favours by halves: and so thou shalt be my partner.
And this is my swan's nest, and my floating cradle, in which I do my
dreaming: for I can dream dreams as well as thou. And now I am going
to dream a little, and we will dream together. And come, for the
lotuses are waiting for us.

And I got into the boat, and pushed it out upon the water, and she
came to me of her own accord, and locked her arms around my neck. And
we drifted to and fro, exactly as the boat chose, on the silent black
mirror of the pool, never saying a single word, but kissing each other
insatiably with lips that were never tired, lost in the bottomless
abyss of the ecstasy of mutual union. And all the time she bathed me
with the beauty of her eyes, that like the pool, drew the moonlight
down into their dark depths, caressing me with soft hands that touched
me like the fall of a leaf, and lips that smiled and trembled like the
shadows of the lotuses in the still water's swirl. And the moon rose
higher and higher, and the night crept unobserved away, for I was
utterly unconscious of the passage of any time. And then at last as I
lay, worn out and overcome by the excess of my own emotion, and
lulled by the gentle drifting of the boat, and wrapt in the delirium
of oblivion arising from the unimaginable reality of the lady of my
dream, unawares I fell asleep.

XVI

And when I awoke, lo! the moon was standing on the very edge of the
western sky, and dawn was glimmering in the east. And the Queen was
gone! And I leaped out of the boat, which was fastened to the bank,
and ran up into the garden, which was as dark and as empty of anything
living as a tomb. And after looking for her a l