rol over the wild team of fancy! Was this languor of the Will a
signal of coming peril, the peril of slumber? So strangely vivid those
fancies were, so brightly definite, as about to take visible form, to
move with factitious life, to play some unholy drama upon the stage of
dreams! "O Thou Fully Awakened!" he cried aloud, "help now thy humble
disciple to obtain the blessed wakefulness of perfect contemplation! let
him find force to fulfil his vow! suffer not Mara to prevail against
him!" And he recited the eternal verses of the Chapter of Wakefulness:--

"_Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!_
Unceasingly, by day and night, their thoughts are fixed upon the Law.

"_Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!_
Unceasingly, by day and night, their thoughts are fixed upon the
Community.

"_Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!_
Unceasingly, by day and night, their thoughts are fixed upon the Body.

"_Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!_
Unceasingly, by day and night, their minds know the sweetness of perfect
peace.

"_Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!_
Unceasingly, by day and night, their minds enjoy the deep peace of
meditation."

There came a murmur to his ears; a murmuring of many voices, smothering
the utterances of his own, like a tumult of waters. The stars went out
before his sight; the heavens darkened their infinities: all things
became viewless, became blackness; and the great murmur deepened, like
the murmur of a rising tide; and the earth seemed to sink from beneath
him. His feet no longer touched the ground; a sense of supernatural
buoyancy pervaded every fibre of his body: he felt himself floating in
obscurity; then sinking softly, slowly, like a feather dropped from the
pinnacle of a temple. Was this death? Nay, for all suddenly, as
transported by the Sixth Supernatural Power, he stood again in
light,--a perfumed, sleepy light, vapory, beautiful,--that bathed the
marvellous streets of some Indian city. Now the nature of the murmur
became manifest to him; for he moved with a mighty throng, a people of
pilgrims, a nation of worshippers. But these were not of his faith; they
bore upon their foreheads the smeared symbols of obscene gods! Still, he
could not escape from their midst; the mile-broad human torrent bore him
irresistibly with it, as a leaf is swept by the waters of the Ganges.
Rajah