A minute passed as he stood there, then, removing
his shoes, he stepped over the threshold and walked forward between the
gigantic granite columns which supported what was left of the dome-shaped
roof. There was no altar, no jewel, no figure cut in the hard stone that
was not known to him with all their mysterious significance. Here had been
spent all his leisure hours; here had been dreamed his wildest dreams;
beneath this column he had seen as in a vision how Vishnu took nine times
human form and a tenth time came, according to the Holy Writings, with a
winged horse of spotless white, and crowned as conqueror.
To-day these things pressed down upon him with all the weight of a
tremendous reality. With beating heart he entered at last into the Holy of
Holies and stood before the god's high altar, visible only to those of
purest caste. His head was once more bowed. He did not venture to look up
at the golden figure whose ruby eyes, he knew, stared straight through his
soul into every corner of the world and beyond into Eternity. His belief,
pure, unsoiled from contact with the world, was a power that had gone out
into the darkness and conjured thence the spirits that shrank back from
the cold prayer of the half-believer. They stood before him now--these
wonderful spirits. He believed surely that, should he dare to raise his
eyes, he would see them, definite yet formless, arising glorious out of
the cloud of golden reflection from Brahma's threefold forehead.
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