Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/169

 and higher. Herds of gazelles grazed there, but only in a few solitary instances was one of the Blest to be seen.

The valley became narrower and ended in a cleft, and here the perfume grew yet stronger. Ever more rapid became his flight, ever more naked, steeper, and higher did the rocky walls close around him till an opening was no longer to be seen.

Then the ravine made a couple of sharp turns and opened suddenly.

Round about Kamanita extended a deep, pit-like valley shut in by towering malachite rocks which seemed to reach the heavens. In the midst of the valley stood the wonder-tree. Trunk and branches were of smooth, red coral, slightly more yellow the red of the crisp foliage, amid which blossoms of a deep crimson glowed and burned.

Over the pinnacles of the rocks and the summit of the tree rose the deep blue sky in which not a single cloud was to be seen. Nor did the music of the genii penetrate in any appreciable degree to this spot—what still trembled in the air seemed to be but a memory of melodies heard in the long past.

There were but three colours to be seen in the valley; the ultramarine blue of the heavens, the malachite green of the rocks, the coral red of the tree. And only one perfume—that mysterious odour, so unlike all others, of the crimson flowers which had led Kamanita thither.

Almost immediately the wonderful nature of that perfume began to show itself.

As Kamanita inhaled it here, in the dense form in which it filled the whole basin, his consciousness became suddenly quickened. It overflowed and broke through the barriers