CHAPTER IX

Afterabout the tenth day of strict and most sincere meditation in the manner he had prescribed, the Lama sent for Gay-Neck and myself. So with the pigeon between my hands, I climbed up to his cell. The Lama's face, generally yellow, today looked brown and very powerful. A strange poise and power shone in his almond-shaped eyes. He took Gay-Neck in his hands, and said:

"May the north wind bring healing unto you,May the south wind bring healing unto you,May the winds of east and west pour healing into you.Fear flees from you,Hate flees from you,And suspicion flees from you.Courage like a rushing tide gallops through you;Peace possesses your entire being,And serenity and strength have become your two wings.In your eyes shines courage;Power and prowess dwell in your heart!You are healed,You are healed,You are healed!Peace, peace, peace."

"May the north wind bring healing unto you,

May the south wind bring healing unto you,

May the winds of east and west pour healing into you.

Fear flees from you,

Hate flees from you,

And suspicion flees from you.

Courage like a rushing tide gallops through you;

Peace possesses your entire being,

And serenity and strength have become your two wings.

In your eyes shines courage;

Power and prowess dwell in your heart!

You are healed,

You are healed!

Peace, peace, peace."

We sat there meditating on those thoughts till the sun set, smiting the Himalayan peaks into multicoloured flames. The valleys, the hollows and the woods about us put on a mantle of purple glory.

Slowly Gay-Neck hopped down from the Lama's hands, walked out to the entrance of the cell and looked at the sunset. He opened his left wing, and waited. Then softly and ever so slowly he opened his right wing, feather by feather, muscle by muscle, until at last it spread out like a sail. Instead of doing anything theatrical such as instantly flying off, he carefully shut his two wings as if they were two precious but fragile fans. He too knew how to salute the sunset. With the dignity of a priest he walked downstairs but hardly had he gone out of sight than I heard—I fancied I heard—the flapping of his wings. I was about to get up hastily and see what had really happened, but the holy man put his hand on my shoulder and restrained me while an inscrutable smile played on his lips.

The next morning I told Ghond what had happened. He replied tartly, "Gay-Neck opened his wings to salute the setting sun, you say. There is nothing surprising in that. Animals are religious though man in his ignorance thinks they are not. I have seen monkeys, eagles, pigeons, leopards and even mongoose adore the dawn and sunset."

"Can you show them to me?"

Ghond answered, "Yes. But not now; let us go and give Gay-Neck his breakfast."

When we reached his cage we found its door open—and no pigeon within. I was not surprised, for I had left the cage unlocked every night that we had been at the Lamasery. But where had he gone? We could not find him in the main building; so we went to the library. There in a deserted outer cell we found some of his feathers, and nearby Ghond detected a weasel's footsteps. That made us suspect trouble. But if the weasel had attacked and killed him, there would be blood on the floor. Then, whither had he fled? What had he done? Where was he now? We wandered for an hour. Just as we had decided to give up the search we heard him cooing, and there he was on the roof of the library, talking to his old friends the Swifts, who were clinging to their nest under the eaves. We could make out their answer to his cooing. Mr. Swift said: "Cheep, cheep, cheep!" I cried to Gay-Neck in joy, and I gave him his call to breakfast: Aya—á—ay. He curved his neck and listened. Then as I called again he saw me, and instantly flapped his wings loudly, then flew down and sat on my wrist, cool as a cucumber. During the earliest dawn he must have heard the priests' footsteps going up to their morning meditation, and gotten out of his cage, then gone astray to the outer cell where no doubt a young and inexpert weasel had attacked him. A veteran like Gay-Neck could easily outwit the weasel by presenting him with a few feathers only. While the young hopeful was looking for the pigeon inside a lot of torn feathers, his would-be victim flew up into the sky. There he found his old friend, Swift, flying to salute the rising sun. And after they had performed their morning worship together, they had come down for a friendly chat on the roof of the monastery library.

That day very terrible news reached the Lamasery. A wild buffalo had attacked the village that the Lama had spoken of the day before. He had come there during the previous evening and killed two people who were going home from a meeting of the village elders that was held around the communal threshing floor. The villagers had sent up a deputation to the Abbot to say a prayer for the destruction of the beast and begging him to exorcise the soul out of the brute. The holy man said that he would use means that would kill the murderous buffalo in twenty-four hours. "Go home in peace, O beloved ones of Infinite Compassion. Your prayers will be answered. Do not venture out of doors after nightfall. Stay home and meditate on peace and courage." Ghond, who was present, asked: "How long has this fellow been pestering your village?" The entire deputation affirmed that he had been coming every night for a week. He had eaten up almost half of their spring crop. Again begging for strong and effective incantation and exorcism to kill the buffalo, they went down to their village.

After the deputation had left, the Lama said to Ghond, who was standing by: "O, chosen one of victory, now that you are healed, go forth to slay the murderer."

"But, my Lord!"

"Fear no more, Ghond. Your meditations have healed you. Now test in the woods what you have acquired here by this means. In solitude men gain power and poise which they must test in the multitude. Ere the sun sets twice from now, you shall return victorious. As an earnest of my perfect faith in your success, I request you to take this boy and his pigeon with you. Surely I would not ask you to take a boy of sixteen with you if I doubted your powers or the outcome of your mission. Go, bring the murderer to justice."

That afternoon we set out for the jungle. I was overjoyed at the prospect of spending at least one night in there again. What a pleasure it was to go with Ghond and the pigeon, both whole and well once more, in quest of a wild buffalo. Is there any boy on earth who would not welcome such an opportunity?

So, thoroughly equipped with rope-ladders, a lassoo and knives, with Gay-Neck on my shoulder, we set out. The British Government forbids the use of fire-arms to the common people of India, and so we carried no rifles.

About three in the afternoon we reached the village north-west of the Lamasery. There, we took up the trail of the buffalo. We followed it through dense woods and wide clearings. Here and there we crossed a brook, or had to climb over mammoth fallen trees. It was extraordinary how clear the buffalo's footprints were, and how heavy!

Ghond remarked: "He must have been frightened to death, for look how heavily he has trodden here. Animals in their normal unafraid state leave very little trace behind, but when frightened, they act as if the terror of being killed weighed their bodies down. This fellow's hoofs have made prodigious and clear marks wherever he went. How frightened he must have been!"

At last we reached an impassable river. Its current, according to Ghond, was sharp enough to break our legs had we stepped into it. Strangely enough, the buffalo too had not dared to cross it. So we followed his precedent, looking for more hoof-prints on the bank. In twenty more minutes we found that they swerved off the stream bank and disappeared into a thick jungle which looked black as a pit although it was hardly five in the afternoon. This place could not have been more than half an hour's run from the village, for a wild buffalo of any age.

Ghond said: "Do you hear the song of the water?" After listening for several minutes I heard the sound of water kissing the sedges and other grass not far off with gurgling groaning sounds. We were about twenty feet from a lake into which the river ran. "The murderous buffalo is hiding—probably asleep somewhere between here and the lagoon," cried Ghond. "Let us make our home on one of the twin trees yonder. It is getting dark and I am sure he will be here soon. We should not be found on the floor of the jungle when he turns up. There is hardly a space of four feet between the trees!"

His last words struck me as curious. So I examined the space between the trees. They were tall and massive, and between them lay a piece of earth just broad enough to afford room for both of us walking abreast of each other.

"Now I shall lay down my fear-soaked tunic half-way between these Twins." Then Ghond proceeded to take from under his tunic a bundle of old clothes which he had been wearing until today. He placed them on the ground, then climbed one of the trees. After Ghond had gone up, he swung down a rope ladder for me. I climbed up on it with Gay-Neck fluttering and beating his wings on my shoulders in order to keep his balance. Both of us safely reached the branch on which Ghond was sitting, and since the evening was coming on apace, we sat still for a while.

The first thing I noticed as the dusk fell was bird-life. Herons, hornbills, grouse, pheasant, song-sparrows and emerald flocks of parrots seemed to infest the forest. The drone of the bee, the cut-cut-cut of the woodpecker and the shrill cry of the eagle far overhead blended with the tearing crying noises of the mountain torrent and the staccato laughter of the already waking hyenas.

The tree on which we made our home for the night was very tall. We went further up in order to make sure that no leopard, or serpent, was above us. After a close inspection we chose a couple of branches between which we hung our rope ladder in the shape of a strong hammock. Just as we had made ourselves secure on our perch, Ghond pointed to the sky. I looked up at once. There floated on wings of ruby a very large eagle. Though darkness was rising like a flood from the floor of the jungle, in the spaces above the sky burnt "like a pigeon's throat" and through it circled again and again that solitary eagle who was no doubt, according to Ghond, performing his worship of the setting sun. His presence had already had a stilling effect on the birds and insects of the forest. Though he was far above them, yet like a congregation of mute worshippers, they kept silent while he, their King, flew backward and forward, and vaulted before their God, the Father of Light, with the ecstasy of a hierophant. Slowly the ruby fire ebbed from his wings. Now they became purple sails fringed with sparks of gold. As if his adoration was at last concluded, he rose higher and as an act of self-immolation before his deity, flew towards the flaming peaks burning with fire, and vanished in their splendour like a moth.

Below, a buffalo's bellowing unlocked the insect voices one by one, tearing into shreds and tatters the stillness of the evening. An owl hooted near by, making Gay-Neck snuggle closely to my heart under my tunic. Suddenly the Himalayan Doël, a night bird, very much like a nightingale, flung abroad its magic song. Like a silver flute blown by a God, trill upon trill, cadenza upon cadenza, spilled its torrential peace which rushed like rain down the boughs of the trees, dripping over their rude barks to the floor of the jungle, then through their very roots into the heart of the earth.

The enchantment of an early summer night in the Himalayas will remain for ever indescribable. In fact it was so sweet and lonely that I felt very sleepy. Ghond put an extra rope around me that held me secure to the trunk of the tree. Then I put my head on his shoulder in order to sleep comfortably. But before I did so, he told me of his plan.

"Those cast-off garments of mine are what I wore while my heart was possessed of fear. They have a strange odour. If that brother-in-law (idiot) of a buffalo gets their scent, he will come hither. He who is frightened responds to the odour of fear. If he comes to investigate my cast-off dress, we shall do what we can to him. I hope we can lassoo and take him home tame as a heifer...." I did not hear the rest of his words for I had fallen asleep.

I do not know how long I slept, but suddenly I was roused by a terrific bellowing. When I opened my eyes Ghond, who was already awake, undid the rope around me and pointed below. In the faint light of the dawn at first I saw nothing, but I heard distinctly the groaning and grunting of an angry beast. In the tropics the day breaks rapidly. I looked down most intently. Now in the growing light of day I saw.... There could be no two opinions about what I saw. Yes, there was a hillock of shining jet rubbing its dark side against the tree on which we sat. It was about ten feet long, I surmised, though half of its bulk was covered by the leaves and boughs of the trees. The beast looked like a black opal coming out of a green furnace, such was the glitter of the newly grown foliage under the morning sun. I thought, the buffalo that in nature looks healthy and silken, in a Zoo is a mangy creature with matted mane and dirty skin. Can those who see bisons in captivity ever conceive how beautiful they can be? What a pity that most young people instead of seeing one animal in nature—which is worth a hundred in any Zoo—must derive their knowledge of God's creatures from their appearance in prisons. If we cannot perceive any right proportion of man's moral nature by looking at prisoners in a jail, how do we manage to think that we know all about an animal by gazing at him penned in a cage?

However, to return to that murderous buffalo at the foot of our tree. Gay-Neck was freed from under my tunic and left to roam on the tree, which Ghond and I descended by a number of branches like the rungs of a ladder, till we reached a branch that was about two feet above the buffalo. He did not see us. Ghond swiftly tied around the tree trunk one end of the long lassoo. I noticed that the buffalo was playing underneath by putting his horns now and then through a tattered garment, what was left of Ghond's clothes. No doubt the odour of man in them had attracted him. Though his horns were clean, there were marks of fresh blood on his head. Apparently he had gone to the village and killed another person during the night. That roused Ghond. He whispered into my ear: "We shall get him alive. You slip this lassoo over his horns from above." In a trice Ghond had leaped off the branch near the rear of the buffalo. That startled the beast. But he could not turn round, for close to his right was a tree which I mentioned before, and to his left was the tree on which I stood. He had to go back or forward between the twins in order to get out from them, but before this happened I had flung the lassoo over his head. The touch of the rope acted like electricity upon him. He hastened backwards, in order to slip off the lassoo, so fast that Ghond, had he not already gone around the next tree, would have been trampled and cut to death by the sharp hoofs of the beast. But now to my utter consternation, I noticed that instead of gripping his two horns at the very root, I had succeeded in lassooing only one of them. That instant I shrieked to Ghond in terror: "Beware! only one of his horns is caught. The rope may slip off that one any time. Run! Run up a tree."

But that intrepid hunter ignored my advice. Instead he stood facing the enemy a short distance away from him. Then I saw the brute lower his head and plunge forward. I shut my eyes in terror.

When I opened them again, I saw that the bull was tugging at the rope that held him by the horn and kept him from butting into the tree behind which Ghond stood. His monstrous bellowing filled the jungle with a fearful racket. Echoes of it coursed one after another like frightened shrieking children.

Since the bull had not yet succeeded in reaching him, Ghond drew his razor-sharp dagger, about a foot and a half long and two inches broad. He slowly slipped behind another tree to the right, then vanished out of sight. The bull just ran straight at the spot where he had seen Ghond last. Fortunately the rope was still clinging tightly to his horn.

Here Ghond changed his tactics. He ran away in the opposite direction, zig-zagging in between different trees. This he did to go where his odour could not reach the bull blown down to him by the wind. But though he was bewildered, yet the bull turned and followed. He again saw the bundle of Ghond's clothes on the ground under our tree. That maddened him. He sniffed, and then worried it with his horns.

By now Ghond was down wind. Though I could not see him, I surmised that he could tell by the odour where the bull was in case the trees hid him from view. The beast bellowed again, as he put his horns through Ghond's clothes, which raised a terrific tumult in the trees all around. From nowhere came flocks of monkeys running from branch to branch. Squirrels ran like rats from trees to the jungle-floor, then back again. Swarms of birds, such as jays, herons and parrots were flying about and shrieking in unison with crows, owls and kites. Suddenly the bull charged again. I saw that Ghond was standing there calmly facing him. If ever I saw a man calm as calmness itself, it was Ghond. The bull's hind legs throbbed and swept on like swords. Then something happened. He reared in the air; no doubt it was the pull of the lassoo rope of which one end was tied to our tree. He rose several feet above the ground, then fell. That instant, like a dry twig, snapped by a child, his horn cracked and flew up in the air. The breaking created an irresistible momentum that flung him sideways on the ground. He almost rolled over, his legs kicking the air violently. Instantly Ghond leaped forward like a spark from the flint. Seeing him, the buffalo balanced himself and sat on his haunches snorting. He almost succeeded in rising to his feet, but Ghond struck near his shoulder with the dagger. Its deadly edge dug deep and Ghond pressed on it with his entire weight. A bellow like a volcanic eruption shook the jungle, and with it a fountain of liquid ruby spurted up. Unable to bear the sight any longer, I again shut my eyes.

In a few minutes when I came down from my perch, I found that the buffalo had died of a hæmorrhage. It lay in a deep pool of blood. And nearby sat Ghond on the ground, wiping himself from the stain of his encounter. I knew that he wished to be left alone. So I went to the old tree and called to Gay-Neck. He made no response. I went all the way up to the topmost branch of the tree. But in vain—he was not there.

When I came down, Ghond had cleansed himself. He pointed at the sky. We beheld nature's scavengers. Kites below, and far above them vultures flew. They had already learnt that someone had died and they must clean up the jungle.

Ghond said: "We will find the pigeon in the monastery. He flew with the rest of the birds doubtless. Let us depart hence soon." But before starting homeward, I went to measure the dead buffalo to whom flies had been swarming from every direction. He was ten feet and a half in length; and his forelegs measured over three feet.

Our trudge back towards the monastery was made in silence which was only broken when about noonday we had reached the stricken village and informed its headman that their enemy was dead. He was relieved to hear of it, though he was very sad because during the previous evening the buffalo had killed his aged mother, who was going to the village temple to her worship before sunset.

We were very hungry and walked fast, and soon we reached the monastery. At once I made inquiries about my pigeon. Gay-Neck was not there! It was terrible. But the old holy man said as we chatted in his cell, "He is safe as are you, Ghond." After a pause of several minutes he asked: "What is troubling your peace of mind?"

The old hunter thought out quietly what he was going to say. "Nothing, my Lord, save this. I hate to kill anything. I wanted to catch that bull alive and alas! I had to destroy him. When that horn of his broke, and there was nothing between him and me, I had to put my knife through a vital vein. I am so sorry I could not get him alive in order to sell him to a zoo."

"O, you soul of commercialism!" I exclaimed. "I am not sorry that the bull died. Better death than to be caged for the rest of his life in a zoo. Real death is preferable to living death."

"If you had only slipped the lassoo over both horns!" Ghond retorted.

The holy one ejaculated: "Both of you should be concerned about Gay-Neck, not about what is already dead."

Ghond said: "True. Let us search for him on the morrow."

But the holy one replied, "No. Return to Dentam, my son. Your family is anxious about you. I hear their thoughts."

The next day we left for Dentam on a pair of ponies. By forced march and changing ponies twice a day at different posts, we reached Dentam in three days' time. As we were going up towards our house, we encountered a very excited servant of my family. He said that Gay-Neck had returned three days ago. But since we had not come back with him my parents had begun to worry, and they had sent out parties searching after us, alive or dead.

He and I almost ran up to the house. In another ten minutes my mother's arms were around me, and Gay-Neck, with his feet on my head, was fluttering his wings in order to balance himself.

I cannot begin to describe how overjoyed I was to hear that Gay-Neck had flown at last. He had winged all the way from the Lamasery to our home in Dentam. He had not faltered nor failed! "O, thou soul of flight, thou pearl amongst pigeons," I exclaimed to myself as Ghond and I accelerated our steps.

Thus ended our pilgrimage to Singalele. It healed both Gay-Neck and Ghond of the disease of fear and hate that they had caught in the battlefields. No labor would be in vain if it could heal a single soul of these worst ills of life.

Instead of spinning out a sermon at the end of this story, let me say this:

"Whatever we think and feel will colour what we say or do. He who fears, even unconsciously, or has his least little dream tainted with hate, will inevitably, sooner or later, translate these two qualities into his action. Therefore, my brothers, live courage, breathe courage and give courage. Think and feel love so that you will be able to pour out of yourselves peace and serenity as naturally as a flower gives forth fragrance.

"Peace be unto all!"

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