Treason, as between men, is considered worse than theft; for even thieves despise it. He who betrays his country is considered fit for death. But I tell you: he who betrays his own soul has no longer any link with honesty, and there is nothing sure concerning him, except that he will go from bad to worse. And evil grows little by little; he who is faithless in small things will ultimately lose all honor. Therefore, strive eternally to keep faith, not telling secrets nor inquiring uninvited into those of others; for the Great Offense is grounded on an infinite variety of little ones—exactly as Great Merit is the total of innumerable acts of self-control.From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.
Treason, as between men, is considered worse than theft; for even thieves despise it. He who betrays his country is considered fit for death. But I tell you: he who betrays his own soul has no longer any link with honesty, and there is nothing sure concerning him, except that he will go from bad to worse. And evil grows little by little; he who is faithless in small things will ultimately lose all honor. Therefore, strive eternally to keep faith, not telling secrets nor inquiring uninvited into those of others; for the Great Offense is grounded on an infinite variety of little ones—exactly as Great Merit is the total of innumerable acts of self-control.
From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.
CHAPTER XVI
Eachto his own heaven. Some men prefer golf. To Ommony, the seventh heaven of delight—the apex of a heterodox career was reached that hour in a curtained howdah, lurching into unknown night. And the best of it was that he knew the future must hold even more thrilling mysteries. There was going to be no anticlimax.
He was uncomfortable, sweating so that his dripping cotton garments clung to him, breathing the smell of elephant and dog and Dawa Tsering (which is no boudoir mixture), possibly in deadly danger. And he was utterly contented, having no regret, no backward yearning.
The curtains that cut off the view could not limit imagination. He enjoyed a mental picture of the string of camels leading and the elephants mysteriously padding in the wake, beneath colored stars and a blue-black sky, between broken walls and shadowy trees, toward an obscure horizon. The dusty footfalls were as music. The mahout’s occasional expletives were an open sesame to mystery beyond the reach of ordinary men—and that, perhaps, explained nine-tenths of the delight. It is doing what the other fellows can not do, that satisfies; and so, through vanity, the gods make use of us. No millions, nor fame, nor offers of a sterilized and safety-infested Heaven could have tempted Ommony to forego that journey in the howdah, although there were not wanting opportunities to steal away.
Now and then there were halts, when muffled voices of unseen men on foot, who turned up out of the night, delivered terse commands that were barely audible and quite incomprehensible through the howdah curtains. Time and again he could have tumbled out of the howdah and lowered himself to the earth by the elephant’s tail. But he preferred to act Jonah in a whale’s belly, especially since the whale was willing.
He knew that with the dog’s help he could have tracked the caravan to its destination and so have learned the details of the course it took. But he also guessed that none who saw it pass would answer questions; and at the other end there was the risk that he might find a blank wall, silence, and perhaps a knife’s edge for inquisitive intruders. To play for safety—to look for it—to expect it, would be ridiculous. He must run all risks without a gesture of self-protection. He was glad he had not even a revolver with him, for a hidden weapon might betray him into rashness of the wrong kind. He made up his mind, if he were threatened, to rely solely on whatever wits the gods of emergency might sharpen for him at the moment.
Meanwhile, he felt reasonably sure of one thing: that the elephants were a rajah’s property. The camels might possibly belong to some one else, but it was more likely they were also the same rajah’s. There might be a rajah who would not ask questions, but who was linked in some chain of more or less esoteric brotherhood, akin perhaps to Masonry. If so, the procession would arouse no comment on the countryside, for it is no man’s business and to no man’s profit to inquire too closely into a rajah’s private doings; he who does so may count with almost absolute precision on what the jury will subsequently call an accident. “I don’t know, I didn’t see” and “I forget” are difficult, exasperating pegs on which to hang a chain of evidence.
At the end of two hours’ swaying Dawa Tsering’s stomach, void of embarrassing content, began to recover. His sunny disposition followed suit.
“Loose me, Gupta Rao. I am sorry I bawled out thy other name. I will slay this fool who heard me. Then none will be the wiser, and thou and I are friends again.”
“Do you hope ever to see Spiti?” Ommony inquired.
“By the wind that blows there, and the women who laugh there, surely! I have a treasure tucked away in Spiti—earned on the te-rains. Loose me, Gupta Rao, or I call thee by thy other name again! I can shout louder, now my belly aches less.”
“Shout, and let us see what happens,” Ommony suggested.
The small boy’s mind that had its kingdom in the Hillman’s bulk considered that a moment.
“Nay,” he said presently, “I think that an evil might happen. The luck is not good lately. Who would have thought a camel would kick me? The devils who live in the hills around Spiti owe me for many a good turn I did them. The devils of these parts seem very mischievous. I had better behave myself.”
“How about a promise?” Ommony suggested.
“You mean, a promise between me and you? But I would have to keep it. That might be inconvenient.”
“I would promise for my part to assist you to return to Spiti at the proper time.”
“Oh, very well. Only I shall judge the proper time by when the devils have turned friendly. Loose me. Iwillbehave myself.”
Ommony undid the rope and the Tibetan, far from objecting, stuck a stump of candle on the bare wood of the howdah frame, lighted it, produced a pack of cards, and challenged Dawa Tsering to a game. They played interminably, both men cheating, both appealing to Ommony to settle constant arguments, although there was no money involved.
“My honor is at stake,” Dawa Tsering grumbled after about a dozen furious disputes. “This ignorant Tibetan says I am a liar.”
“So you are,” said Ommony.
“That may be. But he has no right to give himself airs. He is the greater one. Look! He has five cards tucked under his knee, whereas I had but two!”
He shoved the Tibetan so that his knee moved and uncovered the missing cards, two of which slipped down between the howdah and the elephant’s flank, thus putting an end to the game.
“But I have dice!” said Dawa Tsering; and from then until dawn they murdered time and peace with those things, while Diana, her tongue hanging out with the heat, panted and shifted restlessly, but Ommony snatched scraps of sleep, dimly aware that Dawa Tsering was losing more often than he won, growing more and more indignant with devils who refused to bring him luck.
“I will obey thee, Gupta Rao, until the luck changes,” he said at last. “My dice are loaded, yet even so I can not win! Luck is funny stuff.”
It was about ten minutes after dawn, the choicest hour in India, alive with cock-crow and the color-drenched solemnity of waking day, when the tired elephant came to a final halt in some sort of enclosure, and shuffled a slow measure to call the mahout’s attention to sore feet. At a sharp word of command the beast lay down, like a hillside falling. Diana sprang out through the curtains and Ommony followed, yawning and sitting down on the elephant’s forefoot to pretend to watch the mahout’s ingenious ministrations to a corn, while he surveyed the scene from under lowered eyelids.
The other elephants, already offloaded, had shuffled away to a roofed enclosure at the far end of a compound, where great heaps of food awaited them and equally huge vats of water. The camels, still burdened, were lying down in picturesque confusion, carrying on a camel conversation, which consists in snarling at the world in general. Along one side of the compound was a row of mules, tied by the heel with their rumps toward the wall, squealing for breakfast, which was being brought by naked boys, and by abhisti, who poured water into buckets from a goatskin bag. The opposite side of the compound was formed by a low two-storied building with a double-decked veranda supported on square wooden posts running the entire length. There were flies, much litter and a most amazing smell.
Over the roof of the building, where a long line of crows formed a mischievously interested audience, there appeared a jumble of other roofs that made no pretense to architecture. Small-town noises, such as a smithy bellows and the hammer-ring on iron, the patter of goats’ feet and the heavier tread of cattle being driven forth to graze, arose on all sides. There was one minaret in sight, and one Hindu temple-roof ornate with carvings of deific passion. The compound gate was locked and there was a guard of two men standing by, not evidently armed, but obviously sullen and alert. There was no sign of the Lama, nor of any women.
After a minute or two Maitraya looked out from a door midway under the long balcony and greeted Ommony with the familiarity of boon companionship established by journeying together. It only needs one night of shared discomfort on the road to produce that feeling, or else its opposite. One either hates or likes one’s fellow traveler; there is no middle ground on the dawn of the second day out.
“Do you know where we are?” Maitraya asked cheerfully.
Ommony did not know, but he was no such fool as to admit it. In his capacity of wiseacre he gave the mahout good advice regarding elephants’ corns, about which he knew nothing; in his rôle of privileged extortioner he demanded arrack from a man who seemed to be the master of the stables, and established friendship with the elephant by giving the grateful beast two-thirds of a bottle-full of the atrocious stuff.
Meanwhile, Diana was exploring on her own account, alarming many mules, offending camels, and reducing elephants to a state of old-maidish nervousness, at which their mahouts yelled in chorus, offering to throw sticks, dung and missiles of all sorts, but daring no more than the threat. Diana, solemnly indifferent to abuse, and contemptuous of elephants since she had ridden on the back of one, snooted around in corners until she reached the end door under the balcony; and finding that open, she entered. There was an instant chorus of women’s voices. Maitraya grinned.
“Gupta Rao,” he said, “I have seen a many curiosities in my day, but those dancing girls surpass all! If they are Tibetans, Krishna! I will risk my life and go to Tibet!Isaw them descend from the elephants, and Vishnu! Vishnu! I assure you my heart thumps! Such beauty! Such chastity redeemed by mirth! Such modesty of manner uncontaminated by humility! I foresee adventures, Gupta Rao! That divinity of yours who broke your pocketbook in Bikanir will have a dozen strong competitors! Krishna! I am impassioned! I am enflamed with love! If I can find a shrine of Hanuman, I will make gifts and a sacrifice this morning!”
Diana emerged, led out through the door by Samding, who held her collar; seeing Ommony, thechelasignaled to him with a smile to call the dog.
“I hate thatchela!” said Maitraya, grinning. “Did I not tell you I had an intuition to be jealous of him! Is it possible those twice-born creatures are thechela’swives?”
“Whom are you calling twice-born?” Ommony demanded, instantly assertive of a Brahman’s rights.
“Pranam!” said Maitraya. “But wait until you have seen them!”
Impelled by a feeling that perhaps the luck might favor him, and partly in order to live up to his Bhat reputation, Ommony strolled toward the door whence Samding and the laughter had emerged. It was slightly ajar. But he had scarcely reached it when the Tibetan who had been fellow traveler during the night touched him on the shoulder, led him back to a door at the extreme opposite end, and almost violently shoved him into a room furnished with a clean wooden table and a bench. Food was on the table—loads of it—fruit, milk, chupatties, honey, butter, boiled rice, and flowers enough to have graced a wedding feast. The Tibetan slammed the door, and Ommony heard him turn a key on the outside.
However, there were two doors to the room, and the window was not fastened. He went first to the window and made sure that Diana was within hail; she was watching Dawa Tsering gorge his breakfast from a bowl in the shade of the compound wall not fifteen feet away. Having satisfied himself on that score, he discovered that the inner door was not locked, so he attacked the food, that being an important consideration when you don’t know what the next five minutes may bring forth. The locked outer door, and the guard on the compound gate were not exactly reassuring.
The Lama came in through the inner door just as Ommony finished eating. He was alone, no longer dressed in the warrior-like garb of the night before, and looking old again—immensely old, because the morning light streamed through the slats of the window and showed all his wrinkles. The snuff-brown color of his robe was streaked with old-gold by the sunlight. In that moment one could believe he was a rather world-weary, very wise old saint; it was next to impossible not to believe it.
Yet there was humor in his eyes and a gaze unconquerable—blue-gray—very wide awake. His frame for the moment seemed shrunken, yet his height, though he stooped from shoulders that seemed almost too weary to support his head, was considerably more than Ommony’s.
“Peace perfect you in all her ways!”
The blessing was solemn but the voice rang with assurance, as if he knew that his will to bless was infinitely overpowering.
“And to you, my father, peace,” said Ommony. He had stood up when the Lama entered.
“And the food was enough? And good enough?” the Lama asked. “The journey not distressing?”
“Where are we?” Ommony retorted bluntly. But the Lama merely smiled until his wrinkles were all in movement, and the fearless old eyes shone with kindly humor:
“My son, he who knowswherehe is knows more than all the gods. He who knowswhathe is knows all things. Is it not enough that each moment we are where we should be? Is not the whole universe a mystery? How shall the part be more comprehensible than the whole, since it must partake of the quality of the whole?”
But Ommony did not propose to be put off by wise conundrums. His jaw came forward obstinately.
“I was locked in here,” he said. “I have a right to know why.”
“To keep out those whose ignorance might cause them to intrude,” the Lama answered, exactly as if he were teaching school. “It is not good to place temptation in the path of the inquisitive.”
Feeling as if stilts had been kicked from under him, Ommony tried again, more bluntly:
“Youknowwho I am,” he began, speaking English; but the Lama interrupted in Urdu:
“My son, if I knew that, I should be wiser than all those whose duty is to rule the stars! You have answered to the name of Gupta Rao.”
“For God’s sake,” said Ommony, again in English, “why not tell me outright what your business is? I’llbeginby being frank. I’m spying on you! I would like to believe you are above suspicion. I’m in doubt.”
“My son,” said the Lama, answering in Urdu, “no man is above suspicion. The sun and the moon cast their shadows, and therein the destroyers lurk. Doubt is the forerunner of decision. Shadows move. All revelation comes to him who waits.”
That sounded like a promise. Ommony jumped at it.
“We have one interest in common—Tilgaun. Why treat me as an enemy? Why not clear the air now by telling me the truth about yourself?”
“My son,” said the Lama, in Urdu again, “no man can ever be told the truth, which either is in him, or it is not in him. If it is, he willseethe truth. If it is not, he will see delusion and will confuse himself with surmise. He who looks for negation beholds it. He who looks for truth beholds negation also, but perceives the truth beyond. Wherein have I shown you enmity?”
For a moment there was silence. Ommony tried to think of another way of getting past the Lama’s guard, but the old man’s impersonal dignity was like armor.
“There are things you may see, but you must put your own interpretation on them,” said the Lama. “One by one we attain to understanding. The wise ponder in silence, but the fools are noisy, and the noise precedes them to their doom.”
That sounded like a threat, but his face was as kindly as ever, rippled again with quivering wrinkles, as a smile broke and vanished into the recesses of brown-ivory skin.
“Come!” he said; but instead of opening the door behind him he strode first to the window, threw the shutters back, glanced out and made a clucking noise. Diana jumped in, and Ommony wondered; she was trained to be wary of strangers, and was not given to obeying even her master’s friends unless carefully charged with that duty by Ommony himself. She thrust her nose into the Lama’s hand before she came and fussed over Ommony.
The Lama led the way into a narrow passage on to which many doors opened to right and left; it extended from end to end of the long building, its walls forming a double support for the heavy beams of the floor above. Two-thirds of the way along it he opened a door on the right and a chorus of women’s voices burst through the opening. But there were no women to be seen yet, because the door opened on to a gallery; there was a lower story on that side of the building, and the gallery ran around two sides of a large room, screened from it by a breast-high balustrade. The Lama led the way to the farther end, where the gallery was twenty feet wide and Samding waited, standing beside a spread Tibetan prayer mat, marvelously dressed in ivory white and looking like a young god. However, god or no god, he had to alter the position of the mat by an inch or two before the Lama would sit down, after which he motioned to Ommony to be seated on the floor in the farther corner, where he could see through a slit in the wooden panel and look down on the floor below.
It was a surprising room to discover close to mule- and elephant-stables, but not so surprising as its occupants. The walls were hung with painted curtains, and the floor was strewn with cushions on which Indian women, many of them high-caste ladies, sat chattering with girls who resembled no caste or tribe that Ommony had ever seen anywhere. They were lively, full of laughter, young, but no more beautiful, as far as actual features went, than any gathering of normally good-looking women anywhere. Six or seven of them, if not Tibetans, were at any rate of part-Mongolian origin; but Ommony counted fourteen who fitted into no mental pigeon-hole of races he had seen and studied.
In more than one way those fourteen and the Tibetans were all alike. They were dressed in the same loose, almost Greek, white cotton robes; they all wore stockings, which the native Indian women in the room did not wear; and they used more or less the same gestures, were alert with the same vivacity. But there the resemblance ended.
The fourteen were fair-complexioned; one had golden hair that hung in long plaits—she would have looked like a German Gretchen, if it had not been for the dress and something else—something quite indefinable.
The whole proceedings, the whole scene was like a weird figment of imagination. There was nothing natural about it, simply because it was too natural. It was not India. There were Moslem as well as Hindu ladies in the room, betraying no self-consciousness and no objection to one another’s presence; and there were actually low-caste women—sudras[32]—chatting with the rest apparently on equal footing. True, there was no food being passed around, but every other caste rule seemed to be forgotten or deliberately flouted; yet there was no sign of self-consciousness or strain.
They were talking Urdu, a few of them with difficulty, but it was next to impossible to catch the conversation from the gallery because there was so much of it—so many chattering and laughing all at once.
The fourteen girls in white kept glancing up at the gallery apparently expecting some sort of signal, so Ommony had plenty of opportunity to scan their features. He did not doubt they were the smuggled children Benjamin had spoken of, only there were fourteen instead of seven. There were therefore other agents besides Benjamin. But the fact in no way simplified the mystery; rather it increased it. Their ages ranged at a guess from seventeen to twenty-three or twenty-four which, allowing for the years elapsed, tallied with Benjamin’s description near enough; and they had grown to wholesome-looking womanhood. Not a trace of shyness. No awkwardness. No vulgarity. Not one symptom of forced manners or repression. The whole thing was incredible; yet there they were. And who had educated them? The Lama? That seemed more impossible than for a river to flow up-hill; he might have made priggish nuns of them, or downright Tibetans, but not that. It began to be evident that there was something worth investigating in the Ahbor country, or wherever else the Lama kept his secrets!
It was the Lama who at last cut short the flow of talk. Sitting still on the mat, where his head was not visible from below, he boomed a word in Tibetan, as commanding as the gong that brings sea-engines to a halt, and there was instant silence as in an aviary when the chattering birds are frightened. Whatever he might be, the old man knew what drama meant—and discipline. He whispered to Samding, and thechela, opening a swinging door in the front of the gallery, walked down a carpeted flight of steps to the floor below.
He was received in silence. He took from his breast the broken piece of jade that Ommony had lost and that the Lama had recovered from the courtesan, and holding it in both, hands on a level with his shoulders passed among them, pausing to let each woman in turn devour it with her eyes. Some of them appeared to fall into a state of superstitious rapture; others were curious; all were respectful almost to the point of worship. And the Lama watched them through a slit in the swinging gate as if all destiny depended on the outcome, every tendon in him rigid; the neck tendon stood out like a bow-string. Then suddenly, as if to calm himself, he took snuff and rubbed his nose violently with his thumb.
Thechela, said nothing, but the women were allowed to touch him and appeared to think the touch conferred a priceless boon. They laid a finger of the right hand on his shoulder as he passed, and one woman, a Moslem, who laid both hands on him and clung almost passionately, was quietly reproved for it by two of the girls in white.
“The game begins to look political,” thought Ommony, watching the Lama clean a snuff-filled nostril with a meditative forefinger. “Vasantasena—umm! Now these women—I’ve always wondered why some genius didn’t try to conquer India by winning the women first! They rule the country anyhow.”
The Lama just then looked as calculating as a medieval cardinal, but despite that air of playing a deep game for tremendous stakes, there was now something almost Puck-like in his attitude. Ommony noticed for the first time that his ears did not lie close to his head, were large and slightly pointed at the top. Seen sidewise in the rather dim light there was a faint suggestion about him of one of those gargoyles that survey the street from a cathedral roof. He was even more interesting to watch than the proceedings on the floor below.
Suddenly the Lama spoke again. When he did that his leathery throat moved like a pelican’s swallowing a big fish, and the noise that came out was hardly human—startling—so abrupt that it completely broke the sequence of all other sounds. It monopolized attention. In the ensuing silence he sat back, took snuff again, and seemed to lose all interest in the proceedings.
But to Ommony the interest increased. The girls in white threw black cloaks over their shoulders. The Hindu and Moslem women smothered themselves in the impenetrable veils without which it is pollution to face men-folk out-of-doors; and all of them, in groups of three or four, each little group in charge of one of the Lama’s female family, who shielded their faces in masked hoods that formed part of the black cloaks, departed toward the street.
There was no doubt that they did go to the street; a door opened on to a vestibule, and sunlight shone through a street door at its farther end.
Samding returned up the steps and gave the piece of jade to the Lama, who stowed it somewhere in his bosom without glancing at it. Ommony watched thechelanarrowly. Was he a European boy? There was something in the clean strong outline of his face and in the lithe athletic figure that might suggest that. But he was too abstract-looking—altogether too impersonal and (the word was as vague as the impression Ommony was trying to fix in his mind) too fascinating. No European youngster could have looked as he did without stirring resentment in whoever watched. Samding aroused in the beholder only admiration and an itching curiosity.
[32]Sudra: the lowest of the four great Hindu castes, which in fact, although not always in theory, includes many of the merchants and artizen classes, and some agriculturists.
[32]Sudra: the lowest of the four great Hindu castes, which in fact, although not always in theory, includes many of the merchants and artizen classes, and some agriculturists.
THE LAMA’S LAWO ye who look to enter in through Discipline to Bliss,Ye shall not stray from out the way, if ye remember this:Ye shall not waste a weary hour, nor hope for Hope in vain,If ye persist with will until self-righteousness is slain.If through the mist of mortal eyes, deluded, ye discernThat ye are holier than these, ye have the whole to learn!If ye are tied with tangled pride because ye learn the Law,Know then, your purest thoughts deny the Truth ye never saw!If ye resent in discontent the searchlight of reproof,Preferring praise, ye waste your days at sin’s not Soul’s behoof!Each gain for self denies the Self that knows the self is vain.Who crowns accomplishment with pride must build the whole again!But if, at each ascending step, more clearly ye perceiveThat he must kill the lower will, who would the world relieveAnd they are last who would be first, their effort thrown away;Be patient then and persevere. Ye tread the Middle Way!
THE LAMA’S LAWO ye who look to enter in through Discipline to Bliss,Ye shall not stray from out the way, if ye remember this:Ye shall not waste a weary hour, nor hope for Hope in vain,If ye persist with will until self-righteousness is slain.If through the mist of mortal eyes, deluded, ye discernThat ye are holier than these, ye have the whole to learn!If ye are tied with tangled pride because ye learn the Law,Know then, your purest thoughts deny the Truth ye never saw!If ye resent in discontent the searchlight of reproof,Preferring praise, ye waste your days at sin’s not Soul’s behoof!Each gain for self denies the Self that knows the self is vain.Who crowns accomplishment with pride must build the whole again!But if, at each ascending step, more clearly ye perceiveThat he must kill the lower will, who would the world relieveAnd they are last who would be first, their effort thrown away;Be patient then and persevere. Ye tread the Middle Way!
THE LAMA’S LAWO ye who look to enter in through Discipline to Bliss,Ye shall not stray from out the way, if ye remember this:Ye shall not waste a weary hour, nor hope for Hope in vain,If ye persist with will until self-righteousness is slain.If through the mist of mortal eyes, deluded, ye discernThat ye are holier than these, ye have the whole to learn!If ye are tied with tangled pride because ye learn the Law,Know then, your purest thoughts deny the Truth ye never saw!If ye resent in discontent the searchlight of reproof,Preferring praise, ye waste your days at sin’s not Soul’s behoof!Each gain for self denies the Self that knows the self is vain.Who crowns accomplishment with pride must build the whole again!But if, at each ascending step, more clearly ye perceiveThat he must kill the lower will, who would the world relieveAnd they are last who would be first, their effort thrown away;Be patient then and persevere. Ye tread the Middle Way!
THE LAMA’S LAWO ye who look to enter in through Discipline to Bliss,Ye shall not stray from out the way, if ye remember this:Ye shall not waste a weary hour, nor hope for Hope in vain,If ye persist with will until self-righteousness is slain.If through the mist of mortal eyes, deluded, ye discernThat ye are holier than these, ye have the whole to learn!If ye are tied with tangled pride because ye learn the Law,Know then, your purest thoughts deny the Truth ye never saw!If ye resent in discontent the searchlight of reproof,Preferring praise, ye waste your days at sin’s not Soul’s behoof!Each gain for self denies the Self that knows the self is vain.Who crowns accomplishment with pride must build the whole again!But if, at each ascending step, more clearly ye perceiveThat he must kill the lower will, who would the world relieveAnd they are last who would be first, their effort thrown away;Be patient then and persevere. Ye tread the Middle Way!
THE LAMA’S LAW
O ye who look to enter in through Discipline to Bliss,
Ye shall not stray from out the way, if ye remember this:
Ye shall not waste a weary hour, nor hope for Hope in vain,
If ye persist with will until self-righteousness is slain.
If through the mist of mortal eyes, deluded, ye discern
That ye are holier than these, ye have the whole to learn!
If ye are tied with tangled pride because ye learn the Law,
Know then, your purest thoughts deny the Truth ye never saw!
If ye resent in discontent the searchlight of reproof,
Preferring praise, ye waste your days at sin’s not Soul’s behoof!
Each gain for self denies the Self that knows the self is vain.
Who crowns accomplishment with pride must build the whole again!
But if, at each ascending step, more clearly ye perceive
That he must kill the lower will, who would the world relieve
And they are last who would be first, their effort thrown away;
Be patient then and persevere. Ye tread the Middle Way!
CHAPTER XVII
Themoment the last woman had vanished from the room the Lama let Samding help him to his feet and clucked, snapping his fingers to Diana. She glanced at Ommony, he nodded, immensely curious, and promptly she trotted to the Lama’s side as matter-of-factly as if she had known him all her life.
The Lama and thechelawent down to the room below, taking Diana with them. Thechelaspread out the mat, rearranged it in accordance with the Lama’s instructions, and the two sat down on it facing the balcony, conversing in low tones, evidently waiting for something preordained to happen. Diana sniffed around the room, inspecting cushions curiously, but they took no apparent notice of her. After a minute or two she sat down and looked bored. Instantly the Lama called to Ommony:
“Can you cause the dog to open her mouth, from where you are, without speaking?”
Ommony stood up, his head and shoulders visible above the rail, and seeing him Diana pricked an ear. The trick was simple enough; ever since she was a puppy she had always dropped her jaw when he held up a finger at her; by education, for his own amusement, he had simply encouraged and fixed a habit. Her mouth opened, closed and opened wide again.
Samding laughed delightedly, but the Lama very seriously beckoned to Diana to come nearer and she obeyed at a nod from Ommony. She wanted to sit on the mat, but the Lama would not allow that; he pushed her away and she squatted down facing the balcony, watching Ommony, awaiting orders.
“Now again!” said the Lama.
Ommony raised his finger. The ear went up, the mouth opened and stayed open until the finger was lowered.
The Lama was as pleased as a child with a toy. Diana would have been satisfied to go through all her tricks, but a Tibetan entered through the door the women had used. The Lama froze into immobility and Samding followed suit.
There entered a man whom Ommony knew from his photographs—Prabhu Singh—the almost middle-aged but younger son of a reigning rajah. He knew him well by reputation—had admired him in the abstract because he was notorious for independence and for fair, intelligent, outspoken and constructive criticism of foreign rule. He was said to be an intimate of Gandhi and was, in consequence, about as much appreciated by the ruling powers as a hornet at a tea-party.
He was tall, lean, lithe, big-eyed under a plain silk turban and extremely simply dressed in tussore stuff that showed every line of his athletic figure—not very dark-skinned—clean-shaven except for a black mustache. He wore no jewelry, strode barefooted with manly dignity to a point midway between the Lama and the door, bowed low, and stood still. Diana went up and sniffed him. He showed surprise, but laid his hand on the dog’s head and rubbed her ear.
“Peace be with you. Peace perfect you in all her ways,” the Lama boomed.
“And to you, my father, peace,” he answered. “Was it well done? Was anything lacking for your comfort? Have my servants failed in anything? Were there enough elephants?”
“It is all good,” said the Lama.
“And the mission succeeded?”
“The first part.”
The Lama’s hand went into his bosom and produced the piece of jade. Prabhu Singh approached to the edge of the mat, received the jade into his hands, and stepped back to examine it, holding it to the light from a window. He did not appear to have any superstitious reverence for it, but handled it as if it were a work of art, rare and valuable.
“I am glad,” he said simply after about two minutes, handing it back to the Lama, who returned it to his bosom. Thechela’seyes were missing nothing.
“San-fun-ho!” said the Lama suddenly; and thechelastood up on the mat. Was the stage-name his real one? The mystery increased.
Prabhu Singh’s attitude underwent an instant change. He became embarrassed. He bowed three times with much more reverence than he had shown the Lama, and when thechelasmiled the lineal descendant of a hundred kings was as nervous as a small boy being introduced to a bishop. Samding said something to him that Ommony could not catch, and the murmured answer seemed to be no more than a conventional formula of politeness. Thechelawas as perfectly at ease as if he had been receiving the homage of princes all his life.
Prabhu Singh bowed again three times and retreated backward, stumbling against Diana and recovering his balance awkwardly. He appeared almost physically frightened; yet he was famous on polo fields from end to end of India, and was notorious for speaking his mind bluntly to viceroys at real risk of personal liberty. His back to the door at last, he made his escape with better grace, recovering presence of mind and remembering to salute the Lama.
The moment the door shut the Lama turned on Samding and rebuked him in Tibetan; Ommony could only catch occasional sentences; but it seemed that the Lama was angry because Samding had not put the visitor at ease.
“That is only vanity—self-approval. Worshipers are mockers . . . turned your head . . . I would rather see you pelted with stones . . . better for you and for them . . . break the shell of the egg before the chicken hatches . . .schlappkapp!(whatever that meant) . . . dirt under your feet will some day cover your grave . . . all these years and yet you know so little . . . if you are going to fail you had better not begin . . . presumption . . .”
It was a wonder of a discourse. Samding listened, standing for a while, then sat down cross-legged—off the mat—facing the Lama—head bowed humbly—not once moving until Diana came and sniffed his neck to find out what the matter was.
That stopped the Lama’s flow of speech. He glanced up at the gallery and called to Ommony in an absolutely normal tone of voice, as if he had entirely forgotten the whole incident of Prabhu Singh’s visit and the rebuke and all connected with it.
“Now again, my son. Make the dog do the acting again.”
Samding resumed his position on the mat at the Lama’s right hand; he, too, seemed to dismiss the lecture as if it had never taken place; and Ommony, directing from the gallery, made Diana open and shut her mouth. The Lama insisted on her doing it again and again and at last he and Samding chuckled together over it as if it were the greatest joke that ever happened.
Still chuckling, they got up and left the room by the door leading to the street, taking the mat with them and locking the door as they went out. No explanation; not a word to Ommony as to what was expected of him; not even a backward glance at the gallery to suggest that they had him in mind. Ommony sat still for a while; then, whistling Diana, he made his way to the gallery door, found that open, and proceeded to explore; but he found all the other doors along the passage locked, except the one at the end that opened into the room assigned to himself.
He looked through the window into the compound, where there were all kinds of noise and confusion. Four men were trying to throw a mule and several other mules had broken loose; an elephant was lying on its back near a water-butt while two mahouts scrubbed its belly; and two bull camels were fighting with everything except their tails while twenty onlookers heaped humorous advice on rather bored-looking experts who were watching for a chance to rope the brutes by the leg and separate them.
And in the midst of all that riot, with the sun pouring down on them and crows and sparrows hopping about among them, Maitraya and his troupe sat on boxes, repeating their lines to one another.
It appeared that the devil’s part already had been written. Maitraya held a small scroll in addition to his own, and was trying to teach the lines to Dawa Tsering, who was disposed to believe he could play the devil better if left to his own resources.
“I tell you, a devil is devilish!” he shouted. “A devil is like one of those bull camels—you never know what he’ll do next! Or like a mule—you have to look out for his teeth and heels! This devil of yours is like a pretty gentleman. Here, let me show you how to act the devil!”
But Maitraya stuck to it, patiently correcting the Hillman’s mispronunciation of the Urdu words. Catching sight of Ommony through the window, he called to him to come out and take part in the rehearsal; but the door was still locked, and though he could have climbed through the window easily enough Ommony hardly liked to confess that he was locked in, not knowing what effect that news might have on Maitraya. After a moment’s hesitation he excused himself on religious grounds:
“I must recite themantras.”
Even Maitraya, possessed by the almost absolute of religious cynicism, respected that Brahman’s privilege, so Ommony was left to his own meditations, which were mixed, amused and mystified in turn.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door behind him. Thechelacame in. He had changed his clothes again and was in the same snuff-colored robe in which Ommony first saw him in Chutter Chand’s back room. His face was an enigma—a mask with a marvelous smile on it; but the eyes, to Ommony, suggested excitement; at any rate, some strong emotion was shining through the self-controlled exterior. The remarkable thing was, that the youngster’s calm did not suggest fanatical asceticism or conceit. He seemed human, curious and not unfriendly.
Diana’s tail thumped on the floor. Flies buzzed in and out through the window. There was nothing in the situation to cause nervousness, and yet Ommony confessed to himself that he felt an inclination to shudder; the sort of inclination that forewarns a man of something that his eyes can not see. He spoke first, purposely in English, hoping to catch thechelaoff-guard:
“Maitraya has suggested that those young women who are with the party are your wives. That seems improbable. Tell me the truth about it.”
If eyes mean anything, thechelaunderstood; he was laughing. No muscle of his face moved. He pretended to assume that the words were some form of greeting, and answered in kind, in Tibetan, then broke into Urdu:
“Tsiang Samdup sends a blessing. He is unwilling that you should speak of what occurred this morning.”
“You mean, of the performance of the dog?” asked Ommony.
But thechelaappeared to be an expert in dealing with stupidity. “Ofanythingthat occurred.” Ommony chose another angle of assault:
“Whatever the holy Lama wishes. Kindly tell him so.As long as I am his guest, I will be silent. Wait!”
Thechelahad started to go, but Ommony stepped between him and the door and stood with his back to it.
“Don’t be alarmed.”
But thechelahad only retreated a pace or two. Excepting that, he seemed hardly more than curious to know what would happen next. It was Ommony who felt uncomfortable. “I want you to tell me,” he said, “whether it was Tsiang Samdup or some one else who educated you and those young women.”
Thechela, still standing erect, did not answer.
“Come on, tell me. There must be some one else besides the Lama.”
“Is that why you stand between me and the door?” thechelaasked. The voice was ironic—amused. Ommony tried emphasis:
“I won’t let you go until you answer a few questions. Tell me—”
But thechelahad already gone. He had crossed the room in three strides, laid a hand on the window-ledge, and vaulted through, tucking his legs up neatly under his chin and landing almost noiselessly on the veranda. He contrived the whole swift maneuver without a moment’s loss of dignity, and walked away unruffled, not glancing behind him.
Ommony strode to the window feeling cheap, wishing he had gone about things differently; he supposed it would take an interminable time now to establish himself in thechela’sconfidence; he had possibly totally ruined his chance of doing that. Thechelawas sure to go straight to the Lama and tell him.
But there stood the Lama, in the midst of the group of actors, with Samding already beside him; and apparently Samding was talking about the play to Maitraya; the Lama seemed to be encouraging Dawa Tsering to rehearse his lines. They did not glance in Ommony’s direction. But a minute or two later a Tibetan came and unlocked the door, and when Ommony stepped out under the veranda the Lama turned and beckoned to him.
However, the Lama had nothing to say. He led the entire troupe at once toward the elephant stalls, down a gangway between two of the big beasts, whom he saluted in passing as if they were human beings, and through a gate at the rear into an alley fifty yards long. The alley seemed to have been used as a sheep-corral the preceding night; there were some loose boards that probably served to enclose it. Across its end ran a street, in which a dozen or more nondescript humans lounged in front of back doors. It was a back street; all the houses faced the other way, their rears were an irregular jumble of yards and walls, with empty kerosene cans, rubbish heaps and faded cottonpurdahs[33]much in evidence.
The Lama led straight across the street into a doorway, and down a long passage that admitted to the wings of a fair-sized theater, almost modern in some of its details.
Some one had been busy, for the stage was set. A hideous back-drop had been almost concealed by branches up-ended, that gave a very good suggestion of a clump of trees; and in front of those, in mid-stage, was a wicker-work affair covered with cotton cloth that had been painted to look like the stone-work of an old well; a beam with a rope thrown over it, supported on two uprights completed the illusion well enough. The flies had been very simply painted to resemble house corners at the end of a street, and the whole scene suggested the extreme fringe of a village, with the audience looking out through it toward the open country.
For a wonder, there was electric light, although none too much, and the switchboard was a mystery, painted red and labeled in English “Keep away!”
At the rear of the theater and along both sides was a balcony for women, screened off with narrow wooden slats that left openings about four inches square. The orchestra “pit” was a platform, three feet lower than the stage, in full view of the audience. The musicians were already squatting there—Tibetans to a man; four were armed withradongs[34]; four more had tomtoms; the remaining dozen were provided with stringed instruments. Theradongsblew a fog-horn blare to greet the Lama as he stepped on to the stage.
In the opposite wing, no longer in white or in stockings, protected by three stalwart Tibetans, who lounged in the flies, were the women of mystery. They were in costume, which so orientalized them that Ommony almost doubted recognition. Memory plays strange tricks; his took him back to the day when he and Benjamin had played a part at Chota Pegu and the nautch-girls had been wild with inquisitive mischief—ready to betray the chief-priest at a nod. These girls now, in gauzy draperies, less naked, but as subtle in their motions, so resembled those nautch-girls at first glance that he was not sure they were the same he had seen in the room among the Hindu ladies until he noticed that they laughed and chattered on a comparatively low note instead of a high-pitched dissonance.
The Lama clapped his hands and sat down inside the well, where he could see out through holes in the painted cloth. Then he told Ommony to make Diana sit down almost exactly in front of the well, and the rehearsal began at once, as if preordained from the beginning of time, the girls in their Indian costume mingling with the stage crowd, and so well versed in their part that they pushed the other actors into place, needing no direction by the Lama.
Ommony had plenty of chance to observe some of them closely, for three had been told to engage thesaddhuin mock-conversation during parts of the first act. One—the Gretchen-girl—put an offering into his begging-bowl. But though he missed his cue twice through trying to engage her in real whispered conversation, he failed; she was as evasive as abstract thought—as apparently engaging and as actually distant as a day-dream. She turned every advance he made into an excuse of by-play for the imaginary audience’s benefit, and all Ommony accomplished was to draw the Lama’s irony from behind the well:
“Somesaddhushide lascivious hearts under robes of sanctity, but you aresupposedto be one who has truly forsaken the pursuit of women, Gupta Rao!”
When the laugh that followed that rebuke had died down Ommony was still not sure of the Gretchen-girl’s real nationality. He had tried her with English, French, German and two or three Indian languages, watching her face, but detecting no expression that suggested she had understood him. As for the others, one might be a Jewess; but there are many well-bred women, for instance in Rajputana, and in Persia, who are fair-skinned and who resemble Jewesses in profile. Even fair hair was no proof of their origin; most eastern women, but by no means all, have dark hair.
The only really convincing evidence that they were Europeans was their behavior, and even that was offset by the fact that some of them were certainly Tibetans, whose manner was equally unembarrassed in the presence of men, yet equally free from familiarity. The difference from their behavior and that of Maitraya’s actresses grew more and more noticeable as the professionals became aware of an atmosphere to which they were utter strangers. They tried at first to imitate it; then grew resentful and sneered; resorting at last to low jests in loud whispers and attempts to scandalize by bold advances to the men—until at last the Lama stood up in the well like a priest in a pulpit and beckoned those three women to come and stand in front of him.
“I could show you your secret hearts,” he said, in a kind voice that was much more withering than scorn, “and ye would die in horror at the sight. It is not good to slay, not even with the rays of truth. So I show you instead what yemaybecome.” Mildly, patiently, a little wearily, as if he had done the same thing very often, he included all his own mysterious family in a gesture that conveyed diffidence and hesitation. “Life after life ye shall struggle with yourselves before ye shall come as these. And these are nothing—nothing to what yemaybecome. The road is long, and there are difficulties; but yemustface it. Take advantage of the moment, for it is easier to imitate than to find the way alone. Ye can not undo the past, nor can all the gods, nor He who rules the gods, undo it. But now, this moment, and the next one, and the next, for ever, ye yourselves by thought and act create the very hair’s-breadths of your destiny.—Now let us begin again, from the beginning.”
They began again so meekened and subdued that for a while the first act suffered. But that was overcome by Diana, who produced such peals of laughter that the Lama had difficulty in restoring order and had to reprimand the musicians for thrusting their heads above the level of the stage to watch. At a signal from Ommony standing near the wings, Diana’s mouth opened and the Lama from inside the well croaked words that sounded, even on the stage, as if the dog were speaking them.
When the shoemaker said “Ah, if I were king!” Diana’s mouth opened wide and the retort came from behind her:
“Itmightbe better to be a dog like me and not worry so much!”
The illusion was perfect because everybody on the stage looked at the dog as if expecting her to speak; and the best of it was that Diana cocked an ear, put her head to one side, and was immensely interested.
In answer to thesaddhu’s, “How long will ye store up wrath against the day of reckoning?” there was put into Diana’s mouth:
“For myself I bury bones, but jackals come in the night and make away with them!”
When the king asked, “Is this your gratitude?” and thesaddhureplied, “To whom? For what?” Diana’s retort was:
“Thesaddhuis like the vermin on my back; he helps himself but isn’t grateful. And when he is scratched he just goes to another place!”
Diana was easy to manage, and Ommony’s signals, made with his right hand, were invisible from the front of the theater on his left. But Dawa Tsering was a hard problem; he was supposed to be one of those wandering clown-fakirs who amuse and terrify village gatherings by alternately acting like idiots and pretending they are in communication with the underworld of demons and lost souls. He could neither remember his lines nor keep his head, but blundered in at the wrong cues and then laughed self-consciously. Ommony advised the Lama to dispense with him altogether.
“Nay,” said the Lama. “All things are good in the proper place. There is a part hecanplay.”
Whereat he ordered the stage set for the second act, which was a simple business. The flies reversed suggested a palace interior. Curtains at the rear concealed the greenery. The well was replaced by a carpeted dais with a large throne on top of it, inside which the Lama could conceal himself quite easily. A few heaps of cushions and settees were carried on the stage and while the change was being made the orchestra rehearsed amazing music.
Tomtoms,radongsand stringed instruments thundered, howled and jingled like a storm in the Himalayas with the voices of a thousand disembodied spirits carrying on an argument in the teeth of wind and rain. It was stunning—weird—a sort of cataclysmic din foreboding marvelous events, but music, nevertheless, in every quarter-note of its disturbing harmonies.