CHAPTER XX

[35]The God of the birds.

This much I know: that it is easy to cause offense and easy to give pleasure, but difficult to ignore all considerations except justice, and much more difficult to judge rightly whoever, ignoring both offense and pleasure, leaves the outcome of his actions to the Higher Law. Therefore, judge yourself alone, for that is difficult enough; and, depend on it, the Higher Law will judge you also.From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.

From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.

CHAPTER XX

Dawa Tseringwould say no more about his adventure among the women, but it was plain enough that he had been made ridiculous. He was fortunate not to have been caught and manhandled; he realized it.

“If it had not been for some Tibetans,” he grumbled, and then lapsed into moody silence, sharpening his knife on the edge of the entrance to Ommony’s cave.

They were left entirely alone, watching birds that moved like specks on the infinite blue through the opening overhead, until night fell and the gloom within the shaft grew solid. Sound died with the light, and one lantern that a man set over the entrance to the Lama’s cave made hardly any difference.

They brought food again, with some bones for the dog, and a candle to stick on the floor of the cave; but nothing else happened until the Lama’s sonorous voice called through the darkness and Ommony followed him down the tunnel into the vast cavern he had crossed that morning. It was already thronged with people seated on mats or on the bare floor, who filled the place with whispers; a shuffling of feet like the sound of wind and running water came from the entrance, where hundreds more were coming down the long tunnel.

Such light as there was, came from little smoky lamps set on ledges in the rock walls. A bell rang when the Lama appeared and the orchestra, almost invisible in shadow, burst into tune such as Stravinsky never dreamed of, filling the cavern with din that made the hair rise—restless yearning noise, accentuated by the hoarseradongs.

Across one end of the cavern a strong stage had been erected and a very rough curtain. The Lama led the way behind it, where the stage was already set and the make-up man was busy with the last of the actors. Tibetans pounced on Ommony and dressed him for his part by candle-light, but in the improvised wings, where the girls waited, whispering and laughing, there were batteries of acetylene lights all ready to be turned on, in charge of a man who looked like a Parsee. Where the footlights should have been there were mirrors arranged to throw the light back in the actors’ faces. Everything was make-shift; yet everything appeared to have been done by men who knew precisely what was wanted and who had worked without confusion to provide it.

Just before the play began the Lama went before the curtain and the music ceased. There was no light where he stood; to the audience he must have resembled a shadow dimly outlined on the dark cloth.

He told a story interspersed with proverbs, and the only sound from the enormous audience was in the pauses, when they caught their breath. The moment his make-up was complete Ommony stood at the edge of the curtain, where he could hear and look out at the thousands of eyes, on which the faint light from the lamps shone like starlight on still water.

“. . . So they spoke to the god who had come among them. And the god said, ‘Ye have a government; what more do ye want?’ Whereto they answered. ‘But the government is bad, nor is it of our choosing.’ And the god said, ‘Is the weather of your choosing?’ And they said, ‘Nay.’ Whereat the god laughed pleasantly, for he was one who knew the cause and the effect of things. ‘As for the weather,’ he said, ‘ye make the most of that. When it is hot ye wear lighter garments; and when it is cold ye light fires. When it rains ye stay indoors, and when it is dry ye sally forth. If a man complains about the weather, ye say he is a malcontent who should know that all sorts of weather are of benefit to some folk, and that all communities in turn receive their share of heat and cold and drought and moisture. Is that not so?’ the god asked; and they answered, ‘Yea.’

“So the god asked them another question. ‘If ye so adapt yourselves to what ye say is not of your contriving, how is it that ye say the government can not be borne? Can ye say that the rain and the snow and the heat are good, but the government is not good?’ And the god laughed loud at them saying, ‘Out of mischief and destruction no improvement comes. Like comes from like. Improvement is the product of improvement, not of violence. Ye have the government ye earn, exactly as the earth receives the weather it deserves. For the weather, which comes and goes, came and went before your time. Indeed, and also there were governments before your time. The weather has altered the hills and the plains. The governments altered your fathers and will alter you, and your sons after you.’

“Thus said the god. And they answered, ‘Aye. But what if we alter the government?’ And the god said, ‘Ye can change the name by which ye call it, and ye can slay those in authority, putting worse fools in their place, but change its nature ye can not, ye being men, who are only midway between one life and another. But as the hills are changed, some giving birth to forests, some being worn down by the wind and rain, the weather becomes modified accordingly. And it is even so with you. As ye, each seeking in his own heart for more understanding, purge and modify yourselves, your government will change as surely as the sun shall rise to-morrow morning—for the better, if ye deserve it—for the worse if ye give way to passion and abuse of one another. For a government,’ said the god, ‘is nothing but a mirror of your minds—tyrannical for tyrants—hypocritical for hypocrites—corrupt for those who are indifferent—extravagant and wasteful for the selfish—strong and honorable only toward honest men.’ And having spoken to them thus, the god departed, some remembering his words and some forgetting them. To those who remembered, life thereafter was not so difficult, because of hope that brought tolerance so that they minded each his own business, which is enough for any man to do. But to those who forgot, there was trouble and confusion, which each created for himself, but for which each blamed the government, which therefore persecuted him. Because a government is only the reflection of men’s minds. May peace, which is the fruit of wisdom, perfect you in all your ways.”

Theradongsroared, drowning the last echo of the sonorous benediction. The orchestra crashed into the overture. The Lama stepped behind the curtain with a glance to right and left to make sure every one was in his place, sat down behind the well and signaled for the play to begin.

As before, Dawa Tsering danced on first, but in no other respect was the play quite the same as on the previous night. The Lama’s signals, made at unexpected moments, changed things as if he were making music with the actors for his instrument.Sotto vocehe prompted, and no one on the stage dared to slacken his attention for a moment for fear of missing a changed cue. He seemed to know how to adapt and modify the play to fit the different environment and, in keeping with the solemn gloom of the huge cavern, he subtly stressed the mystery. The acetylene lights threw a weird, cameo-like paleness over everything; the Lama made the most of that, instead of struggling to overcome it.

Toward the end of the last act the audience was spell-bound, for the moment too interested to applaud; and the Lama took advantage of that, too. He hurried in front of the curtain and stood with both hands raised, the messenger of climax.

“Peace!” he boomed. “Peace is born within the womb of silence! Go in silence. Break not the thread of peace! Ye have conceived it! Bring it forth!”

The orchestra played softly, blending sounds as gentle as falling rain with the burble of streams and the distant boom of waterfalls. There were bird notes, and the sighing of wind through trees—half-melancholy, yet majestic rhythm with an undernote of triumph brought out by the muffled drums.

“And if they would not talk for a day or two, they might perhaps remember!” said the Lama, pausing as he walked past Ommony, who was being stripped of hissaddhu’scostume. “There is virtue in silence.”

“Listen, O Captain of Conundrums!” said Ommony, trying to speak with emphasized respect but failing, because a Tibetan was rubbing his face with a towel to remove grease-paint. “I can see I was too hasty to suspect you of wrong-doing. I capitulate. From now on, I’m your friend for all I’m worth.” It was the most emotional speech he had made in twenty years, but emotion gripped him; he could not help himself.

The Lama smiled, his wrinkles multiplying the shrewd kindness of the bright old eyes.

“For all you are worth? If you knew, my son, howmuchthat is, you might be less extravagant. Jump not from one emotion to another, lest you lose self-mastery!” He passed on, beckoning to Samding.

There was the same swift, exactly detailed rush to pack up and depart; the same apparent flight for no apparent motive—this time in covered bullock-carts that creaked through dimly lighted streets, until they came to a pitched camp on the outskirts of town, where camels and horses waited. Thereafter, cloaked beyond recognition, everybody except the Lama rode horseback, he sitting on a camel at the head of the procession looking like an old enormous vampire, his head drooped forward on his breast.

The girls rode surrounded by hooded men, who let no other men except Samding come near them. Ommony tried to draw abreast to see whether they sat their horses skilfully or not, but two Tibetans rode him off and, saying nothing, held his rein until the girls had a lead of a hundred yards. After that they kept two horses’ lengths ahead of him, and even drove Diana back when Ommony Bent her forward just to see what would happen.

There was only a thin new moon, and the road ran for most of the distance between huge peepul trees that rendered the whole caravan invisible. Two hours after midnight they reached a village, where a change was made back to bullock-carts, which conveyed them to a town that they entered shortly after daylight and now, for the first time, no precautions were taken to prevent Ommony from learning where he was. The Lama had taken him at his word.

Ommony laughed as he recognized the inevitable effect of that. He would almost have preferred continued mistrust. He must now regard himself as the Lama’s guest. Intensely curious still, immensely interested, as much puzzled as ever, but satisfied that the Lama was, as he expressed it to himself, “a pukka sportsman,” he had to make up his mind to learn nothing that he might be called on to explain (for instance to McGregor) later on.

“I hate this business of condemning a man on mere suspicion. The old boy’s entitled to the benefit of doubt. From me, from now, he gets it. I’m ashamed of having doubted him. Damn! I hate feeling ashamed!”

Obstinacy has its good side. Having made up his mind that the Lama was entitled to respect, Ommony could no more have helped respecting and protecting him than he would have dreamed of not protecting, for instance, Benjamin in the old days when Benjamin was a fugitive from rank injustice.

He began deliberately to shut his eyes to information. The advice of the Chinese prince-poet, not to watch your neighbor too closely when he is in your melon patch, about defined his attitude. And it is surprising how much a man can avoid seeing, if he is determined not to expose another’s secrets.

He laughed at himself. He could not resist the impulse to continue in the Lama’s company, although it was likely enough that sooner or later his presence in disguise might endanger the lives of the entire troupe. He was perfectly aware that he had received no definite proof of the Lama’s honesty, pretty nearly sure that his own change of attitude was due to the same psychology that had won the applause of the crowd, and finally excused himself (with a laugh at his own speciousness) on the ground that he and Dawa Tsering and the dog were indispensable.

But when he had been shown into a small room at the rear of a temple enclosure, that seemed to have been deserted by its Hindu owners and, by some mysterious means, reserved for the Lama’s use, the Lama came to him, accompanied as usual by Samding, and after looking at him for a moment seemed to read his mind, and promptly blew the argument to pieces.

“My son, I do not need you, or the dog or Dawa Tsering. All three are good, but I am not the molder of your destiny. Is there another way you would prefer to take?”

“I’ll go with you,” said Ommony, “if you’ll accept my word that I’m not spying on you.”

The Lama looked amused. His wrinkles moved as if he had tucked away a smile in their recesses.

“My son, to spy is one thing; to absorb enlightenment is something else. A man might spy for all eternity and learn nothing but confusion. For what purpose did you spy on me in the beginning?”

Ommony jumped into that opening. Here was frankness at last!

“I think you know without my telling. I began with the sole intention of finding my way into the Ahbor Valley to look for traces of my sister and her husband, who vanished in that direction twenty years ago. The piece of jade fell into my hands, and you know how that led to my meeting you. Then I heard a story about little European girls smuggled into the Ahbor Valley. I have seen these girls you have in your company. Explain them. Clear up the mystery.”

The Lama seemed to hesitate. “I could talk to you about the stare,” he said presently. “Yet if you should meditate about them, and observe, you would learn more than I could tell you. My son, have you meditated on the subject of your sister?”

“On and off for twenty years,” said Ommony.

“And you now pursue the course your meditation has discovered? It appears to me that is the proper thing to do.”

“You mean, if I follow you I’ll find out?”

“I am no fortune-teller. Electricity, my son, was in the world from the beginning. How many million men observed its effects before one discovered it? Gold was in the world from the beginning. How many men pass where it lies hidden, until one digs and finds it? Wisdom was in the universe from the beginning, but only those whose minds are open to it can deduce the truth from what they see.”

“Do youknowwhat became of her?” Ommony asked abruptly. The tone of his voice was belligerent, but the Lama ignored that. He answered with a sort of masked look on his face as if he himself were still pondering the outcome:

“If I were to tell youall I know, you would inevitably draw a wrong conclusion. There are pitfalls on the way to knowledge. Suspicion and pride are the worst; but a desire to learn too quickly is a grave impediment.”

During about three breaths he seemed to be considering whether to say more or not; but he leaned an arm on Samding’s shoulder and walked out of the room without speaking again.

Sooner or later we must learn all knowledge. It is therefore necessary to begin. And for a beginning much may be learned from this: that men in pain and men in anger are diverted from either sensation by a song—and very readily.From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.

From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.

CHAPTER XXI

Thereafterlife for two months was a dream of many colors, through which the Lama led without explaining any of it. At times Ommony abandoned hope of ever learning what the Lama’s purpose was; at other times he dimly discerned it or thought he did, midway between the rocks of politics and the shoals of some new creed. And whether he guessed at the truth, or believed he never would know it, he reveled in the swiftly moving, nigh incredible procession of events.

No day was like another. No two receptions were alike in any town they came to. They put on the play in ramshackle sheds at country fairs with the din of sideshows all around them, in pretentious theaters built of corrugated iron, in temple courtyards, in more than one palace garden,—once in an empty railway godown[36]from which a greatly daring Eurasian clerk had removed stored merchandise,—in a crypt under a pagoda (and there was a riot that time, because some Brahmans said the place had been rendered unclean by the actors, and Ommony came within a hair’s breadth of exposure)—in the open, under trees, where roads led to seven villages and a crowd of at least three thousand people gathered silent in the bonfire light that shone between enormous trees. Once they played in an empty tank, from whose bottom an acre of sticky mud, two inches thick, had to be cleaned out before the crowd could squat there; once in a cave so stuffy that Maitraya’s women fainted.

They traveled by elephant, camel, horse, mule, cart, in litters, for fifty miles by train, and once, for a day and a night, in barges along an irrigation ditch, concealed under hurdles on which vegetables were heaped to look like full boat-loads. They went alternately like hunted animals, and like a circus trying to attract attention.

There were places where the Lama seemed to go in fear of the police; other places where he ignored them as if non-existent. He always seemed to know in advance what to expect, and whether it was wise to move by daylight. Most of the traveling was done by night, but there were some places where crowds gave them an ovation as they passed through streets at noon.

Once, when a man who looked like a rajah’s son arrived breathless on a foaming horse and talked with the Lama under a wayside baobab, the party separated into four detachments, and Ommony lay hidden for a whole day under the blistering iron roof of an abandoned shed. There was never any explanation given. None of the apparently chance-met providers of food and transportation asked questions or gave Ommony any information.

Sometimes the Lama himself did not seem to know the right direction. On those occasions he would call a halt by the roadside and wait there until some mysterious individual arrived. Sooner or later some one always came. Once they waited for a whole day within sight of a fenced village. But they never lacked for food, or for the best the country could provide in the way of accommodation.

In one large town of the Central Provinces, in which three thousand people packed an assembly hall, there were police officers on chairs near the stage, who made notes ostentatiously. The Lama’s speech before the curtain on that occasion was rather longer than usual and Ommony, watching the policemen, recognized the insanity that impels men to interfere with what they can not understand. That night he slipped off the stage before San-fun-ho’s last speech was finished, hurried into his Bhat-Brahman clothes, and was standing close to the police officers when the crowd began to leave the theater. There was one man with whom he had dined in the club at Delhi, another who was notorious for drastic enforcement of the “Seditious Practices” Act, and a third whom he did not know. They were all three very hot under the collar. Said one:

“A damned nasty seditious play—obviously propaganda to prevent enlistment. They’ve chosen this place because recruiting’s going on here for the army. It’s anarchistic.”

“Oh, decidedly. Part of Gandhi’s non-cooperation tactics.”

“Financed in America, I’ll bet you. That’s where all the propaganda money comes from.”

“Anyhow, we’ve a clear case. Seditious utterances—uncensored play—no permit. Step lively and bring the squad, Williams; we’ll lock ’em all up for the night and find out who they are.”

But an obstinate Bhat-Brahman stood in Mr. Williams’ way and spoke in English, curtly:

“No, you don’t! I’m detailed to this investigation by McGregor! I won’t have police interference! Keep your constables out of sight!”

“Who are you?” asked the senior officer, pushing himself forward.

“Never you mind.”

“Show me your credentials.”

“Atyourrisk! Come with me to the telegraph office if you like and watch me get you transferred to the salt mines! You’ll enjoy a patrol up there—you’ll get one newspaper a month!”

“At least tell me your name.”

“My number is 903,” said Ommony. His number on the Secret Service roster was not 903; but one does not squander truth too lavishly on men who will surely repeat it. He was not anxious that McGregor should have an inkling of his whereabouts. The mere mention of a number was enough; the policemen walked out, abusive of the Secret Service, conscious that the “Bhat-Brahman” was grinning mischievously at their backs.

The Lama saw, but said nothing. That night he directed the departure more leisurely than usual, as if satisfied that Ommony had made him safe from the police; but from that time on he kept himself more than ever aloof, and during two whole months of wandering Ommony did not succeed in having two hundred words with him.

However, the Lama andchelareciprocated in due time. They reached a town in the Central Provinces where not even certified and pedigreed Bhats would have been welcome, and an uncertified one who traveled in doubtful company was in danger of his life. A committee of “twice-born” demanded his presence for investigation in a temple crypt, and Ommony’s retort discourteous, to the effect that he recognized no superiors, aroused such anger that the self-appointed judges of sanctity resorted to the oldest tactics in the world.

Those who hate the Brahmans the most are most amenable to skilful irritation by them and most careful to insist after the event that Brahmans had nothing to do with it; so it is just where the Brahmans are most detested that they are most difficult to bring to book; and a mob can gather in India more swiftly than a typhoon at sea.

It was a hot, flat, treeless city, as unlovely as the commercialism, that had swept over it these latter years, was cruel. The streets ran more nearly at right angles than is the rule in India, and the temples faced the streets with an air of having been built by one and the same contractor, he a cheap one. The quarters the Lama’s party occupied consisted of a hideously ugly modern theater that backed on a cellular stack of ill-built living-rooms, the whole surrounded by four streets, three of which were as narrow as village lanes.

That night the packed audience was restless, and whenever thesaddhuspoke his lines there were noisy interruptions, cat-calls, jeers. Some one threw a rotten orange that missed Ommony but put Diana in a frenzy, and for minutes at a time it looked as if the curtain would have to be rung down before the close; but the Lama’s quiet voice from behind the well and from under the throne kept up a steady flow of reassurance inaudible beyond the footlights: “Patience! Forbearance! There is strength in calmness. Proceed! Proceed! You are a king, Maitraya; you are not affected by ungentleness! Proceed!”

But even San-fun-ho’s long speech was received with irritation; some one in authority had told the crowd it was a trick to destroy their sacred religion. Thechela’svoice rang through the theater and overcame the murmurings, but the hymn to Manjusri that followed was drowned in a babeling tumult as half of the audience poured in panic out of one door while a mob stormed another, breaking it down and surging in with a roar that shook the theater.

The stage-hands stripped the actors faster than usual and herded them out through the back door to the living-rooms. They tried to make Ommony go too, but he fought them off when they seized him by the arms; he had hard work to keep Diana from using her teeth to protect him while he hurried into his Bhat-Brahman clothes, wondering what solution the Lama would discover for this predicament. “I’ll bet the old sportsman won’t surrender me to the mob!” he muttered. “If I live through this, I’ll know exactly what to think of him! If he’s a—” But there was no word for what he might be. The crowd was yelling, “The Bhat! The Bhat! The spy! The impostor. Bring out the unclean ape who poses as a twice-born!” Two scared-looking “constabeels” who had appeared from somewhere, standing at either corner of the stage with their backs to the curtain, were valiantly preventing the mob from swarming behind the scenes. The Lama seemed to have disappeared, and Ommony felt a sudden, sickening sensation that the old man and hischelawere only fair-weather intriguers after all.

But suddenly the mob grew quiet—seemed to hold its breath. The Lama’s voice, not very loud, but unmistakable and pitched like a mountaineer’s to carry against wind and through all other sounds, was holding their attention from behind the footlights.

Then Samding passed across the stage and slipped in front of the curtain; he had changed into that ivory-white costume in which he had received Prabhu Singh, and was smiling as if the prospect of a battle royal pleased him. Ommony went to the edge of the curtain to watch, holding Diana’s collar, ready to loose her in defense of the Lama in case of need.

“Bring out the Bhat!” yelled some one. There was a chorus of supporting shouts, but that was the last of the noise. The mob grew still again, spell-bound by curiosity.

Samding took the center of the stage and the Lama squatted down beside him, eyes half-closed, apparently in meditation. Thechelaspoke, and his voice held a note of appeal that aimed straight at the heart of simplicity.

“O people, if ye have been wronged, it is we ourselves who first should put the matter right. Ye, being pious, unoffending people, will afford us that privilege. We ask no trial. That is unnecessary. Which among you are the individuals who have suffered at our hands? Unwittingly, it may be we have done you harm. You will agree it is the injured one to whom redress is due. Let the injured stand forth. Let him, who of his own body or possessions has suffered harm at our hands, step forth and name his own terms of settlement.”

He dared to pause for thirty seconds, while the mob glared, each expecting some one else to hurl an accusation. But the original instigators of violence are careful to keep out of reach when the trouble begins, and there was no spokesman ready with a definite accusation—nothing but a disgusting smell of sweat, a sea of eyes, and a hissing of indrawn breath. The Lama whispered, not moving his head, and thechelacontinued:

“It is possible the injured are not here. Let some one bring the men for whose injury we are in any way responsible!”

There was another pause, during which the Lama got up and walked meditatively toward the edge of the curtain, where he came face to face with Ommony.

“My son, can you act the Bhat as well as you can thesaddhu?” he inquired. “Otherwise escape while there is opportunity! Be wise. There is no wisdom in attempting what you can not do.”

“Yes, I can act the Bhat,” said Ommony. His jaws were set. He had been a last-ditch fighter all his life. Of all things in the world, he most loved standing by his friends with all resources and every faculty in an extremity.

The Lama returned to thechela’sside, whispered and squatted down. Thechela, went on speaking:

“It may be ye have been misguided. There are always unwise men who seek to stir up indignation for their own obscure advantage. Are there any Brahmans in your midst?”

There was only one possible answer to that question. No “twice-born” would risk personal defilement by mingling with such a mob of “untouchables.” A laugh with a suggestion of a sneer in it rippled across the sea of upturned faces.

“It would seem then that the Brahmans have sent you to pass judgment on a Bhat who is one of their own fraternity,” said thechelacalmly. “It appears they trust you to conduct the investigation for them. That is a very high compliment from Brahmans, isn’t it? Iftheyare willing to accept your judgment on such an important point, who are we that we should not abide by it? The Bhat shall give you his own account of himself. Henceforth ye may say to the Brahmans that they are no longer the sole judges of their own cause.”

There was a laugh—a laugh of sheer delight that grew into a good-tempered roar. There was doubtless not a member of the mob who had not suffered scores of times from the blight of Brahman insolence. The Brahman’s claim to be a caste apart and an unindictable offense for ever soothes his own self-righteousness but does not exactly make him popular.

“I pray you to be seated,” said thechela; and after a few moments’ hesitation the mob sat down on the floor, first in dozens, then in droves.

There was no more danger, provided Ommony could play his own part; but if he should make one mistake the situation would be worse than ever. He beckoned one of the musicians, who was guarding the door at the rear of the stage, signed to him to bring his instrument, stepped out in front of the curtain and sat down beside the Lama. Hostile silence broke into a sea of grins and chuckles when Diana, still in her grease-paint, followed and squatted on his left hand between him and the musician. The musician was deathly scared, but unfroze and tuned his instrument when the Lama looked at him. Ommony surveyed the crowd with the best imitation of insolence his strained nerves could muster, taking his time, absorbing the feel of the Lama’s calmness. He needed it; he sensed that the old man’s courage was a dozen times as great as his.

“And now, my son,” the Lama whispered, “we are face to face with opportunity.”

That was a brave man’s view of danger! Ommony laughed, cleared his throat and thrust his lips out impudently:

“People who don’t know enough to ask a blessing, may expect to get—what?” he demanded tartly.

“Pranam,” said two or three voices, and the murmur caught on. It was not unanimous, but it sufficed to put him in countenance. He blessed them with an air of doing it because he had to, not for any other reason.

“Now,” he said in the nasal, impromptu, doggerel singsong of the minstrel, “I could sing for you a ballad of your own abominable shortcomings, and it would serve you right; but it would not make your souls white, and it would take all night. It would give me much delight, but it would put you all to flight, and I’m compassionate. Or I could sing you a few measures about the Brahmans of this place, who are a lousy lot, but if I sang of their disgrace, not a one would show his face again among you. You need the Brahmans to keep you from thinking too much of yourselves! They’re bad, but you’re worse; you’re the sinners and they’re the curse. Take that thought home and think about it!—Is there anybody here,” he asked with his head to one side, “who would like me to sing about him personally? No? You’re not anxious? Don’t be backward. Don’t think it’s too difficult. Stand up and tell me your name, and I’ll tell you all about you and your father and your uncles and your son, and what mischief you were up to this day fortnight. Nobody curious? Oh, very well. Then I’ll sing you the Lay of Alha.”

India will listen to that song hours without end. It is a saga of Rajput chivalry, and men who know no chivalry nor ever were in Rajputana love to hear it better than the chink of money or the bray of the all-conquering gramophone. Since the white man first imposed himself on India there have not been half a dozen who have learned that lay by heart from end to end, not three who could have sung it, none but Ommony who could have skipped long, tedious parts so artfully and have introduced in place of them extempore allusions to modern politics and local news. He outdid any Bhat they had ever heard, because he did not dare to count, as Bhats do, on the song’s traditional popularity and so to slur through it anyhow. He had to win the audience. But what obsessed him most was a desire to win the Lama’s praise; the harder he tried, the more he admired the Lama, sitting as calm as a Buddha beside him.

Regarded as music his effort was not marvelous. As a feat of wit and memory it was next thing to a miracle. His voice, not more than fair-to-middling good and partly trained, survived to the end because he pitched it through his nose, relieving the strain on his throat, and his manner grew more and more confident as he realized that memory was not playing tricks and he could recall every line of the long epic. He sang them into a merry frame of mind; he sang them thrilled, compassionate, intrigued, excited, sentimental, bellicose and proud in turn. He had them humming the refrain with him. He had them swaying in time to the tune as they sat, their laughing, upturned faces glistening with sweat. He had them throwing money to him before the lay was half sung; and it was then that the Lama whispered:

“Enough, my son. Forget not to put skill in the conclusion.”

Ommony stopped singing, and gagged at the crowd, with his tongue between his teeth, pretending that his voice had given out.

“Did any Brahman in this city ever do as much for you?” he croaked, and they roared applause.

“I am a Bhat, and I can bless or I can curse more efficaciously than any thousand Brahmans in the province! Watch!”

He turned to Diana and made her sit up on her haunches.

“What doyouthink of the Brahmans of this city?” he demanded, and Diana growled like an earthquake.

“What do you think of these people in front of you?”

She barked and got down on all four feet to wag her tail at them.

“There! There you are! Even a dog knows you are well-meaning folk who have been fooled by rascally Brahmans, who mouthmantrasand do unclean things when none is looking! Get out of here, all of you, before I curse you! Go while I am in a good temper—before I put a blight on you! Hurry!”

They yelled for more song, but it was after midnight and the Lama had other plans. He hustled Ommony off the stage, himself remaining at the corner of the curtain for a minute to make sure of the crowd’s mood. Ommony heard the chink of money as he rewarded the two “constabeels.” Then, as placid as Ommony had ever seen him, but a little stooped and tired, he led the way to the stage door, saying over his shoulder to Samding:

“Did you study that lesson? Have you learned it?”

Ommony did not catch thechela’sanswer. He felt the floor jerk underfoot and stepped off a trap-door. It moved, and a hand came through, then the outline of a face that appeared to be listening. He bent down to lift the heavy trap and Dawa Tsering climbed out on hands and knees, sweating profusely and rubbing dust out of his eyes.

“Yow, there are rats in that place, Gupta Rao—big ones, and it is dark! Go down and look if you don’t believe me.”

“What were you doing down there?” Ommony inquired.

“I? Down there? Oh, I was looking to see if there was a passage by which that mob could reach you from the rear. Yes, I was! Don’t laugh at me, or I will call you by your right name! Why didn’t you turn me loose with my knife to drive the mob forth, instead of singing to them like a nurse to a lot of children? I could have cleaned the place of that rabble in two minutes. You should have left it to me!”

“Did you kill any rats?” asked Samding, grinning mischievously. He was holding the door open, waiting for them.

“Thou! I will kill thee, at any rate!”

The Hillman rushed at thechela, but Ommony tripped him. Samding slipped through the door and let it slam.

“There, did you see that?” Dawa Tsering grumbled, picking himself up. “Thatchelauses the black arts! He threw me to the floor with one wink of his eye. Did you see? He is no good! He is a bad one! Now I am never tempted to slay the Lama, which is why I endure his objectionable righteousness; but thatchela—I never see him but I want to squeeze his throat with my two thumbs, thus, until his eyes pop out!”

[36]Warehouse.

The secret of the charm of the lotus is that none can say wherein its beauty lies; for some say this, and some say that, but all agree that it is beautiful. And so indeed it is with woman. Her influence is mystery; her power is concealment. For that which men have uncovered and explained, whether rightly or wrongly, they despise. But that which they discern, although its underlying essence is concealed from them, they wonder at and worship.From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.

From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.

CHAPTER XXII

Thestanding miracle was the Lama’s skill in having his own way and in keeping his own secrets without any discoverable method. His way seemed more alertly excellent, his secrets more obscure, from day to day. For instance: those mysterious young women. Not for one minute during two months and eleven days did Ommony or Dawa Tsering find an opportunity to speak with them alone, not though Diana grew dangerously fat on sticky sweetmeats that they gave her, she construing orders to go and make friends with them into permission to accept food.

The only key that seemed to fit the mystery was that the girls had been too well trained to be tricked into indiscretion. Tyranny could never have accomplished it. Once, Ommony picked up an amethyst earring, dropped in a corridor: he wrapped it in paper on which he scribbled a humorous verse, tucked it into Diana’s collar, and sent her nosing around in the girls’ quarters. The dog returned after an hour or so with a caricature of himself drawn on the paper in charcoal, extremely clever but not flattering. On another occasion he sent Diana with a note asking for the words of the song that the girls chanted on the stage; he saw the Lama read that note on the stage the same night and, after a quiet glance at him, deliberately tear it up. The following morning he received the words of the song in the Lama’s heavy handwriting. He was acutely aware that the girls discussed him with a great deal of amusement, but he could never get them to exchange glances or make any response to his overtures.

Dawa Tsering made a dozen attempts to invade the women’s quarters. Several times he was caught by the Tibetans and disposed of cavalierly, usually simply chucked into the nearest heap of garbage. Three times he managed to get into a room in which the girls were, but he would never tell afterward what had happened to him; once he emerged so angry that Ommony really believed for an hour or two that he might murder some one, and took his knife away, but returned it at the Lama’s instigation.

“It is not always wise to prohibit,” said the Lama. “His imagination needs an outlet. Give him his toy.”

It was a baffling conundrum why the Lama should go to such pains to present his play in more than sixty towns and villages, and always escape immediately afterward. It was not always the police; he treated the occasional difficulties they presented pretty much as a circus director regards bad weather. He appeared to be much more afraid of the results of his own success, and to run away from that as from a conflagration. Offers of money, prayers, nothing could persuade him to repeat a performance anywhere. The greater a crowd’s importunity, the swifter his flight.

By the time they reached Darjiling Ommony was convinced of two things: that the “Middle Way” is undiscoverable to outsiders, being opened, closed and changed in detail by unknown individuals, obeyed implicitly, who do their own selecting; and that the Lama was himself in receipt of orders from a secret hierarchy.

The latter was almost certainly true. A Ringding Gelong Lama does not rank as high in the Lamaistic scale as a cardinal does in the Roman Catholic Church. Even supposing Tsiang Samdup, as was rumored, was an outlaw who had been turned out of Tibet for schism, that would make it even more unlikely that he could command an extensive spy-system and mysterious service along the “Middle Way” without some long established hierarchy to support him.

And if hewerean outlawed heretic, why was it that in Darjiling he went straight to a Tibetan monastery, that opened its doors to the whole party? They arrived at dawn, having ridden all night on mule-back up a winding path that crossed and recrossed the circling railway track, ascending through clouds that wrapped them in wet silence, until dawn shone suddenly through pine trees and the monastery roof glistened a thousand yards ahead of them.

The roar ofradongscame down the chilly wind, announcing they were seen. A procession of brown-robed monks filed out to meet them, each monk spinning a prayer-wheel and grinning as he mumbled the everlasting “Om Mani Padme Hum”[37]that by repetition bars the door of the various worlds of delusion and permits pure meditation. It seemed to give no offense that Tsiang Samdup and hischelahad no prayer-wheels. Maitraya and his actors were as welcome as the rest. Ommony was greeted with child-like grins from oily, slant-eyed Mongolian faces that betrayed no suggestion of suspicion. The dog was chuckled at. Maitraya’s actresses were greeted no more and no less cordially than the rest.

But thechela’sreception was peculiar. The Abbot blessed him solemnly, then stared at him for a long time. From the others there was an air of deference; a peculiar form of treating him as a merechela, with an attitude of deep respect underlying it and not nearly concealed. They exchanged glances and nodded, formed a group around him, regarding him with curiosity, and with something akin to awe. Thechelaappeared more disposed to be friendly than distant, but kept a deliberate course midway between the two extremes, watched all the while intently by the Lama, who finally leaned on his shoulder and almost hustled him in through the gate.

Once within the monastery wall Ommony was led away to a cell high up under a gabled roof, where a smiling old monk brought breakfast, laughing and snapping his fingers at Diana, not in the least afraid of her, but dumb when asked questions. He knew Ommony was no Brahman—laughed at the caste-mark—touched his own forehead comically—and went out spinning a prayer-wheel that he kept tucked into his girdle whenever both hands were occupied; he seemed anxious to make up for lost time.

The unglazed window provided a far view of Kanchenjunga, twenty-eight thousand feet above sea level—twenty-one thousand feet higher than the monastery roof—a lonely, lordly monarch of the silences upreared above untrodden peaks that circled the whole horizon to the north. Six thousand feet below, the Rungeet River boiled through an unseen valley. For a moment all the boundaries of Sikhim glittered in every imaginable hue of green, and between and beyond colossal snow-clad ranges the eye could scan the barren frontiers of Tibet. Then, as swiftly as eyes could sweep the vast horizon, mist of a million hues of pearly gray, phantom-formed, changing its shapes as if the gods were visioning new universes in the cloud, rolled and descended, stunning imagination with the hugeness that could wrap that scene and hide it as if it never had been.

Then rain—cold dinning rain that drummed on roof and rock, and splashed in cataracts to mingle with the spate of the Rungeet River crowding through a mountain gap toward the rice-green, steamy lushness of Bengal; rain that swallowed all the universe in sound, that beat the wind into subjection and descended straight, as if the Lords of Deluge would whelm the world at last for ever. Rain, and a smell of washed earth. Rain pulsing with the rhythm of a monastery bell, like the cry of a bronze age, drowning.

That bell seemed to clamor an emergency and Ommony hurried along cold stone corridors until he found his way into a gallery from which he could peer down into a dim hall through swimming layers of incense smoke. Silken banners, ancient but unfaded, hung all about him; images of the Gautama Buddha and disciples were carved on shadowy walls; the gloom was rich with color—alive with quiet breathing. He could see the heads of monks in rows, but could distinguish no one for a while because the heads were bowed and most of the light was lost in baffling shadows.

At one end was an altar, gilded and most marvelously carved, backed by an image of Chenresi. All the altar furniture was golden, and the monastery’s pride—the book namedZab-choes-zhi-khro-gongs-pa-rang-groel-las-bar-dohi-thoes-grol- chen-mo[38]—lay in the midst on a golden plate before Chenresi’s image.

Dim music began and a chant, long grown familiar—that hymn to Manjusri that had thrilled so many audiences—and at last through the layering incense Ommony could make out the forms of the Lama and Samding. Thechelawas holding the fragment of jade in both hands and was walking solemnly toward the altar, where the Abbot and the Lama waited to receive him.

The drumming of the rain on roof-tiles ceased. One shaft of sunlight, beaming through a narrow window, shone on the jade as thechelalaid it on the altar, making it glow with green internal fire. Theradongsroared. The hymn changed to a chant of triumph, swelling in grand chords that shook the roof-beams. But Ommony hardly heard it. Something else, as thechela, almost exactly underneath him, moved into the beam of sunlight, held his whole attention.

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” he muttered. He rubbed his eyes, made sure they were not lying to him by glancing at the image of Chenresi and at the rows of monks’ heads, then stared again. “May I be damned, if—”

He looked at Diana, crouching in the gallery beside him, her head full of information that lacked only power of speech.

“I suppose if you could talk, Di, you’d lose your other gifts,” he muttered. Then he whistled softly to himself.

Not for a fortune and a hundred years of life would he let up now! Let the Ahbor country be as savage as the fringe of Dante’s hell, as inaccessible as Heaven, and as far away as righteousness, he would go there, if he must die for it!

“Di, old lady, this is the grandest scent you ever laid nose on! Mum’s the word. I’ll take a feather out of your cap!”

The service no longer interested him. He did not wait to see what they did with the piece of jade—no longer cared a rap about it. He was almost drunk with new excitement and a mystery compared to which the jade was mere mechanics—a mystery half-unraveled that set his brain galloping in wild conjecture, so wild that he kicked himself and laughed.

“Maybe I’m mad. They say India gets us all sooner or later.” But he knew he was not mad. He knew he had strength enough and sense enough to hold his tongue and to keep on the trail with every sharpened faculty he had. He was itching now to get to Tilgaun, partly because that was midway to the Ahbor country, but for another reason that made him laugh because he knew he held a secret key that would unlock more secrets.

He returned along draughty corridors to the cell that was full of white mist pouring through the unglazed window, and sat down to consider whether he should keep up the Bhat-Brahman rôle or let his beard grow and resume the garb of an unimaginative Englishman.

He had not made up his mind when a rap came on the door and the Lama blew in on a gust of rising wind, his long robe fluttering clear of the strong brown legs. Thechelafollowed him and slammed the door, unrolled a prayer-mat and presently sat down on it beside the Lama. Ommony fought hard to suppress the triumph in his eyes as he stood, and then sat down on the truckle bed in obedience to the Lama’s gesture.

“It is cold,” said the Lama. “You must have a sheepskin coat, my son. We mountaineers are too prone to forget that others suffer from what we consider comfort. Samding, see that Gupta Rao is provided.”

He did not glance at thechela. His eyes were on Ommony’s.

“And what have you learned, my son?” he asked presently.

“Very little,” said Ommony. “I have learned that all my power of observation isn’t much more than a beetle’s.”

“But that is a great deal to have learned,” the Lama answered. Then, without a pause: “And you are not yet satisfied?”

“On the contrary. I hold you to your promise to let me pursue whatever course my meditation opens up.”

“My son, I am not the appointed keeper of such permits!”

“You can make things difficult or make them easy for me. Which are you going to do?” asked Ommony; and it seemed to him that thechelawas smiling behind that marvelously molded face.

“What is it you wish to learn most?” asked the Lama; and Ommony, after one hard look at thechela, closed his eyes to think. It would be useless to tell anything but raw truth; he had a feeling that the Lama could detect the slightest taint of falsehood; yet he was determined not to confess to what he now knew, because in all likelihood that would shut all doors against him. “A little knowledge” is usually doubly dangerous, if the other fellow knows you know it.

“I wish to demonstrate that I was really right to decide to trust you,” he said at last.

“But you know that,” said the Lama. “Your heart tells you you were right. A man’s heart does not lie to him; it is the brain that lies, imagining all kinds of vanities.”

Ommony took thought again. He sensed that he was on trial, not for his life but for something more important—leave to go ahead and find out for himself the whole solution of the mystery. He had to find an answer that should not be false, that should not betray the knowledge he already had, and that should nevertheless appeal to the Lama’s sense of fitness. Superficiality would receive a superficial answer. Deep was asking deep for a disclosure of ultimate motive.

“My job in the forest is gone. I want to find work worth doing,” he said at last.

“And do you think I can show you that?” asked the Lama, looking straight at him. One moment he looked very old, the next not more than middle-aged. It was as if he hovered between this world and another, in which were visions that he could bring back with him to earth. Ommony threw evasion to the winds.

“I want to learn your secret!”

“Ah! But to obey? Not me, but to obey your own heart, if I help you to see what none of your race has ever yet seen?”

“I’ll do what I believe is right,” said Ommony, and the Lama nodded, glancing sharply at Samding, as if to see whether thechelaconfirmed his opinion. Thechelasmiled inscrutably.

“You should go to Tilgaun,” said the Lama, “where you might have gone in the beginning. If you wish, you may follow me to Tilgaun, and await what comes of it.”

He had a way of ending a discussion as abruptly as he had begun it, his mind almost visibly closing, vaguely suggestive of the way a tortoise draws in its head. One realized it would not be the slightest use to speak another word to him on the subject. Thechelagot up and helped him to his feet, rolled up the mat and followed him out of the room almost mechanically, but turned in the doorway suddenly and looked back. It was dark there, for the door was set in a stone arch six feet deep and there was no window at the end of the draughty corridor. But Ommony could almost have sworn thechelalaughed silently. There was a momentary glimpse of white teeth and a movement of the head that certainly suggested it.

“It beats the deuce!” he reflected. “Thatchelaknows now that I know she’s a girl, although I can’t imaginehowshe knows it; and that means that the Lama knows I know it—for they haven’t a secret apart. And the strangest part is that they don’t seem to give a damn—either of ’em!”

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