Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  The radongs roared, 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 voce he 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 spellbound, 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 his saddhu’s costume. “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, how much that 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 skillfully 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 sent 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 pipul 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 stars,” 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 you know what 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 you all I know, you would inevitably draw a wrong conclusion. Ther
e 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.

  CHAPTER XXI. The Lay of Alha

  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

  THEREAFTER life 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* 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 Brahmins 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 someone 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 cannot understand. That night he slipped off the stage before San-fun-ho’s last speech was finished, hurried into his Bhat-Brahmin 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-Brahmin 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.”

  “At your risk! 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-Brahmin” 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 and chela reciprocated 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 Brahmins the most are most amenable to skillful irritation by them and most careful to insist after the event that Brahmins had nothing to do with it; so it is just where the Brahmins 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 the saddhu spoke his lines there were noisy interruptions, cat-calls, jeers. Someone 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; someone in authority had told the crowd it was a tri
ck to destroy their sacred religion. The chela’s voice rang through the theater and overcame the murmurings, but the hymn to Manjusri that followed was drowned in a babbling 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-Brahmin 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 imposter. 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 his chela were 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.