by Talbot Mundy
“Easy,” said Grim. “There’s a colony of Ladakhi Moslems in Lhasa. I told them that among those you have influential friends who have the ear of the Dalai Lama. That scared them. The Dalai Lama doesn’t stand for the kind of game they’re playing. Besides, they’re lazy. They don’t know Mordecai is dead, or that their own party got caught and frozen in the Zogi-la. They’ve lost enthusiasm and they’re having a nice easy time. They were tickled to bits to have me take the business off their hands.”
Sidiki ben Mohammed nodded. “There will be bastards in Leh a year from now,” he prophesied, seeming to take malicious satisfaction in the thought.
He was rather a mean little man, whose chief determination seemed to be to make a handsome profit for himself whatever else might happen. He was at some pains to explain to us that Mordecai had paid him well. Altruism was an abstraction that he regarded with respect, perhaps, but from a most respectful distance.
Narayan Singh asked him gruffly, “Will you help us into Tibet? Do you suppose you can?”
“I have known quite a number of men who have entered Tibet,” he answered, “many more than you imagine. You have only heard of the explorers, some of whom returned and wrote books. I have never written books, but I am sixty years old, and I have seen, or known of, nearly a hundred Europeans who have found their way in. Very few returned. Most of them were looking for Sham-bha-la. Half a dozen may have found it but I think all the others perished. The bones of some are very likely in that hole under the cavern into which they threw Mordecai after they thought they had killed him.
“You see this furniture? I bought it from an Englishman in Srinagar, who threw up his pension and everything and set out in search of Sham-bha-la. I helped him to enter Tibet but I never heard of him again. “I, myself, searched for Sham-bha-la for eleven years. I am perhaps a little wiser than I was, but it may be I am only lazy and afraid. At any rate, it seems to me a waste of energy to try to learn what is beyond my understanding. I don’t even understand my own religion. How shall I understand that of individuals whose thinking is said to comprehend all religions and philosophies and all the problems of the human race?
“You believe that such people exist, or you would hardly risk your lives to look for them in Tibet. I assure you, I know they exist; but I also assure you that you will seriously risk your lives if you set out to find them. I am sure that Sham-bha-la exists, but I have no notion where. However, you are not the kind of men who will desist because of anything that I say. How much will you pay me if I help you?”
“Nothing,” said Grim — so downrightly that Sidiki ben Mohammed blinked.
Presently Narayan Singh broke silence:
“Are you blind that you could not find Sham-bha-la, though you say you searched eleven years? Or is the place a lie?” he asked.
“I know a man who knows exactly where it is,” Sidiki ben Mohammed answered. “I could introduce you to him, but if he knew I had demanded money from you he would have nothing to do with you or me. He is in Leh. I spoke this afternoon with him. He has said he will visit my house tonight. But he will take care to appear to you to be a very ordinary person if you should let him suppose I had offered to sell you his services. I am sorry I made that suggestion. I should have served you first and then have trusted to your generosity.”
“Is he the man you mentioned to me as ‘the Chela?’ “ Grim asked.
Sidiki ben Mohammed nodded.
“Good!” exclaimed Narayan Singh. “Let him come.
I will soon tell you whether he lies or not. There are chelas — and then again chelas.”
For fifteen minutes after that we sat still, watching the tree roots crackling on the hearth while from the gallery above us came the hardly audible whispering of women and the occasional loud creaking of a board as someone moved.
Somewhere up there in the gallery was the “new, young wife” who, according to Mordecai’s story, had been beaten until you could hear her yell a mile away, for having tried to poison him.
CHAPTER IX. Lhaten.
Silence! And above all, silence! Only the irresolute and crafty need to publish their alleged intentions; and the wise do not so. For a friend, if he in truth be such, will give you credit for a proper motive and an honorable aim, assisting how he may when he perceives his opportunity. Yet few know who their friends are; and a false friend is a devil in disguise. Not many devils have the courage to come openly, but this is certain: they are devils, and if they know what you intend they will prevent you.
— from The Book Of The Sayings Of Tsiang Samdup
SUDDENLY and almost silently there came into the room a man of middle stature, who had nothing much remarkable about him at the first glance except that he seemed personally clean — a rare thing in those altitudes. (Our host, for instance, did not look as if he had washed himself for at least a week or two.)
The visitor stood before us in a plain clean smock of dark-yellow homespun, baggy linen trousers and felt slippers. The opening of his smock and the edges of the sleeves were trimmed with beads, but he wore no other ornament, except a gold ring, intricately carved, that covered a whole joint of the middle finger of his right band.
Our host introduced him by the Tibetan name of Lhaten, but he did not look like a Tibetan, for one reason because his eyes were bright blue. He had carefully combed black hair falling nearly to his shoulders, a high forehead, a straight nose, and a smile that suggested that to him, life was a rather comic sort of tragedy. He seemed to exude vitality, and he had the manners of a well-bred cosmopolitan.
He came and stood in front of each of us in turn, his eyes lighting with humor as our host announced our real names. When I shook his hand his skin felt soft in contrast to mine, but the muscles were firm underneath it, and he seemed to have plenty of physical strength.
He spoke English with a pause between each word, as if he had lost a former fluency, but there was not much accent. He made no mistakes of grammar. His voice was quiet, deep — manly.
“I was sent for,” he said. “I must go soon. What can I do for you?”
He sat in the seat neat to Grim, studying Chullunder Ghose, who bulked between him and the firelight; but he looked away when he saw the babu was growing nervous.’”Tell these sahibs how to find Sham-bha-la!” said Sidiki ben Mohammed, in a voice like a schoolmaster’s showing off his favorite pupil.
Lhaten leaned back in his chair and laughed; but whereas laughter in the East is usually scornful, his was not; it was friendly. He looked at Chullunder Ghose again for a moment, and then at each of us, and said:
“Some have done it. It is not for me to say you can’t. A number of people have found that place in the course of centuries ... Why do you wish to find it?” he asked.
None answered and he looked at us again.
“The hardest part is not the difficulties,” he remarked. “What route have you?”
“Benjamin’s,” said Grim.
“None better to begin with. But you go in winter? Why?”
Grim told him about Rait and Rait’s letter to me. I showed him the letter. He frowned as he read it.
“That man failed before he started,” he remarked.
Grim made as if to say something, but changed his mind. Narayan Singh spoke up:
“Where is the place?”
Lhaten looked straight into Sikh’s eyes for a moment and then answered slowly:
“Whoever knows will never tell. I think you understand that. Why, then, did you ask?”
“To test you,” said the Sikh. Then, leisurely, he got up from the floor and stretched himself. “You are no liar. Can you fight?” he asked.
But Lhaten only smiled and watched him.
“I fight well with any weapon. I shall make you show me where the place is,” said Narayan Singh, his eyes blazing as if he had gone mad. Our host began to show signs of panic. I tried to catch Grim’s eye, but he would not look at me.
“I prefer not to argue,” said Lhaten. “If I know or can do
anything there is no need to talk of it.”
“Sit down!” commanded Grim abruptly and Narayan Singh obeyed.
“Very good indeed,” remarked Lhaten, but it was not clear whether he referred to Grim or to the Sikh.
“You asked, what can you do for us,” said Grim.
“Why not tell me?” he answered. He appeared to like Grim.
“Help us to get there.”
“I may not.”
“You shall!” said the Sikh, and was on his feet again, arms folded.
Lhaten studied Narayan Singh thoughtfully for thirty seconds.
“I could ask for permission,” he said. “But to enter requires strength. You show a weakness.”
Narayan Singh sat down as if his knees had slackened under him. Chullunder Ghose chuckled; it pleased him to see the Sikh have the worst of an encounter. Lhaten glanced at the babu.
“Is ridicule strength?” he inquired. “That honorable man” (he indicated Narayan Singh, who was glaring sullenly) “has courage. I bow to it.”
“And me you mock?” the babu asked. He began nervously throwing a handkerchief from hand to hand, but his grin was challenging.
“No,” said Lhaten, “but I think you will not see what you go for. These two sahibs from the West may win through — possibly. — perhaps — I don’t know. I will ask permission and if that is granted there will be help. But many were helped and have turned back — more have failed utterly though they have been helped.” He looked at Grim. “That one, I think, may succeed.” He looked at me. “Friendship,” he said, “has saved many a man from failure. May I caution all of you?”
Grim nodded.
“Be silent! Whoever asks, don’t tell him your objective. If you do, an enemy will hear of it. Even so, as it is—”
He looked sharply at Sidiki ben Mohammed.
“Do you know Tsang-yang and Tsang-Mondrong?” Grim asked him.
“I have spoken with them outside in the shed,” said Lhaten. “No matter what they may have told you, they are ex-monks who belonged to a secret order, from which they were expelled. They are following you, instead of murdering or betraying you, because they believe you are following another man who—”
“Rait?” Grim interrupted.
Lhaten nodded. He appeared to dislike naming names.
“ — a man to whom they once sold some of the secrets of the order to which they formerly belonged. Those two are superstitious, which makes them doubly dangerous, but at the same time doubly foolish. They think that when they die they will be reborn into animals unless they kill the man to whom they sold forbidden knowledge. They also hope that, having killed the man, they may be readmitted to the order from which they were long ago expelled. Beware of their superstition. They are as likely as not to kill you when its frenzy seizes them.”
“There are slippery places on the way to Tibet!” said Chullunder Ghose.
“Beware you, then, of a false step!” Lhaten answered. “Do you think that with blood on your hands you can — ?”
For thirty seconds he observed the babu keenly.
“You spoke of enemies,” said Grim.
Lhaten nodded. “The place,” he said, “to which you wish to go is hard to find. Thousands wish to enter it, who have no right, and some of those are as jealous as night is of day. They will try to decoy you. If traps fail, they will try to kill you. If that fails, they will try to follow in with you. But in their company you can neither find the way nor enter, because those who keep the place know it would be safer to bring matches into a magazine than to open the door to those destroyers.”
It was dark talk — cryptograms to me. I grew impatient with it.
“Look here,” I said, “we want to reach—”
He stopped me. “Don’t speak the name! Don’t mention them who live there!”
He seemed, not exactly afraid to hear the word Sham-bha-la spoken, but to treat it as if it were dynamite for use only with precautions. And as if to prevent my mentioning the word, he left his chair abruptly and began bidding us good-by. Sidiki ben Mohammed showed him more respect than Moslems usually do to men of alien faith; he made almost an obeisance, which Lhaten treated scornfully, appearing to have a manly dislike for such foolishness. He left the room before we could say another word to him and our host did not follow him to the door, but sat down looking snubbed and discontented.
“He has brought me ill-luck! He has disapproved of me. Confound him!” he grumbled. “May his shadow dwindle until it ceases! How I do hate men who give themselves such airs!”
But it seemed to me that Lhaten had given himself no airs whatever and had very adroitly avoided quarreling with our pugnacious Sikh.
CHAPTER X. THE MAN WITHOUT A NAME
Be sure of this: if you have courage it shall certainly be tested; because in all this universe no quality lies latent forever, but the undeveloped is discarded back into the melting-pot, and that which is ready is put to use; therefore he who has true courage welcomes trial, neither because of bravado nor from any other form of vanity, but because he is strong and the strength asserts itself as sap in springtime.
— from The Book Of The Sayings Of Tsiang Samdup
IT WAS remarkable that our host seemed more insignificant than ever after Lhaten left the room; by contrast he had become uninteresting, colorless — a little man with overlarge opinions. It was difficult not to betray the change in our attitude toward him. We all felt it.
For an hour we tried to get from him an account of Lhaten — who and what he might be — where he had his education — how he had learned English. We might as well have questioned a four-year-old child. His self-assurance and vocabulary all seemed to have vanished. He broke into the native language frequently and, when he did use English, stammered. He explained he really hardly knew Lhaten at all and had merely invited him to come and visit us because he thought we might be interested. That, however, was a long way from explaining why he showed the man such deference, and why he was afraid now he had gone.
He was full of fear, and the fear was half-contagious; Narayan Singh heaped more wood on the fire with a gruff excuse about the draught that made him shudder. In the gallery the women kept up such a whispering that Sidiki ben Mohammed raised his voice and rebuked them irritably. Then presently one of the women screamed as if she had seen a ghost. Another woman leaned over the gallery and shrilled at her husband three or four sentences whose meaning I could not catch. Then silence, and we listened to the wind under the eaves.
The only other noise came from the compound where the cattle and ponies rattled at their chains. It was a quiet night for Ladakh; the wind moaned, but it was not blowing hard as yet; the storm was coming. A bull bellowed in the stall; an ass brayed; then two or three sheep bleated.
“But I have no sheep!”
Sidiki ben Mohammed went into a panic. Grim laid hands on him to keep him from doing himself an injury; he was rushing about the room upsetting things; he tripped over the hearth and nearly fell into the fire.
“Black magic!” Chullunder Ghose remarked and shuddered.
Sidiki ben Mohammed turned and swore at him, struggling to wrench himself free from Grim.
“First Mordecai — now you! What next?” he screamed. “I tell you, those are not my sheep. I have none!”
“Let’s go and look,” Grim suggested.
Narayan Singh strode over to the door and stood there listening. I followed him and the floor-boards creaked under my weight, so I did not hear what he did, although I could see by his expression that he had caught some unexplained sound.
“Your guns!” our host yelled. “Get your guns! That bleating outside is a signal?”
Grim let go of him and he began shouting to his wives so loudly and rapidly that we could not hear anything else. Narayan Singh opened the door; he, Grim and I strode out into a dark passage, at the end of which the outer door was rattling in the wind.
“Get your guns, and then to the watch-tower! Hurry!” our host shout
ed, and pushed past us. We could hear him scrambling up an unseen stairway — and then the women shrilling to him in a panic greater than his own.
We all had automatics, but it took about half a minute to get them loose from the cloth wrappings under our arm-pits. Grim was ready first and tried to find the door bolts, but failed until I struck a match. The draught blew out the match, and that same second came a yell that made our blood run cold. It was probably two yells, simultaneous. Grim threw the door wide and we all stepped out, leaving it open behind us. Narayan Singh called back to Chullunder Ghose to bring a lantern, but the babu did not answer.
It was bitter cold and we had no overcoats. There were no stars visible — no moon. The compound was a black pit with the dung stiff-frozen underfoot, and the wind over the wall stung like a whip lash. The cattle were all quiet in the sheds, but there seemed to be something stirring over in the left-hand corner near the shed where our Tibetans had been lodged, though there was no light in the Tibetans’ shed. Grim led the way toward the sound.
We stumbled over mixen and the odds and ends of useless rubbish that cluttered the compound, keeping touch with our hands because we could not see one another. Up behind us on the watch-tower a wooden shutter opened, thunderclapping as the wind slammed it against the masonry; but no light shone through the opening, which would have made a too good target in the dark.
Our Tibetans had vanished. Their shed door was open and the place stark empty except for two wool-stuffed mattresses. I struck a match, but there were no signs of a struggle.
“They have run off to betray us,” said Narayan Singh. “There will come policemen and a burra sahib. Let us escape toward Tibet. Who can catch us if we make haste?”