by Talbot Mundy
“You seem darned cocksure about it,” said Andrew. “How do you know all this?”
“Think it over,” said Lewis. “How did I know that Elsa Burbage was ill in Darjeeling?”
“So you’re clairvoyant?”
“Sometimes,” said Lewis. “The difficulty is to prove what I intuitively know.”
“Is Bulah Singh clairvoyant?”
“Not he. Perhaps he once was. But not nowadays. My discoveries, rudimentary though they are, have led me to believe that hypnotism and clairvoyance are almost mutually exclusive. Tentatively I define clairvoyance as release from hypnosis. The contrary appears to be equally true: hypnosis blanks out clairvoyance, so that a hypnotist loses his own vision. If I’m right about that, it would account for the phenomenal rise to power, and equally phenomenal fall of any number of people — especially of the criminal type. However, a hypnotist, shut off from clairvoyance — that is to say from vision — by his own thought process, nevertheless can hypnotize an unsuspecting clairvoyant. By that means he can learn what he couldn’t possibly clairvoyantly see for himself. It is very frequently done. It is one of the means by which such astonishing confessions are extorted in Russia. Bulah Singh has been privately experimenting along that line for a number of years.”
“Good God, why don’t you chain that guy up?” said Andrew. “Chuck him in the clink and—”
Lewis laughed. “Gunning, my boy, you know enough criminal law to answer that one.”
“Yes, I guess you can’t convict a man of hypnotism. Courts would laugh at you.”
“Experienced judges wouldn’t laugh,” said Lewis. “Especially here in India. They know better. But they’d have to demand legal evidence, which would be impossible to produce. Did Bulah Singh frighten you at all? Did he set up any interior worry?”
“Not in the least.”
“Are you sure he didn’t?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good.” Lewis checked a flicker that would have become a smile if he had let it. “And now a personal matter. Would you care to tell me in confidence what occurred that induced you to leave the United States?”
“No. I never discuss that.”
“Very well. But will you answer this? What is the state of affairs between you and Elsa Burbage?”
“She’s Tom Grayne’s wife.”
“You’re a moralist, aren’t you?”
“Some. I don’t go around bragging about it.”
“It would shock you to be made the butt of a humiliating scandal about another man’s wife?”
“I’d be troubled on her account.”
“To avoid that — I mean, to save her from embarrassment — and especially if she should urge you — could you steer quite a different course than the one you have in mind at the moment?”
“Guess so. I could change plans at a moment’s notice, if — but what are you driving at?”
“Didn’t Bulah Singh suggest a drastic change in your Tibetan plan?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t he hint at what might happen if you refuse?”
“He sure did — he even used the word persecution.”
“And suggested that he knows about you something that you’d rather not discuss?”
Andrew nodded. Lewis adjusted his monocle. “You begin to understand his method?” He was silent for a moment. Then suddenly: “There are a number of reasons why we don’t, at the moment, choose to remove Bulah Singh.”
“Giving him more rope to hang himself?”
“We have our eye on him,” said Lewis. “I frightened him purposely just now by talking about Koki Konoe.”
“Well, I guess you know your business. But why scare him? Won’t he cover his tracks?”
“No. They are covered. He will try to uncover mine,” said Lewis. “And he may perhaps hasten his arrangements — may step things up a bit. I believe you will find Bulah Singh at Nancy Strong’s house.”
“But it’s after midnight.”
“That’s nothing. Nancy’s a night owl.”
“Say — d’you suppose Bulah Singh knows Elsa isn’t at the monastery?”
“Certainly he knows,” said Lewis. “He is watching me like a cat. Why do you suppose I went to all that trouble to lay a smoke-screen, if not to make him think he is outwitting me?”
“I wish we had left Elsa in the monastery,” said Andrew. “She was safe there.”
“Bulah Singh couldn’t have got at her there,” Lewis answered. “I want her got at! I phoned Nancy just now to expect him. I feel sure that’s where he went.”
“You don’t say.” Andrew got up, hesitated from politeness, and then hinted bluntly: “Where are you staying tonight?”
Lewis laughed: “Here in your bedroom. May I? There are two beds. I may turn in. I’m a bit tired.”
“You’ll find all you need in the bureau drawer,” said Andrew. “Help yourself. It’s a long walk to Nancy’s and no taxi at this time of night. I’ll get going.”
“I advise you to take that boot with you. It might cause complications if you leave it”
Andrew picked up Elsa’s boot and tucked it under his arm.
“Careful!” said Lewis. “No breach of confidences! And above all, no explosions!”
“Okay.”
“You don’t look like a dove or a serpent, Gunning, my boy. But try to be as harmless as the one and as wise as the other.”
Andrew laughed: “What d’you take me for? A zoo?”
“Emulate one of its inmates! Be observant but inarticulate. Coo, hiss, roar — but don’t interpret the noises.”
“Okay. So long.”
“So long. Good night. I’ll lock the door,” said Lewis.
CHAPTER 12
Nancy Strong returned into the room, took the large photograph of Lobsang Pun in its silver frame from the small square table and set it on one of the armchairs in full firelight, facing Elsa. It was an ageless face, almost incredibly wrinkled, apparently not dark-skinned, but weathered. Beneath a lama’s peaked hood, roguish Chinese-looking wise eyes gazed straight forward, seeming to see everything but to tell nothing. The nose suggested an eagle’s beak. The eyes combined a bird’s bright far-sightedness and a cat’s experienced incredulity; they were unconquerable eyes, interested, amused, unafraid. The portrait stirred memories that poured as daydreams into Elsa’s thought. Nancy Strong interrupted:
“You recognize him?”
Elsa came out of reverie: “Of course. Who could forget him? But why Lobsang Pun so suddenly? Don’t you want me to know that Dr. Lewis phoned you about me?”
“Tell me what you think about Lobsang Pun.”
“You don’t want to talk about Dr. Lewis? Oh, very well. But, Nancy, what difference can it make what I think about—”
“Tell me what you think about Lobsang Pun. Look straight at his portrait and tell me. I want to know.”
Elsa stared at the portrait. “I don’t understand him. I never did. He’s an enigma. Tom likes him better than I do. He struck me as a tremendously powerful personality, but scornful and—”
“Scornful of what?”
“I don’t know. Scornful and decidedly cruel.”
“Was he cruel to you?”
“Yes. He was kind on several occasions, and almost courteous in his own high-handed way, but he could be as brusque as a gust of wind. He said astonishing things in broken English. He made me feel I was being laughed at. But I couldn’t help liking him, most of the time. Yes. I like him.”
“Did he laugh at, or with you?”
“I don’t know. He laughed. He seemed to me cruel, and as ruthless as he is ugly to look at. He seemed to have no feeling of obligation or gratitude. After Tom had helped him to seize the Thunder Dragon Gate — and mind you, Tom took tremendous chances — he turned Tom and me out to shift for ourselves. Gave us no help whatever, beyond replenishing our supplies and exchanging some fresh ponies for our exhausted ones. I should say Lobsang Pun is a hugely intelligent and very danger
ous man, who doesn’t care twopence whose toes get trodden on when he—”
Nancy Strong interrupted: “Elsa, my dear, for nine years I was that man’s chela.”
“You? You, Nancy, a chela? You mean Lobsang Pun is a — then you are—”
“He is my teacher. I lived with him for nine years on terms of the closest possible spiritual intimacy. I have wandered with him all over Tibet, and into China. I was with him in Peking, Tokyo and Seoul. This school was his doing. He ordered it.”
“You mean it’s Lobsang Pun’s school?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s my school. As you remarked, he is ruthless. But I don’t think you know what ruthless means. Scornful, but you don’t know what of. He despises the conceit of fools who think their brains are the boundaries of wisdom, and that what their brains can’t define can’t possibly be true. I told him one day in Lhasa that I believed I could teach children what he had been teaching me. He said: go the Darjeeling and do it. [sic] It seemed impossible. I hadn’t a rupee. But he told me to get out and go to Darjeeling and use my vision, instead of being afraid of myself, like a devil looking at its own reflection in a dirty mirror. He was ruthless. He wouldn’t listen to my pleading for advice and help. He drove me away. It would take too long to tell you how I reached Darjeeling. But when I got here there was money in the bank, waiting for me.”
“Whose money?”
“The money belonging to me and the children who were to come to my school and be waked up. Coin of the realm — good legal currency. Fools refuse to realize that one of the dimensions of every real idea is affluence. I was a fool, and afraid. But he wasn’t. The money came quite naturally through business channels. All I had to do was sign a legal document. But it wouldn’t have come; that money would have gone to someone else; it would never have entered my consciousness if I had disobeyed because of what I used to believe before I met Lobsang Pun.”
“It sounds like a miracle, the way you tell it,” said Elsa. “I used to believe in miracles. I’ve read Mrs. Eddy’s books and some of Madame Blavatsky’s. I believed in the loaves and fishes, and Elijah and the ravens — and even Lazarus, and the Resurrection. Honestly I did. I thought it was a miracle when Tom met me in the British Museum and offered me the chance to come to India. It seemed to be an answer to prayer. But now I don’t believe, and I don’t pray any more. I wish I did. Credulous people are better off.”
“So you prefer conceit to credulity? God won’t come into your trap, so you don’t believe in God. Is that it?”
“Nancy, please explain what you mean. I don’t feel conceited. Not meek either. I feel resentful, and bitter, and wish I didn’t.”
“You’re in danger of becoming a convinced and self-convicted fool, imprisoned in fear.”
“Nancy, I don’t feel afraid. Really I don’t. I’m willing to face anything except—”
“Except the key of the prison. And the open door. And life — faith — hope — courage!”
“Nancy, I have got courage. I’m just disillusioned, that’s all. Life looks hideous.”
“Would you call Lobsang Pun beautiful?”
Elsa laughed: “He’s almost comically ugly. He must be almost the ugliest man in the world. Even his Tibetan servants used to refer to him as Old Ugly- face.”
“Lobsang Pun’s face is as ugly as the surface of life,” Nancy Strong answered. “But look beneath the surface. I learned from that man all the faith that’s in me and all that I know about beauty, truth, kindness, affluence and nowness, as dimensions of ideas.”
“Dimensions? Of ideas?”
“Yes. Every genuine idea that ever was, or is, or will be, has all those dimensions, along with lots of others.”
“But, Nancy, how can you talk such nonsense? How can an idea have dimensions? You can’t conceive of a long or a short idea.”
“Of course not. True dimensions are not boundaries or limitations. Space and time are like a frame that we look through. An idea hasn’t time and space. It has completeness. That includes beauty, kindness, nowness. There’s no distance in connection with it. Where did you get your ignorance? Whose particular wool is pulled over your eyes? Who taught you?”
“Oh, numbers of people have tried to. I’ve read tons of books — some of them are here on these shelves — Plato, Nietzsche, Kant, Schopenhauer — Spengler — Karl Marx—”
“But not the Twenty-third Psalm.”
“Indeed, I know it by heart.”
“What is the first line?”
“‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’”
“Good. Stop there. That’s the whole secret. It’s the one important thing to know and remember. All other knowledge is merely relative to that.”
“But it isn’t true, Nancy. I know it isn’t. I’ve proved it’s a lie. I used to believe it. I tried to prove it. I took everything I had — hope, faith, enthusiasm, trust in God, whoever or whatever He is, and offered them up — oh, how ungrudgingly. I hadn’t a single mental reservation. I was simply enthusiastic and eager to live. Life felt suddenly like flowers in a garden in spring. I threw pride overboard, and money, and a career, and the good opinion of the few friends I had. I said: the Lord will provide. And now look at me. I haven’t even my baby. And I haven’t Tom Grayne’s confidence. I’m married to him. I seduced him. He isn’t really my husband.”
“But you’re going back to him?”
“Yes. Thanks to Andrew. Gunning’s generosity. I like Tom. I admire him. I love him. But he doesn’t love me. He never will. I’m a liability and he’s too manly to admit it. So I’m returning to Tibet to set Tom free. After that I don’t care what happens.”
“No? But as I understand it you agreed, before you married, that either might divorce the other if—”
“Yes. It wasn’t supposed to be a real marriage. It was an alliance.”
“Do you remember what Talleyrand said about that?”
“No. Wasn’t he Napoleon’s Judas? I’ve been Tom Grayne’s Judas.”
“He was Napoleon’s confidential minister. He said: ‘Every alliance is a horse and rider.’”
“That sounds like one of those generalizations. But perhaps it’s true. At any rate, I’m like an old man of the sea on Tom’s shoulders, and he knows it, and I know it, and—”
“Isn’t it a long way to go, just to tell Tom Grayne what he knows already?”
“A long way. Yes. But it’s better than running away.”
“And yet you’re running from something nearer.”
“What do you mean? I’m not running. I’m facing the fact.”
“Something nearer than breathing, closer than hands and feet.”
“You mean Tennyson’s God? I don’t believe in God. I did. But I don’t now.”
“I mean your vision.”
“I haven’t any. You mean clairvoyance? That’s a disease!”
“Elsa, it is the substance of things hoped for. It is the evidence of things not seen by—”
“Nancy, it’s naked hell! You ought to know, if you have the same affliction. I can’t imagine how you endure it and keep your faith in—”
“Will you let me tell you?”
“Yes, if you won’t be cruel about it. Don’t tell me to count my blessings. I have a curse that outweighs all of them, and—”
“Listen, child. I am going to cell you in the fewest possible words, what Lobsang Pun took nine years to teach me.”
“Before he kicked you out of Lhasa without a penny to find your way across Tibet! I call that evidence of cruelty.”
“Before he kindly and unsentimentally forced me to do what he knew I could do, and what I wouldn’t have done otherwise. No calf ever wants to be weaned.”
“Are you going to kick me out? Very well, I’ll go the minute you say so.”
“I can prevent you from going to Tibet, Elsa. And unless you wake up, I will prevent you. Tibet is no land for a meek mouse. You must be willing to be what you are.”
“What do you m
ean? What do you think I am?”
“Tell me what you yourself think you are.”
“I don’t know. I have given up trying to know. I feel like a discouraged female in a bad temper. But what’s a female? Nothing! Protoplasm and sensation, stuck together with magnetism, and nobody knows what that is, except that it’s said to be a form of motion — but motion what of?”
“You are an evidence of evolution.”
“Evolution of what?”
“Evolution of consciousness. My dear, you’re a proof of St. Paul’s statement: ‘for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.’ You’re one degree of evolution ahead of most people. Your glass isn’t quite so dark.”
“If this is evolution, I’m headed the wrong way!”
“Listen, my dear. You can’t prevent it, any more than the crops can prevent the weather. But you can make hell for yourself if you resist; because evolution breaks the molds of consciousness as the roots of growing trees break rocks. Evolution is a spiritual, irresistible growth — upward and outward from the illusion of solid four-dimensional limited matter.”
“Four dimensional?”
“Yes. Time is a dimension of matter. Length, breadth, depth and time. Or, more simply, space-time.”
“Evolution upward toward what? Disillusionment? I’m there now.”
“Growth toward reality, where the illusion of matter fades, true dimensions enter consciousness, and the secret place of the Most High yields its secret. Child, even now you can see through stone walls and across a thousand miles of mountains to where Tom Grayne is.”
“Yes, but I can’t make him see me, so it’s only torture. I even know what he’s thinking about. But I can’t warn him. I can see danger, but I can’t make him see it. I can’t even tell him our baby is dead. Don’t, Nancy! Don’t! You’re seeing, and you’re making me see! Please don’t!”