Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “What was Tom doing?”

  “Watching, at first. But pretty soon he was helping to pull down rocks and rout our hermits. I kept away. I didn’t want Tom to see me.”

  “Do you suppose he told Tom what his plan is?”

  “I don’t know. I saw Tom talking to him. Soon after that Tom went away — I suppose to overtake you.”

  “No,” said Andrew.

  “Why do you say no? Tom came back with you later.”

  The thought in Andrew’s mind was: “Tom went looking for you in St. Malo’s cave.” He had almost said it. It was true. But he thought of a truth that tasted less sour:

  “Tom helped me to bring St. Malo’s men.”

  Even so, they fell silent for a minute or two. There began to be glimpses of Tom Grayne. Through the snow, by lightning glare, his windproof overcoat was distinguishable amid the hermits’ naked skins. At moments he looked like a shadow. At other moments he bulked big and husky, striding from group to group, working his way forward, gradually overtaking the seven naked scarecrows who seemed to have elected themselves Old Ugly-face’s bodyguard.

  “I suspect Tom knows part of the plan.” said Andrew. “I think he doubts it’ll work. So do I. This is too simple — crazy, yes — but not crazy enough. It looks to me he’s going to march up to the monastery gate and count on the superstition of the monks. He figures they’ll open and let him in for fear of offending holy hermits. But then what? Three or five thousand fanatics, obeying Ram-pa Yap-shi! We’ve a fat chance!”

  Silence again for a while, rhythmed by the snow-deadened tramp of the Tibetans close behind them. Andrew wondered at Elsa’s physical endurance. He didn’t speak of it, for fear it might remind her of fatigue. She was striding along beside him, keeping step, with her arm through his, not leaning heavily. Even Old Ugly-face’s vitality was hardly more remarkable than hers.

  But the wind was rising again, whining amid dark crags. Talking had become too difficult. He wanted to ask questions, but Elsa would have had to shout. The physical strain on her would be too great. The questions phrased themselves in his mind as vehemently as if he were examining a witness. All they lacked was voice:

  “Old Ugly-face can’t be all that crazy! But what does he know? What can he know?”

  The answer phrased itself as if Elsa replied: “‘Ask and it shall be given.’ Can’t he ask? You heard him speak of his own Master.”

  But Elsa hadn’t spoken. A flash of lightning revealed her gazing ahead as she trudged beside him, leaning a little more heavily now because the snow was deep. There was a dark cave on the right; he even thought of taking her in there to shelter a while. Then he could question her while she rested. But wordless, imperious impulse urged him forward; and a question kept time to his stride:

  “Then were Homer, Virgil, and the ancients literally right? And the Bhagavad-Gita? Are there beings who guide and protect us Guardian angels? Did Joan of Arc really hear voices? What is a Master? Who ever saw one, and told, and got himself believed by anyone but yokels and nuts?”

  “Haven’t you seen Lobsang Pun? With the physical eye — and with the inner eye — ?”

  “But he denied he’s a Master!”

  “Jesus also denied it!— ‘Why callest thou me good?’—”

  “But dammit, this isn’t Jesus—”

  “Who said he is? — How about you? In all your life have you ever originated one idea?”

  “How do you mean — originated?” Question and answer came and went like a tussle between counsel and witness — only that he knew the answer instantly when he asked each question; and, though the witness in his mind was Elsa, it wasn’t she who spoke. That made sense, at the moment, unless he thought about it: then thought rebelled, and he saw only the nightmare procession of naked hermits, storm-lit, more incredible than —

  “But why incredible?” That wasn’t Andrew’s question. It was the witness turning on him. “Don’t you believe your senses? Which part of it is true? — which untrue? Which is the dream? Which is Reality?”

  “Oh, I know all that argument. Descartes put it: ‘Cogito, ergo sum: Because I think, therefore I am. I must be.”

  “But you haven’t answered the other question. You think. But does the thought originate with you?”

  He was on the defensive now. Why? Who put him there? He wanted to think about Elsa as a physical girl whom he loved. Thought wouldn’t obey. What is physical? What is love? Were the two ideas compatible?

  “Can they cohabit, like man and woman?”

  Who asked that question? He was getting confused. Thoughts, ideas, can’t cohabit. Ridiculous.

  “Don’t they? Is thought never raped by propagandists? And what comes of that? What is conceived of it — gestates — gets born to suck the public teat and call itself survival of the fittest?”

  “Who’s gloomy now! That isn’t even pessimism. It’s fear — lack of faith! How can you change that? How do you always change it?”

  “Poetry.”

  “Try.”

  “ ‘There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.’”

  “Where did that thought come from?”

  “Shakespeare.”

  “Not from you.”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t originate it?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t Shakespeare say a poet’s function is to reach to heaven for ideas and bring them down to earth?”

  “Yes. He said that. ‘The poet’s eye is a fine frenzy rolling—’”

  “So, did Shakespeare originate the ideas that his poems convey? Did Jesus originate the Sermon on the Mount — or did he, like Shakespeare, take an ancient theme and hold it up to be drenched with Idea, like dew from heaven? Where did Beethoven go to find his Fifth Symphony? When great poetry and great music inspire you, what is conceived, gestates and gets born of that? — The wrong thing or the right thing? — Do you act nobly, or contemptibly, when you have let Shakespeare’s or Milton’s vision illumine thought and—”

  He interrupted, growing irritable: “Then am I a ventriloquist’s dummy — parroting what’s put into my mouth? — A mere marionette — one of the lumpen-proletariat who—”

  “Some people are. God pity those who misuse them. But you can choose, can’t you, between noble and ignoble? You understand poetry and music love them — you can let them flow into your consciousness. What else stirred you to such undreamed of effort that you’re here, in the wilds of Tibet — instead of where?”

  “Are you trying to link me with some kind of metaphysical chain to Old Ugly-face?”

  “Aren’t we all linked to the sun, moon, stars? Isn’t Lobsang Pun a poet? Like you — more so — more intelligently — doesn’t he raise his consciousness to higher planes — and see—”

  “See what?”

  “As from a masthead — past, present, future, all in one moment, seen from above, through the eyes of—”

  “Whose eyes?”

  “You answer it! Through whose eyes did you see at Gombaria’s, and at Lung- gom-pa’s, and in the cavern tonight?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  “But you do know. Only you won’t admit it. It’s the denial that hurts. Obey prejudice, stay in the dark and drown in the subconscious ocean — all pain, frustration, hatred, forever and ever — nature red in tooth and claw — survival of the damned! But whoever becomes superconscious, sees as a shepherd who guards his flock — sees through the shepherd’s eyes. If Lobsang Pun sees through his Master’s eyes—”

  “Who is his Master?”

  “Who is your Soul? Who are you? Who is it who sees dimensions that an artist’s hand imprisons in the thing he carves? If someone — perhaps many — in the monastery also perceive the idea which Lobsang Pun—”

  Thunder, wind, hail reopened the battle. For a minute Andrew and Elsa clung to each other. Then the squall ceased as it began, suddenly. In the ensuing calm, without pausing to think, but conscious of unfinished thought that had
verged on vision, Andrew said:

  “All right now. Go on talking.”

  “But we haven’t been talking.”

  He pondered that a moment. “True. I guess we weren’t. What were you thinking of?”

  “Andrew, I was praying I might love you so that love should be a mirror in which you’d see yourself reflected — you, as you really are — your Soul!”

  “Hell,” he retorted, “I’ve seen me too often — Mind your step — here’s a bad place — That squall cut a sluice—”

  He held his flashlight for the Tibetans. The snow fell heavier than ever. It was near daybreak, but one couldn’t have guessed it. The long column of hermits shimmered in and out of sight. Old Ugly-face, leading along the fanged edge of a ravine that snaked amid crashing landslides, used some abnormal faculty, like a deep-sea captain’s in thick weather. He led unhesitating. There was one glimpse of Tom Grayne, away forward — then, by another lightning flash, Old Ugly-face turning to the hermits, waving his arms — and a glimpse of Tom returning as fast as he could run through the whirling snow. He was shouting, uselessly. He had to come close before Andrew could hear what he said:

  “Get ’em off the track! Hide! Monks are coming!”

  Then he ran back toward the head of the column, vanishing in darkness. Andrew didn’t dare to use the flashlight. He looked for Bompo Tsering — couldn’t find him — couldn’t wait for him — got hold of the new man, Ga-pa-dug, shook him to put life in him, told him to help get the men out of sight. The man seemed to know he’d be killed if he hesitated. He got busy. A brigand by trade, he was an expert at quick getaways. The lightning flashed along a broken ledge that paralleled the trail a few feet lower. Andrew explored that, waiting for the lightning to photograph the handholds and the footholds in his mind’s eye. Then he lay on the brink of the pitch-dark cauldron. Bompo Tsering came and helped, and they handed the men down one by one. In less than five minutes the last man reached the lower ledge and clung there with his head and hands below the level of the track. Elsa next. Andrew last, lingering, waiting for lightning, to watch the snow obliterate their tracks. They had to hang on or the wind would have whipped them away and blown them into the ravine. Andrew had to crouch. At his end of the ledge the narrow foothold was less than four feet below the track.

  Now and again the naked hermits were visible, flashed into view by forked lightning but screened from the trail by fantastic boulders split and tumbled in confusion from the cliff face. Old Ugly-face and Tom had guided the hermits to a crag. It resembled a storm-bound island. There, amid whirling snow, they perched — and many of them died for the lack of their draughty caves.

  Death came too close for anyone’s comfort. A slip by anyone, and Andrew with Elsa and all his men, would have crashed to the rocks a thousand feet below. An outcry from one of the men, and there’d be five hundred armed monks to deal with — self-styled pacifists — killers, deadlier than brigands, because they had no humor — armed with Japanese repeating rifles, turned out into a Tibetan storm near daybreak to hunt not only foreign devils but an outlawed prelate of their own race with a huge cash reward on his head. Pacifists! Grim, determined, drilled believers in hell for heretics — trudging in close formation, two by two, depending on the storm to give them the advantage of surprise. They weren’t even alert, there were no scouts in advance they were so sure of their quarry. Tramp — tramp — tramp — tramp —

  The right feet of the outside files passed so close to Andrew’s head that in spite of the wind he could hear the crunch of the soft snow — the sound of their long coats against their naked legs — an occasional low voice. He had a good foothold; he wasn’t in much danger of falling off; but he was afraid Elsa’s hold might weaken. Cramp from the strained position might make him useless for a sudden emergency. The marching monks hadn’t seen the hermits or they’d have turned to investigate. Andrew could see them by lightning flash. But he didn’t dare to raise his head to get a glimpse of the monks — didn’t dare, either, to try to pass the word along to the men to keep silent. One of them — he was one of the phony lama’s men — slipped — fell — screamed — vanished. But the monks didn’t hear him; or if they did, they thought it was the wind. But someone else did hear — guessed right — came trudging along by himself at the rear.

  Cramp, impatience, anxiety had almost exhausted Andrew’s self-control. He was nearly positive that the last of the monks had gone by. He had tried to count them by their trudging; his estimate was more than four hundred and fifty men. He was about ready to raise his head cautiously above the level of the ledge when a man stopped within three feet of him and peered over. Andrew was too stiff to leap up at him. If the man should jump down, nothing could save both of them from death in the ravine below. Andrew couldn’t shoot; he needed both hands to cling to the rock. The man couldn’t see to shoot. He was waiting for the lightning. Andrew figured him out-guessed him — became quite sure he wasn’t a monk; if he were he’d have cried the alarm. He couldn’t be anyone else than St. Malo.

  But why didn’t St. Malo give the alarm? He must have guessed what he had stumbled on. If he had agreed to sell Old Ugly-face to Ram-pa Yap-shi, here was his chance to deliver! His chance for revenge — for a fortune! Why didn’t he shout? There could be only one reason: something must have gone wrong with St. Malo’s plan.

  “Give me a hand up,” said Andrew, suddenly.

  St. Malo jumped as if he were shot. Quick thinker though he normally was, it took him ten seconds to make up his mind. Then he knelt, stuck his toes in the snow and gave Andrew one hand. Andrew demanded the other, too, to make sure there was no weapon in it. As he scrambled up he clutched both hands in a grip that made St. Malo curse through clenched teeth — foul stuff. Andrew shoved him back against the cliff, to have the inside track in case more monks were coming.

  “Now! What’s your game?”

  “I’ve important information.”

  “Tell it!”

  “Where are Tom Grayne and Lobsang Pun? Where’s Elsa? Where are your men? We’ve got to act quickly before those monks turn back. If they catch us—”

  Andrew seized his wrist and kicked his heel from under him, throwing him on his back

  “Now talk, quick!”

  “Deal me in then! Promise! If we can build a scaling ladder and climb the monastery wall — man, I’ve been in there — I can lead you straight to where they’re keeping the young Dalai Lama! Once we’ve got him, we can threaten to kill him if they touch us! It’s the only chance we’ve got for our lives!”

  “You’re something less than a man,” said Andrew. “I don’t mind killing you. — Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been scouting!”

  “You’ve betrayed Lobsang Pun, and us, too! I’m going to kick you over the cliff, now, unless you tell what’s happened! Last chance!”

  One kick landed on St. Malo’s ribs. He yielded: “Well, all right, I’ll tell! That’s enough! Don’t kick! I admit it — I did try to get the reward for delivering Lobsang Pun. But I was double-crossed. That dirty swine Ram-pa Yap-shi guessed where Lobsang Pun must be hidden. So he turned out all his fighting monks to go look for him. He turned me out after them — to be shot if I’d brought false information.”

  “How did you escape from the monks?”

  “I didn’t have to. They knew there was nothing for me but to follow them. Where else—”

  Andrew didn’t believe him. But why argue it? He went and reached down for Elsa — lifted her. One by one the Tibetans followed, stretching themselves, stamping and beating their hands. Then Tom came, running:

  “Get moving!” he shouted, breathless. “Lead the way! Old Ugly-face is saying prayers for dead hermits! He’ll be too late if we don’t force his hand!”

  Tom was gone again, into the dark. Andrew put Bompo Tsering and another in charge of St. Malo, and led, with Elsa’s arm through his again. They didn’t go far. At a bend where the ledge was fifty feet wide Old Ugly-face was marshaling all th
e hermits who hadn’t died of cold. They were crowded between two huge dykes that projected from the face of the cliff like flying buttresses. It was safe to use flashlights there; a light couldn’t be seen from up the trail or from the monastery, either, though they were now within four or five hundred yards of the monastery gate.

  Tom was in trouble. Old Ugly-face, with his back to the naked hermits, was unloading on him the vials of his reverend anger:

  “Your not having faith, not having nothing! Wanting everything, too soon, not knowing how!” There was plenty more of it, that was snatched away by the quarreling wind.

  He caught sight of Andrew — Elsa — St. Malo — the Tibetans. He shook the prayer wheel at them. Angrily he ordered lights out. Then, booming a Buddhist hymn, he set himself at the head of the hermits and resumed the march. Tom came up beside Andrew. Andrew asked:

  “What’s the old bugger up to? Do you know now what his plan is?”

  “I’m not even sure he knows,” Tom answered. “But if he can, he’ll shake us. He’ll leave us outside the gate. Tell Elsa to go forward and talk to him.”

  Elsa didn’t hear the suggestion. Andrew made no comment. Tom fell back for a moment’s conference with Bompo Tsering. A moment later he was questioning St. Malo.

  CHAPTER 60

  It must have been two hours after daybreak, but the great monastery gate was invisible until it loomed through a murk of snow and they could touch it. A faint luminescence suggested the sun was somewhere on the right, but the monastery walls couldn’t be seen. Tom and Andrew turned their flashlights on Old Ugly-face. With Elsa between them they forced their way through the hermits until they were within three or four paces of him. They had to shove hard; the hermits were stubborn and resented getting out of the way.