FAR CITIES
The Gray Mahatma led the way toward one of the great square pillars that
supported a portion of the roof.
In that pillar there was an opening, about six feet high and barely wide
enough for a man of my build to squeeze himself through, but once inside
it there was ample space and a stairway, hewn in the stone, wound
upward. Still swinging the lantern he had brought with him from
Yasmini's palace the Mahatma led the way up that, and we followed, I
last as usual.
We emerged through a wooden door into a temple, whose walls were almost
entirely hidden by enormous images of India's gods. There were no
windows.
The resulting gloom was punctuated by dots of yellow light that came
from hanging brass lamps, whose smoke in the course of centuries had
covered everything with soot that it was nobody's business to remove. So
it looked like a coal-black pantheon, and in the darkness you could
hardly see the forms of long-robed men who were mumbling through some
sort of ceremony.
"Those," said the Gray Mahatma, "are priests. They receive payment to
pray for people who may not enter lest their sinfulness defile the
sanctuary."
There was only one consideration that prevented me from looking for a
door behind a carved stone screen placed at the end wall screen and
bidding the Mahatma a discourteous farewell, and that was the prospect
of walking through the streets with nothing on but a dish-rag and a
small red turban.
However, the Gray Mahatma, as naked as the day he was born, led the way
to the screen, opened a hinged door in it and beckoned us through; and
we emerged, instead of into the street as I expected, into a marvelous
courtyard bathed in moonlight, for the moon was just appearing over the
roof of what looked like another temple at the rear.
All around the courtyard was a portico, supported by pillars of most
wonderful workmanship; and the four walls within the portico were
subdivided into open compartments, in each of which was the image of a
different god. In front of each image hung a lighted lamp, whose rays
were reflected in the idol's jeweled eyes; but the only people visible
were three or four sleepy looking attendants in turbans and cotton
loin-cloths, who sat up and stared at us without making any other sign
of recognition.
In the very center of the courtyard was a big, square platform built of
stone, with a roof like a canopy supported on carved pillars similar to
those that supported the portico, which is to say that each one was
different, and yet all were so alike as to blend into architectural
harmony--repetition without monotony. The Gray Mahatma led the way up
steps on to the platform, and waited for us at a square opening in the
midst of its floor, beside which lay a stone that obviously fitted the
hole exactly. There were no rings to lift the stone by from the outside,
but there were holes drilled through it from side to side through which
iron bolts could be passed from underneath.
Down that hole we went in single file again, the Gray Mahatma leading,
treading an oval stairway interminably until I daresay we had descended
more than a hundred feet. The air was warm, but breathable and there
seemed to be plenty of it, as if some efficient means of artificial
ventilation had been provided; nevertheless, it was nothing else than a
cavern that we were exploring, and though there were traces of chisel
and adze work on the walls, the only masonry was the steps.
We came to the bottom at last in an egg-shaped cave, in the center of
which stood a rock, roughly hewn four-square; and on that rock, exactly
in the middle, was a lingam of black polished marble, illuminated by a
brass lamp hanging overhead. The Mahatma eyed it curiously:
"That," he said, "is the last symbol of ignorance. The remainder is
knowledge."
There were doors on every side of that egg-shaped cave, each set
cunningly into a natural fold of rock, so that they seemed to have been
inset when it was molten, in the way that nuts are set into
chocolate--pushed into place by a pair of titanic thumbs. And at last we
seemed to have reached a place where the Gray Mahatma might not enter
uninvited, for he selected one of the doors after a moment's thought and
knocked.
We stood there for possibly ten minutes, without an answer, the Mahatma
seeming satisfied with his own meditation, and we not caring to talk
lest he should overhear us.
At last the door opened, not cautiously, but suddenly and wide, and a
man stood square in it who filled it up from frame to frame--a big-eyed,
muscular individual in loin-cloth and turban, who looked too proud to
assert his pride. He stood with arms folded and a smile on his firm
mouth; and the impression he conveyed was that of a master-craftsman,
whose skill was his life, and whose craft was all he cared about.
He eyed the Mahatma without respect or flinching, and said nothing.
Have you ever watched two wild animals meet, stand looking at each
other, and suddenly go off together without a sign of an explanation?
That was what happened. The man in the doorway presently turned his back
and led the way in.
The passage we entered was just exactly wide enough for me to pass along
with elbows touching either wall. It was high; there was plenty of air
in it; it was as scrupulously clean as a hospital ward. On either hand
there were narrow wooden doors, spaced about twenty feet apart, every
one of them closed; there were no bolts on the outside of the doors, and
no keyholes, but I could not move them by shoving against them as I
passed.
The extraordinary circumstance was the light. The whole passage was
bathed in light, yet I could not detect where it came from. It was not
dazzling like electricity. No one place seemed brighter than another,
and there were no shadows.
The end of the passage forked at a perfect right angle, and there were
doors at the end of each arm of the fork. Our guide turned to the right.
He, King and the Mahatma passed through a door that seemed to open at
the slightest touch, and the instant the Mahatma's back had passed the
door-frame I found myself in darkness.
I had hung back a little, trying to make shadows with my hands to
discover the direction of the light; and the strange part was that I
could see bright light in front of me through the open door, but none of
it came out into the passage.
It was intuition that caused me to pause at the threshold before
following the others through. Something about the suddenness with which
the light had ceased in the passage the moment the Mahatma's back was
past the door, added to curiosity, made me stop and consider that plane
where the light left off. Having no other instrument available, I took
off my turban and flapped it to and fro, to see whether I could produce
any effect on that astonishing dividing line, and for about the ten
thousandth time in a somewhat strenuous career it was intuition and
curiosity that saved me.
The instant the end of the turban touched the plane between light and
darkness it caught fire; or rather, I should say fire caught it, and the
fire was so intense and swift that it burned off that part of the turban
without damaging the rest. In other words, there was a plane of
unimaginably active heat between me and the rest of the party--of such
extraordinary heat that it functioned only on that plane (for I could
not feel it with my hand from an inch away); and I being in pitch
darkness while they were in golden light, the others could not see me.
They could hear, however, and I called to King. I told him what
happened, and then showed him, by throwing what was left of the turban
toward him. It got exactly as far as the plane between light and
darkness, and then vanished in a silent flash so swiftly and completely
as to leave no visible charred fragment.
I could see all three men standing in line facing in my direction,
hardly ten feet away, and it was difficult to remember that they could
not see me at all--or at any rate that King could not; the others may
have had some trained sixth sense that made it possible.
"Come forward!" said the Gray Mahatma. "We three came by. Why should it
harm you?"
King sized up the situation instantly. If they intended to kill me and
keep him alive, that would not be with his permission or connivance, and
he stepped forward suddenly toward me.
"Stop!" commanded the Mahatma, showing the first trace of excitement
that he had yet betrayed, but King kept on, and I suppose that the man
who was acting showman did something, because King crossed the line
without anything happening and then stood with one foot on each side of
the threshold while I crossed.
"There are two of us in this!" he said to the Gray Mahatma then. "You
can't kill one and take the other."
We were in a chamber roughly fifty feet square, whose irregular corners
were proof enough that it had been originally another of those huge
blow-holes in volcanic stone; the roof, too, had been left rough, but
the greater part of the side-walls had been finished off smooth with the
chisel, and hand-rubbed.
There was a big, rectangular rock exactly in the middle of the room,
shaped like a table or an altar, and polished until it shone. I decided
to sit down on it--whereat the Mahatma ceased to ignore me.
"Fool!" he barked. "Keep off that!"
I tore a piece off the rag I was wearing for a loin-cloth and tossed it
on the polished surface of the stone. It vanished instantly and left no
trace; it did not even leave a mark on the stone, and the burning was so
swift and complete that there was no smell.
"Thanks!" I said. "But why your sudden anxiety on my account?"
He turned to King again.
"You have seen the _camera obscura_ that shows in darkness the scenery
near at hand, provided the sun is shining? The _camera obscura_ is a
feeble imitation of the true idea. There are no limits to the vision of
him who understands true science. What city do you wish to see?"
"Benares," King answered.
Suddenly we were in darkness. Equally suddenly the whole top surface of
the stone table became bathed in light of a different quality--light
like daylight, that perhaps came upward from the stone, but if so came
only a little way. To me it looked much more as if it began suddenly in
mid-air and descended toward the surface of the stone.
And there all at once, as clearly as if we saw it on the focusing screen
of a gigantic camera, lay Benares spread before us, with all its color,
its sacred cattle in the streets, its crowds bathing in the Ganges,
temples, domes, trees, movement--almost the smell of Benares was there,
for the suggestion was all-inclusive.
"But why is it daylight in Benares while it's somewhere near midnight
here?" King demanded.
That instant the sunshine in Benares ceased and the moon and stars came
out. The glow of lamps shone forth from the temple courtyards, and down
by the river ghats were the lurid crimson flame and smoke where they
cremated dead Hindus. It was far more perfect than a motion picture.
Allowing for scale it looked actually real.
Suddenly the chamber was all suffused in golden light once more and the
picture on the granite table vanished.
"Name another city," said the Gray Mahatma.
"London," King answered.
The light went out, and there sure enough was London--first the Strand,
crowded with motor-busses; then Ludgate Hill and St. Paul's; then the
Royal Exchange and Bank of England; then London Bridge and the Tower
Bridge and a panorama of the Thames.
"Are you satisfied?" the Gray Mahatma asked, and once again the cavern
was flooded with that peculiarly restful golden light, while the picture
on the granite table disappeared.
"Not a bit," King answered. "It's a trick of some sort."
"Is wireless telegraphy a trick then?" retorted the Mahatma. "If so,
then yes, so this is. Only this is as far in advance of wireless
telegraphy, as telegraphy is in advance of the semaphore. This is a
science beyond your knowledge, that is all. Name another city."
"Timbuctu," I said suddenly; and nothing happened.
"Mombasa," I said then, and Mombasa appeared instantly, with Kilindini
harbor fringed with palm-trees.
I had been to Mombasa, whereas I never had seen Timbuctu. Almost
certainly none present had ever seen the place, or even a picture of it.
The Gray Mahatma said something in a surly undertone and the golden
light turned itself on again, flooding the whole chamber. King nodded to
me.
"You can speak into a phonograph and reproduce your voice. There's no
reason why you can't think and reproduce that too, if you know how," he
said.
"Aye!" the Mahatma interrupted. "If you know how! India has always known
how! India can teach these sciences to all the world when she comes into
her freedom."
Throughout, the man who had admitted us had not spoken one word. He
stood with arms folded, as upright as a soldier on parade. But now he
unfolded his arms and began to exhibit signs of restlessness, as if he
considered that the session had lasted long enough. However, he was
still silent.
"Your honor is extremely clever. I've enjoyed the exhibition," I said to
him in Hindustanee, but he took not the slightest notice of me, and if
he understood he did not betray the fact.
"Let us go," said the Gray Mahatma, and proceeded to lead the way.
The Gray Mahatma took the other turning of the passage, and knocked on
the door at the end. It was opened by a little man, who once had been
extremely fat, for his skin hung about him in loose folds.
His cavern was smaller than the other, but as clean, and similarly
flooded with the restful golden light. But he was only host; the Gray
Mahatma was showman. He said:
"All energy is vibrations; yet that is only one fraction of the truth.
All is vibration. The universe consists of nothing else. Your Western
scientists are just beginning to discover that, but they are men groping
in the dark, who can feel but not see and understand. Throughout what
all nations have agreed to call the dark ages there have been men called
alchemists, whom other men have mocked because they sought to transmute
baser metals into gold. Do you think they sought what was impossible?
Nothing is impossible! They dimly discerned the possibility. And it may
be that their ears had caught the legend of what has been known in India
for countless ages.
"Gold is a system of vibrations, just as every other metal is, and the
one can be changed into the other. But if you knew how to do it, would
you dare? Can you conceive what would happen to the world if it were
common knowledge, or even if it were known to a few, how the
transmutation may be brought about? Now watch!"
What followed was convincing for the simple reason that there was
nothing covered up, and no complicated apparatus that might cause you to
suspect an ordinary conjuring trick. There were certainly strange
looking boxes with hinged lids arranged on a ledge along one side of the
chamber, but those were only brought into play when the funny little
ex-fat man selected a lump of metal from them. On another ledge on the
opposite side of the cell there were about a hundred rolls of very
ancient-looking manuscripts, but he did not make use of them in any way.
The floor was bare, smooth rock; there was nothing on it, not even a
mat. He laid a plain piece of wood on the floor and motioned us to be
seated in front of it; so we squatted in a line with our backs to the
door, King taking his place between the Mahatma and me. There was no
hocus-pocus or flummery; the whole proceeding was as simple as playing
dominoes.
Our host went to one of the peculiar looking boxes and selected a lump
of what looked like lead. It was a small piece, about the size of an
ordinary loaf of sugar and had no particular marks on it, except that it
looked as if it might have been cut from a larger piece with shears or
some such instrument. He dropped in into the middle of the slab of wood,
and squatted in front of it, facing us, to watch.
I daresay it took twenty minutes for that lump of lead to change into
what looked like gold before our eyes. It began by sizzling, and melting
in little pits and spots, but never once did the whole lump melt.
The tiny portions that melted and liquefied became full of motion,
although the motion was never in one place for more than about a minute
at a time; and wherever the motion had been the lump lost bulk, so that
gradually the whole piece shrank and shrank. At the end it was not in
its original shape, but had taken the form of a miniature cow's
dropping.
I suppose it was hot. Our host waited several minutes before picking it
off the slab.
At last he took the nugget off the slab and tossed it to King. King
handed it to me. It was still warm and it looked and felt like gold. I
laid it back on the slab.
"Do you understand it?" asked the Gray Mahatma.