"It was an unlucky piece of folly that sent us in this direction
halfway round the earth to a destination we could have reached in
fifteen days.... On our way to Bombay where arrangements had been
made to slip us quietly across the Peninsula and on to our permanent
retreat, we were confronted with the information that people of my
prisoner's nationality were _leaving_ Bombay _by request_,--and hence
_our_ unheralded appearance might attract too much attention to be
entirely satisfactory to the interests I was serving ... How this
information was conveyed to us I may jot down some later day.... But
to make a note of it is sufficient for my purpose now ... There are
other wild beasts in these mountains besides panthers to account for
the death of a man WHO KNOWS TOO MUCH.
"... Were it not for a positive FEELING of dread that has followed me
since I threw milk into that Hindu's eyes, I should like to describe
the many fascinating spots encountered in the embrace of a squalid
and picturesque degeneracy.... I should linger with my brush over
the opalescent lake and the sweet, calm repose of Seranagur with its
purling river scouring the festooned landings and retiring abodes
of tranquillity and ease,--I should like to jot down the scenes of
bathers at their twilight dips when both sexes mingle as innocent as
our First Parents were of a bathing costume and as devoutly fervent in
their ablutions as the fabled Peris of this Paradise themselves. But
there is a feeling in the air that some one is pursuing us and which
cuts these memorandums short...."
46. "For purposes of self-protection I shall no longer jot down
exactly our location," the next entry reads. I note merely that we are
somewhere in Little Thibet and that I have met the MAN IN YELLOW ROBES
AND YELLOW TURBAN AT THE LOW WHITE MONASTERY as I was told to do in
the _Memorandum_ at Berlin.... And I approached him with the RIGHT
FOOT first, my hands held in the appropriate position, until he asked
me in excellent French: 'Whence come you?' Then I made the proper
sign and whispered the name of the room adjacent to another room which
satisfied the Lama that I was the bearer of a MESSAGE to the Exalted
Dalai-Lama as well as the principal Khutuktus of the EAST.... My
little audience was much mystified, BUT the MAN IN YELLOW ROBES
understood.... He began whirling a brass prayer wheel as he advanced
toward my 'prisoner' and salaamed.... Then laying his right hand on
the 'prisoner's' shoulder the Lama said: 'Your credentials, sahib, are
correct,--and it is well; as your misfortunes have been great, great
will be the blessings that will fall upon thy family and thy name.
Thy piety hath been known to all my brethren, likewise thy
toleration,--although the INFIDEL hath been a thorn pressed evilly
against thy side ... _beware of that same infidel today_! He is
plotting evil HERE against thy very life,--he envieth the lives of
thine!... A _religious war_ now breweth in this land!... SPIES haunt
thy footsteps from the rising to the setting sun.... BEWARE lest thy
fair daughters and thy wife shall disappear!... Our prayers, sahib,
shall attend thee; and our numerous eyes shall remain open to the
PERILS as thou goest EAST where arms are open to receive thee,--but
see thou, sahib, THAT THOU DOST WALK DILIGENTLY IN THE DIRECTION OF
THOSE ARMS!...
"... The Lama backed away.... Never did he cease whirling the prayer
wheel as he spoke ... this constitutes the perpetual prayer of Lamas,
the theory being that the wheel communicates the petition to the air
and, thus, mingled with the elements, it ascends naturally to the
heaven of the blessed.... We were then conducted through a long row of
very low rooms ornamented with a variety of Buddhist statues that have
never been dusted nor apparently disturbed, to an open terrace which
overlooked a dreary waste of gray rocks and broken ledges and offered
to our view the slender roadway that lay like a ribbon across the
plain until it faded into the golden glow of the Eastern horizon....
When I looked at that _single_ road, and recalled the WARNING of the
Lama so solemnly given to my 'prisoner' about the care to be given to
his daughters, I REALIZED FULLY THE MEANING OF THE PRYING EYES that
followed us everywhere after my encounter with the milk-fed MUSSULMAN
disguised as a Hindu mendicant!..."