_A Light at the End of the Trail_
The petition was delivered and acknowledged, and there the matter rested
for some time. The rainy season dwindled away more and more. Each day
increased the suspense hanging over the vast army camp. More ships
arrived, with guns, bombs, airplanes, tanks and men. Men were there from
all over,--America, Alabama, Illinois, Vermont, Washington, Texas. Not a
state but was represented. There were some guessed hundreds of thousands
of Americans and perhaps as many British. All of which added up to one
fact--the colonel was going back to Burma. Only one question remained
for the girls--"Are we to go?"
Then one day, having recalled the colonel's words about temples, Gale
invited Isabelle to go temple hunting with her.
At first they wandered through the narrow streets in silence, just the
two of them, in an utterly foreign world. As they saw the pinched faces
of children and peeped into the narrow, cramped quarters where they
lived their life away, strange questions passed through their minds.
"Do you know," said Isabelle, "I have always thought of this war as if
it effected only our own people in America. Now I find myself thinking
of these strange people of India. Yes, and of China, Japan and Russia.
But most of all, of these people of India--they hold my attention. They
say there are a billion people in Asia. There are only a few of our
people in America, compared to that. Life is strange. All this disturbs
me. Sometimes I almost wish I hadn't asked to come."
"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," Gale exclaimed, squaring her
shoulders. "For no matter how many worlds I live in after this, I can
visit this one but once. I want to see it all."
After that they walked on in silence until they came to a winding path
leading up a hill. There were no homes on the hill--only ancient trees
and the solemn air of early evening hours.
"Let's follow the path," Isabelle suggested. "There's nothing I like
better than following a strange path, and I've heard there's a temple up
here somewhere."
"Okay. Let's go." Gale led the way.
The path grew steep and rocky as they advanced, but the rocks were worn
smooth, as if ten million pairs of feet had passed that way.
"Ten million," Gale thought. "India is very old. But where could they
all have been going?"
The forest trees that loomed above the trail grew thicker and taller as
they advanced until at last they shut out the sun.
"It's like something I read in a book called Pilgrim's Progress,"
Isabelle said with a little shudder. "I've never cared much for shadows
since I read that book. I was twelve then. I love the sunshine best."
"Pilgrim's Progress," Gale murmured. "Perhaps we are pilgrims on some
great quest." She spoke more wisely than she knew, but this quest was to
have a strange ending.
Gale was one of those persons whose mind is driven to thoughts of wild
determination as she walked rapidly or climbed some steep hill. The
steeper the path became, the deeper the shadows, the more fiercely her
mind worked on the problem that she knew lay very close at hand. Would
she, or would she not go forward with the colonel and his men as they
retraced the steps he had taken in retreat?
"I'll beard him in his den," she whispered fiercely. "I'll say to him,
'Colonel, all my people have been fighters,--five generations that we
know about. Dad was in the World War; Grandfather in the
Spanish-American War, and my great grandfather in the Civil War. I have
no brothers so my father sent me. You just _must_ let me go with you on
your march back to victory!'"
She closed her eyes for a moment and fell over a stone, nearly cracking
a kneecap. She had been seeing Sheridan on his black charger shouting to
his men, "Turn boys! We're going back!"
"Turn boys! We're going back!" she exclaimed as she picked herself up.
"Why?" Isabelle stared. "Why should we turn back? Look. There's light at
the end of the trail. I'm dying to see what's up there."
"Light at the end of the trail," murmured Gale. "Oh! Oh! Yes--by all
means, let's go on. I--I must have been dreaming."
"I'll say you were!" Isabelle exclaimed.
Hurrying forward they at last burst out into a little world all aglow
with golden sunset. Just before them were beds of flowers--such flowers
as they had never before dreamed of--flowers and tall graceful palm
trees. Back of all this was a temple. It was not large, but set as it
was, a mass of red stone in the midst of a gorgeous garden of flowers,
and contrasting so strangely with the shadows that lay behind them, it
set the two girls back on their heels.
"Isabelle!" Gale murmured softly. "Did you ever see anything more
wonderful?"
"Never!" Isabelle replied in a hoarse whisper.
"Do people fight wars to defend their temples?" Gale asked.
"Perhaps," was the solemn reply.
Even as they stood there entranced, the light of day began to flicker
and go out. As if they had been a thousand bright lamps, all alight, the
flowers lost their brightness. As if loathe to leave it, the sunlight
lingered for a moment on the dome of the temple. Then, all of a sudden,
all was in shadow.
"Come on," Isabelle whispered. "We must see this."
Together they hurried along the path of red gravel leading to the temple
door, and as they hurried, there came the melodious ringing of many
temple bells.
The temple door was open. At first, the large room that in the shadows
appeared vast and endless, seemed entirely dark and deserted. A closer
look showed a single red light burning before the shadowy figure of a
Buddha that even in this faint light appeared to smile.
"Come on." Isabelle gripped Gale's hand, and together they moved forward
and to the left of the door until they came to a low bench. There they
seated themselves.
Leaning far forward, Isabelle sat as a child sits before the opening of
some entrancing drama.
Gale leaned back. With the shadows, serious problems had again entered
her mind. "I am a soldier," she thought fiercely. "Then I must fight!"
At that moment she seemed to see her toothless ninety-year-old great
grandfather, and to hear him tell his tales of the Civil War. Weird and
entrancing those tales had been. There was one,--a battle fought in a
great forest. He had been wounded and lay all day behind a half-rotten
log while the enemy's bullets striking the log had knocked dirt in his
face.
"Then at night," he would go on, "A huge black man, lookin' like a dark
angel or a devil, found me and carried me away to a corncrib all full of
good soft corn husks.
"My wound hurt something awful," he would continue. "But I was dog
tired. We'd fought for three days and three nights, so I fell asleep in
that good soft bed, and never woke up until my own captain called my
name. We had won the battle, and I had been found again."
There had been more to the old man's story, much more. He had told it
over and over, but each time Gale's soul was fired anew, and she would
whisper:
"Oh! That's wonderful! When I grow up I'm going to be a soldier."
And always the old man had laughed his cackling laugh and exclaimed:
"Oh, no you won't! Because then you'll be a lady and ladies don't go to
war--just only men."
"But women do go to war," she assured herself as she sat there in the
temple. "And I'm a soldier right now."
On coming out of her day dream she was a little startled to find that
Isabelle was no longer at her side.
"She's poking around to see what she can discover," she assured herself.
That, she knew, was like Isabelle. As for herself, she had always been a
little timid in strange places of religious worship. It was so easy to
commit some prodigious blunder and to bring the wrath of gods down upon
you.
So she sat on in the waning light. As her eyes became accustomed to the
place, she made out the huge Buddha and the many banners that hung from
the walls.
As she wondered what they all meant a breeze swept through the temple.
Like avenging ghosts the banners flapped in the wind.
All of a sudden she caught the sound of movement. Then she made out the
form of some person, perhaps a monk, or a visiting pilgrim, bending
before the Buddha.
She had scarcely made this discovery when the person, who was garbed in
a long robe, arose, turned about, then began making his way toward the
door.
"He's a monk," she thought. "He'll pass close to me and I'll ask him
about the temple."
As if he had read her thoughts and wished to avoid her, the man turned
at an angle, walked a few paces, then followed the opposite wall.
"That's strange," she thought. Her friends had visited such temples.
They had found these monks most eager to talk, and more eager still to
receive an offering.
There was something strange, almost fanatic about the man. He was of
ordinary height, but quite thin, and he walked rather clumsily.
"As if he were a little lame in both feet," she told herself.
In a moment he was gone, and the place, it seemed to her, save for
herself, was deserted.
All of a sudden she started and stood up. The faint light of fading day
had blinked out.
"The door!" she thought, in mild panic. "It has been closed!" At the
same time she became conscious of a disturbing odor. "Incense," she
whispered.
Then she discovered that by some strange magic two great bronze apes,
one on either side of the Buddha, had been set all aglow, and that from
their nostrils thin columns of smoke rose straight toward the ceiling.
"It's dark!" she thought. "We must be getting back. I wish Isabelle
would come."
Then, in a leisurely manner she moved toward the door. Arrived there,
she put out a hand for the knob. Then she started back. There was no
knob, no nothing--a very heavy teakwood door, perfectly blank. That was
all. And the smoke of incense in the room grew thicker with every
passing moment.
"Isabelle!" she called. No answer. "Isabelle!" Her voice rose. Still no
answer.
Determined to remain calm, she walked slowly around the room searching
for the door or some other opening. There was no door, only high, flat
walls. And all the time the Buddha smiled and the bronze apes half
hidden by smoke appeared to her.