_Temple Bells and Terror_
In the meantime Isabelle found herself in a situation that in some ways
seemed more precarious than that of her companion. Having found her way
from the temple room through a narrow door, she had wandered all
undisturbed down a hallway past several open doors. In one room she saw
long tables with benches ranged on either side. Here, she concluded,
pilgrims from distant parts were fed when they visited the shrine of
Buddha. In another room their food was prepared, and in still another,
on hard beds, they slept.
Realizing that it was growing late, she tiptoed back down the hall into
the main temple room. She was about to join her companion, when all of a
sudden she caught a gleam of light from a small room at the right.
As she looked within, she saw that a weird blue light shone upon a
Buddha who sat bent over as if in silent meditation. The workmanship on
this Buddha seemed quite wonderful. The face and hands were exquisitely
carved.
She took three steps inside the room, studied the bowed figure for a
moment, then prepared to go.
Turning half about, she uttered a low cry. The door had vanished. She
faced a blank wall. This room, she discovered for the first time, was
made of eight panels, each forming the side of a hexagon. Which panel
was the door? She had no way of knowing, and if she knew, it would not
help, for there was neither latch nor knob.
Here there was no stifling incense, only a pale, eerie light. But there
was something more terrible--ABSOLUTE SILENCE!
Standing there breathing quite naturally she could hear each breath. She
fancied she heard her quickening heart-beats. She had supposed that she
had known absolute silence before. She now knew that she never had. The
silence of the sea is broken by the rush of waters, the whisper of the
wind. The silence of a vast forest is broken by the flutter of birds'
wings, the low notes of a bird's song. Even in a vault there comes the
low roar of street traffic far away. Here was neither murmur, whisper,
song, nor low roar. Nothing. Absolute silence.
She examined the blue burning candle. It would last perhaps an hour.
Then absolute night would join absolute silence. She pounded on the
wall. The room roared. But when she had finished pounding, absolute
silence returned,--that--and nothing more.
* * * * * * * *
Unlike Isabelle, Gale knew the location of the door through which she
had entered the main temple hall, but try as she might, she could not
budge it. It was as if it were made of iron. And indeed iron has little
resisting power that six inches of solid teakwood does not possess.
After exhausting herself in a mad effort to escape, she resolved to
conserve her energies for her battle with the fumes that rose from the
nostrils of the two guardian apes.
That there would be a struggle she did not doubt, for already the fumes
were making her drowsy. Lying flat down on the floor with her face next
to the door she tried to secure at least a little fresh air through the
crack beneath the door. In this she partially succeeded. How long she
could retain her senses she could not tell.
"What an end for a soldier and the daughter of a soldier!" she thought,
as a fit of wild desperation seized her. She wanted to get up and fight.
"Fight what?" she asked herself. Then suddenly she knew--fight those
incense burners! Fight those leering apes!
At once she was on her knees. Bending low that she might avoid the fumes
as much as possible, she crept toward the Buddha and the apes.
As she came close to her goal the odor was all but overpowering. She
wanted to sleep. "Sleep!" She clenched her fists tight. "I must not
sleep!"
At last her hands were on one of the black metal apes. She grasped its
legs and pulled herself to a sitting position. The ape was solidly
fastened to the floor.
"There is a way to put incense into this burner," she told herself.
"I'll find it, open up the burner and scatter the fire on the stone
floor."
She felt the thing over, inch by inch, burning her fingers where the
incense had heated the metal, but not a suggestion did she get regarding
the manner in which the strange incense burner was opened.
"I--I can do nothing." She sank down upon the floor.
For a full minute she lay there as if asleep. Then, as strength and
courage returned, she dragged herself to the door and made one last
attempt to drink in air from the crack beneath the door.
"I can't die like a poisoned rat," she told herself. "I am a soldier. I
can't die this way." Only half conscious of what she was doing, she
screamed:
"No! No! No!" at the top of her voice.
Shocked into sudden full consciousness, she listened. Did she hear
footsteps? Encouraged, she screamed again:
"No! No! No!"
The door swung open and she rolled out on the floor.
Stunned by the sudden turn events had taken, she lay where she was for a
full moment. After a struggle to bring back her drugged senses, she sat
up to find herself staring at one of the strangest looking men she had
ever seen. For a space of seconds she believed that she had not regained
her full consciousness at all, but was in some strange dream world.
Then the man spoke, and she knew he was real. He was short and very fat.
His hands and feet were very small. His finger nails were long and
curved like the talons of an eagle. Dressed as he was in bright robes,
he seemed like some huge bright-hued tropical bird.
"Who closed this door?" he demanded in a high-pitched voice. "Who is
burning my incense? It is terrible, wasting a whole month's supply in a
single hour!"
Without waiting for a reply, he sprang to the leering apes, and tearing
them apart by some trick known only to himself, spread powder and
glowing sparks over the floor.
After that he danced away on his tiny feet to throw open a back door,
and by some strange device to open a row of shutters beneath the eaves.
Dancing toward the girl he demanded again:
"Who did this? I was away but a moment. You or some other one did this!"
"Yes," Gale agreed. She was standing now, and towered above him.
"Someone did it, but not I. There was a man here when we came."
"We!" he screamed. "Then there are others?"
"Only my companion," she replied. "Don't forget, we are
soldiers--American soldiers."
"But you are a woman!" He stared.
"Soldiers in uniform, all the same."
"Ah, yes," he sighed. "In China too the women fight. We shall win the
war. When women fight they never lose.
"But you said there was a man." His voice changed.
"Yes. Yes--I--I remember!" he exclaimed. "He was a slim man who walked a
little lame."
"In both feet," Gale suggested.
"Yes, yes, in both feet. He said he was a pilgrim. Everyone is welcome
here. Come." He took a step. "It is time to eat. You and your companion
are welcome. You shall eat. If you desire, you shall spend the night
here."
"Oh, no! no!" she protested. "I am not hungry. My companion has
vanished. We must find her."
"Come." He grasped her hand. She squirmed a little. The hand with those
talons was terrible, but she did not let go. She dared not. "Come," he
invited once more.
He led her through the door at the back of the large room and into the
dark hallway beyond. Here he lit a large candle. Once again gripping her
hand, he led her into room after room, murmuring again and again, "Not
here. Not here. It is very strange."
At last he paused. "There is but one other room," he murmured. "That is
the Room of Perpetual Silence. There the brethren go for meditation. If
the door is closed, we dare not open it. Never is the door opened by
another when a brother is in meditation."
"Oh! But we must open the door," she declared.
"Come. We will look." He fairly dragged her along.
"The door is closed. We dare not open it."
"What sort of room is it?" Gale stalled for time to think.
"The walls are very, very thick." He spoke in a low chanting tone. "The
door too, is thick. There is a Buddha, a meditating Buddha. The floor is
thick. The ceiling is thick. No sound comes there. It is the Room of
Absolute Silence."
"Then I know what you must do," said Gale, filled with sudden resolution
as she thought what it must mean to be in such a room for a single hour.
"You must open that door."
"It has never been done." He stamped a small foot.
"You will open that door or I will bring a whole company of soldiers."
"They will be welcome," he declared, squeezing her hand. "They shall be
fed. They shall sleep here. Everyone is welcome here."
"Even if they come to tear that door down?" she asked.
"Tear that door down?" he exclaimed. "It is impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible." Her words carried conviction. "Our engineers
could take this whole temple down and carry it to China."
He stared at her in astonishment. Twice he appeared about to speak. At
last he said very simply,--"In that case we shall open the door."
That was just what he did. And there stood Isabelle, blinking at the
light.
"Someone shut the door," she murmured. "Such a terrible place! I must
have been here a long time. I thought you'd never come."
"That's exactly what I thought," was Gale's sober reply.
At that the fat little man must have thought of the soldiers who could
"Tear down this temple and carry it to China."
"Come!" he exclaimed, dancing about like an excited falcon. "I will
guide you down the mountain. Wait I will light a torch. Then we will
go." He was away like a flash.
"What a strange place!" Isabelle whispered.
"We could stay all night. He said that." Gale smiled mischievously.
"These monks are really very hospitable."
"Never! Never!" Isabelle exclaimed.
When each had told the other her experiences, they were well agreed that
their club was a glorious place to be.
And then the gnomelike monk was at their side again. Holding a flaming
pine knot torch high, he urged them to follow him.
They truly needed no urging. And so, with the little man hopping on
ahead and the flaming torch making black giants of all the great trees,
they found their way down the mountainside.
When they reached the first house at the foot of the hill, as if afraid
of being seen, the little monk cast his torch on the ground, dashed out
the flames--then vanished into the night.
"Such a weird experience," Isabelle murmured.
"Tomorrow I shall visit your colonel," Gale declared. "I shall say,
'Colonel, I no longer feel safe in India. Please take me with you into
Burma where there is a nice quiet war going on.'"
But for Gale, exciting events of quite a different nature, events that
would help to shape her future career had been ordered by the gods for
the morrow.