[Cover Illustration]
BOOKS BY TALBOT MUNDY
RUNG HO
KING—OF THE KHYBER RIFLES
GUNS OF THE GODS
THE WINDS OF THE WORLD
HIRA SINGH
THE IVORY TRAIL
THE EYE OF ZEITOON
TOLD IN THE EAST
HER REPUTATION
THE NINE UNKNOWN
OM—THE SECRET OF AHBOR VALLEY
=O M=
=THE SECRET OF AHBOR VALLEY=
=By=
=TALBOT MUNDY=
=INDIANAPOLIS=
=THE BOBBS-MERRILL-COMPANY=
=PUBLISHERS=
=Copyright, 1924=
=By Talbot Mundy=
=_Printed in the United States of America_=
=PRESS OF=
=BRAUNWORTH & CO.=
=BOOK MANUFACTURERS=
=BROOKLYN, N. Y.=
C O N T E N T S
I “Cottswold Ommony . . . Is No Man’s
Fool.”. . . . . . . . . 3
II Number One of the Secret Service.. 15
III “What Is Fear?”. . . . . . . 27
IV “I Am One Who Strives To Tread the
Middle Way.”. . . . . . . 40
V The House at the End of the
Passage.. . . . . . . . . 52
VI “Missish-Anbun Is Mad.”. . . . 62
VII “Sarcasm? I Wonder if That Ever
Pays.”. . . . . . . . . 78
VIII The Middle Way.. . . . . . . 89
IX “Gupta Rao.”. . . . . . . . 107
X Vasantasena.. . . . . . . . 123
XI “All This in the Space of One
Night.”. . . . . . . . . 139
XII “All Things End—Even Carriage
Rides.”. . . . . . . . . 148
XIII San-Fun-Ho.. . . . . . . . 160
XIV The Second Act.. . . . . . . 173
XV The Roll-Call by Night.. . . . 188
XVI “Where Are We?”. . . . . . . 199
XVII Diana Rehearses a Part.. . . . 213
XVIII Diana Adopts Buskins.. . . . . 226
XIX A Message from Miss Sanburn.. . . 236
XX Ommony Capitulates.. . . . . . 251
XXI The Lay of Alha.. . . . . . . 260
XXII Darjiling.. . . . . . . . . 272
XXIII Tilgaun.. . . . . . . . . 282
XXIV Hannah Sanburn.. . . . . . . 294
XXV The Compromise.. . . . . . . 307
XXVI Ahbor Valley Gate.. . . . . . 319
XXVII Under the Brahmaputra.. . . . . 327
XXVIII The Lama’s Home.. . . . . . . 338
XXIX The Lama’s Story.. . . . . . 350
XXX The Lama’s Story (Continued).. . 362
XXXI The Jade of Ahbor.. . . . . . 375
OM—THE SECRET OF AHBOR VALLEY
EVOLUTION
_Tides in the ocean of stars and the infinite rhythm of space;_
_Cycles on cycles of æons adrone on an infinite beach;_
_Pause and recession and flow, and each atom of dust in its place_
_In the pulse of eternal becoming; no error, no breach_
_But the calm and the sweep and the swing of the leisurely,
measureless roll_
_Of the absolute cause, the unthwarted effect—and no haste,_
_And no discord, and nothing untimed in a calculus ruling the whole;_
_Unfolding; evolving; accretion; attrition; no waste._
_Planet on planet a course that it keeps, and each swallow its
flight;_
_Comet’s ellipse and grace-note of the sudden firefly glow;_
_Jewels of Perseid splendor sprayed on summer’s purple night;_
_Blossom adrift on the breath of spring; the whirl of snow;_
_Grit on the grinding beaches; spume of the storm-ridden wave_
_Hurled on the north wind’s ice-born blast to blend with the tropic
rain;_
_Hail and the hissing of torrents; song where sapphire ripples lave_
_The crest of thousand-fathom reefs upbuilt beneath the main._
_Silt of the ceaseless rivers from the mountain summits worn,_
_Rolled along gorge and meadow till the salt, inflowing tide_
_Heaps it in shoals at harbor-mouth for continents unborn;_
_Earth where the naked rocks were reared; pine where the birches
died;_
_Season on season proceeding, and birth in the shadow of death;_
_Dawning of luminous day in the dying of night; and a Plan_
_In no whit, in no particle changing; each phase of becoming a breath_
_Of the infinite Karma of all things; its goal, evolution of MAN._
OM
CHAPTER I
“COTTSWOLD OMMONY . . . IS NO MAN’S FOOL.”
If you want views about the world’s news, read what Cottswold Ommony
calls the views papers; there is plenty in them that thoroughly zealous
people believe. But remember the wise old ambassador’s word of caution
to his new subordinate: “And above all, no zeal!” If you want raw facts
devoid of any zeal whatever try the cafés and the clubs; but you must
sort the facts and correlate them for yourself, and whether or not that
process shall leave you capable of thought of any kind must depend
entirely on your own ability. Thereafter, though you may never again
believe a newspaper, you will understand them and if you are reasonably
human sympathize.
There used to be a café in Vienna, where a man might learn enough in
fifty minutes to convince him that Europe was riding carelessly to ruin;
but that was before 1914 when the riders, using rein and spur at last,
rode straight for it.
There is still a club in Delhi, where you may pick up odds and ends of
information from over the Pamirs, from Nepaul, from Samarkand,
Turkestan, Arabia and the Caucasus, all mixed up with fragments from the
olla podrida of races known collectively as India. And having pieced
them all together you may go mad there, as comfortably as in Colney
Hatch, but with this advantage: that nobody will interfere with you,
provided you pay your bills on the first of the month and refrain from
sitting on two newspapers while you read a third.
It is a good club, of the die-hard kind; fairly comfortable; famous for
its curry. It has done more to establish empire, and to breed ill-will,
than any other dozen institutions. Its members do not boast, but are
proud of the fact that no Indian, not even a Maharajah, has ever set
foot over its threshold; yet they are hospitable, if a man knows how to
procure the proper introduction (no women are admitted on any pretense),
and by keeping quiet in a long-armed chair you may receive an education.
You may learn, for instance, who is and who is not important, and
precisely why. You may come to understand how the old guard, everywhere,
inevitably must die in the last ditch. And, if you have it in you, you
will admire the old guard, without trying to pretend that you agree with
them.
But above all, you may study the naked shape of modern history as she is
never written—history in the bathroom, so-to-speak. And once in a
while, you may piece together a dozen assorted facts into a true story
that is worth more than all the printed histories and all the
guide-books added together. (Not that the club members realize it. They
are usually bored, and almost always thinking about income-tax and
indigestion, coupled with why in thunder so-and-so was fool enough to
bid no trumps and trust to his partner to hold the necessary ace.)
When Ommony turned up at the club after three years in a forest he
produced a refreshing ripple on a calm that had grown monotonous. For a
week there had been nothing to discuss but politics, in which there is
no news nowadays, but only repetition of complaint. But Cottswold
Ommony, the last of the old-time foresters (and one of the few remaining
men in India whom the new democracy has not reduced to a sort of
scapegoat rubber-stamp), stirred memories and conjecture.
“_His_ turn for the guillotine! He has done too damned well for twenty
years, not to have his head cut off. I’ll bet you some babu politician
gets his job!”
“You’ll have to make that bet with Ommony, if he’s mad enough. Didn’t
you hear poor Willoughby was killed? That leaves Jenkins at the head of
Ommony’s department, and they’ve hated each other since Jenkins turned
down Ommony’s younger sister and Ommony told him what he thought about
it. Not that the girl wasn’t fortunate in a way. She married Terry later
on and died. Who’d not rather die than have to live with Jenkins.
Willoughby always considered Ommony to be a reincarnation of Solon or
Socrates, plus Aristides crossed on Hypatia. Willoughby—”
But everybody knew the ins and outs of that news. A fat babu in a dirty
pink turban that would have scared any self-respecting horse, driving a
second-hand Ford, with one eye on the Punjabi “constabeel” at the street
crossing, bumped into and broke the wheel of Willoughby’s dog-cart,
setting any number of sequences in motion. The horse bolted, tipped out
Willoughby, who was killed under a tram-car, and crashed into
Amramchudder Son and Company’s open store-front, where blood from the
horse’s shoulder spoiled two bales of imported silk. A law-suit to
recover ten times the value of the silk was commenced against
Willoughby’s estate that afternoon. (Mrs. Willoughby had to borrow money
from friends to carry on with.)
The babu put on full speed, naturally, and tried to escape down a
side-street, of which there are as many, and as narrow ones in Delhi as
in any city of its size. He ran over a Bengali (which nobody except the
Bengali minded very much), knocked down two Sikhs (which was important,
because they were on their way to a religious ceremony; righteous
indignation is very bad stuff when spilled in the street), and finally
jammed the Ford between a bullock-cart and a lamp-post, where the pride
of Detroit collapsed into scrap.
The owner of the bullock-cart, a Jat with a wart on his nose, which his
mother-in-law had always insisted would bring bad luck (she said so at
the trial later on, and brought three witnesses to prove it), was
carrying, for an extortionate price, a native of a far-northern state,
who had recently arrived by train without a ticket, and who knew how to
be prompt and violent. The man from Spiti (which is the name of the
northern state) descended from his perch at the rear of the cart, picked
up a spoke that the collision had broken away, and hit the babu with it
exactly once between the eyes. The babu died neatly without saying
anything; and a hot crowd of nine nationalities, that was glad to see
anybody die with politics the way they had been for a year or two,
applauded.
The man from Spiti vanished. The “constabeel” arrested the owner of the
bullock-cart, who turned his face skyward and screamed “Ayee-ee-ee!”
once, which was duly noted in a memorandum book for use as evidence
against him. Seventeen onlookers, being questioned, all gave false names
and addresses, but swore that the Jat with the wart had attacked the
babu; and a _wakil_ (which is a person entitled to practise law), who
knew all about the Jat’s recent inheritance from his uncle, offered
legal services that were accepted on the spot. Presently, in the jail, a
_jemadar_ and two “constabeels” put the Jat through a hideously painful
third degree, which left no marks on him but did induce him to part with
money, most of which was spent on a debauch that ended in the _jemadar_
being reduced to the ranks since the _wakil_ objected on principle to
sharing the loot of the Jat with any one and therefore righteously
exposed the _jemadar’s_ abominable drunkenness.
Meanwhile, the native papers took the matter up and proved to nine
points of decimals that the incident was wholly due to British arrogance
and the neglect of public duty by an “overpaid alien hegemony,”
demonstrating among other things that the British are a race “whose
crass materialism is an insult to the spiritual soul of India, and whose
playing fields of Eton are an ash-bed from which arise swarms of
Phoenixes to suck the life-blood of conquered peoples.” (Excellent
journalese conceived on the historic principle that if you make
sufficient smell you are sure to annoy somebody, and he who is annoyed
will make mistakes, which you may then gleefully expose.)
The Sikhs who had been knocked down by the Ford accused the “obsequious
servants of alien tyranny”—meaning the police—of having tried to
prevent them from attending their religious ceremony; the fact being
that the police had taken them to the hospital in an ambulance. The
entire Sikh community in consequence refused to pay taxes, which set up
another sequence of cause and effect, culminating in a yell of “Bande
Materam!” as three or four thousand second-year students, who were not
Sikhs, rushed foaming at the mouth into the Chandni Chowk (which is a
business thoroughfare) with the intention of looting the silversmiths
and putting the whole city to the torch. A fire-engine dispersed them;
but the stream of water from the hose ruined the contents of Chanda
Pal’s drug-store.
Chanda Pal called in an actuary who possessed a compound geometrical
imagination, and sent in a bill to the government that is still unpaid;
and, having failed to collect immediately, he wrote to a friend who was
an undergraduate at Oxford, with the result that a Member of Parliament
for one of the Welsh constituencies asked at Question Time whether it
was true that the Viceroy of India in person had high-handedly
confiscated without compensation all the drugs in the Punjab; and if so,
why?
The answer from the Treasury Bench was “No, sir;” but the foreign
correspondents omitted to mention that, so the French, Scandinavian and
United States newspapers had it in head-lines that “British in India
inaugurate new reign of terror. Goods confiscated. Revolution
threatened.” A bishop in South Africa preached a sermon on the subject;
thirty-seven members of the I. W. W., who were serving a term in San
Quentin, went on a sympathetic hunger strike and were locked up in the
dungeon; and a Congressman from somewhere in the Middle West wrote a
speech that filled five pages of the _Record_. Stocks fell several
points. Jenkins stepped into Willoughby’s official shoes.
However, clocks continued ticking. Roosters crowed. The sun appeared on
schedule time. And Willoughby’s funeral was marked by dignified
simplicity.
Except that he hugely regretted his friend Willoughby, Cottswold Ommony
cared for none of these things. He sat near the electric fan in a corner
of the club smoking-room, aware that he was being discussed, but also
quite sure that he did not mind it. He had been discussed, on and off,
ever since he came to India. He looked quite unlike Hypatia, whatever
Willoughby may have thought of his character.
“Willoughby overrated him,” said somebody. “You can’t tell me Ommony or
any other man is such a mixture of marvels as Willoughby made out.
Besides, he’s a bachelor. Socrates wasn’t.”
“Oh, Ommony’s human. But—well—you know what he’s done in that forest.
It was raw, red wilderness when he was sent there. Now you can stand on
a rock and see ninety miles of trees whichever way you care to look.
Besides, dogs love him. Did you see that great dog of his outside? You
can’t fool that kind of dog, you know. They say he knows the tigers
personally, and can talk the jungle-bat; there was only one other man
who ever learned that language, and _he_ committed suicide!”
“All the same—he’s not the only man who’s done good work—and I’ve
heard stories. Do any of you remember Terry—Jack Terry, the M. D., who
married Ommony’s young sister? One of those delightful madmen who are
really so sane that the rest of us can’t understand ’em. Had weird
theories about obstetrics. Nearly got foul of his profession by
preaching that music was an absolute necessity at childbirth. Wanted the
government to train symphony orchestras to play the Overture to Leonori
while the birth takes place. Perfectly mad; but a corking good surgeon.
Always dead broke, from handing out his pay to beggars—broke, that is,
until he met Marmaduke. Remember Marmaduke?”
“Dead too, isn’t he? Wasn’t he the American who endowed a mission
somewhere in the Hills?”
“Yes, at Tilgaun. Marmaduke was another madman—ab-so-lutely mad—and as
gentle as sunrise. Quiet man, who swore like a trooper at the mention of
religion. Made his money in Chicago, slaughtering hogs—or so I heard.
Wrote a book on astrology, that only ran to one edition—I sold my copy
for ten times what I paid for it. I tell you, Marmaduke was madder than
Gandhi. They say he left America to keep the elders of the church he
belonged to from having him locked up in an asylum. The mission he
founded at Tilgaun caused no end of a stir at the time. Surely you
remember that? There were letters to the _Times_, and an archbishop
raised a shindy in the House of Lords. Marmaduke’s theory was that, as
_he_ couldn’t understand Christianity, it was safe to premise that
people whose religion was a mixture of degraded Buddhism and
devil-worship couldn’t understand it either. So he founded a Buddhist
mission, to teach ’em their own religion. No, he wasn’t a Buddhist. I
don’t know what his religion was. I only know he was a decent fellow,
fabulously rich, and ab-so-lutely mad. He persuaded Jack Terry to chuck
the service and become the mission medico—teach hygiene to men from
Spiti and Bhutan—like teaching drought to the Atlantic! Jack Terry
married Ommony’s sister about a week before leaving for Tilgaun, and
none of us ever saw them alive again.”
“_Now_ I remember. There was a nine days’ scandal, or a mystery, or
something.”
“You bet there was! Terry and his wife vanished. Marmaduke was carpeted,
but couldn’t or wouldn’t explain, and he died before they could make
things hot for him. Then they gave Ommony long leave and sent him up to
Tilgaun to investigate—that was—by gad! that was twenty years
ago—Good lord! how time flies. Ommony discovered nothing; or, if he did
discover anything, he _said_ nothing—he’s a great hand at doing that,
by all accounts. But it leaked out that Marmaduke had appointed Ommony a
trustee under his will. There was another trustee—a red-headed American
woman—at least I heard she’s red-headed; maybe she isn’t—named Hannah
Sanburn, who has been running the mission ever since. She was not much
more than a girl at the time, I remember. And the third trustee was a
Tibetan. Nobody had ever heard of him, and I’ve never met a man who saw
him; but I’m told he’s a Ringding Gelong Lama; and I’ve also heard that
_Ommony_ has never seen him. The whole thing’s a mystery.”
“It doesn’t seem particularly discreditable to Ommony. What are you
hinting at?”
“Nothing. Only Ommony has influence. You’ve noticed, I dare say, he
always gets what he goes after. If you asked me, there’s an even chance
he may ‘get’ Jenkins, if he cares to.”
“That’s notorious. Whoever goes after Ommony’s scalp gets left at the
post. What’s the secret?”
“I don’t know. Nobody seems to. There’s Marmaduke’s money, of course.
Ommony handles some of it. I don’t suggest fraud, or any rot like that;
but money’s strange stuff; control of it gives a man power. Ommony’s
influence is out of all proportion to his job. And I’ve _heard_—mind
you, I don’t know how true it is—that he’s hand-and-glove with every
political fugitive from the North who has sneaked down South to let the
clouds roll by during the last twenty years. They even _said_ Ommony was
on the inside of the Moplah business. You know the Moplahs didn’t burn
his bungalow,—they say he simply asked them not to—can you beat
that—and it’s a fact that he stayed in his forest all through that
rebellion.”
Ommony was restless over in his corner. His obstinate jaw was only
half-concealed by a close-clipped, graying beard, and there was grim
humor on his lips. Having done more than any living man to pull the
sting out of the Moplah rebellion, hints to the contrary hardly amused
him. He was angry—obviously angry. However, one man claimed casual
acquaintance and dropped into the next chair.
“Expecting to stay long in Delhi?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“Care to sell me that wolf-hound?”
Ommony’s reserve broke down; he had to talk to somebody:
“That dog? Sell her? She’s the sum total of twenty-years’ effort. She’s
all I’ve done.”
The inquisitor leaned back, partly to hide his own face, partly to see
Ommony’s in a more distinct light; he suspected sunstroke, or the
after-effects of malaria. But Ommony, having emerged from his reserve,
continued:
“I don’t suppose I’m different from anybody else—at least not from any
other reasonably decent fellow—made a lot of mistakes, of course—done
a lot of things I wish I hadn’t—been a bally ass on suitable
occasion—but I’ve worked—damned hard. India has had all the best of me
and—damn her!—I haven’t grudged it. Don’t regret it, either. I’d do it
again. But there’s nothing to show for it all—”
“Except a forest. They tell me—”
“A forest, half-grown, that corrupt politicians will play ducks and
drakes with; a couple of thousand villagers who are now being taught by
those same politicians that everything they’ve learned from me is no
good; a ruined constitution—and that dog. That’s all I can show for
twenty years’ work—and like some others, I’ve had my heart in it. I
think I know how a missionary feels when his flock walks out on him. I’m
a failure—we’re all failures. The world is going to pieces under our
hands. What I have taught that dog is all I can really claim by way of
accomplishment.”
That particular inquisitor lost enthusiasm. He did not like madmen. He
withdrew and considered Ommony in a corner, behind a newspaper, _sotto
voce_. Another not so casual acquaintance dropped into the vacant chair,
and was greeted with a nod.
“You’ve been absent so long you ought to see things with a fresh eye,
Ommony. D’you think India’s breaking up?”
“I’ve thought so for twenty years.”
“How long before we have to clear out?”
“The sooner the better.”
“For us?”
“I mean for India!”
“I should have thought you would be the last man to say that. You’ve
done your bit. They tell me you’ve changed a desert into a splendid
forest. D’you want to see it all cut down, the lumber wasted and—”
Ommony pulled out his watch and tapped his finger on the dial.
“I had it cleaned and repaired recently,” he remarked. “The man charged
me a fair price, but after I had paid the bill he didn’t have the
impudence to keep the watch for fear I might ruin it again. India has a
perfect right to go to hell her own way. Surgery and hygiene are good,
but I don’t believe in being governed by the medical profession.
Cleaning up corrupted countries is good; but to stay on after we’ve been
asked to quit is bad manners. And _they’re_ worse than breaking all ten
commandments. Besides, we don’t know much—or we’d have done much
better.”
“You think India is ripe for self-government?”
“When things are ripe, they fall or decay on the tree,” said Ommony.
“There’s a time to stand aside and let ’em grow. There’s such a thing as
too much nursing.”
“Then you’re willing to chuck your forest job?”
“I _have_ chucked it.”
“Oh! Resigned? Going to draw your pension?”
“No. Pension wouldn’t be due for two years yet, and I don’t need it.
India has had the use of me for twenty-three years at a fair price. I’d
be satisfied, if she was. But she isn’t. And I’m proud, so I’ll be
damned if I’ll accept a pension.”
Ommony was left alone again. That news of his resignation was too good
to be kept, even for a minute. Within five minutes it was all over the
club, and men were speculating as to the real reason, since nobody ever
gives any one credit (and wisely, perhaps) for the motives that he makes
public.
“Jenkins has succeeded Willoughby. Ommony knows jolly well that Jenkins
has it in for him. He’s pulling out ahead of the landslide—that’s
what.”
“I don’t believe it. Ommony has guts and influence enough to bu’st ten
Jenkinses. There’s more than that in it. There never _was_ a man like
Ommony for keeping secrets up his sleeve. You know he’s in the Secret
Service?”
“That’s easy to say, but who said so?”
“Believe it or not—I’ll bet. I’ll bet he stays in India. I’ll bet he
dies in harness. I’ll bet any money in reason he goes straight from here
to McGregor’s office. More than that—I’ll bet McGregor sent for him,
and that he didn’t resign from the Forestry without talking it over with
McGregor first. He’s deep, is Cottswold Ommony—deep. He’s no man’s
fool. There’s no man alive but McGregor who knows what Ommony will do
next. Anybody want to bet about it?”
The remainder of the conversation at the club that noon rippled off into
widening rings of reminiscence, all set up by Ommony’s arrival on the
scene, and mostly interesting, but to stay and listen would have been to
be sidetracked, which is the inevitable fate of gossips. There was a
story in the wind that, if the club had known it, would have set all
Delhi by the ears.
He who would understand the Plains must ascend the Eternal
Hills, where a man’s eyes scan Infinity. But he who would make
use of understanding must descend on to the Plains, where Past
and Future meet and men have need of him.