“SARCASM? I WONDER IF THAT EVER PAYS.”
The letter was written on the same long, ivory-colored paper as that
which had reached McGregor’s office in the silver tube, but this time it
was not European handwriting, although the words were English. Some one
more used to a brush, such as the Chinese use, and who regarded every
pen-stroke as a work of art in true relation to the whole, had taken a
quill pen and almost painted what he had to say, in terse strong
sentences.
“To Cottswold Ommony, Esquire,
“At the house of his friend.
“May Destiny mete you full measure of mercy. The piece of jade
is neither yours nor mine. By deeds in the valley of indecision
a soul ascends or descends. You are one to whom reward is no
inducement; to whom honor is no more than wealth a pleasing
substitute for right doing. There is nothing done in this life
that is not balanced by justice in the lives to come and the
ultimate is peace. So do. And not by another’s hand are deeds
done; nor is the end accomplished without doing all that lies at
the beginning. Thus the beginning is the end, and the end the
beginning, as a circle having no beginning and no end, from
which is no escape but by the Middle Way, which lies not yonder
but at the feet of him who searches. Take the stone to Tilgaun,
which is one stage of the journey to the place whence it came.
From Tilgaun onward let those be responsible on whom the burden
falls. There is danger in another’s duty. Peace be with you.
Peace give you peace that you may multiply it.
“Tsiang Samdup.”
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell read the letter aloud. Not smiling, she passed it
to Ommony and watched his face. He read it twice, frowning, and gave it
to McGregor, who emitted his staccato, fox-bark laugh, which Diana heard
and answered with one deep musical bay from the porch.
“That links him technically—tight,” said McGregor, folding the letter
with decisive finger-strokes and stowing it into his pocket. “Where did
he learn to write such English?”
“Oxford,” said Ommony. “He took D. D. and LL. D. Degrees, or so
Marmaduke told me. We’re not the only section of humanity that runs to
Secret Service, Mac. We look for one thing, they for another. There
isn’t much they don’t know about us, along the line that interests
them.”
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell looked incredulous.
“A Ringding Gelong Lama—an English Doctor of Divinity? Wonders don’t
cease, do they! What could he gain by taking _that_ degree? Amusement?
Are they as subtle as all that?”
“Subtle, yes. Amusement, no,” said Ommony, frowning darkly. “How spike
the guns of the persistent missionary, unless they know how the guns are
loaded? That’s the gist of one of his letters to me. But damn the man!
Why couldn’t he meet me by appointment instead of writing this stuff?
I’ve suspected him for some time of—”
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell laughed. “He evidently knows you, Cottswold,
better than you know him.”
“Know him? I’ve never met him!” Ommony retorted. “I saw him to-day for
the first time, from behind a brass Buddha in Chutter Chand’s shop.
There’ve been lots of times when he ought to have met me, to talk over
details in connection with the trusteeship, but it all had to be done by
correspondence. He has set his signature to every paper I drew up, and
he has agreed to every proposal I have made. Confound him! Why is he
afraid of me? Why couldn’t he come in, instead of leaving that fool
letter on the door-step?”
“_Wise_ letter!” (Mrs. Cornock-Campbell went back to the piano. None but
Rimsky-Korsakov could describe her sensations.) “He evidently knows how
to manage you. Do you ever bet, John? I will bet you five _rupees_ I
know what’s next!”
John McGregor drew a five-_rupee_ note from his pocket and laid it on
the piano. Mrs. Cornock-Campbell began playing. Dawa Tsering, his head
to one side like a bird’s, watched her fingers, listening intently.
“There are devils inside the machine,” he said after a while. “Give me
my knife, Ommon_ee_, and let me go.”
But Ommony, pacing the floor, both hands behind him, frowning, took no
notice of any one. He was away off in a realm of conjecture of his own.
“Remember: I stand to lose five dibs!” McGregor remarked at the end of
five minutes. “Suppose you put me out of agony. I’m Scots, you know!”
“Damn!” Ommony exclaimed. “Why can’t he take me into his confidence? I
hate to suspect a man. Pen and ink anywhere?”
“I lose,” said Mrs. Cornock-Campbell, nodding toward a gilt-and-ivory
writing desk against the wall. “Take back your five _rupees_, John.
You’ll find a five of mine being used as a book-mark in one of those
volumes of Walter Pater on the shelf. Put something in its place.”
McGregor paid himself. Ommony at the desk tore up sheet after sheet of
paper, chuckled at last, and wrote a final draft. “There, that should
do. That’s obscure enough. That hoists him with his own petard. Why
don’t women ever have clean blotting-paper?”
He showed what he had written to McGregor, who read it aloud, Mrs.
Cornock-Campbell playing very softly while she listened.
“To the holy Lama Tsiang Samdup,
in the place where he has chosen to secrete himself.
“I will take the Middle Way if I can find it, and I hope neither
of us may get lost. I wish you all success.
“Cottswold Ommony.”
“Sarcasm?” said Mrs. Cornock-Campbell. “I wonder if that ever pays.”
“We’ll see!”
Ommony sealed up the envelope, on which he had written simply “Tsiang
Samdup,” and stood over Dawa Tsering.
“Take this letter to the Lama. Come back here with proof you have
delivered it, and you shall have your knife.”
“Send him in my dog-cart,” McGregor advised. “My _sais_[7] is one of
those rare birds who do as they’re told. He doesn’t talk or ask
questions.”
So Dawa Tsering was seen on to the back seat of the dog-cart, with a
horse-blanket under him to keep grease off the cushion, and the
conference was resumed. McGregor questioned Ommony narrowly concerning
the events of the afternoon, and particularly as to the exact location
of the courtyard where the attack had taken place.
“It doesn’t look to me as if they meant to kill you,” he said at last.
“It seems to me they were hell-bent on merely driving you away.
Um-tiddley-um-tum-tum—we’ve made a mess of this—we _should_ have had
that building watched. Katherine, I will bet these ten rupees that our
friend from Spiti draws blank.”
“Men are unintuitive creatures,” Mrs. Cornock-Campbell answered. “No,
John, I won’t bet. The obvious thing was to take the Lama at his word
and go straight to Tilgaun. I supposed Cottswold would see that, but he
didn’t—did you? What is the objection?”
“This,” said Ommony, pausing, looking obstinate, “he is either my
friend, or he isn’t. He has every reason to be frank with me. He has
chosen the other line. All right.”
“All wrong!” she answered, chuckling. “In that letter, in his own way,
he invited you to trust him.”
“I don’t!” remarked Ommony, shutting his jaws with a snap that could be
heard across the room.
He refused to explain himself. He was not quite sure he could have done
that, but had no inclination to try. If he had opened his lips it would
have been to invite McGregor to throw a plain-clothes cordon around that
house at the end of the courtyard, search the place and expose its
secrets.
Habitual self-control alone prevented that. Twenty years of living
courteously in a conquered country, making full allowance for the
feelings of those who must look to him for justice, had bred a restraint
that ill-temper could not overthrow. But he did not dare to let himself
speak just then. He preferred to be rude—took up a book and began
reading.
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell went on playing. John McGregor smoked in silence,
pulling out the Lama’s letter, reading it over and over, trying to
discover hidden meanings. So more than an hour went by with hardly a
word spoken, and it was long after midnight when the wheels of
McGregor’s returning dog-cart skidded on the loose gravel of the drive
at the rear of the house and Diana awoke on the porch to tell the moon
about it.
Dawa Tsering was admitted through the back door and shepherded in by the
butler, who held his nose, but who was not otherwise so lacking in
appreciation as to shut the door tight when he left the room. Ommony
strode to the door, opened it wide, looked into the frightened eyes of
the Goanese and watched him until he disappeared through a swinging door
at the end of the passage.
“Now,” he said, shutting the door tight behind him.
“The Lama is gone!” Dawa Tsering announced dramatically. “If I had had
my knife I would have slain the impudent devil who gave me the news!
Tripe out of the belly of a pig is his countenance! Eggs are his eyes!
He is a _ragyaba_![8] The son of evil pretended not to know me! When I
offered him the letter for the Lama he growled that Tsiang Samdup and
his _chela_ had gone elsewhere. When I bade him let me in, that I might
see for myself, he answered ignorantly.”
“Ignorantly? How do you mean?”
“He struck me with a bucket, of which the contents were garbage
unsuitable to a man of my distinction. So I crowned him with the
bucket—thus—not gently—and his head went through the bottom of the
thing, so that, as it were, he wore a helmet full of smells and could no
longer see. So then I smote him in the belly with my fist—thus—and
with my foot—thus—as he fell. And then I came away. And there is the
letter. Smell it. Behold the _dirt_ on it, in proof I lie not. Now give
me my knife, Ommon_ee_.”
Ommony went into the hall and produced the “knife” from behind the
hat-rack. Dawa Tsering thumbed the edge of the blade lovingly before
thrusting the weapon into its leather scabbard inside his shirt.
“Now I am a man again,” he said devoutly. “They would better avoid me
with their buckets full of filth!”
Ommony studied him in silence for a moment. “Did you ever have a bath?”
he asked curiously.
“Aye. Tsiang Samdup and his _chela_ made me take one whenever they
happened to think fit. That is how I know they are not especially holy.
There is something heretical about them that I do not understand.”
“I am worse than they,” said Ommony.
“No doubt. They have their good points.”
“I have none! You must wash yourself as often as I tell you, and I shall
give the order oftener than they did! From now on, you are my servant.”
“But who says so?”
“I do.”
“You desire me?”
“No, because I already have you. I can dispose of you as I see fit,”
said Ommony. “I can send you to the jail for killings and for
train-robberies, and for trying to murder me this afternoon. Or I can
bid you work out the score in other ways.”
“That is true, more or less. Yes, there is something in what you say,
Ommon_ee_.”
“It is not more or less true. It is quite true.”
“How so? Have I not my knife? Would you like to fight me? I can slay
that she-dog of thine as easily as I can lay thy bowels on the floor.”
“No,” said Ommony, “no honorable man could do that to his master. Are
you not an honorable man?”
“None more so!”
“And I am your master, so that settles it.”
Dawa Tsering looked puzzled; there was something in the reasoning that
escaped him. But it is what men do not understand that binds them to
others’ chariot wheels.
“Well—I do not wish to return to Spiti—yet,” he said reflectively.
“But about the bath—how often? Besides, it is contrary to my religion,
now I come to think of it.”
“Change your religion, then. Now no more argument. Which way has the
Lama gone?”
“Oh, as to that—I suppose I could discover that. How much will you pay
me?”
“Thirty _rupees_ a month, clean clothing, two blankets and your food.”
“That is almost no pay at all,” said Dawa Tsering. “To make a profit at
that rate, I should have to eat so much that my belly would be at risk
of bursting. There is discomfort in so much eating.”
“They would give you enough to eat and no more, without money, in the
jail,” said Ommony, “and you would have to obey a _babu_, and be shaved
by a contractor, and make mats without reward. And if you were very well
behaved, they would let you rake the head-_jemadar’s_ garden. Moreover,
Tin Lal, who is also in the jail, would mock you at no risk to himself,
since you would have no knife; and because he is clever and malignant he
would constantly get you into trouble, laughing when you were punished.
And since he is only in the jail for a short time, and you would be in
for a long time, there would be no remedy. However, suit yourself.”
“You are a hard man, Ommon_ee_!”
“I am. I have warned you.”
“Oh, well: I suppose it is better so. A soft knife is quickly dulled,
and men are the same way. Yielding men are not dependable. Pay me a
month’s wages in advance, and to-morrow we will buy the blankets.”
But beginnings are beginnings. A foundation not well laid destroys the
whole edifice.
“From now on until I set you free, _your_ desires are nothing,” Ommony
said sternly. “You consider _my_ needs and _my_ convenience. When I have
time to consider yours, it will remain to be seen whether I forget or
not. Go and wait on the porch. Try to make friends with the dog; she can
teach you a lot you must learn in one way or another. If the dog permits
you leisure for thought, try to imagine which way the Lama may have
gone.”
Dawa Tsering went out through the hall, too impressed by the novelty of
the situation even to mutter to himself. Ommony went to the window and
said two or three words to Diana, whose long tail beat responsively on
the teak boards. Presently came the sound of Dawa Tsering’s voice:
“O thou: my time has not come to be eaten.[9] Have wisdom!”
A low rumbling growl announced that Diana was considering the situation,
keeping Ommony’s command in mind.
“I have no doubt thou art a very evil devil!”
Again the growl, followed by a thump and the shuffling sound of Dawa
Tsering squatting himself on the porch.
“So—thus. We will see whether Ommon_ee_ knows what he is doing. Attack
me, and die, thou mother of fangs and thunder! Then I will know it is
not my _karma_ to obey this Ommon_ee_. Lie still, thou earthquake, and I
will—” His voice dropped to a murmur and died away. Thoughts too
obscure for expression seemed to have riveted his whole attention.
Ommony, peering through the shutter slats, could see him sitting almost
within arm’s reach of the dog, staring straight in front of him at the
stars on the north horizon. He turned to Mrs. Cornock-Campbell:
“And now I’ll go away and let you sleep. When we come to your house, Mac
and I invariably forget manners and stay into the wee small hours—”
But at a sign from her he sat down again. She closed the piano and
locked it. “Cottswold,” she said, “tell me what you have in mind. You
have said too much or too little.”
“I have told all I know—that is that I care to tell, even to you,”
Ommony answered. “I suppose, as a matter of fact, I’m a bit piqued. That
Lama has had scores of opportunities to realize that I wouldn’t betray
confidences. I am told I’m notorious for refusing to tell the government
what I know about individuals; and the Lama is perfectly aware of that.
I’ve risked my job fifty times by insisting on holding my tongue. Am I
right, Mac?”
“You are!” McGregor answered with a dry smile. “I remember, I once
considered it my duty to advise threatening you with drastic penalties.
I would have ordered you tortured, but for the cir-r-cumstance that that
means of inducement is out of date. And besides, I had ma doots of its
efficacy in your instance.”
Ommony grinned. He preferred that praise to all the orders in the
almanac. “So, damn the Lama!” he went on fervently. “He has kept aloof
for twenty years. I’m satisfied there’s something he’s deliberately
keeping from me. I’ve no notion what it is, but that piece of jade is
probably connected with it. I’m going to track him—tempt him—force his
hand.”
“Are you sure you’ve no notion what he’s keeping from you?” Mrs.
Cornock-Campbell asked; and Ommony stared hard at her, while McGregor
blew smoke at the ceiling.
“Perhaps I have a sort of notion—yes,” he answered slowly. “Sometimes I
suspect he knows what took Fred Terry and my sister to the Ahbor
country.”
“And?”
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell studied him with dark blue eyes that seemed to
search for something lacking in his mental make-up.
“He may know what became of them.”
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell smiled and sighed. “Well—we three will meet again
before you go, I suppose?”
“No,” said Ommony. “I expect to be gone before daybreak. I’ll write when
I get the chance. If we don’t meet again this side of Yama’s[10] Bar—”
“This is India—it might happen,” she answered. “Your friendship has
been one of five things that have made my life in India worth while.”
“Oh, nonsense,” he said gruffly. The least trace of sentiment frightened
him.
“I’m glad I’ve helped,” she went on. “It’s a privilege to have friends
like you and John McGregor, who don’t imagine they’re in love when you
share their confidences! Good night. I don’t believe you’re going to
your doom. I think I’d know it if you were.”
“Doom? There isn’t any! There’s only a reshuffling of the cards,” said
Ommony. “Good night.”
-----
[7] Coachman.
[8] Ragyabas are the lowest dregs of Tibetan society, who live on the
outskirts of towns and dispose of the dead. When used, as in this case,
as an adjective, the word has significance too horrible to be
translated. The man was, of course, _not_ a ragyaba.
[9] Referring of course, to the Tibetan custom of throwing out the dead
to be devoured by dogs.
[10] Yama (pronounced yum) is the name of the god, in the Hindu
pantheon, who judges the souls of the dead.
We live in the eternal Now, and it is Now that we create our
destiny. It follows, that to grieve over, the past is useless
and to make plans for the future is a waste of time. There is
only one ambition that is good, and that is: so to live Now that
none may weary of life’s emptiness and none may have to do the
task we leave undone.
From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.