THE JADE OF AHBOR.
Ommony sat still. Diana growled and chased some creature of imagination
in her dreams. The Lama threw wood on the fire, and watched it as if he
were much more interested in the outcome of that than in what answer
Ommony might make.
“What makes you think I could do it?” Ommony asked, half stunned by the
suggestion, vaguely and uncomfortably conscious that he was being
invited to make himself the butt of half a world’s ridicule, if of
nothing worse.
“A flea—a mouse—a drop of water—a piece of wood—can do its duty,”
said the Lama. “Is a man less?”
“I will do mine,” said Ommony, “if I can see it. But good God, man—how
can I take _your_ place?”
“She—and they—can go to India very easily, my son, without you. They
are all provided for. They will never lack for money. It may be you are
not the right man to be my _chela’s_ friend and in that case it is
better for you, and for her, and for the world that you accept no burden
you can not bear.
“Do not deceive yourself, my son. There will be no personal ease, no
basking in the stupifying rays of flattery. You will be accused of all
the evil motives that lurk in the minds of your accusers. Lecherous men
will accuse you of lying when you say she is your niece; and you can not
prove the relationship. Thieves will accuse you of theft. Ambitious men
will denounce your ambition. Traitors will accuse you of treachery
toward the human race. Bigots will charge you with unpatriotic scheming.
Men of outwardly unblemished aspect, but whose secret thoughts are viler
than the froth of cess-pools, will accuse you of secretly immoral
practises. They will leave you not a shred of reputation. They will try
to impoverish you; they will try to prove you insane; they will try to
put you in prison.”
“Very well,” said Ommony. “I will do my best.” He nodded, thrusting his
stubborn jaw forward. The Lama could have said nothing better calculated
to persuade him.
“And you will find,” the Lama went on, nodding back at him, “here and
there are men and women, who will accept what San-fun-ho can teach. Some
of those will be traitors, who will try to learn in order that they may
set up themselves as teachers and accumulate money and fame. Those will
be your most dangerous enemies. But some will be honest and steadfast,
and they will encourage others; for the West is moving forward on a
cycle of evolution; and moreover, it is growing very weary of its own
creeds and politics and competition. It begins to be ready at last to
put the horse before the cart, instead of the cart before the horse as
hitherto. There is a great change coming—although this is Kali Yuga,
and it is not wisdom to expect too much. The harvest takes care of
itself—none knows how many generations hence. This is a time for the
sowing of the seeds of thought on which a whole world’s destiny depends.
I have sown my handful. I can sow no more.”
“What makes you so sure you are going to die?” asked Ommony.
“The Ahbors, my son, will attend to it, for I have broken their law. I
made them promises which I intend to break; I knew that I must, when I
made the promises. There is that in me that blinded me to any other way
out of the difficulty, and although I did my duty, that does not
preserve me from the effects of wrong-doing. The Ahbors have their
rights. This is their country. They protect this monastery and its
secrets. They have protected me. Of my own free will I have availed
myself of their protection and their law against admitting strangers. Do
you remember Socrates, who broke the law of the Athenians, although he
did his duty? He might have escaped after they condemned him, but he
refused, although his friends insisted. And Socrates did well, my son;
he had no right to avoid the consequences of his own acts; it was enough
that he had told the Athenians some great truths, for he knew those
truths, and it was the proper time to tell; if the Athenians had a law
against telling the truth, that was their affair, not his. Socrates
drank his poison, which was a simple little matter, and soon over with.
Does it appear to you that the Athenians have even yet finished
suffering from the injustice they inflicted?”
“But the Athenians could think. These Ahbors are mere savages,” said
Ommony.
“The Ahbors have their rights,” the Lama answered. “They work out their
own destiny. I work out mine. If I had been a wiser man, less blinded by
my lower nature, I could have found a better way to save my _chela_ than
by deceiving the Ahbors. But I _was_ blind, so I took the only way I
could. When I return to earth again, I am convinced I shall be less
blind; and at least I shall owe no debt to the Ahbors, for I will pay it
now.”
“Why not leave all that to destiny?” Ommony objected.
“My son, there is no other judge in whose hands I _can_ leave it! But
destiny judges a man’s unwillingness to pay, as surely as it judges his
mistakes—as surely as it rewards his hidden motives and his honesty.
There is no thought hidden from the Higher Law, and no escape from
rebirth, time and time again, until each individual learns wisdom by
experience. The Ahbors will learn wisdom, some sooner than others; but
they will not learn it by being deprived of opportunity to use their own
judgment. If they choose to kill me, they must inevitably suffer; but I
would rather they should kill me than that they should have killed that
child, and for more than one reason. They can do very little harm by
killing me; the wrong will not amount to much, because I bear no
resentment. If they had killed her, they would have robbed the world.”
“You have _your_ rights,” Ommony objected. “You’re worth more than the
Ahbors.”
But the Lama’s eyes twinkled humorously. “My son, you argue ignorantly,
meaning well enough, but reckoning without the facts.”
“For instance?”
“You would not understand. My course is necessary—never mind why, my
son. It was entirely necessary for you to come to this place of your own
free will; otherwise it would have been impossible for me to open your
mind. I could have talked to you for ten years in India, and you would
never have understood. But it was also necessary to provide for your
admission to the valley, and for your safe return to India after I am
dead. You were admitted because I told the Ahbors about your talking
dog, and because I gave my own life as hostage, saying they might slay
me if you should ever escape from the valley alive. I did that, knowing
they would slay me in any event, when they should learn that San-fun-ho
and the others have left the valley for ever. You see, my son, it is
necessary I should die, in order to consume as soon as possible the
consequences of an untruth. As for the Ahbors; they are very ignorant,
but faithful to their valley and their own law, generous toward this
monastery: it is better that they should kill me, than that they should
be faithless to their laws and to their trust. I will do all I can to
minimize the consequences for them.”
A monk came in again with food, and once more the Lama amused himself by
feeding Diana. “Make her do tricks,” he insisted, and rewarded her with
handfuls of food after each performance, he and the monk laughing as if
it were the most interesting and amusing business in the world. The sun
had gone down over the mountains and there was a gloom within the
chamber that affected Ommony’s nerves, for it seemed to foretell
tragedy, but the Lama apparently had not a trouble on his mind. The
moment the monk had gone Ommony began questioning:
“Does Elsa—I mean, does San-fun-ho know anything about your plans?”
“Enough, my son. A little. She understands she has a destiny. She
understands she is to take you with her into India.”
The Lama rose to his feet, as if to avoid further conversation; but
Ommony shot one more question at him:
“Does she know you expect to be killed?”
The Lama did not answer. His wrinkled face became expressionless.
“Where is she now?” asked Ommony.
“Come.”
The Lama led the way, in deepening gloom, along the wooden gallery that
overhung the ravine, and through a door into the monastery, which
appeared to be a patchwork nest of caves and buildings connected by
passages hewn in the rock. Some of it appeared as old as time, but parts
were medieval; some was almost modern. There was an air of economically
conserved affluence and studied chastity of design—beauty everywhere,
but less laid on than inherent in proportions and the almost exquisite
restraint.
Pictures were hung on the plastered corridor walls at widely spaced
intervals, apparently all drawn by the same hand. The Lama stopped for a
second in front of one of them, done in pastel on paper: a study of an
eagle soaring, balancing himself to catch the uplift of the changing
wind. It might have been done by a Chinaman a thousand years ago, it was
so full of life, truth and movement and, above all, so superbly
beautiful.
“My _chela_!” he said, and smiled, and passed on.
At one place, where the corridor turned at right angles and a lamp hung
in chains from the ceiling, there was another pastel drawing, a portrait
this one, of the Lama himself.
“Wrinkles and all!” he said, chuckling.
He stood beside Ommony and studied the portrait for more than a minute;
it seemed to amuse him as much as it astonished Ommony, who caught his
breath.
“My God!” Ommony exclaimed. “That’s—”
“Yes,” said the Lama, chuckling. “That old person was my God once. It
takes us long to learn. But San-fun-ho drew the picture, and I saw
myself through the eyes of my _chela_, which are very interesting.
Notice, my son, how affectionate she is, and yet how truthful. Not one
hidden foolishness escapes her; and she sets it all down. Yet she is as
gentle as the rain on dry hills.”
He passed on, opened a door, glanced in, and motioned Ommony to enter.
“School-room!” he said, and chuckled again, as if remembering a chain of
incidents.
It looked about as much unlike a school-room as it would be easy to
imagine. There was nobody in there, but it was lighted with kerosene
lamps as if visitors were expected. Across the full width of the room at
one end was a stage, provided with curtain, footlights, wings and
painted scenery. There were comfortable seats and small, square, solid
tables on the floor for twenty or thirty people; and there was a
gallery, at the end opposite the stage, for twenty or thirty more. The
place was scrupulously clean and tidy.
“Life, my son, is drama. Why teach how to drug the mind, when the
purpose of life is to render it alert and active? Shakespeare was right.
You remember? ‘All the world’s a stage.’ No learning is of any value
unless we can translate it into action. Bad thoughts produce hideous
action; right thinking produces grace and symmetry; and the audience is
almost as important as the play. Let the child act the part of a
villain, and it learns to strive to be a hero; let the hero’s part be a
reward for genuine effort, and lo! sincerity becomes the goal. There
have been plays enacted here that would have thrilled Shakespeare to the
marrow of his manhood. San-fun-ho wrote most of them.”
“Who were the audience?” asked Ommony.
“Monks—Ahbors. The stupider the better. Let the actors strive to act so
simply and sincerely that even monks and savages can understand. There
have been plays acted on this stage that I think would have converted
even Christian missionaries from the error of their own
self-righteousness.”
He led the way out again along the corridor, and now he began to hurry,
striding with the regular, long movements of a mountaineer. He had
suddenly thrown off fifty years again, in one of those strange
resurrections of youth that seemed to sweep over him at intervals.
Ommony, with Diana at his heels, had all he could do to keep pace.
However, there were pauses. He opened doors here and there along echoing
corridors, giving Ommony a glimpse of rooms, each one of which had some
connection with the beloved _chela_. There was a bedroom, as plain and
almost as severely furnished as a monastery cell, only that every single
item in it was as perfect as material and craftsmanship could contrive,
and the proportions, the color, and something else that was indefinable,
produced an atmosphere of unconditioned peace. There was nothing out of
place, and no unnecessary object in the room. The walls were pale
daffodil-yellow; the Chinese rug was blue; the bed-spread was old-rose.
There were flowers in a Ming vase on a small square table, but no other
ornament.
“These walls will not forget her,” said the Lama. There was an agony
within him, as his voice betrayed.
He led the way along a corridor, opening doors of rooms where the
_chela’s_ companions had slept, making no comment. Those other rooms
were more ornate than the _chela’s_ and vaguely, indefinably less
beautiful;—there was more furniture—less character—but tidiness and
cleanliness beyond belief.
The monastery was honeycombed into a limestone mountain’s heart. It was
enormous. There was possibly accommodation for a thousand people, with
perfect ventilation and no dampness, although how that was contrived did
not appear. Nor was there any sign of its inhabitants, nor any sound,
except the shuffling of Ommony’s loose shoes and the solid thump of the
Lama’s bare feet as he strode with bowed head and the skirts of his long
robe swinging.
They descended a long, hewn stairway presently and emerged, through a
door a foot thick that was carved on both sides with dragons, into the
open air. The rush and roar of water pouring into hollow caverns greeted
them. They were now on that side of the monastery that Ommony had first
seen, with the terraced amphitheater below them, but it was too dark to
peer into its depths. The stars blinked down above a rim of mountains.
“There will be a full moon,” said the Lama, a propos, apparently, of
nothing.
He led down into the dark amphitheater, by paths and steps that linked
the circling terraces, and turned, midway, into a tunnel whose dark
opening was like an ink-blot in the shadow of rocks and trees. Ten yards
along the tunnel Ommony heard him fumbling with a lock; a door swung
almost silently; the Lama took him by the hand and pulled him forward,
closing the door but not locking it. Then, in such utter darkness that
all the senses were almost swallowed by it and Diana whimpered, the Lama
led, pauseless, holding Ommony’s hand as if it were a child’s. The old
man’s grip was like a swordsman’s, as if his vanished youth, reborn for
the moment, were burning him up. The strange thrill that was consuming
him communicated itself to Ommony through the linked hands.
At the end of an immeasurable distance—(there was no sense of time or
space in that impenetrable darkness)—they emerged into gloom under an
oval patch of starlit sky, on a ledge, an incalculable distance down the
inside of a limestone pit—somber, irregularly circular, enormous. The
Lama sat down on a mat that somebody had placed for him—signed—and
Ommony sat down beside him, on the same mat.
“Let the dog not wander away. Bid her lie here,” he said, in a normal
voice.
As Ommony’s eyes grew gradually used to the gloom he discerned that they
were very near the bottom of the pit, whose almost perpendicular flanks
rose so high that the stars appeared like bright dots on a dark-blue
dome that rested on the summit. His own breathing seemed abominably
noisy in the silence.
In front of where they sat there was a sheer drop, but the bottom did
not seem to be more than fifty feet below; and somewhere in the midst of
the almost circular space into which he gazed there was an object,
bulky, of no ascertainable shape, and apparently raised on a platform of
rock so as to be almost on a level with the ledge on which they sat.
Diana lay still, sniffing, one ear raised; there were humans not far
away.
Presently there was a sound below—apparently a footstep, and Diana
growled at it. A lantern appeared, but it was impossible to tell whether
the individual who carried it was man or woman. There were several more
footsteps, and one word in a clear voice—instantly recognizable—the
_chela’s_. There began to be a prodigious phantom movement in the gloom.
Something—a great black cloth apparently—was pulled by many hands and
the shape of the object in the center changed. The lantern-light was
reflected in a sea-green pin-point that spread and increased as the
moonlight spreads on water, but much more fiery, and full of weird
movement. The lantern suddenly went out, but the peculiar green glow had
made such an impression that with his eyes shut, Ommony could still see
evolving, glowing green.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The Jade of Ahbor.”
The Lama’s voice was solemn. He seemed almost to resent the question.
However he went on speaking in a low voice.
“That fragment, that was broken off and stolen by an Ahbor, has been set
back, but there is none nowadays who knows how to heal the break. There
is a blemish. Thus one ignorant fool can spoil the product of a thousand
wise men’s labor. But that Ahbor was no better and no worse than they
who ruin reputations, to possess an hour’s self-righteousness. Others
who should know better, will try to break my _chela’s_ spirit when the
time comes—some for their own amusement, some for profit, some because
they hate the truth. But she is made of stronger stuff than stone.”
His self-control was not so perfect as it had been. The last few words
were in a tone of voice that fought with overwhelming sadness.
Ommony was about to ask a question when the Lama spoke again:
“My son, remember _this_: the highest motive is of no avail without
proportion and a sense of fitness; because these are the life of wisdom.
Time is a delusion. All is the eternal Now. But in a world in which all
is delusion, of which time is a controlling element, there is a proper
time for all things. We can not mount the camel that has passed us, nor
the camel that has not yet come. Neither does the water that has gone by
turn the mill-wheel. He who feels the force of destiny within him,
waits, as birds wait for the sunrise—as the seed waits for the spring.
It is not enough to do the right thing. If the full moon shines at
midday, what does it accomplish? If the drum beats out of time, what
happens to the symphony? To discern the right time, and to act precisely
then, is as important as the knowledge _how_ to act. But discernment
does not come by reason of desire; it comes by observation of essential
truths—as that the sun, the moon, the stars, the seasons and the tides
keep their appointed path, and when they fail there is disaster. This is
an appointed time. Mark well.”
The somber silence and the ragged flanks of the pit, that towered upward
through a million shapeless shadows to the star-pierced oval summit,
combined to inspire dread—but of what? Ommony could feel Diana
trembling.
The Lama spoke again after a long pause, as dispassionately as a big
clock ticking in the dark—asserting measured, elemental facts.
“Remember. Remember each word, my son. I speak with death not far from
me. At dawn the Ahbors go to the northern end of the valley, by the
Tsangpo Falls, to await my coming. At noon I meet them.”
He was silent for many minutes. Not until the silence had grown almost
unendurable did he go on speaking.
“Lest the Ahbors harm themselves by slaying more than me, who am
responsible, I have sent into Tibet all but a few of my monastery
people. At noon I will try to reach agreement with the Ahbors, that if
they slay me, for having broken their law, they shall permit the others
to return to the monastery, and a new Lama to be sent to hold authority.
But as to the outcome of that I know nothing. It may be that the Jade
must be hidden by the Tsangpo waters. There is a time for all things; it
is not my province to know the time for that; there are others whose
province it is.”
He stared into the dark in front of him. When he spoke again, at the end
of five minutes, his voice sounded almost as if he had left his body and
were speaking to it and to Ommony.
“Remember every word. Those few, who have remained, are chosen men, who
know the secret way. They will take you into India—you, San-fun-ho and
all the European _chelas_ to Tilgaun—the Tibetan _chelas_ into Tibet by
the route that leads through Sikhim, because _they_ have a destiny that
they can best fulfill in Tibet.”
Followed another tense silence, broken by the long-drawn howl of an
animal somewhere on the ledges half a mile above them. It sounded
lonelier than the wail of a forgotten soul.
“I am not the guardian of Hannah Sanburn. Even as you and I, my son, she
governs her own destiny. But she is good. No harm can come if she should
leave Tilgaun, because she has done her work there, and it is another’s
turn. There is one who will take my place as trustee; he will present
himself; I have written his appointment. There is one who will take her
place; perhaps she is that one at whose house you were in Delhi; but
that is Hannah Sanburn’s business. There is one who will take your
place; but that is _your_ affair. No man is indispensable. He who clings
to the performance of a duty when the work is done and another waits to
carry evolution forward, is as the fungus on the living tree. He rots.
The tree rots under him.”
Silence again. A wedge of silver, creeping down the western side of the
pit, dispersed the shadows and threw great fangs of limestone into high
relief; but that was very far above them. “Where they sat it seemed
darker than ever.
“Remember every word, my son. I speak in the portal of death. I do not
say that Hannah Sanburn shall go with you to the West. That may, or it
may not be. I do say, tarry not in Tilgaun, because this is an appointed
time. Three of the lesser _chelas_ will go with San-fun-ho to the West.
Let _her_ select them. Let the others stay in Tilgaun, where as much
awaits them as they have the character to do.”
The beast in the dark loneliness above them howled again. Ommony sat
watching the forerunner of the moonlight chasing shadows down the
pit-side—wondering. After nearly a quarter of a century in India he and
Hannah Sanburn would be almost as much strangers in the West as
San-fun-ho would be.
“There is a fitness in all things and a time for all things,” said the
Lama, as if he had read Ommony’s mind. “But a great faith is required,
and a sincerity that like the temper of the steel turns faith into a
ready weapon and impenetrable armor. Hannah Sanburn has nobility. It may
be, she may help you to serve San-fun-ho. But beware, my son, of the
snare of personality. If ye two seek to serve each other, ye are like
the two sides of a triangle that has no base, nor any purpose. But if ye
both serve San-fun-ho, and she the world, the triangle is perfect.” He
paused again, then slowly turned his head and looked into Ommony’s eyes.
His own were like blue jewels burning in the dark.
“Without you,” he said, “or without her, San-fun-ho will find others.
She is my _chela_, and I know the power that is in her. But beware of
being false! Better for you never to have been born! Better to die ten
thousand deaths than to betray her through self-seeking! Let her alone,
my son, unless you can follow all the way! Then, if she should lead you
wrong, that will be her affair; in after lives _you_ will have _karma_
of sincerity, and _she_ the fruit of false teaching—if she _should_
teach falsely.—But I know my _chela_. She will lead upward, as an
eagle, and all the enemies of light will spread their nets for her in
vain!”
As he ceased speaking the whole western wall of the gigantic pit became
suffused in silver, as the moon’s edge crossed the eastern rim. Wan,
scrawny crags of limestone yearned like frozen ghosts toward the light.
The pit’s awful nakedness lay revealed, its outlines dimmed in shadow,
as mysterious, as silent and as measureless as the emotion born of
gazing.
Suddenly, as the moon’s disk appeared, there shone a green light in the
midst of the pit—a light that swirled as if in moving water, and
increased in size, as if it multiplied itself within the substance it
had touched. It grew into a pool—a globe—a sphere—an ovoid mass of
liquid green light, all in motion, transparent, huge—afloat, it seemed,
in black precipitated silence, two, or perhaps three hundred feet away.
Slowly, very slowly, it became apparent that the egg-shaped mass was
resting on seven upright stones, of the same color as itself, that were
set beneath it on a platform of dark rock that rose exactly in the
middle of the pit.
As the full moon floated into view the enormous mass of jade so caught
the light that it seemed to absorb all of it. And suddenly a figure
stood before the livid jade—a girl’s; she was the Gretchen-girl, with
whom Ommony had spoken on the night when he first saw San-fun-ho’s
companions on the stage. She was draped in white, but the stuff glowed
green in the jade’s reflection, and as she peered into the enormous
stone she held the end of the loose drapery across the lower portion of
her face, like a shield, with her elbow forward. She gazed for about a
minute, and then disappeared. Another took her place.
“It is only San-fun-ho who dares to look into the Jade for long,” said
the Lama solemnly. “It shows them all the horror of their lower selves.
_They_ look by moonlight. _They_ must drape themselves, for they have
much to overcome, and there is magic in the Jade. None but my
_chela_—none but San-fun-ho—dares to face it in the full light of the
sun.”
One by one the seventeen girls appeared, looked deep into the Jade, and
vanished into darkness.
“They are not bad,” said the Lama. “Not bad, my son. There are not so
many better women. Do _you_ dare to look?”
But Ommony sat still.
“Better so,” said the Lama. “In curiosity there is no wisdom. He who can
not look long enough to see his higher nature shining through the lower,
had better have seen nothing.”
There commenced a chant, of women’s voices, rising from the fathomless
darkness below the Jade. It began by being low and almost melancholy,
but changed suddenly into faster tempo and a rising theme of triumph,
ending in a measured march of glory. There was no accompaniment, no
drum-beat, but the final phrases pulsed with power, ending on a chord
that left imagination soaring into upper realms of splendor. Then, in
silence, as sublimely as the moon had sailed across the rim of the dark
pit, the girls emerged out of the black night as if they had been
projected by a magic lantern. No sound of footfall or of breathing
reached across the intervening gap as, with restraint that told of
strength in hand and limitless lore of rhythm, they danced their weaving
measure seven times around the stone, as lovely to the eye as Grecian
figures, cut in cameo on green and conjured into life. It was sheer
spiritual magic.
There was not a wasted motion, not a step but symbolized the ordered,
infinitely beautiful evolving of a universe; and as they passed behind
the glowing jade their figures seemed to swim within the stone, as if
they were nymphs afloat in moonlit water. But there was no sign yet of
San-fun-ho.
“They shall remember this night!” said the Lama.
The fire within the Jade grew dim and died as the moon’s edge passed
beyond the crags. The girls vanished in black darkness.
“And so, you have seen the Jade. Few have seen that,” said the Lama.
“And you will find that there are very few who will believe you have
seen it; but that is no harm, because _most_ of those who would believe
are merely credulous, of the sort who hunt miracles and seek to make
themselves superior by short-cuts. Whereas there are no short-cuts, and
there is no superiority of the sort they crave, but only a gradual
increase of responsibility, which is attained by earned self-mastery.”
Suddenly a voice came from the pit beneath them, clear and
confident,—the _chela’s_:
“O Tsiang Samdup!”
The Lama answered with a monosyllable, his body rigid with emotion. His
dim outline was like an eagle’s startled from his aerie in the night.
“O Tsiang Samdup, the Ahbors have come for a conference. They ask for
word with you.”
“Cover the Jade,” he answered.
There was presently a phantom movement, shapeless and billowy, as if a
huge black cloth were being hauled back into place; and then the rain
came, softly, steadily, until the air grew full of music made by little
cataracts that splashed from rock to rock. The Lama sighed and, for a
moment, his outline seemed to shrink as old age claimed him, but he
threw that off and stood up, motioning to Ommony to move back under
shelter of the rock.
“Wait there,” he commanded, and vanished. Ommony could hear him climbing
down into the darkness—and presently two voices as he talked in low
tones with the _chela_. Then, silence, for a very long time, only broken
by the music of the rain and a weird wind sighing on the upper ledges
until wind and rain ceased, and there was only the tinkle of dripping
water.
The dog crept close to Ommony for warmth, shivering at the loneliness.
Ommony tried to memorize the Lama’s conversation. He had almost
forgotten the Jade. It was nothing as compared to the tremendous issues
that the Lama dealt in. Thought groped in an unseen future. The
sensation was of waiting on the threshold of a new world—waiting to be
born. The past lost all reality. The world he had
known—war—selfishness—corruption—was a nightmare, wrought of
hopelessness and full of useless aims. The future? It was his—his
own—immensely personal to him. He was about to be born again into the
old world, but with an utterly new consciousness of values. He knew he
had a duty in the world; but he could not formulate it—would not know
how to begin—only knew it was immensely dark and silent on the
threshold.
The Lama’s voice broke silence, speaking to the _chela_ somewhere in the
pit below:
“The first duty of a _chela_ is obedience!”
Silence again. Not even wind or rain to break the stillness. At last the
Lama’s figure, like a shadow issuing from nothing, approaching along the
ledge and sitting down near him—but not near enough for conversation.
Then, after a very long pause, the _chela’s_ voice, resonant and clear
from somewhere in the distance:
“O Tsiang Samdup! I obey. And _they_ obey _me_. May I wait until the
dawn? It is not long.”
The Lama gave assent—one monosyllable—then groaned, and came and sat
closer to Ommony.
“My work is done,” he said. “There is a limit to endurance.”
He glanced up at the sky, but there was no sign yet of dawn.
A low chant came from the distance—almost like the humming of a swarm
of bees, but the Lama took no notice of it.
“She will go with you, thinking I come later. You may tell her in
Tilgaun, and she will understand. She will be brave then. She will not
forget she was my _chela_.”
There was only the sound of humming after that until the crags around
the rim of the great pit grew faintly luminous before the coming of the
dawn, and the stars grew paler. Then the hum swelled into song, whose
music sounded like the mystic evolution of new worlds; they were all
girls’ voices, thrilling with courage and exultation. Ommony strained
his ears to catch the words, but the distance was too great. Somehow,
although he could not penetrate the darkness, he felt as if a veil were
lifting.
The song ceased, and in the hush that followed Tsiang Samdup rose to his
feet.
“I go,” he said quietly. “I am old, my son. I can not bear to say
good-by to my beloved _chela_. May the gods, who guard your manhood,
give you strength and honesty to serve her. She will ask for me. You may
say to her: ‘The first duty of a _chela_ is obedience.’”
He turned into the tunnel, walking swiftly, and was gone. A silver bell
rang, over in the distance, opposite, seven times, slow and distinct;
then a pause, in which the overtones spread off into infinity; then
seven times again. And as the last note faded into silence, dawn touched
the crags with silver and the _chela’s_ voice rose young and glorious,
intoning the oldest invocation in the world:
“O my Divinity, blend Thou with me . . . that out of darkness I may go
forth in Light.”
Daylight spread swiftly down the crags until it touched a ledge on which
the _chela_ stood, and all beneath that was darkness, like a pool of
ink. Her right hand was raised. The other girls, beneath her, were
invisible. Dawn glistened on her face.
Her lips moved and her breast swelled as she drew breath to intone the
Word. And then, in chorus from the mist and darkness that enwrapped her
feet, and from her own lips, came the magic, long-drawn syllable that
has been sacred since before Atlantis sank under the ocean and new races
explored new continents—the Word that signifies immeasurable, absolute,
unthinkable, all-compassing, for ever infinite and unattainable, sublime
and holy Essence—the Beginning and the End.
“O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-om-m-m-m-m—”
It rose, and rose, and died away among the crags, until the last
reverberation echoed faintly from the upper levels and there came an
answer to it, sonorous and strong, in a man’s voice, from a crag beside
a cave-mouth three hundred feet above the ledge where Ommony stood,
nearly midway between him and the _chela_.
“O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-om-m-m-m-m!”
The Lama raised his right hand in a final benediction, turned into the
cave and vanished. Then the _chela’s_ voice—calling to Ommony as dawn
sank deep into the pit, revealing her companions on a ledge below:
“O Gupta Rao—change your name now! Wait for me. I am coming—Tsiang
Samdup bids us go forth together!”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.