exactly true and at the same time relieve his master's agony. "They
asked me many questions as to our work in the desert--why we had come
west from Nadiram. I told them of the mission as I know it--of the
waiting leaders in Peking. Then they asked me about the woman, and I
said that I was not in the knowledge of your concern with her. They
asked if the woman had come from Peking with you. I said no. They asked
where you had found her. I told them in Nadiram. They asked what I
thought of your bringing the woman with you on this mission. I said I
was your servant and that I had no authority to think. They did not make
their plans regarding the separation in my hearing."
"Thank you, Bamban."
Romney could not feel his real life. The pain across his chest had
returned. At intervals he talked with the _boy_, who answered
patiently, but could give no more than has been said. The white man
felt the repetitions, halted in shame, remembering suddenly that he had
asked in regard to certain matters many times before--yet his mind would
come up from its black depth with the same question again. At times he
was childish. He would have taken Bamban's hand if it were night. He
thought often of Nadiram as a safe place. It would be heaven to ride on
to Wampli--if Anna Erivan were safely back in the Consulate. He had not
been strong enough to leave her there! ... Now Anna Erivan was in the
hands of the Dugpas, at the mercy of a desert band--carried away by dark
men who frothed at the lips.... Often his face turned back. Once he
broke out laughing. It was toward the end of the day....
Bamban talked to him after that--told the story again and again without
questions, making him listen. Their little band halted for the evening.
They meant to reach Wampli the next afternoon. The sun was down, but
the sky filled with afterglow--the south still brazen, the east dull,
the west ablaze, the north a cool blue-green of pasture-lands. Many
times Bamban asked his master to sip the tea. Food was not to be
thought of. At last the servant followed the white man's eyes, which
were lost in the south.
"What do you see?" Bamban whispered.
"It has the look of a low-flying swan to me."
Bamban saw the flash of white against the sky. It was like developing a
plate. A superb camel cleared in the heightening glow, all shadows and
distances falling away--a mighty dromedary, pure white, lean and tall in
dull gold trappings. Bamban could only think of the words of his
master--a low-flying swan.
The Dugpas arose in strange formation. Straight to them that long
snarling head--then the voice from the basket, the halt, the
kneeling.... It was a huge round basket like a bowl. The driver
touched his forehead to the ground before them, then toward the east,
then toward the camel. He arose and, stepping lightly with bare foot
upon the shoulder of the dromedary, glanced with deepest reverence over
the rim of the basket. At that moment, Romney saw again the shrunken,
shaven skull--touched with evening now, the eyes lifting dully from deep
sleep.
"It's Rajananda," eagerly whispered Bamban. "It's quite all right now
for us. It's as I thought--he is the master of all in these parts!"
"Rajananda--" Romney repeated.
The driver, still standing upon the camel's shoulder, caught the hem of
the great yellow robe in his hand and beckoned the American to stand
beside him and take the other. It was thus that Rajananda was lowered
to the ground in his blanket--very gentle that delivery, as two storks
would perform upon unsuspecting parents in the stillest hour.
It was the hollow of the white man's arm that presently took the chin of
the Ancient, who spoke at once of the Five-fold Reason and the Nine-fold
Order, cosmic and terrestrial; the plan of the Universe admitting of no
imperfection, and the absolute rightness of right conduct and right
emotion--all of which Bamban accepted as if eating from the ground, and
Romney took with impatience until he could speak of the woman.
Rajananda was coming closer with the thought. All was well with Turgim;
well with Nadiram; the desert slept in its great peace. Alone of the
earth, the heart of man faltered and fell short of perfection. Black
misery brooded over the heart of man; soon he, Rajananda, would pass
forth from this misery, but the sufferings of the sons of men swiftly
again would call him back. This coming by camel was but a symbol of his
entrance by the dark way of woman's womb into the world of men again....
Romney heard the words. It was that queer listening on his part, to
meanings that would unfold and become clearer afterward. Something of
beauty and order came to him from the old master's presence. Rajananda
now appeared to see the white man as one detached from the rest. Romney
bent closer to the face in the hollow of his arm.
"There was a woman," the saint observed. "Once, before you came, she
rested my head and filled my bowl in the stone square at Nadiram."
"They have taken her away from me. It was this morning, Father, two
parties separating after the halt in the night. It was the hour of our
mating. We were journeying on to Wampli together--"
Romney spoke softly. His voice surprised himself, for it was steady and
sane.
"I am listening, for you to help me," he added in the silence.
Rajananda seemed to sleep. Romney held himself with such tensity that
sweat came to his face.
"You have met. You will meet again. Nothing is lost. Man cannot put
asunder that which Holy Breath has joined together. Man goes alone to
the Sanctuary, and woman waits. In going alone, the man is strengthened;
in waiting, the woman is purified.... And now you will sleep.
Rajananda, your father, will be here beside you, and these, my desert
children, will watch over us through the night."
The ancient withered hand swept slowly from one to another of the
Dugpas. All had turned at the sound of Rajananda's voice. Each man
bowed low as he was designated. Romney felt that sleep was utterly gone
from him. And yet the night passed without breaking him--a kind of
passage from one numbed dream to another.... Rajananda journeyed on
with them the next morning, the dromedary abreast, held to the slower
pace of the white man's beast. Questions came often to the white man,
but his awe of the old priest forbade. Rajananda talked when he was
ready. As the day rose, Romney met the brazen curtain again.
The picture of yesterday's dawn recurred at intervals with unabating
horror; and the steady consciousness that he was moving farther and
farther from his own. Sanity was difficult in this suffering, but
always as it reached a certain pressure of destructiveness, its voltage
seemed queerly lowered, and he lost the sand and sky, and travelled
through the deadly glitter that had neither surface nor line. This
emerging at the moment of shattering always had to do with Rajananda.
Somehow the old master would break the spell, and Romney would hear
voices and feel again the swing of the camel's tread. Presently all
would sink away but the voice of the Ancient, who affirmed again and
again neither the past nor the present, but what was to be:
"Your work is not done. This is the stone death that you feel. It
comes to ease the pain, and the pain comes from the red of flesh. When
you have faith, all will be well--"
"They tore her from me!"
"All is well with her. You have chosen the way to God through a woman.
It is the harder way. When you love enough, you will find peace--"
"It is because I love her that I suffer so--"
"My son talks as a child. It is because you do not love enough. In the
great love there is no separation, save that of limbs and lips and
hands. You have been taken for a brief season from that, in order that
you may rise to the great love which laughs at death and distance and
the intervention of men. Long ago you learned this, but my son has
forgotten. The woman will remember more quickly and wait with serenity.
Hold your hands to the sun. Rise to the love of the Long Road--and the
lesson will soon be finished. She is waiting--"
"Where--"
"In good time you shall know."
"Is there not to be a love on earth?"
"Yes; the great races of the future--the races that shall heal the
world--are to come from the love of earth--"
"I want her here on earth. We had only met when she was taken away."
"You cannot know the blessedness of the valley until you have crossed
the heights--"
"But we only just met, Father. All our lives we were apart."
"There is another range of hills for you to cross--"
"But she saw me carried from her as one dead--"
"Even so, she is at peace in this hour. The faith of woman comes more
quickly than the faith of man. She is one of the mothers of the new
race. Her children cannot be borne alone among the little valley
shrines of men. Her children must breathe the strong air of the hills."
"But tell me, shall I meet her again here--down on the good earth?"
"Your master cannot speak of that. If I should tell you what you ask,
you could not turn your eyes upward from the dream of the
valley-shrines.... Hold up your palms, my son. Master the red of flesh
that will not let you wait in peace. So long as you can be destroyed by
that, you are not ready for the greater meeting with the Beloved--"
"I could die, but it would not be better than this--"
"The true Brahman speaks in that saying. We shall not know the Holy
Breath in death, if we fail to find it here in the life of flesh."
There were hours of this--backward and forward. Rajananda, who seemed
hardly strong enough to hold his life to the withered body, could speak
and answer tirelessly through the blinding day.
"But tell me," Romney asked at last, "has she a master to make easy
these hours--a master to tell her the way to meet this hardest of all
lessons--to wait?"
"She has a master," said the mystic, "but not an old man like Rajananda.
She does not need to be reminded by a voice from without. It is easier
for a woman to wait, my son. The faith of woman comes more quickly."
*2*
At Wampli that night, Romney read the last of the documents given him by
Nifton Bend, the one designated to be opened at this point. As he had
dimly anticipated, the papers concerned Rajananda who proved to be the
power of the Asiatic section in the East, the guardian of the Eastern
Gate to the alleged Inner Temple, and the highest of the forces in touch
with Peking, politically. Of all the Gobi hierarchy, Rajananda was
alone in retaining a name and personality used in the outer world. How
close he was to the great Lohan, Romney's information did not even
hazard.
The American was ordered to await the coming of Rajananda in Wampli, to
place his case before this priest and to accept the judgment of the
latter as to whether he should journey on farther for the ultimate
decisions. In a word, if Rajananda cared to close the issues of the
mission, either for good or ill, so far as the Big Three were concerned,
Romney's out-journey was ended. On the contrary, if Rajananda refused
to act, and advised him to carry his plea for the new party in China
still higher, Romney was commanded to accept the advice and to continue
his advance into the desert as directed.
There was a singular nobility about the second paper, which contained
the story of the dream and forming structure of New China. Romney was
familiar with this study of the coming civilisation, and felt the mighty
and beloved spirit of Nifton Bend in every line of the writing. The
China which the Hunchback pictured for future years carried the wisest
and most modern conceptions of super-national development and the
brotherhood principle in the comprehension of apostles of the new social
order. Romney was asked in a personal note to place the salient points
of this document before Rajananda, one by one. This he was prepared
and, in fact, eager to accomplish.
The third enclosure contained a sealed envelope which the American was
asked not to open for the present. The accompanying sheets of this
document had to do with the menace of Japan. The peril of the Japanese
aggressiveness was traced, during the past two decades, to the present
snapping point. Japan was shown in her position toward China and the
other powers, in relation to the present world-war. The Japanese
ambition was set forth from both the conservative and the more perilous
angles. Nifton Bend erected in rousing outline the future of Asia under
Japanese dominance, in contrast to the vast yellow peoples gathered in a
fabric of fraternity and turned outward in benevolence toward the other
races of the world.
There were moments in which Romney forgot his own tragedy. The old
power of Nifton Bend returned to his heart, the deep thrall of service
under him. Something of the breadth of force that comes from
self-immolation touched his zeal afresh and brought nearer and clearer
the dimension of faith and divine fire which Rajananda had laboured all
that day to impress upon his torn and fevered heart. Romney was
confronted with the need of drawing upon some higher potency to endure
these hours. He could not change the facts of yesterday. He could not
turn back until the old master and his desert children made the journey
possible. In justice to Anna Erivan, he could not cease to live unless
death came to him from an exterior agency, and he was sufficiently
imbued with the mysticism of the Orient to believe that death,
self-inflicted, would not entirely release him from the struggle and
agony of the present separation. Again that night came the queer
impulsive passion to transcend these limitations--instead of to bow
before them; and more clearly that night he realised what Rajananda had
repeated so often through the day: that the limitations were set upon
him for the sole purpose of forcing him to rise in his strength and
transcend them.
... Nifton Bend had found his own in Moira Kelvin, but only after he had
given himself utterly to the service of a foreign people.... Romney
turned back to his reading. Bamban was watching him from a shadow--that
strange and sleepless _boy_ farther from the white man's comprehension
at this moment than when they had set out together from the house of
Minglapo.... Just now, Romney encountered a personal note in regard to
the sealed envelope:
"My dear Romney: The contents of the final envelope which is
sealed are matters which need only be used in case Rajananda or
others higher inquire regarding the specific means by which our
new party plans to overcome the aggressiveness of the Japanese
in case of their war on China. We know that this is uncertain
ground for you personally, but trust that in case you are called
upon, you will open this letter and state the contents to the
religious masters, without bias. Perhaps you will be surprised
to find that they who hold all life dear, having a deeper
knowledge of the meaning of life than we are given to know, will
look with philosophic calm upon the methods we plan to use, to
overcome the strength of this young and brutal people. Our
whole case is in your hands.
"You will be interested to know that I had intended to take this
journey into the desert. I felt that my services could well be
spared for so important a mission. The change of plan came as a
result of that extra case against you in the police station.
During the hours that elapsed before we could secure your
freedom (after we had accomplished your release from the first
charge) conditions arose here that demanded my remaining in the
vicinity of Peking and Tientsin indefinitely. Had the Chinese
officials turned you loose when we expected, your service for us
would have been carried on in Japan instead of the Gobi. As it
stands, we are all breathless for the issue of your travel.
"A last word: If our methods of dealing with Japan in case of
war are not asked, do not open this envelope. I would spare you
from it personally. On the eve of your return journey, whether
it is successful or not, burn the envelope unread, and hurry
home to us. There is much for you to do here. Men of your
class are rare. The woman who has come to me, bringing the full
cup of life, has quickened our spirits toward you afresh, and
you know how animate we were before...."
Romney brooded long. He could feel the world a little--the different
pulse that the Gobi had made him forget. He felt his relation to the
Big Three and the world at large once more. The timeless repetitions of
Rajananda came and went in his brain like the sounding of breakers; the
letter from Nifton Bend contained intrinsically the fervour and courage
that he held most dear from men of the world. He was called to a longer
view of life than this present pit afforded. The great plan of it
appeared. Out of the sorriest fall of his life had come the great
meeting with his own woman. He pictured the wastrel in flapping white
clothing that had sunk into the stoke-hold of the _John Dividend_ in
Manila Harbour. Upon that day and that ship depended the night of the
Cross in Nadiram and the night of the Crown in the desert--upon that
darkest of beings, McLean, hung an issue of starry light, for had he not
borrowed five pounds from that fence-faced marine, he would have been
sent to Japan instead of the desert, where his woman waited.
It was only the Terrible Now....
Romney slept. Anna Erivan came and went in his dreams. Once she was
singing her _magnificat_ in the hill-country.... The next day, Romney
told the story of his mission to Rajananda. For many hours they sat
together on the mud-floor of the clay-walled and palm-thatched hut in
Wampli. Rajananda lay covered in his yellow robe and listened, marking
the symbols of God and the Holy Breath upon the dirt of the floor with a
finger-nail like a twisted kernel of dried corn. Toward evening they
broke their fast together, and Romney covered his face in his hands as
he listened:
"My son, you are strong. Yesterday you wanted death, but knew too much
to die in the midst of gray hate and red desire. All is well with you
to-day. Your eyes hold the light that sees afar off. That which you
bring to me from the capital of the Empire is too great for the like of
Rajananda whose thoughts are of God and not of men.... I see strange
things. I see the empire of brotherhood as your white master envisions
it, but it is not so near as he thinks--and his figure is not in the
midst of it. We will journey on and place our story at the feet of
Tsing Hsia, my stern brother in Rhadassim--a journey of five camel days
into the west. Your heart is strong, my son. Your woman waits for
you--"
Five camel days.... There was an instant in which Romney almost asked
for mercy. He would have done this the day before, but somehow he had
turned back from the last ditch once more, clutching the very substance
to live on from the Unseen--a bigger and silenter man than went out from
Nadiram.... He asked the stars if his woman still lived. The next
morning as the sun came up, he saw himself in the tin water basin--a
darkly-wasted face, beaked like a Hindu of caste, and the eyes asked the
same question.
"Five camel days," he muttered. "Romney, they don't give you a chance
to choose or to fight. You've either got to go on or lay down--and you
can't lay down...."
He turned a look back to the East as the camel knelt for him, and sent
forth the best he had of love and courage to the woman. So much surged
from him that moment that an answer seemed to come back--nothing he
could be sure of, nothing that had to do with actual words, perhaps
illusion altogether, but his face wore a thin smile, and there was a
humming about his heart.
For another whole day at Rhadassim, Romney talked, and the next day
Rajananda offered his observations. All the time the stern and stolid
Tsing Hsia listened, and at the end announced that one more Father
should be called to the matter--Chi Yuan of Kuderfoi, a three days'
journey westward by camel.... Romney felt in this accession that his
last debt was paid to life.... It was Chi Yuan, on the second day after
the arrival at Kuderfoi, who asked by what means the new Chinese party
planned to make Japan sue for an early peace in case of struggle with
China. Romney asked permission to withdraw for an hour. It was granted
and he read the sealed letter from Nifton Bend.
... For a long time he sat in silence. Ten minutes was all that the
reading required. He rejoined the three Holy Men, no longer impassioned
for the cause of the Big Three, but merely to state the case without
bias, as Nifton Bend had asked.... Romney always remembered the three
bowed heads, as he entered the little tiled court where the yellow
lilies grew. This was the end of his out-journey. He knew it now and
was very calm. That for which he had been sent would be answered this
day. The rest was but the return of the message--then Anna Erivan, if
grace were still in the world for him.
Romney felt aged like the three. A little spray moved a pool of water
before them. The lilies were lotus-sweet to the white man's nostrils
after an eternity of desert-sand. The green cooled his brain like a
dear hand. He stood with bowed head, a little at the side, and waited
for them to turn from their meditation.
"Speak," said Chi Yuan.
"The new party of China is prepared to fight Japan with pestilence.
Their plan is complete. Their chemists have been working for several
years. I have the data here to outline to you how the servants of the
Empire expect to meet the landing forces of Japan, as well as literally
to impregnate the Island Empire with the germs of incurable disease--"
"The outer world of men is truly crushed in the coils of matter," said
the gentle Chi Yuan.
"It is the darkest hour," said Tsing Hsia, the stern. "The dawn might
be hastened by the innovation of this demoniac contrivance. Japan is
young-souled. If allowed to master China and rule Asia, Japan would
bring into the world a repetition of the pitiful and unholy civilisation
which is destroying itself in Europe now. On the contrary, these men of
New China appear to be pure. As I understand, they mean only to defend
themselves and their country in case of Japan's insistence for war. I
believe that their messenger should carry back from us written word of
our good will--the message that we are watching with great ardour their
sign of Empire, and that if they preserve their sign in purity, more and
more will we carry to them the strength of the Inner Temple. In a word,
I, Tsing Hsia, perceive nowhere the promise of national exemplarship for
the new order of humanity as in this dream which the white man brings--"
"But warring with pestilence--" said Chi Yuan.
"It is but bringing a greater destructiveness than fire and steel,"
answered Tsing Hsia. "War will end when its full hideousness is
perceived by the many. Pestilence will but hasten the day."
Romney was amazed that these saints who would not have crushed a worm,
who knew not the taste of red meat, could thus sacrifice an empire for
the good of the future as they saw it. Awe held him, at the
completeness with which they ignored the individual life personally and
nationally, regarding spirit and not flesh in every thought. They had
not even asked for the details which had so harrowed his own heart. To
them, the globe was the plane of a spiritual experiment, and not
property for a group of divided peoples.
Rajananda seemed very little and dry. His hand came out to the
American. He asked to be lifted a little nearer the pool. He dipped
his hands in the pure water and covered them again in the Sannysin robe.
The faces of the two brethren were turned to him, waiting for him to
speak. After long preliminary, he said, perceiving only the future as
was his fashion:
"The dream is in the world. Man will unite with his brother, race to
race; and war shall be no more. Nowhere in the world has this dream,
that broods upon the planet, come nearer to finding its expression in
action than through the labours of this party of which our son brings
tidings. But this party shall pass without knowing the material fruit
of its clean desire. Its business has to do with conception, not with
birth. The time of birth is not far as men reckon years, but it is not
so near as these dreamers and toilers of New China believe.... They
shall pass. The ancient order of Empire shall overpower them. Even now
they are in the folds of the night that still lingers upon the face of
the world. Asia shall be richer for their thought, but from others
shall come the action. Carry to them, my son, by word of mouth the
message of peace and good will from the desert. Our approval in script
may find no hands to accept it, at least no party to profit by it."
Rajananda now spoke directly to Romney: