his own country. It has been good to see these brothers again in the
flesh. In spirit we have been one these many years.... Chi Yuan, will
you see to the preparations for travel, for the night is coming quickly.
Our messenger must make haste in returning or he shall not find ears to
pour our blessing into.
"I will return with you to Rhadassim," said Tsing Hsia.
"And I," said the plaintive Chi Yuan, "shall sit many days by this pool,
meditating upon the coming and the departure of my beloved companions."
... That night, Romney smiled into the starry dark. The great northern
stars burned near--Vega, Arcturus, Antares, Altair. No Inner Temple, no
arcanum; just waiting and travel, broken sleep of nights and unbroken
journeys by day; no phenomena, just sand and sky and low villages, flat
upon the desert and burned gold-brown; no miracle but that of love, no
mystery but the deep mystery of life. The white dromedary sped forward
in silence, making the pace for the rested camels.... It was all haste
now. The old master paused not. His desert children had been
repeatedly enjoined for more rapid speed on the way to Rhadassim....
Romney's mind sped forward, beyond, to Wampli, almost to Nadiram ten
days away--to the point in the desert where the Dugpas had divided,
where his heart had met the hardest human test, and pulsed on.
*3*
The speed of the journey had not abated after Tsing Hsia was left behind
at Rhadassim. A different party of desert men met them for conduct to
Wampli, and the journey that had required five days coming out was made
in four on the return. Rajananda's hand was seldom raised above the rim
of his basket during the hours of travel. Steadily Romney's wonder
increased toward the old ascetic, his place and power. It was he at the
last who had spoken regarding the mission; it was Rajananda to whom all
the leaders and forces of the desert bowed in reverence and fealty.
Rajananda concerned himself not only with the Peking business, the
worship and well-being of the Gobi tribes, and the races of the world at
large, but had time and authority for the direction of a white man's
romance.
The old master seemed anxious for the Big Three to have his word in the
shortest possible time. Romney was worn to the bone. Every hour
devoured him as they neared Wampli. To his surprise, Rajananda did not
remain there, but signified his wish, after a few hours' rest, to
continue toward Nadiram with the American. The utterly emaciated old
body seemed to hold its ultimate force together quite as easily _en
route_ as during a period of rest in one of the settlements. In fact,
it appeared to Romney at length, that Rajananda had somehow learned to
master the elements of his physical being; that death would not be
accidental in his case, but a kind of relinquishing sleep--a passing
forth, in order and without pain. This was only a thought, but many
strange powers were glimpsed from time to time in this companionship.
The Ancient was the cleanest of men. His bath each day was a desert
rite, and, like all else that touched him, the food that he partook of
was kept with holy care by his servant. There was not the faintest taint
of senility about the old body. It was withered and dry but like
sun-dried fruit. Romney often recalled the impression that Rajananda
had made upon Anna Erivan when he first came to the court of the
Consulate--the strength that had come to her from his passing.
Romney lived in this strength. He had need of it. More and more he
realised what Rajananda had meant in this crisis, and how, first and
last, his reliance for the care and welfare of Anna Erivan was held to
the authority of the old ascetic. Somehow he believed that the priest
had been aware of the separation of the lovers before his arrival. No
word was spoken regarding this. Two new camels were supplied at Wampli
for Romney and Bamban, but the white dromedary continued the journey.
The full day's work of even the tawny Bikaners did not wear down this
priceless beast.
The party was rejoined at Wampli by the old Dugpa leader and a dozen
followers, and the journey eastward continued. Romney realised that the
first camp out of Wampli would be made at the point in the desert on the
road to Nadiram, where the separation had taken place.
He did not sleep during this night of travel. He did not ask what was
ahead, but he heard the break in his own voice when he spoke to
Rajananda of other things.
... Romney stood alone the evening of the day following at the place of
the square of stakes.... Bamban called him in for tea at last when the
quick dusk dimmed the faces around the fire. Rajananda had been let
down from his basket in the yellow robe, and the withered old arm raised
to beckon the white man near. For many moments Rajananda ordered his
consciousness by prayer and the repetition of mantras, at last coming
close to the matter so heavy upon Romney's heart:
"My son longs for his beloved as the heart of the _bhakti yogin_ yearns
for union with God."
"The days have been many and long, Father, nor did I leave the loved one
in peace. Without you, I should have awakened from that first
unconsciousness--to resist again and again until death."
"That would have been failure, my son."
"Yes; but we are not trained in the Occident to accept the tearing away
of our women without resistance."
"In spirit you are true Brahman--very far from the Occident in ways of
thought and life. That is why you are tested here. Had you not been
ready to accept the healing of Rajananda, he should not have come to
you. Our disciples are not tested more greatly than they can bear. The
world had ceased to interest you. You had won the cold laugh. Only the
woman of the heart could be used for lifting you to the plane of power.
The plan is not to inflict agony upon you, but to burn and refine and
whiten your soul. Only the woman could be used for that--"
Romney's face paled under its weathering and his lip hardened white.
"I would not make a woman suffer to test a man."
"You have a lingering of the Occidental in your idea of compassion,"
Rajananda said softly. "You have met a woman who does not need sparing
from the truth. What you have won from these days, she has won, too.
Your rising into the breadth of spirit and power has been her ascent
also. Compassion does not mean to spare the beloved from ordeals. The
thing called happiness so often means that content which is a kind of
neglect by the gods. There is a right and a left hand to compassion. It
is a unit made of the sternness of Tsing Hsia and the gentleness of Chi
Yuan. It dares to wound, but it bathes the wound it makes. It loves,
but always constructs. My son, you came to the desert for a greater
thing than to carry a message back to your leaders--"
"I think I came for the meeting with Anna Erivan. I am here again after
many days, at the point where she was taken from me.... I have been able
to live through the recent days because of you, because I have put my
trust in you. My Father, I feel that I cannot go much further without
word from her--"
Darkness had fallen. The old hand came forth slowly from the robe.
Romney's sped forward to take it.
"I have lived in your devotion and it has been a holy thing, my son.
You love well. She has become more than an earth-woman to you. She has
become the way to God. It is the true _yoga_--this love of yours, when
it is lifted from the lust of the flesh. Where there is love like
yours, there is no lust. Without these trials you could not have known
so soon the love you will bring in good time to her breast. The ways of
easily-wedded pairs sink into commonness soon--the dull and dreamless
death. It is those who are kept apart, who overcome great obstacles,
who learn the greatest thing of all--to wait--who touch the upper
reaches of splendour in the love of man and woman, and thus prepare
themselves for the greater union and the higher questing which is the
love of God together."
Romney bowed his head over the aged hand. Even in this hour, Rajananda
had made him forget himself once more.
"You--" he said haltingly, "you, who have never known a woman--how can
you touch the arcanum of romance?"
"The seer must know the hearts of men. Knowledge of love is the
knowledge of God. Love is the Wheel of Life; love is the Holy Breath
that turns the Wheel. The seer is far from ready for his work in the
world, who has forgotten from his breast the love of man and the love of
woman. And then, my son, we are almost at the end of the night of the
world. The builders are coming in to take the places of those who have
torn down with war and every other madness of self. These builders must
be born of men and women--the new race--but of men and women who have
learned what great love means....
"So you have come to the desert for a greater message, my son, than that
which you carry to the waiting ones in Peking--"
"I hear your words. They always come to me again and again afterward.
Do not think that I miss what you say when I bring the thought down to
the personal thing that tortures me. Tell me: am I to see Anna Erivan
soon?"
The last sentence was hoarsely uttered.
"My son, is there doubt in your heart in regard to Rajananda?"
"No."
"Do you believe in my love for you, as master to disciple?"
"I do not understand it. I do not feel worthy to be your disciple, but
I have every reason to believe in it."
"Will you do as I ask--a hard thing?"
Romney felt himself smothering close to the ground. He arose to his
feet. There was red before his eyes, a breaking tension in his throat.
The strongest thing about him--the control of his temper--was stretched
to the snapping point.
He paced a moment, with clenched hands, before speaking:
"You mean to ask me to go back to the Big Three without Anna Erivan--?"
"Yes."
"I cannot.... I cannot!"
"Come to me, and take your father's hand."
Romney sat down in silence. Something flooded over him that broke down
all his resistance. He wanted to weep like a young boy who was pressed
too hard. Instead, he laughed--his old trick when hard driven.
"I forget that I am powerless," he said bitterly. "Why do you ask my
will in the matter? She was taken by force. I do not know where she
is. I am in the hands of your men. I must do their will or yours. You
say that I have gained great power by this separation, but it had
nothing to do with will of mine--"
"You have accepted the destiny imposed--that is enough. It honoured you
in being as great as your strength. A weaker man than you would have
fallen--"
"But you ask my will now, when I see that yours is greater than mine.
My will is to go to Anna Erivan now--to-night! She needs me--"
"Do not speak bitterly, my son. We will abide by your will in this
thing--"
"You mean that?"
"Yes. But first I will tell you that it is not the greater way."
"Why?"
"Any delay on the road to Tientsin now endangers your chance of seeing
your leaders in life again. You accepted their mission. It is the work
of a true _lanoo_ to fulfil it."
"You think I did wrongly to delay in Nadiram on the way out?"
"I have never chided you for that. Others felt it failure, but they did
not understand. You did not fail there. There were three, my son, who
went to the Manger on swiftest camels, bearing gifts to the Child whom
they found; and another who found his quest by the way, and when he was
old and the last of his quest finished, he met the Master face to
face.... It was Rajananda who made his desert children understand about
your tarrying in Nadiram and who made my son's servant understand. But
that is finished. It is different now. Delay now will leave your
mission unfulfilled, and that, my son, would not leave the future
shadowless--"
"But Anna Erivan--in the hands of strangers--thinking me dead. If she
still lives, I must go to her. A day, an hour--"
"My son, what words were the last that you heard from the lips of this
woman you love?"
"She asked me to remember that she was mine--body and soul--"
"Have you faith in that?"
"Yes--but the desert-men--"
"They are my children."
"But she has not had you for strength."
"She has not needed me for strength. My son, her faith is above yours.
A woman rises into her faith more quickly than a man--"
A kind of moan came from the white man's lips.
"You mean she is at peace--that she is not crying out for me?"
"I mean that she is well and content to wait until you come. She is
holding up her arms--for the white fire. When a woman is great enough
for that, my son, her arms do not long remain empty."
"Do you mean to tell me that Anna Erivan would have me go to Tientsin
and report this mere verbal intelligence--before going to her?"
Rajananda took his hand from Romney's and fumbled in his robe for a
moment, drawing forth a little leathern packet pinned with a seven-fold
swastika of gold. From an inner fold of this he drew out a paper which
Romney took with a thrill of passionate joy. He had never seen Anna
Erivan's writing, yet he knew that this was penned by her own hand:
_My Beloved: Finish your mission and hurry back to me. Carry
forth your sign even though it seems to fail for the time. I am
waiting for you in the hills. They will show you where I am.
Remember my last words. All is well. My love stands above all.
Come swiftly to_
_Anna Erivan._
*4*
The dawn had come. Romney and Bamban were to go forward alone to
Nadiram, the servant to remain there for his master to return from
Tientsin. Rajananda's province did not include Nadiram, and in thinking
of this, the American recalled that the famous white dromedary had not
entered there. Twice, at least, he had appeared in Nadiram as a begging
Sannysin.... The desert-band drew apart, all the animals in readiness
for the trails; even Rajananda's servant removed himself to squat a
short distance from his day-star. The old man lay upon his yellow robe,
adoring his God with many perfectly appointed sayings. Romney bowed
before the mystery. At last, words were brought to matters of the hour:
"... In a few weeks, my son, you will come again to this place--this man
with you, for he is a good servant and will not be parted from his
master after his return from the province of the Capitol."
Rajananda indicated Bamban, who stood at a little distance, and quickly
turned his face away as his name was spoken. More than ever Romney
realised that blackness was ahead for the Big Three, at least for
Minglapo. It had never been far from his thought that Bamban would
return to his former master after the Gobi mission; in fact, Romney had
thought at times Bamban was absolutely Minglapo's, even in his present
service.
"... First to Nadiram," Rajananda intoned, "then the long road to
Turgim, and the travel lines again to Tushi-kow and on to Peking....
You have breathed again, my son, and strength has come to you. You will
set your face firm to the distance, knowing that the plan of life is for
joy and for the evocation of divine spirit through the human heart. You
shall know through nights and days that the woman you have found is in
Sanctuary--that man goes alone upon his mission and that woman waits.
"... Listen, my son: in the elder days men put away their women to
worship God. The prophets, the seers, the Holy Men walked alone, and
left the younger-souls of the world to bring forth sons. The time was
not ripe for the race of heroes, therefore the mere children of men
brought forth children. And all the masters spoke of the love of God
for man and the love of man for man, and the love of woman for her
child, but no one spoke of the love of man and woman. All the sacred
writings passed lightly over that--even the lips of the Avatars were
sealed. But now the old is destroying itself in the outer world; the
last great night of matter and self is close to breaking into light; the
time for heroes has come, my son, and heroes must be born of this sacred
mystery--the love of man and woman. So all the priests have this
message now, all the teachers and leaders of men, even I, old Rajananda
who speaks to you and who has never known the kiss of woman--all are
opening to the world the great story, unsealing the greatness of the
love of man and woman.... For the builders are coming--coming to lift
the earth--the saints are coming, my son--old Rajananda hears them
singing; the heroes are coming with light about their heads and their
voices beautiful with the Story of God.
"... And now I must sleep. I go to my daughter, who waits for you....
Once, before you came, she rested my head and filled my bowl in the
stone square at Nadiram. Even now she waits for you in the hills of my
country--not far from this place, my son--"
The withered hand came up a last time. Rajananda's servant hurried
forward, and Romney helped him. Together they lifted the master in his
perfect yellow robe, lowering him over the rim of his basket. The
camel-driver took his place at the head of the kneeling dromedary, and
his eyes shone with the risen day.... Another desert party had ridden
in; they dismounted now in a half-circle opposite the escort from
Wampli. It was like a pageant--the desert-men a circle of devotion.
Romney watched the white camel rise and depart, the two desert-bands
following. Then he called for his camels, mounted, and rode away toward
Nadiram in the great wash of light.
*PART FOUR: TIENTSIN*
*THE HUNCHBACK*
*1*
Romney connected with Peking by telegram at Tushi-kow, and was ordered
to report at the Hotel Nestor in Tientsin and to inquire for Dr. Ti
Kung. At least, this was the information he drew from a long, vague and
rambling telegram, the direct meaning of which was veiled, doubtless for
political reasons. The whole affair was strange. He recalled how
Rajananda had enjoined speed for his return, and how the aged one had
been unable to see Nifton Bend in the big reconstruction activity of the
East.
He reached Tientsin late at night, asked at the desk for the Doctor, and
was taken upstairs at once, a boy leading the way. Several knocks
brought no reply from within. At the desk again it was reported that no
one had observed Dr. Ti Kung to leave the hotel--that his key was gone,
that it might be well for the visitor to sit down and wait. Romney had
his bags taken to a room.
It was midnight. For an hour the messenger from the Gobi sat rigid as
an Oriental. It was not through effort or tension--this stillness of the
American's. He had learned how to wait. He kept his back straight and
his hands and head still, because he forgot them and turned his thoughts
within, quite as if he sat in meditation upon a mat of _kusa_ grass. He
had to protect himself from the preying of the city--from sounds and
odours and the shatteringly low vibration of massed human beings out of
peace with each other. He had come from the silences, which he had
mastered.
He fell into the very deeps of himself, deeper than the desert mission
and the cause of the Big Three, to an area where Anna Erivan alone could
reach. For thirty days he had been apart from her. Sometimes he felt,
as now, that it was too great a wonder ever to come into her presence
again, at least on earth where perfections are not by any means
guaranteed. He felt that such a mating enforces in the human mind the
sense that mystic love goes on and on.... Yet his eyes stung often with
the thought of being with her again--if not on desert-sands, anywhere
with the good brown earth under their feet. He loved her spirit, felt
some miraculous union with it; but he loved her step beside, her
movement in the house, the touch of her hand and the lift of her breast;
loved her lips and eyes, loved the dream of a child of her body and
soul.
From the beginning to the end (sitting rigid near the desk of the
Nestor) he went through the precious scenes of his romance--all the
words and pictures, the meeting, the Forward Room, the hyenas, the kiss
and the quest, the cots and the cross, the camels and Rajananda's
coming, the desert and the dream of a child, the desert-men and the
thonged stakes, until that moment of horror--separation--that would
never subside. This last invariably shook him back to the dull drag of
earth again.
It was the litany of a lover. When he looked at the clock it was one in
the morning. He went to his room, leaving word for Dr. Ti Kung to call
him if an interview was advisable before morning.... Romney felt
himself fixing for a sleepless night. There was a curious heat in his
heart at the thought of meeting Nifton Bend again. Was he in Tientsin?
Would Ti Kung take him to Merchant's Square and the house of Minglapo in
the morning? Where was Ti Kung to-night? Perhaps some call to
conference at the dais--perhaps the Doctor had given up hope of his
arriving to-night.
The Big Three drew a certain love from him. They were men. They rang
true. They had trusted him and been lenient in regard to his
tender-heartedness in the case of the little spy. Nifton Bend had been
splendid about that.... Romney never ceased to wonder that three wise
men in the desert had not agreed with him about the spy's death being an
atrocity, or about the questionableness of the sacrifice of Japan for
the greater good of Asia. Perhaps it was his own limitation, that he
considered so strongly the personal side in all things. Perhaps a man
impassioned with the glory of the future, who reckons not with the lives
of his brothers, his enemies or himself in order to promote his dream of
coming days into action, has the greater human heart.
Now the picture of the Island of Pestilence took sharper form and
clearer colour. It literally hurtled into his mind.... They would have
sent him to Japan had it not been for his delay in the Chinese
police-station. Doubtless that mission concerned the Chinese agents
there. The myriad Chinese working in the Japanese financial world were
possibly lined up in the cause he had touched; perhaps they were bound
together in Young China's system. They would have to leave Japan in case
of war, but their work might be done before they left.... There was
nothing missing from Romney's idea of the plot to end war in the world
by making it too hideous even for the militarists. His present
conception covered every fact. Each part fitted perfectly. He saw it
far more clearly than when he outlined the form of it to the sages of
the Gobi.... Ti Kung, working in the laboratories of the West, had
brought back methods of producing and propagating the cultures of all
the plagues. Perhaps the packet Ti Kung had thrust upon him, to carry
from Shanghai to Minglapo, had contained directions for producing
certain cultures, or added information for spreading the most loathsome
infections.
Romney felt the sweat start from his brow and throat. Sleep was farther
and farther away. When his head started to work at a pitch like
this--it had to wear itself out, a process requiring many hours.... The
plan would stop war, but the Japanese nation would pay the price in
extermination. The strike would come possibly before the soldiers took
the field; agents of the Big Three would start to distribute infections
among the crowded myriads of Japanese, among women and children--typhus,
yellow fever, cholera, bubonic plague.... A few hundred of agents might
ravage the entire island in a night's work, and that which they carried
would require no more space than a surgeon's bag. Was this what Dr. Ti
Kung called using mind instead of muscle? There would be no heavy war
engines--no noise, no reek of powder, no twelve-mile projectiles. That
was innocent boys' play. Taking a citadel with charges of infantry
under the cover of silencing batteries--a mere sport of picked sides!
... Yet this thought held him: In the greater economy of civilisation
and the future of mankind, was it not a fair price to pay--to sacrifice
one nation for the elimination forever of the international curse?
Romney smiled. He could see it, but acting on it was out of his
dimension. When it came to putting even a spy out of business, he had
quailed.... Hours passed, sleep coming no nearer. Once he lost himself
in the possibilities of waging war upon the country of an enemy by means
of spies alone. Every power had great systems of espionage at work in
all rival centres--enough to ravage the land of an enemy with plague.
Nations would have to protect themselves from each other by the
establishment of an unalterable peace. There was a lift to the vision,
but carrying baneful cultures of epidemic was no job for one Romney.
Sorting the pastils--not for him.