_ Sixteen years had passed since that night vigil in the old Cumberland
house, and, behold! we two, Leo and I, were still travelling, still
searching for that mountain peak shaped like the Symbol of Life which
never, never could be found.
Our adventures would fill volumes, but of what use is it to record
them. Many of a similar nature are already written of in books; those
that we endured were more prolonged, that is all. Five years we spent
in Thibet, for the most part as guests of various monasteries, where
we studied the law and traditions of the Lamas. Here we were once
sentenced to death in punishment for having visited a forbidden city,
but escaped through the kindness of a Chinese official.
Leaving Thibet, we wandered east and west and north, thousands and
thousands of miles, sojourning amongst many tribes in Chinese
territory and elsewhere, learning many tongues, enduring much
hardship. Thus we would hear a legend of a place, say nine hundred
miles away, and spend two years in reaching it, to find when we came
there, nothing.
And so the time went on. Yet never once did we think of giving up the
quest and returning, since, before we started, we had sworn an oath
that we would achieve or die. Indeed we ought to have died a score of
times, yet always were preserved, most mysteriously preserved.
Now we were in country where, so far as I could learn, no European had
ever set a foot. In a part of the vast land called Turkestan there is
a great lake named Balhkash, of which we visited the shores. Two
hundred miles or so to the westward is a range of mighty mountains
marked on the maps as Arkarty-Tau, on which we spent a year, and five
hundred or so to the eastward are other mountains called Cherga,
whither we journeyed at last, having explored the triple ranges of the
Tau.
Here it was that at last our true adventures began. On one of the
spurs of these awful Cherga mountains--it is unmarked on any map--we
well-nigh perished of starvation. The winter was coming on and we
could find no game. The last traveller we had met, hundreds of miles
south, told us that on that range was a monastery inhabited by Lamas
of surpassing holiness. He said that they dwelt in this wild land,
over which no power claimed dominion and where no tribes lived, to
acquire "merit," with no other company than that of their own pious
contemplations. We did not believe in its existence, still we were
searching for that monastery, driven onward by the blind fatalism
which was our only guide through all these endless wanderings. As we
were starving and could find no "argals," that is fuel with which to
make a fire, we walked all night by the light of the moon, driving
between us a single yak--for now we had no attendant, the last having
died a year before.
He was a noble beast, that yak, and had the best constitution of any
animal I ever knew, though now, like his masters, he was near his end.
Not that he was over-laden, for a few rifle cartridges, about a
hundred and fifty, the remnant of a store which we had fortunately
been able to buy from a caravan two years before, some money in gold
and silver, a little tea and a bundle of skin rugs and sheepskin
garments were his burden. On, on we trudged across a plateau of snow,
having the great mountains on our right, till at length the yak gave a
sigh and stopped. So we stopped also, because we must, and wrapping
ourselves in the skin rugs, sat down in the snow to wait for daylight.
"We shall have to kill him and eat his flesh raw," I said, patting the
poor yak that lay patiently at our side.
"Perhaps we may find game in the morning," answered Leo, still
hopeful.
"And perhaps we may not, in which case we must die."
"Very good," he replied, "then let us die. It is the last resource of
failure. We shall have done our best."
"Certainly, Leo, we shall have done our best, if sixteen years of
tramping over mountains and through eternal snows in pursuit of a
dream of the night can be called best."
"You know what I believe," he answered stubbornly, and there was
silence between us, for here arguments did not avail. Also even then I
could not think that all our toils and sufferings would be in vain.
The dawn came, and by its light we looked at one another anxiously,
each of us desiring to see what strength was left to his companion.
Wild creatures we should have seemed to the eyes of any civilized
person. Leo was now over forty years of age, and certainly his
maturity had fulfilled the promise of his youth, for a more
magnificent man I never knew. Very tall, although he seemed spare to
the eye, his girth matched his height, and those many years of desert
life had turned his muscles to steel. His hair had grown long, like my
own, for it was a protection from sun and cold, and hung upon his
neck, a curling, golden mane, as his great beard hung upon his breast,
spreading outwards almost to the massive shoulders. The face, too--
what could be seen of it--was beautiful though burnt brown with
weather; refined and full of thought, sombre almost, and in it, clear
as crystal, steady as stars, shone his large grey eyes.
And I--I was what I have always been--ugly and hirsute, iron-grey now
also, but in spite of my sixty odd years, still wonderfully strong,
for my strength seemed to increase with time, and my health was
perfect. In fact, during all this period of rough travels, although
now and again we had met with accidents which laid us up for awhile,
neither of us had known a day of sickness. Hardship seemed to have
turned our constitutions to iron and made them impervious to every
human ailment. Or was this because we alone amongst living men had
once inhaled the breath of the Essence of Life?
Our fears relieved--for notwithstanding our foodless night, as yet
neither of us showed any signs of exhaustion--we turned to contemplate
the landscape. At our feet beyond a little belt of fertile soil, began
a great desert of the sort with which we were familiar--sandy, salt-
encrusted, treeless, waterless, and here and there streaked with the
first snows of winter. Beyond it, eighty or a hundred miles away--in
that lucent atmosphere it was impossible to say how far exactly--rose
more mountains, a veritable sea of them, of which the white peaks
soared upwards by scores.
As the golden rays of the rising sun touched their snows to splendour,
I saw Leo's eyes become troubled. Swiftly he turned and looked along
the edge of the desert.
"See there!" he said, pointing to something dim and enormous.
Presently the light reached it also. It was a mighty mountain not more
than ten miles away, that stood out by itself among the sands. Then he
turned once more, and with his back to the desert stared at the slope
of the hills, along the base of which we had been travelling. As yet
they were in gloom, for the sun was behind them, but presently light
began to flow over their crests like a flood. Down it crept, lower,
and yet lower, till it reached a little plateau not three hundred
yards above us. There, on the edge of the plateau, looking out
solemnly across the waste, sat a great ruined idol, a colossal Buddha,
while to the rear of the idol, built of yellow stone, appeared the low
crescent-shaped mass of a monastery.
"At last!" cried Leo, "oh, Heaven! at last!" and, flinging himself
down, he buried his face in the snow as though to hide it there, lest
I should read something written on it which he did not desire that
even I should see.
I let him lie a space, understanding what was passing in his heart,
and indeed in mine also. Then going to the yak that, poor brute, had
no share in these joyous emotions but only lowed and looked round with
hungry eyes, I piled the sheepskin rugs on to its back. This done, I
laid my hand on Leo's shoulder, saying, in the most matter-of-fact
voice I could command--
"Come. If that place is not deserted, we may find food and shelter
there, and it is beginning to storm again."
He rose without a word, brushed the snow from his beard and garments
and came to help me to lift the yak to its feet, for the worn-out
beast was too stiff and weak to rise of itself. Glancing at him
covertly, I saw on Leo's face a very strange and happy look; a great
peace appeared to possess him.
We plunged upwards through the snow slope, dragging the yak with us,
to the terrace whereon the monastery was built. Nobody seemed to be
about there, nor could I discern any footprints. Was the place but a
ruin? We had found many such; indeed this ancient land is full of
buildings that had once served as the homes of men, learned and pious
enough after their own fashion, who lived and died hundreds, or even
thousands, of years ago, long before our Western civilization came
into being.
My heart, also my stomach, which was starving, sank at the thought,
but while I gazed doubtfully, a little coil of blue smoke sprang from
a chimney, and never, I think, did I see a more joyful sight. In the
centre of the edifice was a large building, evidently the temple, but
nearer to us I saw a small door, almost above which the smoke
appeared. To this door I went and knocked, calling aloud--
"Open! open, holy Lamas. Strangers seek your charity." After awhile
there was a sound of shuffling feet and the door creaked upon its
hinges, revealing an old, old man, clad in tattered, yellow garments.
"Who is it? Who is it?" he exclaimed, blinking at me through a pair of
horn spectacles. "Who comes to disturb our solitude, the solitude of
the holy Lamas of the Mountains?"
"Travellers, Sacred One, who have had enough of solitude," I answered
in his own dialect, with which I was well acquainted. "Travellers who
are starving and who ask your charity, which," I added, "by the Rule
you cannot refuse."
He stared at us through his horn spectacles, and, able to make nothing
of our faces, let his glance fall to our garments which were as ragged
as his own, and of much the same pattern. Indeed, they were those of
Thibetan monks, including a kind of quilted petticoat and an outer
vestment not unlike an Eastern burnous. We had adopted them because we
had no others. Also they protected us from the rigours of the climate
and from remark, had there been any to remark upon them.
"Are you Lamas?" he asked doubtfully, "and if so, of what monastery?"
"Lamas sure enough," I answered, "who belong to a monastery called the
World, where, alas! one grows hungry."
The reply seemed to please him, for he chuckled a little, then shook
his head, saying--
"It is against our custom to admit strangers unless they be of our own
faith, which I am sure you are not."
"And much more is it against your Rule, holy Khubilghan," for so these
abbots are entitled, "to suffer strangers to starve"; and I quoted a
well-known passage from the sayings of Buddha which fitted the point
precisely.
"I perceive that you are instructed in the Books," he exclaimed with
wonder on his yellow, wrinkled face, "and to such we cannot refuse
shelter. Come in, brethren of the monastery called the World. But
stay, there is the yak, who also has claims upon our charity," and,
turning, he struck upon a gong or bell which hung within the door.
At the sound another man appeared, more wrinkled and to all appearance
older than the first, who stared at us open-mouthed.
"Brother," said the abbot, "shut that great mouth of yours lest an
evil spirit should fly down it; take this poor yak and give it fodder
with the other cattle."
So we unstrapped our belongings from the back of the beast, and the
old fellow whose grandiloquent title was "Master of the Herds," led it
away.
When it had gone, not too willingly--for our faithful friend disliked
parting from us and distrusted this new guide--the abbot, who was
named Kou-en, led us into the living room or rather the kitchen of the
monastery, for it served both purposes. Here we found the rest of the
monks, about twelve in all, gathered round the fire of which we had
seen the smoke, and engaged, one of them in preparing the morning
meal, and the rest in warming themselves.
They were all old men; the youngest could not have been less than
sixty-five. To these we were solemnly introduced as "Brethren of the
Monastery called the World, where folk grow hungry," for the abbot
Kou-en could not make up his mind to part from this little joke.
They stared at us, they rubbed their thin hands, they bowed and wished
us well and evidently were delighted at our arrival. This was not
strange, however, seeing that ours were the first new faces which they
had seen for four long years.
Nor did they stop at words, for while they made water hot for us to
wash in, two of them went to prepare a room--and others drew off our
rough hide boots and thick outer garments and brought us slippers for
our feet. Then they led us to the guest chamber, which they informed
us was a "propitious place," for once it had been slept in by a noted
saint. Here a fire was lit, and, wonder of wonders! clean garments,
including linen, all of them ancient and faded, but of good quality,
were brought for us to put on.
So we washed--yes, actually washed all over--and having arrayed
ourselves in the robes, which were somewhat small for Leo, struck the
bell that hung in the room and were conducted by a monk who answered
it, back to the kitchen, where the meal was now served. It consisted
of a kind of porridge, to which was added new milk brought in by the
"Master of the Herds," dried fish from a lake, and buttered tea, the
last two luxuries produced in our special honour. Never had food
tasted more delicious to us, and, I may add, never did we eat more.
Indeed, at last I was obliged to request Leo to stop, for I saw the
monks staring at him and heard the old abbot chuckling to himself.
"Oho! The Monastery of the World, where folk grow /hungry/," to which
another monk, who was called the "Master of the Provisions," replied
uneasily, that if we went on like this, their store of food would
scarcely last the winter. So we finished at length, feeling, as some
book of maxims which I can remember in my youth said all polite people
should do--that we could eat more, and much impressed our hosts by
chanting a long Buddhist grace.
"Their feet are in the Path! Their feet are in the Path!" they said,
astonished.
"Yes," replied Leo, "they have been in it for sixteen years of our
present incarnation. But we are only beginners, for you, holy Ones,
know how star-high, how ocean-wide and how desert-long is that path.
Indeed it is to be instructed as to the right way of walking therein
that we have been miraculously directed by a dream to seek you out, as
the most pious, the most saintly and the most learned of all the Lamas
in these parts."
"Yes, certainly we are that," answered the abbot Kou-en, "seeing that
there is no other monastery within five months' journey," and again he
chuckled, "though, alas!" he added with a pathetic little sigh, "our
numbers grow few."
After this we asked leave to retire to our chamber in order to rest,
and there, upon very good imitations of beds, we slept solidly for
four and twenty hours, rising at last perfectly refreshed and well.
Such was our introduction to the Monastery of the Mountains--for it
had no other name--where we were destined to spend the next six months
of our lives. Within a few days--for they were not long in giving us
their complete confidence--those good-hearted and simple old monks
told us all their history.
It seemed that of old time there was a Lamasery here, in which dwelt
several hundred brethren. This, indeed, was obviously true, for the
place was enormous, although for the most part ruined, and, as the
weather-worn statue of Buddha showed, very ancient. The story ran,
according to the old abbot, that two centuries or so before, the monks
had been killed out by some fierce tribe who lived beyond the desert
and across the distant mountains, which tribe were heretics and
worshippers of fire. Only a few of them escaped to bring the sad news
to other communities, and for five generations no attempt was made to
re-occupy the place.
At length it was revealed to him, our friend Kou-en, when a young man,
that he was a re-incarnation of one of the old monks of this
monastery, who also was named Kou-en, and that it was his duty during
his present life to return thither, as by so doing he would win much
merit and receive many wonderful revelations. So he gathered a band of
zealots and, with the blessing and consent of his superiors, they
started out, and after many hardships and losses found and took
possession of the place, repairing it sufficiently for their needs.
This happened about fifty years before, and here they had dwelt ever
since, only communicating occasionally with the outside world. At
first their numbers were recruited from time to time by new brethren,
but at length these ceased to come, with the result that the community
was dying out.
"And what then?" I asked.
"And then," the abbot answered, "nothing. /We/ have acquired much
merit; we have been blest with many revelations, and, after the repose
we have earned in Devachan, our lots in future existences will be
easier. What more can we ask or desire, removed as we are from all the
temptations of the world?"
For the rest, in the intervals of their endless prayers, and still
more endless contemplations, they were husbandmen, cultivating the
soil, which was fertile at the foot of the mountain, and tending their
herd of yaks. Thus they wore away their blameless lives until at last
they died of old age, and, as they believed--and who shall say that
they were wrong--the eternal round repeated itself elsewhere.
Immediately after, indeed on the very day of our arrival at the
monastery the winter began in earnest with bitter cold and snowstorms
so heavy and frequent that all the desert was covered deep. Very soon
it became obvious to us that here we must stay until the spring, since
to attempt to move in any direction would be to perish. With some
misgivings we explained this to the abbot Kou-en, offering to remove
to one of the empty rooms in the ruined part of the building,
supporting ourselves with fish that we could catch by cutting a hole
in the ice of the lake above the monastery, and if we were able to
find any, on game, which we might trap or shoot in the scrub-like
forest of stunted pines and junipers that grew around its border. But
he would listen to no such thing. We had been sent to be their guests,
he said, and their guests we should remain for so long as might be
convenient to us. Would we lay upon them the burden of the sin of
inhospitality? Besides, he remarked with his chuckle--
"We who dwell alone like to hear about that other great monastery
called the World, where the monks are not so favoured as we who are
set in this blessed situation, and where folk even go hungry in body,
and," he added, "in soul."
Indeed, as we soon found out, the dear old man's object was to keep
our feet in the Path until we reached the goal of Truth, or, in other
words, became excellent Lamas like himself and his flock.
So we walked in the Path, as we had done in many another Lamasery, and
assisted at the long prayers in the ruined temple and studied the
/Kandjur/, or "Translation of the Words" of Buddha, which is their
bible and a very long one, and generally showed that our "minds were
open." Also we expounded to them the doctrines of our own faith, and
greatly delighted were they to find so many points of similarity
between it and theirs. Indeed, I am not certain but that if we could
have stopped there long enough, say ten years, we might have persuaded
some of them to accept a new revelation of which we were the prophets.
Further, in spare hours we told them many tales of "the Monastery
called the World," and it was really delightful, and in a sense
piteous, to see the joy with which they listened to these stories of
wondrous countries and new races of men; they who knew only of Russia
and China and some semi-savage tribes, inhabitants of the mountains
and the deserts.
"It is right for us to learn all this," they declared, "for, who
knows, perhaps in future incarnations we may become inhabitants of
these places."
But though the time passed thus in comfort and indeed, compared to
many of our experiences, in luxury, oh! our hearts were hungry, for in
them burned the consuming fire of our quest. We felt that we were on
the threshold--yes, we knew it, we knew it, and yet our wretched
physical limitations made it impossible for us to advance by a single
step. On the desert beneath fell the snow, moreover great winds arose
suddenly that drove those snows like dust, piling them in heaps as
high as trees, beneath which any unfortunate traveller would be
buried. Here we must wait, there was nothing else to be done.
One alleviation we found, and only one. In a ruined room of the
monastery was a library of many volumes, placed there, doubtless, by
the monks who were massacred in times bygone. These had been more or
less cared for and re-arranged by their successors, who gave us
liberty to examine them as often as we pleased. Truly it was a strange
collection, and I should imagine of priceless value, for among them
were to be found Buddhistic, Sivaistic and Shamanistic writings that
we had never before seen or heard of, together with the lives of a
multitude of Bodhisatvas, or distinguished saints, written in various
tongues, some of which we did not understand.
What proved more interesting to us, however, was a diary in many tomes
that for generations had been kept by the Khubilghans or abbots of the
old Lamasery, in which every event of importance was recorded in great
detail. Turning over the pages of one of the last volumes of this
diary, written apparently about two hundred and fifty years earlier,
and shortly before the destruction of the monastery, we came upon an
entry of which the following--for I can only quote from memory--is the
substance--
"In the summer of this year, after a very great sandstorm, a
brother (the name was given, but I forget it) found in the desert
a man of the people who dwell beyond the Far Mountains, of whom
rumours have reached this Lamasery from time to time. He was
living, but beside him were the bodies of two of his companions
who had been overwhelmed by sand and thirst. He was very fierce
looking. He refused to say how he came into the desert, telling us
only that he had followed the road known to the ancients before
communication between his people and the outer world ceased. We
gathered, however, that his brethren with whom he fled had
committed some crime for which they had been condemned to die, and
that he had accompanied them in their flight. He told us that
there was a fine country beyond the mountains, fertile, but
plagued with droughts and earthquakes, which latter, indeed, we
often feel here.
"The people of that country were, he said, warlike and very
numerous but followed agriculture. They had always lived there,
though ruled by Khans who were descendants of the Greek king
called Alexander, who conquered much country to the south-west of
us. This may be true, as our records tell us that about two
thousand years ago an army sent by that invader penetrated to
these parts, though of his being with them nothing is said.
"The stranger-man told us also that his people worship a priestess
called Hes or the Hesea, who is said to reign from generation to
generation. She lives in a great mountain, apart, and is feared
and adored by all, but is not the queen of the country, in the
government of which she seldom interferes. To her, however,
sacrifices are offered, and he who incurs her vengeance dies, so
that even the chiefs of that land are afraid of her. Still their
subjects often fight, for they hate each other.
"We answered that he lied when he said that this woman was immortal
--for that was what we supposed he meant--since nothing is
immortal; also we laughed at his tale of her power. This made the
man very angry. Indeed he declared that our Buddha was not so
strong as this priestess, and that she would show it by being
avenged upon us.
"After this we gave him food and turned him out of the Lamasery,
and he went, saying that when he returned we should learn who
spoke the truth. We do not know what became of him, and he refused
to reveal to us the road to his country, which lies beyond the
desert and the Far Mountains. We think that perhaps he was an evil
spirit sent to frighten us, in which he did not succeed."
Such is a /precis/ of this strange entry, the discovery of which,
vague as it was, thrilled us with hope and excitement. Nothing more
appeared about the man or his country, but within a little over a year
from that date the diary of the abbot came to a sudden end without any
indication that unusual events had occured or were expected.
Indeed, the last item written in the parchment book mentioned the
preparation of certain new lands to be used for the sowing of grain in
future seasons, which suggested that the brethren neither feared nor
expected disturbance. We wondered whether the man from beyond the
mountains was as good as his word and had brought down the vengeance
of that priestess called the Hesea upon the community which sheltered
him. Also we wondered--ah! how we wondered--who and what this Hesea
might be.
On the day following this discovery we prayed the abbot, Kou-en, to
accompany us to the library, and having read him the passage, asked if
he knew anything of the matter. He swayed his wise old head, which
always reminded me of that of a tortoise, and answered--
"A little. Very little, and that mostly about the army of the Greek
king who is mentioned in the writing."
We inquired what he could possibly know of this matter, whereon Kou-en
replied calmly--
"In those days when the faith of the Holy One was still young, I dwelt
as a humble brother in this very monastery, which was one of the first
built, and I saw the army pass, that is all. That," he added
meditatively, "was in my fiftieth incarnation of this present Round--
no, I am thinking of another army--in my seventy-third."[*]
[*] As students of their lives and literature will be aware, it is
common for Buddhist priests to state positively that they remember
events which occurred during their previous incarnations.--ed.
Here Leo began a great laugh, but I managed to kick him beneath the
table and he turned it into a sneeze. This was fortunate, as such
ribald merriment would have hurt the old man's feelings terribly.
After all, also, as Leo himself had once said, surely we were not the
people to mock at the theory of re-incarnation, which, by the way, is
the first article of faith among nearly one quarter of the human race,
and this not the most foolish quarter.
"How can that be--I ask for instruction, learned One--seeing that
memory perishes with death?"
"Ah!" he answered, "Brother Holly, it may seem to do so, but
oftentimes it comes back again, especially to those who are far
advanced upon the Path. For instance, until you read this passage I
had forgotten all about that army, but now I see it passing, passing,
and myself with other monks standing by the statue of the big Buddha
in front yonder, and watching it go by. It was not a very large army,
for most of the soldiers had died, or been killed, and it was being
pursued by the wild people who lived south of us in those days, so
that it was in a great hurry to put the desert between it and them.
The general of the army was a swarthy man--I wish that I could
remember his name, but I cannot.
"Well," he went on, "that general came up to the Lamasery and demanded
a sleeping place for his wife and children, also provisions and
medicines, and guides across the desert. The abbot of that day told
him it was against our law to admit a woman under our roof, to which
he answered that if we did not, we should have no roof left, for he
would burn the place and kill every one of us with the sword. Now, as
you know, to be killed by violence means that we must pass sundry
incarnations in the forms of animals, a horrible thing, so we chose
the lesser evil and gave way, and afterwards obtained absolution for
our sins from the Great Lama. Myself I did not see this queen, but I
saw the priestess of their worship--alas! alas!" and Kou-en beat his
breast.
"Why alas?" I asked, as unconcernedly as I could, for this story
interested me strangely.
"Why? Oh! because I may have forgotten the army, but I have never
forgotten that priestess, and she has been a great hindrance to me
through many ages, delaying me upon my journey to the Other Side, to
the Shore of Salvation. I, as a humble Lama, was engaged in preparing
her apartment when she entered and threw aside her veil; yes, and
perceiving a young man, spoke to me, asking many questions, and even
if I was not glad to look again upon a woman."
"What--what was she like?" said Leo, anxiously.
"What was she like? Oh! She was all loveliness in one shape; she was
like the dawn upon the snows; she was like the evening star above the
mountains; she was like the first flower of the spring. Brother, ask
me not what she was like, nay, I will say no more. Oh! my sin, my sin.
I am slipping backward and you draw my black shame out into the light
of day. Nay, I will confess it that you may know how vile a thing I am
--I whom perhaps you have thought holy--like yourselves. That woman,
if woman she were, lit a fire in my heart which will not burn out, oh!
and more, more," and Kou-en rocked himself to and fro upon his stool
while tears of contrition trickled from beneath his horn spectacles,
"/she made me worship her!/ For first she asked me of my faith and
listened eagerly as I expounded it, hoping that the light would come
into her heart; then, after I had finished she said--
"'So your Path is Renunciation and your Nirvana a most excellent
Nothingness which some would think it scarce worth while to strive so
hard to reach. Now /I/ will show you a more joyous way and a goddess
more worthy of your worship.'
"'What way, and what goddess?' I asked of her.
"'The way of Love and Life!" she answered, 'that makes all the world
to be, that made /you/, O seeker of Nirvana, and the goddess called
Nature!'
"Again I asked where is that goddess, and behold! she drew herself up,
looking most royal, and touching her ivory breast, she said, 'I am
She. Now kneel you down and do me homage!'
"My brethren, I knelt, yes, I kissed her foot, and then I fled away
shamed and broken-hearted, and as I went she laughed, and cried:
'Remember me when you reach Devachan, O servant of the Budda-saint,
for though I change, I do not die, and even there I shall be with you
who once gave me worship!'
"And it is so, my brethren, it is so; for though I obtained absolution
for my sin and have suffered much for it through this, my next
incarnation, yet I cannot be rid of her, and for me the Utter Peace is
far, far away," and Kou-en placed his withered hands before his face
and sobbed outright.
A ridiculous sight, truly, to see a holy Khublighan well on the wrong
side of eighty, weeping like a child over a dream of a beautiful woman
which he imagined he had once dreamt in his last life more than two
thousand years ago. So the reader will say. But I, Holly, for reasons
of my own, felt deep sympathy with that poor old man, and Leo was also
sympathetic. We patted him on the back; we assured him that he was the
victim of some evil hallucination which could never be brought up
against him in this or any future existence, since, if sin there were,
it must have been forgiven long ago, and so forth. When his calm was
somewhat restored we tried also to extract further information from
him, but with poor results, so far as the priestess was concerned.
He said that he did not know to what religion she belonged, and did
not care, but thought that it must be an evil one. She went away the
next morning with the army, and he never saw or heard of her any more,
though it came into his mind that he was obliged to be locked in his
cell for eight days to prevent himself from following her. Yes, he had
heard one thing, for the abbot of that day had told the brethren. This
priestess was the real general of the army, not the king or the queen,
the latter of whom hated her. It was by her will that they pushed on
northwards across the desert to some country beyond the mountains,
where she desired to establish herself and her worship.
We asked if there really was any country beyond the mountains, and
Kou-en answered wearily that he believed so. Either in this or in a
previous life he had heard that people lived there who worshipped
fire. Certainly also it was true that about thirty years ago a brother
who had climbed the great peak yonder to spend some days in solitary
meditation, returned and reported that he had seen a marvellous thing,
namely, a shaft of fire burning in the heavens beyond those same
mountains, though whether this were a vision, or what, he could not
say. He recalled, however, that about that time they had felt a great
earthquake.
Then the memory of that fancied transgression again began to afflict
Kou-en's innocent old heart, and he crept away lamenting and was seen
no more for a week. Nor would he ever speak again to us of this
matter.
But we spoke of it much with hope and wonder, and made up our minds
that we would at once ascend this mountain. _