Ommony examined the writing minutely, sniffed the paper, held it to the light, then picked up the tube and examined that.

“Who brought it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It was handed to the chuprassi by a native he says he thinks was disguised.”

“Did you try changing the chuprassi’s sash?”

“Naturally. A deaf and dumb man came. He looked like a Tibetan. He approached the chuprassi and touched his sash, so the chuprassi brought him up to me. He was unquestionably deaf and dumb—stone-deaf, and half of his tongue was missing. The drums of his ears had been bored through—when he was a baby probably. I showed him the stone and he tried to take it from me. I had to have him forcibly ejected from the office; and of course I had him followed, but he disappeared utterly, after wandering aimlessly all over Delhi until nearly midnight. I have had a look-out kept, but he seems to have vanished without trace.”

“Have you drawn any conclusions?”

McGregor smiled. “I never draw them before it’s safe to say they’re proved. But a young woman almost certainly wrote that letter; Miss Sanburn’s adopted daughter—”

“Who I don’t believe exists,” said Ommony.

“—is reported by 888, who has hitherto always been reliable, to have disappeared. She disappeared, if she ever did exist, from Tilgaun; the stone unquestionably came from Tilgaun, and it seems to have been in Miss Sanburn’s possession, in the mission. Ergo—just as a flying hypothesis—Miss Sanburn’s adopted daughter may have written that letter. If so, she’s in Delhi, because the ink on that paper had not been dry more than an hour or two when it reached me.”

“Have you searched the hotels?”

“Of course. And the trains are being watched.”

“I’m curious to meet Hannah Sanburn’s adopted daughter!” said Ommony dryly. “I’ve known Hannah ever since she came to India more than twenty years ago. I’ve been co-trustee ever since Marmaduke died, and I don’t believe Hannah Sanburn has kept a single secret from me. In fact, it has been the other way; she has passed most of her difficult personal problems along to me for solution. I’ve a dozen files full of her letters, of which I dare say five per cent. are purely personal. I think I know all her private business. As recently as last year, when we met here in Delhi,—well—never mind; but if she had an adopted daughter, or an entanglement of any kind, I think I’d know it.”

“Women are damned deep,” McGregor answered. “Well; we’ve not much to go on. I’ll entrust that stone to you; if you’re still willing to try to get into the Ahbor country, I’ll do everything I can to assist. You’ve a fair excuse for trying; and you’re a bachelor. Dammit, if I were, I’d go with you! Of course, you understand, if the State Department learns of it you’ll be rounded up and brought back. Do you realize the other difficulties? Sven Hedin is said to have made the last attempt to get through from the North. He failed. In the last hundred years about a dozen Europeans have had a crack at it. Several died, and none got through—unless Terry and your sister did, and if so, they almost certainly died. When Younghusband went to Lhassa he considered sending one regiment back by way of the Ahbor Valley but countermanded the order when he realized that a force of fifty thousand men wouldn’t stand a chance of getting through. From time to time the government has sent six Goorkha spies into the country. None ever came back. It’s almost a certainty that the River Tsangpo of Tibet flows through the valley and becomes the Brahmaputra lower down, but nobody has proved it; nor has any one explained why the Tsangpo contains more water than the Brahmaputra. Old Kinthup, the pundit on the Indian Survey Staff, traced the Tsangpo down as far as the waterfall where it plunges into the Ahbor Valley, and he threw a hundred marked logs into the river, which were watched for lower down; but none of the logs appeared at the lower end, and not even Kinthup managed to get into the valley. The strangest part about it is, that the Northern Ahbors come down frequently to the Southern Ahbor country to trade, and they even intermarry with the Southern Ahbors. But they never say a word about their valley. The rajah of Tilgaun—the uncle of the present man—caught two and put them to torture, but they died silent. And another strange thing is, that nobody knows how the Northern Ahbors get into and out of their country. The river is a lot too swift for boats. The forest seems impenetrable. The cliffs are unclimbable. There was an attempt made last year to explore by airplane, but the attempt failed; there’s a ninety-mile wind half the time, and some of the passes to the south are sixteen or seventeen thousand feet in the air to begin with. I’m told carburetors won’t work, and they can’t carry enough fuel.—So, if you’re determined to make the attempt, slip away secretly, and don’t leave your courage behind! If it weren’t that you’ve a right to visit Tilgaun I should say you’d have no chance, but you might make it, if you’re awfully discreet and start from the Tilgaun Mission. If it’s ever found out that I encouraged you—”

“You’ve been reeling off discouragement for fifteen minutes!”

“Yes, but if it’s known I knew—”

“You needn’t worry. What made you say you think this stone will help me to trace the Terrys?”

“Nothing definite, except that it gives me an excuse for sending you to Tilgaun more or less officially. I employ you to investigate the mystery connected with that stone. As far as Tilgaun you’re responsible to me. If you decide to go on from there, you’ll have to throw me over—disobey orders. You understand, I order you to come straight back here from Tilgaun. If you disobey, you do it off your own bat, without my official knowledge. And I’m afraid, old thing, you’ll have to pay your own expenses.”

Ommony nodded.

“See Chutter Chand,” said McGregor, “and dine with me to-night—not at the club—that ’ud start all sorts of rumors flying—say at Mrs. Cornock-Campbell’s—her husband’s away, but that doesn’t matter. She’s the only woman I ever dared tell secrets to. Leave it to me to contrive the invitation—how’ll that do?”

“Mrs. Cornock-Campbell is a better man than you or me. Nine o’clock. I’ll be there,” said Ommony, noticing a certain slyness in McGregor’s smile. He bridled at it.

“Still laughing about the ‘Masters,’ Mac?”

“No, no. I’d forgotten them. Not that they exist—but never mind.”

“What then?”

“I’ll tell you after dinner, or rather some one else will. I wonder whether you’ll laugh too—or wince! Trot along and have your talk with Chutter Chand.”

DECIPHERED FROM A PALM-LEAF MANUSCRIPT
DISCOVERED IN A CAVE IN HINDUSTAN

“WHAT IS FEAR?”

Chutter Chand’s shop in the Chandni Chowk is a place of chaos and a joy for ever, if you like life musty and assorted. There are diamonds in the window, kodak cameras, theodolites, bric-a-brac, second-hand rifles, scientific magazines, and a living hamadryad cobra in a wire enclosure (into which rats and chickens are introduced at intervals). You enter through a door on either side of which hang curtains that were rather old when Clive was young; and you promptly see your reflection facing you in a mirror that came from Versailles when the French were bribing Indian potentates to keep the English out.

Every square foot of the walls within is covered with ancient curios. A glass counter-show-case runs the full length of the store, and is stuffed with enough jewelry to furnish a pageant of Indian history; converted into cash it would finance a very fair-sized bank. Rising to the level of the counter at the rear is a long row of pigeonholed shelves crowded with ancient books and manuscripts that smell like recently unwound mummies. Between shelf and counter lives (and reputedly sleeps by night) the most efficient jeweler’s babu in India—a meek, alert, weariless man who is said to be able to estimate any one’s bank balance by glancing at him as he enters through the front door. But Chutter Chand keeps himself out of sight, in a room at the rear of the store, whence he comes out only in emergency. On this particular occasion there were extra reasons for remaining in the background—reasons suggested by the presence of a special “constabeel” on duty outside the shop-door, who eyed Ommony nervously as he walked in.

Ommony went straight to the room at the rear and found Chutter Chand at his desk—a wizened, neat little man in a yellow silk turban and a brown alpaca suit of English cut. The suit and his brown skin were almost of the same shade; an amber pin in his yellow necktie corresponded with the color of his laced shoes; the gold of his heavy watch-chain matched the turban; his lemon silk handkerchief matched his socks; his dark-brown, kindly, intelligent eyes struck the key-note of the color harmony.

Unlike so many Indians who adopt a modified European style of dress, he had an air of breeding, poise and distinction.

“There is always something interesting when you come, Ommonee!” he said, rising and shaking hands. “Wait while I remove the specimens from that chair. No, the snakes can not escape; they are all poisonous, but carefully imprisoned. There—be seated. You are full of news, or you would have asked me how I am. Thank you, I am very well. And you? Now let us get to business!”

Ommony grinned at the gibe, but he had his own way of going about things. He preferred to soak in his surroundings and adjust his mind to the environment in silence before broaching business. He lit a cigar, and stared about him at the snakes in cages and the odds and ends of rarities heaped everywhere in indescribable confusion. There were an enormous brass Gautama Buddha resting on iron rollers, a silver Christian crucifix from a Goanese cathedral, and some enamel vases, that were new since his last visit; but the same old cobwebs were still in place in the corners of the teak beams, and the same cat came and rubbed herself against his shins—until she spied Diana in the outer shop and grew instantly blasphemous.

Still saying nothing, Ommony at last produced the lump of jade from his hip pocket.

“Yes,” said Chutter Chand, “I have already seen it.” But he took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and wiped them as if he was eager to see it again.

“What do you know about it?” asked Ommony.

“Very little, Sahib. To crystallize hypothesis into a mistake is all too easy. I prefer to distinguish between knowledge and conjecture.”

“All right. Tell me what little you do know.”

“It is jade undoubtedly, although I have never seen jade exactly like it—I, who have studied every known species of precious and semi-precious stone.”

“Then why do you say it is jade?”

“Because I know that. I have analyzed it. It is chloromelanite, consisting of a silicate of aluminium and sodium, with peroxide of iron, peroxide of manganese, and potash. It has been broken from a greater piece—perhaps from an enormous piece. The example I have previously seen that most resembled this was found in the Kara-Kash Valley of Turkestan; but that was not nearly so transparent. That piece you hold in your hand is more fusible than nephrite, which is the commoner form of jade; and it has a specific gravity of 3.3.”

“What makes you believe it was broken from a larger piece?”

“I know by the arc of the curve of the one side, and by the shape of the fracture on the other, that it has been broken by external violence from a piece considerably larger than itself. I have worked out a law of vibration and fracture that is as interesting in its way as Einstein’s law of relativity. Do you understand mathematics?”

“No. I’ll take your word for it. What else do you know positively?”

“Positively is the only way to know,” the jeweler answered, screwing up his face until he looked almost like a Chinaman. “There was human blood on it—a smear on the fractured side, that looked as if a careless attempt had been made to wipe it off before the blood was quite dry. Also the print of a woman’s thumb and forefinger, plainly visible under the microscope, with several other finger-prints that certainly were Tin Lal’s. The stone had come in contact with some oily substance, probably butter, but there was too little of it to determine. Furthermore, I know, Ommonee, that you are afraid of the stone because to touch it makes you nervous, and to peer into it makes you see things you can not explain.”

Ommony laughed. The stone did make him nervous.

“Did you see things?” he asked.

“That is how I know it makes you see them, Ommonee! Compared to me you are a child in such respects. If I, who know more than you, nonetheless see things when I peer into that stone, it is logical to my mind that you also see things, although possibly not the same things. Knowing the inherent superstition of the human mind, I therefore know you are afraid—just as people were afraid when Galileo told them that the earth moves.”

“Are you afraid of it?” asked Ommony, shifting his cigar and laying the stone on the desk.

“What is fear?” the jeweler answered. “Is it not recognition of something the senses can not understand and therefore can not master? I think the fact that we feel a sort of fear is proof that we stand on the threshold of new knowledge—or rather, of knowledge that is new to us as individuals.”

“You mean, then, if a policeman’s afraid of a burglar, he’s——”

“Certainly! He is in a position to learn something he never knew before. That doesn’t mean that he will learn, but that he may if he cares to. People used to be afraid of a total eclipse of the sun; some still are afraid of it. Imagine, if you can, what Julius Cæsar, or Alexander the Great, or Timour Ilang, or Akbar would have thought of radio, or a thirty-six-inch astronomical telescope, or a kodak camera.”

“All those things can be explained. This stone is a mystery.”

“Ommonee, everything that we do not yet understand is a mystery. To a pig, it must be a mystery why a man flings turnips to him over the wall of his sty. To that dog of yours it must be a mystery why you took such care to train her. Look into the stone now, Sahib, and tell me what you see.”

“Not I,” said Ommony. “I’ve done it twice. You look.”

Chutter Chand took up the stone in both hands and held it in the light from an overhead window. The thing glowed as if full of liquid-green fire, yet from ten feet away Ommony could see through it the lines on the palm of the jeweler’s hand.

“Interesting! Interesting! Ommonee, the world is full of things we don’t yet know!”

Chutter Chand’s brows contracted, the right side more than the left, in the habit-fixed expression of a man whose business is to use a microscope. Two or three times he glanced away and blinked before looking again. Finally he put the stone back on the desk and wiped his spectacles from force of habit.

“Our senses,” he said, “are much more reliable than the brain that interprets them. We probably all see, and hear, and smell alike, but no two brains interpret in the same way. Try to describe to me your sensations when you looked into the stone.”

“Almost a brain-storm,” said Ommony. “A rush of thoughts that seemed to have no connection with one another. Something like modern politics or listening in on the radio when there’s loads of interference, only more exasperating—more personal—more inside yourself, as it were.”

Chutter Chand nodded confirmation. “Can you describe the thoughts, Ommonee? Do they take the form of words?”

“No. Pictures. But pictures of a sort I’ve never seen, even in dreams. Rather horrible. They appear to mean something, but the mind can’t grasp them. They’re broken off suddenly—begin nowhere and end nowhere.”

Chutter Chand nodded again. “Our experiences tally. You will notice that the stone is broken off; it also begins nowhere and ends nowhere. I have measured it carefully; from calculation of the curvature it is possible to surmise that it may have been broken off from an ellipsoid having a major axis of seventeen feet. That would be an immense mass of jade weighing very many tons; and if the whole were as perfect as this fragment, it would be a marvel such as we in our day have not seen. I suspect it to have qualities more remarkable than those of radium, and I think—although, mind you, this is now conjecture—that if we could find the original ellipsoid from which this piece was broken we would possess the open sesame to—well—to laws and facts of nature, the mere contemplation of which would fill all the lunatic asylums! I have never been so thrilled by anything in all my life.”

But Ommony was not thrilled. He had seen men go mad from exploring without landmarks into the unknown. He laughed cynically.

“ ‘We fools of nature,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘so horridly to shake our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls!’ I’d rather wipe out the asylums.”

“Or live in one, Sahib, and leave the lunatics outside! Shakespeare knew nothing of the atomic construction of the universe. We have advanced since his day—in some respects. Has it occurred to you to wonder how this stone acquired such remarkable qualities? No! You merely wonder at it. But observe:

“You have seen a pudding stirred? The stupidest cook in the world can pour ingredients into a basin and stir them with water until they become something compounded, that does not in the least resemble any one of the component parts. Is that not so? The same fool bakes what he has mixed. A chemical process takes place, and behold! the idiot has wrought a miracle. Again, there is almost no resemblance to what the mixture was before. It even tastes and smells quite differently. It looks different. Its specific gravity is changed. Its properties are altered. It is now digestible. It decomposes at a different speed. It has lost some of the original qualities that went into the mixture, and has taken on others that apparently were not there before the chemical process began.

“You can see the same thing in a foundry, where they mix zinc with copper and produce brass, and the brass has qualities that neither zinc nor copper appears to contain. A deaf and dumb man, knowing neither writing nor arithmetic, could produce brass from zinc and copper. A savage, who never saw an abstraction, can produce wine from grapes. Good. Now listen, Sahib:

“Let us dive beneath the surface of these experiments. The capacity to become brass under certain conditions was inherent to begin with in the zinc and in the copper, was it not? But how so? It was inherent in the atoms, of which the zinc and the copper are composed; and, behind those again, in the electrons, of which the atoms are composed. Let us then consider the electrons.

“Suppose that we knew how to pour electrons into a receptacle and make, so-to-speak, a pudding of them! Could we not work what the world would think are miracles? I have made diamonds in my workshop. I believe I can make gold. What could I not do, if I knew how to manage electrons in the raw—electrons, in every one of which is the capacity to become absolutely anything!

“It has possibly not occurred to you, Ommonee, but the more I pursue my studies the more I am convinced that there was once a race of people in the world, or possibly a school of scientists drawn from many then-existent races, who knew how to manage electrons. I think they lived simultaneously with the cave-men. We find the bones of cave-men because those were ignorant people, such as the Bushmen of to-day, who buried their dead. We do not find the bones of the scientists of that period, because they were enlightened and disposed of corpses in the fire. The art of the cave-men is evidence that there was art of a very high order, which some one presumably taught. They painted pictures in caves into which no sunlight penetrated; therefore, there must have been artificial light of a sort superior to torches or tallow candles, because otherwise the color-work would have been impossible. That is proof that there was science in those days, of which the cave-men could avail themselves just as to-day a lunatic may use electric light. And the fact that we find no traces at present of what we can recognize as a very high order of civilization then existent is no proof that there was none; it may have been totally different from anything with which we are familiar. Furthermore, the world has only been extremely superficially explored.

“Be patient, Ommonee. I am coming to my point. I have studied that piece of jade. Three days and nights I studied it without sleep. To me its peculiar properties appear to confirm observations—micro-photographic observations that I have made and recorded during a period of ten years. In its essence, what is photography? It is the practise, by means of chemicals, of rendering visible to the human eye impressions of objects produced by light on a prepared surface. It is necessary to prepare the surface, which we call a dry plate or a film, because we do not yet know how else to render the light-made impression visible to the human eye. But it is there, whether we make it visible or not. And what I have discovered is this: that every particle of matter has a photographic quality, which varies only in degree. You stand against a rock—and not necessarily in sunlight, although sunlight helps; your impression is indelibly photographed on that rock, as I can prove, if you have time to witness some experiments. It is photographed on anything against which you stand. Other images may be superimposed on yours, but yours remains. In rare instances, in certain atmospheric conditions, these impressions become visible without any other chemical process, although it seems to require a certain nervous state of alertness before the human eye can perceive them.

“You remember the case of the Brahman who hanged himself in a cellar not far from this shop of mine? His body hung there for a day before they found it. For weeks afterward what was supposed to be his ghost was seen—by scores of reputable witnesses—hanging from the beam. That was several years ago. There was a great stir made about it at the time, and there were letters to the newspapers stating instances of similar occurrences. There was an investigation by experts from a research society, who denounced the whole story as an imposture.

“However, I was one of those who saw the ghost, and I made notes, and some experiments. Finally I photographed it! That satisfied me. I am sure that the alleged ghost was nothing but a photograph made on the wall, and that it was rendered visible by certain chemical conditions, not all of which I have been able to ascertain.

“Now then: if that is possible in one instance, it is possible in every instance. There is no such thing as an exception in nature; we have discovered a law. So take this piece of jade: we see things when we look into it. I deduce that they are photographic. And because no other piece of stone that I know of has the same quality of receiving impressions that are instantaneously visible, it seems probable to me that it has been intelligently treated by some one who knew how to do that.”

“It might be a natural chemical process,” said Ommony.

“I think not. Have you noticed that the strange moving images visible within the stone are not the reflections of objects? The stone is not a mirror in the ordinary sense. It does not seem to reflect at all the objects that surround it. I have never succeeded in seeing my face in it, for instance, although I have tried repeatedly, in all sorts of light, from every angle. It appears to me to reflect thought!”

Ommony made the peculiar noise between tongue and teeth that suggests polite but otherwise unconditioned incredulity. Chutter Chand, deep in his theme, ignored the interruption.

“I believe it reflects character! I believe that every thought that every man thinks, from the day he is born until the day he dies, leaves an invisible impress on his mind as well as a visible impress on his body. You know how changing character affects the lines on the palm of a man’s hand, on the soles of his feet, at the corners of his eyes, at his mouth, and so on? Well: something of the same sort goes on in his mind, which is invisible and what we call intangible, but is nevertheless made up of electrons in motion. And those impressions are permanent. I believe that somebody, who knew how to manipulate electrons, has treated this stone in such a way that it reflects the whole of a man’s thought since he was born—just as a stone wall, if it could be treated properly, could be shown to retain the photograph of every object that had passed before it since the wall was built.

“I believe this was done very anciently, and for this reason: that if any one possessed of such intelligence and skill were alive in the world to-day, his intelligence would burn itself into our consciousness, so that we could not help but know of him.

“I am of opinion that the process to which the jade was subjected rendered it at the same time transparent; because it is not in the nature of jade to be quite transparent normally. And in my mind there is connected with all this the knowledge (which is common property) that the Chinese—a very ancient race—regard jade as a sacred stone. Why? Is it not possible that jade peculiarly lends itself to this treatment, and that, though the science is forgotten, the dim memory of the peculiar property of the stone persists?”

“You’ve a fine imagination!” said Ommony.

“And what is imagination, Ommonee, if not a bridge between the known and unknown? Between conventional so-called knowledge and the unexplored realm of truth? Have you no imagination? Electricity was possible a thousand years ago; but until imagination hinted at the possibility, who had the use of it?”

Ommony returned the stone to his pocket. He was interested, and he liked Chutter Chand, but it occurred to him that he was wasting time.

“You’re right, of course,” he said, “that we have to imagine a thing before we can begin to understand it or produce or make it.”

“Surely. You imagined your forest, Ommonee, before you planted it. But between imagination and production, there is labor. You see, what the West can’t understand it scoffs at, whereas what the East can’t understand it calls sacred and guards against all-comers! I think you will have to penetrate a secret that has been guarded for thousands of years. They say, you know, that there are Masters who guard these secrets and let them out a little at a time. May the gods whom you happen to vote for be grateful and assist you! I would like to go on the adventure with you—but I am a family man. I am afraid. I am not strong. That stone has thrilled me, Ommonee!”

“If you like, I’ll leave it with you for some more experiments,” said Ommony.

“Sahib—my friend—I wouldn’t keep it for a rajah’s ransom! It was traced to this place—how, I don’t know. You noticed the policeman at the door? He is put there to keep out murderers! There has been a ruffian here—a Hillman—a cutthroat who said he came from Spiti—a great savage with a saw-edge tulwar! Ugh! He demanded the stone. He demanded to know where it was. If it had not been that I had a shop-full of customers, and that I promised to try to get the stone back from the man who now had it, he would have cut me in halves! He said so! I am afraid all the time that he will return, or that some of his friends will come. Oh, I wish I had your lack of an imagination, Ommonee! I could feel his saw-edged tulwar plunging into me! Listen!” (Chutter Chand began to tremble visibly). “Who is that?”

Ommony glanced into the shop. There were two men, evidently unarmed or the “constabeel” would never have admitted them, standing talking to the clerk across the show-case-counter. One was apparently a very old man and the other very young. Both were dressed in the Tibetan costume, but the older man was speaking English, which was of itself sufficiently remarkable, and he appeared to be slightly amused because the clerk insisted that Chutter Chand was “absent on a journey.” Neither man paid the slightest attention to the jewelry in the show-case; they were evidently bent on seeing Chutter Chand, and nothing else.

“Admit ’em!” whispered Ommony. “I’ll hide. No, never mind the dog; she’ll follow them in and sniff them over. If they ask about the dog, say she belongs to one of your customers who left her in your charge for an hour or two. What’s behind that brass Buddha?”

“Nothing, Sahib. It is hollow. There is no back.”

“That’ll do then. Help me pull it out from the wall—quick!—quiet!”

They made rather a lot of noise and Diana came in to investigate, which was opportune. Ommony gave her orders sotto voce and she returned into the shop to watch the two curious visitors.

“Now, don’t let yourself get frightened out of your wits, Chutter Chand. Encourage ’em to talk. Ask any idiotic question that occurs to you. When they’re ready to go, let ’em. And then, whatever you do, don’t say a word to the policeman.”

Ommony stepped behind the image of the Buddha. Chutter Chand, leaning all his weight against it, shoved it back nearly into place, but left sufficient space between it and the wall for Ommony to see into an old cracked mirror that reflected almost everything in the room. Then, taking a visible hold on his emotions, Chutter Chand strode to the door and stood there for a moment looking—listening—trying to breathe normally. He forced a smile at last.

“Oh, let them in—I will talk to them,” he said to the clerk in English, with an air of almost perfect, patronizing nonchalance. Only a very close observer might have known he was afraid—that fear, perhaps, in him was more than “recognition of something that the senses do not understand.”

“I AM ONE WHO STRIVES TO TREAD THE MIDDLE WAY.”

The two Tibetans entered, the older man leading, and squatted on a mat which the younger man spread on the floor. Their manner suggested that they had accepted an invitation, instead of having gained admission by persistence; but Ommony, watching every movement in the mirror, noticed that the older man laid his hand on the seat of the chair he himself had just occupied—which, being old, he might have done to help himself down on the mat, but, being active, he almost certainly did for another reason.

Chutter Chand sat at his desk magisterially, wiping at the gold-rimmed spectacles again, waiting for the visitors to speak first. But they were not to be tempted into that indiscretion. They sat still and were bland, while Diana came and deliberately sniffed them over. The hound seemed interested; she lay down where she could watch them both, her jowl on her paws, one ear up, and her tail moving slightly from side to side clearing a fan-shaped pattern in the dust.

The old man was a miracle of wrinkles. He resembled one of those Chinese statuettes in ivory, yellowed by time, that suggest that life is much too comical a business to be taken seriously—much too serious a business to be cumbered with pride and possessions. He was a living paradox in a long, snuff-colored robe, the ends of which he arranged over his lap, leaving the hairy strong legs of a mountaineer uncovered. He helped himself to an enormous quantity of snuff from an old Chinese silver box, that he presently stowed away in a fold of his garment. The pungent stuff appeared to have no effect on him, although Diana, catching a whiff of it, sneezed violently and Chutter Chand followed suit.

The young man was another ivory enigma, absolutely smooth in contrast to the elder’s wrinkles, and much paler. He, too, wore snuff-colored clothes. His head was wrapped in a turban of gorgeously embroidered brown silk, in contrast to the other’s monkish simplicity, and the cloth of which his cloak was made seemed to be of lighter and better material than the older man’s. He was remarkably good-looking—straight-featured and calm—placid, not apparently from self-contentment but from assurance that life holds a definite purpose and that he was being led along the narrow road. There was an air of good temper and wisdom about him, no apparent pride nor any mean humility. His eyes were blue-gray, his hands small, strong and artistic. His feet, too, were small but evidently used to walking. He was in every dimension smaller than the older man, unless mind is a dimension; they appeared to be equals in mental aroma, and they exuded that in the mysterious way of a painting by Goya y Lucientes.

“Well, what do you want?” Chutter Chand asked at last in English. It was a ridiculous language, on the face of it, to use to a Tibetan; but the older man had been using English in the outer shop, and Chutter Chand knew no Prakrit dialect.

The answer, in English devoid of any noticeable accent, was given by the older man in a voice as full of humor as his wrinkled face.

“The piece of jade,” he said, unblinking, ending on a rising note that suggested there was nothing to explain, nothing to argue about, nothing to do but be reasonable. He snapped his fingers, and Diana, normally a most suspicious dog, came close to him. He ran his fingers through her hair and she laid her huge jowl on his knee. Chutter Chand crossed and uncrossed his legs restlessly.

“I haven’t it,” said the jeweler. “Besides—er—ah—you would have to tell me your—that is—er—you would have to establish first by what right you make such a demand. You understand me?”

“I have made no demand,” the old man answered, smiling. His voice was sweetly reasonable; his bright old eyes twinkled. “You have asked what I want. I have told you.”

“Tell me who you are,” said Chutter Chand.

“My son, I am a Lama. I am one who strives to tread the Middle Way.”

“Where from?”

“From desire into peace!”

“I mean, what place do you come from?”

“From the same place that the piece of jade came from, my son. From the place to which he who desires merit will return it.”

“Is the jade yours?” asked Chutter Chand.

“Is the air mine? Are the stars mine?” the Lama answered, smiling as if the idea of possessing anything were a joke made by an inquiring child.

“Well; what right have you to the piece of jade?” Chutter Chand snapped back at him. He let the irritation through without intending it and smiled directly afterward in an attempt to undo the impression. But if the Lama had noticed the acerbity, he made no sign.

“None, any more than you have,” came the answer in the same mild voice. “None has any right to it. I have a duty to return it to whence it came—and a duty to you, to preserve you from impertinence, if that may be. It is not good, Chutter Chand, to meddle with knowledge before the time appointed for its understanding. He who would tread the Middle Way is patient, keeping both feet on the ground and his head no higher than humility will let it reach. Be wise—O man of intellectual desires! Destruction is in rashness.”

His fingers touched Diana’s collar and twisted it around until the small brass plate, on which Ommony’s name was engraved, came uppermost; but his eyes continued to look straight at Chutter Chand. It was the younger man, squatting in silence beside him, his head and body motionless, whose bright eyes took in every detail of the room, not omitting to notice the movement of the Lama’s hand. Except for the eyes, his face continued perfectly expressionless.

“Well—er—ah—before I answer definitely, I would like you to tell me about the jade,” said Chutter Chand. “You will find me reasonable. I am not a sacrilegious person. Er—ah—can you not establish to my satisfaction that—ah—I would be doing rightly to—er—let us say, to entrust the piece of jade to you?”

“I think you know that already,” said the Lama, in a voice of mild reproof, as if he were speaking to a child of whom he was rather fond. “What does your heart say, my son? It is the heart that answers wisely, if desire has been subdued. I have come a very long way——”

“Desiring the piece of jade!” sneered Chutter Chand—regretting the sneer instantly—driving finger-nails into the palm of his hand with impatience of himself.

“True,” said the Lama. “Desire is not easy to destroy. Yet I do not desire it for myself. And for you I desire peace—and merit. May the Lord live in your heart and guide you in the Middle Way.”

The jeweler moved restlessly. The atmosphere was getting on his nerves. There was an indefinable feeling of being in the presence of superiority, which is irritating to a man of intellect.

“You mean, there will be no peace for me unless I give up the piece of jade to you?” he asked tartly.

“I think that is so,” said the Lama gently.

“Well; it is not in my possession.”

“But you know who has it,” said the Lama, looking straight at him.

The jeweler did not answer, and the Lama’s eyes beamed with intelligence. The young Tibetan moved at last and whispered in his ear. The Lama nodded almost imperceptibly, turning the dog’s collar around again with leisurely fingers, whose touch seemed magically satisfying to Diana. He looked then once, sharply, at the big brass Buddha, let his eyes rest again on the jeweler’s, and went on speaking.

“What a man can not do is no weight against him. It may be the hand of Destiny, preventing him from a mistake. The deeds a man does are the fruits that are weighed in the balance and from which the seeds of future lives are saved. Peace be with you. Peace refresh you. Peace give you peace that you may multiply it, Chutter Chand.”

The Lama arose and the younger man rolled up the mat. Diana jumped to her feet. Chutter Chand made an attempt to get out of his chair with dignity; but the Lama seemed to have monopolized in his own person all the dignity there was in sight, which was embarrassing.

“Er—ah—I appreciate the blessing. Er—ah—are you going? But you haven’t told me what I asked about the jade—ah—would you care to come again?— Perhaps——”

The Lama smiled, stroked Diana’s head, bowed, so that his long skirts swung like a bronze bell and one almost expected a resonant boom to follow, and led the way out, followed by the younger man, who smiled once so suddenly and brightly that Chutter Chand’s nervous irritation vanished. But it returned the moment they had gone. He jumped at the noise Ommony made pushing the brass Buddha away from the wall.

“Damn them both!” he exploded. “Sahib, I hate to be mystified! I detest to be patronized! I feel I made myself contemptible! I could not think! I could not make my brain invent the questions that I should have asked!”

“You did pretty well,” said Ommony. “See ’em home, girl!”

Diana’s tail went between her legs, but she did not hesitate; she trotted out of the shop—stood still a moment on the sidewalk—sniffed—vanished.

“Sahib, they will send some one to loot this shop of mine! Ommonee——”

“Tut-tut! Those two didn’t overlook one detail. The young one read my name on Diana’s collar and whispered it to the Lama. The Lama knew I was behind the Buddha. He suspected something when he felt the chair-seat and found it warm.”

“Worse and worse!” said Chutter Chand despondently. “To incur the enmity of such people is more dangerous than to tamper with my snakes!”

Chutter Chand, his brain full of western and eastern science, his suit from London and his turban from Lahore, yearned to the West for protection from eastern mystery. Ommony, all English, steeped in the Orient for twenty years, had thrown his thought eastward and was reckoning like lightning in terms of Indian thought.

“They didn’t suspect my presence until after they came in here.——Shut up, Chutter Chand! Listen to me!——They’ll have brought a man to watch outside the shop and follow any one who follows them. They can’t have cautioned him about the dog, because they didn’t know about the dog, and they would never suspect a dog of having enough intelligence. Their man will be still out there watching the shop-door. Wait here!”

He ran into the outer shop, hid behind one of the curtains at the door, and stood facing the mirror that gave him a view of the “constabeel’s” back and of fifty yards of crowded street, including the sidewalk opposite. The “constabeel” appeared to be intently watching somebody, and in less than a minute Ommony picked out the individual—a tall, good-looking, boy-faced Hillman in a costume that suggested Bhutan or Sikkim—shapeless trousers and a long robe over them, with a sort of jacket on top of that. He was trying to look innocent, which is the surest way of attracting attention; and he was so intent on watching the shop-door that passers-by continually bunted into him—whereat he seemed to find it hard to keep his temper. Ommony watched him for a minute or two, and then spoke to the policeman through the curtain.

The policeman nearly gave the game away by turning his head to listen, but spat and scratched himself to cover the mistake. Ommony repeated his instructions carefully and the policeman strolled down-street. Ommony emerged and walked slowly in the opposite direction; over the way, the Hillman began at once to follow him, suiting his pace to Ommony’s. Ommony crossed the street; so did the policeman. Ommony turned and walked toward the Hillman; the policeman followed suit, approaching from the rear. Ommony came to a halt exactly in front of the Hillman, feeling dwarfed by the man’s big-boned stature and aware of the handle of a long knife just emerging through a slit in a robe that reeked strongly of ghee. The policeman, nervously fingering his club, halted to the Hillman’s rear, six feet away. Passers-by began to detect food for curiosity; there were searching glances and a palpable hesitation; there would have been a crowd in sixty seconds.

“Come with me,” said Ommony, in Prakrit.

“Why?” asked the Hillman, staring at him, wide-eyed with surprise at being spoken to in his own tongue.

“Because if you do, no harm will come to you; and if you don’t you’ll go to jail.”

The Hillman’s hand crept instinctively toward his knife, and the policeman made ready to swing for the back of his head with a hard-wood club.

“Are you a fool, that you don’t know a friend when you meet one?” asked Ommony.

“I have met enemies, and women, and one or two whom I called master, and many whom I have mastered—but never a friend yet!” the Hillman answered. “Who art thou?”

“Come with me and learn,” said Ommony.

The Hillman hesitated, but the crowd was distinctly beginning to gather now—a little way off, not sure yet but alert for the first hint of happenings. It grew clear to the Hillman that escape might not be easy.

“I fear no man!” he said, turning his head and recognizing the policeman, who was hardly two-thirds his size. He spat eloquently for the policeman’s benefit, missing him neatly by about the thickness of a knife-blade. “Whither?” he asked then, looking straight into Ommony’s eyes.

Ommony led the way across the street into Chutter Chand’s shop, where he halted to let the Hillman go in first.

“Nay, lead on!” said the Hillman, stepping aside.

“No. For you have a weapon and I have none. Moreover, I have said I am a friend, and I prefer to be a living friend rather than a dead one! Go in first,” laughed Ommony.

The Hillman laughed back. There was none of the solemnity about him that enshrouds the men from the Northwest frontier. Eastward along the Himalayas, where the smell of sweat leaves off and the smell of rancid butter begins, laughter becomes part of life and not an insult or indignity. He swaggered into the shop with no more argument and at a nod from Ommony walked straight through to the office at the rear.

“Krishna!” exclaimed Chutter Chand. He jumped for a corner, seized a two-handed Samurai sword, drew it from the scabbard, and laid it on the desk. “I will let my snakes loose!” he almost screamed, in Hindustanee.

But the Hillman sat down on the floor, on the exact spot where the Lama had been, and Ommony sat down in the chair facing him, motioning to Chutter Chand to resume the other chair and be sensible.

“But this is the ruffian who came and threatened me!” said Chutter Chand. “That knife of his is saw-edged! Take it from him, Ommonee!”

The Hillman appeared to know no English, but seemed to have made up his mind about Ommony. Friendship he might not believe in, but he could recognize good faith. He watched Ommony’s face as a child follows a motion picture.

“What is your name?” asked Ommony.

“Dawa Tsering.”

“Where are you from?”

“Spiti.”

“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Chutter Chand. “Does he say he is from Spiti? They are all devils who come from that country! It is there they practise polyandry, and their dead are eaten by dogs! He is unclean!”

“Who is that Lama who was in here just now?” Ommony went on.

“Tsiang Samdup.”

Chutter Chand did not catch that name; or, if he did, the name meant nothing to him. Ommony, on the other hand, had to use all his power of will to suppress excitement, and even so he could not quite control himself. The Hillman noticed the change of expression.

“Aye,” he said, “Tsiang Samdup is a great one.”

“Who is the other who was with him—the young one?”

“His chela.^[2]”

“What name?”

“Samding. Some call him San-fun-ho.”

“And what have you to do with them?”

Instead of answering, the Hillman retorted with a question.

“What is thy name? Say it again. Ommonee? That sounds like a name with magic in it. Om mani padme hum! Who gave thee that name? Eh? Thy father had it? Who was he? How is it a man should take his father’s name? Is the spirit of the father not offended? Thou art a strange one, Ommonee.”

“Why did you come in here some days ago and threaten Chutter Chand?” asked Ommony.

“Why not!” said the Hillman. “Did I not ride under a te-rain, like a leech on the belly of a horse, more hours and miles than an eagle knows of? Did I not eat dust—and nothing else? Did I not follow that rat Tin Lal to this place? Did I not—pretending to admire the cobra in the window—see him with my own eyes sell the green stone to this little lover-of-snakes? I said too much. I did too little. I should have slain them both! But I feared, because I am a stranger in the city and there were many people. Moreover, I had already slain a man—a Hindu, who drove an iron car and broke the wheel of the cart I rode in. I slew him with a spoke from the broken wheel. And it seemed to me that if I should slay another man too soon thereafter, it might fare ill with me, since the gods grow weary of protecting a man too often. So I returned four days later, thinking the gods might have forgotten the previous affair. They owe me many favors. I have treated the gods handsomely. And when this little rat of a jeweler swore he no longer had the stone, I threatened him. I would have slain him if I thought he really had it, but it seemed to me he told the truth. And he promised to get the stone back from some one to whom he had entrusted it. And I, vowing I would sever him in halves unless he should keep faith, went and told Tsiang Samdup, who came here accordingly, I following to protect the old man. I suppose Tsiang Samdup now has the stone. Is that so?”

“He shall have it,” said Ommony.

“I think thou art not a liar,” said the Hillman, looking straight into Ommony’s eyes. “Now, I am a liar. If I should have said that to thee, it would only be a fool who would believe me, and a fool is nothing to be patient with. But I am not a fool, and I believe thee—or I would plunge this knife into thy liver! Who taught thee to speak my language?”

Ommony saw fit not to answer that. “Is it not enough for thee that I can speak it? Where can I find the holy Lama Tsiang Samdup?”

“Oh, as to that, he is not particularly holy—although others seem to think he is; but I am from Spiti, where we study devils and consider nonsense all this talk about purity and self-abnegation and Nirvana. Who wants to go to Nirvana? What a miserable place—just nothing! Besides, I know better. I have studied these things. It is very simple. Knife a man in the bowels, as the Goorkhas do with a kukri, or as I do as a rule, and he goes to hell for a while; he has a chance; by and by he comes to life again. Cut his throat, however, and he dwells between earth and heaven; he will come and haunt thee, having nothing else to do, and that is very bad. Hit him here—” (he laid a finger on his forehead, just above the nose)—“and he is dead. That should only be done to men who are very bad indeed. And that is the whole secret of religion.”

Ommony looked serious. “I would like to talk to you about religion—”

“Oh, I could teach you the whole of it in a very short time.”

“——but meanwhile, I would like to know where the holy Lama Tsiang Samdup is staying.”

“I don’t know,” said the Hillman.

“You are lying,” said Ommony. “Is that not so?”

“Of course. Did you think I would tell you the truth?”

“No. That hardly occurred to me. Well—”

Diana came in, waving her long tail slowly. She flopped on the floor beside Ommony and there was silence for about a minute while the Hillman stared at her and she returned the gaze with interest. Finally her lip curled, showing a prodigious yellow fang and Ommony laid a hand on her head to silence a thunderous growl.

“That is an incarnation of a devil!” said the Hillman. “In my country we keep dogs as big as her to eat corpses. Devils, as a rule, are very evil, but I think that one—” (he nodded at the dog) “—is worse than others. Well—I go. Say to that fool at the door that he should not offend me with his little stick, for it may be he desires to live. I am glad I met thee, Ommonee.”

He waved his hand, smiled like a Chinese cherub, and walked out, ignoring Chatter Chand as utterly as if he had never seen him; and at the door he smiled at the policeman as the sun smiles on manure. The policeman did his best, but could not keep himself from grinning back.