Ayesha, the Return of She Read online

  CHAPTER II

  THE LAMASERY

  Sixteen years had passed since that night vigil in the old Cumberlandhouse, and, behold! we two, Leo and I, were still travelling, stillsearching for that mountain peak shaped like the Symbol of Life whichnever, 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 weendured were more prolonged, that is all. Five years we spent in Thibet,for the most part as guests of various monasteries, where we studied thelaw and traditions of the Lamas. Here we were once sentenced to death inpunishment for having visited a forbidden city, but escaped through thekindness of a Chinese official.

  Leaving Thibet, we wandered east and west and north, thousands andthousands of miles, sojourning amongst many tribes in Chinese territoryand elsewhere, learning many tongues, enduring much hardship. Thus wewould hear a legend of a place, say nine hundred miles away, and spendtwo 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 thequest and returning, since, before we started, we had sworn an oath thatwe 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 hadever set a foot. In a part of the vast land called Turkestan there is agreat lake named Balhkash, of which we visited the shores. Two hundredmiles or so to the westward is a range of mighty mountains marked on themaps as Arkarty-Tau, on which we spent a year, and five hundred or so miles tothe eastward are other mountains called Cherga, whither we journeyed atlast, having explored the triple ranges of the Tau.

  Here it was that at last our true adventures began. On one of the spursof these awful Cherga mountains--it is unmarked on any map--we well-nighperished of starvation. The winter was coming on and we could find nogame. The last traveller we had met, hundreds of miles south, told usthat on that range was a monastery inhabited by Lamas of surpassingholiness. He said that they dwelt in this wild land, over which no powerclaimed dominion and where no tribes lived, to acquire "merit," with noother company than that of their own pious contemplations. We did notbelieve in its existence, still we were searching for that monastery,driven onward by the blind fatalism which was our only guide throughall 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 bythe light of the moon, driving between us a single yak--for now we hadno attendant, the last having died a year before.

  He was a noble beast, that yak, and had the best constitution of anyanimal 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 hundredand fifty, the remnant of a store which we had fortunately been able tobuy from a caravan two years before, some money in gold and silver, alittle tea and a bundle of skin rugs and sheepskin garments were hisburden. On, on we trudged across a plateau of snow, having the greatmountains 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 skinrugs, sat down in the snow to wait for daylight.

  "We shall have to kill him and eat his flesh raw," I said, patting thepoor 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 offailure. We shall have done our best."

  "Certainly, Leo, we shall have done our best, if sixteen years oftramping over mountains and through eternal snows in pursuit of a dreamof the night can be called best."

  "You know what I believe," he answered stubbornly, and there was silencebetween us, for here arguments did not avail. Also even then I could notthink 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. Wildcreatures we should have seemed to the eyes of any civilized person.Leo was now over forty years of age, and certainly his maturity hadfulfilled the promise of his youth, for a more magnificent man I neverknew. Very tall, although he seemed spare to the eye, his girth matchedhis height, and those many years of desert life had turned his musclesto steel. His hair had grown long, like my own, for it was a protectionfrom sun and cold, and hung upon his neck, a curling, golden mane, ashis great beard hung upon his breast, spreading outwards almost tothe massive shoulders. The face, too--what could be seen of it--wasbeautiful though burnt brown with weather; refined and full of thought,sombre almost, and in it, clear as crystal, steady as stars, shone hislarge grey eyes.

  And I--I was what I have always been--ugly and hirsute, iron-grey nowalso, but in spite of my sixty odd years, still wonderfully strong, formy strength seemed to increase with time, and my health was perfect. Infact, during all this period of rough travels, although now and againwe had met with accidents which laid us up for awhile, neither of ushad known a day of sickness. Hardship seemed to have turned ourconstitutions to iron and made them impervious to every human ailment.Or was this because we alone amongst living men had once inhaled thebreath of the Essence of Life?

  Our fears relieved--for notwithstanding our foodless night, as yetneither of us showed any signs of exhaustion--we turned to contemplatethe landscape. At our feet beyond a little belt of fertile soil, begana great desert of the sort with which we were familiar--sandy,salt-encrusted, treeless, waterless, and here and there streaked withthe first snows of winter. Beyond it, eighty or a hundred miles away--inthat lucent atmosphere it was impossible to say how far exactly--rosemore mountains, a veritable sea of them, of which the white peaks soaredupwards 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 theedge of the desert.

  "See there!" he said, pointing to something dim and enormous. Presentlythe light reached it also. It was a mighty mountain not more than tenmiles away, that stood out by itself among the sands. Then he turnedonce more, and with his back to the desert stared at the slope of thehills, along the base of which we had been travelling. As yet they werein gloom, for the sun was behind them, but presently light began to flowover 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 thewaste, sat a great ruined idol, a colossal Buddha, while to the rear ofthe idol, built of yellow stone, appeared the low crescent-shaped massof 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 shouldread something written on it which he did not desire that even I shouldsee.

  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, hadno share in these joyous emotions but only lowed and looked round withhungry eyes, I piled the sheepskin rugs on to its back. This done, Ilaid my hand on Leo's shoulder, saying, in the most matter-of-fact voiceI could command--"Come. If that place is not deserted, we may find foodand shelter there, and it is beginning to storm again."

  He rose without a word, brushed the snow from his beard and garments andcame to help me to lift the yak to its feet, for the worn-out beast wastoo stiff and weak to rise of itself. Glancing at him covertly, I sawon Leo's face a very strange and happy look; a great peace appeared topossess him.

  We plunged upwards through the snow slope, dragging the yak with us, tothe terrace whereon the monastery was built. Nobody seemed to be aboutthere, nor could I discern any footprints. Was the place but a ruin? Wehad found many such; indeed this ancient land is full of buildings thathad once served as the homes of men, learned and pious enough aftertheir own fashion, who lived and died hundr
eds, or even thousands, ofyears 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 froma chimney, and never, I think, did I see a more joyful sight. In thecentre of the edifice was a large building, evidently the temple, butnearer to us I saw a small door, almost above which the smoke appeared.To this door I went and knocked, calling aloud--"Open! open, holyLamas. Strangers seek your charity." After awhile there was a sound ofshuffling 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 ofhorn spectacles. "Who comes to disturb our solitude, the solitude of theholy Lamas of the Mountains?"

  "Travellers, Sacred One, who have had enough of solitude," I answered inhis own dialect, with which I was well acquainted. "Travellers who arestarving and who ask your charity, which," I added, "by the Rule youcannot refuse."

  He stared at us through his horn spectacles, and, able to make nothingof our faces, let his glance fall to our garments which were as raggedas his own, and of much the same pattern. Indeed, they were those ofThibetan monks, including a kind of quilted petticoat and an outervestment not unlike an Eastern burnous. We had adopted them because wehad no others. Also they protected us from the rigours of the climateand 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 theWorld, where, alas! one grows hungry."

  The reply seemed to please him, for he chuckled a little, then shook hishead, saying--"It is against our custom to admit strangers unless theybe of our own faith, which I am sure you are not."

  "And much more is it against your Rule, holy Khubilghan," for so theseabbots are entitled, "to suffer strangers to starve"; and I quoted awell-known passage from the sayings of Buddha which fitted the pointprecisely.

  "I perceive that you are instructed in the Books," he exclaimed withwonder on his yellow, wrinkled face, "and to such we cannot refuseshelter. 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 appearanceolder than the first, who stared at us open-mouthed.

  "Brother," said the abbot, "shut that great mouth of yours lest an evilspirit should fly down it; take this poor yak and give it fodder withthe other cattle."

  So we unstrapped our belongings from the back of the beast, and the oldfellow whose grandiloquent title was "Master of the Herds," led it away.

  When it had gone, not too willingly--for our faithful friend dislikedparting from us and distrusted this new guide--the abbot, who wasnamed Kou-en, led us into the living room or rather the kitchen of themonastery, for it served both purposes. Here we found the rest of themonks, about twelve in all, gathered round the fire of which we had seenthe smoke, and engaged, one of them in preparing the morning meal, andthe rest in warming themselves.

  They were all old men; the youngest could not have been less thansixty-five. To these we were solemnly introduced as "Brethren of theMonastery called the World, where folk grow hungry," for the abbotKou-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 wishedus well and evidently were delighted at our arrival. This was notstrange, however, seeing that ours were the first new faces which theyhad seen for four long years.

  Nor did they stop at words, for while they made water hot for us to washin, two of them went to prepare a room--and others drew off our roughhide boots and thick outer garments and brought us slippers for ourfeet. Then they led us to the guest chamber, which they informed us wasa "propitious place," for once it had been slept in by a noted saint.Here a fire was lit, and, wonder of wonders! clean garments, includinglinen, all of them ancient and faded, but of good quality, were broughtfor us to put on.

  So we washed--yes, actually washed all over--and having arrayedourselves in the robes, which were somewhat small for Leo, struck thebell 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 akind of porridge, to which was added new milk brought in by the "Masterof the Herds," dried fish from a lake, and buttered tea, the last twoluxuries produced in our special honour. Never had food tasted moredelicious to us, and, I may add, never did we eat more. Indeed, at lastI was obliged to request Leo to stop, for I saw the monks staring at himand heard the old abbot chuckling to himself.

  "Oho! The Monastery of the World, where folk grow _hungry_," to whichanother monk, who was called the "Master of the Provisions," replieduneasily, that if we went on like this, their store of food wouldscarcely last the winter. So we finished at length, feeling, as somebook of maxims which I can remember in my youth said all polite peopleshould do--that we could eat more, and much impressed our hosts bychanting 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 ourpresent incarnation. But we are only beginners, for you, holy Ones, knowhow star-high, how ocean-wide and how desert-long is that path. Indeedit is to be instructed as to the right way of walking therein that wehave been miraculously directed by a dream to seek you out, as the mostpious, the most saintly and the most learned of all the Lamas in theseparts."

  "Yes, certainly we are that," answered the abbot Kou-en, "seeing thatthere is no other monastery within five months' journey," and again hechuckled, "though, alas!" he added with a pathetic little sigh, "ournumbers grow few."

  After this we asked leave to retire to our chamber in order to rest, andthere, upon very good imitations of beds, we slept solidly for four andtwenty hours, rising at last perfectly refreshed and well.

  Such was our introduction to the Monastery of the Mountains--for it hadno other name--where we were destined to spend the next six months ofour lives. Within a few days--for they were not long in giving us theircomplete confidence--those good-hearted and simple old monks told us alltheir history.

  It seemed that of old time there was a Lamasery here, in which dweltseveral hundred brethren. This, indeed, was obviously true, for theplace was enormous, although for the most part ruined, and, as theweather-worn statue of Buddha showed, very ancient. The story ran,according to the old abbot, that two centuries or so before, the monkshad been killed out by some fierce tribe who lived beyond the desert andacross the distant mountains, which tribe were heretics and worshippersof fire. Only a few of them escaped to bring the sad news to othercommunities, and for five generations no attempt was made to re-occupythe 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 presentlife to return thither, as by so doing he would win much merit andreceive many wonderful revelations. So he gathered a band of zealotsand, with the blessing and consent of his superiors, they started out,and after many hardships and losses found and took possession of theplace, repairing it sufficiently for their needs.

  This happened about fifty years before, and here they had dwelt eversince, only communicating occasionally with the outside world. At firsttheir numbers were recruited from time to time by new brethren, butat length these ceased to come, with the result that the community wasdying 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 haveearned in Devachan, our lots in future existences will be easier. Whatmore can we ask or desire, removed as we are from all the temptations ofthe world?"
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br />   For the rest, in the intervals of their endless prayers, and still moreendless contemplations, they were husbandmen, cultivating the soil,which was fertile at the foot of the mountain, and tending their herd ofyaks. Thus they wore away their blameless lives until at last they diedof old age, and, as they believed--and who shall say that they werewrong--the eternal round repeated itself elsewhere.

  Immediately after, indeed on the very day of our arrival at themonastery the winter began in earnest with bitter cold and snowstormsso heavy and frequent that all the desert was covered deep. Very soon itbecame obvious to us that here we must stay until the spring, sinceto attempt to move in any direction would be to perish. With somemisgivings we explained this to the abbot Kou-en, offering to remove toone of the empty rooms in the ruined part of the building, supportingourselves with fish that we could catch by cutting a hole in the ice ofthe 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 pinesand junipers that grew around its border. But he would listen to no suchthing. We had been sent to be their guests, he said, and their guestswe should remain for so long as might be convenient to us. Would we layupon them the burden of the sin of inhospitality? Besides, he remarkedwith his chuckle--"We who dwell alone like to hear about that othergreat monastery called the World, where the monks are not so favoured aswe who are set in this blessed situation, and where folk even go hungryin body, and," he added, "in soul."

  Indeed, as we soon found out, the dear old man's object was to keep ourfeet 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 bibleand a very long one, and generally showed that our "minds were open."Also we expounded to them the doctrines of our own faith, and greatlydelighted were they to find so many points of similarity between it andtheirs. Indeed, I am not certain but that if we could have stopped therelong enough, say ten years, we might have persuaded some of them toaccept a new revelation of which we were the prophets. Further, in sparehours we told them many tales of "the Monastery called the World," andit was really delightful, and in a sense piteous, to see the joy withwhich they listened to these stories of wondrous countries and new racesof men; they who knew only of Russia and China and some semi-savagetribes, 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 theseplaces."

  But though the time passed thus in comfort and indeed, compared to manyof our experiences, in luxury, oh! our hearts were hungry, for in themburned the consuming fire of our quest. We felt that we were on thethreshold--yes, we knew it, we knew it, and yet our wretched physicallimitations made it impossible for us to advance by a single step. Onthe desert beneath fell the snow, moreover great winds arose suddenlythat drove those snows like dust, piling them in heaps as high as trees,beneath which any unfortunate traveller would be buried. Here we mustwait, there was nothing else to be done.

  One alleviation we found, and only one. In a ruined room of themonastery was a library of many volumes, placed there, doubtless, by themonks who were massacred in times bygone. These had been more or lesscared for and re-arranged by their successors, who gave us liberty toexamine 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 foundBuddhistic, Sivaistic and Shamanistic writings that we had never beforeseen or heard of, together with the lives of a multitude of Bodhisatvas,or distinguished saints, written in various tongues, some of which wedid not understand.

  What proved more interesting to us, however, was a diary in many tomesthat for generations had been kept by the Khubilghans or abbots of theold Lamasery, in which every event of importance was recorded in greatdetail. Turning over the pages of one of the last volumes of thisdiary, written apparently about two hundred and fifty years earlier, andshortly before the destruction of the monastery, we came upon anentry of which the following--for I can only quote from memory--is thesubstance--

  "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 thepeople who dwell beyond the Far Mountains, of whom rumours have reachedthis Lamasery from time to time. He was living, but beside him were thebodies of two of his companions who had been overwhelmed by sand andthirst. He was very fierce looking. He refused to say how he came intothe desert, telling us only that he had followed the road known to theancients before communication between his people and the outer worldceased. We gathered, however, that his brethren with whom he fled hadcommitted some crime for which they had been condemned to die, and thathe had accompanied them in their flight. He told us that there was afine country beyond the mountains, fertile, but plagued with droughtsand earthquakes, which latter, indeed, we often feel here.

  "The people of that country were, he said, warlike and very numerous butfollowed agriculture. They had always lived there, though ruled by Khanswho were descendants of the Greek king called Alexander, who conqueredmuch country to the south-west of us. This may be true, as our recordstell us that about two thousand years ago an army sent by that invaderpenetrated to these parts, though of his being with them nothing issaid.

  "The stranger-man told us also that his people worship a priestesscalled Hes or the Hesea, who is said to reign from generation togeneration. She lives in a great mountain, apart, and is feared andadored by all, but is not the queen of the country, in the governmentof which she seldom interferes. To her, however, sacrifices are offered,and he who incurs her vengeance dies, so that even the chiefs of thatland are afraid of her. Still their subjects often fight, for they hateeach other.

  "We answered that he lied when he said that this woman was immortal--forthat was what we supposed he meant--since nothing is immortal; also welaughed at his tale of her power. This made the man very angry. Indeedhe declared that our Buddha was not so strong as this priestess, andthat she would show it by being avenged upon us.

  "After this we gave him food and turned him out of the Lamasery, and hewent, 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 theroad 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, inwhich he did not succeed."

  Such is a _precis_ of this strange entry, the discovery of which, vagueas it was, thrilled us with hope and excitement. Nothing more appearedabout the man or his country, but within a little over a year from thatdate the diary of the abbot came to a sudden end without any indicationthat unusual events had occured or were expected.

  Indeed, the last item written in the parchment book mentioned thepreparation of certain new lands to be used for the sowing of grain infuture seasons, which suggested that the brethren neither feared norexpected disturbance. We wondered whether the man from beyond themountains was as good as his word and had brought down the vengeance ofthat 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, toaccompany us to the library, and having read him the passage, askedif he knew anything of the matter. He swayed his wise old head, whichalways reminded me of that of a tortoise, and answered--"A little.Very little, and that mostly about the army of the Greek king who ismentioned in the writing."

  We inquired what he could possibly know of this matter, whereon Kou-enreplied calmly--"In those days when the faith of the Holy One was stillyoung, I dwelt as a humble brother in this very monastery, which wasone of the first built, and I saw the army pass, that is all. That,"he added meditatively, "was in my fiftieth incarnation of t
his presentRound--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 thetable and he turned it into a sneeze. This was fortunate, as such ribaldmerriment would have hurt the old man's feelings terribly. After all,also, as Leo himself had once said, surely we were not the people tomock at the theory of re-incarnation, which, by the way, is the firstarticle of faith among nearly one quarter of the human race, and thisnot the most foolish quarter.

  "How can that be--I ask for instruction, learned One--seeing that memoryperishes with death?"

  "Ah!" he answered, "Brother Holly, it may seem to do so, but oftentimesit comes back again, especially to those who are far advanced upon thePath. For instance, until you read this passage I had forgotten allabout that army, but now I see it passing, passing, and myself withother 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 thesoldiers had died, or been killed, and it was being pursued by the wildpeople who lived south of us in those days, so that it was in a greathurry to put the desert between it and them. The general of the army wasa 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 asleeping place for his wife and children, also provisions and medicines,and guides across the desert. The abbot of that day told him it wasagainst our law to admit a woman under our roof, to which he answeredthat if we did not, we should have no roof left, for he would burn theplace and kill every one of us with the sword. Now, as you know, to bekilled by violence means that we must pass sundry incarnations in theforms of animals, a horrible thing, so we chose the lesser evil andgave way, and afterwards obtained absolution for our sins from the GreatLama. Myself I did not see this queen, but I saw the priestess of theirworship--alas! alas!" and Kou-en beat his breast.

  "Why alas?" I asked, as unconcernedly as I could, for this storyinterested me strangely.

  "Why? Oh! because I may have forgotten the army, but I have neverforgotten that priestess, and she has been a great hindrance to methrough many ages, delaying me upon my journey to the Other Side, to theShore of Salvation. I, as a humble Lama, was engaged in preparing herapartment when she entered and threw aside her veil; yes, and perceivinga young man, spoke to me, asking many questions, and even if I was notglad 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 waslike the dawn upon the snows; she was like the evening star above themountains; she was like the first flower of the spring. Brother, ask menot what she was like, nay, I will say no more. Oh! my sin, my sin. I amslipping 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 whomperhaps you have thought holy--like yourselves. That woman, if womanshe 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 tearsof contrition trickled from beneath his horn spectacles, "_she made meworship her!_ For first she asked me of my faith and listened eagerly asI expounded it, hoping that the light would come into her heart; then,after I had finished she said--"'So your Path is Renunciation and yourNirvana a most excellent Nothingness which some would think it scarceworth while to strive so hard to reach. Now _I_ will show you a morejoyous 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 worldto be, that made _you_, O seeker of Nirvana, and the goddess calledNature!'

  "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 awayshamed and broken-hearted, and as I went she laughed, and cried:'Remember me when you reach Devachan, O servant of the Budda-saint, forthough I change, I do not die, and even there I shall be with you whoonce gave me worship!'

  "And it is so, my brethren, it is so; for though I obtained absolutionfor my sin and have suffered much for it through this, my nextincarnation, yet I cannot be rid of her, and for me the Utter Peace isfar, far away," and Kou-en placed his withered hands before his face andsobbed outright.

  A ridiculous sight, truly, to see a holy Khublighan well on the wrongside of eighty, weeping like a child over a dream of a beautiful womanwhich he imagined he had once dreamt in his last life more than twothousand years ago. So the reader will say. But I, Holly, for reasonsof my own, felt deep sympathy with that poor old man, and Leo was alsosympathetic. We patted him on the back; we assured him that he wasthe victim of some evil hallucination which could never be brought upagainst 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 wassomewhat 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 notcare, but thought that it must be an evil one. She went away the nextmorning with the army, and he never saw or heard of her any more, thoughit came into his mind that he was obliged to be locked in his cell foreight days to prevent himself from following her. Yes, he had heard onething, for the abbot of that day had told the brethren. This priestesswas the real general of the army, not the king or the queen, the latterof whom hated her. It was by her will that they pushed on northwardsacross the desert to some country beyond the mountains, where shedesired to establish herself and her worship.

  We asked if there really was any country beyond the mountains, andKou-en answered wearily that he believed so. Either in this or in aprevious life he had heard that people lived there who worshipped fire.Certainly also it was true that about thirty years ago a brother who hadclimbed the great peak yonder to spend some days in solitary meditation,returned and reported that he had seen a marvellous thing, namely, ashaft of fire burning in the heavens beyond those same mountains, thoughwhether 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 afflictKou-en's innocent old heart, and he crept away lamenting and was seen nomore 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 thatwe would at once ascend this mountain.