Rescuing the Czar/Part One/Chapter XII
Chapter XII: The Flight to Tibet
[edit]43. Then we get this entry:
"I did not count the number of Hindu castes we encountered at the trading post of Tongua.... there were a hundred, at least, each bearing on his forehead the mani-colored mark of his particular caste,--while the stately Kashmirian in his snowy turban and long white tunic seemed carved out of the frozen snows of the towering mountain sides.... we were offered many cabriolets to assist us on our journey, but one look at one of those backless and circular TABLES between the wheels upon which one must sit like a Turkish mouker with his legs crossed to keep from rolling down the precipice was enough to convince us that the camel route was good enough for us.
"On the tramp to Horis, along the banks of the Jhelum with its wooded mountains on the right and its rocky precipices on the left, we met a number of pilgrims who had religious scruples against taking part in letting blood of any kind of bird or beast or whale.... They had evidently been to their Mecca.... Another thing we discovered that is not generally understood among the unelect.... On the way we came upon a Hindu squatting by the roadside with a pail of rich fresh milk.... Being thirsty I pointed at the pail and asked him for enough to give our party a drink.... The fellow became enraged and informed me that I had defiled his milk by pointing my finger at it.... I said I'd take it all, which was evidently what he wished.
"After we had all drunk our fill I took the half-filled pail, approached the grinning rascal and deliberately dashed the contents in his face!... My 'prisoner' was horrified, but Maria enjoyed it very much.... 'I had one experience in Japan,' my 'prisoner' confided, 'that has taught me never to oppose the local customs of a country no matter how absurd they may seem to others.... At that time one of my party poked fun at the peculiar art displayed in the statue of a Buddha.... The priest became enraged and attempted to split my head open when I was not looking.... Had it not been for my cousin I'm sure I would not be with you today!... You will please me much if you respect the ancient practices of these people.'...
"Then going to the dripping figure he laid a gold louis on the fellow's upturned palm,--HE SEEMED TO KNOW WHAT WAS COMING--which was proof to my mind that there is more in Yogi philosophy than has ever been let out....
"... Frankly, however, I suspect that my 'prisoner's' kindness has only whetted the appetite of that knave.... The way he looks at us would convict him in any court of justice that he meditates our murder...."
44. Then we have this entry:
"I am not at all mistaken in my estimate of that Hindu with the pail of defiled milk.... He is one of the renegade SPIES that hang on the brow of civilization and infest these retreats and mountain gorges in search of easy prey.... There are other POWERS above them that lounge in gilded palaces and seem always interested in the charms of lovely women who may suddenly DISAPPEAR.... I know the brood of vultures from Stamboul to the red lights of New York and the dens of Singapore!... The quicker we get down out of these mountains and into the populated valley on our way to Seranagur the SAFER I will feel.... It is all very pleasant to take a look at this silver ring that encircles the plateau with its eternal snows, to watch the sparkling waterfalls, the gardens and the dimpling lake with its little islands with cottages resting on them and to imagine one's self in the fairyland we used to read about as children,--BUT for a full-grown man, in my position and charged with an important mission, I prefer to be on my way.... There are too many places where one may be accounted for as having fallen down the mountain side in the event of some sudden DISAPPEARANCE!"
45. By the initiated the following entry will not be misunderstood:
"It was an unlucky piece of folly that sent us in this direction halfway round the earth to a destination we could have reached in fifteen days.... On our way to Bombay where arrangements had been made to slip us quietly across the Peninsula and on to our permanent retreat, we were confronted with the information that people of my prisoner's nationality were leaving Bombay by request,--and hence our unheralded appearance might attract too much attention to be entirely satisfactory to the interests I was serving ... How this information was conveyed to us I may jot down some later day.... But to make a note of it is sufficient for my purpose now ... There are other wild beasts in these mountains besides panthers to account for the death of a man WHO KNOWS TOO MUCH.
"... Were it not for a positive FEELING of dread that has followed me since I threw milk into that Hindu's eyes, I should like to describe the many fascinating spots encountered in the embrace of a squalid and picturesque degeneracy.... I should linger with my brush over the opalescent lake and the sweet, calm repose of Seranagur with its purling river scouring the festooned landings and retiring abodes of tranquillity and ease,--I should like to jot down the scenes of bathers at their twilight dips when both sexes mingle as innocent as our First Parents were of a bathing costume and as devoutly fervent in their ablutions as the fabled Peris of this Paradise themselves. But there is a feeling in the air that some one is pursuing us and which cuts these memorandums short...."
46. "For purposes of self-protection I shall no longer jot down exactly our location," the next entry reads. I note merely that we are somewhere in Little Thibet and that I have met the MAN IN YELLOW ROBES AND YELLOW TURBAN AT THE LOW WHITE MONASTERY as I was told to do in the Memorandum at Berlin.... And I approached him with the RIGHT FOOT first, my hands held in the appropriate position, until he asked me in excellent French: 'Whence come you?' Then I made the proper sign and whispered the name of the room adjacent to another room which satisfied the Lama that I was the bearer of a MESSAGE to the Exalted Dalai-Lama as well as the principal Khutuktus of the EAST.... My little audience was much mystified, BUT the MAN IN YELLOW ROBES understood.... He began whirling a brass prayer wheel as he advanced toward my 'prisoner' and salaamed.... Then laying his right hand on the 'prisoner's' shoulder the Lama said: 'Your credentials, sahib, are correct,--and it is well; as your misfortunes have been great, great will be the blessings that will fall upon thy family and thy name. Thy piety hath been known to all my brethren, likewise thy toleration,--although the INFIDEL hath been a thorn pressed evilly against thy side ... beware of that same infidel today! He is plotting evil HERE against thy very life,--he envieth the lives of thine!... A religious war now breweth in this land!... SPIES haunt thy footsteps from the rising to the setting sun.... BEWARE lest thy fair daughters and thy wife shall disappear!... Our prayers, sahib, shall attend thee; and our numerous eyes shall remain open to the PERILS as thou goest EAST where arms are open to receive thee,--but see thou, sahib, THAT THOU DOST WALK DILIGENTLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THOSE ARMS!...
"... The Lama backed away.... Never did he cease whirling the prayer wheel as he spoke ... this constitutes the perpetual prayer of Lamas, the theory being that the wheel communicates the petition to the air and, thus, mingled with the elements, it ascends naturally to the heaven of the blessed.... We were then conducted through a long row of very low rooms ornamented with a variety of Buddhist statues that have never been dusted nor apparently disturbed, to an open terrace which overlooked a dreary waste of gray rocks and broken ledges and offered to our view the slender roadway that lay like a ribbon across the plain until it faded into the golden glow of the Eastern horizon.... When I looked at that single road, and recalled the WARNING of the Lama so solemnly given to my 'prisoner' about the care to be given to his daughters, I REALIZED FULLY THE MEANING OF THE PRYING EYES that followed us everywhere after my encounter with the milk-fed MUSSULMAN disguised as a Hindu mendicant!..."