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-edged 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."
Chapter IV
"I Am One Who Strives to Tread the Middle Way."
We should ascend out of perversity, even as we ascend a mountain that we do not know, with the aid of guides who do know. None who sets forth on an unknown voyage stipulates that the pilot must agree with him as to the course, since manifestly that would be absurd; the pilot is presumed to know; the piloted does not know. None who climbs a mountain bargains that the guide shall keep to this or that direction; it is the business of the guide to lead. And yet, men hire guides for the Spiritual Journey, of which they know less than they know of land and sea, and stipulate that the guide shall lead them thus and so, according to their own imaginings; and instead of obeying him, they desert and denounce him, should he lead them otherwise. I find this of the essence of perversity.
—From The Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup
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 contract 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 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
