Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 133: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Om the East sets forth to play a part in earnest, it becomes audience as well as actor, and accepts the drama for reality. Even the lama was pleased. He praised them after a fashion of his own. ‘Because you are doing well it would not be good to believe you can not do better. Even the sun and the stars are constantly improving. Let vanity not slay humility, which is the spirit reaching upward.” ‘Then as if that perhaps were too great praise, which might deceive them, he picked out an actor here and there for comforting rebuke: ‘‘You must remember that to play the part of a stupid character requires intel- ligence. You will grow more intelligent as you endeavor. Now let us begin again at the beginning, trying to forget how stupid we have consented to be hitherto. Let us consent to be intelligent.” He did not once betray impatience or clothe his direction in any of the old religious formulas that, like the proverbs of the West, have become more or less meaningless from too much use. When he needed an example he commanded Samding, and the chela spoke at once from memory, occasionally descending to the floor to act as well as speak the lines. Once the chela acted the same part in the same way twice in succes- sion, and then /e came in for reprimand: “‘Samding, no two atoms in all nature are alike. No day is twice repeated. No second breath is like the first. Do that a third time. Do it differently.” Tyrant, however, was no right name for the lama. There was no sense of oppression even at the end of a long afternoon when every faculty, Samding’s apparently in- cluded, ached from exercise. Samding worked harder than them all together, be- cause all through the second act, in the rdle of a goddess, he had to come and go and speak the all-important lines on which the action hinged. But when darkness came and tall, monk-like Tibetans, armed with tapers, lit the hanging lights and set candles in the wall-sconces, the chela was as self- possessed and full of life as ever, which he hardly would have been if he had felt im- posed on. Dawa Tsering slept all through it, weary from simply looking on. Ommony, as tired as he had ever been, be- cause his whole mind had been concentrated without remission for hours on end, ad- mitted to himself that he was more than 123 ever puzzled by the lama’s character. He liked him—could not help it—did not want to help it. ‘“‘The old chap’s a genius,” he told him- self. ‘He could hardly be a hypocrite and keep the respect of that chela, or win mine either. There’s an explanation, knows what; but there zs one, for those stolen children. I wonder: Did Benjamin lie about that?” The lama dismissed the troupe to the far end of the hall, where they sprawled wearily on the floor, awaiting supper. Not moving from the mat, he beckoned Ommony and Dawa Tsering to come and squat on the floor in front of the platform, so that they had to look up to see his face, which is not an easy attitude from which to seize the upper hand. “Now for the showdown! Good!’ thought Ommony, stroking Diana’s head as she crouched on the floor ‘beside him. But the lama speke to Dawa Tsering, using the northern dialect: “Why did you say to Samding that I owe you two months’ pay?” he asked, not offended, curious. “Oh, I had to say something. I had to have an excuse for seeing you. I had a letter to deliver.”’ The lama nodded, but his voice became a half-note sterner: “Why did you use violence to Samding?”’ “T ama violent man, and the chela offended me.’ “What offense did the chela com- mit?” “Oh, he looked too satisfied. He was a fool to stir the devil in me. Also I was disgusted.”’ “Why?” “Because he did not look afraid. And I knew he was afraid—of mef= Therefore he was a liar. Therefore I-smote him with the letter, and hustled him a time or two. He was afraid to hit back. ‘Let-him hit me now, if he is not afraid to.” The lama meditated for a moment— seemed to fall asleep—and then to come out of a dream as if emerging from another universe. “‘There is a certain merit in you,” he said quietly. ‘‘Are you now the servant of this Brahman?” “T am keeper of the dog. I pick the fleas from her. She is a very wise and unusual devil. She will bite you if he says so, not micloool (© in