Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

Om he said, in a kind voice that was much more withering than scorn, “‘and ye would die in horror at the sight. It is not good to slay, not even with the rays of truth. So I show you instead what ye may become.” Mildly, patiently, a little wearily, as if he had done the same thing very often, he included all his own mysterious family in a gesture that conveyed diffidence and hesi- tation. “Life after life ye shall struggle with yourselves before ye shall become as these. And these are nothing—nothing to what ye may become. The road is long, and there are difficulties; but ye must face it. Take advantage of the moment, for it is easier to imitate than to find the way alone. “Ye can not undo the past, nor can all the gods, nor He who rules the gods, undo it. But now, this moment, and the next one, and the next, forever, ye yourselves by thought and act create tht very hair’s- breadths of your destiny— Now let us begin again, from the beginning.”’ They began again so meekened and sub- dued that for a while the first act suffered. But that was overcome by Diana, who produced such peals of laughter that the lama had difficulty in restoring order and had to reprimand the musicians for thrust- ing their heads above the level of the stage to watch. At a signal from Ommony standing near the wings, Diana’s mouth opened and the lama from inside the well croaked words that sounded, even on the stage, as if the dog were speaking them. When the shoemaker said, ‘‘Ah, if I were king!” Diana’s mouth opened wide and the retort came from behind her— “It might be better to be a dog like me and not worry so much!’’ The illusion was perfect because every- body on the stage looked at the dog as if expecting her to speak; and the best of it was that Diana cocked an ear, put her head to one side, and was immensely in- terested. ~ In answer to the saddhu’s, ‘How long will ye store up wrath against the day of reckoning?” there was put into Diana’s mouth— - “For myself I bury bones, but jackals come in the night and make away with them.” When the king asked, “Is this your gratitude?” and the saddhu replied—"‘To whome For what?” Diana’s retort was: 109 “The saddhu is like the vermin on my back; he helps himself,but isn’t grateful. And when he is scratched he just goes to another place.” Diana was easy to manage, and Om- mony’s signals, made with his right hand, were invisible from the front of the theatre on his left. But Dawa Tsering was a hard problem; he was supposed to be one of those wandering clown-fakirs who amuse and terrify village gatherings by alternately acting like idiots and pretend- ing they are in communication with the un- derworld of demons and lost souls. He could neither remember his lines nor keep his head, but blundered in at the wrong cues and then laughed self-consciously. Ommony advised the lama to dispense with him altogether. “Nay,” said the lama. good in the proper place. he can play.” Whereat he ordered the stage set for the second act, which was a simple business. The flies reversed suggested a palace in- terior. Curtains at the rear concealed the greenery. The well was replaced by a carpeted dais with a large throne on top of it, inside which the lama could conceal him- self quite easily. A few heaps of cushions and settees were carried on the stage, and while the change was being made the orchestra rehearsed amazing music. — Tomtoms, radongs and stringed instru- ments thundered, howled and jingled like a storm in the Himalayas, with the voices of a thousand disembodied spirits carrying on an argument in the teeth of wind and rain. It was stunning, weird, a sort of cataclysmic din foreboding marvelous events, but music, nevertheless, in every quarter-note of its disturbing harmonies. ‘All things are There is a part CHAPTER XVIII DIANA ADOPTS BUSKINS He who would reform the world must first reform himself; and that, tf he do tt honestly, will keep him so employed that he will have no time to criticize his neighbor. Nevertheless, his neighbor will be benefited —even as a man without a candle, who at last discerns another’s light—From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup. : Vy ck Ommony had been a worker all his days, but had never known the real meaning of the word until that afternoon. The lama; as placid as a CO MICLOOOKS (© 5}