Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 131: what you’re looking at

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

Om a caricature of Ommony drawn on the paper in charcoal, extremely clever but not flattering. On another occasion he sent. Diana with a note asking for the words of the song that the girls chanted on the stage; he saw the lama read that note on the stage the same night and, after a quiet glance at him, deliberately tear it up. The following morning he received the words of the song in the lama’s heavy handwriting. He was acutely aware that the girls discussed him with a great deal of amusement, but he could never get them to exchange glances or to make any response to his overtures. Dawa Tsering made a dozen attempts to invade the women’s quarters. Several times he was caught by the Tibetans and disposed of cavalierly — usually simply chucked into the nearest heap of garbage. Three times he managed to get into a room in which the girls were, but he would never tell afterwards what had happened to him; once he emerged so angry that Ommony really believed for an hour or two that he might murder some one, and took his knife away, but returned it at the lama’s instiga- tion. “Tt is not always wise to prohibit,” said the lama. “His imagination needs an out- let. Give him his toy.” It was a baffling conundrum why the lama should go to such pains to present his play in more than sixty towns and villages, and always escape immediately afterward. It was not always the police; he treated the occasional difficulties they presented pretty much as a circus director regards bad weather. He appeared to be much more afraid of the results of his own success, and to run away from that as from a conflagra- tion. Offers of money, arguments, prayers, nothing could persuade him to repeat a performance anywhere. The greater a crowd’s importunity, the swifter his flight. By the time they reached Darjiling Ommony was convinced of two things: That the “Middle Way” is undiscoverable to outsiders, being opened, closed and changed in detail by unknown individuals, who are obeyed implicitly, and who do their own selecting; and that the lama was himself in receipt of orders from a secret hierarchy. The roar of radongs came down the chilly wind, announcing they were seen. A pro- cession of brown-robed monks filed out to mice them, each monk spinning a prayer- 129 wheel and grinning as he mumbled the everlasting “Om Mani Padme Hum’’* that by repetition bars the doors of the various worlds of delusion and permits pure medi- tation. It seemed to give no offense that Tsing Samdup and his chela had no _ prayer- wheels. Maitraya and his actors were as welcome as the rest. with child-like grins from oily, slant-eyed Mongolian faces that betrayed no sugges- tion of suspicion. at. Maitraya’s caresses were greeted no more and no less cordially than the rest. Tsiang Samdup seemed to be regarded as almost an equal by the gray-bearded abbot who waited to receive him in the wide, arched gateway; there was no perceptible interval between their salutations; it would have been hard to swear which had greeted the other first, although it was the abbot who bestowed the blessing. The chela’s reception was peculiar. The abbot blessed him solemnly, then stared at him for a long time. From the others there was an air of deference; a peculiar form of treating him as a mere chela, with an atti- tude of deep respect underlying it and not nearly concealed. They exchanged glances and nodded, formed a group around him, regarding him with curiosity, and with something akin to awe. Once within the monastery wall Ommony was led away to a cell high up under a gabled roof, where a smiling old monk brought breakfast, laughing and snapping his fingers at Diana, not in the least afraid of her, but dumb when asked questions. He knew Ommony was no Brahman— laughed at the caste mark—touched his own forehead comically—and went out spinning a prayer-wheel that he kept tucked in his girdle whenever both hands were occupied; he seemed anxious to make up for lost time. The unglazed window provided a far view of Kanchenjunga, twenty-eight thou- sand feet above sea level—twenty-one thousand feet higher than the monastery roof—a lonely, lordly monarch of the silences upreared above untrodden peaks that circled the whole horizon to the north. Six thousand feet below, the Rungeet River boiled through an unseen valley. For a moment all the boundaries of Sikhim glittered in every imaginable hue of green, Om, of the heavenly world; Ma, of the world of spirits; ni, of the human world; pad, of the animal world; me, of the world of tantalized ghosts; hum, of the spaces ‘of hell. CO Ommony was greeted. The dog was chuckled. Ghbooks C© =