Caravans By Night Part 42

"You arrived at a time of celebration," said Na-chung. "The Feast of the Sacred Dance began yesterday. To-day the races were held on the Field of Ceremonies, and to-morrow will be celebrated by the Dance of the G.o.ds, wrestling-bouts and the archery contest."

Na-chung proved most voluble. He talked on as they forsook the crowded street for a quarter close to the lamasery. The soldiers, who were leading, opened a gate in a high white wall, and the caravan moved into a flagged court.

The dwelling was typical of the better Tibetan residences, low and flat-roofed, and in the shape of a quadrangle. To the left, beyond a huddle of out-houses, was a garden. Willow-thorn, clematis and--hollyhocks! The scarlet flowers, pure flame in the sunlight, gave something of warming welcome to Trent.

Na-chung led the way into the house. The main hall was dank, like an empty cistern, and lighted by an opening in the ceiling, which served a twofold purpose in that it was also a means of reaching the upper floor.

There were little or no furnishings, and narrow pa.s.sages, black with gloom, led off from it.

"It would be advisable," said Na-chung as he prepared to leave, "that you do not leave your courtyard; that is, until you have been provided with proper garments. I shall acquaint his Transparency with your presence, and in the morning one will be sent to"--the councillor smiled--"to remove your beard and clothe you as befits a member of the Higher Council. To-morrow I shall return and accompany you to the Court of Ceremonies, after which his Transparency will no doubt receive you."

Then, following a pause, "It has been deemed advisable to elevate you to membership in the Higher Council--for appearances only, as your duties will be quite different from those of a councillor."

He took his leave then, and Trent accompanied him into the court. He observed that Na-chung left two leather-helmeted soldiers at the gate, whether to act as bodyguards, or to see that he did not leave the grounds, he could only surmise.

2

Trent and Dana Charteris made a thorough inspection of the house. The rooms were clean, as clean as Tibetan rooms ever are; but the lack of proper ventilation and the ever-present stale-sweet odors did little to invite occupancy. From the roof the monastery and a portion of the town could be seen, and there, in a s.p.a.ce protected by the high masonry that enclosed the housetop, the girl decided to quarter herself, while Trent chose the room directly beneath.

Before sundown, while Dana Charteris was overseeing the transportation of her packs to her elevated abode, Trent sought Kee Meng and found him in the quadrangle.

"I am going to place my brother in your charge," he announced. "I will probably be away from him much of the time, and if anything happens to him--" He chose to leave the sentence unfinished. (Trent always spoke of the girl as his "brother," although it was tacitly understood that Kee Meng knew she was not a man.)

"_Cheulo!_" responded the Mussulman. "Henceforth, instead of _makotou_, I am Protector-of-the-Brother!"

"And furthermore," Trent added, "I forbid you, or any of the men, to leave the grounds without my permission."

Later (dusk had swooned on Shingtse-lunpo), as Trent entered the main hall, which was unlighted except for a bra.s.s b.u.t.ter-lamp, he beheld a naked brown ankle and the bottom of a red robe as they vanished into one of the several black cavities opening upon the chamber. He stopped--then quickly backing to one side, against the wall, he drew his revolver and edged toward the pa.s.sageway. When he was yet a few feet away a round, blue muzzle leaped out to meet him. As he recoiled, the owner of the ankle and robe, a lama with a very modern automatic gripped in one slim hand, stepped out. They stood motionless for a s.p.a.ce of seconds, each with weapon lifted. Then a familiar satanic smile traced itself upon the yellow countenance--a smile that made the lama look Mephistophelian, despite his shorn head and hairless features.

"Kerth"--as Trent lowered his revolver, smiling. "Always at pistol-point...."

"I was beginning to feel uneasy about you," said Euan Kerth, as their hands met. "It was a relief when I saw your pack-train ride in to-day.

Where can we go to talk--the garden? I came that way."

They left the house by a black-dark corridor, making their way into the grove of willow-thorn. Bright stars peered down through the branches, and the moon, floating above the white wall, reflected a faint, hazy light among the shadowy trees.

"I'd almost given you up," Kerth began, halting in the gloom beside the wall. "You were due over a week ago."

Trent had been debating with himself since the meeting in the house. Now he spoke; told Kerth of Dana Charteris; of the meeting in Calcutta and the subsequent happenings. Kerth saw a story within a story and surmised certain things that Trent omitted. He was silent for a while after the latter finished.

"It complicates matters, of course," he ventured discreetly, at length, "yet ... hmm ... no, you had no alternative. She had nerve, all right; how many women would have dared to do that? d.a.m.n these meddling police agents! If it hadn't been for her brother.... Hmm--and he had the Pearl Scarf!" A pause. "D'ye think Sarojini knows of her presence?"

"Miss Charteris? How could she?" Then Trent explained how he had exchanged muleteers at Tali-fang.

"Good!" exclaimed Kerth. "Good! That's a score against Sarojini. She'll raise thundering h.e.l.l when she learns of it, but I think you can tame her--yes, you can do it."

"But tell me what happened at Myitkyina"--this from Trent.

The other shrugged. "Oh, nothing much. I had suspected we were headed for Tibet since I learned the character of the G.o.d on the symbol of the Order--yet this"--he made a gesture intended to include the city--"well, this is a bit beyond my imagination."

Briefly he then sketched his activities at Myitkyina.

"I followed you and Da-yak to the river that night, then downstream in another boat. After you had landed, and your servant, Tambusami, in another boat, I swam ash.o.r.e. There was one fellow waiting with the boats, so I slipped up behind him.... After that it wasn't difficult. I exchanged clothing with him and waited. Sarojini Nanjee, dressed as a Kachin, returned in a few minutes, and with her, Da-yak, Tambusami and the boatmen. She and the Kachins took one of the craft downstream, I suppose to her camp, and Da-yak and your bearer got into the other boat--the boat where I was waiting. I'd sent a note to Warburton, the C.

O. at Myitkyina, and he was waiting at the landing with several Gurkhas.

We didn't have any trouble arresting them; the trouble came when we tried to force them to speak. All summed up, what they said was surprisingly little. Tambusami declared he was simply a servant and knew nothing about the Order, except that it existed. But Da-yak told where you had gone, and said there were three men in Myitkyina who knew the trail to Tali-fang. One of them I later hired. Da-yak said that up until a year ago he had a shop in the bazaar at Shingtse-lunpo, which he described as 'a great city where many lamas live'; that he was commanded by a Grand Lama to go to Myitkyina and establish a business. He was instructed to obey all who came to him with a certain symbol--the symbol of the Order. He swore he knew nothing of the Falcon or the jewels."

Kerth paused; peered into Trent's face; smiled.

"You're thinking just as I wish you to think," he observed; then went on: "Meanwhile, I'd reported the place in Calcutta and it had been raided. What happened I don't know. I was ready to start for Shingtse-lunpo the day after you left, but of course Delhi waited a couple of days to telegraph permission--and I was glad enough to get it then, for I was half afraid the Viceroy would refuse to let me go into Tibet. At Tali-fang I learned you hadn't pa.s.sed and I left a message--you received it?... Eighteen days later I was inside the walls of Shingtse-lunpo--and paying homage to his Holiness Sakya-muni, the Buddha reincarnated."

"You mean," Trent interrogated, "there's a lama here who's supposed to be a reincarnation of Buddha?"

Kerth nodded. "That's his palace"--indicating Lhakang-gompa. "Oh, we've stumbled into a jolly little nest! It'll take your breath when I tell you everything. This--Shingtse-lunpo--is everything that Lha.s.sa was, and a hundred things that Lha.s.sa never could be, with Lha.s.sa's secretiveness and holiness intensified to the nth degree. It's the--well, I suppose one might call it the secret capital of the Lamaist hierarchy. From all I can learn, it hasn't always had the great significance and power that it has now; until a few years ago it was simply the home of a Grand Lama who ranked with the Tarnath Lama. n.o.body knew of it, because explorers haven't covered this part of Tibet; the nearest anybody ever came to this particular strip of territory was some time ago when a naturalist made his way into Kham, and again, later, when an American doctor went to a place called Chiamdo.... They say the Dalai Lama actually hid here, in Lhakang-gompa (which, incidentally, is a facsimile of the Potala at Lha.s.sa, which I saw with the Mission) before he went to Urga. But that's monkish gossip.... At any rate, here's how I interpret affairs from all I've heard:

"After the Mission was sent to Lha.s.sa the Dalai Lama lost a certain amount of prestige. The authority of the Tashi Lama, as you probably know, is more spiritual than temporal. Englishmen had been to Lha.s.sa and to Tashi-lunpo; therefore, both of their holy-of-holies had been profaned. The lamas--that is, the hierarchy--were losing their hold on the people. All that was before nineteen-twelve. Then the President of China restored Tubdan Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, to Lha.s.sa. But even that failed to revive the old zeal. So a _coup d'etat_ was planned. A Grand Lama had a made-to-order vision in which he saw the soul of Gaudama Siddartha descend into the body of one of the abbots. From that moment the abbot was Sakya-muni, Buddha reincarnated, and they installed him in Lhakang-gompa, here in Shingtse-lunpo, the secret city _par excellence_ of Tibet. Lha.s.sa and the Dalai Lama became figureheads--'to fool the British,' as one priest put it to me. The monasteries of Sera, Debung and Gaden, hotbeds of political intrigue in the time of the Dalai Lama and the Buriat, Dorjieff, were no longer powerful, but subservient to Lhakang-gompa. I understand the Tashi Lama objected to all this, but the Yellow Caps over-ruled him.... So now Sakya-muni, with the Lamaist hierarchy behind him, is supreme pontiff of the Church--and Lhakang-gompa is the Vatican, as it were, from which he rules Tibet and practically all of Mongolia, with certain _sub rosa_ wires that give him power in Nepal, Sikkhim, Bhutan and parts of China."

Trent was staring up through the branches at the stars, but as Kerth stopped he looked down and asked:

"Didn't you say you had an audience with him?"

Kerth's shaven skull nodded. "Yes. The Living Buddha wears a veil at all ceremonies--too holy for mortal eyes, I fancy. Of course the Grand Lamas have seen his face, but in the presence of the laity he is always veiled. I attended what might be called pontifical ma.s.s. In company with a number of pilgrim priests--at Shingtse-lunpo for the Feast of the Sacred Dance--I was conducted through a veritable labyrinth in the monastery and to a huge cathedral-like place. Sakya-muni, in yellow robes and with a golden veil over his face, sat on a throne at one end.

Many cardinals and high officials were there, including the Great Magician of Shingtse-lunpo. After the ceremony the Living Buddha murmured something about '_Om, Ah, Hum_' and blessed a lot of red scarves, or _katags_ as they're called, and distributed them among the pilgrim priests. Then we left."

In the pause that followed Trent inserted:

"What of the jewels?"

Another shrug from Kerth. "If they're in Shingtse-lunpo, they are well hidden and their presence isn't widely known."

"Yet--" But Trent checked himself.

"Yet Sarojini Nanjee said they were here," Kerth finished up. "I know it. The fact that I haven't learned anything about them doesn't mean they aren't here."

"And you haven't seen Sarojini?"

"If I did, it was without my knowledge."

"Or--Chavigny?"

Kerth laughed quietly. "If I didn't _know_ he existed, I'd believe him a myth. No, I haven't seen Chavigny, nor heard of him, for that matter, since I entered the city. But that's not queer, for if he were here he wouldn't advertise the fact."

Trent motioned toward the lamasery. "Do you suppose he had a hand in the jewel affair?"

"Who? Sakya-muni? If not, why were the gems brought to Shingtse-lunpo?

And remember: a _Grand Lama_ sent Da-yak to Myitkyina."

"But--"

"I agree with you," Kerth cut in, antic.i.p.ating him. "It _is_ preposterous. It's evident that Chavigny has the alliance of the lamas, but how did he get it? I haven't told you the strongest link in that chain yet. You'll recall that a Grand Lama from a Tibetan monastery emulated the example of the Tashi Lama and made a pilgrimage to the Sacred Bo-tree at Gaya just about the time the gems were stolen?"