The ninth vibration and other stories Part 4

So they ran, dispersing to the Four Quarters, and King strode up and down the hall, and Loneliness kept step with him and clasped his hand and looked his eyes.

Then the youngest of the women entered with a tale to tell. "Majesty, we have found her. She lies beside the lake. When the birds fled this morning she fled with them, but upon a longer journey. Even to Yamapura, the City under the Sunset."

And the King said; "Let none follow." And he strode forth swiftly, white with thoughts he dared not think.

The Princess lay among the gold of the fallen leaves. All was gold, for her bright hair was out-spread in shining waves and in it shone the glory of the hidden crown. On her face was no smile--only at last was revealed the patience she had covered with laughter so long that even the voice of the King could not now break it into joy. The hands that had clung, the swift feet that had run beside his, the tender body, mighty to serve and to love, lay within touch but farther away than the uttermost star was the Far Away Princess, known and loved too late.

And he said; "My Princess--O my Princess!" and laid his head on her cold bosom.

"Too late!" a harsh Voice croaked beside him, and it was the voice of the Jester who mocks at all things. "Too late! O madness, to despise the blood royal because it humbled itself to service and so was doubly royal. The Far Away Princess came laden with great gifts, and to her the King's gift was the wage of a slave and a broken heart. Cast your crown and sceptre in the dust, O King--O King of Fools."

(The man at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights moved. Some dim word shaped upon his locked lips. She listened in a divine calm. It seemed that the very G.o.ds drew nearer. Again the man essayed speech, the body dead, life only in the words that none could hear. The voice went on.)

But the Princess flying wearily because of the sore wound in her heart, came at last to the City under the Sunset, where the Lord of Death rules in the House of Quiet, and was there received with royal honours for in that land are no disguises. And she knelt before the Secret One and in a voice broken with agony entreated him to heal her. And with veiled and pitying eyes he looked upon her, for many and grievous as are the wounds he has healed this was more grievous still. And he said;

"Princess, I cannot, But this I can do--I can give a new heart in a new birth--happy and careless as the heart of a child. Take this escape from the anguish you endure and be at peace."

But the Princess, white with pain, asked only;

"In this new heart and birth, is there room for the King?"

And the Lord of Peace replied;

"None. He too will be forgotten."

Then she rose to her feet.

"I will endure and when he comes I will serve him once more. If he will he shall heal me, and if not I will endure for ever."

And He who is veiled replied;

"In this sacred City no pain may disturb the air, therefore you must wait outside in the chill and the dark. Think better, Princess! Also, he must pa.s.s through many rebirths, because he beheld the face of Beauty unveiled and knew her not. And when he comes he will be weary and weak as a new-born child, and no more a great King." And the Princess smiled;

"Then he will need me the more," she said; "I will wait and kiss the feet of my King."

"And the Lord of Death was silent. So she went outside into the darkness of the s.p.a.ces, and the souls free pa.s.sed her like homing doves, and she sat with her hands clasped over the sore wound in her heart, watching the earthward way. And the Princess is keeping still the day of her long patience."

The voice ceased. And there was a great silence, and the listening faces drew nearer.

Then the Dweller in the Heights spoke in a voice soft as the falling of snow in the quiet of frost and moon. I could have wept myself blind with joy to hear that music. More I dare not say.

"He is in the Lower State of Perception. He sorrows for his loss. Let him have one instant's light that still he may hope."

She bowed above the man, gazing upon him as a mother might upon her sleeping child. The dead eyelids stirred, lifted, a faint gleam showed beneath them, an unspeakable weariness. I thought they would fall unsatisfied. Suddenly he saw What looked upon him, and a terror of joy no tongue can tell flashed over the dark mirror of his face. He stretched a faint hand to touch her feet, a sobbing sigh died upon his lips, and once more the swooning sleep took him. He lay as a dead man before the a.s.sembly.

"The night is far spent," a voice said, from I know not where. And I knew it was said not only for the sleeper but for all, for though the flying feet of Beauty seem for a moment to outspeed us she will one day wait our coming and gather us to her bosom.

As before, the vision spread outward like rings in a broken reflection in water. I saw the girl beside me, but her hand grew light in mine. I felt it no longer. I heard the roaring wind in the trees, or was it a great voice thundering in my ears? Sleep took me. I waked in my little room.

Strange and sad--I saw her next day and did not remember her whom of all things I desired to know. I remembered the vision and knew that whether in dream or waking I had heard an eternal truth. I longed with a great longing to meet my beautiful companion, and she stood at my side and I was blind.

Now that I have climbed a little higher on the Mount of Vision it seems even to myself that this could not be. Yet it was, and it is true of not this only but of how much else!

She knew me. I learnt that later, but she made no sign. Her simplicities had carried her far beyond and above me, to places where only the winged things attain--"as a bird among the bird-droves of G.o.d."

I have since known that this power of direct simplicity in her was why among the great mountains we beheld the Divine as the emanation of the terrible beauty about us. We cannot see it as it is--only in some shadowing forth, gathering sufficient strength for manifestation from the spiritual atoms that haunt the region where that form has been for ages the accepted vehicle of adoration. But I was now to set forth to find another knowledge--to seek the Beauty that blinds us to all other.

Next day the man who was directing my preparations for travel sent me word from Simla that all was ready and I could start two days later. I told my friends the time of parting was near.

"But it was no surprise to me," I added, "for I had heard already that in a very few days I should be on my way."

Mrs. Ingmar was more than kind. She laid a frail hand on mine.

"We shall miss you indeed. If it is possible to send us word of your adventures in those wild solitudes I hope you will do it. Of course aviation will soon lay bare their secrets and leave them no mysteries, so you don't go too soon. One may worship science and yet feel it injures the beauty of the world. But what is beauty compared with knowledge?"

"Do you never regret it?" I asked.

"Never, dear Mr. Ormond. I am a worshipper of hard facts and however hideous they may be I prefer them to the prismatic colours of romance."

Brynhild, smiling, quoted;

"Their science roamed from star to star And than itself found nothing greater.

What wonder? In a Leyden jar They bottled the Creator?"

"There is nothing greater than science," said Mrs. Ingmar with soft reverence. "The mind of man is the foot-rule of the universe."

She meditated for a moment and then added that my kind interests in their plans decided her to tell me that she would be returning to Europe and then to Canada in a few months with a favourite niece as her companion while Brynhild would remain in India with friends in Mooltan for a time. I looked eagerly at her but she was lost in her own thoughts and it was evidently not the time to say more.

If I had hoped for a vision before I left the neighbourhood of that strange House of Beauty where a spirit imprisoned appeared to await the day of enlightenment I was disappointed. These things do not happen as one expects or would choose. The wind bloweth where it listeth until the laws which govern the inner life are understood, and then we would not choose if we could for we know that all is better than well. In this world, either in the blinded sight of daily life or in the clarity of the true sight I have not since seen it, but that has mattered little, for having heard an authentic word within its walls I have pa.s.sed on my way elsewhere.

Next day a letter from Olesen reached me.

"Dear Ormond, I hope you have had a good time at the House in the Woods.

I saw Rup Singh a few days ago and he wrote the odd message I enclose.

You know what these natives are, even the most sensible of them, and you will humour the old fellow for he ages very fast and I think is breaking up. But this was not what I wanted to say. I had a letter from a man I had not seen for years--a fellow called Stephen Clifden, who lives in Kashmir. As a matter of fact I had forgotten his existence but evidently he has not repaid the compliment for he writes as follows--No, I had better send you the note and you can do as you please. I am rushed off my legs with work and the heat is h.e.l.l with the lid off. And-"

But the rest was of no interest except to a friend of years' standing. I read Rup Singh's message first. It was written in his own tongue.

"To the Honoured One who has attained to the favour of the Favourable.

"You have with open eyes seen what this humble one has dreamed but has not known. If the thing be possible, write me this word that I may depart in peace. 'With that one who in a former birth you loved all is well. Fear nothing for him. The way is long but at the end the lamps of love are lit and the Unstruck music is sounded. He lies at the feet of Mercy and there awaits his hour.' And if it be not possible to write these words, write nothing, O Honoured, for though it be in the h.e.l.ls my soul shall find my King, and again I shall serve him as once I served."

I understood, and wrote those words as he had written them. Strange mystery of life--that I who had not known should see, and that this man whose fidelity had not deserted his broken King in his utter downfall should have sought with pa.s.sion for one sight of the beloved face across the waters of death and sought in vain. I thought of those Buddhist words of Seneca--"The soul may be and is in the ma.s.s of men drugged and silenced by the seductions of sense and the deceptions of the world.

But if, in some moment of detachment and elation, when its captors and jailors relax their guard, it can escape their clutches, it will seek at once the region of its birth and its true home."

Well--the sh.e.l.l must break before the bird can fly, and the time drew near for the faithful servant to seek his lord. My message reached him in time and gladdened him.

I turned then to Clifden's letter.

"Dear Olesen, you will have forgotten me, and feeling sure of this I should scarcely have intruded a letter into your busy life were it not that I remember your good-nature as a thing unforgettable though so many years have gone by. I hear of you sometimes when Sleigh comes up the Sind valley, for I often camp at Sonamarg and above the Zoji La and farther. I want you to give a message to a man you know who should be expecting to hear from me. Tell him I shall be at the Tashigong Monastery when he reaches Gyumur beyond the Shipki. Tell him I have the information he wants and I will willingly go on with him to Yarkhand and his destination. He need not arrange for men beyond Gyumur. All is fixed. So sorry to bother you, old man, but I don't know Ormond's address, except that he was with you and has gone up Simla way. And of course he will be keen to hear the thing is settled."