Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 10

  I rose and went down to Isaacs. I found him as on the previous evening, among his cushions with a manuscript book. He looked up smiling and motioned me to be seated, keeping his place on the page with one finger. He finished the verse before he spoke, and then laid the book down and leaned back.

  “So you have made up your mind that you would like to see Ram Lal. He will be here in a minute, unless he changes his mind and does not come after all.”

  There was a sound of voices outside. Some one asked if Isaacs were in, and the servant answered. A tall figure in a gray caftán and a plain white turban stood in the door.

  “I never change my mind,” said the stranger, in excellent English, though with an accent peculiar to the Hindoo tongue when struggling with European languages. His voice was musical and high in pitch, though soft and sweet in tone. The quality of voice that can be heard at a great distance, with no apparent effort to the speaker. “I never change my mind. I am here. Is it well with you?”

  “It is well, Ram Lal. I thank you. Be seated, if you will stay with us a while. This is my friend Mr. Griggs, of whom you probably know. He thinks as I do on many points, and I was anxious that you should meet.”

  While Isaacs was speaking, Ram Lal advanced into the room and stood a moment under the soft light, a gray figure, very tall, but not otherwise remarkable. He was all gray. The long caftán wrapped round him, the turban which I had first thought white, the skin of his face, the pointed beard and long moustache, the heavy eyebrows — a study of grays against the barbaric splendour of the richly hung wall — a soft outline on which the yellow light dwelt lovingly, as if weary of being cast back and reflected from the glory of gold and the thousand facets of the priceless gems. Ram Lal looked toward me, and as I gazed into his eyes I saw that they too were gray — a very singular thing in the East — and that they were very far apart, giving his face a look of great dignity and fearless frankness. To judge by his features he seemed to be very thin, and his high shoulders were angular, though the long loose garment concealed the rest of his frame from view. I had plenty of time to note these details, for he stood a full minute in the middle of the room, as if deciding whether to remain or to go. Then he moved quietly to a divan and sat down cross-legged.

  “Abdul, you have done a good deed to-day, and I trust you will not change your mind before you have carried out your present intentions.”

  “I never change my mind, Bam Lai,” said Isaacs, smiling as he quoted his visitor’s own words. I was startled at first. What good deed was the Buddhist referring to if not to the intended liberation of Shere Ali? How could he know of it? Then I reflected that this man was, according to Isaacs’ declaration, an adept of the higher grades, a seer and a knower of men’s hearts. I resolved not to be astonished at anything that occurred, only marvelling that it should have pleased this extraordinary man to make his entrance like an ordinary mortal, instead of through the floor or the ceiling.

  “Pardon me,” answered Ram Lal, “if I venture to contradict you. You do change your mind sometimes. Who was it who lately scoffed at women, their immortality, their virtue, and their intellect? Will you tell me now, friend Abdul, that you have not changed your mind? Do you think of anything, sleeping or waking, but the one woman for whom you have changed your mind? Is not her picture ever before you, and the breath of her beauty upon your soul? Have you not met her in the spirit as well as in the flesh? Surely we shall hear no more of your doubts about women for some time to come. I congratulate you, as far as that goes, on your conversion. You have made a step towards a higher understanding of the world you live in.”

  Isaacs did not seem in the least surprised at his visitor’s intimate acquaintance with his affairs. He bowed his head in silence, acquiescing to what Bam Lai had said, and waited for him to proceed.

  “I have come,” continued the Buddhist, “to give you some good advice — the best I have for you. You will probably not take it, for you are the most self-reliant man I know, though you have changed a little since you have been in love, witness your sudden intimacy with Mr. Griggs.” He looked at me, and there was a faint approach to a smile in his gray eyes. “My advice to you is, do not let this projected tiger-hunt take place if you can prevent it. No good can come of it, and harm may. Now I have spoken because my mind would not be at rest if I did not warn you. Of course you will do as you please, only never forget that I pointed out to you the right course in time.”

  “Thank you, Ram Lal, for your friendly concern in my behalf. I do not think I shall act as you suggest, but I am nevertheless grateful to you. There is one thing I want to ask you, and consult you about, however.”

  “My friend, what is the use of my giving you advice that you will not follow? If I lived with you, and were your constant companion, you would ask me to advise you twenty times a day, and then you would go and do the diametric opposite of what I suggested. If I did not see in you something that I see in few other men, I would not be here. There are plenty of fools who have wit enough to take counsel of a wise man. There are few men of wit wise enough to be guided by their betters, as if they were only fools for the time. Yet because you are so wayward I will help you once or twice more, and then I will leave you to your own course — which you, in your blindness, will call your kismet, not seeing that your fate is continually in your own hands — more so at this moment than ever before. Ask, and I will answer.”

  “Thanks, Ram Lal. It is this I would know. You are aware that I have undertaken a novel kind of bargain. The man you wot of is to be delivered to me near Keitung. I am anxious for the man’s safety afterwards, and I would be glad of some hint about disposing of him. I must go alone, for I do not want any witness of what I am going to do, and as a mere matter of personal safety for myself and the man I am going to set free, I must decide on some plan of action when I meet the band of sowars who will escort him. They are capable of murdering us both if the maharajah instructs them to. As long as I am alive to bring the old man into disgrace with the British, the captive is safe; but it would be an easy matter for those fellows to dispose of us together, and there would be an end of the business.”

  “Of course they could,” replied Ram Lal, adding in an ironical tone “and if you insist upon putting your head down the tiger’s throat, how do you expect me to prevent the brute from snapping it off? That would be a ‘phenomenon,’ would it not? And only this evening you were saying that you despised ‘phenomena.’”

  “I said that such things were indifferent to me. I did not say I despised them. But I think that this thing may be done without performing any miracles.”

  “If it were not such a good action on your part I would have nothing to do with it. But since you mean to risk your neck for your own peculiar views of what is right, I will endeavour that you shall not break it. I will meet you a day’s journey before you reach Keitung, somewhere on the road, and we will go together and do the business. But if I am to help you I will not promise not to perform some miracles, as you call them, though you know very well they are no such thing. Meanwhile, do as you please about the tiger-hunt; I shall say no more about it.” He paused, and then, withdrawing one delicate hand from the folds of his caftán, he pointed to the wall behind Isaacs and me, and said, “What a very singular piece of workmanship is that yataghan!”

  We both naturally turned half round to look at the weapon he spoke of, which was the central piece in a trophy of jewelled sabres and Afghan knives.

  “Yes,” said Isaacs, turning back to answer his guest, “it is a — —” He stopped, and I, who had not seen the weapon before, lost among so many, and was admiring its singular beauty, turned too; to my astonishment I saw that Isaacs was gazing into empty space. The divan where Ram Lal had been sitting an instant before, was vacant. He was gone.

  “That is rather sudden,” I said.

  “More so than usual,” was the reply. “Did you see him go? Did he go out by the door?”

  “Not I,” I answered, “when I looked rou
nd at the wall he was placidly sitting on that divan pointing with one hand at the yataghan. Does he generally go so quickly?”

  “Yes, more or less. Now I will show you some pretty sport.” He rose to his feet and went to the door. “Narain!” he cried. Narain, the bearer, who was squatting against the door-post outside, sprang up and stood before his master. “Narain, why did you not show that pundit the way downstairs? What do you mean? have you no manners?”

  Narain stood open mouthed. “What pundit, sahib?” he asked.

  “Why, the pundit who came a quarter of an hour ago, you donkey! He has just gone out, and you did not even get up and make a salaam, you impertinent vagabond!” Narain protested that no pundit, or sahib, or any one else, had passed the threshold since Ram Lal had entered. “Ha! you budmash. You lazy dog of a Hindoo! you have been asleep again, you swine, you son of a pig, you father of piglings! Is that the way you do your work in my service?” Isaacs was enjoying the joke in a quiet way immensely.

  “Sahib,” said the trembling Narain, apparently forgetting the genealogy his master had thrust upon him, “Sahib, you are protector of the poor, you are my father and my mother, and my brother, and all my relations,” the common form of Hindoo supplication, “but, Sri Krishnaji! by the blessed Krishna, I have not slept a wink.”

  “Then I suppose you mean me to believe that the pundit went through the ceiling, or is hidden under the cushions. Swear not by your false idols, slave; I shall not believe you for that, you dog of an unbeliever, you soor-be-iman, you swine without faith!”

  “Han, sahib, han!” cried Narain, seizing at the idea that the pundit had disappeared mysteriously through the walls. “Yes, sahib, the pundit is a great yogi, and has made the winds carry him off.” The fellow thought this was a bright idea, not by any means beneath consideration. Isaacs appeared somewhat pacified.

  “What makes you think he is a yogi, dog?” he inquired in a milder tone. Narain had no answer ready, but stood looking rather stupidly through the door at the room whence the unearthly visitor had so suddenly disappeared. “Well,” continued Isaacs, “you are more nearly right than you imagine. The pundit is a bigger yogi than any your idiotic religion can produce. Never mind, there is an eight anna bit for you, because I said you were asleep when you were not.” Narain bent to the ground in thanks, as his master turned on his heel. “Not that he minds being told that he is a pig, in the least,” said Isaacs. “I would not call a Mussulman so, but you can insult these Hindoos so much worse in other ways that I think the porcine simile is quite merciful by comparison.” He sat down again among the cushions, and putting off his slippers, curled himself comfortably together for a chat.

  “What do you think of Ram Lal?” he asked, when Narain had brought hookahs and sherbet.

  “My dear fellow, I have hardly made up my mind what to think. I have not altogether recovered from my astonishment. I confess that there was nothing startling about his manner or his person. He behaved and talked like a well educated native, in utter contrast to the amazing things he said, and to his unprecedented mode of leave-taking. It would have seemed more natural — I would say, more fitting — if he had appeared in the classic dress of an astrologer, surrounded with zodiacs, and blue lights, and black cats. Why do you suppose he wants you to abandon the tiger-hunt?”

  “I cannot tell. Perhaps he thinks something may happen to me to prevent my keeping the other engagement. Perhaps he does not approve — —” he stopped, as if not wanting to approach the subject of Ram Lal’s disapprobation. “I intend, nevertheless, that the expedition come off, and I mean, moreover, to have a very good time, and to kill a tiger if I see one.”

  “I thought he seemed immensely pleased at your conversion, as he calls it. He said that your newly acquired belief in woman was a step towards a better understanding of life.”

  “Of the world, he said,” answered-Isaacs, correcting me. “There is a great difference between the ‘world’ and ‘life.’ The one is a finite, the other an infinite expression. I believe, from what I have learned of Ram Lal, that the ultimate object of the adepts is happiness, only to be attained by wisdom, and I apprehend that by wisdom they mean a knowledge of the world in the broadest sense of the word. The world to them is a great repository of facts, physical and social, of which they propose to acquire a specific knowledge by transcendental methods. If that seems to you a contradiction of terms, I will try and express myself better. If you understand me, I am satisfied. Of course I use transcendental in the sense in which it is applied by Western mathematicians to a mode of reasoning which I very imperfectly comprehend, save that it consists in reaching finite results by an adroit use of the infinite.”

  “Not a bad definition of transcendental analysis for a man who professes to know nothing about it,” said I. “I would not accuse you of a contradiction of terms, either. I have often thought that what some people call the ‘philosophy of the nineteenth century,’ is nothing after all but the unconscious application of transcendental analysis to the everyday affairs of life. Consider the theories of Darwin, for instance. What are they but an elaborate application of the higher calculus? He differentiates men into protoplasms, and integrates protoplasms into monkeys, and shows the caudal appendage to be the independent variable, a small factor in man, a large factor in monkey. And has not the idea of successive development supplanted the early conception of spontaneous perfection? Take an illustration from India — the new system of competition, which the natives can never understand. Formerly the members of the Civil Service received their warrants by divine authority, so to speak. They were born perfect, as Aphrodite from the foam of the sea; they sprang armed and ready from the head of old John Company as Pallas Athene from the head of Zeus. Now all that is changed; they are selected from a great herd of candidates by methods of extreme exactness, and when they are chosen they represent the final result of infinite probabilities for and against their election. They are all exactly alike; they are a formula for taxation and the administration of justice, and so long as you do not attempt to use the formula for any other purpose, such, for instance, as political negotiation or the censorship of the public press, the equation will probably be amenable to solution.”

  “As I told you,” said Isaacs, “I know nothing, or next to nothing, of Western mathematics, but I have a general idea of the comparison you make. In Asia and in Asiatic minds, there prevails an idea that knowledge can be assimilated once and for all. That if you can obtain it, you immediately possess the knowledge of everything — the pass-key that shall unlock every door. That is the reason of the prolonged fasting and solitary meditation of the ascetics. They believe that by attenuating the bond between soul and body, the soul can be liberated and can temporarily identify itself with other objects, animate and inanimate, besides the especial body to which it belongs, acquiring thus a direct knowledge of those objects, and they believe that this direct knowledge remains. Western philosophers argue that the only acquaintance a man can have with bodies external to his mind is that which he acquires by the medium of his bodily senses — though these, are themselves external to his mind, in the truest sanse. The senses not being absolutely reliable, knowledge acquired by means of them is not absolutely reliable either. So the ultimate difference between the Asiatic saint and the European man of science is, that while the former believes all knowledge to be directly within the grasp of the soul, under certain conditions, the latter, on the other hand, denies that any knowledge can be absolute, being all obtained indirectly through a medium not absolutely reliable. The reasoning, by which the Western mind allows itself to act fearlessly on information which is not (according to its own verdict) necessarily accurate, depends on a clever use of the infinite in unconsciously calculating the probabilities of that accuracy — and this entirely falls in with what you said about the application of transcendental analysis to the affairs of everyday life.”

  “I see you have entirely comprehended me,” I said. “But as for the Asiatic mind — y
ou seem to deny to it the use of the calculus of thought, and yet you denned adepts as attempting to acquire specific knowledge by general and transcendental methods. Here is a real contradiction.”

  “No; I see no confusion, for I do not include the higher adepts in either class, since they have the wisdom to make use of the learning and of the methods of both. They seem to me to be endeavouring, roughly speaking, to combine the two. They believe absolute knowledge attainable, and they devote much time to the study of nature, in which pursuit they make use of highly analytical methods. They subdivide phenomena to an extent that would surprise and probably amuse a Western thinker. They count fourteen distinct colours in the rainbow, and invariably connect sound, even to the finest degrees, with shades of colour. I could name many other peculiarities of their mode of studying natural phenomena, which displays a much more minute subdivision and classification of results than you are accustomed to. But beside all this they consider that the senses of the normal man are susceptible of infinite refinement, and that upon a greater or less degree of acquired acuteness of perception the value of his results must depend. To attain this high degree of sensitiveness, necessary to the perception of very subtle phenomena, the adepts find it necessary to train their faculties, bodily and mental, by a life of rigid abstention from all pleasures or indulgences not indispensable in maintaining the relation between the physical and intellectual powers.”

  “The common fakir aims at the same thing,” I remarked.

  “But he does not attain it. The common fakir is an idiot. He may, by fasting and self-torture, of a kind no adept would approve, sharpen his senses till he can hear and see some sounds and sights inaudible and invisible to you and me. But his whole system lacks any intellectual basis: he regards knowledge as something instantaneously attainable when it comes at last; he believes he will have a vision, and that everything will be revealed to him. His devotion to his object is admirable, when he is a genuine ascetic and not, as is generally the case, a good-for-nothing who makes his piety pay for his subsistence; but it is devotion of a very low intellectual order. The true adept thinks the training of the mind in intellectual pursuits no less necessary than the moderate and reasonable mortification of the flesh, and higher Buddhism pays as much attention to the one as to the other.”