Part 2 (2/2)
”Then, Horace, we ht there”
”It will be our last in this incarnation,” I answered with a laugh, ”that is if it comes on to snow”
”We ht has faded;” and there at least he was right, for undoubtedly it had The night was as black as pitch
”Let's talk it over to-morrow,” I said, and went back to the tent, for I was sleepy and incredulous, but Leo sat on by the mouth of the cave
At dawn I awoke and found breakfast already cooked
”I must start early,” Leo explained
”Are you mad?” I asked ”How can we ca I o But how about the yak?”
”Where we can climb, it can follow,” he answered
So we strapped the tent and other baggage, including a good supply of cookedsince ere obliged to make some detours to avoid slopes of frozen snohich, on our previous ascents, we had cut footholds with an axe, for up these the laden ani a hole, and there pitched the tent, piling the excavated snow about its sides By this ti descended into the tent, yak and all, we ate our food and waited
Oh! what cold was that The frost was fearful, and at this height a wind blehose icy breath passed through all our wrappings, and seeh with hot irons It was fortunate that we had brought the yak, for without the wary body I believe that we should have perished, even in our tent For sohtsave the lonely stars, and heard nothing in that awful silence, for here even the wind made no noise as it slid across the snows Accustorow numb and my eyes to shut, when suddenly Leo said-”Look, below the red star!”
I looked, and there high in the sky was the saht There was more than this indeed, for beneath it, almost on a line with us and just above the crests of the intervening peaks, appeared a faint sheet of fire and revealed against it, so black Whilst atched, the fire widened, spread upwards and grew in power and intensity Now against its flaround the black object beca pillar surmounted by a loop Yes, we could see its every outline It was the crux ansata, the Symbol of Life itself
The syain it blazed up more fiercely than before and the loop appeared afresh, then once more disappeared A third ti could surpass its brilliance All around the heavens were lit up, and, through the black needle-shaped eye of the syht of a shi+p, one fierce ray shot across the sea of ht as an arrow to the lofty peak on which we lay Yes, it lit upon the snow, staining it red, and upon the wild, white faces of us atched, though to the right and left of us spread thick darkness My compass lay before me on the snow, and I could even see its needle; and beyond us the shape of a white fox that had crept near, scenting food Then it was gone as swiftly as it came Gone too were the syered a little on the distant sky
For awhile there was silence between us, then Leo said-”Do you re Stone where her cloak fell upon ht in his throat-”how the ray of light was sent to us in farewell, and to show us a path of escape froain in greeting to point out the path to the Place of Life where Ayesha dwells, e have lost awhile”
”It may be so,” I answered shortly, for the ument, beyond wonder even But I knew then, as I kno that ere players in sohty, predestined drama; that our parts ritten and we must speak them, as our path was prepared and we must tread it to the end unknown Fear and doubt were left behind, hope was sunk in certainty; the fore-shadowing visions of the night had found an actual fulfilrowing unseen through all the cruel, empty years, had come to harvest
No, we feared nowind, through which we struggled down the mountain slopes, as it would seem in peril of our lives at every step; not even as hour by hour we fought our way onwards through the whirling snow-storm, that made us deaf and blind For we knew that those lives were char to the yak, we struggled doard and holooht us unharmed to the door of the monastery, where the old abbot embraced us in his joy, and the monks put up prayers of thanks For they were sure that we h such a storm, they said, no man had ever lived before
It was still mid-winter, and oh! the aeariness of those st those ht we set that key within its lock For between us and these stretched the great desert, where the snow rolled like billows, and until that snow e So we sat in the monastery, and schooled our hearts to patience
Still even to these frozen wilds of Central Asia spring coht there were only a few degrees of frost The next the clouds banked up, and in thefro their instru was at hand For three days it rained, while the snows melted before our eyes On the fourth torrents of water were rushi+ng down the h not for long, for within another week it was carpeted with flowers Then we knew that the tio you?” asked the old abbot in disreat strides along the Path, asthat we have your own? Oh! ould you leave us?”
”We are wanderers,” we answered, ”and e see mountains in front of us we must cross them”
Kou-en looked at us shrewdly, then asked-”What do you seek beyond thethe truth from an old man, for such concealth of a single barleycorn Tell me, that at least my prayers o yonder in the library you made a certain confession to us”
”Oh! re up his hands ”Why do you wish to torht from us, most kind friend and virtuous man,” I answered ”But, as it chances, your story is very much our own, and we think that we have experience of this same priestess”
”Speak on,” he said, much interested
So I told him the outlines of our tale; for an hour orhis head like a tortoise and saying nothing At length it was done
”Now,” I added, ”let the lamp of your wisdom shi+ne upon our darkness Do you not find this story wondrous, or do you perchance think that we are liars?”
”Brethren of the great monastery called the World,” Kou-en answered with his customary chuckle, ”why should I think you liars who, from the moment my eyes fell upon you, knew you to be true men? Moreover, why should I hold this tale so very wondrous? You have but stue of a truth hich we have been acquainted for es
”Because in a vision she showed you this monastery, and led you to a spot beyond the mountains where she vanished, you hope that this woman whom you saw die is re-incarnated yonder Why not? In this there is nothing ih the lengthening of her last life was strange and contrary to experience Doubtless you will find her there as you expect, and doubtless her khama, or identity, is the saht me to sin
”Only be notis i held back by her own pride, her own greatness if you will, upon the path towards Nirvana That pride will be humbled, as already it has been humbled; that brow of e and death, that sinful spirit must be purified by sorrows and by separations Brother Leo, if you win her, it will be but to lose, and then the ladder must be recliain, since thereby we are spared much woe Oh! bide here and pray with ainst a rock? Why labour to pour water into a broken jar whence it must sink into the sands of profitless experience, and there be wasted, whilst you remain athirst?”
”Water makes the sand fertile,” I answered ”Where water falls, life comes, and sorrow is the seed of joy”
”Love is the law of life,” broke in Leo; ”without love there is no life I seek love that I s are ordained to an end which we do not know Fate draws me on-I fulfil my fate--”
”And do but delay your freedoue with you, brother, who must follow your own road See nohat has this woht you in the past? Once in another life, or so I understand your story, you were sworn to a certain nature-Goddess, as named Isis, were you not, and to her alone? Then a woman tempted you, and you fled with her afar And there what found you? The betrayed and avenging Goddess who slew you, or if not the Goddess, one who had drunk of her wisdo that wisdom this minister-woman or evil spirit-refused to die because she had learned to love you, but waited knowing that in your next life she would find you again, as indeed she would have doneon alone in so much misery And she found you, and she died, or seemed to die, and now she is re-born, as she ain there o not across the mountains; bide here with me and lament your sins”
”Nay,” answered Leo, ”we are sworn to a tryst, and we do not break our word”
”Then, brethren, go keep your tryst, and when you have reaped its harvest think upon s, for I ae of your desire will run red like blood, and that in its drinking you shall find neither forgetfulness nor peace Made blind by a passion of which well I know the sting and power, you seek to add a fair-faced evil to your lives, thinking that froreat joy
”Rather should you desire to live alone in holiness until at length your separate lives are ed and lost in the Good Unspeakable, the eternal bliss that lies in the last Nothingness Ah! you do not believe me now; you shake your heads and smile; yet a day will dawn, it may be after many incarnations, when you shall bow the to me, 'Brother Kou-en, yours were the words of wisdoh the old man turned and left us
”A cheerful faith, truly,” said Leo, looking after hih aeons in monotonous misery in order that consciousness may be sed up at last in some void and formless abstraction called the 'Utter Peace' I would rather take my share of a bad world and keep my hope of a better Also I do not think that he knows anything of Ayesha and her destiny”
”So would I,” I answered, ”though perhaps he is right after all Who can tell? Moreover, what is the use of reasoning? Leo, we have no choice; we follow our fate To what that fate may lead us we shall learn in due season”
Then ent to rest, for it was late, though I found little sleep that night The warnings of the ancient abbot, good and learned hted wisdoiven to such as he, oppressed me deeply He pro in death and rebirths full of s could stay our feet And even if they could, they should not, since to see her face again I was ready to brave them all And if this was e theory that of Kou-en's, that Ayesha was the Goddess in old Egypt to whom Kallikrates was priest, or at the least her representative That the royal Amenartas, hom he fled, seduced him from the Goddess to whom he orn That this Goddess incarnate in Ayesha-or using the woed upon thee the bolt she shot fell back upon her own head
Well, I had often thought as much myself Only I was sure that She herself could be no actual divinity, though she er, charged to work its will, to avenge or to reward, and yet herself a human soul, with hopes and passions to be satisfied, and a destiny to fulfil In truth, writing nohen all is past and done with, I find much to confirm me in, and little to turn me from that theory, since life and powers of a quality which are more than human do not alone suffice to make a soul divine On the other hand, however, it must be borne in mind that on one occasion at any rate, Ayesha did undoubtedly suggest that in the beginning she was ”a daughter of Heaven,” and that there were others, notably the old Shain was supernatural But of all these things I hope to speak in their season
Meanwhile what lay beyond the mountains? Should we find her there who held the sceptre and upon earth wielded the power of the outraged Isis, and with her, that other wo? And if so, would the dread, inhule reach its climax around the person of the sinful priest? In a few in to know
Thrilled by this thought at length I fell asleep