Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 125: what you’re looking at

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

Om sion of Samding in a place in which there was a fountain brimful of golden mohurs. He awoke quietly after a while, that being habit, and noticed that Diana’s tail was thumping a friendly salute on the plat- form floor. The next thing he saw was the lama sitting motionless on the prayer mat with Samding as usual beside him. Below them, on the floor of the room, stood Mai- traya looking upward. The gabble of angry argument that he caught between sleeping and waking made no clear impres- sion on his brain. The first words he heard distinctly were the lama’s, in Urdu: ““My son, you are convinced of a delusion. That is not good. You believe you are answerable for results, whereas you are not even connected with the cause. You have but to obey. It is I who am burdened with the tribulation of deciding how this matter shall be managed, since I conceived it. From you there is required good will and whatever talent you possess for your pro- fession.” The voice was kind, but it did not allay Maitraya’s wrath. He scolded back: “T am famous! I am known wherever we will go. Men will mock me! Am I to be a common mountebank? Vishnu! Vishnu! Why engage me, if you won’t listen when I tell you the proper way to do a thing, and what the public will accept and what it will not accept?” The lama listened patiently, not changing his expression, which was bland and gently whimsical. “All ways are proper in their proper place. Men will usually take what they receive for nothing,’”’ he answered after a pause. ‘As for your dissatisfaction, you may go,my son. You may go to Benjamin, and he’shall pay you one week’s money.”’ “T have a contract!’ Maitraya retorted, posturing like Ajax defying lightning. “That is true,’ said the lama gently. “There would be merit in observing the terms of it.” Maitraya smote his breast, disheveled his turban desperately and turned to throw an appealing gesture to the troupe. But they were a hungry-looking lot, more in- terested in being fed and paid than in Maitraya’s artistic anxieties. The lama looked kind and spoke gently. In silence, with eye-movements, they took the lama’s side of the dispute. ‘“‘Prostitutes!”’ exclaimed Maitraya in a 115 frenzy. “You will make apes of yourselves for the sake of two months’ wage! Oh, very well. I will out-ape you! I will bea worse ape than the one that ate the fruit out of the Buddha’s begging-bowl! Be- hold me—Maitraya the prostitute! I will be infamous, to fill your miserable bellies!” Then, facing the lama again with a ges- ture of heartbroken anguish: “But this that you ask is impossible! It is not done—never! My genius might over- come a difficulty, but how can these fools do what they have never learned?”’ “How does the wolf-cub know where to look for milk?” the lama answered, and all laughed except Maitraya, who tried to re- arrange his turban. A woman finished the business for him, grinning in his face as boldly as if there were the slats of a zenana window in between. “Do you observe that woman?” Dawa Tsering whispered to Ommony. ‘Now if she were in Spiti there would be knife-work within the day. She lacks awareness of what might be!”’ Aware that he, too, lacked that most desirable of assets at the moment, Ommony frowned for silence. There was just a chance that he might pick up a clue to a part of the mystery if he should attract no atten- tion to himself. Maitraya—supposing he knew anything—was in a frame of mind to explode a secret at any moment. He was blowing up again: “Krishna! By the many eyes of Krish- na, I swear to you that some of them can not read!’ he shouted, strutting to and fro and pausing to throw both arms upward in a gesture of despair. ‘Krishna is a comprehensive Power to swear by,” said the lama mildly. ‘How many can not read?”’ Two women confessed to disability; the third boasted her attainment proudly. ‘“‘Not so insuperable!” said the lama. ‘“‘That one woman shall read for the three. Thus the two will learn. Give their parts to them. They have almost nothing to say in the first act.” Samding picked up a dozen wooden cyl- inders with paper scrolls wrapped around them and bundled the lot into Maitraya’s hands. ‘“‘We must cast them,” said Maitraya. ‘The cast is all-important. Who shall play which part? It is essential to decide that to begin with.” b micloool C© in