Old Ugly-Face

Set in Tibet, the story concerns a group of men and women who are vitally involved in an exciting situation in that forbidden land of towering mountain peaks and age-old secrets. The Dalai Lama had died, and the choice of a successor to the most influential position in Tibet is a matter of utmost concern to the agents of various foreign governments and to Tom Grayne, unofficially representing the United States, Andrew Gunning, his free-lance friend, and Elsa Burbage, in Tibet under unusual circumstances. Above all, the future of Tibet lies in the hands of the Most Reverend Lobsang Pun, known as Old Ugly-Face, a wrinkled, stout Tibetan prelate of uncertain age, a genuine mystic whose mission in life is to preserve the seeds of sanity in a world gone mad. Grayne and Gunning are both in love with Elsa, and out of this conflict between life-long friends arises a drama of absorbing interest -- a drama intensified by international intrigue, treachery, unbelievable courage in the face of the greatest adversity, and the prodigious efforts of Old Ugly-Face to win control of the newly appointed Dalai Lama.

---

Things seemed vague that evening. Darjeeling felt as if it were somewhere over and beyond its own sensational horizon. The damp stone monastery walls had lost reality, as if thought were the substance and thing its shadow. Andrew Gunning strode along the white-walled passage, beneath flickering brass lamps, between pictures of Buddhist saints. The thin, worn carpet on the stone flags muted his heavy foot-fall into rhythmic thuds that pulsed like heartbeats, regular, and strong, but strangely detached, unreal. An outdoor man, sturdily built, he looked as if his passion were as strong as his muscles and equally under control. He looked obstinate, cautious, capable of proud and perhaps patient but swiftly vigorous anger. As a first impression that was accurate enough and no injustice done. But he was not a man who readily revealed himself to strangers. He could keep his thoughts to himself. Second and later impressions of him always left observers a bit puzzled.

He knocked on the ancient cedar door at the dark end of the passage and waited listening, exactly, and in the same mood as he would have listened for an animal's cry in the forest, or for the telltale murmur of changing wind in the distance. Good ears, well shaped, not too tightly packed against a studious-looking head. A thatch of untidy tawny hair, inherited from some Viking ancestor who raided Britain before the Normans landed and who doubtless found Roman-Northumbrian wenches an agreeable change from the shrews of the Baltic night. American born. Unclannish. Habitually slightly parted lips. Well-bred narrow nostrils. Easy shoulders; a neck so strong that it looked careless. Sensible eyes. A plain man, therefore dangerous. Only simple people could predict what Andrew Gunning might do. Complicated people seldom understood what he had done or was doing at the moment.

Because the monastery was built centuries ago, in the days when Darjeeling was a fortress city of war-torn Sikkim, the deodar-cedar door was a foot thick. He had to knock twice. And because the rain splashed musically through an open window, and the monastery mood discouraged shouting, he was answered at last by the sound of a small bronze bell. An historic bell. Its temperate G would have gone lost in the thunder of camps or the hum of affairs. For fifty years, five hundred years ago, it had invited silence while a Wise Saint meditated on the mystery of man: whence, whither, why. A most excellent bell.

Andrew opened the door into a plain arrangement of ideas; the comfort of ideas in right relation to each other. A white-walled room, so nearly square that its size made no impression; it was good to be in, and that was enough. Two windows, one facing eternal snow, the Himalayas, the Roof of the World, Tibet; but that window was closed for the night by a shutter of cedar and curtained with woven wool from somewhere north of Tang La Ra. The other window, ten by two and iron-barred against the curiosity of innocence (the Tantric Buddhist monks are innocent, and consequently naughty), opened on the rain-splashed inner courtyard. There were glimpses through it of wet-bronze legged monks about their communal duties, with their skirts tucked into their girdles. Some of them were singing; merry-minded fellows, curiously indifferent to rain and icy wind, but venially sinfully inquisitive about the female occupant of Cell Eleven. They were only preserved from the cardinal sin of impudence by the all-seeing eye of Brother Overseer Lan-shi Ling who looked down on their labors from the covered gallery, reminding them, when necessary, that though the eye and the ear may sin, it is the soul which pays. O brothers, look ye neither to the right nor left. The path leads upward!

Elsa lay curled on a Scots plaid steamer rug that had been stained by travel. It was spread over big flat cushions stuffed with the swans-down that lies like wind-blown blossom on the shore of Lake Manasarowar -- sacred wild swans and a sacred lake. The cushions were piled on a throne built of blocks of holy basalt from a mountain whose name no Tibetan will utter (lest the ever-watchful dugpas should overhear and find and desecrate the mountain's holiness). That throne on which Elsa sprawled was really a guest bed reserved for visiting Lord Abbots who occasionally come, with secret news, and solemn meekness, but implacably critical zeal, to bestow their blessing on the monastery or to refuse approval, as the case may be. Hearts had been broken in that room, from that throne; personal destinies had crumbled in the calm impersonal fire of visiting Lord Abbots' views of what is sinful and what isn't. Centuries old though the monastery is, Elsa Burbage was the first woman ever to have crossed the threshold of the inner courtyard. She was well aware of that. At the moment it was almost the only excuse for self-confidence that she could use as a shield against despair. The eleventh chamber on the north side had been hers for a number of weeks. It was she who had named it Cell Eleven for luck and brevity. Its real name, all one word in Tibetan, is Countless-thousands -- of -- times -- blessed -- place -- of -- meditation -- piously -- reserved -- for -- wisdom-loving-holy-lamas-from-blessed-mountains-conferring-sanctity-and-merit-by-their-benevolent-presence. That, of course, is a far better name than Cell Eleven, but it takes too long to say.

Elsa smiled at Andrew Gunning, but she didn't speak for a few moments. She and he had no need to toss words at each other. Kindness can be as irritating as pity. So can courtesy. Such formalities as unfriendly or suspicious people have to impose on themselves and each other had gone downwind months ago, blown by the bitter winds of Tibet and by the more subtle but even less merciful forces of human extremity. There remained a comradeship that speech could easily blaspheme but could neither enlarge nor explain.

Andrew sat down on a stone ledge near the open window. The ledge was covered with snow leopard skin, a comfortless upholstery; but Tibetans don't care for physical comfort, don't even know what it is; and snow leopard skin is a very valuable, so they say, provision against sly earth currents that intrude into a meditator's thought and undo virtue, as the termites undo buildings in the dark. Andrew leaned his back against the whitewashed wall, and he didn't say anything either. He just looked at Elsa, schooling himself not to feel sorry for her because he loathed the spiritual snobbery that drools that sort of insolence.

The glow from a charcoal brazier colored Elsa's pale face and made her eyes, beneath the dark hair, look much bigger than they actually were; it made them gleam with unnatural light that suggested visions and dreams, like a cat's eyes when it stares at the hearth. The effect of unreality was increased by the leap of candlelight and by the Tibetan paintings on silk that loomed amid a mystery of shadows on the white walls. It was Andrew who spoke first:

"Not so long ago, just for looking like that, they'd have burned you for a witch."

"Burning sounds dreadful, but it must be soon over," she answered. "Do you suppose it's worse than feeling useless and disillusioned?"

He scowled suddenly and smiled slowly: "It's the first time I've heard you use words like that."

"I never felt quite like this before. Not quite like it."

Andrew Cunning's method was to kill out pity and to mask what sympathy he felt beneath brusqueness: "Feel like cracking?" he asked.

"It seems to have happened. I want to say what I mean. But I can't. It's as if I had been an insect all along without knowing it."

Andrew looked as cautious, alert and careful as if he were still -- hunting some animal of whose ways he was ignorant. He had a presentiment. He was going to be asked what he couldn't answer, and told what he didn't want to know. So he said what he did know:

"Life is a fight. The more sensitive you are, the worse it hurts. But you can't cure man or horse with hard names. You have to think straight and know what you're fighting about."

"Andrew, I did it. I've done it. I lost. I said insect because insects wear their skeletons outside and their personalities inside. They're armor-plated. But when they crack -- "

"Then they grow a new shell or they die."

"It isn't so easy to just die and be done with it. Andrew, I've reached a jumping-off place, but there's nowhere to jump to. I'm not complaining. I'm telling you because there's no one else to tell. Even song doesn't sound good any more. Tomorrow isn't. There's only a string of dried yesterdays."

He showed his teeth in a friendly belligerent grin: "So it's Andrew. You call me Andy when you think I'm stupid. Drew, when we're talking on even terms. Andrew, when you need help. But it won't work. I'm feeling the way you do, as near as a man can feel the way a woman does. I was in the chapel just now. Same ritual. Same monks, solemnity, beauty and all the rest of it. It felt as flat as canned stuff."

"Then you do understand what I mean."

"No. When you use a word like insect to explain your feelings -- damned if I understand."

"Drew, your inconsistencies hide something so strong that I'm almost afraid of it sometimes. I am now."

"No call for you to be scared of me. Inconsistencies? What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. I've heard you use real bad language -- Tibetan and English -- that would make a Billingsgate fish-porter's hair curl."

"Maybe. But that was for tactical reasons, to get a pack-train moving or something of that sort. And besides, I'm not a woman."

She laughed. "Drew, did anyone ever accuse you of being effeminate! Please, Andrew! What I meant is, that if you'll raise that iron visor of yours and really listen, it would be such a comfort. But if that's selfish, and you'd rather -- "

"Talk away. I'm interested."

"I want to talk to the real you."

"Go ahead. Shoot. But don't talk down to me. I hate that."

"Down to you?"

"Yes. Don't use language aimed at cracking my mental resistance. I'm in a sympathetic mood, if that means anything. I'd like to understand. Words like insect don't apply. You're not a louse."

"Andrew, you've been so generous to me that -- "

"That line heads in nowhere, either. I did what you'd have done if things had been the other way around. So let's call that past history and carry on."

" -- so generous, and so unselfish, that I haven't dared, I don't think I've even wanted, to impose on you any more. Besides, I understand perfectly that just physical things like forced marches and danger, and even metaphysical things like ditching your whole year's plans because a friend is in trouble -- "

"I didn't have any plans, so I didn't ditch 'em. I was letting Tom Grayne do the head work."

" -- means no more to you than a change of the wind, or a change of diet. You actually like it. I know that. I know too -- I understand perfectly -- that you enjoyed that dreadful ordeal in the blizzard -- "

"You and I shared that. What else could I have done than what I did? Don't let's talk about it."

"You did impossible things. You brought me alive out of death. But that doesn't give me the right to ask you to do something even more difficult."

He smiled reminiscently. There isn't anything more difficult, in terms of ordinary human experience, than to act man-midwife to a girl whose first baby is born in a blizzard that blows the tent away at sixteen thousand feet above sea level. If he had been a doctor -- but he wasn't. Elsa and child survived, and he was secretly so proud of that test of his own resourcefulness that he couldn't speak of it. He even disciplined the smile into a kind of up-wind stare.

"Andrew, don't laugh at me, please. I want to talk to the man who pulled me through that."

"You've the right to," he answered. "You came through, colors flying. Shoot the works."

But Elsa found it hard to begin. She was afraid of seeming unwilling to face the future. But she did fear the future. And she was afraid to raise Andrew Gunning's visor. She had seen him in action, in emergency, in crisis. She had seen him tempted, bewildered, baffled, half starved and almost overwhelmed by exhaustion; but always, in anger, in defeat, mistaken effort, success, nothing less than a man. She knew almost none of his motives, not even his real reason for joining Tom Grayne in Tibet. She knew almost none of his secrets. She was afraid to guess at them for fear her guess might prove true. So she was silent for at least five minutes, afraid of what Andrew Gunning might think of her, if she should go on talking. The silence was as loaded with thought as the leaping shadows were full of hue from the charcoal and flickering candlelight. Elsa made two or three attempts to begin, but Andrew gave her no encouragement. The words died on her lips.

A bell on the monastery roof reminded the monks to do something or other. It drew attention to the silence. Gusty wind flickered the candles. Andrew got up and put more charcoal on the brazier, resumed his seat on the snow leopard skin and waited. It was he who spoke first:

"Begin, why don't you? What's the trouble?"

"I told you. You objected to the word insect. My shell is broken. I'm afraid. That's the trouble."

"I'm scared, too," he answered. "Everybody gets scared once in so often. But would you trade places with any other girl?"

"Andrew, I'd love to! But I don't believe it would be fair to trade places."

Andrew rose to the occasion guardedly: "See here, Elsa; you haven't got to live in Brooklyn, or Blackheath, or Chicago, or Tooting Beck. You don't have to go to cocktail parties and pink teas, or listen to radio yawp -- or argue about dialectics with intellectual asses who think envy is inspiration and that Karl Marx is Jesus. You're not leading a second-hand life. You don't have to care a damn what mugwumps think. You needn't say yes to the axe-grinders. What more do you want? Everybody gets afraid at some time or other."

"Andrew, I want to talk about things that one doesn't discuss."

"Well," he said, "I knew that. Why don't you begin?"

"Are you sure you don't mind?"

"Of course I mind. I hate it. You're going to try to drag out your secret thoughts and smear them on the wall for me to look at. You'll come closer to doing it than most people could. I suppose it's the end of friendship. You'll never forgive me for knowing what you've never told Tom."

"How do you know I've never told Tom?"

Andrew grinned. He pulled out his clasp knife and a hunk of hundred-year-old cedar from his hip pocket, shifted his position away from the flickering candle toward the steady glow of the charcoal brazier and resumed the whittling of a head of Chenrezi where he had left off the day before. Elsa watched him with emotions that ranged from baffled anger to despair. They were all one emotion, but they felt like wild dogs tearing at her: stark torture. However, there was no one but Andrew Gunning who could understand what she wanted to tell, what she must tell, even at the risk of friendship.

"Won't you leave off carving that thing, Andrew?"

"No. You'll find it easier if I look at this instead of you. Besides, it helps me to think. Go ahead. Talk." He went on carving, turning the thing in his hands to study the planes in the glow from the brazier, puckering his eyes, remembering the statue of Chenrezi in the monastery chapel.

"Drew, I'm a failure. I'm not even a tragic failure. Merely a flop -- no dignity:"

He sharpened the point of his knife on a pocket hone and resumed the carving of the Lord Chenrezi's smile.

"Andrew, please listen. I've come to the end of everything, at twenty-three. No more destiny. Nothing. I took my future in my own hands, and everything I had, and all I knew and was and could become. And I took all chances and -- and -- offered it up."

"You had a perfect right to," he answered. "Everybody has to do that when he's fed up with cant and rant and humbug and gets a glimpse of something worth going after. You're no exception."

"But it didn't work out, Andrew. It was like Cain's sacrifice. It wasn't acceptable."

"Okay. Kill Abel. That's the historic retort. It won't get you far. But try it. It's one degree better than killing your own faith."

"I don't mind about me. And I've no faith left."

"You mean no humor, don't you? That's just secondhand talk. Have you been reading Swinburne again? About weariest rivers winding somewhere safe to sea? He was drunk when he wrote it."

"Oh well. Yes. I do mind -- having let Tom down -- having put you to all this inconvenience. I can still feel. Yes. I still have faith in some people. But not in me any longer. Instead of being the help I thought I'd be, and that Tom thought I'd be, I'm worse than a total loss. I'm a liability. Yes, you're right, I do mind about me."

Andrew glanced at her. She was dry-eyed. No sign of hysteria. She had drawn the steamer rug over her knees and was staring at the glowing brazier. She didn't even look quite hopeless. She was hoping for a new view, and she hoped he had it.

"I've talked defeat," he said, "plenty of times."

"You? You, Andrew! To other people?"

"No. To myself. That's worse. But it never was true. I never really meant it. See here, Elsa; merely looking at one angle, you're not a run-of-the-mill, college-educated product. You've got ideas."

"I wish I hadn't. Ideas only give you a headache and make you dangerous to other people."

"You're not stuck in a social rut. You don't feel bound by the latest fashion in ideology or -- "

"I wish I did! I wish I liked that kind of thing! I wish I could make myself be herd-minded and believe what other people believe, and do what they do, and like it. I wish I were a Fascist or a Communist -- something genuinely coarse and gross and stupid! Andrew, with all my heart I wish it!"

"If you feel that way, why consult me?" he retorted, looking obstinate. He turned the head of Chenrezi upside down and whittled savagely at the rough base. "I think you're well off."

"You mean in having no future?"

"Carve your own future." He hacked at Chenrezi.

"I'll have to. But it will be as lifeless as what you're doing now with your knife and a piece of wood:"

"Piffle! This isn't lifeless. I've a genius for this kind of thing. What's more, I do good live thinking while I'm working at it. But my talent can't hold a candle to yours. For instance, you're the only woman in the world who can translate ancient Tibetan intelligently. What's wrong with that? You've plenty of it to do. Here you are, safe as a saint in a -- "

"Yes, yes, I've counted my blessings and added plenty per cent! Andrew, please! Don't talk as if you're trying to sell me a plot in a cemetery! I don't have to be told that I might as well be in the British Museum. I've been working all day long at translation. I'd go mad if I didn't."

"Having luck with it?"

"Yes. The more wretched I feel, the easier it comes. The only real labor is writing it out -- can't write fast enough."

"You mean it's like automatic writing? I know a man in New York who wrote a darned good novel that way."

"No. It isn't a bit like that. I look at the Tibetan writing and all at once it means something in English. I don't know how to explain it. It's like reading music notes at sight and being able to transpose them into a different key without thinking about it. Of course, it isn't really like that, but -- why don't you let me talk of what I want to talk about!"

Andrew held up Chenrezi's head and studied the curve of a nostril. "It doesn't seem to me you have much kick coming," he answered. "There's any number of real people who would almost sell their souls for the gift that you came by without even having to work for it."

She laughed. "If you think I didn't work for it, you guess again, Andrew! Tibetan wasn't a gift, as you call it. I earned that honestly, and love it. It's the other part that I hate. It's a curse. As a child it got me into so much trouble that I left home when I was sixteen. I almost didn't have any friends. It brought me nothing but grief, and mistrust, and misery, until I met Tom in the British Museum Library. After that, it began to be wonderful, because Tom -- "

"Yes. Tom told me about it."

"Andrew, let me tell it. You've only heard Tom's version. He told the truth, but not all the truth. He can't possibly have told my side of it, because he never knew it. I don't believe he even guessed it."

"Tom's a pretty shrewd guesser. "

"I know. But how could Tom possibly guess what even I didn't know, about me, until -- until I had torn it right out of myself, and forced myself to look at it? Tom isn't clairvoyant. Sometimes I think you are. But Tom isn't. So he can't possibly have told you all about me."

Andrew shut his clasp knife. "All right," he said. "You tell it. I'll listen. If I don't believe you, I'll say so."

"Andrew, if you don't believe me, then that will be the end of friendship. Because I'm going to be merciless -- I mean to me. It may be the last time that you and I will ever talk together intimately. I don't want to pry into your secrets. I do want to tell mine."

Andrew studied his carving of Chenrezi's head for half a minute. Then he put it into his pocket and stared at Elsa. The rain splashed in the courtyard. The guttering candlelight half hid her amid trembling shadows. A slight, small girl of twenty-three, in a black tailored shirt. Dreamy intelligent eyes. Something like a feminine version of Michelangelo's David.

"Go ahead," said Andrew. "Sling your pebble at Goliath, but try not to hit me. If there's anything I hate it's being told what I'd sooner not know. I'm a hell of a good hater."

"I suppose you'll hate me. Will you please try not to. I'm going to risk it, but -- "

"If you won't let well enough alone, go to it. I won't interrupt."

But interruption came. It seemed timed to the second, as if someone's daimon didn't want a veil drawn aside. It was simple scheduled monastery routine, but it felt like a hint from destiny.

---

The interruption was a thudding on the thick door. It sounded far off, almost alarming. But when Elsa touched the bronze bell it turned out to be only two wrinkled old Tibetan monks. One was the Abbot's physician. The other brought tea in a brass urn -- buttered tea stewed and salted, that isn't so awful once you're used to it. The smiling old doctor professed not to know why there were three cups. It was not his business. He had brought medicine for Elsa. He poured it from a silver vial into a spoon of rhinoceros horn, opened his own mouth by way of suggestion, pushed the spoon halfway down Elsa's throat and turned it until she gagged and swallowed the horrible stuff. He watched her cough, crossing his fingers, murmuring sacred words to ward off devils. Then he murmured a blessing, stowed the utterly unsanitary spoon into an inner pocket, corked the vial, smiled at Andrew Gunning with a shrewd, almost monkey-like glance of his deeply set dark eyes and walked out, whirling his prayer wheel, followed by the monk with the brass tray. When the door thudded shut Andrew seized the opportunity to change the subject:

"So you're still on the sick list?"

"No, I'm quite well. But Abbot Mu-ni Gam-po insists that I'm still full of devils that need driving out. He says it was devils that killed my baby. So he sends his doctor three times a day. If I should refuse to swallow that nasty stuff, I don't know what would happen."

"You'd be a fool to refuse. Old Mu-ni Gam-po knows his magic. Some of our modern doctors get the same results by a different method. There's not much choice between a stupid M.D. and an ignorant magician. Either will kill you. And the good magician or the good M.D. will cure you, if your soul wants to stay in your body."

"Souls can be cruel to bodies," she answered. "Mine is cruel. It insists on staying in me. Andrew, you pour the tea, will you? I can't reach it without getting up."

He filled two cups, then went and peered through the window bars before resuming his seat.

"No eavesdroppers," he said. "Not at the moment."

"Did you think there might be?"

"Yes. There's at least one monk who reports to Bulah Singh. You know what that means. C.I.D. Confidential -- indiscreet -- dirty. Bulah Singh reads your mail before you get it -- if you get it. However, I hope you've changed your mind about talking. It's always better to say nothing."

"You make it difficult, Andrew. I believe you're hiding something."

"Well," he answered, "I guess that's true. But it needn't stop you from telling me the worst, if you feel you've got to. Go on. You're heartsick and scared. You think you can cure it by offering me to the gods, if there are any gods."

"Not you, Andrew. But if I lose your friendship -- "

Same thing! But go to it. What's all this that Tom Grayne doesn't know?"

"Andrew, I met Tom for the first time in the British Museum Library. I was studying Tibetan because I like it, and so few other people study it, and because it's difficult, and because Professor Mayor, who happens to be my uncle, is in charge of the Tibetan section. I didn't know then that Professor Mayor had anything to do with the secret service. But later he asked me to help Tom decipher some difficult letters that were written in a kind of shorthand. I have a talent for that kind of thing. It isn't brain work; it's a kind of clairvoyance. One thing led to another. Tom found me useful. I didn't know then that Tom was in the pay of the American State Department."

"He wasn't," said Andrew. "He never has been, and he isn't. The American State Department isn't crazy. It hasn't any money to spend on people like Tom and me. On top of that, it wouldn't choose to be caught with the goods. I'm unpaid. Tom gets bare expenses and a pittance from a member of the United States Senate who likes to know what he's talking about. If Tom's information should happen to reach the State Department, that's nobody's business."

"Andrew, let me tell it, please."

"Okay. But tell it right. You went off on the wrong foot. You met Tom. You and he got married. Then what?"

"Tom wasn't in love with me."

"Yes he was."

"And I wasn't in love with Tom."

"Yes you were."

"Andrew, you're observant and kind and sometimes wonderfully intuitive, but this is something that you haven't understood. Onlookers never do understand that kind of thing. You weren't even an onlooker, not in the beginning. You had never even heard of me, and you only knew Tom by hearsay, until you met us in Tibet. And by that time, things were different. In the beginning Tom was in love with his job and with nothing else in the world. He was heartwhole, and ruthless -- scrupulously faithful."

"Tom has gray iron scruples, but no morals," said Andrew. "Tom's sentimental bigot."

"Tom is the most intensely moral man I ever met."

"I guess we're at odds about definitions. We may mean the same thing. Go ahead."

"Tom found me useful. I had enough money to pay my own expenses. I'm healthy, and active, and I'm so small that I don't tire a horse the way some people do. I don't care a bit about luxuries, and I can keep my temper and hold my tongue. So Tom offered to take me to India."

"Yes," said Andrew. "I know all about that. There was a homesick Tibetan in London named Tho-pa-ga. Tom wanted to take Tho-pa-ga to Tibet, and he wanted you along to supply the feminine touch. Tom told me all about it. You did such a good job that when the Tibetans kidnapped Tho-pa-ga to make him Keeper of the Thunder Dragon Gate, they kidnapped you along with him to keep up his spirits. Tom went in pursuit, and the Lama Lobsang Pun saved the lot of you in the nick of time. Tho-pa-ga turned out to be a miserable flop, all pious melancholy and no backbone. In love with you, wasn't he?"

"Tho-pa-ga," said Elsa, "was just an overgrown and overeducated moon-calf who needed a nurse."

Andrew nodded. "Tom made a bloomer that time. Tho-pa-ga was a ruinous man to bet on. Bound to let you down. In England he was homesick for Tibet. As soon as he reached Tibet, he was homesick for England. Tom was a fool to waste time on him. Tho-pa-ga's religion was such a mixture of magic and sentimentality, all glued into a rotten mess by a kind of superstitious fatalism, that he couldn't possibly have been a success in a key position. No one respected him. The only friends he made were political Tibetan monks who spotted him for an easy mark. So of course he was poisoned. Anybody could have foretold that. And the business of preventing Tibet from being saved from herself by the Japs and Russians had to begin all over again. That was why I was sent from Shanghai to find you and Tom."

"Andrew, if you really don't want to hear my side of it, why not simply refuse to listen, instead of trying to get me to talk about something else? Just say so. Just go out and leave me alone. Then there'll be no one left except Abbot Mu-ni Gam-po. But -- "

"You been talking to him?"

"Yes. He cast my horoscope, from five or six different aspects."

"Did he show you the result?"

"Yes. But I can't read a horoscope. Looking at it gave me a sensation of danger and fear and abject fatalism that I knew I shouldn't have. But Mu-ni Gam-po wouldn't explain it, beyond saying something about Uranus and Neptune in the twelfth house, with afflicted Venus, and Sun rising in Aries. I don't know what that means. He wouldn't let me tell him what I'm trying to tell you."

Andrew laughed dryly: "Mu-ni Gam-po is wiser than I am! Go ahead. Tell me about the afflicted Venus. Crucify her!"

"I've done it, Andrew, but I didn't think it was that at the time. Tom married me secretly in England, in a spirit of scrupulous fair play. I was so in love with the idea of not being a grub any longer -- of getting away from England and all that smug mediocrity, and credulous skepticism, and stupid, stuffy pretense of being something that you're not -- I was so excited by the thought of traveling in India and being really useful -- that I would have done whatever Tom asked me to do. It was his idea, our getting married."

Andrew grinned -- glanced at her.

"It was Tom's idea! I never dreamed of it until he suggested it. He had a double motive."

"Yes. Tom's ambidextrous. He lets his left hand know what his right hand's doing. But lets nobody else know."

"Tom wanted to protect me, in case anything should happen to him. He also wanted me to have the right to open his strongbox in the bank vault. Those were his motives."

"Let's leave that lay. Tom and you got married secretly. And you weren't in love with each other. Then what?"

"I fell in love with Tom. This is the part that isn't easy to tell."

"Remember! I haven't asked you to tell it."

"No, Andrew. But I must tell someone. Mu-ni Gam-po won't listen.

"I guess he knows it without being told. He's wise. The more he knows, the less he says. But why not try Nancy Strong at the Mission School? Nancy is a hard-bitten old soldier with a heart like Mary Magdalene's and the guts of a grenadier. She'd even have a good cry with you, if that's how you feel. Then she'd tell you something worse out of her own experience, and you'd have a good laugh and feel better."

"She's a woman, Andrew. No woman could understand. She'd only see my side of it; and I can see that too well already. I want you to listen because you'll see Tom's side of it."

"Didn't Tom see his side of it?"

"Of course he did. But, Andrew, did you ever try to get Tom to complain, or to blame anyone else for what happened to him, or to cry over spilt milk, or to lock a door after the horse has bolted -- or to do any of those wishy-washy things that ordinary people do? Tom is -- "

"You're right there. Tom isn't ordinary. He's ornery, if you know what that means. Nancy Strong should have married him."

That changed Elsa's mood for a moment. She couldn't help laughing. Nancy Strong was old enough to be Tom Grayne's mother. Not even Tom Grayne would have a chance against her in a tussle of wills. Even Government fears Nancy.

"It will come easier now you're laughing," said Andrew. "Tell the funny part first. Go ahead."

"It's no joke, Andrew. It's all disillusionment and anticlimax. Even being kidnapped and carried off, and being cold and hungry in the mountains and in danger of being killed -- and not knowing what had happened to Tom, but just hoping he would turn up -- and then seeing him suddenly -- and all the fighting at the Thunder Dragon Gate -- every least tiny bit of it was wonderful and clean and good. It was life. It felt like being blown on a big wind, and something new every minute. After Tom had helped Lobsang Pun to seize control of the monastery, it was even fun when that old despot turned us out to go and shift for ourselves. Lobsang Pun washed his hands of us. And Tom took the trail of the Japanese secret agents, taking me with him because there was nothing else he could do about it. Those were hard times, but they were utterly wonderful. We crossed the border of Sinkiang; and we were in touch with the exiled Tashi Lama twice before they poisoned him."

"They'll poison Tom one of these days," said Andrew. "He'll find out just one thing too many. Then he'll begin to wonder what disagreed with him."

"I did all the cooking," said Elsa.

"That's nothing. They poison the meat before it's killed. If you don't eat meat, they poison the salt and tea and sugar. They put poison in the dust that blows into your cup. Tibetans are real nice people, but they don't like you to know more than's good for their peace of mind. That's what Tibetans are after -- peace of mind."

"I wish I had some! Andrew, listen to me. I betrayed Tom. Not he me. I betrayed him."

"Tell it if you must. But don't say I asked for it. I'll believe it or not, as I see fit."

"Ours was an absolutely hard and fast agreement. We hadn't pretended to be in love with each other. I was to be Tom's assistant, and to obey orders. Tom made the stipulation, and I agreed to it instantly, that there was to be no love-making and no man and wife stuff. Ours was simply a temporary arrangement for business purposes. Either of us was to be free to divorce the other as soon as there was no longer any reason for being married."

Andrew put all the malice he could into a slowly broadening grin. "I've heard of lots of folks," he said, "who believed they were stronger than sex. I've even fallen for that presumption once or twice myself. You're not the first -- not by a long way. It's disillusioning, but human. I've never spoken to Tom about women. And of course everybody knows he's an iron-willed man. But I'd have betted all I've got. I'd have laid odds."

"Laid what odds?"

"Tom Grayne and you -- or any other eligible woman -- "

"What do you mean by eligible woman?"

"I mean any woman worth going overboard for. Tom and she, alone together, week after week, month after month, sharing the same tough time, growing more and more into each other's confidence -- hell, I don't care what the previous agreement might be. She'd fall for Tom. She'd have to."

"Well, Andrew, you're wrong. Tom fell for me. I did it -- five nights after we camped in that cave where you found us."

"That means a couple of months before I got there."

"Yes. You stopped it."

"Me? What had I to do with it? It was none of my business."

"No. But your arrival brought Tom to his senses. And me, too. Me especially. What I want you to understand is -- "

"Sure, you've said that. I'm not mentally deaf."

"Before you came, Tom was depressed by a sense of failure. Everything seemed to have gone wrong. Our Tibetans were behaving badly. Some deserted. Others brought in false reports and were getting insolent. Tom and I weren't hitting it off the way we had done, because my clairvoyance wasn't as clear as usual. It was all about Europe instead of Tibet. What I did see about Tibet, Tom didn't believe. When spies came in and talked to him I couldn't get any clear picture of what they were thinking about. That made Tom irritable. It seemed to me we were drifting apart, and that Tom was sorry he had brought me with him. I made up my mind to change that by putting things on a more human basis."

"There's nothing new about that," Andrew remarked. "That's old stuff. Everybody does it."

"Does what?"

"Camouflages natural behavior under a lot of phony excuses."

"Andrew, please don't try to tell me I couldn't have helped it. I know better. I don't want to be pitied. I want advice. I knew what Tom needed, or I thought I did. He was lonely and worried and more nearly afraid than I've ever seen him. So that night, after the Tibetans had gone into the other cave, I crept into Tom's bed and made him believe it was I who needed him. I seduced him."

"And is that what Tom doesn't know?"

"Of course Tom doesn't know it. He thinks I was just a weak woman who yielded to his natural physical yearning for a mate. At times like that things happen. It's super-physical and super-mental. The physical act is irresistible. But it never entered Tom's head that it wasn't his fault."

"And of course it never entered your head," said Andrew, "that every time a Tibetan woman has made overtures to Tom he has compared her with you and sent a mental SOS in your direction that you responded to without knowing it."

"I did know it. My eyes were wide open. I knew Tom would lose his job if he were ever suspected of woman weakness. He's like a priest in that respect. He's trusted because -- "

"Oh boloney!" Andrew interrupted. "That's just Tom's alibi. He kids himself. He made that up. He's scrupulous and sentimental about his job. The job comes first. It suits him to believe that getting tangled with a woman -- any woman -- would destroy his efficiency. So he invented that hokum about Spartan celibacy. He has read a lot of tripe, too, about sublimation of sex."

"'Why do you say tripe? Andrew, there are hundreds of thousands of people who have no sex life, and don't want it, and are better off without it -- priests, monks, nuns -- there was Newton, who invented calculus -- and my uncle, Professor Mayor -- and the Lama Lobsang Pun -- and there's Mu-ni Gam-po and all the monks in this monastery -- and all the saints since history began -- "

"Tom Grayne is no saint," said Andrew. "He's strong. He has energy and an iron will. He's on the level in the sense that he would stay bought if anyone could buy him, but nobody can. That's a number one rating. But he's no genuine ascetic. He trains himself to live hard and to abstain from tobacco and drink and women for the same reason that a professional athlete does. It pays dividends -- not cash, but something he likes far better. That isn't asceticism. If Tom thought that the opposite of chastity would improve his intelligence he'd turn whore-master, scrupulously, without the slightest moral twinge. He might hate it. But he'd do it."

"Don't you believe I corrupted him?"

Andrew laughed. His eyes narrowed. His grin widened. He clasped his hands and laid his elbows on his thighs and looked at Elsa with amusement that hid neither from him nor from her the fact that anger lay near the surface now, banked up, growing strong under restraint. Suddenly it broke loose. He stood up.

"Elsa, don't be a damned fool. You corrupted Tom about as much as champagne could corrupt carbolic acid. The way a bird corrupts quicklime -- or a rose corrupts the northeast wind."

"You're talking as if Tom were your enemy. Don't you like him?"

"You bet I like him. But he doesn't fool me. Neither do you."

"I don't want to fool you. I betrayed Tom."

"Now you've said it, are you going to cover up? Or will you answer questions?"

"I want to tell you the truth, Andrew, so that you will answer my questions."

"Okay. Answer this one first. Did Tom ever say he loved you?"

"Yes. But don't you know the difference between loving and being in love?"

Andrew sat down again. "When did it happen? I mean, when did Tom say it?"

"It happened -- I mean Tom said it at the Thunder Dragon Gate, before Lobsang Pun sent us away."

"And what did you say?"

"I don't remember what I said. I was utterly happy. I didn't care where we went nor what we did -- until I suddenly remembered the bargain. I knew Tom would remember it too. So I spoke of it first, because I didn't want to embarrass him by speaking of it when it might be almost too late."

"What did Tom say?"

"He was relieved. I knew he would be. And he was."

"Yeah, I don't doubt it. All Tibet to wander around in. No immediate impulse, and plenty of time. About three quarters of Tom's method is to start things moving and then wait and see."

"Please, Andrew! It's so difficult to tell, and I do so want you to believe me."

"I know what you want me to believe."

Andrew enjoyed the luxury at last of letting violence flow up the veins of his neck and along his forearms. There was just a hint of hardening muscle beneath the candle shadow on his cheek. Unknown to himself he looked ready to kill what he hated. Elsa noticed it.

"Andrew, you hate me for being the problem I am, and I don't blame you one bit. But be generous. Try to understand me. And then give me good advice, don't Pollyanna me. I want you to help me to face the music."

"What are you trying to be? A she-dictator staging an election? I vote the way I'm told to, and eat crow if you're wrong? Is that it?"

"No, Andrew. But the facts are plain and I want you to know them before you give me advice. I seduced Tom. I swore I wouldn't, but I did. As a result I became pregnant, in a cave, in Tibet, nearly a thousand miles away from any possible help. No woman has a right to do that to a man. If you hadn't turned up, Tom would have been in a much worse dilemma than he is in now. And it's bad enough now. Perhaps I ought to have just let myself die. I could have done that, because I was very close to death several times. It would have saved trouble for everybody."

"Stay in your own bracket and don't try to talk like a beaten drab," said Andrew. "You can't play coward well enough to convince yourself, let alone me."

"It isn't easy to play coward -- one can only think about it, with people like Tom and you doing things," she retorted. "Who else in the world but you would have said yes without a second's hesitation when Tom asked you to take me to Darjeeling -- nearly a thousand miles, and winter coming on -- and not your business!"

"Any man would have done it."

"You think too highly of men! The point is that you did it, Andrew. And my baby was born in the snow. And you fought the blizzard and death and made miracles and stood by like a great big angry angel, and did what couldn't be done, and saved the baby and me, and brought both of us alive to Darjeeling. It wasn't your fault that the baby died -- here, in the monastery."

"Nor your fault either. That was bad luck."

"It was Tom's baby."

"Seems to me it was your baby."

"It was Tom's one possible excuse to forgive me for what I'd done to him. And the baby is dead. Now what? Tell me, Andrew. What now?"

"You're overrating Tom's cussedness," he answered. "Tom isn't as hard as all that."

"Andrew, if the baby had lived there would have been no mystery about what to do. Tom's baby and mine. Quite simple. I'd have been the mother of Tom's baby. But now what am I? Nothing but a liability -- a millstone fastened secretly to Tom's neck -- a danger to him. A handicap -- a nuisance -- an expense -- an obstacle."

Andrew grinned savagely. "Who filled the butchers' shops with big green flies?"' he quoted. "Sure. You haven't any rights whatever."

"Listen, Andrew, please. I know what my legal rights are. I can go to Mexico or somewhere like that and divorce Tom, just as secretly as we got married. That was part of our agreement. But I want you to tell me Tom's side of it. Tom is all alone in Tibet and I can't consult him. I can't even get a message to him. I've tried telepathy again and again. Sometimes I can see him clairvoyantly. But I get no response. Tom isn't clairvoyant -- at any rate, not consciously he isn't."

"Tom has Grade A hunches," said Andrew. "What does he think those are?"

"There you go again, trying to get me off the subject! It isn't Tom's hunches that trouble me. It's Tom's sense of duty. Tom feels he has a duty to me. I know he does. Andrew, put yourself in Tom's place, and then tell me -- "

"Can't be done. Besides, I wouldn't be in Tom's place for a million."

"What shall I do, that won't make Tom feel cheap or guilty, and that won't make him feel he should throw up his job and -- "

She stopped speaking suddenly. Andrew was on his feet again. Anger burst through reticence. His face, in the glow from the brazier, was almost exactly as she remembered it in the blizzard-blown campfire light when the tent was torn loose in the gale and her baby was being born.

"God damn it!" he said suddenly. "Can't you fight back!"

"You mean fight Tom?"

"I mean fight that God-damned lousy theoretical suggestion stuff that makes you blame yourself for every situation that you don't like! The sun rises -- praise the Lord! -- God's in his heaven and all's well with the world. But when night comes -- that's your fault! Bad weather -- that's absolute, infallible, incontrovertible proof that you're a sinner! Damn that superstition about sin in the Garden of Eden!"

"Andrew, I'm not superstitious! I'm not! I am not!"

"Aren't you? `And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this: upon thy belly shall thou go, and dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life.' Do you believe that or don't you?"

"I asked you to tell me what Tom really thinks."

"How the hell do I know what he thinks! Damn his eyes, I'm telling you what I think! You and he are not theories, or any bilge like that. You're not a legend. You're human beings. If you love each other -- "

"Andrew, I can't come between Tom and his duty."

"Duty my eye! Don't you rate? Haven't you a soul to call your own? Is it less than his? Haven't you faith in your own vision? It was good enough, wasn't it, to pull up stakes and cash your savings and pitch your future into Tom's kit and go wandering where nine hard-gutted hellions out of ten wouldn't dream of daring to go! And now you talk about being licked by a lousy suggestion that you're a traitress! God! Sure. Yes. I'll tell you the answer -- "

He paused because Elsa was no longer looking at him. Her attention had become fixed on something else. A quiet cough made him turn suddenly. The old Abbot Mu-ni Gam-po had entered unheard. He stood in shadow, black-robed, frail-looking, blinking through a parchment maze of wrinkles that were probably a smile, probably kindly, but beyond any doubt whatever were a mask revealing nothing that he did not wish to reveal. He spoke in English:

"May I listen to the wonderful answer? But may I first have tea, if there is any tea left in the urn? Let us all drink. Anger and tea so seldom mingle. Wisdom sometimes fills the nest from which the bird of anger flew."

---

Andrew recovered reticence, and alertness with it. The arresting fact was that the Lord Abbot Mu-ni Gam-po had entered the room, contrary to custom, unannounced, unaccompanied. Andrew concentrated full attention on the fact. He watched the Abbot help himself to tea and drink it noisily, Tibetan fashion. The old man wasn't likely to say what he meant; one had to spot hints, and they wouldn't be too plain. Elsa watched Andrew, wondering whether he got the same impression she did. There was emergency in the air. The swaying shadows felt loaded with secret crisis. It was like a dream, in which unrelated things happen. A gong boomed at the far end of the corridor, muted by silence and by the thick door and the splashing of rain through the open window. Mu-ni Gam-po moved his prayer wheel with a hardly perceptible wrist motion, twirling perhaps a hundred benedictions. Then he blinked at Andrew and spoke in Tibetan:

"Angry answer being now arrested on the lips of emotion, opportunity to gather knowledge before leaping blindly may be indicated."

"We were talking about duty and sin," said Andrew. He felt he had to say something.

"There is danger in another's duty -- also duty in another's danger," the Abbot remarked. "Sin is the result of conceit; it has no other basis. To discuss it is to argue about nothing, with vain words, in a void created by imagination."

The Lord Abbot sat down on the seat that Andrew had vacated. He motioned to Andrew to take the teak chair on the far side of the brazier between himself and Elsa. The old man looked almost Chinese, roguish and yet unworldly; humorous but serious nevertheless; humble, gentle, and yet full of dignity. After a minute's silence he spoke again in Tibetan, in a voice creaky with age but curiously vibrant with the unselfconscious habit of authority.

"Self-revelation, self-expression, seldom is attainable by such beginners as ourselves. It is invariably wise through meditation to permit reflection to reveal reality. We thus perceive ourselves in one another. Wisdom lives in silence."

Fact number two had presented itself. The Very Reverend Lord Abbot Mu-ni Gam-po was suggesting in his own elaborate way that a time for not talking too much was at hand and that the reasons within reasons for discretion would reveal themselves, if one only would have patience. And even patience was not strained too much. The gong boomed again at the far end of the corridor. A moment later the thick door opened. A monk moved in, barefooted, silent. He stood flicking his beads. The Lord Abbot nodded. The monk opened the door wider. Footsteps on carpeted stone came echoing forward. The atmosphere, the feel of things changed subtly. The dream sensation vanished. Something more like actuality replaced it. Dr. Morgan Lewis walked in and the monk closed the door, standing with his back to it. For a moment the flicking of the monk's beads was the only sound in the room, very distinctly heard against the splashing of rain in the outer night as Dr. Morgan Lewis glanced from one face to the other.

"Kind of you to let me come," he remarked, bowing to Mu-ni Gam-po and then to Elsa. Then he strode forward and shook hands with Andrew Gunning, carefully because a finger joint was missing from his right hand. Andrew had a reputation for sometimes forgetting his strength. One eyebrow perpetually higher than the other gave Lewis a quizzical look that was increased by untidy graying red hair, carefully clipped and groomed but always being ruffled by his restless fingers. He was a man of fifty with scars on his face and a wry, skeptical smile. But of what he was skeptical didn't appear.

"Well, what's the news?" he asked suddenly.

No one answered. Mu-ni Gam-po produced horn-rimmed spectacles with large lenses which he polished carefully before putting them on.

"I seem to have interrupted you at prayers," said Lewis. "Let me join in -- I've brought the smell of hell with me -- from Delhi. I snaffled a week's leave. Just got here -- at least, that's the story. Must I operate to start the conversation flowing? How are you, Elsa?"

"Thank you, Dr. Lewis, I'm incredibly well."

Lewis stuck a monocle into his right eye. He was wearing a careless-looking tweed suit, but by a strange kind of circumstantial magic the scrap of glass in his eye suggested military uniform and official secrets. It made him look dapper, smart, almost impudent. He walked toward Elsa.

"Good girl. Been obeying orders. Sleep. Rest. Plain food. But take a tip from me and don't get well too quickly."

He sat down beside Elsa, on the edge of the basalt throne, where he could watch Andrew Gunning beyond the brazier and be watched by Mu-ni Gam-po. His right hand drummed a signal on his knee in full view of the horn-rimmed spectacles. The Lord Abbot asked in English:

"Not too quickly? Does my patient need other treatment?"

"Well, I'll tell you," said Lewis. "As you know, I happened to be in Darjeeling soon after she arrived from Tibet a couple of months ago. I took the opportunity at that time to -- "

Elsa interrupted. "Doctor, you came all the way from Bombay, by airplane, just to make sure I was getting proper treatment. That's true, isn't it? Please don't try to make generosity seem like an accident!"

Lewis glanced at her swiftly, then at Mu-ni Gam-po. He grinned wryly. "I admit that the Government paid for the plane. It's less than once in a thousand years that a girl of your age suddenly arrives from Tibet and knows how to hold her tongue. Besides, you sent for me."

"Dr. Lewis, I didn't!"

Lewis adjusted his monocle. He glanced at Mu-ni Gam-po, and at Andrew Gunning, then stared at Elsa. "Young lady, we're among friends. Strictly between ourselves, I got your telepathic message. It was my first convincing evidence of clairvoyance. I said: convincing evidence. Tell the truth now, you asked me to come!"

"But I didn't! You were the only doctor I knew in all India. And I was ill and unhappy. They told me my baby was dying. So I remembered you, and thought about you, and -- "

"And I saw and heard you," said Lewis. "Clear case of telepathy -- but I'd be drummed from the medical ranks if I dared say so in public. The baby was dead before I got here. They'd call that proof that I'm a liar. But we pulled you through your trouble. -- Tell me: what impression do you get now?"

Elsa hesitated: "You don't mean things in Europe? Hitler? Mussolini?"

"God forbid!" said Lewis. "What do you see here -- now?"

"I've a strong impression that you're warning me of danger."

"Well, now. That's damned interesting."

"Did I guess right?"

"It wasn't guesswork. You saw it. Let's put it this way, talking in words of one syllable because I wish to be understood. One man's meat is another's poison. Facts are nothing but symbols of a metaphysic that we don't understand. Science, medicine included, is a scandalously overrated system for misinterpreting ascertained facts. And as a medical man it's my duty to say that Mu-ni Gam-po's medicine is an unscientific mixture of herbs that aren't in the pharmacopoeia and its use would be illegal in any civilized country."

"I don't want to be rude," Elsa answered, "but Mu-ni Gam-po's medicine made me feel well, and yours didn't."

Lewis laughed. He caught the Lord Abbot's eye, and the Lord Abbot smiled. Lewis shook his fist at the Lord Abbot. "Charlatan!" he said. "Quack! Heretic! Johnson used to let you dose him, and now where's Johnson? Gone! Gone home to England, where he'll die, one of these days, just as surely as my name's Morgan Lewis."

Andrew Gunning almost upset the brazier. "Johnson? Of the Ethnographic Survey? Gone? You mean he's left India?"

"Yes," said Lewis. "Irish promotion. Sent home in a hurry to advise the India Office and be made a baronet and be snubbed to death. I'll send flowers -- perhaps cabbages. I didn't like him, but he was a very first-class man."

Andrew looked worried. "Who has taken Johnson's place?" he demanded.

"For the time being," said Lewis, "there's an abhorrent vacuum in process of being naturally filled with rumors. Bulah Singh is playing locum tenens, acting-Satan so to speak, but not as likely as he thinks he is to inherit the throne of hell. He lacks the incorruptible integrity. Bulah Singh might try to snatch some credit for himself by getting after unorthodox practitioners of medicine. You see, if Bulah Singh could tamper with Mu-ni Gam-po's medicine and create a scandal, he might sell his own brand of brimstone and treacle. I advise you to change doctors, young woman. Do you get what I mean?"

"No." Elsa stared at him, worried. "You're talking nonsense just to test my ability to read thought. But it doesn't work. I don't know what you mean."

"I'll try again," said Lewis. "Bulah Singh is rather competent but can't be trusted to deny himself the luxury of malice. He's a great man for detail -- studies such curiosities as smoke against snow on the sky line and the contents of the loads of ponies getting ready to go northward. He thinks tactics and strategy are the same thing."

"Thanks," said Andrew.

Lewis readjusted the monocle, stared at Andrew and continued. "Bulah Singh is a rather cat-like fellow. I should say his weak point is that he might watch a mouse hole too long. He might even watch two or three mouse holes. If the mouse used something other than a hole in a wall, Bulah Singh's patience might make him look more like a stone Sphinx than an active cat. -- By the way, do you find the view good from the monastery roof?"

"Grand view," said Andrew, "except when it's hidden by clouds; and that's most of the time."

"I am told," said Lewis, "that lots of people are watching for signs of the coming of spring. You've no news, I suppose, from Tibet?"

"It's got whiskers," said Andrew. "Came by the long route. Runner to Sinkiang. Radio to Shanghai, spatchcocked into Chinese bulletins intended for a Jap who has a Chinese mistress in Macao. Steamer to Hongkong. Third-class passenger to Pondicherry. Last lap secret."

Lewis grinned: "I could tell you the secret!"

"When in doubt, don't," said Andrew. "What do you want to know? I'll tell you."

"You say it's old news? Even if it's ugly news, I can face it." Lewis stressed three of the words with more than necessary emphasis. Then he felt Elsa's pulse with a professionally absent-minded air of having nothing else to do.

Andrew grinned. "That's a good cue. Right. Old Ugly-face is said to be a fugitive from Lhasa. He's reported to have lost his fight to control the young Dalai Lama and has had to go into hiding."

"Chapter one," said Lewis. "Chapter two, I suppose, gives more details."

"Sort of regular subscriber, aren't you? Yes, there's more of it, seeing it's you. Ram-pa Yap-shi, the Lord Abbot of Shig-po-ling, is top dog at the moment. He got away from Lhasa with the young Dalai Lama and all the cash in the treasury. He has fortified himself at Shig-po-ling, and has offered a big reward for the capture of Ugly-face dead or alive."

"That checks perfectly," said Lewis. "What else?"

"Not much else. Have you heard of Ambrose St. Malo?"

"Who is he?"

"I asked because I thought perhaps you know," said Andrew. "I've been warned to watch out for him."

"Ambrose St. Malo, eh? Where is he?"

"Somewhere in Tibet."

"That's vague."

"So is he vague."

"Bad egg?"

"Rotten. I'm told he stinks."

Lewis stood up. "Well," he said, "don't catch a chill on the monastery roof. And as for you, young lady, take my advice and change medicine. Mu-ni Gam-po's mysterious stuff isn't good for you any longer. You've had enough of it -- more than enough. Try a change."

"But where should I go?"

"Try Nancy Strong. Even Bulah Singh wouldn't dare to fossick in Nancy Strong's medicine chest. Well, so long. See you again soon. Thanks for the information."

He bowed before Mu-ni Gam-po to let the old Abbot touch the crown of his head with a special blessing. Andrew Gunning noted that they whispered to each other. Lewis walked out and the monk shut the door. Elsa spoke in a horrified whisper:

"Andrew! Why did you do it! Why did you tell him!"

The Lord Abbot Mu-ni Gam-po got up and bestowed a murmured blessing. The attendant monk opened the door, followed the Lord Abbot out and left the door slightly ajar. Andrew closed it tight and listened for a moment.

"Andrew, why did you tell Dr. Lewis -- ?"

---

Andrew's face glowed red as he poked at the coals in the brazier with bronze tongs. He carefully placed lumps of charcoal in the burned-out spaces and then stood away from the fumes.

"Snow!" said Elsa. "Blizzards! -- Rain! -- Wind! -- I can see them." There was a change in her voice. "Sometimes it's easy to tell what you're thinking about, Andrew. Only sometimes. Not often."

He turned and faced her. "Yes. It's too early. But that was the last call. Now or never."

"Marching orders?"

"Yes. You heard him. Morgan Lewis was warning me to get going if I don't want to be stopped by Bulah Singh."

"But, Andrew, why did you tell Dr. Lewis what you did, about Lobsang Pun and the Abbot of Shig-po-ling! Those are Tom's secrets. Tom warned you to tell no one except -- "

"Except Johnson. But you heard that too. Johnson has gone -- home to England. If Morgan Lewis hasn't taken Johnson's place, as head of the Tibetan section of the secret intelligence, I miss my guess badly. But Bulah Singh doesn't know yet -- or I guess not -- I think that's what Lewis meant."

"But Dr. Lewis is in charge of a hospital -- "

"Johnson was in charge of the Ethnographic Survey. There weren't fifty people in the world who knew what Johnson's real job was. Probably not more than ten people know about Lewis -- yet."

"But shouldn't you have known for sure before you -- "

"Nothing for nothing in this world, Elsa. Pay as you go. Grabbing at something for nothing is the sure sign of a man who can't be trusted. Lewis told me his news, so I told him mine, although he knew it before I told him. He even knew about Ambrose St. Malo. The secret intelligence trick is to check one report against the other. One rumor, or even one fact means nothing; but if three, four, five, six rumors all check, that's different."

"But, Andrew, should you have told how you get your news?"

"Why not? Lewis wanted to know where Tom is. So I gave him a chance to put two and two together."

"But why tell him where Tom is?"

"Because he offered to help me to reach Tom."

"But, Andrew, he didn't. I heard everything he said."

"Elsa, sometimes you're so naive that it's hard to remember how smart you can be when you're in the mood. If Lewis doesn't mean to help me to get into Tibet, why in thunder do you think he'd tip me off that Bulah Singh is on the watch to prevent me?"

"But if Dr. Morgan Lewis has become the head of the secret intelligence, surely he can give orders to Bulah Singh, can't he? He can tell Bulah Singh to look the other way, while you -- "

"Don't be ridiculous. If Morgan Lewis should make that mistake, Bulah Singh would obey the letter of the orders, but he'd watch more alertly than ever. From then on, he'd have an insider's nuisance value. Nine-tenths of the secret intelligence trick is to keep your subordinates mystified. Bulah Singh has orders to prevent anyone from getting into Tibet. Those are standing, routine orders. But I'll get through. And Bulah Singh will be reprimanded; if he's ready for the trash can he'll be transferred and left wondering who did it to him. But he'll know why. Bulah Singh should have let old Mu-ni Gam-po alone. I'll bet that's where he slipped up. Mu-ni Gam-po is a philosopher who thinks in terms of centuries and has a sense of humor. Bulah Singh is a modern wise-guy who thinks he knows all the answers. Calls himself a skeptic. Actually he's a superstitious fool."

"Bulah Singh superstitious?"

"Sure. That's why he's so eager to prove he isn't."

"I think you're being overconfident, Andrew. Bulah Singh has the reputation of being anything but a fool."

Andrew governed his voice down to the note that flatly indicated patience. "You who can read thoughts! Can't you read between words? Lewis told us, as plainly as he dared, that Bulah Singh has been trying to get Mu-ni Gam-po into trouble for letting me use the monastery roof to watch for smoke signals telling when the pass is open into Tibet. That's why I call Bulah Singh a fool."

"But, Andrew, isn't it true that you -- "

"Sure! And Bulah Singh fell for it -- hard! Fell, too, for the ponies in the monastery stable."

"Well, they're your ponies. I think you're -- "

Andrew stopped her with a gesture. "Listen: my ponies have been getting fat all winter, nearly a hundred miles from here. The loads are ten miles away from the ponies. The men are ten miles away from the loads."

"But, Andrew, it was only three days ago that I saw a big heap of loads with your name on them, piled up in two empty stalls in the stables in this monastery!"

Andrew grinned: "I don't know whether Mu-ni Gam-po knows my name is on them. Those are monastery loads -- routine supplies for Tibet. Bulah Singh's spy will be watching those loads, and watching for my smoke signals too, long after I'm over the border, unless I miss my guess about Morgan Lewis."

"But if you're not really watching for smoke signals, how will you know when the snow has melted enough to make it possible to get through?"

"That was Bompo Tsering's job. He's done it. He brought word last night that there's only one bad place left, and that's negotiable."

"Where is Bompo Tsering?"

"He was ten miles away from the ponies, being watched by one of Bulah Singh's undercover men, who has lost most of his pay to Bompo Tsering at a game that they play with a board and sheeps' knuckle-bones. Just now Bompo Tsering is buying odds and ends and fretting to get away tonight instead of tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? You might have told me, Andrew. I never guessed you'd be going so soon. When Dr. Lewis spoke of my staying with Nancy Strong, I had a presentiment. But -- " She left off speaking, staring at the brazier.

Andrew didn't answer. He paced the floor, clenching a wrist behind his back and stepping accurately on the cracks between the flagstones. After a minute or two he stood facing the narrow window and watched the rain in the courtyard, wondering what the devil to say to Elsa. Worse than that, he was wondering what the devil to say to Tom Grayne when he should reach him, nearly a thousand miles away, up over the Roof of the World. Elsa interrupted his train of thought:

"Andrew, if Dr. Morgan Lewis has become the head of the secret intelligence, and if Mu-ni Gam-po knows it, or even suspects it, why should Dr. Lewis have talked in riddles? Why couldn't he say things plainly?"

Andrew turned his back to the window. He answered almost absent-mindedly, because he was still trying to think what to say to her: "The monk who admitted Morgan Lewis and remained in the room is a spy who reports to Bulah Singh. That's why."

"Oh."

"See here, Elsa."

"Yes, Andrew. What is it?"

"What we were talking about just now."

"You mean about your going away tomorrow? I'd rather not talk about it."

"No. Before that."

"You mean before Mu-ni Gam-po and Dr. Lewis came in?"

"Yes. Have you written a letter for me to take to Tom Grayne?"

"Of course I have. I tore up a dozen attempts. But I got it finished two days ago. It's wrapped in oiled silk. Shall I give it to you now?"

"No. What did you write to him?"

"More than twenty pages, Andrew, both sides of the paper."

"If you don't care to tell me what you wrote, okay, it's none of my God-damned business. That suits me. I'll deliver the letter and say nothing."

"Andrew, you may read the letter if you want to."

"I don't want to."

Elsa uncurled herself, rearranged the cushions and sat nearly upright. Her eyes looked hunted. "Nearly half the letter," she said, "is about the baby. After that I told Tom what I have told you. I told Tom he is free. I told him he needn't worry about me any more. His papers will be quite safe in the bank vault in London, and I'll leave the key with Professor Mayor. I told him how sorry I am to have caused him so much distress, and that he mustn't blame himself because it was absolutely all of it my fault. And -- "

Andrew strode toward her: "That's what I'd have betted you'd done!" He sat down on the edge of the basalt throne exactly where Lewis had sat, glaring, and scowling so that his eyes were hardly visible beneath the lowered eyebrows. Then he suddenly controlled himself, pulled out the head of Chenrezi, resumed carving it and didn't speak until he knew his voice was steady. It almost seemed as if he was speaking to the carved face of Chenrezi:

"Elsa, I'm going to talk to you as a friend if it's the last time."

"That's what I asked you to do."

"You're not playing it straight."

"What do you mean, Andrew? I'm dishonest?"

"Why ask for advice, and insist on telling me the lowdown, when you'd shot your bolt already? Do you call that playing it straight? If you've done it, you've done it. So why ask me? Do you want to be told you're a Virgin Mary suffering for the sins of the world? All right, I'll -- "

"You are too cruel, Andrew. I suppose I asked for it, but you might at least -- "

"Pull my punches? I won't. I hate cruelty. But what do you call what you're doing? Go ahead, give it a name!"

"You said you'd tell me the answer!"

"Yes, but I didn't know then that you'd written to Tom and told him, from a thousand miles away, where he gets off. I only guessed it. Guesses don't cut ice."

Elsa stared at him wide-eyed. He waited for her to speak. She couldn't. She was almost afraid of him. Her parted lips and bewildered eyes might have checked him if he hadn't been carving that piece of wood. He continued, without looking at her.

"Tom never lied to you, did he?"

"No, never."

"Do you love each other?"

"I would never have conceived his baby if I didn't love him."

"But you don't love him now? Or are you letting Lovelace do your thinking: `I could not love thee, dear, so much, lov'd I not honor more' -- and all that piffle?"

"Andrew, what do you want me to do? I'm thought out. I don't know what to think. If you're going away, you might at least -- "

"Do your thinking for you? Not I! And I won't yes you either. But see here. I'll use your phrase. You offered yourself -- "

"Yes, like millions of other women, to an ideal -- to an idea!"

"Boloney! You offered yourself to Tom Grayne. Tom accepted. If you've told me the truth, you've no right to run out on him. It's unfinished business."

Elsa broke down at last, sobbing quietly, trying to hide the sound from Andrew, counting on the flickering shadows and the male's natural gift for not noticing things. If he should guess she was crying he might suspect her of trying to arouse pity. He knew she was crying. But he knew her too well to entertain any such suspicion as that. Pretending not to notice, he told her bluntly, almost brutally, what she wanted to tell him:

"You're disillusioned. You feel helpless. You can't help Tom by staying here: you're too closely watched by Bulah Singh. You can't claim you're married, because that might get Tom in trouble. No one here knows who was your child's father; half of Darjeeling suspects me. You've roughed it long enough with Tom, on the Roof of the World, to know you'd die of constipated bitterness in the pink-tea world you came from. You'd hate like hell to go back to that. Your bit of an income would keep you off the dole. It 'ud pay bus fares and a library subscription. You could go to the cinema once or twice a week. You might even stand outside Buckingham Palace and watch the King go by. And you might get a job teaching school -- but there'd be an inspector from the Board of Education to make sure you didn't teach the kids that there's any other standard of value than money, or any other viewpoint than a mugwump's."

"Yes, Andrew. Yes. Yes. Is that the answer?"

"I'm going soon. When I'm gone, you'll be alone."

"Lonely as a ghost!"

"Mu-ni Gam-po is sympathetic, but he mistrusts women. And Nancy Strong is a woman, so you don't trust her. You don't get along with women."

"Andrew, that isn't true."

"Yes, it is."

"You know nothing about it. You've never seen me with other women. How could you possibly know?"

"I'm telling you. You listen. What pulled you through bearing a child in a blizzard at sixteen thousand feet above sea level wasn't so much your guts as what you used 'em for. Don't forget. I was in on that episode."

"How could I ever forget?"

"You just wouldn't be licked because you were fighting back at the whole damned traditional curse that was laid on women when some Levite, who had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem under Ezra, rewrote the Book of Genesis. You were fighting the Apostle Paul and the whole army of phony feminists. Do you want to tell me you can stand the company of women who yowl for sex equality and bet their sex against the field like any two-tailed penny in a crooked two-up joint? They nearly all do it. The political ones are the worst."

"But there are other kinds of women, Andrew."

"Yes, and you're one of the others. You're clairvoyant. You can see -- "

"Andrew, I hate it! Don't pretend that's any good! It's a curse! It isn't even reliable. I can't use it when I want to, when it's needed, when it might help other people. It comes and goes, almost always at the wrong time. It makes me a stranger. People think it's uncanny. They pester me to tell their fortunes -- especially other people's fortunes -- and when I refuse they think I'm keeping back something too evil to tell. But if I do tell what I see, because I forget not to, they think I'm a witch in league with Satan -- Oh, go away, Andrew! Go away! Leave me alone! I'm very, very grateful for all you've done. But there's nothing more you can do. I'm sorry I inflicted all this on you. It wasn't fair."

"Nothing's fair," he answered. "Nobody is. We're all liabilities, some of us doing our best, which isn't much. This world is the only hell we'll ever know. We've got to take it and make the best of it, because we can't leave it. It isn't a case of devil take the hindmost. The devil gets the front men first as the general rule, and gets all of us sooner or later."

"You believe in the devil?"

"Sure I do. You and I and all the rest of us are all one devil."

"I have never heard you even mention God, except when you're angry. Do you believe in God?"

"I don't believe in anything that I believe in," he answered. "Anything that we believe in is pretty sure to be wrong. But I know there's God. That's different. What you know can't hurt you. What do you know?"

"Oh, I've left off caring! No! There's no God! No Christ! Nothing! Go away, Andrew. I'll pack up and go to Nancy Strong's house. Mu-ni Gam-po will send my things after me. Please come and say good-bye before you leave for Tibet, and -- "She sat suddenly bolt upright, possessed by a new idea. "Andrew! If I burn that letter -- that I wrote for you to give to Tom -- will you -- will you tell him instead?"

"No. I won't. That was a hell of a letter to write to a man." He got to his feet. "Where is it?"

Elsa hesitated. Suddenly she got up and went to the writing table where her English translation of Tibetan folios lay piled in a heap. She took the letter from a leather folder. It was wrapped in oilskin and heavily sealed. She stood holding it between the fingers of both hands, looking thoroughbred -- slim, mettlesome, beginning to be very angry. Andrew stood still, watching.

"You're proud, aren't you, Andrew? You're too proud to have a hand in what looks to you like cowardice. Your pride is cruel. You're hard. But I can be as hard as you are. So very well: I will burn the letter. Then you shall tell me the answer."

"Now you're talking," said Andrew.

"No, I'm not. I'm burning my bridges, once more, for the last time."

Andrew stepped aside and watched her lay the letter on the hot coal in the brazier. The burning silk stank; so did the sealing wax; it made her gasp, but even that didn't conceal from Andrew the fact that her expression changed while she watched the letter turn to ashes . At last she met his eyes, across the brazier.

"Andrew -- just now you were thinking about the snow in the passes toward Tibet and what the spring storms will be like. I saw your mental picture -- all the long trail -- all of it -- all in a moment."

"That's nothing," he answered. "Lots of people could do that. What else?"

"You weren't alone on the trail."

"Of course I wasn't. Don't be silly. There'll be Bompo Tsering and the rest of the Tibetan gang. There'll be ponies, and -- "

"There was someone else -- shadowy -- someone who didn't belong, and yet did belong. It's hard to explain. It's as if the others, and the ponies, and the loads, and the trail are all fixed in our mind and quite clear, including even the men's characters and the ponies' temperaments. But the other person was vague, as if you weren't sure, or didn't like the idea, or -- "

"Who was it?" he demanded.

"Andrew! I've no right to ask this. It isn't fair. It isn't even reasonable. Will you let me go with you to Tibet?"

"Okay."

"Andrew, are you -- "

"I said yes. The hell of it is, it means three extra ponies and maybe a couple of extra yaks to carry fodder for the ponies, and an extra tent, and your rations. It'll be harder to get away, and there'll be trouble about staying where they don't like women -- and -- "

"Oh, I know. It's impossible! Andrew, I shouldn't have asked. I know I shouldn't have."

"You can't play it straight anyhow else, if you can stand the journey. Can you stand it?"

"Andrew, I can stand anything! I'm as strong as a horse. Really I am. I'm all over it -- quite well again. Andrew, honestly if I didn't know I could make it I wouldn't -- "

"Okay. It'll be tough going."

"Don't I know it! But I did it before when I was heavy with child. It should be easier this time. But what will Tom say?"

"That's Tom's business."

"Tom told me to stay in Darjeeling."

"Yeah. I heard him. But he asked me to do the best I can for you. I said I would. So that's that. I'll go and see about those extra ponies before Bulah Singh gets wise to us."

"One minute, Andrew! Please wait! How about Dr. Morgan Lewis? What will he say?"

"We'll find that out soon enough. He won't be so easy as Bulah Singh. Can't fool Lewis. But he's on the level. I'm betting he's the new Number One in Johnson's place. If I'm right, we're in luck."

"Andrew, you're the kindest and most astonishing man in the world. What can I say that -- "

"Say nothing. Just do as you're told and you'll be all right."

"Very well, Andrew. I know it's no use thanking you for anything. From now on I'm taking orders. You give them. Am I to go to Nancy Strong's house?"

"Sure. Lewis tipped us off about that."

"Very well. But Nancy will ask questions, and she'll know what kind of questions to ask."

"Answer her questions. Make sure no one overhears you, that's all. I'll see Mu-ni Gam-po on my way out and get him to sleight- of-hand you out of here by the back way, so that Bulah Singh won't know about it. He'll know Morgan Lewis has been here. So we'd better keep the curtains drawn and send out a rumor you've had a relapse. I'll attend to all that. How long will it take you to pack your things?"

"Fifteen-twenty minutes."

"Go to it. Keep under cover at Nancy Strong's until you hear from me again. I'll send saddlebags to Nancy's, and you'll have to get her to buy any extras you'll need. Leave your manuscripts with Mu-ni Gam-po. Nancy Strong will take care of anything else you have to leave behind. Will you trust me to buy you a traveling kit?"

"Andrew, is there anything you can't be trusted to do?"

His expression made her wish she hadn't said it. He always shook off flattery, and even genuine praise and gratitude, as if the thought of it hurt him.

"Give me one of your boots," he answered. "I'll take that with me for, the right size."

Elsa produced a felt boot from a chest. Andrew wrapped it in a woolen shawl and tucked it under his arm.

"All right. Then I'll get going and attend to things. I'm glad you're coming."

"You're glad I'm coming? Andrew, please don't think you have to say that kind of thing. I'm -- "

"You go to Nancy Strong's and be ready to start at a moment's notice, any hour, day or night. No letters, remember. No telegrams. No good-byes for Bulah Singh to listen in on."

"Trust me. I wouldn't dream of it."

"There's nothing else, is there?"

"Yes, just one other thing. Andrew l I know you don't like sentimental scenes, so I won't make one. And besides, I'm so grateful to you that I couldn't say it anyhow. But -- but -- "

"Oh, that's all right. You keep your head and hold your tongue and you'll be all right. See you later."

Andrew walked out, leaving her standing beside the brazier, staring after him, wondering. The door slammed. The coals in the brazier sank. A bell summoned the monks to chapel. Silence became a dimension of dim-hued existence. With the faculty that she hated, of visualizing absent people so clearly that they seemed more real than when they were actually present, she saw Andrew Gunning now, exactly as he had stood a few moments ago beside the brazier talking to her. But, as in a dream when time and space coalesce without confusion, she could simultaneously see him by the window, and on the edge of the basalt throne, carving Chenrezi's head, fencing verbally with Morgan Lewis, scowling at some of her own remarks. And there was Bulah Singh, the Sikh Chief of Police, gazing at her. Simultaneously there was Tom Grayne, hundreds of miles to the northward, solitary, in a cave, in Tibet. And she knew Tom was thinking of her. He was angry -- unhappy -- uncertain and -- so it seemed to her vision -- ashamed.

She dragged out a battered suitcase and began packing.

---

At the end of the rain-swept courtyard Andrew mounted the stairs and tried to interview Mu-ni Gam-po. But at the corner of the long gallery, where the passage turned off to the Abbot's apartment, he was told by a smiling monk that blessed meditation must not be disturbed. That was a plain diplomatic evasion. He could hear voices. Whoever was meditating in the Abbot's apartment was doing it noisily with at least three voices.

Andrew paced the wooden gallery. His footsteps echoed across the courtyard. He was consequently watched by monks, whose gift for grapevine gossip was as well developed as if they had been prisoners in a penitentiary. He was a scandal, the butt of guesswork. The usual bells rang. The routine two-by-two and to-and-fro processions of monks through the courtyard arch continued -- mysterious goings and comings, whose mystery was how humans could endure such routine.

It left off raining. A few stars appeared. The moon broke through hurrying clouds and was reflected like a stream of pure gold on the dark wet courtyard paving-stones. Lonely. Beautiful. Unreal. Andrew fought for a grip on reality -- an enormously difficult thing to do in a crisis, in which the only certainty was that nothing was certain. Facts were dead things, meaning whatever one chose to make them mean. Ideas were playing havoc with the facts. Somewhere between fact and idea lay reason. But even reason was a mess of contradictions. The reason why he had simply, naturally, intuitionally recognized the rightness of taking Elsa back to Tom Grayne was smothered and contradicted by plausible, logical matter of fact.

"Intuition is right. Logic is wrong -- or there'd never be anything new. Yes there would, though. There's a logic of intuition."

So thought Andrew, with the part of him that did think. Part of his mind was musing on the trail toward Tibet -- wind-swept passes twenty thousand feet above sea level -- chasms and crags and the merciless rivers that shout like fighting devils between cliffs where eagles build their nests beneath a turquoise sky. He hated Tibet -- loved it because he hated it, hatred and love being one. No need to think. He could half close his eyes and remember, just as clearly as one sees the Himalayan panorama from the Singalila Ridge. He knew all the known difficulties, and knew there were thousands more that he couldn't imagine. He could see what he did know, all in one picture: Tibet; Elsa; Tom Grayne. Those were facts that must interpret themselves -- or be interpreted by the light of an idea that hadn't yet dawned on reason. Andrew himself was a fact; a self-contradictory, curious fact -- pitiless, generous, skeptical, credulous, all in one. A lover of conflict. A hater of quarrels. A poet, who had never written one line of poetry nor sung one song of his own making, yet who knew he was a poet. Paradoxical lover of lofty views that made him veil his thought with blunt, ungracious words. That much he knew of himself and could laugh at -- at least smile at. He could see himself as a remarkably comical fellow, to be handled with alert discretion because there was a streak in him that he knew no more about than other people did and that caused him to surprise himself. He wasn't thinking about that; but he saw it, mentally, while he tried to concentrate on what to say to Mu-ni Gam-po.

The mental picture and conflict were interrupted suddenly by voices in the door of Mu-ni Gam-po's antechamber. He was instantly alert, but he continued pacing the gallery until he reached the head of the stairs. There he turned in no hurry and retraced his footsteps; becoming angry, not because he recognized the men coming toward him but because he had been too stupid not to expect them. Morgan Lewis, side by side with the Chief of Police Bulah Singh, in step together, laughing, joking -- strangely military -- looking figures in the cloistered dimness, though they were not in uniform. There was only one electric light, in an enameled frame, on a beam of the gallery roof. All three came to a halt under it, sharply limned against the shadows, facing one another. Morgan Lewis produced his monocle, screwed it into his eye -- a symptom -- a gleaming symbol of urbane artfulness. Bulah Singh merely nodded, staring at the bundle under Andrew's arm that concealed Elsa's boot.

"This saves no end of looking for you," said Lewis. "Not on your way to see Mu-ni Gam-po, are you?"

"Sure. Is he in?"

"Yes. But don't waste time trying to see him. He's busy. Bulah Singh has brought some matters to his attention that will occupy him for several hours. You know Bulah Singh, don't you?"

"Sure." Andrew smiled because the lamplight shone full in his face and the Sikh was watching him intently.

"You should know each other better," said Lewis. "Both of you are good talkers. Why not get together some time? Oh, by the way, Gunning, I asked Mu-ni Gam-po about that translation. He said he'd attend to it. So if that's what you wanted to see him about you needn't trouble."

The Sikh watched Andrew's face but Lewis distracted attention by dropping his monocle -- caught it in the palm of his hand -- tossed it two or three times, and replaced it in his eye.

"One of these days you'll be shot for doing that," the Sikh remarked. "Someone will mistake it for a signal and he'll plug you in the gizzard."

"I must cure myself of habits," Lewis answered. "The good habits are the worst ones."

"Are you walking my way?" Andrew asked, addressing both men. "I think I'll go to the hotel and maybe turn in."

"We're important people. We've a car," said Lewis. "We'll give you a lift. It's Bulah Singh's car but -- "

"Perfectly delighted," said the Chief of Police, sounding as if he meant it. "Let's go. As a matter of fact, if Mr. Gunning can spare the time, I'd like a chat with him."

It was a command, not an invitation. There was malice in the Sikh's dark eyes. Andrew ignored that.

"Come and have a drink at the hotel," he suggested.

"Yes. I'm thirsty."

They walked together to the stairhead, Andrew on the outside, watching Lewis for a signal. Lewis made none. They tramped down the stone steps side by side, jumped one by one across the puddle at the foot of the stairs, drew abreast again and awoke the monastery echoes as they marched in step toward the archway that divided outer and inner courtyards. Not a word. Not a hint. Not a sign. Not even the monocle now; it had returned to Lewis's vest pocket. Andrew broke the silence:

"Lewis, you'll join us of course for a drink?"

"No. Not this time. I've a case to look up -- very interesting case. Called in for consultation. So I think I'll drop you two at the hotel and send the car back for Bulah Singh -- that's to say, if Bulah Singh will permit."

"Why, certainly." The Sikh appeared off guard and anxious to please. "Just tell the driver where to take you."

No one spoke again until they had tramped through the long dark archway and halfway across the outer courtyard. Then Bulah Singh spoke in a casual tone of voice that didn't quite conceal a tart sub-flavor:

"Lots of ponies in the monastery stables. Your loads are stowed here, aren't they, Gunning?"

"It saves renting a godown," Andrew answered. "I took the precaution of having the loads marked with my name, to prevent misunderstanding."

The Sikh was about to say something but Morgan Lewis interrupted: "By the way, if you're in no hurry, Bulah Singh, I'd like to keep your car until the consultation's over. Is that putting too much strain on your good nature?"

"Keep it as long as you please," said the Sikh. "Gunning will have to endure my company until you bring the car back, that's all."

Andrew suspected guile, but he did not glance at Morgan Lewis, lest Bulah Singh should also draw conclusions. The Sikh seemed unconscious of possible ulterior motive beneath Lewis's innocent air.

"Gunning and I should find plenty to talk about," he remarked. "I look forward to it." He very evidently did look forward to it.

Andrew got into the waiting car, in the narrow street outside the monastery front gate, aware of a new admiration for Morgan Lewis. "Translation" obviously meant that Elsa would be spirited away to Nancy Strong's house out of Bulah Singh's reach -- she -- Elijah in a chariot of petrol. And Lewis had cleverly jockeyed the Chief of Police into a corner, to be entertained and encouraged to talk while Lewis used unseen wires -- perhaps telephone wires. Lewis was trusting him -- perhaps trying him out. One false move, one ill-considered remark, and Bulah Singh might close the passes in spite of anything Lewis could do. Lewis probably had no executive authority, whereas the Sikh did have. Then worse would happen. Tom Grayne would be left without support or supplies, helpless, useless, more than nine hundred miles away over the Roof of the World.

It was abundantly clear to Andrew that the Government was willing he should recross the forbidden frontier into Tibet -- but that the Sikh wasn't in on the deal -- not yet, at any rate -- and there was conflict beneath the surface.

---

Bulah Singh despised all amateurs. He was himself a professional in every sense of the word. He had taken courses in criminology in Germany and France; had written, for important quarterlies, a number of praiseworthy papers on the history and development of crime in India. He believed he had peered beneath the mask of consciousness and understood the underlying automatic metaphysical mechanics of human behavior. He had dabbled in Karl Marx, Freud, Adler, Watson and Cesare Lombroso. He regarded himself as an atheist, but he had studied many religions diligently because of their obvious bearing on the problem of what people believe and are likely to do. Intellectually vain, he was equally vain of his appearance, careful to look as little like a policeman as possible. He didn't even look like a Sikh. He never wore a uniform if he could help it, bought his soft felt hats in Vienna and his clothes in London. A powerful, lean, clean-shaven, rather dark-skinned man with magnificent teeth and dark brown eyes that sometimes suggested gentleness and humor. It was his mouth, when he wasn't consciously controlling it, that betrayed him; it revealed cruelty, deliberately studied, intellectually built into the structure of his thought.

He sat down in a long armchair in the room next to Andrew's bedroom and was at pains to pretend to observe his surroundings. In a secret file at police headquarters there was a list of every single object in the room. In the same file were copies of all Andrew's recent correspondence, together with a not quite accurate account of his activities since the day he was born. Andrew guessed as much; he had detected finger marks on rifled documents; and besides, he was quite familiar with the means by which police in all the countries of the world inform themselves and one another. He held the whiskey bottle poised over a tumbler and raised one eyebrow.

"Up to the pretty," said Bulah Singh. "Not too much soda. No ice."

Andrew tossed Elsa's boot through the bedroom door and sat down facing him, after making sure that there was no one lurking in the corridor. That trick worked. The Sikh fell for it -- boasted:

"Don't be nervous. One of my men is at the head of the stairs to make sure we're not interrupted. I planned this conversation."

"Very thoughtful of you."

"I have had to think about you." Bulah Singh lighted a cigarette, blew the smoke through his nose, crossed his knees and selected the English method of disarming frankness. "You have me puzzled."

"Sometimes I'm a puzzle to myself," said Andrew.

Bulah Singh stuck to the brusque British method. "Come now. No metaphysics. I'm a practical man. So are you. Let's lay cards on the table, faces upward."

Andrew's smile was as disarming as the Sikh's assumed frankness: "Okay. Suits me. You first."

Bulah Singh's eyes betrayed a flash of resentment. He was used to being feared and diffidently treated. He forgot for a tenth of a second to govern the line of his mouth. He led the ace of trumps:

"The frontier into Tibet is closed," he remarked, adding after a second's pause: "tight as a drum."

Andrew followed suit with a little one: "I've heard it's your business to see that no one gets through."

"Yes. Not even a native Tibetan can return home without my leave. When the passes are open -- that won't be long now -- there'll be quite an exodus. There are two ways to get permits. The wise ones will come to my office. The unwise ones will regret their lack of discretion."

Andrew offered no comment. He lighted his pipe.

"It's my impression," said Bulah Singh after a moment's silence, "that it's your immediate ambition to rejoin Tom Grayne in Tibet."

"I've thought of doing it," said Andrew. "But do you appreciate what a journey it would be by way of China, with China being raped by the Japanese? It would take at least six months -- perhaps longer. It would cost like hell, too."

"Ah. But how about returning by the way you came?"

Andrew's smile widened: "Are you suggesting that I'm fool enough to try to escape your vigilance?"

"Tom Grayne was one of Johnson's pets," said Bulah Singh, tasting his whiskey. "That's how Tom Grayne got through." He watched Andrew's face narrowly, under lowered eyelids, over the top of the glass, then set the glass down slowly on the small brass-topped table beside the chair and continued: "Johnson is no longer with us. His worst fault was that he couldn't train a successor. The job is vacant. There are several candidates."

"Are you one of them?"

The Sikh avoided the question. "You are no tenderfoot," he remarked. "I think that is the correct word. You know as well as I do that reciprocity and mutual concessions are the secret of all bargains."

Andrew agreed: "Sure. Nothing for nothing."

Bulah Singh sipped whiskey without looking at him. No need to look; he had his victim interested. All that remained was to jiggle the bait: "Suppose I tell what I know," he suggested. "Then you tell what you know. Something might come of it."

"Swell."

"You are clever, Andrew Gunning, or I wouldn't waste time talking to you. Beneath that air of almost brutal directness you're as smart as a fox. But even foxes make mistakes. I happen to know that Tom Grayne is somewhere near Shig-po-ling, short of provisions. You want to take provisions to him. I have had to speak to the Abbot Mu-ni Gam-po about those loads of yours. If they should be moved from the monastery stable without my permission it would be awkward for Mu-ni Gam-po."

Andrew looked serious: "Glad you mentioned it. The old Abbot has been kind to Elsa Burbage. Kind to me, too. I'd hate to make trouble for him."

Bulah Singh nodded: "Mu-ni Gam-po can't afford any more mistakes. He has been playing with fire for too many years. His method is shopworn -- amateurish. His political sagacity is sticky with religion. It belongs to a dead era that has been decomposing since the World War and was buried at last when Johnson of the Ethnographic Survey left for England. Johnson was a typical B.S.I. -- bigot, stupid, incorruptible. A reactionary."

"I never met him," said Andrew.

"So I understand. Johnson was trained, if you care to call it training, in the days when Whitehall's grip on India was strong. He was an amateur, with all the faults that go with it. Too many irons in the fire. No concentration. You're aware, I suppose, that the B.S.I. controls the Foreign Office? Actually it secretly rules the British Empire. It's even independently financed, from Persian oil wells. Well -- there's a strong undercurrent in favor of changing all that, at least as concerns India. A professional -- Indian by birth -- responsible to Delhi, not Whitehall -- do you get me?"

"Sure," said Andrew, gravely courteous. "Changes are going on everywhere. Who'd heard of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, twenty, years ago? I guess it's simply a matter of the right man, at the right moment, with the right information and the right idea."

Bulah Singh blew a smoke ring and pushed his finger through it, indicating bull's-eye, first shot, and time to be careful. "I could use some information about Tibet," he remarked.

Andrew accepted the opening: "Yes, whoever could swing Tibet would be powerful. He could upset any political calculations. But are you young enough? And have you the backing in India?"

"I have detractors. I have enemies," said Bulah Singh. "Envy, jealousy, malice, are inseparable fro politics. Very few people can be impersonal when it comes to making political appointments. As for impartiality, that consists in understanding neither side of a problem. Some very influential people, who call themselves impartial, and perhaps believe it, are opposed to the principle of putting an Indian into a key position, no matter what his qualifications. Their prejudices masquerade as principles. But I'm a realist. Hard facts are what interest me."

"What facts do you want to know?" Andrew asked.

"Well -- for instance -- " he blew smoke through his nose " -- who pays you?"

"No one. I've a private income. I'm a free lance."

Bulah Singh's eyes hardened: "Ummnn. If I believed that, it might possibly simplify matters. But the fact is, you're an agent of the United States Department of State, or else of the Treasury, or the Army or Navy, or possibly even the Postal Department. Who sent you from Shanghai to Shig-po-ling?"

"The same man who pays Tom Grayne," Andrew answered.

Bulah Singh sipped at his drink thoughtfully. "I know who pays Tom Grayne," he said after a moment.

"Swell. Then we needn't discuss it."

"You are unpaid? That is very interesting, if true. Have you any idea why the American Government should be interested in what's going on in Tibet? As a private citizen, unpaid, I suppose you feel free to discuss that?"

"Well," said Andrew, "since you ask me, it's my guess that the American Government doesn't give a good God-damn what's happening in Tibet. You'll have to take that or leave it. I believe it's the truth."

The Sikh sneered. "It is one hundred per cent true that you can't cross the border into Tibet -- without my leave. You'd better talk."

"Well," said Andrew, "if my opinion's any use to you, I'd say that our Army and Navy are Watching Japan. Why shouldn't they? If they know what Japan's commitments and intentions are they can bear 'em in mind. If the Japs win, the Far East cat jumps one way. If the Chinese win, it jumps the other way. Forewarned is forearmed."

"Forewarned is what you are now," said Bulah Singh. lf you want special favors -- "

"I don't," said Andrew.

"If you don't want special inconvenience, and even special arrest, under special regulations, devised for the special purpose of preventing unauthorized or seditious acts -- I advise you to tell me plainly why Tom Grayne is interested in the infant Dalai Lama, and what his and your interest amounts to."

"That's a long story," said Andrew. "You know, of course, how they go about getting a new Dalai Lama?"

Bulah Singh betrayed a flash of impatience. But he appeared to decide that Andrew wasn't quite ripe yet for plucking. "Yes," he said after a moment, "I have made a study of that. Such superstitions are more revealing than even Frazer points out in his Golden Bough. Have you read that?"

"Some of it," said Andrew. "I read two or three volumes and got bored."

"A study of Frazer explains why Hitler is inventing a new religion for the Germans; and why he attacks Christianity."

"What's your point?" asked Andrew. "What are you driving at?"

Bulah Singh's eyes were excited, but he talked on patiently: "The Tibetan superstition, that a dead Dalai Lama reincarnates almost instantly into the body of a newborn child, would be comical if it weren't actually, when it's well analyzed, the same old myth that's at the root of all religion. Of course in practice it sets up, a vicious circle because of the human craving for power. Poison is the obvious corollary; any criminologist could foretell that. The men behind the scenes poison a Dalai Lama and set up a Council of Regents, who then claim supernatural guidance and in due course they discover a child into whose body the poisoned victim is supposed to have reincarnated. They take the child away from his mother and control him until just before he comes of age. Then again they poison him, and begin all over. That makes it very nice for the Council of Regents."

"You seem to know as much about it as I do," said Andrew. "Why don't you come to the point? I won't betry your confidences."

The Sikh stared. He was startled: "Pardon me," he said. "Let's understand each other. It is your confidences that won't be betrayed -- provided they're of value to me."

Andrew laughed. "The difficulty is, I know no more than you do. However, here's the low-down, for what it's worth. If you know it already, say so, and I'll stop talking. The Council of Regents in Lhasa, with one exception, are political crooks with phony religious credentials. For centuries it has been the first principle of the Tibetan political game to play off the Dalai Lama against the Panchen Lama, and make rivals of them, instead of co-rulers as they're supposed to be. But now there's neither Dalai nor Panchen Lama. A few years ago, you remember, they chased the Panchen Lama into exile in China, because he was too incorrigibly honest. After that, they poisoned the best Dalai Lama that Tibet ever had. That gave the ball to the political gang. So they staged the usual circus, scoured the countryside and discovered a newborn child whom they identified as the Dalai Lama's successor. The Panchen Lama imposed his official veto. But the Regents treated that as a joke because they had chased him out of Tibet and he couldn't come back. He died in exile quite recently. So the new infant Dalai Lama's divine right to the throne of Tibet stands unchallenged. He has a propaganda value."

"He has more than that," said the Sikh,

"Call it poker, if you prefer the word." Andrew was warming up. "The point is that China, Japan and Russia realize his potential value. They are employing some of the cleverest secret agents in the world, and almost unlimited money, to gain political control of Tibet. Tibet is not the obvious key, but it's the real key to the control of Asia. And the key to Tibet is the infant Dalai Lama. Have I made that clear?"

"Yes. That's a good precis. But there's nothing secret about it," said Bulah Singh. "It even appeared in the American newspapers. I have the clippings. What else do you know?"

"Probably no more than you know," said Andrew. "The self-appointed Council of Regents in Lhasa have been bribed alternately by Russian, Japanese and Chinese agents, and supplied with weapons and so on. They've been fed so much bull and boloney and lying propaganda that they're three parts crazy. They'd rather cut each other's throats than come in out of the wet. They all thought themselves Machiavellis, but now they feel more like hayseeds in a gyp-joint. There was only one member of the Council who ever rated as a real number one man. No doubt you've heard of him. They gave him the works. Damned near killed him. Chased him out of Lhasa. He's in hiding."

Bulah Singh's eyes narrowed. He interrupted. Which one do you refer to?"

"I don't know him personally. Never met him," said Andrew. "Tom Grayne knows him well."

"Ah." The Sikh's eyes glittered. "Then Elsa Burbage also knows him?"

Andrew noticed the tactical change of attack. He sensed the sudden lunge of directed thought, like a rapier under his guard.

"Dr. Lewis could tell you," he answered. He knew it wasn't a clever answer, but it gave him a second in which to think and recover.

The Sikh followed up: "I am asking you, not Lewis."

"Yes. I heard you."

"Is the man you mean the Ringding Gelong Lama Lobsang Pun?"

"If you know him, why ask me?" Andrew retorted.

The Sikh nodded dark then demanded suddenly: "Where is the infant Dalai Lama? Do you know?"

"You may have later news than mine," said Andrew, "but what happened is this: the Abbot of Shig-po-ling is no more a genuine Abbot than you or I, but he's one of the Regents -- his right name is Ram-pa Yap-shi. He carried off the infant Dalai Lama to the fortified monastery at Shig-po-ling, where he is dickering with Russian and Japanese agents. Perhaps with Chinese agents too. Presumably he'll sell out to the highest bidder."

The Sikh nodded: "That isn't news, but it's true. Physical possession of the infant Dalai Lama would be a bargain at any price," he remarked. "How old is he?"

"He must be about five years old by now."

"Still young enough. The Jesuits were right about catching them young. Mussolini is following suit. So are Stalin and Hitler -- training infants. So is Nancy Strong, God damn her! Teach the child, the man obeys. Sow now and reap the Future. The child is father to the man. Educated by Japan, the Dalai Lama would be Japanese. Educated by a Russian expert, he would become more Russian than Stalin himself. What is Tom Grayne doing?"

Andrew grinned genially: "If I knew, I'd tell you."

"You do know. You have means of communication with Tom Grayne in Tibet."

Andrew stiffened. "If he and I corresponded by mail, you'd have no need to ask questions, would you?"

The Sikh also stiffened. He had finished feinting. He commenced actual assault. Its violence was hypnotic: "You correspond by way of Sinkiang, Hongkong and Macao. Smart work, but not secret from me. You have another, much more secret means. Cooperate, in that, with me -- or take the consequences."

"I don't think I get you." said Andrew.

"No? I will drop you a hint."

"Go to it."

"Did you ever hear that during the World War the German High Seas Fleet put to sea, not long before the Battle of Jutland, simply and solely to find out whether it was true, as they suspected, that the British Admiralty had occult means of reading the German secret signals?"

"No, I never heard of that. I don't believe it," said Andrew.

"Don't you! Then read what Admiral Bacon says about it in his life of Lord Fisher. I can lend you the book."

"I don't care if it's in fifty books. I don't believe it," said Andrew.

Bulah Singh smiled importantly: "Von Tirpitz and Ludendorff did believe it. Why? Because they themselves were also trying to use occult means, in competition with the British secret intelligence."

"How do you know that?"

"I knew Ludendorff -- after the war. But before the war, I was one of the secret observers appointed to watch the staff of the German Crown Prince when he came to India. Do you know why the Crown Prince was obliged to leave India so suddenly?"

"I was in short pants in those days," said Andrew. "I was learning all about Santa'Claus and George Washington and the Cherry Tree, and how the doctor brings newborn babies in a handbag."

"Members of the Crown Prince's staff," said Bulah Sing, "were discovered attempting to establish a telepathic link with Indian seditionists for propaganda purposes in time of war. It was I who caught them at it. The Crown Prince was given his walking orders, and the Germans never did get beyond the experimental stage."

"That kind of thing is darned easy to say," Andrew remarked. "I should say it's less easy to prove."

'Impossible to prove!" The Sikh's eyes glowered like an angry dog's. "That is its value! Its virtue! Its importance. That is why you get away with it! That is why you and I can't deal on ordinary terms. There must be guarantees. How do you wish to return to Tibet?"

"No orders yet," said Andrew eyeing him hard. "I've been wondering whether some of my correspondence has been held up."

The Sikh accepted the challenge: "Oh, I'll be quite frank about that. Your mail goes through the usual channels. The one you received from the United States last Tuesday was in code. I read it. It was signed `Hofstedder.' It said something about taking a walk that suggested a possible double meaning. That's why I asked where you're hoping to go."

"I have the letter in my pocket," Andrew answered.

"Well, see here, Gunning. Let's suppose that the dice should be loaded a bit in your favor. Let's suppose you should slip over the border discreetly without any risk of being caught. Would you reciprocate?"

"How? In what way?"

"In any way I stipulate."

Andrew grinned: "That's a tall order. You'd better explain."

Bulah Singh stood up. He lighted another cigarette. He half closed his eyes. He came closer to Andrew, standing over him, looking down at him. His mouth didn't look like a man's any longer; it suggested a gash made by a surgeon's knife. He held his voice down to a flat monotone.

"I've got you by the short hair, Andrew Gunning. There's no India Office visa on your passport. There's the little matter of Elsa Burbage to be explained. And there are those loads at the monastery. Taking a walk is exactly you are going to do -- in either of two directions. Agree with me, and over the Roof of the World with you. Otherwise, take the first boat from Calcutta or Bombay. Which is it?"

The knuckles of Andrew's fingers that clutched the chair-arm turned white under the pressure of self-control. The professional Bulah Singh should have noticed it, but he seemed not to. Andrew knew that Morgan Lewis had purposely left him alone with the Sikh. He couldn't risk anger. He glanced at his watch, at the door, at the window; made a rather amateurish effort to look furtive, realized that the Sikh saw through that, changed it to a skeptical grin that was far more effective, and said: "Sit down. Help yourself to a drink. Let's talk things over."

---

Elsa's bazaar-bought raincoat made a pool around her feet on the floor of Nancy Strong's hallway. The turbaned servant who hung up the raincoat and knelt to wipe her wet shoes clucked solicitous comment. He was used to all kinds of people -- even well-bred, gently mannered people in inexpensive clothes, who came without warning in the rain, at unconscionable hours. But why no galoshes? Why were her shoes not wetter than they were? If she hadn't walked, how had she got there? The effort of suppressing the urge to ask questions so occupied his mind that he forgot his manners and left her standing in the hall while he switched on the light in the livingroom and frugally added pine knots to the blazing fire.

The hall was lined on both sides with books in shelves about shoulder-high; on the wall above those were plainly framed photographs of ex-pupils of Nancy's school. Tibet, Nepaul and every province of India were represented. On top of the shelves were statuettes, done in clay by the pupils and baked in the school kiln. Some of them were very revealing portraits of Nancy Strong as seen through the eyes of attentive, inquisitive Indian youth. No two alike -- even remotely alike -- and yet all unmistakably Nancy Strong in one mood or another.

Elsa felt relieved that Nancy wasn't there to receive her. She needed time, after a wild ride through the rain with Dr. Lewis in Bulah Singh's car, to subdue emotions that made her heart beat quickly and her head feel almost like someone else's, full of unfamiliar thought that she recognized nevertheless as her own. She admired Nancy Strong, but she was conscious of being on guard against her. She even liked her. But she didn't quite trust her. Not quite. There was something about Nancy that always made her feel shy and reserved. Perhaps it was the school-teacher quality. It was a superficial manner, because Nancy had no unpleasant mannerisms. It was more likely a habit of thought, concealed but evident to Elsa's sensitive perception. Her perception was much too sensitive. Elsa knew it. She was always much too careful, and perhaps afraid, of meeting other people's minds in unmasked conflict. Each time she had met Nancy hitherto she hid always felt vaguely antagonistic, almost sulkily disposed to cover up her own thought and talk superficially, which she could do very well when she wanted to. Sometimes Nancy even made her feel like a small animal that creeps into its hole and watches, listens, wonders what next?

So when the servant ushered her into the vast living room she made an effort of will to be natural, at ease, and confident of welcome. It didn't quite work. But she achieved some success. The servant seemed to notice it. He smiled at her as he fussed around rearranging ashtrays, watching her furtively, waiting for her to sit down before going to summon his employer. She chose a chair near the door. But the moment he left the room she got up again and looked about her, as it were feeling for Nancy's atmosphere in order to meet her on even ground.

There was surely no other room in the world quite like that one. In the middle of the long wall opposite the door was a huge stone fireplace. In a horseshoe around that, within an oblong barricade of bookshelves, were large old-fashioned, overstuffed armchairs, each with a footstool and a small end-table beside it. The fire shone hospitably through an opening between the bookshelves, which were placed back to back, so that books faced both ways, inward toward the fireplace and outward toward the room. Outside that homelike, snug enclosure the room resembled almost a museum, except for touches of humor and a sensation of being lived in. The carpet was from Samarkand, too good to tread on. The curtains were from Lhasa, Bokhara and Peking. The walls were hung with Tibetan sacred paintings and some of Nancy Strong's own, less sacred but strongly unsentimental watercolors, of which the most noticeable was a portrait of the late Dalai Lama. There were devil-masks, Tibetan weapons, bronze bells, dories, silk embroidery and weird musical instruments. At one end of the room was a black grand piano that threw everything else out of balance. Its top was a maze of framed photographs. Elsa went up and studied them, growing mentally more confused and uncertain of Nancy's point of view as she looked, and remembered chance remarks, and guessed, and tried to imagine Nancy Strong in such strangely assorted company.

Three were of Viceroys. There was Lord Kitchener in Commander in Chief's uniform. The ex-Kaiser, alongside Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher and the weirdly bearded Von Tirpitz. General Lord Allenby. An archbishop, a cardinal, two bishops. King George and Queen Mary. Senator Borah. General Smuts. Sun Yat-Sen. Gandhi. President Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt side by side. Mary Pickford, Will Rogers. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Sven Hedin. General Younghusband. And no less than eleven Indian ruling princes. All autographed, and many of them bearing written record of affection.

But the most remarkable object in the room stood alone, on a small teak table, exactly midway between the door and the fireplace. One had to walk around it to reach the opening in the oblong screen of bookshelves. It was a much enlarged head and shoulder portrait of the Ringding Gelong Lama Lobsang Pun, known in Tibetan and English, and to friend and enemy alike, as Old Ugly-face. The portrait started floods of memories pouring into Elsa's mind, although it had been obviously taken long before she met him, in the days when he was reasonably thin and coming to be recognized in Far East diplomatic circles as the new enigma.

There was a magnificent cat on the hearth, with its back to the fire in feline recognition of the fact that the rain had only temporarily ceased. He would turn his face to the fire again when the rain resumed. Meanwhile, he studied Elsa with Sphinx-like detachment. His face looked something like Lobsang Pun's in the silver-framed photograph. It was only a vague resemblance, but there it was. You could look at either of them and catch yourself thinking about the other -- wondering how many birds the cat had killed -- how many secrets Old Ugly-face knew.

Elsa went and sat down by the fire. She made friendly overtures to the cat. But the cat took no notice, any more than Lobsang Pun would have done. So she leaned back and stared at the fire, thinking about Lobsang Pun, as she last saw him, at the Thunder Dragon Gate in Tibet. But she began to see Bulah Singh's face, growing larger and larger amid the burning pine knots. That was no good. It didn't frighten her, but it made her feel vaguely guilty of forgetting something that she should remember -- secretly guilty of liking a man whom really she intensely disliked. To throw off that sensation and get her mind on something else she turned sideways in the armchair to glance at the rows of books, pulling out a few at random from the nearest shelf behind her. Aristotle, Lord Derby's Homer, Plato, Science and Health, by Mary Baker Eddy. She returned them and tried again, kneeling on the chair to read the titles: the Upanishads, Freud, St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians in Greek, Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat, the Psalms in English, the second volume of Karl Marx's Das Kapital in German. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tennyson, Browning, the Bhagavad-Gita, a whole set of Dickens, the Intimate Papers of Colonel House, a set of Shakespeare, Hitler's Mein Kampf in German, the Bible, the Koran --

Elsa heard the door open. She jumped out of the chair, hurriedly straightened her skirt and went and stood in the opening between the bookcases, silhouetted with her back to the firelight, feeling rather like a bewildered child and not at all sure she was welcome.

---

Something happened to the room when Nancy Strong entered and closed the door behind her, glancing around swiftly before she looked at Elsa. She even brought the grand piano into harmony with all the rest of it. Gray-haired, gray-eyed, gallantly old-fashioned, even dowdy. She wore one of those dependable brown wool frocks that Department Stores can be trusted to ship to customers of twenty-five years' standing. Woolen stockings. Tidy ankles. Scarred knuckles. Hands like a horseman's. Her face had no room left on it for ugliness, there was so much character. She was beautiful from having faced trouble and stood up to it and beaten it, times without number. A stormy-weather woman, matter-of-fact in her greeting of Elsa:

"Why did you get up? Sit down again. How did you get here?"

She took a chair beside Elsa facing the fire. The cat leaped into her lap.

"Dr. Morgan Lewis brought me, in a car belonging to the Chief of Police."

"Is the man mad? Did he let Bulah Singh's chauffeur know where you are?"

"Oh no. He sent the Indian chauffeur away on an errand and drove the car himself. He set me down before we reached the front gate, so as not to be seen."

"Take off your shoes and dry your feet at the fire: Does Mu-ni Gam-po know you've left the monastery?"

"Yes, I feel sure he knows. He sent his doctor and two other monks to lead me through a tunnel I've never seen before to a building quite a long way off, and out through a door in a wall to where Dr. Lewis was waiting with the car."

"And your luggage?"

"The monks will bring it. It was being wrapped in burlap, to look like bundles of rags for the carpet makers, when I came away."

"No need to worry about that then. It will be in the godown before midnight. Well, I suppose this means that Andrew Gunning has his marching orders."

Elsa nodded, too excited to answer. There was no need to say that she was going with Andrew. The news exuded from her. Nancy Strong shook her head so vehemently that a couple of hairpins fell out and she had to rearrange her gray mane. She spoke with a hairpin in her teeth:

"That man Morgan Lewis is worse than Johnson. Much worse. There's no limit to Lewis's masculine romanticism. The weaker sex should set us women an example of restraint. But they don't. They know we're realists. They egg us on to do the things they can't do. Lewis is dangerous. It's too bad that we can't get along without dangerous men."

Elsa rallied to the challenge of injustice: "Dr. Lewis isn't responsible for my going back to Tibet. He thinks I'm going to stay here with you."

Nancy Strong's face flickered with the humor that had made her famous as a teacher beyond praise. "Do you think he believes you could teach my orphans to make carpets?" she asked. "Lewis is a Welsh romanticist whose ancestors were Druids. He would rather turn the corners than come straight to the point. He thinks ten minutes' notice is too much."

Elsa protested, a bit hotly: "Shouldn't I have come? I understood that you knew all about it. Dr. Lewis asked me to come here because Bulah Singh has been spying on Mu-ni Gam-po. I'm not sure, but I think Mu-ni Gam-po asked Dr. Lewis to smuggle me out of the monastery."

"My dear, you are more than welcome. If you hadn't come here, I would have felt sorry. Stay as long as you please. But you must stay indoors because Morgan Lewis has spread a rumor that you've had a relapse. I've already heard it over the phone from two infallible gossips. You're supposed to be in bed, in the dark, at the monastery, behind curtained windows, suffering from fever due to overwork translating Tibetan folios. You may even be dead by tomorrow, if Morgan Lewis is in good form and tongues wag fast enough."

"But if Bulah Singh should discover the truth, what then?" Elsa asked, suddenly frightened by the thought.

Nancy Strong noticed it: "Don't feel afraid of Bulah Singh, my dear. He is a mere policeman who would love to be a story-book devil. He would skin truth for its hide and tallow, if he knew how."

"Isn't he Chief of Police?"

"Yes."

"Can't he interfere with Andrew, if he finds out?"

"Perhaps. He is said to have some talent for police work. But he suffers from intellectual indigestion. And he is as superstitious as an old-fashioned witch-finder. Has he bothered you at all?"

"Yes and no. He was very polite. He called on me at the monastery, several times. Brought flowers."

"Tell me."

"I disliked him, first go off. Later, when Andrew told me that he reads my mail before I get it, I disliked him thoroughly. But I couldn't avoid seeing him when he called. And he made himself so extremely civil that it was quite difficult to refuse to do what he asked."

"What was it?"

"Well, he knows I speak fluent Tibetan. And he said he has a Tibetan prisoner in the jail who won't answer questions. He wanted me to hide behind a screen at police headquarters while that prisoner is being questioned and to use what he calls my subconsciousness to read the prisoner's thought while he is being questioned. He wanted me to do it without telling anyone else -- especially Andrew or Mu-ni Gam-po."

Nancy Strong chuckled. "I told you, didn't I, that Bulah Singh is superstitious."

"He calls himself a psychologist," said Elsa.

"Bluff! He's an ambitious coward who believes that blackmail is a science and that double-crossing is a fine art. Did he offer you any compensation for your trouble?"

"He hinted that as Chief of Police he could probably smother -- I think that was the word he used -- the enquiries that were being made in certain quarters about my being a guest at the monastery and about my right to remain in India."

"Ah! I suspected as much! There are too many like him -- far too many, always trying to trade on people's weakness. The key is that use of the word subconsciousness. Minus-minds. It's only plus-minds that aren't afraid of superconsciousness. Minus-minded people like Bulah Singh call everything they can't understand, subconsciousness. That makes them feel superior and scientific. Down in the recesses of his dark mind Bulah Singh believes in black magic, but he doesn't dare to admit that, even to himself. He wants to pile the faggots and watch you burn in your own flame. I want to talk to you about that."

Elsa protested, frowning. "Oh, Nancy Strong, I wish you wouldn't. Do let's talk about something else. There are so many things I want to -- "

"Child, sit still and listen. I don't in the least mind your coming here at ten minutes' notice. In fact I'm very glad to have you. But you will either listen to me, or else go to your room. And I warn you: if you do go to your room you will miss the only chance I shall have to save you from making a fool of yourself. Which shall it be?"

She stroked the cat until it purred like a tea kettle. Elsa sighed:

"Very well. But I've had so much of it. And I do so hate it. Nancy, I'm returning to Tibet -- secretly! Can't we talk about that? I have Andrew's full permission to answer any questions you ask."

"How did you get out of doing what Bulah Singh wanted? What excuse did you give?"

"You insist! Oh, very well. I told Bulah Singh what I have just told you: that I hate and detest clairvoyance. I told him it's bad enough not being able to help seeing things that you'd rather not see; but that to go ahead and do it deliberately, just for the hell of it, would be like doing something unclean."

"What did Bulah Singh say to that?"

"He laughed. He looked cruel. He called me superstitious, and he hinted that I'm a hypocrite. He said he was surprised that a girl who had come through my experience should be afraid to make use of a natural gift."

Nancy Strong reached for a cigarette and pushed the carved silver box across the side-table toward Elsa: "Reach for the matches, will you? I don't want to disturb the cat."

They smoked in silence for a minute or two. Elsa got up, poked the fire, put on a lump of wood and sat down again.

"You were a brave little fool in the first place," said Nancy Strong, staring at the end of her cigarette. "I did my level best -- my fighting, interfering, irritating female damnedest to prevent you from going to Tibet with Tom Grayne. When I was secretly consulted, I went all the way to Delhi and back at my own expense to tell Johnson to stop you from going. And I tried to talk Tom Grayne out of it, during a whole afternoon on a train. I knew all about your secret marriage to Tom Grayne, and about your agreement to keep it on a business basis. You two ignorant children held out longer than I thought you would. There's a note in my diary that I made at the time. I'll look it up presently. I think I allowed Nature three months less than Nature actually needed. I didn't allow enough for your ingenuousness or for Tom Grayne's obstinacy."

"It was not Nature. And it wasn't Tom's fault. It was me," Elsa insisted. "I did it. I seduced Tom."

Nancy Strong swept that aside with a gesture. "N'importe. Never mind for the moment whose fault, if fault it was. Il y a toujours un qui aime et l'autre qui se laisse aimer. But the stuff that I packed into your first-aid kit? Where was that when that weakling let you lure him into sin?"

"I forgot it. I mean, I never thought of it."

"Elsa, my dear, it is no use your lying to me. You did think of it. You thought I was a nasty-minded female. Tell the truth now: didn't you throw it away?"

"Well, I didn't want Tom to know I had stuff like that with me. What could he possibly have thought if he'd found it? And besides, I didn't want an excuse or a temptation or a -- "

Nancy Strong interrupted: "The trouble with you, my dear, is that you've got sex, and love, and religion, and loyalty all mixed up together with superstition and bravery in one bottle. Shake the bottle, and out pops human nature, cork and all. Added to that, you're clairvoyant and can't understand why other people don't see what you see."

Elsa curled up in the big chair, growing angry but doing her best to conceal it. "Oh well, I'm not natural. I know I'm not. I'm a freak."

"We're all freaks," Nancy answered. "Every last one of us. I'll tell you about me one of these days when I'm feeling reminiscent. But tell me about Tom Grayne. Does he expect you back in Tibet?"

"No, he doesn't. He told me to stay in Darjeeling."

"But you're going back to him?"

"Yes. I asked Andrew's advice, this evening."

Nancy stroked the cat the wrong way. The cat sought solitude, at full speed around the bookcase and under the grand piano. "Goon," said Nancy. "Tell me about it."

"But there's nothing to tell. Andrew told me to do my own thinking. I couldn't get him to say what he thought I should do. But when I asked him to take me back to Tibet, he agreed instantly and said it was the only possible answer if I wanted to play it straight."

"Play what straight?"

"He meant I should keep my bargain with Tom. He called it unfinished business. He made me feel like a thing without any will of my own -- like something invented by Tom and Andrew."

"You mean you'd rather not go?"

"I'd rather go than do anything else on earth that I can think of. But I tried to tell you what it felt like when Andrew agreed to let me go with him. I can't really tell it because there aren't the right words. After my baby died, I did nothing but think for days and days and weeks. Even when I got well enough to work at Tibetan translation, one part of me was thinking, wondering what to do -- what I should do -- what was the right thing to do -- "

"It didn't occur to you at any time to return to Tom?"

"Yes, of course it did, thousands of times. Hundreds and hundreds of times I saw him, clairvoyantly, just as clearly as I see you now -- more clearly, because it's different. And I know Tom was thinking of me. But how could I get back to him -- more than nine hundred miles -- across that terrible country, without money or a permit to cross the border?"

"Terrible country? Then you don't like Tibet?"

"I love it -- perhaps because it is terrible. Perhaps it sounds incredible to you, Nancy: but I loved every minute even of that agony when my baby was born in the snow. Go ahead: call me a romantic liar if you want to. But I tell you it's the unadorned truth."

"I never had that experience," said Nancy. "Now I'm too old, so I'll take your word for it. You make me wonder what I've missed: Did you quarrel with Tom?"

"No, of course I didn't. Tom doesn't quarrel with people. I do. But even I can't quarrel with a man who just gets thoughtful and says nothing."

"Umm. Did Tom and Andrew quarrel?"

"No indeed. Andrew was with us in Tibet for several months and there was never a cross word between them. We three were very happy together in that cave in the mountains. There was lots of hardship, and it was dangerous, but we all three loved it."

"So it amounts to this: that Andrew Gunning did what he did to oblige Tom Grayne?"

"Oh, if that's what you're driving at, I can give you a very quick answer. I believe Andrew hates me. I can't see why he shouldn't. I forced him to upset all his plans to return for supplies by way of Chwanben. I caused him unimaginable trouble. No one who hadn't seen it could imagine what Andrew had to do to get me safely to Darjeeling. Mind you, he had to deliver my baby in a blizzard. And he isn't a doctor! And even after we got here, and I was safe in the monastery, I couldn't help making things far more difficult for him than they would have been if he had come alone. People even think it was his baby. I'm not quite sure that Mu-ni Gam-po doesn't think so. I know Bulah Singh suspects it."

Nancy Strong tossed her cigarette into the fire and lighted another one. "The night is young," she remarked. "Long live the night. Go ahead. Tell me more."

"Tell you what?"

"About Andrew Gunning."

"I know very little about Andrew, except that he came from Columbus, Ohio, by way of Shanghai. He isn't a silent man, and he's well educated, but he doesn't talk about himself. I think he's the kindest man I've ever seen or heard of, but he resents being thanked, it makes him brusque and rude. And he's as cruel as all Tibet if he thinks you're being unjust or trying to sidestep responsibility. What do you know about him? He speaks very highly of you."

"Yes, they all do that," said Nancy. "Even Bulah Singh does. It's a habit, like driving on the right side of the street. You see I know enough to hang most of 'em. So they reward me for discretion by praising my chief fault."

"Nancy, why do such people as you, who have really accomplished something, always speak of themselves contemptuously? This school of yours is famous. So are you. And you know it."

"Never trust reputations, my dear. The difference between precept and practice is what makes men flatter me behind my back. They hope to God I won't tell what I know."

"Well, tell me what you know about Andrew Gunning."

"May I tell him what I know about you?"

"Yes, if you want to."
     Nancy Strong chuckled: "Smart girl. A disarming answer. However, I won't tell you about Andrew."

"He has told you his story?"

"They all do it. That's what makes life so interesting. I'm a sort of she-priest. An aunty-confessor. They all tell me sooner or later whose wives or husbands they're in love with, or tired of, or afraid of, and why."

"Why did Andrew leave home?"

"Why should I tell you? Can't you ask him?"

"I did. Of course I did. How could one help being interested in anyone who's as kind as Andrew has been to me. I played fair by telling all about me. But when I asked about him, he just dried up and I knew he was angry, although he tried not to show it."

"When did you ask him?"

"In Tibet, on the way here, before my baby was born. For days and days after that he broke the trail as if he were fighting a battle. He was furious. He made me think of one of those Vikings in the Scandinavian Sagas who fought because fighting was their religion. He seemed to me to be fighting invisible things:"

Nancy Strong probed cautiously: "That second-sight of yours. Did that tell you nothing?"

Elsa shuddered. "It's too much like dreams. It's worse: it's like peeping through keyholes, only more disreputable, because you don't risk being caught at it."

"Ah. But what did it tell you about Andrew Gunning?"

"Not much. Because I so hate it I nearly always shut my mind against it and try to think about something else. Don't ask me."

"But I do ask."

"I believe you can read my thought. Oh, very well, if you insist. Something dreadful happened in America that Andrew can't bear to think about. He can't go back home. Or he won't. I'm not sure which."

"But you're not afraid to go with him to Tibet?"

"What do you mean? Why should I be afraid?"

Nancy Strong, with her chin resting on a clenched fist and her elbow on the chair-arm, studied Elsa for about sixty seconds. Then she asked suddenly: "Has anybody ever told you how naive you are in some ways and how shrewd when one least expects it of you?"

"Yes. Andrew said it."

"When?"

"This evening."

"Well," said Nancy, "there's one point on which Andrew and I are agreed."

"Oh. Don't you like Andrew?"

Nancy Strong chuckled: "My dear, it is I who am setting the trap for you, not you for me. I have cross-examined too many hundred children -- some of them were famous men, and some were Tibetan orphans, and some were scoundrels -- to let anyone turn the tables on me. I won't tell you what I think about Andrew Gunning. But I'm going to say what I think about you. -- Now, would you like some tea before we begin?"

"No, thanks."

"I won't offer you whiskey, because I want your undivided attention and no back alleys open for your thought to slide away into and hide. I'm going to make you face yourself."

"Nancy, I believe that fundamentally you're cruel."

"No. I despise cruelty. If you would rather go to bed, now, and -- "

"And be despised as a coward! No, Nancy, you may go ahead. But it feels in advance like having to face an operation without anesthetic."

The cat, whose face resembled Lobsang Pun's, returned and sprang into Nancy's lap, purring like a kettle.

---

There was no sound but the splashing of rain through the open window. Andrew leaned back in his chair and watched Bulah Singh with an expression that puzzled the Chief of Police, who was accustomed to reading fear or treachery or insolence, or all three, on the face of a victim. He intended to victimize Andrew. Andrew knew it. But both men were puzzled. Neither tried to make a secret of it. It was better tactics not to. For a few moments the Sikh walked around the room like a wrestler pondering which hold to try next. He even flexed his shoulders.

"See here," he said suddenly, "I'll be frank with you."

"Yes. We agreed we'd do that."

"I've made enquiries about you in Columbus and Cincinnati."

"Fifty, fifty," said Andrew. "I've the lowdown on you, from unimpeachable sources."

Bulah Singh looked stung. His voice went a quarter-note higher, sour-sharp: "My information is that you left home in embarrassing circumstances."

Andrew chose silence.

"You were employed in a law office, in Cincinnati. Is that right?"

"Yes. I got fed up with criminal law."

"So I have been given to believe. Shall we go into details?"

"Not if you want to continue the conversation," said Andrew. "There are things I don't talk about. That's one of them. Shall I put it more plainly? I mean -- "

"Oh no. Sit still. I understand you very well. I wish you to understand me."

"Maybe I'm too dumb to understand you," Andrew suggested. "And you're using marked cards. But go ahead. Try me."

"Being a secret agent you will have no difficulty in grasping my meaning exactly. I'm an older man than you. I've had more experience. But we both know how many beans make five."

"I'm not in your class," Andrew answered. "But if you'll quit walking about like a caged animal I'll try to get what you're driving at. Sit down and drink your whiskey."

Bulah Singh resumed his seat and lighted a cigarette. He looked exasperated, but he evidently needed something too badly to risk taking offense. Andrew offered him no help whatever; he just sat still and waited until Bulah Singh resumed:

"You know as well as I do that from the bottom, all the way up to the top, every policeman and every intelligence officer has his own grapevine, his own informants, who report to him, and, who receive a certain amount of protection -- or shall we call it immunity from interference -- in exchange for secret information, etcetera. Make a note of that word etcetera."

"Yes," said Andrew. "It's a word like a conjurer's hat. Go ahead."

"All governments conduct their secret intelligence service on the same principle," said Bulah Singh. "The value of the number one man depends on his access to exclusive secret information. On that depends his ability to get things done without revealing his own hidden hand. There isn't a police or a secret service system in the world that isn't run on that basis."

"Well, you should know about that," said Andrew. "I guess you've made a study of it."

"An intensive study. A lifetime study. But there are other important points. One must be in a position to reward an efficient agent. And one must have such a hold over that agent that he can't run out, or dare to misinform, or double-cross, or disobey. You get me?"

Andrew nodded. "Sure. Club in one hand, cash in the other."

The Sikh promptly corrected him: "A club certainly, yes. But information that has to be paid for in currency seldom is worth what it costs. Besides, you don't need money. I know the amount of your bank balance. The point is that you wish to return to Tibet. And though you deny it, I know you are an agent of the American Government."

"I do deny that," Andrew answered. "Want to bet about it?"

The Sikh stiffened. "Perhaps you also deny a special interest in the lady who calls herself Elsa Burbage?"

"No. You're getting hot now. I'm concerned about her."

"I, also," said Bulah Singh. "If it should be made possible for you to enter Tibet -- this is confidential, of course, strictly between ourselves -- Elsa Burbage would remain here. Do you get my meaning?"

"No. Put it in plain words."

"You know, don't you, that Germans, and Russians, and Italians who wish to travel abroad -- or who are sent abroad on diplomatic, or on business errands, are obliged to leave behind as hostage to guarantee good faith, some friend, or member of their family -- parents perhaps -- or a mistress, whose personal welfare is -- well, you understand me, don't you?"

"Use plain speech. Say it."

"As I reminded you once before, there is no India Office visa on your passport. You can be run out of the country. So can Elsa Burbage, for having entered Tibet without official permission."

"You're out of your depth there," said Andrew. "Elsa's passport does bear an India Office visa. She can't be deported."

"Yes she can. I happen to know that she is Mrs. Tom Grayne, secretly married. So it's a false name on her passport. And there's a law against adultery in India. The little question of social morality enters in -- nothing important in your eyes or mine -- but -- ah -- a very convenient excuse for dealing drastically with the indiscreet. Adultery, being a public scandal, comes within the scope of police authority. A married woman, traveling in suspicious circumstances, alone with a man who is not her husband; and who is lodged, together with her unregistered baby, in a Buddhist monastery of all improbable places -- and whose baby dies conveniently in spite of expert medical attention -- comes well within reach of the law. Now -- do we understand each other?"

Andrew answered coolly: "I don't think you understand me or Elsa Burbage."

Bulah Singh showed his wonderful teeth in a smile that was meant to intimidate. It almost did. For unless Dr. Morgan Lewis should know how to prevent it, Bulah Singh might make sordid accusations stick; and sheer malice might make him attempt it if Andrew should refuse to have dealings with him. It seemed as if Bulah Singh could read the thought behind Andrew's eyes:

"There is nothing more perilous, and therefore foolish," he remarked, "than to say no, to a secret proposal, when it is made in good faith by such a person as me. I am not a mere policeman. I am one who foresees coming events. The time for you to have said no was when we began our conversation. Now is the time to say yes."

Andrew subdued the impulse to use fists and feet and pitch the Sikh into the corridor. The Sikh spotted that. He loved to see a proud man forced to subdue anger. His own dark eyes brightened with amusement.

"What's the proposal?" Andrew demanded.

"You have heard of the Ringding Gelong Lama Lobsang Pun?"

"Sure. We were speaking of him just now."

"You have heard also of Ambrose St. Malo?"

"Yes. What about him?"

"Ambrose St. Malo," said Bulah Singh, "is an incorrigible scoundrel with genius for audacity. He is less scrupulous than a sacred ape. He accepts anyone's money. At present I believe he is being paid by Japan. But perhaps by Russia. He has crossed Tibet from Sinkiang, and to my actual knowledge he is looking for the Lama Lobsang Pun, who is in hiding. Ambrose St. Malo's purpose is to make sure of Lobsang Pun in order to capture the infant Dalai Lama and spirit him away into Sinkiang to sell him to Russia or Japan, I don't know which, and it makes no difference which."

"And where do you come into the picture?" Andrew demanded.

"It is my opportunity. Yours, too. Do what I tell you, and you may name your own reward."

"You must take me for a damned fool," said Andrew. "You couldn't buy a coolie with that kind of talk."

The Sikh ignored the comment and went straight to the point. "The infant Dalai Lama is the best bet in all Asia. Do you realize that? Whoever controls him, controls the subtle undercurrents that are the real, as distinguished from the superficial, political forces. Whoever brings the infant Dalai Lama to India, for protection -- now do you get my meaning?"

"Yeah -- but why can't you say it? There are no witnesses. You want Johnson's job. That's the idea, isn't it? You think you'll have a good chance to get it if I'll do the difficult dirty work, kidnap the baby Lama, bring him here and chuck him into your lap, to prove what a statesman you are. I won't do it."

"I don't want Johnson's job. And you can't afford to refuse my offer or my terms," said Bulah Singh. Andrew grinned obstinately: "I'll see your hand. What have you got?"

"I have you and Elsa Burbage."

"And a damned small kit of scruples, I imagine."

"If you go to Tibet on my terms, Elsa Burbage will be well taken care of at this end."

"By You?"

"Yes."

"Have you spoken about it to her?"

"Yes and no," said the Sikh. "I haven't mentioned your returning to Tibet. Even the best women are dangerous, intuitive creatures. They jump to conclusions and behave unpredictably. She is more than intuitive. She is clairvoyant. I wish to talk to you about that."

"Well, what of it?"

"Do you happen to have read a book called Man, the Unknown by Dr. Alexis Carrel?"

"Yes, I have the book in this room. One of your undercover men left fingerprints on two or three of the pages when he went through my effects. I wish you'd tell those filthy buzzards of yours to wash their hands before they come trespassing."

The Sikh smiled. "We were speaking of clairvoyance. Dr. Carrel is, I believe, the first really eminent western scientist who has dared to make the downright statement that clairvoyance is a scientific fact. He isn't one of those stuffy fools who confuse it with spiritualism and mediumship. He admits it's a demonstrated truth that clairvoyants can perceive the past, the present, and the future at one and the same time."

"I'd give a dollar to know what you're driving at," said Andrew. "Why don't you come to the point?"

"The point is this: clairvoyance is the means by which news is transmitted throughout Asia -- especially India. There is nothing fantastic about that. It always has been so, and Indians have always known it. There are fully accredited instances of news having been transmitted from end to end of India faster than the telegraph could do it. Even Lord Roberts mentioned it in his biography. I speak as a realist -- as a dealer in accurately ascertained, checked and correlated facts. It has been possible in numbers of instances to make an accurate time check and to prove beyond possible doubt that an occurrence, such as an earthquake or a death by accident or murder, and the receipt of the news hundreds of miles away, were simultaneous. So much for perception of the present: time and space, as commonly defined, have no existence for the clairvoyant. It is not known how the thing works. But we know that it does. I know that it does. So do you. So do hundreds of other people, of whom some are scientists, some are crazy with religion, and some are so mad that they have to be locked up."

Andrew sat still, studying Bulah Singh's ice-cold fury of concentration. The Sikh was long past the stage of excitement. He was letting flow the stored-up flood of conviction, which made him feel superior to Andrew, whom he suspected of moral cowardice. He wasn't afraid to manipulate mental dynamite. Andrew was afraid and would have to be forced. Contempt of Andrew as a mere prospective tool of his own higher intelligence blinded him to the fact that Andrew's contempt was as hot and living as his own was cold and cruel.

"You seem sold on that stuff," said Andrew.

"Sold? Are you -- "

"You appear to believe."

"Believe? I know. I know more. I speak as a professional criminologist. Exact facts and statistics are my meat, tools, weapons. You may dismiss doubt when I tell you I know scores of instances of clairvoyant reading of the past. To my certain knowledge criminals have used it, and crime has been detected by the same means. The evidence has been obtained that convicted the prisoners. Do you believe it?"

"Belief is easy," said Andrew. "The trouble with me is that I never believe what I believe, if you get my meaning."

"You're a skeptic, are you? Well, that's in your favor. But listen to this. I speak plainly. I know eighteen instances -- I have a record of them, fully documented and attested -- of exactly accurate clairvoyant reading of the future. The predicted events came to pass exactly as clairvoyantly foreseen, in every detail. Now then. Do you see what I'm driving at?"

"No," said Andrew. To have said yes might have stopped the Sikh's self-revelation. Not improbably Morgan Lewis might --

The Sikh detected the thought. He stood up suddenly and stared down at Andrew: "Understand, Andrew Gunning! I don't permit my private conversation to be used as gossip. I know how to deal with offenders. Dr. Morgan Lewis is a dilettante -- an amateur. He is inquisitive about telepathy. He may ask questions about me. If you value your life -- I said life -- did you hear me? -- don't answer his questions."

Andrew grinned into that opening easily, smoothly: "I'd a notion you hadn't got me right, Bulah Singh. I make no one-sided bargains -- not if I know it. There's only one way you and I can hit it off. Show cards. Make a square proposition. If you've something to sell, trot it out and let's look at it."

Forced again on the defensive the Sikh changed his tactics: "I can have you arrested."

"Sure you can. But what for? And can you make it stick?"

"Spying. I have copies of your correspondence."

"I know that," said Andrew. "Have you noticed I'm worried about it?"

"I have a list of all your hide-outs between here and that cave near Shig-po-ling where Tom Grayne is waiting for you."

Andrew laughed: "Hell, you're not offering to sell me that, are you?"

"I am not selling. I am telling you."

"Can't you tell it sitting down?"

Bulah Singh remained standing. His mouth was a symbol of ruthless and now reckless greed. Not money greed, but greed for power. He began taking chances now:

"I have what you Americans call the goods on Mu-ni Gam-po. I can use you as a means to ruin him, use him as a means to ruin you. I can throw your friend Tom Grayne to the wolves by arresting you and seizing the supplies you want to take to him. And I can make things very unpleasant for Elsa Burbage."

"But you haven't done it," said Andrew. "Why not?"

"Because I wish you to go to Tibet. I will arrange your escape across the border. Someone else, whom I have in mind, shall be blamed for it. I have it all thought out. You and Tom Grayne, with or without the co-operation of Lobsang Pun and Ambrose St. Malo, shall bring the infant Dalai Lama to India, and -- "

"And what?"

"This is important."

"Why don't you come to the point? Are you scared to say it?"

"Elsa Burbage will be the hostage for the fulfillment of your bargain with me."

"You've said that already."

"I have been unable to persuade her to use clairvoyance in connection with enquiries I am making."

"Yeah. She said you asked her to listen in on a third degree or something like it. Turned you down, eh? You'll get nowhere along that line. She detests clairvoyance."

The Sikh pointed a finger at Andrew's face and stared along it as if he were sighting a gun: "You will change Elsa Burbage's mind about that. You will point out to her that your safety, and Tom Grayne's safety, and the success of our plan, and her own immunity from -- call it persecution if you want to -- depend on her cooperation with me."

"What kind of cooperation?"

"She will put her clairvoyance and her telepathic faculty at my disposal during the entire period of your absence in Tibet."

"What for?"

"For my purposes. She will report to me, exactly, in full detail, every clairvoyant or telepathic vision she receives. And she will obey me in the matter of sending messages at my dictation."

"And if she refuses?"

"So much the worse for her and for you and Tom Grayne."

"So that's it, eh?"

"Yes. And your answer is yes! Or take the consequences! Secrecy, of course, is essential. I warn you, I have made all arrangements to stop your mouth, and hers, too, forever, if one word of this should leak out."

An auto horn tooted in the street below the window. Andrew felt relieved. The Sikh looked savage. He thrust out his lower jaw and spoke slowly, in a level voice:

"Here comes Morgan Lewis now, with my car. Drop one hint to him of what I've said to you and -- well -- take the consequences."

---

There was plenty of firelight from the hearth. Nancy Strong got up and switched off the electric light. The leaping shadows made the room seem smaller and more cozy. In the dimness Nancy Strong looked younger and less rugged but even more outwardly calm and inwardly alert. She sat down facing Elsa, studied her for a minute or two, then suddenly:

"Elsa, my dear, the meek shall inherit the earth. They always do. But who wants it? The pigs want it. But who else?"

"Pigs?"

"Yes. Poets create their own world. Pigs can't. The pig in every one of us destroys what the poet creates."

"What are you talking about?"

"You and the earth. Pigs and poets. Poet -- you and pig -- you. The earth is a synonym for what the Communists and Fascists and economists sell their souls and other people's bodies for. That's what you're trying to do."

"Communist? Fascist? Pig? Poet? Me? I don't want the earth. I don't own a yard of it. I don't understand you."

"You will presently. You must get into your head first that meekness and humility are opposites. You're meek. You've got to change."

"How?" asked Elsa.

"By turning it inside-out and becoming humble."

"Show me."

"Humble as Jesus."

Elsa rebelled instantly. All she needed was something to set her teeth into. "I don't like Jesus. Fed up with him. Don't believe in him."

"You mean you don't want to be crucified."

Elsa turned that over in her mind for several seconds. Then she said: "Nobody wants to be crucified."

"At the moment you're headed straight for it," said Nancy. "Why do you wish to return to Tibet?"

"Because it feels like the right thing to do, and I can think of nothing else to do."

"Does it feel like running away? Or like going forward?"

Elsa pondered that for a moment, then answered: "It feels like a fight."

"Against what? Kicking against what St. Paul called the pricks?"

"Damn St. Paul! I like him even less than Jesus. I'm not the least afraid of Tibet. I can endure anything -- anything except the feeling that life's meaningless and I'm useless. Perhaps it's me that I'm fighting. I don't know. But why should my baby have died? All that agony for nothing -- not that the agony mattered one bit, if only something worth while had come of it. Waste! Faith, hope, charity -- all wasted!"

"Whose charity?"

"Andrew Cunning's."

"I don't believe it!" said Nancy. "If I thought Andrew Gunning really guilty of charity I would forbid him the door."

"You? You of all people?"

Nancy Strong chuckled: "Yes, I'm a rich hater -- a poor pitier. I detest and despise strong hypocrites. There's some excuse for the weak ones. Andrew Gunning is strong. But I think he isn't guilty. Do you know any Greek?"

"Yes. Some. Forgotten most of it. Why?"

" 'Ayarn' [greek script] is the word that St. Paul used in Thirteenth Corinthians. It doesn't mean charity. That was a lazy mistranslation of a word that needs thinking about. Charity is sheer insolence. It always begins as an imposition on the meek, and it's all that the meek deserve. At first they like it. They experience the kind of gratitude that means a craving for more. They suck it dry, like ticks on a sick cow. It works both ways. It enlarges the insolence. And it makes the recipients greedy -- pig -- meek until it becomes old-fashioned slavery and destroys itself, dies of its own corruption, like smallpox and degeneracy and any other disgusting thing you can think of -- eats itself up."

"Nancy, I supposed you were a charitable woman."

"God forbid!"

"Isn't this school a charity?"

"Over my dead body! 'Ayarn' [greek script], in the sense that St. Paul used the word, means milk of human kindness."

"What's the difference?"

"All the difference between plus and minus, good and evil, truth and untruth. Charity is sometimes a line of least resistance, sometimes a form of social blackmail, sometimes superstition, but never better than a substitute for kindness."

"Aren't you splitting hairs?" Elsa suggested.

"I've never split a hair, nor lied to a child like you, nor told the truth to a fool if I could possibly help it."

"You're in a strange mood, Nancy. Have I upset you by coming here?"

"No. Quite the contrary. Put some more wood on the fire."

Elsa heaped on wood and prodded with the poker until the sparks flew upward. She stared at the fire. Nancy Strong waited until she sat down. Then:

"What did you see?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie. Time's too precious, Elsa. We have only tonight. Save the lies for the hypocrites. Tell me."

"It didn't mean anything."

"Never mind what it meant or didn't mean. If I tell you correctly what you saw, will you admit it?"

"Try me. I'm not good at being naked-minded. If I told it, it would sound like nonsense."

"You saw a cavern -- Tom Grayne -- Andrew Gunning -- yourself -- two strangers -- and Lobsang Pun, facing one another around some loads on the cavern floor."

"Yes. I saw that. But how do you know?"

"What did you hear?"

Elsa stared, hesitating, tense, almost frightened.

Nancy followed up: "Shall I tell you what you heard?"

"If you think you know."

"Lobsang Pun was saying that the sun belongs to everybody; so whoever buys its light is a fool, and whoever sells it is a scoundrel."

"Yes, he was saying that. Nancy! Have you the same affliction I have?"

"I used to be meek about it, too," Nancy answered.

"But how could you see my picture? It was just a daydream like the ones I get when I'm translating Tibetan."

"That wasn't a daydream. -- What language was Lobsang Pun using?"

"None that I recall. I expect it was thought-language. It was real, and at the same time unreal."

"You saw color, form, substance, movement."

"Yes."

"Did you smell anything?"

"Smoke." Elsa glanced at the fire.

"Child, don't fool yourself. Don't run away from it. Deodar knots don't smell like yak-dung."

"Nancy, were you playing tricks? Are you a hypnotist? Were you making me see and hear and smell things?" "No. I don't hypnotize people. That's wicked. Can you see what I'm seeing now?"

"I don't want to."

"Let yourself look -- to oblige me:"

"I can't see anything."

" `Where there is no vision, the people perish'! Look again. What do you see?"

"Nancy, please don't insist. I hate it. Tell me how not to see things. Then I'll bless you forever."

"That," said Nancy Strong, "is what I mean by meekness. It's a nom de guerre for the subtlest and deadliest sort of conceit."

"I didn't know I had any vanity left. I thought it was all gone, along with my baby and everything else."

"Conceit and vanity are opposites," said Nancy Strong. "We can't get along without vanity. That's consciousness of what we are and can do. Conceit is pretending to be something we're not, or else pretending to be not what we are."

"You seem to be a bigot about definitions."

"I despise them. But you need prodding with something sharp to make you vain and humble. Turn your meekness inside-out!"

"Is that what you teach children?"

"Yes, child. It is what experience has taught me."

Elsa sighed. "Well, let me tell you my side of it, Nancy. I won't whine, but I feel like confidences. If you can see things the way I do -- "

"I know what you're going to say."

"Will you let me say it?"

"Yes. Telling it may help you. Go ahead."

"I've been clairvoyant ever since I can remember."

"Most people are, if they only knew it," said Nancy.

"When I was quite young I was whipped for telling lies, because I said I could hear voices, like the Bible people and like Joan of Arc. I did hear voices. But I wasn't believed. So I learned to cover up. There were governesses and people like that who spied continually and tried to make me feel guilty. But there were sometimes months when I wasn't clairvoyant at all, and oh, how good those times were! But the times between kept getting shorter. So I was known as a problem child. That isn't anything to be vain about. It's something to try to forget."

"What sort of child do you think I was?" Nancy asked.

"Oh -- did you get punished? Well, you'll understand at least some of it."

"I will make you understand, too, or else die in my tracks," said Nancy. "Go on, tell me."

Elsa shrugged her shoulders. "Doctors. Psychologists. School-teachers. Inquisition, and no end to it. Even the vicar, talking about the Witch of Endor and the devils that Jesus cast out of people. And I knew what every one of them was going to say before he said it. They were all stupid. Some of them were cruel. And some weren't even trying to be honest."

"Neither were you," said Nancy Strong.

"I was! I was honest at first. I was even happy about it and felt important. But I learned to tell lies later on to protect myself, if that's what you mean. Once I was in danger of being certified insane because I said the house was going to be broken into by thieves, who would poison the dog and steal the silver. Luckily the thieves did it. That saved me. But I was heartbroken about the dog. After that I was sent to boarding school. And there I was accused of cheating because I sometimes knew the answers without having to work them out."

Nancy Strong chuckled: "How did you try to explain it away?"

"How could I explain? Sometimes I was perfectly normal, as they called it, for weeks at a time. Then I was called stupid and sullen. And when they really did begin to be convinced that I could see and hear things clairvoyantly it was worse than ever. I was a freak. People tried to make use of me, and despised me at the same time. Some people called me a medium. I was accused of all sorts of things -- vile things. Boys of my own age seemed to think I was a pervert. I was simply pestered by them -- and by girls, too. And the decent boys weren't interested in anything but could I tell their fortunes? When I got older I couldn't even keep a teacher's job. No, Nancy, it's a curse, and it's no use your telling me anything else. With the exception of my uncle, Professor Mayor, and Tom, I haven't had one single even half-pleasant experience in connection with it. Most of them were disgusting, and some were cruel."

"Tell me about your husband," said Nancy. "What was Tom's reaction to your clairvoyance?"

"Tom calls it second-sight. It annoys him because it isn't dependable."

"Good!" said Nancy.

"What do you mean, good? It was tragic. It came between us. He began to get used to my knowing what he was thinking about before he said it. He began to expect that and to count on it. So when it didn't work he didn't believe me, and when it did work he doubted. He thought I was being temperamental, or perhaps critical of him. He began not to trust me so much. Do you call that good?"

"What I meant was that we're getting somewhere. Tell me about Andrew Gunning."

"There is nothing to tell. That is, nothing more than you know. Andrew keeps his thoughts to himself, and he knows how to mask them as a general rule. He carves little wooden images that he gives to people who appreciate them, and -- "

Nancy Strong glanced at the mantelpiece, where smiled a six-inch wooden statuette of the Lord Buddha. It vaguely suggested a portrait of Nancy herself.

"Oh, is that one of Andrew's? So it is -- I remember when he did it. Well, he does that kind of thing; and reads books; and gets furiously angry when he's thanked for being unselfish and kinder than anyone ever dreamed a man could be. That's almost all I know about Andrew, except that he saved my life when my baby was born, and I sometimes wish he hadn't. I believe he hates me, but he's too generous to -- "

Nancy interrupted: "What is your vision of Andrew? Quick! Out with it! Don't pretty it up!"

"A man in the snow, leaning against the wind, leading -- leading -- "

"Does he ever talk to you about clairvoyance?"

"Hardly ever. He's too considerate. He knows I don't like it."

"Does he ever ask you to see things for him?"

"Never. He never asks anyone to do anything for him. He gives orders, when those are necessary. But he never asks favors. Even when we had to stay at Tibetan monasteries, he always found some way of making the monks feel that it was we who did them the favor. It was the same in the villages we passed through."

"We're getting somewhere again," said Nancy Strong. "Now -- are you ready to listen to me?"

"Yes. This time I'll try not to interrupt. I only wanted you to understand before you begin. But please don't ask me to see and hear things. I won't do it. I will go back, and keep my bargain with Tom, but I won't do it for anyone else."

The telephone rang. Nancy Strong went into another room to answer it, behind two closed doors. She was gone a long time. Elsa sat curled in the armchair, staring at the fire, seeing -- seeing -- past, present and future, all mixed up in one connected movement that obeyed no laws of time and space, but was intelligible. Dr. Morgan Lewis wasn't in the picture at first. But it concerned him. He was there. And when she thought of him she saw him, clairvoyantly, monocle and all, smiling, excited, talking to someone whom she couldn't see. But she knew whom he was talking about.

---

Dr. Morgan Lewis knocked twice. He gave Andrew and the Chief of Police plenty of time to assume such poses as they pleased before he walked in. He even turned his back toward them as he closed the door. As he stood wiping his monocle on his handkerchief he looked disarmingly unmelodramatic, mild, harmless -- possibly even slightly bored by professional duties.

"It's raining like the devil," he remarked. He adjusted his monocle. "Thanks for the use of the car, Bulah Singh. It's outside. I told the driver to wait for you."

Bulah Singh wasn't deceived. Darkly alert, he vaguely overplayed casualness. "You've been quick," he observed. "Wasn't the consultation serious?"

"The man's dead," Lewis answered. "Poison. You'll get a report."

"Oh? Murder?"

Lewis nodded: "You'll say suicide."

"What do you say?" the Sikh asked.

Lewis stared at him: "Between us three and the four, walls -- murder, yes. But who's to prove it?"

"Autopsy, I suppose?"

"Yes, first thing tomorrow. You know the man. He was in jail not long ago. A Japanese."

Andrew did a better job of masking alertness than the Sikh did; he left off scraping out his pipe and looked mildly interested, whereas Bulah Singh's air of indifference was overdone:

"Not the tea-buyer -- let me see, what was his name?"

"Koki Konoe," said Lewis, a bit dryly, a bit abruptly.

"A spy," said the Chief of Police. "I remember. He was detained for investigation. We couldn't prove anything."

"It will be even harder to prove," said Lewis, "that someone killed him by making him take his own life."

The Sikh raised his eyebrows: "Suggestion? You don't mean to say -- "

"Yes," said Lewis. "But whose?" He was staring hard at the Sikh, who was at pains to look skeptical and slightly scornfully amused.

"Koki Konoe was a pretty good suggester himself," Bulah Singh answered. "If you should ask me, I would call him a first-class hypnotist. But -- "

Lewis corrected him: "Third class. Not too good at that, or he wouldn't have lost the duel."

"Duel?"

"Yes, duel. Between duffers. The real experts are rare and not so easy to detect." He turned toward Andrew. "What did you know about Koki Konoe?"

The Sikh lighted a cigarette, watching Andrew.

"Nothing," said Andrew. He was watching the Sikh. The Sikh smiled.

"Didn't you meet him -- talk with him?" asked Lewis. "Someone told me you did."

"Oh, yes, I met him."

"Tell us what happened."

"Nothing," said Andrew. "He was here in the hotel, one afternoon. I picked up an English newspaper from a chair in the lobby. He got in conversation by asking for the paper as soon as I'd be through with it."

"What did he talk about?"

"Nothing much. He talked like a man with a bad hangover. I got the impression that he was trying hard to cling to a fading intelligence."

"Very shrewd guess on your part," said Lewis. "What did he talk about?"

"It's a pretty good rule, isn't it, not to tell what people talk about, until you know why you're asked," said Andrew.

"Yes, that's safe," said Lewis, "sometimes."

The Sikh smiled and corrected him: "Always." He made a gesture with his cigarette. He and Lewis stared at each other. Andrew watched both of them. The Sikh's eyes met Andrew's. Lewis dropped his monocle into the palm of his hand and slipped it into his vest pocket.

"Well," said Bulah Singh, "it's getting late. I'll be off. Corpse at the mortuary?"

"Yes -- probably there by now. Both doctors refused to sign the death certificate, and I concurred, so they phoned the police."

"I'll look into it," said Bulah Singh.

"You'll find it interesting," said Lewis. "Thanks again for the use of your car."

"Don't mention it. See you tomorrow. So long."

The Sikh walked out. Lewis almost ran across the room: "The phone's in your bedroom?" He closed the bedroom door behind him and was in there several minutes. When he came back he sat down facing Andrew. He was smiling as if well pleased by the phone conversation. He declined Andrew's gestured invitation to help himself to whiskey.

"Now, young man, out with it!"

"Out with what?"

"There are no witnesses. It's between you and me and -- "

Andrew interrupted: "No, no. Easy on that stuff. You'll have to employ your regular spies if you want -- "

"Gunning, I want confidential information. And I also propose to help you. Don't regard it as a business bargain. Think of me as your doctor. You know the rule: always tell your doctor and your lawyer everything."

Andrew shook his head: "Work in a criminal law office taught me such contempt for squawkers and anonymous informers that I'm leery of becoming one." He grinned genially. "Besides, it was an accepted fact in our office that you can always find a doctor to swear to anything, one side or the other, depending on who pays him."

Lewis raised his eyebrows: "Do you feel more at ease, now that you've fired that barrel? Fire the other one about `choose your specialist, choose your disease,' and get that off your conscience. Then we'll talk."

Andrew grinned again: "You get what I'm driving at, don't you? I've nothing to sell."

"I wouldn't buy, if you had. I'm inviting your confidence," said Lewis.

"How about yours?" Andrew retorted. "Talking to you is one thing. Squawking to a bureau is another."

"Very well, let's make it personal," said Lewis. "This is between you and me and we'll keep it that way. I knew the Japanese was dead before I left you with Bulah Singh. I hoped Bulah Singh would talk."

"He did."

"I want to know what he said."

"Is it understood and agreed that I'm not squawking for protection, or any rot like that?"

"Understood."

"And I won't be made a party to any local intrigue?"

"Yes. That's a promise. Now then, what did he say?"

"Well, just before you came in, he said he's all set to kill me if I repeat to anyone what we talked about."

"Did he mention names?"

"In that connection yours was the only name that he did mention."

"Thanks," said Lewis. "I suppose the rest of it concerned you and Tibet and Tom Grayne."

"Most of it did. He offered to ease me across the frontier -- on terms."

"Wants you, I suppose, to bring the infant Dalai Lama to Darjeeling?"

"Right -- first shot. You seem to know your stuff! How did you figure that out?"

Lewis laughed. "It took more shots than a hundred to bring down that bird! Bulah Singh has inflated ambitions. He is a student of ambitions. He knows almost by heart the case histories of at least ten men who have attained power by Machiavellian means -- Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mustapha Kemal, several South American dictators. Those men all started from scratch, so why shouldn't he? I wish you could see his library. What escapes Bulah Singh is the fact that there are ten thousand failures for one success in that field. He overlooks such elements as luck, time, place and competition. He realized, quite a number of years ago, that an Indian police officer, who plays to the gallery, presently lands in the discard. So he studied clandestine methods of becoming influential. He has been burrowing so hard underground and so far afield that Japan got news of it. Japan sent Koki Konoe to Darjeeling to uncover Bulah Singh's game while pretending to buy tea. Tell me about Koki Konoe. What happened between him and you, here in the hotel?"

"Darned little happened, because I spotted him as a hot wire first go off," said Andrew. "He planted a copy of the London Times in a chair in the lobby. I took the bait deliberately. When we got in conversation he drew my attention to a piece on an inside page about the medical use of hypnotism. On the next page there was a silly season letter from a retired Colonel who said he'd seen the rope trick done in India, and photographed it, and found nothing on the plate. Said that was proof of mass-hypnotism."

"So it was," said Lewis. "But go ahead. What happened between you and Koki Konoe?"

"Well, after a bit of talk Koki Konoe gave me his card, with a Darjeeling address in pencil. He remarked he was lonely and needed someone to talk with. He kept the conversation going on the subject of hypnotism, until at last I showed some interest just to find out what his game was. He invited me to come and see him -- said he'd show me how it's done. Said he'd teach me some jujitsu, too, if I was interested."

"You didn't accept the invitation?"

"No. I was good and wise to him by that time. Jujitsu might be up my street, but not hypnotism. I've seen 'em work it in Shanghai, in combination."

"Jujitsu," Lewis interrupted, "is a form of philosophy as well as being a system of physical combat."

"You bet it is. Say, those bozos can give you a physical-mental workout and put you to sleep and make you tell your whole past history plus anything else that you happen to know. They can even make you write it down and sign it."

"If you're ignorant, or afraid, or if your will is stronger than your judgment, they can do that without putting you to sleep," said Lewis. "Hypnotism was misnamed due to a misunderstanding of its nature. Hypnos means sleep. But hypnotism isn't a form of sleep. Sleep is a by-product -- sometimes. Did you feel any pressure from Koki Konoe?"

"Oh, sure. Something like the impulse that a high-pressure salesman stirs up. Professional gamblers are good at the same thing. So are soma kinds of women. They make you sell yourself. But I know that trick. And he wasn't more than half powered anyhow. So I bought him a drink and walked out on him. Dead, is he? Have you a guess who killed him?"

"Mine may be as good as anybody's guess," said Lewis. "Koki Konoe was sent from Japan to check up among other things on Bulah Singh's negotiations with Ambrose St. Malo."

"So I guessed right? You do know St. Malo?"

"St. Malo and Bulah Singh -- have been in correspondence for a long time."

"St. Malo is in Tibet," said Andrew.

"Yes. But they corresponded until recently by way of China, making use of third-class passengers on liners, some of it by word of mouth, some in writing, and some by underlining words in books and magazines."

"Gosh! St. Malo must have long lines out. That game costs money."

"Lots of it. He is spending Japanese and Russian money. But he will sell out of course to the highest bidder in sight at any critical moment."

"For God's sake, what could Bulah Singh bid? He can't get hold of money, can he?"

"No, no. Bulah Singh has no money. He is a student of psychology who thinks he knows more than he does. But he knows some of the rudiments. He understands, for instance, that such a man as St. Malo, who is a crooked gambler going after big bait, can always be taken with small bait if he's stampeded and tempted at the right time. Probably you are the small bait -- you and Tom Grayne. I think St. Malo has been told you're coming and counts on using you in Tibet; and that Bulah Singh depends on you to force St. Malo's hand. But we'll get to that later. Let's stick to Koki Konoe for the moment. We knew all about him from our agent in Japan. We had him arrested. Our Indian jails are very well conducted nowadays. Even a Chief of Police can't interview a prisoner alone, except at the prisoner's own request."

"In that case there's no witness?"

"Theoretically none, within hearing. Both of them counted on that. But there's such a thing as a hole in a wall."

"Dictaphones, too, I suppose."

"Those things are expensive and sometimes inconvenient," said Lewis. "Koki Konoe made the request, so Bulah Singh visited him in the jail. Neither understood the other's language. They had to talk English. We have a full stenographic report of their conversation. Koki Konoe warned Bujah Singh that if he didn't let Tibet alone and drop his intrigue with St. Malo, he'd be liquidated."

"Murdered?"

"He didn't say. He left the suggestion to do its own work. On the surface it probably meant that the Jap secret service would betray Bulah Singh to us. That would be the commonplace procedure. But there was an unspoken threat of murder."

"If you know all this, why don't you arrest Bulah Singh?"

"For several reasons. The least of them is that we lack proof of where Koki Konoe got the poison that -- "

Andrew interrupted: "Don't those fellows usually roll their own? I mean, don't they carry it, just in case? I've heard that all the Japs do it"

"Yes, some do, when the job's specially dangerous. But it's usually cyanide. And this wasn't a particularly dangerous job on the face of it. Besides, he was searched thoroughly at the time of arrest. No poison on him."

"What stuff killed him?"

"One of five Tibetan poisons that aren't in the pharmacopoeia. Two are sudden death, quicker than cyanide. One contracts all the muscles and kills in an hour by strangulation. One makes 'em blind and they die painfully in about a week from inflammation of the inner molecular layer followed by an obscure but sudden action on the brain. The fifth kills more slowly -- about thirty days as a rule -- by direct action on the cerebral cortex. The victim goes mad -- reverses things -- tells his secrets and makes secrets of trivialities. That was the stuff that killed him. That's why I was sent for."

"You got here after he was dead?"

"Between you and me, no. Secretly I have been here two days."

"Trying to track poison? There are lots of Tibetans in Darjeeling," said Andrew. "Koki Konoe could have bought the stuff."

"But why should he?"

"Scared."

"Of what?"

"Perhaps of Bulah Singh."

"Exactly. But how did Bulah Singh frighten a terrorist expert?"

Andrew laughed sourly: "Any man who knows the first thing about jujitsu should be able to answer that one. Shakespeare called it hoisting 'em with their own petar. The Jap's stuff got used against him. Look at it this way: Bulah Singh threatened me just now with death, if I do any talking. It happens I wasn't scared, so his stuff didn't work, although he convinced me he meant it. Koki Konoe, on the other hand, was scared stiff. Bulah Singh probably took advantage of that and stampeded him into -- "

"Rudimentary, but as far as it goes, right," said Lewis. "Almost as much nonsense is talked about hypnotism, by responsible men who should know better, as about clairvoyance and telepathy. The common charlatans and malignant agitators know more about hypnotism than almost any of the so-called authorities even pretend to know. I could name the exceptions on the fingers of one hand. Science is afraid of it, although it has been successfully used in severe mental cases, and even to produce surgical anesthesia. But repeated attempts to use it, especially in France, have led to scandal and recrimination. Hypnotism, like clairvoyance and telepathy, is an almost unexplored field that reputable men mistrust because of the inevitable reaction on themselves. But they're coming around nowadays to a cautious admission that Mesmer may after all have been on the right track with his theory of some kind of magnetic fluid passing from one person to another."

"What do you think about it?"

"I'm going to tell you," said Lewis, "between these four walls. I've a reason for telling. You mustn't quote me."

"Okay."

"You know the old proverb that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Very well. Bulah Singh is a dangerous hypnotist because he has a little knowledge. He's a conceited amateur, who considers himself a professional expert. The same was true of Koki Konoe, who was trained by the Japanese secret service. All secret services use it to some extent. The Japs use it a lot, at great personal risk because of their morbid tendency to suicide. The thing is a boomerang. The malicious use of hypnotism -- as any experienced metaphysician knows -- is always -- not sometimes, but always associated with the idea of death. Koki Konoe and Bulah Singh used it against each other, with all possible malice. Most of us use it unconsciously, without much malice and without concentration, in much the same way that we use our other unconscious faculties."

"D'you mean, for instance, that I use it?" Andrew retorted. "See here, barring getting what I pay for in the way of plain obedience from men who hire me the use of their time, I'm almost fanatical about leaving other folks to do their own thinking."

"That's why I find it worth while talking to you," Lewis answered. "If you'll listen, I think you'll learn something you can use to good advantage. The secret of hypnotism -- and it still is an unfathomed secret -- resides in the ether, which fills all physical space and permeates all physical matter."

"Aristotle's ether? I thought that was an exploded theory."

"It was. But it no longer is," said Lewis. "We're returning to it. The existence of the ether has been mathematically and photographically proved -- quite recently, by two young American scientists. We exist in the ether as fish exist in water. The whole physical, phenomenal universe exists in it. We don't know what its properties are. We think, hate, love, crave, envy -- without knowing what we're doing with waves of imperceptible but prodigious etheric energy that the act of thinking causes more or less to concentrate and so to speak change direction. Does that mean anything to you? Perhaps thought -- not brain, you understand, but thought -- is something like a prism."

"You mean hypnosis is a force conveyed by or through the ether?"

"Perhaps. It's a dark subject. I have studied it, here in India, in the very home of hypnotism, for more than twenty-five years, and I confess that I don't know. But I do know it's the most powerful and dangerous force in the world, and that it's deliberately and constantly being used by people who no more know what it is than a dog knows what geometry is. Hitler, Mussolini, Goebbels, all use it. It'll boomerang them sooner or later. One of its camouflage names is suggestion. Other names are the evil eye, black magic, malicious animal magnetism, voo-doo. It has dozens of names and pseudonyms. Propaganda is one of its milder uses. So-called self-hypnosis is one of its common results. It's the secret of all slavery of every kind whatever; of all subjection of one to another. It's the underlying cause of war, and of nearly all disease, poverty, misery, and injustice. Every effort to control or modify it is a vector that merely shifts the velocity."

"Bit of an alarmist, aren't you?" said Andrew.

"Not in the least," Lewis answered. "But I'm not an ostrich. Burying one's head in the sand of statistical facts is no more a protection against hypnotism -- mass and personal -- than it is against day and night."

"But you figure you know the answer?" Andrew didn't try to look anything but skeptical. He was wearing his obstinate grin, with his eyebrows lowered. "What is it? If you know, why not tell?"

"The answer," said Lewis, "is spiritual. It has been well told quite a number of times."

"You mean religion? Whose religion?"

"Any religion," said Lewis, "that isn't ecclesiastical and consequently based on mob-psychology. I'm not denouncing the regular repetition of words and songs. Those serve their purpose. They're about as useful as a bedside manner during diagnosis."

"Well then, what do you mean?"

"I mean the kind of education that Nancy Strong's pupils get."

Andrew whistled softly. He thought a moment. "Nancy," he said, "could pull the bung out of a barrel of Sphinxes and make 'em all tell what they forgot ten thousand years ago. What's more, they'd like doing it. But -- isn't she one of your hot wires?"

Lewis ignored the question. "She is the only genuine Christian I know," he remarked. "I don't doubt there are lots of others, but I haven't met them."

"I would never have guessed you're a religious man," said Andrew.

"I'm a realist," said Lewis. "I don't believe in ignoring facts because they're metaphysical, or in letting the material tail wag the spiritual dog. I investigate facts to discover the truth about them."

"That's what Bulah Singh claims he does."

"But I simultaneously believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ," said Lewis. "Bulah Singh doesn't."

"Why should he?" said Andrew. "I'd hate to admit I agree with Bulah Singh about anything worth mentioning, but -- "

Lewis suddenly changed the subject: "Hasn't Bulah Singh designs on Elsa Burbage?"

"He sure has," said Andrew. "He wants her here in Darjeeling. That was one of his conditions. But what has Jesus to do with it?"

"Did he say why he wants her here?"

"Yes. As a hostage for my behavior in Tibet:"

"Nothing else?"

"Yes. Clairvoyance. Telepathy."

Lewis laughed dryly. "I thought so. That's why I sent her to Nancy Strong. If Bulah Singh had a chance, he'd hypnotize her."

"He'll not get the chance. You needn't worry on that score," said Andrew. "But if he had her alone, do you think he could do it? Elsa's in a strange mood at the moment. She's good stuff. She's more intelligent than -- "

Lewis laughed again. "Gunning, my boy, the more intelligent they are, and the stronger-willed they are, the easier they are, unless they know the answer. Bulah Singh made Koki Konoe kill himself."

"It beats me how he did it, or how you know he did it."

"The easiest victims," said Lewis, "are the intuitive, inspirational people. If they're unsuspicious and good-natured, so much the worse, because then they are more sensitive to impulse. It induces in them extremes of uncritical and unbalanced altruism. It produces our familiar friend the wish-fulfillment complex. It drives some of them mad. The next easiest are the criminals who themselves dabble in hypnotism. It isn't difficult to understand how their stuff gets turned against them."

"Tell it. I'll try to follow you," said Andrew.

Lewis thought for a moment. "Perhaps a guess might help. Did Bulah Singh suggest to you that he knows something discreditable about your past in the United States?"

Andrew looked startled. "Yes, he did."

"Did he try to work up fear on that account?"

"Yes. But it didn't come off."

"Did he suggest by any chance that he could make a scandal about you and Elsa Burbage?"

"Yes. Damn him."

"And perhaps that he could starve Tom Grayne in Tibet by obstructing you?"

"Yes. He said that too. But how do you know?"

"After that, he made his proposal?"

"Yes."

"Well, now let's consider Koki Konoe. He was the criminal-hypnotist type. Bulah Singh, who knows his job as a policeman tolerably well, learned that Koki Konoe had a Hindu mistress. She stole, and delivered to the proper person, very embarrassing proof that Koki Konoe was lining his own pocket at Japan's expense. Buying tea -- rigging the figures. So Bulah Singh introduced the fear element into Koki Konoe's thought by dropping a hint about what he knew about that Hindu mistress and the financial trickery. Fear of humiliation is stronger than fear of death, in the Japanese consciousness."

"Yeah -- but where did the poison come in?"

"Bulah Singh gave that to Koki Konoe, for the alleged purpose of poisoning the Hindu mistress. Do you see the subtlety of that? Having planted the fear-suggestion, he excited the fear by pretending to supply a death-dealing remedy. But he simultaneously sent the Hindu mistress into hiding. Koki Konoe couldn't find her and so felt sure she had betrayed him. In that way Bulah Singh again increased the fear element. Koki Konoe, remember, had hinted, in jail, that Bulah Singh, might be murdered unless he did as he was told. So the idea of death, as a possible outcome of the conflict, was in Koki Konoe's mind in the beginning, even before Bulah Singh pretended to help him to murder the faithless woman. One good scare after that was enough. The death idea became a boomerang. Bulah Singh told Koki Konoe that the woman actually had betrayed him, and had then died of poison. Koki Konoe would be accused of having murdered her. All lies. But the suggestion, played up by a hypnotist, worked. Koki Konoe swallowed the poison."

"You seem darned cocksure about it," said Andrew. "How do you know all this?"

"Think it over," said Lewis. "How did I know that Elsa Burbage was ill in Darjeeling?"

"So you're clairvoyant?"

"Sometimes," said Lewis. "The difficulty is to prove what I intuitively know."

"Is Bulah Singh clairvoyant?"

"Not he. Perhaps he once was. But not nowadays. My discoveries, rudimentary though they are, have led me to believe that hypnotism and clairvoyance are almost mutually exclusive. Tentatively I define clairvoyance as release from hypnosis. The contrary appears to be equally true: hypnosis blanks out clairvoyance, so that a hypnotist loses his own vision. If I'm right about that, it would account for the phenomenal rise to power, and equally phenomenal fall of any number of people -- especially of the criminal type. However, a hypnotist, shut off from clairvoyance -- that is to say from vision -- by his own thought process, nevertheless can hypnotize an unsuspecting clairvoyant. By that means he can learn what he couldn't possibly clairvoyantly see for himself. It is very frequently done. It is one of the means by which such astonishing confessions are extorted in Russia. Bulah Singh has been privately experimenting along that line for a number of years."

"Good God, why don't you chain that guy up?" said Andrew. "Chuck him in the clink and -- "

Lewis laughed. "Gunning, my boy, you know enough criminal law to answer that one."

"Yes, I guess you can't convict a man of hypnotism. Courts would laugh at you."

"Experienced judges wouldn't laugh," said Lewis. "Especially here in India. They know better. But they'd have to demand legal evidence, which would be impossible to produce. Did Bulah Singh frighten you at all? Did he set up any interior worry?"

"Not in the least."

"Are you sure he didn't?"

"Yes."

"That's good." Lewis checked a flicker that would have become a smile if he had let it. "And now a personal matter. Would you care to tell me in confidence what occurred that induced you to leave the United States?"

"No. I never discuss that."

"Very well. But will you answer this? What is the state of affairs between you and Elsa Burbage?"

"She's Tom Grayne's wife."

"You're a moralist, aren't you?"

"Some. I don't go around bragging about it."

"It would shock you to be made the butt of a humiliating scandal about another man's wife?"

"I'd be troubled on her account."

"To avoid that -- I mean, to save her from embarrassment -- and especially if she should urge you -- could you steer quite a different course than the one you have in mind at the moment?"

"Guess so. I could change plans at a moment's notice, if -- but what are you driving at?"

"Didn't Bulah Singh suggest a drastic change in your Tibetan plan?"

"Yes."

"Didn't he hint at what might happen if you refuse?"

"He sure did -- he even used the word persecution."

"And suggested that he knows about you something that you'd rather not discuss?"

Andrew nodded. Lewis adjusted his monocle. "You begin to understand his method?" He was silent for a moment. Then suddenly: "There are a number of reasons why we don't, at the moment, choose to remove Bulah Singh."

"Giving him more rope to hang himself?"

"We have our eye on him," said Lewis. "I frightened him purposely just now by talking about Koki Konoe."

"Well, I guess you know your business. But why scare him? Won't he cover his tracks?"

"No. They are covered. He will try to uncover mine," said Lewis. "And he may perhaps hasten his arrangements -- may step things up a bit. I believe you will find Bulah Singh at Nancy Strong's house."

"But it's after midnight."

"That's nothing. Nancy's a night owl."

"Say -- d'you suppose Bulah Singh knows Elsa isn't at the monastery?"

"Certainly he knows," said Lewis. "He is watching me like a cat. Why do you suppose I went to all that trouble to lay a smoke-screen, if not to make him think he is outwitting me?"

"I wish we had left Elsa in the monastery," said Andrew. "She was safe there."

"Bulah Singh couldn't have got at her there," Lewis answered. "I want her got at! I phoned Nancy just now to expect him. I feel sure that's where he went."

"You don't say." Andrew got up, hesitated from politeness, and then hinted bluntly: "Where are you staying tonight?"

Lewis laughed: "Here in your bedroom. May I? There are two beds. I may turn in. I'm a bit tired."

"You'll find all you need in the bureau drawer," said Andrew. "Help yourself. It's a long walk to Nancy's and no taxi at this time of night. I'll get going."

"I advise you to take that boot with you. It might cause complications if you leave it"

Andrew picked up Elsa's boot and tucked it under his arm.

"Careful!" said Lewis. "No breach of confidences! And above all, no explosions!"

"Okay."

"You don't look like a dove or a serpent, Gunning, my boy. But try to be as harmless as the one and as wise as the other."

Andrew laughed: "What d'you take me for? A zoo?"

"Emulate one of its inmates! Be observant but inarticulate. Coo, hiss, roar -- but don't interpret the noises."

"Okay. So long."

"So long. Good night. I'll lock the door," said Lewis.

---

Nancy Strong returned into the room, took the large photograph of Lobsang Pun in its silver frame from the small square table and set it on one of the armchairs in full firelight, facing Elsa. It was an ageless face, almost incredibly wrinkled, apparently not dark-skinned, but weathered. Beneath a lama's peaked hood, roguish Chinese-looking wise eyes gazed straight forward, seeming to see everything but to tell nothing. The nose suggested an eagle's beak. The eyes combined a bird's bright far-sightedness and a cat's experienced incredulity; they were unconquerable eyes, interested, amused, unafraid. The portrait stirred memories that poured as daydreams into Elsa's thought. Nancy Strong interrupted:

"You recognize him?"

Elsa came out of reverie: "Of course. Who could forget him? But why Lobsang Pun so suddenly? Don't you want me to know that Dr. Lewis phoned you about me?"

"Tell me what you think about Lobsang Pun."

"You don't want to talk about Dr. Lewis? Oh, very well. But, Nancy, what difference can it make what I think about -- "

"Tell me what you think about Lobsang Pun. Look straight at his portrait and tell me. I want to know."

Elsa stared at the portrait. "I don't understand him. I never did. He's an enigma. Tom likes him better than I do. He struck me as a tremendously powerful personality, but scornful and -- "

"Scornful of what?"

"I don't know. Scornful and decidedly cruel."

"Was he cruel to you?"

"Yes. He was kind on several occasions, and almost courteous in his own high-handed way, but he could be as brusque as a gust of wind. He said astonishing things in broken English. He made me feel I was being laughed at. But I couldn't help liking him, most of the time. Yes. I like him."

"Did he laugh at, or with you?"

"I don't know. He laughed. He seemed to me cruel, and as ruthless as he is ugly to look at. He seemed to have no feeling of obligation or gratitude. After Tom had helped him to seize the Thunder Dragon Gate -- and mind you, Tom took tremendous chances -- he turned Tom and me out to shift for ourselves. Gave us no help whatever, beyond replenishing our supplies and exchanging some fresh ponies for our exhausted ones. I should say Lobsang Pun is a hugely intelligent and very dangerous man, who doesn't care twopence whose toes get trodden on when he -- "

Nancy Strong interrupted: "Elsa, my dear, for nine years I was that man's chela."

"You? You, Nancy, a chela? You mean Lobsang Pun is a -- then you are -- "

"He is my teacher. I lived with him for nine years on terms of the closest possible spiritual intimacy. I have wandered with him all over Tibet, and into China. I was with him in Peking, Tokyo and Seoul. This school was his doing. He ordered it."

"You mean it's Lobsang Pun's school?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. It's my school. As you remarked, he is ruthless. But I don't think you know what ruthless means. Scornful, but you don't know what of. He despises the conceit of fools who think their brains are the boundaries of wisdom, and that what their brains can't define can't possibly be true. I told him one day in Lhasa that I believed I could teach children what he had been teaching me. He said: go the Darjeeling and do it. [sic] It seemed impossible. I hadn't a rupee. But he told me to get out and go to Darjeeling and use my vision, instead of being afraid of myself, like a devil looking at its own reflection in a dirty mirror. He was ruthless. He wouldn't listen to my pleading for advice and help. He drove me away. It would take too long to tell you how I reached Darjeeling. But when I got here there was money in the bank, waiting for me."

"Whose money?"

"The money belonging to me and the children who were to come to my school and be waked up. Coin of the realm -- good legal currency. Fools refuse to realize that one of the dimensions of every real idea is affluence. I was a fool, and afraid. But he wasn't. The money came quite naturally through business channels. All I had to do was sign a legal document. But it wouldn't have come; that money would have gone to someone else; it would never have entered my consciousness if I had disobeyed because of what I used to believe before I met Lobsang Pun."

"It sounds like a miracle, the way you tell it," said Elsa. "I used to believe in miracles. I've read Mrs. Eddy's books and some of Madame Blavatsky's. I believed in the loaves and fishes, and Elijah and the ravens -- and even Lazarus, and the Resurrection. Honestly I did. I thought it was a miracle when Tom met me in the British Museum and offered me the chance to come to India. It seemed to be an answer to prayer. But now I don't believe, and I don't pray any more. I wish I did. Credulous people are better off."

"So you prefer conceit to credulity? God won't come into your trap, so you don't believe in God. Is that it?"

"Nancy, please explain what you mean. I don't feel conceited. Not meek either. I feel resentful, and bitter, and wish I didn't."

"You're in danger of becoming a convinced and self-convicted fool, imprisoned in fear."

"Nancy, I don't feel afraid. Really I don't. I'm willing to face anything except -- "

"Except the key of the prison. And the open door. And life -- faith -- hope -- courage!"

"Nancy, I have got courage. I'm just disillusioned, that's all. Life looks hideous."

"Would you call Lobsang Pun beautiful?"

Elsa laughed: "He's almost comically ugly. He must be almost the ugliest man in the world. Even his Tibetan servants used to refer to him as Old Ugly-face."

"Lobsang Pun's face is as ugly as the surface of life," Nancy Strong answered. "But look beneath the surface. I learned from that man all the faith that's in me and all that I know about beauty, truth, kindness, affluence and nowness, as dimensions of ideas."

"Dimensions? Of ideas?"

"Yes. Every genuine idea that ever was, or is, or will be, has all those dimensions, along with lots of others."

"But, Nancy, how can you talk such nonsense? How can an idea have dimensions? You can't conceive of a long or a short idea."

"Of course not. True dimensions are not boundaries or limitations. Space and time are like a frame that we look through. An idea hasn't time and space. It has completeness. That includes beauty, kindness, nowness. There's no distance in connection with it. Where did you get your ignorance? Whose particular wool is pulled over your eyes? Who taught you?"

"Oh, numbers of people have tried to. I've read tons of books -- some of them are here on these shelves -- Plato, Nietzsche, Kant, Schopenhauer -- Spengler -- Karl Marx -- "

"But not the Twenty-third Psalm."

"Indeed, I know it by heart."

"What is the first line?"

" `The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.' "

"Good. Stop there. That's the whole secret. It's the one important thing to know and remember. All other knowledge is merely relative to that."

"But it isn't true, Nancy. I know it isn't. I've proved it's a lie. I used to believe it. I tried to prove it. I took everything I had -- hope, faith, enthusiasm, trust in God, whoever or whatever He is, and offered them up -- oh, how ungrudgingly. I hadn't a single mental reservation. I was simply enthusiastic and eager to live. Life felt suddenly like flowers in a garden in spring. I threw pride overboard, and money, and a career, and the good opinion of the few friends I had. I said: the Lord will provide. And now look at me. I haven't even my baby. And I haven't Tom Grayne's confidence. I'm married to him. I seduced him. He isn't really my husband."

"But you're going back to him?"

"Yes. Thanks to Andrew. Gunning's generosity. I like Tom. I admire him. I love him. But he doesn't love me. He never will. I'm a liability and he's too manly to admit it. So I'm returning to Tibet to set Tom free. After that I don't care what happens."

"No? But as I understand it you agreed, before you married, that either might divorce the other if -- "

"Yes. It wasn't supposed to be a real marriage. It was an alliance."

"Do you remember what Talleyrand said about that?"

"No. Wasn't he Napoleon's Judas? I've been Tom Grayne's Judas."

"He was Napoleon's confidential minister. He said: `Every alliance is a horse and rider.' "

"That sounds like one of those generalizations. But perhaps it's true. At any rate, I'm like an old man of the sea on Tom's shoulders, and he knows it, and I know it, and -- "

"Isn't it a long way to go, just to tell Tom Grayne what he knows already?"

"A long way. Yes. But it's better than running away."

"And yet you're running from something nearer."

"What do you mean? I'm not running. I'm facing the fact."

"Something nearer than breathing, closer than hands and feet."

"You mean Tennyson's God? I don't believe in God. I did. But I don't now."

"I mean your vision."

"I haven't any. You mean clairvoyance? That's a disease!"

"Elsa, it is the substance of things hoped for. It is the evidence of things not seen by -- "

"Nancy, it's naked hell! You ought to know, if you have the same affliction. I can't imagine how you endure it and keep your faith in -- "

"Will you let me tell you?"

"Yes, if you won't be cruel about it. Don't tell me to count my blessings. I have a curse that outweighs all of them, and -- "

"Listen, child. I am going to cell you in the fewest possible words, what Lobsang Pun took nine years to teach me."

"Before he kicked you out of Lhasa without a penny to find your way across Tibet! I call that evidence of cruelty."

"Before he kindly and unsentimentally forced me to do what he knew I could do, and what I wouldn't have done otherwise. No calf ever wants to be weaned."

"Are you going to kick me out? Very well, I'll go the minute you say so."

"I can prevent you from going to Tibet, Elsa. And unless you wake up, I will prevent you. Tibet is no land for a meek mouse. You must be willing to be what you are."

"What do you mean? What do you think I am?"

"Tell me what you yourself think you are."

"I don't know. I have given up trying to know. I feel like a discouraged female in a bad temper. But what's a female? Nothing! Protoplasm and sensation, stuck together with magnetism, and nobody knows what that is, except that it's said to be a form of motion -- but motion what of?"

"You are an evidence of evolution."

"Evolution of what?"

"Evolution of consciousness. My dear, you're a proof of St. Paul's statement: `for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.' You're one degree of evolution ahead of most people. Your glass isn't quite so dark."

"If this is evolution, I'm headed the wrong way!"

"Listen, my dear. You can't prevent it, any more than the crops can prevent the weather. But you can make hell for yourself if you resist; because evolution breaks the molds of consciousness as the roots of growing trees break rocks. Evolution is a spiritual, irresistible growth -- upward and outward from the illusion of solid four-dimensional limited matter."

"Four dimensional?"

"Yes. Time is a dimension of matter. Length, breadth, depth and time. Or, more simply, space-time."

"Evolution upward toward what? Disillusionment? I'm there now."

"Growth toward reality, where the illusion of matter fades, true dimensions enter consciousness, and the secret place of the Most High yields its secret. Child, even now you can see through stone walls and across a thousand miles of mountains to where Tom Grayne is."

"Yes, but I can't make him see me, so it's only torture. I even know what he's thinking about. But I can't warn him. I can see danger, but I can't make him see it. I can't even tell him our baby is dead. Don't, Nancy! Don't! You're seeing, and you're making me see! Please don't!"

"There are rules to be learned. No one can use even a hammer and a saw without knowing the rules. We can't even walk without first learning how to do it, or play the piano without learning the notes."

"Some people can. They do it naturally, without thinking. I can, and I never took a music lesson."

"You obey the rules intuitively. That doesn't make them not-rules. Rule Number One of Evolution, which is the Law of Life, is `The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.' "

"Is that what you teach children! But Nancy, it isn't true! I know it isn't! It's a lie! I want my baby, for instance, and my husband's confidence, and faith that life's worth living, and -- "

"Listen to the second rule. It's in the Ninety-first Psalm: `He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High . . ' You know the rest of it, don't you?"

"Of course. I know it by heart."

"What does your heart tell you?"

"Nothing. A heart is just a physical organ. What I used to believe has turned out so totally false that -- Nancy, can you look around at the world, and then believe such piffle? War, cruelty, poverty, sickness, lying propaganda, pain, death -- dead babies -- not mine only -- babies bombed to death in -- "

"Listen to the third rule: `And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not the milk of human kindness, I am nothing.' "

"Oh yes. Thirteenth Corinthians. I had to say it at school and then put sixpence in the poor box. Kindness? I don't even know what it means. I don't know much knowledge; and I've no faith left, although I did have some once; but I don't believe I ever did know what human kindness really means. I thought I was being kind to Tom. The fact is, I was cruel."

"My dear, if you will be kinder to yourself you will learn what skittles facts are."

"Oh, you mean mind over matter? Don't you believe in facts? Isn't it a fact that you and I are here, talking to each other? Isn't your school a fact? Wasn't my baby a fact? Mind can't change that, can it?"

"Try giving mind a chance."

"What do you mean?"

"Accept the fact of spiritual evolution. Recognize it. Trust your clairvoyant vision, and then look at the other facts."

"I can't trust it. I daren't. It's like dreams."

"Master it. Govern it."

"I can't. It runs away with me. It leads me into all kinds of -- "

"Stop!"

Nancy Strong glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was a quarter to twelve. She stood up and took a step toward Elsa. The firelight shone on their faces. They were half-reliefs, unreal, bright-eyed, against wavering shadow from which the cat's eyes watched them.

"We've had enough of that hysteria, young woman. Ally yourself one way or the other. Every alliance is a horse and a rider. Ride or be ridden. Tell me what you think your soul is."

"I haven't one:"

"Quite right. Now we're getting somewhere."

"I used to believe the old superstition that I have a soul to be saved from hell. It's a lie."

"Yes, it's a lie. You are your soul. How could you have what you are?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're not a body that has a soul. You are your soul. Soul! You have a body and brain that are no more you than that dress which your body is wearing. Wake up."

"I'm wide awake. At any rate, my brain tells me I am."

"Listen, Elsa. Your brain is no more you than this portrait is Lobsang Pun. Even the most bigoted and stupid second-rate scientists know nowadays that brains can't think. Brains are like radio sets, to be controlled and used and tuned in. They're too often tuned in to the sort of nonsense you've been talking tonight. Your mind is no more in your brain than Lobsang Pun is in his photograph."

"If my brain doesn't think, what does?"

"You do. And you will either believe what your senses tell you, in a glass darkly, or what you see face to face, with your clairvoyant vision. Your brain sees illusion, because it's part of the illusion, and you tune it in to the illusion. It can see reality if you'll let it. Clairvoyance is soul -- vision -- it's you -- the real you -- waking -- one degree of evolution closer to reality, seeing things more nearly as they really are."

"But, Nancy, it's unendurable. It isn't -- "

"Learn to control it. Others will do that for you, if you don't."

"How can others control it, if I can't?"

"They will control you without your knowing they're doing it, unless you remember the rules. And if they can't control you they will treat you the way they treated Jesus and Joan of Arc and countless others."

"Didn't Jesus know the rules?"

"Yes. Joan of Arc had soul-vision, but without understanding the rules. She won battles and saved France. But she had wielded the sword. She had accepted the reality of hatred, cruelty and death. You know what happened to her."

"You're not trying to encourage me with her fate, are you?"

"Jesus, on the other hand, had vision and knew all the rules. He rejected the sword, repudiated the brain-mind illusion of matter-substance, and -- "

"Yes, and got crucified."

"But arose from the dead."

"You believe that? You don't believe that, do you?"

"I know it. That's different from believing. Whoever believes can disbelieve. I know."

"I wish I even believed."

"Jesus broke once and for all the solid hypnotic illusion of matter-consciousness, and said: `I go my way.' It's a long way, Elsa. But it's the way of evolution. And they'll Joan of Arc you on the way, unless you remember the rules."

"That sounds cheerful!"

" `Who is not with me, is against me.' Trust the one or the other. The reality or the illusion. But don't try both, or you'll find yourself giving to Caesar the things that are God's and trying to buy God with Caesar's counterfeit credit."

"Nancy, there's no fanatic in me. Really there isn't. You sound as if you're inviting me to be a martyr."

"Yes. But not a fanatic. Martyr means living witness, not dead witness. A witness sees, knows, and gives evidence of the truth and nothing but the truth. A fanatic believes, but doesn't know; so he's afraid. Fear destroys the fanatic's sense of humor and makes him hysterical. A fanatic desires proof of what he believes but can't prove. He tries to create the proofs usually by doing violence to others. But a witness is proof of what he knows. He is it. He is the knowledge itself. He is the secret truth and its evidence."

"Why secret?"

"Because the self-styled realists can't see it. Their conceit won't let them see it. If they even believed it blindly they would take your truth and try to use it to strengthen materiality. The power-cravers, the money-hungry, the self-important -- the opportunists -- will use you, and then lose you, the way the French lost Joan of Arc. They'll canonize you when it's too late."

"Then you want me to see, and say nothing?"

"I am not inviting you to cast pearls before swine. Which side will you be witness for? You or your senses? Spirit or matter? Dark logic or bright intuition?"

Elsa quoted, laughing: " `Almost thou persuadest me to -- ' "

"My appeal is to you. Not the pig, but the poet. The real you. But if it helps you to use logic, use it," said Nancy. "Do you realize that e you can't drop a grain of sand into the sea without eventually moving every drop of water in all the oceans in the world?"

"Yes, I read that years ago in the Atlantic Monthly. It seems almost incredible. But I suppose it's true."

"It is mathematically and physically true and demonstrable. But even the sea, as our senses perceive it, is only phenomenal -- a part of the illusion of thought. You -- you yourself with a grain of sand can move every drop of all those billions of tons of water. How much more then will one thought, violently flung, disturb the whole mass of illusion in which we think we live and move and have our being!"

"Good heavens -- then shouldn't we think?"

"Yes. But think. Don't parrot other people's fears at secondhand. See -- know -- trust your vision -- and remember Rule One."

"But not talk about it? Not tell anyone?"

"Not unless you want to be Joan of Arc'd by the thought manipulators, propagandists and the devils who use others' vision for their own ends."

"But you're telling it"

"I am talking to you, not to your material illusion. This is a communion, not a battle of brains. `Where two or three are gathered together in my name . . . ' "

"I always wondered what that meant."

"Arguing with the crowd increases and enrages the illusion that already blinds them. It makes it easier for hypnotists to control them. That is the sole reason for secrecy. The truth enrages the liars. But one by one, two by two, sometimes three by three, we can find our way out from the illusion of desire, into reality. That makes it easier for all the others to follow."

"Mustn't we desire anything?"

"No. Desire presupposes that we have not. Desire is the exact opposite of real consciousness. Desire for the illusion of material means to the spiritual end made me hesitate to come here and start this school. But I gave up desiring. I obeyed, and came, and found what was needed. It was waiting for me. Desire, hatred, malice are the essence of illusion. They're its substance -- what it's made of. They produce war, cruelty, poverty -- and in the end disillusion -- and then new beginnings. But why exhaust the horrors of illusion before -- "

"Mayn't we own anything?"

"You'll find you can't help owning things. But don't let things own you. Never regard things as more than shadows of ideas."

The clock struck twelve. "Midnight," said Nancy Strong. "Middle of nothing. But we can't ignore time as long as we're imprisoned in it. Time waits for no man, and space confines us. But time and space are illusions. You and I can prove it."

The front door bell rang -- sudden and loud. The servant's footsteps hurried along the hallway. Nancy Strong sat down.

"Remember," she said, "we can prove nothing, and be nothing, without the milk of human kindness. Even faith is worth nothing without it, and hope is a fool."

"How can you tell it from charity?"

"By its humor. That's the milk of it. Charity has absolutely no humor. True kindness is humor, plus vision and courage."

"Nancy, you don't seem particularly humorous this evening."

"Child, if I had laughed, you might have feared I was laughing at you instead of with you. Who is our visitor? Look."

"You mean go out and -- "

"Look. It might be one of three people. Who is it?"

"Bulah Singh" said Elsa. "I can see him on the doorstep. What shall I do? I'm supposed to be ill at the monastery! Can't I escape to my room before he comes in here?"

"Run away if you wish," said Nancy Strong. "But why not face him? He is only a fact. And he has no sense of humor."

---

Bulah Singh looked at his best as he entered Nancy Strong's big living room. The servant who ushered him in switched on the light, but at a sign from Nancy he switched it off again. The Sikh stood framed in the light from the hall, handsome, important, a shade mysterious. But when the servant closed the door at his back and he walked forward, then the firelight that shone on his eyes showed also the shape of his mouth. His stride was vaguely feline.

"I surprise you?" he suggested.

"No," said Nancy. "But didn't Miss Burbage's movements surprise you? I expected you would come here. Please put some wood on the fire before you sit down."

The Sikh complied. He didn't like doing it. Instead of making him feel at ease it cost him some of the tactical aggressiveness that he had studiously built up. He was aware that, behind his back, Nancy and Elsa were comparing notes -- eyes meeting silently and uniting their mental resistance against him. He was at pains to look judicial and self-assured when he sat down, facing Elsa. But it didn't quite work. They formed a triangle, with firelight on their faces, high chair-backs behind them, and beyond that darkness. The cat lay on the hearthrug studying the occasional exploding spits of rain that fell down the chimney. Bulah Singh leaned forward and stroked the cat's head.

"A wet night," he remarked.

"Are you cold?" Nancy Strong asked him. "Would you care for a drink?"

"No, thanks. I came on important business. May I speak with Miss Burbage alone?"

"Why alone?" asked Elsa, wondering at herself. It was her own voice, but it didn't sound like hers.

The Sikh looked hard at her. "Because that may be to your advantage," he answered.

"Official business?" Nancy Strong suggested.

"Not yet. I would like to keep this part of it off the record. I am depending on you to be as discreet as I have known you to be on previous occasions."

"You don't want me to listen? Very well," said Nancy. "Shall I leave you alone together?"

"Nancy, I wish you wouldn't," said Elsa. "I've no secrets from you. I'd much rather you'd stay."

Nancy Strong smiled at the Sikh: "But Bulah Singh" she said, "wouldn't trust an old gossip like me. He knows all -- tells nothing. He is like Akhnaton." That was the cat's name.

Bulah Singh was in the wrong mood. He didn't like the remark. "I know some secrets," he retorted darkly. "It is my professional occupation to know what is going on. I was told that Miss Burbage was ill at the monastery. She appears to be quite well. Is it a secret why she was brought here by a back route -- why the monks have put her luggage in your godown?"

"I advised it," said Nancy. "Has her luggage come? Good."

"If you had consulted me I would have provided transportation, openly and aboveboard," said Bulah Singh. "It is a good thing she is out of the monastery. That place is a nest of intrigue."

"Mu-ni Gam-po," Nancy answered, "has been my friend more years than I care to count. So I suppose that's a dig at me?"

The Sikh smiled ambushed insolence: "I know more than you suspect. Do you forget my offer to exchange confidences? You rejected it. You preferred to force me, instead, to use other means of finding out what it is my duty to know. Even you can't keep all the secrets."

"Flatterer!" said Nancy.

"May I speak to Miss Burbage, alone?"

"What do you want to talk about?" Elsa demanded. She felt rather contemptuous, strangely enough; but perhaps that was a reaction from Nancy Strong's attitude.

The Sikh looked hard at her: "About Andrew Gunning."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

Elsa felt her heart skip two beats. But when she spoke to Nancy her voice was quite normal: "Is there another room we can go into?"

"No, dear, stay where you are. I will go to my office and wait there. I have a letter to write."

"But you'll be cold."

"No, there's an oil stove. I will leave the office door ajar, so just call out to me when you've finished talking."

The Sikh stood until Nancy Strong left the room and the door shut with a thud and the click of a brass latch. Then, still standing:

"Miss Burbage, you are in a false position," he said abruptly. "You make a mistake when you try to keep your movements secret from me. It can't be done. Why are you here?"

He sat down, bolt upright, his face growing gradually more determined, more menacing, as he watched Elsa's. She was curled up in the armchair with her feet under her, because she had taken off her shoes to dry them at the fire and she didn't choose that the Sikh should see the hole in the toe of her stocking. She looked puzzled. Bulah Singh wanted her well frightened. She realized that. But he also wanted to present himself as a magnanimous official who could excuse and protect if properly respected. She understood that, too. She wasn't being clairvoyant in the usual way. The thought behind the Sikh's words was revealing itself as color. It was muddy color, dull red, steel-blue, and gray-green, one appearing through the other and never still for a moment. So she knew he was thinking of several alternatives and hesitating what to say. But she couldn't tell what it was all about, and she felt no alarm.

"I was invited here," she answered.

"Tell me," he said abruptly, "what do you know about Andrew Gunning's past in the United States?"

Elsa frowned, startled, but not frightened, though she felt she should be. There was calculated menace in the Sikh's carefully chosen tone of voice, and in the way his tongue played on his teeth above the outthrust lower lip. She felt that the attack was aimed at herself, not Andrew. Some of Nancy Strong's phrases began flooding her mind. They made no sense, and she didn't believe them, but there they were: proof of evolution -- spiritual process -- the Lord is my shepherd -- milk of human kindness -- wake up!

"I mean his history before you met him," said Bulah Singh. "I know enough about your present relationship."

That should have stung, but it didn't. It should have angered her. It didn't. She felt no impulse to answer. T he Sikh repeated the question:

"What do you know about Andrew Gunning's past in the United States? He must have told you. Tell me. It is important."

That instant she saw a vision of Andrew. It was a composite memory-portrait. It included Andrew in a snowstorm, heating water on a yak-dung fire, in the lee of a rock, ready for an unborn baby -- Andrew carving portraits of Chenrezi -- Andrew and Dr. Lewis and Mu-ni Gam-po -- but no Andrew at that moment. She had no idea where he was or what he might be doing.

"He has told me very little about America," she answered. "I know he went to college, and played football, and got a degree, and afterwards studied law. He isn't old enough, is he, to have done much more than that?"

"Did he never tell you about a criminal indictment?"

"No."

"For homicide?"

"No."

"Oh well, if you're not in his confidence," said Bulah Singh, "I'd better let things take their course. It might have been possible to save him."

Now she did feel afraid. "Save him? From what? Bulah Singh, what do you mean?"

"Use your clairvoyance!"

"What are you talking about? What has happened? Is Andrew in trouble?"

"Keep calm. He is in serious trouble. Your clairvoyance might help him. It might."

"Is Andrew hurt? Has something happened to him? Quick! Tell me!"

"Will you help him?"

"Of course I'll help him! What is it? Tell me!"

"Make a definite promise."

"If Andrew needs my help I will do anything I possibly can -- anything."

"You promise?"

"That is a promise. Bulah Singh, unless you tell me at once what has happened I will ask Miss Strong to phone Dr. Lewis and -- "

Bulah Singh interrupted: "Dr. Lewis has been investigating Andrew Gunning, and you too -- as I daresay you will realize -- if you cast your thought back over recent events."

"Dr. -- Morgan -- Lewis has -- why, he's Tom Grayne's friend -- he's my friend -- he -- "

"In the secret intelligence service there is no such thing as friendship," said Bulah Singh. "Dr. Morgan Lewis was your secret enemy, and Gunning's."

"Was? You said was?"

"Yes. I have serious news. Lewis knew all about Gunning's past in the United States. He found out every detail of his illegal preparations to return to Tibet. Perhaps you know how he found out. Lewis has dabbled for years in telepathy."

Elsa felt herself grow cold with self-accusing fear.

The Sikh continued: "Lewis learned from Mu-ni Gam-po that Gunning intends to find the Lama Lobsang Pun and help him to reach Tom Grayne. That is true, isn't it?"

"I don't know. I won't answer. What has happened to Andrew?"

"I came to ask you to help him. Lewis was a conceited man. He was jealous of me. He called on Gunning this evening and accused him of having bribed me to be deaf and blind to his arrangements to cross the border into Tibet."

"Has Andrew been arrested?"

"Not yet."

"What did happen? Where is Andrew now?"

"Listen carefully." The Sikh's mouth betrayed greedy triumph. His eyes stared at Elsa's. They didn't move. His eyelids didn't blink. He spoke slowly: "Lewis and Gunning quarreled. Lewis now lies dead in Gunning's room at the hotel."

Elsa came uncurled, bolt upright. The cat fed into the darkness.

"Dr. Lewis! Dead? Where is Andrew?"

"On his way to Tibet."

"You mean he's running away?"

"He can be overtaken, of course. But -- "

"But what? Bulah Singh, are you lying? Are you trying to make me believe that Andrew killed Dr. Lewis?"

"Use your clairvoyance."

"I am trying to use it! I see nothing!"

"I left them alone together, in Gunning's room at the hotel. I had hardly reached my office at police headquarters when the news came by telephone."

"From whom?"

"From my man on the spot. Gunning had been seen leaving the hotel. I detailed an inspector and several men to trace Gunning's movements. He has vanished."

Elsa relaxed suddenly: "Bulah Singh, I don't believe one word of it! How could Andrew possibly get away? He had no horse -- no motorcar."

The Sikh interrupted: "Gunning is a man of foresight and resource. He had anticipated this. He made his preparations in advance. Weren't you expecting him here?"

"No."

"You are up late."

"Talking, that's all." Then suddenly, staring at the Sikh's eyes: "Bulah Singh, are you lying about Andrew and Dr. Lewis?"

"Use your clairvoyance. Use it! Look!"

"I see the color of your thought! I can't interpret that! I can't see Andrew. When my friends are in danger, I sometimes know it -- sometimes -- but -- "

"Gunning is in no danger," said Bulah Singh, "if you do your part."

"My part? My part? What do you mean?" Nancy Strong's words poured into her mind -- no sense to them, but a kind of rhythm like running water: shall not want -- dimensions of ideas -- human kindness -- Lord is my shepherd, I --

"Gunning's fate is in your hands," said Bulah Singh. His eyes didn't move. They were fixed on hers steadily. "Obey me, and he shall escape to Tibet."

"Obey you? What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

"I don't know. Tell me! Don't talk riddles."

"You do know. Look into my eyes. Now -- obey me -- and save Andrew Gunning."

"Obey you? How? Do what?"

"Use your clairvoyance."

"You mean now?"

"Continually. There is no other way to save Gunning from capture, indictment, conviction and death by hanging. Obey me, and he shall get clear away. I am your friend. Your only friend in India. Obey me and save Andrew Gunning."

Elsa was seeing visions, staring wide-eyed into the darkness beyond Bulah Singh. She saw Tom Grayne, in the cavern she knew so well, near Shig-po-ling, nine hundred miles away -- Tom Grayne in danger; but she could only sense, she could not see the danger -- Tom Grayne, waiting -- waiting for the spring and for Andrew with men and supplies. She was hardly conscious of Bulah Singh's voice, speaking slowly in firm monotone:

"It was your fault that Gunning came to Darjeeling -- your fault that Lewis found out all his plans -- your fault -- your fault. And now only you can save him -- by obeying me, your friend -- always -- obeying me -- always."

The front door bell rang. The Sikh began to speak more quickly: "Here come the plainclothes policemen to get clues to pursue Gunning. Only I can send them in a wrong direction. You must obey me. Promise to obey me. Say it!"

The bell rang again. The servant hurried along the hallway and undid the clattering chain on the front door.

"You are afraid," said Bulah Singh. "You are afraid for Andrew Gunning. But you know you need not fear, if you obey me. Answer: you will obey me."

The front door opened and the wind blustered in, carrying voices along the hallway.

"Answer," Bulah Singh commanded.

Elsa came out of reverie suddenly, looking straight at him. She smiled: "Yes, I'll answer. If it's as bad as you say it is, Bulah Singh, I will take Miss Strong's advice and -- "

The door opened suddenly. Andrew Gunning strode into the room. The Sikh swore under his breath. Elsa stifled what was almost a scream.

---

Elsa and Bulah Singh jumped to their feet and spoke simultaneously.

"Andrew!"

"You idiot!" The Sikh strode forward.

Andrew switched on the light: " 'Evening," he said. "What's the bright idea?" He appeared to expect the Sikh to attack him. He stood still, with a fighting smile and lowered eyebrows. The Sikh went close to him and spoke low-voiced:

"Go now, you fool -- or you're next. You were warned."

"Yes," said Andrew. "On my way here one of my own men warned me to clear out. Is this your doing? Who shot Morgan Lewis?"

"On your way!" said the Sikh. "Someone shall overtake you with a message. Get going!"

"Andrew!" Elsa had crossed the room in stockinged feet. She stood beside Bulah Singh. "Andrew, you're accused of -- "

"I know."

Bulah Singh spoke with studied calmness: "If you don't want to hang, get going. Lewis lies dead in your room at the hotel, shot with your automatic."

Andrew answered stubbornly: "My automatic was turned in long ago for registration at police headquarters."

Bulah Singh sneered: "You have the receipt for it?"

"No," said Andrew. "One of your spies stole that when he searched my rooms. You framed this."

"It's a clear case," the Sikh answered. "You haven't a chance. If you wait, they will hang you as sure as time is your enemy! Go! Hurry! I will hold up pursuit while you cross the frontier."

"Nothing doing," said Andrew. "Arrest me, if you want to. I'll stay and find out who did kill Lewis. They'll need my evidence."

Elsa started to speak. Bulah Singh stepped sideways between her and Andrew and turned his back to her. He spoke with concentrated fury: "You'll not live to give evidence. Your only chance is to do what I told you to do, in Tibet. I'll keep in touch. You can't play tricks with me. Get going, or hang!"

Elsa stepped beside Andrew and faced the Sikh. He scowled, speaking to her with his jaw thrust forward: "They will convict Mu-ni Gam-po and you as accomplices. That means prison. Tom Grayne will be left flat in Tibet, for St. Malo to deal with and -- "

Elsa touched Andrew's arm: "Andrew -- "

"Elsa, you keep out of this. I'll -- "

"Please, Andrew. Bulah Singh knows you didn't kill Dr. Lewis. I know he knows it. But if you stay here to face this out, they'll bring up all kinds of things against you. It may take months. Tom is waiting at Shig-po-ling, and -- "

Andrew stared at her, amazed. Bulah Singh swore in Punjabi and then snarled in English: "Unless he goes, he'll hang. I guarantee that: If he goes, he's safe. So are you. I guarantee that also." He glared at Andrew: "But get going -- damn you, get a move on!"

Andrew grinned obstinately. Elsa continued as if the Sikh hadn't spoken: "I will be all right here, Andrew. I'm not a bit afraid. The great thing is not to leave Tom in the lurch, isn't it?" She looked straight into Bulah Singh's eyes, keeping her hand on Andrew's forearm so that he bit back the hot speech he had ready. Between those two big men she looked like a pale child, wide-eyed with bedtime sleepiness. But they waited for her to speak -- the Sikh suspicious -- Andrew puzzled, half expecting her to begin telling visions. What she said to the Sikh surprised both of them.

"Hadn't you better go?" she suggested. "Leave me to persuade Andrew?"

The Sikh's face revealed instant triumph. He nodded. "Yes. Persuade him as you love him. I must go -- to delay the pursuit. Good-bye, Gunning. You can save her. She can save you. I can protect both of you. Don't waste time!"

He glanced around as if he meditated going out through a window.

Andrew's lip curled: "You left your raincoat in the hall."

The Sikh nodded. He walked to the door, opened it, turned suddenly to stare at Andrew and said: "You will find your road clear if you go swiftly. I will keep in continual touch. Play my game -- and you will find her safe when you return. But don't come back empty-handed."

He closed the door quietly and let himself out through the front door.

As it slammed the phone rang. It continued ringing until at the far end of the hall Nancy Strong shut the door of her office. Andrew and Elsa faced each other in silence, Andrew breathing through his nose, too furious to trust himself to speak. Elsa was afraid to speak for fear she might touch off the angry energy that she knew might cause him to act without thinking.

"It's a God-damned shame," he said suddenly, grinding his teeth. "Morgan Lewis was a good guy. Foxy. Too mysterious. But on the level. I wonder who shot him with my gun."

"We have only Bulah Singh's word for it," said Elsa.

"His word's worth nothing," Andrew agreed, "but Bompo Tsering met me with the whole story out here by the gate in the dark. He wanted me to run. It's less than an hour since Lewis warned me that Bulah Singh has designs on you. See here -- " he hesitated, staring at her -- "why did you take Bulah Singh's side of it? Why did you say you'd persuade me?"

"To get rid of him. To get him out of the way, so that we could decide what to do."

"Elsa, you haven't a chance on earth to persuade me to play that man's game. He's a devil. He's clever. But I've a hunch I can prove he killed Lewis. It may be hard to prove. He may have hypnotized some -- just a moment -- look me in the eyes -- what was he doing in here? -- Did he hypnotize you?"

"He tried."

"Are you sure he didn't?"

"Quite sure."

"Lewis told me you'd be easy for him if he caught you off guard."

"Ah, but I had been talking to Nancy Strong before Bulah Singh came."

"About hypnotism?"

"No. About pigs and poets. Don't ask now, Andrew, it would take too long to tell. Just think. Try to get your mind quiet. Don't be stampeded."

"Stampeded nothing."

"Was my boot in your room at the hotel?"

"Yes. Fortunately Lewis noticed it. So I brought it along -- gave it to Bompo Tsering."

"Do you trust Bompo Tsering?"

"Yes. He might be outwitted. He scares easy. But he wouldn't betray me for luck or money. He said he had the story from a man at the hotel. He'd gone there to find me. So he ran and overtook me. Yes, I trust Bompo Tsering."

"So do I trust him. Did he say everything's ready?"

"Yes. He wanted me to bolt without coming here. He believes I did kill Lewis."

"Well, Andrew, I do think you'd better go. I don't think you're in danger. Can you get along without the things you had at the hotel?"

"Sure. I planned to leave all that stuff. Everything I need is up close to the border, ready for the take-off."

"Then go, Andrew. And God bless you. Please tell Tom what I asked you to tell him."

"No. Nothing doing. I'll send Bompo Tsering. He's a good headman. He'll make it. He'll get through somehow. I'll stay and face the music."

"Andrew -- "

"What?"

She hesitated. They could hear the clock tick on the mantelpiece. "Will you trust me this one last time?"

"What do you mean?"

"Bulah Singh told me that Dr. Lewis is dead."

"I guess all Darjeeling knows it by now."

"But he isn't dead! Andrew, he isn't."

"Are you seeing things?"

"Yes! So you're not in danger. But if you don't go you will be, because Bulah Singh -- "

He interrupted, speaking gently: "You've been under too much strain lately. That damned Sikh has got you frightened and all mixed up in your mind. But see here -- "f

"Andrew -- Dr. Lewis is not dead. He isn't even hurt. And he's on your side."

"No one could sell me that he wasn't friendly," Andrew answered.

"So you go now -- and trust Dr. Lewis."

"Swell idea! I suppose I'm to tell Tom Grayne I left you to the mercies of a dead doctor and a Sikh hypnotist? Take a good look with that vision of yours and see if you can see me doing it"

"Andrew, you must go. I know it will be all right if you do. But if you don't -- things are known about you -- I mean, things in the United States. I know none of the details but Bulah Singh does, and -- "

Nancy Strong knocked on the door and came into the room. She glanced down the passage before closing the door. She looked grimly amused; but in the aura of her humor was a hint of a broom that sweeps clean.

"Elsa! -- in your stockinged feet -- you should know better. These stone floors chill you right through the carpet. Go and warm your feet at the fire."

She switched off the light, took Elsa's hand and led her to the fireplace. Andrew followed.

"Put some wood on, Andrew."

He obeyed, stared, sat down facing them. There was silence for a moment while the fire leaped into a bright blaze. Then Nancy Strong breathed one of her sighs that smiled at the perplexity of things.

"You know the news?" asked Andrew.

"Yes. Oh, how much easier this world would be to live in if there weren't any men. Well, Elsa, I warned you that Morgan Lewis is dangerous."

Elsa, staring at the fire, said: "Bulah Singh is the danger,"

"Did he frighten you? Look at me!"

"Yes. But -- "

"Look straight at me!"

"Yes. I was frightened -- not at first, but after a minute or two. I had begun to feel there was no escape from him. Then suddenly I remembered what you had been saying -- "

"I see you are all right," said Nancy Strong.

"Some of your phrases kept running through my mind, in back of my thought, like a refrain -- like a tune that you can't forget -- "

"And then you left off being meek! What do you think I was doing in my office?"

"You said you would write a letter."

"Here it is. Keep it. Child, much the easiest way to send good thinking straight to the one in need, is to write it down on paper, with a picture of the person in your mind. That forces you to concentrate. What did I write? Read it."

Elsa unfolded the paper, read it and glanced up at Nancy: "May I?"

Nancy nodded. Elsa handed the letter to Andrew. He held it to the firelight, frowning, puzzled, and glanced at both of them.

"That is strong magic," said Nancy. "Stronger than all the mantras and Yogic exercises from here to hell-and-gone, if you'll pardon my emphasis. We all know the magic. The thing is to use it."

Andrew folded Nancy's letter, stuffed it into his pocket and coughed to call attention to the fact that there was a crisis to deal with. Nancy looked at him sharply.

"It takes a lot of the milk of human kindness," she said, "to get some people out of the messes that their ignorant generosity gets them into. Did you ever see a ghost?"

"No, and I never wanted to," Andrew answered. "I need advice, badly. I'm going to be accused of shooting Dr. Morgan Lewis."

"That man is a menace," said Nancy. "Do ghosts use telephones?"

"I don't get you. Maybe I'm a bit -- "

"Morgan Lewis is a menace to himself and to half Darjeeling at this very moment," said Nancy. "He is riding a motorcycle, in the dark, in the rain, without a headlight."

Elsa wriggled with delight. "Andrew, I told you!"

Andrew stared at Nancy Strong: "You mean Lewis isn't dead? How do you know?"

"He was talking to me a few minutes ago," said Nancy. "But of course -- a motorcycle, at his time of life -- and belonging at that to a Lepcha pharmacist's assistant -- probably no brakes -- and rotten tires -- yes, he may be dead by this time -- "

"He isn't!" said Elsa. "He's coming! I know it! I can feel it! He is bringing good news!"

"It will be bad news for someone," Nancy answered. "Unless that impudent Bulah Singh has sense enough to -- "

"Listen!" said Elsa.

The machine-gun sputter of a decrepit motorcycle, hard-ridden, slowed up the drive and coughed to a standstill.

Elsa nodded triumphantly: "Dr. Lewis!"

"This has me beat," said Andrew. "The place feels like a madhouse."

"The whole world is a madhouse," said Nancy Strong. "You shot Morgan Lewis. Here comes his ghost. Perhaps his ghost is a little bit sane. We'll soon know."

The bell rang. The barefooted servant upset a chair in the hall in his hurry to reach the front door.

"I'm a failure," said Nancy. "I have had that servant for fifteen years. But I can't train him not to fear ghosts. Someone told him Lewis is dead. I told him Lewis is coming. So a dead man's here! And now listen to him."

---

The door opened. The turbaned servant, white-eyed with superstition, staring at Lewis, switched on the light. Lewis waited for the servant to close the door behind him, then switched the light off. Andrew stood up. Lewis strode through the firelit gap between the screen of bookcases straight toward Elsa and stood beside the armchair, looking down at her, with the firelight gleaming on his monocle.

"Did you get my message?" he demanded.

"I knew you weren't hurt. I knew you were coming. Is that what you mean?"

"Did she? Can anyone prove it?"

"Yes," said Andrew.

"Yes," said Nancy Strong.

"Good girl!" said Lewis. "That settles it. You may return to Tibet with Andrew Gunning."

"Dr. Lewis, you're an angel," said Elsa. But everyone knew she resented his manner.

"It's the devil who lets people do as they please," Lewis answered. He nodded to her, recognizing unspoken comments. "Yes," he added, "you've been where I never had a chance to go. But all the same, I'm the purveyor of dispensations." He stared at Andrew: "You should be on your way now, and in hiding, before daylight."

Andrew squared his shoulders: "That suits me -- seeing it's you, not Bulah Singh." He took the poker and prodded the fire.

"Gently!" Nancy warned him. "Gently! That poker once belonged to Lord Tennyson. Don't break it."

"Are the shutters tight?" Lewis asked.

"No," said Nancy, "not particularly. The repair-man didn't come."

Lewis chose the chair in the corner between bookcase and hearth.

"What more," he remarked, "could a man with a pistol ask for than shutters that can be opened from outside!"

"In twenty years, bullets have ruined three of my best books," Nancy remarked. "Weaklings have been bullet-minded ever since the World War. But an average of one in six or seven years isn't very exciting, is it?"

"Who got shot in my room at the hotel?" Andrew asked.

"No one," said Lewis. "But the top of your head is above the book-case now, so sit down."

Andrew chose the chair in the corner facing Lewis. "Then the whole story's a fake?"

"My word, no. I was shot at, if there's such a thing as evidence. Gunning, you are circumstantially guilty of attempted murder with an unregistered Luger automatic known to belong to you. The bullet went into the bedroom wall. The Luger was tossed into a bureau drawer by whoever used it. You are now making tracks for the sky line. Now! You are on your way -- now. You haven't spoken to me. I'm a ghost. If necessary you will lie about that, blackly and without equivocation, taking all the consequences."

"Okay. But I can't read thought. Do we get the lowdown?"

"Yes -- from high Olympus." Lewis turned toward Elsa: "Tell what happened," he said quietly, taking her wrist.

"But, Dr. Lewis, I don't know what happened."

"Not yet, perhaps. But you haven't looked. Look now. What took place in Andrew Gunning's room at the hotel?"

"I don't know."

"If you hadn't touched her she might have been able to read it," said Nancy Strong. "It won't work that way, Morgan. You have made her self-conscious. You will have to tell your own story."

Andrew blundered to the rescue: "Besides, she hates that stuff," he objected. "Elsa; don't you let him rag you." He grinned pugnaciously at Lewis. "She's been run ragged by Bulah Singh, on top of her own worries. You let her alone."

Nancy Strong spoke with authority, as if Lewis were a small boy: "Morgan, Andrew is right. Don't be cruel. Tell all of us what you told me just now over the telephone. I want to hear it again."

"Since I'm in on this," said Andrew, "you might begin where we left off, in my room at the hotel. You warned me that Bulah Singh might trace Elsa here. So he did. I heard you lock my room door when I came away. After that, what?"

"I unlocked it again," said Lewis.

"So you knew what was going to happen? It was all in the bag?"

Lewis laughed: "That's a beautiful phrase. No, nothing's in the bag -- yet; not even Bulah Singh, although he's so scared we can bet on his making another mistake."

"He seemed so cocksure here in this room, that he had me well fooled for a couple of minutes," said Andrew.

"Several of us may be in the bag, as you call it, unless you fool him by staying fooled," Lewis answered. "The same man who wants you to get going toward Tibet prevented these shutters from being repaired. Nearly all hypnotists are self-hypnotized into absurdly overestimating their own craftiness. Bulah Singh is no exception. He feels he is playing a sort of occult chess against inferior opponents. He is too busy scorning his opponents' ignorance to notice his own mistakes. He feels like an invisible influence, because hypnotism can't be fingerprinted, or photographed or boiled in a tube for analysis. He is so cocksure of the secrecy of what he's doing -- and of the superiority of his own intelligence -- that he did an almost incredibly stupid thing. He employed a down-at- heel Eurasian, suffering from catatonia -- ordered him to shoot me with your pistol."

"What's catatonia?" asked Andrew.

"It's a form of schizophrenia. That's the up-to-date name for dementia praecox. The man also has more or less dormant syphilis, suppressed some years ago by quack treatment. He will die of it one of these days, unless they hang him. He has been hypnotized to the point where he's simply a diseased mass of anti-social illusions. Didn't you notice the man on your way out of your bedroom?"

"No," said Andrew.

"He was there, in the corridor, waiting. Perhaps he stepped into the lavatory to avoid you."

"Come to think of it," said Andrew, "Bulah Singh did mention, after you'd left us alone together in my room, that he'd posted a man at the stairhead to prevent anyone from listening in to our conversation."

"That was the man. Nathaniel Braganza Lemon. Not too bad-looking, but narrow between the eyes and a long, pointed chin. Degraded Virgo, in case you know what that means. Illegitimate son of an infantry corporal who was hanged for murdering the lad's Goanese-Japanese- Irish mother. Bad heredity. Bad environment. No character there to begin with. Plenty of hell rubbed into him as he grew up in the red-light district of Lahore and elsewhere. Persecution complex -- envy, hatred, malice, greed -- how he kept clear of the gallows I don't know. We've his prison and hospital record."

"And you knew he was laying for you?" Andrew asked.

"Yes. Fortunately! I know quite a lot about Lemon. Had him under observation for a while, in hospital, in Delhi. He was a nuisance. Had to discipline him. Wasn't mad enough to be locked up, nor sane enough to appreciate generous treatment at public expense. I turned him out finally. Bulah Singh ran across him by chance on a visit to Delhi and brought him here for use as an informer -- not a policeman, you understand -- a mere spy, paid hardly enough from the secret fund to keep body and soul together. So it was actually Lemon who first drew my attention to Bulah Singh. I learned that Bulah Singh was using him for hypnotic experiments. That brought Bulah Singh automatically into my special orbit."

"Why?" asked Elsa, as if Lewis were the point at issue, not Lemon or Bulah Singh. The one word sounded almost like an ultimatum.

"Trust a woman to ask that question!"

"Won't you answer it, Dr. Lewis?"

"Yes." He smiled. "It isn't safe not to answer. You might start thought-reading and find out too much! The answer is: we keep track of counterfeiters. Hypnotism, unrestrained by moral discipline, and unsupervised by science, is counterfeit ambition. That is my phrase. Don't you quote it or they'll call you crazy. Ninety percent of hypnotists become so intellectually vain and amoral that they think they can get away with anything, murder included."

"Ninety-nine per cent of them," said Nancy Strong.

"You and I don't agree there," said Lewis. "Anyhow, one thing leading to another, we discovered that Bulah Singh was hypnotizing various criminal types and making very interesting experiments. He was also using mediums and clairvoyants. By the use of suggestion he caused criminals to commit petty crimes, of the kind for which they were temperamentally suited. Then he would hypnotize a medium or a clairvoyant and command him to detect the crime. He soon discovered that the mediums were useless; and good clairvoyants are much harder to find. I knew what he was doing, but it was practically impossible to get legal evidence."

Elsa interrupted again: "Why?"

"Because a criminal hypnotist, speaking directly to the unconscious mind of the victim, commands the victim to act but to forget who ordered him to act, and also to forget the act itself."

"It's that trick of forgetting," said Nancy Strong, "that makes the whole wide world so easy to corrupt. We even forget what prime ministers and presidents said last week."

"We watched Bulah Singly" said Lewis, "on the general principle that the deliberate use of secret power over other people always -- always, mind you -- arouses appetite for more. It becomes insatiable. In that respect it's worse than drink or drugs. The greater the appetite for power, the less the respect for truth. It's a self- stimulating vice, especially deadly when rooted in experience of actual authority and aggravated by intellectual conceit. That's the reason why so-called statesmen are such liars. It wasn't long before we uncovered Bulah Singh's little game."

"Why didn't you break him right then?" Andrew objected.

"For the same reason that we didn't deport Tom Grayne, and you too," Lewis answered. "Given time and opportunity Bulah Singh will break himself -- beyond the slightest shadow of doubt he'll do that. But meanwhile, if he's carefully watched, we can learn even more from him than from you and Tom Grayne."

Elsa moved suddenly, startled: "Dr. Lewis! Do you mean you think Tom will -- will break, as you call it?"

"Oh, yes. You're laboratory mice, that's all. Probably all three of you will meet your end in Tibet. The job is too big. You haven't a chance. But that's your lookout. We're none of us immortal."

"Oh, yes, we are," said Nancy Strong. "We all are."

Lewis smiled at her: "Immortal? In spite of us medical men?"

"Go on telling about Bulah Singly" said Nancy.

Lewis nodded. "Yes. If the immortal Nancy gets a word in sideways, there'll be -- "

Nancy interrupted: "Time, Morgan, time! Tell your story."

Lewis laughed. "Very well. -- Bulah Singh hypnotized Lemon. He gave him Gunning's Luger. He posted him in the hotel corridor and ordered him to shoot me if he could catch me alone in Gunning's room. Circumstantial evidence would point to Gunning, who would then have to obey Bulah Singh in all particulars or else hang for murder."

"Holy smoke, that Sikh took a long chance!" said Andrew.

"Longer than you guess," said Lewis. "Hypnotism is a boomerang."

"And, seems to me, you took an even longer chance."

"Oh no. Rudimentary hypnotism is as unintelligent as money. I was prepared for Lemon. When he opened the door and stuck his head through I hit him on the back of the neck with a piece of rubber hose."

"Swell. But he had a Luger! You don't call that taking a chance?"

"Oh no. I'm an anatomist; I know just where to hit. The rest, of course, was quite simple. I fired a shot with the Luger, to make things all nice and plausible, lifted Lemon on to your bed, tied him hand and foot, tossed the Luger into an open bureau drawer, and phoned for the hotel manager. Hotel managers are valuable people if you take care to win their confidence. I operated on Mr. Nazareth, years ago, for an obscure spinal complaint. He very luckily recovered and has been absurdly grateful to me ever since for not having killed him. So we're excellent friends. Nazareth locked the door and refused to open it for anyone less than the Chief of Police. Messengers were sent to hunt up the Chief of Police. I cleared out, by the back way, while Nazareth spread all the necessary rumors. That's all. Except that you are on your way to Tibet."

Andrew laughed. "I'd give something to see Bulah Singh's face when he finds Lemon hog-tied on my bed."

"No chance of that," said Lewis. "Bulah Singh might have suicided Lemon with the Luger -- perhaps with the butt end. Hypnotists whose little tricks don't work become hysterical. So I turned in an ambulance call."

"But you said the door was locked," Elsa objected. "If Mr. Nazareth wouldn't let them open the door -- "

Lewis smiled: "Never say no to the fire brigade, the inspector of drains, or the ambulance man. Lemon is in hospital, safe, under observation."

"Any chance of getting Lemon to talk?" asked Andrew.

"I doubt it," said Lewis. "At any rate, not for a long time. He didn't see me -- doesn't know who hit him -- had been ordered to forget -- I think he'll say nothing of any importance."

"Take the rap for attempted robbery or some charge like that?"

"He will probably entertain himself with secret mental pictures of me, being killed by him, in all sorts of peculiar ways. After that he will lapse into sex-dreams."

"And will Bulah Singh get off scot-free?" asked Elsa.

"Well, my dear girl, what can he be charged with at the moment? If Andrew Gunning clears out, as he is about to do, who can accuse Bulah Singh of doing what?"

Nancy Strong chuckled: "Andrew might stay," she suggested. "Put some wood on Andrew."

Andrew chose cedar knots thoughtfully, placing them carefully, thinking, thinking.

"Andrew Gunning goes before daylight," said Lewis, "while the going is good. Bulah Singh shall be informed of it." He glanced at Andrew: "I suppose he knows your route?"

"Boasted he did. I guess he knows some of it."

"Good. He will go his limit to make sure the route is kept wide open for you."

"And do I go with Andrew -- now?" Elsa asked. "All right, I'm ready!"

Lewis stared at her. He looked almost shocked. "Of course not! Nancy Strong will turn you over to Mu-ni Gam-po's men. They will smuggle you through on their way northward. But we must always save face for the police; so Mu-ni Gam-po's loads, that are in the monastery stable with Gunning's name on them, will be sent in the wrong direction to give the police an excuse for a false hunt. Bulah Singh shall be correctly informed that Gunning bolted and left you behind. Is that clear?"

"Morgan!" said Nancy Strong. "You are too fond of being clever. What you actually are, is a romantic fifty-year-old schoolboy. What is to prevent Bulah Singh from killing Elsa to stop her from talking?"

"That's your job," said Lewis.

"Nonsense! How could I protect her? You had better have Bulah Singh pounced on now. Think! You have plenty of evidence to -- "

Lewis interrupted: "No! No! All women think intuition is legal evidence and evidence is proof. Cases aren't cured by suppressing symptoms. No. If necessary, but not otherwise, I will try to get Bulah Singh suspended from duty for having let Gunning escape across the frontier. But I don't want to do even that. Bulah Singh may make some very informing mistake if we give him time. He's afraid. A frightened hypnotist is a dangerous fool who is trying to ride two wild horses. Their names are Physics and Metaphysics. That man is absolutely sure to come a cropper."

Suddenly Andrew got out of his chair, passed quietly through the gap between the bookcases and stood listening.

"Shutter?" asked Lewis.

"Yes. Quiet, please, everybody." Andrew walked to the corner window, about ten feet beyond where Lewis sat with his back to the bookcase. The closed shutter moved. The window opened about two inches. A hand appeared in the opening. Andrew grabbed at the hand but missed it.

"Who is it?" he demanded.

A voice answered in a hoarse whisper: "That you, Gunnigun?"

"Oh. You? Okay. Watch the house. Watch the windows. Wait for me. I won't be long now."

The shutter closed. Andrew closed the window.

"Your man?" asked Lewis.

"Yes. Bompo Tsering."

Elsa jumped up: "Oh, Andrew, let me speak to him, please! Tell him to wait a second." She hurried between the bookcases and then hesitated, in full firelight, beside the table on which Nancy Strong had set Lobsang Pun's portrait.

Suddenly, at the opposite end of the room, beyond the grand piano, another shutter opened, and then a window. Someone fired, straight at Elsa. The bullet smashed into the silver-framed portrait, knocking it to the floor with a clatter of breaking glass. Elsa stifled a scream as Andrew almost knocked her down, shoving her through the opening between the bookcases. He shoved so hard that she almost stumbled into the fire. Andrew ran down room toward the window. Someone outside slammed the shutter before he was halfway. The strangest part was that Nancy Strong didn't move in her armchair. She sat silent with her eyes shut.

"Did you see who it was?" asked Lewis.

"No," said Andrew. "Stay where you are, Lewis. Don't show yourself. The shot may have been meant for you."

"Nonsense!" Lewis answered. "No one could mistake you for me, even in firelight." His voice had the flat note of nervousness under control.

Nancy Strong spoke at last: "Andrew, come back here behind the bookcase."

Elsa seconded: "Andrew! Come back! He might try it again!"

"Just a moment." Andrew stooped for the picture, examined it, shook off some loose glass and then strode into the firelight. "Are you superstitious?" he asked. He showed the picture to Nancy Strong. There was a bullet hole exactly through the middle of Lobsang Pun's forehead.

"Yes," said Lewis, "she is superstitious. All women are."

"I am not," said Nancy. "Morgan, it is you who are superstitious. I am a realist. I was thinking of Lobsang Pun. He was thinking of me."

Elsa went closer to Nancy to look at her face and at the broken photograph. "What do you mean?" she asked. "You were -- "

"The question," said Lewis, "is who fired that shot at Elsa?"

"Or at me," said Andrew. "The bullet passed straight between us."

"You men!" said Nancy. "Do you never use your intuition at the right time? Elsa, what do you see? Quickly -- don't think about it! -- answer the question!"

Elsa stared for about half a second -- stared into vacancy. Then she answered: "Bulah Singh, shooting at you!"

"That," said Nancy, "is clairvoyance."

"But it seems all wrong," Elsa objected. "You weren't even in sight from the window. Someone tried to shoot either Andrew or me."

"Trust your vision," said Nancy. "Facts are skittles. Look for the truth. Of what use would you be to Bulah Singh, as long as I'm in the way to stop him from interfering with you?"

Lewis confirmed that: "They were in full firelight. Bulah Singh wouldn't shoot either of the two people whom he hopes to use for his own ends."

Nancy spoke with assurance: "Someone who didn't know me by sight, and who had not been told there might be two women in the room, had orders to watch through the window and shoot me. He mistook Elsa for me. Someone else intervened and made him miss."

No one spoke for at least thirty seconds. Morgan Lewis's monocle was like a scandalized question mark. Elsa watched Andrew's face. At last Andrew said:

"Bompo Tsering can't have interfered to spoil the aim. He hadn't time to get around to that side of the house."

"I was thinking," said Nancy, "of Lobsang Pun. He was thinking of me. The bullet hit Lobsang Pun's photograph."

"Lobsang Pun is in Tibet, several hundred miles away," said Andrew.

Lewis laughed: "Nancy, you still deny that you're superstitious?".

"It was a coincidence," Nancy retorted, "like when one of your surgical cases gets well."

After that there was silence except for the blustering wind in the chimney and the spitting of raindrops on the fire.

---

Andrew went to find Bompo Tsering, letting himself out through the front door. The frightened Lepcha servant chained the door behind him and then came into the room to ask Nancy Strong for orders. He peered at her around the corner of the bookcase. Nancy passed him the silver-framed photograph.

"Put that back on the table, please, Tashgyl. Then sweep up the broken glass. Careful! Don't cut yourself."

"Yes, Miss."

"After that pick up the window glass."

"Yes, Miss."

"And tomorrow morning, first thing, tell Jambool to come and put a new pane in the window."

"Yes, Miss."

"Are you too frightened to remember your manners? You shouldn't stare like that at Dr. Lewis."

"No, Miss."

"Very well, don't stare at him. Go and sweep up the glass."

But the Lepcha servant stood, in the opening between the bookcases, staring at Lewis. He seemed unable to move. Lewis got out of his armchair and walked toward him. The servant backed away, but Lewis caught the hand that held the broken photograph of Lobsang Pun and checked his retreat.

"Look at me -- straight in the eyes," said Lewis.

The servant stared, numb with terror. His flat, good-natured face, beneath a voluminous turban, expressed no understanding at all -- nothing but frightened emotion. It was like the face of a man awakened suddenly from deep sleep amid strange surroundings. Lewis kept hold of his wrist:

"Answer me! Did Bulah Singh sahib, the Chief of Police, ever promise you protection?"

"Yes, sahib."

"Said he likes you Lepcha people, and knows what a good, honest servant you are?"

"Yes, sahib."

"And how loyal you are to your employer, Miss Strong?"

"Yes, sahib."

"Then he asked you questions?"

"Yes, sahib."

"Lots of questions?"

"Yes, sahib."

"About your employer?"

"Yes, sahib."

"You have a brother in prison?"

"Yes, sahib."

"Did he suggest that he might persuade Miss Strong to befriend your brother?"

"Yes, sahib."

"Your brother has a wife?"

"Yes, sahib."

"Did Bulah Singh promise to protect your brother's wife until his release from prison?"

"Yes, sahib."

"But was your brother's wife unfaithful? Did she become the mistress of the Japanese Koki Konoe?"

"No, no, sahib. She not being the mistress. He being her master. She going with him, becoming his woman."

"Where is she now?"

"My not knowing."

"Did Bulah Singh suggest that you do know where she is?"

"Yes, sahib. But my not knowing. No! Not knowing!"

"Did Bulah Singh tell you I'm dead?"

"Yes, sahib."

"When?"

"Just now, sahib, not long ago, when my opening door, letting him in."

"Did he say that your brother's wife perhaps did the killing; and that if you want to keep out of trouble you'd better come and see him at the police kana?"

"Yes, sahib."

Lewis released his wrist: "Do what you were told to do."

The servant obeyed. He set the photograph back on the table. Then he knelt and began picking up broken glass. Lewis touched him on the shoulder. He took no notice, went on picking up pieces of glass, which he laid on the palm of his left hand. Lewis returned to the fireside:

"Confusion," he said. "Disassociation of cause and effect. Not that it matters, at the moment; but there's your hole in the wall, Nancy. There's the leak. That fellow has been so practiced on that when he's scared he obeys without thinking. Obedience provides the escape from a feeling of guilt."

"After fifteen years!" said Nancy. "And they call me a teacher! Morgan, can you do anything for him? You must! He has been a good servant."

"Opiates?" asked Lewis.

"No. I think not. In fact I'm sure not."

"Doesn't take opium pills? Bhang? Marijuana?"

"No. I know he doesn't."

"Liquor?"

"No."

"There are other secret vices," said Lewis, "that are equally destructive of discrimination. What does he do with his spare time?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I think I do know. I will go into his case history later." Lewis turned and faced Elsa. "Now, young lady. Do you see what might happen to you, unless you use your God-given faculties?"

Elsa resented it. She sat upright, protecting herself with a shield of indignation that was nevertheless (and she knew it) as full of holes as a net, from having resisted Nancy Strong's assault. She was conscious, too, of gratitude to Lewis for having come when her baby died. And she knew he still could stop her from returning to Tibet. There was no sense in antagonizing Lewis. But resentment felt like self-defense. She answered tartly:

"Am I accused now of secret vices?"

"Secret sloth," he retorted. "Dr. Lewis, aren't you overdoing -- "

"No. I am diagnosing sloth -- inertia, disguised as meekness. It's a form of self-indulgence."

"You, too? Nancy accused me of that. But I'm not meek! I wish I were! I don't like meek people. I -- "

Lewis caught Nancy's eye. She nodded. He faced Elsa again. His air of almost jocular familiarity was gone. He seemed almost a different person.

"Elsa, I am going to repeat to you a piece of advice that was given, two thousand years ago, by the greatest of all physicians. The particular patient to whom it was given made the necessary effort to understand the advice, and had the courage to follow it. I have repeated the prescription to a great number of patients. Some accepted it, some didn't. `Take up thy bed, and walk.' "

Every atom of Elsa's bitterness against the Christian texts that mental torturers had used as goads against her in her childhood, boiled to the surface. She parried with the first evasive retort she could think of: "Only a few hours ago you told me not to get well too quickly."

"Yes. I know I did. Take it easy. I didn't invite you to run. I said, walk."

Elsa lost control of her temper: "I'm not a paralytic -- and you're not Jesus! Why are you talking in riddles?" Suddenly she fell back on the last resort of the evader of issues -- silly, literal fact. "If I were, I would get up and do as you say, just to make you feel clever."

Lewis ignored it. "Meekness," he repeated. "Wrapping talents in a napkin. Daydreams. Luxury of letting the catastrophe convince you that it's no use waking up, and getting up, and doing what you can, instead of being what inertia makes you! Wake up!"

For the moment Elsa couldn't trust herself to answer. She was too indignant. Nancy Strong was leaning back in her armchair, with closed eyes, stroking the purring cat. Elsa made an effort to appeal to Nancy's professed hatred of cruelty:

"Is this a conspiracy? Are you and Nancy teaming up to make me feel sinful? Are you trying to convert me, or convict me, or what? Nancy said I'm asleep. But I understood her to mean -- "

Lewis interrupted: "She meant exactly what I mean. She may have put it in different words, but she meant the same thing."

"I don't think she did," Elsa retorted. "Tell me what you do mean."

"You are clairvoyant:"

"I wish you'd cure me of it, instead of talking about it!"

"Clairaudient, too."

Elsa snatched at the chance to defend at least one gap in her defenses: "Not so often clairaudient. Only sometimes."

Lewis went on speaking as if she hadn't interrupted: "Nancy Strong will show you, far better than I can, how to develop your clairvoyance."

"I won't develop it! I loathe it!"

Lewis continued: "Otherwise, `that which you have shall be taken away.' If you leave your talent undeveloped, you will become a victim, just like hundreds of millions of others, of every wave of pitiless ambitious malice that is turned loose on the world by the ignorant fools and godless egotistic devils who create this chaos which we flatter with the name of consciousness."

Nancy opened her eyes: "Gently, Morgan! Gently!"

Elsa started to speak. Lewis checked her with a gesture. He continued: "Only you will be worse than the others. Because you are more sensitive. You might even degenerate so far as to become a medium."

"You mean a spiritualistic medium?"

"Yes. Probably a trance medium. Physical prostitution would be better than that. A prostitute, after all, gives no more than her body to be defiled by strangers. But a medium's soul is at the mercy of every devil and fool who chooses to misuse it. The very least you will become, unless you wake up, and stay awake, will be a sort of radio receiving set employed by mischievous and godless liars. You might become -- "

Nancy Strong interrupted: "No, Morgan, no! Not that! Don't frighten her!"

Lewis looked irritated, but he accepted the advice: "Very well, I will add this: Elsa, you are of the same stuff that the saints are made of."

The sudden switch of tactics forced another tart answer that Elsa knew was worthless: "I don't feel like a saint, I assure you. I don't wish to be one! I feel angry and -- "

Lewis interrupted: "A cowardly saint is a social menace -- much worse even than a venal doctor, or corrupt judge, or political priest. Fear makes saints see wrong visions -- report wrong -- "

"I said, I'm not a saint! I don't want to be one. I'm -- "

"Listen," said Lewis. "I am your physician, telling you truth, for your own good."

"You mean your good, don't you? I didn't invite this. Why are you doing it? Tell your real motive!" 'Lewis ignored that too. He continued, just as calmly as if he were treating a painful wound: "Saints, devils and credulous fools are made of the same identical stuff. They all have vision. They see the same truth from different aspects. Devils exploit stupidity. They create blinding fear that gives them power over others. It inflates the devils' feeling of importance; and it makes the fools think the devils are the only safe leaders to follow. But the vision of saints acts, by its own nature -- to use a feeble illustration -- like a prism letting light into the darkness. It diffuses the material fog -- the fog that blinds the best of us and makes us victims of want, and disease and crime. The vision of saints lets in affluence and magnanimity and vigor. Naturally, the devils hate it. If they can't pervert saints' vision to their own ends, they try to destroy it."

"Are you trying to tell me that clairvoyance is reliable -- dependable -- always true? I know better!"

"It's as dangerous as truth," said Lewis. "In the hands of a devil a saint becomes as subtly malignant as poison gas -- which, remember, is made from beneficent ingredients."

He was interrupted by the front door bell. The Lepcha servant stopped picking up broken window glass and left the room in a hurry. Lewis continued:

"The whole world is changing under our eyes, and in our ears. Science, sometimes with the best intention, is becoming the slave of the devils, who exploit human ignorance for the sake of the sensation of power. The exploiters of isms! Communism. Nazism. Fascism. Militarism. Anarchism. Socialism. Atheism. Millions of undernourished men and women, stuffed with ersatz dialectics and mad promises, massed into goose-stepping armies and shouting blasphemy against their manhood -- ! What Kipling called `all valiant dust that builds on dust'!"

" `And, guarding, calls not Thee to guard.' I wonder whether Kipling understood his own poem."

Lewis threw off the interruption: "Up goes the dust, and we can't see. The roar, and we can't hear. Blind leaders, leading the blind, produced the World War; that was bad enough. Maddened and disillusioned by the World War, its victims are producing worse chaos led by devils and fools and false prophets. Hitlers -- Mussolinis -- Stalins. Professional liars, to whom truth of any kind is treason. They control or suppress schools, pulpits, press, radio. They even censor conversation. They are hypnotizing whole nations with fear of worse horrors to come. Meanwhile, they pitilessly exploit the victims . Victims who don't applaud them as saviors are liquidated or imprisoned for having dangerous thoughts."

Elsa recovered her sense of humor, for just one second: "Dr. Lewis, is it as bad as all that? Aren't there any honest people?"

"It's worse than that," said Lewis. "Because honest people don't know what to think. They're being liquidated."

"Do you believe you know what to think?" Humor deserted her suddenly. She felt now like a cat with its ears laid back. She felt as if she were the accused, on the spot, a sorceress charged with seducing and betraying the human race.

"Think?" said Lewis. "What fools think is thought got us into the mess! Our thought -- our mass-materialism created it. Only vision can get us out of it. So wake up! Stay awake! Let some light in! The only hope of the world are the individuals who can, and who dare to be saints!

Religion, science, government, philosophy, economics are all reduced to absurdity. The New Dealers are making bad worse. They're putting synthetic wine into falsely labeled bottles and calling it ideology. Idiotology! Every new ingenious invention, because we're hypnotized by fear, becomes a belly-robber and a new false beacon leading to a materialists' synthetic heaven -- a new mechanical Utopia full of bombs and lies and breadlines!"

"Whereas the kingdom of heaven is within us -- within reach of us all -- here -- now -- if we would look," said Nancy.

Lewis looked exasperated, Elsa incredulous.

"But Nancy! Can you see the kingdom of heaven?"

"Sometimes. Since I left off helping to create hell. Reality seems nearer -- ever so much nearer."

"Reality?" said Elsa.

"If those who can see, won't look," said Lewis, "then -- "

He left off speaking because the door opened. Andrew walked in, followed by Bompo Tsering. Andrew, wiping rain off his hair with a handkerchief, strode to the fireplace. He glanced at Elsa, then stared at Lewis:

"Have you been ragging her again?" he demanded. "Can't you let her alone?" He turned his back toward Lewis.

Lewis raised one eyebrow so high that his monocle fell out. He glanced at Nancy Strong. She nodded, smiling. Even Andrew was aware that they were exchanging comments about him, although he had turned and stooped to put wood on the fire, and no word passed between them. Bompo Tsering came and stood in the opening between the bookcases. Lewis studied him:

"So this is Man Friday?"

Andrew straightened himself and turned his back to the fire. "Yes," he said. "I don't want him scared any more than he is. Don't talk metaphysics to him. He's superstitious."

Lewis laughed. Elsa studied Bompo Tsering.

"Why did you bring him in here?" she asked. She sniffed, then laughed too. With the rain on him Bompo Tsering smelt like all Tibet.

Nancy sighed: "It makes me homesick. But someone please open a window!"

"No!" said Andrew. "Not now. No windows. Please. There's a reason."

---

Bompo Tsering looked shell-shocked. Mistrust of his surroundings numbed him. Tibetans are an intuitive people. He could sense the spiritual strength of Nancy's hospitality. But he was afraid of it. A legion of superstitions crowded his mind. He was afraid of the room. The familiar Tibetan things on the walls didn't lessen the trap-sensation. In his imagination they increased it. Loot. Scalps. The books were overwhelming evidence of occult lore; it might be white, but it was much more likely to be black magic. He had seen Andrew's room at the hotel, and the inside of many a rich man's house in Tibet; but nothing like this room. Andrew ordered him curtly to uncover his head. He obeyed, sheepishly. But curiosity was just a bit stronger than shyness: holding his fur trimmed, filthy hat in both hands, he thrust his tousled head around the corner of the bookcase. First, he recognized Elsa -- stuck out his tongue respectfully -- grinned self-consciously -- then repeated the respectful salutation, to Nancy Strong -- to Lewis -- with an extra tongue -- show thrown in on general principles -- perhaps to the gods of the hearth.

"Tongue's furry," said Lewis. "Too much starch. Guzzles rice and ghee three times a day. He'll have an enlarged spleen if he isn't careful."

"He'll work that off soon enough," said Andrew. "Uphill all the way. Pass beyond pass, and the south side always the steeper. Six days a week. That'll cure him."

"You always rest one day a week?" asked Lewis.

"Usually. Rest the animals. Give the gang a chance to repair boots, tents, harness and settle arguments."

The conversation was beyond Bompo Tsering's scope of English. He was unaffected by it. It meant nothing. He stood smiling, flat- faced, stocky, sloe-eyed, bulkily clothed in a wet fleece-lined, padded, long-sleeved leather overcoat; it was made bulkier still by the things in his bokkus, which is the space between neck and belt where Tibetans stow all their portable belongings. There was a small splinter from a saint's thigh bone stuck through the lobe of one ear; in the other was a long turquoise earring good enough for a nobleman. Around his neck was a twisted coil of parchment; it resembled a hangman's noose blackened by exposure to storms and human sweat, but it was actually a scroll of beautifully written blessings worth ten times the price of the earring.

"I'd like to talk to him," said Elsa. "May I? Or would you rather I didn't?"

Andrew shook his head: "Later. He has the wind up at the moment. Give him a chance and he'll throw a panic, like a caught animal."

"But why should he be afraid of me?" asked Elsa.

Nancy asked an easier one: "Why bring him in here? Not that he isn't welcome -- but why?"

"He was afraid to stay outside," Andrew answered. "Swears there are dugpas. Scared stiff of 'em."

"Did he talk?" asked Lewis.

"Sure he talked -- outside in the dark, because he felt he had to divvy up the funk with someone fifty-fifty. But you try to get him to talk now!" It was quite obvious, Andrew was rather proud of having been confided in. "Watch him try to stop me talking!" he added.

Bompo Tsering's face had become as blank as an old ivory moon -- no smile left. His right hand with the thumb between the fingers moved up and down almost imperceptibly, from superstitious habit. His real effort to gag Andrew was mental -- a darkly invisible psychic force such as passes between conspirators or in a courtroom when a witness is expected to betray perilous secrets. Elsa spoke up:

"Andrew, can't we help him? I can see his fear, like a fog -- yellowy -- gray -- green -- like a London pea-souper. The poor man wasn't as scared as this even when we were cursed by the Black Monks at -- "

Lewis took a hand, speaking Tibetan with an accent learned on medical inspection tours in Sikkim. The accent and the monocle together totally masked the sympathy which was all that Lewis intended:

"Tell us what frightened you, Bompo Tsering. Speak. We are friends. We won't laugh at you."

The very use of his name by a stranger aggravated prejudice. Bompo Tsering's eyes changed perceptibly. They transferred dark attention from one dread to another. Beneath his matted black fringe of hair they suggested a yak's eyes, unintelligently ready to stampede -- utterly mistrustful. Nancy Strong was watching:

"No use, Morgan!" Her voice had the finality note of experience. "You should have asked his advice. Then he'd have told. I always ask children's advice when they're in trouble."

Lewis smiled wryly: "Mental jujitsu, eh? Good tactics. But it isn't a safe plan, always. Try it on some of my patients! Try it, for instance, on Lemon!" He turned to Andrew. "Did he say he saw who fired that shot through the window?"

Andrew nodded: "Said he saw a man with his face half covered by a shawl, who obeyed a dugpa who lurked in the shrubbery."

"Did he see the dugpa?"

"Yes -- so he said. He's always seeing 'em. I guess they're part of his religion."

"He is always very brave about them," said Elsa. "Much braver than I am about the things that I see."

"He's more afraid on our account than for himself," said Andrew. "That bit of holy shin bone in his ear is all he figures he needs. But we're pelings -- ignorant foreigners who don't know what we're up against. If the dugpas should get, for instance, me, bang goes his meal-ticket. Get the idea?"

Lewis wiped his monocle with a thoughtful, professional air: "Dugpas," he said, "are just as real to a Tibetan as microbes are to me, or to a man with influenza. They're exactly as real as the snakes seen by a man in delirium tremens. They're a symptom. Swat the snakes, and what happens?"

"He saw someone," said Andrew.

"Of course he did. And his frightened senses lied about it."

"Every single one of our physical senses is an incorrigible liar," said Nancy Strong.

"Could he have seen Bulah Singh -- " Andrew suggested, "lurking in the bushes -- with another of his hypnotized Lemons to do the dirty work?"

Lewis laughed. "No, Gunning, no! If Bulah Singh were as easy as all that, he would have been hanged long ago. Someone in the Lemon category fired the shot through the window. There's nothing much easier than for a devil to find stool pigeons. You may depend on it: the real culprit was as far from the scene as the real conspirators were who directed the shot at Sarajevo."

Elsa spoke suddenly: "The man in the shrubbery wore a devil-mask! I can see it l I can see it now!"

Nancy Strong frowned: "Nonsense, Elsa! What you are seeing is Bompo Tsering's own mental image of what he wants to persuade us that he saw."

"But, Nancy, how do you know?"

"Because I saw it when you did. That is how panics -- even wars get started. It happens to animals and humans. False mental pictures projected from thought to thought by invisible rays of fear."

"But if that's so, how can one ever know the difference between the real thing and a -- "

"Child, I told you. Try to remember. If you will insist on believing you are a person with a supposititious soul, or no soul, you will always believe the wrong thing, because your premise is wrong. Change your premise. It is impossible to reason correctly from a wrong premise. If you remember you are a soul, and that you have an unreal but persuasively realistic person to wear and to manage, as you would manage an instrument, you will soon learn to see the difference between truth, and lies about the truth. You will find you get increasingly less deceived by tricks of any kind."

Lewis laughed: "That's a very fair example of the odds against the use of clairvoyance for any practical purpose. Who's going to deny his senses? That's what it amounts to."

"It calls for more integrity and courage than most people have nowadays," said Nancy. "It's the hardest work in the world. But it can be done. It has got to be done." There came a knock at the door. Nancy Strong got up, looking grimly patient. "Trumpet call!" she remarked. "Turn out the guard!"

The door opened. A woman teacher, wrapped in an overcoat over a dressing gown, stood in the doorway.

"All right," said Nancy. "I'm coming."

The door closed again. Nancy approached Andrew. He stood up. "The pistol shot," she said, "awakened some of the children in the west building. I must go and ask them to advise me what to do when people break my window." She held out her hand: "Until we meet again, Mr. Gunning, my best wishes! Your secret is safe with me. I hope we have hit on the best way to handle it."

Andrew nodded gravely as he shook hands. "Anything I can do for you in return?"

"No!" She met his eyes, smiling. "If there's one thing I detest it's to be hit with return favors like an actress being pelted with eggs. If I have helped you, help someone else when you see the need. Pass it along Don't dare to think of me as anything but a window that let the light through. Please don't smash me with bricks of hard-boiled gratitude. Good-bye, and good luck to you. Come and see me when you return."

Bompo Tsering stepped away from her. He faced her with his tongue out, staring as if he hesitated between fear and something like reverence. As she passed him she tapped his sleeve with her right hand, as one pats a great friendly dog.

"You smell of Tibet," she said, smiling.

"The blessed, happy, precious land!" he answered. He stood looking at the sleeve as if a Bodhisattva had bestowed a blessing on it.

"Nancy Strong," said Lewis, as the door closed after her, "is the one person who can make me feel like a ten-year-old. Gunning, my boy, wish I were coming with you to Tibet."

"Come if you want to," said Andrew. "You'll be welcome."

"Sorry to have to say no. But you must get going. I'd like a few words with you in private before you leave."

Andrew glanced at Elsa.

Lewis took the hint: "You will find me in the hall. I want to talk to that Lepcha servant -- if he isn't asleep." He walked out. Elsa stood up. "Andrew, then this isn't good-bye? It really isn't good-bye? I know it isn't! But I want to hear you say it! I feel like two people tonight. One of me sings with excitement. The other just doesn't believe."

"No, it's not good-bye. The monks will know where to find me. They'll bring you."

"But, Andrew, you might have to wait -- "

"I'll wait."

"It's strangely easy to believe you, Andrew. But you mustn't wait too long. You mustn't let me ruin everything. Delay might prevent you from crossing the border. I mean -- "

"I'm betting on Lewis and Bulah Singh."

"Andrew, you're not trusting Bulah Singh, are you?"

"Hell, no. But he wants me in Tibet. If he thinks I'm playing his game, he'll clear the tracks. Pretending to leave you behind will make him cocksure that he has me by the short hair."

"Andrew, I'm trying to see. I can't see any real danger to you at the moment. But -- but -- Bulah Singh is like a shadow that -- "

Andrew laughed gruffly: "That guy's shadow isn't long enough to reach beyond the first pass! We'll climb the mountains and forget him. Nancy Strong will do your shopping. She'll know how to turn you over to Mu-ni Gam-po's party. The minute she says the word, get going. Come after me just as fast as those monks can travel. You'll find me waiting for you."

"Andrew, I won't waste a minute. I promise."

"Okay. But see here." He hesitated. Then suddenly: "Don't let 'em get you buffaloed."

"Who, Andrew? Whom do you mean? I won't even see Bulah Singh. I won't -- "

"I mean Lewis and Nancy Strong."

"Hadn't you better speak more plainly? I mean, I want to understand you, so there won't be any mistake. I like both of them. I trust them. Don't you?"

"Sure I do." Andrew reached for a pine knot and set it carefully on the fire. Then, looking straight at Elsa: "Lewis is a good guy. He's a genius: darned close to being a nut. He's on the level, but he's haywire on some subjects, notably psychic phenomena. Yes him. But keep your feet on the ground. Do you understand that?"

"I think so. All right, I promise."

"Don't make easy promises. They're too damned difficult to keep. Don't let Morgan Lewis sell you any superstitious hokum about your being someone special who can magic the rest of us out of hell or any tripe like that."

She laughed. "That's easy, Andrew. All right, I won't -- "

"Don't promise! Do your own thinking. Keep your common sense hard-boiled and on top while you're talking to Lewis."

"Very well, Andrew, I'll try to. And Nancy Strong? Don't you trust her?"

"You bet. She hasn't a personal axe to grind on other people's problems. But don't forget, she's a hot wire -- a government secret agent working for the B.S.I. You can't trust anybody farther than the end of his rope. It isn't reasonable to take a chance on it."

"What do you mean by rope?"

"I mean what ropes 'em to the ground -- to the normal, everyday, common-sense view of what's right and wrong. The minute they cut that rope, they all go rainbow chasing. So stay on the ground. Do your own thinking. Watch your step."

"Very well, Andrew."

"You don't seem to like the idea."

"Andrew, it comes like a bit of an anticlimax. It lets out the steam. Nancy has been talking quite a lot this evening. I don't think she said anything that you would object to, but -- "

"Go ahead. What?"

"Well -- at first I didn't like what she said. But -- Andrew, you know how she talks, and -- "

"Yes -- I know. She's a great talker. Well, it won't be long now. We'll ram you into a brace of blizzards at fifteen or sixteen thousand feet. That'll blow out the illusions. Just try to keep half sensible meanwhile, and don't let Nancy sell you Mt. Everest."

"If you won't let me promise, what shall I say?"

He laughed. "Say so long and good luck. Let's shake on that and I'll be on my way."

"So long, Andrew. I won't even say you're a brick -- for fear of making you angry."

He looked as if he were going to kiss her good-bye, but he didn't. He shook hands. The art of going, instead of talking about going, was one of his special accomplishments. He walked away, leaving behind him a sensation of finished business -- nothing to be added to, or changed, or undone. Elsa gazed at his back as he strode to the door, until Bompo Tsering strode between them and followed him like a big, black, smelly shadow, shutting off the view.

Not even a gesture of good-bye from Bompo Tsering. He ignored her, too intent in his dog-like devotion to Andrew. Andrew didn't pause at the door. He walked through. Bompo Tsering closed it.

Silence. The crack of the new pine knot on the fire. A leaping flame -- and suddenly, out of the shadows, on the small table in mid-room emerged the silver-framed likeness of Lobsang Pun -- Old Ugly-face -- inscrutably, unconquerably smiling -- with a bullet hole exactly in the middle of his forehead.

---

Andrew almost bumped into Lewis. At the far end of the hallway at the foot of the stairs the Lepcha servant sat on a chair beneath a Tibetan painting of the Buddha. He looked dazed. Obviously Lewis had been talking to him.

"Bad case," said Lewis, glancing at the servant and turning his back. "That poor fellow is a sample of secret vice at war with conscientious love of his employer. He relies on the one to condone the other -- hides in the one to forget the other. But it can't be done. One fights the other, almost like a chemical reagent. That leaves him feeling physically weak and morally helpless. He craves relief from self-contempt, so he mentally almost leaps to meet the first hypnotic influence that comes along. Bulah Singh was like a magnet to a bit of scrap iron. Nancy will have a hard time helping that poor fellow to rebuild his self-control."

Lewis was obviously making conversation until Bompo Tsering should move out of earshot. But the Tibetan had to be told to go and wait by the front door. He didn't mind being told, but he hated to wait; he kept trying the lock and fidgeting with the brass check chain. Andrew and Lewis faced each other beneath the ceiling light, between the rows of books and photographs. Lewis screwed in his monocle. That meant business.

"Gunning, I'll ask a favor of you."

Andrew fell on guard -- so visibly that Lewis hesitated. Andrew got his own demand in first: "I've a favor to ask, too," he retorted. "An important one. I'm dead set on it."

"Very well, my boy. Yours first. What is it? If it's anything that I can -- "

"It's easy," said Andrew. "It'll cost you nothing, and put you to no trouble. Please leave Elsa's mind alone. Don't aggravate what gives her grief enough already."

Lewis nodded, staring, smiling, as if he were diagnosing symptoms of something that Andrew had overlooked.

Andrew continued: "That's a good girl. She's genuine. She'll come out all right if she's given a chance."

"Good?" said Lewis. He thrust his head forward. "Better than you guess, my young friend. -- By the way, we are friends, I believe?"

"Suits me," said Andrew. "But I'm the enemy of any man, no matter who, if he gives Elsa less than a square deal. She's in my charge. For the shortest possible time, for the sake of fooling Bulah Singh -- which I take it is what you want to do -- ?"

"Yes," said Lewis.

" -- I am leaving Elsa under your protection and Nancy Strong's. I will do what I can for you. But, first, I'd like your promise to -- "

Lewis interrupted: "Gunning, let me tell you what I have in mind. Perhaps we can oblige each other. If we arrive at an understanding, I feel sure you will do your part."

"Shoot," said Andrew. "But mind, I've said my say. You know now what I want. It's personal -- nothing to do with any government department -- you and me, man to man. Let's keep it so."

"Very well." Lewis readjusted his monocle -- frowned -- raised his right hand and stared at his fingernails. He was about to prescribe. "My thought was this. I would like you to promise to stick to your stonewall mental attitude about clairvoyance."

Andrew looked suspicious. "That's an easy one," he answered. "I'm so by nature."

"Superficially, yes, you are," said Lewis. "It's a sort of mask. Actually, under the surface, you're a poet."

Andrew looked even more suspicious. He laughed gruffly: "You're sure trying to work me for something big! What makes you think I'm a poet ?"

"There's a rhythm in your thought," said Lewis. "You can change the meter without losing the theme. Besides, I glanced at the books you gave to Mu-ni Gam-po. I intend to borrow three of them. It was also my duty to learn what books you've sent forward, to read on the march. We check up on people before we trust them."

Andrew grinned: "You only trust people who read Shakespeare? Is that your yardstick?"

"No." Lewis chuckled. "No, my boy. That was counted against you. Shakespeare, Sir Thomas Browne, Milton, Chaucer, Einstein and the Bible are the world's worst luggage, if you want to be trusted by the world's saviors! We official insiders -- we directors of destiny flatter ourselves that we can see through beauty to the worms beneath! It's intelligence that all censors fear. However, you have good sound vices that offset your virtuosity. You're practical."

"You call it practical to throw up a career and take on this game?"

"And you've a rare gift of holding your tongue. I could mention quite a number of highly placed officials whom you haven't consulted."

"Hell, I told you all I know."

"All except just what I needed to know," Lewis answered. "I had to find that out for myself."

"For instance?"

"Oh, lots of things. Some of them important. For instance, you have avoided the mistake of talking to the wrong people. But let's get to the point. Elsa is a very remarkable, very unusual girl."

"I know it."

"She has character."

"You're telling me!"

"There are no available statistics, but it's a conservative guess that there are not more than two or three thousand in her class, in the whole world. And they're widely scattered. She is an instance of emerging evolution. Her spiritual nature -- to use a conventional term for an unfamiliar and therefore unclassified state of consciousness -- is like a young seedling, of a new species, reaching for the sunlight."

"You're speaking now of her clairvoyance?"

"Yes. That's only another word for the same thing. Kill that, and she's done for."

"Hell, she hates it."

"Yes. Who shall blame her? She's afraid of it. But she must dare to be one of the great explorers -- far greater than Columbus. Columbus only discovered a continent, in known dimensions. Elsa's greater task is to abandon known dimensions and explore what Shakespeare called `airy nothing."

Andrew smiled. Whoever quoted Shakespeare intelligently always passed his guard. He almost weakened. "Good stuff, that," he said. "You can't beat him. He's still tops. `And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown,' we'll `turn them to shapes.' Hell, that has Columbus backed off the map. But Elsa isn't as tough as Columbus."

"No," Lewis agreed, "she isn't. She must be protected from mockery and from her own mistrust. She needs a line of retreat, so that she can draw back in, so to speak, and recover from -- well -- let us call it spiritual vertigo. That's a new phrase. I must add that to my list."

" `Such tricks hath strong imagination,' " Andrew quoted. "What's the rest of it? I'm listening."

"Yes, you use your inner ears. That's why I can talk to you. Now then: Elsa's line of retreat must not lead back into her own Cave of Adullam."

"Now I don't get you. That's one of those phrases that might mean anything."

"I mean, she must not draw back into herself -- into her own gloom. She must have a different cave -- strong, friendly, and, above all, patient. That's a mixed metaphor. However, you will have mixed feelings when I tell you that you are the cave."

"Jesus!" said Andrew.

"I mean it, my boy. That is why I ask you to maintain your stolid, stonewall attitude toward clairvoyance and everything connected with it. Let her lean against your imperturbable calm. Whenever she wants to, let her hide behind it. Let her feel the uncritical comfort of a friendly anchor to windward. That's another mixed one. But the situation's mixed." Then, suddenly: "Is she in love with her husband?"

"Damned if I know."

"Umn. Are you being frank about that? Well, what I mean is: if she should convict herself of treason to her own ideal, there would be no recovery -- not in this existence: she would go under."

"She'll get no encouragement from me to cross-examine herself cuckoo," said Andrew. "I don't believe in that stuff. Gets you nowhere."

Lewis agreed: "Worse than nowhere. Hundreds of thousands of people damn themselves by monkeying with the works. They're like amateurs taking radios apart to discover why the program annoys them. Self-examination without experienced guidance is worse than taking patent medicines to cure an undiagnosed ailment. Much worse. A wrong diagnosis is sometimes a sentence to death. Self-conviction of sin is always a sentence to hell. Always. There is no exception to that. Before you see Elsa again, she will receive what your countrymen call a pep-talk from Nancy Strong."

"Not from you?"

"No. I'm a duffer at it. I might do more harm than good. I am merely a so-to-speak left-wing medical man. There are more of us than you suspect, but we all know we're treading on dangerous ground. We are hampered by conventional education, conservative theories, public prejudice, our own ignorance and much too much familiarity with evidence that seems to prove the contrary to what our intuition tells us is true. Nancy, on the other hand, is an adept. She has had thorough training. She knows how to encourage spirituality without destroying caution -- how to develop caution without destroying courage. That is known, among the adepts, as the Middle Way."

"I've heard of it," said Andrew.

"Yes," remarked Lewis, "you undoubtedly have." He wiped his monocle. He was having a tough time. He was actually sweating.

"Go ahead," said Andrew. "I'm listening."

"So let us exchange promises, you and I. I will not, as you call it, rag Elsa. I won't interfere any further with her mental processes even if she should ask me to do it."

Andrew grinned: "I'll bet a dollar, even money, she won't ask."

"Wait and see," said Lewis. "If she does ask, I will refuse. On the other hand, you promise me you will give her the full benefit of -- how shall I say it? -- indifference -- friendly indifference."

"Hell, you're asking too much," said Andrew. "I'm not indifferent, to anyone, or anything. Can't help the way my mind works -- wondering how people and animals feel -- whether they're right about what they feel -- what it's all about, anyhow. It's the God's truth, I've never enjoyed another creature's grief nor felt unsympathetic when I saw 'em suffer. How does one go about being indifferent?"

"Well," said Lewis, "let's put it this way: you'll be the common-sense man with his feet on the earth. If she chooses to be inconsistent, don't criticize. Don't care. Don't remind her of it. But if she needs a bone to chew on, you provide the matter- of-fact comments for her to tear to pieces. If she blasphemes against her own vision, and accuses you of blindness, and contradicts herself, you never hold it against her."

"I never did," said Andrew.

"Well. Never do. Because she will." Lewis paused. Then, slowly: "Don't let her suspect that you know more than she does about -- " He hesitated.

"About what?"

Lewis shut one eye and quizzed him through the monocle: "About the consequences of converting spiritual vision into personal sanctity."

"I don't," said Andrew.

"That's right, my boy, don't admit it. Don't ever confess to Elsa what caused you to leave the United States."

Andrew bridled: "Do you figure you know?"

"Yes."

"I'll bet you don't. If you got your dope from Bulah Singh's file, take it straight from me, you're all wet."

"Wet?" said Lewis. "Wet? Is that American for wrong? Well, I have known Bulah Singh to be wrong about numbers of things. Are we agreed about Elsa? Let us talk now about Bulah Singh."

"Swell," said Andrew.

"This is secret"

"Okay. Shoot."

"Bulah Singh is a mere meddler on the fringe of a wide conspiracy."

"I'd guessed that much," said Andrew. "He's small time. He hasn't the stuff to fill a three-ring circus."

"It's a conspiracy to talk Utopian theory, but to use heartless violence -- to throw India into economic and political confusion, and to pull off a Fascist coup d'etat."

"That's easy to believe," said Andrew. "That's the up-to-date style in revolutions. The scornful guys all see 'emselves as duces and commissars. They're too drunk with their own greed to remember that the up-and-coming big boy always kicks 'em in the face when they've hoisted him into the saddle."

"Yes," said Lewis. "They forget that. But it's true. Tyrants can't afford gratitude. They have to kick away the scaffold -- shoot the men on whose shoulders they climbed. However, meanwhile, the conspirators are the men to watch. Very few of them guess yet which is actually Number One. Most of 'em are betting on 'emselves. Here in India they're counting, of course, on a world war to produce world revolution -- doing their utmost to create it by the subtlest kind of propaganda. A war that tied up the British Navy would be the Indian Hitler's chance."

"Do you know yet who the big buzzard is?" Andrew demanded. "Have you spotted him? Who's to be India's Hitler?"

Lewis avoided that question by asking another: "How many people would have picked Stalin ten days ahead of the time? Napoleon, remember, was a dark horse until he saw his chance and seized it."

"Sure; I get you. If you knew the real buzzard you'd spike him before he could get going."

Lewis drew a forefinger across his own throat. "Right. We have names and past performances on file. But it's too soon to tell who'll be Jack-in-a-box. There are too many possibles. A few are genuine idealists; they wouldn't last a week, but no less dangerous on that account. They serve as stalking horses for the others, who will kill them off when the time comes. Most of 'em are ruthless, contemptuous rogues, who pose as humanitarians and pacifists. Mussolini did that, you remember -- even went to prison for urging Italian conscripts to refuse to fight the Turks. Denounced war and nationalism. Denounced the Italian flag. But look at him now! All demagogues are devils -- all peas from the same pod. Secretly, with scarcely an exception, they are Nietzschean individualists, who misunderstand Nietzsche. They believe themselves beyond good and evil. They use lies and violence for allegedly Utopian ends. No matter what name they assume to camouflage their real motives, you may be sure it's a false name. They despise the fools who listen to them and believe them. Believing themselves to be intellectuals, and aware of their own hypocrisy, they have unqualified contempt for other intellectuals. They don't believe an intellectual exists who isn't a hypocrite. But they know how to flatter the intellectuals, and how to use them, until their time comes. Then they enslave or liquidate them. They know the trick of hypnotizing crowds. The crowd's adulation gives them the only genuine thrill they ever get. It's a kind of orgasm. They're good showmen. They let such fools as Bulah Singh run the real risks, until it's time for the big push."

"Jesus! You should write a book!" said Andrew. "Tell me: what does Bulah Singh think he'll get in exchange for the risk he must know he's running? What's his real price? I don't believe what he told me."

"Oh, he told you part of the truth. Bulah Singh is a mere ambitious meddler. Hypnotic skill is no proof of intelligence. In fact, it usually creates such conceit that it blinds and destroys intelligence. But he's studious. He knows his book backwards. He thinks, within his mental limitations. He understands, correctly enough, that any revolutionary government of India would be at the mercy of any Asiatic combination that should choose to invade from the north. That is the perpetual menace that overhangs India -- always did -- probably always will. That menace would be the Achilles heel of any dictator who could seize power. Bulah Singh believes he foresees the break-up of the British Empire. He thinks it's imminent."

"Maybe he's right," said Andrew.

Lewis ignored the interruption. "Bulah Singh's idea is to make himself indispensable to the coming dictatorship. He proposes to be the man who can diplomatically stave off an invasion from the north -- Mongolian, led by Japs or Russians. That's why he wants control of the young Dalai Lama."

"And you know all this? And you don't dump him into the hoose-gow?"

"Why catch a minnow and let the pike escape?" Lewis retorted. " We are hoping he'll betray the real conspirators -- the real higher-ups -- the devils -- the brains behind the mere fomenters of discontent. It won't be long now. By about the time you are over the border we rather expect to have found out all that can be learned from watching Bulah Singh. If so, we'll jump him. And -- to save himself -- we think -- we hope -- he will betray his associates."

"Swell," said Andrew. "Here's wishing you luck."

"I have told you this in confidence," said Lewis, "for your general guidance. You may share the information with Tom Grayne when you meet him."

"Okay. Tom won't yawp."

"And now this: any help you can give to the Ringding Gelong Lama Lobsang Pun will be all to the good but must be kept off the record."

"Okay."

"We don't even know where Lobsang Pun is at the moment. He is said to be in hiding. But he is the only politically minded Tibetan who can't be bought for love or money. He is as incorruptible as Robespierre was, without Robespierre's bigotry and mad egotism. We believe he is the one man who can save Tibet from anarchy. Find him if you can. Help him in any way you can."

"I'd go out of my way to meet Old Ugly-face," said Andrew. "From what I've heard of him he sounds like a cross between King Alfred of the doughnuts and Marcus Aurelius. Okay. I'll keep an ear to the ground."

"If you can do it, help Lobsang Pun to get control of the infant Dalai Lama."

"That might be a tall order."

"Yes, and dangerous. But don't help Lobsang Pun to bring the child to India. That mustn't happen. Personally I would like to have the child in Darjeeling, under the influence of Nancy Strong. But that's an impractical pipe dream. It would lead to extremely embarrassing complications in addition to destroying the Dalai Lama's political influence. Do your best to prevent it."

"Okay."

"If you come across Ambrose St. Malo, kill him."

"Nothing doing."

"Why not?"

"I've a card in the Live-and-Let-Live Union."

"How about self-defense?"

"He'd have to start it. I don't go around encouraging folks to start things. If that guy has any horse sense -- "

"He has a horse face. But he's a louse. I should have brought his photograph from Delhi. Sorry I didn't. He's described as a louse even in the official confidential report that we received from Hongkong."

"Yeah, I've heard that's his reputation. There was talk about him in Shanghai. I know his real name. But don't count on me to bump him off. My long suit isn't being all that scared that I need to shoot lice. But thanks for the tip. I'll watch him."

Bompo Tsering rattled away at the door chain, grunting and shuffling on the mat like a caged bear.

"I'll get going," said Andrew, "before Bompo Tsering blows up." He reached for his overcoat. "It's a bargain about Elsa?"

"Yes. You'll do your part?"

"Okay. Don't make me have to wait too long for her. My Tibetans are restless. They're raring to go."

"She shall follow as soon as we're sure that Bulah Singh is convinced you have left her behind. That is the important point at the moment -- to make Bulah Singh believe you're obeying his orders. That may make him overconfident -- he'll make his next move, and we'll catch him."

"Swell. Don't let Nancy get shot. She's too good to waste on a murderer's bullet."

"We'll protect her."

"How?"

"By letting Bulah Singh suspect that we suspect him of tonight's attempt. He won't risk it again. By the way, have you a gun with you?"

"Yes. Mauser."

"Where?"

"In my overcoat:"

"Registered?"

"Yes."

"Be careful not to show it. Don't use it."

"You bet."

"There'll be men in the shrubbery. Two of them are my men," said Lewis. "The other is Bulah Singh's, stationed there to watch you and report your movements. Take no notice."

"Okay. Good-bye. And thanks for the help."

"Give my best to Tom Grayne."

"Sure. Any special message for Old Ugly-face, in case I meet him?"

"Give him my love," said Lewis.

"Swell. I'll do that."

"One moment, Gunning. Just one last word of advice! In any emergency, remember that one man -- like the fool at Sarajevo with a pistol -- can wreck the world as easily as a careless surgeon can kill a patient. So in tight places, don't let yourself get hypnotized by appearances. Listen to the inner voice. Obey that."

Andrew grinned genially. "Same to you! Take good care of Elsa."

They shook hands. "Good luck," said Lewis. "You will find your road to the border littered with intelligently unobservant spotters, who have been told to mind their own business. You won't be questioned if you just say nothing. Don't mention my name."

"I won't mention any man's name," Andrew answered.

He strode to the front door. Bompo Tsering opened it and they leaned together into a blast of rain. Lewis slammed the door shut behind them, like a cannon shot starting the game.

---

Andrew trudged and splashed beside Bompo Tsering, out through the front gate and along the high stone wall. He took the middle of the road to make sure of being seen by Bulah Singh's spies and to avoid the extra drenching from the overarching trees. A Ford car, badly in need of paint, loaded above window level with the dunnage that Elsa would need, stood parked in an alley.

Curled on the loads was another of Andrew's men -- a gaunt, dish-faced countryman from somewhere north of Koko Nor -- homesick for the sky-high steppes where he was weaned on wild ass meat and barley. He said nothing. Even when Andrew turned a flashlight on him he said never a word. Andrew climbed in and took the wheel. Bompo Tsering scrambled to the front seat beside him. The chilled, damp engine started at the eighth or ninth try.

"So! By-um-by, at last. Our going!" said Bompo Tsering. To use English was the only way to get on even terms with Andrew. It was condescension -- a polite hint that Andrew's Tibetan was something less than perfect. "Oh, the happy, blessed country! By-um-by soon there now."

Andrew was unresponsive -- busy peering through the storm for wash-outs on the winding road. But Bompo Tsering was in talkative mood, which was a fact well worth making note of, after his recent dumbness.

"Gunnigun." He never could master the pronunciation of Andrew's name -- had given up trying -- had renamed him.

"Yes."

"Your being peling -- " He paused for effect. Peling means foreigner: a comprehensive word, as packed full of significance as the Greek word BapBapos [greek script] "too much often many times your doing dam-fool thing."

"This time not doing. My much happy."

"Forgotten your dugpas already? Left 'em behind, eh? Not scared of 'em now?"

"Dugpas being only spirits -- can manage. Something else being much worse too bad. My thinking, making sorry. By-um-by now, your not doing, making too glad."

"What were you thinking that made you sorry?"

"Your sending me my buying all this more stuff. My obedient. My buying. But my thinking this more stuff must meaning Ladee Elsa coming also! Uh-uh! No good. My sorry. Too much dam-fool God-damn saying no-no! Also catching maybe 'nother baby -- no good -- no good! Uh-uh! Too much bad trouble -- bad luck."

"She never hurt you, did she?"

"My 'fraid before. Now she not coming, my too much happy."

In proof of his high spirits Bompo Tsering began singing an endless nostalgic wail about the wonders, sacred and profane, of the Home of the Gods, on the Roof of the World, where the blessed snow -- and dust-storms hide the holy treasures from the eyes of pelings, and the fortunate count their blessings beneath skies of azure. It was a good song, no more mendacious than the latest Broadway and Hollywood smash hit. He made it up himself, and believed every word of it, singing in time to the slap of a broken link against a rear mudguard; singing in the rain, in the dark, with his heartstrings thrumming like a harp within him to the call of his cruel homeland. The gaunt man from Koko Nor joined in the chant, selecting phrases that he liked and repeating them over and over, forcing Bompo Tsering to do the same, so that the song became a weirdly measureless duet.

Andrew preferred that to conversation. He could think through the song without listening to it. Conversation might have made it difficult to hide the tart sub-flavor of the memory that Bompo Tsering had opened a window of Nancy Strong's house, only a few moments before someone else fired a shot through the opposite window, missing Elsa by less that a foot. There was mud on the boots of the man from Koko Nor. There was no imaginable reason why Bompo Tsering should be Nancy Strong's enemy. But by Bompo Tsering's own admission, it was a relief to believe that Elsa was staying behind. The truth, like Bulah Singh's spy in the bushes, was lurking somewhere amid dark facts. It seemed worth discovering.

The smashing of Old Ugly-face's photograph, and Nancy Strong's conviction that the bullet had been meant for herself, were subjects for a kind of speculation that Andrew was in no mood for. Rain, and his job at the wheel, induced no taste for the occult, though he couldn't avoid it. Even less to his taste would be to question Bompo Tsering and be regaled with circumstantial lies or, worse yet, irrelevant lies, like red herrings drawn crosswise on the trail of facts. Steering through the storm suggested the kind of thinking that was needed. As methodically as he had laid all his plans for the journey, he reviewed the facts. The hard ones. The bulky, lumpy ones with sharp outlines. They were like the milestones on the road. The essential, first, number one fact was that he didn't want to get rid of Bompo Tsering. The man was as indispensable as he could afford to let one man be. The shot had fortunately missed, so there was no murder to avenge. It had missed at slightly above stomach level, to the left. Bompo Tsering was a bad shot, who almost always missed high right. Besides, Bompo Tsering had certainly not had time to run from one window to the other and fire the shot.

The rain and the roar of cascading water aided concentration on the problem. Attention to the dark road, the almost automatic alertness at pedals and steering wheel, produced a black-out of all unrelated thoughts -- almost like a blackboard, on which Andrew chalked in white the facts that he selected one by one, of which the first was the mud on the boots of the man from Koko Nor. It was the wrong color to have come from the place where he loaded the car. It was the color of the flower-bed earth in Nancy Strong's garden. Perhaps a coincidence. More probably proof of guilt.

But the man from Koko Nor was an ignorant herdsman, secretive by instinct, who would do what he was told. He was tolerably patient, but certainly prone to violence if told the proper story. Bompo Tsering could have told it. Andrew knew more facts about Bompo Tsering than the latter suspected. Originally Tom Grayne's headman and only loaned to Andrew for the journey, Bompo Tsering's loyalty to Tom was indisputable. It held unplumbed depths of selfless devotion, only qualified by Tibetan indifference to Western views of what is important and what isn't. Andrew's own loyalty to Tom, which had a different basis, had been nevertheless a bond of union between himself and Bompo Tsering -- a sort of bridge across which gradually some of the Tibetan's loyalty had transferred itself to Andrew. So divided allegiance was a fact to be carried in mind. Bompo Tsering was quite capable of sabotage for what he might believe was for Tom's or Andrew's own good. And there was more than one fork to the divided allegiance; quite a number of forks, all of them likely to confuse and distort the reasoning of an otherwise faithful headman. Andrew's mental blackboard began to be chalked up with the "knowns" of a compound equation that made the "unknown" look insoluble. But order came out of them after a while.

For instance: Bompo Tsering was a devout Tantric Buddhist, happy in his religious convictions, superstitious to the verge of devil worship, and amused -- not horrified, but moved to laughter -- by the discovery that other people, and especially pelings believed in ridiculous other religions or possibly none. Bompo Tsering's actions, especially when he had time to think about them, frequently were guided by a wish to scandalize and mock, as well as to serve and instruct his ignorant employer. Literal obedience, even good smart discipline, wasn't difficult to get from Bompo Tsering up to a point that varied with the occasion; but his subtle reasoning processes could invent and justify extremely tricky means of gaining secret ends without incurring much risk of detection. That fact went up on the board while Bompo Tsering got out to remove a fallen tree from the road and got in again after tying a prayer rag to a bush as a precaution against having to repeat such disagreeable labor. Pelings can't be taught that it is invisible devils who make the difficulties, so that all one needs to do is to forestall the devils with fluttering scraps of rag.

He resumed his song when Andrew got the car going again. He sang now about a legendary sorceress who merited death but was blessed by a holy hermit, so that she changed her mind, and became harmless, and so escaped the arrow of ill fortune that her previous misdeeds had launched against her on the bowstring of the Higher Law. The man from Koko Nor grew silent. Andrew noted the fact and the words of the song; he connected the two, and went on thinking about Bompo Tsering.

There was Bompo Tsering's domestic situation to consider. His love life, such as it was. That was another divided allegiance -- between local tribal custom and the almost universal Buddhist contempt for women, nowhere recommended in the Ancient Teaching, but invented, like the doctrine of original sin, by sex-obsessed ecclesiastics, who relegate women to the category of dogs and other graceless lingerers on the Path to Bliss. But there are notably extreme exceptions. Bompo Tsering was one of several brothers all married to the same woman; she was priestess, wife and matriarch in one -- an almost absolute tyrant, whose husbands took turns at home and spent the intervals wandering, working, earning to support their common proprietress.

So Bompo Tsering had mixed views about women. Probably he believed -- although Andrew had never discussed it with him -- that Tom and Andrew shared Elsa in some such domestic design as his own. Certainly his mental attitude toward Elsa was mixed of contempt and respect; veiled and made indistinguishable by his Tibetan good humor and by his conviction that it doesn't much matter what pelings think or do, as long as they don't steal Tibet. He had even found it amusing to obey Elsa when it wasn't too inconvenient. But he was rather self-conscious about it, rather ashamed. And he had never made any secret of his superstitious prejudice against women on expeditions. As such they were bringers of bad luck. So the fact went on the blackboard with the others, that Bompo Tsering felt no important loyalty to Elsa. There would be room in his consciousness for almost any other emotion that the circumstances, or a prejudice, or someone, might suggest. Who might be the someone? Who could have persuaded him to cooperate in the attempt to shoot Elsa? He undoubtedly had not fired the shot. But he certainly did cause the diversion that brought Elsa into full view from the opposite window. Was that a coincidence?

Several possibilities crowded into Andrew's mind. He rejected at once, as too improbable, the idea that Bulah Singh might have hypnotized Bompo Tsering. And it was a certainty that Bulah Singh did not want Elsa murdered. But it was no secret from Andrew that one of Bulah Singh's spies had been camping all winter on Bompo Tsering's trail, had lost money to him, and had had a thousand opportunities to suggest that secret favors beget favors in return. Tibetans have a passion for intrigue; they always crave what is withheld and over-reach themselves to get it, enjoying the bartering more than the actual profit. That spy might easily have convinced the homesick Bompo Tsering that Bulah Singh could close the passes into Tibet against every member of Andrew's party, unless compensated by a valuable proof of reciprocity, paid in advance. Such talk would have tickled Bompo Tsering's undisciplined loyalty. It would have awakened his delight in mysterious byplay. It would have spurred his eagerness to get started homeward. It would have excited his high opinion of himself as a diplomat. The nicely motivated murder of anyone of whom he disapproved would no more trouble Bompo Tsering's conscience, than it would Bulah Singh's. Tibetans are pious people, but they amazingly indulge in clandestine trickery for which the threatened penalty, in which they thoroughly believe, is millions of years in a merciless, fantastically realistic hell. They behave as if they want to go to hell.

But there was this difference: the Sikh was unsentimental; he hadn't any of the juice of magnanimity. Bompo Tsering, on the other hand, would be unlikely to murder anyone against whom he had no ground for fear, mistrust or hatred. Bompo Tsering wouldn't murder Nancy Strong. But to cause Elsa to be killed because, in his opinion, she might bring bad luck, might seem to him a praiseworthy act, especially if the idea of killing someone -- anyone -- were suggested to him, in the first instance, by the agent of a man whom he had reason to fear. Scruples have a way of disappearing under pressure -- squeezed out.

But fear of Bulah Singh might also -- almost certainly would -- inspire a delicious, amusing desire to doublecross that gentleman. It would be a typical Tibetan reaction to a blackmailer's effort to make him a cat's-paw. Loyalty to Andrew -- certain knowledge that Andrew detested Bulah Singh -- would be an added inducement to put a hot one over on the Sikh.

Andrew watched for a chance to discover whether his thought was leading in the right direction. During a pause in the endless song Bompo Tsering spat through the window and then shot a question:

"Gunnigun! Why you not being much happy, same like we making singsong? Blessed happy land soon by-um-by not too far."

"I'm thinking about Bulah Singh" said Andrew. "He might overtake us."

The reaction was instantaneous. Bompo Tsering unbosomed himself of triumph that came like steam from a safety valve. There was pressure behind the words. He selected them, from Andrew's special vocabulary reserved for use in tight places, when yaks and ponies give up and men malinger:

"Hot damn! Son of a bitch! Bastard! Bugger no good! God-damn cockeye! Kick 'um!" Then, profoundly mysterious: "Gunnigun! You by-um-by no more caring about Bulah Singh. My fixing 'um. So. Hot damn!"

Inexperience would have thrust into that opening with sharp questions. But Andrew knew his man. The half-hint, that had steamed off the kettle of truth, was a relief to Bompo Tsering's nerves; but it was also a trick to discover what line Andrew's thought was taking. If Andrew had betrayed even veiled curiosity, the truth would have retired into its hole like a mouse that smells cat. The right strategy was to change the subject.

"Watch for leopards," said Andrew. "The headlights dazzle 'em. If one of 'em should get out from under the wheels in time, he'd likely as not jump in on us."

Bompo Tsering began singing about leopards. Andrew resumed his review of the facts.

Bulah Singh believed Elsa was staying behind. But Elsa would be no use to the Sikh while under Nancy Strong's protection. Nancy Strong was in Bulah Singh's way. She probably knew or guessed too many of his secrets. She had very likely offended him deeply; she was notorious for befriending victims of police brutality. It wasn't in the least improbable that Bulah Singh wanted Nancy Strong murdered, and wanted the job done at exactly the right moment to coincide with other moves on the board. He was evidently a time-table plotter, and pretty good at it. The bullet might have been meant for Nancy -- might have been -- in the beginning. But artful beginnings often have boomerang ends.

Not to be wholly ignored was Nancy Strong's conviction that the shot had been intended for herself. The photograph business was beyond the pale of Andrew's tolerance; he didn't let his mind go wandering into that metaphysical swamp. But he did trust Nancy's intuition. He had good reason to trust it. Her bare word that she knew the bullet had been meant for herself was at least as good as anyone's who might choose to contradict her. Only so far there was no proof! The bullet missed. Had it been aimed at the wrong target, contrary to someone's orders?

If Bulah Singh, personally or through his agent, had supplied Bompo Tsering with a pistol and had persuaded him, by threats and promises, to shoot Nancy Strong, then it was not unthinkable that Bompo Tsering might have told off the man from Koko Nor to do the job, but to shoot Elsa instead. His oriental mind would calculate that after the event Bulah Singh would be too deeply implicated to dare anything except to smother enquiry and expedite the expedition's departure northward in every way possible. A bit subtle. A bit complicated. But not too improbable.

It would explain Bompo Tsering's almost irrepressible triumph. He might even have been clever enough to contrive that Bulah Singh or his agent was overheard when he made the murderous proposal -- or to make the Sikh think he had been overheard. He might believe he had completely outwitted Bulah Singh -- by instructing the peasant from Koko Nor to shoot Elsa, not Nancy. Tibetans can't be expected to think of everything. It had probably never occurred to Bompo Tsering that Elsa's death by an assassin's bullet would have blown all secrets galley-west and have made the return to Tibet impossible.

Andrew wondered how much Lewis had guessed, or suspected, or knew about that shot through the window. He rather wished he had questioned Lewis about it. The man was a nut. Any man who can run a bughouse -- and study hypnotism and world politics -- and be an authority on poisons -- and boss a very important branch of the secret intelligence -- and believe in Jesus -- couldn't be anything else than a nut. But he was a good guy. He liked Lewis -- trusted him.

On the whole, things began to look good. Even the rain was an asset, like a curtain at the end of a first act.

---

Nancy Strong returned from the school building by the back entrance. Near the foot of the stairs she handed her oiled silk raincoat and umbrella to the Lepcha servant.

"Put those away, please, and then go to bed."

He obeyed like an automaton.

"Have you forgotten how to speak?"

"No, memsahib."

"Good night, then."

"Good night, memsahib."

She watched him hang up the coat and slouch away to his own quarters, turning off the light in the back hallway. He vanished through a swing door. As she faced about she found Lewis beside her. She was startled. Lewis appeared not to notice the nervous reaction; he was putting away a small memorandum book, taking care that it didn't show above the edge of his vest pocket.

"Nothing much left of that poor fellow," he remarked. "You had better turn him out to grass. He's a psychic wreck. He'll be a physical wreck in next to no time."

"Where did you come from so suddenly?"

"I've been using the phone in your office. But about that Lepcha -- why not send him home to his village?"

"Leave him to me. Did Andrew Gunning get away safely?"

"Away, yes. Safely, if he has it in him. Good fellow. I like him -- intelligent -- never tells what he's thinking about unless he expects to be understood. Doesn't expect to be understood too often. By the way, Nancy, you'll get quite a phone bill. Please pay it, and send me a memorandum. I'll settle with you off the record."

"Very well. You will find your bag in the corner guest room."

"Is that a hint?"

"Don't be silly. Your bag is locked, so the servant couldn't unpack it for you, but -- "

Lewis held up a warning finger. His voice dropped to a dramatic whisper: "Nancy, I hardly dare to trust even myself with the secrets in that bag!"

"Sherlock Holmes! Where are your pipe and magnifying glass?"

"You mean, where's the needle! Why not say it?"

"I have just come from talking to children. I advised them to go to sleep. Why don't you?"

"Sleep? God and the devil and doctors work at all hours, Nancy. I must wait up for my shadow. Is the back door open?"

"No. If your shadow bangs on it he'll wake the children again. So -- "

"Nancy, if my man heard himself make more noise than a cat's ghost, he'd die of shame. However, to save you from anxiety, I will go and wait for him near the back door."

"Take that chair with you and be comfortable."

"Right. By the way, hadn't you better send Elsa to bed? That girl is a bit overwrought. A mild sedative might -- "

"Meaning, I suppose, that you want to talk to me alone?"

"Well -- time's short. Yes. There's something -- "

"Why not say it now?"

"Very well. You know what it is. I've asked a dozen times. However, I'll say it again. Our friend Johnson, of the Ethnographic Survey, was retired because he was beginning to know too much. Some traitor behind the scenes was afraid of him. Who is the traitor? Name him!"

"Morgan, you are too clever, and not wise enough. Have you forgotten about the devil who said his name was Legion? You're a physician. You and St. Luke should understand each other."

"That's an evasive answer, Nancy. You are not being frank. It's out of character -- and beneath your dignity."

"Oh? Familiarity has bred contempt? Am I to choose a scapegoat for your baffled vigilance? Whom do you wish me to betray?"

"Nancy, please be serious."

"I can't be when you are in that mood."

"It's black treason. Possibly a member of the Council. One of our own race."

"The human race? Well? Did you ever hear of a political, or any other council of human beings that lacked a traitor or two? You, a psychologist?"

"Psychology be damned! We're too late for that stuff. This is hard fact, if we can lay a finger on it. It's a defeatist conspiracy, well hidden, by someone powerful enough to protect such parasites as Bulah Singh, and swine enough to bet on a world war, and a revolution in India, with a front seat for himself at the finish. He might be any of three men."

"Or of a thousand," said Nancy. "I told you. His name is Legion."

"You know who he is. Name him!"

"I know the three men whom you suspect. I think you're wrong. Those are three self-important nobodies with sly minds. Place-holders -- Sycophants. They play politics like a game of bridge and quarrel across the table. They can be manipulated by almost any artful man who understands what snobs they are. Cowards. Sail- trimmers. They have no real convictions -- no vision -- no integrity. In a pinch they will play safe. Mice."

"Rats!" said Lewis. "Which is king rat?"

Nancy smiled engagingly: "Fleas are deadlier than rats, and you know it. Fleas spread the plague that rats catch from corruption in the dark. Why not use flea powder?"

Lewis suppressed his irritation. He stuck to his point: "It wasn't those men's parasites who torpedoed Johnson. They did that."

"Don't flatter them," Nancy retorted. "They didn't think of it themselves. They didn't invent spite any more than rats invented bubonic plague. Someone with a poisonous whisper suggested to those three wise mice that pet cat Johnson was intriguing to get them out of office. There was some truth in it, too. Johnson wasn't always innocent of malice, and he loved the sensation of power behind the scenes. They turned on Johnson. It was three to one, with one of Johnson's most tactless mistakes in the scale against him. I know that because he told me about it. I had dinner with him, in Delhi, the night before he left for England."

"Did he say who the poisonous whisperer was?"

"No. He knew no more than you do."

"Couldn't he guess?"

"I don't repeat embittered people's guesses."

"Fair enough. But tell me your guess. Whom do you suspect?"

"I think perhaps Bulah Singh knows."

Lewis's irritation began to break through the crust. "I am asking you!"

"I don't know."

"You do know. You may have no factual knowledge. No legal evidence. That's quite likely. But you've the psychic gift of a human bloodhound."

Nancy laughed outright: "Morgan, that's the most ingenious paraphrase for a vulgar epithet that I ever heard. Go to the head of the class."

"You know very well what I meant, Nancy."

"I guessed it, Morgan. It filtered through."

"Here: I'll be frank with you. Two men's wives have been to see you lately. One was a banker's wife from Calcutta. If the big money is in on this -- but of course it is! It always is. Tell me -- "

"Morgan, money hasn't any brains. So bankers' wives are less reliable than ayahs. Besides I have told you again and again, I will not betray confidences. People come to me with their troubles for private, not public reasons."

"You've a public duty," said Lewis.

"Do yours. I will do mine," she answered. "Take the chair with you. And please don't let your shadow, as you call him, wake the children."

She left him standing. Lewis set his jaw and ground his teeth at her back. She shut the living-room door with a revealing thud that made him grin. It gave him some comfort to know he could make her angry. There weren't many who could. She switched off the light as she entered the room. Elsa stood up, rubbing her eyes. She had been staring at the fire.

"You're tired?" Nancy asked. "Like to go to bed? It's very late."

"I couldn't sleep," said Elsa. "But I don't want to keep you up."

"Very well. Put some wood on the fire. I have to wait for Morgan Lewis. Sit up with me and protect me from him."

"Are you joking?"

"Yes. But the joke is on him. As long as you are in the room he can't ask questions. Tell me about Andrew."

They sat facing each other, in the warm, red, comfortable book-framed glow of firelight. The cat sprang into Nancy's lap.

"There's nothing left to tell. One always knows how Andrew will behave. Unsentimental -- "

Nancy's smile interrupted, but she made no spoken comment.

"Nancy, he is! He's the most unsentimental but dependable friend in the world. He just said `So long' and walked out. Bompo Tsering followed him like a dog."

"No advice? No information?"

"Oh yes. I'm to do whatever you tell me. I will, too. I've promised. And I'm to `yes' Dr. Lewis: that's American for praise God but keep your powder dry. I'm to overtake Andrew as soon as I possibly can. Nancy, do you think Andrew is in danger?"

Nancy made herself comfortable in the armchair. She closed her eyes for a moment. "What do you think?"

"I told Andrew. I'm not sure he liked my telling him. At the moment, no, no danger. But he hasn't finished with Bulah Singh. There's a link. I saw it. I see it now."

"What does it look like?"

"Like a dull red rope from Bulah Singh to Andrew. When I get a mental picture of them, there the rope is. Only of course, it isn't a rope. It's more like one of those moon rays on rippling water. But it isn't like that either. -- Oh, I can't explain it."

"Don't try," said Nancy. "I saw it too. If you try to explain too definitely, you will get lost in definitions, like a music critic writing for the penny papers. People will take you literally and make unanswerably stupid comments."

Elsa smiled mischievous agreement: "Good! That's the first easy advice you have given me! I won't try to explain!"

The house was as quiet as a tomb. The fire glow made the silence cordial and comforting and snug. The cat purred. Nancy sat still for several minutes and then suddenly resumed, in a quiet, assured, unemphatic voice:

"If you do try to explain, you will convince no one -- not even another clairvoyant unless he is trying to help you -- and even then not always. That is why people who know, don't tell, unless they're teaching someone who they know can learn. No two mental pictures are alike, because no two human beings are alike. The point is, what do the clairvoyant pictures mean in terms of common experience?"

"I suppose it's something like translating Tibetan or Sanskrit into English?"

"Only more so. More like calculus into mechanics."

"Well, I think the red rope probably means that Bulah Singh will keep after Andrew, and stick to him like a leech, and make trouble for him, but not on this side of the Tibetan border. Bulah Singh is afraid. He intends to cling to Andrew somehow. When I look at Bulah Singh there seems to be a menace around him, too, coming from every direction except one. He keeps looking in that one direction. Oh, what a beast Bulah Singh is!" She shuddered.

"It's fortunate you said that."

"Why, Nancy? How do you mean?"

"Because it reveals a viewpoint."

"You mean Bulah Singh's?"

"No. Yours. Your attitude. Do you know any mathematics?"

"No. I can't even add. Simple quadratic equations are as far as I got, and I was no good at those."

"It doesn't matter. Shakespeare was no good at them either. Neither were Joan of Arc or Beethoven. They say Einstein can't balance his own bank account. We must think of some other way of illustrating what I want to explain."

"Try plain English," Elsa suggested. "I can think in English -- or at least -- " she laughed -- "you've made me feel that perhaps I can't think."

Nancy stared at the fire. "Let's suppose," she said after a moment, "that what I told you tonight is the truth."

"Very well. I remember most of what you said. I half believe it until you go out of the room. At first I felt angry. But I don't any longer. I rather like it. I would like to believe it."

"Believing," said Nancy, "is no good. None whatever. As I said before, anyone who believes can disbelieve. But one who knows can't not-know."

"How in the world can one know?"

"In the same way that you know you are, when you say I am. Try it. You can change what you see in a mirror by changing what the mirror reflects and distorts and reverses. You are not the reflection. You are your soul. Leave off believing you are your reflection. I use motion pictures to explain it to the children. The moving figures on the screen are not the figures on the film. The figures on the film are not the actors. Even the actors are not the author. And even the author is not the idea. You are your soul. You are not what Morgan Lewis calls a sanguinary mechanism. That mechanism isn't you at all. Identify yourself with your soul -- I am my soul; I am not its material shadow. You will soon know you are telling the truth, because truth proves itself. One step at a time, you will learn to trust your spiritual vision."

"But, Nancy, surely there was nothing spiritual about that glimpse of Bulah Singh? It was cruel -- guilty -- afraid, hanging on to Andrew. It was worse than reality."

"It was only spiritual in the sense that it wasn't confined to the normal three dimensions. It was Bulah Singh's own secret thought of himself, hidden behind the false face that he presents to the world. Your eyes didn't see it. But you saw it. What did you do about it?"

"I don't see what you mean. What could I do? I did nothing."

"Your timid consciousness was looking at his predatory thought. Both on the same plane, to use a phrase that doesn't mean much. That is more or less what happens when strangers meet and suddenly become friends or enemies. Without realizing it, they get a glimpse of each other's consciousness. People who are good choosers of subordinates unconsciously possess that faculty. Some of them consciously possess it. It explains most cases of love or enmity at first sight. Being far more clairvoyant than you realize, and almost wholly untrained, you had a glimpse of Bulah Singh's thought. You half interpreted a danger, and recoiled. You were like an ostrich. You stuck your vision back into the nice safe sand of the Desert of Don't Believe and hoped you wouldn't get your tail feathers pulled. What good does it do you to have seen the danger?"

Elsa laughed. "Yes, you're quite right. That's what I did do."

"You recoiled. You refused to look. What good was it?"

"Well, I suppose at least I'm warned against Bulah Singh. What should I have done?"

"Not what you did, my dear. We have to learn to be practical. Unapplied theory is the same as faith without works. It is worse than dead. It is a decomposing spiritual poison. If you were alone in a room with Bulah Singh, could you defend yourself against him from a physical attack?"

"No. He's muscular. I'm sure I couldn't."

"What would you do?"

"Yell for help and try to escape."

"Good. Bear that answer in mind. We will return to it presently. Physically, you admit he is too strong. Your muscles against his muscles would be useless. Do you believe your thought can defend itself against Bulah Singh's thought any better than your person could defend itself against his person?"

"Oh, now you're talking about mind over matter?"

"No. Thought against thought. Thoughts can't run away from each other. Are you naive enough to suppose that your peace-pursuing thought can defeat Bulah Singh's predatory will by merely looking at it and being horrified?"

"Do you mean -- I don't quite -- say that again."

"No. Try another illustration. Can a Jew in Germany defend himself from outrage by knowing and fearing the greedy mendacious malice of the Nazis' motives?"

"No. I suppose not. No, of course not. It must feel to a Jew something like an inundation to the Chinese when the dykes break on the Yellow River -- helpless -- nothing they can do about it -- nothing. I've been reading about the German Jews in some books Andrew lent me. I've been wondering what the Jews could do about it. I can't imagine. I can only feel sorry for them. -- But what did you mean about thoughts can't run away from each other?"

"Well. Can you imagine it? The Jews can't run away from the Nazi persecution. They are trapped. They can't get passports. The Chinese can't escape the inundation. They have no transportation, and nowhere to go. Even more so, twice three can't run away from six times one. Six wins and the other figures lose their independence. It is simply useless to deny it."

"Nancy, what awful pessimism!"

"That is realism, not pessimism. Thought is much more powerful than any other force in nature. But thought can't escape, first from words and symbols, and then from physical expression. It creates them. It builds pictures in the thinker's mind -- patterns that guide the person that obeys the impulse. There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed. Thoughts find expression in deeds, sooner or later, without any exception."

"Aren't any thoughts secret?"

"None -- not in the long run."

"I can very seldom read yours, or Andrew's, or Mu-ni Gam-po's. Just now I seem to know what you are going to say before you say it, but -- "

"Cover, conceal, delay the transmutation of thought into act, and you merely increase the potential violence. Unless you know how to transmute that violence, then what? Oppose thought against thought and what possibly can happen but collision?"

"I've never thought of it," said Elsa.

"Think of it now. Oppose a pacifist's motorcar to an invading armored train. What happens?"

"Someone buries the pacifist."

"Very well. Oppose a recitation of the Sermon on the Mount against an air raid on Barcelona. What do you get?"

"Massacre!" said Elsa. "Women and babies blown to bits -- airmen getting good salaries -- plenty of people remarking that the Sermon on the Mount is a damned lie. Who should blame them? I don't think they're blasphemous. They pray to God for mercy, and the answer is bombs -- butchery."

"Aren't you taking it too much for granted that they did pray?" Nancy answered. "They did not pray. That was the trouble. From the beginning of the world until now, no genuine prayer ever went unanswered, instantly! Or was ever answered without humor, beauty and loving-kindness, that blessed and cursed not! Prayer doesn't consist in opposing thought against thought, creed against creed, self-righteousness against self-righteousness -- bogey against bogey -- fear of defeat against lust for victory. If you oppose your thought against Bulah Singh's, what are you likely to get?"

"Defeat, I suppose," said Elsa. "I never did want to fight anyone. I want to be let alone. I'm sure I haven't enough hatred in my system -- at least, I hope I haven't -- to be able to out-hate a Sikh hypnotist! It looks as if we're up against that gruesome law of the survival of the fittest -- "

"Fittest for what?" Nancy retorted. "What do you wish to be fit for? Pork or poetry? Destruction or creation? Degradation or evolution?"

"I would like to know what good talking about evolution and religion does for the victims of bombs and blackmailers!"

"There is no need to be a victim. Remember the Ninety-first Psalm: `A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee.' "

"But, Nancy, that's horribly selfish! I would rather be a victim of almost anything, than be some kind of special person who felt superior and -- "

"Gently, child, gently! You are not being asked to be a special person. But don't you want to help? Can the dead stop the massacre?"

"No, of course they can't."

"Can selfishness stop it?"

"Perhaps enlightened selfishness might lead to -- "

"To a jack-o'-lantern's quicksand! The way to enlighten selfishness is to realize that only believers in the illusion of personal self can possibly be selfish. They can't avoid it. But the selfish soul doesn't exist. It would be a contradiction in terms."

"Well, suppose that's true. How can one help? By talking? They'd call it propaganda. Talk never stopped people from hating each other. It makes them hate each other all the worse."

Nancy laughed. "Well, I am talking to you! Are we hating each other? My dear, a victim, no matter of what -- even a victim of his own generosity or his own greed -- is someone who opposed some form of violence, either with lesser violence or with the wrong strategy: One is as useless as the other. Wars are good illustrations of that. The very best that can be said of any war is that it is bravery wasted."

"Then do you teach passive resistance? Non-resistance?"

"No. Far from it. I teach vigorous assault on cause, and let the symptoms take the consequences. I don't look for peace where there is none."

"Nancy, you're too fond of paradox. I wish you'd say what you mean in plain words."

"Very well. Listen."

"I am listening."

"There are three states of consciousness."

Elsa glanced at the shelf beside her. "But Freud says -- "

"Forget Freud for the moment. Some of those books are there to remind me to forget what is in them. Freud, Jung, Adler and scores of others have made brilliant discoveries of what happens to people who base their outlook on what appears to them to be the reality of personal material existence. They have discovered some of the mechanics of the illusion. They try to patch up and strengthen the illusion. We propose to weaken it, by letting go of it. Then evolution takes care of us. I will give you the key to the secret of evolution. Lobsang Pun taught it to me."

"You mean this is secret?"

"It is a key to the secret."

"Why is it secret?"

"Because people who are too convinced of the reality of what is known as sensual perception, and who think that intellect and intelligence are the same thing, can't possibly understand it until disaster takes the conceit out of them and they begin to be humble and humorous and a little bit wise,"

"Very well. I will try to be humble. What is the secret? Surely whoever knows it should tell it."

"I said it is a key to the secret. There are several other keys, but this is the simplest. The secret reveals itself when you use the key. For all practical purposes there are three states of consciousness."

"I do hope you're not going to use a lot of confusing terms that mean something different to whoever uses them."

"No. Plain words. From, at, and toward. -- If you prefer it, call them subconsciousness, consciousness, and superconsciousness."

"That sounds too simple," said Elsa.

"It is. Much too simple for the brain-believers. It amounts to an insult to what pride calls intellect. It doesn't take much intellect to perceive that a bomb kills; a lie hurts; an empty purse can't buy; hunger isn't satisfying; a cold doorstep isn't a warm home. Even demagogues and other lunatics can elaborate that picture and make it worse. But it does require real intelligence to see and to use the beautifully, humorously simple remedy."

"What do you call intelligence?" Elsa asked.

"I call for it," said Nancy. "I don't have to define what it is. I let it define me. I demand it -- from superconsciousness. True intelligence is an inseparable dimension of superconsciousness -- instantly ready, available to everyone who asks."

"Can you make that clearer?"

"Yes. Wake up and know! Subconsciousness is the storehouse of the mass illusion. Let Freud have it. It is the mist mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis -- the common memory pool -- the pool of the Narcissus myth. It contains every detail of all the past history of all the people who ever lived in the world. All that they have ever imagined, believed and done. It is continually being added to, every minute. It holds all the false answers to all the false questions. It is a logical, merciless law unto itself, as full of fear as a sea is full of water. Jesus called it the lie and the father of lies. The Hindus call it maya. Plunge into it -- stay in it -- and there you are. Drown in the disgusting ocean of illusion. It's useless to ask mercy of that stuff or to ask it to cure its own corruption. Subconsciousness is the source of instinct, behaviorism, habit. And that includes the habit of death -- a very bad habit, but there it is. We must evolve out of it, upward."

"Into superconsciousness?"

"Yes. Superconsciousness is life. The rest is shadow. There is no illusion, and nothing false, in superconsciousness. Intelligence, affluence, humor, spontaneity, beauty and selfless love are inseparable dimensions of superconsciousness. It is the source of genius and perpetual newness. Soul-consciousness -- that is to say acceptance of the truth that now, not tomorrow but now, we are our souls -- opens the door of superconsciousness. From the moment when we accept the truth that we are living souls, not dying persons, we begin to evolve spiritually. Then, if we demand more, and more, we become masters, not victims. The illusion of selfishness gradually dies. Love replaces it. It's so simple that in the beginning we can't keep it in consciousness for more than seconds at a time. But those are precious seconds. They increase and expand, as we enjoy them and learn to depend on them. We become more and more soul-conscious, less and less stupid. Our consciousness becomes a lens through which reality pours into the world. That is the meaning of Jesus' promise: `the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these.' "

"Then you really believe what it says in the Bible? We can raise the dead, and -- "

Nancy laughed. "Gently, child, gently! Let us raise the living first. Reform ourselves, and then see what happens. There'll be another world war and a relapse into barbarism, unless thinking stops it. So let us think. Remember Shakespeare's line: `There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' It all takes place in consciousness. So let's change our own first. We can let our consciousness drift downward, or raise it upward by an effort of will. But it has to be good will."

"You talk of sub-and super-, but what is plain consciousness? You haven't defined that."

"I wish you understood mathematics. But never mind. Remember from, at, and toward. Subconsciousness is from. Superconsciousness is toward. Consciousness is at: the relatively real point at which you are at any given moment, varying as you sink into the subconscious illusion -- or rise toward superconscious reality. Is that clear?"

Elsa curled up in the armchair, staring at Nancy, wondering why she had never noticed before that Nancy looked like a lama. She had seen more than one lama with similar facial expression. True, most Buddhist lamas, excepting Lobsang Pun and Mu-ni Gam-po, had seemed to her no better -- perhaps worse, and more self-righteous than the vicar at home, if that were possible. Whereas Nancy --

"It seems clear when you say it," she answered. "But -- "

"Think now of your mental picture of Bulah Singh."

"I saw his thought. Yes. What should I have done about it?"

"You yourself gave the correct answer when we spoke of your being alone in a room with him. You should have yelled for help and escaped! That is exactly what I did, when I suddenly knew that shot was coming through the window."

"Nancy, you old prevaricator! You never made a sound! I screamed, when Andrew nearly pushed me into the fire. I'm ashamed of it. But you didn't. You sat still in your chair."

"My dear, I yelled. It was so sudden that I hadn't time to do anything else."

"Nancy, are you dreaming?"

"I was dreaming, at that moment. I was actually thinking of the children, all tucked away in the dormitories, wondering what they were dreaming about. I awoke with a clear picture of the danger -- and yelled for help."

"None of us heard you."

"I didn't yell to any of you," Nancy answered. "I cried with all my conscious might for help from superconsciousness. It never fails. It can't fail. Remember Isaiah: `But it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.' I and my soul were one, that moment, and I knew it. And you know what happened. 'Thou shaft not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day.' Answer: was anyone hit?"

"Poor Old Ugly-face's photograph -- oh, I beg your pardon, Nancy. I mean -- "

"I usually call him that," said Nancy.

"To his face?"

"No. Of course not. But he prefers to bethought of as Old Ugly-face. That lets in some humor. It avoids the very human tendency almost to deify one's spiritual teacher. Solemnity is only a humbug substitute for love and reverence."

"Nancy! Tell me! Had that shooting of the photograph anything to do with -- "

Nancy laughed. She shook her head. "Elsa, I don't know. I could believe it. The lower consciousness is as full of tricks as a stage magician. But guessing isn't believing, and believing isn't knowing. I haven't told you anything tonight that I don't know of my own experience."

"You seem confident."

"Yes. So confident that -- " Nancy almost chanted St. Paul's declaration of faith -- " `neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature' could persuade me to the contrary.' "

"Those are grand words," said Elsa, "but they didn't save St. Paul from being shamefully executed by the Romans."

"Do you suppose he suffered for being right, or for having done wrong?" Nancy retorted. "It isn't often wise to argue from the consequences of other people's mistakes. It's more useful to remember the work they did well -- spectacularly well! St. Paul's work has survived the Roman Empire. Is it dead yet? Far from it! Perhaps St. Paul hadn't quite learned how to forgive himself for previous mistakes. He may have felt glad to settle his own karmic account for having himself been a bigoted and cruel persecutor before he woke up and became a saint. St. Paul himself said: 'there is none righteous, no, not one.' He was a brave little Jew, pressing, as he described it, `toward the mark for the high calling . . .not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.' "

"Then what you teach doesn't pretend to change the consequences of -- "

"It pretends nothing, Elsa. It is the illusion of materiality that pretends, and makes false promises, and glitters with false causes and their consequences. Truth is the only creator of anything real. Truth never begets ill results, and never lets you down. Never! Truth doesn't rob Peter to pay Paul. It doesn't have to. It couldn't. Acceptance of truth into consciousness is spiritual evolution; it drives out the legion of lies. Falsehood and false consequences vanish, like darkness before daylight, no matter how deeply they are rooted in human thought. But it's a process. It takes time, because we are so full of conceit. However, if we are going forward, we are not going backward. The thing is, to be up, and awake, and on our way."

Elsa leaned forward. "Tell me. Will it -- if I try to follow your advice -- will it bring some real love into Tom's life?"

"Oh, excellent!" said Nancy. "Full marks!"

"Why? What do you mean? What have I said?"

"Think it over. There's another question at the back of your mind. What is it?"

"Andrew. How can I repay Andrew for all his utterly unselfish kindness?"

"Are you sure it was unselfish?"

"Yes. I'm almost sure he secretly detests the very ground I stand on. Why shouldn't he? I've been nothing but a nuisance. But there isn't one thing that he could possibly have done, to make things easier for me, that he has left undone. Isn't that unselfish?"

"Well then, why try to repay him? How could you? It's only selfishness that accepts repayment. I'm not talking about borrowed money, or the give and take of commerce. But can you repay the sun for its warmth? No! Pass it along. Reflect it. Be kind to others."

"Nancy, wouldn't it be in line with your ideas if I could somehow help Andrew to unburden himself of his secret? I know he has one. It makes him wretched. It is eating his heart out. He keeps it hidden beneath a dark gray cloud that I can't ever see through. Sometimes the cloud is the color of dry blood. But it's usually dark gray. Do you suppose I could help him?"

"You might mind your own business," Nancy suggested. "That always helps."

"But you said just now -- I mean -- don't you help people?"

"When they ask for it -- with all I have! -- to the limit." She laughed. "But there is no limit! The way to help people in the dark when they ask for it is to demand light on one's own darkness -- the light of true intelligence. But bad spiritual manners are worse than a common cad's. There is nothing likelier to make people resentful and vindictive than to squirt them with light like a fire hose. You may believe that's light, but it isn't; it's conceited bigotry. It's worse than prodding a tiger. Do you want to deal with a tiger?"

"I wish to God I could help Andrew."

"Has he asked for it?"

"No."

"Then wait. And meanwhile, mind your own business. I have suggested what that is. If you genuinely trust your vision, and distrust your senses, your vision will improve, and your senses will become subordinate instead of enslaving you as they do all of us when we let them. You will discover that your higher vision not only illumines your own consciousness but also acts like a beacon that enables others to find their own way."

"Nancy, I don't like it. It seems tome self-righteous, and top-lofty, and -- "

"My dear, can't you be generous enough to accept Andrew's generosity? Must you bask in self-approval? Or is it applause that you can't do without?"

"Indeed I don't want applause. But I would love to help Andrew. I want to reverse things just for once, and be some good to him instead of being beholden to him for almost everything. Nancy, I even owe my life to him."

"You don't like having the conceited meekness pricked like a bubble, and humility put in its place?"

"I said, I'm trying to be humble. Really, I'm trying."

"Humility, my dear, is no respecter of persons, especially of our own persons. Humility doesn't even pretend to know the answer to other people's problems. Humility demands wisdom, from the only source whence wisdom comes. And humility receives it. Always. Conceit never does. Subconsciousness is an incorrigible liar, without humility. But humility imposes self-discipline. That creates self-respect, which reveals the difference between our false, lower habit-nature and our true Being -- our soul-consciousness. That in turn creates reliance on soul-consciousness. We begin to have dignity -- to know what dignity is. Enjoy that -- I said, enjoy it -- and then Soul, which is You -- will employ your person so wisely that you will betray no one, and harm no one, and no prayer will go unanswered; it will be fully answered, with more and better than you asked, because you will discover how to pray, and how to become unselfish."

Lewis knocked on the door. He came in, startling, preoccupied, carrying something. "May I turn on the light?" he demanded. His voice was on the dead-level professional note. Without waiting for an answer he switched on the light and came forward to the fireside. In his left hand was a muddy Mauser pistol. He began to wipe it with his handkerchief, holding it to the overhead light.

"One, three, two, three, eight, three," he remarked. "Nancy, we'll need to do some thinking. This is one of those hard facts that -- but wait a moment while I check it."

He laid the pistol on the mantelshelf and consulted the small memorandum book from his vest pocket.

"Yes," he said, returning the book to his pocket, "that is the number of Andrew Cunning's pistol that was registered last autumn when he crossed the border on his way southward."

There was silence for a moment. Elsa turned deathly white. The cat jumped to the floor and began licking itself, stopped doing it, and crept under Nancy's chair.

"It's a fortunate thing," said Lewis, "that my man found this pistol. One of Bulah Singh's spies is searching for it now in the shrubbery. Bulah Singh planned this. But -- "

Nancy and Elsa asked the same question, simultaneously: "Where was the pistol?"

"In the mud under the window. Whoever fired it, dropped it there and ran. No fingerprints; he trod it into the mud to make sure of that."

Elsa spoke in a strained voice. "May I see it?"

Lewis passed it to her.

"Yes," she said, "it is Andrew's. That's his mark on the butt. It must have been stolen from him."

"Unfortunately," Lewis answered, "Gunning told me, in the hall before he left, that this pistol was in his overcoat pocket."

"Then he must have thought it was," said Elsa. She handed the pistol back.

Lewis corrected her sharply: "Pardon me. He must have known it wasn't in the pocket the moment he picked up his overcoat. The pistol is heavy and bulky. He would have missed it at once. He must have known it wasn't there."

Nancy spoke quietly: "Morgan, you are so tired that circumstantial evidence begins to look to you like proof."

"Very well," he answered. "What do you make of it? The deadly circumstance is, that Gunning knew that pistol wasn't in his overcoat. He lied. Why?"

"If he did lie, it would be the first time since I have known him," said Elsa. "Besides, why should he lie to you?"

Lewis stared at her. "Andrew spent an hour alone this evening with Bulah Singh," he answered.

Elsa stood up. She looked very small confronting Lewis, but not afraid, although her face was ghost-white. Her scandalized eyes defied him. She spoke deliberately, like a witness in court:

"Dr. Lewis, if you are suggesting that Andrew has been hypnotized by Bulah Singh, you are mistaken."

"How do you know? Clairvoyance?"

"Yes! I know what happened!"

"Gently, gently!" said Nancy. "Betray no one. Harm no one."

Elsa turned on her: "Am I to be silent when my friend is accused of lying -- and I know what happened? I mayn't help him, mayn't I? If that is what your teaching amounts to, then I don't believe in it. Am I to protect a criminal, and let Andrew be -- "

Lewis took Elsa's hand. "We are all tired," he said. "You more than any of us. Sit down."

She obeyed, too angry to speak back.

"There is this," said Lewis, after a moment's pause. "Gunning's man Bompo Tsering might have sneaked the pistol from the overcoat pocket. He could have put something else in its place, to make Gunning believe the pistol was still there."

Elsa objected: "He couldn't have! Bompo Tsering couldn't have! He didn't come into the house until Andrew brought him in, after the shot was fired."

"True," said Lewis. "Yes, I forgot that. And then again, why should Bompo Tsering want to shoot you?"

"Oh, I don't know! I don't know!" Elsa buried her face in her hands. "Bompo Tsering didn't fire the shot! I know he didn't."

"Someone did," said Lewis. "If the pistol was used without Gunning's knowledge or connivance, who stole it from him, and how, and when?"

Nancy answered him: "Treason has a way of betraying itself. Quiet, both of you. Listen."

There was silence for a few seconds, then a knock at the door.

Nancy raised her voice: "Come in."

The Lepcha servant entered, quietly closing the door behind him. His eyes were wide open, but he seemed drugged, or asleep, or in a trance. His turban was awry, but he was otherwise presentable.

"Remember," said Nancy, in a low voice. "No one was hurt. We have the pistol. No one can use it to blackmail Andrew or anyone else. There is no need for cruelty."

"No. Nor for credulity," said Lewis. "He isn't sleepwalking."

The Lepcha came slowly forward, looking neither to the right nor the left. He knelt and put the last two pine knots on the fire. Then he turned toward Nancy and sat at her feet, cross-legged. No one spoke for at least a minute, until Nancy asked quietly.

"Why didn't you stay in bed, Tashgyl?"

"Too much bad spirit, memsahib."

"Bad dreams?"

"No, memsahib. Not dream. No sleep. Spirit."

"Falling back into your old superstitions, are you? Which spirit was it this time? The thief spirit?"

"Yes, memsahib."

"Have you been obeying the thief spirit?"

He nodded. Nancy signed to Lewis to bring the pistol nearer. "Did you take anything out of Gunning sahib's overcoat pocket?"

The Lepcha nodded.

"Did you put something else in its place?"

He nodded again, as if he didn't remember until he was asked.

"Is that what the thief spirit told you to do?"

"Yes, memsahib."

"What did you do with what you took from Gunning sahib's overcoat?"

He seemed unable to remember. He looked blank. Nancy signed to Lewis to show him the pistol.

"Is this it?"

He suddenly remembered -- nodded -- looked relieved.

"Well, you see, the thief spirit has been outwitted. He has gone away now -- gone forever. He won't come back. So you needn't worry about it any longer, Tashgyl, need you? No harm was done. The thief spirit will never again give you secret orders. So go back to your room, and this time go to sleep. I will talk to you in the morning. Good night."

"Good night, memsahib."

He got up and left the room. There was silence again, except for the ticking clock on the mantelpiece.

"Well, I'll be damned," Lewis said suddenly. "Nancy, you're a witch-finder! So that's how Bulah Singh works it! Of course, as a policeman, he knows more than most people do about Lepcha superstition. Thief spirit, eh?"

"This helps," said Nancy, "to explain what we have discussed several times. All thieves, without exception, no matter what their race or education or religion, and no matter what they pretend to believe or disbelieve, subconsciously worship a thief spirit that commands them and sometimes protects them. It creeps into consciousness under all sorts of disguises, but it is always the same old tempter -- the old prehistoric tribal bogeyman. Until it is recognized for what it is, there's no cure. Any criminal hypnotist can take advantage of it, although when he does it, the hypnotist is himself obeying the old bogey. However, now I think I can cure Tashgyl."

"Bulah Singh mustn't be left at large any longer," said Lewis. "God knows whether we can make a criminal indictment stick. But it's high time to jump him. I'll have it done, before he -- " He hid a yawn behind his hand.

Nancy stood up. "Go to bed, Morgan. You are tired out. Let us all go to bed."

"Good idea. My man is watching the house. Leave the light on in the hall. I'll put the fire out. Good night, both of you. See you in the morning."

Elsa was sitting with her face between her hands, but she got up after a moment and followed Nancy to the door. Outside in the hall she took the older woman's arm.

"Nancy, I was so rude to you that I can't think what came over me. I wasn't even telling the truth when I said I didn't believe. I do believe. I want to know. I will know. I promise -- "

"No, no! No promises!" said Nancy. "They are so easy to make. But keeping such promises is the most difficult thing in the world. And `breaking them is worse than heartbreak. Much worse. So don't promise. Just do. And when you fail, just try again. We made a good beginning tonight. We were fortunate to have such a simple example. I hope you enjoyed it. I did. And thank you so much for protecting me from Morgan Lewis's questions."

---

Rain. Rain. Rain. The mechanical miracle, that no one gags at nowa-days: gas-driven wheels. Thirty miles an hour, where, less than a generation ago, three were unthinkable. Lewis was right: no questions were asked. Andrew was right too: no names were mentioned. In three days, Andrew's car, loaded above window level, traversed the fantastic length of Sikkim without challenge, but with intervals for rain, and rest, and business. Rain is a dimension of Sikkim: length, breadth, scenery and rain: a hundred and forty inches a year against the mountain sides, and much more in the jungle, where Nature is still profligately building and destroying the foundations of a cosmos yet to come.

It would have been easy to misinterpret the appearance of right of way. The more real that seems, the more illusory it usually is. The important thing was to take discreet advantage of the unofficial, unspoken laissez passer, that could be withdrawn, as easily as given, for the slightest break of the unwritten law that governs the use of privilege. Exceptions that prove rules must be exceptionally well self-governed; or exception ceases.

There are no absolute secrets. No animal can thread a jungle unsuspected, unseen, unsmelt, unheard. It is always some jungle dweller's business to know. Safety depends on which animal knows, and has he a motive for more than curiosity? It is the same with humans, in the jungle of evolving purposes. No Bhotia, Nepaulese mountain farmer or valley Lepcha, and above all no white man could follow the roads of Sikkim and escape detection. Liberty of movement depends on who knows, what he thinks about it, has he a motive for meddlesomeness? -- suspicion? -- enmity? -- or for the silence that is good will's greatest means to aid each other's ends? No car could cross the almost countless Sikkim bridges unreported to the police.

There is a Rajah, who isn't careless of his throne. He has a government, whose first law is self-preservation. There are telephone wires that stand up well in the war against termites, floods and jungle growth. Obstruction is as easy as twice two. Someone, anyone, shakes his official head, and into the net goes the suspect, to answer questions and to be delayed pending further enquiries.

But someone, in the hush-hush code that baffles censors, had whispered "mind your own business." So Andrew's bulkily loaded, ill-painted car, with its oddly assorted occupants, and its old engine and new tires in unostentatiously good condition, passed unchallenged to the northwest corner of a land where suspicion is law, and the law looks southward to prevent all trespass into Tibet.

He knew the road, having traveled it from the opposite direction; once is enough, for a man who naturally notices. The switchback miles fell headlong into steaming valleys, where swollen rivers root amid pathless jungle. So many huge butterflies impaled themselves against the radiator that the man from Koko Nor had to get out and scrape them off before the car could begin climbing. Then the laboring engine conquered incredible grades, up past myriads of rhododendrons, pine, oak, up beyond the tree line over wind-swept summits. Then again down -- and again upward -- endlessly repeated, and yet no mile like another. Andrew avoided the obvious gossip traps, where people gather to mind other people's business. He had caches of cans of petrol and oil waiting for him, planted where Bompo Tsering had been told to plant them, now and then in a lonely Bhotia's store, sometimes in the house of a friendly minor official, but always unfailingly ready.

The secret of that, like all good secrets, was simple. It is so easy to learn that complicated people can't be bothered with it. Andrew knew how to leave friends behind him, who would do friendly things without looking so secretive that suspicion invents itself. He had disciplined his quick ability to spot what strangers usually hide -- their self-respect. You can't patronize that stuff. It is the opposite of the homage that men have to pay to avarice, malice and fear in its other unsocial shapes. There is always a discoverable virtue, even beneath fawning insincerity. People like being found out, when it doesn't strip them naked to the mockery of neighbors. Genuine self-respect is as shy as a girl, as grateful as a girl for recognition. But coaxing it forth is a trick; and so is its corollary of tactful, inexpensive gifts that can't be duplicated or too soon forgotten. Andrew had even remembered a Bhotia storekeeper's envious glance at his loose-leaf notebook, and had brought him a duplicate -- cost fifty cents -- worth five hours' talk and fifty dollars more than that much money.

There are no hotels on that route. He avoided dak bungalows because of the risk of meeting travelers whose own secrets wouldn't bear investigation. All such people are anonymous informers; they create suspicion as a smoke-screen for their own improprieties.

The first night out he made for a monastery perched on a crag of the Singalila Range that hides Nepaul from Sikkim. From a distance it looked like a mud-wasp's nest. In the brief twilight, as the car climbed the winding trail toward it, the buildings began to look like a Maxfield Parrish painting. They suggested contemplative calm and holiness. But that was as superficial as the sunset light reflected on the roof. The place was no more deeply peaceful than creation itself. It was a hive of envies sicklied over with insincerity, like a Western office building, only much less candidly barbarous, and much more subtle. And of course, equally as in the West, there was virtue hidden there. However, Andrew was too occupied, by the rough track and the sharp turns, to give much actual thought to the place and its occupants. They were a remembered dream. The monastery's ruler's face was like a ghost's that awaited him, high on the ledge -- grim, gray, like the ghost in Hamlet, loaded with a melancholy anger against sin. Not a genial host. One's heart didn't leap to the meeting again.

The car had to be left at the foot of the cliff. As a precaution against pilfering Andrew parked it close to a ruinous stupa that contained ashes of a bygone hermit famous for saintliness.

"Sikkimese thieves are as bad as Tibetans, but I guess they won't steal from this place," he remarked.

Bompo Tsering agreed promptly. "Hot damn, no! They maybe by-um-by too much wanting leaving plunder belonging them where by-um-by come finding it again."

But as an additional precaution Bompo Tsering decorated the car with strips of prayer rag. He had a bagful, expensively blessed by a Bon magician.

It was likely to be cold in the monastery. Andrew's heavy blankets had been sent forward long ago, to await him at the real starting point; so before locking the car door he took out his overcoat -- shook it -- felt in the pocket. He discovered then that his Mauser was missing. In its place was a piece of pine root. It was shaped enough like a Mauser pistol to leave no doubt about premeditation on the part of someone who had stolen the pistol and left that in its stead. He checked the natural impulse to raise hell about it there and then. Making sure he was unobserved, he put the thing back into the overcoat pocket. Then without turning his head, he studied Bompo Tsering and the man from Koko Nor.

Bompo Tsering looked actually, not studiously, innocent. He was muttering mantras to impregnate the blessed rags with more protective magic as he tied them to radiator cap, door handles, and all the other projections. The man from Koko Nor was busying himself with Andrew's bedding roll and a bundle roped in wrapping paper that he had been told to carry; he was trying out various ways of adjusting the loads on his shoulders. There was no exchange of glances between the two Tibetans -- no noticeable effort to appear unconscious of the overcoat on Andrew's arm.

Something had to be done. But the dilemma was awkward. If he should let them know he had discovered the theft, they would both be on guard against him. If not guilty, they would resent suspicion. If guilty, they would try to shield themselves with more treachery, there being nothing in the world more faithless than a fool on the defensive. But if he should postpone discovery too long, whether guilty or not they would consider him careless. Leaders of expeditions can't afford to be considered careless by the men on whose obedience success depends. Besides: he must not overlook an opportunity to put an end, once and for all, to any thought in those Tibetans' minds that murder was a profitable, undiscoverable means of changing plans and defeating purposes. In plain words: discipline.

The sickening thought suggested itself, and refused to be mocked down by skeptical logic, that his own pistol might have been used to fire that shot through the window at Elsa. It was a registered pistol: ownership was indisputable. If found near Nancy Strong's house, it would give Bulah Singh an almost perfect leverage for blackmail. He recalled the Sikh's threat: "Do as I tell you, or take the consequences."

In plain words: obey me, or be tipped off to the Tibetan Government by wire to Gyangtse or Lhasa. That would mean being ignominiously turned back, to face interrogation that inevitably would expose Lewis's connivance in an officially forbidden expedition. And that might mean the end of Lewis as Number One on the northeast border. Number Ones can't afford to be found out. They must bury their own mistakes or else be sacked like useless spies. The worst possible mistake is publicity. Bulah Singh could make it a police court case. It might be a particularly cunning move in Bulah Singh's intrigue against Lewis.

So Andrew hesitated. For a second he even considered turning back to confer with Lewis. But he dismissed that thought. The momentum of a well-planned move was safer to depend on than retreat. There was no need to burn bridges behind him, yet. But there would be no sense in not crossing bridges before they could be closed against him. He decided to carry on.

From the ledge, hundreds of feet higher up, a monastery radong mooed like a lonely cow. It meant that the monks had seen the car. The long radong, resting on one monk's shoulder and blown by another, was serving the twofold purpose of announcing hospitable welcome and preventing devils from accepting the invitation. Delay at the foot of the cliff might be interpreted as devilish dread of the Higher Righteousness. The good impression, studiously built up on the south-bound journey, when he was racing against time to get Elsa into competent medical hands, would be all undone. It wasn't the right moment for a show-down with Bompo Tsering and the man from Koko Nor.

"Let's go!"

The Tibetans liked that phrase. They had grown used to it. It was like the bell to a bus horse.

"Hot damn!" said Bompo Tsering. He grinned. He offered to carry Andrew's overcoat.

That suggested a chance to discover guilt or not-guilt without revealing suspicion. If Bompo Tsering knew about the substitution of the pine root for the pistol, he probably would take the opportunity to grope in the pocket and drop the pine root from the cliff, on the way up. That would destroy the circumstantial evidence. No matter. Knowledge was what Andrew needed. Nothing was further from his thought than to prosecute Bompo Tsering, or even to get rid of him. He needed the man. But he needed him respectfully aware of the importance of being loyal. It was his job to inspire that loyalty. So he let him carry the overcoat.

It turned out to be a missed guess: a minor mistake. Bompo Tsering's manner revealed his motive at once. By swaggering with that good overcoat hung carelessly over his shoulder he hoped to impress the monks. Doubtless, in his winterlong activity as Andrew's undercover agent, he had boasted of being almost Andrew's chief, not chief of staff. Now he foresaw humiliation. That overcoat suggested how to save face. He would have led the way, if Andrew had permitted. But Andrew went ahead up the difficult, winding footpath. He gave Bompo Tsering all the opportunity he needed to get rid of the pine root; and at the same time no chance to get first word at the monastery gate, where he might otherwise have developed his self- importance. The man from Koko Nor was too afraid of monastery magic, and too occupied with his loads, to do anything but grunt his way uphill, too far behind to be nagged by Bompo Tsering.

It was pitch dark when they reached the summit. The rain clouds had rolled away; the stars were shining. They stood breathless on the edge of a dark precipice, in front of a featureless doorway in a plastered freestone wall. The two monks who greeted Andrew pointed to the new moon that hung like a flake of silver on purple. They smiled like Chinese ivory statues and said something astrologically wise, but they pretended not to understand Andrew's Tibetan, and they were suspiciously aloof toward Bompo Tsering and the man from Koko Nor. They led the way in, along dimly lamplit passages, upward from stair to stair, until they reached the great guest chamber. It was the same that Elsa had used on the way southward when she was carried up there, with her baby wrapped in Andrew's spare shirt and his priceless the crimson flames beneath a cauldron in which an adulterous lady was being boiled in oil. A very suitable sermon in paint for the edification of guests, profane or otherwise.

The monks said something about food, bestowed their benedictions and backed out, spinning prayer wheels as a precaution against foreign devils that might have entered in Andrew's company. They were monkish monks -- a mere couple of mildly pious drones, too timid to sin and too lazy to think.

Andrew sent the man from Koko Nor to clean and refill the brass pitcher with water that hadn't been used a few times already. Bompo Tsering laid Andrew's overcoat on the bed and made experiments with one of the bent-wood chairs; cursing the religion of the man who made it, finally he sat on the floor with his head on the seat, remarking that a peling's hams must be different from other people's. Andrew sat on the bed discouraged by the sensation of unfinished business left behind in Darjeeling. The trail ahead seemed as calm as the pale new moon, although he knew it couldn't be. But he felt now, behind him, where he couldn't face it, a menace as dark as the ravines on which the new moon shone. It occurred to him to wonder why it did not occur to him to abandon Elsa to her own devices. It didn't. He saw that thought objectively. It belonged to someone else. It was as remote as the moon.

The monks brought food -- the usual tea, in the usual urn; enormous quantities of mountain rice, half boiled, spiced and soaked in ghee; three bowls of cooked herbs; bread; goats' milk cheese. Andrew ate sparingly, suspicious of the pungent, anonymous herbs that agree with Tibetans but that sometimes behave like loco weed in a white man's stomach. Bompo Tsering and the man from Koko Nor ate noisily and well, belching satisfaction and remarking that these monks must be wealthy, to provide such provender for passing guests. They licked the platters.

Presently Bompo Tsering offered to return the platters and urn to the monastery kitchen. Andrew ordered the man from Koko Nor to do it; he was likelier to come running back without exchanging gossip. So Bompo Tsering sat still, watching Andrew writing with his fore-finger in the smoke on the wall beside the bed. He took the bait before long.

"Peling's magic" he suggested, in a fruity sarcastic tone.

"Yes."

Andrew had actually scrawled a brief message to Elsa: Hurry forward. Don't let them delay you. But Bompo Tsering's question gave him an idea. Scowling, he made mysterious passes with his right hand -- inscribed his initials in the soot -- made a punctuation mark -- then turned and studied Bompo Tsering's face until the scrutiny and the silence were too much for the Tibetan. He had to speak:

"My thinking maybe by-um-by our needing too much more magic. This place being too much making my afraid."

"This is hot damn magic," said Andrew. "It makes the truth talk."

Bompo Tsering produced his rosary. He always boasted that its beads were carved from the toe bones of holy hermits from Mt. Kailas, and that they were strung on a saint's sinew. He even knew the name of the blessed saint. Nevertheless, the rosary had been made in Birmingham.

The man from Koko Nor returned breathless, looking scared out of his wits. He sat down by himself in a corner, with his hands on his thighs. He appeared to be praying. Bompo Tsering flicked his beads and muttered mantras, shuddering when the night wind howled under the eaves and the draught made the little lamps flicker amid leaping shadows.

Andrew, wondering how long to let that mood ferment, framed the questions he would presently ask. He lighted his pipe. But he thumbed it out almost instantly, when someone knocked on the door.

---

Bompo Tsering and the man from Koko Nor knelt, suddenly, in a hurry. They laid their foreheads and the palms of their hands on the floor. The Lama Gombaria Rinpoche entered. They remained in that position until he left the room, ten minutes later. The Lama was accompanied by two black-robed subordinates, who looked like homosexuals -- ivory smooth -- too lushly conscious of a lechery disguised as love that passeth understanding. One was the interpreter. The other carried his master's official chair; he set it against the wall facing the brass bed. They stood thumbing their beads, one on each side of the grim Abbot, who was graciously pleased to be seated after Andrew had bowed and received the three-fold-gracious-blessing-bestowing-change-of-heart-toward-righteousness. He signed to Andrew -- an imperious, ungracious, condescending nod. Andrew sat down on the bed, with the soot-smothered painting of hell on the wall behind him. There began to be an otherworld sensation, heightened by the picturesqueness of the black-robed representatives of Secrecy, Serenity and Sacred Law.

Andrew was well aware that the Lama Gombaria knew scholarly English. But he also had reason to know that His Reverence was much too diplomatic to admit it. He kept many another, more esoteric vehicle for thought equally well guarded behind sanctimonious mistrust of plain appearances of any kind whatever. He had a sour, sardonic look that matched his reputation for severity and fasting, and for spending days on end in meditation without perceptibly breathing or moving an eyelid. Many high lamas cultivate that habit for the sake of the easy authority it gives them over marveling monks. But this man had the air of a disciplinarian who needed no such subterfuge to sweeten rule that he could enforce by strength of will. He was reputed, too, to be a clairvoyant of such astonishing power that he could see through any man's thought to its naked motive; it was said to be useless to tell him lies. And he was famed as a magician who could leave his body at will and travel vast distances, returning with intimate knowledge of things, events and men. Another, less exaggerated rumor, credited and slyly broadcast by the modern-minded newly literate iconoclasts who swarm the world, mocked him for a bigoted old humbug; accused him of being deeply involved in treason against human liberties; classed trim as a black reactionary, a Fascist, a Nazi, a Communist, an anarchist. He was probably all of those things, in some degree, by turns, but nothing longer than his inward humor pleased.

He looked, in his black peaked cap and robe, like a wrinkled old mummy, with bright eyes, unusually long ear lobes, and a long face with a protruding lower lip. But the chiefly remarkable thing about him, that caused Andrew to treat him with watchful politeness, was the sensation of mass. It bore no relation to his weight or his size. He was a small man, lean, emaciated. His underlings, with their backs to the shadowy wall, were taller than he and far heavier; they presented breadth and height; but in the dim, unsteady light they were as flat to the eye as daguerreotypes. The old Lama, regardless of his frailty, was mass personified, like Memnon's statue on the Nile. He was as motionless. He monopolized attention in the same way, by being -- as distinguished from wishing to be. That is great art. A Rodin, Beethoven, Homer can create it in marble, music, words; but some men use themselves -- their own presence -- as the stuff they mold into a hint of absolutes. This man did it. Andrew's impulse, so strong that he was conscious of his hands and had to keep them still, was to get out his knife and begin whittling a portrait in wood.

The interpreter broke the silence: "Our Holy Lama Gombaria Rinpoche graciously is pleased to know that you are well."

"Thank him," said Andrew. "Say I'm grateful for his hospitality and glad to see him looking so well himself."

There was no pause for reference. It was like a litany.

"The Holy Lama graciously enquires about the health and happiness of the lady and child who accompanied you at the time of your former visit."

"The child is dead," said Andrew. He knew that the old Lama already knew that; Bompo Tsering must have told him, during the course of the winter; he undoubtedly had received the news, too, by courier from Mu-ni Gam-po. "But the lady herself," he added, "has benefited from His Holiness's blessing and is now quite well. She sends her respectful greetings and best wishes."

The interpreter whispered. The old Lama pretended to listen. He murmured an instruction. The interpreter resumed:

"The Holy Lama orders me to tell you that there is no death of anything but bodies. So the child shall presently receive another incarnation. His Holiness bestows a blessing to ensure a happy rebirth."

"Thank him," said Andrew.

Then came the hot hint. The interpreter had been primed with well premeditated speech. He exchanged glances with his grim superior and then used words precisely, as if choosing them out of a book.

"His Holiness, at this time doing penance of meditation for the world's sins, blesses your journey. But he may not at this time indulge in conversation, because spiritual meditation may not be disturbed by mundane irrelevancies. So His Holiness begs you kindly to be governed by the monastery-rule forbidding -- at this time -- all unnecessary discussion of matters unrelated to the Higher Law."

"Oh, sure, certainly," said Andrew. "That's quite understood. I won't talk to the monks." The inference he drew was that the Lama Gombaria wanted no official knowledge of the reason for the northbound journey.

But the interpreter wished to be sure that he did understand. He added: "Subject to our Holy Lama's will, our minds are filled with blessed thinking. Therefore the obligation is silence."

"Thank him for the blessing on my journey," said Andrew. "I will be on my way at daybreak."

"To preserve your will-to-be-silent, and to protect you on your journey, His Holiness caused me to write this mantra, which he himself has blessed and bids me give to you."

The interpreter, looking as innocent as a saint in a stained glass window, produced a folded paper from an inside pocket of his robe, came forward with it and gave it to Andrew. Andrew thanked him and made haste with his own gift:

"I took the liberty," he said, "of noticing, when I was here last, that His Holiness showed interest in an old illustrated magazine that I had with me. That one wasn't worthy of his attention. I have brought some good ones. They're in that roped paper package. Shall I order my man to carry it?"

A faint smile flickered on the face of the old Lama. His beady eyes watched the interpreter pick up the heavy package as if he feared he might drop it and spoil its precious contents. Twelve Esquires, twelve Sunday issues of the New York Times, twelve National Geographics, twelve Newsweeks, and twelve Fortunes had cost Andrew exactly nothing; they had been given to him by a chance American acquaintance in Darjeeling. But they were worth more than gold to a lonely Lord Abbot, who secretly knew English, secretly delighted in the mad frivolity of Western worldliness, and kept the sources of his information secret to himself. He pretended to be condescendingly astonished, as if a child had surprised him. He dourly accepted the gift, as if manners obliged him to do what virtue forbade. But his eyes were as bright as a bird's. His blessing, as he and his sycophants left the room, was sonorous, and long, and loaded with praise of the blessed dew that brought the giver's thought from heaven. The Lama Gombaria was one more dependable friend to the good, on whom Andrew might count for the little favors that resemble drops of oil upon the bearings of events.

The door closed almost silently. Bompo Tsering and the man from Koko Nor looked up to make sure, then got to their feet and stood gaping at Andrew. He had been allowed to be seated in the Holy Lama's presence, so he had mounted in their estimation. The effect wouldn't last long, but for the moment they were filled with awe as they watched him unfold the sheet of paper the interpreter had handed to him. There was another, smaller sheet inside it. On that was the "mantra," printed beautifully with a quill pen, in English capitals:

     CAT CAME BACK TO ELSA. NO SIG.

It was so startling and different from what he had expected that it took Andrew several seconds to realize that "cat" meant "mouser" and that "mouser" was pun on Mauser pistol. Someone then had found his pistol and it was now in Elsa's possession. Someone -- very likely Mu-ni Gam-po at the request of Lewis -- must have wired to the nearest telegraph office. The message must have come a long way by runner, probably spatchcocked into a longer telegram to the Lama Gombaria. Andrew put it in his pocket, forcing a smile and looking wise for the Tibetans' benefit. No magic is magic without its showman. He assumed a mysterious air. But he couldn't keep that up. He had to sit down on the bed. He was suddenly seeing things.

Bompo Tsering, bursting with awed curiosity, came nearer: "That must being too much hot damn holy writing."

Andrew made an impatient commanding gesture toward the roll of blankets, but didn't speak. The skeptical part of his mind was wondering how much, or how little, or if at all, the old Lama, who had just left the room, had to do with the vision that he was seeing with the other part of his mind without in any way changing his view of the room he was in.

It was arresting. There was no shutting it out, although he tried. Nancy Strong's room in Darjeeling. The cat, on the hearth. The fire burning brightly. The electric light full on. Nancy in her armchair. Lewis. Elsa -- he saw her last. They were more really present to his imagination than if they had been actually in the dim, shadowy room where he sat. They were vivid-brilliant. It couldn't be altogether a trick of memory. True, Lewis's use (he could bet it was Lewis) of the word "cat" to mean Mauser pistol might have suggested the fireside in Nancy's living room and have brought it vividly to mind. But that couldn't account for their all behaving as they had not behaved while he was there; or for the fact that Andrew himself was not now in the picture. His chair by the hearth was empty. They were all moving. The cat was licking itself. It ran away suddenly and hid under Nancy's chair. Whichever way he turned his head he saw them. He could see they were speaking, but he couldn't hear anything.

It wasn't like a dream, or a motion picture, or a lantern projection on a screen. It was more like something that crystal gazers are supposed to see when they stare and concentrate: something, but not quite, like the reflection in a good viewfinder, except that it wasn't reversed, and it was apparently life-size. Simultaneously he could see the two Tibetans and all the other objects in the room he was in. There was no physical sensation of eyestrain or fatigue. But there was a feeling almost of horror, as if he had lost control of his mind. He could see the vision with his eyes shut. It made no difference whether he kept them closed or open. He tried it several times. He saw the dim room with his eyes, and Nancy's electric-lighted room, two hundred miles away, with some other faculty of perception, as if his mind was in two disconnected parts. By shutting his eyes he could shut out the room he was in, but that made no difference to the vastly brighter and more detailed image. He could even read some of the names on the backs of Nancy Strong's books.

Lewis was standing with his back to the fire, with a muddy Mauser pistol in his right hand. He was showing it to Elsa. He saw Elsa get up and confront Lewis. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he knew it was his own pistol, and presently he knew what they were talking about because the scene changed. They were still there. Nancy Strong sat quietly in her chair. But there was something added. He could see through the wall to the passage beyond. Tashgyl, the Lepcha servant, was taking the pistol from Andrew's overcoat on the peg in the hall and presently giving the pistol to someone in the dark garden. It wasn't clear how Tashgyl reached the garden. Soon after that, or perhaps simultaneously -- there was no clear sensation of time or of sequence -- he grew aware that the whole vision was framed by Elsa's face, behind her hands. He could see her eyes through her hands. They were intelligently, dumbly pleading, like a dog's that wishes it could tell what it knows. He knew that phase of her well. Her face kept fading. The moment he looked hard at it, it faded away. He wondered what that meant. He didn't trust his own wordless interpretation of it, but he felt she was trying to reach him and disliked doing it -- feared to do it. She seemed to expect a rebuke, and to flinch from the expectation. Small blame to her. He had been pretty tough, lots of times, repelling confidences, keeping his thoughts to himself and forcing her to do the same. She probably detested him. Quite right, too. He had humiliated her, time and again. He marveled at the dignity, pluck, patience with which she had endured his reserve. He felt ashamed -- but all the same not unreserved -- not excusing, nor explaining, even to himself, in secret.

The entire vision, and all the thoughts that accompanied it, lasted less than a minute. He knew that. With the other part of his mind he had been watching Bompo Tsering, who had taken the blanket roll off the bed and begun to unfasten the straps; he hadn't finished undoing them when the vision faded. Less than sixty seconds. Whatever caused that vision, time had no part in it. What he had just now witnessed must have taken place on the previous night. He knew that too, although he didn't know how he knew it. It just was so. Time, then, was only an illusion? God! Even trying to think about that made his head reel. But all the same, time can't limit an idea. Time doesn't alter the fact that a thing did happen. Andrew wasn't an escapist. He wasn't like the Grade B scientists, who stick their heads into realism but expose their fannies to the ridiculing blasts of reality. Miracle? Hell, there's no such thing. Had the Lama Gombaria turned some occult trick with the aid of the folded paper? He experimented -- clutched the paper in his pocket -- drew it out -- opened it -- read it again. Nothing doing. THE CAT CAME BACK TO ELSA. NO SIG. But the vision did not return. He could remember every detail. But now it was a mere memory-picture, as different as a faded photograph is from the living model. The vision was gone.

He pulled out his pipe and sat reviewing the facts. Bompo Tsering fumbled with the blanket roll. The man from Koko Nor, on the floor in the corner, sat picking his teeth with a sliver of wild swan's thigh bone. It had been specially blessed for that purpose; he kept it in a container made from a Japanese brass cartridge. He had a hollow back tooth that Andrew was going to have to pull before long to keep him from going haywire, but for the time being he was well occupied trying to dig out the devil that caused the pain. Bompo Tsering, on the other hand, needed watching, if for no other reason than because he had turned his back instead of facing Andrew while he undid the blankets.

Elsa. Andrew remembered that, once, on the way southward, in a place where they had found some dead tamarisk and had built a good fire for the first time in nearly a week, he had read to her, to keep her mind off the physical ordeal that was two or three days ahead. He had chanced on a passage in Goethe's Faust:

     "Shall here a thousand volumes teach me only
     That man, self-tortured, everywhere must bleed, --
     And here and there one happy man sits lonely?"

He had continued reading to her far into the night; but they had kept returning to that passage, discussing the evident truth that in the rhythm and tone of poetry there's a mysterious magic that links thought with things unseen. It conjures new views. They pass in a moment but leave their mark on mind, so that nothing, not even a star, is ever again the same as it was. Flowers don't smell the same. Music has higher meanings. Come to think of it, he hadn't always repelled Elsa. He had always welcomed her into the inner mood of poetry that so thrilled him that he sometimes choked when he read it aloud. And while they talked, that night, he remembered how he saw a vision, like this one, of Tom Grayne, seated lonely in his mountain cavern, making a map from memory by guttering candlelight.

He had wondered then, as he wondered now: were he and Elsa the self-tortured, who bled? And was Tom Grayne the happy man who sat lonely? What is happiness? Did anyone know? Had anyone ever found it? Is there an actual difference between happiness and joy? He hadn't asked Elsa whether she saw the same vision or pondered the same thought, because he knew how she hated clairvoyance, and he wanted to keep her thoughts as calm as possible. In fact, he had laid Goethe aside and read from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. But he hadn't read well, because of wondering, with half of his mind, whether her seeing a vision of Tom had caused him to see it; and whether the flow of poetry might be the agency that, for a moment, had suspended space and time. There might be a connection. He thought of it again now. He was willing to follow the mood of real poetry wherever that might lead. But there is unreal poetry, to be avoided like poison. Lots of it. Gutless, kiss-mammy, decadent stuff that can't climb, even downhill -- written by sirens who pose on rocks but wait for traffic signals from a Fuehrer. He hated with all his heart and soul the thought of being misled, to a spiritual dead end, by the pipsqueak drum and fife bands that parade as the voices of God. Propagandists! Proletarian apologists! Liars! Treacherous bellwethers leading the sheep up the slope of a mechanical Olympus, where the butchers wait. God's elect, the butchers! He felt anger rising -- laughed at the anger, because he knew how useless it was. Anger is exactly what the Fuehrers can exploit. But if a whole world once gets to laughing again --

Once more, sixty seconds. Time must be an elastic illusion. He had thought of a thousand things in sixty seconds. He had seen Hitler's Mein Kampf like a dirty jest scrawled on the universal backhouse by a subhuman misanthrope. He had even reviewed in his mind the true and false poets, setting them on either side of an imagined pale, finding time to loathe Swinburne, to love Robert Burns, and to acknowledge a cagey respect for Walt Whitman.

Bompo Tsering was still leisurely unfolding blankets; he would steal a packet of razor blades presently from the pocket in the canvas carry-all. Strange how some men can't resist trifles. Bompo Tsering could be trusted with any amount of money, barring the small change; he always tried to steal some of that. The man from Koko Nor had both thumbs in his mouth and was busily poking a devil with the swan's thigh bone -- very angry with the devil. A bell boomed in the monastery. It sounded far away like a bell buoy on a shoal. Suddenly there were Elsa's eyes again, pleading and yet trying not to intrude. They were gone in a moment. Andrew felt a savage impulse to tell her to let him alone. But he suppressed that -- turned the savagery on itself and let it strangle itself in a dark subconscious past, along with some men's poetry, and Sunday School, and certain other things.

He was feeling chilly. He was getting rattled by his thoughts. It was time to do something. With the side of his eye he watched Bompo Tsering secrete a packet of razor blades. Good. That was a cue for the show-down with Bompo Tsering. But first he leaned over the bed and scratched another message on the wall, just to let Elsa know he wasn't so dumb as she thought him:

     Got second message. Okay.

Two or three days might pass before Elsa would occupy the room on her way northward, but there was not much risk of the message being noticed and rubbed out by the monks. They never cleaned their own cells. It wasn't likely to occur to them to wash the wall of a room reserved for strangers.

He got off the bed and sat on one of the bent-wood chairs, lighting his pipe, crossing his legs. He ordered Bompo Tsering to dump the blankets on the bed.

"Never mind spreading them now. Bring me the pistol from my overcoat pocket."

"Why, Gunnigun?"

"Because I say so."

There was no noticeable guilty reaction. Bompo Tsering picked up the overcoat, groped in the pocket and pulled out the pine root, stared at it. He appeared genuinely puzzled. He glanced at the man from Koko Nor, who left off prodding his aching tooth and stared back blankly.

"Bring it here," said Andrew.

Bompo Tsering obeyed. "Must being hot damn magic," he said with conviction. Then, looking straight into Andrew's eyes: "Gunnigun, this not my doing."

"Why did you steal razor blades?"

"My not -- "

"Give 'em here."

Bompo Tsering, looking sheepish, produced the stolen packet. Andrew took it and slipped it into his pocket.

"Do you want to be sacked?"

"No, Gunnigun!"

"Do you want to be beaten?"

"No, Gunnigun! That not being too much, that little thing,

"Shut up!"

"Gunnigun, your not -- ?"

"I said, shut up!"

Andrew glanced at what he had scrawled on the wall. Then he pulled out the Lama's "mantra" from his pocket, unfolded it, studied it, returned it and stared grimly at Bompo Tsering.

"How many times have I told you there'll be a last time when you play tricks on me?"

"Too much times. Gunnigun, my not -- "

"Shut up!"

"Yes, Gunnigun."

"Open the shutter and throw that pine root through the window."

Bompo Tsering obeyed. The wind blew out the lights.

"Close the shutter. Fasten it."

Now there was total darkness. The man from Koko Nor breathed heavily and began tapping the floor with his blessed cartridge case, to keep devils away.

"My lighting lamp," said Bompo Tsering.

"Stand still!"

"Gunnigun, what your doing?"

"I am making hot damn magic."

"Peling magic?"

"Yes."

"That being no good."

"It will be no good for you, if you lie. Answer: whose pistol fired the shot through the window last night?"

"My not knowing."

"I believe you:" Andrew felt fairly sure that Bulah Singh would keep his dupes as ignorant as possible of everything except what they were to do. And it is wise tactics to encourage the first glimmer of truth if you hope to hear more. "Who was told to fire the shot?" he demanded.

"My not firing it."

"I believe you again. You couldn't have fired it. Who was told to do it?"

The man from Koko Nor ceased breathing through his nose. He ceased tapping the floor.

"I know who did it," said Andrew. "Answer this one, Bompo Tsering: shall the fool -- who obeyed you -- pay a penalty -- for having done -- what you would have punished him for not doing? Answer!"

Silence.

"You understood me. Speak! Did you not threaten this numskull that unless he obeyed, you would cause the police to arrest him for theft? Did you not say he would be thrown in prison for at least a whole year?"

That was a long shot, but a fairly safe one. The easiest way to persuade a homesick Tibetan to do murder or anything else would be to threaten dreadful confinement within prison walls; the mere suggestion would panic his wild-ass heart. Bompo Tsering didn't answer. So the guess appeared to be good. Andrew followed up:

"Why did you give the order to shoot Lady Elsa?"

"My spirit being too good not wanting shooting other ladee."

"So you did give the order. You admit that. Who told you to shoot Miss Nancy Strong?"

Silence.

"I know who told you."

"Gunnigun, then why your asking?"

"Because I wish you to answer. And by God, if you don't -- "

"No, no, Gunnigun! No, no! My answering. Bulah Singh -- big top policeman."

"I believe you again. What did he promise you?"

"His saying, if my shooting other ladee, then can get going home. If not, then not get going -- getting too much trouble."

"So you changed it and ordered that other fool to shoot Lady Elsa?"

Silence.

"If you don't answer, I won't save you from the law."

"Gunnigun -- "

"What is the answer?"

"Yes, my doing that."

"Well. Luckily for you there was too much hot damn magic around. So the shot missed. Bulah Singh made a fool of you. It was my pistol that was handed to you in the dark."

"Uh-uh! My not touching it!"

"Liar! Someone gave it to you. You gave it to this other fool. Now then: where is the pistol?"

"My not knowing."

"Ask that other fool what he did with it."

"Gunnigun, why not your asking?"

"Because you are responsible. Ask him!"

There were murmurs in the dark-protests, questions, threats. Then suddenly:

"His lying. His saying -- "

Andrew interrupted. "I have been making hot damn magic. I know where the pistol is."

"Then, Gunnigun, why your asking?"

"Because I intend to be answered! Quick! Answer! Where did he put it?"

"Dam-fool saying his throwing pistol in mud and then running away."

"Do you realize that if that pistol should be found by the police, you and this other fool would be arrested, and taken back to Darjeeling and tried for your lives?"

"My not having doing nothing."

"You'd get about ten years in prison. The other fool, about three years, for having done what you told him."

"Gunnigun, your not -- "

"I am going to punish you."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"Gunnigun, your not -- ?"

"Light the lamps. All of them."

Bompo Tsering groped for matches and obeyed. The man from Koko Nor, with his back in a corner, blinked wide-eyed like a suspicious owl -- a blink, a long stare, a blink, a long stare. Bompo Tsering came back and stood before Andrew.

"I made magic on that wall," said Andrew. "Look at it. The Lady Elsa shall find my pistol. She shall bring it to me, to save your neck and this other fool's. And as a punishment to you, she shall return with us to Tibet."

"But, Gunnigun -- "

"She shall have your pony -- the good one with the strong legs."

"But, Gunnigun -- "

"You yourself shall wait on her. You shall pitch her tent. You shall obey every order she gives you. And unless she gives a good report of you, Tum-Glain shall be told. And what he will do -- "

"Oh, Gunnigun!"

" -- isn't the half of what I will do to you before he gets second chance. Now spread my blankets on the bed."

"Yes, Gunnigun."

"Spread your own blankets on that stone dais."

"Yes, Gunnigun."

"That other fool may sleep on the floor."

"Yes, Gunnigun."

"Get me that book out of the carryall pocket."

"Here it is, Gunnigun."

"Set two of those lamps in the niche at the head of the bed."

"Yes, Gunnigun."

"Now pull off my boots."

The proud Bompo Tsering knelt and obeyed.

"Gunnigun -- !"

"What now?"

"Your not telling Ladee Elsa about that our having -- "

"It depends on you."

"My being too much ashamed before her being woman."

"Take care then that she doesn't complain, even once -- just only once -- about your behavior on the journey. If I hear no complaints I will bear your request in mind. Give my boots to that other fool. Tell him to clean them. Then turn in."

"Yes, Gunnigun."

Andrew bolted the door, rolled under the blankets, pulled his overcoat over him and lay thinking for a minute or two. He felt damned lonely. He made a deliberate effort to see Elsa's eyes, but he had no success -- none whatever. The only mental picture he could summon from the vasty deep of consciousness was the mere memory-image of Bulah Singh, facing him in his own room in the hotel in Darjeeling.

For the rest, his thoughts scattered themselves -- wondering what Lewis was doing -- was the snow really out of the passes -- were the ponies too fat -- what luck would he have getting extra ponies for Elsa's baggage. There was nothing to be gained by that kind of thinking.

So he opened Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici at random and read until he fell asleep with the lights burning. He dreamed that the old Lama Gombaria was brewing poison in the monastery cellar, for Bulah Singh to take all the way to Shig-po-ling, to put into Tom Grayne's tea. Elsa was imploring Gombaria not to do it, so the Lama and Bulah Singh both threw poison at him, Andrew. It made a noise like beaten brass, and he awoke to hear the monastery bells ringing.

Bompo Tsering opened the shutter. It was daybreak; the sun was touching the peaks of the far-off mountains of Nepaul. Andrew went and stood half naked at the window relishing for a moment the clean chill of the wind on his skin as he peered down into the gorge, eight hundred feet, sheer. To his right, not fifty feet below, was a ledge that served as passage between a dormitory and another building. There was a group of monks on the ledge; they looked like vultures getting ready for the news of a death, preening themselves. He recognized two of them. They had been all winterlong in Mu-ni Gam-po's monastery. He chuckled.

"The obligation is silence!" he said aloud.

"What your saying, Gunnigun?"

"Let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth!"

"My not understanding."

"Let's go -- while the going's good."

"Hot damn! -- Breakfus'?"

"No. We will cook our own, somewhere beside the road, where there's a stream to wash in. Step lively -- pack up the bedding. Hold your tongue on the way out."

---

A day's drive north of Darjeeling. Darkness. Stillness of dying night. A screen door slammed. Nancy and Elsa came out, still sleepy, from the guest bungalow at the Jesuit Mission. Dawn broke, that moment, on distant mountain peaks.

"There, Nancy! Look! Oh, God! Look! Nancy! There's the Roof of the World! Oh, come too! Say good-bye to all this! Come with us!"

"I think I feel the tug as strongly as you do," said Nancy. "But it's the old story. I am too conceited to come. I imagine responsibilities. Oh dear. If only Karl Marx had studied that daybreak instead of the books in the British Museum!"

"Damn him!" said Elsa, with all her heart. Unconsciously, but strongly, she associated Karl Marx with her hosts of the previous night. She was conscious of it as soon as she had damned Marx, and felt vaguely ashamed of herself. Jesuits claim that Karl Marx only imitated, converted and perverted what they knew and practiced before he was born or thought of.

A rain cloud rolled between them and the view. It was dark again, with shafts of warm light streaming through the window behind them.

"False dawn! Another false prophet! Gone!" said Elsa. "Oh, how wonderful it was. How can there be such passion of beauty -- and then this gloom?"

"Are you feeling discouraged?"

"No, I don't think so. Deflated is what it feels like. Three days since Andrew left. I t seems like three years -- longer. Oh, I hope he's all right."

Nancy Strong's white felt hat tilted. She glanced at Elsa. "Why? Have you a premonition?"

"No. Except that I can't even get a mental picture of him."

"I know you can't."

"I tried to send him a message, from Darjeeling, before we sent the telegram."

"I know you did."

"I don't think he got it. I couldn't find him: he was gone. I tried again last night. But I know I didn't reach him last night. He seems to have gone -- gone forever. I don't think he even got the telegram."

"I thought of coming into your room last night to stop you from trying. But I thought better of it. It seemed wiser to let you fail. Did you ever hear of radio interference? You can't think here. You would be echoing Jesuit thoughts if we stayed here long enough. Echoing them badly. Jesuits can, so to speak, bend iron. They can wear down adamant. You might as well try to whistle against a thunderstorm as to oppose your thought against theirs."

The Mission garden gradually awoke and spread its fragrance to greet the dim daybreak. The birds' hymn began. Elsa found it almost impossible to believe that the recent past was true, it seemed so distant and unreal. The sensation reminded her of an utterly different scene in Southampton, with the gulls around an ocean liner, in a fog, and the siren going, when she was seeing friends off on a long voyage. Utterly different, and yet no difference. Unreal, and yet heartbursting with reality.

The evening's visit had been civilized. The night's seclusion had felt like guarded peace in an armed camp disciplined to silence. The breakfast, brought before daybreak by an earless ex-brigand convert from Bhutan, had seemed and tasted like communion with the invisible presence of Peace. Nevertheless, she had felt uneasy; and now she felt impatient, wondering why the car was so long coming from the barn at the rear of the Mission buildings.

She felt ungrateful for good hospitality. That was a perplexing and contemptible sensation. Unnatural, and not at all like her, but there it was. The scrupulous impersonal politeness of their hosts had rendered almost imperceptible the fact that there was any difference between Nancy's point of view and theirs -- her religion and theirs. No arguments. No strained aloofness. Almost familiar courtesy. Bright conversation. Praise of each other's achievements. Mutual exchange of information about children's diet and the frugal use of money. Silence about religion -- not even armed neutrality, but silence, and no issue from it that could introduce a hint of the ill-mannered tolerance, that is only insolence in undress. They had agreed on Nancy's treatment of rhododendrons; and on the care of children's lips who are learning to play wind instruments. The Father Superior had shown Nancy a new way to cut down the cost of insulation against termites, and how to keep books free from weevils and mildew. But no peering beneath mental surfaces -- no spy work -- no leading questions.

The neat, two-roomed guest house had been an oasis of privileged calm, amid hive-like, unhurried energy. Elsa had rather resented the priests' lack of astonishment when she had betrayed, by the merest accident, that she could speak and write Tibetan. They had shown no curiosity. So far as she was able to observe, they didn't even glance at one another. Perhaps they had heard rumors about her, that were none of their business, but nevertheless no recommendation. There had been no hostility, no coolness; but she had felt that her reception as a privileged guest was due entirely to the fact that Nancy Strong had introduced her. It was a compliment to Nancy, not to herself. She wondered why she resented it. She had no right to. She did her half-hearted best to subdue malicious triumph at the thought that she was on her way, in secret, to where even the Soldiers of Loyola might only yearn to go, but could not. She wished they knew where she was going. She would have enjoyed their envy.

The car came -- Nancy's old Sunbeam, with the top up -- driven by a veteran Mahratta ex-Pioneer Sepoy, bearded like the pard, surlier than Diogenes, but not so interested as that grim philosopher in looking for an honest man. He was quite sure there was none. He regarded Nancy as a beloved lunatic whose will was the higher law, but whose aberrations called for no encouragement from him. A man of few words, and those mainly disrespectful. A man of few miles to the hour because petrol is expensive and Nancy was school-poor; also because his honor was his own and he had no intention to die in a ditch. A man who broke no traffic rules, and could be neither bribed nor bullied. He had been known, when questioned about Nancy's movements, to tell a brashly new inspector of police to ask God, since God made her mad, so perhaps God understood her secrets.

Two Jesuit priests neglected daybreak duty, for two stopwatch minutes, to come and say good-bye. They were polite to Elsa, cordial to Nancy, expert at speeding the parting guests. The rain descended in a squall. The car started. It felt good. They were off.

"So you don't like my friends?" said Nancy, as they headed north-westward, between terraced hills that showed the touch of the Jesuit influence. The peasants' agricultural gods were slowly losing the long war against energy, brains, and a faith that moves men and women, if not their mountains.

Elsa didn't answer until she had rearranged the packed saddlebags that Andrew had left for her. She wanted to think. She took her time about making a comfortable heap for Nancy's feet to rest on. Then:

"I know so little about them. But -- well -- I mean -- how shall I say it? -- well, they're Jesuits. I never met any before, but -- "

"Why do you suppose I chose that place to spend the night?"

"You said: to throw Bulah Singh's spies off the trail -- and to avoid meeting busybodies at a dak bungalow -- oh, and because we couldn't make the full distance in one day -- and -- I think that was all."

"Those were only excuses. There was a real reason. Didn't you like the Father Superior?"

"He didn't give me a chance to like him. He didn't like me. I expect he guessed that I was brought up to believe jesuitry is about the vilest human trait."

"So it is," said Nancy. "But the Jesuits didn't invent it. They have less of it than most people. Haven't you discovered, with all the reading you have done, that politicians, and historians, and priests, and other people with axes to grind, always accuse their betters of the very treacheries that they themselves use and intend to keep on using? -- Father Patrick is quite an authority on Tibet."

"Is he? I thought he didn't understand Tibetan. He didn't seem to. He doesn't talk or look like a man who has traveled much."

Nancy chuckled. "He traveled Tibet for three years, in disguise, mostly alone and on foot. Two of his subordinates are there now -- secretly, of course; they can't get permits. The first time I saw Father Patrick was in Lhasa. But he didn't see me; or if he did, he didn't know it. That was before the war. -- Heavens! If I would only let me, I could be an old woman, couldn't I! Nineteen -- never mind -- Curzon was Viceroy. Father Patrick was in difficulties -- found out -- caught -- they'd have killed him, I think. He was in a dungeon. But Lobsang Pun was in high standing in those days. As the diplomatic representative of the Tashi Lama, he had the ear of the Dalai Lama. And I was Lobsang Pun's chela. So by being very careful I was able to get a plea through edgewise."

"Were you in disguise?"

"Of course. But not the way you probably imagine. I was born without a trace of a gift for wearing false whiskers. I had to hide myself even from me, and it would take a lifetime, almost, to tell how that was done. Letting Father Patrick know who helped him was quite out of the question. But they let him continue his journey. He carried on for two years after that."

Elsa was silent for a moment. But she had to say something to relieve the feeling of deflated malicious triumph:

"But what a strange coincidence. Two pelings -- total strangers to each other -- crossing trails in Tibet, and one helping the other without the other's knowledge."

"No," said Nancy. "There is no such thing as a coincidence, except to the minus-minded intellectuals. To them, of course, everything is a coincidence, including creation itself. Poor things, to believe in a Universal Intelligence would make them feel too unimportant. But, I grant you, it never ceases to be an exciting surprise when things like that do happen, even though one knows they must happen. It's a law of nature."

"I'm afraid I'm awfully stupid," said Elsa. "Perhaps I'm minus-minded. Which law of nature are you talking about?"

"The first law. The very first one that Lobsang Pun compelled me to discover, and recognize, and learn, and practise. The affluence law of supply and demand. That is to say, the opposite of the economic law, which governs greed, which creates poverty, and blinds us to the truth. The real law is that affluence must find work to do. Affluence is positive. Greed and its derivatives are negative. Affluence is an indestructible idea, forever active, perpetually seeking and finding self-consciousness. No matter where we are, nor what our condition may be at any given moment, it is impossible to avoid finding someone who can use what we can give. I don't doubt Father Patrick was praying to the God created by the Jesuits. That is none of my business. The point is: he wasn't pitying himself. So he didn't get between himself and the help that is always ready. I remember what I had been thinking about: I had been studying Jesus's remark about Solomon and the lilies, comparing it with dozens of similar texts in Sanskrit, and with my own experience. I was trying to understand the importance of now, and the absoluteness of the law of affluence. I wasn't arrayed like a lily, and I was equally impotent in any material sense. But I was learning what giving means, and how material need is the room made ready for supply. So I became useful, and no one suffered by it. Of course, there is only one thing really worth giving."

Elsa made a guess at the answer: "I hope you're not going to say love. They all say that. Nobody means it."

"Me? Love a Jesuit! God forbid!"

Elsa leaned back and laughed with relief. "Nancy, you're priceless."

"I deny it! Priceless is an idiotic word. I am a pilgrim on the way toward reality, with a long, long way to go. I refuse to be mislabeled. Machiavelli and Napoleon, and their imitators, sneered quite accurately about that. They were liars in most respects, but they knew enough about themselves to guess that everyone in the world has his price, and it is usually cheap. They were almost quite right about that. But I am not telling my price. It is being notched continually higher. Show me the price, and I'll raise it. The bribe would have to be too subtle for me to recognize it. Even so, I'd never stay bought! I'd wake up and betray the buyer!"

"I didn't mean it that way."

"I know you didn't. But I did."

"What is the only one thing worth giving? Go on, tell me. If you had said it's love I wouldn't even have tried to believe you. People have said they love me, who were so cruel that I would prefer their hatred. I hate them. Surely love must be an individual something that one reserves for one's own lover, husband, children, friends. -- What is it that's worth giving? Tell me."

"That is for each one to find out for himself," Nancy answered after a moment's pause. "Definitions usually defeat their own purpose. Perhaps one might almost define the one great gift that we can give to one another as spiritual elbowroom. Mind our own business. Give others a chance to find out for themselves who and what they really are. The only way to do that is to realize who and what we are." Before Elsa could wedge in another question she continued: "But let me tell you about Father Patrick. I have a reason for telling. It isn't just an excuse."

Elsa curled up in her corner of the back seat. "Please. I would rather listen to you than think my own thoughts."

"Aren't you pleasantly excited about Tibet?"

"Yes. But feeling like a parasite, too. I don't want to think, I want to listen."

"Very well. The second time I met Father Patrick was toward the end of the World War, in the year of the influenza epidemic. It spread all around the world. It killed more people than the war did -- the best and the worst and the mediocrities, all in one obscene corruption. You remember it? Or weren't you old enough? Great numbers of people called it the hand of God. They did really. The very same people told us that we should love God. But the doctors went to work and fought God with all their might. They were at their wit's end, but they fought back bravely, without a second's respite. If it was God's doing, all the doctors must have been hellions in league with the devil. I was on their side, against God. But there seemed to be no remedy. Thousands died -- hundreds of thousands. Eleven children in my school. Of course, what you can always depend on, happened. Helpless people did their best to help one another. Some of the bravest and best work was done by stark materialists, who didn't believe in God or devil. The professionals -- the salaried prelates -- Hindu -- Moslem -- Christian -- tried to save face by commanding us all to pray. We were to implore, especially our Christian God, in the name of mercy, to undo something, that He had inflicted on us, that was even more devilish than the poison gas we had been using in the war, and that we had no intention of not using in the next one."

"I prayed my last prayer to that God long ago," said Elsa. "What did you do?"

"I made dozens of mistakes. Bad ones. The worst was the first. I went off on the wrong foot, and that led to all the other mistakes. I went fanatical. I tried to prove, at other people's expense, what I hadn't, yet proved at my own cost. It didn't occur to me -- not then, in that time of bewildering fear -- that I personally had all the faults that I could see in others. I was worse even than those insufferable prigs of prelates, because I might have known better; I hadn't the disadvantage of their tradition and miseducation. I didn't realize that everything vile in my consciousness was being boiled to the surface by the conflict between what I knew and what my senses saw and believed. I was conceited -- enough to believe that my little bit of a bud of evolving consciousness, that had been awakened by a great teacher, must already be strong enough to overcome that epidemic, at least for my own school. I hadn't the humility to do what I really could have done. I had to do what I couldn't. That school -- so it seemed to me -- was the fruit of my own labor. It was mine. It was my vineyard. Hadn't I tilled it? Wasn't I there, where my own soul put me, for the very purpose of protecting those children? Naturally, such nonsense had no effect whatever on the course of the epidemic. It didn't change it one way or the other. But it got worse and worse for me."

"In what way worse?"

"Better, of course, in the long run. But at the time heartbreaking, humiliating, cruel. Because I was cruel."

"How were you cruel?"

"I was as cruel as a politician. Even more cruel than if I had neglected people. I disappointed them. I let them down. I let my ignorance deceive them. I betrayed them with pride, instead of protecting them with humility. I was worse than King Canute defying the sea -- much worse. He made himself ridiculous to teach a lesson to fools."

"Then isn't your philosophy any use in a crisis?"

"Philosophy? Have I insulted you?"

"No. Of course you haven't."

"Did you ever read Cardinal Newman?"

"No. Wasn't he the Protestant bishop who switched over and became a Catholic?"

"It makes no difference what he became," said Nancy. "Greater men than he have become beggars, not cardinals. Nevertheless, he was very great. He saved many a poor wretch from hopelessness."

"Wasn't it he who wrote `Lead, Kindly Light'?"

"Yes. He also wrote: `Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another ... Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles.' Memorize that, and have nothing to do with philosophy, it's no good."

"But how does that fit the influenza epidemic? I don't see the connection."

"I knew, what every genuine thinker has known since the dawn of history, that epidemics -- and endemics, too, are a product of the subconscious mind of humanity. The only actual substance of that stuff is the fear that builds up the illusion and all its consequences. That is why Jesus called it `a liar, and the father of it.' The mass mind fears and consequently creates vengeance upon its own secret swinishness. It's a vicious circle. I had challenged the whole ocean of subconsciousness, including my own subconsciousness. Little me! Single-handed! So, of course, the vile stuff came in through my doors and windows. As I told you, eleven children died. Two teachers. Then the overworked government and private doctors asked for one of my buildings for use as a hospital. I lent them two buildings. They became a morgue. Corpses! Corpses!"

Nancy was silent for several minutes. Then she threw a mood aside and suddenly continued: "Spiritual arrogance was the mischief in me. That is a dirtier thing than any pathological disease. Always the most difficult thing is to detect our own falsehoods. I found it finally -- tore it out of my consciousness -- killed it. But that stuff is a phoenix. It reappears when you least expect it, out of the ashes of one's own pride. However, I had killed it for the time being. And then I really did go to work."

"What did you do?"

"I used every last human resource available. Money, credit, energy. Then, when there wasn't anything left, I prayed. I had a right to pray then. I had emptied the bin."

"But, Nancy, you don't believe in prayer! You said so!"

"Did I? Don't I! Well, you are right. That's true, I don't believe in it. I know it. So I can't possibly believe or disbelieve. Prayer consists in knowing, and in glorying in what one knows. But what can one expect, if one prays to the very liar and the father of the trouble that one wants to overcome? I hadn't really been praying at all. I had been flattering my personal ego, and what the Hindus call maya. But now I really began to pray. First for as much humility as I could possibly endure. Humility until it hurt. I demanded it. Not, meekness, humility."

"Nancy, what a weird prayer!"

"And because I wasn't lying this time, and the Lord is my shepherd, I received what I asked for -- some humility. Some. Then I remembered the parable of the Prodigal Son. It paraphrased itself: `Soul, I have sinned against my being, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called even thy person.' "

"Nancy, that's very beautiful. But how could you pray to your soul if you are your soul? Isn't that the opposite of what you've been telling me, over and over, for three days?"

"Oh, words!" said Nancy. "Words! What feeble instruments they are. What liars they are! We experience a glimpse of reality. But can we tell it? Not even the poets can tell. Not even Shakespeare could. Even Jesus's words have been twisted to mean the opposite of what he did mean. Elsa, each of us must make our own experience. After that, we know. And though we can still commit treason, we can never again quite unknow. We will always know, after we once have known, that it is treason we commit when we identify ourselves with the illusion and obey that. Then we feel homesick when we do wrong. But upward evolution is a wordless experience. We can't tell it, not in actual words. We can only hint to those we wish to help. Does this help you to understand: I yearned upward toward my superconscious being -- my real being -- toward beauty and intelligence and light -- and prayed for enough intelligence to do the beautifully right thing now -- the right little thing -- the exactly right thing -- not next week -- now! The prayer was answered, instantly, although it didn't seem so at the moment."

"Then you didn't really know it had been answered?"

"Indeed I knew. But I hadn't tried to instruct wisdom, so of course I didn't know what form the answer would take. It began to dawn on me that I was only a beginner. I was a recruit, not a commander in chief, in a war against a whole world's ignorance, my own included. I had been trying to do what not even Jesus attempted. Then I saw my teacher."

"Old Ugly-face?"

"Yes. All that time, I hadn't been able even to call up a mental picture of him. But I saw him clearly now. I was clairvoyant again -- just a little -- not much -- but enough. I wasn't clairaudient. He said nothing. But I knew I was on the way again. It restored my faith. Then the phone rang. A total stranger asked whether I could spare a nurse for the Jesuit Mission."

"The Mission where we stayed last night?"

"Yes. Of course, there wasn't a spare nurse. I couldn't even spare myself for more than a few hours. But by getting one of the overworked teachers to do a double shift to relieve me, and by going without sleep -- "

"You mean, you were doing nursing duty all this time?"

"Of course."

"From the way you told it, I supposed you had been meditating."

Nancy raised an eyebrow. "Your `supposer,' my dear, is just a trifle out of order. It needs adjusting. -- I drove to the Jesuit Mission and found them in a terrible way, burying their own dead. Priests using shovels. Converts and servants, some dead, some dying, two or three half dead from overwork, and the rest run away. Luckily I had brought some supplies. Those Jesuits had given away everything. They were living, or rather dying, on native bread and boiled rice. They hadn't missed a mass. Father Patrick had been given up for dead -- extreme unction and all the rest of it. He was alone in a room, so I wrapped him in blankets and carried him off in the tonga. No car in those days.