Previous - Next

but I go to free myself from the Wheel of Things by a broad and
open road.' He smiled with most simple triumph. 'As a pilgrim to
the Holy Places I acquire merit. But there is more. Listen to a
true thing. When our gracious Lord, being as yet a youth, sought
a mate, men said, in His father's Court, that He was too tender
for marriage. Thou knowest?'

The Curator nodded, wondering what would come next.

'So they made the triple trial of strength against all comers.
And at the test of the Bow, our Lord first breaking that which
they gave Him, called for such a bow as none might bend. Thou
knowest?'

'It is written. I have read.'

'And, overshooting all other marks, the arrow passed far and far
beyond sight. At the last it fell; and, where it touched earth,
there broke out a stream which presently became a River, whose
nature, by our Lord's beneficence, and that merit He acquired ere
He freed himself, is that whoso bathes in it washes away all
taint and speckle of sin.'

'So it is written,' said the Curator sadly.

The lama drew a long breath. "Where is that River? Fountain of
Wisdom, where fell the arrow?"

'Alas, my brother, I do not know,' said the Curator.

'Nay, if it please thee to forget - the one thing only that thou
hast not told me. Surely thou must know? See, I am an old man! I
ask with my head between thy feet, O Fountain of Wisdom. We know
He drew the bow! We know the arrow fell! We know the stream
gushed! Where, then, is the River? My dream told me to find it.
So I came. I am here. But where is the River?'

'If I knew, think you I would not cry it aloud?'

'By it one attains freedom from the Wheel of Things,' the lama
went on, unheeding. 'The River of the Arrow! Think again! Some
little stream, maybe - dried in the heats? But the Holy One would
never so cheat an old man.'

'I do not know. I do not know.'

The lama brought his thousand-wrinkled face once more a
handsbreadth from the Englishman's. 'I see thou dost not know.
Not being of the Law, the matter is hid from thee.'

'Ay - hidden - hidden.'

'We are both bound, thou and I, my brother. But I' - he rose with
a sweep of the soft thick drapery - 'I go to cut myself free.
Come also!'

'I am bound,' said the Curator. 'But whither goest thou?'

'First to Kashi [Benares]: where else? There I shall meet one of
the pure faith in a Jain temple of that city. He also is a Seeker
in secret, and from him haply I may learn. Maybe he will go with
me to Buddh Gaya. Thence north and west to Kapilavastu, and there
will I seek for the River. Nay, I will seek everywhere as I go -
for the place is not known where the arrow fell.'

'And how wilt thou go? It is a far cry to Delhi, and farther to
Benares.'

'By road and the trains. From Pathankot, having left the Hills, I
came hither in a te-rain. It goes swiftly. At first I was amazed
to see those tall poles by the side of the road snatching up and
snatching up their threads,' - he illustrated the stoop and whirl

Previous - Next