The Sleuth of St. James's Square, Melville Davisson Post [learn to read activity book .txt] 📗

sent at once asking him to visit the Dalai Lama, for the skill of Western people in this department of human knowledge is known to us.”

The Oriental went on, slowly, with extreme care.

“Major Carstair did not at once impress us. 'What this man needs,' he said, 'is blood.' That was clear to everybody. One of our, how shall I say it in your language, Cardinals, replied with some bitterness, that the Dalai Lama could hardly be imagined to lack anything else. Major Carstair paid no attention to the irony. 'This man must have a supply of blood,' he added. The Cardinal, very old, and given to imagery in his discourse answered, that blood could be poured out but it could not be gathered up... and that man could spill it but only God could make.

“We interrupted then, for Major Carstair was our guest and entitled to every courtesy, and inquired how it would be possible to restore blood to the Dalai Lama; it was not conceivable that the lost blood could be gathered up.

“He explained then that he would transfer it from the veins of a healthy man into the unconscious body.”

The Oriental hesitated; then he went on.

“The thing seemed to us fantastic. But our text treating the life of the Dalai Lama admits of no doubt upon one point—'no measure presenting itself in extremity can be withheld.' He was in clear extremity and this measure, even though of foreign origin, had presented itself, and we felt after a brief reflection that we were bound to permit it.”

He added.

“The result was a miracle to us. In a short time the Dalai Lama had recovered. But in the meantime Major Carstair had gone on into the Gobi seeking the fantastic treasure.”

The girl turned toward the man, a wide-eyed, eager, lighted face.

“Do you realize,” she said, “the sort of treasure that my father sacrificed his life to search for?”

The Oriental spoke slowly.

“It was to destroy a Kingdom,” he said.

“To destroy the Kingdom of Pain!” She replied, “My father was seeking an anesthetic more powerful than the derivatives of domestic opium. He searched the world for it. In the little, wild desert flower lay, he thought, the essence of this treasure. And he would seek it at any cost. Fortune was nothing; life was nothing. Is it any wonder that you could not stop him? A flaming sword moving at the entrance to the Gobi could not have barred him out!”

The big Oriental made a vague gesture as of one removing something clinging to his face.

“Wherefore this blindness?” he said.

The girl had turned away in an effort to control the emotion that possessed her. But the task was greater than her strength; when she came back to the table tears welled up in her eyes and trickled down her face. Emotion seemed now to overcome her.

“If my father were only here,” her voice was broken, “if he were only here!”

The big Oriental moved his whole body, as by one motion, toward her. The house was very still; there was only the faint crackling of the logs on the fire.

“We had a fear,” he said. “It remains!”

The girl went over and stood before the fire, her foot on the brass fender, her fingers linked behind her back. For sometime she was silent. Finally she spoke, without turning her head, in a low voice.

“You know Lord Eckhart?”

A strange expression passed over the Oriental's face.

“Yes, when Lhassa was entered, the Head moved north to our monastery on the edge of the Gobi—the English sovereignty extends to the Kahn line. Lord Eckhart was the political agent of the English government in the province nearest to us.”

When the girl got up, the Oriental also rose. He stood awkwardly, his body stooped; his hand as for support resting on the corner of the table. The girl spoke again, in the same posture. Her face toward the fire.

“How do you feel about Lord Eckhart?”

“Feel!” The man repeated the word.

He hesitated a little.

“We trusted Lord Eckhart. We have found all English honorable.”

“Lord Eckhart is partly German,” the girl went on.

The man's voice in reply was like a foot-note to a discourse.

“Ah!” He drawled the expletive as though it were some Oriental word.

The girl continued. “You have perhaps heard that a marriage is arranged between us.”

Her voice was steady, low, without emotion.

For a long time there was utter silence in the room.

Then, finally, when the Oriental spoke his voice had changed. It was gentle, and packed with sympathy. It was like a voice within the gate of a confessional.

“Do you love him?” it said.

“I do not know.”

The vast sympathy in the voice continued. “You do not know?—it is impossible! Love is or it is not. It is the longing of elements torn asunder, at the beginning of things, to be rejoined.”

The girl turned swiftly, her body erect, her face lifted.

“But this great act,” she cried. “My father, I, all of our blood, are moved by romance—by the romance of sacrifice. Look how my father died seeking an antidote for the pain of the world. How shall I meet this sacrifice of Lord Eckhart?”

Something strange began to dawn in the wide Mongolian face.

“What sacrifice?”

The girl came over swiftly to the table. She scattered the mass of jewels with a swift gesture.

“Did he not give everything he possessed, everything piece by piece, for this?”

She took the necklace up and twisted it around her fingers. Her hands appeared to be a mass of rubies.

A great light came into the Oriental's face.

“The necklace,” he said, “is a present to you from the Dalai Lama. It was entrusted to Lord Eckhart to deliver.”