The Weeping Ash (51 page)

Miss Musson sighed.

“I daresay you are in the right of it, Your Holiness. Indeed, as I grow older, the appeal of such a life grows very great. But, after all,
some
body has to make the laws and teach the children and look after the sick and feed the pigs!”

“I see no occasion for it. If men had not already committed a great many follies and wickednesses, such activities would not be necessary,” loftily replied the Pir.

Scylla could hardly feel that was a valid argument.

“You mean, because everybody would be meditating in their own little cell? But—if they were—I do not precisely see, Your Holiness, how the human race would continue at all. Surely it would very soon die out altogether because—because there would not be any families to ensure its continuation.”

The Holy Pir smiled. “Aha, my child! I see that you, like your brother, suffer from the intellectual curiosity and the disputatious nature which is just as much an enemy to holy abstraction and meditation as—as any other form of worldly activity. Mind! I do not deny that it is very enjoyable to encounter it from time to time,” he confessed, as if he found it necessary to apologize for his interest in their ideas.

“I hope our disputations will not disturb your meditations, sir,” put in Cal, who was walking on the other side of the white ass.

“No, my son. I am thankful to say that I am too far along the True Way for that. When you are gone from here, it will be no more than as if two birds, flying past, threw their shadows for an instant upon my wall and then vanished forever.”

Scylla felt chilled by this image, but the Holy Pir went on, surprisingly, “Now your excellent guardian, Miss Musson here, is different; she has the contemplative habit; if she were to remain with me in the wilderness, I feel very sure that I could soon set
her
feet upon the Way.”

Miss Musson remained silent for so long after this remark that, amazed and a little apprehensive, Scylla began to wonder if she intended to take the anchorite up on his unexpected offer. At last, however, sighing, she said:

“The prospect of a tranquil old age learning contemplation in this comfortable wilderness, Your Holiness, is indeed not one to be lightly rejected. But, alas, one is sometimes obliged to decline the greater good in favor of the lesser. I have lines to follow—knots to untie, promises to keep.”

Scylla felt herself strangely moved by this, but also a little shocked.

“
Dearest
Miss Musson!” she exclaimed. “If you would truly prefer to remain here—
pray
do not be feeling that any commitment to us must take you farther than you wish to go! I do not”—she gulped—“I do not pretend that we should not
miss
you! But we are not children! I am sure that we could manage very well. Cal and I could—could deliver little Chet to the provost of Eton—”

“Certainly we could,” agreed Cal, but Miss Musson said calmly:

“No, my dear children; I am very sure that you could manage to admiration without me—but I promised my eldest brother Henry that before it was too late I would return to keep him company. He is—is blind, you know—”

She sighed again and once more fell silent.

Colonel Cameron had been walking a little ahead of the rest and taking no part in their talk. This was not to be wondered at, since the route must have awakened sad memories for him. They had been skirting the mountainside, just above the tree line. Down below them a dark, thickly forested ravine fell away abruptly—so deep, so dark, so densely crammed with trees that it resembled a black crack in the landscape.

“Sun never shine down there,” said the Therbah sadly.

And, on the opposite side, on a crag above the trees, they had seen a ruin which, Miss Musson murmured to Scylla, had been the fortress belonging to Cameron's lost princess. By unspoken agreement they all increased their pace past this tragic spot and felt relief when it was out of sight.

Gradually the deep ravine became shallower and formed a series of cup-shaped hollows in the mountainside, linked by tumbling waterfalls; rounding a spur of the mountain, they presently saw that they were on a level with the topmost of these hollows which formed a great natural amphitheater, magnificently situated at the head of the valley. In the center of this great space were more ruins—pillars, round arches, fragments of wall—and the Holy Pir, loosening his rein, said:

“That is the temple of Koh-i-Ruwan, where there was once a thriving community.”

“How long ago was this?” inquired Miss Musson.

Scylla had expected the Pir to answer forty or fifty years, but he reflected and said, “It must be some six hundred years now since the priests were all slaughtered. I was a priest there once myself, in a previous incarnation, but that was long before; in the time of the great king Alexander, who visited the temple once, on his way to his northern city of Cyropolis.”

Scylla was somewhat startled at the Holy Pir's claim to clear memories of earlier incarnations, but Cal and Miss Musson took them calmly enough and evinced no doubt of his ability to recall events of previous lives.

“So that is how Your Holiness happens to know where the treasure is hidden?” Cal said. “You were there when it was stowed away perhaps? You do not think it might have been removed in the meantime?”

“I think it very unlikely. In those days there was much gold to be found in the streams and rivers of this region. All that men needed to do was lay fleecy sheepskins, weighted down by stones, upon the river bed and leave them there—for about twenty days, as I recall. Then the fleece would be dried in the hot sun and shaken carefully over a white cloth, and many grains of gold would be found. Also there were ruby mines, farther north, in the sandy foothills, deep tunnels like those made by wild beasts, burrowed into the soft rock. Many great rubies were discovered… I recall the king Alexander took a basketful with him, as large as red grapes. There was a great deal of treasure in the temple,” said the Holy Pir simply. “I do not think it will all be gone.”

On closer approach to the ruined temple, Scylla could well understand why it was believed to be haunted. The situation of the building was awe-inspiring, poised on its natural shelf, overhanging the valley. And the only approach to it was along a single track, part of which, for a stretch of about thirty yards, traversed a narrow man-made shelf across a cliff face, a sheer drop of some four hundred feet into the ravine below. At the far side of this the path ran between the massive, pillarlike legs of an immense equestrian statue. This, like the temple, was shattered: only the legs remained upright, supporting a portion of the horse's body. When the party had passed under it they all paused to exclaim at it. The legs, some fifteen feet high, were carved from black, flinty porphyry with veins of dark red and green.

“It was all cut from one rock,” the Pir told them. “I can just remember when it was made—that was in my sixty-ninth incarnation.”

“Where is the rider?” Cal asked, looking about.

The head and neck of the horse, carved with wonderful fidelity and skill, were to be seen on the blond grass nearby. The head seemed gazing across the valley. And a portion of the tail and hindquarters lay not far off. But of the rider there was no sign.

“There is a local tale about this horse,” said the Pir. “Our friend there”—nodding at Cameron—“will have heard it. Like all such tales, it is part superstition, part fact; every auditor must ravel out the truth, as best he can, for himself.”

“Pray tell us the tale, sir,” said Cal, and Scylla echoed his request.

“Pray do, Your Holiness.”

“Very well,” said the Pir, with an indulgent smile, and went on. “This horse is called the Asp-i-Dheha. Once it had wings and could fly. Its master, a giant, lived many thousands of miles to the north, beyond the Hiung-nu mountain range. Every night he flew southward, through wind and storm and blizzard, thousands of miles, to visit the beautiful queen of this region. But she died at last, and one night her lover arrived to find that she had been buried in a tomb on this mountain. The giant was so distraught with sorrow that he cut off his horse's wings and buried himself beside the queen, deep under the mountain. The horse remained on this spot, year after year, grieving for its master, until at length it turned to stone. But even now it still speaks, and sometimes cries aloud, imploring its master to come back to it; you see how the head looks to the north, where it believes its master to have gone.”

“Poor horse,” said Scylla softly, and Cal said:

“Does it really speak, Your Holiness?”

The Pir tapped a piece of flint against one of the massive legs and it gave off a clear ringing note, like bell metal.

“When the wind blows between these four legs, it is like a great stringed instrument; one may hear the sound from many miles away. That is why thieves are afraid to visit and rob the temple. But come, now, let me see…”

Leaving his ass to stray where it liked, the Holy Pir walked across a wide paved area which must once, presumably, have been the main entrance court of the temple. Climbing a zigzag ramp to a higher level, he made for what looked as if it had been a small shrine, set against the back wall of the amphitheater. This had a double row of columns on each side, some of them still upright, others prone among the pale grass and thistles. At the rear of the shrine stood a weathered block, apparently an altar, and, going to one side of this, the Pir tapped with his piece of flint here and there upon the paved floor, until his ear caught the sound that he was expecting. He called Cal to him and said:

“My son, push this paving slab sideways, depressing the left-hand edge and raising the right; after some centuries, it may be a trifle stiff.”

This proved an understatement; and in the end it took the combined strength of Cal, Cameron, and the Therbah to force the slab to swivel. But at length it did so, apparently rotating on a stone axle, and a cavity was revealed below, about the size of a clothes chest. It seemed to be full of birds' bones.

Scylla was too polite to voice her disappointment, but Cal said disgustedly:

“Are you sure this is the right cache, Your Holiness? I see nothing but a lot of drumsticks!”

“Vision without knowledge is little better than blindness,” replied the Pir calmly. “Break one of those shank bones, my child, and tell me what you see then?”

The aged, brittle bone snapped like a dry twig in Cal's grasp, and he let out a shout of astonishment.

“It's all filled with gold! Why, those old priests did a better job, even, than Wharton, the traveling dentist!”

The Pir smiled benignly. “Take what you need, my friends. But leave some for other needy travelers.”

“Oh yes, indeed, sir; we shan't need a fiftieth of what's here.”

“Under the bones, as I recall, there should be a black basalt box. It is full of rubies.”

The box was there, carved—probably to deter intending thieves—in the form of a cobra with raised head and hood. The head lifted off, and Cal, cautiously tipping the casket, released a flow of little red nodules, some of them cut, polished, and sparkling vermilion, others still in their rough state. “Take what you need,” said the Pir again.

After some discussion among the males, they took a dozen bones and a handful of rubies.

“Wait one moment,” said the Pir then, as they were about to recover the hoard. “Give me the box.”

Cal passed it to him and he delved carefully among its contents.

“There is one particular stone that I remember,” he murmured. “I should like to see it again.” For a few minutes it appeared that he was going to be disappointed, then he exclaimed in satisfaction:

“Ah, here it is!”

He pulled out a remarkably large, square ruby, cut and polished to a lustrous perfection. It must have weighed at least two hundred carats and was carved in the shape of a tiny altar. There were letters and characters deeply incised on all four sides.

“What a gem!” breathed Cal. “But surely, sir, that is too good for us. We have taken only a few of the smaller ones, to provide for our journey—”

The Pir smiled at him, and he fell silent, abashed. “No, my son,” the Pir agreed kindly. “This is not a stone for needy travelers to barter in exchange for camel hire or millet porridge. This is a stone for one friend to give to another, and”—he stretched out his hand—“as former abbot of this monastery, I choose to give it to my friend Miss Musson. I give it in token of our friendships in former lives and our continuing friendship.”

Cal and Scylla politely concealed gasps of amazement, but Miss Musson took the magnificent ruby composedly.

“Thank you, Your Holiness,” she replied. “Whenever I look at it—which will be many, many times every day—I shall remember your kindness and this remarkable place. I am not, as you are, able to recall our previous acquaintance, but your statement comes as no surprise to me. I feel in my heart that you may be right.”

“Perhaps they were lovers in a previous incarnation!” hopefully whispered Scylla to Cal, who replied loftily, “Psha! Perhaps our guardian was a man in a previous life. Sex may change from one incarnation to another; the Pir told me so.”

The object of their excursion having been achieved, when the revolving slab had been carefully replaced over the treasure Miss Musson declared that she, for one, was ready to eat a nuncheon. This she had foresightedly packed in the saddlebags of the ass. Accordingly the party sat on fallen pillars and consumed cold roast goat, excepting the Holy Pir, who would eat nothing but a handful of pulse.

On the journey home, nobody was inclined for conversation. So much unwonted exposure to other people, their chatter and questions, had, it was plain, tired the Holy Pir more than he cared to admit; he rode silently, in meditation, with his head bowed. Miss Musson, too, seemed full of thought. Cameron had been moodily silent all day, and remained so; the Therbah seldom spoke unless it was needful; and Cal, his sister saw, had been much moved and impressed by the atmosphere of the ruined temple and the legend of the stone horse, the Asp-i-Dheha—as indeed she had herself; she suspected that his creative demon had seized him and would not leave him again until the legend had been transformed into poetry.