Om: The secret of Ahbor Valley - 1

BOOKS BY TALBOT MUNDY

RUNG HO

KING—OF THE KHYBER RIFLES

GUNS OF THE GODS

THE WINDS OF THE WORLD

HIRA SINGH

THE IVORY TRAIL

THE EYE OF ZEITOON

TOLD IN THE EAST

HER REPUTATION

THE NINE UNKNOWN

OM—THE SECRET OF AHBOR VALLEY

THE SECRET OF AHBOR VALLEY

TALBOT MUNDY

INDIANAPOLIS

THE BOBBS-MERRILL-COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

By Talbot Mundy

Printed in the United States of America

PRESS OF

BRAUNWORTH & CO.

BOOK MANUFACTURERS

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

CONTENTS

I	“Cottswold Ommony . . . Is No Man’s Fool.”	[3]
II	Number One of the Secret Service.	[15]
III	“What Is Fear?”	[27]
IV	“I Am One Who Strives To Tread the Middle Way.”	[40]
V	The House at the End of the Passage.	[52]
VI	“Missish-Anbun Is Mad.”	[62]
VII	“Sarcasm? I Wonder if That Ever Pays.”	[78]
VIII	The Middle Way.	[89]
IX	“Gupta Rao.”	[107]
X	Vasantasena.	[123]
XI	“All This in the Space of One Night.”	[139]
XII	“All Things End—Even Carriage Rides.”	[148]
XIII	San-Fun-Ho.	[160]
XIV	The Second Act.	[173]
XV	The Roll-Call by Night.	[188]
XVI	“Where Are We?”	[199]
XVII	Diana Rehearses a Part.	[213]
XVIII	Diana Adopts Buskins.	[226]
XIX	A Message from Miss Sanburn.	[236]
XX	Ommony Capitulates.	[251]
XXI	The Lay of Alha.	[260]
XXII	Darjiling.	[272]
XXIII	Tilgaun.	[282]
XXIV	Hannah Sanburn.	[294]
XXV	The Compromise.	[307]
XXVI	Ahbor Valley Gate.	[319]
XXVII	Under the Brahmaputra.	[327]
XXVIII	The Lama’s Home.	[338]
XXIX	The Lama’s Story.	[350]
XXX	The Lama’s Story (Continued).	[362]
XXXI	The Jade of Ahbor.	[375]

OM—THE SECRET OF AHBOR VALLEY

EVOLUTION

Tides in the ocean of stars and the infinite rhythm of space;

Cycles on cycles of æons adrone on an infinite beach;

Pause and recession and flow, and each atom of dust in its place

In the pulse of eternal becoming; no error, no breach

But the calm and the sweep and the swing of the leisurely, measureless roll

Of the absolute cause, the unthwarted effect—and no haste,

And no discord, and nothing untimed in a calculus ruling the whole;

Unfolding; evolving; accretion; attrition; no waste.

Planet on planet a course that it keeps, and each swallow its flight;

Comet’s ellipse and grace-note of the sudden firefly glow;

Jewels of Perseid splendor sprayed on summer’s purple night;

Blossom adrift on the breath of spring; the whirl of snow;

Grit on the grinding beaches; spume of the storm-ridden wave

Hurled on the north wind’s ice-born blast to blend with the tropic rain;

Hail and the hissing of torrents; song where sapphire ripples lave

The crest of thousand-fathom reefs upbuilt beneath the main.

Silt of the ceaseless rivers from the mountain summits worn,

Rolled along gorge and meadow till the salt, inflowing tide

Heaps it in shoals at harbor-mouth for continents unborn;

Earth where the naked rocks were reared; pine where the birches died;

Season on season proceeding, and birth in the shadow of death;

Dawning of luminous day in the dying of night; and a Plan

In no whit, in no particle changing; each phase of becoming a breath

Of the infinite Karma of all things; its goal, evolution of MAN.