Seeing her brother go off in this way, and being afraid of loneliness, the sister suddenly spread her wings too. The wind blowing from under threw her up. She also floated in the air and tacked her flight by her tail toward her comrade and in a few minutes both were lost to sight. Now it was our turn to depart from those hills in search of our pigeon. He might have gone to Dentam. But it behoved us to search every Lamasery and baronial castle which had served Gay-Neck as a landmark in his past flights.
CHAPTER V
ON GAY-NECK'S TRACK
s we descended into the bleak oblivion of the gorges below, we suddenly found ourselves in a world of deepening dark, though it was hardly three in the afternoon. It was due to the long shadows of the tall summits under which we moved. We hastened our pace, and the cold air goaded us on. As soon as we had descended about a thousand feet and more it grew warmer by comparison, but as night came on apace the temperature dropped anew and drove us to seek shelter in a friendly Lamasery. We reached that particular serai where the Lamas, Buddhist monks, most generously offered us hospitality. They spoke to us only as they had occasion in serving us with supper and in escorting us to our rooms. They spend their evenings in meditation.
We had three small cells cut out of the side of a hill, in front of which was a patch of grassy lawn railed off at the outer edges. By the light of the lanthorns we carried, we found that we had only straw mattresses in our stone cells. However, the night passed quickly, for we were so tired that we slept like children in their mothers' arms. About four o'clock next morning I heard many footsteps that roused me completely from sleep. I got out of bed and went in their direction, and soon I discerned bright lights. By climbing down and then up a series of high steps, I reached the central chapel of the Lamasery—a vast cave under an overhanging rock, and open on three sides. There, before me stood eight Lamas with lanthorns which they quietly put away as they then sat down to meditate, their legs crossed under them. The dim light fell on their tawny faces and blue robes, and revealed on their countenances only peace and love.
Presently their leader said to me in Hindusthani: "It has been our practice for centuries to pray for all who sleep. At this hour of the night even the insomnia-stricken person finds oblivion and since men when they sleep can not possess their conscious thoughts, we pray that Eternal Compassion may purify them, so that when they awake in the morning they will begin their day with thoughts that are pure, kind and brave. Will you meditate with us?"
I agreed readily. We sat praying for compassion for all mankind. Even to this day when I awake early I think of those Buddhist monks in the Himalayas praying for the cleansing of the thoughts of all men and women still asleep.
The day broke soon enough. I found that we were sitting in a cleft of a mountain, and at our feet lay a precipice sheer and stark. The tinkling of silver bells rose softly in the sunlit air, bells upon bells, silver and golden, chimed gently and filled the air with their sweet music: it was the monks' greeting to the harbinger of light. The sun rose as a clarion cry of triumph—of Light over darkness, and of Life over Death.