“Please come in,” said he, smilingly, “however it may be.”
Thinking it was strange for him to treat me as his intimate friend, I stepped in; and as soon as he saw me, “Do you forget me?” said he, extending his hand, and showing me in every way that he was indeed acquainted with me.
While I was in Darjeeling, he was a teacher of the Tibetan language in the Government High School there; but he was not my instructor. Though he was a teacher of the second class, and not deep in learning, yet he was a man of general knowledge having the power of quick understanding. Of his change of position to be postmaster here I was entirely ignorant. After exchanging our respective accounts of events since we parted, he eagerly asked me how I had come through those vigilant guard-houses without endangering myself. My servant sitting near me, hearing us talking in English, looked almost stupefied. I at once perceived that our conversation would arouse the suspicion of my servant again, and tried to talk in the dialect of Lhasa. As the postmaster knew the dialect of Darjeeling very well, but did not know that of Lhasa, he did not answer me in the latter but consequently talked in English and Tibetan. This, just as I thought, aroused the suspicion which had been happily suppressed since our arrival at the first guard-house. The servant instantly went to the wife of the postmaster and asked her:
“Speaking truthfully, where is my master from?” said the servant.
“He is,” replied the lady, “a Japanese Lama.”
“Where is Japan?” asked the servant eagerly, as he heard me talking English, “is he not an Englishman?”
“No, he is a Japanese,” replied the lady, “Japan is, at present, so strong and powerful that even England looks at it with surprise. Her name, like the rising sun, gleams even to the remotest part of the world. So says my husband, who read it in a newspaper.”
“That is a terrible matter,” said the servant, being frightened almost into taking flight, haggard and pale; “I shall be killed.”
This account of her personal conference with my servant was given to me by the lady afterwards. It seemed to me that my servant almost trembled with fear, as though he expected every moment to lose his life; but I had no time to explain his misunderstanding. I slept that night in a clean and comfortable European bed.