At the moment of our appearance, a score of native priests were crouched on as many small mats ranged round the walls. They rose slowly, really agog with curiosity, yet striving to maintain that phlegmatic air of indifference that is cultivated among them, and grouped themselves about us. In the brilliant light cast by several lamps and long rows of candles before the statue, we had our first clear view of the American priest. He was tall and thin of figure, yet sinewy, with a suggestion of hidden strength. His face, gaunt and lantern-jawed, was seared and weather-beaten and marked with the unmistakable lines of hardships and dissipation. It was easy to see that he was a recruit from the ranks of labor. His hands were coarse and disproportionately large. As he moved they hung half open, his elbows a bit bent, as though he were ready at a word of command to grasp a rope or a shovel. The rules of the priesthood had not been framed to enhance his particular style of beauty. A thick shock of hair would have concealed the displeasing outline of a bullet head, the yellow robe hung in loose folds about his lank form, his feet were broad and stub-toed. But it was none of these points in his physical make-up that caused James to choke with suppressed mirth. A Buddhist priest, be it remembered, must ever keep aloof from things feminine. The American had been a sailor, and his bare arms were tattooed from wrist to shoulder with female figures that would have outdone those on the raciest posters of a burlesque show!
Our hosts placed mats for us in a corner of the room and brought forth a huge bowl of rice and a smaller one of blistering currie. While we scooped up handfuls alternately from the dishes, they squatted on their haunches close at hand, watching us, it must be admitted, somewhat hungrily. The American had not yet mastered the native tongue. His interpreter was a youthful priest who spoke fluent English. With these two at our elbows, the conversation did not drag. The youth was a human interrogation point; the convert, for the nonce, a long-stranded mariner eager for news of the world outside. Were “the boys” still signing on in Liverpool at three pound ten? Did captains still ship out of Frisco with shanghaied crews, as of yore? Were the Home in Marseilles and the Mission in Sydney still closed to beachcombers? Was the Peter Rickmers still above the waves? His questions fell fast and furious, interspersed with queries from his companion. Then he grew reminiscent and told us, in the vocabulary of them that go down to the sea in ships, tales of his days before the mast and of his uninspiring adventures in distant ports. For the moment he was plain Jack Tar again, swapping yarns with his fellows.
The youth rose at last and laid a hand on the convert’s shoulder. He started, blinked a moment, and glanced at his brilliant garment. Then he rose to dignified erectness and stood a moment silent, gazing down upon us with the half-haughty, half-pitying mien of a true believer addressing heathen.
“You will excuse us,” he said, in his sacerdotal voice. “It is time for our evening devotions.”
He moved with the others to the further side of the room, where each of the band lighted a candle and came to place it on the altar. Then all knelt on a large mat, sank down until their hips touched their heels and, with their eyes fixed steadfastly on the serene countenance of the statue, rocked their bodies back and forth to the time of a chant set up by one of the youngest priests. It was a half-monotonous wail, rising and falling in uneven cadence, lacking something of the solemnity of the chanted Latin of a Catholic office, yet more musical than the three-tone song of the Arab. One theme, often repeated, grew familiar even to our unaccustomed ears, a long-drawn refrain ending in:—
“Vooráy kalma-á-y s-ă-ă-mée,”
which the swaying group, one and all, caught up from time to time and droned in deep-voiced chorus.
The worship lasted some twenty minutes. When the American returned to us, every trace of the seaman—save the tattooing—had disappeared. He was a missionary now, fired with zeal for the “true faith”; though into his arguments crept occasionally a suggestion that his efforts were less for conversion than for self-justification. Now and again he called on his sponsor in Buddhist lore and ritual to expatiate on the doctrines he was striving to set forth. The youth needed no urging. He drew a book from the folds of his gown and, for every point brought up by the American, read us several pages of dissertations or tales of the miracles performed by the Wandering Prince.
The hour grew late for beachcombers. A dreadful fear assailed us that the night would be all sermon and no sleep. We sank into an open-eyed doze, from which we started up now and then half determined to turn Buddhists that we might be left in peace. Towards midnight the propagandists tired of their monologues and rose to their feet. The white man led the way to a back room, littered with kettles and bowls, bunches of drying rattan, and all the odds and ends of the establishment, and pointed out two mats that the servants had spread for us on the billowy, yet yielding floor of split bamboo.
“Take my tip, mate,” said the Australian, as we lay down side by side, “that bloke don’t swallow any more of this mess about the transmigration of souls than I do. Loafing in the shade’s his religion.”