“Yes, the effect is cheerful; a happy one,” thought Adele. “One doesn’t feel despondent when looking at them.” How could it be otherwise when each praying-signal fluttered a message of thanks, or propitiation?—all of them in remembrance of the Good Spirits. And then she thought she detected among them a familiar arrangement of colors; what!—could it be possible? Yes, an old faded-out, partly-torn specimen of “Old Glory,” hardly recognizable, but yet there, for the sake of its being a new arrangement of colors, probably its true significance utterly unknown. This moved Adele intensely, giving her a curious new emotion, blending her patriotic feeling with the sacred things of others. Finally she concluded that all the signals were really artistic from the Lepcha point of view, for she noticed an expression of much satisfaction pass over the countenances of the natives when they found their sacred prayer-colors were still so bravely fluttering after the storm; still in motion where the Spirit of the Air could easily see and hear. The poor woman with whom Adele had walked up pointed to some as if they were her own private signals, but as Adele did not manifest much outward enthusiasm about them, a sad expression came over the face of the nature-worshiper. She seemed to realize that she ought not to expect these strangers to understand her feelings. Perhaps the strangers would scorn such things—old pieces of muslin picked up in the bazaar; they could afford yards and yards of it if they chose. So the poor woman turned away disappointed, to seek sympathy among her own kindred who could better understand how such things were acceptable to the Good Spirit.
It was profoundly interesting to see those two at this time, so near in body, and yet so far apart in religious interpretations; yet each upon what was to her “holy ground.” Such are the mysterious operations of the Spirit of Religion in Nature.
Adele was just beginning to realize the varied conflicting elements in her surroundings when she and the Doctor heard voices behind them—a weird chant—a primitive monotonous crooning, but wild—the natives’ hymn. Around a thicket the people had gathered, singing this invocation. Adele and the Doctor drew near, and both of them being musical they involuntarily attempted to catch the higher notes and to join in; but it proved to be too much for them in every way, especially to Adele’s cultivated ear. The very simplicity of the strange sounds, all spirit and no art, made it difficult to detect any method, only variations of monotonous notes and cries; sometimes rhythm, but no trace of melody, at least to civilized ears. It was painfully monotonous; aye, there was pain indeed in that native chant of invocation. No grand aria of the art divine, nor “wail of the orchestra” in modern times, had more pain to the spirit in man, than that primitive wail. All that Adele and the Doctor could do was to feel for them, yet not be of them.
The thicket was formed by underbrush which had sprung up around some taller trees. There was an open space inside, with several rocks and stones which had evidently been brought there by the worshipers. One rock larger than the rest stood on one side, the others scattered with apparent lack of method. The entrance was wide, so that all near at hand could witness what was going on within the circle. And while the weird song continued outside, the people drew nearer and nearer; the solemn moment arrived for the Leader and his Helper to enter this thicket—the Lepcha Holy of Holies—and stand before their altar.
As Abraham of old, in mature manhood, Leader of “the Chosen People” among races, did enter a thicket and there offer a sacrifice well pleasing to the Lord: so did this poor native at the end of the Nineteenth Century, enter his Holy Place, a thicket in the Creator’s Cathedral of the Himalayas; and there did offer a sacrifice well pleasing to the Good Spirit to whom a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years.
The first offering was the fowl; and as the dying spasms of the bird scattered blood upon the stones, and upon the primitive priest, and upon others who stood near enough, the wild chant rose above the sound of flapping wings, and with the final throes of death mingled the wails of the worshipers.
To Adele, whose experience in killing of any kind was limited, the sight of life-blood flowing was most painful, even obnoxious. When a little girl in the country during her school-day vacations, she had always avoided seeing the fowls killed; not only because it destroyed her appetite for them afterwards, but because she felt a most positive and acute sympathy for the fowls. In later years, if anyone had called such proceedings “a sacrifice,” she would have been much surprised. On this occasion, face to face with it, her sympathy was strong enough to give her a sympathetic pain in the back of her own neck when the fowl was stabbed, pierced unto death.
When Adele was in the hospital acting as volunteer nurse, her experience had been to assist in curing, not in the surgical department; and if such had been the case, she would not have remained there a day. Now, when she found herself a quasi-participant in these Lepcha proceedings, eye-witness of a bloody wounded fowl flapping about, the situation was positively repulsive; and very difficult to sympathize with, even when she knew the act to be a feature in religious worship. She looked up at the Doctor.
Doctor Wise was absorbed in studying the movements of the priest.
The Lepcha stood over the kid, with his knife drawn ready to take its innocent life.