“Tsiang Samdup sends a blessing,” he said calmly. “He requests that you will not leave this enclosure. Kindly do not go beyond the trees.”
He disappeared again. It was not until he had gone that it occurred to Ommony the language he had used was English. Speaking, thinking in two languages concurrently, occasionally listening to a third, one does not identify them without an effort. For a minute or two Ommony sat still, trying to recall the chela’s voice, intonation and accent; it seemed to him that if the words had not been perfectly pronounced he would have noticed instantly that the chela was talking English, not Urdu. He recalled the exact words one by one. “Blessing,” “enclosure” and “the” were key-words that would inevitably have betrayed a foreign accent had there been one; as far as he could remember all three words had been stressed exactly as a well educated Englishman would use them; he was sure there had been no accent on the vowel in “the”—a shibboleth that everlastingly betrays the Asian born.
“I’ll swear that youngster is European,” he muttered—and then laughed at himself. No European—certainly no English youth ever had it in him to seem so saintly and at the same time to be so inoffensive. There would have been an almost irresistible impulse to kick any western youth who dared to look as virtuous as that. One did not want to kick Samding.
Ommony turned Diana loose to roam wherever she pleased; no inhibition had been laid on her. He hoped natural canine curiosity might lead her to make new acquaintances who in some way would help to throw light on the mystery; for as he threw himself on the bed to sleep the whole thing seemed a deeper mystery than ever. Was it propaganda intended to foist Samding on the country as a new mahatma? A political mahatma, who should bring on revolution? If so, why the sudden flight? What could be the advantage of creating intense enthusiasm and then running away from it?
He was awakened late in the morning by a man who removed the dishes and spread a fresh meal on the linen-covered table. The man was some one he had not seen before, as silent as an oiled automaton. Diana was coiled up asleep on her sacking. Dawa Tsering, smelling hot food, awoke with a start to devour it, and it was he who first noticed the silence.
“Gupta Rao, we are—”
He left his bowl of food and ran to the trees that screened the end of the enclosure, peered between them, and came hurrying back with a grin on his face.
“It is true. They have gone and left us!”
Ommony’s obstinate jaw came forward with a jerk. An insult from the Lama’s lips could not have produced a tenth of the effect.
“Damn him after all!” he muttered. “I admitted I was spying. If he’d simply asked me to clear out, I’d have gone and waited for him at Tilgaun. I’ll be blowed, though, if I’ll let up now. I’ll trace him if I have to—”