CHAPTER XX
OMMONY CAPITULATES.
Dawa Tsering would say no more about his adventure among the women, but it was plain enough that he had been made ridiculous. He was fortunate not to have been caught and manhandled; he realized it.
“If it had not been for some Tibetans,” he grumbled, and then lapsed into moody silence, sharpening his knife on the edge of the entrance to Ommony’s cave.
They were left entirely alone, watching birds that moved like specks on the infinite blue through the opening overhead, until night fell and the gloom within the shaft grew solid. Sound died with the light, and one lantern that a man set over the entrance to the Lama’s cave made hardly any difference.
They brought food again, with some bones for the dog, and a candle to stick on the floor of the cave; but nothing else happened until the Lama’s sonorous voice called through the darkness and Ommony followed him down the tunnel into the vast cavern he had crossed that morning. It was already thronged with people seated on mats or on the bare floor, who filled the place with whispers; a shuffling of feet like the sound of wind and running water came from the entrance, where hundreds more were coming down the long tunnel.
Such light as there was, came from little smoky lamps set on ledges in the rock walls. A bell rang when the Lama appeared and the orchestra, almost invisible in shadow, burst into tune such as Stravinsky never dreamed of, filling the cavern with din that made the hair rise—restless yearning noise, accentuated by the hoarse radongs.
Across one end of the cavern a strong stage had been erected and a very rough curtain. The Lama led the way behind it, where the stage was already set and the make-up man was busy with the last of the actors. Tibetans pounced on Ommony and dressed him for his part by candle-light, but in the improvised wings, where the girls waited, whispering and laughing, there were batteries of acetylene lights all ready to be turned on, in charge of a man who looked like a Parsee. Where the footlights should have been there were mirrors arranged to throw the light back in the actors’ faces. Everything was make-shift; yet everything appeared to have been done by men who knew precisely what was wanted and who had worked without confusion to provide it.
Just before the play began the Lama went before the curtain and the music ceased. There was no light where he stood; to the audience he must have resembled a shadow dimly outlined on the dark cloth.
He told a story interspersed with proverbs, and the only sound from the enormous audience was in the pauses, when they caught their breath. The moment his make-up was complete Ommony stood at the edge of the curtain, where he could hear and look out at the thousands of eyes, on which the faint light from the lamps shone like starlight on still water.