Thereafter life for two months was a dream of many colors, through which the Lama led without explaining any of it. At times Ommony abandoned hope of ever learning what the Lama’s purpose was; at other times he dimly discerned it or thought he did, midway between the rocks of politics and the shoals of some new creed. And whether he guessed at the truth, or believed he never would know it, he reveled in the swiftly moving, nigh incredible procession of events.
No day was like another. No two receptions were alike in any town they came to. They put on the play in ramshackle sheds at country fairs with the din of sideshows all around them, in pretentious theaters built of corrugated iron, in temple courtyards, in more than one palace garden,—once in an empty railway godown[[36]] from which a greatly daring Eurasian clerk had removed stored merchandise,—in a crypt under a pagoda (and there was a riot that time, because some Brahmans said the place had been rendered unclean by the actors, and Ommony came within a hair’s breadth of exposure)—in the open, under trees, where roads led to seven villages and a crowd of at least three thousand people gathered silent in the bonfire light that shone between enormous trees. Once they played in an empty tank, from whose bottom an acre of sticky mud, two inches thick, had to be cleaned out before the crowd could squat there; once in a cave so stuffy that Maitraya’s women fainted.
They traveled by elephant, camel, horse, mule, cart, in litters, for fifty miles by train, and once, for a day and a night, in barges along an irrigation ditch, concealed under hurdles on which vegetables were heaped to look like full boat-loads. They went alternately like hunted animals, and like a circus trying to attract attention.
There were places where the Lama seemed to go in fear of the police; other places where he ignored them as if non-existent. He always seemed to know in advance what to expect, and whether it was wise to move by daylight. Most of the traveling was done by night, but there were some places where crowds gave them an ovation as they passed through streets at noon.
Once, when a man who looked like a rajah’s son arrived breathless on a foaming horse and talked with the Lama under a wayside baobab, the party separated into four detachments, and Ommony lay hidden for a whole day under the blistering iron roof of an abandoned shed. There was never any explanation given. None of the apparently chance-met providers of food and transportation asked questions or gave Ommony any information.
Sometimes the Lama himself did not seem to know the right direction. On those occasions he would call a halt by the roadside and wait there until some mysterious individual arrived. Sooner or later some one always came. Once they waited for a whole day within sight of a fenced village. But they never lacked for food, or for the best the country could provide in the way of accommodation.
In one large town of the Central Provinces, in which three thousand people packed an assembly hall, there were police officers on chairs near the stage, who made notes ostentatiously. The Lama’s speech before the curtain on that occasion was rather longer than usual and Ommony, watching the policemen, recognized the insanity that impels men to interfere with what they can not understand. That night he slipped off the stage before San-fun-ho’s last speech was finished, hurried into his Bhat-Brahman clothes, and was standing close to the police officers when the crowd began to leave the theater. There was one man with whom he had dined in the club at Delhi, another who was notorious for drastic enforcement of the “Seditious Practices” Act, and a third whom he did not know. They were all three very hot under the collar. Said one:
“A damned nasty seditious play—obviously propaganda to prevent enlistment. They’ve chosen this place because recruiting’s going on here for the army. It’s anarchistic.”
“Oh, decidedly. Part of Gandhi’s non-cooperation tactics.”
“Financed in America, I’ll bet you. That’s where all the propaganda money comes from.”