“I’m waiting for you to hedge,” said Ommony. “So far, I simply don’t believe you.”
“Well: the next was eleven years old, and she made trouble. She was the child of a sea captain who was hanged for shooting drunken sailors. Some missionaries took care of her; but they said things about her father, and she ran away—from Poona—the mission was in Poona. So, of course, there was a search, and much in the newspapers. We had to hide her carefully. The missionaries offered a reward, but she did not want to go back to the missionaries. In many ways her character was such as Tsiang Samdup wished. And in the end we conveyed her by bullock-gharri all the way from Bombay to Ahmedabad, where we kept her several months in the home of a Hindu midwife. Then the Middle Way. The Middle Way is easy, when you know it.
“The third was from Bangalore—and she was only nine months old—no trouble at all—the daughter of a very pretty lady who was engaged to be married—but the man died. She gave the baby to my wife’s sister. That child went North in the arms of a Tibetan woman from Darjiling.
“And the fourth was from London—a Russian musician’s daughter. And the fifth was from Glasgow. And the sixth from Sweden, or so it was said. Those three were all about the same age—six, or seven, or thereabouts.
“The seventh—she was nine years old, and the best of them all—was from New York—born in New York—or at sea, I forget which. Her father, an Irishman, died and the mother, who was English, went to visit her people in England. But the people had died too. So she went back to America, and there was some difficulty in connection with the immigration laws. She was not allowed to land. She had to return to England, where there was destitution and I know not what followed after that, though it is easy to imagine things. The mother was dying, and I was told she wished above all things to save the child from being put in an institution. Some people who are well known to me offered to care for the child. It happened I was in London, Ommony. I went and saw the mother; and, since she was dying, I took a chance and told her certain things; and perhaps because she was dying, and therefore could understand and see around the corner, as it were, she agreed. We had conversed, as you might say, heart to heart. It was I who brought that child to India. I had to adopt her legally, and—oh, Ommony, if I could have kept her! She was like my little own daughter to me! But what was there that I could do for her—an old Jew, here in Delhi? Money, yes; but nothing else, and money is nothing. It broke my heart. She went northward by the Middle Way—you know what I mean by the Middle Way?”
Ommony’s expression was stone-cold; he was speechless. He eyed Benjamin with a hard stare that had reached the rock-bottom of revelation and disgust. He did not dare to speak. Having pledged his word in advance not to betray Benjamin’s secrets, his word was good; there was no hesitation on that score. A deliberate promise, in his estimation, stood above all obligations, whatever the consequences to himself. But he felt that sickening sensation of having trusted a man who turned out to be rotten after all.
He did not dare to say a word that might give Benjamin an inkling of his real feelings. He must use the man as an ally. In a way he was indebted to him—for information as to the Lama’s real activities. No wonder the Lama had kept so carefully aloof! Ommony forced himself to smile—battling with the horror of the thought of being co-trustee with a Tibetan, who with his right hand helped to run a philanthropic mission and with his left imported European girls, for the Powers of Evil only knew what purpose. There are other purposes, as well as crude vice, for which children may be stolen. His own sister—
“You say Tsiang Samdup is better than both of us?” he remarked at last, surprised at the evenness of his own voice.
“Much better!” said Benjamin. “Ah, Ommony—I see your face. Old I am. Blind I am not. But listen: have you seen what happens to the children whose parents die or desert them? Not the children of the poor; the little girls who are well born, who feel things that other children do not feel. I am a Jew—I know what feeling is! Hah! I have seen animals in cages who were happier! And what is happiness? Provision of necessities? Bah! They provide necessities for men in jail—and will you search in the jails to find happiness? I will show you thousands who have all they want, and nothing that they need! You understand me? Tsiang Samdup—”
“Never mind,” said Ommony, “I’ll find out for myself.” He did not want to talk; he was afraid of what he might hear—still more of what he might say. There are some men, who present an impassive face toward the world, who can face death grinning and are not afraid of “the terror that moveth by night” or “the pestilence that stalketh at noonday,” who would rather be crucified than reveal the horror they have for a certain sort of traffic. Their emotion, too sacred, or too profane to be discussed, is nameless—indescribable—only to be borne with set teeth.