“But what do the words say?” I urged.
He mooned over the inscription for a long time, fingering the collar lovingly, while Toi Wah lay passively in my arms and looked at him.
“He say what I no can say good in English,” he explained at last. “He say, ‘Death no can do, no can die.’ See? When Gland Lama cat wear this colla’, no can die. No can be kill him—just change flom cat to some other thing; monkey—tiger—hoss—maybe man—next time,” he concluded vaguely.
“He say, ‘Love me, I love you, hate me, I hate you.’ No can say good in English what Chinese say. See?”
And with this I had to be content for the time. Now I know the characters engraved on Toi Wah’s collar referred to a quotation from the seventh book of Buddha, which, freely translated, reads as follows:
“That which is alive hath known death, and that which lives can never die. Death is not; there is only a changing from shape to shape, from life to life.
“Mayhap the despised animal, walking in the dust of the road, was one time King of Ind, or the consort of Ghengis Khan.
“Do me no harm. Protect me, O Man, and I will protect thee. Feed me, O Man, and I will feed thee. Love me, O Man, and I will love thee. Hate me, and I will hate thee. Slay me, and I will slay thee.
“We be brothers, O Man, thou and I, from life to life, from death to death, until Nirvana be won.”
If I had only known then, and stayed my hand, I would not now be haunted by this yellow terror that peers out at me from the dark; that follows after me with softly padding feet; never nearer, never receding, until....