Adventure stories; Boys -- Fiction; India -- Fiction; Irish -- India -- Fiction; Lamas -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction; Spy stories
'Yea, my Soul went free, and, wheeling like an eagle, saw indeed that
there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other soul. As a drop draws to water,
so my soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all things. At
that point, exalted in contemplation, I saw all Hind, from Ceylon in the
sea to the Hills, and my own Painted Rocks at Suchzen; I saw every camp
and village, to the least, where we have ever rested. I saw them at one
time and in one place; for they were within the Soul. By this I knew the
Soul had passed beyond the illusion of Time and Space and of Things. By
this I knew that I was free. I saw thee lying in thy cot, and I saw
thee falling down hill under the idolater--at one time, in one place, in
my Soul, which, as I say, had touched the Great Soul. Also I saw the
stupid body of Teshoo Lama lying down, and the hakim from Dacca kneeled
beside, shouting in its ear. Then my Soul was all alone, and I saw
nothing, for I was all things, having reached the Great Soul. And I
meditated a thousand thousand years, passionless, well aware of the
Causes of all Things. Then a voice cried: "What shall come to the boy if
thou art dead?" and I was shaken back and forth in myself with pity for
thee; and I said: "I will return to my chela, lest he miss the Way."
Upon this my Soul, which is the soul of Teshoo Lama, withdrew itself
from the Great Soul with strivings and yearnings and retchings and
agonies not to be told. As the egg from the fish, as the fish from the
water, as the water from the cloud, as the cloud from the thick air; so
put forth, so leaped out, so drew away, so fumed up the soul of Teshoo
Lama from the Great Soul. Then a voice cried: "The River! Take heed to
the River!" and I looked down upon all the world, which was as I had
seen it before--one in time, one in place--and I saw plainly the River
of the Arrow at my feet. At that hour my Soul was hampered by some evil
or other whereof I was not wholly cleansed, and it lay upon my arms and
coiled round my waist; but I put it aside, and I cast forth as an eagle
in my flight for the very place of the River. I pushed aside world upon
world for thy sake. I saw the River below me--the River of the
Arrow--and, descending, the waters of it closed over me; and behold I
was again in the body of Teshoo Lama, but free from sin, and the hakim
from Dacca bore up my head in the waters of the River. It is here! It
is behind the mango-tope here--even here!'
'Allah Karim! Oh, well that the Babu was by! Wast thou very wet?'
'Why should I regard? I remember the hakim was concerned for the body of
Teshoo Lama. He haled it out of the holy water in his hands, and there
came afterwards thy horse-seller from the North with a cot and men, and
they put the body on the cot and bore it up to the Sahiba's house.'
'What said the Sahiba?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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