  In the meantime Isabelle found herself in a situation that in some ways seemed more precarious than that of her companion. Having found her way from the temple room through a narrow door, she had wandered all undisturbed down a hallway past several open doors. In one room she saw long tables with benches ranged on either side. Here, she concluded, pilgrims from distant parts were fed when they visited the shrine of Buddha. In another room their food was prepared, and in still another, on hard beds, they slept. Realizing that it was growing late, she tiptoed back down the hall into the main temple room. She was about to join her companion, when all of a sudden she caught a gleam of light from a small room at the right. As she looked within, she saw that a weird blue light shone upon a Buddha who sat bent over as if in silent meditation. The workmanship on this Buddha seemed quite wonderful. The face and hands were exquisitely carved. She took three steps inside the room, studied the bowed figure for a moment, then prepared to go. Turning half about, she uttered a low cry. The door had vanished. She faced a blank wall. This room, she discovered for the first time, was made of eight panels, each forming the side of a hexagon. Which panel was the door? She had no way of knowing, and if she knew, it would not help, for there was neither latch nor knob. Here there was no stifling incense, only a pale, eerie light. But there was something more terrible—ABSOLUTE SILENCE! Standing there breathing quite naturally she could hear each breath. She fancied she heard her quickening heart-beats. She had supposed that she had known absolute silence before. She now knew that she never had. The silence of the sea is broken by the rush of waters, the whisper of the wind. The silence of a vast forest is broken by the flutter of birds’ wings, the low notes of a bird’s song. Even in a vault there comes the low roar of street traffic far away. Here was neither murmur, whisper, song, nor low roar. Nothing. Absolute silence. She examined the blue burning candle. It would last perhaps an hour. Then absolute night would join absolute silence. She pounded on the wall. The room roared. But when she had finished pounding, absolute silence returned,—that—and nothing more. * * * * * * * * Unlike Isabelle, Gale knew the location of the door through which she had entered the main temple hall, but try as she might, she could not budge it. It was as if it were made of iron. And indeed iron has little resisting power that six inches of solid teakwood does not possess. After exhausting herself in a mad effort to escape, she resolved to conserve her energies for her battle with the fumes that rose from the nostrils of the two guardian apes. That there would be a struggle she did not doubt, for already the fumes were making her drowsy. Lying flat down on the floor with her face next to the door she tried to secure at least a little fresh air through the crack beneath the door. In this she partially succeeded. How long she could retain her senses she could not tell. “What an end for a soldier and the daughter of a soldier!” she thought, as a fit of wild desperation seized her. She wanted to get up and fight. “Fight what?” she asked herself. Then suddenly she knew—fight those incense burners! Fight those leering apes! At once she was on her knees. Bending low that she might avoid the fumes as much as possible, she crept toward the Buddha and the apes. As she came close to her goal the odor was all but overpowering. She wanted to sleep. “Sleep!” She clenched her fists tight. “I must not sleep!” At last her hands were on one of the black metal apes. She grasped its legs and pulled herself to a sitting position. The ape was solidly fastened to the floor. “There is a way to put incense into this burner,” she told herself. “I’ll find it, open up the burner and scatter the fire on the stone floor.” She felt the thing over, inch by inch, burning her fingers where the incense had heated the metal, but not a suggestion did she get regarding the manner in which the strange incense burner was opened. “I—I can do nothing.” She sank down upon the floor. For a full minute she lay there as if asleep. Then, as strength and courage returned, she dragged herself to the door and made one last attempt to drink in air from the crack beneath the door. “I can’t die like a poisoned rat,” she told herself. “I am a soldier. I can’t die this way.” Only half conscious of what she was doing, she screamed: “No! No! No!” at the top of her voice. Shocked into sudden full consciousness, she listened. Did she hear footsteps? Encouraged, she screamed again: “No! No! No!” The door swung open and she rolled out on the floor. Stunned by the sudden turn events had taken, she lay where she was for a full moment. After a struggle to bring back her drugged senses, she sat up to find herself staring at one of the strangest looking men she had ever seen. For a space of seconds she believed that she had not regained her full consciousness at all, but was in some strange dream world. Then the man spoke, and she knew he was real. He was short and very fat. His hands and feet were very small. His finger nails were long and curved like the talons of an eagle. Dressed as he was in bright robes, he seemed like some huge bright-hued tropical bird. “Who closed this door?” he demanded in a high-pitched voice. “Who is burning my incense? It is terrible, wasting a whole month’s supply in a single hour!” Without waiting for a reply, he sprang to the leering apes, and tearing them apart by some trick known only to himself, spread powder and glowing sparks over the floor. After that he danced away on his tiny feet to throw open a back door, and by some strange device to open a row of shutters beneath the eaves. Dancing toward the girl he demanded again: “Who did this? I was away but a moment. You or some other one did this!” “Yes,” Gale agreed. She was standing now, and towered above him. “Someone did it, but not I. There was a man here when we came.” “We!” he screamed. “Then there are others?” “Only my companion,” she replied. “Don’t forget, we are soldiers—American soldiers.” “But you are a woman!” He stared. “Soldiers in uniform, all the same.” “Ah, yes,” he sighed. “In China too the women fight. We shall win the war. When women fight they never lose. “But you said there was a man.” His voice changed. “Yes. Yes—I—I remember!” he exclaimed. “He was a slim man who walked a little lame.” “In both feet,” Gale suggested. “Yes, yes, in both feet. He said he was a pilgrim. Everyone is welcome here. Come.” He took a step. “It is time to eat. You and your companion are welcome. You shall eat. If you desire, you shall spend the night here.” “Oh, no! no!” she protested. “I am not hungry. My companion has vanished. We must find her.” “Come.” He grasped her hand. She squirmed a little. The hand with those talons was terrible, but she did not let go. She dared not. “Come,” he invited once more. He led her through the door at the back of the large room and into the dark hallway beyond. Here he lit a large candle. Once again gripping her hand, he led her into room after room, murmuring again and again, “Not here. Not here. It is very strange.” At last he paused. “There is but one other room,” he murmured. “That is the Room of Perpetual Silence. There the brethren go for meditation. If the door is closed, we dare not open it. Never is the door opened by another when a brother is in meditation.” “Oh! But we must open the door,” she declared. “Come. We will look.” He fairly dragged her along. “The door is closed. We dare not open it.” “What sort of room is it?” Gale stalled for time to think. “The walls are very, very thick.” He spoke in a low chanting tone. “The door too, is thick. There is a Buddha, a meditating Buddha. The floor is thick. The ceiling is thick. No sound comes there. It is the Room of Absolute Silence.” “Then I know what you must do,” said Gale, filled with sudden resolution as she thought what it must mean to be in such a room for a single hour. “You must open that door.” “It has never been done.” He stamped a small foot. “You will open that door or I will bring a whole company of soldiers.” “They will be welcome,” he declared, squeezing her hand. “They shall be fed. They shall sleep here. Everyone is welcome here.” “Even if they come to tear that door down?” she asked. “Tear that door down?” he exclaimed. “It is impossible!” “Nothing is impossible.” Her words carried conviction. “Our engineers could take this whole temple down and carry it to China.” He stared at her in astonishment. Twice he appeared about to speak. At last he said very simply,—“In that case we shall open the door.” That was just what he did. And there stood Isabelle, blinking at the light. “Someone shut the door,” she murmured. “Such a terrible place! I must have been here a long time. I thought you’d never come.” “That’s exactly what I thought,” was Gale’s sober reply. At that the fat little man must have thought of the soldiers who could “Tear down this temple and carry it to China.” “Come!” he exclaimed, dancing about like an excited falcon. “I will guide you down the mountain. Wait I will light a torch. Then we will go.” He was away like a flash. “What a strange place!” Isabelle whispered. “We could stay all night. He said that.” Gale smiled mischievously. “These monks are really very hospitable.” “Never! Never!” Isabelle exclaimed. When each had told the other her experiences, they were well agreed that their club was a glorious place to be. And then the gnomelike monk was at their side again. Holding a flaming pine knot torch high, he urged them to follow him. They truly needed no urging. And so, with the little man hopping on ahead and the flaming torch making black giants of all the great trees, they found their way down the mountainside. When they reached the first house at the foot of the hill, as if afraid of being seen, the little monk cast his torch on the ground, dashed out the flames—then vanished into the night. “Such a weird experience,” Isabelle murmured. “Tomorrow I shall visit your colonel,” Gale declared. “I shall say, ‘Colonel, I no longer feel safe in India. Please take me with you into Burma where there is a nice quiet war going on.’” But for Gale, exciting events of quite a different nature, events that would help to shape her future career had been ordered by the gods for the morrow. |
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