Maurice laughed shortly and leaning forward attempted to look up to the next platform above. He was, however, able to distinguish nothing.
Understand the design of the three great towers of the Nagkon Wat; it is necessary for the full comprehension of that which is to follow. Briefly I may describe them as vast, circular stone terraces, platform placed upon platform, each slightly receding from the one beneath, until the apex of the cone is reached. The central and largest of these remarkable piles, Maurice, when he first caught a glimpse of it, compared to a huge Papal tiara—no inapt comparison, by the way, for it certainly looked more like that than anything else. In spite of the distance we had climbed, there still remained three of the platforms to be passed before the top could be reached.
“George, you don’t know these Buddhist priests,” Maurice said musingly. “Lazy and indifferent as they appear, they are the most inveterate fanatics on earth. If it were a part of their religion to witness the sunrise from the top of this tower on this particular day, they would move heaven and earth to get here—they would crawl up step by step on their knees, if they could gain their end in no other way.”
“I saw enough of them in China, to understand pretty well what they are like,” I replied.
“Indeed you did not. The Chinese Buddhists are different. With them religion has little or no meaning. Like some of our Christians they make it but a fetich; a bald formula of words and ceremonies which they are alike too ignorant and too indifferent to understand.”
“And are these people different?” I asked skeptically.
“Very different. I have made a study of them since I have been in Cambodia. Of course with the masses it is the same the world over. The Chinese are too practical, too worldly to make deep spiritual thinkers, but among the higher classes of Buddhists in Farther India there are minds capable of the deepest metaphysical reflection; minds stored with an accumulation of spiritual knowledge such as you and I are utterly unable to comprehend.”
“Bosh!” I exclaimed, lighting a cheroot. “Why to hear you talk, old fellow, one would think you were a convert to Buddhism. What are these Buddhists but a parcel of ignorant idolators, worshiping gods of wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor think nor smell, as the Scripture says somewhere. Positively, Maurice, you surprise me—you do indeed.”
He sighed, gazing upon my face with a certain far-away look that I had often observed in his eyes, and had as often set down to a morbid dreaminess of character which he certainly possessed at times. Thrusting his hands into his vest pocket he pulled out a small silver coin, a piece a little smaller than our American quarter dollar, and passed it over to me. Upon one side it bore a representation of the zodiacal constellation pisces , on the other were Persian characters, the meaning of which I was, of course, unable to understand.
“George, what is that?” he asked in the same dreamy fashion.
“One of your Hindoo coins, of course,” I answered, wondering what he was driving at. “I think you told me it was one of a series called the Zodiac rupees.”
“Precisely. I told you so, and having faith in me you believe my assertion.”
“Certainly.”
“Would you have known that those seemingly unmeaning marks on the reverse were Persian letters if I had not told you?”
“No; but of course I should have known they were Oriental letters of some sort.”
“Very likely; because so far and no further has your education in such matters advanced. But suppose you were to take that coin and show it to a New York longshoreman who did not know you, and consequently had no faith in you; suppose you were to assure him that those marks were letters, what conclusion do you suppose he would draw?”
“Either that I was making sport of him or that I was a fool.”
“Then there you have it. As the longshoreman is to the coin so are we to the Buddhist philosophic acumen of the East. To our minds their doctrines are rubbish, absurd to the last degree. Why? Simply because we are incapable of comprehending them; because we are wholly unaccustomed to their methods of thought. Remember this much; when our forefathers were savages, these people were enjoying the height of a glorious civilization. When the naked Britons drove the hosts of Cæsar into the sea, Angkor was old, and, for all we know, even then deserted. George, it required a motive to build this massive pile, as well as unlimited treasure, architectural skill and physical strength. What was that motive? Religion! A profound sense of the littleness of man and the greatness of the God who constructed the mighty temple of the universe; call him Jehovah, call him Buddha, Brahma, or by whatever name you please."
“Bravo!” I cried. “Bravo! Positively I never imagined that I had in my friend so profound a thinker, an adept, a philosopher! Then you don’t regard the Buddhists as idolators, it seems?”
“No more than you are, no more than I am. I speak only of the educated. Long before I left America I entertained these views, and since my residence in the East I have seen much to confirm me in them; but—”
“But not enough to make you willing to credit the mysterious disappearance of my friend with the parti-colored face?” I answered, somewhat sneeringly. “You made game of that, you know.”
“I own that I did, but it was because I did not care to enter into a discussion upon these matters at the time. Your state of mind was not such as to make it desirable that I should do so. It is hardly otherwise now, and I regret—George, there certainly is some one on the platform above us. Hark!”
No need to call my attention. What Maurice heard I heard—could not help hearing. A deep voice had broken out above us, singing, or rather chanting the lines which follow.
Coming suddenly as it did, close upon Maurice’s learned disquisition on Buddhism, every word is as firmly graven on my memory as though heard only yesterday, instead of many long years ago. Let me add that the words were English, as perfectly pronounced as if chanted by myself.
“Lo! in the East comes a glow as of rubies;
Jewels magnificent flash in the sky,
Heralding thee, O King of the morning,
Golden hued sun to gladden the eye.
Hail to thee, Sun God, ruler omnipotent!
Salute we thy coming in splendor and fire,
Low bow we down as thy glory illumes us,
Lord of the earth, our ruler and sire.
Dark is the world when thou hast departed,
Lonely and desolate lies the broad plain,
Mountain and valley awaiting in sadness,
Smile when thy face beams upon them again.”
The song ceased. As the last echo died away, the shadowy mists which had hitherto hung over the horizon were suddenly dispelled and the sun shown forth in all its glory.
Turning my face upward, I, at the same instant, caught sight of a shadow upon the platform above.
It was but a glimpse—then it was drawn back and had vanished.
But that glimpse showed me a man bending over the balustrade.
Instantly I knew him.
It was my mysterious friend at Panompin-the man with the parti-colored face!
CHAPTER III. MORE MYSTERY.
“Maurice!” I cried, grasping my friend’s arm. “Maurice, did you