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Then a soldier, leaning down, applied fire to the fusee. Eventually there was a loud report, which gave my head a severe shock. The overloaded matchlock flew clean out of the Pombo's hand, much to everybody's surprise. I forced myself to laugh. The tantalizing failure of every attempt they made to hurt me drove the crowd to the highest pitch of fury. "Ta kossaton, ta kossaton!"
The Lamas around him were evidently concerned at seeing their lord and master transformed from a foaming fury into the quietest of lambs. They seized me and brought me out of his sight to the spot where Chanden Sing was being chastised. Here again I could not be compelled to kneel, so at last I was allowed to squat down before the Pombo's officers.
The arch-idolater who made idols of his own rebuked Pombo in the name of Man for having broken his idols "for hath not Man made them?" the arch-idolater said; and concerning the idols themselves he spoke long and learnedly, explaining divine etiquette, and how Pombo had offended, and how no idol in the world would listen to Pombo's prayer.
Apart from the question whether there was much charm or not in my life in Tibet, there is no doubt that this trifling superstition did much toward hastening the Pombo's decision as to what was to be our fate. The Pombo ordered that my life should be spared, and that I should on that very day start on my return journey toward the Indian frontier.
And whether the view of him, at last, excited Pombo's eagerness, or whether his need was greater than he could bear that it drove him so swiftly downstairs, or whether as is most likely, he ran too fast past the beast, I do not know, and it does not matter to Pombo; but at any rate he could not stop, as he had designed, in attitude of prayer at the feet of Duth, but ran on past him down the narrowing steps, clutching at smooth, bare rocks till he fell from the World as, when our hearts miss a beat, we fall in dreams and wake up with a dreadful jolt; but there was no waking up for Pombo, who still fell on towards the incurious stars, and his fate is even one with the fate of Slith.
Thus, after an interminable ride full of incident and excitement, near sunset we arrived at our destination. On the crown of a hill stood a fortress and large Lamasery. At its foot, in front of a large structure, the Pombo's gaudy tent had been pitched. The name of this place, as far as I could afterward ascertain, was Namj Laccé Galshio or Gyatsho.
I took this chance to make an offering of five hundred rupees to the Lamasery. I also told the Pombo that I should like him to accept as a gift my Martini-Henry rifle, which I noticed rather took his fancy. Both gifts were refused. They said the Lamasery was very rich, and the Pombo's position as an official did not allow him to carry a rifle.
When I was thus firmly bound, the man Nerba, whom I have mentioned before as having fired a shot at me, came forward, and then, going behind me, seized me by the hair of my head. My hair was long, as it had not been cut for more than five months. The sight before me was impressive. By the Pombo's tent stood in a row the most villanous brutes I have ever set eyes upon.
While he was in this position, the bystanders went one by one to touch his feet and make low prostrations and salutations. At last the hypnotizer, seizing the Pombo's head between his hands, stared in his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and woke him from the trance. The Pombo was pale and exhausted. When he lay back on the chair his hat fell off.
And when Pombo's simple, necessary prayer was equally refused by the idols of museums, auction-rooms, shops, then he took counsel with himself and purchased incense and burned it in a brazier before his own cheap little idols, and played the while upon an instrument such as that wherewith men charm snakes. And still the idols clung to their etiquette.
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