CHAPTER IV.
OUR REVEREND GUEST.
I wish I possessed that great gift, “a facile pen.”
How I would like to describe that glorious sunrise in the elegant and finely rounded periods of Bulwer; to discourse upon the antiquity of that mighty and mysterious temple with the confident assurance of a Lenormant or a Lyell.
Or even were I gifted with the power of stringing flowery phrases, how poetic could I grow about the balmy air, the thrilling songsters whose notes now began to fill the forest, the nodding palms and delicious odors wafted past us on our lofty perch with each breeze that blew.
But pshaw! I am neither poet nor novelist; history I hate, and science I abhor. I am only a plain, every day American; a little brushed up by foreign travel, perhaps; but neither brighter nor better read than the average of my race.
Thus, as Maurice De Veber truly remarked, I am incapable of comprehending the mystical; my mind and thought methods are unadapted to the tenets of Buddhist theology.
Even now that my knowledge has advanced in this direction; even now that I know of that knowledge and must believe because I know, because I have seen and heard, I find myself still incapable of so expressing my thoughts to others as to carry conviction with my statements. But after all, that is a gift, and one which few men possess.
Here was I brought face to face with a man and a mystery. A man more mysterious even than the temple in which we had met. A man whose facial appearance violated all the laws of ethnology; a man seemingly possessed of powers which opposed physical law. Yet now that my friend had seen what I had seen, I found myself forced to admit the truth of that which for weeks past I had been trying to persuade myself was but the outgrowth of an over morbid mind.
“George! George! You saw him?” cried Maurice, staring down at the portico through which Mr. Mirrikh had disappeared.
“Decidedly I saw him. And you—now you are forced to admit that my experience at Panompin was no dream?”
“I admit nothing. All my life—that is ever since I was old enough to read and think—I have longed to be a witness to something of this sort. But, George, once seeing is not enough to convince me that the man exists who can set at naught the laws of nature. I must see and see, test and re-test again and again. I admit the possibility—no more.”
“But,” I began, “such business is done by others than Buddhists. Our modern Spiritualists for instance”
“Oh bother the modern Spiritualists!” he exclaimed impatiently. “There is something different here from your vulgar table tipping, spirit rappings and banjo playings. How did that man get down from this tower? George, I tell you my dear fellow—pshaw! we can talk no longer now!”
He was right. The moment had come when our attention was to be distracted.
Quick footsteps were heard upon the topmost stairs and the full, rich voice of the singer drew nearer. An instant later and we were no longer alone. The singing ceased, a man stepped out upon the platform and advanced to where we stood.
“Ah! So I am not the only one who has had the courage to brave these infernal stairs!” he exclaimed. “Good morning, gentlemen. English I perceive, or American. My name is Philpot—Miles Philpot. I am glad to meet you—glad to meet any one capable of speaking the only respectable language on God’s footstool—I am indeed.”
Let me describe him. It must be done, and the sooner we are through with introductions the sooner my strange story may be told.
A man of forty years, perhaps, of medium height, slightly inclined to corpulency, with brown hair, big, bulging blue eyes and smooth shaven, florid cheeks, stood before us with outstretched hand.
The face was an intelligent one, and yet there was about the mouth a certain sneering expresssion which repelled me. I thought then—and afterward I knew it to be true—that here was a man who had drunk of life’s pleasures to the dregs; a man who had seen everything and forgotten nothing; whose life had been a moral failure; one who had lacked sufficient tenacity of purpose to make life a pecuniary success.
And yet why I should thus have estimated him, I scarcely know.
Certainly his dress did not warrant the drawing of any such conclusion.
A suit of rusty black; a waistcoat with innumerable little buttons extending from a dirty collar turned “hindside foremost,” as Maurice put it, and a broad brimmed straw hat all went to indicate a Church of England clergyman. No; it was the face. That spoke louder than broadcloth and buttons. There was no spirituality there.
Maurice was the first to recover himself from the somewhat confused condition of mind into which this abrupt, though not unexpected interruption had thrown us, and taking the proffered hand, he returned the greeting with more warmth than I, under the circumstances, could have displayed.
“Glad to meet you, sir!” he said heartily. “I am Maurice De Veber; this is Mr. George Wylde, my friend. It is unnecessary to ask if you are our countryman, Mr. Philpot. Your manner speaks too plainly. You are an American, of course."
The new comer laughed lightly.
Ah, how many times was I destined to hear that light, sneering laugh in the weeks to come.
“On the contrary,” he replied, “I am an Englishman. There, don’t stare! Don’t expect me to be a boor in consequence. Don’t look round for my bath-tub, my valet, hat box and travelling rug. I said I was an Englishman—so I am by birth, and I am proud of it; but I am prouder still of being a citizen of the world, and of having spent the best part of my life in the United States. Gentlemen, to all intents and purposes I am an American. You have hit the nail squarely on the head.”
“Singular words for one of your cloth, sir,” I replied with a slight tinge of sarcasm.
“Cloth! Well you are right. I am a Reverend, boys, but the title is about all there is left of it. I have enjoyed many charges and lost them all, and that which I have now is not a charge! Ha! ha! It is only an existence. Being deprived of a charge does not deprive me of the right to live. Briefly, I am a reformed parson. I am sponging on the world.”
He removed his hat and wiped his perspiring brow, gazing off upon the vast sea of green below us with an expression of admiration which told me that his thoughts were not all as trivial as he seemed to wish us to believe.
“Glorious—ain’t it?” he exclaimed. “I had often read of it and I was bound to see it. Well, here I am at Angkor at last, and now the Lord knows where I shall drift to next.”
“What part of the States are you from?” I ventured.
“New York, last; lived ten years in Chicago; besides that have trotted about from Maine to Texas. As you Yankees say, I kinder guess I’ve seen about all your country has to show.”
“When did you reach Angkor?”
“Half an hour ago.”
“Surely you did not come up the river?”
“No, I came through from Siamrap with a little party of natives. Came to Siamrap from Bangkok, to Bangkok from Calcutta. I am travelling because I like to travel. If I see anything odd I jot it down. I’ve written one book and may write another. Can’t promise though, for I’m too lazy, and that’s the truth. Gentlemen, have either of you got anything to smoke? Unfortunately, I left my pipe with my traps below.”
I passed him my cheroot case and Maurice supplied the match. As soon as the light was taken he began rattling on in the same strain.
“Let me see, haven’t I heard of you before, Mr. De Veber? Strikes me I have. You are consul somewhere—let me see, Macao, ain’t it? No, Panompin?”
“Panompin is the spot,” said Maurice, quietly.
“Ah, yes! Knew I’d seen your name mentioned in some register or another. Dull hole that. I was there last year. Was introduced to that royal beggar, King Norodom. Spent a whole evening trying to drink him under the table. No go, though. I was only too glad to get out at last.”
“You have been in the East some time then?” I remarked
“Oh yes; a matter of a few years. They sent me out as a missionary, but bless you, I couldn’t stand it. I had a charge near Rangoon—bored the very life out of me. Luckily I fell heir to a few pounds just about that time, so I took to knocking round again. The fact is, gentlemen, I’ve knocked round so much in my time that I’m fit for nothing else.”
“Did you happen to knock against a man—a Hindoo—wearing a black cloth over the lower part of his face, on your way over from Siamrap?” demanded Maurice, turning suddenly upon him.
“No; I saw no such person. I was the only man in the party outside of the bearers and the guide.”
“And you arrived?”
“Half an hour ago, as I just told you.”
“How long were you at Siamrap?”
“Two days. But pardon me—what are you driving at?”
“One moment. Coming up here did you meet any one on the stairs going down?”
“No; the priests told me there were two English gentlemen at the ruins and your man informed me that you had gone up into the tower so I expected to meet you, but I met no one on the way up.”
“Might not some one have passed you while you stopped on the platform where we heard you singing? ”
“Scarcely. I was there only a moment. I should have heard him, and my very highly developed bump of curiosity would most certainly have prompted me to look round.”
Then, to my surprise, Maurice just blurted out the whole affair.
I was disgusted—half angry. I tried to stop him, but in vain.
“It’s no use, George,” he said. “I am determined to fathom this mystery. If your friend Mirrikh did not come to Angkor up the river then he must have come from Siamrap, for there is no other way of getting here unless through the forest. I want to know where he came from and by what means he left this tower. It is not fair to question Mr. Philpot so closely without letting him understand the whole matter.”
During Maurice’s animated and somewhat highly colored description of the scene in the alley and that upon the tower, the reverend gentleman maintained perfect silence.
He seemed impressed with my friend’s manner, half amused at his earnestness, but at each allusion to the remarkable disappearances of Mr. Mirrikh, that same sneering smile crept over his face. His glances at Maurice were half in pity it seemed to me.
“You may question me as much as you please, Mr. De Veber,” he said, after Maurice had at length ceased speaking. “You perceive that I am above the prejudices of my race, and am not afraid of the interrogation point. But, my dear fellow, I can’t help you. I can throw no light whatever upon this mystery, unless too great an indulgence in”
“Stop, sir!” I exclaimed. “I protest. I never indulge too deeply, nor does my friend, De Veber. Look at us both. Not ten minutes have elapsed since that man stood beside us on this tower. Do we show any signs of over indulgence now?”
“No, no; certainly not,” he replied hastily. “But tales of mysterious levitations—I think that was the word you used, Mr. De Veber—remind one of sea-serpent stories and naturally suggest—but enough of this! Seriously, gentlemen, I can assure you that such a person as you describe could scarcely have passed me unnoticed. I saw nothing of him and am glad I did not. Hope I never may.”
“Why so?” asked Maurice.
“Because I am wholly skeptical on these points and have seen enough to make me so.”
“For instance?”
“Oh come, I don’t care to enter into a discussion on Spiritualism—that’s what you are driving at. Give me a light.”
“He has seen nothing,” I thought, as I passed him the match safe, “but he has read much and is afraid to expose his hand until he knows the cards against which he has to play.”
“And I,” said Maurice slowly, “am willing to enter into any investigation which will shed light upon the mighty problem of the hereafter. We are here in this world to-day, we are gone to-morrow. Where? That’s what I want to know.”
“And are you likely to find out?” demanded Mr. Philpot, turning upon Maurice with more earnestness than he had yet displayed. “For centuries the world has been combating with that problem, and how far have they advanced? Not one inch. Thousands of years ago, sorcerers and magicians gave us the same mysterious manifestations that your modern mediums do to-day. Anciently men respected these persons; later on they burned them; now they laugh at their often exposed humbugs. Bah! I have preached heaven and held up hell as a bugaboo, for money, and priests, by the hundreds of thousands, have done and ever will do the same; but what proof is there? Frankly, gentlemen, I, who have the right to know, say to you there is none. We know that we die, and that is all we do know, and a hundred centuries of preaching to the contrary has been unable to show us any more.”
“I cannot agree with you,” replied Maurice, coldly. “Thousands of witnesses have testified to the truth of spiritual manifestations, and yet you throw their testimony aside with one wave of the hand.”
“And you are a Spiritualist then?”
“On the contrary, I am nothing of the sort. I defined my position just now. I am an investigator—nothing more. I do not claim that the testimony of these witnesses is true.”
“And you, to talk as you do, must be a pretty thorough skeptic,” I interposed. “Until now, I could have freely endorsed every word you say.”
“You’ve hit it,” answered Mr. Philpot lightly. “To one likely to betray me I would never admit it, for I may find it convenient to assume a charge again at any time; but, to you, I say freely, I believe nothing, and investigation only goes to strengthen my unbelief. What is religion but a tissue of falsities, a hollow sham, a cloak for a selfish priesthood to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the multitude—it is nothing less, nothing more. Pope, cardinal, bishop and priest, it is all one in my experience. Bah! I was ‘Low-Church,’ and was kicked out, because I wouldn’t burn candles on my altar, swing censers and listen to the confessions of morbid women. Then I tried ‘High-Church,’ burned candles by the box and incense by the pound. But no! ’Twould’nt suit. They kicked because I wasn’t ‘Low-Church,’ growled because I smoked, accused me of being a drunkard because I liked my glass of wine as well as the best of them—but pardon me, gentlemen, I find I am drifting toward the autobiographical. The sun is growing hot here. Let us go down.”
“One moment,” interposed Maurice, “and I am not only ready to join you, Mr. Philpot, but extend a cordial invitation for you to join us at breakfast. This man—this Mirrikh—you have heard our story—tell me what you think?”
“That he is an unmitigated fraud,” replied Philpot promptly. “A Hindoo adept, doubtless, full of mysticism and bosh, but still possessed of the knowledge of certain perfectly natural laws which, to us, are mysteries, enabling him to perform certain tricks and produce certain appearances which, in our eyes, seem supernatural—that is all.”
“And his face?”
“Either painted or marked by disease.”
“And you account for his disappearance—how?”
“Of course,” he replied, “any theory which I may advance in that regard can be only a theory. I am no Buddhist, thank God, but during my residence in India I have seen many strange things for which I was wholly unable to account. Let us suppose, for instance, the existence of some subtile and hitherto unknown gas—unknown, at least, so far as our western scientists are concerned. Might it not be possible to project that toward the nostrils secretly, and so deaden the senses that the operator who desires to levitate himself—I have adopted your word, you see, Mr. De Yeber—will have time to pass out of sight?”
“Scarcely satisfactory,” I answered promptly. “I’ll swear that nothing of the kind was tried in this case.”
“Don’t be too sure.”
“Have you ever witnessed anything of the sort in India?”
“The transportation of inanimate matter without visible aid—no.”
“Then it is useless for you to theorize.”
“Perhaps so. Still, I repeat, such things have unquestionably been done.”
“Then why not in this case?”
“It is possible, but I must doubt it.”
“No more than I do,” I answered, “and yet what I saw, I saw.”
“It is useless to continue this discussion,” interposed Maurice. “Not only in India, but in every country on the face of the globe have such apparent impossibilities occured. And yet, I repeat, even I do not believe.”
“Then this man whom we both saw go up the stairs must actually have gone down?” I demanded testily. “I am no more a religionist than yourselves, gentlemen. Of modern Spiritulism I know next to nothing, of the claims of Buddhist adepts still less; and yet—Great God! Maurice, there he is again!”
In the middle of my protest I broke off suddenly. I recall perfectly the very words I used.
For my eyes finding no pleasant resting place on the face of our “reformed parson,” had wandered to the courtyard below, and there I saw Mr. Mirrikh walking along the grass-grown pavement with bowed head and arms folded across his breast.
“Certainly he is a most singular looking person,” said Philpot. “So that is the man?”
“That is the man,” I replied.
“I wish I might look beneath that covering,” he mused. “Surely the upper part of the face and the hands are white.”
“Rather yellow,” said I. “If you could see him closely, you—protecting powers! Where is he now?”
We stood there gazing at each other in breathless amazement.
But one second before, and the man had been slowly walking across the interior court of the Nagkon Wat.
Speaking for myself—and my companions testified to the same—not for one instant had my eyes been removed from him, and yet now he was no longer there.
“You see,” said Maurice, cooly lighting a fresh cheroot.
There was not the slightest projection of any sort above the pavement of the court. For the man to have hidden himself from our view was quite impossible. Even Philpot was obliged to admit that.
“Come, let us go down at once and investigate this business,” he exclaimed. “I have seen strange things in my time, but this—”
“Stop!” I said. “Going down will not bring us to that man. Gentlemen, look there!”
There are three towers rising above the roof of the Nagkon Wat. I reiterate this in order that the situation may be more fully understood. We, let it be remembered, were standing on the middle one, and I now raised my hand and pointed in triumph toward the summit of the lower tower, on our right.
He was there!
Standing upon the topmost platform, leaning against the balustrade we all saw him. His eyes were directed toward the rising sun.
“Amazing!” cried Philpot.
But Maurice was to be satisfied by no simple expression of astonishment.
“Hello! Hello, there!” he shouted.
Then I saw him look toward us, but at so great a distance the expression of the visible portion of his face could not be discerned.
As if in answer to Maurice’s shout he waved his hand, turned, entered the low doorway behind him and disappeared.