Remember the passing of the Hesea from the Mountain point.
Stranger from the West, surely as to-morrow's sun must rise, as she
went, so she will return again, and in my borrowed garment I await her
advent."
"I also await her advent," I answered, and thus we parted.
Accompanied by twenty picked men bearing provisions and arms, I climbed
the ladders easily enough, and now that I had food and shelter, crossed
the mountains without mishap. They even escorted me through the desert
beyond, till one night we camped within sight of the gigantic Buddha
that sits before the monastery, gazing eternally across the sands and
snows.
When I awoke next morning the priests were gone. So I took up my pack
and pursued my journey alone, and walking slowly came at sunset to the
distant lamasery. At its door an ancient figure, wrapped in a tattered
cloak, was sitting, engaged apparently in contemplation of the skies. It
was our old friend Kou-en. Adjusting his horn spectacles on his nose he
looked at me.
"I was awaiting you, brother of the Monastery called 'the World,'" he
said in a voice, measured, very ineffectually, to conceal his evident
delight. "Have you grown hungry there that you return to this poor
place?"
"Aye, most excellent Kou-en," I answered, "hungry for rest."
"It shall be yours for all the days of this incarnation. But say, where
is the other brother?"
"Dead," I answered.
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