to the
PERILS as thou goest EAST where arms are open to receive thee,--but
see thou, sahib, THAT THOU DOST WALK DILIGENTLY IN THE DIRECTION OF
THOSE ARMS!...

"... The Lama backed away.... Never did he cease whirling the prayer
wheel as he spoke ... this constitutes the perpetual prayer of Lamas,
the theory being that the wheel communicates the petition to the air
and, thus, mingled with the elements, it ascends naturally to the
heaven of the blessed.... We were then conducted through a long row of
very low rooms ornamented with a variety of Buddhist statues that have
never been dusted nor apparently disturbed, to an open terrace which
overlooked a dreary waste of gray rocks and broken ledges and offered
to our view the slender roadway that lay like a ribbon across the
plain until it faded into the golden glow of the Eastern horizon....
When I looked at that _single_ road, and recalled the WARNING of the
Lama so solemnly given to my 'prisoner' about the care to be given to
his daughters, I REALIZED FULLY THE MEANING OF THE PRYING EYES that
followed us everywhere after my encounter with the milk-fed MUSSULMAN
disguised as a Hindu mendicant!..."

XIII

AN ENEMY IN PURSUIT

47. Local color is given in this note:

"We have had an exciting day.... The strategy one must sometimes
employ in traveling through a hostile country is based upon the
principle of deception.... It was the work of Maria too, who had
evidently been reading up on certain occult works of the Eastern
magicians and brought them into play at a moment when we were
surrounded by a band of marauders in the company of my 'Hindu'
friend.... To explain: There is a certain kind of little animal held
sacred among these strolling outlaws.... The possession of one of
these animals is supposed to be a guarantee of future happiness as
well as a protection against all danger.... They are very hard to
entrap and the Ladakian Islamites will spend a month endeavoring to
ensnare one.... We were quite a distance from the convent at Saspoula,
where the road runs around among the rocks and turns back upon itself
like a horseshoe in the wooded hills.... At one of these bends the
pursuers had encamped ready to dash down upon us as we turned the bend
and make away with the girls in the direction of their camp in the
secluded mountain passes.... Maria had secured a number of those
little animals, and, twisting a fine hairpin around one of their hind
legs, she let o