“I have a little learned to draw,” said Kim. “But this is a marvel beyond marvels.”
“I have written it for many years,” said the lama. “Time was when I could write it all between one lamp-lighting and the next. I will teach thee the art—after due preparation; and I will show thee the meaning of the Wheel.”
“We take the Road, then?”
“The Road and our Search. I was but waiting for thee. It was made plain to me in a hundred dreams—notably one that came upon the night of the day that the Gates of Learning first shut—that without thee I should never find my River. Again and again, as thou knowest, I put this from me, fearing an illusion. Therefore I would not take thee with me that day at Lucknow, when we ate the cakes. I would not take thee till the time was ripe and auspicious. From the Hills to the Sea, from the Sea to the Hills have I gone, but it was vain. Then I remembered the Jâtaka .”
He told Kim the story of the elephant with the leg-iron, as he had told it so often to the Jam priests.
“Further testimony is not needed,” he ended serenely. “Thou wast sent for an aid. That aid removed, my Search came to naught. Therefore we will go out again together, and our Search sure.”
“Whither go we?”
“What matters, Friend of all the World? The Search, I say, is sure. If need be, the River will break from the ground before us. I acquired merit when I sent thee to the Gates of Learning, and gave thee the jewel that is Wisdom. Thou didst return, I saw even now, a follower of Sakyamuni, the Physician, whose altars are many in Bhotiyal. It is sufficient. We are together, and all things are as they were—Friend of all the World—Friend of the Stars—my chela !”