“How can that be—­I ask for instruction, learned One—­seeing that memory perishes with death?”

“Ah!” he answered, “Brother Holly, it may seem to do so, but oftentimes it comes back again, especially to those who are far advanced upon the Path.  For instance, until you read this passage I had forgotten all about that army, but now I see it passing, passing, and myself with other monks standing by the statue of the big Buddha in front yonder, and watching it go by.  It was not a very large army, for most of the soldiers had died, or been killed, and it was being pursued by the wild people who lived south of us in those days, so that it was in a great hurry to put the desert between it and them.  The general of the army was a swarthy man—­I wish that I could remember his name, but I cannot.

“Well,” he went on, “that general came up to the Lamasery and demanded a sleeping place for his wife and children, also provisions and medicines, and guides across the desert.  The abbot of that day told him it was against our law to admit a woman under our roof, to which he answered that if we did not, we should have no roof left, for he would burn the place and kill every one of us with the sword.  Now, as you know, to be killed by violence means that we must pass sundry incarnations in the forms of animals, a horrible thing, so we chose the lesser evil and gave way, and afterwards obtained absolution for our sins from the Great Lama.  Myself I did not see this queen, but I saw the priestess of their worship—­alas! alas!” and Kou-en beat his breast.

“Why alas?” I asked, as unconcernedly as I could, for this story interested me strangely.

“Why?  Oh! because I may have forgotten the army, but I have never forgotten that priestess, and she has been a great hindrance to me through many ages, delaying me upon my journey to the Other Side, to the Shore of Salvation.  I, as a humble Lama, was engaged in preparing her apartment when she entered and threw aside her veil; yes, and perceiving a young man, spoke to me, asking many questions, and even if I was not glad to look again upon a woman.”

“What—­what was she like?” said Leo, anxiously.

“What was she like?  Oh!  She was all loveliness in one shape; she was like the dawn upon the snows; she was like the evening star above the mountains; she was like the first flower of the spring.  Brother, ask me not what she was like, nay, I will say no more.  Oh! my sin, my sin.  I am slipping backward and you draw my black shame out into the light of day.  Nay, I will confess it that you may know how vile a thing I am—­I whom perhaps you have thought holy—­like yourselves.  That woman, if woman she were, lit a fire in my heart which will not burn out, oh! and more, more,” and Kou-en rocked himself to and fro upon his stool while tears of contrition trickled from beneath his horn spectacles, “she made me worship her! For first she asked me of my faith and listened eagerly as I expounded it, hoping that the light would come into her heart; then, after I had finished she said—­“’So your Path is Renunciation and your Nirvana a most excellent Nothingness which some would think it scarce worth while to strive so hard to reach.  Now I will show you a more joyous way and a goddess more worthy of your worship.’