“I have journeyed so far, dear friends. I was so near my goal. Oh, have pity upon me, don’t delay to carry me thither. Don’t think of the pain to me, have no fear that I shall sink under it—I shall not die till ye have laid me down at the feet of the Perfect One; then I shall die happy, and happy rise again.”
Some of them ran to fetch poles and a mattress. A woman brought a strengthening draught of which Kamanita took a few spoonfuls. The men were divided as to which way was the shortest to the Hall of the Brotherhood in the Mango Grove, for every step would make a difference. It was clear to all that the pilgrim’s life was ebbing fast.
“There come disciples of the Perfect One,” cried a bystander, pointing along the little lane; “they will be best able to tell us.”
And, as a fact, several monks of the Order of the Buddha were approaching, clad in yellow cloaks which left the right arm and hand—the hand with the alms bowl in it—free. Most of them were young men, but at their head walked two venerable figures—a grey-haired man whose earnest, if somewhat severe, face, with its piercing eye and powerful chin, involuntarily attracted attention to itself, and a middle-aged man whose features were illumined by such a heart-winning gentleness that he had almost the appearance of a youth. Yet an experienced observer might, in his bearing and somewhat animated movements, as also in his flashing glances, have detected the inalienable characteristics of the warrior caste, while the deliberate calm of the older man no less revealed the born Brahman. In loftiness of stature and princely carriage they were, however, alike.
When these monks halted by the group which had collected round the wounded man, many voluble tongues at once related to them what had happened, and informed them that they were just about to carry the wounded pilgrim on a stretcher—which was then being fetched—to the Mango Grove, to the Buddha, in order to fulfil the man’s overwhelming desire; could one of the younger monks perhaps return with them to show them the shortest way to the spot where the Master was at that moment to be found?
“The Master,” answered the old man with the severe face, “is not in the Mango Grove, and we ourselves don’t know where he is.”
At the answer a despairing groan burst from Kamanita’s wounded breast.
“But he certainly cannot be far from here,” added the younger. “The Master sent the company of monks on ahead yesterday and pursued his journey alone. He arrived late, I expect, and sought quarters somewhere, probably in the suburbs. We are now on the way to look for him.”
“Oh, seek diligently, find him,” cried Kamanita.
“Even if we knew where the Master is, it would not be possible to carry this wounded man thither,” said the stern monk. “For the shaking of the stretcher would soon render his condition so much worse that, even if he survived it, he would arrive in a dying condition, with a mind incapable of apprehending the words of the Master. Let him, however, take care of himself now, be treated by an experienced surgeon, and carefully tended, and there is always the Hope that he may so far recover strength as to be able to listen to the Master’s words.”
Kamanita, however, pointed impatiently to the stretcher—
“No time—dying—take me with you—see him—touch—die happy—with you—hurry—!”
Shrugging his shoulders the monk turned to the younger brethren—
“This poor man holds the Supremely Perfect One to be an image, at whose touch one’s sins are forgiven.”
“He has gained faith in the Perfect One, Sariputta, even if he lacks the deeper understanding,” said the other, and bent over the wounded man to ascertain what strength he still had; “perhaps we might risk it after all. I am sorry for the poor fellow, and I believe we could do nothing better for him than make the attempt.”
A grateful look from the pilgrim rewarded him for his advocacy.
“As thou wilt, Ananda,” answered Sariputta kindly.
At this moment there came striding past, from the direction in which Kamanita had also come, a potter who carried on his head a basket with all kinds of potter’s wares. When he perceived the pilgrim Kamanita, whom they had just laid with great care, though not without causing him violent pain, upon the stretcher, he stopped, stricken with horror, and so suddenly that the dishes, piled one above another, came crashing down and were broken to pieces.
“God in heaven! what has happened here? That is the pious pilgrim who honoured my hall by spending the night there, in the company of a monk who wore a robe like that of these reverend men.”
“Was that monk an aged man and of lofty stature?” asked Sariputta.
“He was, reverend sir—and he seemed to me to be not unlike thyself.”
Then the monks knew that they did not need to seek longer—that the Master was in the house of the potter. For “the disciple who resembles the Master,” was the description by which Sariputta was generally known.
“Is it possible?” said Ananda, glancing up from the wounded man, who, owing to the pain occasioned by his being lifted, had become all but unconscious, and had not noticed the arrival of the potter. “Is it possible that this poor man should have had the happiness for which he so longs, the whole night through, without in the least suspecting it?”
“That is the way of fools,” said Sariputta. “But let us go. Now he can, of course, be brought along.”
“One moment,” called Ananda, “he has been overcome by the pain.”
Indeed Kamanita’s blank stare showed that he scarcely noticed what was passing around him. It began to grow dark before his eyes, but the long strip of morning sky, which showed between the high walls, nevertheless pierced to his consciousness, and may well have appeared to him like the Milky
