By the same author
THE BOWMEN
THE HILL OF DREAMS
THE HOUSE OF SOULS
[including "The Great God Pan" and "The Three Impostors"]
HIEROGLYPHICS
THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
DR. STIGGINS
I. THE RUMOUR OF THE MARVELLOUS
II. ODOURS OF PARADISE
III. A SECRET IN A SECRET PLACE
IV. THE RINGING OF THE BELL
V. THE ROSE OF FIRE
VI. OLWEN'S DREAM
VII. THE MASS OF THE SANGRAAL
There are strange things lost and forgotten in obscure corners of thenewspaper. I often think that the most extraordinary item ofintelligence that I have read in print appeared a few years ago in theLondon Press. It came from a well known and most respected news agency;I imagine it was in all the papers. It was astounding.
The circumstances necessary—not to the understanding of this paragraph,for that is out of the question—but, we will say, to the understandingof the events which made it possible, are these. We had invaded Thibet,and there had been trouble in the hierarchy of that country, and apersonage known as the Tashai Lama had taken refuge with us in India. Hewent on pilgrimage from one Buddhist shrine to another, and came at lastto a holy mountain of Buddhism, the name of which I have forgotten. Andthus the morning paper.
His Holiness the Tashai Lama then ascended the Mountain and wastransfigured.—Reuter.
That was all. And from that day to this I have never heard a word ofexplanation or comment on this amazing statement.
There was no more, it seemed, to be said. "Reuter," apparently, thoughthe had made his simple statement of the facts of the case, had therebydone his duty, and so it all ended. Nobody, so far as I know, ever wroteto any paper asking what Reuter meant by it, or what the Tashai Lamameant by it. I suppose the fact was that nobody cared two-pence aboutthe matter; and so this strange event—if there were any such event—wasexhibited to us for a moment, and the lantern show revolved to otherspectacles.
This is an extreme instance of the manner in which the marvellous isflashed out to us and then withdrawn behind its black veils andconcealments; but I have known of other cases. Now and again, atintervals of a few years, there appear in the newspapers strangestories of the strange doings of what are technically calledpoltergeists. Some house, often a lonely farm, is suddenly subjectedto