he Curator.

'Nay, if it please thee to forget--the one thing only that thou hast
not told me. Surely thou must know? See, I am an old man! I ask with
my head between thy feet, O Fountain of Wisdom. We know He drew the
bow! We know the arrow fell! We know the stream gushed! Where, then,
is the River? My dream told me to find it. So I came. I am here. But
where is the River?'

'If I knew, think you I would not cry it aloud?'

'By it one attains freedom from the Wheel of Things,' the lama went on,
unheeding. 'The River of the Arrow! Think again! Some little stream,
maybe--dried in the heats? But the Holy One would never so cheat an
old man.'

'I do not know. I do not know.'

The lama brought his thousand-wrinkled face once more a handsbreadth
from the Englishman's. 'I see thou dost not know. Not being of the
Law, the matter is hid from thee.'

'Ay--hidden--hidden.'

'We are both bound, thou and I, my brother. But I'--he rose with a
sweep of the soft thick drapery--'I go to cut myself free. Come also!'

'I am bound,' said the Curator. 'But whither goest thou?'

'First to Kashi [Benares]: where else? There I shall meet one of the
pure faith in a Jain temple of that city. He also is a Seeker in
secret, and from him haply I may learn. Maybe he will go with me to
Buddh Gaya. Thence north and west to Kapilavastu, and there will I
seek for the River. Nay, I will seek everywhere as I go--for the place
is not known where the arrow fell.'

'And how wilt thou go? It is a far cry to Delhi, and farther to
Benares.'

'By road and the trains. From Pathankot, having left the Hills, I came
hither in a te-rain. It goes swiftly. At first I was amazed to see
those tall poles by the side of the road snatching up and snatching up
their threads,'--he illustrated the stoop and whirl of a telegraph-pole
flashing past the train. 'But later, I was cramped and desired to
walk, as I am used.'

'And thou art sure of thy road?' said the Curator.

'Oh, for that one but asks a question and pays money, and the appointed
persons despatch all to the appointed place. That much I knew in my
lamassery from sure report,' said the lama proudly.

'And when dost thou go?' The Curator smiled at the mixture of
old-world piety and modern progress that is the note of India today.

'As soon as may be. I follow the places of His life till I come to the
River of the Arrow. There is, moreover, a written paper of the hou