Part 2

But there was a glory in his heart because of a new and sharpened sensitivity. He was alone and friendless and almost without funds, yet he had never before felt so able, so competent.

While stalking the streets of Delhi looking for a cheap hotel, he heard a cheerful voice calling his name. He turned. The voice came from a car at the curb. A brand new Ford convertible. Lee spoke casually. "How are you, Mr. Clifford?"

The meeting was as strange and illogical as all the other events and incidents of Lee's life had been since he had lain in a New York City gutter.

Mr. Clifford smiled warmly. "Mr. Hayden--I'm glad to see you."

"A real surprise," Lee said.

"How have you been?"

"Fine--just fine."

"Taking a little trip, I see."

"Yes. Getting around a little. Seeing the world."

A mad conversation in the light of the questions he had for Mr. Clifford; and the things Mr. Clifford could logically have had to tell him.

But a new and exhilarating independence had sprung up in Lee Hayden. He realized he was not the same man Clifford had rescued and drugged in New York.

"You really get around," Lee said.

"Oh, yes. I have a lot to do."

Lee turned away.

"See you again sometime."

"I hope so--and by the way, there's a man you might like to talk to. I think you'd feel free to ask him questions. Perhaps he'd feel free to answer."

"Good--where can I find him?"

Mr. Clifford considered for a moment, then said, "I'm going in that direction. Jump in."

Lee obeyed, throwing his rucksack in the back seat--the rucksack he'd acquired, along with cash, for his expensive pigskin two-suiter.

Mr. Clifford tooled the Ford carefully through the streets and out onto the dusty, country road leading northeast. No word was spoken for many miles; until Lee extended a hand toward the horizon. "Beautiful mountains."

"The Himalayas. The roof of the world."

"No mountains on earth quite like them."

"Rugged, aren't they?--and beautiful."

"By the way, how is Daphne?"

"In excellent health, I'm sure. I haven't seen her for a long time."

Mr. Clifford turned off the road and pulled up beside a parked Cadillac sedan. Nearby was a small hut and a tiny enclosure. Within the enclosure, a goat munched on dry, colorless hay.

In front of the hut a man sat cross-legged. He was very old and thin. His skin was burned black by the sun and he wore only a white sheet wound loosely around his body. His head was completely hairless and he looked as though he had sat there for years without moving a muscle.

A woman sat on the ground in front of him. The sun was just setting and its rays played on her magnificent white hair; upon the wealth of color in her dress--a dress, Lee estimated, that must have cost several hundred dollars. Yet she sat in the dust before this ancient Indian and hung upon his every word.

"We will wait," Mr. Clifford said.

After a while, the woman got to her feet and approached the Cadillac. Lee saw her beautiful, calm, unlined face, and he was struck by her resemblance to Daphne. She looked nothing like Daphne in either face nor figure, yet they had in common an arresting mystic beauty that seemed to come from within.

The woman smiled at Mr. Clifford who smiled back. No word was said. After she backed the car out and swung into the road, Mr. Clifford said, "Wait, please," and got out of the car. He approached the cross-legged man and sat down in the dust.

They talked for a long time and when Mr. Clifford got up and returned to the car, it was after dusk, and the heavens over India were filled with great flaming stars.

"I'll leave you now," Mr. Clifford said. "The man by the hut is known only as Abat Krishna. You may approach and talk to him."

"Thank you."

Clifford hesitated before getting in behind the wheel. His eyes turned toward the dark horizon.

"There is danger ahead for you."

"I am not afraid."

"Perhaps you will find what you want. Perhaps you will die."

"I will find my way. You said I might question this man?"

"You may ask him anything you like. Goodbye."

Mr. Clifford started the motor and drove away. The goat sent a bleat of farewell through the star-lit darkness.

* * * * *

Lee went to the hut and sat down in front of Abat Krishna. The Indian regarded the heavens and remained silent.

"Who," Lee asked, "are the Great Ones?"

"There are many names for the group. They have been called the Great White Brotherhood. They have been referred to as the Chosen Ones. But that name is misleading in that none are really chosen. The way is open to all. Nothing is given, all is earned."

"Is Mr. Clifford a Great One?"

"Possibly. I do not know."

"Was it sheer chance that he found me in the gutter and lifted me up?"

"Nothing is sheer chance, my son. The most casual movement of an insect's antenna is carefully planned."

"What do the Great Ones do?"

"Their duty--which is as simple and ordinary to them as ours is to us."

"How may they be recognized?"

"That would be difficult."

"Where may one find a Great One?"

"Anywhere. Wherever their duties and their destinies call them."

"_What_, exactly, is a Great One?"

"A child of God who, through his own efforts, has prepared himself--or herself--for greater understanding of God's laws; for deeper awareness. With this of course, comes greater responsibilities, and greater achievements."

"I have heard that there are men in India--"

"Why necessarily India?"

"--that there are men on this earth who can walk on water; who can pass through solid substances. Is there any truth in that?"

"I do not know. I have never met such a person."

"Do you believe that such persons exist?"

"The answer to that is difficult. Do you have complete understanding of all natural laws? All God's laws?"

"No. I have very little knowledge of them."

"Then I might put it this way: A man walking through solid matter would seem to you to be violating a natural law. But a trick of elementary sleight-of-hand--the vanishing of a coin--could appear the same to a child. So perhaps the answer lies in comparatively greater understanding."

Lee regarded Abat Krishna. Abat Krishna calmly regarded the heavens. Lee said, "But the _greatest_ Great One of all is the man with the golden eyes. Am I correct?"

"You are correct."

"I seek him."

"A worthy endeavor. I have sought him for many years."

"But I know where he is."

"You are indeed fortunate."

"I saw him in what many might consider a dream. But I know it was not a dream!"

"I'm sure it was not."

"I saw him in a cave high in one of the Himalaya Mountains."

"There are many mountains in the chain."

"I shall find the right one."

"I'm sure you shall."

Lee leaned forward. "You said you seek him too. Then come with me."

"I cannot. Each man follows his own destiny."

"And yours--?"

"To sit and study the heavens until I find myself worthy of lowering my eyes."

"A strange destiny."

"All destinies are strange."

"I am selfish enough to ask your help."

"I have none to give."

"No advice?"

"One inconsequential bit perhaps. To the east is a settlement called Almora. Trading caravans leave from there for the higher country--and across."

"Thank you."

"The goat is ready to be milked. Refresh yourself before you go...."

* * * * *

Now Almora was far behind. And far behind was the trading caravan and the men who took his money and left him to die many days later in the cold foothills. But he had not died.

And far behind were the more kindly natives of the colder, windier places who clothed and fed him, treating him as a mad child rather than a man. He left them and they shrugged and let him go. As though perhaps they had seen other mad ones go before him.

And he had gone on--higher and higher--driven by an ever-increasing fever in an ever thinner and more emaciated body. Until, it seemed, he could go no further. He lay for days in a small cave with the icy winds snarling at the entrance while he wrestled with two fevers--one in his spirit and one flaming through his flesh and his bones.

He called in his agony to the man with the golden eyes, but there was no response. An age passed; an age of semiconsciousness; another; then he slept.

When he awoke the physical fever was gone and the spiritual fever had changed to something else; something he had never before known. He lay for a long time, studying it, analyzing it.

_Then he knew._

He knew and he smiled and got up and walked out of the cave, a pale wraith of a wasted man; little more than an apparition that appeared hardly able to stand. Yet he felt stronger and happier than ever before in his life. His happiness came from the knowledge that his new strength and understanding had not been given him; that he had earned it; that he had paid bit by bit with his suffering.

He told himself, _I was not helped. Only guided. I could have died. No one protected me._

_And now I understand._

He left the cave and climbed, sure-footed, to a higher plateau. Here there was no snow. Only wind-swept rock and meager soil. He walked until he came to his destination.

It was another hut; this one of sod and rock to stand against the wind and the cold. A man sat in the doorway, swathed in furs. His skin was dark from the weather, but it was impossible to call him either old or young.

Lee did not even dwell on these points. He only knew--from his new perception, from the new mysticism he had earned with his suffering--that the hut and the man would be there; that no chance had brought him; that all had been arranged as surely as sunrise.

He stood before the man and raised his eyes. "The mountains are high."

"The mountains are always high. No man ever reaches the summit of his mountain."

"I know that now."

"Nor even a cave halfway up the mountain's side."

"That I know too. I also know--"

"That the man with the golden eyes--?"

"Is myself. He was there within me back in my room half a world away, not in a cave in the Himalayas."

"The man with the golden eyes, my son, is every man--the symbol of perfection every man carries in his heart. It is the seeking after this perfection that is life: The man with the golden eyes is the image of what every man has the power to be."

"I know these things now, but tell me. Why was it given to me to see the image so clearly?"

"Each man who reaches the depths is given a choice. On one hand is death; on the other, the long climb back."

"But there was more in my case. I was given help. I was guided."

"Your footsteps may have been directed but you had to make the climb yourself. You could always have given up and died along the way."

"But why was I guided?"

"There is a reason for everything, and there are Great Ones aware of great necessities. You tried to invade outer space and failed. Perhaps the time now demands that space be conquered, and thus your talents are precious to the cosmic scheme."

"There is so much I must learn. So far I must go in so little time. To conquer space, a man must first conquer himself."

The furred figure smiled. "Good. Now you are ready to learn. Sit down my son. The teaching must begin."