The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1922-11-30

theory that was involved in his formulas.
! Giovanni was digging up buried temple
on the northern border of the Punjab.
! One night, in the explorers tent, near
the excavations, this inscrutable creature
walked in on Rodman. No one knew
! how he got into the tent or where he
came from.
Giovanni told about it. The tent-iIal
simply opened. and the big Oriental ap-
| peared. He had something under his 7rm
rolled Up in a prs yer carpet. He gave
no attention to Giovanni, but he sa-
| laamed like a coolie to the little Ameri-
| can.
Master" he said, you were ard to
find. 1 have looked over the world fer
! you
And he squatted down on the dirty
floor by Rodman's camp stool.
| The two men spent the remainder Of
the night looking at the present that the
creature brought Rodman in his prayer
carpet. They wanted to know Uhare the
Oriental got it, and that's how the story
came out.
He was something, searcher seems our
nearest English word to tin the great
Shan Monastery on the southeastern
plateau of the Cobb He was looking for
Rodman because he had the light-here
was another word that the two men
could find no term in any modern Ian
guage to translate; a little flame was
the literal meaning.
The present was from the treasUre-
| room of the monastery; the very carpet
around it, Giovanni said, was worth
twenty thousand lire. There was ano'h-
er thing that came out in the talk that
Giovanni afterward recalled. RCdman
was to accept the present and the man
who brought it to him. The Oriental
would protect him. in every way, in every
direction, from things visible aHd in
visible. He made quite a speech aDout
it. But, there was one thing from
from which he could not protect linn.
The Oriental used a lot of his ancient
words to explain, and ne did not get it
very clear. He seemed tc mean that the
creative forces of the spirit would not
tolerate a division of worship with the
creative forces of the body-~the celioate
notion in the monastic idea.
Giovanni thought Rodman did not I'M
derstand it; he though he himself IN
derstood it better. The monk was pledg-
ing Rodman to a nigh virtue, in the
lapse of \. Mich something Swful was sure
to happen.
Giovanni wrote q letter to tho state
Department when he learned what had
happened to Rodman. The State De-
partment turned it over to the court at
the trial 1 think it was one of the
things that influenced the judge in his
decision. Still, at the time, there seemed
no other reasonable decision 70 make.
The testimony must have appeared In
credible; it must have appeared fahtas-
tic. No man reading the ecord could
have come to any other conclusion about
it, Yet it seemed impossible-at least, 1t
seemed impossible for me-to consider
this great vital bulk of man as monk
of one Of the oldest religious orders IN
the world.
Every common, academic conception OF
such a monk he distinctly negLtived. Re
impressed me. instead, as possessing the
ultimate ouali.es of clever 1ipiomacy-i
the subtle ambassador of some new
oriental power, shrewd, suave' accom-
plished.
When one read the yellow-bocked
court-record. the sense Of old, obscure
mysterious agencies moving in sinister
menace, lnvisibly, around Rodman could
not be escaped from. You believed it.