“We are on the right path, Kotikokura, for falsehood shines like a sun, but truth is a modest jewel.”
“Where is the empire of Prester John?” I asked a very stout Buddhist monk.
He smiled leisurely. “The empire?”
“Yes.”
“You are speaking metaphorically, sir, are you not?”
“Metaphorically?”
“A man’s soul may be a vast empire.”
“Is it in that sense only that Prester John has an empire?”
“Not quite in that sense, nor quite in the other.”
‘How strangely his empire shrinks! ‘I mused.
“Don’t let me discourage you from visiting the empire of Prester John,” the Buddhist remarked, as if reading my thoughts. “It is about two hundred miles in this direction– —” He pointed toward the East.
I thanked the Friar very cordially, and gave him the expected alms.
“Kotikokura, truth is not even a modest jewel. Truth is a moss-covered stone pushed aside by angry travelers.”
XLIX: THE CITY OF GOD—I RECOGNIZE PRESTER JOHN—PRESTER JOHN DISCUSSES THE BEAST—TIME HAS A HEAVY FIST
THE people were assembling in the public square, mostly fishermen and small merchants, dressed in the manner of the Hebrews of the time of Jesus. Their faces, too, their angular gestures, and their incessant disputations wrenched time back a thousand years.
Kotikokura whose foot was caught in the meshes of a fisherman’s net pulled vigorously to regain his freedom.
“Who allows you to interfere with an honest man’s means of livelihood?” the man shouted in Hebrew, discovering that several of the meshes had been torn.
Kotikokura was about to jump at his throat. I grasped him by the arm.
“I regret infinitely, sir,” I addressed the fisherman. “We are strangers and know neither the name of the country we are in nor its customs. I am inclined to believe, however, that all such mishaps may be adjusted peacefully here as elsewhere.”
I gave him a few pieces of silver. He looked at me critically. “This hardly pays for my loss.” I knew that he lied atrociously, but in order to avoid any further dispute, I doubled my gift.
“What is the name of this country, my friend?” I asked him.
“Ours is the Realm of God, and yonder comes our Patriarch, Prester John—may his name be blessed!”
A man, apparently seventy or seventy-five, approached gravely, followed by several priests, if judged by their garb, but rabbis by their long beards and curls. John carried in his arm the Torah, while from his neck hung a large crucifix.
The people bowed and crossed themselves, and made room for the procession which stopped where four fishermen deposited upon a stone platform a large arm-chair, in the shape of two lions from whose foreheads rose grotesque horns,—stars surmounted by crosses.
Presbyter Johannes seated himself. The people knelt. I did likewise. Kotikokura, dazed a little by the proceedings, remained standing. One of the priests glared in our direction.
“Kotikokura,” I whispered, “kneel or we are lost.”
He knelt.
Two priests sprinkled holy water and scattered incense, which was welcome to the nostrils, for the fishermen smelt rankly of their profession.
Johannes rose. I watched him intently. Was it really John? His eyes, perhaps,—but where was their brightness? His nose more likely,—but was it not rather a racial than a personal characteristic? John’s face had been almost feminine in delicacy, and the down upon it was soft and silky. This man’s beard was a mixture of gray and white, and his skin, whatever was visible of it, was yellow and thin like parchment.
He raised his hand, blessed the people in Hebrew, then made the sign of the cross over them. He reseated himself.
Could that be his voice,—a hard staccato thing that sounded like iron struck against stone?
The priests covered their heads with tallithim, and bowing and beating their breasts incessantly, chanted an old Hebrew prayer, mixed with barbaric Latin. The people, still kneeling, repeated at intervals a phrase or a word.
Johannes meanwhile, his head between his palms, meditated or prayed.
The ceremony over, the Patriarch rose. His right arm raised, he exclaimed: “Do not forget our mission, brethren! We are the chosen of the Lord to conquer the heathens and the unbelievers. We are the children of Jesus and of Moses. We are the Fountain of Youth. They who drink of our words shall inherit the earth and heaven forever.”
“Amen,” the people answered.
“We shall go forth embattled,—mighty knights who will deliver Jerusalem and the world. We shall bring perfection unto man. He shall be happy and rich beyond his present dreams. The mountains shall open at his command, and lo, he shall find them filled with gold! The sands on the river banks shall turn to precious jewels; the fish shall be odorous like flowers. Yea, we shall bring Eden once more unto the earth. In the name of Jesus, our Lord and David, His Father, and Moses whose Word is the Word of God, now and forever, Amen!”
“Amen,” the people repeated.
Johannes made the sign of the cross over them. The people dispersed. The priests helped their Patriarch descend and followed him in silence.
I seated myself at the edge of the shore and meditated. Kotikokura, bored, drew pebbles into the water.
“Have you ever seen, my friend, greater poverty than here? Even in China,—you remember—during the Revolution, the people seemed more prosperous.”
Kotikokura continued to throw pebbles into the water.
“Perhaps you are right, Kotikokura. It is just as rational to throw pebbles into a river as to endeavor to discover logic in the universe. I think I shall join you.”
He laughed uproariously. We threw pebbles, vying with each other as to the distance and the height of the waves we could raise.
Suddenly, I felt someone grasp my shoulder. I turned around.
“Who are you?” the man asked stentoriously.
“We are strangers from far-off lands.”
“Why are you disturbing the waters?”
“Forgive a little innocent pleasure, sir.”
“There is no innocent pleasure. Every mundane pleasure is tainted with sin.”
“Will you not forgive two strangers their great ignorance?”
“It is not for me to forgive, but for our Lord. Come along!”
Kotikokura’s nostrils shivered, his fists opened and shut spasmodically. I looked at him, shaking lightly my head. The man we followed was dressed as a priest, but about his waist dangled a long sword. “Will you enlighten me, sir,” I asked. “I am not quite certain, as yet, in what country we landed and who the king may be.”
He did not answer. I repeated my question.
“He who does not recognize Virtue when he sees it, and does not distinguish God’s own country from man’s deserves no answer.”
“How shall a man distinguish God’s own country from man’s?”
He turned around and glared at me. “How dare you blaspheme against Yahweh and Jesus! Is it not self-evident that our country is the most beautiful, the most blessed of all? Have you not heard the words to our Master this morning? Do you doubt– —?”
He placed his hand upon the hilt of his sword. I remembered the horseshoer and the fate of the man who dared to question the divinity of Mohammed.
“How can I doubt when I see so much zeal? Is not zeal the sign of truth? Can a lie inspire such passion?”
He dropped his hand and ordered us to follow.
The Court of Justice was a long room dimly lit. At one angle, a large arm-chair, the exact counterpart of the one I had seen in the square—or was it perhaps the same one—upon two wooden lions with grotesque horns. Opposite an enormous cross with an agonizing Christ and the stone tablets of Moses.
“The Lord deliver us from justice, Kotikokura,” I whispered, “particularly in this land of God. It will be a miracle if we escape unscathed. Be ready.”