66
February 1931
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
ing. It was not far away; just across the cup-like val ley that lay high up in these mountains of the East. Were they going to discover him? Surely they would notice the wrecked plane. He was a little surprised at first that they had not heard the crash in the night, but recollected that the fury of the storm had probably drowned all other sounds. In a feeble way, he tried to shout. They did discover him an hour or two later. * * * They had come and gone! Bert could hardly realize it. His one possible chance of rescue was past. They were strangely evil-looking men! They had uttered fierce gut- teral-sounding imprecations in his direction as they stood and stared at him a few rods away, with their red robes fluttering in the wind. In vain had he raised one unin jured hand to beg for mercy and had tried by the intona tion of his pleadings to soften their hearts and obtain their assistance. Their wild eyes had flashed weirdly, and out of their throats had emanated streams of denunciation,' accompanied by vivid and appropriate gestures. They were angry with him for being there. Why? Perhaps he had crashed onto sacred soil and his unworthy, and un known self was a pollution. A memory suddenly awakened within him. It was back in his freshman year in Yale that one of the Chris tians in his class came rushing into Bert’s room exclaim ing, “Don’t miss it!” “Who is ‘it’?” Bert had asked. “You know what I mean, Bert! He’s to speak at the conference—ten days of him. A converted Hindu-—high- caste—a Christian Sadhu —a ‘holy man’ !” “Ye-es!” Bert had replied in the slow, deliberate tone he used on occasion. “Bert! Just try him! Hear him once! You’ll always be glad. He’s wonderful. Full of light—there’s no dark ness in him! And think what a life he leads! Goes every summer into Tibet over the roughest passes barefoot! They say it’s his bleeding feet and his sacrificial life that wins these Tibetans to Christ.” “I ’ve heard of him and his saffron robe,” Bert had answered coolly. “Another thing!” the Freshman went on, hesitatingly. “We—We are trying to put some money into his Tibetan work. What a chance for you, Bert, with all you have! This man goes into the wildest, unreached places in Tibet, and—” “No, thanks!” Bert had said, rising"quietly and coldly. “I have other uses for my money, and I do not believe in foreign missions. Let all men worship in their own way.” He remembered it all with peculiar clearness as he lay. deserted and desperate, in this wild unreached part of Tibet. Suppose that those men who had been here just now had known Christ—-how different would have been their response to his need! Like a flash, the memory of his own refusal to help, or even to take an interest in God’s work, stung him. He had kept on refusing all his life, up to now! Was there a great irony in his fate ? If, in those early days of youth, he had yielded to that eager boy and given some of the wealth that was his, to help, Christ might have been preached here and this part of Tibet might have been transformed; then how eager would have been the rush to help him! Only the love of God in Jesus Christ could have changed these savage hearts. He shifted his gaze wearily from the distant snowy mountain tops to the wreck of his plane. He had had a smash-up all right! His mind harked back to the last
smash-up in the family, his sister Althea’s! He had nev er been able to forget the automobile accident which had so changed her whole life. She had told Bert about it— how the merciful One who had died, the Saviour of sin ners, had come to her heart at that time in so real a way that she could not resist Him. He wondered faintly if that One would not come to him! And then ensued an other dark, confused time, a time of pain so intense that he swooned repeatedly. * * * Someone was bending over him. He was aware of it all at once. A dark, fierce young face was thrust near to his. His clothes were being searched with no gentle hand. Travelers’ checks meant nothing and were thrown impatiently into the snow. He could see the breath of this aggressor turn into steam in the cold air, and won dered if all this were a dream. His own terrible plight was emphasized at this moment, for far overhead there came a familiar whirring sound; and there, flashing through the sunlight which gleamed on its shining surfaces, he saw through the pine tops above him a plane. It was one that he had seen lying beside his own a short few days ago! It was perhaps the one thing that could have wrung a moan from this young stoic. Almost without his own volition this fresh agony brought forth the exclamation. “Christ! Have mercy!” The man stopped short in his investigations. Quickly he asked him a question in the strange tongue of Tibet. Bert shook his head and wearily blinked away the two tears-—the only ones that he shed. Then suddenly hope awoke again. The name of Christ had halted this man. Why was it? He could not be a Christian, for his occu pation of robbing and his fierce face precluded that pos sibility. What then was the association with the name of Christ? Bert never knew that once in the high pass that came over the mountains from sunny India, this robber had been found half famished by a holy man in a saffron robe, who was going barefoot into Tibet to tell of Christ’s sav ing power. This Christian Sadhu had fed him, coaxing him to partake as if he were a trapped wild thing. He had taken food from his own scanty food supply and giv en it to this outlaw saying that it was given in Christ’s name. The Tibetan refused the gospel, for its acceptance would have banished him from Tibet. The lamas had killed with swords a young convert who had remained in lama-land. But he had vowed to spare, as he had been spared, anyone who named the name of Christ. The Sad hu had prayed for him and passed on. Bert was hopefully loosening his wrist watch. He removed from its leather hiding place the beautiful gold timepiece his mother had given him. He said imploringly, “Help me! In Christ’s name! Help, for Jesus Christ’s sake!” As before, at Christ’s name the fierce one listened. He held out his hand, however, for the gleaming gold en ticed him. He took the watch, inspected it, tasted it, and finally, to Bert’s utter dismay, put it into his mouth, in which strange hiding place it seemed to disappear into his cheek. The man asked a question. It sounded like, “Inglese ?” Bert nodded, pointing to the plane. The man was im patient of the intrusion of this mechanical toy. He made a strange sign and then caught up a long branch that lay at his feet and another shorter and thicker. These he quickly bound together with a thong, and as he held them up Bert saw before him a cross. The man pointed to it,
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