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Page 35
After eight days' voyage on the Indian Ocean we shall be in Bombay.
I must close now, for there is really nothing to say, and, besides,
I am wanted on deck. My engagement is with a Rev. Mr. Barrows,
who is bound as missionary to Hong Kong. This worthy Methodist
gentleman is very much exercised because I insist that potentiality
is necessity and rebut his arguments on free-will. He got quite
excited yesterday, and said to me severely: "Do you mean to say,
young man, that I can't do as I please?" I must say I don't think
his warmth was much allayed by my replying: "I certainly mean to
say you can't please as you please. You may eat sugar because
you prefer it to vinegar, but you can't prefer it just because you
will to do so." He has probably got some new arguments now and is
anxious to try their effect, so, with kind regards to Miss Darrow
--I trust she is well--I remain,
Cordially your friend,
GEORGE MAITLAND.
P. S. (Like a woman I always write a postscript.) You shall hear
again from me as soon as I reach Bombay.
This last promise was religiously kept, though his letter was short
and merely announced his safe arrival early that morning. He closed
by saying: "I have not yet breakfasted, preferring to do so on land,
and I feel that I can do justice to whatever is set before me. I
intend, as soon as I have taken the edge off my appetite, to set out
immediately for Malabar Hill, as I believe that to be our proper
starting-point. I inclose a little sketch I made of Bombay as we
came up its harbour, thinking it may interest Miss Darrow. Kindly
give it to her with my regards. You will note that there are two
tongues of land in the picture. On the eastern side is the suburb
of Calaba, and on the western our Malabar Hill. Good-bye until I
have something of interest to report."
I gave the sketch to Gwen, and she seemed greatly pleased with it.
"Are you aware," she said to me, "that Mr. Maitland draws with rare
precision?"
"I am fully persuaded," I rejoined, "that he does not do anything
which he cannot do well."
"I believe there is nothing," she continued, "which so conduces to
the habit of thoroughness as the experiments of chemistry. When one
learns that even a grain of dust will, in some cases, vitiate
everything, he acquires a new conception of the term 'clean' and is
likely to be thorough in washing his apparatus. From this the habit
grows upon him and widens its application until it embraces all his
actions."
This remark did not surprise me as it would have a few weeks before,
for I had come to learn that Gwen was liable at any time to suddenly
evince a very unfeminine depth of observation and firmness of
philosophical grasp.
Maitland had been gone just six weeks to a day when we received from
him the first news having any particular bearing upon the matter
which had taken him abroad. I give this communication in his own
words, omitting only a few personal observations which I do not feel
justified in disclosing, and which, moreover, are not necessary to
the completeness of this narrative:
MY DEAR DOCTOR:
I have at last something to report bearing upon the case that brought
me here, and perhaps I can best relate it by simply telling you what
my movements have been since my arrival. My first errand was to
Malabar Hill. I thought it wise to possess myself, so far as
possible, of facts proving the authenticity of Mr. Darrow's narrative.
I found without difficulty the banyan tree which had been the
trysting-place, and close by it the little cave with its mysterious
well,--everything in fact precisely as related, even to the
"Farsees'" garden or cemetery, with its "Tower of Silence," or
"Dakhma," as it is called by the natives. The cave and the banyan
are among the many attractions of what is now Herr Blaschek's villa.
This gentleman, with true German hospitality, asked me to spend a
few days with him, and I was only too glad to accept his invitation,
as I believed his knowledge of Bombay might be of great service to
me. In this I did not mistake. I told him I wished to ascertain the
whereabouts of a Rama Ragobah, who had been something between a rishi
and a fakir, and he directed me at once to a fakir named Parinama
who, he said, would be able to locate my man, if he were still alive
and in Bombay.
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