'Alas, my brother, I do not know,' said the Curator.

'Nay, if it please thee to forget - the one thing only that thou
hast not told me. Surely thou must know? See, I am an old man! I
ask with my head between thy feet, O Fountain of Wisdom. We know
He drew the bow! We know the arrow fell! We know the stream
gushed! Where, then, is the River? My dream told me to find it.
So I came. I am here. But where is the River?'

'If I knew, think you I would not cry it aloud?'

'By it one attains freedom from the Wheel of Things,' the lama
went on, unheeding. 'The River of the Arrow! Think again! Some
little stream, maybe - dried in the heats? But the Holy One would
never so cheat an old man.'

'I do not know. I do not know.'

The lama brought his thousand-wrinkled face once more a
handsbreadth from the Englishman's. 'I see thou dost not know.
Not being of the Law, the matter is hid from thee.'

'Ay - hidden - hidden.'

'We are both bound, thou and I, my brother. But I' - he rose with
a sweep of the soft thick drapery - 'I go to cut myself free.
Come also!'

'I am bound,' said the Curator. 'But whither goest thou?'