[Oo-browser-discuss] "I've seen

[Boyden <de...@bl...>]

Epeatedly brought back scores of wilder tales than this. But this is the
first time that I've been disbelieved. I'm not in the service now. So
here's my ultimatum! You take this matter up--at once--or I take it up
on my own account! For one thing, I'll write a full account in all the
papers of your refusal to investigate. Suit yourselves!" They did not
like it; but they liked his alternative less; and there were two or
three men in the room, besides, who were secretly on King's side, but
hardly cared to betray their opinions in the face of so much opposition.
They did not care to seem too credulous. It was they who suggested with
a half-humorous air of concession that no harm could be done by sending
a committee of investigation to discover whether it were true that
living men were held for experimental purposes beneath that Tirthanker
temple; and one by one the rest yielded, somebody, however, imposing the
ridiculous proviso that the Brahmin priests must be consulted first. So,
what with one thing and another, and one delay and another, and
considering that the wire had been repaired and no less than thirty
Brahmin priests were in the secret, the outcome was scarcely surprising.
Ten of us, including four policemen, called on the Maharajah Jihanbihar
five full days after King and I had last seen the Mahatma; and after we
had wasted half a morning in pleasantries and jokes about stealing a
ride on his elephant, we rode in the Maharajah's two-horse landaus to
the Tirthanker temple, where a priest, who looked blankly amazed,
consented at once to be our guide through the sacred caverns. But he
said they were no longer sacred. He assured us they had not been used at
all for centuries. And with a final word of caution against cobras he
led the way, swinging a lantern with no more suggestion of anything
unusual than if he had been our servant seeing us home on a dark night.
He even offered to take us through the cobra tunnel, but an