captain. “Perhaps our bodies are cold sometimes. We have not noticed it. We have all three spent many years in the Upper Himalayas on the border of the region of eternal snow, so we are not very sensitive to inconveniences of the sort.”

“At least,” said I, “you must allow me to send you over some fish and some meat from our larder.”

“We are not Christians,” he answered, “but Buddhists of the higher school. We do not recognise that man has a moral right to slay an ox or a fish for the gross use of his body. He has not put life into them, and has assuredly no mandate from the Almighty to take life from them save under most pressing need. We could not, therefore, use your gift if you were to send it.”

“But, sir,” I remonstrated, “if in this changeable and inhospitable climate you refuse all nourishing food your vitality will fail you--you will die.”

“We shall die then,” he answered, with an amused smile. “And now, Captain Meadows, I must bid you adieu, thanking you for your kindness during the voyage, and you, too, good-bye--you will command a ship of your own before the year is out. I trust, Mr. West, that I may see you again before I leave this part of the country. Farewell!”

He raised his red fez, inclined his noble head with the stately grace which characterised all his actions, and strode away in the direction from which he had come.

“Let me congratulate you, Mr. Hawkins,” said the captain to the mate as we walked homewards. “You are to command your own ship within the year.”

“No such luck!” the mate answered, with a pleased smile upon his mahogany face, “still, there's no saying how things may come out. What d'ye think of him, Mr. West?”

“Why,” said I, “I am very much interested in him. What a magnificent head and bearing he has for a young man. I suppose he cannot be more than thirty.”

“Forty,” said the mate.

“Sixty, if he is a day,” remarked Captain Meadows. “Why, I have heard him talk quite familiarly of the first Afghan war. He was a man then, and that is close on forty years ago.”

“Wonderful!” I ejaculated. “His skin is as smooth and his eyes are as clear as mine are. He is the superior priest of the three, no doubt.”

“The inferior,” said the captain confidently. “That is why he does all the talking for them. 

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