ation at becoming acquainted with such exalted
functionaries.

"Thou must know, most holy man," resumed the king, "that need has again
arisen for the exercise of fortitude and self-denial on thy part. A
powerful enemy has invaded my dominions, and has impiously presumed to
discomfit my troops. Well might I feel dismayed, were it not for the
consolations of religion; but my trust is in thee, O spiritual father! It
is urgent that thou shouldst accumulate the largest amount of merit with
the least delay possible. I am unable to invoke the ministrations of thy
old friends the Brahmins to this end, they being, as thou knowest, in
disgrace, but I have summoned these trusty and experienced counsellors in
their room. I find them not wholly in accord. My chief tormentor, being a
man of mild temper and humane disposition, considers that it might at first
suffice to employ gentle measures, such, for example, as suspending thee
head downwards in the smoke of a wood fire, and filling thy nostrils with
red pepper. My chief executioner, taking, peradventure, a too professional
view of the subject, deems it best to resort at once to crucifixion or
impalement. I would gladly know thy thoughts on the matter."

Ananda expressed, as well as his terror would suffer him, his entire
disapproval of both the courses recommended by the royal advisers.

"Well," said the king, with an air of resignation, "if we cannot agree upon
either, it follows that we must try both. We will meet for that purpose
to-morrow morning at the second hour. Go in peace!"

Ananda went, but not in peace. His alarm would have well-nigh deprived him
of his faculties if he had not remembered the promise made him by his
former deliverer. On reaching a secluded spot he pronounced the mystic
formula, and immediately became aware of the presence, not of a radiant
Glendoveer, but of a holy man, whose head was strewn with ashes, and his
body anointed with cow-dung.

"Thy occasion," said the Fakir, "brooks no delay. Thou must immediately
accompany me, and assume the garb of a Jogi."

Ananda rebelled excessively in his heart, for he had imbibed from the mild
and sage Buddha a befitting contempt for these grotesque and cadaverous
fanatics. The emergency, however, left him no resource, and he followed his
guide to a charnel house, which the latter had selected as his domicile.
There, with many lamentations over the smoothness of his hair and the
brevity of his nails, the Jogi