ll carven upon the stones. Come and see, if thou art rested.'

Out shuffled the lama to the main hall, and, the Curator beside him,
went through the collection with the reverence of a devotee and the
appreciative instinct of a craftsman.

Incident by incident in the beautiful story he identified on the
blurred stone, puzzled here and there by the unfamiliar Greek
convention, but delighted as a child at each new trove. Where the
sequence failed, as in the Annunciation, the Curator supplied it from
his mound of books--French and German, with photographs and
reproductions.

Here was the devout Asita, the pendant of Simeon in the Christian
story, holding the Holy Child on his knee while mother and father
listened; and here were incidents in the legend of the cousin
Devadatta. Here was the wicked woman who accused the Master of
impurity, all confounded; here was the teaching in the Deer-park; the
miracle that stunned the fire-worshippers; here was the Bodhisat in
royal state as a prince; the miraculous birth; the death at Kusinagara,
where the weak disciple fainted; while there were almost countless
repetitions of the meditation under the Bodhi tree; and the adoration
of the alms-bowl was everywhere. In a few minutes the Curator saw that
his guest was no mere bead-telling mendicant, but a scholar of parts.
And they went at it all over again, the lama taking snuff, wiping his
spectacles, and talking at railway speed in a bewildering mixture of
Urdu and Tibetan. He had heard of the travels of the Chinese pilgrims,
Fu-Hiouen and Hwen-Tsiang, and was anxious to know if there was any
translation of their record. He drew in his breath as he turned
helplessly over the pages of Beal and Stanislas Julien. ''Tis all
here. A treasure locked.' Then he composed himself reverently to
listen to fragments hastily rendered into Urdu. For the first time he
heard of the labours of European scholars, who by the help of these and
a hundred other documents have identified the Holy Places of Buddhism.
Then he was shown a mighty map, spotted and traced with yellow. The
brown finger followed the Curator's pencil from point to point. Here
was Kapilavastu, here the Middle Kingdom, and here Mahabodhi, the Mecca
of Buddhism; and here was Kusinagara, sad place of the Holy One's
death. The old man bowed his head over the sheets in silence for a
while, and the Curator lit another pipe. Kim had fallen asleep. When
he waked, the talk, still