re, of
thought."

"All that means nothing to me," I admitted simply.

"No, it means nothing for me to tell you that I have learned Yama,
Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dyhana and Samadhi! Yes,
I was something of an adept once. I learned calm, meditation,
contemplation, introspection, super-conscious reasoning--how to cast my
own mind to a distance, how to bring other minds close up to me.
But,"--he smiled with all his old mockery--"mostly I failed on
Pratyahara, which says the senses must be quelled, subdued and set
aside! All religions are alike to me, but they must not intrude on my
own religion. I'd liefer die than not enjoy. My religion, I say, is to
play the great games--to adventure, and above all, to enjoy! That is why
I am in this country, also why I am in these grounds to-night."

"You are playing some deeper game than I know?"

"I always am! How could you be expected to understand what it took me
years to learn? But I suppose in your case you need a few practical and
concrete proofs. Let me show you a few things. Here, put your hand on my
heart."

I obeyed. "You feel it beat?" he said. "Now it stops beating, does it
not?" And as I live, it _had slopped_!

"Feel on the opposite side," he commanded. I did so, and there was his
heart, clear across his body, and beating as before! "Now I shall stop
it again," he remarked, calmly. And I swear it did stop, and resumed
when he liked!

"Put your hand upon my abdomen," he said. I did so. All at once his body
seemed thin and empty, as a spent cocoon.

"I draw all the organs into the thorax," he explained. "When one has
studied under the Swami, as I have, he gains control over all his
different muscles, voluntary and involuntary. He can, to a great extent,
cut off or increase the nerve force in any muscle. Simple tricks in
magic become easy to him. He gains, as you may suppose, a certain
influence over men, and more especially over women, if that be a part of
his religion. It was not with the Swami. It is with me!"

"You are a strange man, Orme," I said, drawing a long breath. "The most
dangerous man, the most singular, the most immoral I ever knew."

"No," he said, reaching for his cigar case, "I was only born without
what you call morals. They are not necessary in abstruse thought. Yet in
some ways I retain the old influences of my own country. For instance, I
lie as readily as I speak the truth, because it is more convenient; but
though I