ne, for in theory, if not in
practice--he was a vegetarian.

"I will bring you more of the Life-water," she said, "and then you will
grow to hate these dead things, as I do. And now farewell. My father
calls me. I hear him though you do not. To-morrow I cannot come, but the
day after I will come and bring you the Life-water. Nay, accompany me
not, but as I see he wishes it, let Tommy go with me. I will care for
him, and he is a friend in all that lonely place."

So she went, and with her Tommy, rejoicing.

"Ungrateful little devil!" said Bickley. "Here we've fed and petted
him from puppyhood, or at least you have, and yet he skips off with the
first stranger. I never saw him behave like that to any woman, except
your poor wife."

"I know," I answered. "I cannot understand it. Hullo! here comes
Bastin."

Bastin it was, dishevelled and looking much the worse for wear, also
minus his Bible in the native tongue.

"Well, how have you been getting on?" said Bickley.

"I should like some tea, also anything there is to eat."

We supplied him with these necessaries, and after a while he said slowly
and solemnly:

"I cannot help thinking of a childish story which Bickley told or
invented one night at your house at home. I remember he had an argument
with my wife, which he said put him in mind of it, I am sure I don't
know why. It was about a monkey and a parrot that were left together
under a sofa for a long while, where they were so quiet that everybody
forgot them. Then the parrot came out with only one feather left in its
tail and none at all on its body, saying, 'I've had no end of a time!'
after which it dropped down and died. Do you know, I feel just like that
parrot, only I don't mean to die, and I think I gave the monkey quite as
good as he gave me!"

"What happened?" I asked, intensely interested.

"Oh! the Glittering Lady took me into that palace hall where Oro was
sitting like a spider in a web, and left me there. I got to work at
once. He was much interested in the Old Testament stories and said there
were points of truth about them, although they had evidently come down
to the modern writer--he called him a modern writer--in a legendary
form. I thought his remarks impertinent and with difficulty refrained
from saying so. Leaving the story of the Deluge and all that, I spoke of
other matters, telling him of eternal life and Heaven and Hell, of which
the poor benighted man had never heard. I pointed out e