l safe," the captain answered. "But we had given you up for
lost--you and your two friends. Indeed, I was just making arrangements
for your burial with Mr. West here."

The stranger looked at me and smiled.

"We won't give Mr. West that trouble for a little time yet," he
remarked; "my friends and I came ashore all safe, and we have found
shelter in a hut a mile or so along the coast. It is lonely down there,
but we have everything which we can desire."

"We start for Glasgow this afternoon," said the captain; "I shall be
very glad if you will come with us. If you have not been in England
before you may find it awkward travelling alone."

"We are very much indebted to you for your thoughtfulness," Ram Singh
answered; "but we will not take advantage of your kind offer. Since
Nature has driven us here we intend to have a look about us before we
leave."

"As you like," the captain said, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't
think you are likely to find very much to interest you in this hole of a
place."

"Very possibly not," Ram Singh answered with an amused smile. "You
remember Milton's lines:

'The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a hell of Heaven, a heaven of Hell.'

I dare say we can spend a few days here comfortably enough. Indeed, I
think you must be wrong in considering this to be a barbarous locality.
I am much mistaken if this young gentleman's father is not Mr. James
Hunter West, whose name is known and honoured by the pundits of India."

"My father is, indeed, a well-known Sanscrit scholar," I answered in
astonishment.

"The presence of such a man," observed the stranger slowly, "changes a
wilderness into a city. One great mind is surely a higher indication of
civilisation than are incalculable leagues of bricks and mortar.

"Your father is hardly so profound as Sir William Jones, or so universal
as the Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, but he combines many of the virtues
of each. You may tell him, however, from me that he is mistaken in
the analogy which he has traced between the Samoyede and Tamulic word
roots."

"If you have determined to honour our neighbourhood by a short stay,"
said I, "you will offend my father very much if you do not put up with
him. He represents the laird here, and it is the laird's privilege,
according to our Scottish custom, to entertain all strangers of repute
who visit this parish."

My sense of hospitality prompted me to deliver this invitation, though