d been
deserted some years before by its tenant, but still stood gaunt and
bare, with the thatch partly blown away and the windows and doors in
sad disrepair. This dwelling, which the poorest Scotch beggar would have
shrunk from, was the one which these singular men had preferred to the
proffered hospitality of the laird's house. A small garden, now a mass
of tangled brambles, stood round it, and through this my acquaintance
picked his way to the ruined door. He glanced into the house and then
waved his hand for me to follow him.

"You have now an opportunity," he said, in a subdued, reverential voice,
"of seeing a spectacle which few Europeans have had the privilege of
beholding. Inside that cottage you will find two Yogis--men who are only
one remove from the highest plane of adeptship. They are both wrapped
in an ecstatic trance, otherwise I should not venture to obtrude your
presence upon them. Their astral bodies have departed from them, to be
present at the feast of lamps in the holy Lamasery of Rudok in Tibet.
Tread lightly lest by stimulating their corporeal functions you recall
them before their devotions are completed."

Walking slowly and on tiptoe, I picked my way through the weed-grown
garden, and peered through the open doorway.

There was no furniture in the dreary interior, nor anything to cover the
uneven floor save a litter of fresh straw in a corner.

Among this straw two men were crouching, the one small and wizened, the
other large-boned and gaunt, with their legs crossed in Oriental fashion
and their heads sunk upon their breasts. Neither of them looked up, or
took the smallest notice of our presence.

They were so still and silent that they might have been two bronze
statues but for the slow and measured rhythm of their breathing. Their
faces, however, had a peculiar, ashen-grey colour, very different from
the healthy brown of my companion's, and I observed, on, stooping my
head, that only the whites of their eyes were visible, the balls being
turned upwards beneath the lids.

In front of them upon a small mat lay an earthenware pitcher of water
and half-a-loaf of bread, together with a sheet of paper inscribed with
certain cabalistic characters. Ram Singh glanced at these, and then,
motioning to me to withdraw, followed me out into the garden.

"I am not to disturb them until ten o'clock," he said. "You have now
seen in operation one of the grandest results of our occult philosophy,
the d