it there when I had bathed,
and send for a hookah and a novel, and go to sleep.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI.

I observed that Isaacs was very quick about his toilet, and when I came
out and ascended the terrace, followed by Kiramat Ali with books and
tobacco, I glanced lazily over the quiet scene, settling myself in my
chair, and fully expecting to see my friend somewhere among the trees,
not unaccompanied by some one else. I was not mistaken. Turning my eyes
towards the corner of the grove where the old Brahmin had his shrine, I
saw the two well-known figures of Isaacs and Miss Westonhaugh sauntering
towards the well. Having satisfied the expectations of my curiosity, I
turned over the volume of philosophy, well thumbed and hard used as a
priest's breviary, and I inhaled long draughts of tobacco, debating
whether I should read, or meditate, or dream. Deciding in favour of the
more mechanical form of intellectuality, I fixed on a page that looked
inviting, and followed the lines, from left to right, lazily at first,
then with increased interest, and finally in that absorbed effort of
continued comprehension which constitutes real study. Page after page,
syllogism after syllogism, conclusion after conclusion, I followed for
the hundredth time in the book I love well--the book of him that would
destroy the religion I believe, but whose brilliant failure is one of
the grandest efforts of the purely human mind. I finished a chapter and,
in thought still, but conscious again of life, I looked up. They were
still down there by the well, those two, but while I looked the old
priest, bent and white, came out of the little temple where he had been
sprinkling his image of Vishnu, and dropped his aged limbs from one step
to the other painfully, steadying his uncertain descent with a stick. He
went to the beautiful couple seated on the edge of the well, built of
mud and sun-dried bricks, and he seemed to speak to Isaacs, I watched,
and became interested in the question whether Isaacs would give him a
two-anna bit or a copper, and whether I could distinguish with the naked
eye at that distance between the silver and the baser metal. Curious,
thought I, how odd little trifles will absorb the attention. The
interview which was to lead to the expected act of charity seemed to be
lasting a long time.

Suddenly Isaacs turned and called to me; his high, distinct tones
seeming to gather volume from the