tobacco, and then applied an
allumette. When he saw that the pipe was fairly alight, he bowed and
withdrew.

While these preparations were going on Platzoff had not been silent. "I
have spoken to you of what I am about to smoke, both as opium and
drashkil," he said. "It is not by any means pure opium. With that great
drug are mixed two or three others that modify and influence the chief
ingredient materially. I had the secret of the preparation from a Hindoo
gentleman while I was in India. It was imparted to me as an immense
favour, it being a secret even there. The enthusiastic terms in which he
spoke of it have been fully justified by the result, as you would
discover for yourself if you could only be persuaded to try it. You
shake your head. Eh bien! mon ami; the loss is yours, not mine."

"Some of what you have termed your 'experiences' are no doubt very
singular ones?" said Ducie, interrogatively.

"They are--very singular," answered Platzoff. "In my last
drashkil-dream, for instance, I believed myself to be an Indian fakir,
and I seemed to realise to the full the strange life of one of those
strange beings. I was stationed in the shade of a large tree just
without the gate of some great city where all who came and went could
see me. On the ground, a little way in front of me, was a wooden bowl
for the reception of the offerings of the charitable. I had kept both my
hands close shut for so many years that the nails had grown into the
flesh, and the muscles had hardened so that I could no longer open them;
and I was looked upon as a very holy man. The words of the passers-by
were sweet in my ears, but I never spoke to them in return. Silent and
immovable, I stood there through the livelong day--and in my vision it
was always day. I had the power of looking back, and I knew that, in the
first instance, I had been led by religious enthusiasm to adopt that
mode of life. I should be in the world but not of it; I should have
more time for that introspective contemplation the aim and end of which
is mental absorption in the divine Brahma; besides which, people would
praise me, and all the world would know that I was a holy man. But the
strangest part of the affair remains to be told. In the eyes of the
people I had grown in sanctity from year to year; but in my own heart I
knew that instead of approaching nearer to Brahma, I was becoming more
depraved, more wicked, with a great inward wickedness, as time went on.
I str