ing down as one looks down at a child.

"The first of your questions," he said, "you will find out if you
can, and the second you cannot find out if you will." And he was gone,
striding past me in the deep heather.

"I have some business with your uncle, of a pressing nature," he called
back. "I will just take a look through Oban, the night and the morn's
morn."

I was utterly at sea about the big Highlander. He might be a friend
or an enemy of my uncle. But clearly he knew all about the man and the
mysterious experiment in which he was engaged. He was keeping the place
well within his eye; that was also evident. From his seat in the heather
the whole place was spread out below him.

And his queer speech fitted with old Andrew's fear. Surely the Buddha
was a heathen image and my uncle had set it up. The stern Scotch
conscience would be outraged and see the Decalogue violated in its
injunctions. This would explain the dread with which my uncle's house
was regarded and the reason I could find no man to help me on the way to
it. But it would not explain my uncle's apprehension.

But my adventure on this afternoon did not end with the big Highlander.
I found out something more.

I returned along the edge of the loch and approached the boathouse from
the waterside.

Here the path passed directly along the whole wall of the building. The
path was padded with damp sod, and as it happened I made no sound on it.
It was late afternoon, the shadows were beginning to extend, there was
no wind and the whole world was intensely quiet. Midway of the wall I
stopped to listen.

The house was not empty. There was some one in it. I could hear him
moving about.

It was of no use to try to look in through the wall; every joint and
crack of the stones was plastered. I went on.

Old Andrew was about setting me some supper. He came over and stood a
moment by the window looking at the shadows on the loch. And I tried to
take him unaware with a sudden question:

"Has my uncle returned from Oban?"

But I had no profit of the venture.

"The master," he said, "is where he went this morning."

The strange elements in this affair seemed on the point of converging
upon some common center. The thing was in the air. Old Andrew voiced it
when he went out with his candle.

"Ah, sir," he said, "it was the fool work of an old man to bring you
into this affair. The master will have his way and he must meet what
waits for him at the end of