n me that Mulvaney had stumbled
upon a big Queens' Praying at Benares.

'I niver will,' he said mournfully. 'That sight doesn't come twist to
any man. It made me ashamed to watch. A fat priest knocked at my door.
I didn't think he'd have the insolince to disturb the Maharanee av
Gokral-Seetarun, so I lay still. "The old cow's asleep," sez he to
another. "Let her be," sez that. "'Twill be long before she has a
calf!" I might ha' known before he spoke that all a woman prays for in
Injia--an' for matter o' that in England too--is childher. That made
me more sorry I'd come, me bein', as you well know, a childless man.'

He was silent for a moment, thinking of his little son, dead many
years ago.

'They prayed, an' the butter-fires blazed up an' the incense turned
everything blue, an' between that an' the fires the women looked as
tho' they were all ablaze an' twinklin'. They took hold av the
she-god's knees, they cried out an' they threw themselves about, an'
that world-without-end-amen music was dhrivin' thim mad. Mother av
Hiven! how they cried, an' the ould she-god grinnin' above thim all so
scornful! The dhrink was dyin' out in me fast, an' I was thinkin'
harder than the thoughts wud go through my head--thinkin' how to get
out, an' all manner of nonsense as well. The women were rockin' in
rows, their di'mond belts clickin', an' the tears runnin' out betune
their hands, an' the lights were goin' lower an' dharker. Thin there
was a blaze like lightnin' from the roof, an' that showed me the
inside av the palanquin, an' at the end where my foot was, stood the
livin' spit an' image o' mysilf worked on the linin'. This man here,
ut was.'

He hunted in the folds of his pink cloak, ran a hand under one, and
thrust into the firelight a foot-long embroidered presentment of the
great god Krishna, playing on a flute. The heavy jowl, the staring
eye, and the blue-black moustache of the god made up a far-off
resemblance to Mulvaney.

'The blaze was gone in a wink, but the whole schame came to me thin.
I believe I was mad too. I slid the off-shutter open an' rowled out
into the dhark behind the elephint-head pillar, tucked up my trousies
to my knees, slipped off my boots an' tuk a general hould av all the
pink linin' av the palanquin. Glory be, ut ripped out like a woman's
dhriss when you tread on ut at a sergeants' ball, an' a bottle came
with ut. I tuk the bottle an' the next minut I was out av the dhark av
the pillar, the pi