their heels, from body to body, through birth after
birth, till the very last atom of guilt has passed through the furnace
of expiation, and the very last item of their debt to everlasting Yama
has been weighed in his scales, and struck from the account, and utterly
redeemed.

* * * * *

And then, that Lord of the Moony Tire took his darling in his arms, and
set her on his lap: and they rose up and floated away together like a
cloud to their home on the snowy peak. But the bones of that camel
remained alone, lying still in the sand, till the moon got up and gazed
at them with wonder, looking down from the sky, as if mistaking them for
a reflection of himself, looking back at him with white and silent
laughter from the blackness of the earth, and saying as it were: By the
help of thy beams, I am whiter than thyself. And the night-wind rushed
over them, scattering over them oblivion, in the form of a cloud of its
plaything, the ocean of the sand, and danced round and fled away with a
wail into the desert, with a music that resembled the moan of the world
for the victims of the waste.

_Printed by_
MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED
_Edinburgh_

The Stories of F. W. Bain

The history of these fascinating little books, which, to a few readers,
have always meant so much, and which are every day becoming better
known, is not the least curious in modern literature. On the appearance
of "A Digit of the Moon" in 1899, the author's mystifying attributions
to a Sanscrit original, and the skill with which he kept up the illusion
of translation, completely took in even the best scholars, and this work
was added to the Oriental Department of the British Museum Library.
Later, however, the discovery was made that Mr. Bain, working with a
mind saturated in Hindoo Mysticism and lore and Sanscrit poetry, was
wholly its author, and it is now catalogued in the ordinary way.

To describe the charm and appeal of the stories themselves would be a
hard task. They are almost indescribable. There is nothing in English
literature at once so tender, so passionate, so melancholy, and so wise.
The fatalism of the East, and the wistful dubiety of the West, meet in
these beautiful allegories of life, which it is possible to compare only
with themselves.

Methuen & Co. Ltd., London

The Stories of F. W. Bain

Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d. net each

Bubbles of the Foam
The Ashes of a God
A Digit of the Moon