the bearded trader afare through the passes of the
North-West Frontier, the while his wife in the small upper room waited with
prayers for his home-coming, even as the lady of Ithaca waited for the man
of many wiles.

At length we reached a small doorway which opened into a cavern black as
Erebus. For a moment we paused undecided; and then out of the darkness
crawled an aged Mahomedan bearing a tiny cocoanut-oil lamp. Lifting it
above his head he pointed silently to a rickety staircase in the far
corner, up which we groped our way with the help of a rope pendent from an
upper beam. Up and up we mounted, now round a sharp corner, now down a
narrow passage: the stairs swayed and shook; the air was heavy with a
mixture of frankincense and sullage; until at last we crawled through
a trap-door that opened as by magic, and found ourselves at our journey's
end.

[Illustration: Fateh Muhammad]

Imagine a small attic, some fifteen feet by ten, under the very eaves of
the 'chal,' filled with the smoke of frankincense so pungent that the eyes
at once commenced to water nor ceased until we were once again in the open
air. In one corner was spread a coarse sheet with a couple of pillows
against the wall, upon which the silent Mahomedan bade us by a sign
recline; in the opposite corner a 'panja', a species of altar smothered in
jasmine wreaths and surmounted by a bunch of peacock's feathers; and
immediately in front of this an earthen brazier of live charcoal. Behind
the brazier sat three persons, Fateh Muhammad, a Musalman youth with
curiously large and dreamy eyes, and two old Musalman beldames, either of
whom might have sat as a model for the witch of Endor. The three sat
unmoved, blinking into the live charcoal, save at rare intervals when the
elder of the two women cast a handful of fragrance upon the brazier and
wrapped us all in a fresh pall of smoke which billowed round the room and
lapped the interstices of the rotten tiles. Only the peacock's eyes in the
corner never lost their lustre, staring wickedly through the smoke-wreaths
like the head of Argus.

Then on a sudden the youth shivered, fell forward with his face over the
brazier, and rose again to a sitting posture with eyes closed and every
muscle in his body taut as though stricken by a sudden paralysis. "The
spirit has entered," whispered my friend, and even as he spoke I saw the
youth's throat working as if an unseen hand were kneading the muscles, and
forth from