Seen in tell-tale daylight, and without his disfiguring glasses, the pongye looked years younger; hitherto Shafto’s impression had been that his strange acquaintance was a man of fifty. Five-and-thirty would be nearer the mark. His eyes were a shade of deep indigo blue, with thick black lashes, high cheek bones were possibly a legacy from his Cingalese grandmother; a square, well-shaped head, firmly set upon a fine pair of shoulders, a square chin and jaw, and a well-cut mouth with shining white teeth, were his inheritance from the West. Undoubtedly if Mung Baw’s religion had not compelled him to sacrifice every hair on his body—including his eyebrows—he would have been an uncommonly good-looking fellow, but an absolutely bare face and bald cranium was a heavy handicap—were he Apollo himself!
At least thrice a week Shafto, in the character of a private inquiry officer, rode slowly round by the Kyoung and had a word or two with the tall upstanding priest.
One evening the latter beckoned to Shafto to dismount, and, leading him apart, assured him that he was creeping on at last. “As soon as I know what I think I know, I’ll send you a bit of a chit. It’s an awful traffic, this infernal trade, now I’ve seen into it, cheek by jowl; these drugs is worse and crueller than wild animals, and we can’t kill them.”
“No, worse luck!” assented Shafto; “they kill us. I say, Mung Baw, don’t your friends in the monastery wonder why I so often ride round this way and look you up?”
“Oh, yes, some does be as curious as a cat in a strange larder, but I have it all explained to their satisfaction.” Then, dropping his voice, he added mysteriously: “They think I’m convarting you!”
“What—to Buddhism!” And Shafto burst out laughing.
“Faix, ye might do worse.”
“Possibly; but I am all right as I am.”
“That’s a good hearing. Well, I’m not for troubling anyone’s mind, shure; aren’t we all,” with a sweep of his powerful hand, “shtriving to reach the same place, and if it’s what I expect, I’ll hope to meet ye? There’s the gong for prayers, and I must fall in.”
Two days later Shafto received a letter written in a neat clerkly hand. It said: