'It is for my lord's sake.'

'But how can it be?'

'Is it possible that my lord does not know?'

'I know nothing, my good friend. Enlighten me!'

Swaying himself to and fro, and speaking in a subdued whisper, Hoosanee said: 'When my master, the rajah, was dying he sent for me. Chunder Singh had been with him, and received his last wishes. I was sad that no word had been given to me, for not even his foster-brother loved my master as I did. He looked up, and saw that I was sad. He smiled, for he was ever glad that we should love him. "Chunder Singh," he said, "will tell my Hoosanee everything." And with that, Excellency, he fell back and died.'

There was a pause. The light of the evening had faded, and the glory of colour had gone. Pale and livid, like ashes of burnt-out fires, lay against the horizon the palaces of snow and ice; overhead, entangled in a wreath of vapour, flitted a white ghostly moon, and the little stars were twinkling out above the hills. Tom shivered, and drew his cloak about him.

'And what did Chunder Singh tell you?' he said, with a poor pretence of indifference.

'What he said, my lord, will sound strange in the ears of one of your Excellency's people. To them there is one life upon earth, and beyond is the infinite, and the man who misses his chance here is lost beyond the power of even the Supreme Spirit to redeem. Is this not true?'

'It is, at least, what some of our religionists teach,' said Tom. 'But how did you learn all this, Hoosanee?'

'From my master, Byrajee Pirtha Raj, who would often let his servant be present when he spoke of these things with wise men from the West. Sahib, our belief is not as theirs. We do not so limit the power of the Supreme. It is taught by our saints and sages that the life we lead here is but one in many—that we come and go, changing into new forms perpetually. While we are low, so they tell us, we have no power over these changes. Unconsciously we work out our destiny, and expiate the offences of which we have no memory. But to those who rise in being it is given to rise also in knowledge. These see behind them the path by which they have come, and the road they must travel on their way to the Supreme lies open in front of them. To this stage my master, the rajah, had come. Once more, it was revealed to him that he should return to the earth.'