"He frowned slightly, and those wonderful eyes of his glanced like lightning towards the two huge attendants standing in plain sight in the hallway.
"'Not at all,' I hastened to assure him. 'It all seems so wonderful to me, you must excuse my apparent incredulity.'
"'The most natural thing in the world,' smiled Sing with grave courtesy, 'but I will let your own eyes banish any doubt you may have as to the wonderful properties of this strange powder.
"'Ashmed,' he called, 'ask my son to come here a moment if he will be so good.'
"The attendant who had spoken to me when I entered immediately disappeared, and in a moment a back door opened and the bent figure of a very old man entered the room and spoke to Sing in a weak voice. The language was evidently Hindustani, but I caught a word here and there which sounded familiar. Sing spoke to him sharply, and turning to me said, 'This is my son; he is nearly eighty years old, but refuses to take the powder on account of his religious principles—he belongs to the sect who believes that to die is better than to live, that his spirit will become incarnate in another body, and in his next life he will be at least a Kobtchie.'
"My eyes must have betrayed my incredulity.
"'You do not doubt that he is my son?' sweetly asked Mr. Sing.
"'Certainly not,' I answered.
"'I trust, then, that I shall have the