“What are you, sahib?” he murmured in a wondering tone of voice.
“As you see,” replied the Irishman, “I am a Buddhist priest.”
“Bu—but what country do you come from?”
“I am from Ireland.”
Over the face of the native spread an expression of suffering, as if the awful suspicion that the missionaries to whom he owed his conversion had deceived him, were clutching at his heartstrings.
“Ireland?” he cried, tremulously, “Then you are not a Buddhist! Irishmen are Christians. All sahibs are Christians,” and he glanced nervously at the grinning Burmese about us.
“Yah! Thot’s what the Christian fakers tell ye,” snapped the Irishman. “What’s thot ye’ve got?”
The Hindu turned over several of the tracts. They were separate books of the Bible, printed in English and Hindustanee.
“Bah!” said Damalaku, “It’s bad enough to see white Christians. But the man who swallows all the rot the sahib missionaries dish oop fer him, whin the thrue faith lies not a day’s distance, is disgoostin’. Ye shud be ashamed of yerself.”
“It’s a nice religion,” murmured the convert.