“I am well repaid in believing you will outwit old Mai Lo, and secure the treasure he means to steal,” was his reply. “If I possess spirit I shall try to watch you and enjoy the fun.”
“Oh, don’t do that!” exclaimed Archie with a shudder.
“But you won’t know it, and I haven’t much faith in a spiritual existence,” he replied.
“What have you faith in?” I asked, shocked to hear him speak so lightly on his death-bed.
“We Shintoists believe in our ancestors,” said the Prince mockingly, I thought; “and that has always made us more sensible than our Buddhist neighbors. Also I have studied Christianity, Mohammedanism and Theosophy, and they have led me to admire Confucius more. So I get back to Shintoism in the end. I shall die in the faith of my ancestors, but not hampered by their narrow prejudices, I hope.”
He sighed with this, and I thought his cheeks looked more sunken and his skin more pallid than I had yet noticed them. So I said:
“This has been a trying interview, your Highness, and you need rest. Shall we retire?”
He hesitated, and then nodded with a return of his old brightness:
“Send in the doctor,” said he, “it’s time for more morphine.”