He looked at me with that passionless, yet searching glance of his.
‘You think that she still is worshipped?’
‘I think it possible, even probable, that, here and there, in Africa—Africa is a large order!—homage is paid to Isis, quite in the good old way.’
‘Do you know that as a fact?’
‘Excuse me, but do you know it as a fact?—Are you aware that you are treating me as if I was on the witness stand?—Have you any special purpose in making these inquiries?’
He smiled.
‘In a kind of a way I have. I have recently come across rather a curious story; I am trying to get to the bottom of it.’
‘What is the story?’
‘I am afraid that at present I am not at liberty to tell it you; when I am I will. You will find it interesting,—as an instance of a singular survival.—Didn’t the followers of Isis believe in transmigration?’
‘Some of them,—no doubt.’