and Martin prevented that. I felt the black cloud of suspicion lower ever more heavily over matey and myself. Master, missus, and missie turned their eyes away when I approached them: I was a suspected, nay a condemned creature as was the matey. To-night I felt certain that the crises of our different fates approached; that he and I would henceforth walk apart. Now-a-days we never even spoke to one another.

At a little before dinner time master and his lady drove away to the durbar physician's house. Doubtless little Juli slumbered peacefully: perhaps she clasped in her frail arms that pretty statue of the Sacred Heart.

The eight-o'clock gun was fired from the fort; and, immediately after, ayah, Martin, and cook, met upon the far side of the kitchen verandah. Ayah generally left a sweeperwoman outside the nursery whilst missie slept, and she ate

thus the child was seldom alone.

The compound was bathed in a glory of tropical moonlight. The shadows cast by the huge plantain leaves were black as coal. The wavering shades of the sighing frail Casuarina boughs showed upon the gravel drive like fairy traceries. Clouds raced high in the great vault of heaven: a pale, moonbeam-haunted dome, infinitely higher in the east than herebut why I know not.

The servants exchanged no greeting. They merely removed cloths and turbans so as to be more at ease. The matey crouched on his haunches, within the cook house, close to the covered vessel in which sat the brooding hen awaiting the imminent birth of her imprisoned offspring. Not far from her lay the sick fowl wrapped in its warm blanket. I crouched on the verandah; and was the only domestic who kept on a turban: thus I was prepared for flight; arrested I vowed-for the sake of my hidden treasure-I never would be. Something seemed to assure me that my innocence would be fully proved: but it was as well to be ready for eventualities.

As I waited within the silent moonlit portico I again asked myself, why was it wrong to thieve? I was now convinced that it was not right to do so, but why? Something deep within me told me never to steal again, but simply commanded, did not give any reason. The mysterious, central,

hidden portion of my being was never now quite at rest. Sometimes it burnt like a fitfully flaring oil-lamp; at other times it was dark.

One day I had seen master experiment in his laboratory with a burning-glass. He put shreds of silk upon a stone: then he held the tiny mirror at such an angle as to concentrate the rays of the noontide sun upon the fragments. In an instant they flared up in a blaze, and were burnt to atoms! It seemed to me that at times my Friend played thus upon the centre of my entity; and tried to burn away the evil within me. I loved the sweet torment, for surely it was an act of true love: yet how it seared and hurt! My Friend was a burning glass: an amazing source of light and goodness, but I was not afraid of Him: I loved and trusted Him.

Footsteps approached, Presently two shrouded

My meditations were interrupted. padding hurriedly along the drive. figures appeared: one carried a small bundle: these were Pappoo and his daughter.

The man wore a blanket about his head and shoulders: the girl was veiled from brow to heel in dirty, coloured muslin.

Cook rose; waved his hand, and invited them to step forward, which they did. Of all that ensued, ayah and her husband were silent, mute spectators. Cook was master of ceremonies; butler kept in a dark corner: as Catholics he and his wife had no business to be there at all.

Cook next bade matey and myself approach: taking our courage in both hands we did as we were commanded. The boy's long, oily hair was twisted in a coil upon his neck; cook and his underling were of the same caste : clad only in skimpy clothes they looked, as they actually were, most heathenish; yet why did I feel thus: was not I also a pagan child?

Pappoo uttered an imperious word, and instantly the swathed damsel sank at his feet, silent and submissive as an automaton. Pappoo cast aside his blanket. His hair was shaven upon brow and crown and fell in greasy masses to his waist. His chest and arms were woolly as a monkeys; and ape-like were his bushy eyebrows, and deep-set, bead-like eyes. The man's forehead, arms and throat were daubed

with clay or ashes: his muscles twitched like those of a wild animal.

Squatting down upon his thin legs, he leaned towards cook : they conversed amiably together. I watched their shadows elongate and shorten, beckon grotesquely on the moonlit gravel beyond the verandah. The very moon seemed to wear an obscene grin. I heard an owl hoot derisively, and a jackal laugh.

I shuddered, for I knew not what devilry was about to be performed. I noticed the weird chattering kept up by cookmatey's teeth.

After more parley cook placed rupees in Pappoo's ape-like hand: one, two, three, four, and finally-reluctantly-the fifth.

The weird man then took a piece of chalk out of his package, and with it drew a large circle around himself, the girl, and cook. It was as large a ring as the floor permitted. Then taking seven tiny cocoanut-oil lamps-mere saucers containing liquid and floating wicks-he set them, like guardians, just outside the round space. Within the centre of this he stood a small chatty containing charcoal. Upon the mud floor he next poured forth from a tiny flagon, a pool of dark-coloured, viscid, treacley stuff.

Matey and myself were now commanded to join cook, and take our seats within the magic circle.

Pappoo began to sing in a low, dreary, chaunting tone, swaying his hairy body to and fro. It was a dismal melody, wailed almost inaudibly and just below the breath. Thus I have heard snake-charmers murmur tunefully.

Its music disturbed the somnolent maiden. As the cobra uncoils and emerges from its cloths at the juggler's voice, so she stirred restlessly, gradually unwinding her lithe form from its enshrouding draperies: it was as though she awakened out of coma. At length her face was visible.

Its features shone pallid in the moonlight: shrunken were they, and corpse-like. Her eyes were shut; her lips parted in a smile of evil, languorous, ecstacy. She uncovered her thin, emaciated hands, and gently beat time to her father's horrid singing. I wondered whether this thin and wasted damsel really belonged to the living, so nearly did she re

semble the ghastly dead. After a while the chaunting died away, and the maid became once more quiet. I noticed that the jackal and owl now held their peace: even the monotonous sighing of the wind died away: an awful, eerie silence fell upon us all. I heard ayah shiver as with a sudden chill, and Martin's breath laboured as though he fought down an overwhelming terror.

Then Pappoo stretched forth his arms, and waved his hand. round the circle. He bowed down and breathed upon the charcoal chatty. I saw the embers gleam and glow, till his ash-smeared countenance shone in their lurid light. He took a live coal within his fingers and ignited the seven lamps. These burned up brightly, but for a moment only: they died down and went out. He tried to light the wicks again, but with the same result. Something evidently was amiss.

Suddenly the girl emitted a frightful shriek. It tore the silence like the rending of a piece of calico and made me shudder. Pappoo spoke a few words to cook. With a gesture he quieted his daughter; but, like a terrified and restive animal, she trembled and twitched beneath the controlling hand. With a spasmodic gesture she pointed one

claw-like hand towards myself.

Cook turned to me immediately, and whispered: "Get out-side the circle: the devils will not work whilst you are here; I do not know why, for you are not a Christian any more than matey and myself. Yet go you must. Just now a demon tore the maid: it is not safe for her to be tormented again like that."

I did as I was bid; but matters had to begin over again. Pappoo began his mysterious chaunt again: once more the girl became calm and ecstatic. Then as before he blew upon the embers and lighted the seven lamps. Ah; now they blazed up brightly: the spell worked. At that the devil-worshipper was well-pleased: he smiled and smacked his parched lips: all would go well.

The glow of the charcoal chatty and little lamps lighted` up the faces of all; actors and spectators. That of the girl now appeared flushed with delight: her corpse-like aspect had' completely vanished: she was radiant, even beautiful, in some horrible unholy fashion.

Pappoo scattered particles of rice, dried herbs, chilli and other stuffs upon the brazier, doubtless as an offering to his demons. The smell of their burning arose upon the air: it bore a semblance to some imitation and unsavoury incense. At last he spoke :

"Gaze upon the pool, daughter, and say what thou seest therein we seek a lost diamond ornament: beg our allies to reveal its whereabouts." He passed his hands across the damsel's eyes. She opened them widely: they too resembled pools; deep and black were they as was the viscid stuff that formed a devil's mirror on the verandah floor.

The maid-poor demon-possessed creature-began to speak in a soft, sighing voice: it seemed to come from a vast distance and was hardly human. She was, indeed, but a medium of evil powers which enthralled her, soul and body.

"I see," she murmured, "a boy with long hair and oily body; he smells of curry (here cook seized hold of the terrified matey by his ankle, thus gripping the lad until the conclusion of the uncanny episode) and he carries a glittering jewel. It resembles a radiant star: each of its rays has ten gems set in it, and there is a wondrous stone which forms its centre. I see no more: the demons hunger."

Pappoo threw a fresh, and fouler-smelling oblation upon the fire.

"Go on quicker," he commanded, "the mystic moments pass: hurry-make haste!"

The maiden's voice once more took up the narrative.

"Ah; I can see it now," she muttered, speaking in a low, hoarse, rapid whisper.

"It is buried in death. A desert surrounds it wherein there is no life. It lies again deep in black mystery, as long ages since, it reposed awaiting the unfolding of its destiny. Bones and creeping horrors beset it on every side. Above this desert is life. I see a belt of potential, dormant beings. Soon life will break forth and riot upon that arid waste. Yet even in this zone of existence I scent death and sickening corruption. Ah, me! I smell the horror of putrescence! I can see no more. Let me forth: I stifle: I shall die. I cannot breathe in this airless heat. I fear! I fear!"

Pappoo quieted the excited and terrified girl by slow up