ent of my chibook,
and there was no science and no mesmerism about it. Probably by this
fashionable modern word you mean what we Hindus call vashi-karana
vidya--that is to say, the science of charming people and animals by the
force of will. However, as I have already said, this has nothing to do
with what I did."

"But you do not deny, do you, that you have studied this science and
possess this gift?"

"Of course I don't. Every Hindu of my sect is bound to study the
mysteries of physiology and psychology amongst other secrets left to
us by our ancestors. But what of that? I am very much afraid, my dear
colonel," said the Takur with a quiet smile, "that you are rather
inclined to view the simplest of my acts through a mystical prism.
Narayan has been telling you all kinds of things about me behind my
back.... Now, is it not so?"

And he looked at Narayan, who sat at his feet, with an indescribable
mixture of fondness and reproof. The Dekkan colossus dropped his eyes
and remained silent.

"You have guessed rightly," absently answered Mr. Y----, busy over his
drawing apparatus. "Narayan sees in you something like his late deity
Shiva; something just a little less than Parabrahm. Would you believe
it? He seriously assured us--in Nassik it was--that the Raj-Yogis, and
amongst them yourself--though I must own I still fail to understand what
a Raj-Yogi is, precisely--can force any one to see, not what is before
his eyes at the given moment, but what is only in the imagination of the
Raj-Yogi. If I remember rightly he called it Maya.... Now, this seemed
to me going a little too far!"

"Well! You did not believe, of course, and laughed at Narayan?" asked
the Takur, fathoming with his eyes the dark green deeps of the lake.

"Not precisely... Though, I dare say, I did just a little bit," went on
Mr. Y----, absently, being fully engrossed by the view, and trying to
fix his eyes on the most effective part of it. "I dare say I am too
scep-tical on this kind of question."

"And knowing Mr. Y---- as I do," said the colonel, I can add, for
my part, that even were any of these phenomena to happen to himself
personally, he, like Dr. Carpenter, would doubt his own eyes rather than
believe."

"What you say is a little bit exaggerated, but there is some truth in
it. Maybe I would not trust myself in such an occurrence; and I tell you
why. If I saw something that does not exist, or rather exists only for
me, logic would interfere.