y. I was perfectly conscious... or,
shall I say, I fancied I was conscious of putting down on paper what
everyone of you had before your eyes. I had lost every notion of the
place as I saw it before I began my sketch, and as I see it now.... But
how do you account for it? Good gracious! am I to believe that these
confounded Hindus really possess the mystery of this trick? I tell you,
colonel, I shall go mad if I don't understand it all!"

"No fear of that, Mr. Y----," said Narayan, with a triumphant twinkle in
his eyes. "You will simply lose the right to deny Yoga-Vidya, the great
ancient science of my country."

Mr. Y---- did not answer him. He made an effort to calm his feelings,
and bravely stepped on the ferry boat with firm foot. Then he sat down,
apart from us all, obstinately looking at the large surface of water
round us, and struggling to seem his usual self.

Miss X---- was the first to interrupt the silence.

"Ma chere!" said she to me in a subdued, but triumphant voice. "Ma
chere, Monsieur Y---- devient vraiment un medium de premiere force!"

In moments of great excitement she always addressed me in French. But
I also was too excited to control my feelings, and so I answered rather
unkindly:

"Please stop this nonsense, Miss X----. You know I don't believe in
spiritualism. Poor Mr. Y----, was not he upset?"

Receiving this rebuke and no sympathy from me, she could not think
of anything better than drawing out the Babu, who, for a wonder, had
managed to keep quiet till then.

"What do you say to all this? I for one am perfectly confident that no
one but the disembodied soul of a great artist could have painted that
lovely view. Who else is capable of such a wonderful achievement?"

"Why? The old gentleman in person. Confess that at the bottom of your
soul you firmly believe that the Hindus worship devils. To be sure it is
some deity of ours of this kind that had his august paw in the matter."

"Il est positivement malhonnete, ce Negre-la!" angrily muttered Miss
X----, hurriedly withdrawing from him.

The island was a tiny one, and so overgrown with tall reeds that, from
a distance, it looked like a pyramidal basket of verdure. With the
exception of a colony of monkeys, who bustled away to a few mango trees
at our approach, the place seemed uninhabited. In this virgin forest of
thick grass there was no trace of human life. Seeing the word grass the
reader must not forget that it is not the grass of