d,
watching for the hour when the little town should be quiet and deserted.

Ever since noon a carpenter had been cutting up wood and asking himself
with amazement what was going to be done with all these planks sawn up
into little bits, and why one should destroy so much good merchandise.
This wood was piled up in a cart which went along through side streets as
far as the beach, without arousing the suspicion of belated persons who
might meet it. It went along on the shingle at the foot of the cliff, and
having dumped its contents on the beach the three Indian servants began
to build a funeral pile, a little longer than it was wide. They worked
alone, for no profane hand must aid in this solemn duty.

It was one o'clock in the morning when the relations of the deceased were
informed that they might accomplish their part of the work.

The door of the little house they occupied was open, and we perceived,
lying on a stretcher in the small, dimly lighted vestibule the corpse
covered with white silk. We could see him plainly as he lay stretched out
on his back, his outline clearly defined beneath this white veil.

The East Indians, standing at his feet, remained motionless, while one of
them performed the prescribed rites, murmuring unfamiliar words in a low,
monotonous tone. He walked round and round the corpse; touching it
occasionally, then, taking an urn suspended from three slender chains, he
sprinkled it for some time with the sacred water of the Ganges, that East
Indians must always carry with them wherever they go.

Then the stretcher was lifted by four of them who started off at a slow
march. The moon had gone down, leaving the muddy, deserted streets in
darkness, but the body on the stretcher appeared to be luminous, so
dazzlingly white was the silk, and it was a weird sight to see, passing
along through the night, the semi-luminous form of this corpse, borne by
those men, the dusky skin of whose faces and hands could scarcely be
distinguished from their clothing in the darkness.

Behind the corpse came three Indians, and then, a full head taller than
themselves and wrapped in an ample traveling coat of a soft gray color,
appeared the outline of an Englishman, a kind and superior man, a friend
of theirs, who was their guide and counselor in their European travels.

Beneath the cold, misty sky of this little northern beach I felt as if I
were taking part in a sort of symbolical drama. It seemed to me that the