ounts not to my soul. Look, this is the dress of marriage," and
he pointed to his fine embroidered robe and rich ornaments.

"Then, where's your wife?" asked Higgs.

"I do not know and I do not care," he answered, "for I did not like
that wife. Also it is all nothing as I am not quite married to her.
Fung marriage between big people takes two days to finish, and if not
finished does not matter. So she marry some one else if she like, and I
too."

"What happened then?" I asked.

"Oh, this, father. When we had eaten the marriage feast, but before we
past before priest, suddenly we hear a thunder and see a pillar of fire
shoot up into sky, and sitting on top of it head of Harmac, which vanish
into heaven and stop there. Then everybody jump up and say:

"'Magic of white man! Magic of white man! White man kill the god who
sit there from beginning of world, now day of Fung finished according to
prophecy. Run away, people of Fung, run away!'

"Barung the Sultan tear his clothes too, and say--'Run away, Fung,'
and my half-wife, she tear _her_ clothes and say nothing, but run like
antelope. So they all run toward east, where great river is, and leave
me alone. Then I get up and run too--toward west, for I know from Black
Windows," and he pointed to Higgs, "when we shut up together in belly of
god before he let down to lions, what all this game mean, and therefore
not frightened. Well, I run, meeting no one in night, till I come to
pass, run up it, and find guards, to whom I tell story, so they not kill
me, but let me through, and at last I come here, quite safe, without
Fung wife, thank God, and that end of tale."

"I am afraid you are wrong there, my boy," I said, "out of the
frying-pan into the fire, that's all."

"Out of frying-pan into fire," he repeated. "Not understand; father must
remember I only little fellow when Khalifa's people take me, and
since then speak no English till I meet Black Windows. Only he give me
Bible-book that he have in pocket when he go down to be eat by lions."
(Here Higgs blushed, for no one ever suspected him, a severe critic of
all religions, of carrying a Bible in his pocket, and muttered something
about "ancient customs of the Hebrews.")

"Well," went on Roderick, "read that book ever since, and, as you see,
all my English come back."

"The question is," said Higgs, evidently in haste to talk of something
else, "will the Fung come back?"

"Oh! Black Windows, don't know, can't say.