me does not appear in the year's batch of
those who entered for the subordinate Survey of India, but against it
stand the words 'removed on appointment.'

Several times in those three years, cast up at the Temple of the
Tirthankars in Benares the lama, a little thinner and a shade yellower,
if that were possible, but gentle and untainted as ever. Sometimes it
was from the South that he came--from south of Tuticorin, whence the
wonderful fire-boats go to Ceylon where are priests who know Pali;
sometimes it was from the wet green West and the thousand
cotton-factory chimneys that ring Bombay; and once from the North,
where he had doubled back eight hundred miles to talk for a day with
the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House. He would stride to his
cell in the cool, cut marble--the priests of the Temple were good to
the old man,--wash off the dust of travel, make prayer, and depart for
Lucknow, well accustomed now to the way of the rail, in a third-class
carriage. Returning, it was noticeable, as his friend the Seeker
pointed out to the head-priest, that he ceased for a while to mourn the
loss of his River, or to draw wondrous pictures of the Wheel of Life,
but preferred to talk of the beauty and wisdom of a certain mysterious
chela whom no man of the Temple had ever seen. Yes, he had followed
the traces of the Blessed Feet throughout all India. (The Curator has
still in his possession a most marvellous account of his wanderings and
meditations.) There remained nothing more in life but to find the River
of the Arrow. Yet it was shown to him in dreams that it was a matter
not to be undertaken with any hope of success unless that seeker had
with him the one chela appointed to bring the event to a happy issue,
and versed in great wisdom--such wisdom as white-haired Keepers of
Images possess. For example (here came out the snuff-gourd, and the
kindly Jain priests made haste to be silent):

'Long and long ago, when Devadatta was King of Benares--let all listen
to the Tataka!--an elephant was captured for a time by the king's
hunters and ere he broke free, beringed with a grievous legiron. This
he strove to remove with hate and frenzy in his heart, and hurrying up
and down the forests, besought his brother-elephants to wrench it
asunder. One by one, with their strong trunks, they tried and failed.
At the last they gave it as their opinion that the ring was not to be
broken by any bestial power. And in a thicket, ne