and that the
ministry had been approached for permission to burn the body. No one
believed it, or at least no one supposed that such a thing could occur
so foreign was the custom as yet to our customs, and as the night was
far advanced every one went home.

At midnight, the lamplighter, running from street to street,
extinguished, one after another, the yellow jets of flame that lighted
up the sleeping houses, the mud and the puddles of water. We waited,
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 cloth