rked, looking at the
vessel in question, whose black hull and gleaming sails rose and fell
slowly with the throbbing of the giant pulse beneath her. "Perhaps,
Jamieson, we are wrong, and there will be no storm after all."

The old sailor chuckled to himself with an air of superior knowledge,
and shuffled away with his shrimp-net, while my sister and I walked
slowly homewards through the hot and stagnant air.

I went up to my father's study to see if the old gentleman had any
instructions as to the estate, for he had become engrossed in a new work
upon Oriental literature, and the practical management of the property
had in consequence devolved entirely upon me.

I found him seated at his square library table, which was so heaped with
books and papers that nothing of him was visible from the door except a
tuft of white hair.

"My dear son," he said to me as I entered, "it is a great grief to me
that you are not more conversant with Sanscrit. When I was your age, I
could converse not only in that noble language, but also in the Tamulic,
Lohitic, Gangelic, Taic, and Malaic dialects, which are all offshoots
from the Turanian branch."

"I regret extremely, sir," I answered, "that I have not inherited your
wonderful talents as a polyglot."

"I have set myself a task," he explained, "which, if it could only be
continued from generation to generation in our own family until it was
completed, would make the name of West immortal. This is nothing less
than to publish an English translation of the Buddhist Djarmas, with a
preface giving an idea of the position of Brahminism before the coming
of Sakyamuni. With diligence it is possible that I might be able myself
to complete part of the preface before I die."

"And pray, sir," I asked, "how long would the whole work be when it was
finished?"

"The abridged edition in the Imperial Library of Pekin," said my father,
rubbing his hands together, "consists of 325 volumes of an average
weight of five pounds. Then the preface, which must embrace some
account of the Rig-veda, the Sama-veda, the Yagur-veda, and the
Atharva-veda, with the Brahmanas, could hardly be completed in less
than ten volumes. Now, if we apportion one volume to each year, there is
every prospect of the family coming to an end of its task about the date
2250, the twelfth generation completing the work, while the thirteenth
might occupy itself upon the index."

"And how are our descendants to live, sir," I as