We could dimly distinguish one
end on our right hand with a row of great graven gods all reflected in
the water; but the other end vanished through a black cave-mouth. It was
about a hundred and twenty feet wide from bank to bank, and between us
and the steps that faced us on the far side, in among the quivering
star-reflections, I could count the snouts of eighteen alligators.

"Which way now?" King asked him a shade suspiciously.

"Forward," he answered, with a note of surprise.

But if the Mahatma supposed that a coat of soot and ashes provided
either King or me with a satisfactory reason for hobnobbing with
alligators in their home pool, he was emphatically mistaken. We objected
simultaneously, unanimously, and right out loud in meeting.

"Suit yourself," said I. "This suits me here."

"Go forward if you like," said King, "we'll wait for you."

The Gray Mahatma turned and eyed us solemnly but not unkindly.

"If I should leave you here," he said, "a much worse fate would overtake
you than any that you anticipate, for your minds are not advanced enough
to imagine the horrors that assail all those who lack courage. This is
the testing place for aspirants, and more win their way across it than
you might suppose, impudence of ambition adding skill to recklessness.
All must make the attempt, alone and at night, who seek the inner
shrines of Knowledge, and those creatures in the tank have no other food
than is thus provided.

"Those whose courage failed them are now such fakirs as we have seen,
who now seek to rid themselves of materiality, which is the cause of
fear, by ridding themselves of their fleshy envelope. Follow me then."

He stepped down into the water, and at once it became evident that to
all intents and purposes there were two tanks, the division between them
lying about eighteen inches under water. But the division was neither
straight nor exactly level. It zig-zagged this and that way like the
key-track in a maze, and was more beset with slippery pitfalls than a
mussel-shoal at low tide.

King followed the Mahatma in, and I came last, so I had the benefit of
two pilots, as well as the important task of holding King whenever he
groped his way forward with one foot. For the Mahatma went a great deal
faster than we cared to follow, so that although he had shown us the way
we were still doubtful of our footing. At intervals he would pause and
turn and look at us, and every time he did that those long