k, so that they seemed to have been
inset when it was molten, in the way that nuts are set into
chocolate--pushed into place by a pair of titanic thumbs. And at last we
seemed to have reached a place where the Gray Mahatma might not enter
uninvited, for he selected one of the doors after a moment's thought and
knocked.

We stood there for possibly ten minutes, without an answer, the Mahatma
seeming satisfied with his own meditation, and we not caring to talk
lest he should overhear us.

At last the door opened, not cautiously, but suddenly and wide, and a
man stood square in it who filled it up from frame to frame--a big-eyed,
muscular individual in loin-cloth and turban, who looked too proud to
assert his pride. He stood with arms folded and a smile on his firm
mouth; and the impression he conveyed was that of a master-craftsman,
whose skill was his life, and whose craft was all he cared about.

He eyed the Mahatma without respect or flinching, and said nothing.

Have you ever watched two wild animals meet, stand looking at each
other, and suddenly go off together without a sign of an explanation?
That was what happened. The man in the doorway presently turned his back
and led the way in.

The passage we entered was just exactly wide enough for me to pass along
with elbows touching either wall. It was high; there was plenty of air
in it; it was as scrupulously clean as a hospital ward. On either hand
there were narrow wooden doors, spaced about twenty feet apart, every
one of them closed; there were no bolts on the outside of the doors, and
no keyholes, but I could not move them by shoving against them as I
passed.

The extraordinary circumstance was the light. The whole passage was
bathed in light, yet I could not detect where it came from. It was not
dazzling like electricity. No one place seemed brighter than another,
and there were no shadows.

The end of the passage forked at a perfect right angle, and there were
doors at the end of each arm of the fork. Our guide turned to the right.
He, King and the Mahatma passed through a door that seemed to open at
the slightest touch, and the instant the Mahatma's back had passed the
door-frame I found myself in darkness.

I had hung back a little, trying to make shadows with my hands to
discover the direction of the light; and the strange part was that I
could see bright light in front of me through the open door, but none of
it came out into the passage.

It wa