a
word, without a gesture. Now she spoke.

"But why were you so concerned about my father?"

The big Oriental turned about in the chair. He looked steadily at the
girl, he seemed to be treating the query to his involved method of
translation; and Miss Carstair felt that the man, because of this
tedious mental process, might have difficulty to understand precisely
what she meant.

What he wished to say, he could control and, therefore, could accurately
present--but what was said to him began in the distant language.

"What Major Carstair did," he said, "it has not been made clear to you?"

"No," she replied, "I do not understand."

The man seemed puzzled.

"You have not understood!"

He repeated the sentence; his face reflective, his great bare head
settling into the collar of his evening coat as though the man's neck
were removed.

He remained for a moment thus puzzled and reflective. Then he began
to speak as one would set in motion some delicate involved machinery
running away into the hidden spaces of a workshop.

"The Dalai Lama had fallen--he was alone in the Image Room. His head
striking the sharp edge of a table was cut. He had lost a great deal of
blood when we found him and was close to death. Major Carstair was at
this time approaching the monastery from the south; his description
sent to us from Lhassa contained the statement that he was an American
surgeon. We sent at once asking him to visit the Dalai Lama, for the
skill of Western people in this department of human knowledge is known
to us."

The Oriental went on, slowly, with extreme care.

"Major Carstair did not at once impress us. 'What this man needs,' he
said, 'is blood.' That was clear to everybody. One of our, how shall I
say it in your language, Cardinals, replied with some bitterness, that
the Dalai Lama could hardly be imagined to lack anything else. Major
Carstair paid no attention to the irony. 'This man must have a supply
of blood,' he added. The Cardinal, very old, and given to imagery in his
discourse answered, that blood could be poured out but it could not be
gathered up... and that man could spill it but only God could make.

"We interrupted then, for Major Carstair was our guest and entitled to
every courtesy, and inquired how it would be possible to restore blood
to the Dalai Lama; it was not conceivable that the lost blood could be
gathered up.

"He explained then that he would transfer it from the veins of a healthy