blandly. 'Gopi, the bikshu, never makes mistakes, and performs neatly. Did the Presence observe how neatly? Within the cotton marking the Brahman came the hempen thread of the Kshatriya, inside again the woollen strand of the Vaisya; all three twice-born. But last of all, a strip of cowskin defiling the whole.'

"'Why cow-skin?' I asked in my ignorance. 'I always thought you held a cow sacred.'

"Victor Emanuel beamed approval. 'The little Presence is young, but intelligent. He will doubtless learn much if he questions the right people judiciously. He will grow wise like the big Presence, who knows nearly as much as we know about some things--but not all! The cow is sacred, so the skin telling of the misfortune of the cow is anathema. Yea, 'twas a divine miracle. The money of the pious will flow to make the holy fat; at least that is what the doctor sahib is thinking.'

"'Don't set up for occult power on the strength of guessing palpable truths,' replied Taylor; 'that sort of thing does not amuse me; but the little sahib wants to know how much truth there was in Gopi's story.'

"'Gopi knows,' retorted our friend with a grin. 'The Brahman saith the boy was gifted to him by a pious woman after the custom of thanksgiving. Gone five years old, wearing the sacred thread, versed in simple lore, intelligent, well-formed, as the ritual demands. Gopi saith the mother, his wife, was a bad walker, even to the length of public bazaars. Her people sought her for years, but she escaped them in big towns, and ere they found her she had gained safety for this boy by palming him off on Sukya. 'Twas easy for her, being a Brahmani. Of course they made her speak somewhat ere she fulfilled her life, but not the name of the anchorite she deceived. So Gopi, knowing from the mother's babbling of this mongrel's blasphemous name, and the vow of pilgrimage for the expiation of sins, hath come hither, led by the Spirit, every year. It is a tale of great virtue and edification.'

"'But the boy! the wretched boy?' I asked eagerly. Taylor raised his eyebrows and watched my reception of the jog's answer with a half-pitying smile.

"'Perhaps he will die; perhaps not. What does it matter? One born of such parents is dead to virtue from the beginning, and life without virtue is not life.'

"'He might try Amar-nâth and the remission of sins you believe in so firmly,' remarked Taylor, with another look at me.

"Victor Emanuel spat freely. 'There is no Amar-nâth for such as he, and the Presence knows that as well as I do. No remission at all, even if he found the Flower of Forgiveness, as the doctor sahib hopes to do.'

"'Upon my soul,' retorted Taylor impatiently, 'I believe the existence of the one is about as credible as the other. I shall have to swallow both if I chance upon either.'

"'That may be; but not for the boy Amra. He will die and be damned in due course.'

"That seemed to settle the question for others, but I was haunted by the boy's look when he heard the words, 'Thou art uncleansable for ever and ever.'

"'After all 'tis only a concentrated form of the feeling we all have at times,' remarked Taylor drily; 'even I should like to do away with a portion of my past. Besides, all religions claim more or less a monopoly of repentance. They are no worse here than at home.'

"We journeyed slowly to Amar-nâth, watching the pilgrims pass us by on the road, but catching them up again each evening after long rambles over the hills in search of rare plants. It is three days' march, by rights, to Shisha Nag, or the Leaden Lake, where the pilgrimage begins in real earnest by the pilgrims, men, women, and children, divesting themselves of every stitch of raiment, and journeying stark naked through the snow and ice for two days--coming back, of course, clothed with righteousness. But Taylor becoming interested over fungi in the chestnut woods of Chandanwarra, we paused there to hunt up all sorts of deathly-looking growths due to disease and decay. I was not sorry; for one pilgrim possessed by frantic haste to shift his sins to some scapegoat is very much like another pilgrim with the same desire; besides, I grew tired of Victor Emanuel, who felt the cold extremely, and was in consequence seldom sober, and extremely loquacious. I thought I had never seen such a dreary place as Shisha Nag, though the sun shone brilliantly on its cliffs and glaciers. I think it must have been the irresponsiveness of the lake itself which deadened its beauties, for the water, surcharged with gypsum, lay in pale green stretches, refusing a single reflection of the hills which held it so carefully.

"The next march was awful; and in more than one place, half hidden by the flowers forcing their way through the snow, lay the corpses of pilgrims who had succumbed to the cold and the exposure.

"'Pneumonia in five out of six cases,' remarked Taylor casually. 'If it were not for the churrus (concoction of hemp) they drink, the mortality would be fearful. I wonder what Exeter Hall would say to getting drunk for purposes of devotion?'

"At Punjtârni we met the returning pilgrims; among others Victor, very sick and sorry for himself physically, but of intolerable moral strength. He told us, between the intervals of petitions for pills and potions, that the remaining fourteen miles to the Cave were unusually difficult, and had been singularly fatal that year. On hearing this, Taylor, knowing my dislike to horrors, proposed taking a path across the hills instead of keeping to the orthodox route. Owing to scarcity of water and fuel, the servants and tents could only go some five miles farther along the ravine, so this suggestion would involve no change of plan. He added that there would also be a greater chance of finding 'that blessed anemone.' I don't think I ever saw so much drunkenness or so much devotion as I saw that evening at Punjtârni. It was hard indeed to tell where the one began and the other ended; for excitement, danger, and privation lent their aid to drugs, and a sense of relief to both. The very cliffs and glaciers resounded with enthusiasm, and I saw Sukya and Premi taking their part with the rest as if nothing had happened.

"Taylor and I started alone next morning. We were to make a long round in search of the Flower of Forgiveness, and come back upon the Cave towards afternoon. The path, if path it could be called, was fearful. Taylor, however, was untiring, and at the slightest hint of hope would strike off up the most break-neck places, leaving me to rejoin him as best I could. Yet not a trace did we find of the anemone. Taylor grew fretful, and when we reached the snow slope leading to the Cave, he declared it would be sheer waste of time for him to go up.

"'Get rid of your sins, if you want to, by all means,' he said; 'I've seen photographs of the place, and it's a wretched imposture even as a spectacle. You have only to keep up the snow for a mile and turn to the left. You'll find me somewhere about these cliffs on your return; and don't be long, for the going before us is difficult.' So I left him poking into every crack and cranny.

"I could scarcely make up my mind if I was impressed or disappointed with the Cave. Its extreme insignificance was, it is true, almost ludicrous. Save for a patch of red paint and a shockingly bad attempt at a stone image of Siva's bull, there was nothing to distinguish this hollow in the rock from a thousand similar ones all over the Himalayas. But this very insignificance gave mystery to the fact that hundreds of thousands of the conscience-stricken had found consolation here. 'What went ye out into the wilderness to see?' As I stood for an instant at the entrance before retracing my