Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/139

 lama’s greeting knowing nothing of that tongue, remained  silent.

Not that it matters. What is more to the point his answer was evidently acceptable, for the young lama threw the gates  open and we rode into a wide enclosure.

At last we were at Psam-dagong.

! Morning among the mountains! The rising sun gilds the snow-clad peaks of the lofty Himalayas, they  throw back its rays like so many huge reflectors, the plain  below us glitters as though strewn with gems.

Standing in the embrasure of one of the tower windows of that ancient shrine of Buddha, I contemplated the scene  in silent reverence. As the world’s natural Creator rose to view, I seemed seized with some measure of my friend  Mirrikh’s enthusiasm, filled with the thought that it was but  a reflection of the spiritual Creator of heaven and earth,  whose existence in a less enthusiastic moment I would have  denied. Instinctively I removed my hat and bowed my head before it, a mocking laugh echoing through the  tower as I did so. The Doctor had caught me in the very act.

“Good! Very good, my bold agnostic!” he exclaimed in his most sarcastic tones. “So we have turned sun-worshiper, have we? What is there in the atmosphere of this strange land that transforms sensible fellows like my friend Wylde  into soft-pated fools?”

I reddened, and only with difficulty restrained the lie which sprang to my lips. Something seemed to prevent me from denying the act, as I would have done.

“Pshaw! It was only a passing fancy, Doctor. I was thinking of sun-worshippers, I own, and I have the habit  sometimes of acting out my thoughts.”

“Flimsy, ” he retorted. “Wylde, your excuse is gauzy in the extreme, it won’t wash! You are tarred with the same