Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/22

 him Jehovah, call him Buddha, Brahma, or by whatever name you please."

“Bravo!” I cried. “Bravo! Positively I never imagined that I had in my friend so profound a thinker, an adept, a philosopher! Then you don’t regard the Buddhists as idolators, it seems?”

“No more than you are, no more than I am. I speak only of the educated. Long before I left America I entertained these views, and since my residence in the East I have seen much to confirm me in them; but—”

“But not enough to make you willing to credit the mysterious disappearance of my friend with the parti-colored face?” I answered, somewhat sneeringly. “You made game of that, you know.”

“I own that I did, but it was because I did not care to enter into a discussion upon these matters at the time. Your state of mind was not such as to make it desirable that I should do so. It is hardly otherwise now, and I regret— George, there certainly is some one on the platform above us. Hark!”

No need to call my attention. What Maurice heard I heard—could not help hearing. A deep voice had broken out above us, singing, or rather chanting the lines which follow.

Coming suddenly as it did, close upon Maurice’s learned disquisition on Buddhism, every word is as firmly graven on  my memory as though heard only yesterday, instead of many  long years ago. Let me add that the words were English, as perfectly pronounced as if chanted by myself.

The song ceased. As the last echo died away, the shadowy mists which had hitherto hung over the horizon