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 CHAPTER XV

THE INNER SHRINE

palm-leaf mats, spread before the big bronze portals of the inner shrine, Chun found his two loutish, peasant brothers sitting, chew- ing betel-quids, and talking listlessly. They had been camped there, day and night, for a week, and they had been enjoying themselves immensely. Their slack curiosity concerning the world-shaking events, which were taking place outside the temple, was satisfied by the news that from time to time filtered through to them; and, for the rest, they had attained suddenly to the realisation of an impossible ideal. To eat and sleep only—that, to these drudges of the house, and toilers in the quarry and the workyard, had been a phrase which from childhood, had seemed to enshrine for them the perfect existence; and, behold, here, seated or lying upon mats of luxurious softness, nothing was expected of them save eating and sleeping. It was incredible, no less. Also, to complete their well-being, an ill-favoured damsel of the temple—who had thought to grasp a golden opportunity by making to herself friends