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 CHAPTER II

moon, surrounded by fleecy clouds, was climbing the eastern sky, as a man drew his body slowly out of the water of the tank that lay over against the main portals of Angkor Wat.

He clambered to the summit of the causeway.

Before him, the temple rose a huge, shapeless bulk of shadows, out of which its gigantic cones sprang heavenward, with outlines sharply defined. Behind him, emerging from the obscurity, the causeway, its flags white in the moonlight, lay like an immense prostrate column.

Stepping deftly, one foot at a time, into the loop of a cotton waist-skirt, he pulled the dry garment upward to shield his nakedness, and let slip his dripping loin-clout. Next, by means of a few practised turns and twists, he converted the cloth into the likeness of a pair of short, baggy pants; and standing erect, stretched himself luxuriously, and brushed the drops of moisture from his eyes and hair.

The years which had passed since that fateful