“I understand the case perfectly,” he said to the old man; “he needs rest and plenty of good nursing—­and quiet.  We often have these cases.  Your head feels all right, doesn’t it?” he asked Bernal.

“Fine, Doctor!”

“I thought so.”  He looked shrewdly at the old man.  “Your grandfather had an idea you might be—­perhaps a bit excited.”

“No—­not a bit.  We’ve had a fine morning chatting over some of the primitive religions, haven’t we, old man?” and he smiled affectionately up to his grandfather.  “Hello, Nance, come and sit by me.”

The girl had paused in the doorway while he spoke, and came now to take his hand, after a look of inquiry at the two men.  The latter withdrew, the eyes of the old man sadly beseeching the eyes of the physician for some definite sign of hope.

Inside, the sufferer lay holding a hand of Nancy between his cheek and the pillow—­with intervals of silence and blithe speech.  His disordered mind, it appeared, was still pursuing its unfortunate tangent.

“The first ideas are all funny, aren’t they, Nance?  Genesis in that Christian mythology we were discussing isn’t the only funny one.  There was the old northern couple who danced on the bones of the earth nine times and made nine pairs of men and women; and there were the Greek and his wife who threw stones out of their ark that changed to men; and the Hindu that saved the life of a fish, and whom the fish then saved by fastening his ship to his horn; and the South Sea fisherman who caught his hook in the water-god’s hair and made him so angry that he drowned all the world except the offending fisherman.  Aren’t they nearly as funny as the god who made one of his pair out of clay and one from a rib, and then became so angry with them that he must beget a son for them to sacrifice before he would forgive them?  Let’s think of the pleasanter ones.  Do you know that hymn of the Veda?—­’If I go along trembling like a cloud, have mercy, Almighty, have mercy!’

“’Through want of strength, thou strong and bright God, have I gone wrong.  Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy!’

“And Buddha was a pleasant soul, Nance—­with stuff in him, too—­born a prince, yet leaving his palace to be poor and to study the ways of wisdom, until enlightenment came to him sitting under his Bo tree.  He said faith was the best wealth here.  And, ’Not to commit any sin, to do good and to purify one’s mind, that is the teaching of the awakened’; ’not hating those who hate us,’ ‘free from greed among the greedy.’  They must have been glad of Buddhism in their day, teaching them to honour their parents, to be kind to the sick and poor and sorrowing, to forgive their enemies and return good for evil.  And there was funny old Confucius with his ’Coarse rice for food, water to drink, the bended arm for a pillow—­happiness may be enjoyed even with these; but without virtue, both riches and honour seem to me like the passing cloud.’  Another one of his is ’In the book of Poetry are three hundred pieces—­but the designs of them all mean, “Have no depraved thoughts."’ Rather good for a Chinaman, wasn’t it?