“What!”

“It’s the pure truth I’m tellin’ ye—­a corporal, with two good-conduct stripes; the other week Paddy Nolan had drink taken, and nothin’ would please him but that he must drive, so he turned off the garriwan and made a cruel bad hand of it—­as you saw for yourself!  They were a couple of raw new ponies, come down out of last drove, and unused to trams and motors, and frightened dancing mad; only for you heading them off, we were all as dead as mutton.”

“But how did you get into the Burmese priesthood?” inquired Shafto with abrupt irrelevance.

“It was like this, sorr, I’m country-born; me father was a sergeant in the Irish Rifles, me mother was a half-caste—­an Anglo-Indian from Ceylon—­so I’m half Irish, quarter Cingalese.  I was left an orphan when I was seven years old and educated at the Lawrence Asylum.  I always had a wonderful twist for languages; it came as easy as breathing to me to talk Tamil or Telugu.  Well, when I was close on eighteen I enlisted and put in seven years with the Colours, mostly in Bengal; then we come over here and lay in Mandalay and, after a bit, I—­somehow got lost.”

“That is, you deserted,” sternly amended Shafto.

“Oh well, have it whatever way ye like, sorr.  I was shootin’ in the jungles and was took terribly bad with fever and nearly died.  The natives are good-natured, kind, soft people—­none better; they took me in and nursed me, and one of the pongyes doctored me.  You see, I was entirely out of touch with Europeans, and when I got cured was just a walking skeleton.  Some thief had made away with my boots and breeches, so I stopped among the natives and never laid eyes on a white face for two years.  I soon picked up the Burmese lingo, which some say is difficult; but to me it was aisy as kiss me hand.  Then I was received into the priesthood; that was over seven years ago, and here I am still.  Of course, as ye know, I can go or stay as I please; but I stick to the yellow robe as if it was me skin.  Still and all, I won’t deny that the sight of a soldier draws me, and that,” he concluded modestly, “is my only wakeness.”

“I say, you don’t mean to tell me that you are a real Buddhist?”

“Why, of course I am; what else would I be?  The religion is pure and good and friendly; the other priests know that I’m from India—­and that’s enough for them.  In this country no questions is asked—­and that’s what makes livin’ so nice and aisy.  And, sure, aren’t we Buddhists all over the world?  Our doctrines are wise and ancient; we pray and keep fasts and live to ourselves, and there’s little differ, in my mind, between us and the Catholic religion—­in which I was born and reared.  Haven’t we the mass, and vespers, and beads, and monasteries, and Lent,—­all complate?”

“So then you’re a celibate—­a monk?”

“And to be shure I am; ye don’t think I look like a nun, do ye?”