“I knew him by the black mark on his forehead; it was none but he.  I remained motionless with fear, gazing at him with eyes aghast.  He stopped, bending upon me his calm, sad look.  In spite of myself, I could not help exclaiming:  ‘It is he!’—­’Yes,’ he replied, in his gentle voice, ‘it is I. Since all whom thou killest must needs live again,’ and he pointed to heaven as he spoke, ’why shouldst thou kill?—­Hear me!  I have just come from Java; I am going to the other end of the world, to a country of never-melting snow; but, here or there, on plains of fire or plains of ice, I shall still be the same.  Even so is it with the souls of those who fall beneath thy kalleepra; in this world or up above, in this garb or in another, the soul must still be a soul; thou canst not smite it.  Why then kill?’—­and shaking his head sorrowfully, he went on his way, walking slowly, with downcast eyes; he ascended the hill of the pagoda; I watched him as he went, without being able to move:  at the moment the sun set, he was standing on the summit of the hill, his tall figure thrown out against the sky—­and so he disappeared.  Oh! it was he!” added the Indian with a shudder, after a long pause:  “it was none but he.”

In this story the Indian had never varied, though he had often entertained his companions with the same mysterious adventure.  This persistency on his part had the effect of shaking their incredulity, or at least of inducing them to seek some natural cause for this apparently superhuman event.

“Perhaps,” said Faringhea, after a moment’s reflection, “the knot round the traveller’s neck got jammed, and some breath was left him, the air may have penetrated the rushes with which we covered his grave, and so life have returned to him.”

“No, no,” said the Indian, shaking his head, “this man is not of our race.”

“Explain.”

“Now I know it!”

“What do you know?”

“Listen!” said the Indian, in a solemn voice; “the number of victims that the children of Bowanee have sacrificed since the commencement of ages, is nothing compared to the immense heap of dead and dying, whom this terrible traveller leaves behind him in his murderous march.”

“He?” cried the negro and Faringhea.

“Yes, he!” repeated the Hindoo, with a convinced accent, that made its impression upon his companions.  “Hear me and tremble!—­When I met this traveller at the gates of Bombay, he came from Java, and was going towards the north, he said.  The very next day, the town was a prey to the cholera, and we learned sometime after, that this plague had first broken out here, in Java.”

“That is true,” said the negro.

“Hear me still further!” resumed the other. “’I am going towards the north, to a country of eternal snow,’ said the traveller to me.  The cholera also went towards the north, passing through Muscat—­Ispahan —­Tauris—­Tiflis—­till it overwhelmed Siberia.”