“You do not mean to say that he intended they should actually eat his body?”

“Then you suppose ignorantly,” said the man in black; “eating the bodies of the dead was a heathenish custom, practised by the heirs and legatees of people who left property; and this custom is alluded to in the text.”

“But what has the New Testament to do with heathen customs,” said I, “except to destroy them?”

“More than you suppose,” said the man in black.  “We priests of Rome, who have long lived at Rome, know much better what the New Testament is made of than the heretics and their theologians, not forgetting their Tinkers; though I confess some of the latter have occasionally surprised us—­for example, Bunyan.  The New Testament is crowded with allusions to heathen customs, and with words connected with pagan sorcery.  Now, with respect to words, I would fain have you, who pretend to be a philologist, tell me the meaning of Amen.”

I made no answer.

“We of Rome,” said the man in black, “know two or three things of which the heretics are quite ignorant; for example, there are those amongst us—­those, too, who do not pretend to be philologists—­who know what Amen is, and, moreover, how we got it.  We got it from our ancestors, the priests of ancient Rome; and they got the word from their ancestors of the East, the priests of Buddh and Brahma.”

“And what is the meaning of the word?” I demanded.

“Amen,” said the man in black, “is a modification of the old Hindoo formula, Omani batsikhom, by the almost ceaseless repetition of which the Indians hope to be received finally to the rest or state of forgetfulness of Buddh or Brahma; a foolish practice you will say, but are you heretics much wiser, who are continually sticking Amen to the end of your prayers, little knowing when you do so, that you are consigning yourselves to the repose of Buddh!  Oh, what hearty laughs our missionaries have had when comparing the eternally-sounding Eastern gibberish of Omani batsikhom, Omani batsikhom, and the Ave Maria and Amen Jesus of our own idiotical devotees.”

“I have nothing to say about the Ave Marias and Amens of your superstitious devotees,” said I; “I dare say that they use them nonsensically enough, but in putting Amen to the end of a prayer, we merely intend to express, ‘So let it be.’”

“It means nothing of the kind,” said the man in black; “and the Hindoos might just as well put your national oath at the end of their prayers, as perhaps they will after a great many thousand years, when English is forgotten, and only a few words of it remembered by dim tradition without being understood.  How strange if, after the lapse of four thousand years, the Hindoos should damn themselves to the blindness so dear to their present masters, even as their masters at present consign themselves to the forgetfulness so dear to the Hindoos; but my glass has been empty for a considerable time; perhaps, Bellissima Biondina,” said he, addressing Belle, “you will deign to replenish it?”