“Oh, he seems all right,” Hilda answered, carelessly—­and her voice reassured me.  “He’s a rogue, of course; all guides and interpreters, and dragomans and the like, in out-of-the-way places, always are rogues.  If they were honest men, they would share the ordinary prejudices of their countrymen, and would have nothing to do with the hated stranger.  But in this case our friend, Ram Das, has no end to gain by getting us into mischief.  If he had, he wouldn’t scruple for a second to cut our throats; but then, there are too many of us.  He will probably try to cheat us by making preposterous charges when he gets us back to Toloo; but that’s Lady Meadowcroft’s business.  I don’t doubt Sir Ivor will be more than a match for him there.  I’ll back one shrewd Yorkshireman against any three Tibetan half-castes, any day.”

“You’re right that he would cut our throats if it served his purpose,” I answered.  “He’s servile, and servility goes hand in hand with treachery.  The more I watch him, the more I see ‘scoundrel’ written in large type on every bend of the fellow’s oily shoulders.”

“Oh, yes, he’s a bad lot, I know.  The cook, who can speak a little English and a little Tibetan, as well as Hindustani, tells me Ram Das has the worst reputation of any man in the mountains.  But he says he’s a very good guide to the passes, for all that, and if he’s well paid will do what he’s paid for.”

Next day but one we approached at last, after several short marches, the neighbourhood of what our guide assured us was a Buddhist monastery.  I was glad when he told us of it, giving the place the name of a well-known Nepaulese village; for, to say the truth, I was beginning to get frightened.  Judging by the sun, for I had brought no compass, it struck me that we seemed to have been marching almost due north ever since we left Toloo; and I fancied such a line of march must have brought us by this time suspiciously near the Tibetan frontier.  Now, I had no desire to be “skinned alive,” as Sir Ivor put it.  I did not wish to emulate St. Bartholomew and others of the early Christian martyrs; so I was pleased to learn that we were really drawing near to Kulak, the first of the Nepaulese Buddhist monasteries to which our well-informed guide, himself a Buddhist, had promised to introduce us.

We were tramping up a beautiful high mountain valley, closed round on every side by snowy peaks.  A brawling river ran over a rocky bed in cataracts down its midst.  Crags rose abruptly a little in front of us.  Half-way up the slope to the left, on a ledge of rock, rose a long, low building with curious, pyramid-like roofs, crowned at either end by a sort of minaret, which resembled more than anything else a huge earthenware oil-jar.  This was the monastery or lamasery we had come so far to see.  Honestly, at first sight, I did not feel sure it was worth the trouble.

Our guide called a halt, and turned to us with a sudden peremptory air.  His servility had vanished.  “You stoppee here,” he said, slowly, in broken English, “while me-a go on to see whether Lama-sahibs ready to take you.  Must ask leave from Lama-sahibs to visit village; if no ask leave”—­he drew his hand across his throat with a significant gesture—­“Lama-sahibs cuttee head off Eulopean.”