“Ram Das!” I exclaimed, thoroughly angry by this time.  “The rogue!  The scoundrel!  He has not only deserted us, but betrayed us as well.  He has told this lie on purpose to set the Tibetans against us.  We must face the worst now.  Our one chance is, to cajole these people.”

The fat priest spoke again.  “What does he say this time?” I asked.

“He say, Ram Das tell him all this because Ram Das good man—­very good man:  Ram Das converted Buddhist.  You pay Ram Das to guidee you to Lhasa.  But Ram Das good man, not want to let Eulopean see holy city; bring you here instead; then tell priest-sahib about it.”  And he chuckled inwardly.

“What will they do to us?” Lady Meadowcroft asked, her face very white, though her manner was more courageous than I could easily have believed of her.

“I don’t know,” I answered, biting my lip.  “But we must not give way.  We must put a bold face upon it.  Their bark, after all, may be worse than their bite.  We may still persuade them to let us go back again.”

The men in yellow robes motioned us to move on towards the village and monastery.  We were their prisoners, and it was useless to resist.  So I ordered the bearers to take up the tents and baggage.  Lady Meadowcroft resigned herself to the inevitable.  We mounted the path in a long line, the Lamas in yellow closely guarding our draggled little procession.  I tried my best to preserve my composure, and above all else not to look dejected.

As we approached the village, with its squalid and fetid huts, we caught the sound of bells, innumerable bells, tinkling at regular intervals.  Many people trooped out from their houses to look at us, all flat-faced, all with oblique eyes, all stolidly, sullenly, stupidly passive.  They seemed curious as to our dress and appearance, but not apparently hostile.  We walked on to the low line of the monastery with its pyramidal roof and its queer, flower-vase minarets.  After a moment’s discussion they ushered us into the temple or chapel, which was evidently also their communal council-room and place of deliberation.  We entered, trembling.  We had no great certainty that we would ever get out of it alive again.

The temple was a large, oblong hall, with a great figure of Buddha, cross-legged, imperturbable, enthroned in a niche at its further end, like the apse or recess in a church in Italy.  Before it stood an altar.  The Buddha sat and smiled on us with his eternal smile.  A complacent deity, carved out of white stone, and gaudily painted; a yellow robe, like the Lamas’, dangled across his shoulders.  The air seemed close with incense and also with bad ventilation.  The centre of the nave, if I may so call it, was occupied by a huge wooden cylinder, a sort of overgrown drum, painted in bright colours, with ornamental designs and Tibetan letters.  It was much taller than a man, some nine feet high, I should say, and it revolved