above and below on an iron spindle.  Looking closer, I saw it had a crank attached to it, with a string tied to the crank.  A solitary monk, absorbed in his devotions, was pulling this string as we entered, and making the cylinder revolve with a jerk as he pulled it.  At each revolution, a bell above rang once.  The monk seemed as if his whole soul was bound up in the huge revolving drum and the bell worked by it.

We took this all in at a glance, somewhat vaguely at first, for our lives were at stake, and we were scarcely in a mood for ethnological observations.  But the moment Hilda saw the cylinder her eye lighted up.  I could see at once an idea had struck her.  “This is a praying-wheel!” she cried, in quite a delighted voice.  “I know where I am now, Hubert—­Lady Meadowcroft—­I see a way out of this!  Do exactly as you see me do, and all may yet go well.  Don’t show surprise at anything.  I think we can work upon these people’s religious feelings.”

Without a moment’s hesitation she prostrated herself thrice on the ground before the figure of Buddha, knocking her head ostentatiously in the dust as she did so.  We followed suit instantly.  Then Hilda rose and began walking slowly round the big drum in the nave, saying aloud at each step, in a sort of monotonous chant, like a priest intoning, the four mystic words, “Aum, mani, padme, hum,” “Aum, mani, padme, hum,” many times over.  We repeated the sacred formula after her, as if we had always been brought up to it.  I noticed that Hilda walked the way of the sun.  It is an important point in all these mysterious, half-magical ceremonies.

At last, after about ten or twelve such rounds, she paused, with an absorbed air of devotion, and knocked her head three times on the ground once more, doing poojah, before the ever-smiling Buddha.

By this time, however, the lessons of St. Alphege’s rectory began to recur to Lady Meadowcroft’s mind.  “Oh, Miss Wade,” she murmured in an awestruck voice, “Ought we to do like this?  Isn’t it clear idolatry?”

Hilda’s common sense waved her aside at once.  “Idolatry or not, it is the only way to save our lives,” she answered, in her firmest voice.

“But—­ought we to save our lives?  Oughtn’t we to be . . . well, Christian martyrs?”

Hilda was patience itself.  “I think not, dear,” she replied, gently but decisively.  “You are not called upon to be a martyr.  The danger of idolatry is scarcely so great among Europeans of our time that we need feel it a duty to protest with our lives against it.  I have better uses to which to put my life myself.  I don’t mind being a martyr—­where a sufficient cause demands it.  But I don’t think such a sacrifice is required of us now in a Tibetan monastery.  Life was not given us to waste on gratuitous martyrdoms.”

“But . . . really . . .  I’m afraid . . .”

“Don’t be afraid of anything, dear, or you will risk all.  Follow my lead; I will answer for your conduct.  Surely, if Naaman, in the midst of idolaters, was permitted to bow down in the house of Rimmon, to save his place at court, you may blamelessly bow down to save your life in a Buddhist temple.  Now, no more casuistry, but do as I tell you!  ‘Aum, mani, padme, hum,’ again!  Once more round the drum there!”