crummies no bigger than Newfoundland dogs.  Two shadows that looked like a bear and her cub hurried past me.  I was in act to fire when I saw that they had each a brilliant red head.  The lesser animal was trailing some rope behind it that left a dark track on the path.  They passed within six feet of me, and the shadow of the moonlight lay velvet-black on their faces.  Velvet-black was exactly the word, for by all the powers of moonlight they were masked in the velvet of my camera-cloth!  I marvelled and went to bed.

Next morning the Kingdom was in uproar.  Namgay Doola, men said, had gone forth in the night and with a sharp knife had cut off the tail of a cow belonging to the rabbit-faced villager who had betrayed him.  It was sacrilege unspeakable against the Holy Cow.  The State desired his blood, but he had retreated into his hut, barricaded the doors and windows with big stones, and defied the world.

The King and I and the populace approached the hut cautiously.  There was no hope of capturing the man without loss of life, for from a hole in the wall projected the muzzle of an extremely well-cared-for gun—­the only gun in the State that could shoot.  Namgay Doola had narrowly missed a villager just before we came up.  The Standing Army stood.  It could do no more, for when it advanced pieces of sharp shale flew from the windows.  To these were added from time to time showers of scalding water.  We saw red heads bobbing up and down in the hut.  The family of Namgay Doola were aiding their sire, and blood-curdling yells of defiance were the only answers to our prayers.

‘Never,’ said the King, puffing, ’has such a thing befallen my State.  Next year I will certainly buy a little cannon.’  He looked at me imploringly.

‘Is there any priest in the Kingdom to whom he will listen?’ said I, for a light was beginning to break upon me.

‘He worships his own God,’ said the Prime Minister.  ’We can starve him out.’

‘Let the white man approach,’ said Namgay Doola from within.  ’All others I will kill.  Send me the white man.’

The door was thrown open and I entered the smoky interior of a Thibetan hut crammed with children.  And every child had flaming red hair.  A raw cow’s-tail lay on the floor, and by its side two pieces of black velvet—­ my black velvet—­rudely hacked into the semblance of masks.

‘And what is this shame, Namgay Doola?’ said I.

He grinned more winningly than ever.  ‘There is no shame,’ said he.  ’I did but cut off the tail of that man’s cow.  He betrayed me.  I was minded to shoot him, Sahib.  But not to death.  Indeed not to death.  Only in the legs.’

’And why at all, since it is the custom to pay revenue to the King?  Why at all?’

‘By the God of my father I cannot tell,’ said Namgay Doola.

‘And who was thy father?’

‘The same that had this gun.’  He showed me his weapon—­a Tower musket bearing date 1832 and the stamp of the Honourable East India Company.