tolerable acquaintance with the Siamese language, and he at once proceeded to question the old priests who guard the Nagkon Wat.
It was a useless effort. From the priests—intelligent men of their class—we received the most positive assurances that no stranger was present at the ruins but ourselves, nor had been for months past. Of a man with a partially concealed face they had never heard.
But had no one seen Mr. Mirrikh but ourselves?
Yes; Maurice’s Chinese cook, Ah Schow, had seen him crossing the courtyard while on the way to fetch water for our breakfast from a spring behind the temple. Seen him for a moment only, for then his attention was attracted by something else. When Ah Schow looked back, wondering at the concealed face, the man was gone.
And this was all.
Be very certain that we all three made haste to ascend the winding staircase of the right hand tower, having our labor for our pains.
As the days glided by, the Rev. Miles Philpot remained our guest, and it struck me that it was a very fortunate thing for His Reverence that he had fallen in with us as he did.
So far as I could learn he was almost without money, and he certainly had come into the depths of this Siamese forest wholly unprovided with such creature comforts as were absolutely necessary for existence, and unattended as well.
He made no concealment of this. On the contrary, he boasted of his luck.
“If I hadn’t met you boys,” he said, “likely as not I would have starved. It was a crazy undertaking, but I had grown tired of Bangkok and was determined to see these ruins. I shall go back with you to Panompin, and if nothing turns up there I’ll jog on to Singapore, where I have been promised a charge at a mission station. If I fail there I think I shall go home to England.”
Never have I been thrown in with a man so well informed and yet so light and trivial in all his methods of thought.
Maurice seemed to like him; I endured him—he amused me with his sarcasm and his dry sayings. So long as he kept me from thinking it was enough.
One of the few things of which his luggage boasted beyond a change of clothing was a small camera, and with this he entertained himself and us by taking negatives,
