The family priest, an old, tolerant Sarsut Brahmin, dropped in
later, and naturally started a theological argument to impress
the family. By creed, of course, they were all on their priest's
side, but the lama was the guest and the novelty. His gentle
kindliness, and his impressive Chinese quotations, that sounded
like spells, delighted them hugely; and in this sympathetic,
simple air, he expanded like the Bodhisat's own lotus, speaking
of his life in the great hills of Such-zen, before, as he said,
'I rose up to seek enlightenment.'

Then it came out that in those worldly days he had been a master-
hand at casting horoscopes and nativities; and the family priest
led him on to describe his methods; each giving the planets names
that the other could not understand, and pointing upwards as the
big stars sailed across the dark. The children of the house
tugged unrebuked at his rosary; and he clean forgot the Rule
which forbids looking at women as he talked of enduring snows,
landslips, blocked passes, the remote cliffs where men find
sapphires and turquoise, and that wonderful upland road that
leads at last into Great China itself.

'How thinkest thou of this one?' said the cultivator aside to the
priest.

'A holy man - a holy man indeed. His Gods are not the Gods, but
his feet are upon the Way,' was the answer. 'And his methods of
nativities, though that is beyond thee, are wise and sure.'

'Tell me,' said Kim lazily, 'whether I find my Red Bull on a