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How we love tormenting
ourselves! Listen, Heard. I'll tell you what it is. We are ripe for a
new Messiah, like these Russians. We are not Europeans. We are Indian
fakirs, self-torturers. We are a pack of masochists. That is what
upstairs gods have done for us. Listen, Heard!"
The bishop failed to catch the import of this peroration. Its sound
alone reached him like an echo from far away. He was unaccountably
drowsy.
"Fakirs. I quite understand--"
The boat seemed to move more slowly than before. Perhaps the oarsmen
were weary, or suffering from the heat. The glare pierced the awning.
Mr. Heard, as he reclined about his cushions, felt the perspiration
gathering on his forehead. A spell had fallen upon him--the spell of a
Southern noon. It lulled his senses. It laid chains upon his thoughts.
There was a long silence, broken only by the splash of the oars and by
a steady flow of conversation on the part of the two Greek genii, who
seemed impervious to the midday beams and entirely absorbed in one
another.


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