"How much you know," sighed Miss Cuffe admiringly; "how much you tell me, that I never heard before." "And here comes one who will possibly impart some events which are yet to come," and Mr. Lindsay indicated the tall lanky figure which was advancing in the wake of the chuprassis. The Fakir was an old man, singularly emaciated. He wore a simple loin cloth and a row of huge beads; his legs were bandy, his voice was bass, his hair matted, in his eyes there was a piercing look bordering on madness. He came straight up to Lindsay and salaamed, entirely ignoring the opium wallah, and the three ladies. "Take off your wedding ring, and lend it to me," whispered Miss Cuffe to Angel, "and we will see if we cannot puzzle him." "Shall I tell the stars of the Lord Sahib only?" asked the Fakir, "and in his ear?" "Oh, no," responded Lindsay, "the stars of the company, and one by one, so that all may hear—what the fates have in store for them." "Yes, what fun it will be," said Miss Cuffe. "Mrs. Ellis," to her friend, "will you be done? Do, it will be so amusing." "No, thank you," said the lady, "I am quite willing to listen to your fortunes, but I beg to decline hearing mine." "I have heard that this man is marvellous," said her husband, "and greatly feared by all the neighbours." "Certainly his looks are not attractive," remarked Angel; "he seems to be getting impatient. Shall I break the ice—in other words, be done?" There was an immediate chorus of assent, and she rose and came forward to where the Fakir was squatting. He also rose and drew his lean form to its full length. What a contrast the two figures presented, as they stood face to face; denizens of the East and West. The pretty fair English girl, with her dainty white gown, her little vanities of chains and laces, her well-groomed air; and the half-naked Fakir, with his mop of tangled hair, his starting ribs, his wild black eyes, his chest and forehead daubed with ashes, and, as a background to the pair, a circle of watching, eager retainers, the big tree stems, the white tents, and the flat cultivated plains merging into the blue horizon. Angel put out her hand; the fortune-teller glanced at it curiously, then he looked up in her face with a strenuous stare, and there was a silence only broken by Miss Cuffe's titter. At last it came, a sonorous voice speaking as if pronouncing judgment. "Oh, yea—thou art a wife." "The servants told," giggled Miss Cuffe in an audible voice. "Hush, hush," expostulated her friend, "he is speaking." "Thou wast given to a man by a dead hand—" another pause—"he married thee at the bidding of a woman—his foot is on thy heart—it is well, lo! he is a man—and to be trusted." He paused again and salaamed to the earth, a sign that he had concluded, and once more squatted upon his heels. "What? And is that all?" exclaimed Miss Cuffe, indignantly.