"_Om, mane padme, om!_" repeated Beeroo, and passed into the shrine. He found himself in a room about twenty feet square, the walls and floor blackened by age and by the smoke from the cressets which burned day and night in little niches in the walls. Overhead the vault of the dome was in inky darkness, and in front of him, three-headed and four-armed, painted a bright red, was the grinning idol of Mohonagh. At the feet of the god were the offerings of the pilgrims, and on each side of the idol stood an attendant priest holding a censer, which he swung to and fro, and the fumes from which, heavy with the odour of the wild jasmine and the champac, curled slowly up to the blackened dome. But it was not on the idol, nor on the priests, nor on the worshippers, that Beeroo's eyes were fixed. They were bent to the right of the idol, where the trunk of the Shagul Tree rose from the flooring of the temple like the body of a huge snake, and, escaping outside through a cutting in the wall, spread out into branches and leaves. In fact the temple was built around the tree, and even through the gloom, Beeroo could see that the part of the tree within the temple walls was covered with coins and gems. The coins, old and blackened with smoke, looked like scales on the snake-like trunk of the Shagul Tree: the gold and silver of the jewels were dimmed of their brightness; but through the murky scented atmosphere the Sansi saw the dusky burning red of the ruby, the green glow of the emerald, the orange flame within the opal, and the countless lights in the diamond; and all these came and went like stars twinkling through the veil of a dark night. The Sansi almost gasped, such riches as these were beyond his dreams; they truly meant _lakhs_ of rupees. A single one of the gems would buy him a village and lands; if he could get the whole! His brain almost reeled at the thought, and it was with an effort that he steadied himself, and laying his offering at the feet of the god, backed slowly out of the temple.