Wenaston did not reply, and Coomara explained thinking that the Englishman had not understood. "--the great impersonal Brahma, the origin of all things, the Spirit that your Bible says brooded on the face of the waters when the world was without form." "You can't expect any positive happiness in such a state," objected Wenaston. "Why not?" "How can you hope for positive happiness if you are impersonal yourself and forming part of an impersonal Deity?" "There is no reason why we should not enjoy a state or condition of happiness if the Deity so willed it." Wenaston avoided the exceedingly difficult question of impersonality and exercise of the Divine will; and turned the conversation to a subject that was directly and humanly personal. "Then if you were killed suddenly like that aviator, you would die in the comfortable assurance that you would join your God and become part of Him." Somewhat to his surprise there was no reply. He glanced round at his companions under the impression that they had tired of the topic, and were no longer interested. The expression of their faces did not confirm this idea. Coomara's eyes were averted, but Ananda's were fixed upon the speaker; and in their depths lurked a shadow of fear that Wenaston could not fathom. He turned to the half-closed window. The wind had increased and the threatened storm of rain had begun. It was coming down in driving sheets that beat against the glass and obliterated the landscape. "We are going to have a stormy night; this is not a shower," he remarked, as he drew up the window and closed it completely. It was Bopaul who broke the silence. The seriousness of the subject had no effect on him. On the contrary, Wenaston thought he detected an undercurrent of amusement in his tone. "Our future life depends on the circumstances surrounding death. The attainment of everlasting happiness would by no means fall to our lot, I am afraid. It is more likely that we individually would be overtaken by punishment." "You have no hell to fear," replied Wenaston. "We need not fear the hell described by the teachers of your religion; but we have an equivalent. It lies in our transmigration doctrine. Rebirth on earth as some inferior creature is our hell; existence as a horse, a dhoby-donkey, a rat, a loathsome pariah, a dog or a reptile according to the heinousness of our sins."