“What with walking miles in the blazing sun and nothing to eat, I believe I fell down with a stroke, and some wood-cutters found me and carried me into their village—a big place with a great thorn hedge and gates to keep off the Dacoits. The head man they call a Thugyi took me over, and his women nursed me; he was a rich fellow with four yoke of oxen, and so no expense was spared; and there I lived for many a long day, very strange and out of myself. I could not remember who I was, nor where I came from; all the clothes I had to me name was a shirt and a pair of drawers. By degrees, thanks to great charity and kindness, I come round, I remembered everything only too well, and then I buried Mick Ryan in the jungle and became a _pongye_. The peace and quiet ate into me very bones, and I took on the yellow robe. The rest and the holy life tamed me and did my soul good; and many an evening when I’d be roaming in the forests, among the splendid tall trees and beautiful flowers, with the birds and animals around me so tame and at their ease, I’d have a feelin’ that Polly was walkin’ alongside of me, the face on her shining with the light of heaven! But,” drawing himself erect, “excuse me, sir, for bothering you with all this foolish, crazy sort of talk.” “Not at all,” said Shafto. “Thank you so much for telling me your story. I am truly sorry for you, Ryan; it was hard lines losing your Polly. Do you mind telling me some more? After you had recovered your memory and become a _pongye_, what happened next?” “Well, after a while, I chanced to see English papers and hear outside news, an’ I got a cast in a cargo boat down the river. I had a sort o’ longin’ to see the soldiers, the love of the Service is in me blood, so now and then I was drawn to Rangoon to get a sight of the khaki and to hear the barrack yarns. Ye see, one quarter of me is Cingalese—I suppose me grandfather on one side was a Buddhist, and that is how _pongye_ life came so pleasant and aisy to me. The three quarters of me is an Irish soldier, an’ every day the soldier within me grows an’ the _pongye_ dies away.” “And you will never return to Burma?” “Never, no. I have laid out to go to Ireland and spend the rest of my time there when the war is over.” “Ah—I wonder when the war will be over?” said Shafto. “God alone knows!” exclaimed the _pongye_. “They were talking in the bazaar of the end coming about Christmas. I think meself it will be a long business and an awkward business, too.” “So do I,” agreed Shafto, recalling the sage remarks of George Gregory. “Yes, it’s like a light stuck in an old thatch! We’ll have half the world in it before long, an’ the greatest blaze as ever was known.” “I see that Australia and Canada and South Africa are all coming to lend a hand.”