At last the dinner-hour came.  With the rest I filed into the large dining-room and took my seat.  The place allotted to me was the last at one side of the long table, and the chair opposite was vacant, though two remarkably well-dressed servants, in turbans of white and gold, stood with folded arms behind it, apparently awaiting their master.  Nor was he long in coming.  I never remember to have been so much struck by the personal appearance of any man in my life.  He sat down opposite me, and immediately one of his two servants, or khitmatgars, as they are called, retired, and came back bearing a priceless goblet and flask of the purest old Venetian mould.  Filling the former, he ceremoniously presented his master with a brimming beaker of cold water.  A water-drinker in India is always a phenomenon, but a water-drinker who did the thing so artistically was such a manifestation as I had never seen.  I was interested beyond the possibility of holding my peace, and as I watched the man’s abstemious meal,—­for he ate little,—­I contrasted him with our neighbours at the board, who seemed to be vying, like the captives of Circe, to ascertain by trial who could swallow the most beef and mountain mutton, and who could absorb the most “pegs”—­those vile concoctions of spirits, ice, and soda-water, which have destroyed so many splendid constitutions under the tropical sun.  As I watched him an impression came over me that he must be an Italian.  I scanned his appearance narrowly, and watched for a word that should betray his accent.  He spoke to his servant in Hindustani, and I noticed at once the peculiar sound of the dental consonants, never to be acquired by a northern-born person.

Before I go farther, let me try and describe Mr. Isaacs; I certainly could not have done so satisfactorily after my first meeting, but subsequent acquaintance, and the events I am about to chronicle, threw me so often in his society, and gave me such ample opportunities of observation, that the minutest details of his form and feature, as well as the smallest peculiarities of his character and manner, are indelibly graven in my memory.

Isaacs was a man of more than medium stature, though he would never be spoken of as tall.  An easy grace marked his movements at all times, whether deliberate or vehement,—­and he often went to each extreme,—­a grace which no one acquainted with the science of the human frame would be at a loss to explain for a moment.  The perfect harmony of all the parts, the even symmetry of every muscle, the equal distribution of a strength, not colossal and overwhelming, but ever ready for action, the natural courtesy of gesture—­all told of a body in which true proportion of every limb and sinew were at once the main feature and the pervading characteristic.  This infinitely supple and swiftly-moving figure was but the pedestal, as it were, for the noble face and nobler brain to which it owed its life and majestic bearing.  A long oval face of a wondrous