To Shafto this scene was amazing and impressive; the wonderful golden Pagoda with its crown of jewels, the vast multitudes in many-hued garments, the flowers, fluttering flags, coloured lights, all as it were attuned to the accompaniment of merry voices, sonorous Gregorian chanting, and deep-toned gongs.

And what a labyrinth of shrines!  Hours might be spent examining their rich carvings.  At one of the principal of these shrines a service was proceeding; to Shafto, it recalled the celebration of mass in a Roman Catholic chapel, for here were shaven priests intoning prayers on the steps of a decorated altar; here also were incense, lights, and a multitude of devout people, kneeling, rosary in hand, chanting the responses.

Among the worshippers Shafto recognised Mee Lay and her cousin Ma Chit, attired in what, no doubt, were their festival toilets.  Mee Lay’s white jacket was fastened by diamond buttons, and large diamonds sparkled in her little brown ears; as for Ma Chit, she was adorned with the national gold necklace, or dalizan.  In her sleek, black hair were artfully arranged sprigs of scarlet hibiscus, and between her tiny hands, glittering with rings, and uplifted palm to palm, she held a beautiful flower, which, when her devotions were accomplished, she laid upon the shrine with an undulating movement of adoration and grace.

“You see my wife follows her own religion,” remarked Salter, “and I make no objection.  I was brought up as a Baptist, in the very strictest sense of the word.  Rosetta, as you already know, is a Roman Catholic; sometimes Mee Lay brings her here; the service and the spectacle are attractive enough, though never so to me.  My Nonconformist blood leaves me cold to this sort of display.  Mee Lay is a good, religious woman; when you come to think of it, the East is far more devout than the West.  She insists that our faith is a mere feeble copy of Buddhism, which had six hundreds years the start of Christianity.  There is no doubt that the Buddhists preach most of the moral truths that are to be found in the Gospels, and Buddha was a Deliverer, who taught the necessity of a pure life, of self-denial and unworldliness.  He exhorted his disciples to practise every virtue.  But here is the difference between Buddhism and Christianity:  Buddha brings a man by a thorny path to the brink of a huge, black chasm, and drops him into annihilation.”

“It seems unsatisfying,” said Shafto.  “Yet, by all accounts, Buddhism is a wonderful religion.  I heard a fellow on board ship discussing its code and the extraordinary way in which it has fastened on mankind, and spread.  He declared that every fourth human being who came into the world was a Buddhist!”

“So they say,” replied Salter with a careless shrug.  “I doubt if the assertion would hold water.  At the same time Buddha has an enormous number of followers in China, Tibet, India, and Ceylon; they, too, have traditions of a Holy Mother and Child, of a fast in the wilderness, and here, even now, crucifixion is the form of capital punishment.”