“I must say they look pretty, all bathing together.  Rather improper.  But decidedly apostolic.  You know I am not easily shocked in such matters.  When you have lived in Africa among the M’tezo!  Lovely fellows.  I assure you they could give points to anyone on this island.  And your friends the Bulanga!  To think that I once baptized three hundred of them in one day.  And the very next week they ate up old Mrs. Richardson, our best lady preacher.  The poor dear!  We buried her riding boots, I remember.  There was nothing else to bury. . . .  It’s getting warm, isn’t it?  Makes one feel sleepy.”

“Sleepy?  I don’t agree with you at all.  That Russian sect, Heard, had between two and three million followers out there.  But I fancy our little contingent will not be on this island much longer.  The judge tells me that he means to make short work of them when he gets a chance.  If the Militia have really been called out, I should not be surprised to learn that the Messiah has been up to some new tomfoolery.”

“Really?  H’m.  The Militia. . . .  I find it very warm all of a sudden.”

Mr. Heard had listened enough for the time being.  Now he leaned back and rested.

But Keith was wide awake.

“You are a disappointing person, Mr. Heard.  First you inveigle me into a religious discussion and then, when I begin to wake up, you go to sleep.”

“I didn’t want to argue, my dear fellow.  It’s too hot to argue.  I wanted to hear your opinion.”

“My opinion?  Listen, Heard.  All mankind is at the mercy of a handful of neurotics.  Neurotics and their catchwords.  Catchwords like duty, charity, purity, sobriety.  Sobriety!  In order that Miss Wilberforce may not come home drunk—­listen, Heard!—­all we other lunatics forgo the pleasure of a pint of beer after ten o’clock.  How we love tormenting ourselves!  Listen, Heard.  I’ll tell you what it is.  We are ripe for a new Messiah, like these Russians.  We are not Europeans.  We are Indian fakirs, self-torturers.  We are a pack of masochists.  That is what upstairs gods have done for us.  Listen, Heard!”

The bishop failed to catch the import of this peroration.  Its sound alone reached him like an echo from far away.  He was unaccountably drowsy.

“Fakirs.  I quite understand—­”

The boat seemed to move more slowly than before.  Perhaps the oarsmen were weary, or suffering from the heat.  The glare pierced the awning.  Mr. Heard, as he reclined about his cushions, felt the perspiration gathering on his forehead.  A spell had fallen upon him—­the spell of a Southern noon.  It lulled his senses.  It laid chains upon his thoughts.

There was a long silence, broken only by the splash of the oars and by a steady flow of conversation on the part of the two Greek genii, who seemed impervious to the midday beams and entirely absorbed in one another.  Mr. Heard opened his drooping eyelids from time to time to take pleasure in their merry play of feature, wondering dreamily what could be the subject-matter of this endless polite conversation.