408 



ADVENTURES WITH A PRIEST. 



Chap. XXI. 



only be entered through the one I occupied, and 

 which was the bed-room of the high-priest. I had 

 just finished dinner about eight in the evening, 

 when this gentleman presented himself, and po- 

 litely informed me he wanted to go to bed. To 

 this arrangement, as a matter of course, I had no 

 objection, being very tired, and therefore anxious to 

 get rid of him for the night. I therefore rose from 

 my seat in order to allow him to pass on to his own 

 room. When he got to his door he found it locked, 

 and commenced looking in every conceivable place 

 for the key. He held in his hand two strips of bam- 

 boo, which he used instead of a candle, and which 

 gave out a large body of flame accompanied with 

 smoke, and soon filled the room, and rendered the 

 atmosphere very disagreeable. To make matters 

 worse, every now and then he snuffed the ends of 

 the bamboo with his fingers and threw the red-hot 

 charcoal on the floor. After he had looked in 

 every drawer and in every odd corner of the room 

 three or four times over, muttering to himself 

 while he did so something about the loss of his 

 ya-za (key), he left me for the purpose of looking 

 for it outside in some other part of the building* 



In about half-an-hour he returned and told me a 

 second time he wanted to go to bed. "Have you 

 found your key, then ? " I asked him. No, he had 

 not found his ya-za ; and then he commenced the 

 search in the same places and in the same listless 

 and stupid manner as before. I began to think 

 he would fall into a state of somnambulism and go 



