It was clear they were boiling over with indignation; but they still did everything decently and in order.

One, who was dressed in finer vestments than the rest--a portly person, with the fat, greasy cheeks and drooping flesh of a celibate church dignitary, whom I therefore judged to be the abbot, or chief Lama of the monastery--gave orders to his subordinates in a language which we did not understand.

His men obeyed him.

In a second they had closed us round, as in a ring or cordon.
Then the chief Lama stepped forward, with an authoritative air, like Pooh-Bah in the play, and said something in the same tongue to the cook, who spoke a little Tibetan.

It was obvious from his manner that Ram Das had told them all about us; for the Lama selected the cook as interpreter at once, without taking any notice of myself, the ostensible head of the petty expedition.
"What does he, say ?" I asked, as soon as he had finished speaking.
The cook, who had been salaaming all the time, at the risk of a broken back, in his most utterly abject and grovelling attitude, made answer tremulously in his broken English: "This is priest-sahib of the temple.
He very angry, because why?
Eulopean-sahib and mem-sahibs come into Tibet-land.