Whereat I offered the Mahatma food and drink, but he refused the hot curry and only accepted a little water from the brass carafe.
"They will feed me special food to-night, for I shall need my strength," he explained; but the explanation was hardly satisfying.
I did not see how he could be any stronger later on for having let himself grow weaker in the interval.

Nevertheless, I have often noticed this--that the East can train athletes by methods absolutely opposite to those imposed by trainers in the West, and it may be that their asceticism is based on something more than guesswork.

I ate enormously, and he sat and watched me with an air of quiet amusement.

He seemed to grow more and more friendly all the time, and to forget that he had made several attempts on my life, although his yellow eyes and lionlike way of carrying his head still gave you an uncomfortable feeling, not of mistrust but of incomprehension.
I began to realize how accurately King had summed him up; he was an absolutely honest man, which was why he was dangerous.

His standards of conduct and motives were utterly different from ours, and he was honest enough to apply them without compromise or warning, that was all.
I was curious about his death sentence, and also anxious to keep awake, so I questioned him further, asking him point blank what kind of experiment they were going to try on him, and what would be the use of it.