A confusing reply from potential supervisor I emailed Professor X to express my interest in his research area and politely asked if he will be taking on new master students. First, I got a brief reply:


  Send me your transcript and any  papers/reports you have


So I emailed back to him with my transcript and some reports and he asked


  Did you apply for any external fellowship/scholarship or anything
  else?


I said I haven't applied for any fellowships. Then I haven't gotten a reply from the professor for a week. Why would Professor X ask the second question? Since I said I haven't applied for fellowships, could it possibly have changed his mind and decided to not take me as his student?
It's "standard" (depends on where you are applying to) for graduate students to be paid a stipend. The money comes either from the department or from the professor's own funds (this in turn is part of the reason why professors apply for grants - to hire students/postdocs).

The professor is asking you if you've applied for any external fellowships or scholarships because:


If you have, you've shown some knowledge of how academia works, and you've made some effort to secure funding for yourself.
If you were successful, you'd effectively be "free" - the professor doesn't need to use his/her own funds to pay for you.


It goes without saying that if you can say "yes I've applied", or even better "yes I've been awarded", it boosts your chances of the professor agreeing to take you on. Conversely, if the answer is no to both, it will definitely not help your application, and it's possible he cannot take you on if he doesn't have enough funding.