THE TALISMAN
"Poor Uncle Lionel," she said sadly, "he never knew that--the Wusun
were here, as he had thought they would be."
"He will have full credit for his achievement when you and I get back
home, out of Sungan, Miss Hastings."
She looked at him, dumbly grateful. Gone was all the petulance, the
spirit of mockery now. But her native heritage of resolution had not
forsaken her.
"Thank you for that, Captain Gray. I--I was foolish in disregarding
your warning. I was unjust--because I wanted Uncle Singh to be first
in Sungan." She sighed, then tried to smile. "Will you sit down?
On a cushion. Perhaps you haven't breakfasted yet. I have only
light refreshments to offer----"
A fresh miracle was taking place before Gray's eyes. He did not know
the courage of the English girls whose men protectors live always in
the unsettled places that are the outskirts of civilization.
His nearness to the girl stirred him. Her pluck acted as a spur to
his own spirits. In spite of himself, his gaze wandered hungrily to
the straying, bronze hair, and the fresh, troubled face.
Unconsciously, she reached up and deftly adjusted a vagrant bit of
hair. He wanted to pat her on the back and tell her she was
splendid. But he feared his own awkwardness. Mary Hastings seemed
to him to be a fragile, precious charge that had come into his life.
He drew a quick breath. "I am hungry," he lied.
She busied herself at once, setting out dates and some cakes. While
he ate, she barely nibbled at the food.
"Now," he began cheerfully, having planned what he was to say, "I'm
indebted to you for breakfast. And I'm going to question you."
He realized that he must take her mind from the death of her uncle.
"How have our new allies, the Wusun, been treating you, Miss
Hastings?"
"Very nicely, really. But not the priests. They took all my
belongings except a little gold cross under my jacket. You see, the
priests came with the--the lepers who attacked us."
Gray nodded.
"And the Buddhists seized me, not the poor, sick men. They carried
me off after gagging me so I couldn't call out."
"Wu Fang's orders."
"They took me down into some kind of a tunnel and kept me there until
the shooting had ceased. They were escorting me along the passages
when we met a party of Wusun, armed with bows. They talked to the
priests, then they seemed to become angry, and the Buddhists gave me
up. I don't know why the Wusun wanted me."
Glancing at the beautiful girl, Gray thought that the reason was not
hard to guess. He did not then understand, however, the full
significance that the woman held for the Wusun.
"Perhaps they recognized you as a white woman--one of their own
kind," he hazarded.
She shook her head dubiously.
"I thought the Wusun did not know any other white people existed,
Captain Gray. One of them--I heard them call him Gela, the Kha
Khan--was a young man, as big as you, and not bad looking. He was
angriest of all--with the priests, that is, not with me."
Gray frowned.
"Gela led me to the council hall of the 'Tall Ones,'" she continued,
looking at him in some surprise, for the frown had not escaped her.
"There I found old Bassalor Danek. I could not speak their language,
but Uncle Singh taught me quite a bit of the northern Turki.
Bassalor Danek was really a fine old chap, but I like Timur better."
"Timur?" he asked. "One of the _tumani_?"
"I don't see why you don't like them. They helped me. No, Timur
seems to be a kind of councilor. He's white haired, and limps. But
he speaks broken Turki, which I understand. So--I have been well
treated, except that they will not let me out of this building, which
belongs to Bassalor Danek."
"What did the Turki-speaking fellow have to say for himself?"
"He asked my name. Of course he could not pronounce it, so he
christened me something that sounds like Kha Rakcha. I think
Kha--it's a Kirghiz word, too--means 'white' in their tongue."
"Rakcha is western Chinese for some kind of spirit," assented Gray,
interested. "So they've named you the White Spirit--or, in another
sense, the White Woman-Queen. Your coming seems to have been an
event in the affairs of the Wusun----"
"That is what Timur said." She nodded brightly. "He is one of the
elders of the _kurultai_--council. I hope I made a good impression
on him. He seemed to be friendly."
"I think," pondered Gray seriously, "that you have made a better
impression than you think. That helps a lot, because----" he was
about to say that his own standing with the Wusun was none too good,
thanks to Wu Fang Chien's enmity, but broke off. He did not want to
alarm her. "Because they've let me come to see you," he amended
awkwardly.
The girl's vigilant wits were not to be hoodwinked.
"That's not what you meant to say, Captain Gray," she reproached him.
"It's true--" he was more successful this time--"that your coming
probably earned me a respite."
"A respite?"
When is a woman deceived by a man's clumsy assurance? Or when does
she fail to understand when something is kept back?
"Captain Gray, you know something you won't tell me! Did the Wusun
threaten you?"
"No. They shielded me----"
"Then you were in danger. I thought so. Now what did you mean
by--respite?"
Instead, Gray told her how he had found his way into Sungan, omitting
the details of the fighting, or his own achievement. Mary considered
him gravely, chin on hand.
"I prayed that you would follow our caravan," she said. "I wished
for you when every one was fighting so. Somehow, I was sure that you
would reach Sungan. You see, you made me feel you were the kind of
man who went where he wanted to go."
Gray looked up, and she shook her head reproachfully.
"You're just like Uncle Singh. You won't tell if there's any danger.
Will not the Wusun protect us from the priests?" She stretched out a
slim hand appealingly. "There's just the two of us left. Shouldn't
you be quite frank with me? Now tell me what you meant by 'respite'!"
He cordially regretted his unfortunate choice of the word. Perforce,
he told her of Wu Fang Chien, and the dispute in the council.
"So you see our case comes up for trial to-night," he concluded.
"It's a question of the Gur-Khan's authority against the power of Wu
Fang Chien. I'm rooting for old Bassalor Danek. I think he'll treat
us well. For one thing, because he's curious about us. In a way,
we're his guests. I hope he checkmates Wu, because--to be
frank--we're better off in Sungan than with the Buddhists."
This time she was satisfied.
"Of course," she nodded. "Wu Fang Chien would not let us go free
easily. He would have to answer, then, for the attack on the
caravan. To answer to the British embassy."
Gray reflected that they were the only survivors of the fight and
that the Chinese could not afford to permit them to escape.
"I'll appear to argue for immunity--our immunity--to-night," he
smiled.
"Are you a lawyer, Captain Gray?" The girl tried to enter into the
spirit of his remark. "Have we a good case?"
"Chiefly our wits," he admitted. "And perhaps the tie the Wusun may
feel for us as a kindred race."
"Splendid!" She clapped her hands. "I think you're a first-rate
attorney."
Gray recalled the majestic face of Bassalor Danek, and the anger of
the Wusun at the entrance of Wu Fang Chien.
"They made some kind of a covenant, didn't they, with the Chinese
Emperor?"
"Timur said it was an agreement by which the Wusun were to keep their
city inviolate, and not to leave its boundaries. Even the invading
sands have not dislodged them. Timur described them as numerous as
the trees of the Thian Shan, the Celestial Mountains, at first. Now
only a few survive. The Chinese have posted lepers around them."
Gray nodded. Slowly the history of the Wusun was piecing itself out.
A race descended from invaders from Europe before the dawn of
history, they had allied themselves with the might of Genghis Khan
and earned the enmity of the Chinese. Since then, with the slow
persistence of the Chinese, they had been confined and diminished in
number.
"You remember the legend of Prester John--in the middle ages,"
continued the girl eagerly. "Marco Polo tells about a powerful
prince in mid-Asia who was a Christian. I have been thinking about
it. Isn't the word Kerait the Mongol for Christian? Do you suppose
the first Wusun were Christians?"
"They don't seem to have any especial religion, Miss Hastings--except
a kind of morning and evening prayer."
"I've heard them chant the hymn. Timur says it was their
ancestors'." The girl sighed. "To think that we should have found
the Wusun, after all. If only my uncle----" She broke off sadly.
A step sounded outside the room and Garluk thrust his shaggy head
through the curtain.
"I come from the Gur-Khan," he announced. "The Man-Who-Kills-Swiftly
must come before Bassalor Khan."
"They are paging me," said Gray lightly, in answer to her questioning
look. "I've got to play lawyer. But I have an experiment to try.
Don't worry."
He rose, and she looked up at him pleadingly.
"Come back, as soon as you can," she whispered. "I--it's so lonely
here. I was miserable until Timur told me they had heard shooting
during yesterday's sunset chant. I guessed it was you----"
"My automatic," explained Gray with a grin. "I missed Wu Fang Chien,
which is too bad." He was talking cheerily, at random, anxious to
hearten the girl. She winced at mention of the fighting.
"I'll be back to report what is going on."
"If anything should happen to you----"
"I seem to be accident-proof, so far." He smiled lightly, masking
his real feelings. "And there's a plan----"
"Come," said Garluk. "Bassalor Khan waits at his shrine."
"I'll have a better dinner to offer you," Mary smiled back. "Don't
forget!"
"I'll make a note of it--Mary."
Gray stepped outside the curtain. In spite of his promise, he could
not return to the girl's room.
He found Bassalor Danek waiting in a chamber under the temple, to
which he was conducted by the impatient Garluk. The Gur-Khan was
seated on a silk carpet beside an old man with a face like a satyr,
whom Gray guessed to be Timur. They looked up silently at his
approach. The turnout withdrew.
At a sign from Bassalor Danek, Gray seated himself before the two.
They regarded him gravely. He waited for them to speak.
"Wu Fang Chien," began the Gur-Khan at length, "will come to the hall
to hear my word at sunset. His ill-will might bring the dark cloud
of trouble upon my people. If I give you up, he will thank me and
bring us good grain and tea from China in the next caravan."
He paused as if for an answer. But Gray was silent, wishing to hear
what more the two had to say.
"Yet, O One-Who-Kills-Swiftly," put in Timur mildly, "you are of the
race of the Kha Rakcha and she has found favor in our hearts. You
say you came here to seek her. That is well. But we must not bring
trouble upon our people. They have little food. There is none to
place before the shrine of our race."
He glanced over his shoulder at a closed curtain. Here one of the
Wusun stood guard. Gray guessed that this was their shrine. He was
curious for a glimpse of it.
"What is the will of the Gur-Khan?" he asked quietly.
Bassalor Danek glanced at him keenly.
"I have not made ready my answer, O Man-from-the-Outside. Wu Fang
Chien cried that you had come unbidden to meddle with what does not
concern you. The Kha Rakcha is very beautiful, and the light from
her face will be an ornament to our shrine. You have said that you
came to seek us. But that cannot be. For no word of us has passed
the outer guards. Even the wandering Kirghiz that we see at a
distance do not know us."
Gray had been waiting for a lead to follow. Now he saw his chance
and summoned his small stock of poetical Chinese to match the oratory
of Bassalor Danek.
"Hearken, O Gur-Khan," he said, and paused, knowing the value of
meditation when dealing with an oriental. Inwardly, he prayed for
success in his venture, knowing that the fate of the girl depended
greatly on what he said.
"It is true," he resumed, "that I was sent to seek the Wusun. Beyond
the desert and beyond the border of Mongolia live a people whose
fathers a very long time ago were the same as your fathers. They
have means of seeing across great distances. They have the
Eyes-of-Long-Sight. With these eyes they saw the Wusun in captivity,
and they sent me with a message. This message I shall deliver when
it is time."
Timur shook his gray head shrewdly.
"Can a fish see what is on the land? A gazelle has keen eyes; but a
gazelle cannot see across the desert, much less can a man. What you
have said is not true."
"It is true. Not only can my people see beyond any distance, but
they can hear. Behold, here is proof."
While the two watched curiously, Gray pulled his maps from his shirt
and spread them on the floor before him. Bassalor Danek glanced from
the paper to him expectantly.
"Here is what we saw, with our Eyes-of-Long-Sight. See, here is the
last village of China, Ansichow, and the desert. Here, by this mark,
is where we knew Sungan to be. And beyond it is the River Tarim, as
you know, and the Celestial Mountains. By this paper I found my way
here."
Bassalor Danek fingered the map curiously. Then he shook his head.
"This is a paper, like to those of the priests of Buddha. It is a
kind of magic. With magic, much is possible. But these are signs
upon paper. They are not mountains and rivers."
Gray sighed, confronted with the native incredulity of a map. The
Wusun, despite their natural intelligence, were bound by the
stultifying influence of generations of isolation. In fact, their
state of civilization was that of the dark ages. It was as if Gray
and Mary Hastings had wandered into a stronghold of the Goths.
Still, he felt he had made a slight impression. He drew the field
glasses from their case.
"I have been given a token," he explained slowly, making sure that
the two understood his broken Chinese. "It is a small talisman of
the Eyes-of-Long-Sight. With it, you can see what is far, as clearly
as if it lay in your hand."
Timur stroked his beard and smiled.
"It may not be. Even with magic, it may not be."
"Look then." Gray lifted the glasses and focussed them on the guard
who stood by the shrine curtain. "With this you can bring the man's
face as near as mine."
He handed the glasses to Bassalor Danek who turned them over
curiously in his hand. Obeying Gray's direction, he leveled them on
the guard. The man stirred uneasily, evidently believing that some
kind of magic was being practiced upon him. Bassalor Danek gave a
loud exclamation and the glasses fell to his knees. He peered from
them to the man at the curtain and muttered in his beard.
"I saw the face within arm's reach of my own," he cried. "Truly, it
is as this man has promised!"
"Nay," Timur objected. "The one by the shrine did not move, for I
watched. It may not be."
Nevertheless, his hand trembled as he lifted the glasses to his
feeble eyes. Gray helped him to focus them. He, also, gave an
exclamation.
For a while the two Wusun experimented with the binoculars,
scrutinizing the walls, the floor and the rugs with increasing
amazement. Gray kept a straight face. The glasses were powerful,
with excellent lenses. The Wusun had never seen or heard of anything
of the kind.
"This is but a token," he reminded them gravely, "of the
Eyes-of-Long-Sight that my people have. If this talisman can bring
near to you what is afar, do you doubt that we could know what is
beyond the desert? Is not the coming of the White Spirit proof that
we knew?"
This was a weighty matter and Bassalor Danek and Timur conferred upon
it, putting down the glasses reluctantly.
"I know not," hazarded Timur. Gray saw that his double question had
confused them. To remedy his error he turned to Bassalor Danek.
"Keep these small Eyes-of-Long-Sight," he said. "I give them to you."
Despite his accustomed calm, the chieftain of the Wusun gave an
involuntary exclamation of pleasure. Gray pressed his advantage.
"Further proof I will give, O Bassalor Danek. Draw the curtains of
the shrine that I may see the god of the Wusun. Then I will show you
that my people beyond the desert knew of the god."
He reasoned swiftly that the Wusun, if Timur's account of their
history had been correct, must have in their shrine some emblem of
the Tatar deity--the god Natagai which Mirai Khan had described to
him--or possibly some Mohammedan symbol. He rather guessed the
former, since the Wusun had been isolated before the Moslem wave
swept over Central Asia.
"It is not a god, O Man-from-the-Outside," demurred Timur. "It is a
talisman of our fathers. Once, the Wusun had priests. In the time
of Kubla Khan. Now, all that we remember is the hymn at sunset and
sunrise. Almost we have forgotten the words. We have kept the
talisman because once our priests, who were also warriors, cherished
it."
Gray nodded, believing now that it was an image of Natagai, the Tatar
war deity.
"It is said," continued Timur meditatively, "that the talisman was
fashioned by a chieftain of our people. I have heard a tale from the
elders that this khan lived when the Wusun were in another land,
before they crossed the mountains on the roof of the world. Draw the
curtain!"
At the command the guard drew back the heavy folds of brocade. Gray
saw a stone altar, covered with a clean cloth of white silk. On the
cloth stood a cross.