LHAKANG-GOMPA
From the very midst of slumber Trent was shot into consciousness. He
opened his eyes to find himself submerged in darkness, and to feel
another presence in the black flood. His hand went involuntarily to the
revolver that he kept always within reach, and as he lifted himself upon
his elbow, one hand gripping the weapon, he saw a body silhouetted upon
the grayish rectangle of a window.
"_Tajen!_" whispered a voice that he recognized as that of one of the
muleteers. "It is Hsiao. There is a man below.... He told me to be quiet
and not arouse the guard.... He brought this for you."
A folded sheet of paper was thrust into Trent's hand. The scent of
sandalwood caressed his nostrils and cleared his brain of the last
tangle of drowsiness. He rose and sought his electric torch, which was
in his kit-bag. Snapping on the light, he read the note.... It was
brief; merely instructed him to follow the bearer and was signed by
Sarojini Nanjee.... A glance at his watch showed him it was after two
o'clock.
"Where is he? In the quadrangle?" Trent queried.
"Yes, _Tajen_."
"I'll be there directly."
Trent strapped his revolver to his thigh; procured a certain object from
his pack; went below.
A thin, misting rain was falling, and the wind swept down in cold
legions from the snows of the North. It was a night to kindle icy flame
in the marrow. Gray gloom lay like a ghoulish lacquer upon the world,
and dogs were howling somewhere in the city.
Sarojini's messenger was a thin-featured Tibetan with long hair. He
extended a dark bundle to Trent and muttered something in his own
tongue.
"He says for you to put those on, _Tajen_," translated the muleteer.
Unrolling the bundle, Trent saw a long toga and a pair of heavy Tibetan
boots. The latter he pulled on with some difficulty, then threw the toga
about his shoulders.
The long-haired messenger touched his arm, motioning toward the garden.
Hsiao, the muleteer, accompanied them to the wall, where he lent Trent
his aid in reaching the top. Outside, the Englishman found himself in a
narrow lane that opened upon the street.
Through ghostly highways they moved. Now and then a dog snarled
viciously and slunk away as the Tibetan kicked at him. They traveled
along constricted streets, some graduated into steps, and past silent,
whitewashed houses that loomed spectral in the night. These
ramifications led them to a stone bridge and a roadway between tall
bamboo and the black blur of trees. Trent could see the city's walls
now, beyond rounded clumps of bushes. From this clustered vegetation
rose a large temple-like edifice whose dome shone dully through the
drizzle.
A lane branched off from the main road and took them to the gates of the
temple-like building. First, a courtyard, then an imposing doorway.
Within, it was damp and cold. Butter-lamps made a feeble attempt to
disperse rebellious shadows. Monster shapes, which Trent perceived to be
idols, glowed sullenly in the semi-dark.
A hall with red-lacquered pillars led to a massive portal that was
opened by a brass ring. It swung back, to release the odor of incense
and rancid butter and to admit Trent and the Tibetan into a vast space
that evidently was a temple. Butter-lamps hiccoughed and threw their
reflections upon brazen images and old armor. In the remote end a dull
mass of gold kindled in the temple-dusk, a form that took on the shape
of a huge idol--and from beneath the shining god came a figure of
familiar proportions.
"Greetings, man of many faces!" said Sarojini Nanjee in her sweet voice,
a voice that rang like the notes of a gong in the ponderous silence of
the temple.
Trent glimpsed behind her a man in claret-colored vestments. The face
was strongly reminiscent of one he had recently seen, and after a few
seconds recognition flashed into him. He was the one whom Na-chung had
pointed out in the amphitheater as the Great Magician of Shingtse-lunpo.
The woman, seeing Trent's look and misunderstanding it, announced:
"He knows only Tibetan and Hindustani; that is why I speak English."
Then she added, "He is the third most powerful man in Shingtse-lunpo."
Trent casually took in Sarojini Nanjee's manner of dress--casually,
because he did not wish to appear particularly interested. She wore a
long maroon garment such as Tibetan women wear; only the lines were not
bulky, but adapted themselves to the purpose of revealing the contours
of her figure. Her skin was darkened by a stain--skin that was quite
unlike that of the women of Shingtse-lunpo in that it was smooth and
without a coat of dust and grease. A silver aureole rose behind her
black hair, which was parted after the Tibetan fashion. A flame, as of
black opals, danced and flashed in her eyes as she smiled at him.
"I have not sent for you before," she told him, "because it would have
been indiscreet. Too, we could have done nothing until now. I did not
know of your arrival until many hours after you reached the city. I--"
"You expected my muleteers to report my presence," he put in, smiling.
She smiled, too, although he could see she was not pleased.
"Yes. Where are they?"
"I didn't fancy being spied upon night and day," he replied, "so I left
them at Tali-fang."
"Do you realize that was disobeying me?"
"You didn't forbid changing servants." After a pause he went on, "Yet
my precautions were useless, for I daresay by now you know everything
that happened since I left Tali-fang."
She looked at him quizzically. (And he did not know whether the
expression was genuine or not.)
"What do you mean?"
"One of my men failed to put in his appearance last night. I naturally
surmised"--this rather drily--"that you detained him to find out what he
knew."
He was watching her closely, and again that quizzical expression clouded
her eyes. After a moment she smiled queerly.
"You accuse me of crude tactics," she said; then switched off with: "But
tell me, what have you learned since your arrival?"
He answered discreetly. "I attended the festival to-day."
She nodded. "I saw you. I was in the Governor's stall. Because of his
vigilance I dared not communicate with you before this. He watches me as
a hawk watches its prey." (Trent wondered if the word "hawk" had any
significance.) "But while the bird sleeps, the cobra goes about its
business.... You have not yet told me what you learned."
After some deliberation he said:
"I know of Sakya-muni; and I know that monks from Shingtse-lunpo
accompanied the abbot who pilgrimaged to Gaya."
A second time she nodded. "Do you know what occurred at Gaya?"
Trent's heart was beating swiftly as he countered:
"You should know; you were there at the time."
And his heart beat swifter as she whipped back:
"Who told you that?"
Trent was thrusting boldly. He meant to beat down all guards, to win or
lose. The suspense, the groping in the dark, was consuming his
nerve-tissues.
"Hsien Sgam," he lied.
A typhoon of rage flashed across her beautiful face. It spent itself
quickly. She opened her lips; closed them; and after a space said quite
calmly:
"Why did Hsien Sgam tell you that?"
Trent shrugged. "How do I know?"
She gestured impatiently. "What question did you ask that caused him to
tell that?"
Having gone so far, Trent ventured a step further.
"Captain Manlove, who shared my bungalow at Gaya, was murdered the night
the monks were there. I asked him if he could explain it."
A queer, cold expression settled upon Sarojini Nanjee's face. Only her
eyes were warm: they burned like melted opals. She smiled--a rather
terrible smile.
"I had not heard that before, that your friend was murdered," she
announced. "Why did not you tell me?"
"Why should I?"
Her eyes searched his face; encountered that barrier of impassivity.
"You say you suspected the monks?"
"Not until I reached Shingtse-lunpo."
A pause before she pursued:
"But why, even then, did you suspect them? What motive--"
"I'm at loss for a motive," he cut in quietly. "I don't know what to
think, for, you see, I found this"--he drew from under his robe a
glittering object--"in his, in Captain Manlove's, hand."
He opened the silver-chased pendant and extended it to her. She glanced
at the name graven within; looked up at him. The lids sank over her
eyes--to cover surprise, he imagined.
"But why," she queried, "did not you tell me of this before?"
"Because if you lied to me once, I thought it likely you'd lie a second
time. You swore that Chavigny had nothing to do with the Order--yet--"
He motioned toward the piece of coral.
Her eyes burned with a steady flame.
"I spoke the truth!" she declared. "Chavigny has nothing to do with the
Order, has had nothing to do with it since several days before your
Captain Manlove was murdered. Oh, I know what you think--that I am lying
now! But, even as I spoke the truth then, I speak it now! Chavigny is
dead--was dead before your friend was killed!"
Trent took the pendant, avoiding her eyes. It was one of his
idiosyncrasies not to look at a person whom he believed lying to him.
"Chavigny was intrusted with certain work at Indore," she continued,
"but he ran amuck; tried to steal the Pearl Scarf for himself and
substituted an imitation. A blundering Secret Service agent, who had
followed Chavigny from Calcutta, interfered. I am not aware of the exact
circumstances, but this Secret Service agent came into possession of the
real Pearl Scarf. The Order allowed Chavigny to go to Delhi. There the
substitute was discovered--and Chavigny put out of the way. The Secret
Service agent who had the real jewels was in Delhi, where he had tracked
Chavigny. I was instructed to recover the Pearl Scarf, and I sent my
servant, Chandra Lal, to the hotel where the Government agent was
staying. He got the pearls and--"
"And you took them to Gaya, to the lamas?" Trent interposed.
"Did I say that?" she retorted. "What I did with them is no concern of
yours--at present."
"But you were at Gaya?"
"I refuse to answer that."
"But if Chavigny was put out of the way, as you say, how do you account
for this?" he pressed on, extending the pendant.
"How does one account for the sun, the moon, the stars?" she returned.
"No, I do not know now--but I _will_ know! And you shall avenge the
slaying of your friend! You shall have blood for blood! I, Sarojini
Nanjee, promise that! I will learn the truth--even if I must go to the
Falcon!"
Trent took that as his cue and asked:
"Who _is_ the Falcon?"
She stared at him. "Then you have not seen him?"
Trent wanted to smile. Without herself realizing it, she had told him
the one thing he wished to know. He had said that he had talked with
Hsien Sgam--and now she asked if he had seen the Falcon....
"No," he replied, "I have not seen him."
"You will see him, then," she said quickly, "at the proper time. Minutes
are too precious to spend on explanations now. To-night I shall show you
one of the secrets of Shingtse-lunpo.... Come! You must meet the Great
Magician."
The high priest of sorcery (whose presence they had for the while
forgotten) greeted Trent cordially in Hindustani, but it was evident
that he was troubled--though the fact that his lips trembled slightly
may have been due to the dampness of the temple.
Sarojini Nanjee threw a robe about her shoulders and, motioning to
Trent, guided him to one side of the large golden image, to a door that
the Great Magician had opened. Beyond was a courtyard. It was still
drizzling and low black clouds impended. A gate was pushed open by the
high priest and they emerged upon a path that ended at a gate in the
nearby city-walls. If there was a guard, he was discreetly out of sight.
Outside was a low embankment, then the dark waste of the morass that
girded Shingtse-lunpo. To the west, in the thin veil of rain, was a
shapeless blur that Trent imagined was Amber Bridge. The Great Magician
shut the gate and led the way down the embankment. The ground was not
soggy, as Trent expected, and, straining his eyes, he saw the reason.
They were following a barely visible road through the rushes.
Toward the shapeless blur they moved. As they drew nearer it became
apparent that it was not Amber Bridge, but a pile of broken stone--a
remnant of the old outer-fortifications--in the middle of the
swamp-belt. When they reached the mass of masonry Trent saw that it was
a portion of a broken wall, rising above nearly obliterated flagstones
that formed the floor of what had once been a room, or a tunnel, under a
mighty rampart--a wall that was hollowed and whose roof had fallen in.
The passage thus formed was not more than three feet in width and ran
for several yards before it ended in a _cul-de-sac_.
Into the narrow space between the walls Trent and Sarojini Nanjee
followed the Great Magician. It was damp and smelled of freshly-turned
earth. A few feet from the entrance the Tibetan paused and grunted a
word to Sarojini. Instantly a saber of light smote the darkness, a ray
from a very modern electric torch in the woman's hand. The Great
Magician took the light from her, flashing it into the _cul-de-sac_ and
upon a small stone stairway that plunged into grim depths.
Down into the bowels of the earth it carried them, into a rectangular
crypt. Blocks of masonry had been torn away from one side of the wall
and an irregular aperture gaped blackly. Trent observed that the stones
had not been removed recently, for they were wedged in mud and grown
with fungi.
Through the rent in the crypt they passed, entering a tunnel that bored
downward at a gradual incline. The torchlight wavered upon damp, ancient
walls; upon several inches of water in the bottom of the passage. Cold,
earthy odors fouled the air. Before they had proceeded far, loose rocks
rattled underfoot, and Trent, glancing down, saw that he was treading
upon chips and small particles of stone. White dust streaked the muddy
water. This prepared him for the pile of shattered rock that appeared
suddenly ahead, heaped at one side of a crude doorway. All of which
attested to the fact that the passage had at one time been sealed, but
very recently opened--and by men who were not masons.
The tunnel continued its gradual downward course for what Trent
calculated was at least a mile. If he judged aright they must be
somewhere near the middle of the city. Suddenly the subterranean
corridor made a series of turns, then sloped upward, running straight
after that and bringing them at length into a crypt similar to the one
beneath the swamp-ruins. The smell of oil hung in the air, and Trent
identified it with the iron-bound door at one side. He was surprised to
see that its lock was very modern. (From some shop in Gyangtse or
Darjeeling--thus he conjectured irrelevantly.) The Great Magician
fumbled at the formidable portal, and, following a grating noise, it
swung out soundlessly on well-oiled hinges. Yellow light impinged upon
the darkness of a stairway, on the bottom step of which rested a brass
lamp.
The priest lighted the lamp, and Sarojini Nanjee, slipping her hand into
Trent's, led the Englishman through the door and up the stairway.
Looking back, Trent saw the Great Magician sink cross-legged upon the
floor; then the picture was shut out as they climbed higher into gloom.
Near the top Sarojini halted and directed the light upward. It swept a
square of stone at the very head of the stairs; the lines where it
fitted into place were scarcely visible.
"You will have to lift the stone," Sarojini told him, stepping aside.
He mounted the few remaining stairs and stooped in the meager space at
the top, pressing hands and shoulders against the square of stone. Warm
blood rushed into his stained cheeks as he slowly drew erect, lifting
the stone from place and letting it fall noisily upon the floor above.
The space into which the rock fitted was perhaps three yards around,
widening out at the top. Trent's head and shoulders projected from the
aperture into blackness that was more intense because of the light from
which he had emerged.
"Pull yourself up," directed Sarojini. "Then I will give you the light."
He drew himself out of the stairway with little difficulty, clambering
to his knees on the stone floor above and leaning back to receive the
pocket-lamp. As he lifted the light he gained an impression of vastness
and gloom and many indistinguishable objects. Placing the torch on the
floor beside him, he grasped Sarojini's hands and pulled her through the
small space--and she lingered uncomfortably long in his arms, whether
by chance or otherwise, he could only wonder.
He recovered the torchlight, and the woman took it from him. The ray
cleaved through shadows and stamped a bar of yellow upon a row of oblong
wooden boxes; traveled across more boxes (the latter, Trent observed,
the length of ordinary rifles) and brought into glowing prominence the
slender objects that hung upon the walls. With a quickening of his
heart-beat Trent guessed where they were--for the glowing things were
swords and lances. Piles of armor shone with a repressed gleam on the
floor, and numerous bright shapes outside the intimate radiance of the
light resolved into jeweled pistols such as he had seen in the
possession of soldiers of the Golden Army. But with the boxes he was
mainly concerned; their blank sides intrigued him and challenged his
fancy.
"We are in the Armory," said Sarojini Nanjee, "under the center of
Lhakang-gompa--not beneath the ground, as you would imagine, but just
below the surface of the rocky eminence where the building stands."
She let the light rove about the Armory, which was vast and stretched on
four sides into black obscurity. A series of arches and pillars deepened
the mystery; armor and various types of weapons kindled dully against a
background of gloom. There were more wooden boxes in remote corners,
innumerable piles of them.
"What do they contain?" he inquired, indicating the many boxes.
As he expected, she lied.
"How should I know? Armor, I fancy. Yonder"--with a gesture--"is the
entrance from the monastery. Soldiers guard the other side of the
door.... Come!"
As she led off under the arches and along an aisle between the boxes,
Trent asked himself why stores of explosives and ammunition were hidden
beneath a Tibetan monastery. Perhaps, after all, there was something to
Hsien Sgam's revolution....
An arched doorway admitted them to a corridor lined with gleaming idols.
Hideous frescoes were painted upon long panels between the images, and
at the end was a massive crimson-stained door. Before one of the panels
Sarojini stopped. The painting was monstrous and pictured a three-eyed
god standing in the midst of skulls and human entrails--a god that Trent
recognized with a start as the one whose image was wrought on the coral
symbol of the Order of the Falcon. At regular intervals on the panel
were four brass rings, each having a long scarlet tassel attached to it.
Sarojini thrust the torch into Trent's hand and caught one of the brass
rings. She twisted it and tugged, and the panel yielded, sliding to one
side and disclosing a dark cavity in the wall. The woman stepped in
first, Trent following. The recess was not more than fifty feet in
diameter--a square space with frescoed walls. Opposite the entrance, and
upon a lacquered pedestal, was a silver image of Janesseron, the
Three-eyed God of Thunder--and his trio of narrow little orbs looked
down upon the several chests that were pushed against the walls of the
small room.
"You remember," began Sarojini, "that you were told you would reach
enlightenment by gradations?... Now you stand upon the next to the last
terrace."
With that she moved to one of the chests; lifted the lid; turned to
Trent.
"Come closer," she commanded.
He did. And his eyes met the glitter of gems. And he caught his breath,
for he knew he stood in the midst of the jewels for which he had
penetrated into the forbidden arcanum of Asia.
"Look," directed the woman, indicating a card attached to the inside of
the small chest. "It is written in Hindustani. See: H. H. Tukaji Rao
Holkar III, Bahadur, Maharajah of Indore!"
There was a cool, tinkling sound as she drew from the chest a scarf of
pearls--tiny lustrous spheres that shone like miniature moons.
"For these," she said, "Andre Chavigny died."
In the dimness, above the ray of the pocket-lamp, their eyes met, his
expressionless, hers again like black opals. He heard her quick
breathing--felt, as did she, the contagion of the jewels.... In her
hands she held a fortune. Vaguely, irrelevantly, he tried to recall the
sum at which the pearls of Indore were appraised; instead, wondered why
she wished him to believe Chavigny out of the game.
"Hsien Sgam was the first to show me where the jewels were hidden," she
resumed. "But he did not take me through the tunnel." Again the cool,
musical tinkle as she dropped the pearls into the chest. "We came from
the corridors above the Armory. The possibility of ever making away with
the jewels seemed very meager--until I found out that there was a tunnel
leading from a point somewhere outside the city up into the vaults of
Lhakang-gompa. I learned it from a young layman who was loose of tongue
and eager for _tengas_--learned also that there had been trouble between
Sakya-muni and the Great Magician and that the Living Buddha was
threatening to depose his chief sorcerer. So I went to the Great
Magician...." She shrugged. "The lock is easy to him who knows the
combination; thus with men.... The tunnel had been sealed; but after the
sorcerer's men had worked for five nights that obstacle was removed. The
passage was completely opened yesterday. The fool--the magician--thinks
he will fly with us when we leave and receive a portion of the jewels!
But he will never pass the walls of Shingtse-lunpo after to-night, nor
will he interfere with my plans!"
Before Trent could ask the question that came to the end of his tongue
Sarojini Nanjee threw back the lid of the largest of the chests, and the
shimmer and flare of gems disconnected thought from speech.
"The Gaekwar of Baroda," announced the woman, pointing to the card on
the inside of the lid. "This is the Star of the Deccan."
She clasped a necklace of diamonds about her throat, and the stones
trembled against her skin like spiders of fire.
"Do not they look well about my neck?" she asked in a repressed voice,
a voice that shook. Then she laughed, but he did not like the symptoms
that underlay it. He gripped himself. The muscles of his throat stood
out, and there was about him the air of a man preparing to do battle.
Sarojini Nanjee returned the diamonds to the chest. Gems rattled. She
lifted what seemed a fabric of the spun brilliance of the universe--and
a flame swept into Trent's brain. This amazing dazzle, as of cascading
stars, was born of a rug made entirely of pearls, with central and
corner figures of diamonds; a rug that coruscated and blazed as though
its weaver had threaded the shuttle with flame and woven a carpet for
the gods; a rug whose gems were multi-hued little serpents that coiled
about Trent's brain and sank their fangs into his reason.
The carpet slipped from Sarojini Nanjee's hands and lay in a quivering
heap on the edge of the chest. The fire in her eyes matched that of the
rug.
"Millions!" she murmured in a husky voice. "Millions!"
... As one in a dream, Trent saw her hands stretch out to him; felt them
on his arms. The touch sent a shock of warning through his frame.
Involuntarily he stiffened and took a step backward--but the perfume of
her hair, the scent of bruised sandalwood, was in his nostrils and on
his lips and face, like the fragrant breath of the sirocco ... and the
hot mystery of her eyes challenged him to take the caress that her lips
offered. (Of the earth always, this Sarojini Nanjee, with earth's gifts
for men.) A deadly languor locked about him. He was in some
fever-breeding jungle, and she was there, this golden woman, very close
to him....
A small incident saved him from Attila's fate.
There came a sound, a gentle rattle and patter, like cool rain upon his
thirsty thoughts. Something seemed to snap in his brain, and he moved
back a pace--and out of the danger zone. He perceived, then, that the
jewel-carpet had slipped from the chest to the floor, thus rescuing him
from the very web that it had contrived.
Sarojini, too, drew back. Chagrin smothered the fire from her eyes.
Concupiscence in him--her chief weapon--was broken. She saw by the set
of his features that control had returned, and knew that having once
been so close to defeat, he would be thrice as wary as before. She had
lost in this first campaign. She smiled cynically.
"You were always a fool, Arnold," she told him. "Another moment and I
might have said that to the north, across Mongolia, lies Russia ... and
there, the portals of the world ... you and I...." She smiled again, and
there was a trace of bitterness in it. "Oh, yes, I can forget
Jehelumpore--can forgive. Said I not that I am the Swaying Cobra, that I
dance for those I love, but have only venom for those I hate? Now,
Arnold, you are your old Anglo-Saxon self again--oh, you English, with
your 'sense of honor'--and to-night you will start for India and your
humdrum life. Yes, we will leave Shingtse-lunpo to-night, with
these"--she made a gesture--"and for a while you will be a hero--and
then--" She broke off, still smiling; shrugged. "Then, in the years that
follow, you will often remember that night in Tibet when the Swaying
Cobra might have offered you the wealth of an empire ... and perhaps you
will regret your Anglo-Saxon sentimentalism."
Then she turned and placed in the chest the carpet whose only gift to
men, down through the years, was a dream of crime. Trent drew one hand
across his moist forehead, as though to wipe away the obfuscations of a
nightmare. The recollection of his weakness came as a hot accusation.
His lips had touched the cup of delirium, and of that shuddering moment
there remained but the memory--gray anti-climax.
"We dare not remain here longer," announced Sarojini. "The Great
Magician is a coward, and if we are too long we shall find him
chattering like the ape that he is. I will give you your instructions
now. Listen well. To-night--it must be near dawn now--I shall have a
pack-train ready, and in barley sacks, upon the animals, will be the
jewels. You will send your caravan out of the city beforehand, with
instructions to wait on the road a mile beyond Amber Bridge. Meanwhile,
at eleven o'clock--remember, eleven--a man will be at your house and
will guide you to the gate by which we left the city this morning, the
Great Magician's Gate. There I will meet you.
"The gems will not be missed until the following day--and I have taken
precautions to cover our trail. Yesterday a man left with a caravan of
yaks, and several miles beyond the _tchorten_ outpost he is waiting.
There we will change pack-animals. He will go north, along the road to
Mongolia, with the ponies and mules; while we will travel south, with
the yaks. The soldiers at the outpost will describe us as having been on
mules, and our pursuers will follow the tracks of the horses and mules.
When they discover their mistake we will be near the border of
India--for we shall travel along the Himalayas to Gyangtse. There the
District Agent will protect us."
"Can my muleteers leave Shingtse-lunpo without passports?" Trent
questioned.
She nodded. "A passport is necessary only when one wishes to enter; it
is not required at all of Tibetans.... Come, we must go."
They left the recess in the wall, closed the panel and returned to the
vast, dim Armory. Again the blank sides of the boxes intrigued Trent.
Sarojini, carrying the flashlight, preceded him through the aperture in
the floor and stood on the stair, directing the ray up while he fitted
the stone into place. Then they descended into the crypt.
The Great Magician was waiting as they had left him--sitting
cross-legged on the floor. Extinguishing the lamp, he placed it upon the
bottom step and locked the door.
Back through the tunnel, with its cold, earthy odors, they went; reached
the crypt in the swamp; ascended into the ruins. It was still dark. The
rain had stopped, but a lingering moisture saturated the cold air.
Under the gray barren sky they crossed the marsh and entered the city.
The Tibetan who guided Trent to the Great Magician's temple was waiting
just within the gate, and there the Englishman parted with Sarojini
Nanjee.
"This man will come for you to-night," she whispered in English. "Be
ready. To-night we win or lose, Arnold--and if we lose, Hsien Sgam will
have us put to death as he did those mute fools who were executed in the
amphitheater yesterday!"
She smiled--a smile that might have been a promise or a threat--and
hurried away with the Great Magician.
Trent moved off behind his guide. Once more they traveled the silent,
ghostly streets where only snarling curs were astir. The Tibetan uttered
never a word--not even when he left. At Trent's house he helped the
Englishman over the wall, then slunk toward the mouth of the lane.
The muleteers were asleep in the quadrangle, but Trent's footsteps
aroused them. He instructed Hsiao to make a fire. Kee Meng, who lay upon
a yak-hair robe by the main entrance, told him he had been sleeping
well, that there was little pain and he could stand without ill effects.
As Trent dried his clothing by the fire, scenes of the past few hours
conjured themselves in the darkness beyond the flames. Three things he
had learned; three things he had yet to learn. He knew where the jewels
were hidden; knew that Sarojini Nanjee and Hsien Sgam were not allied
(although her connection with the Mongol puzzled him); knew the woman
could tell him something about the murder of Manlove (for she was in
Gaya the night he was killed). But the mystery of Chavigny was yet
unsolved, as was the mystery of Manlove's death and the mystery of Dana
Charteris' disappearance. He did not altogether trust Sarojini; the
incident of the rug (flame to the memory) was a hint of some purpose of
her own. Furthermore, her plan was too simple to be convincing.... And
how much there was to be accomplished before eleven o'clock! He had one
remaining card to play. And he would not wait for Hsien Sgam to send for
him; he would seek him out, force his hand.
With this purpose established in his mind, he instructed the muleteers
to call him three hours after sunrise and went to his room. He was
weary--body and soul.
When he fell asleep, dawn was beginning to bleed the veins of the East.