MARCHING SANDS

HAROLD LAMB

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK : LONDON : 1920

CONTENTS

I. [The Lost People]
II. [Legends]
III. [Delabar Discourses]
IV. [Warning]
V. [Intruders]
VI. [Mirai Khan]
VII. [The Door Is Guarded]
VIII. [Delabar Leaves]
IX. [The Liu Sha]
X. [The Mem-Sahib Speaks]
XI. [Sir Lionel]
XII. [A Message from the Centuries]
XIII. [The Desert]
XIV. [Traces in the Sand]
XV. [A Last Camp]
XVI. [Gray Carries On]
XVII. [The Yellow Robe]
XVIII. [Bassalor Danek]
XIX. [Concerning a City]
XX. [The Talisman]
XXI. [Mary Makes A Request]
XXII. [The Answer]
XXIII. [The Challenge]
XXIV. [A Stage Is Set]
XXV. [Rifle against Arrow]
XXVI. [The Bronze Circlet]

MARCHING SANDS

CHAPTER I
THE LOST PEOPLE

"You want me to fail."

It was neither question nor statement. It came in a level voice, the words dropping slowly from the lips of the man in the chair as if he weighed each one.

He might have been speaking aloud to himself, as he sat staring directly in front of him, powerful hands crossed placidly over his knees. He was a man that other men would look at twice, and a woman might glance at once—and remember. Yet there was nothing remarkable about him, except perhaps a singular depth of chest that made his quiet words resonant.

That and the round column of a throat bore out the evidence of strength shown in the hands. A broad, brown head showed a hard mouth, and wide-set, green eyes. These eyes were level and slow moving, like the lips—the eyes of a man who could play a poker hand and watch other men without looking at them directly.

There was a certain melancholy mirrored in the expressionless face. The melancholy that is the toll of hardships and physical suffering. This, coupled with great, though concealed, physical strength, was the curious trait of the man in the chair, Captain Robert Gray, once adventurer and explorer, now listed in the United States Army Reserve.

He had the voyager's trick of wearing excellent clothes carelessly, and the army man's trait of restrained movement and speech. He was on the verge of a vital decision; but he spoke placidly, even coldly. So much so that the man at the desk leaned forward earnestly.

"No, we don't want you to fail, Captain Gray. We want you to find out the truth and to tell us what you have found out."

"Suppose there is nothing to discover?"

"We will know we are mistaken."

"Will that satisfy you?"

"Yes."

Captain "Bob" Gray scrutinized a scar on the back of his right hand. It had been made by a Mindanao kris, and, as the edge of the kris had been poisoned, the skin was still a dull purple. Then he smiled.

"I thought," he said slowly, "that the lost people myths were out of date. I thought the last missing tribe had been located and card-indexed by the geographical and anthropological societies."

Dr. Cornelius Van Schaick did not smile. He was a slight, gray man, with alert eyes. And he was the head of the American Exploration Society, a director of the Museum of Natural History—in the office of which he was now seated with Gray—and a member of sundry scientific and historical academies.

"This is not a lost people, Captain Gray," He paused, pondering his words. "It is a branch of our own race, the Indo-Aryan, or white race. It is the Wusun—the 'Tall Ones.' We—the American Exploration Society—believe it is to be found, in the heart of Asia." He leaned back, alertly.

Gray's brows went up.

"And so you are going to send an expedition to look for it?"

"To look for it." Van Schaick nodded, with the enthusiasm of a scientist on the track of a discovery. "We are going to send you, to prove that it exists. If this is proved," he continued decisively, "we will know that a white race was dominant in Asia before the time of the great empires; that the present Central Asian may be descended from Aryan stock. We will have new light on the development of races—even on the Bible——"

"Steady, Doctor!" Gray raised his hand. "You're getting out of my depth. What I want to know is this: Why do you think that I can find this white tribe in Asia—the Wusuns? I'm an army officer, out of a job and looking for one. That's why I answered your letter. I'm broke, and I need work, but——"

Van Schaick peered at a paper that he drew from a pile on his desk.

"We had good reasons for selecting you, Captain Gray," he said dryly. "You have done exploration work north of the Hudson Bay; you once stamped out dysentery in a Mindanao district; you have done unusual work for the Bureau of Navigation; on active service in France you led your company——"

Gray looked up quickly. "So did a thousand other American officers," he broke in.

"Ah, but very few have had a father like yours," he smiled, tapping the paper gently. "Your father, Captain Gray, was once a missionary of the Methodists, in Western Shensi. You were with him, there, until you were four years of age. I understand that he mastered the dialect of the border, thoroughly, and you also picked it up, as a child. This is correct?"

"Yes."

"And your father, before he died in this country, persisted in refreshing, from time to time, your knowledge of the dialect."

"Yes."

Van Schaick laid down the paper.

"In short, Captain Gray," he concluded, "you have a record at Washington of always getting what you go after, whether it is information or men. That can be said about many explorers, perhaps; but in your case the results are on paper. You have never failed. That is why we want you. Because, if you don't find the Wusun, we will then know they are not to be found."

"I don't think they can be found."

The scientist peered at his visitor curiously.

"Wait until you have heard our information about the white race in the heart of China, before you make up your mind," he said in his cold, concise voice, gathering the papers into their leather portmanteau. "Do you know why the Wusun have not been heard from?"

"I might guess. They seem to be in a region where no European explorers have gone——"

"Have been permitted to go. Asia, Captain Gray, for all our American investigations, is a mystery to us. We think we have removed the veil from its history, and we have only detached a thread. The religion of Asia is built on its past. And religion is the pulse of Asia. The Asiatics have taught their children that, from the dawn of history, they have been lords of the civilized world. What would be the result if it were proved that a white race dominated Central Asia before the Christian era? The traditions of six hundred million people who worship their past would be shattered."

Gray was silent while the scientist placed his finger on a wall map of Asia. Van Schaick drew his finger inland from the coast of China, past the rivers and cities, past the northern border of Tibet to a blank space under the mountains of Turkestan where there was no writing.

"This is the blind spot of Asia," he said. "It has grown smaller, as Europeans journeyed through its borders. Tibet, we know. The interior of China we know, except for this blind spot. It is——"

"In the Desert of Gobi."

"The one place white explorers have been prevented from visiting. And it is here we have heard the Wusun are."

"A coincidence."

Van Schaick glanced at his watch.

"If you will come with me, Captain Gray, to the meeting of the Exploration Society now in session, I will convince you it is no coincidence. Before we go, I would like to be assured of one thing. The expedition to the far end of the Gobi Desert will not be safe. It may be very dangerous. Would you be willing to undertake it?"

Gray glanced at the map and rose.

"If you can show me, Doctor," he responded, "that there is something to be found—I'd tackle it."

"Come with me," nodded Van Schaick briskly.

The halls of the museum were dark, as it was past the night hour for visitors. A small light at the stairs showed the black bulk of inanimate forms in glass compartments, and the looming outline of mounted beasts, with the white bones of prehistoric mammals.

At the entrance, Van Schaick nodded to an attendant, who summoned the scientist's car.

Their footsteps had ceased to echo along the tiled corridor. The motionless beast groups stared unwinkingly at the single light from glass eyes. Then a form moved in one of the groups.

The figure slipped from the stuffed animals, down the hall. The entrance light showed for a second a slender man in an overcoat who glanced quickly from side to side at the door to see if he was observed. Then he went out of the door, into the night.

CHAPTER II
LEGENDS

That evening a few men were gathered in Van Schaick's private office at the building of the American Exploration Society. One was a celebrated anthropologist, another a historian who had come that day from Washington. A financier whose name figured in the newspapers was a third. And a European orientologist.

To these men, Van Schaick introduced Gray, explaining briefly what had passed in their interview.

"Captain Gray," he concluded, "wishes proof of what we know. If he can be convinced that the Wusun are to be found in the Gobi Desert, he is ready to undertake the trip."

For an hour the three scientists talked. Gray listened silently. They were followers of a calling strange to him, seekers after the threads of knowledge gleaned from the corners of the earth, zealots, men who would spend a year or a lifetime in running down a clew to a new species of human beings or animals. They were men who were gatherers of the treasures of the sciences, indifferent to the ordinary aspects of life, unsparing in their efforts. And he saw that they knew what they were talking about.

In the end of the Bronze Age, at the dawn of history, they explained, the Indo-Aryan race, their own race, swept eastward from Scandinavia and the north of Europe, over the mountain barrier of Asia and conquered the Central Asian peoples—the Mongolians—with their long swords.

This was barely known, and only guessed at by certain remnants of the Aryan language found in Northern India, and inscriptions dug up from the mountains of Turkestan.

They believed, these scientists, that before the great Han dynasty of China, an Indo-Aryan race known as the Sacæ had ruled Central Asia. The forefathers of the Europeans had ruled the Mongolians. The ancestors of thousands of Central Asians of to-day had been white men—tall men, with long skulls, and yellow hair, and great fighters.

The earliest annals of China mentioned the Huing-nu—light-eyed devils—who came down into the desert. The manuscripts of antiquity bore the name of the Wusun—the "Tall Ones." And the children of the Aryan conquerors had survived, fighting against the Mongolians for several hundred years.

"They survive to-day," said the historian earnestly. "Marco Polo, the first European to enter China, passed along the northern frontier of the Wusun land. He called their king Prester John and a Christian. You have heard of the myth of Prester John, sometimes called the monarch of Asia. And of the fabulous wealth of his kingdom, the massive cities. The myth states that Prester John was a captive in his own palace."

"You see," assented Van Schaick, "already the captivity of the Wusun had begun. The Mongolians have never tolerated other races within their borders. During the time of Genghis Khan and the Tartar conquerors, the survivors of the Aryans were thinned by the sword."

"Marco Polo," continued the historian, "came as near to the land of the Wusun as any other European. Three centuries later a Portuguese missionary, Benedict Goës, passed through the desert near the city of the Wusun, and reported seeing some people who were fair of face, tall and light-eyed."

Van Schaick turned to his papers.

"In the last century," he said, "a curious thing happened to an English explorer, Ney Elias. I quote from his book. An old man called on me at Kwei-hwa-ching, at the eastern end of the Thian Shan Mountains, who said he was neither Chinaman, Mongol, nor Mohammedan, and lived on ground especially allotted by the emperor, and where there now exist several families of the same origin. He said that he had been a prince. At Kwei-hwa-ching I was very closely spied on and warned against asking too many questions."

Van Schaick peered over his spectacles at Gray.

"The Thian Shan Mountains are just north of this blind spot in the Gobi Desert where we think the Wusun are."

The historian broke in eagerly.

"Another clew—a generation ago the Russian explorer, Colonel Przewalski, tried to enter this blind spot from the south, and was fought off with much bloodshed by one of the guardian tribes."

Gray laughed frankly.

"I admit I'm surprised, gentlemen. Until now I thought you were playing some kind of a joke on me."

Van Schaick's thin face flushed, but he spoke calmly.

"It is only fair, sir, that you should have proof you are not being sent after a will-o'-the-wisp. A few days ago I talked with a missionary who had been invalided home from China. His name is Jacob Brent. He has been for twenty years head of the college of Chengtu, in Western China. He heard rumors of a captive tribe in the heart of the Gobi. And he saw one of the Wusun."

He paused to consult one of his papers methodically,

"Brent was told, by some Chinese coolies, of a tall race dwelling in a city in the Gobi, a race that was, they said, 'just like him.' And in one of his trips near the desert edge he saw a tall figure running toward him over the sand, staggering from weariness. Then several Chinese riders appeared from the sand dunes and headed off the fugitive. But not before Brent had seen that the man's face was partially white."

"Partially?" asked Gray quizzically.

"I am quoting literally. Yes, that was what Brent said. He was prevented by his native bearers from going into the Gobi to investigate. They believed the usual superstitions about the desert—evil spirits and so forth—and they warned Brent against a thing they called the pale sickness."

Gray looked up quietly. "You know what that is?"

"We do not know, and surmises are valueless." He shrugged. "You have an idea?"

"Hardly, yet—you say that Brent is ill. Could he be seen?"

"I fancy not. He is in a California sanitarium, broken down from overwork, the doctors informed me."

"I see." Gray scrutinized his companions. The same eagerness showed in each face, the craving for discovery which is greater than the lust of the gold prospector. They were hanging on his next words. "Gentlemen, do you realize that three great difficulties are to be met? Money—China—and a knowledge of science. By that I mean my own qualifications. I am an explorer, not a scientist——"

At this point Balch, the financier who had not spoken before, leaned forward.

"Three excellent points," he nodded. "I can answer them. We can supply you with funds, Captain Gray," he said decisively.

"And permission from the Chinese authorities?"

"We have passports signed, in blank, for an American hunter and naturalist to journey into the interior of China, to the Gobi Desert."

"You will not go alone," explained Van Schaick. "We realize that a scientist must accompany you."

"We have the man," continued Balch, "an orientologist—speaks Persian and Turki—knows Central Asia like a book. Professor Arminius Delabar. He'll join you at Frisco." He stood up and held out his hand. "Gray, you're the man we want! I like your talk." He laughed boyishly, being young in heart, in spite of his years. "You're equal to the job—and you can shoot a mountain sheep or a bandit in the head at five hundred yards. Don't deny it—you've done it!"

"Maps?" asked Gray dryly.

"The best we could get. Chinese and Russian surveys of the Western Gobi," Balch explained briskly. "We want you to start right off. We know that our dearest foes, the British Asiatic Society, have wind of the Wusun. They are fitting out an expedition. It will have the edge on yours because—discounting the fact that the British know the field better—it'll start from India, which is nearer the Gobi."

"Then it's got to be a race?" Gray frowned.

"A race it is," nodded Balch, "and my money backs you and Delabar. So the sooner you can start the better. Van Schaick will go with you to Frisco and give you details, with maps and passports on the way. We'll pay you the salary of your rank in the army, with a fifty per cent bonus if you get to the Wusun. Now, what's your answer—yes or no?" He glanced at the officer sharply, realizing that if Gray doubted, he would not be the man for the expedition.

Gray smiled quizzically.

"I came to you to get a job," he said, "and here it is. I need the money. My answer is—yes. I'll do my best to deliver the goods."

"Gentlemen," Balch turned to his associates, "I congratulate you. Captain Gray may or may not get to the Wusun. But—unless I'm a worse judge of character than I think—he'll get to the place where the Wusun ought to be. He won't turn back."

Their visitor flushed at that. He was still young, being not yet thirty. He shook hands all around and left for his hotel, with Balch and Van Schaick to arrange railroad schedules, and the buying of an outfit.

This is a brief account of how Robert Gray came to depart on his mission to the Desert of Gobi, as reported in the files of the American Exploration Society for the summer of 1919.

It was not given to the press at the time, owing to the need of secrecy. Nor did the Exploration Society obtain authority from the United States Government for the expedition. Time was pressing, as they learned the British expedition was getting together at Burma. Later, Van Schaick agreed with Balch that this had been a mistake.

But by that time Gray was far beyond reach, in the foothills of the Celestial Mountains, in the Liu Sha, and had learned the meaning of the pale sickness.

CHAPTER III
DELABAR DISCOURSES

Gray had meant what he said about his new job. Van Schaick pleaded for haste, but the army officer knew from experience the danger of omitting some important item from his outfit, and went ahead with characteristic thoroughness.

He assembled his personal kit in New York, with the rifles, medicines and ammunition that he needed. Also a good pair of field glasses and the maps that Van Schaick furnished. Balch made him a present of twenty pounds of fine smoking tobacco which was gratefully received.

"I'll need another man with me," Gray told Van Schaick, who was on edge to be off. "Delabar'll be all right in his way, but we'll want a white man who can shoot and work. I know the man for the job—McCann, once my orderly, now in the reserve."

"Get him, by all means," agreed the scientist.

"He's in Texas, out of a job. A wire'll bring him to Frisco in time to meet us. Well, I'm about ready to check out."

They left that night on the western express.

Gray was not sorry to leave the city. Like all voyagers, he felt the oppression of the narrow streets, the monotony of always going home to the same place to sleep. Wanderlust had gripped him again at thought of the venture into another continent.

He took his mission seriously. On the maps that Van Schaick and Balch had given him they had pointed out a spot beyond the known travel routes, a good deal more than a thousand miles into the interior of China. To this spot Gray was going. He had his orders and he would carry them out.

Van Schaick talked much on the train. He explained how much the mission meant to the Exploration Society. It would give them world-wide fame. And it would add enormously to the knowledge of humankind. Gray, he said, would travel near the path of Marco Polo; he would tear the veil of secrecy from the hidden corner of the Gobi Desert. It would be a victory of science over the ancient soul of Mongolia.

It would shake the foundation of the great jade image of Buddha, of the many-armed Kali, of Bon the devil-god, and the ancient Vishnu. It would strengthen the hold of the Bible on the Mongolian world.

If only, said Van Schaick wistfully, Gray could find the Wusun ahead of the expedition of the British Asiatic Society, the triumph would be complete.

Gray listened silently. It was fortunate, in the light of what followed, that his imagination was not easily stirred.

He looked curiously at the man who was to be his partner in the expedition. Van Schaick introduced them at the platform of the San Francisco terminal.

Professor Arminius Delabar was a short, slender man, of wiry build and a nervous manner that reminded Gray of a bird. He had near-sighted, bloodshot eyes encased behind tinted glasses, and a dark face with well-kept beard. He was half Syrian by birth, American by choice, and a denizen of the academies and byways of the world. Also, he spoke at least four languages fluently.

The army man's respect for his future companion went up several notches when he found that Delabar had already arranged competently for the purchase and shipment of their stores.

"You see," he explained in his room at the hotel to Gray, "the fewer things we must buy in Shanghai the better. Our plan is to attract as little attention as possible. Our passport describes us as hunter and naturalist. Foreigners are a common sight in China as far into the interior as Liangchowfu. Once we are past there and on the interior plains, it will be hard to follow us—if we have attracted no attention. Do you speak any Chinese dialects?"

It was an abrupt question, in Delabar's high voice. The Syrian spoke English with only the trace of an accent.

"A little," admitted Gray. "I was born in Shensi, but I don't remember anything except a baby white camel—a playmate. Mandarin Chinese is Greek to me."

Some time afterward he learned that Delabar had taken this as a casual boast—not knowing Gray's habit of understating his qualifications. Fortune plays queer tricks sometimes and Gray's answer was to loom large in the coming events.

Fortune, or as Gray put it, the luck of the road, threw two obstacles in their way at Frisco. Van Schaick had telegraphed ahead to the sanitarium where the missionary Brent was being treated. He hoped to arrange an interview between Brent and Gray.

Brent was dying. No one could visit him. Also, McCann, the soldier who was to accompany them, did not show up at the hotel,—although he had wired his officer at Chicago that he would be in Frisco before the appointed time.

Gray would have liked to wait for the man. He knew McCann would be useful—a crack shot, a good servant, and an expert at handling men—but Delabar had already booked their passage on the next Pacific Mail steamer.

"Van Schaick can wait here," Delabar assured Gray, "meet McCann, and send him on by the boat following. He will join you at Shanghai."

"Very well," assented Gray, who was checking up the list of stores Delabar had bought. "That will do nicely. I see that you've thought of all the necessary things, Professor. We can pick up a reserve supply of canned foodstuffs at Shanghai, or Hankow." He glanced at Van Schaick. "There's one thing more to be settled. It's important. Who is in command of this party? The Professor or I? If he's to be the boss, all right—I'll carry on with that understanding."

Van Schaick hesitated. But Delabar spoke up quickly.

"The expedition is in your hands, Captain Gray. I freely yield you the responsibility."

Gray was still watching Van Schaick. "Is that understood? It's a good thing to clear up before we start."

"Certainly," assented the scientist. "Now we'll discuss the best route——"

Van Schaick stood at the pier-head the next day when the steamer cast off her moorings, and waved good-by to the two. Gray left him behind with some regret. A good man, Van Schaick, an American from first to last, and a slave to science.

During the monotonous run across the Pacific when the sea and the sky seemed unchanged from day to day, Delabar talked incessantly about their trip. Gray, who preferred to spend the time doing and saying nothing, listened quietly.

The officer was well content to lie back in his deck chair, hands clasped behind his curly head, and stare out into space. This was his habit, when off duty. It satisfied him to the soul to do nothing but watch the thin line where the gray-blue of the Pacific melted into the pale blue of the sky, and feel the sun's heat on his face. It made him appear lazy. Which he was not.

The energetic professor fancied that Gray paid little attention to his stream of information about the great Gobi Desert. In that, he did the other an injustice. Gray heeded and weighed Delabar's words. Ingrained in him from army life and a solitary existence marked by few friendships was the need of reticence, and watchfulness. Nor was his inclination to idle on the voyage mere habit. Unconsciously, he was storing up vital strength in his strongly knit frame—strength which he had called on in the past, and which he would need again.

"You don't seem to appreciate, my young friend," remarked the professor once, irritably, "that it is inner Asia we are invading. Also, we are going a thousand miles beyond your American gunboats."

"The days of the Ih-hwo-Ch'uan are past."

Delabar shrugged his shoulders, surprised at his companion's pertinent remark. "True. China is a republic and progressive, perhaps. But the Mongolian soul does not change overnight. Moreover, there are the priests—Buddhists and Taoists. Fear and superstition rule the mass of the Dragon Kingdom, my friend, and it is these priests who will be our enemies."

Gray had spoken truly when he said he remembered nothing of China, except a white camel, but, subconsciously, many things were familiar to the soldier.

"At the border of the Gobi Desert, where we believe the Wusun to be," continued the scientist warmly, as Gray was silent, "a center of Buddhism existed in the Middle Ages. The three sects of Buddhist priests—Black, Yellow and Red—are united in the effort to preserve their power. They preach the advent of the Gautama in the next few years. Also, that the ancient Gautama ruled the spiritual world before the coming of Christianity.

"So you can see," he pointed out, "that the discovery of a white race—a race that did not acknowledge Buddha—in the heart of China would be a blow to their doctrine. It would contradict their book of prophecy."

Gray nodded, puffing at his pipe. Presently, he stirred himself to speak.

"Rather suspect you're right, Professor. You know the religious dope. And the religions of Asia are not good things to monkey with. But, look here." He drew a map from his pocket and spread it out on his knee. "Here's the spot where Van Schaick located the Wusun—our long-lost but not forgotten cousins. Well and good. Only that spot, which you and your friends call the 'blind spot' of Asia, happens to be in the middle of the far Gobi Desert. How do you figure people existed there for several centuries?"

Delabar hesitated, glancing up at the moving tracery of smoke that rose from the funnel, against the clouds. They were on the boat deck.

"The Ming annals mention a city in that place, some two thousand years ago. A thousand years later we know there were many palaces at this end of the Thian Shan—the Celestial Mountains. Remember that the caravan routes from China to Samarcand, India and Persia are very old, and that they—or one of the most important of them—ran past this blind spot."

"Marco Polo trailed along there, didn't he?"

"Yes. We know the great city of the Gobi was called Sungan. The Ming annals describe it as having 'massive gates, walls and bastions, besides underground passages, vaulted and arched.'"

"European travelers don't report this city."

"Because they never saw it, my friend. Brent, who was at the edge of the Gobi near there, states that he saw towers in the sand. And the Mohammedan annals of Central Asia have a curious tale."

"Let's have it," said Gray, settling himself comfortably in his chair.

"It was in the sixteenth century," explained Delabar, who seemed to have the myths of Asia at his tongue's end. "A religious legend. A certain holy man, follower of the prophet, was robbed and beaten in a city near where we believe Sungan to be. After his injury by the people of the city—he was a mullah—he climbed into a minaret to call the hour of evening prayer."

Delabar's voice softened as he spoke, sliding into more musical articulation.

"As he cried the hour, this holy man felt something falling like snow on his face. Only it was not snow. The sky and the city darkened. He could not see the roofs of the buildings. He went down and tried the door. It was blocked. Then this man saw that it was sand falling over the city. The sand covered the whole town, leaving only the minaret, which was high. The people who had done him the injury were buried—became white bones under the sand."

"That story figures in the Bible," assented Gray, "only not the same. You don't consider the myth important, do you?"

"The priests of Asia do," said the professor seriously. "And I have seen the memoirs of Central Asian kingdoms which mention that treasure was dug for and found in ruins in the sands." He glanced at his companion curiously. "You do not seem to be worried, Captain Gray, at entering the forbidden shrine of the Mongols."

Having been born thereabouts, the idea amused Gray.

"Are you?" Gray laughed. "The Yellow Peril is dead."

"So is Dr. Brent."

"You don't connect the two?"

"I don't attempt to analyze the connection, Captain Gray. Remember in China we are dealing with men who think backward, around-about, and every way except our own. Then there are the priests. All I know is that Dr. Brent entered on forbidden ground, fell sick, and had to leave China. Do you know what he died of?"

"Do you?"

Delabar was silent a moment; then he smiled. "I have imagination—too much, perhaps. But then I have lived behind the threshold of Asia for half my life."

"I suspect it's a good thing for me you have," Gray admitted frankly.

Before they left their chairs that afternoon a steward brought the officer a message from the wireless cabin.

Van Schaick had sent it, before the steamer passed the radio limit. Gray read it, frowned, and turned to Delabar.

"This is rather bad luck, Professor," he said. "McCann, the fellow I counted on, is not coming. He was taken sick with grippe in Los Angeles on his way to Frisco. It looks as if you and I would have to go it alone."

CHAPTER IV
WARNING

The news of McCann's loss, so important to the officer, Delabar passed over with a shrug. Gray wondered briefly why a man obviously inclined to nervousness should ignore the fact that they were without the services of a trustworthy attendant. Later, he came to realize that the scientist considered that McCann's presence would have been no aid to him, that rifles and men who knew how to use them would play no part in meeting the hostile forces surrounding the territory of the Wusun.

From that moment he began to watch Delabar. It was clear to him that the professor was uneasy, decidedly so. And that the man was in the grip of a rising excitement.

It manifested itself when the steamer stopped at a Japanese port. Gray would have liked to visit Kyoto, to see again the little brown people of the island kingdom, to get a glimpse of the gray castle of Oksaka, and perhaps of peerless, snow-crowned Fujiyama.

But Delabar insisted on remaining aboard the steamer until they left for China. The nearing gateway of Asia had a powerful effect on him. Gray noticed—as it was unusual in a man of mildly studious habits—that the scientist smoked quantities of strong Russian cigarettes. Indeed, the air of their cabin was heavy with the fumes.

"We must not make ourselves conspicuous," Delabar urged repeatedly.

At Shanghai they passed quickly through the hands of the customs officials. Their preparations progressed smoothly; the baggage was put on board a waiting Hankow steamer, and Delabar added to their stores a sufficient quantity of provisions to round out their outfit. In spite of this, Delabar fidgeted until they were safely in their stateroom on the river steamer, and passing up the broad, brown current of the Yang-tze-kiang—which, by the way, is not called the Yang-tze-kiang by the Chinese.

Gray made no comment on his companion's misgivings. He saw no cause for alarm. There were a dozen other travelers on the river boat, sales agents of three nations, a railroad engineer or two, a family of missionaries, several tourists who stared blandly at the great tidal stretch of the river, and commented loudly on the comforts of the palatial vessel. Evidently they had expected to go up to Hankow in a junk. They pointed out the chocolate colored sails of the passing junks with their half-naked coolies and dirty decks.

For days the single screw of the Hankow boat churned the muddy waste, and the smoke spread, fanwise, over its wake.

The Yang-tze was not new to Gray. He was glad he was going into the interior. The fecund cities of the coast, with their monotonous, crowded streets, narrow and overhung with painted signs held no attraction for him. The panorama of Mongolian faces, pallid and seamed, furtive and merry was not what he had come to China to see. In the interior, beyond the forest crowned mountains, and the vast plains, was the expanse of the desert. Until they reached this, the trip was no more than a necessary evil.

Not so—as Gray noted—did it affect Delabar. The first meeting with the blue-clad throngs in Shanghai, the first glimpse of the pagoda-temples with their shaven priests had both exhilarated and depressed the scientist.

"Each stage of the journey," he confided to Gray, "drops us back a century in civilization."

"No harm done," grunted the officer, who had determined to put a check on Delabar's active imagination. "As long as we get ahead. That's the deuce of this country. We have to go zig-zag. There's no such thing as a straight line being the shortest distance between two points in the land of the Dragon."

Delabar frowned, surprised by these unexpected displays of latent knowledge. Then smiled, waving a thin hand at the yellow current of the river.

"There is a reason for that—as always, in China. Evil spirits, they believe, can not move out of a straight line. So we find screens put just inside the gates of temples—to ward off the evil influences."

"Look at that." Gray touched the other's arm. A steward stood near them at the stern. No one else was in that part of the deck, and after glancing around cautiously the man dropped over the side some white objects—what they were, Gray could not see. "I heard that some fishermen had been drowned near here a few days ago. That Chink—for all his European dress—is dropping overside portions of bread as food and peace offering to the spirits of the drowned."

"Yes," nodded Delabar, "the lower orders of Chinamen believe the drowned have power to pull the living after them to death. Centuries of missionary endeavor have not altered their superstitions. And, look—that does not prevent those starved beggars in the junk there from retrieving the bread in the water. Ugh!"

He thrust his hands into his pockets and tramped off up the deck, while Gray gazed after him curiously, and then turned to watch the junk. The coolies were waving at the steward who was watching them impassively. Seeing Gray, the man hurried about his duties. For a moment the officer hesitated, seeing that the junkmen were staring, not at the bread in their hands, but at the ship. Then he smiled and walked on.

In spite of Delabar's misgivings, the journey went smoothly. The banks of the river closed in on them, scattered mud villages appeared in the shore rushes. Half naked boys waved at the "fire junk" from the backs of water buffaloes, and the smoke of Hankow loomed on the horizon. From Hankow, the Peking-Hankow railway took them comfortably to Honanfu, after a two-day stage by cart.

Here they waited for their luggage to catch up with them, in a fairly clean and modern hotel. They avoided the other Europeans in the city. Gray knew that they were beyond the usual circuit of American tourists, and wished to travel as quietly as possible.

"We're in luck," he observed to Delabar, who had just come in. "In a month, if all goes well, well be in Liangchowfu, the 'Western Gate' to the steppe country. What's the matter?"

Delabar held out a long sheet of rice paper with a curious expression.

"An invitation to dine with one of the officials of Honan, Captain Gray—with the vice-governor. He asks us to bring our passports."

"Hm," the officer replaced the maps he had been overhauling in their case, and thrust the missive on top of them. He tossed the case into an open valise. "A sort of polite invitation to show our cards—to explain who we are, eh? Well, let's accept with pleasure. We've got to play the game according to the rules. Nothing queer about this invite. Chinese officials are hospitable enough. All they want is a present or two."

He produced from the valise a clock with chimes and a silver-plated pocket flashlight and scrutinized them mildly.

"This ought to do the trick. We'll put on our best clothes. And remember, I'm a big-game enthusiast."

Delabar was moody that afternoon, and watched Gray's cheerful preparations for the dinner without interest. The army man stowed away their more valuable possessions, carefully hanging the rifle which he had been carrying in its case over his shoulder under the frame of the bed.

"A trick I learned in Mindanao," he explained. "These towns are chuck full of thieves, and this rifle is valuable to me. The oriental second-story man has yet to discover that American army men hang their rifles under the frame of their cots. Now for the vice-governor, what's his name? Wu Fang Chien?"

Wu Fang Chien was most affable. He sent two sedan chairs for the Americans and received them at his door with marked politeness, shaking his hands in his wide sleeves agreeably when Delabar introduced Gray. He spoke English better than the professor spoke Chinese, and inquired solicitously after their health and their purpose in visiting his country.

He was a tall mandarin, wearing the usual iron rimmed spectacles, and dressed in his robe of ceremony.

During the long dinner of the usual thirty courses, Delabar talked with the mandarin, while Gray contented himself with a few customary compliments. But Wu Fang Chien watched Gray steadily, from bland, faded eyes.

"I have not known an American hunter to come so far into China," he observed to the officer. "My humble and insufficient home is honored by the presence of an enthusiast. What game you expect to find?"

"Stags, antelope, and some of the splendid mountain sheep of Shensi," replied Gray calmly. Wu Fang Chien's fan paused, at the precision of the answer.

"Then you are going far. Do your passports permit?"

"They give us a free hand. We will follow the game trails."

"As far as Liangchowfu?"

"Perhaps."

"Beyond that is another province." The mandarin tapped his well-kept fingers thoughtfully on the table. "I would not advise you, Captain Gray, to go beyond Liangchowfu. As you know, my unhappy country has transpired a double change of government and the outlaw tribes of the interior have become unruly during the last rebellion." He fumbled only slightly for words.

Gray nodded.

"We are prepared to take some risks."

Wu Fang Chien bowed politely.

"It might be dangerous—to go beyond Liangchowfu. Your country and mine are most friendly, Captain Gray. I esteem your welfare as my own. My sorrow would greaten if injury happen to you."

"Your kindness does honor to your heart."

"I suggest," Wu Fang Chien looked mildly at the uneasy Delabar, "that you have me visé your passports so that you may travel safely this side of Liangchowfu. Then I will give you a military escort who will be protection against any outlaws you meet on the road. In this way I will feel that I am doing my full duty to my honored guests."

"The offer is worthy," said Gray, who realized that the sense of duty of a town official was a serious thing, but did not wish an escort, "of one whose hospitality is a pleasure to his guests."

Wu Fang Chien shook hands with himself. "But we have little money to pay an escort——"

"I will attend to that."

"Unfortunately, an escort of soldiers would spoil my chances at big game. We shall pick up some native hunters."

Wu Fang Chien bowed, with a faint flicker of green eyes.

"It shall be as you wish, Captain Gray. But I am distressed at the thought you may suffer harm. The last American who went beyond the Western Gate, died."

Gray frowned. He had not known that one of his countrymen had penetrated so far into the interior.

"Without doubt," pursued the mandarin, stroking his fan gently across his face, "you have a good supply of rifles. I have heard much of these excellent weapons of your country. Would you oblige me showing them to me before you leave Honan?"

"I should be glad to do so," said Gray, "if they were not packed in our luggage which will not be here before we set out. But I have two small presents——"

The gift of the clock and electric light turned the thread of conversation and seemed to satisfy Wu Fang Chien, who bowed them out with the utmost courtesy to the waiting sedan chairs. Then, as the bearers picked up the poles, he drew a small and exquisite vase from under his robe and pressed it upon Gray as a token, he said, to keep fresh the memory of their visit.

At their room in the hotel Gray showed the vase to Delabar. It was a valuable object, of enamel wrought on gold leaves, and inscribed with some Chinese characters.

"What do you make of our worthy Wu Fang—hullo!" he broke off. Delabar had seized the vase and taken off the top.

"It is what the Chinese call a message jar," explained the scientist, feeling within the vase. He removed a slim roll of silk, wound about an ebony stick. On the silk four Chinese characters were delicately painted.

"What do they mean?" asked Gray, looking over his shoulder.

The Syrian glanced at him appraisingly, under knitted brows. His companion's face was expressionless, save for a slight tinge of curiosity. Delabar judged that the soldier knew nothing of written Chinese, which was the truth.

"Anything or nothing, my friend. It reads like a proverb. The oriental soul takes pleasure in maxims. Yet everything they do or say has a meaning—very often a double meaning."

"Such as Wu Fang's table talk," smiled Gray. "Granted. Is this any particular dialect?"

"Written Chinese is much the same everywhere. Just as the Arabic numerals throughout Europe." He scanned the silk attentively, and his lips parted. "The first ideograph combines the attribute or adjective 'clever' or 'shrewd' with the indicator 'man.' A shrewd man—hua jen."

"Perhaps Wu Fang: perhaps you. Go on."

"The second character is very ancient, almost a picture-drawing of warning streamers. It is an emphatic 'do not!'"

"Then it's you—and me."

"The third character is prefixed by mu, a tree, and signifies a wooden board, or a wall. The fourth means 'the West.'"

"A riddle, but not so hard to guess," grinned Gray, taking up his maps from the table and filling his pipe preparatory to work. "A wise guy doesn't climb the western wall."

"You forget," pointed out Delabar sharply, "the negative. It is the strongest kind of a warning. Do not, if you are wise, approach the western wall. My friend, this is a plain warning—even a threat. To-day Wu Fang Chien hinted we should not go to Liangchowfu. Now he threatens——"

"I gathered as much." Gray took the slip of fine silk and scanned it quizzically. "Delabar, do you know the ideograph for 'to make' or 'build?'"

The scientist nodded.

"Then write it, where it seems to fit in here."

Delabar did so, with a glance at his companion. Whereupon the soldier folded the missive and replaced it in the jar. He clapped his hands loudly. Almost at once a boy appeared in the door.

To him Gray handed the vase with instructions to carry it to His Excellency, the official Wu Fang Chien. He reënforced his order with a piece of silver cash. To the curious scientist he explained briefly.

"Wu Fang is a scholar. He will read our reply as: A wise man will not build a wall in the west. It will give him food for thought, and it may keep His Excellency's men from overhauling our belongings a second time during our absence."

Delabar started. "May?"

"Yes. Remember I left that message of Wu's on top of these maps. I find it underneath them. The maps are all here. We locked our door, carefully. Some one has evidently given our papers the once over and forgotten to replace them in the order he found them. I say it may have been at Wu's orders. I think it probably was."

"Why?" Delabar licked his thin lips nervously.

"Because nothing has been taken. A Chinese official has the right to be curious about strangers in his district. Likewise, his men wouldn't have much trouble in entering the room—with the landlord's assistance. The ordinary run of thieves would have taken something valuable—my field glasses, for instance."

Delabar strode nervously the length of the room and peered from the shutters.

"Captain Gray!" he swung around, "do you know there are maps of the Gobi, of Sungan, in your case. The person who broke into our room must have seen them."

"I reckon so."

"Then Wu Fang Chien may know we are going to the Gobi! I have not forgotten what he said about the last American hunter. What hunter has been as far as the Gobi? None. So——"

"You think he meant——"

"Dr. Brent."

Gray shook his head slowly. "Far fetched, Delabar," he meditated. "You're putting two and two together to make ten. All we know is that Wu has sent us a polite motto. No use in worrying ourselves."

But it was clear to him that Delabar was worried, and more. Gray had been observing his companion closely. Now for the first time he read covert fear in the professor's thin face.

Fear, Gray reflected to himself, was hard to deal with, in a man of weak vitality and high-strung nerves. He felt that Delabar was alarmed needlessly; that he dreaded what lay before them.

For that reason he regretted the event of that night which gave shape to Delabar's apprehensions.

At the scientist's urging, they did not leave the room before turning in. Gray adjusted Delabar's walking stick against the door, placing a string of Chinese money on the head of the stick, and balancing the combination so a movement of the door would send the coins crashing to the floor.

"Just in case our second-story men pay us another visit," he explained. "Now that we know they can open the door, we'll act accordingly."

CHAPTER V
INTRUDERS

It was a hot night.

Gray, naked except for shirt and socks, lay under the mosquito netting and wished that he had brought double the amount of insect powder he had. Across the room Delabar had subsided into fitful snores. The night was not quiet.

In the courtyard of the hotel some Chinese servants were at their perpetual gambling, their shrill voices coming up through the shutters. On the further side of the street a guitar twanged monotonously. Somewhere, a dog yelped.

The warm odors of the place assaulted Gray's nostrils unpleasantly. They were strange, potent odors, a mingling of dirt, refuse, horses, the remnants of cooking. Gray sighed, longing for the clean air of the plains toward which they were headed.

They were still far from the Gobi's edge. The distance seemed to stretch out interminably. It is not easy to cross the broad bosom of China.

He wondered what success they would have. What was the city of Sungan? How had it escaped observation? How did a city happen to be in the desert, anyway?

What was the pale sickness Brent had spoken of? Brent had died. From natural causes, of course. Gray gave little heed to Delabar's wild surmises. But the conduct of Wu Fang Chien afforded him food for thought.

Had the vice-governor actually known of their mission? His words might have had a double meaning. And they might not. The silk scroll meant little. Delabar had read warning into it; but was not that a result of his imagination?

Gray turned uncomfortably on his bed and considered the matter. How could Wu Fang Chien have known they were bound for Sungan? Their mission had been carefully kept from publicity. Only Van Schaick and his three associates knew of it. Men like Van Schaick and Balch could keep their mouths shut. And Delabar was certainly cautious enough.

Gray cursed the heat under his breath, with added measure for the dog which seemed bound to make a night of it. The chatter at the hotel door had subsided with midnight. But the guitar still struck its melancholy note, accompanied by the intermittent wail of the sorrowing dog.

No, Gray thought sleepily, Wu Fang Chien could not have known of their mission. He had let Delabar's nerves prey on his own—that was all. Delabar was full of this Asia stuff, especially concerning the priests——

Gray's mind drifted away into vague visions of ancient and forgotten temples. The guitar note became the strum of temple drums, echoing over the waste of the desert. The dog's plaint took form in the wailing of shrouded forms that moved about gigantic ruins, ruins that gave forth throngs of spirits. And the spirits took up the wail, approaching him.

A green light flamed from the temple gate. The gongs sounded a final crash—and Gray awoke at the noise of the stick and coins falling to the floor.

He became fully conscious instantly—from habit. And was aware of two things. He had been asleep for some time. Also, the door had been thrown open and dark forms were running into the room.

Gray caught at his automatic which he always hung at his pillow. He missed it in the dark. One of the figures stumbled against the bed. He felt a hand brush across his face.

Drawing up his legs swiftly he kicked out at the man who was fumbling for him. The fellow subsided backward with a grunt, and the officer gained his feet. His sight was not yet cleared, but he perceived the blur of figures in the light from the open door.

He wasted no time in outcry. Experience had taught him that the best way to deal with native assailants was with his fists. He bent forward from the hips, balanced himself and jabbed at the first man who ran up to him.

His fist landed in the intruder's face. Gray weighed over a hundred and seventy pounds, and he had the knack which comparatively few men possess of putting his weight behind his fists. Moreover, he was not easily flurried, and this coolness gave his blows added sting.

At least four men had broken into the room. The other two hesitated when they saw their companions knocked down. But Gray did not. There was a brief rustle of feet over the floor, the sound of a heavy fist striking against flesh, and the invaders stumbled or crawled from the room.

Gray was surprised they did not use their knives. Once they perceived that he was fully awake they seemed to lose heart. The fight had taken only a minute, and Gray was master of the field.

He had counted four men as they ran out. But he waited alertly by the door while Delabar, who had remained on his bed, got up and lit the lamp. Gray's first glance told him that no Chinamen were to be seen.

He was breathing heavily, but quite unhurt. Having the advantage of both weight and hitting power over his light adversaries, he took no pride in his prompt clearing of the room. Delabar, however, was plainly shaky.

"What did they want?" the professor muttered, eyeing the door. "How——"

"Look out!" warned Gray crisply.

From the foot of his bed a head appeared. Two slant eyes fixed on him angrily. A Chinaman in the rough clothes of a coolie crawled out and stood erect.

In one hand he held Gray's rifle, removed from the case. With the other he was fumbling at the safety catch with which he seemed unfamiliar.

Gray acted swiftly. Realizing that the gun was loaded and that it would go off if the coolie thought of pulling the trigger, inasmuch as the safety catch was not set, he stepped to one side, to the head of the bed.

Here he fell to his knees. The man with the rifle, if he had fired, would probably have shot over the American, who was feeling under the pillow.

As it happened the coolie did not pull the trigger of the gun. A dart of flame, a crack which echoed loudly in the narrow room—and Gray, over the sights of the automatic which he had recovered and fired in one motion, saw the man stagger.

Through the swirling smoke he saw the coolie drop the gun and run to the window.

Gray covered the man again, but refrained from pressing the trigger. There was no need of killing the coolie. The next instant the man had flung open the shutters and dived from the window.

Looking out, Gray saw the form of his adversary vaguely as the coolie picked himself up and vanished in the darkness.

The street was silent. The guitar was no longer to be heard.

Gray crossed the room and flung open the door. The hall was empty. He closed the door, readjusted the stick and string of coins and grinned at Delabar who was watching nervously.

"That was one on me, Professor," he admitted cheerfully. "The coolie who bobbed up under the bed must have been the one I kicked there. Fancy knocking a man to where he can grab your own gun."

Delabar, however, saw no humor in the situation.

"They were coolies," he said. "What do you suppose they came after?"

"Money. I don't know." Gray replaced the shutters and blew out the light. "We'll complain to our landlord in the morning. But I don't guess we'll have much satisfaction out of him. The fact that my shot didn't bring the household running here shows pretty well that it was a put-up job."

His prophecy proved true. The proprietor of the hotel protested that he had known nothing of the matter. Asked why he had not investigated the shot, he declared that he was afraid. Gray gave up his questioning and set about preparing to leave Honanfu.

"The sooner we're away from Wu Fang's jurisdiction the better," he observed to Delabar. "No use in making an investigation. It would only delay us. Our baggage came this morning, and you've engaged the muleteers. We'll shake Honanfu."

Delabar seemed as anxious as Gray to leave the town. Crowds of Chinese, attracted perhaps by rumor of what had happened in the night, followed them about the streets as Gray energetically assembled his two wagons with the stores, and the men to drive the mules.

He made one discovery. In checking up the list of baggage they found that one box was missing.

"It's the one that had the rifles and spare ammunition," grunted Gray. "Damn!"

He had put the rifle that had been intended for McCann with his own extra piece and ammunition in a separate box. In spite of persistent questioning, the drivers who had brought the wagons to Honanfu denied that they had seen the box.

A telegram was sent to the railway terminal. The answer was delayed until late afternoon. No news of the box was forthcoming.

"It's no use," declared Delabar moodily. "Remember, you told Wu Fang Chien that our rifles were with the luggage. Probably he has taken the box."

"Looks that way," admitted Gray, who was angered at the loss. "Well, there's no help for it. We'll hike, before Wu Fang thinks up something else to do."

He gave the word to the muleteers, the wagons creaked forward. He jumped on the tail of the last one, beside Delabar, and Honanfu with its watching crowds faded into the dust, after a turn in the road.

From that time forth, Gray kept his rifle in his hand, or slung at his shoulder.

While they sat huddled uncomfortably on some stores against the side of the jogging cart—nothing is quite so responsive to the law of gravity as a springless Chinese cart, or so uncomfortable, unless it be the rutted surface of a Chinese imperial highway—both were thinking.

Delabar, to himself: "Why is it that an imperial road in China is not one kept in order—in the past—for the emperor, but one that can be put in order, if the emperor announced his intention of passing over it? My associate, the American, who thinks only along straight lines, will never understand the round-about working of the oriental mind. And that will work him evil."

Gray, aloud: "Look here, Delabar! We can safely guess now that Wu Fang would like to hinder our journey."

"I have already assumed that."

"Hm. Think it's because the Wusun actually exist, and he wants to keep us from the Gobi?"

Delabar was aroused from his muse.

"A Chinese official seldom acts on his own initiative," he responded. "Wu Fang Chien has received instructions. Yes, I think he intends to bar our passage beyond Liangchowfu. By advancing as we are from Honanfu, we are running blindly into danger."

Gray squinted back at the dusty road, nursing his rifle across his knees. His brown face was impassive, the skin about the eyes deeply wrinkled from exposure. The eyes themselves were narrow and hard. Delabar found it increasingly difficult to guess what went on in the mind of the taciturn American.

"I've been wondering," said Gray slowly, "wondering for a long time about a certain question. Admitting that the Wusun are there, in the Gobi, why are they kept prisoners—carefully guarded like this? It doesn't seem logical!"

The Syrian smiled blandly, twisting his beard with a thin hand.

"Logic!" he cried. "Oh, the mind of the inner Asiatic is logical; but the reasons governing it, and the grounds for its deductions are quite different from the motives of European psychology."

"Well, I fail to see the reason why the Wusun people should be guarded for a good many hundred years."

"Simply this. Buddhism is the crux of the oriental soul. Confucius and Taoism are secondary to the advent of the Gautama—to the great Nirvana. Buddhism rules inner China, Tibet, part of Turkestan, some of India, and—under guise of Shamanism, Southeastern Siberia."

Gray made no response. He was studying the face of Delabar—that intellectual, nervous, unstable face.

"Buddhism has ruled Central Asia since the time of Sakuntala—the great Sakuntala," went on the scientist. "And the laws of Buddha are ancient and very binding. The Wusun are enemies of Buddhism. They are greater enemies than the Manchus, of Northern and Eastern China. That is because the Wusun hold in reverence a symbol that is hateful to the priests of the temples."

"What is that?"

Delabar hesitated.

"The symbol is some barbarian sign. The Wusun cherish it, perhaps because cut off from the world, they have no other faith than the faith of their forefathers." The scientist's high voice rang with strong conviction. "In the annals of the Han dynasty, before the birth of Christ, it is related that an army under the General Ho K'u-p'ing was sent on plea of the Buddhists to destroy the Huing-nu—, the 'green-eyed devils' and the Wusun—the Tall Ones,' of the west. The military expedition failed. But since then the Buddhists have been embittered against the Wusun—have guarded them as prisoners."

"Then religious fanaticism is the answer?"

"A religious feud."

"Because the Wusun will not adopt Buddhism?"

"Because they cling to the absurd sign of their faith!"

Gray passed a gnarled hand across his chin and frowned at his rifle.

"Sounds queer. I'd like to see that sign."

Delabar settled himself uneasily against the jarring of the cart.

"It is not likely, Captain Gray," he said, "that either of us will see it."

Whereupon they fell silent, each busied with his thoughts, in this manner.

Delabar, to himself: My companion is a physical brute; how can he understand the high mysteries of Asian thought?

Gray: Either this Syrian has a grand imagination, or he knows more than he has been telling me—the odds being the latter is correct.

CHAPTER VI
MIRAI KHAN

Near Kia-yu-kwan, the western gate of the Great Wall, the twin pagodas of Liangchowfu rise from the plain.

In former centuries Liangchowfu was the border town, a citadel of defense against the outer barbarians of the northern steppe and Central Asia. It is a walled city, standing squarely athwart the highway from China proper to the interior. Beyond Liangchowfu are the highlands of Central Asia.

In exactly a month after leaving Honanfu, as Gray had promised, the wagons bearing the two Americans passed through the town gate.

Gray, dusty and travel-stained to his waist, but alert and erect of carriage, walked before the two carts. He showed no ill effects from the hard stage of the journey they had just completed.

Delabar lay behind the leather curtain of one of the wagons. His spirits had suffered from the past month. The monotonous road, with its ceaseless mud villages had depressed him. The groups of natives squatting in the sun before their huts, in the never-ending search for vermin, and the throngs of staring children that sought for horse dung in the roads to use for fuel, had wrought on his sensitive nerves.

They had not seen a white man during the journey. Gray had written to Van Schaick before they left Honanfu, but they expected no mail until they should return to Shanghai.

"If we reach the coast again," Delabar had said moodily.

The better air of the hill country through which they passed had not improved his spirits, as it had Gray's. The sight of the forest clad peaks, with their hidden pagodas, from the eaves of which the wind bells sent their tinkle down the breeze, held no interest for the scientist.

Glimpses of brown, spectacled workmen who peered at them from the rice fields, or the vision of a tattered junk sail, passing down an estuary in the purple quiet of evening, when the dull yellow of the fields and the green of the hills were blended in a soft haze did not cause Delabar to lift his eyes.

China, vast and changeless, had taken the two Americans to itself. And Gray knew that Delabar was afraid. He had suspected as much in Honanfu. Now he was certain. Delabar had taken to smoking incessantly, and made no attempt to exercise as Gray did. He brooded in the wagon.

The calm of the army officer seemed to anger Delabar. Often when two men are alone for a long stretch of time they get on each other's nerves. But Delabar's trouble went deeper than this. His fears had preyed on him during the month. He had taken to watching the dusty highway behind them. He slept badly.

Yet they had not been molested. They were not watched, as far as Gray could observe. They had heard no more from Wu Fang Chien.

The streets of Liangchowfu were crowded. It was some kind of a feast day. Gray noted that there were numbers of priests who stared at them impassively as he led the mule teams to an inn on the further side of the town, near the western wall, and persuaded the proprietor to clear the pigs and children from one of the guest chambers.

"We were fools to come this far," muttered Delabar, throwing himself down on a bamboo bench. "Did you notice the crowds in the streets we passed?"

"It's a feast, or bazaar day, I expect," observed Gray quietly, removing his mud caked shoes and stretching his big frame on the clay bench that did duty as a bed.

"No." Delabar shook his head. "Gray, I tell you, we are fools. The Chinese of Liangchowfu knew we were coming. Those priests were Buddhist followers. They are here for a purpose."

"They seem harmless enough."

Delabar laughed.

"Did you ever know a Mongol to warn you, before he struck? No, my friend. We are in a nice trap here, within the walls. We are the only Europeans in the place. Every move we make will be watched. Do you think we can get through the walls without the Chinese knowing it?"

"No," admitted Gray. "But we had to come here for food and a new relay of mules."

"We will never leave Liangchowfu—to the west. But we can still go back."

"We can, but we won't."

Gray turned on the bed where he sat and tentatively scratched a clear space on the glazed paper which formed the one—closed—window of the room. Ventilation is unknown in China.

He found that he could look out in the street. The inn was built around three sides of a courtyard, and their room was at the end of one wing. He saw a steady throng of passersby—pockmarked beggars, flaccid faced coolies trundling women along in wheelbarrows, an astrologer who had taken up his stand in the middle of the street with the two tame sparrows which formed his stock-in-trade, and a few swaggering, sheepskin clad Kirghiz from the steppe.

As each individual passed the inn, Gray noticed that he shot a quick glance at it from slant eyes. An impressive palanquin came down the street. A fat porter in a silk tunic with a staff walked before the bearers. Coming abreast the astrologer, the man with the staff struck him contemptuously aside.

As this happened, Gray saw the curtain of the palanquin lifted, and the outline of a face peering at the inn.

"We seem to be the sight of the city," he told Delabar, drawing on his shoes. "The rubberneck bus has just passed. Look here, Professor! No good in moping around here. You go out and rustle the food we need. I'll inspect our baggage in the stable."

When Delabar had departed on his mission, Gray left the inn leisurely. He wandered after the scientist, glancing curiously at a crowd which had gathered in what was evidently the center square of the town, being surrounded by an array of booths.

The crowd was too great for him to see what the attraction was, but he elbowed his way through without ceremony. Sure that something unusual must be in progress, he was surprised to see only a nondescript Chinese soldier in a jacket that had once been blue with a rusty sword belted to him. Beside the soldier was an old man with a wrinkled, brown face from which glinted a pair of keen eyes.

By his sheepskin coat, bandaged legs and soiled yak-skin boots Gray identified the elder of the two as a Kirghiz mountaineer. Both men were squatting on their haunches, the Kirghiz smoking a pipe.

"What is happening?" Gray asked a bystander, pointing to the two in the cleared space.

Readily, the accents of the border dialect came to his tongue. The other understood.

"It will happen soon," he explained. "That is Mirai Khan, the hunter, who is smoking the pipe. When he is finished the Manchu soldier will cut off his head."

Gray whistled softly. The crowd was staring at him now, intent on a new sight. Even Mirai Khan was watching him idly, apparently unconcerned about his coming demise.

"Why is he smoking the pipe?" Gray asked.

"Because he wants to. The soldier is letting him do it because Mirai Khan has promised to tell him where his long musket is, before he dies."

"Why must he die?"

The man beside him coughed and spat apathetically. "I do not know. It was ordered. Perhaps he stole the value of ten taels."

Gray knew enough of the peculiar law of China to understand that a theft of something valued at more than a certain sum was punishable by death. The sight of the tranquil Kirghiz stirred his interest.

"Ask the soldier what is the offense," he persisted, exhibiting a coin at which the Chinaman stared eagerly.

Mirai Khan, Gray was informed, had been convicted of stealing a horse worth thirteen taels. The Kirghiz had claimed that the horse was his own, taken from him by the Liangchowfu officials who happened to be in need of beasts of burden. The case had been referred to the authorities at Honanfu, and no less a personage than Wu Fang Chien had ruled that since the hunter had denied the charge he had given the lie to the court. Wherefore, he must certainly be beheaded.

Gray sympathized with Mirai Khan. He had seen enough of Wu Fang Chien to guess that the Kirghiz' case had not received much consideration. Something in the mountaineer's shrewd face attracted Gray. He pushed into the cleared space.

"Tell the Manchu," he said sharply to the Chinaman whom he had drawn with him, "that I know Wu Fang Chien. Tell him that I will pay the amount of the theft, if he will release the prisoner."

"It may not be," objected the other indifferently.

"Do as I say," commanded Gray sharply.

The soldier, apparently tired of waiting, had risen and drawn his weapon. He bent over the Kirghiz who remained kneeling. The sight quickened Gray's pulse—in spite of the danger he knew he ran from interfering with the Chinese authorities.

"Quick," he added. His companion whispered to the soldier who glanced at the American in surprise and hesitated.

Gray counted out thirteen taels—about ten dollars—and added five more. "I have talked with Wu Fang Chien," he explained, "and I will buy this man's life. If the value of the horse is paid, the crime will be no more."

The blue-coated Manchu said something, evidently an objection.

"He says," interpreted the Chinaman, who was eyeing the money greedily, "that thirteen taels will not wipe out the insult to the judge."

"Five more will," Gray responded. "He can keep them if he likes. And here's a tael for you."

The volunteer interpreter clasped the coin in a claw-like hand. Gray thrust the rest of the money upon the hesitating executioner, and seized Mirai Khan by the arm.

Nodding to the Kirghiz, he led him through the crowd, which was muttering uneasily. He turned down an alley.

"Can you get out of Liangchowfu without being seen?" the American asked his new purchase. He was more confident now of the tribal speech.

Mirai Khan understood. Later, Gray came to know that the man was very keen witted. Also, he had a polyglot tongue.

"Aye, Excellency." Mirai Khan fell on his knees and pressed his forehead to his rescuer's shoes. "There is a hole in the western wall behind the temple where the caravan men water their oxen and camels."

"Go, then, and quickly."

"I will get me a horse," promised Mirai Khan, "and the Chinese pigs will not see me go."

Gray thought to himself that Mirai Khan might be more of a horse thief than he professed to be.

"The Excellency saved my life," muttered the Kirghiz, glancing around craftily. "It was written that I should die this day, and he kept me from the sight of the angel of death. But thirteen taels is a great deal of wealth. It would be well if I found my gun, and slew the soldier. Then the Excellency would have his thirteen taels again. Where is he to be found?"

"At the inn by the western wall. But never mind the Manchu. Save your own skin."

Gray strode off down the alley, for men were coming after them. In the rear of an unsavory hut, the Kirghiz plucked his sleeve.

"Aye, it shall so be, Excellency," he whispered. "Has the honorable master any tobacco?"

Impatiently Gray sifted some tobacco from his pouch into the hunter's scarred hand. Mirai Khan then asked for matches.

"I will not forget," he said importantly. "You will see Mirai Khan again. I swear it. And I will tell you something. Wu Fang Chien is in Liangchowfu."

With that the man shambled off down an alley, looking for all the world like a shaggy dog with unusually long legs. Gray stared after him with a smile. Then he turned back toward the inn.

That night there was a feast in Liangchowfu. The sound of the temple drums reached to the inn. Lanterns appeared on the house fronts across the street. Throngs of priests passed by in ceremonial procession, bearing lights. In the inn courtyard a group of musicians took their stand, producing a hideous mockery of a tune on cymbals and one-stringed fiddles. But the main room of the inn, where the eating tables were set with bowls and chop-sticks, was deserted except for a wandering rooster.

"I'm going out to see the show," asserted Gray, who was weary of inaction.

"What!" The Syrian stared at him, fingering his beard restlessly. "With Wu Fang Chien in the town!"

"Certainly. There's nothing to be done here. I may be able to pick up information which will be useful—if we are in danger."

Delabar tossed his cigarette away and shrugged his shoulders.

"We are marked men, my young friend. I saw this afternoon that a guard has been posted at the town gates. Those musicians yonder are spies. The master of the inn is in the stable, with our men."

"Then we'll shake our escort for a while." Gray's smile faded. "Look here, Professor. I'm alive to the pickle we're in. We've got to get out of this place. And I want to have a look at that hole in the wall Mirai Khan told me about. For one thing—to see if horses can get through it."

Delabar accompanied him out of the courtyard, into the street. Gray noted grimly that the musicians ceased playing with their departure. He beckoned Delabar to follow and turned down the alley he had visited that afternoon. Looking over his shoulder he saw a dark form slip into the entrance of the alley.

"Double time, Professor," whispered Gray. Grasping the other by the arm he trotted through the piles of refuse that littered the rear of the houses, turning sharply several times until he was satisfied they were no longer followed. As a landmark, he had the dark bulk of the pagoda which formed the roof of the temple.

Toward this he made his way, dodging back into the shadows when he sighted a group of Chinese. He was now following the course of the wall, which took him into a garden, evidently a part of the temple grounds.

He saw nothing of the opening Mirai Khan had mentioned. But a murmur of voices from the shuttered windows of the edifice stirred his interest.

"It is a meeting of the Buddhists," whispered Delabar. "I heard the temple messengers crying the summons in the street this afternoon."

Gray made his way close to the building. It was a lofty structure of carved wood. The windows were small and high overhead. Gray scanned them speculatively.

"We weren't invited to the reunion, Professor," he meditated, "but I'd give something for a look inside. Judging by what you've told me, these Buddhist fellows are our particular enemies. And it's rather a coincidence they held a lodge meeting to-night."

He felt along the wall for a space. They were sheltered from view from the street by the garden trees.

"Hullo," he whispered, "here's luck. A door. Looks like a stage entrance, with some kind of carving over it."

Delabar pushed forward and peered at the inscription. The reflected light of the illumination in the street enabled him to see fairly well.

"This is the gate of ceremony of the temple," he observed. "It is one of the doors built for a special occasion—only to be used by a scholar of the town who has won the highest honors of the Hanlin academy, or by the emperor himself—when there was one."

Gray pushed at the door. It was not fastened, but being in disuse, gave in slowly, with a creak of iron hinges. Delabar checked him.

"You know nothing of Chinese customs," he hissed warningly. "It is forbidden for any one to enter. The penalty——"

"Beheading, I suppose," broke in Gray impatiently. "Come along, Delabar. This is a special occasion, and, by Jove—you're a distinguished scholar."

He drew the other inside with him. They stood in a black passage filled with an odor of combined must and incense. Gray took his pocket flashlight from his coat and flickered its beam in front of them. He could feel Delabar shivering. Wondering at the state of the scientist's nerves, he made out an opening before them in which steps appeared.

They seemed to be in a deserted part of the temple. Gray wanted very much to see what was going on—and what was at the head of the stairs. He ascended as quietly as possible, followed by the Syrian who was muttering to himself.

CHAPTER VII
THE DOOR IS GUARDED

A subdued glow appeared above Gray's head, as the narrow stairs twisted. The glow grew stronger, and he caught the buzz of voices. Cautiously he climbed to the head of the steps and peered into the chamber from which came the light.

He saw a peculiar room. It was empty of all furniture except a teakwood chair. The light came through a large aperture in the floor. An ebony railing, gilded and inlaid, ran around this square of light. The voices grew louder.

It was clear to Gray that they were in some kind of gallery above the room where the assembly was—for the voices seemed to be rising through the floor.

He walked to the chair—and stopped abruptly.

The opening in the floor was directly above the temple proper. Gray and Delabar could see the shrine, with the usual bronze figure of the almond-eyed god, the burning tapers and the incense bowls.

On the floor by the shrine the gathering of priests squatted. They were facing, not the image of Buddha, but a chair which stood on a daïs at one side. On this chair an imposing mandarin was seated with the red button and silk robe of officialdom.

"Wu Fang Chien!" whispered Delabar.

Gray nodded. It was their friend of Honanfu, with his thin beard, placid face and spectacles.

"What are they doing?" asked Gray softly.

The murmur of voices persisted. For some time Delabar listened. Then he pointed out a man in beggar's dress kneeling beside the mandarin's chair.

"It is some kind of trial," he said doubtfully. "The priest by Wu Fang Chien is an ascetic—what they call a fakir in India. But he is not the criminal."

They moved nearer the opening, being secure from observation from below. Gray wrinkled his nose at the mingled scent of incense and Mongolian sweat that floated up through the opening.

"Wu Fang Chien is saying that he has come to Liangchowfu to sit in judgment on the evildoers who are enemies of the god," interpreted Delabar. "He has called the priests to witness the proceedings."

Gray looked at Delabar curiously. He had caught a word or two of the talk.

"Does he name the offenders?" he asked.

"No. He says the priesthood has been informed that two men plan to desecrate a holy place. He has come to catch them red-handed."

Wu Fang Chien, Gray reflected, could not know they were in the gallery of the temple, by the seat reserved for a distinguished student, or the emperor. The mandarin must have discovered their mission, as Delabar feared. He peered over the rail.

Directly underneath three priests were stripped to the waist. They held a bronze bowl of considerable size.

As Gray watched, a silence fell on the room below.

"They are going to try divination," whispered Delabar, and Gray saw that his face was strained. "The divination of the ivory sticks and the bowl. That is a custom of the sorcerers of the interior. The priests believe in it implicitly. I have seen some wonderful things——"

He broke off as the ascetic prostrated himself before Wu Fang Chien, holding out a sandalwood box. Gray saw the mandarin lean forward and draw what looked like a short white stick from the box.

"That is to determine the distance the criminals are from the temple," explained Delabar. "It is a very short stick—representing perhaps a li or one-third of a mile."

"That would include the inn," was Gray's comment. "Hello, the bowl boys are coming into action."

The three priests were turning slowly on their feet, supporting the bronze bowl above their heads. They moved in a kind of dance, and as they revolved, came nearer to the shrine—then retreated. Delabar watched intently.

"They will keep up the dance for twenty-four hours," he said, "without stopping. Meanwhile the other priests will watch, without taking food or drink. It induces a kind of hypnotism. They believe that at the end of the twenty-four hours, the god will enter the bowl."

Gray nodded. Wu Fang Chien had sat back and was eyeing the dance complacently.

"When this happens," Delabar went on, "the priests will leave the temple, holding the bowl in front of them. They will be followed by the townspeople who do not doubt that the god will conduct them to the criminals."

"I guess we're nominated for the guilty parties."

Gray surveyed the scene curiously, the revolving trio of brown bodies, the silent mandarin and the watching priests. He followed idly the smoke fumes that eddied up from the shrine of the bronze god. Wu Fang Chien, he mused, had decided that it was time to strike. And the mandarin was going about it with the patience of the Mongol, sure of his victim, and his own power.

Wu Fang Chien had warned them. They had not heeded the warning. The attack in Honanfu had been a prelude—possibly to get Gray's weapons away from him. It had failed, but Wu Fang Chien had formed another plan. Why else had he come to Liangchowfu?

Watching the whirling priests, Gray guessed at the plan. In twenty-four hours the sorcery of the bowl would come to a head. The three priests would bear it to the inn—in a state of semi-hypnotism themselves, and followed by a fanatical crowd. They would confront Gray and Delabar. They would search the belongings of the white men, and find the maps of Sungan—the maps that had been seen by the intruder at the Honanfu inn. After that——

Delabar gripped his companion's arm. "Some one is coming," he whispered.

Gray listened, and heard a faint sound of footsteps. It came from the stairs—the soft pad-fad of slippered feet ascending the steps. Gray shot a quick glance into the temple below. The scene had not changed, except that the priest in the tattered robe was no longer at Wu Fang Chien's side.

"We are caught," muttered the scientist. "There is no other door."

Gray was aware of this. The only openings in the chamber where they stood were the door and the aperture in the floor. The pad-pad came nearer, but more slowly. He was reasonably sure that they had not been seen. It was abominably bad luck that some one should visit the gallery just then.

"We left the temple door open," Delabar whispered, staring at the dark stairs behind them. "One of the priests observed it and came——"

"Steady," Gray cautioned him. He drew the trembling Syrian back into the shadows at one side of the door. Here they were in semi-obscurity. Stepping quietly to arm's reach of the head of the stairs, Gray waited.

He heard the steps approach, then become silent as if the intruder was looking into the room.

A moment passed while Gray silently cursed the heavy breathing of Delabar who seemed possessed by uncontrollable excitement. Then a shaven head appeared in the doorway, followed by a naked shoulder. A pair of slant, evil eyes flickered around the gallery, failing to notice the two white men in the shadow.

Gray's hand went out and closed on the throat of the priest. His grip tightened, choking off a smothered gasp. The man fell heavily to his knees.

The floor echoed dully at the impact. Gray realized that it must have been heard by those in the temple below. Snatching up the frail priest by throat and leg, he lifted him easily and started down the stairs headlong.

"This way, Professor," he called. "Better hurry."

Concealment being useless now, they plunged down the steps. By the time the lower floor was reached, Gray's grip had stilled the struggles of the man—whom he recognized as the ascetic.

The sound of running feet came to him as he waited for Delabar to come up. The professor shot through the temple door like a frightened rabbit.

Gray tossed the unconscious priest on the doorsill, and pushed the heavy portal nearly shut, wedging the man's body in the opening. Then he trotted after Delabar through the garden.

"Let's hope you're right about the penalty for opening the door there," he laughed. "That priest will have his hands full explaining how he happens to be lying on the emperor's threshold—when he comes to. Probably he'll say that devils picked him up."

Looking back at the edge of the temple garden, Gray saw a crowd with lanterns standing inside the door, over the form of the priest. They were some distance away by now. Following the circuit of the city wall, Gray succeeded in gaining the alleys back of the inn without being observed.

Once safely in their room, Delabar threw himself on the bed, panting. Gray took up his rifle and laid it across his knees, placing his chair so that he could command both door and window.

He did not want to sleep. And he feared to trust Delabar to watch. Throughout the remaining hours until daylight whitened the paper of the window, he sat in his chair. But nothing further happened. The festivities in the streets had ended and the inn itself was quiet, unusually so.

Daylight showed Delabar lying on the bed, smoking innumerable cigarettes. The scientist had maintained a moody silence since their arrival at the inn. The sound of excited voices floated in from the courtyard. Vehicles could be heard passing along the street. But the ordinary pandemonium of a Chinese hostelry at breakfast time was subdued.

Gray tossed his rifle on the bed, yawned and stretched his powerful frame. He was hungry, and said so. He brushed the dirt from his shoes, changed to a clean shirt, looked in the pail for water. Finding none, he picked up the pail, strode to the door and flung it open.

On the threshold, his back against the doorpost, was sitting a Buddhist priest. It was an aged man, his face wrinkled and eyes inflamed. His right shoulder and his breast were bared. In one hand he clasped a long knife. His eyes peered up at the white man vindictively.

Gray recognized the ascetic of the temple. He could see the dark marks where his hands had squeezed the scrawny throat.

He reached for his automatic with his free hand. The priest did not stir. The man was squatting on his heels, fairly over the threshold; the knife rested on one knee. How long he had been there, Gray did not know.

Priest and white man stared at each other intently. Gray frowned. Plainly the man at the door did not mean well; but why did the fellow remain seated, holding the knife passively? He noted fleetingly that the main room of the inn was vacant.

"Don't move!" Delabar's voice came to him, shrill with anxiety. "Don't take a step. Shut the door and come back here."

"Why?" Gray asked curiously. "I want to go out for water, and I'm blessed if this chap is going to keep me in——"

"It's death to move!"

"For me?"

"No, the priest will die." Delabar clutched his companion's arm. "You don't understand. The priest is here on a mission. If you step through the door, he will stab himself with the knife. And if he commits suicide at our door, we'll have the whole of Liangchowfu down on us."

Gray pocketed the automatic with a laugh. "I don't see why we are to blame if this yellow monkey sticks himself with his own knife."

Delabar crossed to the door and closed it on the watching Buddhist.

"You know very little of China, my friend," he said gloomily. "One of the favorite methods of revenge is to hire a priest to sit at a man's door, like this. Then, if any one leaves the house, the priest commits suicide. That fixes—or the Chinese believe it fixes—a crime on the man in the house. It's a habit of the Chinese to kill themselves in order to obtain vengeance on an enemy."

Gray whistled. "I've heard something of the kind. But, look here, I could grab that fellow before he can hurt himself."

"It would be useless. As soon as he was free, he'd commit suicide, and the blame would fall on us. By now, all the Chinese in the town know that this priest is here. If he should die, it would be a signal for a general attack on us."

Meditatively, Gray seated himself on the bucket and considered the situation.

"You know the working of the yellow mind, Professor," he observed. "Do you suppose this fellow has marked us out as the guilty parties who manhandled him in the temple and left him in the sacred door?"

"It's more likely that Wu Fang Chien guessed we were the intruders. We were probably watched more closely than you knew. Then, according to the temple law, this priest is guilty of sacrilege in crossing the emperor's door. So Wu Fang Chien has ordered him to guard our door, to wipe out his own sin, and incriminate us at the same time."

Gray grinned cheerfully.

"The working of the Mongol mind is a revelation, Delabar. I guess you're right. This is Wu Fang Chien's way of keeping us quiet in here while the boys with the bowl get their magic primed. Also, it will help to make the townspeople hostile to us."

Slowly, Wu Fang Chien's plan was maturing. Gray saw the snare of the Mongol mandarin closing around them. It was a queer, fantastic snare. In the United States the situation would have been laughable. Here, it was deadly.

Wu Fang Chien had made his preparations carefully. The temple festival had stirred up the Buddhists; the arrival of the bronze bowl, borne by the priests, would implicate the two white men; the discovery of the maps of the forbidden district of the Gobi would do the rest.

Gray could destroy the maps. But then he would have no guide to the course to be followed, if they should escape from Liangchowfu. He was not yet willing to destroy all prospect of success.

He sought out the maps, in one of their packs, and pocketed them.

"Does this hocus-pocus of the bowl in the temple always take twenty-four hours?" he asked Delabar.

"Always."

"Well, Wu Fang won't want to break the rules of the game—not when he has the cards so well in hand. Professor, we have fourteen hours to think up a line of action. We have food enough here to make a square meal or two. Also wine—as a present to the city mandarins—that will keep us from becoming too thirsty."

Delabar shrugged his bent shoulders. He looked ill. His hand was trembling, and it was clear to Gray that the man was on the verge of a breakdown.

"What can we do?" the Syrian asked plaintively. "Except to destroy the maps, which would incriminate us."

"We won't do that."

There comes a time when fatigue undermines weak vitality. Delabar complained, begged, cursed. But Gray refused to burn the papers which meant the success or failure of their expedition.

"You're sick, Delabar," he said firmly. "You seem to forget we're here on a mission. Now, pay attention a minute. I've been getting ready, after a fashion, for a move on Wu Fang's part. I've paid our coolies four times what was owing them, and promised 'em double that if they stick by us. I think they may do it. If so, we stand a good chance of getting clear with our necessary stores—emergency rations, medicines, a few cooking utensils and blankets. But we can't start anything until it's dark. Sleep if you can. If you can't—don't worry."

He cast a curious glance at the scientist—a glance of mixed good-natured contempt and anxiety.

"This guardian of the gate trick works both ways," he concluded. "If we can't get out, no one will want to get in."

He took a few, sparing swallows of the strong wine, a mouthful of bread and rice and tilted his chair back against the wall. The room was hot and close, and he soon dropped off into a nap. Delabar did not sleep.

Gray, from habit, dozed lightly. He was conscious of the sounds that went on in the street. Several times he wakened, only to drop off again, seeing that all was as it should be. Once or twice he heard Delabar go to the door and peer out to see if the priest was still at his post. Evidently he was, for the Syrian maintained his brooding quiet.

As time wore on, Gray thought he heard Delabar laughing. He assured himself that he must have been mistaken. Yet the echo of the laugh persisted, harsh, and bitter. Delabar must have been laughing.

The officer wondered drowsily what had been the cause of the other's mirth—and sat up with a jerk. He caught at the hand that was stealing under his coat, and found himself looking into Delabar's flushed face, not a foot from his own. The scientist drew back, with a chuckle. There was no mistaking the chuckle this time.

Gray felt at his coat pocket and assured himself the maps were still there.

"So you lost your nerve, eh, Professor?" he said, not unkindly—and broke off with a stare. "What the devil——?"

Delabar staggered away from him, and fell on the bed, rocking with mirth. He caught his head in his hands and burst into the laugh that Gray had heard before. Then he lay back full length, waving his hands idiotically.

Gray swore softly. He noticed the wine bottles on the table, and caught them up. He assured himself grimly that one was empty and another nearly so. He himself had taken only a swallow of the liquor.

Delabar had drunk up approximately two quarts of strong wine. And Gray knew that the man was not accustomed to it.

The scientist was drunk, blindly, hopelessly drunk.

The room was dark. A candle, probably lighted by Delabar on some whim, guttered on the floor. Outside the room, the inn was very still.

Gray regretted that his sleep had enabled Delabar to drink up the liquor. But the harm was done. His companion was helpless as a child. He looked at his watch. It was after eight. As nearly as he could remember, the proceedings at the temple had started about ten o'clock. Not quite two hours of quiet remained to them.

Delabar sat up and regarded him with owl-like wisdom.

"Drink, my friend," he mumbled, "you are a strong man, and it will be hard for you to die if you are not drunk. You were a fool to come here. You are a child before the ancient wisdom of China. The secrets of the Mongols have been before your God had eyes to see the earth. Why did you pry into them?"

A laugh followed this, and Delabar made a futile grab at one of the bottles.

"You think I am afraid of Wu Fang Chien?" the mumble went on. "No, I am not afraid of him. He is only a servant of the slave of Buddha, who is Fate. We can not go where Fate forbids—forbids us."

Gray surveyed him, frowning.

"Look outside the door," chuckled Delabar. "Look—I stepped outside the door, my friend. And I saw——"

Waiting for no more, Gray crossed to the door and opened it. At his feet lay the priest. The slant eyes stared up at him. The knife was fixed in the man's throat, and a dark circle had gathered on the floor behind his head.

CHAPTER VIII
DELABAR LEAVES

Gray stooped and felt the dead man's face. It was still quite warm. The priest could not have killed himself more than a few minutes ago. Probably Delabar, in his drunken wandering, had put his foot across the threshold.

With a tightening of the lips, Gray straightened and surveyed the inn. It was empty and dark except for a lantern with a crimson shade that hung over the door. Either the people of the place had seen the dead Buddhist and fled to spread the news, or they had given the room a wide berth since that afternoon.

He could not know which was actually the case. Gray, however, could afford to waste no time in speculation. He went back into their chamber, fastened his rifle over his shoulder by its sling, and jerked Delabar to his feet.

"It's time we got out of here, Professor," he said, "if you haven't settled our hash for good."

The man was muttering and stumbling—hardly able to keep his feet. He could give no assistance to Gray.

They crossed the main room of the inn without hindrance, and left the building by the rear. The stable yard was dark, and apparently empty. Gray's flashlight disclosed only a mild-looking donkey, nibbling at the leaves of a plane tree.

"Guess the place isn't exactly popular just now," thought Gray.

Beside the stable, concealed by the manure piles, he found his wagons and mules, hitched up as he had ordered. A glance and a flicker of his light showed him that the surplus supplies were loaded. He pushed Delabar into the stable and whistled softly.

A coolie crept from a pile of dirty straw under the wall against which several mules were standing patiently.

"Where are the others?" demanded Gray sharply.

The other men, said the coolie, had gone.

"Why are not the fresh mules loaded, as I commanded?"

The man kow-towed. "I was afraid. This is an evil place. The priests are saying that the black mark of ill-omen has descended from Heaven——"

"Five taels," broke in the white man crisply, "if you help me to load the mules. The priests will kill you if they find you here. If you come with me you will live. Choose."

From some quarter of the city came the dull thrum of temple gongs. The coolie whined in fear, and hastened to the mules.

It is no easy task to strap the packs on four mules in the dark. Gray let Delabar, who had subsided into slumber at contact with the cool outer air, slump on the dirt floor of the stable. He adjusted his flashlight in the straw so its beam would help them to see what they were about.

He found as he expected that the other coolies had made away with many of the stores. They had taken, however, the things most valuable to them, which were least necessary to Gray—such as clothing, cooking utensils, and the heavy boxes of Chinese money.

These last were a grave loss, but Gray had a good deal of gold in his money belt, and he knew that Delabar had the same amount.

The two men loaded the remaining boxes on the animals—the provisions that Delabar had purchased in San Francisco, with medicines and several blankets that had been overlooked by the thieves.

This done, Gray left the stable for a survey of the field. The inn yard was still quiet. Even the street on the further side was tranquil. Turning back, he helped the coolie place Delabar astride a mule, and tied the scientist's feet firmly together under the animal's belly. Throwing a blanket over him, Gray gave the word to start.

The Chinaman went ahead by the first animal, for Gray did not want to trust him out of sight. He followed beside the mule that carried Delabar, giving directions as to their course.

"The loaded wagon at the inn will be a fair puzzle to the searching party from the temple," he thought. "We could never get free of Liangchowfu with the carts. Here's hoping my friend Mirai Khan was right when he said there was a hole in the city wall behind the temple."

It was a slender chance—to work their way through the alleys in the darkness. But, as Gray reasoned, it was the only thing to do. And two things were in their favor. The inn was undoubtedly watched, front and back. The priests' spies would see the mules leaving, and probably decide the coolies were making off with them—especially as the wagons were still in the stable yard.

Also, the attention of the Liangchowfu population—or the most dangerous part of it—would be centered on the temple and the divination in progress there.

Gray had reasoned correctly. By following the odorous and muddy by-ways that he and Delabar had investigated previously, he was able to gain the wall without attracting attention.

Here the lights were fewer, and the trees sheltered them. The coolie, who was badly frightened, could give Gray no information as to the location of the break in the city wall. It was useless, of course, to try a dash for the city gates which would be guarded.

Gray pushed ahead steadily at a slow trot, scanning the bulk of the wall for signs of an aperture. They were well behind the temple by now, at the further side of the garden they had entered the night before. So far they had been very lucky, but Gray's heart sank as he sighted buildings ahead—a huddle of thatched huts, evidently in the poorer section of the town. Still no break in the stone barrier was visible.

"Keep on," he whispered to the coolie, "and don't forget if we are discovered you'll be caught in the act of aiding me to escape."

The man broke into a faster trot, with a scared glance over his shoulder. The sound of the temple gongs was louder, swelling angrily in the wind. Voices came from the huts ahead, and Gray fancied that he heard shouts in the street they had left.

He swore softly. If only they could find the exit he was seeking! Once out on the plain beyond Liangchowfu, their chances of escape would be good. If only Delabar had kept sober——

He swung around alertly at the sound of horses' hoofs. In the faint light a mounted man appeared beside him.

"That was very well done, Excellency," a voice whispered in hoarse Chinese. "I know, for I watched from the dung heaps by the inn stable. One of the men who fled I caught and took the money he carried."

"Mirai Khan," whispered Gray.

"Aye," admitted the Kirghiz complacently. "I swore that you would see me again, and it has come to pass. I have heard talk in the town. I knew that the priests—may they swallow their own fire—seek you. So I waited for I had the thought you would not easily be snared. Lo, it has happened so. Verily my thought was a true thought. Follow where I lead."

He urged his pony ahead of the mules, motioning Gray to the side of the small caravan away from the huts. Dim faces peered from window openings at them. But the white man was in the shadow of the wall, and Mirai Khan appeared too familiar a figure in this quarter of Liangchowfu to excite comment. Probably the mules bore out the character of the horse-thief, retiring to the plain with a load of ill-gotten spoil.

They passed through the huts in silence, the coolie too frightened to speak. Delabar was muttering to himself under the blanket, but the swaggering figure of the Kirghiz, with his rifle over his arm, seemed to insure them against investigation. Still, Gray breathed a thankful oath as they dipped into a gully through which flowed a brook.

Mirai Khan rode forward, apparently into the very wall. But here the crumbling stone divided—an opening wide enough to permit of the passage of a pack animal with its burden, walking in the bed of the stream.

Once clear of the wall, the sound of the temple gong dwindled and ceased entirely. They pressed ahead at a quick trot, until, glancing behind, Gray saw that the lights of Liangchowfu had disappeared. As nearly as he could tell by the stars he guessed that Mirai Khan was leading them north-west.

When the sky paled behind them and the dawn wind struck their faces, Gray made out that they were in a nest of hillocks. No house was visible. It was waste land, with only an occasional stunted cedar clinging to the side of a clay bank. They had put more than a dozen miles between them and Liangchowfu.

It was now light enough to discern his companions' faces, and Gray halted the cavalcade.

"We will let the mules breathe a bit," he informed the Kirghiz who glanced at him inquiringly. "I will speak with my friend."

He led the animal the scientist was riding a few paces to one side, and tossed off the blanket that enveloped Delabar. The man had awakened, half blue with cold and with retarded circulation due to his cramped position and the effect of the liquor. He peered at Gray from bleared eyes, sobered by the exposure of the past night.

The officer undid the rope that confined Delabar's legs, then seated himself on a stone and lit his pipe.

"Professor," he said meditatively, "you don't know it, but I've been thinking over things in the last few hours. And I've come to a decision. I'll tell you what I've been thinking, because I want you to understand just why I'm doing this."

Delabar was silent, peering at him inquisitively.

"Back on the steamer," resumed Gray, "you showed me that you had nerves—quite a few. Well, lots of men have 'em. Under the circumstances, I can't say I blame you. But at Honanfu your nerves had a severe jolt. Back there"—he jerked his head at Liangchowfu—"you had a bad case of fright. You're all in now."

"I am hungry," complained the scientist. "Why did you tie me to the mule?"

"That skirmish with Wu Fang Chien," continued the officer, ignoring the question, "wasn't more than a good sample of what we may have to face in the Gobi Desert. It showed me you aren't able to go ahead with the trip. You'd be as sick in body as you are now in mind."

"I am not a horse," snapped Delabar. "The Buddhist priests——"

"Precisely, the Buddhist priests. They've got you scared. Badly. Let me tell you some more I've been thinking. Intentionally or not, you have done all you could at Liangchowfu to hinder me. Only luck and Mirai Khan got us out of the place with a whole skin. In the army where I served for a while they shot men who became drunk when on duty."

"This is China, another world," retorted the man moodily.

"China or not, it's my duty to go to the Gobi Desert and find the Wusun if I can. I promised Van Schaick that, and drew up a contract which I signed. I'm going ahead. You, Professor, are going back to the coast and to the States. You can report our progress to Van Schaick."

Mingled relief and alarm showed in the Syrian's keen face.

"You can complain that I sent you back, if you want to. I'll answer to Van Schaick for this." Gray held up his hand as the other tried to speak. "You'll be all right. I've been quizzing Mirai Khan. The coolie can guide you back, to the north of Liangchowfu, where you'll meet some missionaries. Wu Fang Chien will be looking for us to the west, not in the east. You'll take the money you have on you, and two mules with half the supplies. Promise the coolie enough gold, and he'll stick by you—as he'll be safer going back than forward. Any questions?"

It was a long speech for Gray to make. Delabar studied him and shivered in the cold breeze that swept the plain. Hardship brings out the strength and weakness of men. In his case it was weakness. Yet he seemed curiously alarmed at leaving Gray. Twelve hours ago he had implored his companion to give up the venture into the Gobi.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"For two reasons. I don't want a sick man on my hands. And—you tried to destroy the maps. There's another reason——" Gray hesitated, and broke off. "I don't claim to be your judge. Every man follows his own course in life. But yours and mine don't fit any longer. It's good-by, Professor."

He rose, knocking the ashes from his pipe. Delabar gave an exclamation of alarm.

"Suppose the men of Wu Fang Chien find me?"

"You'll be safer than here with me."

Delabar stared into the steady eyes of his companion, and his gaze shifted. "I can't go back. I must go with you."

"I've said good-by. Your coolie knows what he's to do. Choose your two mules."

"No. I'll be better now——"

Gray smiled slightly.

"I doubt it. I've been watching you. Closer than you thought. Which mules do you want?"

Delabar flushed, and turned his animal back to the waiting group. He was muttering to himself uncertainly. Gray walked beside him. Once he spoke. "Buddhism, Professor, is a bad thing to think about. As Wu Fang Chien said, it is bad to enter forbidden ground. Well, good luck, Delabar. It's better to part now—than later——"

But Delabar passed out of hearing. He did not look again at Gray, who remained talking to the Kirghiz. Later, Gray regretted that he had not watched Delabar.

The Syrian wasted no time in selecting two animals, and turned back at once. Mirai Khan followed the cavalcade with puckered brows as they passed out of sight among the hillocks. Gray waved his hand once when he thought Delabar looked back. But the man did not turn, humping himself forward over his beast, his head between his shoulders.

"It is a pity," said Mirai Khan, stroking his gray beard reflectively, "to lose the two mules, and so much money. However, what will be, will be. Come, I know a davan nearby where we can rest until we are ready to go forward, at night."

He conducted Gray along a sheep track for some miles to a ravine well into the hillocks. Here there was a grove of cedars, and a small spring. While Gray built a fire, Mirai Khan, acting on the white man's instructions, unburdened the two remaining mules.

"We have little food, Excellency," he observed suggestively.

"Open one of the boxes," said Gray.

Presently Mirai Khan appeared beside the fire, carrying a heavy object.

"What manner of food is this?" he asked contemptuously. "I have tasted and the flavor is a mingling of salt and sour wine."

Gray stared at the object in surprise. It was one of the boxes, with the cover removed. It was filled with an array of long bottles. One of these had the cork removed, and effused an acrid odor. Gray picked it up.

It was a bottle of a very good kind of vinegar.

Hastily Gray went to the other boxes and opened them, after noting that the fastenings and the seal were intact. They were all filled with vinegar.

Gray gave a soft whistle of bewilderment. These were the boxes that were supposed to contain their emergency rations, that Delabar had purchased in San Francisco. The Syrian's name was written on them.

He wondered fleetingly if Wu Fang Chien had been tampering with their baggage. But the boxes had clearly not been opened since they were packed. Also, the vinegar was of American make, and bore the name of a San Francisco firm.

Had there been a mistake in shipping the order? It might be. Yet Delabar should have checked up the shipment. No, the Syrian must have known what was in the boxes. He had chosen the other two mules—knowing these few boxes were worthless.

"I should have looked at 'em before I let Delabar go," thought Gray. "He is too far away now to follow. Now why——"

That was the question—why? Delabar, from the first, had placed every obstacle in the way of the expedition. Even to buying bogus supplies.

Delabar had not wanted Gray to succeed. He had used every means to keep the American from the Gobi Desert. He had tried to instill into Gray the poison of his own fear. He had attempted to seize the maps, showing the location of Sungan, which were of vital importance.

Delabar had been Gray's enemy. Why?

Gray had guessed much of this, when he ordered the other back to the coast. But he did not know the answer to this "why?" He puzzled over it much in the following days, and gleaned some light from his reasoning.

It was long before he knew the answer to the "why?" It did not come until he had gained the desert, and seen the liu sha. Not until he had met with Mary Hastings and seen the guards of Sungan. Not until he had learned the explanation of much that he as yet dimly imagined.

CHAPTER IX
THE LIU SHA

Mirai Khan agreed with Gray that it would be useless to stay where they were until dark. They had no food. In spite of the risk of discovery, they must go forward.

"If we sleep," the hunter agreed, "we will waken with empty bellies and our strength will be less than now. The time will come when we shall need meat; and there is none here. To the west, we may see a village or shoot a gazelle."

Without further delay they unhitched the mules, packing the small remainder of Gray's outfit—a tent, and his personal kit—on one animal. The American mounted the other, not without protest from the beast, who scented water and forage.

With Mirai Khan leading on his shaggy pony they made their way westward out of the hillocks to the plain. They were now on the Mongolian plain—a barren tableland of brown hills and stony valleys. No huts were to be seen.

They had left teeming China behind, and were entering the outskirts of Central Asia and the Gobi Desert. A steady wind blew at their backs. The blue sky overhead was cloudless.

Gray had left the useless boxes of vinegar behind. And as he went he puzzled over the riddle of Arminius Delabar. It was a riddle. Van Schaick and Balch had said little about the man, for they had been in a hurry to get Gray started on his voyage. He remembered they said Delabar was a Syrian or Persian by birth, an inveterate traveler who had been in most of the corners of the earth, and—the only man in America who could speak Chinese, Turki, Persian and Russian, the four languages a knowledge of which might be necessary on their expedition, and who thoroughly understood anthropology, with the history of Central Asia.

This being the case, Gray had taken a good deal on himself when he sent Delabar back. But he had done right. The vinegar boxes proved it.

Gray had a steady, logical mind which arrived at decisions slowly, but usually accurately. He now reasoned out several things.

Delabar, he guessed, had not come willingly on the expedition. Even on the steamer he had shown fear of the Gobi. Why? He must have known something about the desert that he did not tell Gray. What was that? Gray did not know.

This led to another question. Why, if the man was afraid, had he come at all? He might have refused to start. Instead he had bought, purposely, a shipment of worthless stores; he had worked on Gray's mind to the best of his ability.

Gray suspected that Delabar had come because he wanted to prevent him—Gray—from reaching the Gobi. But Delabar might have stated his objections before they left San Francisco. Why had he not done so?

Possibly because, so reasoned Gray, Delabar had thought if he prevented Gray from starting on the mission, Van Schaick and Balch would engage another man.

Gray checked up the extent of his reasoning so far. He had decided that Delabar had been bent on preventing not him but any American from undertaking the trip to the Gobi. And to do that the Syrian had come along himself, although he was afraid.

Yes, Delabar had certainly been afraid. Of what? Of Wu Fang Chien for one thing; also the Buddhists. He had been on the verge of a breakdown at the inn at Liangchowfu after their experience in the temple.

Gray recalled a number of things he had passed over at the time: Delabar's pretext of purchasing supplies at Shanghai. The scientist had been absent from him for many hours, but had bought nothing. Then the incident of the Chinese steward on the river steamer of the Yang-tze. Something had been thrown overboard which a passing junk had picked up. Had this something been information about Gray's route? It was more than possible.

And the attack at Honanfu. How had the Chinese known that Gray kept a rifle under his bed—unless Delabar had so informed them? Delabar had been frightened at the attack. Perhaps, because it failed.

Lastly, at Liangchowfu Delabar had tried to steal the all-important maps. Failing that, the man had, literally, collapsed. And—Gray whistled softly—it might have been Delabar who gave the information that led to the delayal of McCann, whom Gray needed, at Los Angeles. No one else, except Van Schaick and Balch, had known that Gray had sent for McCann.

It was reasonably clear that Delabar had sought to turn back Gray. When the American had ordered him back, instead, the man had protested. Obviously, he dreaded this. Yet he was safer than here with Gray. Delabar had said, in an unguarded moment, that he feared to be caught by Wu Fang Chien. Why?

What was Delabar's relation to Wu Fang Chien? When drunk, he had said that the mandarin was only a slave of an unknown master. Who was the master? Obviously a man possessing great power in Central Asia—if a man at all.

This was what Delabar had feared, the master of Wu Fang Chien. Was Delabar also a slave? Gray laughed. His reasoning was going beyond the borders of logic. But he was convinced that his late companion had been serving not Van Schaick but another; that he feared this other; and that his fear had increased instead of diminished when Gray ordered him back.

Gray looked up as Mirai Khan turned, with a warning hiss. The Kirghiz had reined in his mount and Gray did likewise.

A short rise was in front of them. Over this the hunter had evidently seen something that aroused him.

"Look!" he growled. "Take the windows of long sight and look."

It took a moment's puzzling before the American realized that his companion referred to the field glasses slung over his shoulder. He dismounted and crept with Mirai Khan to the top of the rise. Through the glasses he made out, at the hunter's directions, a pair of gazelles moving slowly across the plain some distance away.

Immediately Mirai Khan became a marvel of activity. He tethered the beasts to a stunted tamarisk, loaded his long musket, cut himself a stick in the form of a crotch, and struck out to one side of the trail, beckoning the American to follow.

The gazelles had been feeding across the trail, and Mirai Khan trotted steadily to the leeward of them, keeping behind sheltering hummocks. It was a long run.

From time to time Mirai Khan halted and peered at the animals. Then he pressed forward. Gray was not easily tired; but he had been long without food and he stumbled as he ran after the hardy Kirghiz who was afire with the spirit of the chase.

"Allah has given us meat for our pot this night," he whispered to Gray, "if we are clever and the animals do not get wind of us."

Gray understood how important their quest was. Their shadows were lengthening swiftly on the sand, and the sun, like a red brazier, was settling over the horizon in front of them. If they did not bag a gazelle, they would have no food that night, and—both men were weakened by hunger.

Mirai Khan stalked his prey with the skill of long experience, pushing ahead patiently until the wind blew from the gazelles to them. But darkness falls fast at the edge of the Gobi. The sky had changed from blue to purple when Mirai Khan threw himself in the sand and began to crawl to the summit of a rise, pushing his crotched stick in front of him.

Following, Gray made out the gazelles feeding some hundred and fifty yards in front of them. The light brown and white bodies were barely discernible against the brown plain, but Mirai Khan arranged his stick, and laid the musket on it carefully.

Gray, stretched out beside him, hazarded a guess as to the distance. The hunter touched him warningly.

"Let me have the shot, Excellency," he whispered. "If I cannot slay—even at this distance—no other man can."

He said a brief prayer and sighted, gripping his long weapon in a steady hand. He had removed his sheepskin cap and his white hair and bushy eyebrows gave him the appearance of a keen-eyed bird of prey.

Gray waited, watching the gazelles. As Mirai Khan had claimed the first shot, Gray humored him, but at the same time threw a cartridge into the chamber of his own weapon.

The gazelles had sighted or smelled something alarming, for they quickened their pace away from the hunters. Mirai Khan fired, and swore darkly. Both animals were unhurt, and they had broken into a swift run, gliding away into the twilight.

Gray had laid his own sights on the game, and when the Kirghiz missed the difficult shot, the American pressed the trigger.

A spurt of dust this side of the fleeing animals told him his elevation was wrong. Calmly, he raised his rear sight and fired again, as the gazelles appeared in the eye of the sun on a hillock.

The animal at which he had aimed stumbled and sank to earth. It had been a difficult shot at three hundred yards in a bad light, but Gray was an expert marksman and knew his weapon.

A wild yell broke from Mirai Khan. He flung himself at Gray's feet and kissed his shoes.

"A miracle, Excellency!" he chattered joyously. "That was a shot among a thousand. Aye, I shall tell the hunters of the desert of it, but they will not believe. Truly, I have not seen the like. By the beards of my fathers, I swear it! I did well when I followed you from Liangchowfu——"

Still babbling his exultation, he hurried to the slain animal and whipped out his knife.

By nightfall, the two had made camp in a gully near the tethered animals. Mirai Khan had dug a well, knowing that water was to be found in this manner, and, over a brisk fire of tamarisk roots, was cooking a gazelle steak.

Gray stretched a blanket on the sand near the fire, watching the flicker of the flames. The gully concealed them from observation. He was reasonably sure by now that they had escaped any pursuing party Wu Fang Chien had sent from Liangchowfu—if one had been sent.

Mirai Khan ate enormously of the steak. When the hunger of the two was satisfied and the white man's pipe was alight, he turned to the Kirghiz thoughtfully.

"Have you ever heard," he asked, "of the city of Sungan?"

Mirai Khan, Gray gathered, was a Mohammedan, a fatalist, a skilled horse-thief, and a dweller at the edge of the Gobi, where life was gleaned from hardship. He was a man of the yurts, or tents, a nomad who ranged from the mosques of Bokhara to the outskirts of China. Somewhere, perhaps, Mirai Khan had an aul, with a flock of sheep, a dog, and even a wife and children.

The Kirghiz glanced at him keenly and shook his head.

"I have heard the name," he responded. "It was spoken by my father. But Sungan I have never seen."

"It is a city a week's ride beyond Ansichow," persisted Gray, "in the Desert of Gobi."

"That is in the sands," Mirai Khan reflected. "No game is found there, Excellency. Why should a man go to such a place?"

"Have you been there?"

"Does a horse go into a quicksand?"

"Have you known others who went there?"

"Aye, it may be."

"What had they to say of the desert?"

"It is an evil place."

The Kirghiz nodded sleepily. Having eaten heavily, he was ready for his blanket.

"Why did they call it an evil place?"

"How should I know—who have not been there?" Mirai Khan yawned and stretched his stocky arms and legs, as a dog stretches. "It is because of the pale sickness, they say."

Gray looked up quickly from his inspection of the fire. He had heard that phrase before. Delabar had used it.

"What is the pale sickness?" he asked patiently. Mirai Khan ceased yawning.

"Out in the sands, in the liu sha, hangs the pale sickness. It is in the air. It is an evil sickness. It leaves its mark on those who go too near. I have heard of men who went too far into the liu sha and did not return."

"Why?"

"It is forbidden."

"By the priests of the prophet?"

"Not so. Why should they deal with an evil thing? Is it not the law of the Koran that a man may not touch what is unclean? The rat priests of China, who worship the bronze god, have warned us from the region. I have heard the caravan merchants say that men are brought from China and placed out in the sands, the liu sha."

Gray frowned. Mirai Khan spoke frankly, and without intent to deceive him. But he spoke in the manner of his kind—in parables.

"Three times, Mirai Khan," he said, "you have said liu sha. What does that mean?"

The Kirghiz lifted some sand in his scarred hand, sifting it through his fingers to the ground.

"This is it," he explained. "We call it in my tongue the kara kum—dark sands. Yet the liu sha are not the sand you find elsewhere. They are the marching sands."

Gray smiled. He was progressing, in his search for information, from one riddle to another.

"You mean the dust that moves with the wind," he hazarded.

Mirai Khan made a decisive, guttural denial. "Not so. It is the will of Allah that moves the sands. Once there was a city that sinned——"

"And a holy mullah." Gray recalled the legend Delabar had related on the steamer. "He alone escaped the dust that fell from the sky. It was long ago. So that is your liu sha!"

The hunter's slant eyes widened in astonishment. "By the beard of my father! Are you a reader of the Koran, to know such things as this? Aye, it is so. The liu sha came because of a sin, and without doubt that is why the place is still inhabited of a plague. The Chinese priests bring men there—men who are already in the shadow of death."

"Then, Mirai Khan, there must be a city or an encampment, if many men live there."

"I have not seen it. Nor have those who talked to me."

"But you have not been there?"

"How should I—seeing that the place is inhabited of a sin? No Mohammedan will go there."

"What manner of sickness is this—the pale plague?"

"I know not. But for many miles, aye, the space of a week's ride, no men will bring their yurts for fear of it."

Gray gave it up with a shrug. The Kirghiz was speaking riddles, twisted recollections of legends, and tales doubtless exaggerated. While Mirai Khan snored away comfortably, the American went over what he had said in his mind.

The night had grown cold, and he threw the last of the wood on the fire, tucking his blanket about his feet. Their camp was utterly silent, except for the occasional splutter of the flames.

Mirai Khan had said positively that he had seen no city in the Gobi where Gray was bound, nor heard of one. The American knew that if buildings existed on the immense plain of the Gobi they would be visible for miles around. Even if the comrades of Mirai Khan had kept away from the place which they considered unhealthy, they would have sighted the buildings, at one time or another.

Yet Brent had declared that he saw the summits of towers. Imagination, perhaps. Although missionaries were not as a rule inclined to fancies.

Here was one contradiction. Then there were the liu sha. Mere legend, doubtless. Central Asia was rife with tales of former greatness.

But one thing was clear. The Chinese priests came to this spot in the desert. And the legend of the plague might be framed to keep the Mohammedans away from the place. Since the late rebellion Mohammedan and Chinese had frequently taken up arms against each other—they had never been on friendly terms. Evidently the Buddhists, for some reason, took pains to keep this part of the desert to themselves.

They even guarded it against intrusion—as Brent had discovered.

And Brent had died of sickness. What was the pale sickness? Were men inflicted with it brought to the Gobi—the dreariest stretch of land on the surface of the earth?

Gray nodded sleepily. The riddles presented no answer. He determined that he would learn the truth for himself. Wearied with his exertions, he was soon asleep. Silence held the camp, the brooding silence of great spaces, the threshold of infinity which opens before the wanderer in the Gobi. The wind stirred the sand into tiny spirals that leaped and danced, like dust wraiths across the gully, powdering the blankets of the sleeping men and the rough coats of the mules.

Along the summit of the ridge a shadow passed across the stars. It hesitated to leeward of the embers of the fire, and the jackal crept on. The crescent moon moved slowly overhead, throwing a hazy half-light on the surface of the sand, and picking out the bleached bones of an antelope.

Night had claimed the Mongolian steppe.

CHAPTER X
THE MEM-SAHIB SPEAKS

It was nearly a week later, on the border of the Gobi, that Gray and Mirai Khan sighted the caravan. The day was rainy. During a space when the rain thinned, the Kirghiz pointed out a group of yurts surrounded by camels and ponies a mile away.

Gray scanned the encampment through his glasses, and made out that the caravan numbered a good many men, and that the yurts were being put up for the night. The rain began again, and cut off his view.

It was then late afternoon. Both men were tired. They had pushed ahead steadily from Liangchowfu, killing what they needed in the way of game, and occasionally buying goat's milk or dried fruit from a wayside shepherd. The few villages they met they avoided. Gray had not forgotten Wu Fang Chien, or the fears of Delabar.

"They are Kirghiz yurts," said Mirai Khan when the American described what he had seen. "And it is a caravan on the march, or we would have seen sheep. Many tribes use our yurts. They are taken down and put up in the time it takes a man to smoke a pipe. But these people are not Kirghiz. My kinsmen have not wealth to own so many camels."

"What do you think they are?"

"Chinese merchants, Excellency, or perhaps Turkestan traders from Kashgar."

Mirai Khan's respect for his companion had increased with the last few days. Gray's accurate shooting inspired his admiration, and the fortitude of the man surprised him.

On his part, Gray trusted the Kirghiz. If Mirai Khan had meant to rob him, he had enjoyed plenty of chances to do so. But the Kirghiz's code would not permit him to steal from one who was sharing his bread and salt.

"If they are Chinese," meditated the American, "it will not be wise to ride up to their camp. What say you, Mirai Khan?"

The Kirghiz puffed tranquilly at his noisome pipe.

"This. It is the hour of sunset prayer. When that is ended you and I will dismount, Excellency, and stalk the encampment. By the favor of God we will then learn if these people are Chinese or Turkomans. If the last, we shall sleep in a dry aul, which is well, for my bones like not the damp."

Whereupon Mirai Khan removed his pipe and kneeled in the sand, facing toward the west, where was the holy city of his faith. So poverty-stricken was he that he did not even own a prayer carpet. Gray watched, after tethering the three animals.

"Remember," he said sternly when Mirai Khan had finished the prayer, "there must be no stealing of beasts from the camp, whatever it may be."

The Kirghiz's weakness for horseflesh was well known to him. The hunter agreed readily and they set out under cover of the rain. By the time they were half way to the caravan the sudden twilight of the Gobi concealed them.

Guided by the occasional whinny of a horse, or the harsh bawl of a camel, Mirai Khan crept forward, sniffing the air like a dog. Several lights appeared out of the mist, and Gray took the lead.

He could make out figures that passed through the lighted entrances of the dome-shaped felt shelters. Drawing to one side he gained the camels which rested in a circle, apparently without a watcher.

Mirai Khan had been lost to view in the gloom and Gray walked slowly forward among the camels, trying to gain a clear glimpse of the men of the caravan. The few that he saw were undoubtedly servants, but their dress was unfamiliar.

Gray could almost make out the interior of one of the yurts, lighted by candles, with silk hangings and an array of cushions on the floor. He rose to his full height, to obtain a better view, and paused as he saw one of the figures look toward him.

The camels were moving uneasily. Gray could have sworn he heard a muffled exclamation near him. He turned his head, and a form uprose from the ground and gripped him.

Gray wrenched himself free from the man and struck out. The newcomer slipped under his arm and caught him about the knees. Other forms sprang from among the camels and lean arms twined around the American.

"Look out, Mirai Khan!" he cried in Chinese. "These are enemies."

A powerful white man who can handle his fists is a match for a round half dozen Mongolians, unarmed—if he has a clear footing and can see where to hit. Gray was held by at least four men; his rifle slung to one shoulder by a sling hampered him. He was cast to earth at once.

His face was ground into the sand, and his arms drawn behind his back. He heard his adversaries chattering in a strange tongue. Cold metal touched his wrists. He felt the click of a metal catch and realized that handcuffs had been snapped on him.

He wondered vaguely how handcuffs came to be in a Central Asian caravan, as he was pulled roughly to his feet. In the dark he could not make out the men who held him. But they advanced toward one of the tents—the same he had been trying to see into.

Gray, perforce, made no further resistance. He was fully occupied in spitting sand from his mouth and trying to shake it from his eyes.

So it happened that when he stood in the lighted yurt, he was nearly blind with the dust and the sudden glare. He heard excited native gutturals, and then——

"Why, it's a white man."

It was a woman's voice, and it spoke English. Moreover the voice was clear, even musical. It reflected genuine surprise, a tinge of pity—inspired perhaps by his damaged appearance—and no little bewilderment.

"Yes, chota missy," echoed a man near him, "but this, in the dark, we knew it not. And he cried out in another tongue."

Gray reflected that his warning to Mirai Khan had been ill-timed. His eyes still smarted with the sand. It was not possible for him to use his hands to clear them, because of the handcuffs which bound his wrists behind his back. Not for the world would Gray have asked for assistance in his plight.

He winked rapidly, and presently was able to see the others in the tent clearly. The men who had brought him hither he made out to be slender, dark skinned fellows. By their clean dress, and small, ornamented turbans draped over the right shoulder he guessed them to be Indian natives—most probably Sikhs. This surprised him, for he had been prepared to face Dungans or Turkomans.

A portable stove gave out a comfortable warmth, beside a take-down table. The rough felt covering of the yurt was concealed behind hangings of striped silk. Gray stared; he little expected to find such an interior in the nomad shelter.

The table was covered with a clean cloth. Behind it hung a canvas curtain, evidently meant to divide one corner from the rest of the tent, perhaps for sleeping purposes. In front of the partition, behind the table, was a comfortable steamer chair. And in the chair, watching him from wide, gray eyes was a young woman.

He had not seen a white woman for months. But his first glance told him that the girl in the chair was more than ordinarily pretty—that she would be considered so even in Washington or Paris. She was neatly dressed in light tan walking skirt and white waist, a shawl over her slender shoulders.

She was considering him silently, chin on hand, a slight frown wrinkling her smooth brow. The bronze hair was dressed low against the neck in a manner that Gray liked to see—at a distance, for he was shy in the presence of women.

The eyes that looked into his were clear, and seemed inclined to be friendly. Just now, they were dubious. The small nose tilted up from a mouth parted over even teeth. She was deeply sunburned, even to throat and arms. Ordinarily, women take great pains to protect their skin from exposure to the sun.

There was the stamp of pride in the brown face, and the head poised erect on strong young shoulders. Gray knew horses. And this woman reminded him of a thoroughbred. Later, he was to find that his estimate of her pride was accurate; for the present, he was hardly in the mood to make other and stronger deductions concerning the girl.

He flushed, hoping that it did not show under the sand.

"Right," he admitted with a rueful smile. "Beneath the mud and dirt, I happen to be an Aryan."

"An Englishman?" she asked quickly, almost skeptically, "Or American?"

"American," he admitted. "My name is Robert Gray."

Her glance flickered curiously at this. He was not too miserable to wonder who she was. What was a white woman doing in this stretch of the Gobi? A white woman who was master, or rather mistress of a large caravan, and seemed quite at home in her surroundings?

He wondered why he had flushed. And why he felt so uncomfortable under her quiet gaze. To his utter surprise the frown cleared from her brow, and her lips parted in a quick smile which crept into her eyes. Then she was serious again. But he found that his pulses were throbbing in wrist and throat.

"Where did you find this feringhi, Ram Singh?" she asked curiously.

"Among the camels, mem-sahib," promptly answered the man who had spoken before. "His servant was making off the while with our horses."

Gray looked around. At the rear of the group, arms pinioned to his sides and his bearded face bearing marks of a struggle, was Mirai Khan. The Kirghiz wore a sheepish expression and avoided his eye.

"The servant," explained Ram Singh in stern disapproval, "had untethered two of the ponies. One he had mounted when we seized him. Said I not the plain was rife with horse thieves?"

Gray glared at Mirai Khan.

"Did I not warn you," he asked angrily, "that there was to be no stealing of animals?"

The Kirghiz twisted uneasily in his bonds.

"Aye, Excellency. But the ponies seemed unguarded and you had need of one to ride. If these accursed Sikhs had not been watching for horse lifters we would have gone free."

The officer swore under his breath, beginning to realize what an unenviable position Mirai Khan had placed him in. Robbing a caravan was no light offense in this country. And the horses had belonged to the woman!

Gray silently thrust his manacled hands further out of sight, wishing himself anywhere but here. Covered with the grime of a week's hike across the plain, with a stubby beard on his chin, eyes bleared with sand, and his hat lost, he must look the part of a horse lifter—and Mirai Khan's appearance did not conduce to confidence.

"Is this true?" the girl asked. Again the elfin spirit of amusement seemed to dance in the gray eyes.

"Every word of it," he said frankly. Searching for words to explain, his shyness gripped him. "That is, Mirai Khan was undoubtedly taking your ponies, but I didn't know what he was up to——"

He broke off, mentally cursing his awkwardness. It is not easy to converse equably with a self-possessed young lady, owner of a damaging pair of cool, gray eyes. Especially when one is battered and bound by suspicious and efficient servants.

"Why didn't you come direct to the yurt?" she observed tentatively.

"Because I thought you might be—a Chinaman."

"A Chinaman!" The small head perched inquisitively aslant. "But I'm not, Captain Gray. Why should I be? Why should you dislike the Chinese?"

Two things in her speech interested Gray. She seemed to be an Englishwoman. And she had given him his army rank, although he himself had not mentioned it. Most certainly there could be nothing in his appearance to suggest the service.

"I have reason to dislike one Chinaman," returned Gray. "So I was obliged to take precautions," he blundered, and then strove to remedy his mistake. "If I had known you were the owner of the yurt, I would have come straight here."

Too late, he realized that he had made his blunder worse. The girl's brows went up, also her nose—just a trifle.

"Why should you be so cautious, Mr. Gray?"

The civilian title was accented firmly. Yet a minute ago she had addressed him as "captain." "Surely"—this was plainly ironical—"the Chinese are harmless?"

Gray thought grimly of Liangchowfu.

"Sometimes," he said, "they are—inquisitive." The girl glanced at him. Surely she did not take this as a personal dig? Gray did not understand women. "Miss"—he hesitated—"Memsahib"—she stared—"you see, I've gone beyond the limits mentioned in my passport." He was unwilling, placed in such circumstances, to tell the whole truth of his mission and rank. So he compromised. Which proved to be a mistake. "And the governor fellow of Liangchowfu is anxious to head me off."

"Really? Perhaps the official," and she glanced fleetingly at Mirai Khan, "thinks you do not keep good company. Will you show me your passport? You don't have to, you know."

No, he did not have to. But in his present plight he felt that a refusal would be a mistake. He moved to reach the papers in his breast pocket, and was checked by the handcuffs. He glanced at Ram Singh angrily. The native looked at him complacently. It was an awkward moment.

"Ram Singh!" The girl spoke sharply. "Have you bound the white man's hands?"

The Sikh grunted non-committally. She pointed at Gray.

"Undo his hands. Is a white man to be tied like a horse-stealing Kirghiz?"

Reluctantly, Ram Singh obeyed, and stood near vigilantly. Gray felt in his pocket with stiffened fingers and produced his passport. This the girl scanned curiously.

"I want to apologize," ventured Gray, "for Mirai Khan's attempt on your horses. He was acting contrary to orders. But I take the blame for what he did."

He spoke formally, even stiffly. The woman in the chair glanced at him swiftly, studying him from under level brows. He felt a great wish that he should be absolved from the stigma of guilt before her. And, man-like, he pinned his trust in formal explanation.

She seemed not to heed his words. She returned his papers, biting her lip thoughtfully. He would have given much to know what she was thinking about, but the girl's bright face was unreadable.

"Ram Singh," she ordered absently, "the Sahib's rifle must be filled with sand. See that it is cleaned. Take him to the store tent where he can wash the sand from his eyes. Will you come back here, Captain Gray? I would like ever so much to talk to you."

While Gray washed gratefully, and while the natives brushed his coat and shoes, his mind was on the girl of the yurt. He told himself savagely that he did not desire to be sympathized with. Like a woman, he thought, she had taken pity on his discomfort. Of course, she had to treat him decently, before the natives.

In this, he was more right than wrong.

CHAPTER XI
SIR LIONEL

When Gray returned to the yurt, he found the table set with silver and china containing a substantial amount of curried rice, mutton and tea. This reminded him that he was ravenous, since he had not eaten for twenty-four hours. He did not notice that the girl's hair appeared adjusted more to a nicety, or that she had exchanged the shawl for the jacket of her dress.

"You like your tea strong?" she asked politely.

In spite of his hunger, Gray felt awkward as he ate sparingly of the food under her cool gaze. She was non-committally attentive to his wants. He wished that she would say something more or that Ram Singh would cease glaring at the back of his neck like a hawk ready to pounce on its prey.

The food, however, refreshed him. His curiosity concerning his hostess grew. He had seen no other white man in the camp. It was hardly possible that the Englishwoman had come alone to the Gobi. Whither was she bound? And why did she reside in a Kirghiz yurt when the caravan was outfitted with European luxuries?

When the natives had removed the plates, he took out his pipe from force of habit, and felt for matches. Then he reflected that he should not smoke in the woman's tent.

He would have liked to thank her for her hospitality, to assure her of his regret for the tactics of Mirai Khan, to ask her some of the questions that were in his mind. Especially, if she were really alone in the desert. But while he fumbled for words, she spoke quickly.

"I've never taken a prisoner before, Captain Gray. A white man, that is. I believe the correct thing to do is to question you. That fits in most nicely, because I am unusually curious by nature."

He had pulled out a match which he struck absently, then extinguished it. She noted the action silently.

"You are an army officer?"

"In the reserve. Acting independently, now, of course."

"Acting?" She smiled lightly and held out something to him. "So you are a big game hunter? I did not know this was good country for that sort of thing."

"It isn't," he acknowledged bluntly. "That is—not in the ordinary sense. But I have already some trophies bagged. Mirai Khan is my guide——"

"Please do smoke," she said, and he saw that what she offered him was a box of matches. One of the servants struck a light.

"I am quite used to it. My uncle, Sir Lionel, smokes much worse tobacco than yours."

Gray considered her over his pipe.

"Would you mind telling me," he asked gravely, "Miss Niece of Sir Lionel, what you are going to do with me? I'm fairly your prisoner. Your patrol under Ram Singh captured me within your lines."

The girl nodded thoughtfully. Gray wondered if he had caught a glint of laughter in the demure eyes. He decided he was mistaken.

"You are an officer, Captain Gray. You know all prisoners are questioned closely. I still have two more questions, before I decide your case. Are you really alone? And where are you bound?"

"I am," stated Gray methodically. "Ansichow."

"Really? I am going there. I should introduce you, as my prisoner, to Sir Lionel, but he is tired out and asleep, leaving me with Ram Singh."

"Who is an excellent guardian, Miss Niece——"

"Mary Hastings," said the girl quickly. "I have no reason to conceal my name." Gray thought she emphasized the I. "My uncle, Sir Lionel Hastings, is head of the British Asiatic Society in India. He is bound for the Gobi."

Gray stared at her. The British Asiatic Society! Then this must be the expedition in search of the Wusun. Van Schaick had said that it was starting from India.

"I begged Sir Lionel to take me," continued Mary Hastings calmly, "and he finds me very useful. I record his observations, you know, keep the journal of the expedition, and draw the maps. That gives him time for more important work."

"But the desert——" Gray broke off.

"The desert is no place for a woman. I suppose that is what you meant. But I am not an ordinary woman, I warn you, Captain Gray. Sir Lionel is my only relative, and we have traveled together for years. He did say that he anticipated some opposition from the Chinese authorities. But I refused to be left behind." The rounded chin lifted stubbornly. "This is the most important work my uncle has undertaken, and he is always visited with fever about this time of year."

Gray was secretly envious of Sir Lionel. What an ally this girl would make! Yet, in their present positions, she was apt to be his most ardent foe. He glanced up, measuring her, and met her look. For a long moment the slate-green eyes of the man searched hers. They reminded him of the surface of water, sometimes quiet to an infinite depth and then tumultuous.

For a discerning man, Gray was at a sad loss to fathom Mary Hastings.

"To avoid attention from the Chinese," she continued, looking down, "we came up from Burma, along the Tibetan border. Rather a boring trip. But by going around the main towns at the Yang-tze headwaters, and by using these serviceable native huts—which can be taken down and put up quickly—we escape questioning."

So that was the explanation of the clumsy yurts.

"You were not quite so fortunate, Captain Gray? Curious, that, isn't it—when you are only a big game hunter?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to make a clean breast of it, and say that he, also, was seeking Sungan. But it seemed absurd to confess to her that the sole member of the American expedition had been found among the camels of the Hastings caravan. Perhaps he was unconsciously influenced by his desire to be on friendly terms—even such as at present with Mary Hastings.

Every moment of their talk was a keen pleasure to him—more so than he was aware. He reflected how lucky it was that he had run into the other expedition. It was not altogether strange, since they had both started at the same time, and Ansichow was the mutual hopping-off place into the Gobi.

"Will you tell me," he evaded, "how you came to call me Captain Gray before you saw my papers?"

Mary Hastings smiled pleasantly.

"It was an excellent guess, wasn't it? But now I'm quite through my questions." She paused, her brow wrinkled in portentous thought. "I think I shall not burden myself with a prisoner. You are quite free, Captain Gray. You and Mirai Khan. Doubtless you wish to return to your caravan."

Gray thought of the two waiting mules and the rain-soaked blanket that constituted his outfit, and laughingly mentioned it to her.

"You are very kind," he said, rising.

"Captain Gray," she said impulsively, "it's raining again. If you would care to spend the night with us, I am sure Ram Singh can spare you a cot and blanket. Mirai Khan can fetch your outfit in the morning, and you can go on with us to Ansichow. It's only a day's trek."

Gray hesitated, then accepted her offer thankfully.

"You will find your rifle on your cot. Ram Singh cleaned it himself. It needed it. He said it was a 30-30 model, but then you are probably using it for big game because you are accustomed to it." She held out her hand with a quizzical smile. Gray took it in his firm clasp, awkwardly, and released her fingers quickly, lest he should hold them too long. She nodded.

"Good night, Captain Gray."

Not until he was without the tent did he reflect that he had admitted that he was bound for Ansichow. And Ansichow meant the Gobi.

For a space after his departure Mary Hastings remained in her tent. She had dismissed the native servant. She was thinking, and it seemed to please her. But thought, with the girl, required companionship and conversation.

Abruptly she left her chair and stepped through the door of the tent. It was still drizzling without; still, there was a break in the heavy clouds to the west. Mary noted this, and skipped to the entrance of the yurt nearest her.

"It's me, Uncle Singh," she called, not quite grammatically. "Can I come in?"

"Of course," a kindly voice answered at once. "Anything wrong?"

A man sat up on the cot, snapping on an electric torch by the head of the bed and glancing at a small clock. He was a tall, spare individual, with the frame of an athlete, polo shoulders, and the high brow of a scholar.

He was well past middle age, yellow-brown as to face, deep hollows under the cheek bones, his scanty hair matching his face, except where it was streaked with white.

The girl installed herself snugly on the foot of the bed, sitting cross-legged.

"You've been sleeping heavily, Sher Singh," she observed reproachfully, giving the man his native surname, "and that means you aren't well. I have news." She paused triumphantly, then bubbled spontaneously into speech.

"Such news. Aie. Captain Robert Gray is here, in Ram Singh's tent. He is alone, with a servant. He is a big man, not ill-looking, but awkward—very. He stands so much on his dignity. Really, it was quite ridiculous"—she laughed agreeably—"and I was very nicely entertained. He was brought in by the Sikhs, after trying to steal our ponies——"

"Lifting our horses!" Sir Lionel sat bolt upright and flushed. "Why, the scoundrel——"

"I mean his servant was. Captain Gray was innocent, but I was not inclined to let him off easily——"

Mary's conception of important news did not satisfy the explorer's desire for facts. A peculiarly jealous expression crept into the man's open face.

"Has he a well-equipped caravan?"

"Two mules, a gun and a blanket."

"How extraordinary!" Sir Lionel stared at his niece. "No camels?"

"Not one." Mary yawned, and, with a glance at the clock, began to unbind her heavy hair. It was very late. Her fingers worked dexterously, while Sir Lionel weighed her words. Unlike his niece, he was an individual of slow mental process, perhaps too much schooled by routine.

"Mary! How did you—ah—behave to Captain Gray?"

"I took him prisoner." The girl smiled mischievously. "He was so humiliated, Uncle Singh."

"I hope," observed Sir Lionel severely, "you warned him of our identity."

"Rather. But he implied he was after big game."

Sir Lionel reached to the light stand and secured a cigarette, which he lit. His eyes hardened purposefully.

"I'll trek for Ansichow, at once. I must buy up all the available camels. If you will retire to your tent, and send my syce——"

"Indeed, no." She frowned worriedly. "You haven't had your sleep yet."

Sir Lionel caught her hand in his.

"No, Mary. You must be aware what this expedition means to me. I must be first in Ansichow, and into the Gobi. Failure is not to be thought of. Dear girl, I have thrown my reputation into the dice bowl——"

"I know." She patted his hand lightly, and her eyes were serious. "Only I wish you would let me help a little more." She shook free the coils of her bronze hair and placed a small hand firmly over his lips. "I know what you want to say—that you are being ever so kind and indulging to let me come at all. As if I could be left at Simla when you went on your biggest hunt, Uncle Singh. Well," she sighed, "if you must go buy camels, you will. But"—she brightened—"please leave the wandering American to me. I saw him first."

Sir Lionel removed the hand that restricted his speech, and frowned portentously. Mary beamed, twining her hair into twin plaits.

"Mary!" he said gravely, "please do not annoy Captain—ah—Gray. We must be perfectly fair with him, you know."

"Of course," she assured him virtuously. "Haven't I been? He may not think so when he learns how you've gone camel buying when I offered him sleeping quarters. He'll forever fear the Greeks bearing gifts——"

"Oolu ka butcha!" (Child of an owl!)

"But he shouldn't try to deceive me, should he, Uncle? I fancy he'll have a rather wretched time of it. He seems somewhat out of his environment here."

She nodded decisively.

"It's his own fault altogether for coming where he has no business to be and wanting to deprive my Sher Singh of what you worked a lifetime for."

"Merely his duty, Mary."

"But he shall not hinder you in yours."

She fell silent, no longer smiling. There was a great tenderness in the glance she cast at the gaunt Englishman. Sir Lionel was her hero, and, lacking father and mother, all the warmth of the girl's affection had been bestowed on the explorer.

She said good-night softly and slipped from the tent. That night she slept lightly, and was afoot with the first streak of crimson in the east.

CHAPTER XII
A MESSAGE FROM THE CENTURIES

In his snug quarters Gray slept well for the first time in many nights, feeling the reaction from the constant watchfulness he and Mirai Khan had been forced to exercise. When he turned out in the morning the sun was well up, and the men were breaking camp under the direction of Ram Singh who greeted him coldly.

When he inquired for Miss Hastings he found that she had gone on to join her uncle, on a camel with a single attendant. He was forced to ride with the caravan, after sending Mirai Khan back for the animals. Ram Singh proved an uncommunicative companion and Gray was glad when the flat roofs of the town showed over the sand ridges in the late afternoon.

The caravan halted at the edge of the town, where the Englishman had prepared his encampment. The place was a lonely settlement, populated by stolid Dungans and a few Chinese who ministered to the wants of merchants passing from Liangchowfu to Kashgar and the cities of Turkestan. Gray failed to see either the girl or her uncle and learned that they had gone to pay a visit of ceremony to the amban—the governor—of Ansichow.

He went to seek out Mirai Khan. The meeting with the Hastings had put him in a delicate situation. In spite of his own plight, he determined to confess his mission to the Englishman, having decided that was the only fair thing to do. He could not accept aid from the people who were bound to be his rivals in the quest for the Wusun.

He reflected ruefully that Van Schaick had urged him to reach the spot in the Gobi before the expedition from India. Van Schaick and Balch were counting on him to do that—not knowing that Delabar had been working against him.

As it stood, both parties had gained the town on the Gobi edge at the same time. But the Hastings possessed an ample outfit, well chosen for the purpose and ready to go ahead on the instant. Gray had only Mirai Khan and two mules. He would need to hire camels, and bearers, to stock up with what provisions were available, and to obtain a guide.

This would take time, and much of his small store of money. Moreover, if he made clear his purpose to Sir Lionel, it was probable the Englishman would start at once, thus gaining four or five days on him. Gray knew by experience the uselessness of trying to hurry Chinese through a transaction. And he was not sure if Mirai Khan would go into the desert.

The Kirghiz had served him faithfully, to the best of his ability so far. But Mirai Khan had said that the tribesmen shunned this part of the desert. Then there was the amban. It was more than possible that Wu Fang Chien had sent word to Ansichow to head off Gray.

It was a difficult situation, and Gray was pondering it moodily when he came upon Mirai Khan in the bazaar street of the town. The Kirghiz, who seemed to be excited over something, beckoned him into one of the stalls, after glancing up and down the street cautiously.

"Hearken, Excellency," he whispered. "Here I have found a man who knows what will interest you. He has been much into the desert and has dug up writings and valuable things which he will sell—at a good price. His name is Muhammed Bai."

Gray glanced into the stall, and saw a bent figure kneeling on the rugs. It was an old Turkoman, wearing spectacles and a stained turban. Muhammed Bai salaamed and motioned his visitor to be seated. Gray scanned him with some interest. It was quite possible the man had some valuable information. Mirai Khan had a way of finding out things readily.

"Will the Excellency rest at ease," chattered the Turkoman, peering at him benevolently, "while his servant shows him certain priceless treasures which he has dug from the sand among the ruins. Mirai Khan has said the Excellency seeks the ruins."

"You have been there?" Gray asked cautiously. He knew the penchant of the Central Asian for exaggeration.

"Without doubt. Far, far to the west I have been. To the ruins in the sand. Other Excellencies have asked concerning them from time to time but none have been there except myself, Muhammed Bai."

"What are the ruins like?"

The merchant waved a thin hand eloquently. "Towers of stone, great and high, standing forth like guide posts. My father knew of them. One of the sultans of his tribe dug for treasure there. He found gold. Aye, he told me the place. I, also, went and dug. Look——"

With the gesture of a connoisseur displaying a masterpiece, the Turkoman drew some objects from under a silk rug. Gray stared at them. They were odd bits of wrought silver and enamel ware, stained with age. These Muhammed Bai spread before him.

"They came from the ruins. The Excellency is undoubtedly a man of wisdom. I need not tell him how old these things are. There is no telling their value. But I will sell the lot for a very few taels—a ten taels."

The American fingered the fragments curiously. They meant nothing to him. They might be the relics of an ancient civilization. Muhammed Bai watched him keenly, and pushed a piece of parchment under his eyes.

"Here is a greater treasure. The Excellency will see the worth of this at a glance. Other foreign merchants have asked to buy this. But I told them that a high price must be paid. Who would sell a sacred object to a dog? See, the strange writing——"

Gray held up the parchment to the light. It was a small sheet, much soiled. It was covered with a fine writing in characters unknown to him. He wished that Delabar might be here to tell him its meaning. If it had come from that section of the Gobi, it was possible that it shed some light on the Wusun.

"Mirai Khan, who is my friend, said that the Excellency sought tidings of the ancient people. Here is such a scroll as may not be found elsewhere. Perhaps it is priceless. I know not."

"Can you read it?"

"Can a servant such as I read ancient wisdom?" Muhammed Bai elevated his hands eloquently. "But I will sell——"

He looked up as a shadow fell across the stall. Gray saw that Mary Hastings was standing in the entrance. Beside her was a tall man, well dressed. He rose.

"This is my uncle, Major Hastings, Captain Gray," she smiled. "We heard that you were in the bazaar. Are you buying curios to take back with your trophies?"

Sir Lionel returned the American's bow politely, glancing from Muhammed Bai to him curiously. Then his eye fell on the parchment. He leaned forward and uttered a sharp exclamation of interest.

"Whence came this?" he asked Muhammed Bai, in the dialect of Western Shensi.

The Turkoman peered up at him from tufted brows, looking like an aged, gray hen guarding one of its brood. "From the desert yonder. I, Muhammed Bai——"

"What language is the writing?"

"How should I know, Excellency?"

"It would be hard to tell." Sir Lionel frowned thoughtfully. "The characters on the parchment are certainly not the cuneiform of Behistun; equally, they are no dialect of the older Kashgaria, or Chinese. These two languages are the only ones we would expect to find here, except possibly——"

He broke off, glancing curiously at Gray.

"Have you a claim to this manuscript, sir? Are you planning to purchase it?"

Gray hesitated, feeling the cool gaze of the girl on him. Should he buy the parchment it would be useless to him, as he could not interpret the writing. On the other hand, if he let Sir Lionel have it, the parchment might prove an aid to the English expedition. This, naturally, he was bound to prevent.

"I will buy it," he concluded, and added quickly, "as a curio."

"To add to your big game trophies?" asked Mary Hastings calmly.

While he tried to think of an answer, Sir Lionel handed him the parchment.

"It might serve as a curio, Captain Gray. But, in all fairness, I must warn you. The writing is a counterfeit, cleverly done. You see, it is my life's business to know the ancient languages of Central Asia. This is adapted from some inscription which Muhammed Bai has doubtless seen. The parchment is skillfully colored to appear aged. But the black ink is freshly laid on."

Gray smiled grimly, while the Turkoman stared at the white men, endeavoring to guess what they were saying.

"And these bits of silver?" The American motioned to the relics that lay on the rug.

"Are worthless, except—as curios. Being a hunter, Captain Gray, I presume the authenticity of the objects will not affect your desire to purchase them."

Sir Lionel spoke dryly, and the girl scrutinized him with frank amusement.

"My uncle has heard of Muhammed Bai," she volunteered. "He is an old impostor who makes a living selling false manuscripts to travelers in Khotan and Kashgar. Perhaps he had heard we were coming to Ansichow. I rather think your precious Kirghiz is in league with Muhammed Bai."

Mirai Khan caught the drift of what she said—having a slight knowledge of English, and retired discreetly to the bazaar alley. Gray reflected on the curious ethics of Central Asia which permitted a servant to take money from his master by trickery, while he still served him faithfully. It was one of the riddles of Asian ethics—which he had encountered before. He knew that the girl was probably right.

He tossed down the money for the parchment and pocketed it, as he had said that he would buy it. Sir Lionel checked him, as he rose.

"That manuscript is—interesting," he observed thoughtfully. "Because Muhammed Bai must have had a model to copy this writing from. The characters resemble Sanscrit slightly, but they suggest Tokharian, with which this man can not be acquainted." He turned on the blinking merchant sharply. "Tell me, writer of false missives," he said in Turki, "from what did you copy these letters?"

There was something eager and threatening in the face of the tall Englishman that choked off Muhammed Bai's denial.

"It is as I said, Excellency. The writings were found in the desert."

"Where?"

"A week's ride from here, to the west."

"Near Sungan—eh? How did you find them?"

The Turkoman was sullenly silent. Sir Lionel dropped a coin on the rug. It was gold.

"Ah, the Excellency is generous as a prince of the royal household!" cried Muhammed Bai. "It was on a stone—a boundary stone at the place I said—that I found the writings. See, here is the stone."

He scrambled to his feet, bowing, and hastened to the rear of the stall. He cast off some rugs from the top of a pile, disclosing a piece of brown sandstone some three feet high and a foot in thickness. On the surface of the stone Gray saw characters engraved, characters that were strange to him.

But not to Sir Lionel. The Englishman dropped to his knees with an exclamation, whipping out his eyeglasses. He ran his finger over the writing on the sandstone.

"A form of Sanscrit!" he cried. "By Jove—three centuries old, at least. Four, I should judge. And here is the character corresponding to the Chinese word Wusun, the Tall Ones.' Remarkable! This evidently was one of the boundary marks of the Wusun land."

He peered at the inscription intently, forgetting the American in his enthusiasm.

"Hm—it was erected by one of the khans of the Tall People. By a slave of the Chinese Emperor. It speaks of the captive race of the Wusun. Plainly they were even then under the kang of the Chinese priests. 'In the city of Sungan are the captive people ... greatly fallen since the age when they were conquerors ... they cling to their hearths and towers ... in the sand. There they will always be——'"

He broke off his reading and glanced up at Gray. "Splendid! I must take a rubbing of this."

He ordered Muhammed Bai to bring charcoal and a clean sheet of paper. The charcoal he rubbed over the stone. Then he pressed the paper firmly against it, beating the sheet with his fists until the outline of the inscription was imprinted on the paper. This he surveyed triumphantly.

"Excellent! Captain Gray, I am indebted for your"—he smiled—"involuntary assistance. Will you dine with us? Mary will be glad of company, I am sure. I must place this where it will be safe."

He hurried off, followed by the girl and Gray. Neither spoke during the walk to the outskirts of Ansichow. The American was regretting the bad fortune that had concealed the truth of his mission from the Hastings. He was in the position of a culprit obtaining valuable information from his rivals, without intending to do so. This information he was in duty bound to use to his own advantage.

He had determined to set matters right by revealing to his host his purpose in seeking the Gobi. And the dinner would afford him an opportunity to do so.

The camp of the Hastings was located in a garden which surrounded a spring near the caravanserai of Ansichow. Sir Lionel, disliking the filth of the caravanserai which bore evidence of much use by not over-fastidious Chinese travelers, had pitched his tents in the garden, making his own dak bungalow, as he called it.

It was late evening, and the table had been set under the fly of the main tent, used by the girl. It was the quiet hour of evening prayer. Sheep boys were driving their flocks homeward for the night along the road a short distance away. There was a slight breeze—enough to clear the air of the ever-present dust—which barely shook the sides of the tent. Two Indian servants laid an appetizing meal before their masters.

Sir Lionel, elated by his discovery, talked of the city of Sungan. Once or twice he checked himself, as if he feared he was saying too much. But his eagerness was not to be restrained.

"The stone proves the existence of Sungan, and gives us a rough idea of its location. Judging from the inscription, the Wusun have clung to their heritage. I think we shall find some survivors in Sungan."

"I thought you said the inscription was a form of Sanscrit," objected Gray. "And the Wusun are Chinese——"

"Ah, that is just the point." Sir Lionel reared his blond head, like a setter at scent of game. "Sanscrit is an Aryan language. The white race buried here in the Gobi called themselves the Tall People. Wusun is the Chinese translation of that term. Their own written tongue is probably the dialect we saw on the boundary stone, which is Aryan. A clear chain of proof, Captain Gray."

"But," the American objected honestly, "my follower, Mirai Khan, has hunted the borderland of the Gobi and he says positively no city is to be seen. The stone is four centuries or more old——"

"Mirai Khan," said the girl quickly, "can not see under the sand, can he? He seems to be bent chiefly on stealing horses."

Sir Lionel, however, was not to be turned from the discussion which filled his mind. "You forget the sand that Mary mentions, Captain Gray," he retorted warmly. "This is, literally, a sea of sand. And the waves are rising. We are sure that certain towns in the foothills of the Thian Shan have been buried by these waves. You see, the prevailing winds here are from the east. They drive the sand dunes before them. I have noted that the dunes march westward——"

"Before you go on, Sir Lionel——" protested the American, remembering his intention to make a clean breast of things.

"Not a word, sir. Not another word. Be quiet, Mary"—as the girl started to speak—"I will not be contradicted. It is a scientific fact that the sands march. During the kara burans or black wind-storms they will progress many feet a day. Sungan was built on the great caravan route from China to Samarcand and Persia, many centuries ago. Marco Polo followed this route when he visited the court of Kubla Khan."

"But," Gray broke in, "I want——"

"I say, it is a fact, sir. Prove the contrary. You can't!" Sir Lionel glared at him hostilely. "I am right. Without doubt, I am correct. Sungan has been buried by the marching sands. Only the towers remain."

Gray thought of the tale Delabar had mentioned—of the sand that came down on the city of the Gobi, as retribution for some sin against the religions of Asia. Also, Mirai Khan had said no city was to be seen. And Brent had claimed to see some isolated towers.

"These towers," he started to explain what was in his mind.

"Are the summits of the palaces of Sungan, sir. In them I shall find the white race of Asia, the captive people of the Wusun."

"But, Uncle," protested the girl, "the stone was erected four hundred years ago. If the Chinese had wanted to, they might have killed off the remaining Wusun since that time."

"The ancient Chinese annals," observed Sir Lionel tolerantly, "state that the Wusun, the 'Tall Ones,' were formidable fighters. The Sacae or Scythians from whom they are descended were one of the conquering races of the world. It is this heritage of strength which has preserved the remnant of the Wusun—for us to find."

Gray faced the Englishman across the table. Sir Lionel had changed to a neat suit of clean duck for the meal. Mary was fastidiously dressed in white, a light shawl over her slender shoulders. He felt keenly his own untidy attire. Moreover, the girl seemed bent on making fun of him.

"Captain Gray is a hunter, you know, Uncle," she remarked, glancing coolly at the uncomfortable American. "Really, your talk about the Wusun must bore him. He has come to shoot antelope. Or is it wild camels, Captain Gray?"

Gray met her glance steadily. He saw that she was heart and soul with Sir Lionel in the latter's quest, and guessed that his own confession must terminate any possibility of friendship between them.

"Neither," he said gravely. "I have meant to tell you before this. But at first I was so surprised at finding——"

"That we guarded our ponies, Captain Gray?" The girl's eyes twinkled and she bit her lip.

"A white woman instead of a Chinaman—I didn't confess, as I should have done."

"But Mirai Khan confessed."

Gray flushed. "I was sent to the desert, Sir Lionel, to find the Wusun. I am employed by the American Exploration Society. And I am going to do my best to get to Sungan—ahead of you, if possible."

The effect of his words was curious. The girl studied him silently. Sir Lionel stroked his blond mustache, plainly ill at ease. Neither seemed surprised.

"So you see," Gray made the statement as blunt as possible, "I am your rival. I meant to tell you before. Naturally, it is my duty to use the information you have given me. But I want to make my position clear before we go any further."

Sir Lionel's first words were not what Gray expected.

"You are not a scientist, sir?"

"I am not. Professor Delabar, who was to have come with me, was forced to turn back at Liangchowfu."

"Then you are alone? Without a caravan?"

"For the present. I'm going to do my best to outfit at Ansichow and get ahead of you, Sir Lionel." Gray rose. "I suppose I'm not exactly welcome here, after what I've told you——"

The Englishman waved his brown hand tolerantly.

"I like your frankness, Captain Gray. Pray be seated. We are rivals, not enemies, you know. But"—the zeal of the enthusiast shone from his mild eyes—"I shall never permit you to reach Sungan ahead of me. I have studied the Wusun for years. I persuaded the British Asiatic Society to send me here. It is the crowning venture of my life, sir."

The girl looked up proudly.

"Indeed, that is true, Captain Gray. My uncle has spent our money on the trip. His reputation is at stake. Because few of the directors of the Asiatic Society believe the Wusun are to be found——"

"They are mistaken, Mary," Sir Lionel assured her. "I know that I am right. The fact that Captain Gray was sent here is proof of it. I shall reach Sungan—the first white man to penetrate the forbidden region of the Gobi. The boundary stone has indicated our course, and I will not yield the right of way to Captain Gray, or any one. Any one, I repeat, sir!"

He struck the table forcibly and rose, mastering his emotion in a moment.

"I pray, sir," he said with the fine courtesy of the English gentleman, "if we are to be rivals, you will not deny us the pleasure of your company while we are at Ansichow. After that, you know, it is each man for himself. Now, I will go to read over my rubbing——"

He bowed stiffly and walked into the adjoining tent. Gray found that the girl was watching him curiously.

"So Delabar went back," she said musingly. "I wondered why he was not with you when you came to my yurt after Ram Singh——"

She colored slightly. Gray noticed how the fading sunlight glinted on her copper hair, and set off the fine lines of her slender figure. A thoroughbred, he thought—like her uncle.

"Ram Singh did exactly right," he admitted. "But how——"

"Did I expect Delabar?" She hesitated. "Well, I have a confession, too, Captain Gray. I knew all along—or rather suspected—what you were. At Calcutta Sir Lionel received this letter."

She felt in her belt and drew out a square of folded paper. This she handed silently to Gray.

Captain Gray, an American army officer, and Professor Delabar are on their way to the Gobi. It will be useless for you to attempt the expedition, as they will be there before you. Do not waste your time by going into China.

This was the letter. It was written in a neat hand and unsigned.

"Did the envelope have a postmark?" he asked.

Marching Sands

MARCHING SANDS

CHAPTER ITHE LOST PEOPLE

CHAPTER IILEGENDS

CHAPTER IIIDELABAR DISCOURSES

CHAPTER IVWARNING

CHAPTER VINTRUDERS

CHAPTER VIMIRAI KHAN

CHAPTER VIITHE DOOR IS GUARDED

CHAPTER VIIIDELABAR LEAVES

CHAPTER IXTHE LIU SHA

CHAPTER XTHE MEM-SAHIB SPEAKS

CHAPTER XISIR LIONEL

CHAPTER XIIA MESSAGE FROM THE CENTURIES

CHAPTER I
THE LOST PEOPLE

CHAPTER II
LEGENDS

CHAPTER III
DELABAR DISCOURSES

CHAPTER IV
WARNING

CHAPTER V
INTRUDERS

CHAPTER VI
MIRAI KHAN

CHAPTER VII
THE DOOR IS GUARDED

CHAPTER VIII
DELABAR LEAVES

CHAPTER IX
THE LIU SHA

CHAPTER X
THE MEM-SAHIB SPEAKS

CHAPTER XI
SIR LIONEL

CHAPTER XII
A MESSAGE FROM THE CENTURIES