Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Action
Description: The fourth and last Colin Gray Indian Frontier adventure, which takes place 2 years after the events in "King Cobra." Mongol Chieftain Suleman Khoon has been marshalling moslems from Egypt to Mongolia to his cause, on the grounds that he is the descendant of the mighty Ghenghis Khan. He has in sight the excavation of the entrance to the half buried city of Prester John and its vast wealth, which he will use to overthrow British rule in the East, and even conquer Britain itself! But Colin Gray, his wife Diana (whom Khoon lusts after), and a small black cat, are on their way to foil his plans. L

NINE LIVES

Mark Channing

1937

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Chapter 9 | Chapter 10

Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 13 | Chapter 14

Chapter 15 | Chapter 16

Chapter 17 | Chapter 18

Chapter 19 | Chapter 20

Chapter 21 | Chapter 22

Chapter 23 | Chapter 24

Chapter 25 | Chapter 26

Chapter 27 | Chapter 28

Chapter 29 | Chapter 30

Chapter 31 | Chapter 32

Chapter 33 | Chapter 34

Chapter 35 | Chapter 36

Chapter 37 | Chapter 38

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Prologue

TRADITION says that when the Nile was young and had the brightness of new waters, nine great gods of Egypt walked the earth. One day, in an avenue of sycamore trees near the great temple of the cat-headed goddess Bast, they came upon a woman wailing over the dead body of a kitten which a scorpion had killed. The reptile had been about to sting her baby and the kitten had struck at it with its paw.

The nine gods looked down at the small, furry body. Man, the Cat— sacred among men— was dear to them. As Bast she represented the fertilising warmth of the sun. As Sekhmet, the lioness-headed, she was Fire, the Destroyer.

The woman knew the nine Great Ones, for they cast no shadow and their eyes never blinked. Earnestly she besought them to restore her cat to life, saying: 'Give her life! I and my children loved her!'

'Be it so!' answered each of the nine as with one voice. And, addressing the lifeless body, they each of them said: 'I give thee life.'

Whether the legend be true or not there is the ancient saying that the cat has nine lives. Sometimes, as this story of the unexplored Himalaya relates, there happen uncanny things which almost make it seem as if the cat, as she steps down the ages, meditative and aloof, understanding man far better than he knows, is dimly aware of her ancient divinity and its obligations.

1

...AT THREE O'CLOCK I shall telephone for your decision. You will be given ten seconds in which to answer "Yes" or "No." On the expiry of the tenth, second I shall ring off. It will therefore be useless to try to trace the call. If you insist on sending Gray Sahib to Kalistan you will sign your death-warrant. As for him, the Servants of Genghis Khan will send death to him wherever be is. India has called to Egypt, and Egypt will answer her.

General 'Needle' Dalziell, Head of the Secret Service in India, reread for the fifth time the last paragraph of the letter lying before him; then, carefully folding it, placed it in his wallet. Usually threats to murder him were consigned to the waste-paper basket. But this one did not merely threaten him; it foreshadowed a disastrous end to the British rule in India. The red fires of war were blazing on the Kalistan border.

Suleman Khoon, the notorious Mongol outlaw, had declared himself a-direct descendant of Genghis Khan, the thirteenth century conqueror of India, and as such, the rightful ruler of India. The big Frontier tribes were rallying to his support, and the two movable columns sent out from Quetta and Peshawar to intimidate them had been driven back with heavy losses. But the danger did not end with the Frontier of India. Khoon had appealed for support to 'the kings and peoples of Islam,' to the Ulama of Mecca and Medina, to the Nahdatal Ulama in Syria, and to the Association of the Ulama in Kabul.

Most of the Eastern newspapers were full of a report that a deputation from Suleman Khoon was on Its way to Egypt, the Intellectual centre of  the Moslem world, to ask that a world jihad, or Islamic religious war, be declared against the British. If that mission succeeded, Egypt Arabia, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan would be behind the eighty million Moslems of India.

Already the seven million Berber Arabs of Morocco were restless, and the British Government considerably more than anxious. General Dalziell frowned worriedly at the telephones on his desk. In a few minutes one of them would ring. It would either be Cairo answering his 'clear the line' call, or the writer of this death-threat demanding to know whether he still intended to send Major Colin Gray— the Richthofen of the Indian Secret Service— to deal with the rising on the Kalistan border. Barely three weeks ago Gray had left India on a well-earned year's leave, and for over two months no report had come in from Captain Ewbank, the officer who had replaced him in Kalistan. And nothing was known of Ewbank's whereabouts. Next to Gray, the General reflected, Ewbank was the most brilliant Secret Service officer in India. Unless news came in from Ewbank by noon to-morrow Gray would have to be recalled.

The General picked up a gold pencil and added another isosceles triangle to the kaleidoscopic jumble of pyramids on his blotting pad. The Secret Service, the coldly precise little man in the swivel-chair reflected, was rather like a passionately jealous mistress; it demanded death rather than separation. This Khoon business meant death for a good many people.

'Death to him, wherever he is.'

The lead of the pencil snapped. Thrusting back his chair with an impatient exclamation, the General crossed to the window, his pigskin gaiters squeaking faintly. A thrush ran jerkily across the lawn. He liked thrushes and gardens. They reminded him of England, of his beloved Kent. To-day the resemblance irked him. Young Colin Gray was on his way to Sussex with his wife, Diana.

Slowly— very slowly— the big plane-tree in the centre of the lawn loomed into his consciousness. Under it was a group of three men. One of those men had brought the news of Khoon's appeal to Pan-Islam. The General's jaw-muscles bunched. Realities— not dreams— were his business.

He turned quickly. A secretary had entered the room.

'Well?'

'The Khoon dossier, sir!'

'Thanks. Any news?'

'No, sir. We're still trying to get Major Gray. There seems to be something wrong at the Cairo end.'

The lines on the lean face deepened.

'Take down this cable, please: "To Major Gray. Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo. The dictation of that cable of recall was noticeably a laboured business, but directly it was finished Needle again became his staccato-toned self. 'Have the Peshawar, Rawalpindi, and Lahore Divisions been ordered to mobilise?... Good!... For God's sake stop that dog barking! It's yours, I suppose?'

'No sir.'

His chief rubbed viciously the pince-nez marks on his nose. 'Well, it sounds like it. ... That's all, thanks.'

Left alone, he opened the dossier, which contained one of Gray's reports. Just over a year ago Gray had averted a similar threat of a mass rising among the trans-border tribes. Then this Suleman Khoon had been allied with another notorious border outlaw— Alam Khan, nicknamed 'King Cobra' because of the rapidity and deadliness of his attacks.

The General's face grew grimmer as he reread Gray's graphic description of the hoarded treasure he had seen in that mountain stronghold in the Valley of the Mirror

... It consists mainly of cut gems. I saw pearls, rubies, and sapphires jumbled together on trays and frayed straw mats like so many pebbles. On the walls were jewelled carpets that blazed into shimmering colours in the light of my torch.... One of the three thrones was literally incandescent with white diamonds, and round its edge ran a 'key' border of alternate table-cut sapphires and rubies... Taking Tavernier's £6.500,000 valuation of the Mogul 'peacock' throne in Delhi as a basis; the value of this hoard must be somewhere in the neighbourhood of a hundred million sterling. ...

General Dalziell leaned back in his chair and gazed out of the window. The variegated splendour of the herbaceous borders in the garden somehow seemed curiously dazzling. The bird noises had ceased, and the air was filled with the jarring whirr of cicadas.

At all costs Khoon must be prevented from getting at this treasure. At present, thanks to an earthquake which had devastated the Valley of the Mirror, it lay buried, under a million, tons of debris; and, as far as the Government of India was concerned, there it could stay.

If Khoon got hold of it?

Across the Frontier gold is almost as powerful as religion. Most of the trans-Frontier chieftains would be won over by this Mongol firebrand. Needle fidgeted irritably. The few followers of King Cobra's young Persian mistress, Shireen— about two thousand of them― were all that stood between Khoon and success.

Success? No, by God! Not if it rested with Hector Dalziell!

Closing the dossier with a slap, he pushed it from him. Gray must get to this Shireen woman before the feeble line of her opposition was broken. She had befriended him and his wife. Now he would have to use her friendship and his prestige among the trans-border peoples to organise a counter-rising. It was practically a forlorn hope. But two thousand leaderless men could not stop—

The bell of the middle telephone rang softly but insistently.

With something of the grave deliberateness of a surgeon about to perform a critical operation, General Dalziell lifted the receiver.

2

THE first rays of, the sun was striking like golden arrows the slender minarets of Cairo.

From the mosque of Ai-Mu-Ayyed a muezzin was calling the Faithful to morning prayer in long-drawn, quavering notes. Little hurried sounds like the breathing of a restless sleeper were rising from that broken sea of roofs, as if the city were struggling to break the spell of some evil vision which had troubled it during the night.

On the balcony of a suite in Shepheard's Hotel stood a slim girl with troubled eyes, the half-open jacket of her apple-green pyjamas revealing the beginning curve of one white breast. With her auburn curls and warm, frank gaze, she might have been Ushas the Dawn Maiden impatiently awaiting the coming of her bridegroom, Surya, the Sun-god. A breeze ruffled the auburn curls. She sighed relievedly; it was good to sense the cool security of her surroundings.

Glancing backward into the room, she tried to discern her husband's features. Gently the green slatted shutters were opened wider and a minimum of light admitted. It seemed impossible that one who was all the world to her, and whose safety was dearer far than life, should have been several times sentenced to death by his enemies during his trans-Frontier missions.

A shiver ran through her. One of the big overhead ventilating fans was slowly revolving. The atmosphere had been close when they went to bed, and a sandstorm during the night had cooled the air to chilliness. Switching off the fan, she went to the dressing table for a cigarette. Everything was thick with a layer of mingled dust and sand. Blowing out the match, she returned to the balcony draped in a flowing white burnoose, and coiled herself lissomly in the cane lounge.

Only 24 days of their leave had passed, she reflected contentedly. For a whole year to come she would be able to watch over him. They were leaving for Algiers to-morrow. A week or two later they would be in London, and then his Sussex and her Devonshire.

She would be glad to leave Cairo. For some reason, Egypt depressed her. It was an exotic land of tombs, pervaded by influences of a dead civilisation and haunted by the pathetic ghosts of vanished splendour and greatness. Yet Egypt was also fascinating in the way that some very old people are fascinating. It had a 'radiant' personality, she thought, which made beautiful its incredible age, and, to her at least, rendered easy the understanding of its ancient reputation for wisdom. But there was something uncannily strange about it.

Something as foreboding as her dream. A child of the sun, each day she found herself longing for night to come. Why was that?

Perhaps it was because Egypt was more beautiful by night— gentler. Or was it because the incredibly old Mother of the Pyramids spoke to people only in dreams? She recalled how the stupendous ruins at Karnak, seen by day, had an overwhelming sternness; in the moonlight they had seemed a company of aged and benign kings receiving a timid child who bore her name, and to whom they had whispered: 'The Present passes and is nothing! Man's will and emotions are transient, unsatisfying things! The gods alone are real!'

She had sensed then that mysterious Something, felt so markedly in Eastern countries— in India, for example— which always lies beyond the limitation which men call common sense. That Something was calling to her now. Warning her. She was sure of it...

'Day-dreaming, Di?'

Gray was standing by her side, running tidying hands through tousled hair. She smiled up at him, comforted.

'I think I was!' Had he, too, something on his mind? He seemed grave.

'A penny for your thoughts.' Her gaiety was forced.

He leaned over the balcony to look down into the street. The deadened crack of a pistol was simultaneous with the impact of the bullet on the wall. Gray sprang back, stood a moment, irresolute, and then raced to the door. It was useless— he knew that. The man had fled, of course. But still...

The night porter hurried across the hall.

'Effendi?'

'Open the doors!'

The street was deserted.

"Effendi?' The porter was again looking at him queerly.

If there was to be any chance of catching his assailant the occurrence must be kept from the servants. Gray laughed off his headlong appearance.

'I thought I saw a friend of mine!'

They were leaving Cairo next day, he went on, and the friend was a very old friend. Slowly he mounted the stairs. If he put the matter into the hands of the police there was a probability that he might be asked to stay on, 'pending developments,' and he did not want their departure from Egypt to be delayed. No doubt the man was some escaped madman, with whose capture tie was not concerned. On the other hand, in the interests of public safety, the incident should be reported.

He found Diana dressing. She drew him to her.

'Colin, I'm a bit scared.'

'A man-eating tiger would have been scared in the circumstances! I think our Public Enemy Number One had a hectic night and let off his gun by accident.'

'Colin, you know you don't believe it was an accident.'

Their eyes met— adoration in hers, sympathy in his.

'I'll admit that I think it's just as well we're leaving here to-night,' he said quietly. 'The packing is finished, isn't it?'

She nodded, a suspicious brightness in her eyes. Several times sentenced to death. 'Thumbs up, sweetness! I've ordered tea!'

'Grand! Give me a call when it comes.'

As the door of the dressing-room shut, he closed the shutters, and, slipping on a dressing-gown, opened last evening's paper. An intensive study of the cricket scores was interrupted by the arrival of the tea. Dropping a lump of sugar into his cup, he stirred the tea meditatively.

'Needle' had more than once alluded to Egypt interest in 'Young India'— not as something of imminent importance; not, as he had put it: 'The movement has dangerous probabilities.'

Remembering that remark, and acting upon one of those impulses which one does not question, Gray had two days before written to the author of a book dealing with this very subject. He had bought The Coming Domination in Calcutta, and read it during the voyage.

Published a year before, it dealt with the overthrowing of the West by the Oriental peoples, and the work of a Greek Egyptologist, named Dion Barfopulos. Gray had found his address in the Cairo directory. Expressing warm admiration of the book, he had said he would like to meet its author. No reply had been received, but the concluding phrase of his own letter would account for that:

'Unless we hear from you to the contrary we will take our chance.'

Diana and he would take that 'chance' this evening. About sunset. The car would be less conspicuous. It would probably be better to say nothing to their dragoman— things get about so quickly in the East— and the garage chauffeur had also better know nothing until the last minute.

A study of the directory map had revealed Barfopulos's house to be on the outskirts of the city.

The sound of the dressing room door being opened snapped the thread of His thoughts. He watched Diana coming towards him. Her lissomness, almost feline in its grace, had nothing of the fashion salon artificiality; serene, but not aloof, the shyness and poise of that perfectly trained young body hid beneath a dignity indifferent rather than languorous— a passionate submissiveness to a spiritually significant physical love.

'Colin, I'm going with you when you go to see the police,' she announced abruptly.

He poured out a cup of tea and handed it to her.

'I'm' not going to the police! I'm afraid there's no cream! Rather too early for the Cairo milkmen, I expect.'

A little tea spilled into her saucer.

'Please, Colin! I want you to ask for police protection— just for to-day!'

He shook his head. 'And be kept here for a fortnight while they investigate? No, thank you, angel-face! The sooner I get you out of Egypt the better!'

'But you could easily tell them?'

'I shall tell them nothing, sweetheart!' Instead he told her about The Coming Domination and its author.

She looked at him unhappily. 'But . . . Colin! You're on leave!'

'In my job leave is often a busman's holiday, worse luck! I think you'll rather like Barfopulos! He'll full of queer knowledge; and, of course, an absolute mine of information about ancient Egypt!'

'I don't care tuppence about Barfopulos and his blessed ancient Egypt,' she exclaimed exasperatedly. 'But I care a lot about people taking pot-shots at you!'

He kissed her to silence.

3

THE colourful animation of the Cairo suks (bazaars) pleased Diana far more than the modern part of the city, with its stately Parisian boulevards, gardens, and statues. The suks reminded her of India. They had something of India's intimate simplicity. It pleased her to see the laden camels lurching through the narrow streets, to hear the itinerant vendors of sherbet and sweetmeats calling their wares in nasal voices, to see the small shops with tattered sackcloth awnings, and the piles of vegetables and vividly coloured fruits. She had moved among it all a hundred times in the bazaars of Northern India, loving their warm smell of spices and the tang of wood smoke. Here, just as she did in India, she wanted to pat the docile, overladen donkeys as they threaded their devious way through an almost Indian crowd of naked children, beggars, and veiled women. And in the violet shadow of Cairene balconies and eaves she heard cooing pigeons of Lahore and Delhi as they gazed in bright, sideways interest at the busy crowds moving and chattering below them in the white Indian sunshine. But in Cairo's gardens tall black date-palms declared to her, in the sharp clashing and rattling of their dry fronds, the overlordship of vanished Pharaohs and forgotten gods.

Experience had taught her the uselessness of arguing with Colin where danger was concerned, an attitude of mind which displayed something of her father's fatalism. But in her case, to Sir John Lindsay's 'What will be will be' was always added the redeeming corollary, 'The worst never happens.'

The morning of the incident was spent in shopping, and passed without disquieting developments. After tea on the lawn of the Turf Club they drove in the hired car to the outskirts of the city, and without difficulty found Barfopulos's residence— a two-storied whitewashed house surrounded by a high wall.

Gray brought the car to a standstill outside a heavy, square-topped Egyptian arch of red granite, and, lifting one of the weighty knockers on the double entrance doors, let it fall. The hollow reverberations caused Diana to cease a critical examination of her nose in the mirror of her compact and look towards the sound, rather in the manner of some one who, hearing the starting pistol for a race, turns his eyes anxiously on the course.

After a wait of a minute or so Gray repeated the summons; then, no one opening to them, he turned the iron ring handle and pushed the doors open. A short distance up the wide, dusty drive that wound through the extensive but uncared-for gardens stood a smallish, bald-headed man. Both of them were struck by the strange stillness that brooded over this sheltered retreat of a great antiquarian.

As they advanced towards him a faint smile puckered the brown face into innumerable deep wrinkles, and for a second or two a pair of curiously intent, but introspective, eyes considered them intently.

'You see, I was expecting you!' The words were accompanied by a ceremonious bow. For a second they hesitated; why, neither of them knew.

'Please come in! You are very welcome— both of you.'

For a second time that day an unaccountable uneasiness crept over Diana, but she managed to achieve the conventional phrases and to return the faint, polite smile. Sauntering, lithely and silently beside them up the long drive, Barfopulus, after expressing a hope that their voyage from Bombay had been a pleasant one, spoke with startling suddenness of the unrest in India.

'I do not think,' he said, 'that your Government has sufficiently considered the role which a ninety-two per cent Mohammedan Egypt might play in Indian affairs. Supposing the Pan-Islam movement were to support the Indian Nationalist Party— or, say, a rebellion in― Kalistan?'

'Has that question arisen?' asked Gray quickly. 'We heard nothing of it on the ship's wireless.'

'It has arisen, and in a peculiarly dangerous form. As you know the Mohammedans of the world are united by a common tie— the Arabic tongue, the language of the Holy Koran,' was the grave reply.

'The Arabic tongue may be a tie between the Western Mohammedan communities, doctor, but few of the trans-frontier mullahs speak a word of it,' objected Gray.

'Indeed?' Barfopulos stared into vacancy. 'To my mind General Dalziell would sometimes have done better if he had worked upon somewhat different lines!'

His calm glance and Gray's look of disagreement crossed like duellists' swords.

'Do you know General Dalziell?' challenged Gray.

'I have never met him. Please do not misunderstand me. His methods are good— as far as they go. But there are valuable adjuncts of which he knows nothing— telepathy, clairvoyance, and clairaudience, for instance. All of these quite natural powers should be used in the detection of political crime.'

It was Gray's turn to stare. 'You mean we should use mediums?'

Although his knowledge of Indian occultism had taught him the reality of these 'quite natural powers,' a vision of 'Needle' Dalziell having this theory  about using mediums expounded to him extorted a smile.

'Precisely. Naturally, anyone who himself has those powers would not need a medium.'

Gray was amused. The man was a crank, and therefore to be humoured.

'It is a very up-to-date theory, at any rate,' he conceded.

'It is' the fashion' to think,' went on their host imperturbably, 'that, compared with us so excellently ethical moderns, the ancients were ignoramuses. In this case exactly the reverse is the truth. It is we who are the ignoramuses! Still, I admit that the secret books of so-called ancient Egyptian magic are not available to the general public— or to General Dalziell!'

'Official magicians wouldn't be encouraged in Simla, I'm afraid.' Gray was disarmingly ingenuous.

A flash came into the sleepy eyes. 'There is as much justification for Simla utilising clairvoyance as there is for Scotland Yard using the microscope. I merely use— or, I should say I propose that Simla should use— methods which are considerably in advance of any so far tested. That is all.'

Gray was beginning to regret his precipitancy in writing for an interview. He had expected to meet a deep thinker familiar with the secret politics of Egypt. Instead, he seemed to have met a harmless lunatic.

'Perhaps if I give you an instance of the usefulness of my theory you will be more inclined to believe me,' continued the doctor urbanely.

'Before you came to Egypt I knew two things about you: that you had been in Kalistan, and that you had there incurred the enmity of a certain Mongol. Is that not correct?'

'Both those statements are correct,' admitted Gray. 'But then a great many people know of my going to Kalistan and of the dust-ups I had there!'

Barfopulos, who had halted to answer a question from Diana as to why he did not prune his roses, did not immediately answer Gray. Then he said: 'It was necessary for me, to tell you that I knew those facts. After you had arrived I decided to exercise the powers I have mentioned.' He smiled. 'Not to detect your 'crimes,' but to place myself in closer rapport with you. You and your work, Major Gray, have for some years interested me. Clairvoyantly, then, I saw that an attempt was made on your life in Cairo this morning. Pursuing my 'immobile' method of investigation, I learned that this was done at the instigation of a Mongol who had recently come to Cairo from Kalistan. Do you not think I was right in supposing that somebody intended to do you mischief?'

Before Gray could make any comment he added, 'We will discuss it later, Arab guides who are in the service of Mongol criminals, interest me in a number of ways!'

'Good Lord!' Gray looked at. him in blank astonishment.

But Barfopulos had resumed the topic of roses: 'I am glad you like this garden, Mrs. Gray. Its layout was copied from a painting in the funeral chamber of one of the Pharaohs. In a way, therefore, it is several thousands of years old.' He said it whimsically.

'That sort of 'dating' makes our Tudor antiquity seem terribly modern,' commented Diana, glancing at the white mass of the house, which they had now reached. 'If the interior of your home is as beautiful as your garden I'm afraid I shall become envious!'

Barfopulos's wrinkles multiplied. Again he was smiling.

'I think you may find it Interesting. It is bequeathed to the Egyptian Government. One's death is almost always nearer than one thinks!'

Glancing peeringly at Gray, he led the way into the house.

A deeply moulded pink ceiling supported on massive pillars in Pompeian red, circled near their capitals by broad bunds of yellow and green, topped the rather gloomy, peristyled hall. In the centre of the cemented floor was painted a dimly visible hunting scene of the time of Rameses II. The walls were covered with frescoes of striding or seated gods being supplicated by their priests and worshippers, the sharply bent arms and open hands of the figures thrust forward or backward in the awkward, angular pose distinctive of ancient Egyptian art. The space surrounding these figures was covered with hieroglyphics.

Between two of the pillars was a statue of the lioness-headed Sekhmet, the deity of destroying fire. She was holding an ankh— the emblem shaped like a tau with an oval superimposed, and which signifies life and he fertility of woman. Statue and pedestal were of polished red granite. The sleek feline head and pointed ears, rising from beautifully sculptured female shoulders and rounded breasts, somehow did not seem to Diana so much a defiance of the laws which govern the representation of the two species as an eerily easeful combination of them.

'I like that statue but I can't quite say why,' she exclaimed.

'Do you not find that cats like you, Mrs. Gray?'

Diana smiled. 'I think they do. Am I to take that as a compliment?'

Barfopulos's inscrutable eyes were now upon Gray.

'It was a popular belief among the ancient Egyptians,' he said, 'that the cat-goddess, in both of her forms— Bast, the principle of fertilising warmth, and Sekhmet, the deity of destroying fires— protected those who were good to and did not fear her four-footed subjects. To such people she sent sometimes a feline protector or protectress.'

Diana thought she saw the eyes of a large cat gleam in the shadows behind the statue, but they disappeared at once. Barfopulos then made one of his strangest remarks:

'It may interest you to know, Major Gray,' he said, closing his eyes momentarily as he pronounced the name, 'that Suleman Khoon, like your friend Captain Ewbank, hates cats.'

4

THE THREE entered what was evidently the doctor's study. The light of a green-shaded reading amp revealed: a strange state of disorder. The walls of the big room were panelled with cedar-wood inlaid with lotus designs in mother-of-pearl; the ceiling being painted with strange geometrical patterns in white upon a peculiarly vivid blue, and in each corner of the room stood the statue of in Egyptian god Osiris, the Judge of the dead, Khohsu the moon-deity, the Ibis-headed ,Thoth, and Ta-urt, the crocodile goddess.

For a moment the strained state of Diana's mind made her think that one of them moved. The layer of dust-storm greyness which covered the black tiled floor was crossed with marks of cats' feet.

Crossing to one of the long windows, which was ajar, Barfopulos led the way to a deep veranda.

'I am sorry I cannot offer, you a meal. All the servants, are out,' he explained apologetically.

'How delightfully peaceful it all is!' Diana inhaled luxuriously the rose-scented air. For some reason she was glad to be outside the house.

'It is the calm before the storm, perhaps,' remarked Barfopulos sententiously, at the same time courteously indicating the two chairs nearest to the lawn. He himself sat in the shadow upon a bamboo lounge, watching through the twisted foliage of the grape-vine, the full moon rising.

'You wish to consult me about something which happened this morning, do you not?' he remarked, tucking one leg under him. The corners of his thin lips twitched. 'Perhaps you would like to give me your account of it, Major Gray.'

Gray found the narration difficult. He was convinced from previous remarks that this wizened savant sitting there with his eyes closed knew everything that had happened. Just before he mentioned the episode that had occurred that morning Barfopulos' remarked aloud, but half to himself, 'They fear you. Assuredly they will send you threats and warnings!'

Then, apparently dismissing from his mind the matter about which Gray had been speaking, he addressed Diana;—

'Those grapes hanging near you are excellent. Pick yourself some!' He looked up at the sky, in which now a few stars were visible. 'Brihaspati— to give the planet Jupiter his Indian name, Major Gray— is very bright tonight. Some hold him to be a malign influence.'

Annoyed at the unexpected tangent, Gray remarked on the progress of viniculture in Afghanistan. His attempt at nonchalance was sidetracked.

'I think you. and I are agreed that the worst grapes grow in Mongolia!' creaked those foreign accents. Then, having for a little while talked learnedly about the jealously guarded secrets of the ancient Egyptian priesthood, he came to modern times, and spoke of a secret society called the Servants of Genghis Khan.

'It Is the instrument of this Mongol, Suleman Khoon— a renegade Mohammedan if ever there was one. It has only recently been formed in Cairo, but its main object, Major Gray, is to win Egyptian support for the coming Frontier rising.'

Diana gasped. Gray, who had more self-control, betrayed no astonishment. Tapping an unlighted cigarette upon his case, he asked whether he might smoke.

'I think you're wrong, doctor. The Frontier tribes had a pretty severe lesson last year when we again occupied the Tochi Valley. I don't think they're likely to give us any serious trouble for some time to come! Even if they did, these Frontier risings fizzle out pretty soon these days. Our bombing planes are too much for the tribesmen. As for Suleman Khoon and his secret society...'

He blew a cloud of smoke into the still evening air, smiling at an intently listening Diana with far more assurance than he felt.

Their host raised a deprecating hand. 'Do you know, Major, that this Khoon has appealed to the Mohammedans of the world, and promised, if they will support his effort to drive the British out of India, to give ten millions sterling to further the cause of Pan-Islam? That makes it hardly likely that the rising he has planned will 'fizzle out.' He has asked a certain great Power to supply him with bombing planes. Might they not be 'too much for your Indian troops?' Gray jerked his half-smoked cigarette, on to the lawn.

"Are you sure of that? General Dalziell certainly mentioned this movement to me on several occasions. But―' He broke off lamely.

'Of all I say to you I am very sure. Pan-Islamism,' went on. the monotonous voice! 'in Egypt at least, is said to be non-political. If it advocated that vital element to any Pan-Oriental policy— friendship with the Hindus— I would support it. But it does not. Yet if Christianity had the loyalty to its Teacher and the consistent ardour which distinguish Mohammedanism from all other faiths there would be no war in Europe... In all religious movements there are extremists. You will admit that. The extremists of Christianity invented the Inquisition; the extremists of Hinduism invented the degrading tortures practised by certain of its ascetics; an extremist, has formed this society, the Servants of Genghis Khan.'

'But outside the trans-Frontier tribes Mohammedans are England's most faithful allies,' commented Diana, who had kept house for her father when he was British Resident in Yanistan, and had learned much about such things.

'Assuredly England has no loyaler subjects than the Indian Mohammedans, Mrs. Gray. But this particular society is calling upon every Mussulman to be ready to lay down his life— and if needs be to kill— for the Faith; and Khoon, exploiting the Indian people's susceptibility to false propaganda, has proclaimed Major Gray to be a dangerous enemy of Islam.'

'I'm afraid I must call that sort of propaganda dam silly,' remarked Gray, amused at the description of himself.

'Any propaganda which has financial backing running into millions may be silly— but it will be listened to,' retorted Barfopulos. 'Have not you English a proverb, "Money talks"?'

Diana looked from one to the other worriedly. 'But thousands of people in India know that my husband reverences the Indian faith without distinction,' she explained.

Barfopulos looked at her sombrely.

'The man detailed to shoot him will know nothing true about him. Or, if he knows anything, it will be that your husband's "reverence" is merely camouflage.  Major Gray will bear me out in that, I think?'

Gray nodded. A conviction that his leave was going to end before it had well begun was every moment becoming stronger.

A silence fell upon the three. Barfopulos seemed to be listening to some sound they could not hear. Suddenly he said, 'May I tender you a piece of advice?'

'Please do!' Catching Diana's eye, Gray smiled courage at her.

'I think,' said Barfopulos slowly, 'that you should telephone Simla tonight!'

Gray acquiesced. Earlier in the evening he had made a mental note to telephone Needle.

'Upon second thoughts,' resumed their host, 'you might prefer to telephone to him from this house— now. You would be easier in your mind.'

'There's no real hurry— not for an hour or two, at any rate,' answered Gray, hugging an ankle.

Diana leaned forward, her elbows on her knees.

'If Dr. Barfopulos is right, Colin, there is no time to be lost. Why not get into touch with Simla and see what they say?'

'Simla— and Khoon— may be inclined to move more quickly than you imagine. Major Gray,' supplemented Barfopulos. 'I would like to explain that, normally I take no interest in politics unless they are likely to affect my friends or my work.'

Gray acknowledged the Implied compliment.

'I take it that your information is that our friend Khoon is calculating on getting hold of the treasure that was burled by an earthquake two years ago in the Valley of the Mirror?' he inquired.

'That is my Information,' replied Barfopulos felt silent.

The position, as outlined by this impassive old man, was disquietingly ominous. It had been put in no scaremongering way, but with the cool deliberateness of a man who evidently thought deeply and pondered every word before speaking It. Gray wondered what Needle would say when he telephoned him...

As strains of music which have temporarily faded out sweep back again into audibility, the conversation going on between Diana and Dr. Barfopulos re-entered Gray's consciousness. Diana was speaking in her deep contralto, and the old man was answering her with quiet gravity.

'Naturally, Mrs. Gray. That is why I suggested telephoning from here.'

'Colin. I think you should telephone at once!' exclaimed Diana, laying a hand on one of Gray's.

'Got one of your hunches, Di?'

'Uhuh!'

'Right! Where is your 'phone, Dr. Barfopulos?'

'In a room opening off the study. If you will follow me . . .'

When they had left her a sudden curiosity impelled Diana to re-enter the big room. Fragments of stone, carved and uncarved, of all colours, shapes, and sizes, lay everywhere. A couple of mummy cases were propped against the walls. The floor was littered with small boxes filled with a jumble of scarabs and fragments of blue glass and pottery, and upon a big whitewood table lay some papyruses. Despite the untidiness and dust she noticed that each fragment of stone glass, and pottery was carefully labelled, and each papyrus placed carefully upon a separate sheet of paper covered with pencilled notes. There was order in this apparent disorder.

Under the green shaded lamp on the writing-table stood a small gilt statue of Bast, and near it a large crystal sphere, in which, by some trick of the lighting, the slim golden body of the goddess was reflected.

Many and strange were the avenues of thought which Diana's mind explored as she sat there alone in the study of that eminent savant, Dr. Barfopulos, F.R.S.. F.S.A., D.Ph.

Twenty minutes passed, but the two men did not return.

Suddenly she felt something soft touch her instep. A small cat was patting her shoe-buckle and trying to eat it between the pats. As she withdrew her foot it rolled over on to its back, exhibiting four dingy, splayed white paws and a slightly less dingy white chest and 'chassis.'

Glad of the little thing's company, Diana picked it up.

'You're an extremely underbred specimen of the Bast community, I'm afraid,' she said, nuzzling it.  'And you're pitifully thin. But maybe you're a mascot. If you are I mustn't make rude remarks about your breed and over-slimness, must I?'

A loud purring stopped chokingly to allow a miniature, rough tongue to lick her cheek.

'Well, we seem to understand one mother, that's one thing. I think I'll ask Dr. Barfopulos to give you to us for luck, and we'll call you 'Barfy' in remembrance of him.'

She turned her head suddenly. Gray had come into the room.

'I couldn't get Simla or the hotel! Seems as if the lines are cut. Clearly you and Barfopulos are right. I'd better get Simla without delay. We'll return to the hotel at once and get it over.'

Diana lifted Barfy and touched the kitten's nose with her nose.

'Where's Dr. Barfopulos?'

'I don't know. I left him in the other room. I expect he'll be here in a minute.' Suddenly he noticed the kitten. 'Where on earth did you find that?'

'I didn't! It found me!'

The minutes ticked by, and there came no sign of their host. They went out into the passage and called his name, but their voices echoed lonelily down the empty corridors.

'Come on, Di! We're for the hotel— and as soon as we can make it!'

The car drew up sharply outside Shepheard's Hotel. 'Wait for me here!' Gray pulled out a chair from one of the tables on the veranda and ordered a red-fezzed servant to bring two cocktails.

Diana's thoughts were occupied with an astonished and curious Barfy, when— almost immediately it seemed to her— Gray returned.

'Have you spoken to Simla already, Colin?'

He shook his head and showed her two telegrams. 'There was no need. There were— these. My leave is cancelled.'

One of the forms flicked on to the table in front of her. She laid a hand upon it, but made no attempt to read it; important as it was, she knew instinctively that there was worse to come.

'And the other telegram?' she asked breathlessly.

'From Mercer. Needle has been murdered.'

5

WHILE these happenings were taking place in Cairo other links in the chain were being forged in India.

In Rawalpindi City the clinkety-plink of hammers, the clanging of iron sheets, and the ringing of anvils from dawn to dusk proclaim the Street of the Ironworkers. As in the streets of most Indian cities, the numbering of the houses is more legendary than visible. A broad-shouldered, sturdy little Ghurkha in khaki shorts and shirt, with a rose stuck behind one ear, was looking for No. 310, which, in fact, he had twice passed. And if the pretty Nepalese girl walking behind him had not poked a slender forefinger into the small of his back he would nave passed it a third time.

She was not shy, as are the women of the plains. Brown eyes from under long, silky lashes regarded with frank interest, that now and then deepened to open amusement, the ever-changing crowd of passers-by, as clad in a snort woollen skirt and jacket of vividly striped wool, she swung along with the easy grace of her people. In one small nostril was a turquoise nose-jewel. Occasionally she would give a coquettish pat to the silver chains plaited into her black hair, or look down approvingly at her shining silver anklets, which clinked musically as each bare foot was put to the ground.

The pair came to an abrupt halt.

'Art thou Faiz Ali, the gunsmith?' asked the Ghurkha, hitching his belt.

The greybeard at the back of the little shop looked up from his forge.

'Yea! Why?'

Three pockets were searched, and the investigation of a bulging haversack had started when the slim forefinger this time jabbed the pocket of the khaki shirt. From it a crumpled telegram was produced, flattened out,. and thrust towards the owner of the smithy.

'How should I read It?' protested the smith. 'It is in the English tongue!'

Limbu, feeling he had scored a point, grinned expansively.

'Without doubt it is in Inglis, loharji ('Mr. Gunsmith')! Also, it is addressed to me!'

The smith shrugged. The pride in the Ghurkha's tones was inexplicable.

'What is all this?' he demanded, balancing his hammer impatiently.

'All this is a Government telegram,' remarked Limbu, grimly impressive. 'It is from a great lord sahib, whose name also is written down in it— after mine. Major Gree sahib. I am his orderly.'

He paused a moment to let the import of the words sink in, but their effect was disappointing.

'I have much work,' remarked the smith. 'Go away!'

'Listen!' snapped Limbu. 'He sent me to you with a message. And when he speaks all men listen! He orders you to find at once a guide to take him to Shireen-bibi's fort in Kalistan. Where is that guide?'

A suddenly abandoned bellows sank gustily. Fingering a grizzled beard, the smith went towards him. 'Why did you not say before that your sahib is her friend? Be pleased to enter! I have a letter for your sahib.'

Limbu's eyes glistened.

'That is good! Give it to me! You also may come in, Neela.'

Limbu flung the permission to the pretty Nepalese.

'My wife,' he explained, and promptly forgot her existence as she squatted silently in a corner, her gaily striped skirt spread, wheelwise about her.

'I will send for that guide,' said the smith, performing an act of faith in the genuineness' of the telegram. 'But you must come here at night. Perhaps the lady Shireen has enemies in this city,' he suggested hesitantly. 'But then all things are known to your Honour!'

'Most things,' conceded Limbu. 'You mean the dogs of one Khoon, the King of Swine, do you not?' He spat into the gutter.

'Perhaps! God knows! Still, the lord Khoon is a very great lord.'

Watching warily the almond eyes, he handed Limbu the letter which had come from Shireen.

'He will be a dead lord when I meet him!'

Limbu's hand, the letter clutched in it, dropped to the hilt of his kukri, the broad, curved knife which every Ghurkha carries.

'At eight o'clock to-night the guide shall be present!'

The abandoned bellows snored. An apparently risky talk was ended. Limbu and Neela drifted out into the sunlight.

'My sahib arrives in a flying house to-morrow morning,' Limbu remarked, without turning his head. Neela, who was walking close behind her beloved, did not answer. She had heard that remark fifty times in the last twenty-four hours.

'At which end of the street did you tell this fool of a khansamah (cook) to meet us, my green-billed parakeet?' questioned Limbu, who was very much in love with Neela.

'At this end— there he is!'

The remark was prettily pert. They approached a gaunt, elderly Mohammedan, whose henna-tinted beard varied from an imperial purple at its extremity to vermilion at its roots. He was deep in gloomy contemplation of a large circular, handleless basket, in the centre of which, and crowning a collection of tins, vegetables and paper cornets, lay three skinny chickens with their feet tied together and beaks agape, blinking excessively bright eyes. Please Allah, a memsahib whom he had not yet seen knew nothing about the price of chickens in India!

'Have you brought the stores I ordered?' demanded Limbu importantly, switching his puttees with a short cane.

The cook waved a hand at the chickens. 'Dekkho!' ('Behold!')

'Good. And the cooking pots?'

'In my house. They cost one— no, it was two— rupees more than you gave me. I thought they would before I went to the bazaar.'

'So did I!' retorted Limbu. 'The memsahib knows the price of everything; you can explain it to her.'

The khansamah groaned. He was very tired, he said.

'Did you see the doctor sahib at the 'ospital?' asked Limbu in businesslike tones. 'Then show me the paper!'

A certificate of physical soundness, utterly unintelligible to either of them, was inspected.

'A man came half an hour ago and said he would provide the sahib with coolies— extremely strong men, used to Hill work,' related the cook ingratiatingly.

'Did I not tell you that you were to sneak to no one of the sahib's coming. O Faithless One?' interrogated the Ghurkha. 'He helped me to tie the feet of the hens,' protested Mohammed', in injured tones. 'I told him to wait here, to see your Honour, but he said he had work to do. I shall need an assistant. Ghurkha-ji.' The last statement was made with the warmth of a brilliant diplomatic afterthought.

Limbu grunted. 'From what country came this man?'

Lifting the piled circular basket to the top of his turban, the cook rose, his eyes looking up at his eyebrows. 'He said, "From Kalistan." '

'Was he a Hillman?' demanded Limbu savagely.

'Nay; a Mongol, Ghurkha-ji. He said his chieftain, Khoon, would pay me much money to cook for him, because I am a master among cooks. I am very tired! I have gone round and round and round.' Mohammed was given to diplomatic perorations.

Once more the cane hit the Ghurkha's puttee.

'If you see him again say that the sahib is going to the Murree Club— for a very short holiday— and requires no coolies. Do you understand? Go, and stay in your house. And do not dye your beard all the colours of a peacock's tail! The memsahib does not like it.'

As the laden cook walked away a Mongol who was squatting fifty yards away imbibing an over-ripe mango, got up.

'Allah is great,' he muttered, throwing down the sucked skin. 'Now I can report that this accursed sahib is certainly coming!'

ON the outskirts of the city used to stand a dozen or so sinister-looking, dilapidated houses forming a narrow alley. They had shuttered windows like blind eyes, and their bulging walls were held together by a wooden framework to protect them against the effects of earthquakes. Although they resembled a gang of aged criminals bending over a victim someone with a cynical sense of humour had named the place Gul Bash, meaning 'the rose-garden.'

Years ago there was, in fact, a rose-garden there behind the biggest house of all, at the far end. But it was ploughed up and sown with salt after its Afghan owner and six of his relations had been murdered in it as the result of a blood feud. From that day on the house was known as the Lai Garh or 'Red House.'

The alley was an eyrie of border outlaws, who crept into its deserted houses for a night or two nights, when they had loot to exchange for deadlier things or when there was an enemy to be stabbed. A Mongol moneylender in Lahore owned the house of the seven-fold murder, and paid, squealingly, the municipal taxes— disclaiming with convincing vehemence, all knowledge of its use by these human birds of prey.

The Red House was the headquarters of the Servants of Genghis Khan, and in it, two days after the events narrated had taken place in Cairo, the chief executive Committee for India was in session. In the centre of a floor that had once been completely covered with blue and white tiles stood a coconut shell hookah on a strip of matting. around which were squatting four men— two Mongols, a low-caste Bengali, and a Hillman.

The Mongols and the Bengali were dressed as merchants. The Hillman, tall and hawknosed like most of his people, was heavily armed. Two bandoliers crammed with soft-nosed ammunition in clips of five were criss-crossed over his chest, a third being buckled about his waist. Between it and his body was thrust an Afghan stabbing knife in a silver-mounted scabbard decorated with turquoises. A magazine rifle lay across his knees. All four were silent. In the mud brick-and-mortar wilderness outside a crow was cawing, and the water in the coconut container of the hookah bubbled noisily as the fatter of the two Mongols sucked at its long, straight bamboo mouthpiece. They seemed to be waiting for something to happen. The Mongols were impassive. The Bengali's face twitched now and then, and his supple, interlaced fingers twined and untwined themselves. The Hillman moved only his eyes. At the sound of distant moaning and the scraping of sandals on stone steps the fat Mongol pushed aside the bamboo mouthpiece and lifted his paunch comfortably.

The door was heavily bumped, an then banged back to admit three men— two guards and Mohammed, the cook.

'Achachha!' ('Good!') sighed the presiding Mongol. 'Loose him!'

The prisoner sank to his knees and raised his clasped hands to his forehead. 'What have I done. Presence? I have been taken from my house in the night! I am a good Mussulman! I have no money! Do not kill me!'

The fat Mongol hiccupped and looked towards Bengal, who squirted a stream of scarlet spittle into a corner of the

'La Illah il Allah...' babbled the terrified cook, beginning the Mussulman profession of faith. The Hillman fingered the lock of his rifle, and the obese man jerked his chin towards the prisoner.

'Hit him!' he ordered.

The blow knocked off Mohammed's turban.

'Hearken!' said the Hillman, frowning at the unrolled linen. 'We have an easy work for thee! Thou hast but to swear upon the Holy Koran to do it and we will free thee!'

'I am but a sitter in the dust,' protested the frightened cook.

'Jackals serve tigers,' retorted the President placidly.

'Whatever the Presence orders that I will do! Upon my head and my eyes be it! I will gladly swear it!'

'Why do you not tell him?' questioned the Mongol, turning upon Bengal's eyes half hidden by cushions of brown fat. He was, in fact, smiling.

'Son of a pig―' began the young Bengali.

'He is a Mussulman, thou Bengali dog!' snapped the Hillman. 'Keep such names for thine own kind!'

'Are you not a servant of Major Gray sahib?' demanded the Bengali, a trifle confused.

'I have been engaged―' stammered Mohammed.

'By a Ghurkha whose name is Limbu! We know all such small things. You were in this Gray sahib's service two years ago, and you are about to work for him again. Is that not so?'

'If Allah be kind,' answered Mohammed, twisting upward one side of his face to ease an itching in his nose. Reaching for his turban and beginning to wind it about his head, he muttered angrily about injuring the izzat (dignity) of a Mohammedan.

Thee Bengali sniggered, but, taking a quick glance at the Hillman, turned the snigger into a cough.

'This Gray sahib— if he still lives― is an enemy of Islam. A pig's son who hates the followers of the Prophet and has sworn to force all Mohammedans who serve him to become Christians!'

'Nay―' began the cook, to whom the Hillman's recent protest had given back something of his self-respect.

'Hit him!' hawked the presiding Mongol, putting out a hand for the hookah mouthpiece. The rewound turban unrolled again: 'When I speak you should listen to me!' triumphed Calcutta. 'Will you help to stop this devilish work?'

'If— since it is so— assuredly!' gasped Mohammed.

'Good! You are the man who is to rid the world of this sahib! We shall give you a powder which you will mix with his food. Once only!'

'That is a shameful word! I cannot do it! I will not kill any man!'

Instinctively the prisoner clapped hiss hands to his turban. But the blow did not fall.

'Then you die. In this house. In an hour,' ejaculated the fat Mongol, between soothing puffs at the hookah. 'Has he seen the Room?'

The guard to whom the question was addressed brought his rifle smartly to the 'attention' position before replying. He had served in the Indian Army.

'He has seen it. Master of the World!'

'Well?' questioned the fat Mongol, placidly.

Mohammed shuddered. 'Yea, indeed I saw it! ... O Allah! O Allah!'

'What hinders thee from swearing, brother?' demanded the Hillman impatiently.

'I am a man of peace. Khan sahib,' protested the cook. 'I have a family, and good chits (testimonials) from many sahibs and kind! Why should I kill one who is my father and my mother?'

'To save thy skin, thou son of a she-jackass!' retorted the Hillman irritably.

'Would you prefer your toe-nails to be pulled out before your fingernails?' asked Bengal, smiling awry. 'I shall see to it, if so desired!'

The hookah ceased to bubble.

'Beat his feet!' The guards dragged the wretched man to the door, to the post of which he clung, imploring mercy. But they overbore him, and the sound of his cries died away.

'This beating may not be necessary,' suggested the gaunter of the two Mongols, speaking for the first time. 'Cairo had instructions. Tamluk is capable.' 'A beating will do him good!... Why not repeat our Simla success and shoot this Major Gray?' asked Bengali, busy again with the supple fingers.

'And kill in our house a sheep which is walking into the slaughter-yard?' sneered the Hillman, watching the twisting fingers. 'This sahib is going where we can kill without risk. There is, perhaps, one of us who, if he were caught and questioned, might betray the rest of the Brotherhood! The sahibs also have good ways of questioning, I have heard!'

The Bengali pushed a flat, round hat to the back of his head. 'A loud voice is not a sign of wisdom, Pathan-ji!'

'By God!' The Hillman's hand flew to his stabbing knife, and the long blade flickered out of its sheath.

The Red House in Rose-garden Street would have witnessed an eighth murder had not the door at that moment been again flung open, this time to reveal a smallish figure in a burka standing upon the threshold. The burka was cast off to reveal a yellow Mongol dwarf, in one of whose hands was a heavy automatic. The Committee scrambled to their feet, and four hands flew to four foreheads.

'Hillman, those of my servants who are not at peace with their brothers I kill!' grated Khoon.

'I take no insults from Bengali dogs!' ejaculated the Hillman sullenly.

'Nor I disobedience from Hill dogs!' The automatic was pointed at the place where the bandoliers criss-crossed. 'Sit! All of ye! What has been happening?'

They told him.

'Bring this frier of onions before me!'

This time the cook could not stand. He lay, one sole crossed over the other heel in an attempt to ease the agony.

'Wilt thou swear?'

'Yea. I will.'

Khoon produced a miniature Koran in a green silk wrapping, and after kissing it ceremoniously and raising it to his forehead tendered it. Then as true a man as ever was born swore on the Holy Koran to kill his master or to forfeit his own life.

6

GRAY and Diana found it difficult to believe the report of General Dalziell's death. The crudity of the telegraphic, announcement, the almost 'tranquil' absence of details added to the utter unthinkability of the crime, inspired an anodyne incredulity which temporarily discredited the grim news. To Gray, standing there in their room looking into her troubled eyes, it seemed an appropriately impossible zenith to a series of fantastically unreal occurrences.

'It means that I must go back, Di.'

'When?' The word tripped her voice. 'To-night. By plane. It's rotten luck on you, dear!'

They looked at each other wordlessly— two people ordered to put together at a moment's notice the jumbled pieces of an infinitely complicated puzzle.

He slid an arm about her, and she looked up at him.

'I'm going with you, Colin.'

It was said quietly The magic of that defiant thought had killed a numbing sense of helplessness. He regarded her longingly, but love was defeated by cold reason.

'You know that's impossible— so why say it?' He spoke passionately, as' if defending himself against some accusation of weakness.

Her mind had ceased its wild gropings and a plan which she knew it would take all her influence to get him to agree to had suddenly taken shape.

'It is not impossible! Listen! Shireen and myself are your two keys to the problem; she hates Khoon, and would stop at nothing to checkmate him. If she could murder him she'd do it. You and I know that. If you got her to agree to make over to me all her rights in that treasure—'

'She'd think I was mad to suggest such a thing,' cut in Gray.

'Well, apart from that, she's more likely to listen to me than to you. She holds you responsible for the death of the man whom she loved, don't forget! You've now either got to kill Khoon or take him prisoner. The first isn't easy. The second can only be done by means of a trap. You know the loathsome way he treated me when I was his prisoner?'

'Blast him— yes!'

'Well; if he knew that I was in a certain place he'd come, there to get me. Colin, I've got to be— I hate using the word, but it's the only one which fits— the bait which'll catch Suleman Khoon!  You can make it quite safe for me by laying an ambush for him.'

Gray looked at her in astonishment.

'It can't be done!'

'It can be done!' Into Diana's beautiful face came the look which he had once seen when her father had given an order in flat defiance of Simla's instruction's, and which had meant his ruin if it failed. 'If you won't take me with you Colin, then I'll get to Shireen on my own! I swear it! Then there would be a risk! But I'll do it! And nothing you can say will stop me.'

Every argument he could put forward was met with the same determined phrase: 'If you won't take me I'll go on my own!'

Implorings and objurgations alike were useless. He knew, with a certainty which thrilled him. that she would do exactly what she had said. Her refusal to allow him to go into Kalistan without her was absolute. There was nothing for it but to pretend to yield. When the time came he would make her see it was impossible. For the moment, the last ramparts of opposition were swept flat by a surge of passionate adoration.

'Let's go back and ask Dr. Barfopoulos what he thinks about it all, shall we?' she said, patting her curls into order.  'We didn't say good-bye to him, and we ought to have done so! Did you notice that he seems to know everything before you say it?'

'That's been worrying me the whole evening,' commented Gray. 'I can't make him out. He goes damn near to giving me the creeps! Still, I suppose we ought to go back. I don't know whether he's an ordinary thought reader or a blessed Psychic phenomenon!'

'Thought reading would explain it.'

Gray frowned. 'Well, no, it wouldn't. Take, what happened only half an hour ago when I couldn't get this hotel from Barfopulos's house. Barfopulos told me the number of the Cairo aerodrome― because, he said, it was certain to have a plane available, and India Airways wasn't. Now— a few minutes ago— the hotel told me that they were doubtful whether Alexandria would be  able to let me have a plane to-night, and advised me to try the Cairo aerodrome.'

'The Cairo aerodrome? Is there one?'

'Yes. It has just been opened.'

'We could have motored to Alexandria and picked up an air liner' suggested Diana, for the moment forgetting Barfopulos.

'We're giving Alexandria a wide berth, Di. By now the contents of those two telegrams are known to Khoon and Co., and they'll be watching the road. Besides, to wait for the regular air liner would mean a delay. Now, If you're ready, we'll start for Barfopulos Castle! Are you going to keep this thing?' he asked abruptly, lightly scratching Barfy's small black head. 'Poor little devil, it looks half starved.'

'Yes. He's got far too many cats to be able to look after them properly. So I've stolen her.'

'Queer, that he shouldn't look after them, considering all his talk about the cat-lady— what's-her-name? Leave that four-footed scrap here. It'll snore till you return.'

A half an hour later their car pulled up outside the house. Nowhere was there any sign of Dr. Barfopulos.

'I wonder what has happened to the old boy?' said Gray.

'Talk about vanishing off the face or the earth!' Diana laughed. The thought of being once more about to share a dangerous mission with Colin the adored had restored her vivacity. 'If he doesn't show up in a few moments I'll begin to 'think things'!'

Gray felt for the Colt in his side pocket. 'We'll have to get a move on!'

'I'm afraid he'll think it dreadfully impolite of us to go without saying good-bye,' said Diana uncomfortably.

'Well, I suppose it is. But we can't help that. We'll give him another five minutes and then I'll leave a note for him.'

Taking out his wallet, he scribbled a few lines on a used envelope and dropped it in the centre of the peristyled entrance. For a short while longer they paced up and down the drive— short slow walks which ended in a sharp turning around. A mournful stillness brooded over the house and gardens. In a tree a pair of owls were chattering, and from somewhere in the deserted rooms came a plaintive mewing.

'For God's sake, let's go!' exclaimed Gray. 'If he's been murdered I don't want us to be dragged into the business!'

As the car scrunched down the lonely drive and through the entrance-doors, a large tabby cat with a mouse between its jaws stalked on to the veranda.

THE NIGHT was still young when the numbing roar of the propellers and the gentle dip-and-rock motion of the plane lulled Diana to sleep. Watching the starlit sky, Gray sat thinking out the crowded events of the past few hours. The feeling of unrealness was passing. The telegrams from Simla were unquestionably authentic; both of them
contained the correct code letters. But how and why had it all happened? He did not believe in coincidence.

'There is no chance; all is law.'

Everything is intimately, if invisibly, related to something (whether happening, action, thought, or influence), which has gone before, and which Is either the direct cause of the seeming coincidence, or at some time or other the first link in a chain of evolutionary causes culminating in a perfectly logical happening. On the other hand, if two men are deeply impressed by each other's work, and one of them writes to the other asking for an appointment, there Is nothing strange In their meeting. But why had not Barfopulos returned? Was it murder, or intrigue or...

Musing, upon these things, he too dropped off to sleep.

IT was good, on the morning of the third day, to feel the solid flooring of the Karachi aerodrome beneath their feet, and to know that at last they were getting to grips with things. Gray at once telephoned Simla, his call being answered by Colonel Mercer— an old friend of theirs who was acting in General Dalziell's place.

'Glad to hear your voice, Gray!... Yes. It was a terrible shock to all of us.... In the head... Riding home from the club after dinner... Stone dead... When are you starting?... You needn't bother about coming up here. The General left instructions that you were to be given carte blanche. These have been confirmed. You can get away with murder as far as we're concerned!... The three Northern divisions are moving up to the Kalistan border.... They'll be ready to march in whenever you advise. You're to be political liaison officer to the G.O.C. when the advance begins―'

Gray asked that they should await word from him at a place he named. It was better to have one man preparing a practical plan of campaign, he said, than that three divisions should wander into an unmapped wilderness. A guide— if one were obtainable— would most probably be unreliable. He counted on overthrowing Khoon by a 'moral victory' rather than by an invasion which might easily exacerbate Mohammedan feeding. In this Simla very heartily concurred.

The plane in which they would enter Kalistan, he went on, would wait for them on a plateau which Shireen had mentioned in her letter as being about three days' march from her Kill'a, or fortress, and which would easily be found. This plateau and its approaches would be covered by the encamped divisions. In conclusion Gray sketched their personal adventures in Cairo, finishing with the statement that if it had not been for 'old Barfopulos' he would not be telephoning at that moment.

'Know anything about' the old boy Mercer?'

'No. But I'll have him looked up. Let us know, immediately, any news you get of Ewbank.' He rang off.

The rush and hurry of a brief halt in Rawalpindi to pick up Limbu, the guide, and the few necessary stores were lightened by the joy of their two servants at seeing them. The broad face of the Ghurkha and his young wife were one expansive smile, Neela's laughing happiness seeming to reflect the resplendency of her bridal finery. She had insisted on wearing it all 'to greet the memsahib.' ('The turquoise forehead plaque he gave me, memsahib. The silver anklets are from him and his mother.')

In the background stood the guide provided by the gunsmith, and by his side Mohammed, the cook, close to the flat round basket. The gloominess of the latter was in striking contrast to the sunny cheerfulness of the two little Hill people. Indeed, so much did it change his appearance that for a moment Gray failed to recognise the man who had been his cook two years before.

'Hullo! Salaams, Mohammed! I hope all la teek (well) with you? Bit tired, eh? Just tell the memsahib what stores you've got, and then load 'em into the plane! Be quick about it— and cheer up! It's, only a three days' trek!...' Simla had been telegraphed 'O.K.,' and Diana was aboard, when Gray shouted to Limbu to join them.

At the sound of the call Neela, who up till then had been hovering round Diana, half laughing, half crying (she had begged vainly to be allowed to go with them), braced herself into wifely dignity. Taking her husband's arm, she said in tones that only he could hear, 'Take care of thyself.'

'I shall do so, my bul-bul,' answered Limbu, freeing his arm and giving a jaunty tilt to his pill-box hat.

'I shall mourn for thee,' pouted Neela, not quite approving of the jauntiness.

'A soldier's wife Is always a widow,' commented Limbu sagely, but still more jauntily. 'Wilt thou think of me, my lord?' queried poor Neela, giving up the struggle against masculine superiority in farewells.

'Yea, surely! Forget not to sacrifice two goats to Mother Kali— one for my sahib and one for me.'

'The rose is slipping from thine ear,' gulped Neela, straightening, it and giving his ear a love pinch. 'May all the gods watch over, thee!'

'You will not forget to practise your cooking? They be off! I must go.' He grinned wryly. 'I love thee! At-a, sahib! I come, sahib!'

The propellers roared, and the men ran to the ropes of the check blocks under the front wheels. Standing there, a lone, sturdy little figure, her gay skirt blown tight against her by the fierce draught, Neela addressed herself fervently to Mother Kali.

'Great Mother! I will give thee three goats— one of them for us!'

And. turning so that Limbu should not see, she wiped her eyes. When she looked round again the machine was in the air. He was gone.

7

THE territory held by Shireen and her small following barred with a double barrier of mountains Khoon's advance to the Valley of the Mirror. In an open space between these two ranges lay her kill'a, or fort. Perched upon an immense, flat-topped mass of rock with precipitous sides, and encircled by a tumbling torrent, it had been a Buddhist monastery built by a community of three thousand Tibetan monks (the three monasteries of Gera, Debung and Gaden, near Lhasa, contain twenty thousand monks). There for nine centuries they had defied all intruders; for the militant followers of the Buddha, secure behind heavy, barred doors and high walls, were a force to be reckoned with.

But one night, under cover of a storm, the dreaded Alam Khan and his men had scaled a wall partly collapsed as the result of an earthquake, and lit to the hellish work by the fires of furious heaven had killed, burned, or tortured more than three-quarters of the diminished community, a few survivors only managing to reach Tibet.

Thereafter he repaired and strengthened the crumbled walls, demolished much of the great building, and extensively rebuilt it, lavishing more than a score of rupees, or approximately a million sterling, on the furnishings of the wing in which he and his women were to have resided. A savage of savages, ruthless and cruel, he had the imagination of a Nero coupled with an Oriental love of splendour and luxury, instincts which, as possessor of the treasure discovered in the ruins of the twelfth-century fortress built by Prester John, he had been able to gratify to the full. Rich embroideries, gorgeous silks, gold, silver, crystal, porphyry, and jewels, the profusion and splendour of which no Western man has ever seen, made this stronghold an inaccessible domain of barbaric splendour, recalling a palace of The Thousand and One Nights rather than an outlaw's fortress.

The twelfth-century treasure-house of Prester John in the volcanic  Valley of the Mirror— so called because of the legend that that fortress contained a  magic mirror— had been even more inaccessible and certainly more easily defended, partly because of the difficulty of traversing the one pass leading into it, and partly because of the huge following Alam Khan had had among  the tribesmen — factors which had, enabled him successfully to defy any possible attempt at invasion.

After the death of the huge-bodied raider during an earthquake, which had completely destroyed that ancient fortress, his army of tribesmen had scattered; the few who were willing to serve under a woman following Shirleen— then a girl of seventeen— to the Lion's Rock, Khoon and his horde of Mongols promptly disappearing into Chinese territory.

Installed in the reconstructed monastery, Shirleen had christened it Sakhrah-i-Shir— 'the Lion's Rock'— her tribute to a man she had both loved , and feared.  The interior she kept exactly as he had left it, the extensive gardens and the orchard, upon which work had only just begun when he was slain, being allowed to become a wilderness of thorns and rank grass. 'My lord would wish it to be so,' she had said.

By nature as passionate as Alam Khan's pet tigress, Shiv (called after Hindu god of destruction), the beautiful and warlike young Persian soon had many offers of marriage from the Hill khans. But, although she proclaimed that her mourning would last for three years, rumour— which speaks even among the trans-frontier hills— linked her name with that of Firoz Khan, a good-looking young Hillman to whom she had given the fighting command of her followers. Another, wilder, rumour spoke of a love for Colin Gray, the only man who had ever defeated the gigantic Alam Khan in a wrestling bout— a feat he achieved on the day of King Cobra's assassination.

SULEMAN Khoon hated Shireen as the snake hates the mongoose. He coveted her youthful beauty, and although he was irresistibly attracted by her imperiousness he detested her savagely for her disdain of him. Like all human monstrosities he was hypersensitive, and more than once she had lashed him with her tongue. When she was angry Shireen's words seared like vitriol. The day that news had reached her of Khoon's intention to claim the treasure her thoughts had turned at once to Colin Gray, whose prowess was already legendary among the Hill Tribes. But it took a fortnight for a letter to reach India, and the two she sent to Simla remained unanswered, Meanwhile Khoon. had contented himself by putting an ob.servallon-po.st high up on an inaccessible mountainside two miles away from the Lion's Rock. When it suited him, and not before, he would drive back her picket-line and come and get her For the present he had other fish to fry. For her part, and chiefly because of sentimental reasons, Shireen was determined to defeat the Mongol's plan to lay hold of the treasure that had been Alam Khan's. Incessant and involved were the intrigues she devised to win over the surrounding tribes but Khoon's widely disseminated propaganda, appealing, as it did, to the three dominant instincts of the tribal chieftains— religion, fighting, and loot— made them favour his leadership rather than hers. The prospect of spreading the cult of Islam and of conquering the fat provinces of India, and of cutting the throats of a few million Hindus in the process, proved more alluring than the half-share she promised them of Prester John's treasure (to which they freely admitted her prior claim), if it should be found possible to. excavate it.

As the months passed Hillmen in tens and twenties trickled into the kill'a; occasionally small armed parties of traders sheltered in it on their way to India, and from time to time a few of them would elect to stay on and join Shireen's small army. Now and again a solitary sadhu or a fakir― Hindu and Mussulman holy men— made the converted monastery a halting-place, all of their kind being made welcome.

Like all Orientals, Shireen had a mystical side to her nature, and It had grown stronger since Alam Khan's death.

AMONG these strangely assorted stray visitors was a wealthy and learned Arab doctor. Widely travelled and a graduate of Vienna University, he had discovered in the Constantinople bazaar an Abbasside manuscript of the twelfth century, which mentioned certain precious books on medicine and surgery written by Al-Fachiri, the Arab physician of Prester John. Believing these to be buried in the treasure-house of the Valley of the Mirror— news of the discovery of which by Colin Gray had reached him through an Indian friend— the Arab savant had come to search for them.

To him one day Shireen turned in her perplexity. He proved a helpful adviser. From the letters and journals which he had arranged should be sent to him from India he was able to furnish her with occasional scraps of news from Simla and to keep her informed of happenings in India, albeit the news was fourteen or more days old.

After mentioning her deep friendship for Diana, and relating how she had saved the English girl's life and honour when Alam Khan would have taken both, she said: 'I know not, hakim-ji, whether I am wise in having asked Major Gray to come to my help. It is true he is the husband of my very dear friend, and that he Is a brave and skilful soldier; but indirectly he was the cause of my lord being slain. I know the fortunes of war, and I know also the sahib-log bear no ill-feeling towards a brave enemy; besides which, I admire and like this sahib for himself. But what will my people think?'

The hakim had answered drily that what her people might or might not think was hardly the point. In view of Khoon's intentions and ruthless cruelty her danger and theirs fully justified her asking this sahib to help her, for doubtless he would be able, the hakim said, to bring to her aid the armed forces of the Government of India.

'It is the work of a trained soldier to lead your people.'

'I am not unused to war— I like it!' remarked Shireen, biting her lip. 'Yet I do fear to become the prey of Khoon's lust.' She paused a moment, and then resumed reflectively: 'In one respect only he is like my lord. Once he desires a women he will get her. The more she hates him the better this Mongol beast likes it, for it spurt him to greater cruelty.'

WHEN she told how, when Diana and Colin Gray had been King Cobra's prisoners, Khoon (as well as Alam Khan) had desired Diana, and sworn to get her 'sooner or later.'

'There is another reason for my liking Major Gray,' she went on— 'his great love for Diana. I think it is as great as hers for him, and that is saying much! When he was my lord's prisoner I was able to bring them together, and great indeed was my joy in their happiness. Because of this— but chiefly for her sake— I try to forget that he brought about my lord's death.'

She fell silent, and, lost in thought, looked down at a ring she was wearing.

'When a woman loves greatly,' commented the hakim, 'often she does not see her lover's faults, and strives to imitate them. Cruelty is not a virtue. It is not your real nature to be cruel, Shireen-bibi. I am a reader of natures, and I know. You are very young, too. Surely there are in these Hills brave and handsome men who respect their enemies? Know you of none such?'

'Yea,' answered Shireen softly, a faint smile upon her small, oval face. 'I know of one such.' Then, as if ashamed of the admission, she flushed and added defiantly. 'But an enemy is an enemy!'

'An enemy may be the equal, or even the superior, of him whom he kills,' argued the hakim.

Shireen nodded very slightly.

'That is true. I had not thought of it. Love is a magician!'

' "Love is blind", they say, lady.'

When Shireen smiled her face was like a flower in the sun.

8

ON the plateau indicated by Shireen were a spring and a clump of trees. Through his field glasses Gray could see a long, low cloud of dust lit by occasional flashes as the setting sun glinted on the accoutrements of the advance guard of the first division, which would send an escort to protect the plane and its pilot. The eight Sherpa coolies necessary were found without difficulty, for the rate of pay he was offering was high. He had refused the offer of an escort for himself and his party, which he wished to keep as small as possible in order to escape observation. For this reason he and Diana were dressed as Hill people.

The guide urged that the first stage should be done by night, and under a shivering, starlit heaven started the first stage of their Journey. Plodding along through the night, the guide explained to them that his knowledge of the country ended at the Kalistan border. There another guide, named Daoud,  who by Shireen 's order waited on a certain hilltop thrice a week until an hour after sunrise 'in case the sahib should come!' would conduct them into the heart of her country by a secret way. This change of guides was a precautionary measure, he explained.

'If I, sahib, were to be captured they would torture me to learn that secret way. And I could not reveal what I do not know.'

Gray, who knew all these tortures, understood. The man could give him no news of Ewbank.

It still wanted a couple of hours to daylight when they halted before the mouth of a cave. Some kind of wild ivy draped the entrance, and the interior took on an angle turn, so that the light of a fire would be unlikely to be seen by watchers in the surrounding hills.

While food was being prepared Diane snatched an hour's sleep on a bed of fern-fronds. Gray, as was his custom during a halt, moved among the men chaffing each of them by name, and making light of the difficulties of the way. He enjoyed the rough, shrewd wit of the Sherpas, the gamest mountaineers in the world, who count courage and physical strength as attribute of the gods.  These characteristics added to a keen sense of humour, ensured a welcome for a sahib whose herculean mould made even their own sturdy limbs seem insignificant.

To Gray's surprise Mohammed, whom he had regarded almost as a friend, failed to take part in the customary gaiety. No, he had not got the fever. He was quite well, he said.

'Is all well in your house?' questioned Gray, lighting his briar and looking at him over match-Illuminated hands. (Perhaps the cook's wife was ill, or due to present the world with her fifth child. One does not ask an Indian about his womenfolk.)

After a pause Mohammed replied that all was well with his house.

'There is a fire in my heart,' he added cryptically, and thereafter became obstinately dumb.

Gray, whom experience had taught the white man's limitations, walked away and busied himself taking compass bearings. (No map of Kalistan existed,  for no explorer— from India at least— had ever crossed its borders.)

He had spoken the truth when he had told Gray that there was fire in his heart. After desperate pleadings Khoon had extended the time-limit for the crime the cook had sworn to commit from forty-eight hours to four days. One the fourth day. Mohammed had explained, he would complete thirty years of unblemished service. Thrice every day, like every true Mussulman, he said his prayers, and during the nights prayed many more times than that. Always the burden of his petitions was 'the forgiveness of Allah'.

NIGHT HAD reached the outermost edge of its darkness when they started off again. A faint pallor high overhead was making visible an obsidian jaggedness— the hills of Kalistan. Swiftly, yet by imperceptible degrees, the pallor flushed to a dull lavender. Once again the eternal miracle of the dawn had been performed.

Gray, keeping under cover of a big boulder, was scanning the hillsides with his field-glasses. The lofty peaks they had seen from the plateau were now invisible behind lower but nearer crests. Here and there streamers of mist were floating above the pine-tops, moulding themselves to the contours of the hills, in the lazy but live manner of mountain mists stirred by a breeze.. Their guide was following a small glacier-fed river through a serpentine valley running due north. Ahead of them its waters thundered out of a bottle-neck gorge, through which they would have to wade.

Suddenly on the top of one of the walls of the gorge a number of tiny figures appeared in the clear-cut circle of magnified mountain-side. About a dozen of them. A larger party of midgets was coming into view on a hill some five miles back. The group ahead of them were Hillmen, those in the rear Mongols.

Now, whether or not Khoon's patrols knew of the presence of Gray and his party (and almost certainly they did), there was no going back; their retreat was cut off.

Gray swore satisfyingly, and, urging all and sundry to move quickly, pushed on. Slithering and stumbling, they reached the mouth of the gorge and waded into the cold, tumbling water. The current tugged at their bodies, swaying them like shaken river weeds, and each time a foot was lifted it was flicked from under them. Diana's strength was tested to its utmost, but Gray could not aid her. Only in the shelter of the undercut wall was there safety from those shots from above, and the roof formed by the bulging, undercut rock was too low to allow a tall man to move otherwise than half doubled up. and its width was too narrow to hold two abreast. Now and again he stretched out a hand to her.

Rounding a bend they found themselves covered by the rifles of a party of Hillmen. The guide was at once shot dead.

Gray, who was immediately behind him, got a glancing bullet through the side of the neck. He emptied the magazine of his automatic, dropping five of them. One of these— evidently their leader— would have been swept away by the torrent had not two others grabbed his billowing garments. But he, too, was dead. Then the party rushed Gray.

A rifle-butt hit him on the forehead and two others crashed into his chest.

HE CAME to his knees to find Diana bending over him, bathing his wound with water held in her sun-helmet.

'What a mess!' he groaned. She laid a finger upon his forehead, smiling down at him. 'Are the others all right, Di?'

'They've killed all our Sherpas, Colin; and I don't know what's happened to Limbu. Mohammed is over there.'

Sitting up, Gray saw three of their captors examining a porter's load, all the other bales having been carried away by the torrent. A fourth man was on sentry duty some yards higher up the river-bank. The looters were near the base of a low cliff. Close to him and Diana was sitting Mohammed.

'I hope to God those swine haven't got hold of the ammunition,' remarked Ray savagely. He sank back, cursing his dizziness. Although his wound was not deep it was a serious handicap and the medicine chest had disappeared. In response to a quick pressure of his hand, Diana bent down.

'Look upward— very casually— at the top of that cliff,' he whispered. 'A man looked down at us over the edge.'

A moment later she said quietly. 'I think it's Limbu.'

She lay down beside Gray, as if resting. 'He's standing up now— behind a big boulder... It is Limbu!... God!'

She threw an arm across her eyes as the boulder overbalanced by the man's shoving, came crashing down on the plunderers.

The concussion and the sounds which followed it told a grim story.

Mohammed sprang to his feet, and for a moment stood staring and motionless. As portions of a squashed spider might project from under the sole of a gardener's boot, legs and arms of crushed Hillmen projected from under the fallen mass. Only one head was visible, attached to a heaving trunk invisible from the pelvis downward sentry ran to aid his companions, and was vainly striving to move the bedded rock when Mohammed, snatching up a leaning rifle, shot him dead.

Helped by Diana, Gray rose unsteadily, and going to Mohammed, bade him give him the weapon. The cook turned quickly, the muzzle of the rifle pointed at his master's chest. For a moment Gray supposed the man to be unnerved at what he had just done, but a glance at Mohammed's staring eves caused him to wrest the rifle from him. The cook seemed to be out of his senses with fear.

'What's the matter with you?' Gray demanded sternly, pulling back the bolt to eject the used cartridge.

Mohammed excused himself. He felt giddy, he said, and was unaware of what he was doing.

'Take off that man's bandoliers and give them to me.'

The one desire in Gray's mind was to leave this ill-omened place with all speed. At any moment more of Khoon's men might appear and render escape impossible.

'Hadn't we better wait a while for Limbu?' questioned Diana. 'I know It's risky, but―'

Before he could answer that the Ghurkha would pick up their trail, they saw him, draped with his coil of rope, clambering up the river bank, dragging with one hand one of the missing loads and holding in the other a dripping Barfy.

'I have seen our new guide, sahib!' He said it grinning like a schoolboy who has successfully robbed an orchard.

'Where?' questioned Gray disbelievingly.

"He is on the side of a hill about a mile away."

Limbu rubbed vigorously the kitten's wet fur, and got scratched for his pains.

"Probably one of Khoon's spies," remarked Gray, examining the rifle.

"Nay, sahib; he is old, small, and unarmed."

That reply was reassuring. Another cause for hopefulness was Diana's report that the rescued load contained food.

They had barely covered a mile when Gray sighted another of those small, shallow caves with which the Himalayas are honeycombed, and he decided to give himself and his party a few hours' rest. He was pointing to it, when there came out of it the "old, small, and unarmed" man whom Limbu had observed.

"Good God, Colin! It's Dr. Barfopulos!" exclaimed Diana.

9

DIANA was mistaken.

The small, spare individual who came forward to meet them was not Barfopulos. The distance and the fact that the sun was behind him justified her mistake, for he had, in fact, a curious resemblance to the old Greek, being brown and wrinkled and having his head clean-shaven. At once he tendered to Gray a letter from Shireen:

The place where Daoud Khan will meet you is less than eighteen hours' march from this place. On the last manzil (stage) you will be watched by pickets of my people. I would have sent armed men with the guide, but to have done so would have attracted the enemy's attention. And, whatever number I sent, Khoon would have sent more and overpowered them...

A FIRE was soon crackling cheerfully. But this time Mohammed did not preside over it. He complained of fever, and, coiling himself up in a far corner, lay with his face to the rock wall, apparently asleep. Although there was food there were no cooking utensils, a difficulty which was overcome by making a thin slab of shale serve as a grill-cum-frying-pan. A near-by spring provided water. The guide sat alone outside the cave, his keen eyes scanning the mountainous country through the field-glasses which Gray, to his delight, had lent.

Two earth tremors shook the hillside during that halt, but none of the party paid any attention to them, earthquakes being common occurrences in the Himalayas, and in this region particularly frequent.

After the meal was over and the fire extinguished Gray went out to sit with the guide. He learned that the first stage of their journey— or, more correctly, of the track which they must follow— lay through extremely difficult country. Among other things they would have to cross a snow-covered slope notorious for its avalanches.

"But it is well that the way is difficult, sahib. Were it easy we should never arrive. Only two roads lead from here to Princess Shireen's strong-hold— the one by which I shall take you, and another, near the Mountain of Iron and the ridge which we call 'the hair stretched over the mouth of hell.' Few men— and no women— have passed over that ridge!"

'There is another sahib somewhere in these hills," said Gray. "His name is Ewbank. Do you know where he is?"

"A sahib was taken prisoner by the Mongols three weeks ago, sahib, but I do not know his name," answered the guide.

Gray's face grew grim. He remembered the fate of those unfortunate men Stewart and Connolly after they had been captured by the Khan of Bokhara. They had been kept at the bottom of a well and starved, and after months of that and other viler tortures they had been beheaded. In Ewbank's case the end was likely to be less merciful.

"I will sleep here a while," he said. "Wake me if you see anything suspicious." In a few minutes all save the guide and Mohammed, the cook, were sleeping.

THE snow slope— one of the death-trap ramparts of Kalistan— was climbed late next day. It was seamed with yawning crevasses, the sickly green of their smooth walls deepening to dark blue and fading from that into blackness. Limbu had a narrow escape when a towering, stiletto-like pinnacle of ice, some sixty feet high, fell and barely missed crushing him. All except Mohammed were experienced climbers, and, despite tiredness and lack of sleep, climbed with the rhythmical grace of born mountaineers.

Far up the mountain-side snow avalanches were frequently falling, their dull rumble sounding like distant thunder. Once a rock hurled from a ledge a mile above them, whizzed overhead with the buzzing hum of a racing car, and was gone. The situation worsened as the day wore on, and the sun softened the snow crust formed by the night's frost, causing them to flounder waist-deep in powdery snow which at any moment might give way beneath them and precipitate one or all of them into a bottomless ice fissure.

On they toiled, up and ever up. Gray was watching anxiously the signs of a coming blizzard. The sun had gone in, and leaden clouds were driving before an icy wind. The top must be reached before that blizzard broke.

Suddenly with a sharp cry the guide, who was carrying the rifle, disappeared from sight.

Gray ran towards a small hole in the snow, which resembled the black mouth of a well. The rest of the party gathered round him. They could just distinguish the form of the unfortunate Daoud 80 feet below, wedged between narrow ice walls only wide enough for the passage— so far and no farther— of his body. His right arm seemed to be broken, and his left was wedged close to his body.

It was impossible either to get to him or to get him up. All their limited mountaineering equipment had been lost in the bottle-neck gorge. To make matters worse every moment's delay was dangerous to the safety of the rest of the party.

Kneeling down, Gray called to him. A faint, muffled voice answered, but it died away in a whimpering from between clenched teeth as the wretched victim's muscles were exerted in a vain effort to free himself. A menacing roar shook the air as an avalanche thundered down from a snow peak ahead of them. Flakes of ice borne upon a driving wind whipped stingingly their faces and hands.

"We must leave him, Di. The light's going."

"God! It's awful, Colin!"

"He's almost insensible now. The cold will kill him painlessly."

Again he called. This time there was no answer.

"He is already dead, sahib," said Limbu gravely. "Let us go from here quickly! There is much danger from them."

He nodded his head sideways at the lowering mountains.

HALF an hour later the crest of the slope was reached, and Gray gave the order to halt. A shallow cavity in the rock offered welcome shelter. Juniper bushes were collected and laid like offerings at the feet of the shivering Mohammed, who, somewhat unwillingly, lit a fire. Gray and Diana stood watching a bay about a mile wide in a neighbouring mountain. The surrounding hills were chill grey or a misty black, but that sweeping in-curve was flooded with crimson light from the setting sun, causing it to resemble a mighty auditorium lighted up before the performance of some stupendous drama. This curious resemblance was heightened by a series of darkly marked horizontal strata, which might almost have been balconies in a mighty theatre.

Suddenly, with a thunderous detonation, a mass of ice-wall, as big as St. Paul's Cathedral and forming the top portion of the crimson-lighted mountainside, leaned forward, seemed to remain poised a moment, and then toppled and fell with a hollow, bellowing roar. Like spray from a tidal wave striking an arresting mass of cliff, billowing clouds of snow shot up fan-wise from the depths, hiding the falling mass and its work of devastation. The imperious thunder became a long-drawn, snarling roar which rapidly grew fainter and died away.

In the silence that followed Nature seemed to stand aghast at this applause of the gods. The road that Gray and his party were to have followed had been swept away.

10

THE Mongol, headquarters camp was pitched on a broad plateau ringed round with snow walls.

The smoke of a thousand dung fires rose bluely into the still air, and in the valley below stretched a sea of circular brown tents made of felt sewn upon a wicket framework. Behind each of these tents stood the 22 oxen required to draw the immense cart on to which the tent itself, when the army moved, was lifted, like half an empty orange-skin. These carts had a wheel-span of 20 feet and axle-trees as thick as a ship's mast.

Thousands of incredibly dirty, fierce looking Mongols were furbishing their arms (there were a few bowmen among them) or attending to their sturdy Tartar horses. The womenfolk, dressed in male attire, were moving busily among the tents, cooking or dressing skins with salted sheep's milk, some being engaged in sewing the prepared skins with threads made of tendons. There was no apparent discipline.

The tents of Khoon's bodyguard of one thousand bagaturs, or picked men were pitched in three concentric circles around the Mongol pretender's horda, or big central tent, the centre point being marked by the lopped stem of a pine sapling with the bark still upon It. At the top of this pole fluttered a green flag.

Khoon had not been content merely to proclaim himself a descendant of the Great Genghis Khan, that 'savage of genius' who ruled in the thirteenth century the civilisations of the Near and Far East— the greatest empire the world has ever known. He had also assumed the title of Kagan, or 'King of, the People.' His iron will and personal magnetism had forced upon the Mongol chieftains the firm belief that Mongke Tengri, the god of the Everlasting Blue Sky, had vouchsafed to him a vision and revealed where Genghis Khan's arms and armour were hidden. Heaven he said, had ordered him to wear them as the new Conqueror of the World. In support, of this assertion he wore an ancient armour of tanned bull-hide covered with iron bosses, his back being unprotected in token of the fact that he would never retreat.

The God had also said so, Khoon declared, that the ancient Mongol customs were to be revived. They were to drink newly shed blood and eat raw flesh; their women were to fight in battle; and drunkenness, even in a girl, was to be considered honourable.

Round his neck, conspicuous for all to see, hung a large ivory miniature which he swore had belonged to the great Genghis Khan himself. Khoon's head was clean-shaven like that of the pictured monarch— that is, except for a hand's breadth from the top of his forehead and above his ears and at the back of his head. This remaining hair having been allowed to grow, it was braided into two short pigtail locks, bound behind his ears with, a scarlet cord.

Khoon's subtle play upon the atavistic tendencies of a simple-minded people was helped by a personality that was well calculated to inspire both fear and awe. A stunted man, with a head too big for even his mighty shoulders, Khoon had the high cheek-bones, small, flat nose, and oblique, black-pupilled eyes of a pure-bred Mongolian, the skin of his savagely fierce face being creased and yellow.

As he sat cross-legged on a dais covered with yak-hair rugs his shortness was not very apparent; but the naked sword lying across his big knees, and with which it was his custom, occasionally, to slay those whom he had condemned to death, discouraged any prolonged scrutiny of his misshapen frame compacted of bone and muscle. Surrounded by a score of Mongol chieftains, he was listening to his chief translator, a puffy-faced Portuguese, reading a Hindustani translation of some wireless messages which had just been received.

The chieftains knew only Turki and Hill dialects. The use of Hindustani made it possible safely to hear and discuss In their presence secret and unfavourable news which otherwise would have necessitated their dismissal from the Presence.

'Read to us the explanation of the accursed Tamluk,' ordered Khoon, setting his yellow teeth edge to edge when he had spoken the last word.

The Portuguese coughed uneasily. He knew his master's way of dealing with liars and double-crossers. Tamluk had suffered Grey to slip through his fingers; but he had also paid in a hundred pounds to the Cairo branch of a certain Portuguese bank. Both fictions were notified, in an agreed upon manner, in this message.

'He says, Omnipotence, that he received code instructions to follow the plane in which the sahib started—'

'From whom did he receive instructions?'

Here no answer but the true one would serve.

'He does not say, Omnip―'

'Tell him we wish to near of his death in three days' time! If he is afraid to slay himself we will give him the necessary courage! Say that he is forthwith to send a full and exact account of the moneys we gave him!'

The translator's forehead shone with a sudden dampness.

'There is also news from Karachi and from the outposts, Khan sahib!' he said eagerly— just the tiniest trifle too eagerly.

Khoon's oblique black eyes glittered.

'Why should we not also see your accounts? All of them!'

A yellow claw snatched the paper. Now in one thing Khoon was exactly like his claimed royal ancestor; he was illiterate. He stared helplessly it the message. Then his jaw began to quiver as does a cat's when it sees a bird through a window pane. One of his great rages was coming upon him. Gripping the hilt of the naked sword until the knuckles of his right hand whitened, he felt its edge with his other thumb.

'Hast thou lied to me in the last few minutes, thou Portuguese leper?'

All present knew what was coming, and there was a stealthy moving of hands to weapons. The Portuguese turned a sickly colour, and, falling upon his knees, bowed his head to the tent floor. His father was a Chinese. In that position he could not see the quick movement that would end in his decapitation. But the sword was not lifted.

'Sit up, Christian hog, and speak in the tongue of our chieftains that they may understand thee!'

The translator, his face shining with perspiration, squatted back on his hams. 'Sun of the World, am I— well paid as I am, and who alone can use the code I invented to outwit the Indian Government— am I likely to cut my own throat by lying to thee?'

'Thou hast said it.' Khoon's voice had the hardness of granite. 'Thou shalt cut thine own throat— here and now!'

The knife Khoon was about to fling him remained poised in mid-air.

Outside the horda a messenger was shouting that he brought urgent news. Jabbing the point of the knife into the shoulder of the kneeling man. Khoon shouted with laughter, throwing back his head like a great ape.

'Admit our messenger!' he commanded, rocking his body.

The Portuguese, who knew it would be as much as his life was worth to attempt to quit this dread presence, rose, and stood clutching his wound.

The messenger whom they had heard shouting had been with the party which had ambushed Gray, and had witnessed from afar— having been sent back by the commander of the party to carry the news to Khoon— the crushing of his comrades by the boulder. He rapidly described the happening, and was about to relate that Gray had been joined by another guide, when Khoon stopped him. The Mongol leader's flat nostrils were dilated like those of a fighting stallion.

'A true soldier either carries out what he is sent to do or he dies in an attempt to do it! Is it to show us your courage that you have come back?'

'I was the only one left to bring the news O Khan,' stammered the man.

'Thinkest thou that our ears hear not all that happens, whether it be told us or not? Let him be strangled!'

They dragged him away. Khoon turned to the translator. 'What news have you from the outposts? Did they catch this accursed Gree?'

'The sahib was wounded. He and his woman went in the direction of the Lion's Rock— Shireen's fortress, Khan sahib!'

'Was the white woman harmed? Lie not!'

'There is no mention of it!'

Khoon wiped the point of his knife on the long hair or an Afghan hound lying at his feet.

'Those bloodless eunuchs should have captured both the man and the woman! Oh, that I could torture the dead!... Is there no other news?'

'The two spies I sent to Shireen's valley―'

'You sent? Thou son of an ape! Men move only by my command!'

'The two spies sent by your royal order,' corrected the Portuguese nervously, 'report that the woman Shireen has sent two letters to Simla.'

'But has had no reply to them! That is yesterday's cow-dung!' commented Khoon contemptuously. 'Is there naught else?' .

The translator read the message mutteringly.

'There is... m'm... nothing of importance... M'm... cattle have been killed inside the fortress by prowling panthers...' He stopped. 'Khan sahib, I think―'

'Thou and thy thoughts be fried in he lowest of the seven hells!' shouted Khan, clutching the cushions of the divan. 'Saidst thou inside the fortress? Was it inside?'

The Portuguese consulted the shaking message-form.

'It says these beasts were inside, Khan sahib! But I was about to submit that, to my mind―'

'Things like thee have no mind, thou idiot shame! It says inside the fortress, because the word means much! The Lion's Rock is sheer-sided, and the fortress has walls sixty feet high. How, then, shall a panther get inside it— or inside any fortress?

'Answer me that!'

'Thy thoughts are my thoughts, O Master of the World,' protested, the translator ingratiatingly.

Khoon glared. 'For words less impudent than those I have killed the sayer! How shall a worm think as a God think? Has not the presence of the time tigress kept by that dead ox Alam Khan been seen in those hills? Yea, she has been seen! It is she— or her ghost— who has killed— not any panther! Send orders to our spies to watch for the beast and report to us the result of their watching. '

Khoon turned to the commander of his bagaturs.  'Our guard corps is to intercept this Gree sahib! See that every man in it is warned that if either of them be so much as scratched I will flay alive the man who harmed them,'

The order was given.

'Which one of ye brought in the chieftain of this she-devil Shireen, whose men betrayed him?' demanded Khoon, determined to vent his fury on someone.

A foxy-faced young Hillman, a friend of one of the most powerful Mongol chieftains, stepped forward and salaamed jauntily.

'I brought him, Khan-ji!'

'How many deserted with thee?'

'Forty of us brought our swords,' smirked the traitor.

'What were my orders regarding this hell-spawned sahib's safety?'

'He was not to be harmed, Master of the World.'

'And was he not knocked senseless, and might he not have been killed by the men you sent?'

'Yea; he was hit; but I―'

Khoon shouted him down. 'I let not live men who have betrayed their chief! Let the forty be slain! As for thee...'

Khoon sprang to his feet and clove him to the chin.

The body was dragged away, and the stain covered with a big rug of red felt.

The murmur that thereupon arose among the chieftains was the first outward sign of an undercurrent of dissatisfaction that day by day was gathering strength among the tribes Khoon had collected. This killing of a man who had at least done something concrete towards the realisation of their hopes, and who was, in addition, a friend of one of the greatest among them, had blown the smouldering anger of these half-savages into flames. Khoon had lured them from their distant highlands with promises of wealth, women, and loot. So far he had given them only renewed promises. The wealth, the women, and the loot seemed as distant as ever. Added to this, the country to which they had been brought was dangerously unfavourable for cavalry tactics, the only mode of warfare they knew.

'If, O Kagan, thou slayest, when they come to thee, those who harry our enemies as wolves harry a sheepfold, which of us is safe— save in his own country?' growled the friend of the slain man.

'The Sky has decreed that I shall govern all nations,' vociferated Khoon. 'In questioning my right to act as I please you question the right of the Sky, whose chosen one I am! I killed him who commanded forty. Let not those who command four thousand defy me, lest I prove my words upon them also!'

Khoon's was a subtle mind that knew to a word the value of a bluff; but this time he had misjudged his man.

'Those who can command four thousand are not so easily found,' flung back the burly Mongol.

A louder murmur greeted the words. 'Do ye dare to forget that in me is the soul of Genghis Khan— the king who made a shepherd and a carpenter rulers over ten thousand? I can do the same!' roared Khoon.

'We do not question your power, Khan,' retorted the chief. 'But, for myself, lest my people be placed under the orders of— a shepherd or a carpenter, it were better that they, and I, should withdraw from your army!'

Instantly Khoon's fury sobered.

'We know well your value and the value of your men, Omon Khan! I appoint you a Commander of Ten Thousand. Yours shall be half the loot of the first Indian city I conquer... A feast shall forthwith be served. We are tired. Ye have leave!'

As the felt curtains swung together behind the last squat form of his departing generals Khoon turned to the Portuguese.

'Our physician may attend to that pin-prick. Send a message to the woman Shireen saying that we will pull her fortress flat about her ears unless she will hand over to us this Englishwoman and her husband. Tomorrow we will again 'examine' that stubborn son of a pig Ewbank sahib.'

11

THE presence of Khoon's patrols in the surrounding mountains had made it impossible to use the track— a mere scratch upon those huge hillsides — which now formed the only connection between the outer world and the area ruled over by Shireen. As far as Gray could estimate, although they had reached a lower altitude, they were still more than a day's march from her stronghold, for there was no sign of the pickets she had mentioned. Fortunately, their late guide had described the route he intended to follow, and Gray therefore knew the main landmarks to look for. But, most of these being snow peaks, their immense size rendered it impossible to take anything more than very approximate bearings, and rendered more than probable a deviation of several miles and the consequent losing of their way. The situation was complicated by the dense mist that was starting to rise from the Dantesque depths below.

Although even a short delay might mean disastrous failure, climbing an unknown mountain by night and in bad visibility is an ordeal which even an experienced mountaineer will not willingly face. But it had to be faced. Slopes sweeping down in majestic hugeness for thousands of feet and stretching upward more hugely for twice as many, and which they had gazed at an hour ago with mingled awe and anxiety, had now disappeared. The valleys and mountains which had been Gray's landmarks had vanished. They were moving like blind midgets in a blank, grey world peopled by the evil spirits of the trans-border folklore. It seemed impossible that only a few minutes before that they had had overhead the blue-and-silver splendour of a sky in which even the smallest star looked larger and brighter than any planet of the Western Hemisphere. The sight of the moonlit whiteness of eternal snows biting sharply into that velvety blueness had encouraged them as they climbed.

'An enemy who is unseen has treble might.' So says the proverb.

These majestic walls of rock, ice. and snow were titanic opponents barring the way to a tantalisingly near object. Every now and then the mist thinned a little, and for a short time the silvery haziness in it would mark the position of the moon; but almost at once billowing clouds of denser mist would roll up from the black cauldrons of the gorges, wiping out the silvery haziness and leaving the party once more blindly feeling their way through a clammy gloom.

Frequently Gray halted to peer at the luminous dial of his compass. They were moving due north, the direction the guide had indicated. Everything that was not essential to their safety had been jettisoned. Each member carried only two days' supply of food.

For Mohammed that slow, hazardous progress was a Shaitai ka resta— a road to hell. An out-and-out plainsman, he loved the life that is set in bazaars and among the shaded roads of cantonments. A normal aversion to high altitudes had become a soul-blasting fear that was deepened every hour by nightmare visions of the murder he was soon to commit. It must be done that night. His sore physical distress was not to be wondered at. He knew nothing of the Decrees of the Great Hills, which lay down the things a man shall do if he would not die in an atmosphere which holds but a third of the oxygen his lungs and arteric need. He did not know that, while le was free to take to the minute (or to each step) as many gasping breaths as he pleased, they must be taken regularly, and their number never varied.

With a grim determination to live until he had fulfilled the oath he had taken, he stumbled on, his rugged face raised to the invisible heavens, praying incessantly— mostly under his breath, but often aloud. With all the ardour of his simple soul he loved and revered the prophet. He had been a school master before he entered the service of the sahib-log, and his knowledge of the Holy Koran was as thorough as his love for it. Over and over again, as with clenched teeth and clawing hands he fought for a foothold or strove frantically to retain his balance, his mind dwelt upon that prophet's words concerning murder. The law of retaliation was an ordinance: 'The free shall die for the free for the servant.'

But it was unlawful to kill a peaceful infidel. This deed lacked the permitted motives— justice and righteous vengeance. He had been a coward and the heroic Prophet hated cowards.

'Ai, Ali, Ali! (The peace of God be upon thee!). Give me but one grain of thy blessed courage]' he groaned, apostrophising the persecuted son-in-law of the founder of Islam. A wedge of steel seemed to be splitting his head as he prayed and blood was trickling from his nostrils. He sank down insensible.

Limbu was the first to see his danger. The cook was moving close ahead of him. He had barely time to utter a warning cry when the prostrate man slid down the sheerly sloping hillside.

Gray called back sharply, 'Anything wrong, Limbu?'

'Mohammed has become senseless! He is falling, sahib!' shouted back the orderly, clinging to the rock face and peering in the direction of the sharp, rattling slide of shale and stones that marked the downward progress of the unconscious and mist-hidden Mohammed.

Gray swore under his breath. He could do nothing to help.

At that moment the moon broke through the mist, revealing the swirling grey vapour eddying, curling, and recoiling in the sudden icy downdraught, like unbroken waves thrown back by submerged buttresses of cliff, which melt into the oncoming breakers behind them, and, so reinforced, return to the attack with redoubled might.

Gray had just time to see the senseless man lying draped across a jutting trunk that projected almost at right angles to the black slope a hundred feet below. He had barely started to climb down to him when the mist swept back again, blotting out everything. Even unladen as Gray was it was difficult enough to reach the fallen man. How he was going to get up again with that dead weight upon his shoulders he did not know. But Mohammed's senses had returned to him by the time his rescuer was testing the tree trunk with one foot, and balancing fifteen stone upon the other.

'Let me be, sahib!'

Mohammed made no effort to come nearer by grasping the twisted wood and pulling himself along' It,

'Don't talk like a blasted fool!' snapped Gray. 'Reach out to me your hand!... Now, with the other push yourself towards me!'

Inch by inch the cook wriggled.

'Now put your foot against mine! I'm going to let go your hand. Immediately I do so, catch hold of the tree with it very quickly and give me your other hand! Do you understand... Now!'

Exerting his immense strength, Gray wrenched  the rescued man towards him, and with a superhuman effort held him close to the hillside, urging the frightened cook (under less complimentary titles) to 'catch hold of. something! Anything!'

'What in the name of God came over you, Mohammed!' he demanded once he had got the man beside him. For psychological reason he feigned an anger he did not feel.

'For two days I have not eaten, sahib,' answered Mohammed faintly. And it was the truth.

'Then in Allah's name eat something now!' Gray thrust a hand into a pocket of his shooting jacket and tendered to him his own ration of thick, flat chapatti  cake, or unleavened bread.

Without a word the chapatti was taken.

'Now listen to me, Mohammed! I don't want any more of your damned stupidity! You are to keep close to Limbu!... I'll set you an ayah when we return to India,' he ended sarcastically.

The party resumed its way. Once more intent upon finding the safest footings— in such a place no easy matter even in daylight— Gray was paying little attention to those who were following him. But, reaching a sharp angle turn, he decided to call back a warning:—

'There's a tricky corner here!'

Gripping a projection in the rock, he felt with his foot to find some projection in the other side of the jutting angle on which he could rest his weight and pull himself round the obstacle. Then he waited a moment, immobile. No sound of footsteps reached him. It was impossible to turn.

A distant avalanche roared down the mountain-side far behind him. After what seemed hours the hiccupping thunder of the falling mass died away, and the affrighted— and affrighting— silence came back again. Fine particles of moisture beat gently upon his hands and face. He could hear his heart beating, and his thoughts began to keep time with its throbs. The... al... ti... tude... is... close... on... thir... teen... thou... sand.... feet God alone knew the depth of unplumbed space beneath him.

Again he called, and again no answer reached him. Not a sound broke the incredibly soft stillness. Voices do not carry far at high altitudes, he told himself, still... Cramp tortured his fingers. If he swung himself round that jutting rock he would be cut off from Diana. Interminable, intolerable minutes passed.... Perhaps there was a wider ledge on the other side of this accursed wall which would enable him to turn and go back to look for her. Or would she come to him suddenly, as sometimes people do just when all hope of their  coming has been abandoned?

He could hold on no longer. Pressed close to the rock face he edged his body forward, sliding a hand crabwise along the shale in search of a fissure-hold. He drove his fingers into it and swung outward. The rock under, his fingers moved slightly. And then stopped. He was going to fall. Flaming spears of thought drove through the buckler of his courage. Would he cry out 'Diana!'— or 'God!'?  The ledge under the steel studs in his boot was scrunching warningly. Something rough struck against his ear, and he heard, a voice speaking to him.

It was Limbu.

The Ghurkha was Just above him. With a lightning movement Gray twisted the rope round his right wrist. Three, badly scared people took the strain, and a few seconds later he clambered to safety.

It seemed that Diana had last sight of him in the mist and struck off to the right, and, climbing diagonally to Gray's line of advance, had arrived above the angle of rock. From there, thanks to another momentary thinning of the mist, Limbu had seen his master's danger.

'I think we all deserve a rest,' said Gray shakily. 'I want to take our bearings.'

'I want my dinner,' remarked Diana tremulously.

The gaunt form of Mohammed stalked towards them.

'Shall I serve dinner, memsahib?'

'Good for you, Mohammed! I'm glad you're got back your cheerfulness,' remarked Gray, relieved to hear from the man what he took to be a joke.

Diana too laughed and handed him her chapatti. 'Here's my contribution! But you'll have to work jadoo (magic) if you're going to produce a dinner in this place, Mohammed.... Limbu, Where's Barfy?'

A few minutes later a sharp exclamation from Gray brought her hurriedly to his side. The compass-needle was pointing 20 degrees west of the magnetic north, he said. They had lost their way.

'That poor devil of a guide mentioned a mountain of iron being close to our route. Evidently there's ironstone in these rocks, and it's deflecting the needle. We're stymied.'

Diana stared into the mist. She was remembering that about an hour ago Limbu had said to Mohammed, 'When your head is in a mortar it's no use fearing the pestle.'

They were in a mortar; the pestle was about to pound them. It came to that.

'If we keep going ahead aren't we pretty, sure to— to get there?... Oh, damn this mist!' She ran impatient fingers through her curls.

'If we don't strike Shireen's place pretty soon something's going to strike us, from the sound of it,' commented Gray gloomily. 'I've heard four avalanches in the last forty minutes.'

'What are we going to do? Push on?'

'Yes; like hell— after we've had some food.'

Food was, in fact, being prepared for them. Mohammed had slit open the thick chapatti Gray had given him, dividing it into two layers, and at that precise moment was looking with concentrated terror at a small linen-wrapped bundle.

Now, for reasons of her own, Barfy had adopted that particular bundle as her bed during halts, and she was curled up on it sound asleep. Mohammed's hand, as his lifting fingers sank into her fur, shook like that of a man sick of the ague. Fever he had, but not of that kind.

'Ai chhoti pusi!' ('O little cat!') he whispered, gazing into round, yellow eyes that seemed more than usually full of a secret astonishment. 'Thou also wilt be resurrected on the last day! Even thou wilt be judged for evil done to thy kind!  God is great! I am unworthy of mercy!'

The soul of Mohammed, the cook, was battling with the Black Angel of Temptation. In a few minutes he would have killed the man who had saved his life.

Methodically, he spread the brown wheaten discs with butter from a small earthenware, pot, and sprinkling on the powder, rubbed it to greasy invisibility with his forefinger. Breaking off a morsel, he put it into his mouth, and after chewing it spat it out. They had spoken truly. It was tasteless.

An impatient call from Gray froze him to rigidity.

Muttering a disjointed prayer, he flung; the poisoned chapatti far out into the mist, and, hurriedly opening a last treasured tin of sardines, placed under it two chapattis— his own and Diana's— and with uncertain steps, for he was weak with hunger, carried 'dinner' to his master and mistress.

And Colin Gray ate the food that was his servant's, and was strengthened by it.

12

TO the relief of three of the party a current of cold air temporarily dispersed the mist. Mohammed was unconcerned. Wrapped in gloomy thought, he sat staring into space. The sight revealed was sufficiently terrifying, for it made clear two facts. They must either stay where they were and die of starvation, or meet their deaths in attempting what proclaimed itself to be the impossible...

Fifty yards from where they were sitting the mountain-side took a half-moon sweep downward, bridging a black expansive valley. This 'bridge' was wedged-shaped and tapered to knife-edge of rock. The thick end of the wedge was invisible, the gorges on each side of it being still full of mist; but Gray judged the distance from the razor-back ridge to the bottom of the gorge to be anything from a mile to two miles. Streaks and sheets of dazzling white snow, which looked as if at any moment they would slide into the greyness which mercifully hid their fearful downward, extent, clung to its almost perpendicular sides. Its forward length it was impossible to divine, as it ran into a wall of vapour that veiled the watching stars— the party being, as it were, at the bottom of an immense grey well of mist that was narrowing every moment.

What little they could see of the ridge showed it 'to be' -in places- a bare few Inches wide.

'My God!' exclaimed Diana.

Abstractedly Gray knocked out the pipe he had just filled.

'It's pretty bad! Mohammed'll never make it!'

'I doubt whether any of us will, Colin!'

He rose to his feet. 'We've got to try. It's our only chance ? Ohe, Mohammed!'

The cook rose, and, like a man in a dream, came to him. Tears were running down his face.

Gray dropped a hand on his thin shoulder.

'You'll be all right! You're a bahadur (brave fellow), Mohammed-ji!' he said. 'I'm going first. Then the memsahib. After her will come Mohammed. Then Limbu.'

Mohammed averted his head. Driving the back of a hand across his eyes, he knelt and unlaced his boots, and, tying the laces together, slung them about his neck, as Limbu had done; Gray and Diana kept on their heavy boots; the soles of their feet would be unable to stand the sharp, ice-coated rock.

'I wish to God I had never led you all into this,' said Gray sombrely, preparing to go down the ridge.

'We've nothing to leave behind, sweetheart— that's one comfort,' laughed Diana.

Suddenly Mohammed ran forward and, falling on his knees, laid his forehead upon Gray's feet, clasping his master's ankles.

'Muarf kijyay, sahib!' ('Grant me your forgiveness, sahib!') Great sobs shook his crouching form.

Diana turned away and Limbu turned back.  Gray bent down and tried to lift Mohammed, but the unfortunate servant only burst into wilder sobs and phrases. Disjointedly he told of the oath he had taken, and of his inability to keep to it, each word seeming to be torn from his breast under torture. From: far away came the muffled stutter of a machine-gun.

'It's all right, Mohammed,' muttered Gray, with a half-laugh. 'Pull yourself together. I know what these devils sons do to a man! No oath given in such circumstances is binding. It is laid down! You and I will live to laugh about all this. Up you get. D'you hear that Maxim? Somebody's peppering Khoon, or Khoon is peppering somebody!'

Slowly Mohammed got to his feet squaring his shoulders.

'May Allah the Merciful bless you and the memsahib, sahib!' he said gravely, adjusting a sleepy Barfy inside the breast of his coat, which was buttoned up, save one button.

Once again the mist closed in upon.

'Now,' said Gray hoarsely, starting towards where they had seen the ridge.

An aphorism of the stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius kept running through his mind: 'Death is inevitable; then why fear it?' It was not death he feared; it was the parting from Diana. 'Fear is a pain, worse than the pain it fears,' Sir Philip Sidney had said. After all, death, if it comes quickly is nothing but a sudden falling asleep. And there is another plane of existence.

Diana had nothing of the stoic in her nature. For her Love was everything —life and death. heaven and hell. Where Colin went she did not fear go. What he found she would fine. There was nothing greater than her love for him. and since its twin roots were deep in his heart and hers flowering could only be when and where they were together.

Neela and Limbu, she knew loved differently. With them love meant service duty and loyalty: death was but a price they were ready and willing to pay for the unstinted giving of these things.

Keeping close behind her husband's tall form, and envying the mist that could wrap itself about, him when she was forced to remain at a distance she remembered the remark of Dr Barfopulos: 'One's death is almost always nearer than one thinks.' She seemed to see the old Greek's keen but kindly face with its network of wrinkles, looking at her from out of the damp greyness.

Before taking the first step on to the ridge Gray paused for her to come up to him. When she came he did not speak. It was not necessary. She laid her cheek against his for a moment and he felt the warmness of tears. Then she pushed him gently from her and turned away her head.

Like the quick tapping of hammers came the stutter of the machine-gun this time against a background of distant rifle-fire. Heavy fighting was in progress several miles away.

Taking a deep breath so as to lighten his body, Gray stepped on to the narrow rock, his hands held out straight from his shoulders, like a tight-rope walker's.

But a strong puff of wind shook both his body and his resolution. Sitting down, he straddled the ledge saddlewise, and, lifting himself forward with his hands, called back to the others to do the same.

Inch by inch Gray lifted himself forward, his eyes staring into the impenetrable greyness ahead. Only while the mist hid the terrific drop on either side of the ledge would the crossing be possible. Vertigo would inevitably overcome them if they saw the terrific sheer drop on either side of them. For what seemed hours, but was in reality only a matter of minutes, the ordeal continued. Suddenly came the sound of an agonised 'Allah!'

Gray and Diana could not see what was happening, nor did they dare to pause. They knew only that Mohammed had slipped and that they could do nothing. But Limbu saw, and was forced to pause.

Mohammed, refusing to straddle or crawl, had been walking upright, his hands stroking his beard as he prayed. His foot slipped, and he fell, Twisting like an eel, he clutched at the top of the rock wedge, and there hung suspended by his hands, some ten feet of jagged distance separating him from the Ghurkha, who spoke to him cheeringly and quickened his progress towards him.

At this particular spot there was, so to speak, a 'waist' some five or six yards in extent, as if the sides of the wedge had been scooped out with an immense cheese-scoop, and Limbu's legs, dangling in mid-air, afforded him no side grip. The slightest pull to one side or the other would throw him off his balance, and not one but two would fall to their death.

'Pull thyself up, Cook-ji,' he urged, repeating the exhortation. But what to the muscular little Ghurkha might have been a fairly easy matter was utterly impossible to the physically and mentally exhausted Mohammed.

'I have not the strength,' gasped the wretched man. releasing his left hand grip and fumbling with the buttons of his coat. Jerkingly he dragged out from her warm resting place Barfy the kitten, and dangled her towards Limbu, her thin tail curved upward, kettle-spoutwise, between her indrawn hind legs.

'Quick; take the memsahib's chotee billi (little cat), Gurkha!'

Perilously Limbu leaned forward, took the kitten, and thrust her swiftly into the breast of his grey blouse.

'I have her! Pull thyself up, O Mohammed,' he urged. 'It Is but a short way!'

'Tell the sahib,' gasped Mohammed, 'that I have kept gladly the oath I swore! He will understand!'

Then his fingers opened, and he dropped.

Limbu laid one hand upon a squirming bundle of fur that was clawing his chest, and with the other cleared his eyes.

'Is everything well, Limbu?' called back Gray anxiously. The Ghurkha's mind worked swiftly. If he told them the truth it would unnerve the memsahib and serve no purpose. 'All is well, sahib!'

'Good!' came back Gray's voice. 'The ledge is widening.'

A few moments later, standing upright on a wide, boulder-covered hill-top. Gray stretched out his arms to Diana.

Limbu reported the death of Mohammed. 'He was a brave man and a good one,' said Gray quietly. 'I wish I could think I'd have had the courage that he showed!'

Diana, who had taken the kitten from Limbu, and had seated herself with her back against a boulder, made no remark. She had fainted. No one spoke.

Into the silence came a thin mewing. As if in answer came the vicious stutters of the Maxim.

13

EVERY day at dawn Shireen rode on her black Arab, Satan, along the four sides of the sixty-foot wall which ran around the Lion's Rock, and which followed exactly its contours. The old lamas had built well. The massive blocks were fitted so nicely to the edge of the rock that they formed a smoother prolongation of the natural sheerness, and wherever nature had attempted to obstruct the builders they had knocked away the projecting stone with sledge-hammers. The slightly sunk galley along which she made her way at each sunrise hour was more road than gallery, for it was twelve feet in width, the main approaches to it being ramped.

Just returned from one of these daily inspections, and dressed in jodhpurs, her small head encircled by a turban of blue silk, she was sitting cross-legged on a low divan covered with red and green silk cushions.

Looking out at the dark pine-forests, she wondered what they were hiding from her. She, too, had observation posts, but Khoon was a secret worker. Her brown eyes travelled up those steepnesses to the ramparts of eternal snow, the greater bastions of her stronghold. What did they know? Could they see a big Englishman climbing over the hills, to come to her aid?

In the unkempt garden birds were singing, it was still early morning.

One of her women hurried into her presence.

'Presence!' she began excitedly.

Shireen considered her. 'Has Dilkhoosh, my deer, been fed as I ordered?' (Her thoughts were far otherwise: Khoon's outpost had been strengthened.) 'Nay, lady!' The woman stopped affrightedly on seeing Shireen's small hand clench the handle of her jewelled riding whip.

'Why not?' demanded her mistress.

'Ruler of the World, the Ghost-tiger killed again last night!'

'Allah! And it killed Dilkhoosh!' Shireen sprang to her feet. She had greatly loved Dilkhoosh, for the little animal had belonged to a beloved young girl friend whom Shiv, the tigress, had killed.

The woman gazed at her with wide eyes. 'Yea, alas! It is so, lady!'

'Did it kill beneath the window of my lord's room?'

The woman began to weep. Though they feared her, Shireen's servants loved her. She was just, and in the eyes of an Indian justice is the greatest of all virtues in a ruler.

'Send Firoz Khan to me!... Bring my Dilkhoosh's collar! Begone!'

Left alone, Shireen paced the great apartment, slashing with her whip the silken curtains. Three times in the past three weeks cattle had been killed by the ghost-beast. There were many panthers in the surrounding hills; they could be heard ever night. But this was not one of them. The animals which had been slain had not been eaten. And no ordinary beast could climb high walls; or even if it could, it would not enter a closely guarded house, nor would it always kill within a few yards of the same place in that house, and be able to get away unheard and unseen. Assuredly it was a ghost-beast; and per-haps it had wings and six feet, as her people maintained. It was Shiv's ghost. Shireen told herself, and no human weapons would prevail against it.

A man's voice outside the heavy curtains was asking permission to enter.

The Persian ceased her quick pacing and bade him enter.

Firoz Khan salaamed deeply.

'Peace be upon you, Firoz Khan!' said Shireen, returning his greeting. 'The ghost-tiger has killed. In the same place."

Brave as he was, the man betrayed his uneasiness. He had all the Hillman's fear of the unknown.

'I have heard. I am sorry... Perhaps it is the ghost of Shiv, lady.'

Shireen winced. The spoken name recalled certain memories of her Best Beloved, who used to hang garlands of fresh mogra blossoms about the neck of his pet tigress.

'She will not come again for a week. On the sixth day you and I and the Servant of Allah will watch for her― together.'

Firoz Khan's heart beat quicker. 'That is a good word! Thou and I together can do much!'

She smiled. 'If aught come of our watch it will not be because you and I are there!... Khoon has strengthened his outpost, Firoz Khan. I saw many more men there this morning. If it were not that I expect Gray sahib we would attack it. But if we did so (Firoz Khan's heart had quickened again at the use of the plural pronoun) we should make more dangerous the sahib's coming to us.'

'Perhaps he is not coming?' he hazarded.

'He is coming! I was told so by the Servant of Allah, who can read the future as we read books... Were the pickets posted last night?'

'I sent personally a hundred men, lady, in parties of ten. After I had done so news came that Khoon had sent a thousand men to intercept the sahib. I sent a force to drive them back, two hundred Hillmen being equal to a thousand lousy Mongols! I also sent mounted men up the valley this morning.'

'You did well, my friend! In two hours you and I will ride out to meet Gray sahib!'

Shortly after dawn, on the gallery immediately above the great gates of the fortress, the guard were squatting huddled in their blankets. A sentry, pacing up and down, was gazing beyond the silver bend of the river two miles away, where it wound round a scarped hill. Every now and then he blew upon chilled fingers.

'Ohe, brothers! I see a man. He is running!'

The commander of the guard got to his feet, and, shading his eyes, followed the direction of the sentry's pointing finger.

'It is a true word!... A Ghurkha!'

'Why is he running?' ask the sentry. The broad jest that answered him caused loud laughter.

The distant report of a rifle and an exclamation from the sentry were simultaneous.

'They have shot the Ghurkha― if he be one,' remarked the sentry casually. 'He has fallen into the river."

The incident was nothing out of the common, and meant little to the guard. In a few hours, or perhaps not until evening, a report would come from the pickets― if a body were found.

A MATTER of far greater interest cropped up a little later.

'There go Shireen-bibi and Firoz Khan!' reported the sentry. 'He does not ride as well as she does,' he added judicially.

For some minutes Shireen, on her black Arab, galloping along the river-bank followed by Firoz, was watched in silence. Then:

'Firoz Khan is a boy,' remarked a grizzled Pathan sourly. 'What does he know about fighting? We had killed our man thirty years before he had sucked his mother's breast! One of us should be her chief leader.'

'Strange things are happening these days,' commented a high-shouldered Afridi, craning over the battlements. 'There are bhoots (ghosts) abroad!"

'I like not this coming of the ghost of Shiv,' remarked the sentry, scratching his foot meditatively with the butt of his rifle.

'They say that the ghost of Alam Khan comes with her,' chimed in an-other. 'Alam Khan was a true bahadur (hero)!'

'It is a true word,' muttered the group in bass unison. 'Alam Khan was a bahadur!'

'But for this Gree sahib he might have been alive today,' growled the grizzled Pathan. 'I see not clearly how she can welcome him!'

'Yet if the sahib led us against Khoon it would be a good fight! He is a man to follow!' The commander of the guard desisted to search for a louse in the seam of his dingy blue smock.

The sound of firing came suddenly from the valley, the multiple echoes rolling among the hills like the high-pitched crackle of thunder. A bullet hissed over the guards' heads. Then another and another.

The bolts of their rifles clicked, and the oiled breech-locks shot backward and then forward.

'Khoon's men say their prayers with cartridges,' grunted the grizzled Pathan, who had just finished his belated morning prayers and was peering over the wall.

'May they not pray to Shireen-bibi, then,' retorted the guard commander. 'Get that machine-gun ready, Baz Khan!'

14

SHORTLY before daybreak the three reached level going and the banks of a broad and noisy stream. Shireen had spoken of "the river which girdles my fortress like a sword-belt." Gray reckoned that if they kept moving up stream they should reach their destination by midday or even earlier.

The thought uppermost in their minds was sleep. Hungry though they were, had they been asked to choose between food and sleep they would unhesitatingly have chosen the latter.

The mist seemed to be lifting, and after taking council with Limbu they decided to snatch an hour or two's rest. A nearby hillock, covered with big boulders, seemed a suitable place, in any case they had not the energy to search for some more sheltered spot. Gray was anxious about the firing they had heard. When it ceased some hours ago it had seemed to be not more than a couple of miles away. Since then they had moved nearer to the hills in which the skirmish had taken place. But he was too tired to think more, about it and a few minutes later all three were asleep.

Gray had often said that he had a sixth sense― the sense of impending danger. He awoke, not in the leisurely manner that allows the world or reality to creep in upon the consciousness by pleasantly slow degrees, but instantly prepared, and with every nerve tingling with awareness. It was light. The sun would soon be up.

He listened. He could hear voices very faintly. Picking up a pebble, he tossed it on to a sleeping Limbu, who sat up alertly, peering about him.

'Hear anything, Limbu?'

The Ghurkha cocked an ear, and a few seconds later nodded. 'Men, sahib!' He buckled on his kukri. 'I go to reconnoitre.'

His bare feet making no sound, he moved towards the surrounding rocks and was gone.

Further sleep was out of the question, Diana had wakened and was sleepily looking at her husband.

'Enemy coming, Colin?'

'No; I think, they're probably Shireen's men searching for us. Anyway whoever it is, there's not much we can do. You'd better start moving up-stream, you poor kid!' Tiredness made her look extraordinarily beautiful, he thought. It was the shadows under her eyes.

'I'd rather wait for you and Limbu, Colin.'

'I wouldn't. I'll probably have a quick dip to freshen me up― if 'all is quiet on the Western Front'― and I'll catch you up. A run'll warm me."

He could see no sign of Limbu, and there was no sound of voices, though possibly the noise of the river, ac-counted for that. His binoculars searched the hazy hillsides.... Nothing.... Yes, there was! On the crest line! A picket. On the other side of the valley was another! Shireen had been as good as her word.

Reassured, he considered appraisingly a large, cold-looking pool. The colder the water the better it would be for driving away tiredness! For a moment or so he stood clutching his elbows watching shadowy snow-trout. Then throwing off his clothes, he dived in.

He swam silently with vigorous breast-strokes that drove the clean water in V-shaped ripples from his chin, now and then shaking back his wet hair.

'Hullo, young feller!'

A stone chat had lighted on a flat grey rock, a few inches above water-level and was studying him with an eye like a bright black bead. As if satisfied that he was harmless, it ran on legs like bits of thin black wire to the edge of its stone island, and, dipping its small beak, tilted its head in evident gusto. But the ripples stopped further drinking, and it flew away.

Breast-stroke and trudgeon, under water and back-stroke― Gray changed from one to the other, revelling in an exhilarating sense of renewed energy.

The crack of a rifle sent him underwater to the bank. He clambered out and slipped into his clothes, scanning the hillside intently. But nothing stirred; the shot had been fired some way upstream.

About to return to the hillock, he saw a dark object dancing towards him on the surface of the swift-running water. It was Limbu's cap. He watched it bumping and bobbing close under the bank, coming towards him, spinning round every once in a while as an eddy caught it. Limbu had once sent him a message in that way when he had been shooting with him in the Teral, to say that he had seen the tiger Gray was stalking.

Keeping a wary eye on the forest on the farther side of the river, he stooped and hooked the cap towards him.

This time there was no message. They must have shot Limbu, and he had fallen into the river.

He must get Diana out of this place!

Giving a quick, low whistle, which they used as a secret call, he ran up the side of the hillock, and, jumping down into the open space where they had been sleeping, called to her in an under-tone.

There was no sign of her. He waited, hoping to see her moving with lissom sureness among the rocks on the river bank. To shout would be dangerous. No doubt she had started, and was moving closely under cover.

He started off to follow her.

The sun had topped the mountains now, and steeply slanted golden shafts were shooting down into the valley, lighting to warmth the mist clinging smokily to the tree tops. The crest line immediately in front of the rising sun was clear-cut, black, and jagged.

'Stand!' shouted someone in bad Pushtu.

He halted. The hillside was alive with Mongols.

A surge of fury, mingled with apprehension for Diana, swept through him. If only Daoud had not been carrying that rifle and the bandolier! But there was nothing to be done. He was surrounded.

'Tie his hands!' ordered their leader, a biggish man bristling with weapons.

'To hell with you!' exploded Gray, knocking senseless two of them― knowing, as he did so, that, until he found whether Diana had been captured, he could make no attempt to escape.

The Mongol snapped out another order, and the men fell back. He was anxious to get out of the valley; his scouts had signalled the presence of a large body of Shireen's men, who might fall upon his small force at any moment. If this bulky sahib-whom, for the purposes of a better torturing, he had been enjoined not to harm-would swear upon his honour that he would not attempt to escape, their own progress up those steep slopes would be quicker. He had heard that an Englishman would rather break his heart than his oath.

'If you will swear, upon the honour of your people, not to try to escape, you shall not be roped!'

Gray racked his mind. How, without betraying her presence in the valley, could he find out whether they knew anything about Diana?

'Ye are many, and I am alone!" he said, laughing at them.

'You will not be long alone! We hold another of your race!'

'Where is he?'

'Where you will soon be― awaiting our Kagan's pleasure!'

So they had got Ewbank! One of the party was now pointing at something high up the hillside, chattering excitedly. For a moment Gray thought of making a dash for it, but the man in command had pulled out a revolver.

'My wife is in the fortress of Shireen-bibi,' Gray went on hurriedly. 'I wish to write her a message."

'Bind him!' The order was spat out.

Gray leaped. Throwing his arms about the Mongol, he lifted him from his feet and swung him round. Holding him before him as a shield, he slid up a hand on the man's throat.

'I kill if one of you stirs!' He tightened his throat grip.

They hesitated. They, too, knew Khoon's orders. But this giant was a killer. They knew that.

What Gray had been praying for happened. A ragged fusillade sputtered from the crest line.

Most of the Mongols who had descended to river level took cover behind rocks, a few racing for the hillside. Half a dozen of them, uncertain whether or not to shoot Gray, remained with their leader. These started to return the fire from where they were standing.

Letting fall the unconscious Mongol, and snatching up his revolver, Gray sprang behind a boulder and dropped two of them dead; then, remembering that Mongols seek to frighten their enemies by savage shouts, he roared abuse at the rest with all the strength of his lungs.

'Take your dead dog and go!' he shouted.

Seizing the wrists of their commander, the remaining four dragged him under cover just as a band of horsemen swept round the bend, firing and whirling their swords.

A sauve qui peut followed.

The leader of Firoz Khan's force cantered up to Gray.

'Salaam Aliekum, sahib! We were just in time.'

'I give you my thanks, Sirdar sahib,' returned Gray, putting out his hand.

The splendid-looking Pathan leaned down and grasped it. So strong was he that Gray, smiling up at him as he did so, had to exert his own great strength to break the grip of those iron fingers. The man withdrew his hand.

'Wah!' he exclaimed delightedly. 'Muzboot yeh, sahib!' ('You are a strong  man!')

'What is your name, Kahn sahib?' inquired Gray, who felt an instant friendship for his rescuer.

'Sher Khan, sahib. Khooshaliyeh? Joriyeh?' (Are you content and well?) Beeah!' he shouted to a Persian.

The man galloped up.

'Give the sahib thy horse... Mount sahib! Behind that bend are thy friends,' he said, turning in his saddle and pointing up the valley.

Then, with a 'Salaam, sahib!' he was gone.

Gray galloped up the valley. In a deep bay in the hillside, and surrounded by mounted Hillmen, he found Diana.

15

AFTER Khoon's bagutars had been routed the previous night by an attack delivered under cover of the mist their commander had split up the retreating Mongols into a number of small detachments. The party which captured Gray, however, was reported by Shireen's pickets, and Firoz Khan's mounted force was able to rescue Diana in the nick of time. Another party of the enemy was still in the hills to the east of the kill'a, and would have to be dislodged. Gray would have liked to lead the attack― to revenge the grim relic of Limbu which the river had brought to him; but obviously it was impossible.

Mounted upon horses placed at their disposal, and accompanied by an escort of Hillmen, he and Diana galloped to-wards their destination. He had said nothing to her about his fears for Limbu. He was not certain as to what had happened to the Ghurkha; and, although she had borne marvellously well the terrific strain of the past 24 hours, he could see that she had nearly reached the limit of her endurance. For her part, Diana was conscious only of a desperate longing for sleep. At increasingly frequent intervals her eyes would close and in some strange way the present become part of her ominous dream of that desert ride, a condition of mind that was at any rate largely helped by the presence of the passenger she was carrying on her saddle bow. With white fore-paws draped over her mistress's right hand, Barfy was gazing with all the vindictive intentness of her round yellow eyes at the horse's twitching ears.

The stupendous grandeur of this pine-scented valley increased as they neared Shireen's citadel. As the valley narrowed into a gorge there was soon a bare hundred yards between the river-banks and the forests which shot upward in gloomy steepness, the ranged myriads of slender tree-trunks shooting upward at an angle of 45 degrees to the slopes.

Beyond the gorge the valley widened again. In the centre of this wideness stood the kill'a.

Grim and impressive with its crown of grey walls, the Lion's Rock reared itself proudly against that dark green background. The precipitous mass on which the fortress stood was well over 300 feet in height; but, compared with the peaks which surrounded it and which stretched like the very battlements of heaven as far as the eye could see, it resembled a chip of rock lying at the foot of a mighty headland. From a flag-staff on the square tower above the main gateway fluttered a disproportionately small flag, and on the crenellated walls (Alam Khan had exactly copied Prester John's fastness) they could see sentinels. One of these, armed with a sword, was standing motionless, and a steady brightness flashed blindingly from the naked steel of his sword as the rays of the sun rested upon it.

Then two riders galloped into sight and, recognising Shireen and Firoz Khan, the party cantered towards them.

A ragged volley from the hills on their left told that the Mongols had seen them. A Maxim chattered from the fortress, and desultory firing started in the pine-forest, through which the men sent up from the valley were climbing to the attack.

Swearing a lurid oath, Shireen called out to Gray and Diana to follow her to the shelter of a pile of big boulders. There she and Firoz Khan welcomed them warmly. But the Persian's eyes were bright with anger. Her guests, whose safety was a sacred charge upon her, were being attacked almost at the portals of her house.

"By Allah, Firoz Khan," she said, "these accursed dogs of Mongols need a lesson! Were it not that I do not wish to leave Deena (her name for Diana) and Gray sahib I would give them one!"

Firoz smiled pleasedly. Here was not only an opportunity for a good fight, but she would perhaps watch it. For a true Hillman a fight is a boon from Allah.

He made his stallion rear, and by sheer strength swung it round on bunched haunches. Shouting an order over his shoulder, he galloped to the river bank and drove his horse into the water.

'Deena," went on Shireen, 'you need food and sleep. Come with me. You too, Gray sahib.'

And so it came about that of a party which had started out thirteen strong only two reached their destination.

Two― and Barfy.

Clattering under the archway of the outer gate, Gray and Diana found them-selves in an enceinte such as most of the great castles of medieval England once possessed. The spacious enclosure was a miniature town. On either hand were mud and thatch houses and the small shops upon which the motley garrison of Hillmen depended for daily necessities. Diana noticed cloth and grain-sellers, cookshops and spice-dealers, blacksmiths and weavers (the hammers and looms were clinking and clicking), and the vendors of fruit, fish and meat. There was even a bank― kept evidently by an obese Hindu. In front of these shops was an open space in which were a few cattle and sheep and a large well.

A broad ramped 'way' led up to a second fortified gateway in an inner wall. These ramps (too low and broad to be called steps) were cobbled with stones taken from the river-bed and 'faced' with a strip of wood held upright by pegs driven into the ground between the cobbles.

A hum of conversation among the Hillmen collected in this market-place (only a few women were present) died away as Gray and Diana appeared, riding one on either side of Shireen. Fierce, unblinking eyes scrutinised them with an intentness that was almost hostile. Across the frontier a stranger is a potential enemy; and there is a saying that an Englishman is soon followed by English soldiers. But Gray was known to them by hearsay and reputation. His great size and frank bearing were in his favour. Among Hillmen courage, personal strength and the giving of a fearless answer are the fundamentals of true manhood. Diana's beauty held them spell-bound.

'Wah! She is a houri,' muttered a bearded ancient.

'Wait until thou art dead before thou talkest of houris, brother,' laughed another. 'Besides, houris do not carry cats!'

'The Prophet (the peace of God be upon him!) loved his cats! Therefore, surely there will be cats in Behist (Paradise),' retorted the ancient irritably, hitching the sling of his rifle.

'Was it not that sahib who threw the great Alam Khan?' queried a youngster.

'Yea!' The answer, breathed rather than spoken, came from several.

Inside the second gate was the entrance to Shireen's apartments in the enormous building. Somewhere a girl was singing a plaintive Persian love song in a deep contralto:-

'Under the apple-blossoms I waited for my lover,

But he came not.

There were no kisses upon my eyelids.

Surely, O surely, he will come to me!'

After a short pause the song began again:

'The apple-blossoms have fallen.

They cover my Beloved. He is covered in kisses.

But Death kissed him last― not I!'

The voice died away. None spoke. Shireen stood looking up at Diana, who, kicking a foot free from its stirrup, prepared to dismount.

'What a gorgeous voice, Colin!... Her voice is beautiful,' she added in Pushtu, for the benefit of the Persian, who did not speak English.

'Yea,' said Shireen coldly. 'She is gharib [simple]. Now let us eat!'

16

THAT evening Shireen caused a feast to be served in the great crimson-pillared Diwan-i-amm, the chamber in which the Buddhist abbots, through the centuries, have given audience.

Its walls were covered with vividly coloured frescoes. One of these depicted with delicate fineness and hideous ingenuity the tortures of the Buddhist hell; and another the refreshingly tranquil joys of heaven. Huge blue and scarlet horned demons, with bulging eyes and suffused faces, prancing amid vermilion flames six feet in height, dominated the hell section, the souls of the damned― as was meet and proper― being puny things by comparison with their gigantic torturers. The wall behind Shireen and her guests bore a multi-coloured representation of the Wheel of Life (or Law), and on the fourth wall, facing the high doors that led into the room, was painted a figure of the Buddha Gautama, ablaze with gold paint and surrounded by a series of beautifully painted little pictures depicting incidents in the life of the Blessed One. Above the head of the Buddha, partly covering the gorgeously painted, halo, Alam Khan had hung a cheap, white-faced kitchen clock, which struck the hours with a thinly harsh, metallic clang.

Originally, no daylight had been admitted into the Diwan-i-amm, but four niches, which formerly had held large statues of the Buddha in various postures and incarnations, had been converted into windows by the simple process of knocking out the wall. These openings had neither window-frames nor shutters, and during the winter were screened by wide bamboo frames covered with thick felt and hung from hooks in the wall. On this occasion they appeared to be covered with blue velvet spangled with diamonds, for the night sky was visible through them.

About a score of Shireen's chief officers and officials were present, seated on gorgeously coloured Persian carpets, in two rows, facing each other. Shireen and her two guests were side by side at tables a bare six inches high, the alignment of which formed the top 'arm' of a 'T,' those of the khans and sirdars forming the stem. In the far corner of the apartment was squatting a band of musicians.

Thoughts of the missing Limbu were constantly in Gray's mind, but, until the two search parties sent out by Shireen returned, nothing further could be done. If the Ghurkha had not been killed, he must either be lying seriously wounded, or have been taken prisoner by the Mongols.

Shireen was certain of the early defeat of Khoon. Not only because the presence of her two friends was, she had told them, a talisman of success, but also because a mysterious personage, whom she called the Servant of Allah, had predicted that great events were about to happen in the valley. Imbued with something of the savage daring of her late lord and master, she was delighted at the audacity of Diana's intention to make herself the bait which would trap Khoon. In the Persian's opinion a woman should dare all that a man would dare. The plan, however, was to be laid the next day― in part at least― before her sirdars. For tonight Shireen dismissed all thoughts of her hated enemy, and abandoned herself wholeheartedly to the pleasure she obviously felt in entertaining Gray and Diana.

Like Alam Khan, she loved good fare. She had commanded it in abundance. Roast kids, stuffed with quails, tender boiled sheep's flesh, half a dozen great dishes of different curries, and a score of other delicacies were handed round by her servants. One of the most delicious was a vast dish of pula, consisting of succulent pieces of fowl sprinkled with spices and minced and candied veal, the whole being surrounded by a snowy wall of very dry rice, over which a rich gravy was poured when a sufficiency had been piled before the partaking guest.

The conversation of the sirdars interested Gray more than the food. The Frontier Hillmen had a saying, 'Gree sahib's eyes miss nothing.' It might have included his ears.

At the top of the double row of tables forming the 'T' stem an elderly man in a loose brown robe, who did not seem to be an Indian, was being questioned by a big Khattak sirdar, one of whose eyes was bandaged. A quick question put to Shireen elicited the information that he was a learned Arab physician, who had studied medicine in Europe, and was her hakim (doctor).

'Thy knife is more gentle than mine, daktar-sahib,' laughed the Khattak, hacking off a big dollop of kid and carrying it to his mouth with a thumb and forefinger, which he then sucked noisily. "But it takes longer to do its work! Why is my eye so long in healing?"

'Because you poisoned it, Khan-ji,' replied the Arab impassively.

The Khattak stared. 'Poisoned it? I am not mad! How should I poison my own eye?'

'By taking off the bandage.'

'But I touched not the flesh. Nor did anyone," mumbled the Khattak. "You said, 'Touch it not,' and I saw to it that it was so. Whence, then, I say, came this "poison?" Think you that my uncle―'

'Your respected uncle is guiltless. Most air is poisoned,' remarked the man in the brown robe, neatly dissecting a chicken's leg.

'Asepsis Sa Asia!' mentally commented Gray amusedly. 'Shireen's right. That man knows his job.'

'Hakim-ji,' he said, leaning forward. 'I would like to consult you. I have a slight wound.'

The hakim made no comment; wounds, although a common Frontier complaint, sometimes had awkward implications.

'I shall surely come after this meal. That chicken dish is most pleasing!' He pointed a slender, gravy-stained forefinger.

'Shireen-bibi tells me you studied in Europe," went on Gray.

The Arab bowed, considering him with seriousness.

'That is so. My master in Vienna was Rosau sahib. I was also house-surgeon at Calcutta Hospital for three years, and at the Luxor Hospital for four. My specialty was eyes, you know. Ophthalmology.'

Gray had heard of Professor Rosau's famous operation for cataract.

'You were fortunate in your teacher! When were you in Luxor?'

'Eleven years since. Your Honour has been to that country, of course?'

'I know an Egyptologist named Barfopulos who lives in Cairo. Was he there in those days?'

The hakim licked, reflectively and in succession, his finger-tips. "Yes. His name was Doctor Barfopulos. Doctor Dion Barfopulos. But he died in Cairo more than a year ago. He was a very learned sahib. I operated upon one of his servants for glaucoma, I remember."

'Died in Cairo? There weren't two men of that name, I suppose?... Of course not. But are you sure that he's dead? I spoke with him only a week ago!' The shock made Gray's disbelief almost aggressive.

The hakim frowned. 'How can there be any doubt, sahib? It was in the news-papers! Also, friends of mine mentioned it in their letters. He died in Cairo.' He made an unfinished movement towards his breast, and dropped his hand again.

A burst of music from the musicians, accompanied by the quavering, high-pitched voice of a male singer, demanded a polite cessation of "long distance" conversation.

But not all of those present ceased talking.

'Of what are you thinking so sadly, Deena?' inquired Shireen quietly.

Diana started. 'Was I sad? I was thinking of our travels and what they have brought us-and what they may yet bring.'

'They will bring happiness to you both,' said Shireen gaily, handing her some black grapes. 'Since you are not drinking sherbert, eat some of these; they are excellent!"

The words started a reminiscent train of thought.

'They are excellent'― Barfopulos had said that of his grapes. The feel of the small, cool spheres between, her fingers recalled vividly the evening they had spent with him. Why had he mentioned to Colin the planet Jupiter― Brihaspati ― as the bringer of ill-luck?

A second later hubbub broke out in the Diwan-i-amm. Exclamations of anger were mingling with a storm of excited comment. Someone outside had shot an arrow into the room.

Shireen ordered it to be brought to her. Wrapped round its shaft was a message in Persian:

'Unless the English girl, Diana Gray, and her husband are sent to me within three days the fort and all those who are in it shall be destroyed.'

It was signed 'Khoon,' the signature being followed by a long string of high-sounding titles the Mongol had assumed.

Shireen's angry laughter rang through the now silent room. 'Before Allah, I swear I will one day make the writer of those words eat the dirt from my shoes!'

She handed the paper to Gray, who read it and translated it to Diana.

'Our plan's going to work, Colin!'

After a quick but heated argument with Diana, Shireen agreed; but this was neither the time nor the place to mention Diana's remark to her sirdars.

'Let the dancing-girls begin,' she commanded to her major-domo, an obese eunuch.

When the dance was ended she said to Diana, "Now you shall hear the singer who pleased you."

A slim, supple figure entered the Diwan-i-amm, and, taking her stand in front of the musicians, began to sing― this time a song about a girl whose lover was away fighting:

'In the waters of the fountain I saw his face at dawn,

And he smiled at me.

At noontide I kissed his reflection.

When the night came the fountain shivered like a broken mirror,

And in the light of the moon the water was red.'

When the song was ended a hush fell upon the sirdars, whose fierce eyes were fixed upon the young singer, half in curiosity, half in wonder. She had put into the song not only all the magic of her glorious voice, but also all the sadness which had filled her own young life.

A moment later a bass chorus of praise rumbled through the Diwan-i-amm.

'I would like to meet her, Shireen,' said Diana.

'Surely... Do you believe that one can see strange things mirrored in still water, Gray sahib?'

Gray shook his head. He was wishing the girl had sung something more cheerful. "I think that sometimes one imagines such things.'

'Nay, it is not Tasawwur (imagination),' replied Shireen. 'I have seen... Shiv's head looking at me from the basin of one of the fountains in the gardens... at night!' She shuddered.

'Shiv?' queried Gray. 'I thought the beast was dead.'

'The servant of Allah says that all animals have ghosts,' gravely retorted Shireen. 'We will not listen to any more songs. Deena may have the girl to sing to her in her apartments, if she wishes.'

'What Servant of Allah told you that animals have ghosts, Shireen Khan?" questioned Gray, giving her, as he often did, the title of chieftain, because it pleased her.

'He is more than a hundred years old. There is none wiser than he. You will see him. He has asked me to bring you to him.'

She turned to Diana and inquired whether the feast had pleased her.

'Then let us go. My Khattak swordsmen are going to give a tamasha. You will like it, Deena.'

Tired though she was, Diana wanted to see the Khattaks dance their tribal dance. According to her father it was a picturesque sight. From a balcony above a spacious courtyard she found herself looking down upon a scene that would have delighted the heart of a Rembrandt. The flickering light of four large fires threw into relief the strong faces of hundreds of Shireen's fighting men. The dancers, who numbered just over a hundred, were squatting, looking up interestedly at the balcony, each of them holding two weapons— two swords or a sword and a gun. Behind them was a packed audience of seated tribesmen.

Half a dozen drums, beaten by a rhythmic, rocking motion of the open hand, started to thud a slow measure, the wailing music of sunials (Indian flutes) keeping time with it. The dance began. The performers were now ranged in five circles, the innermost circle being formed of older, less agile men. Slowly they began to gyrate, counterclockwise, waving each weapon alternately above their heads and keeping up a monotonous chant, every now and then, at a given beat in the music, bending their lithe bodies in unison almost to the ground. As they did so one of the weapons would be brought down with a sweeping gesture to clash against the one in the other hand.

The men were bareheaded, and their bobbed black hair fell over their dark faces as they bowed themselves. Gradually the music quickened, and the revolving circles of madly shouting dancers swayed, bent, and threw their arms into the air, the speed of their movements accelerating until they were moving at a trot— a whirling mass of gesticulating men topped with redly flashing steel. The dirge-like chant rose to a shout, drowning the thudding clamour of fine drums. One of the dancers fired his rifle Into the air, and at once half a dozen more were let off. A dancer, badly gashed by one of the swords, with blood glistening, darkly on his face and staining his flowing white garments, staggered through the madly gyrating circles, the performers opening their ranks to let him pass.

Shireen, knowing that such accidents and the sight of blood often led to a fight, at once sent message thanking the Khattak sirdar for the Tamasha, and suggesting it should end. The thudding of the drums, slowed down... became slower... yet slower... stopped. The dance was over.

17

AFTER leaving Gray and Diana Limbu at once moved upstream, breasting the hillside so as to be better able to reconnoitre the, valley and be under cover of the close-set tree-trunks. The murmurous river left far below, the dry, pine-impregnated air became, for this Hillman hunter, full of indicative sounds. He could hear the stirring of questing beasts and the thinly secret notes of watchful birds, and every now and again the sharp tap of a falling dewdrop as it dripped from branch to undergrowth or hit the rusty-brown carpet of pine-needles which covered the slopes. Standing motionless, he listened, thinking he heard again the voices which he and Gray had heard; but the sounds died away on a gust of wind.

Moving from tree to tree, he worked upward, pausing occasionally to rest a square brown hand upon wet bark and let his keen almond eyes miss nothing of those many woodland signs and movements which mean so much to the initiated. An awn of spear-grass had worked its way through one of his puttees and was pricking him. Stooping, he removed it and twirled it thoughtfully in his fingers. High up above him a dry stick had cracked. Normally the sound would have suggested a bear in search of his breakfast, for bear signs were visible; but this early morning it proclaimed the presence of danger— the danger he had come to investigate. Now far out of sight of the place where he had left Gray, Limbu stood within the cool quietness of dawn in the forest, like to which there is no other quietness in nature; for it lacks the eeriness that haunts the night silence of the jungle and holds man and beast in the spell of a grim foreboding. Death is abroad and eager in the forests and jungles of India at night.

Sinking on to his hams, he sat statue-still.

Through the dark greenness overhead planed a monal pheasant, a sudden gorgeous ray of prismatic light, dazzling in its iridescent metallic greens and blues overlaid with bronze, gold, purple, and crimson. The whistling rustle of Its flight ceased as it alighted upon a branch a few feet from him. So close was it that he could distinguish the separate plumes of the gracefully drooping crest as they crossed, brushed, and disentangled again as the breeze waved them.

Watching it for some confirmation of a sudden surmise the Ghurkha saw it cock a bright red and gold eye uphill. He was right! He had heard voices! The sounds were becoming clearer as the men moved to windward of him.

Very cautiously he started to stand up. If this bird gave its screaming 'alarm' call it would bring trouble. A confused jumble of words floating down upon the wind made Limbu curse the fact that he could not speak the Mongol tongue, which at first he thought that the men were using. But as the minutes passed he recognised Pushtu words, and was able to distinguish tantalisingly incomplete sentences: '...and so catch them.' 'The digging machines are near...' 'The main body...'

Then, with the sharpness of a blow, there came to his straining ears one electrifying sentence:

'We have a hundred behind us.'

That was complete enough! It meant that there was not a second to be lost. He must get to the fort and summon help. The pheasant screamed affrightedly as he loped down the hillside. Taking a sloping course as he ran he implored Kali that he might strike the river bank within easy reach of the fortress.

The Mongol scouts were crashing down after him. Firing had started on the top of the mountain, but not at him, though in a short pause for the gathering of aural news he could hear bullets whittering through the branches. They were trying to head him off. Well, they should have a run for their money!

He resumed his headlong flight, taking flying leaps like those one takes in a nightmare when some pursuing horror is swiftly approaching. He could see the river now. The sun was up, and the valley annoyingly light. How far he had run he did not know, and he cared less. His heaving chest and hammering heart spoke of untold miles. But only one thing counted— the distance — which lay between him and help.

'Kali! Mother Kali!' Gasping an endless repetition of the sacred name, he continued his slithering, stumbling progress. With a muttered 'I thank thee,' he sighted the fortress. Then began a mad, tree-dodging race parallel with the river bank.

'A man running among tree-trunks is a difficult target to hit,' said the Musketry Manual. The Mongols had opened fire upon him, but the sound of the bullets whipping, hissing, and cracking as they passed him braced him to renewed efforts.

'Snider rifles and lead bullets,' grunted Limbu. 'When soft lead bullets hit a bone they smash!'

It was now necessary to leave the shelter of the trees. Half-blinded with sweat, he saw that he was within a short distance of the fort. In a final sprint he redoubled his speed, noting, as he ran, that the river twenty feet below him was steep-banked and overhung with rocks.

For a quarter of a mile he ran untouched, though his pursuers were a bare hundred yards above him. Then two reports rang out. Hit as with a sledge-hammer, he pitched headlong into the water with a Snider bullet through his left shoulder. The cold eddies of a backwater pool carried an unconscious Limbu under in overhanging ledge, and there wedged him fast between two rocks, leaving his head and his sound arm above water.

When he came to darkness had fallen. The bleeding of his wound had been staunched by the coldness of the water, but his arm was useless.

Freeing himself from the wedging rocks, he tried to reach the open river. But the current was too strong to be breasted by an exhausted man with only one arm. Inch by inch he struggled forward, clutching at the rock and fighting desperately against the down-sucking of the undertow. A couple of yards had been won when his strength gave out, and with a last gasping prayer to Mother Kali he went under— to be drawn down— ever down— and along— ever along...

AT the end of a hundred eternities the suffocating waters began to drive his numbed body upward, and he came to the surface. Three-quarters drowned, he flung out in arm to clutch anything that might be near, and felt his cramped fingers grip a shaped rock— a step, it seemed. To it he clung— praying, thanking and wondering, in crazy confusion. Where was he? There were no stars. Only darkness and this intense numbing cold.

After several ineffectual attempts, which ended in exhausting, icy sousings, he managed to heave himself seal-wise on to the narrow step and ay along it gasping and shivering hit legs still in the water.

Slowly his dazed mind realised that there were other steps and he began to mount them upon his hands and knees— mounted them for what seemed in age, leaning dizzily and groan-shaken against one or other of the rocky walls between which these endless steps of hell ran.

They ended at last. A wooden door barred all further progress. Exhausted by a dozen frenzied but useless efforts to move it, Limbu sank down, feeling that his senses were about to leave him. Once more parti-coloured sparks and flashes of light were flaming across his consciousness. But one of them— a straight, thin bar of blessed boldness— stayed. It came from under the immovable door.

Dragging out his kukri, he drove the sharp point into the wood, frantically and awkwardly working the heavy steel blade up and down. He heard faintly a voice he knew and loved,  answered, and then slid swiftly into unconsciousness.

18

SHIREEN'S apartments extended over the entire length of the fifth storey, and were reached by a succession or broad nights or stairs. These were not continuous, along which it was necessary to walk some distance— sometimes to the right, and sometimes to the left— before reaching the next flight. This arrangement, which made it difficult for anyone to leave his own storey without being observed, had delighted the ambush-obsessed Alam Khan.

'They say,' remarked Shireen, as she paused in one of these corridors, 'that as many steps lead underground as mount upward.'

'I didn't know lamas lived underground,' remarked Diana.

'They do not, but some of them voluntarily immure themselves for life,' answered Shireen. 'It is said that there are passages even inside these walls— which are many feet thick.'

A little way down it the topmost, corridor was completely closed by heavy, iron-bound doors extending; from floor to roof, and outside which! sat armed sentries, a guard being quartered in a large room the farther side of the staircase-head. In this part of the building, which in bygone days had been the Abbot's quarters, Alam Khan had given free rein to his mad imagination and his passionate love of luxury. The rooms had been made intercommunicating, something after the manner of the apartments In most of the old palaces of Europe, and so formed a succession of gaudy treasure-houses packed with incredible wealth. Persian carpets, each one of them worthy of a museum, covered the passages and rooms, some of which were paved with mosaic and others with coloured tiles. Silken hangings richly embroidered with foliage, fruit, and flowers covered the walls and the doors leading out of the corridor.

The splendour of Shireen's personal apartments made her guests catch their breath in astonishment. Upon the walls were suspended carpets worked in gems; on the floor stood chairs and tables coruscating with jewels— chiefly white diamonds, rubies and emeralds of the purest water. Three large chests of beaten gold and silver were encrusted with lustrous pearls. A large divan heaped with pale blue and gold silk cushions, and a dais pushed crookedly against a pillar, so as to face Moorish windows that opened on to a balcony, blazed and shimmered with a myriad little multi-coloured flames when the light of the silver lamps hanging in barbaric profusion from the cedar wood ceiling caught the facets of the jewels. Every gem was of unusual size, and most were table-cut.

Gray looked at Diana. The sight of this astounding wealth recalled the treasure chamber in Prester John's stronghold, where they had both been so near to death.

Shireen was as pleased as a child at their admiration for her everyday surroundings.'

'I have things more beautiful than these, which I will show you tomorrow, Deena,' she said. 'The room you and Gray sahib will occupy were Gulbudun's.'

Few beings had eyes more eloquent than the Persian's. Her almost every thought was mirrored in them, but their brownness could change in an instant from the softness of velvet to the hardness of bronze. As she spoke Gulbudun's name Diana saw that they were filled with tears, for Gulbudun was her friend whom Shiv the tigress had killed. Diana slipped an arm about Shireen's waist and drew her closer.

After a massage and a hot bath Gray was given a costume of crimson silk, nothing simpler, apparently being available. . (What should they know of comfortable, threadbare brown dressing gowns?)

About to light the last pipeful of tobacco he could smoke before ne returned, to India— if ever he did— he heard the eunuch charged with his comfort speaking to him. This personage was proposing to anoint him with perfumed oil.

'Go away!' exclaimed Gray. 'And stay away until you call me an hour after sunrise.'

'As the Presence wishes,' smirked obesity, with the obsequiousness of his kind. 'The hakim has come to see the sahib.'

Gray regarded the pipe.

'Give him my salaams,' he said, using the formula customary for permitting an entry or announcing a speaker's presence.

The hakim entered, stately and collected. Opening a pocket-case of instruments, he proceeded to inspect the wound.

'Though it is a flesh wound, you are fortunate sahib. The bullet only just missed the carotid artery!'

The smell of carbolic solution as he prepared it brought to Gray a curiously vivid sense of Western civilisation.

'In a few days, if you will please not move your head very much, the lesion will be completely healed.'

'And now that is done, shall we talk for a little while?' remarked Gray, giving a slight and stiff 'testing' movement to his bandaged neck.

The suggestion was accepted with grave courtliness.

'By the way, I have a little something to show you,' smiled the hakim, and, thrusting his hand into his robe, he produced a small piece of paper.

'You mentioned Dr. Dion Barfopulos, sahib. I have gone through the newspaper cuttings which I keep, and here is one from The Cairo Telegraph which gives a notice of his death.'

'I'm quite sure there's a mistake somewhere,' remarked Gray, smiling incredulously as he took it from him. The cutting bore the date 'May 19' of the previous year, and was headed 'Death of Famous Egyptologist.'

Egyptology suffered an irreparable loss in the death yesterday afternoon of Dr. Dion Barfopulus, F.R.S., F.S.A., D.Ph., corresponding member of the French Academy and Honorary Lecturer in Egyptology to the University of Oxford. He was in his seventieth year.

A world-famous authority upon ancient Egypt, he was also an author of distinction, his last published work, The Coming Domination...

Gray read no further. He sat like one stunned. The man to whom he had written, and whom Diana and he had heard talking to them, had then been dead for more than a year!

THE hakim looked at him inquiringly.

'I am sorry,' he said, 'I did not know that you and Dr. Barfopulus were such great friends.'

'We weren't. That's just it!' Gray laughed baffledly. 'Do you smoke, doctor?'

'But rarely, and then always a chibook. I bought an excellent one in Turkey. I do not like hukkas (hubblebubble pipes). And in this country cigarettes...!' He spread eloquent hands and lapsed into silence. Gray looked round for his lighter It was not on any of the several small tables; With an exclamation of annoyance he remembered that he had left it in his clothes, which the eunuch had taken away to clean and mend, for they were torn and muddy.

'I am afraid I cannot help you, sahib,' smiled the Arab understandingly. 'I carry no means of making fire.'

Gray looked up at the lamps. He badly wanted to smoke. But unless he stood upon one of the small tables— slight things of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl— and risked its destruction and a nasty fall, there was no means of lighting his pipe.

The hakim suggested the summoning of a servant, but Gray did not feel inclined for another interview with the perfumed eunuch. Perhaps in one of the wall niches so common in Indian rooms there might be a flint and steel.

Pushing aside a piece of Byzantine tapestry in search of a niche, he noticed the outline of a door in the panelled wall. Shireen had mentioned secret passages. Perhaps this was one?

Running his fingers round the thin line that outlined the oblong, he failed to find any means of moving it. He thrust a shoulder against it, gently at first, and then harder. The woodwork creaked.

'Considering I weigh fifteen stone two, that's not much to go by,' he muttered. He rapped the wood with his knuckles. It sounded hollow.

'By hookey, it is a door!' he said aloud.

The hakim had risen and was now standing close to him.

'It's possible that you are right, sahib, but I do not think so,' he said, considering Gray intently.

'Listen!' exclaimed Gray. 'There's some one on the other side of it!'

A sharp scratching could be heard. Gray stepped back, uncertain what to do. The scratching became a sharp, splintering sound. Then a very small bright point of steel made its appearance near the sidelines and rocked quickly. Whoever it was, was using a knife to try to force the door.

'Who's there?' demanded Gray.

'Help!... Help!' The words could only be heard very faintly, and were spoken in Hindustani.

Hurrying to the door of the room, the hakim struck his palms together. A servant who had been lying asleep on a mat in the corridor, swathed from head to foot in a sheet; sprang up and ran to him. A few minutes later two of the guard and the guard commander made their appearance. But the sounds had now ceased and there was no answer to Gray's knocking or calling.

'Break down that door!' he ordered, 'I will explain everything to Shireen-bibi.'

The two guards drove their shoulders against the wood. Gray would have joined his efforts to theirs, but the hakim forbade it on account of his wound. 'If two cannot break it three can,' exclaimed Gray impatiently.

At length the wood split, and, using the barrels of their rifles as levers the guards tore away great strips of wood, revealing beyond the blackness of night.

'Get one of those lamps!' Gray was peering through the shattered door. Holding the light above his head, the soldier let it shine through the opening.  Lying at the top of a flight of narrow steps was Limbu.

19

A MILE from Shireen's fortress as the crow flies, above the snowline and unvisited by man, there is a small, flat-topped rock near the summit of one of the lesser hills. Below it spreads a stupendous panorama of valley and gorge. Diana's arrival at Shireen's palace was observed by an unseen watcher on that flat-topped rock who had been awakened by the sound of firing in the valley— Shiv, the tigress.

From nose to tail-tip Shiv measured eleven feet, and about her neck was a broad collar of gold set with nine great rubies. With brooding, bodeful concentration, she studied that long line of mounted beings, sensing two things― danger and anger. The firing had inspired the danger feeling, for she knew the deadliness of the tubes which spit death. In addition, something inside her reported the nearness of (so instinct saw it) a rival who had tried, by means of her beauty, to steal the love of the one man whom the watcher had loved. And, according to Shiv's law, the stealer of love is one to be killed.

The tigress's yellow upper lip, with its bristling, silver-white whiskers, lifted in a snarl as she sighted Diana. Since the day on which a shaking of the earth had destroyed the place where she had lived with her bearded master, Shiv had roamed the mountains— killing. She had tried to find her lost home, but could not. The day of destruction brought to her a new and strange sensation— fear.

She had known love and anger, but never that, the nearest approach to it having been when her heart-beats had quickened and her lashing-beats had dropped before the Bearded One's anger. Because she loved him she had allowed him to beat her when he was angry with her. But only him. His strength and his will had been her law; other men she would have killed.

As for women, Shiv hated them all. They were of her sex, but strengthless. and, all but one, fearful of her. She had often wanted to kill some of them, but he had forbidden it. Shiv had long known of Shireen's presence down there in the kill'a, and, although between her and that woman there had been a bond, as between women who have agreed to share a man's affections, now that he was dead Shiv would kill her too.

Long before Diana reached the Lion's Rock the tigress had known of her coming. And with those first stirrings of revenge had come a driving urge to find a way to its achievement. Night after night, when the moon had gone down and only the panther-people were abroad. Shiv had slunk down into the valley, swum the river, and ranged round the kill'a, seeking for an entrance-way, unobserved by the watching men whom she had smelled from the other side of the water, and of whom she had snarled at the stink. Always she chose a night when the wind was blowing towards her; hers were always the hours when the moon had gone down or before it had risen.

She had found a way into the fort. A faint scent of animal blood had led her to it, the polluted water coming from a fissure m the rock hidden by a tangle of thorny undergrowth. Her white under-fur dragging on the ground, Shiv had clawed her way along the bottom of the fissure and up its steep slope until her great head had emerged into another tangle of thorn-bushes near the place used by the butchers as a killing-ground, and from which the tainted water had come, the blood having soaked through the earth and met the underground stream.

Huge-footed, silent-breathing, stately pacing— danger incarnate in her black and gold— she had roamed the neglected gardens and the orchard. But the woman-creature she wanted to kill was not there— yet.

One of those messages concerning the coming of which Shiv knew nothing told her that before the apple blossoms had fallen in the orchard (it was a pleasing orchard shoulder-deep in grass) the woman would surely come and the price that was owing would be paid. So Shiv slaked her impatience and kept sharp her claws by killing within the fortress walls other and lesser creatures. They were never eaten, because a confused recollection of a bearded man's will regarding her feeding-place made the great beast refrain from devouring her kills in a garden which had been his garden. But he was gone, and there was none to forbid the killing of this woman.

All cats— whether they be great and striped or small and black with white paws— have a strange power of sensing the unseen. Their memory is always centuries long, and in the thin brightness of their feral eyes is the same challenge— the same concentrated, wary intentness in their appraisal of men. And it would seem that the lesser cats are the greater dreamers.

To Barfy, the kitten, as to Shiv, there came at times mysterious messages. Herself too small a thing for her presence to be sensed by the tigress, she knew of the unseen Shiv's presence, and (but more dimly) what it portended. The feeling it inspired was not merely a premonition of harm to come. In that small feline mind it had instantly aroused two other sensations, each one of which was a by-product of millenniums of contact with man and his civilisations. They were the sensations of caution and cat hate. (Here it may be set down that the hate of such cats as have condescended to dwell among men is even fiercer than their loving, and that a deep love is but rarely given.) Those civilisations have left untouched in them— they are still unafraid children of the open wild— many of the primitive values it has destroyed in man, the shelterer. Centuries of cruel persecution and contemptuous mistrust have kept certain atavistic memories rawly alive. Occasionally there came to Barfy dreams which had their origin in latent memories of those persecutions; and when they came her supple limbs, her whiskers, and even the tip of her mongrel tail would twitch.

In her beloved Cairo suk Barfy— too little to be credited with intelligence— may have been said to have given up five of her nine lives, for she saved from death by fire a child and its mother and father, and the man's two brothers. They were fisher-folk, and their house was the poorest in one of Cairo's meaner alleys. But Barfy had decided that she loved the child, in the same way that her mother had loved a tortoise which lived in the nearby vegetable market. So she had patted their faces as they slept, and mewed till they awoke and ran from the blazing hovel. After that she had strayed and had never seen the child again.

Despite her smallness (from nose to tail-tip she measured only twenty-two inches), under the softness of her shiny fur rippled muscles of steel, and in  her heart was a courage equal to Shiv's, a fierce impulse to defend what she felt she owned. No human being has ever "owned" a cat. Blind indeed is the urge to this defence, and in obedience to it even a small cat would risk a ninth life.

In the middle watch of her first night in the fortress a similar instinct of danger had caused Barfy suddenly to desert her coiled ease in the crook of Di's warm arm for a seat on a cold balustrade, where she had sat till dawn, her forepaws doubled under her, looking down into the dark shadows in Shireen's garden. One of those mysterious messages had told her that she and That Which Was Below would soon meet.

20

DIANA awoke to see Colin Gray, dressed in blue Hillman's clothes, asleep on cushions, flung haphazardly on the floor of the balcony.

She sat up. The sky was tinged with the flush that precedes sunrise. Those who live for long in India are accustomed to rise with the sun; in the hot months most of the day's work must be finished by noon. Apparently he had not slept any better than she had. But in her case Barfy— rolling loud, thoracic kettle-drums— had walked up and down during half the night. There had been pauses in the promenades, during which the little animal had sat upon the more salient portions of Diana to gaze fixedly at the balcony, upon the balustrade of which she was now washing herself with evident pleasure and ineffable dignity.

A moment later Barfy jumped down on to Gray, causing him to sit up with convulsive promptness.

'Damn you, cat!'

'Fancy starting the day with such a remark!' laughed Diana.

'Hullo Di! Morning! Limbu has turned up... Avaunt, you imp of Satan.' (This last to Barfy.) Diana's laughter ceased.

'Is he all right?'

Gray stopped stroking the kitten. 'He's got a bullet through his arm. But the hakim says there's nothing to worry about.'

He rubbed a bristly chin.

'To tell you the truth, I don't quite know. Old Limbu was delirious when we found him, and had to be given morphia. By some extraordinary bit of luck he hit upon a secret passage leading into the fort. The hakim and I went down it afterwards. The steps end in a cave filled with water, and it's reached by diving into a pool in the river— a sort of miniature whirl-pool. I went through it dived in and all that. It was rather a weird experience. But God only knows how Limbu managed it, winged as he was.'

He glanced down at his baggy Hillman's trousers.

'For this sportsman's outfit, my dear, you can thank a most unpleasant eunuch! He dressed me up in some sort of a red silk nightgown and cleared off with my clothes. I wish you could have seen me à la Richelieu!'

'Can I do anything for Limbu, Colin?'

'I don't think so, angel. I'm going to see him after this bally council. Any message?'

'I'll send him Barfy. He adores her.'

They sat silent, hand in hand.

'I wish I hadn't given in to you about this darned old plan, Di!'

Diana picked up the kitten.

'Barfy, aren't men ungrateful creatures?... I think you should be very glad I suggested it, Colin.'

He sighed and half shook his head. 'I shall be more than "very glad" when I've got you safely back to India!'

'You won't be very far from me when I'm vamping Daddy Khoon, my Colin. I wouldn't have taken it on unless you were going to be close at hand.'

'I'll be on the spot all right— to nut that beast on the spot, damn him!'  He glanced at his wrist-watch. 'Forgotten to wind it— as usual. What's the time?'

'O Master of the World, I don't know! I forgot to wind mine. At least I don't remember doing so.'

She put the watch to her ear with a graceful movement. 'Yes— it has stopped!'

'Mine says nine,' remarked Gray, regarding the dial disapprovingly. 'It's more like four ack emma, of course.'

'Colin, are you pulling my leg?'

'No. Why do you say that?'

'I thought perhaps you had seen my watch. It stopped at nine— like yours!'

'What were we doing at nine o'clock last night?' ruminated Gray.

'I was being walked on by Barfy,' remarked Diana informatively. He kissed her and crossed to the door.

IN the Diwan-i-amm, Shireen's sirdars were once more gathered together. The tables and the Persian rugs were gone, and the bareness or me great hall seemed to give a grim assertiveness to the glaring fresco of hell. Where Gray and Diana had sat the evening before a dais had been placed, upon which was set a gaddi (Indian throne), in form not unlike a small sofa, except that it was nearly square and had on three sides of it low railings of gold or silver-gilt— the Oriental equivalents of a back and arms.

The sirdars, fully armed, were squatting directly in front or the gaddi in semi-circles. Shireen, in riding kit, with a great ruby blazing in the front of her pink silken turban, was a striking central figure. Her face was pale with suppressed anger.

'Ye know the message sent upon the arrow,' she said, anger sharpening her tones.

'We know it.'

'I am sending answer to this Son of Eblis by one of the Mongols we captured yesterday. It is a lying letter, but since it is written to the King of Liars that is meet. I have said that I will hand over to him in three days' time, on the Moon Plateau, my two friends— on the condition that I and my people are left in peace. I have said that I am sending them because I have heard that the Inglis Government intends to steal from me the treasure of the Valley of the Mirror, and that therefore my friendship with the Sirkar (Government) is ended. She reddened as she spoke the words But Gray saw in her eyes a secret brooding, as if her mind were dwelling with savage joy upon some thought she had not expressed.

In a few seconds the silence was broken by guttural mutterings of protest: 'It is a shameful word!' 'The rights of mailmasti (hospitality) are sacred.' And so on.

'Have I not said it was a lying letter?' asked Shireen sharply. 'My beloved friend Deena, who has courage equal to that of a fighting man, has offered to bait a trap in which we shall catch this Mongol beast of prey.'

A murmur of admiration rolled through the semi-circles of sirdars.

'But how know we that Khoon will come with the party which is to take over the sahib-log?' demanded the Khattak.

'That is a true word! How know we that?' demanded the seated commander. Shireen frowned.

'We will not let them go unless he comes.'

'But you said you will hand them over 'personally'! His army outnumbers ours ten times. You and all who went with you would be captured or killed,' commented another sirdar.

'His numbers mean naught,' cut in Sher Khan. 'One of us is equal to 40 of his monkeys!'

'Yea. But what will happen to the sahib-log if they be handed over?' objected the first speaker.

'They will be protected by Allah— and by us under Allah,' said Shireen.

Once more a silence denoted doubt or disapproval. The slow-moving minds of the sirdars were wrestling with her statement. Allah was Allah. Allah was the All-powerful. But His thoughts and intuitions— how could she know them? A sharp sword, a well-aimed bullet, and the strength of a man— these were often the instruments of Allah's will. These things, and the sufferings and death of men and women. Their thought that Allah gives strength to the sword-arm was voiced by the next speaker.

'Permeswar (God) made man able to fight in order that he might slay evildoers, mistress,' said a grey-bearded Sikh— the only Hindu present. 'We are His soldiers and thine. Shall we not act as soldiers?'

'Have I asked ye to act as women?' demanded Shireen.

The Sikh laughed; he had five sons among Shireen's fighting men. 'Nay; but are you not asking us to believe as children? This memsahib has set us an example which will lead us as no man could lead us.' He salaamed to the seated Diana amid murmurous applause, which increased when she salaamed in return.

Gray stood beside her. 'The memsahib thanks you, sirdar sahib! I hope that I shall be allowed to command those of you who will volunteer to follow me. They and I will watch over her safety.'

A ripple of laughter broke.

'There would be none left to guard the kill'a, sahib!' exclaimed Sher Khan, his handsome face alight with humour.

Shireen smiled. The answer had pleased her.

Gray then explained his plans. Once Khoon was trapped the three divisions would make an emergency road over the blocked pass into the Valley of the Mirror.

If Khoon did not come in person to the Moon Plateau Diana would be safe with them. In any case, a strong force should leave at once (under the command of Sher Khan, he suggested), and moving only by night along a track unknown to the Mongols, take up concealed positions in the hills surrounding the Moon Plateau. Any force sent by Khoon to that place was to be annihilated.

Gray explained that he would send at once a request to the G.O.C. of the three divisions, asking that planes be sent to bomb the Mongol camp that day week, a night attack being launched the same night by the full strength of Shireen's lashkar (army). Meanwhile, the divisions would have made a road into the Valley of the Mirror, and, attacking the Mongol camp, discredit Khoon by a smashing victory. In the meantime, Gray said, he personally would ask this all-powerful Servant of Allah to proclaim through all the frontier village mullahs, or teachers of Islam, that the Valley of the Mirror was holy ground, Insomuch as buried in it were the thousands of Mussulmans overwhelmed in the earthquake which destroyed Alam Khan's stronghold, thus making Khoon's intention to excavate the treasure an unforgivable offence against Islam.

'It shall be as you say, Gray sahib! We number two thousand fighting men. My lashkar has increased by many hundreds since your coming. Five hundred of the men of the Jaora Valley have sent word that they will join us. These, and as many hundreds of my Jiwans (young fighters) under the command of Firoz Khan, will hold this fort. Fifteen hundred of us will follow you— I among them! A messenger shall at once be sent to recall Firoz Khan, bidding him cease following up the Mongols.'

The vigorous phrases of approval died away when Sher Khan addressed Shireen in a voice like a trumpet blast: 'I ask that no messenger be sent to Piroz Khan! I ask that I be sent to him, with five hundred Jiwans, to turn the Mongol flank and cut them off!'

'What say you, Gray sahib?' questioned Shireen.

'How many days' march is it from here to the Valley of the Mirror, Shireen Khan?' asked Gray.

'Three.'

'And the road?'

She shrugged. 'There is none until two days' march from here. And they are black miles!'

'Can it, then, be reached by one coming from the plateau from which I started?'

'There is a pass, but it was blown up on the day on which my lord Alam Khan was killed.'

'What was blown up once can be blown up twice,' said Gray.

'From where should we get the many men and the many days and the dinnamit-wallahs required to do such work?' protested the Sikh. 'We can dig, but we cannot blow up rocks!'

'An army of ten thousand sahibs, with bridge makers and dinnamit-wallahs, is camped below the plateau,' said Gray quietly. 'They will make a road in a night and a day!'

'Allah is great! Now indeed shall we have a fight of fights!'

Each of the sirdars expressed differently his feelings at this excellent piece of news. Laughter and delighted comments rose in rapid crescendo. The anxious tension of a few moments before had vanished.

'Khoon has now two camps,' resumed Shireen. 'His advance camp is about a day's march from here. His main camp is three days distant.'

'Four, Shireen-bibi,' corrected the Khattak. 'There have been landslides.'

'Khoon has sent for engineers and dinnamit,' growled the Sikh.

An animated discussion followed The general practicability of the plan was the subject of a noisy exchange of views. Shireen, Diana, and Gray were about to quit the Diwan-i-amm when a loud knocking sounded on the closed door.

'Let whoever it is be admitted,' commanded Shireen.

A dishevelled Hillman burst into the room.

'The fort is surrounded! They have taken Firoz Khan prisoner! All his men are killed!'

21

THE news of the annihilation of Firoz Khan's party was slightly exaggerated by the excited survivor; but the crests surrounding the valley were swarming with Mongol troops from Khoon's advance camp.

That much was true. Small groups of Shireen's men who had been working on the scattered patches of cultivation or cutting wood, and one or two patrols, were scurrying towards the fort under an inaccurate long-range fire. The pickets posted on the heights were heavily engaged, but to send a force to their relief was impossible. They must either succeed in making their own way down to the kill'a or die fighting.

After a brief consultation the sirdars had hurried away to their men. Shireen, who showed no outward sign of her feelings concerning Firoz Khan's capture, assumed command. Three men were at once to carry Gray's code letter to the commander of the British force. The enemy's fire was not to be returned by the garrison except under orders from her. A guard was to be set over all shops and stores of food, the quantities of which were to be reported forthwith.

Gray was pleased to be in charge of the observation-post, all enemy movements or suspicious happenings noticed by any member of the garrison to be at once reported to him. Diana had gladly accepted the post of Matron-Supervisor of the Hillwomen, detailed to act as nurses for such wounded as there might be, placing herself under the orders of the hakim for the purpose.

The vast building hummed with activity, and under the sharp stimulation of their various commanders the men of the garrison, fully armed and carrying their blankets, mustered at their allotted posts.

Gray took up his quarters in the watch-tower. It commanded an extensive view of the surrounding country, and there he could be easily found in case, of need. If nothing had happened by to-morrow to clear the situation he intended to make his way to Khoon's camp and try to get into touch with Ewbank. He had sent two messengers to him, and neither had returned. But of this intention to leave the fortress he had said nothing to Diana.

So far as he could judge, Khoon did not intend to invade the valley. No doubt this surprise move had for motive the reinforcing of the demand for the surrender of Diana and himself. It seemed improbable that Khoon, anxious as he was to placate the Hill tribes, would jeopardise the results of an intensive propaganda by attacking Shireen and her people. The support of the other two million was too essential. Gray hoped, however, that this new development would bring the Mongol in person to supervise the investment, when an attempt to capture him could be made under Gray's leadership.

His brief visit to Limbu had elicited from the Ghurkha a more detailed account of what had happened to him. Salient among the mass of facts which the orderly had related was a statement that he had overheard two Mongol scouts talking on the hillside, saying that the engineers and excavating machinery which Khoon had sent envoys to fetch were due to arrive in a few days' time. That piece of news was not altogether bad; the bombing planes might be able to destroy the caravan while it was still on its way and an easy mark.

In his code letter Gray had specially mentioned its expected coming. On the other hand Khoon might decide to come down into the valley. He might stake the power of the immense wealth which shortly he intended to possess against the problematical effects upon wider Islam of the reduction of a small hill-fort whose chieftain had, he could asserverate, refused to fight against the British.

They might even applaud him for it. Shireen was known to be friendly to the point of having British friends as her guests.... Or, again, he might think the capture of Diana worth any risk; that gold would wash him clean in the eyes of the Hillmen, who themselves live too close to raw nature not to have an understanding, and even approval, of his taking her. His knowledge of the presence of the British force, too, might either upset his usually cold and calculating mind and drive him to an act of savagery such as he would enjoy committing, or it might inspire him with a fear that if he did not strike now he would lose all chance of having Diana and Gray In his power.

Pacing up and down the small top platform of the tower, now scrutinising the valley below, now focusing his field-glasses on an enemy group on the crest line, Gray wondered by which of these motives the Mongol had been actuated, when he had suddenly diverted his attention to the Lion's Rock citadel. The three messengers carrying his dispatch to the three divisions would travel night and day, not pausing to sleep; They— or one of them — should reach there in twenty-four hours. As a sign that it had been received Gray had asked that a plane should be sent over the valley, which he had described in detail. Until shortly before sunset nothing of any importance happened.

The afternoon had been close, and there had been a short but very heavy thunderstorm. Towering masses of cumulus clouds, with edges of molten gold, had since then banked up in the west, hiding the sun and shrouding the valley in a pall of purple blotched with black.

Diana, who had spent most of the afternoon with him sheltering from the rain under a strip of narrow roofing fixed to the high corner crenellations, had just gone down to make tea, when the gloom-filled gorges were touched with fire by the setting sun.

Gray seized the opportunity to examine the valley afresh. Following the course of the narrow road that ran from the fort entrance gates to the ford, he moved his field of vision to the farther bank, where the ford emerged to continue as a track into the pine-forest. At the sight of what at first he took to be a tree-trunk peeled or blazed to mark the range to it from the fort his glasses ceased their slow movement. It was curious, he thought, that he had not noticed it before... It wasn't a tree. It―

He whipped the binoculars from his eyes, and, breathing upon the lenses, polished them and looked again. Standing in the centre of the track that led among the pines, and just at their edge, was a man. It looked as if he was wearing sun-glasses and a red bathing suit. He was a white man. There was no doubt about his being a white man; he had fair hair.

Slowly an edge of cloud covered the sun. and the shadows raced down upon the valley again. Still looking through his glasses, Gray watched. What was this man doing there? He seemed to be staring up at the kill-a, as if waiting for a Signal from it. Even more slowly the sun came out again, and the sombre shadows raced up the valley floor, sweeping, as they went, from the feet of that motionless figure to its head.

Fighting against the horror of a thought which had come to him, Gray gazed until his eyes ached. Then the full blaze of red sun shone out and his glasses dropped from his hand to swing by their narrow black strap. The figure standing there was Ewbank! Shouting to the two Hillmen who were sharing his watch to take on the observation, he raced down the narrow staircase of the tower. Enemy or no enemy, killing or no killing, safe or unsafe, he was going to get Ewbank in.

A few minutes later, accompanied by the hakim and an escort carrying a charpai, or light native bedstead of wood and string, he was splashing his way through the ford.

They found what had been Ewbank. It was tied to a short post evidently put into position under cover of the thunderstorm. On its chest had been cut with a knife in Persian characters 'Salaam, Khoon.'  It was stark naked and the mutilations had included the putting out of the eyes.

They buried him, wrapped in a turban, where they had found him. The party was fired upon only once. Among the many eyes and fierce which watched them were those of the men who had set up the stake— Khoon's two spies, chosen for their intimate knowledge of the valley and its inhabitants. Lying full length on a flat-topped they looked down on the tiny figures of the party as it made its way across the ford.

'Him,' said one of them, an unusually powerful man, referring to Gray, 'I would not like to have to carry!'

His companion dragged forward the jezail lying by his side.

'Fool.' The first man gripped, with a blood-caked hand, his companion's neck. 'His orders for the sahib's harming still hold good.'

'I will give him what he deserves,' retorted the other, wriggling free his head sideways. And, jerking forward the jezail he fired. An exclamation of savage anger made both men turn their heads inquiringly. Behind them, knock-kneed and with his knuckles on his hips, was standing the monstrous-shaped yellowness of Khoon. A short distance away were a dozen of his bodyguard.

'Stand up!'

The man rose, his smoking jezail trailing like a child's toy.

'What were my orders, dunghill?'

'That the sahib is not to be harmed,' said the man sullenly.

'And is he harmed?'

'Nay, Master of the Universe!'

'Thou art a bad shot and a putrid soldier! Put down thy gun. Look over and tell me what thou seest!'

The man obeyed. Going close to him with a lightning movement, Khoon lifted one of his knock-kneed legs and drove his foot hard into the small of the man's back. Looking over the edge he watched the man hit the rocks a thousand feet below.

'Is there news of the tigress, Shiv?' he demanded savagely of the other spy.

The deceased man's companion gulped.

'Omnipotence, two nights ago saw her. The beast is more restless than is her wont.'

Khoon blew his nose on the end of the turban of one of his bodyguard.

'Hast thou marked her entranceway?'

The terrified man pointed to a clump of bushes at the foot of the Lion's Rock.

'It is behind them,' he said. 'She entered, and did not return.'

Khoon chuckled.

'Where she can find a way in we can!' he said, spitting into space.

22

SEATED that evening with Diana in Shireen's audience chamber, and surrounded by all its unbelievable and fantastic wealth and gorgeousness, Gray thought of one of those old-time transformation scenes in which a stage ablaze with limelight scintillated with flashes of sheets of red and green tinsel, electroplated spearheads, shimmering gold fringe, and suspended showers of silver tinsel rain.

Diana and he seemed to be actors, in some such glittering make-believe— trying to forget or a while that outside the doors of the 'theatre' was a world of grim reality, bloodshed, and death.

Eager for action of some kind, he had suggested to Shireen that he should visit the Servant of Allah; but she had answered that the ancient had sent word that he would see him the following day; and with that Gray had been forced to be content.

Shireen seemed unapproachable and reticent. When Diana expressed concern as to the possible fate of Firoz Chan she made no answering remark, though her eyes were troubled. Actually she was happy to have Gray and Diana with her; she had long forgiven him for his share in the killing of Alam Khan. That had been the fortune of war, and she was a child of war. Diana she deeply loved. The first day they had met the English girl's frankness and fearlessness in the face of almost certain death had won the Persian's respect. Diana's warm-hearted nature, her beauty, and her instant friendship for Shireen had soon won her love, and Shireen's love, once given, stood fast. She realised much as a child might realise a fault committed (there was much of the wayward child in Shireen), the littleness of an existence in which war and unwomanliness played the dominating role it did in her. The sight of this English couple's happiness gave form and substance to vague longings she had at times felt— to live a life that, while it was full of adventure, was captained by Love. In her eyes Gray was a hero; she hoped to find a man like him.

The burden of raising the party's spirits fell upon a suddenly playful Barfy.

'Those who love birds cannot love cats,' said Shireen thoughtfully, smiling at the indiarubber-ball antics of the kitten. 'This little pusi is surely very young, Deena?'

'She's about nine months old, I should think,' answered Diana. (Nine months. One carried a' child for nine months.)

'My lord used to call Shiv a furred serpent,' went on Shireen, disengaging one of the kitten's paws from a tangle of crimson silk thread. 'See! Your furred snakelet has tangled my silks. ... I remember once asking my lord whether it was true that the holy Noah, in order to destroy a plague of mice in the Ark, had made the lioness sneeze, and so produce the first cat. But the Khan sahib said that the true story of the pusi's creation was that a monkey seduced the lioness.'

'Pusis are not mentioned in our Bible; perhaps that's against them,' laughed Gray.

Diana poured a little milk into a saucer of transparent Chinese porcelain.

'Our religion has been very unkind to Barfy's ancestors; they were dreadfully persecuted, Colin!'

'Tobah! (For shame!)' exclaimed Shireen gravely. 'In our faith it is different. It is even written that on one occasion the Prophet (may the peace of God be upon him!), when he was awakened by the morning Call to Prayer, cut off the corner of his cloak before he rose up, so as not to disturb his cat, which had chosen to sleep on it.'

Barfy, oblivious of these and germane topics, was dimly conscious that death was near these three humans, and that for some reason she did not understand she was involved in it. She accepted the coming of such sense shadows as phlegmatically as she accepted hunger and the other phases of her appetites; but always on the eve of their passing she became eager for affection, and, setting aside her aloofness, demanded it unashamedly. On this occasion she clambered with clawful crepitations on to the divan and posed herself, a warm, furry bundle, on Diana's knees.

The pleasure of staring at her mistress unwinkingly had palled. Instead, purring contentedly, with her fur fluffed out and a morsel of pink tongue protruding between her tiny teeth, she fixed the yellowest of yellow eyes, with black pupils like two exclamation-marks, intently upon Gray. Her reflections might well have been: 'He doesn't know what is coming. I know!'

Outside Shireen's white peacock perched upon the balcony railing screamed harshly.

INEVITABLY the conversation turned upon a subject the three had been trying temporarily to forget— the enemy. The distant sounds of sandals clip-clopping in the corridor as the sentries were relieved reminded the Persian that there was no guard over the secret passage.

'I will give orders to brick up that opening, Gray Sahib!' said Shireen.

He stayed her intention to summon a servant.

'I wouldn't do that just at present, Shireen. It might be useful to us... I wish your cat wouldn't stare at me like a basilisk, Di!'

'You'll make me jumpy if you talk like that,' railed Diana. I'd like a walk in the garden.'

The conversation might have been understood by the kitten, for she dropped to the floor, made her way unhurriedly to the balcony, and, thrusting her head between the balustrades, looked down into the garden.

'The moon has not yet risen, 'Deena,' temporised Shireen, slim fingers busy with a multi-coloured tangle. 'In an hour it will be up and you would be able to see the apple blossoms. They look like newly fallen snow in the moonlight.'

'Why don't you come, Shireen?'

'Look, Deena! I would have gone with you, but your pusi has given me much to do.'

She held up the silks with which she had been embroidering a Koran cover of green satin, green being the colour preferred by the Prophet.

'Then I suppose that I and my "basilisk" have to go alone!' Diana tilted her head a trifle and looked under lids at Gray, who rose.

'You don't mind, Shireen?...'

Descending the last of the steps leading into a wild and sombre garden. Gray glanced at the gold-embroidered sari of white muslin which Shireen had given Diana.

'Sure you aren't cold? The old hills aren't too warm these nights, you know.'

'You put your arm round me. That'll keep me warm! Wait till I put down Barfy.'

She slipped an arm about him and looked up at the scintillating heavens.

'Don't the stars looks as if they were shivering with suppressed excitement, Colin? Which one of them is Brihaspati?'

'I think that's him— that big fellow over there.' He pointed.

'He does look rather— "bodeful," as my old nurse used to say, doesn't he?' 'Good old soul, your Nanny,' remarked Gray, biting the end off a cheroot. 'Never understood her devotion to porridge and treacle, though! Beastly stuff, treacle! I wonder what happened to old Barfopulos that night?'

'I often wonder that, Colin. Now, he struck me as a bodeful person, if you like!'

'He'd made a darned good detective.' commented Gray, fumbling with his left hand for his lighter. Diana loosed her clasp and, diving into his right-hand pocket, found the lighter, clicked it and held the flame to the cigar end.

'How does that Persian poem go?... "I give thee the fire of my love...?" '

' "I give to thine heart the fire of my love,

And it shall light thy way as a lamp;

Even as a son is the light of a dark house,' translated Gray.

'Would you like to have a son?' she whispered the question.

He drew her closer, and, bending, kissed her.

'Di...?' She nodded.

The glowing end of the cheroot suddenly lighted his face. 'Sweetheart!' she said very softly.

Silently and slowly they wandered towards the orchard. She shyly reliant and he tenderly protecting.

'Look! There's a wall round it, and there's a doorway in it! Isn't it like the one at home!' Diana exclaimed delightedly.

'Except that it has no green door and the wall is rather a "has-been" and is minus pear-trees,' chuckled Gray. 'I wish the moon 'ud come up, bless her old heart!'

' "The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor..." Don't you love those lines?'

'Shakespeare's a marvellous bloke,' Gray remarked seriously, looking down at her. (How infinitely dear to him she was! And now...!) 'Shakespeare was! . But that isn't from Shakespeare,' she chided, laughing happily. 'It's Alfred Noyes. The Highwayman... Oh, just look at those blossoms!'

The long stretch of fruit trees loomed in the starlight like a miniature forest under snow, their branches laden with whiteness. The ground beneath, where the grass was short, was silvered with fallen petals. Although the fort garden had become a tangled wilderness, the gatherers of fruit, as a precaution against stepping on a snake with their naked feet, had cut away the yard-high grass immediately round the trees and made with their sickles a pathway between the rows.

Now when a cat walks upon snow for the first time it generally plays with it. Having entered the orchard, despite a growing sense of uneasiness, Barfy permitted herself a few moments of ecstatic abandon among the fallen blossoms. It was her first encounter with a whitened earth. Taking three springy sideways jumps, and then resting the full length of her forelegs on the ground, she scattered the fallen petals with quick sideways pats of her paw, one or two of the petals clinging to her black fur.

Suddenly, with every hair upon her arched body erect and her tail like a black bottle-brush, she stood rigid, staring yellowly into the tall grass, Then very slowly she moved towards that which was in it...

Suddenly Diana noticed the disappearance of Barfy.

'Did you see where she went, Colin?'

'Into that long grass, I think.'

They stopped to call and listen; and in those moments the crouching black and yellow death hidden in the shadows and tall grass undulated forward six inches. Into the silence came a sharp hiss. Diana stood tensely alert. In the stillness the first stroke of nine sounded, thinly harsh, from the clock over Buddha's halo in the Diwani-amm.

'Seems as if old Barfy's seen a snake! If she has she'll deal with it. Don't worry,' commented Gray indifferently. He knew that the cat is one of the few animals which are capable of dealing with a snake. Diana pursued her search, leaving him to relight a refractory cheroot.

Now Shiv had chosen that moment to spring; but a sudden sideways movement of her victim disconcerted her. A split-second later she leaped.

As the tigress hurtled through the air Diana saw Barfy in the long grass and. bending to pick her up, with the quickness of a flash of lightning turned her head and found herself looking into Shiv's eyes. A downward sweep of one of the mighty paws, as the great beast tried to retrieve her balked spring, slashed at Diana's right shoulder, laying the arm open to the elbow. Her scream and the sharp roar of the tigress mingled.

With an oath Gray dashed towards her, and had Just time to see Shiv disappear in the direction of the slaughter-ground. Picking up Diana, he ran with her towards the palace, shouting for help. B Into the courtyard poured Hillmen carrying lamps, and to them as he strode towards the entrance, the Hillmen keeping pace by his side. Gray barked out in harsh staccato sentences what had happened.

'For God's sake, call the hakim!' he repeated. A score of men reiterated the cry as he raced up on interminable flight of stairs, every step dyeing his clothes a darker, wider red.

23

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT Gray paced his spacious room or the long corridors outside Shireen's apartments while a grave hakim sat watching by Diana's bedside. Her youth, splendid physique and health, plus the fact that her wounds were at once septically treated, were all in favour of her recovery, he said.

The one danger, as Gray knew, was blood-poisoning. She had been given a strong opiate and was asleep. Just before the new day came exhausted in body and mind, he flung himself upon his bed and dropped into an uneasy, dream-haunted sleep. Barfopulos dominated the horrific dreams that came to him. Gray would be scaling a high mountain in a frantic search for a lost Diana, when suddenly he would see Barfopulos beckoning to him, and the dream would end― or he would be lost in a gorge full of tigers and all at once see Barfopulos seated among the snarling beasts, beckoning him, always beckoning.

Shortly after daybreak the hakim reported a rise in Diana's temperature. It was impossible to say what it augured, he said. It might be reaction to the shock and pain (she was still under the opiate), or it might be a danger sign.

'God! I hope I shan't go mad!' Gray muttered, sitting on the side of a divan, his head in his hands. 'If anything happens to her India has seen the last of me!'

Shireen found him, haggard and distraught, staring into vacancy. She laid a hand upon his shoulder.

'How is she?' he asked heavily.

'Deena is still sleeping. You must sleep! If you ask my hakim he will assuredly give you medicine.'

'She might want me, and I'd be unable to go to her... Any news of the enemy? I'm ashamed, Shireen, that I haven't kept to my observation job.'

'All is quiet in the Hills— as you have noticed. Your messenger should return by to-night... I have a message for you from the Servant of Allah,' she said gently. 'He says, "Tell Gray sahib that Brihaspati may be an adverse planet, but other influences can counteract him." I know not what he means. He wishes to see you. Will not you go to him?' Gray got to his feet and passed a hand over his eyes. 'I suppose. . . Yes, I'd like to go.'

A long, steeply sloping passage closed by a stone door indistinguishable from the wall, which Shireen opened, led down from ground-level for a distance of something like two hundred yards where she halted before another and smaller door of wood.

'I will go no farther, Gray sahib. You know the way back. The stone needs but pressing outward. May Allah comfort you!'

Gray watched Shireen's retreating form for a moment, boyish and supple in her riding-kit and outlined by the small lamp she was carrying. Then, turning, he pushed open the door, to the sound of a flurry of wings as a number of small birds which had been pecking crumbs on the floor of the room flew out of a window.

He had expected to see a gloomy cell, but instead found himself in a low, bare, whitewashed room, off which opened two doors. Facing him was a wide opening in the rock, through which the birds had flown, the heavy wooden shutters on each side of it being thrown back to reveal a tangle of green creepers hanging from a ledge some feet above the opening. Through the greenness he could see a panorama of the hills east of the fortress. The peace of this strange, specklessly clean hermitage seemed deepened by the incense of the pines. Gray did not at once see its sole occupant— an aged bare-headed man dressed in the saffron robes of a yogi.

'Om!' said a deep, grave voice, the sound of the sacred Sanskrit name of the Absolute vibrating through the room like the sound of a mellow gong. And then:—

'Peace be to thee, Gray sahib! Let thy mind be as a lamp upon a still night, which flickers not; let it be calm, as a forest pool untouched by the wind of grief!'

'Good God;' exclaimed Gray, as his astonished eyes fell upon the wrinkled owner of the voice. 'Why— you're— Dr. Barfopulos!'

'I am a yogi — no more than that. Be seated, my son. I have much to say to you.'

Unable to take his eyes from the intent, yet introspective eyes of the sadhu, Gray seated himself. Those were the eyes which had looked upon Diana and himself as they met in that garden on the outskirts of Cairo! He would swear to it!

'Were you not in Cairo a few days ago, sadhu-ji?' he heard himself ask. Amusement bubbled up in the someone called Colin Gray, to whose voice he— detached from that Colin's Gray's body— was listening as he spoke. It was inexplicable, yet somehow easy to understand; a paradox that is not a paradox.

'I have told you,' said the Servant of Allah, who, to Gray's surprise, was evidently a Hindu, for he was dressed as one, though not wearing the Brahminical triple thread. 'I move never from this place. The flesh in which you see me was here. Yet I knew of your presence in Cairo. I see many people in many places, but always from here. Listen! You have passed through many incarnations, and through them we have met; through the merit of them you met your wife.'

'She is seriously injured―'

The sadhu inclined his head gravely. 'Not all serious illnesses are fatal— if the influences which would make them so are removed. In her case much depends upon you. Her life is affected by the Mongol Khoon, and if his influence prevails she will die.'

'If she dies, then I die!' Passing a hand across his forehead, Gray found it damp.

'Say, rather, "If she die I live— to merit meeting her"!'

Gray's self-control broke. For a few moments he could not speak.

'Om! Om! Om!' The mellow syllable vibrated soothingly. 'Life is a dream, Gray sahib. We can make it either evil or beautiful. If a king, in a dream, see himself a beggar, is he really a pauper? Does the mirage of a river dampen the sands of a desert it covers? Nay! There is but one reality, and that is Om! And thou art It! Tat Twan Asi! (Thou Art That!)'

'For me an utterly evil Khoon is reality enough,' exploded Gray. 'Can you not render him powerless by cursing him?'

He knew the force of a sadhu's curse when it is merited.

'I curse not, neither do I bless; these things become not one who has true knowledge.'

'Can I... Then, will you tell me what I must do to stand between this evil influence and my wife?' asked Gray earnestly. Soldier though he was, the astringent waters of officialdom had not ossified his mind; he realised that this man, like many of his kind, had great spiritual powers. He wanted him to use them on Diana's behalf.

'Merciful, gentle, desireless, is the true sadhu,' murmured the ascetic, fixing the curiously introspective eyes upon his visitor.

A sense of impatience surged up in Gray. The man was talking irrelevancies!

'But, sadhu-ji, surely one needs other qualities to deal with badmashes (scoundrels) like Khoon!'

He had failed to grasp that, while his Western mind demanded a straight answer, Hindu spiritual adepts often prefer to sow the seed of future action by subtle suggestion, and so help the troubled soul to realise its own inherent strength against evil. Only the spirit can control the spirit.

'I have some influence— not much, but some— with the good mullahs of these hills,' remarked the old sadhu gently. 'Wise indeed is he who realises that Brotherhood between the Faiths is the true path to peace on this plane. I have, therefore, used that little power to influence certain mullahs. The Valley of the Mirror was yesterday declared holy ground. As you thought, this will defeat one of the aims of Khoon. His other aims you must defeat. As we say: "The guru but points the way; the disciple must do the climbing."'

'But how, guru-ji?' Impatience mingled with earnestness.

'In the asking of a question lies often an answer! What are you proposing to do, Gray sahib?'

'Until my wife is out of danger― nothing.'

'By inaction man does not escape action,' remarked the yogi gravely.

'No.... When she is safe it will be war to the knife against Khoon,' answered Gray. Then, collecting himself, he added: 'I forgot! As a guru you do not approve of violence.' He shrugged. 'But I see nothing else.'

'Is not removing the cause of war better than waging war?'

'War of any kind is a clean thine compared to that devil!' Sounds of anger and disgust rumbled in Gray's throat.

'Most wars, Gray sahib,' was the gentle answer 'are a magnifying of present evils until they seem Everything. The present is never Everything. The shedding of blood is a madness of the emotions, of the will, and of physical being. Such expressions of the lower self bring degradation, pain, and hunger— the hunger of inadequacy. The sowers of war are those who hinder or neglect spiritual growth; wherefore they are the ever-hungry eaters of their own hearts.'

He looked towards the creeper-curtained opening.

'The birds sing and are happy!'

'Nature red in tooth and claw,' leaped to Gray's mind.

'But they, too, fight,' he interjected, with a mild sense of satisfaction.

'Yea— and the causes pardon them, even as a child which dirties itself is pardoned. You and I know cleanliness.' He smiled whimsically. 'Singing— save as I sing— is not violence.'

'The cause of my being in Kalistan―' began Gray. He paused to marshal the salient facts.

The ancient sighed.

'It is a very old cause— gold! Khoon, the self-appointed protector of Islam, desires riches that are hidden in a valley―is that so?'

'Yes... "Protector of Islam"!' fumed Gray. 'Why, no decent Mussulman would be seen dead with him! God made him, so I suppose he must pass for a man!'

A shadow clouded the calm eyes of the old yogi.

'He has fallen into the trap, which has snared greater leaders than he! Sikander (Alexander) did not conquer the world, Gray sahib. The world conquered Sikander. You asked me just now how you should climb the heights whereon broods the spirit of true Knowledge, the defeater of all enemies. Your feet are already set upon that path. You have learned much from these hills and from the trees that grow upon them; you have learned that they exist not for themselves; and that, if you know loneliness, the stars also know it. You must look upon tnis Mongol with the eyes of the East.'

Gray could obtain no elucidation of this cryptic utterance. Vaguely he realised that all that this peaceful personality had said about his having learned from the hills and so forth was true. During his many lonely missions among the hills and his contacts with sadhus and pirs (the Mussulman equivalent of a guru) he had learned— almost without any conscious effort to do so— a secret wisdom of which he sensed the presence in his inner consciousness rather than understood its import. And in that sensing he had found joy. Peace had come to him since he had sat in this man's presence.

'One needs must know the highest when one sees it.'

This Servant of Allah had given him trust and courage. Now he would assuredly bring Khoon and his plans to nothingness!

Outside, clinging to the greenness of the creeper, two small grey-and-white birds were making their way upward with a sweet cheeping, and from the valley rose the diapason of the restless river. The sadhu had closed his eyes, and seemed lost in meditation. Knowing that a visitor to an Indian ascetic invariably withdraws when that happens, Gray rose to take his leave.

Something made him join his hands palm to palm upon his breast and bow his head in reverences to spiritual greatness. Force was reverencing power.

'Om!' said the sadhu slowly and without opening his eyes. 'You spoke of Egypt. The gods of Egypt were as real as the gods of Hinduism. Expressions of Om, they have the power of Om. Go in blessing, my son. We shall not meet again. What house shall stand for ever? Om!'

24

THE action of the Hill mullahs in declaring the Valley of the Mirror holy ground drove Khoon almost insane with fury. He saw the danger of the effect of the proclamation on his allied sirdas. He commanded a feast.

The news was, he said, a cause for rejoicing ; some mad mullah had gossiped in his cups, and others had taken seriously the madman's words. It was a proof sent by Allah that the reformed and strengthened Islam which it was His divine will that His servant, Khoon, should bring into being was urgently needed.

In the middle of that orgy he had swayed to his feet, a great gold cup tilted in his hand, the coarse native spirit with which it was filled slopping down the robes or green velvet that his mad mind prompted him to wear upon such occasions.

'Bagaturs!' he shouted. 'Drink to the divinely guided Khoon, the descendant of Genghis Khan, and to the downfall of perverters of the Faith.'

Their roar of approval was heard In the farthermost tents. The Portuguese translator, who had followed with over-thoroughness his master's example, was now in a maudlin state of fright lest he might suddenly he called upon to act in his official capacity, and be unable to do so with the clarity and swiftness that were his sole protection against Khoon's murderous anger. He had several times imagined that Khoon's terrible eyes had been watching him. When therefore his younger brother— a weedy, consumptive youth, with frightened eyes— pulled officialdom's coat sleeve and gave him a message from the two spies the chief translator saw a good opportunity to prove himself to be in a state of efficient sobriety.

Making his way through the packed throng of armed feasters and drunkards, he approached Khoon.

'What dost thou want, yellow beast?' hiccupped Khoon.

Terrified by his own slurred accents, the translator rendered the message.

Khoon, far from noticing his servant's inebriation, dashed the contents of the goblet in his face, and, bidding him keep the cup as baksheesh, leaped to his feet, aflame with lust and triumph.

'Hearken to a message from the holy Mongke Tengri! He has spoken to me! Hear his message, noble bagaturs!'

No noisy acclamations followed that exhortation or the speech which followed it. A sense of awe had gripped the credulous chieftains, in whom their potations had increased a natural fear of the supernatural.

'Therefore Mongke Tengri has revealed to us a secret way into the stronghold of our enemies,' roared Khoon exultantly. 'Therefore he has designated to us the woman who is to be our Queen! We shall go in person to fetch her!'

Thrusting aside or kicking from his path all who happened to be near, he staggered towards the opening of the horda. One only among all those chieftains— the one-armed Chortu, a famous general— perceived the foolishness of the Khan's intention. Let Khoon, he said, go with his army— not alone. Or let him go with half the army. But in no circumstances let Khoon go alone.

'Thou drunken wretch!' roared Khoon, buffeting him in the face. 'I alone may enter the bedroom of my wife-to-be!'

AS SHIREEN HAD SAID, that evening saw the return of one of the messengers carrying the reply of General Chilton, G.O.C. in the field force of the three divisions camped on the Kalistan border:

Orders have been received from A.H.Q. that, owing to certain developments in the Egyptian political situation, no further advance is to be made by the force under my command for a period or three weeks. The sending of a military plane over Kalistan territory would therefore have been in principle an infringement of this order. I regret that this consideration has rendered it impossible for me to accede to your request for an R.A.F. plane to fly over the Lion's Rock Valley as an intimation that I have received your dispatch, the other contents of which are duly noted.

Gray sat dangling the paper. What was to be done? The situation as regards the garrison at Lion's Rock was now definitely dangerous. To put it mildly, they were being left to shift for themselves. His assurance to Shireen and her sirdars that the divisions would co-operate with them was falsified: their carefully thought-out plans were knocked on the head.

In a sense the accident to Diana somewhat helped matters, for it rendered impossible the carrying out of the main plan as far as her heroically conceived role in it was concerned. For that Gray was thankful. To cap everything, news had reached Shireen that afternoon that the caravan carrying the mining equipment expected by Khoon had really started, and would reach him in ten days or a fortnight, unless anything unforeseen happened.

Unless anything unforeseen happened: in that proviso lay the key to the situation. Something unforeseen must happen, and Colin Gray himself would have to bring it about. Whether that 'something unforeseen' would be the annihilation of the caravan, the assassination of Khoon, or merely a personal reconnoitring of the Mongol camp and, after the seizure of their plans, the frustrating of them, he did not yet know. In any case, he would have to consult Shireen, for any plan would have to include the rescue of Firoz Khan — if he were still alive.

He found her sitting with Diana, whose condition was so much improved that, though weak from the loss of blood, she was out of danger.

When he had told them the gist of the dispatch Shireen said, 'Tobah! It is a pity. Gray sahib, that we must wait for Simla. What do you advise?'

Gray did not wish to say, in Diana's presence, that if they waited for Simla it might well be too late.

'I'll have to think it out, Shireen.'

'I want to be one of that Council of War,' murmured the ghost of Diana's voice.

Gray took her hand. 'We'll ask our hakim sahib.' He looked meaningly at the Persian. 'The Mongols have withdrawn nearly all their pickets, Shireen!'

She wondered what he wanted her to understand, for she knew it was not true.

'There's news that Shiv has been seen,' went on Gray rapidly. 'I'm going after her. And Limbu— who swears he's quite well, Di!— says he saw a pair of super-magnificent snow-leopards. So I'll have a few days shikar (my quarry being Khoon).'

Now Shireen knew that snow leopards had never been seen in the valley. Evidently he intended to leave the fort for some time. That was it!

'I will send out pickets to cover you, Gray sahib, so that Deena may be at peace in her mind.' She rose. 'Deena will send Gulnar to sing to you. She can make the cooing of a pigeon sound harsh when she sings a lullaby.'

At the door leading to her apartments she turned. 'I have seven rifles which belonged to my lord. Gray sahib. You may come and choose which of them you would like.'

'Colin,' said Diana, when Shireen had gone, 'tell me the truth! Has this Shiv you are going after got two legs?'

Gray laughed awkwardly. 'She's got one forepaw too many, sweetheart.'

Diana looked up at him, her eyes curiously dark and wide.

'I don't believe you're really going — just for shikar. ... I told you my dream— the one I had in Cairo. I mean.' She closed her eyes, and he saw that, the long lashes were wet.

'My blessed child! I wish you wouldn't fash yourself about that stupid old dream! Naturally, I'll take a look at our local No Man's Land when I'm out; it's about time that I did a spot of work! I may be away longer than I think; there's always that, of course. I mean; one might drop across a chance of catching our friend Khoon napping.'

'I know what you mean. You mean that you may lead Shireen's people to attack him.'

'A chance Is a chance, Di! We haven't had one so far; so ...' He ended lamely.

'I'm thirsty, Colin.' Mentally cursing Shiv, Khoon, and Simla, Gray slipped a hand under her shoulders, and held to her lips the glass of rose-flavoured sherbet which Shireen had left by the bedside.

'Thanks, dear. ... I want to tell you something. I can't help it if you think me stupid. I dreamed last night that I saw Khoon in this room! It was horribly vivid. I― I smelled him! ... I wish you'd let Shireen close that passage.'

What she was longing to say to him was, 'Please do not leave me! I am afraid.' Proud as he was of her courage, he would not place his duty before her if he knew— as she was convinced she knew — that Khoon was coming to get her. Instead she said. 'I'm going to ask you to indulge what is merely the whim of a sick old woman. I'd like you to give me my automatic, to put under my pillow. It's in that Shiraz cabinet over there.'

Before he fetched the weapon Gray reassured her; he would ask Shireen to set a guard over the secret passage from to-morrow onward. First weighing the little Colt in the palm of his hand, he placed it under her pillows, wondering whether or not to ask the hakim to take her temperature again.

She reached up and, putting her arms about his neck, drew his face down to hers. As he bent down he saw that the singing girl was standing on the threshold, salaaming to them.

'Here's Gulnar to sing to you. Blessings and all that, Di!'

He straightened himself and walked quickly out of the room.

Diana followed him with her eyes. Then, turning her gaze upon Gulnar, she said, 'Come and sit by me, Gulnar. I do not want you to sing to me yet; I'm not very sleepy. Tell me, are your parents here?'

Gulnar smiled waywardly. 'I never knew my parents, memsahib! My mother died after she had brought me into the world. She, too, was a singer. My father— left me.'

'Left you? Where?'

'I remember it as a round brown house, around which there were many oxen and horses. The people who looked after me were Mongols, and, of course, it was their tent. My mother was a Circassian.'

'Did she love your father very much?'

Gulnar shook her head till the pendants of her long earrings beat her cheeks. As Shireen had said, Gulnar was simple.

'No. He was jealous of her. He was a hunchback. I was told that when I had grown up. He used to beat her.'

'She must have been very beautiful. Gulnar,' remarked Diana. 'Why do you always sing sad songs? I want you to be my friend and tell me more about yourself!'

'I will tell you all. I know of those days, memsahib, for you are sweet and― and... My songs grow in my heart as flowers grow. Do you not think that sometimes people grow beautiful thoughts, like flowers, when they water them with tears?... When I was still, a. child I fell in love with the eldest son of those kind folk. He and I were very happy— more happy than was good for us. He liked most to sit with me and watch the moon rising; he said it reminded him of me when he saw me coming to keep our trysts. I used to hold his head in my lap and sing to him 'till she was high in the Heavens. Then he would say, 'Sing no more, Gulnar! She is listening! Your, songs are for me.

'He was older than I, and very brave, memsahib, for he was a soldier. None could ride as he could ride, and no horse was as fleet-footed as his mare. He called her Gulnar, after me. She used to whinny when he spoke, my name to her, which he said meant that she was pleased because she had the same name as I had: One day he asked, me to marry him and I refused. I was afraid.'

The girl ceased speaking, glancing round the room as if she feared someone might overhear her.

'Of what were you afraid?' asked Diana. '

'Of my father? The Mongols told me he was a great chieftain, and that if they let their son marry me— they loved him much, and would have rejoiced to see him my husband — they would bring down upon them my father's wrath. And he did not punish those who offended him, they said; he killed them and all their relations.

'Therefore I was afraid, and refused my lover's offer to make me his wife.'

Once more the young singer paused.

'But if your father had left you he could not have cared very much whom you married,' said Diana, laying a hand upon Gulnar's hand, which was resting on the edge of the big divan, by the side of which she was seated on a pile of cushions.

'How wonderful that you should say that. Those were my lover's words, memsahib! Those, and many others, so beautiful and so passionate that the memory of them lingers in my heart like the scent of the black-red roses of Teheran. My fear crumbled like a sand wall before the waves of the sea, and I married him— secretly... You have been ill, lady whose curls are like flames! The rest of my story, is too sad for you to hear. Another, day, when you are strong...'

'You poor child!' exclaimed Diana, gently stroking Gulnar's hand. 'You and l are going to be very great friends! I would like you to tell me what happened after your marriage— if it will not make you too sad?'

Gulnar's beautiful face was lit by a smile that, while it was mournful, had in it a sweetness which lingered on her features for many moments. The most beautiful smiles are slow to come and slow to die, like the after-glow of a sunset.

'My heart is glad that I am to be your friend, memsahib. I will tell you the end of my story... A few months after we were married my father heard of it. , We knew he was coming, but my husband did not fear him. He feared only for me— and lest my father should take me from him, which assuredly he would have done had he found me. So he put me before him upon his mare Gulnar and we rode into the hills, where the grass is green and the water clear, carrying with us food sufficient for a month.

'All but seven days of the month
had passed and no one had come near us. My young husband was pleased, he said all was well and that he could go to the tents of his people and make sure that it was safe for me to return. For six days I waited. When he did not return I went to look for him on foot. I found him— dead— lying among the ashes of the brown tents, round which were the bodies of all his people. My. father had caused the head of poor Gulnar to be cut off and laid upon my husband's breast. So my songs are sad, memsahib, for they are watered by tears I do not shed.'

'Almighty God!' thought Diana. 'This child is no other than a daughter of Khoon!'

And her heart went out to the simple, golden-voiced girl, who, her long, narrow hands lying palms upward upon her knees, was silently staring into space as if at something she saw.

The one lamp in the room was going out, and its flame was quivering as the wings of a dying butterfly quiver. Outside the myriad eyes of heaven seemed to be blinking away bright tears, and in the garden below a nightingale was singing. Like sinister applause, far away among the hills they heard the roaring of Shiv.

Then suddenly the lamp went put with a tiny plup, and the room was shrouded in soft blue shadow. In low tones Gulnar resumed the story of her life:

'When I saw him lying there, I became senseless, and awoke mad, memsahib. Somehow I made my way to a city and sang in its streets; and from that city I walked to another, and yet to another— living with beggars and the sellers of offal, and with those who sell themselves. One day a Pathan heard me singing and told Sirdar Alam Khan, who ordered me to be brought here as a birthday present to Shireen-bibi. T'mam shud! (It is ended.)'

'Yea, thou degradation  of honour, thy story is ended!'

A dwarfish form leaped from the shadows and drove a Mongol sword into Gulnar's breast. She made no sound. Diana fired twice at Khoon, but, being left-handed, missed her aim and screamed. The next second he struck her senseless, and, slinging her across his shoulder, reeled back to the secret passage in Gray's room. He reeked of native spirit.

25

HEARING the shots fired by Diana the guards in the corridor ran to her room to find it in darkness. The full extent of the tragedy was revealed when lights were brought.

Gulnar was dead and Diana gone.

Messengers hurriedly sent to Shireen and Gray found them In consultation with Sher Khan and two other sirdars concerning a plan to attack the caravan coming to the Mongol camp.

'Send out pursuit, parties for God's sake, Shireen! Every man you can! In three lots!...'

The next second he was gone.

Filled with dread for Diana's sake, and aghast with horror though she was at the slaying by Khoon of his own child, Shireen met the situation with cool-headedness.

'Their spies must have seen Gray sahib emerge into that pool last night, dive under it, and return not,' she said. 'May all the curses ever uttered In hell be upon this he-devil Khoon ! Take one-third of my people and try to intercept him, Sher Khan. Send me frequent messages. Go!... Of you two.' she said to the other sirdars, 'for you the south crossing from this valley, for you that to the north. Each take two hundred men. Keep me Informed Go! And may Allah be with you!'

The pursuers did not lag. In a few minutes the clatter of hoofs and the pattering of the sandalled Infantry as they left the kill'a in pursuit— Gray was riding by the side of Sher Khan— rose up to the window of what had been Diana's room.

It was empty, for Gulnar's body had been removed and Shireen was standing by the secret passage in Gray's room. The guard of four which had been set over the lower entrance had been massacred, the fourth man being found dead a few feet away from where Limbu had been discovered The valley was now echoing with the crackle of rifle-fire from the opposed pickets on the crest line, and the darkness was speckled with blue-and-red flashes.

Riding through the darkness dressed in Hillman's garb, Gray was grimly silent. His brain was afire with grief and fury. Murder seemed to him is desirable as breathing. Khoon should die, and by his hands alone. He swore it fifty— a hundred times, each oath more terrible than the preceding one.

The gigantic Sher Khan too was silent. This sahib was a man after his own heart. They were brothers. If meeds be, he would cheerfully die for the sahib and his heroic wife. He too was muttering fearful curses.

Gray was wrestling with the grim problem of what he would do if this pursuit failed, as he feared it would. Plan after plan was rejected for some flaw or other. Simla would not, could not, help him. He must do what was to be done, and what— as God was in His heaven— should be done! One thought became clearer every moment; he must get to Khoon's camp. But even that seemed impracticable. He would be recognised. His appearance was known all over the Frontier and beyond it. Khoon knew him personally. (Damn him to hell!)

There were, of course, many physically big men among the Hillmen— Sher Khan, for example. He was almost as big as Colin Gray...

Subtlety was needed. Oriental subtlety. He was dealing with an Oriental of Orientals in Khoon.

'Look upon this Mongol with the eyes of the East,' the Servant of Allah had said. The first thing to betray a disguised man was the shape, colour, and expression of his eyes ...

'The eyes of the East! The eyes of the East!'

The phrase beat upon his brain like the tapping of red hot hammers upon raw flesh.... eyes?

Eyes were the specialty of the hakim.

'My specialty was eyes, you now. Ophthalmology.' He said that!

'By God!'

Sher Khan looked at his quickly. 'Has your Honour seen something?' he demanded.

'Yea, Sher Khan. A way!'

'That is a good word, sahib! What say?'

'The way of a knife in the hands of master!' answered Gray.

A scout came clattering back. 'There a party of the enemy ahead, Khan sahib.'

A stream of guttural orders poured from Sher Khan's bearded lips. His force split into three parties, one galloping to the left and the other to the right, the main body with Gray and himself keeping straight on at a mi trot. His horses had hard work head of them.

They were now in a wide, shingly nala, or dry watercourse, the steepish sides of which were invisible to them as they rode, though the night was clear. Sher Khan's plan as to establish contact with Khoon's party and hold it, while the other two parties worked round and cut off its retreat.

A good plan, if contact could be established. And it seemed likely.

A sharp burst of firing came from their left front.

'Twenty men, not more,' remarked Sher Khan, shading keen eyes. 'Dismount, twenty of ye! Go and bring me these swine's tongues!'

'I want a rifle. Khan sahib,' Gray slipped to the ground. 'I go with you. Give the sahib your rifle, Yakub Khan!'

The small party of the enemy opposing them fell back, leaving half their number dead. Most of the remainder were shot as they climbed into the higher hills.

'Find me a live dog, and I will make him speak!' snarled Sher Khan, turning over a dead Hillman with his sandalled foot.

They found one— a mere boy. He had a bullet through his stomach. Sher Khan, surrounded by a group of his men, questioned the lad.

'Where is thy master, Khoon?'

'I know not.'

'Thou mayest not now know; but where was he?'

'I know not.' A Hillman whipped out his stabbing knife. 'We have ways of teaching liars how to speak!'

'Lift him and bring him to me,' ordered Sher Khan.

They brought him, incapable of resistance.

Gray turned away his head.

'Was Khoon with your party?' The knife was approached to within in inch of the Mongol's eyes.

'Nay!' The scream which followed sent a shudder of horror through Gray. Sher Khan struck the user of the knife. 'We torture not wounded boys,' he said. 'It was a decoy party! Mount!'

Dawn found them many miles from the fortress. The great bare hills and wide expanses of shingly nala were devoid of all signs of human life. Vultures were wheeling above the site of last night's skirmish; no other living thing was to be seen.

Sher Khan gnawed his knuckles.

'What think you, sahib?'

'I go back,' said Gray, unslinging his field-glasses and handing them to him. 'Take these, Sher Khan. I shall not need them again. If you can capture the caravan, for God's sake blow up the equipment!'

He climbed on to his horse. A few minutes later a bend in the ala hid him from their sight.

'Grief hath sent him mad.' muttered her Khan. 'May Allah protect him— and her! Forward march!'

An hour later a scout reported that he had seen a cloud of dust in the hills to the east. Sher Khan at once rode to a hill top, and there took out the binoculars Gray had given him.

'Wah! But these 'far-seers' of the sahib-log are indeed magical!' he exclaimed delightedly. 'I can see the very bridles upon their horses! We have caught the sons of Satan! They have with them the digging machines!'

The caravan of mining equipment and its accompanying engineers were  heading their way and Sher Khan decided to ambush it. In a few minutes there was not a Hillman to be seen, the horses being hidden in a small nala nearby.

The fight was short but savage, quarter was neither given nor expected, and before long the escort and all the caravan personnel, save one frightened engineer, had been slain. The long-awaited lorries and tractors were in Sher Khan's hands.

The sole survivor, offered his freedom if he would consent to blow up the machinery then and there, carried out the order. To-day, there lies rusting, somewhere in the hills of Kalistan, masses of shattered and twisted metal— all that is left of five thousand pounds' worth of unpaid-for excavating machinery.

When the solitary figure of Gray was sighted Shireen galloped out to meet him at the head of a strong escort, fearing the worst. Last night she had driven, back the investing picket-line after a battle lasting until dawn, garrisoning their badly fortified positions with her own men. Had Sher Khan been overwhelmed by the retreating Mongols?

Strangely attractive in her belted khaki fighting kit, she reined in her horse in a flurry of stones. 'What news, Gray sahib?'

He told her.

'The other parties have found no trace of her,' she said, biting her lips 'May Allah send that to-day will bring good news!'

'There will be none. It is written upon my forehead— and upon my heart —that I myself should go in search of her.'

The allusion to the Mussulman belief that a man's fate is written upon his forehead disquieted Shireen. The sahib lad always disliked the doctrine of fatalism; once: a mention of it had even angered him. She looked at him worriedly, her mind sharing the thought that had been Sher Khan's as he had watched Gray ride away.

'Thou are in a dream of sorrow dear friend. It will not last,' she said quietly.

Her remark recalled the words of he old sadhu: 'If a king dream that he is a  beggar, is he therefore a pauper?'

'You are right, Shireen. In a few days will come the awakening.'

The first to greet him as he rode through the fort gates was Limbu, his left arm in a sling. Anxiously the Ghurkha's tilted eyes scanned the sombre face of  his idol. The look it bore told him everything.

Standing stiffly to attention, he saluted, and, putting a hand to the bridle of Gray's horse, waited silently or him to dismount. The Ghurka's mind was tortured by remorse. If he had not saved his life by finding that secret passage the mem-sahib would not have been taken away. Clearly his own life must now be given to save hers.

This point of view he had laid before the hakim that morning. Could not the healing of his shoulder wound be hastened? he had asked. The hakim, who lad the blessed patience which sanctifies all good doctors, had answered that the healing, of wounds was in the lands of Allah and Mother Nature.

To which Limbu had replied that, as far as he was, concerned, it was in the hands of the daktar sahib and Mother Nature. Would, the daktar-sahib therefore be pleased to increase his already great kindness by speaking a powerful word to the seller of goats who had asked four rupees for a black ram? The request made, Limbu had produced two silver rupees and eight annas in copper coins

'Have you three rupees?' asked the , hakim, assessing a deficiency.

'Nay. Only, two rupees and a half,' said Limbu. 'But what are eight annas?'

IT WAS TO the hakim that Gray went immediately upon his arrival.

'I need your help, hakim-ji. Can you make my eyes look like the eyes a Mongol?'

Placing his forefingers the outer corners of his eyes, he lifted the skin upward until the lids slanted, to show what he meant.

The hakim pursed his lips.

'It could be done— and undone,' he said.

'How long will it take the cuts to heal?'

'A week — with your health, and in this air.'

'Let it be done — now!'

'Khair!' ('Good!') answered the Arab. 'Be pleased to wash your face in that basin. ...'

A FEW DAYS later Shireen was talking to a broad-shouldered Tibetan lama, whose dark brown face contrasted sharply with the patches of adhesive plaster at the corners of his eyes.

'Is it to-morrow you start, Gray sahib?'

'Yes; to-morrow these come off.' He touched impatiently the strips of plaster.

'My heart will go with, you,' said Shireen. '

'I too go sadly,' rejoined Gray. He winced, as if with a sudden spasm of pain.

'It is good that you go. Well indeed is my country named Kalistan, the land of darkness— of Kali, the goddess of destruction and death! It takes from me all those whom I have loved— my lord, Gulbudun, Deena, the Servant of Allah, and now―' She caught her breath sharply. 'The Servant of Allah? What has happened to him? Has he left?'

Gray knew that an Indian ascetic will often at a moment's notice leave a place where he has been for years, and without giving any reason. He asked the question listlessly, his hands drooping over his knees. She rose and touched his shoulder, but so lightly that he barely felt it.

'He sent for me last night, Gray sahib, I found him sitting erect and still, like one asleep. After a long waiting I touched his hand and found it was as cold as snow. I knew (for he had explained to me many strange things connected with his faith) that sometimes he entered into a state of Samadhi, when his spirit left his body. So I was not afraid— until suddenly I heard his voice. Then a great fear came upon me.'

Shireen's boyish tones faltered. For a second time since he had known her, Gray saw the woman in her bring her passionate young nature into subjection.

'I would like to talk with him again,' he said. 'Will you tell me, as nearly as possible, what he said to you?'

'Without doubt I will tell you, for his words rest like singing birds in the branches of my mind. Listen, then! I was afraid because his voice did not come from between his lips, but from far away — like the sound of a distant bell. "Be not afraid. All is well, daughter," it said. "In the short span of a life what ill can come? The grass grows and it dies, leaving behind it seeds. Each word we speak, each deed we do— these are seeds. See that thy words and thy seeds produce only flowers, beloved child— even as those of her who sang to thee, and is now at peace. Man alone is subject to pessimism. It is good that thy young heart should sing of love, birds, and thy flowers. But it is my wish that thy life be made beautiful by self-sacrifice.  Vashisht— Buddha— Alexander— all are gone! But still the bulbul sings to the rose. Fire destroys what Is dross. By fire gold is purified. In sorrow is the heart made worthy. Seek the Treasure Invisible. Om."

'That was the end, Gray sahib. For an hour I lay at his feet, but he spoke no more. It was a moonless night, and the room was unlit; but there was a light upon his face... Assuredly he is in Behisht!'

Gray remained silent. What comment could he make? 'Enoch walked with God ... for God took him'? That sounded sanctimonious. 'All men pass on?' That was a blatant truism. Before Colin Gray passed on or was taken he had a job of work to do! To-morrow would see it started.

26

DIANA'S abduction was the fulfilment of an oath the Mongol had sworn when she and Gray had been in King Cobra's hands two years before. What Alam Khan's death had, prevented from happening then he would carry out.

His purpose achieved, the rapidity with which he and his party had to move to get clear away before the fort's garrison started in pursuit prevented him from giving much attention to Diana. He was content to know that he had got her; that he was holding her, warm and unconscious, close to his misshapen body as he rode. He and his horsemen had put several hours' fast going between them and the Lion's Rock when he discovered that she was wounded and in a high fever.

Arriving at his advance camp, he bade his women let him have news of her condition in twenty-four hours' time; then, having listened with oathful impatience to a summary of developments prepared by the translator, he gave orders that he was not to be disturbed under pain of death as he was about to commune with Mongke Tengri.

But his mind held no such transcendental thoughts.

New dangers to the success of his plans had arisen, apart from a fresh report of the rapidly spreading discontent among the tribesmen sown and watered by the mullahs' proclamation. The Government of the country from which his anxiously awaited envoys were bringing the engineers and excavation equipment was reported to have designs upon the treasure. Even worse news had reached him from Cairo; Egypt had declared herself the ally of England.

The worst news of all, however, was that his usurpation of the titles 'Ruler of India and King of Tibet, Mongolia, and the Himalayan Territories' was formidably challenged. A rival had suddenly appeared in the shape of a Tibetan lama named Szong-Hpa. This ghost of coming failure claimed to be a reincarnated Buddha whose mission was to lead the Mongol people back to Buddhism; and to gain support for his teachings this most accursed lama was. on his way to India.

The intelligence had come through a wandering sadhu, or Hindu ascetic. It seemed that a small and wrinkled Hindu of venerable aspect had walked into a meeting of the Mongol generals the night before and, having announced Szong-Hpa's coming (he had even described the appearance of the man and his disciple), had left the council tent and could not be found.

Khoon, seated cross-legged on a divan covered with skins, an immense flagon of spirits, set on a low table among the cushions beside him, bit and rebit his nails in savage fury..

His desertion of the council of his generals in order to carry off a sick Englishwoman had damaged his prestige; he had seen contempt in the eyes of many of them when he had arrived holding Diana. And, the other dangers! His subtle mind, working with the quickness of a striking snake, reviewed the situation.

First, what was there good about it? The alliance between Pan-Islamic Egypt and England had stopped the British force moving into trans-frontier territory— for the time being, at any rate. Once the treasure was excavated a million or more Mongols would move to his support, and, backed by the risen Frontier tribes, wipe those three divisions— and any others which would assuredly oppose him— out of existence.

He drained a third goblet of raw spirits. This Tibetan rival to his influence over his people must be discredited. To kill him would alienate Tibet and much of Mongolia.

Khoon paused In his thinking, to strip himself to the waist; the charcoal brazier had made the tent uncomfortably hot. Then, there being no more nail left to bite, he leaned back and contemplated his ravaged, spatulate fingertips, some of which were bleeding a little.

How was the influence which this lama would assuredly exercise over his superstition-ridden soldiery to be counterbalanced? Should he give out that during this day's seclusion it had been revealed to him that he was not merely a descendant of the great Genghis, but the reincarnated Genghis Khan himself?

He racked his restless brain for some means of clinching such a simple assertion. Some sign, some irrefutable proof, was needed, preferably something connected with a prophecy that he had taken care to make widely known. That prophecy was to the effect that Genghis was to come again and would be known by a certain mark upon his body.

Khoon, hunchbacked and querulous, looked along a yellow chest-bone as prominent and repulsive as that of a plucked vulture. There was no mark hidden among those black hairs! But there would have to be a miraculous 'mark' upon him. Where it ought to be situated and what shape it should be he did not know; the prophecy said nothing of these things. But that mark was his ace of trumps, and until he could show it, it would be unsafe to proclaim his new identity.

In the meantime he would invite this Tibetan to be his guest. He would arrange things. The lama might die of apoplexy after eating— or of 'heart failure.' The better to enjoy a burst of insane laughter at the prospect he leaned back until he, was half reclining. He could see it all! He could positively see this big, pompous lama, dressed in his red robes, convulsed with the poison— almost as clearly as if ... as if... someone was, in the tent!

Jerking himself into a sitting posture, Khoon glared around him, feeling for a weapon. Then his bloodshot eyes encountered the steady gaze of an aged Indian ascetic seated upon the tent floor a few yards in front of the divan. As steel crosses steel the wills of the two men met in an immediate fight for supremacy, the sound of Khoon's stertorous breathing breaking the curiously dead stillness of the felt-walled tent. He hated all Hindus, but, shaken by his heavy drinking, his mind yielded.

'Who art thou?' he questioned hoarsely. He would have added 'dog,' but his tongue lay inert.

'Thy sirdars have told thee, Khoon, even as I told them.'

This time Khoon's laugh was high pitched; it was the laughter of one who fears to show fear. To men such as this ascetic threats and even death meant nothing.

'Yea, assuredly we were told! We meant―'

'I am come precisely because of that which you mean, Suleman Khoon!'

The rosary beads in the thin hands moved along a bead.

'We mean to give thee a royal gift of gold for thy temple,' lied Khoon. The Arrack clucked noisily in the decanter-neck. 'But thou art daring, Sadhu! Who let thee enter?'

'None let and none hinder me— ever! I go and leave where and when I wish.'

'Whence comest thou, then? What is thy caste? Thou hast no mark.' Khoon's gaze was fixed on the space between the sitter's eyebrows.

'Nor have you, Khoon! He who comes will aid you to have the mark you desire when you ask him.'

'Is it Szong-Hpa?' Khoon whispered the name, too awed to move.

'Him!' Now Khoon knew that to many Indian ascetics the mind of a man is as an open book. To this man, then, it would be useless to lie— more than was necessary.

'We hear that this monk says he is an incarnate Buddha. Is that so, sadhu?'

'Assuredly,' assented the impassive intruder, 'he will tell you so himself.'

Khoon gritted his teeth.

'Whence comes he — and why?'

'He comes, as many Holy Ones have come, after meditating in the great Hills. He seeks no power over men, as you fear, Khoon. Those who are righteous visit sometimes those who are evil to turn aside the stream of their wickedness. Hear, then, what I have come to say to you! You have evil in your mind— always! You have done great evil to a sahib. You mean evil to a man of your own faith. You mean evil to a woman who is not of your faith. Are those things not sufficient to bring him?'

Khoon's fingers were working their way, unseen, towards a naked blade half covered by cushions.

'Wouldst thou say, most Holy One, that I mean evil to all?'

'I am not 'all,' Khoon! No man escapes his deeds. Yours will come lowing to you across the fields of time.'

As a hungry tiger glares at a drinking deer, Khoon looked into those bright, intent eyes, his fingers now clutching an ivory hilt. It would be easy to say that this intruding ancient had roused him from his sleep and that he had slain him for it, not knowing who he was. There must be no cry. Turning, he reached for the dwelled cup that he might pretend to offer it to the sadhu as a gift, and when he came near— But the tent was empty.

THE few days necessary for the healing of the slight wounds of the operation Gray spent in collating and analysing the reports brought in by spies. A prey to a ravaging anxiety, and chafing feverishly against the enforced delay, he found that this essentially important work helped to steady his mind.

From these reports he learned many things. Diana was in the newly-formed advance camp, and was 'being looked after.' He had not expected to get news that she had completely recovered. Even if that were the case she would be too astute to admit it. Obviously, for her sickness— real or simulated— meant safety. Both camps were particularly strongly fortified, the spies said, the Mongol troops being camped in dense masses close to the stone-walled perimeters— 'like flies on a dead ox,' as one of the reports described it.

A report that Khoon was expecting the arrival of a lama named Szong-Hpa set Gray thinking. There seemed to be something wrong somewhere. Reports received by Shireen from the country in which the lama was said to have lived, and, according to this news, had but recently left, did not mention his existence— an unaccountably strange thing in the circumstances, for had there been any news of a reincarnated Buddha the Tibetan border would have been agog with excitement and rumour.

The cleverest of Shireen's spies was therefore sent out to try to discover whence had emanated the news of this personage's coming. He never returned.

The reports from Firoz Khan were contradictory and puzzling, one stating that he was closely guarded and being kept for some diabolical auto-da-fe which Khoon had planned, while another asseverated that he had escaped the day before the spy had reached the camp. Between the two extremes, Gray felt, lay the truth.

A further dispatch from General Chilton had said that he was likely to receive orders to move into Kalistan in the course of nine or ten days— a statement which made Gray quote to himself, with considerable savageness, a proverb about a stitch in time. But the news was cheering as far as it went.

The parties of men scouring the hills in search of Shiv reported continued unsuccess. They had seen nothing and heard nothing of her. They were not sniped at, they reported, Khoon having made no attempt to reoccupy the crest line of the valley. This was said to be due to energetic remonstrances on the part of certain mullahs against his attacking a people of the Faith.

Finally, the body of the Servant of Allah, according to a wish he had expressed to Shireen shortly before, had been burned at the river's edge, the rites being carried out by the Brahmin chela.

AT last the longed-for day of release from comparative inaction arrived. From an assortment of lamas' dresses discovered long since in a room in the palace Gray, who had dyed his skin, selected the garnet-coloured robes of a nyin-ma, or devil-worshipping lama, such as he had worn on one of his expeditions into Tibet some years before.

These consisted of an outer 'garment of a hundred and fifty patches,' an undergarment of wool, and a lappeted red cap, the wide, crossed flap of the outer garment forming a capacious breast-pocket, in which were carried a prayer-wheel, wooden drinking cup, and a begging bowl. From a rope girdle dangled the usual lamaic paraphernalia— a cylindrical iron pen case, a holy-water bottle, a purse containing condiments, and an amulet box. Strapped about his waist next to his skin was a heavy automatic.

To complete the disguise his head was clean-shaven and he had grown a beard. Now ordinarily lamas do not grow beards; but sometimes, like some of their Western brothers in religion, Tibetan monks make strange vows. That, in any case, would be his explanation if he were questioned about it. Limbu, despite earnest entreaties and ingenious arguments, was to remain at the fort.

An hour before the dawn a little group was standing inside the main gate of the fort— Gray, huge and bearded in his garnet robes, Shireen in her trim riding-kit, the hakim in spotless white, and an utterly disconsolate Limbu.

At Shireen's suggestion ('Who dares nothing wins nothing, sahib!') Gray had decided to take the name of Szong-Hpa and impersonate him. If he found that the lama had already arrived in the Mongol camp he would take another name. The great doors of the fortress swung open a few feet. It was bright moonlight.

'I'll send you back Firoz Khan before long, Shireen. Khuda hafiz!' ('May God be your friend!')

'Deena will find it hard to recognise you, Gray sahib,' she remarked seriously, studying his changed look. Well though she knew his face, it was almost impossible to recognise him in that guise.

'Allah be with you, sahib!' said the doctor, his fine face full of earnestness.

Gray gripped his hand. 'And with you, hakim-ji! I owe you much.'

'Take these, sahib. They will be useful.'

Sher Khan came to them carrying Gray's field-glasses. Gray shook his head. 'A gift given and a gift taken cannot be returned, Sirdar sahib!'

Sher Khan, muttering something about 'eldest of my brothers,' embraced him as a Hillman who loves his friend embraces, 'A word from thee, and I come,' he said.

Having arrived at the crest line, Gray halted, and, leaning upon the long staff carried by a travelling lama, looked down into the valley. Something was telling him that dire catastrophe lay ahead. Something— or somebody. He could almost hear the grave deliberate tones of the Servant of Allah: 'What house shall stand for ever?'

The grandeur of the scene was a fit setting for ominous thoughts. The great peaks with their stretches of moonlit snow and sable shadows seemed like titanic hierophants, swathed in black and silver copes, gathered about the tomb of Yesterday— the Yesterday which had seen Diana happy and with him. Overhead, narrow, detached masses of cloud were scudding across the sky, occasionally smokily veiling the moon. He could hear the wind whistling in the grass and sage-bushes.

He resumed his way. The descent was easier than he had expected, and by the time the sun was overhead he had reached a broad col sparsely covered with grass. The sight of those sweeping curves of greenness brought a feeling closely akin to gratitude, perhaps because green is associated with freedom and quietness— peace and shade. Or was it because the sense of immensity which filled the surrounding stillness was telling him that, though his own small world might be filled with war and violence, the greater world of nature outside it was ready to welcome and to comfort man in his grief? Diana had once said (she was in what he called one of her fey moods) that Nature always answers those who speak to her. That, of course, was typical 'Diana!'

What answer could these damned rocks give to his mind when he thought of her at that moment— or any moment? Viciously he kicked a stone down the side of the slope, and after it had disappeared from sight he sat down to rest. His farther path seemed to lie along the left shoulder of the col, where a faint blue curl of smoke was rising from the pine-trees. Did that smoke mean friends or enemies? As a lama he had no enemies. If Mongols were there they would respect his calling, although they might not be of his faith.

'Whoever they are and whatever they are I'm ready to meet them!' he muttered to himself, and, gripping the iron-shod staff, he strode down the colside, his red robes flapping in the breeze.

A shrill screaming caused him to look up sharply. A child, who had evidently been minding the skinny goat which was now standing with bunched feet upon the top of a rock, had fallen down the mountain side and was suspended by her skirt from a broken branch of a juniper tree projecting from the sheer cliff almost directly above him. Even as he looked he saw the material give way.

Catching the small form in his arms, he saw that she had fainted. Bathing her temples with water scooped from a rocky hollow which a small spring trickling down the slippery rock-face in a score of silver threads kept permanently filled to overflowing, he wondered where she lived. No one else seemed to have heard her cries, for no one came or called. Surmising that her home was in the direction of the smoke, thither he carried her. In a clearing surrounded by pine trees he came upon a small hove built of slabs of unworked shale and rock laid upon each other with rough skill, the interstices being packed with turf and clay. It had something of the appearance of a Swiss chalet, for upon the bark roof were scattered a number of heavy stones. Still carrying the unconscious child, he kicked with his sandalled foot at the rickety door, which after a short delay was opened by a gaunt Hillwoman with fierce eyes, her features having the hardness common among the middle-aged of her kind.

'Ai Allah!' she exclaimed, and snatched the child from him as If this nyin-ma lama had himself injured the mite.

Taking out his begging bowl, 'Szong-Hpa' squatted down outside the door. He wanted to give to these people rather than to ask them for food, for they seemed almost destitute; but as a lama he was obliged to beg, and the sooner he became accustomed to acting his new role the better. They might also be able to give him some useful information.

Inside the hovel the recovered child was giving its account of the accident, and a few moments later the mother came out, and falling at Szong-Hpa feet, asked for his blessing. The lamaic formula used on such occasions was mumbled, and the begging bowl thrust forward.

In no country in the world are the poor so good to the poor as in India. A handful of cold rice and some fragments of chapatti made of coarse brown meal were dropped into it. The skinny goat, which had followed docilely its unconscious young guardian, was being milked into a small brass pot, the latter being produced by the woman from under the eaves as she dragged nearer to her the animal by its horns.

'How is thy child named, mother?'

'Chingi, Holy One. We have but her. In this place it is very cold in the winter, and last year a boy-child died at my breast.'

One of the milk streams swished on to the ground.

'Our eldest girl is gone— thither!'

She jerked her chin towards the hill behind which Szong-Hpa knew lay the Mongol camp.

'India is rich, and calls to many,' he remarked, intentionally obtuse.

She glanced over her shoulder.

'She is not in India. She is with— them!'

The red lama plunged a thumb and three fingers into the begging bowl, and, tilting back his head, dropped into his mouth a wedge of rice.

In the Great Hills the eager inquirer is suspect. Wiping a stray grain from his chin, he said, inquiringly, 'Them?'

'The Kagan and his Mongols! May Allah curse them! They are not Mussulmans—they are devils!... Art thou from Mongolia, Holy One?'

Gray had no desire that news of his coming should precede him. It might induce complications.

'Nay,' he said, tacking a morsel of the chapatti. 'My monastery, is in the far hills.' The intentional vagueness of this information forbade any questioning; Holy Ones come from where they will.

'Likest thou these Mongols, lama ji?'

'No— all men are alike to me!' amended Gray hastily, remembering that he was Szong-Hpa. 'All are bound upon the Wheel of Life.'

Her lined face hardened to hatred.

'If thou were their man better it were to depart, for my man is bitterer against them than I! They are robbers of the poor. They stole from us our small store of meal. Allah alone knows how we shall fare this coming winter! They have hunted the hills bare of game— a thousand of them in a line, driving the beasts into a valley like fish in a net. They are not men, Blessed One! They took our little Vini— she was only twelve, but she was very pretty... Aiee!... They bore her away, thrown like a sack of beans across a saddle. She was in the forest with her father, binding sticks.... Aiee, aiee!' She rocked herself, moaning softly.

The holy lama Szong-Hpa indulged in a comprehensive mental cursing of Khoon.

A lanky Hillman in a tattered smock was coming up the hillside with the unhurried ease of his people on a mountain's flank, in his hand was a woodman's axe, and upon his back was a load of cut logs weighing not less than sixty pounds. As he arrived before the hovel the load crashed to the ground, and, wiping his face with the end of his turban, its late carrier looked uneasily at Gray, as if he were both fearful and puzzled, Nyinma lamas were rarely seen in these hills.

'May thou and thy house be blessed, brother!' said Szong-Hpa, replacing His empty begging bowl in the breast of his gown.

'This holy man saved our Chingi's life, husband!'

'Mayhap it had been better if he had let her die! Whither goest thou, lama?'

To answer 'To the Mongol camp' might lead to awkward questions. 'There are those who await me,' the lama said, waving an arm in a sweeping gesture from west to south.

'How art thou named?'

'Szong-Hpa, Hillman,' he answered, grasping his staff preparatory to rising The man now looked at him affrightedly, and muttered a quick invocation to Allah.

'Are there, then, two of thy name?'

Gray's heart sank. It all seemed to be over, bar the shouting. 'Many of us are named alike. We are all seekers of the Way.'

'I met down there'— with his chin the man indicated the valley below— 'one who is assuredly more aged than any man. He told me that the lama Szong-Hpa (thy name!), who is expected in the camp of the lord Khoon, is dead, and that another lama— a red lama— would go In his stead.'

For a moment Gray's mind floundered.

'Came this ancient, then, from this camp of which you speak?'

'I know nothing. He was a yogi and wore the saffron clothes of his kind. He was very old.'

'Said he aught else?' questioned Gray, in whose mind a strange thought was taking shape.

'Naught, save 'Om! Om! Om!' as if he were beating a drum.'

Gray felt the gooseflesh of his childhood creep over him. Shireen had even described to him the burning of the Servant of Allah's body!

'He spoke truly,' he said to the Hillman. 'That Szong-Hpa exists no more! I am the red lama who is going in his stead.'

Rising, he prepared to resume his way.

'Go, daughter!' called out the woman. 'Show to the Holy One the safest way.'

Saluting them, Szong-Hpa strode downhill, the child hopping and skipping to keep up with him, and followed by the skinny goat.

'My goat's name is Gpoloo,' she informed him confidentially. But the lama did not seem to hear. The Servant of Allah had spoken clearly.

27

THE impetuousness of Firoz Khan in swimming the river too far ahead of his men was his undoing.

Clambering up the steep, bank, shouting his battle-cry, 'Ya Ali!' he was almost immediately surrounded. With his elbows lashed together, he was brought into the Kagan's presence. There was a strong sense of the dramatic in Firoz Khan's make-up. He abhorred solitariness to the point of fearing it. No Hillman is a coward, but in his case, although few could lead an attack more bravely, much of the daring he showed on those occasions came from the realisation that he had, is it were, a supporting cast and an audience.

His love for Shireen had nothing of the fearless downrightness of Sher Khan's. Firoz was faithful because he was untempted and romantic because he was weak.

Surveying him contemptuously, Khoon dismissed the guards. His cunning mind told him that this handsome young man would walk into the trap he proposed to set for him.

'Are you not afraid of what is going to be done to you?' he demanded, indicating the near-by instruments of torture.

'A soldier does not fear,' answered Firoz, naive vanity uppermost. He was more interested in regarding a man who was Ruler of All India.

Khoon 's eye glittered. 'Good! We shall shortly test you.... You are young to be a Chief Commander,' he said smoothly.

'I killed my man before I was twelve,' retorted Firoz. 'I would kill thee if it were not for these!' He looked down at the ropes binding his arms.

The Mongol's flat face was expressionless; at times he had something of the self-control of the great Genghis Khan.

'It is good to kill one's enemies,' he admitted. 'But you have no such ambition.'

'To a soldier nothing is sweeter than slaying a man!'

'Then why serve a woman?— if this Shireen be one!'

'My mistress has the heart of a fighting man!' The suggestion had aroused a choking anger.

'The heart of a man in the body of a boy!' sneered Khoon. 'When she is stripped to be lashed then we shall see of what she is made!' His actual words were fouler.

In response to his shouted order an officer appeared. 'Let the white heifer which is ready to be slain and flayed. The woman whom commanded to do so shall sew it upon he body of this dog.'

Firoz Khan blenched. He knew that punishment. Sewn tightly in a newly flayed hide, a prisoner is stood in the sun or surrounded by a ring of fires; and after atrocious sufferings due to he contraction, his face goes black and he dies.

'I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you die,' went on Khoon. 'That she shall enjoy— at a distance. You shall be set upon a hill so that you nay watch over her until the last, like the brave soldier you are. Know you why I have ordered a white heifer?'

Firoz Khan took a slow, deep breath and exhaled as slowly before he answered.

'No,' he said. Closing his eyes, he began to pray silently.

'I will tell you— lap-dog! Because it is the colour of cowards!'

'Thou—! Give me a sword, and I will fight fifty of your mongrels!' cried Firoz, straining at his bonds.

His ankles being fettered he lost his balance and fell at the feet of his tormentor; whereupon Khoon, leaning forward, spat into his face.

'You lie where you should lie,' he said.

From outside came the moans of the dying heifer and the quick orders of hurrying butchers.

'Allah! Allah! Let me die like a man!' shouted Firoz, inarticulate with fear and fury.

'That you shall not do!' hissed Khoon. I have ordered women to bring their little knives !'

'Allah! Ali! Help me!'

'Why not help yourself?' asked Khoon, resting his chin in a yellow claw. 'You can go free and still be a man. If you choose you can be a commander of Five Thousand. I have tested you. You are brave. I would make you Governor of North India. One woman, Firoz Khan, bahadur, is as good as another! Five hundred women and five hundred music-boys should be yours. Yea, and each one of them would be faithful to you, and ready to suffer death rather than offend you. The flat-bodied Shireen has loved much and tired of it; she is ready to love many more.'

'It is not true,' muttered Firoz Khan. (Shireen had never said a word of love to him!)

'Son of a fool!' exclaimed Khoon contemptuously. 'Has she not a sahib? (May Satan eat out his liver!) And is there not a man named Sher Khan?'

'Yes, there are such. But what of it?' ejaculated Firoz. 'Let me be freed!'

'Did not this strumpet allow you to be captured by my men because she wanted to be rid of you?' continued Khoon. 'You are afraid of her, or you would hate her. Are you her slave to be ordered and mocked at her pleasure?'

'I serve whom I will and no man dare mock me,' said Firoz sullenly.

The felt curtains were pushed aside, and a shaft of sunlight fell across the prostrate prisoner, who turned his head towards it. The sunlight glistening on crimsoned forearms, a butcher was dragging in the dust a soggy white-and-red hide.

'It is ready, omnipotence! '

'What say you, General Firoz Khan, bahadur, Commander of Five Thousand?' demanded Khoon. 'Shall it be done to you? Or do you accept my offer of greatness?'

'I accept! Free me, for the sake of Allah!'

Firoz averted his face from the opened curtains.

'Cut his bonds!' ordered Khoon. 'Bring us meat and drink! Let twelve of my khans be present to greet a new brother!...'

'You shall be our eyes and our ears, Firoz Khan,' exclaimed the Kagan. 'Therefore we will trust you with our plans and our lives. In a few hours you shall return to the fort of this harlot. Five nights hence we will come to the valley and— shadows of its shadows— find open the gates of that fort. Our astrologers tell us that Brihaspati is favourable to the working of disasters, and that upon that night there will be no moon.'

For a moment Firoz Khan's newly felled fealty rose in revolt. He could not— would not— do this shameful thing! Although Shireen was too unimportant and too ungrateful to have as her chief sirdar one as brave and devoted as himself, he had eaten her salt. And by the law of the Hills that is a scared bond.

Khoon, who had been watching his every glance, movement, and expression, divined his thoughts.

'Before ye escort him to the confines of the camp,' he said, 'let him be shown our method of sewing up the heifer's hide. He will be better able to use it upon Sher Khan!... The feast is ended. We would sleep.'

THE SMOKY STRIPS of cloud that were scudding across the moon thickened as Firoz Khan crossed the crest-line immediately above the kill'a, rendering the descent more difficult. He could now see lights in Shireen's apartments and. distinguish the strong defiant outline of the fortress. Occasionally up from the still distant bottom of the valley there shot through the darkness a quick, shivering glitter from the river. Pressed to a flat topped rock under which he was passing lay the black-and-gold body of Shiv. With a coughing roar she landed upon his back. Ripping his hams to ribbons with rapid downward strokes of her hind-paws, she drove her forepaws into his back, and, with a choked purr, scrunched his neck.

'Allah!... Shireen...'

28

THREE days after Diana's arrival in his camp, Khoon received a report that the fever had left her and that she desired to take the air. An hour later the shrill and repeated blowing of a cracked bugle, once the property of the British Government, made known his arrival before her tent.

'The Kagan is come,' announced one of the women charged with her care. Critically Diana considered her reflection in a mirror. Dressed in Mongol costume, she looked an attractive sort of 'ghost,' she decided. She arranged her curls. There was no use in funking it, as Colin would have said. 'Let him enter,' she said indifferently.

Midway in an off-hand salaam, Khoon— who was dressed in green satin and wore a gold-scabbarded scimitar, its hilt encrusted with emeralds — turned and bellowed at his curious followers to remain outside. Diana ignored his presence, and stroked the skins piled on the divan which served her as both seat and bed. He should do most of the talking.

He was nonplussed. He had expected expressions of grief and fear; even an appeal for mercy; but not this cool indifference. He had drunk deeply, but the spirits had merely had a strangely unpleasant effect. He experienced no anger and no desire, and, meeting her steady gaze, sensed something that was not far from fear. This woman had the eyes of the yogi whom he would have murdered!

She turned away her head, and he moved a step nearer.

'Are your wounds well?'

She shrugged. A determined silence is at once a strong attack and a defence.

'Have my women obeyed your orders?'

She assented; the women had been kind to her.

'It is well.... Why do you not speak of your capture? Do you not wish to know what has happened to your husband?'

'I speak not of that which I dislike,' remarked Diana quietly. 'As for my husband, I know ? that he is well.'

The Mongol strove to throw off a numbing sense of being controlled. Perhaps it was the freezing indifference of this woman; or her eyes. He felt that even his movements were dominated. Of will be seemed utterly bereft.

'And if I say he has been killed?'

'I should say that you lied— as usual!'

'I lie not when I say that you shall have another husband — myself!' he retorted, a spark of his normal self glowing for an instant.

She shrugged with the same indifference. A distant sound or shouting was rapidly drawing near and filling the great round tent. It seemed to bring to Khoon a realisation of reality. It came from a world which he dominated. A welcome anger surged up in him. Shouting an oath at the disturbers, he tore aside the curtains.

AGAINST a background of excited crowd, facing him a few yards away, stood a tall, bearded lama in garnet robes. The cries of the soldiers and camp followers— 'Hail to the Buddha, Szong Hpa!... Holy Szong-Hpa!... Most holy leader!...Szong-Hpa!'— died away at the sight of the fury on Khoon's face.

What he had been dreading had come to pass. But, remembering his decision in respect of his rival, he addressed him in words of welcome, suppressed rage causing his tones to resemble the snarling of a hyena rather than the voice of a man.

'You are welcome, Holy One! We knew of your coming. A house has been prepared for you. I will lead you to it.'

The news of the arrival of an incarnated Buddha had spread with the rapidity of a forest fire. Khoon, squat and misshapen, waddling awkwardly by the side of the tall figure in red, regarded evilly the level-pacing crowd of hundreds of excited Mongols, and ordered his bodyguard to drive them away 'lest the Holy One be inconvenienced.' He would have liked to shout oaths and threats at them, but he did not dare. It would betray his thoughts and jeopardise the popularity which he found it so hard to inspire.

But Gray saw an excellent opportunity for exercising his assumed role and, stopping, he addressed them— Khoon, for a short while unaware of his intention, continuing on his way.

'I bring the World to ye, sons of Genghis Khan and my sons! I welcome your nearness to me even as you welcome mine! To-night I will eat with you. I seek not the rich and powerful. Ye are poor, even as I am.'

Many ran forward and asked his blessing, which— hating the deception— he gave them with a happiness so genuine that the smile which accompanied it did even more than his words to win their hearts.

Khoon, with difficulty concealing a fiercer surge of anger, came back to him. 'To-night you sup with me, respected lama! For my soldiers to-morrow is early enough! Back to your tents!' he shouted. And, murmuring, they obeyed.

'We welcome you even as our ancestor welcomed the sage Chan Chu when he came from the land of the Rising Sun,' asseverated Khoon, as, seated by the lama's side upon the divan of his tent, he proffered to Szong-Hpa the food brought by awe-struck servants, questioning him the while, even as Genghis had questioned Chan Chu.

'Have you magic medicines, lama? Can you give me one that will make me immortal?'

'There are medicines for preserving life— and for taking it. There is no medicine of immortality.' (The lama would have added the usual 'my son,' but the words stuck.)

Khoon, himself brutally direct, found the answer pleasing.

'Now I know that you are a Buddha,' he said.

'Did you not know it before, Kagan?'

'Assuredly I knew it! Was it not announced?'

'What merit-earning ones swept the path of my coming, Suleman Khoon?'

'An unknown yogi— an ancient.'

'Small, shaven of head, and possessed of a voice like a bell?'

'Even so.' admitted Khoon. 'Did you send him?'

'Though messengers are sent before me; it is not I who send them.'

Khoon bowed before the supernatural, and ceased to question his guest until after the meal.

When they were alone he said: 'You are surely an astrologer. Tell me what you read in the stars concerning me.'

Smouldering Mongolian-lidded eyes looked into Khoon's.

'Brihasptai—' the name had flashed into his mind— 'Brihasptai is unfavourable!'

'To me?' questioned Khoon, remembering the prediction of his own astrologers.

'To those who would do evil.'

'What kind of evil?' demanded Khoon cunningly.

'Whatsover is shameful.' (His fingers itched to strangle this fiend.)

Khoon seemed to be pondering the reply. Actually he was wondering how to broach with suitable subtlety a subject that was in the forefront of his thoughts. He temporised.

'My astrologers say that the planets are favourable to me, and I am content.'

'The content of a king is based upon the content, of his army, O Kagan!'

The eyes which missed nothing had read discontent in the faces of many of the soldiers.

'Where I lead my army follows!' pronounced Khoon fiercely.

'Yea— but willingly? Soldiers are like children; they look for certain things in those who lead them.'

Khoon chuckled. The conversation was taking the right direction. 'Doubtless you speak of signs and miracles. There is a prophecy that my ancestor Genghis will come again and he known by a certain mark upon his body. Assuredly you know of this prophecy?'

Gray did not, but he signified assent; it seemed desirable. He was wondering where Diana was and how he would rescue her. Barfopulos and his Brihaspati had been useful.

'Tell me, lama, the shape of the mark, and where it will be situated.'

Szong-Hpa put up a silent prayer. The Mongol was scrutinising him with an unpleasant intentness. Had he recognised him? What should he answer? Once more his thoughts, wandered to Barfopulos. The statue of the cat-headed Sekhmet in that peristyled hall was holding an ankh....

'An ankh,' he finished aloud, reflecting upon it and wondering what an ankh was supposed to represent.

'Anank? Of what shape is an nank? Show me!' commanded Khoon.

The lama took out his ink-horn, reed pen, and a piece of papyrus and made a rough drawing of an ankh.

Khoon gazed upon it— delighted, but uncomprehending.

'Assuredly I must have that mark upon me, Holy One.'

Gray, who had been in a brown study, debating whether the time had not come to probe him about Diana, heard only the last half of the remark.

'It is well,' he commented.

'And if I have it not it is bad?'

'Assuredly.'

'Listen!' said Khoon. 'You do not seek to have power over men— is that not so?'

'I am a humble follower of the Way. The only power I seek is to give men happiness.' (How long would he have to keep up this hateful pretence?)

'I knew it, and yet I put the question. It is good! I will help you lama. You shall be protected. Your words shall be cut in black stone, and In brass for all men to see and learn.'

'You will earn great merit,' remarked Szong Hpa, wondering what Khoon meant. 'In return I will help you. There is surely something— or some person — concerning which or whom I can advise you?'

Khoon lowered his voice. 'I need your help and advice. My soldiers, as you said, are like children. I am who I say I am! But that is not enough. My people must believe that I am Genghis Khan, and not merely his descendant— though that, of course, is true. He who announced your coming said that you would help me to have this miraculous mark set upon me; for assuredly you are a man of miracles.'

'What he said I shall do,' rejoined Szong-Hpa, still wondering what was required of him.

'I will have it made,' whispered the dwarf, tapping the piece of papyrus before hiding it in his robes.

Gray's heart gave a jolt. At last he understood.

'Now tell me where the mark Is to be placed,' demanded Khoon, his eyes glittering. Gray reflected. A man meets his enemy face to face. A snake is safest tackled from behind.

'Between the shoulder-blades, Kagan.'

Once again this lama's answer pleased Khoon. In battle his back was always bare. The mark would be visible to all his army.

'When it is ready you shall brand it upon me,' he said, wriggling a finger in an itchy ear. 'The doing of it is, of course, nothing, but it shall be the cause of spreading your teaching over many lands!'

"Om!" exclaimed the red lama solemnly, and, taking out his prayer wheel, he turned it, deep in meditation, the ill-made brass drum clicking on its handle as it revolved.

Khoon regarded him pensively. Was this lama in some way the cause of the sudden reluctance of the Hill chiefs to come forward with their lashkars? So far not a single chieftain had joined the Mongol standard. Was it he who had set afoot the rumour that Khoon intended to rob the Hillmen of their share of the Indian loot? If it were― !

In some people's lives the strange and unaccountable happens often. It was so in Gray's life. He had frequently said that he had only to put a foot outside the front door for some queer happening to come along. Now, though, the merely strange had become the almost incredible. A chain of co-operating events ruled out the possibility of coincidence and pointed to some influence― inexplicable because it was unknown― as having moulded and directed them.

Upon Szong-Hpa's stern, bearded face, as he sat in Khoon's horda, was a solemn contentment. God had delivered this murderer into his hands.

29

TO Szong-Hpa were rendered all the honours due to a visiting chieftain of the highest rank.

'So eminent a lama,' said Khoon (fiercely denying it in his own mind), 'is greater than any king.'

'This Buddha,' exclaimed the impressed soldiery, 'might perform a miracle at any moment!'― a point of view that ensured his being followed by a penguin-like crowd of Mongols wherever he went. A twenty-deep ring of females sat outside his residence, a guard and two sentries watched over his safety, and a band of zealous musicians banged and blasted to nothingness his peace of mind.

Khoon feared him; but, in spite of the lama's personality, the mysterious heralding of his coming, and his knowledge of the prophecy, there was a dawning suspicion in that treacherous mind. This branding meant the promulgation of a fraud. How could a Buddha lend himself to deceit? Or was it because this Szong Hpa, possessed of inner sight, and supernatural powers, knew that he, Suleman Khoon, actually was the reincarnated Genghis Khan?

Khoon dallied long with that possibility; he was beginning to believe it himself. After all, the prophecy merely said that the mark would be 'found'; it did not say that it was a birthmark. But where was this Szong Hpa's chela? The yogi had said he would come with a disciple!

In a mind like Khoon's suspicion, once sown, rapidly grows. The lama must be watched. It was a pity that Szong-Hpa was celibate. A few clever dancing girls would have been able to question him during the night.

GRAY knew that he was being spied upon. He had already singled out two at least of Khoon's agents— one a pock-marked Mongol and the other a Garhwali. It was late in the evening— the camp-fires were lighted in their hundreds— before he managed to get the women to quit the precincts of his tent, and then he was able to do so only after he had given satisfyingly vague replies to a hundred-and-one requests for the performance of miracles which would have taxed the powers of the most potent medieval saint.

At long last, clamouring for his blessing, the women rose— all save one old dame. 'I came to hear a teaching! Until I have heard a teaching I go not,' she said doggedly, mumbling toothless gums.

Gray approached her. Fortunately he remembered some fragments of Buddha Gautama's discourses, and began to repeat them to that small cascade of brown rags at his feet.

'I tell thee the words of the Blessed One, Mother! Follow the Eightfold Path— namely, right thinking, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful; sorrow, dejection, lamentation, arid despair are painful; contact with unpleasant things is painful; not getting what one wishes is painful.... Be established in worthiness, Mother! Go in blessing!'

'That is a teaching!' gabbled the crone delightedly. 'And it was spoken for me. For me the Holy One spoke it! Now I will go.'

The men Szong-Hpa briefly addressed. They were at liberty, he said, to ask him questions, of which he would answer only such as he chose. And forthwith they rained questions upon him— questions about health, sickness, death; about restoring the dead to life; about the past, the present and the future. But not one of the queries offered an opening for a 'feeler' regarding Diana.

He gave such answers as he could. 'Are you a greater saint than he who came to tell us of your coming?'

'I am less than he.'

'Will you not foretell the future, as he did?'

'Since he told you, what should I tell?' (That seemed to meet it!)

'Whence shall come the fires which he said would destroy us were our Kagan not truly of the race of Genghis?'

'From above— and below,' answered Gray, with a comprehensive wariness.

'Assuredly that yogi was a spirit,' remarked another man. 'They say that there was no impression upon the takiya (cushion) when he rose from?

Sometimes there were short silences. One of these was broken by a question that put Gray on the alert.

'How many white people are there In India?', asked a grimy Ladakhi.

'They are as numerous as the stones upon the hillside,' answered Szong Hpa.

'Wherever they go they bring others. So they increase.'

The bait was taken.

'One is enough! We want no more of them,' said a scarred veteran.

'When came this one?' asked Gray as indifferently as he was able. 'Our Khan brought her,' volunteered another man. 'She is very red and white. He was with her when you met him.' Gray noted that. 'Said not the Budda Gautama, 'Where there are women there is weakness,' Holy One?' questioned a third.

'That is so,' replied Gray. 'But the sahib-log give justice!'

'And money,' chimed in a shrapnel-scarred man approvingly. He had been a Supply and Transport Corps coolie in Sikkim with the British force which had invaded Tibet in 1903, he Informed Gray. His wound hurt him when it rained. Could he be given medicine for It?

'I will give you some!' said Gray, desirous of bringing the audience to a close. Also, this man might be useful. 'Come!'

He led the way into his tent, his patient-to-be being followed by a dozen of his friends. These were requested to stay outside, which they obeyed with considerable reluctance, although the servant who had just lighted the lamps in the tent joined his efforts to those of a zealous sentry.

The band had dissolved at Szong-Hpa's personal and urgent request for silence during his meditations.

Pouring some water into a goblet and opening the purse containing condiments, Grey took out some salt and pepper and dropped a pinch of each into the goblet. Then, with an exclamation of disappointment, he peered into the gaping mouth of the purse, shaking his head and muttering one of the few Sanskrit charms he knew.

'Is it not a good medicine, lama-ji?' asked the scarred man anxiously.

'Yea! It is that which the sahib people give for such things. But a certain Ingredient is lacking. Perhaps if you. were to ask this memsahib she would give you some to bring to me.'

'I will go. But give me a token that the guards may let me enter into her presence. None may speak with her. She has been ill.'

'I know it,' said Szong-Hpa, concentratedly tilting and revolving the cup.

'Has she not a fever?'

'Yea— from wounds inflicted by a thabs-yang (tiger-devil). But she is recovered.'

An idea flashed Into Gray's mind.

'Wounds are nothing,' he said. 'See!'

Pulling aside the neck of his robes, he showed the newly healed scar on his neck. 'Tell her that I showed you that wound and said that I need medicine from her to complete its cure.' He handed to him his prayer-wheel. 'Show this to the guard. Tell them I sent you to place it personally in her hands for the space of a hundred breaths, that light may come into her heart.'

'Without doubt I will tell them so... . Was your wound caused by a thabs-yang?'

Szong-Hpa shook his head.

'She knows,' he said mysteriously. 'She sees all things in her dreams. Go!'

Hardly had the bearer of the message left him when the Garhwali spy —sent by Khoon— entered with a profound obeisance.

'I am come to ask a favour, lama-'ji.'

'What is it?' demanded Gray.

'You have no chela, Holy One. The yogi told us you would come with a chela — with one whose country is near to mine?' The man stopped. He had no intention of going any further. Khoon had bidden him to force the lama to give some explanation.

Gray suppressed a start; In the strain and tension he had overlooked the fact that no important lama would travel without a disciple. What the man had said was unpleasant hearing. Quite clearly he came from Khoon.

'What the holy yogi spoke was true. I have a chela. Look!' Gray pointed to the farther side of the tent, as if at someone standing there.

The Garhwali stared and backed.

'I see naught!'

'The sinful may not see through a magic. Shall I change him into a thabs-yang?'

Gray glared at him with as terrible an expression as he could conjure up. It was effective, and the Garhwali shrank away.

Gray went close up to him.

'Tell the Kagan this.' he admonished sternly: 'The lama Szong-Hpa said to me that since you sent me to ask him where his chela is, he has rendered him invisible— even as the mark you know of may be invisible because you sent me!'

He dismissed the man, and, blowing out the lamps, lay staring up at the circle of a starlit sky above the smoke-hole for the best part of half an hour. But not even the subterranean rumbling and long-drawn tremors of an earthquake shock were able to keep him from falling asleep.

The voice of the sentry woke him shortly after daylight. 'A chela asks to be allowed to enter, lama.'

Wondering what new move Khoon was making, he gave the necessary permission. A squat figure entered, dressed in the soiled robes of a lama of the yellow-cap order several sizes too large for him. His face, shiny to jet-blackness with oil and soot, was even dirtier than that of most Tibetan mendicant monks. Grimy palms joined upon his breast, this uncouth individual dropped upon his knees near the door, and so shuffled forward until he had reached Szong-Hpa, when he bowed his head until his forehead touched the lama's feet.

He was making the last of the three described prostrations when there tumbled from the gaping breast of his soiled yellow robe a black kitten with white paws.

30

'BE NOT ANGRY with me, sahib!' Limbu looked up at Gray, his lands still joined palm to palm in Hindu salutation. Gray sat back and laughed— until he remembered that lamas are not supposed to laugh. Stickler for discipline though he was, he was thankful that the Ghurkha had disobeyed his orders.

'Is the memsahib safe?' asked the orderly, plucking distastefully at encumbering robes.

'Yes. Do not speak in Hindustani! Speak in Ghurkali. I am watched. Is all well at the fort?'

'All is well, sahib except that Shiv killed Firoz Khan in the hills. The general sahiba (Limbu always referred to Shireen as 'the General sahiba') told me to say that news has come from General Chilton sahib to say that ne has been ordered to return to India with the three divisions. She says that she and her men will take his place― perhaps before you send word.'

In the silence that fell in the tent, Barfy made a sudden rush, and clambering on to Gray's robes, mounted to the back of his neck, and there sat purring contentedly.

'What in the name of God made you bring this animal?' demanded Gray, detaching the kitten's claw-holds and placing her on the floor.

'I thought the memsahib would be glad. Also, Barfee could carry a letter if the sahib writes one.'

'It's one more thing to look after, Limbu. and we've got enough as it is!' remarked Gray, glowering at the kitten, who was now investigating the tent by her usual method of barely touching things with the tip of her dark nose, and recoiling her head the fraction of in inch as if it had bounced back from the thing it had barely touched. About her neck was a grimy bow of yellow sloth, ill-tied and awry. Limbu, who was searching the tent for some means of making tea, did not reply to his master's remark. There was a brazier, but neither tea nor sugar nor a teapot. Also, there was no cup. Gray dismissed Barfy from his thoughts.

'Don't forget that you have got to address me as a lama,' he said quietly. 'You know the usual expressions... And, above all, don't let slip an English word! No more 'sahibs' or 'husoors.' Understand?'

'Ha, sa— ji, Holy One! I will get the Holy One a cup of blessed tea.' He went out clumsily, muttering.

'The Kagan sends greetings and asks you to honour him with your sanctifying presence, lama,' purred Garhwali, who had silently slipped into the tent.

Gray decided it would be wiser not to object to this unbidden entry by Garhwali.

'Tell the Kagan that I send him a blessing. After I have eaten I will come to him,' he said.

The man screwed up his small eyes.

'It is the Kagan's wish that your Holiness should be provided with prepared food by his servants.'

'None has come, and I am hungry. Go!'

He had nearly finished a breakfast of milkless tea and dry chapatti when a sumptuous meal was brought by Khoon's major-domo. 'I eat no more,' said Gray, with a fine assumption of asceticism. 'Give to my servant such of these good dishes as he may please. I go to the Khan.'

The servants having withdrawn, Gray warned Limbu against the Garhwali.

'But if another man come whose face is scarred by a wound, bid him await my return. I sent him with a message to the memsahib.'

After explaining to the Ghurkha the position of Diana's tent he added, 'You have no name, remember! You will say that that is your vow. You are just 'the chela' — nothing else. Speak like a lama; act like a lama.'

Left alone, Limbu squatted down upon his hams and watched Barfy thoughtfully. She was finishing an ample breakfast. There were many dogs in this camp; she would have to be careful. As for Garhwalis, he hated them all. In his eyes they were half Ghurkhas and a bastard race.

'Salaam, Chela-ji!' The Garhwali had crept in again.

'And who may you be?' demanded Limbu, regarding him displeasedly.

'I am a Garhwali, ji! A private servant of the most illustrious Kagan. Your Honour's kindness would be great if you will make yourself invisible. Only for a few minutes! Go— come! Like that!'

Limbu struggled with the recollection that he was a lama and a man of God. Evidently this Garhwali was both a fool and a servant of devils. Also, he was clearly subject to madness, like Mohammed, the cook.

'I know not of what you speak,' he said. 'Man is not made of air. One thing I know; that no one enters the louse of a holy lama without his permission— or mine, if he is away and I am here!'

The Garhwali returned the veiled dislike in full measure.

'The great lama spoke with me about you,' he said impudently. 'He made you invisible to please me. But I saw you— over there.' He jerked his chin it a point in the tent wall. 'I did not admit it because it would have been disrespectful. What is your name?'

'We have no names. If the crow made less noise it would find more to eat!'

The spy winced at the sarcasm, but stuck to his guns. 'We? You mean "I"! Your blessed master has a name, has he not? Tell ne that most blessed name.'

'I said we and I meant we,' said Limbu fiercely, his big hand stroking Barfy's head. 'We— the cat and I— have no names. Your name is "Son of an Owl"!'

'For a lama your speech is rough,' remarked the Garhwali, scrutinising Limbu's honest, soot-begrimed face, and finding it stupid. Luckily the Ghurkha remembered Gray's warning: 'Speak like a lama; act like a lama.'

'My son, take heed! Great indeed are his powers and mine! We see enough impostors as a man sees through glass. We can appear and disappear. We can produce things out of nothing. We can send things— a man, for example— into nothing! I have but to blow upon you and you would become dust!'

The Garhwali said he hoped he would not blow upon him.

'Is that your cat, lama-ji?'

'Nay, she is the— she is his. She is a bhoot-billi— a ghost cat! Terrible are her powers too!'

This grim description of the unfortunate kitten was delivered with considerable solemnity.

The spy felt he was being made a fool of. He had come for information, and so far had got none.

'Whence come you,' he asked.

'Are the hills, too, Invisible?' demanded the Ghurkha acidly. 'Is the holy Szong-Hpa very poor?'

'He has no money! We beg!' snapped Limbu, wishing the man would go.

'Surely he needs some money?'

'The guru with whom money counts is no guru,' said Limbu sententiously.

'I will give you ten rupees if you will ask your Blessed Master to do something for me— a very little thing!'

'What thing? He cannot give brains!'

'I have a brother who is rich, but who gives me nothing, if the lama will say that I am dying that brother will send me a hundred rupees. Ask your master to give a writing saying that I am sick. Ten rupees is a lot of money―'

Limbu's eyes smouldered unholily. 'Go, lest I put a curse upon you!' he said.

Many others came to the great tent while Gray was away. Seated outside the entrance in his stained and tattered robes of holiness Limbu enjoyed their reverential greetings, and bestowed blessings with a majestic solemnity which impressed his visitors quite as much as it would have amused Gray.

The man with the scarred face appeared after almost half an hour.

'I have it here.' he said mysteriously, touching his Tartar hat. He knelt and joined his hands. 'I came for the Holy One's blessing!'

'Assuredly half these monkey-people are mad,' Limbu said to himself. 'May the Lord Gautama bless thee, my son!' he added aloud, raising his right hand in the blessing Mudra or posture. 'What is it that you have there?' He pointed at the man's hat.

'Inside I will show you,' said the scarred man, developing an expression similar to that produced by sucking a raw lemon. Limbu rose and preceded him into the tent.

'Now show me!' A screw of paper was produced.

'Be pleased to be seated,' said Limbu. and, rolling back from his forearms an encumbering rope, opened the screw of paper. With a sharp cry the man sprang up.

'Aiee! The medicine!'

At first Limbu thought, not without resignation, that his visitor was about to become violent: but he observed that a pinch of some powder had dropped from the paper. It appeared to be finely ground maize flour.

'It matters not.' he remarked offhandedly. 'I have another much better medicine. Who gave you this one?'

'The Kagan's memsahib. The lord lama sent me to her. She said I was to give it to the lama-ji. and tell him that she was waiting for his blessed coming to cure her wounds, whenever he cared to go to her.'

'I will tell the holy lama. You may go.'

'But my medicine! You said you had some medicine for me,' protested the man.

Plunging a hand into a pectoral gulf of crossed robe, Limbu hurriedly produced a half-empty tin of Keating's powder. Sprinkling some into a glass, he poured some water on it. 'Dekkho! Drink It!' he said curtly.

'But two other medicines must go with it! The blessed lama himself said so!' protested the imbiber-to-be. 'You take that! You will not want any others added to it,' remarked the Ghurkha, regarding him interestedly.

'Wah! That is a good medicine.' The ex-coolie smacked his lips, and after respectfully touching Limbu's feet with his hands left the tent.

Limbu reported later what the scarred man had said. For a moment Gray said nothing. Then: 'We've got to get the memsahib and ourselves out of this place —to-night!'

31

KHOON had grouped his advance camp round an ancient Temple of the Sun. It had stood in solitary grandeur, mused and neglected for two thousand years, upon a slight rise in the centre of the plain. Unlike the Sun Temple at Martand, in the Kashmir Himalayas, the central sanctuary and many of the surrounding chambers, opening on to a central courtyard, were intact. The Kagan had thought of taking up his residence there, but for reasons of policy he had abandoned the idea after ordering the temple to be fitted with great doors of split pine-trunks at both its entrances.

The ironworks for these doors had been forged by a grizzled Mongol named Teminuchin, who had carried out the work in one of the cloistral chambers and thereafter had been allowed to keep his forge in the temple precincts, the adjoining courtyard chambers being turned into stables for the Kagan's horses and those of his chieftains. It was Teminuchin's privilege to shoe Khoon's huge white stallion, Tagan, whose height, measured from the top of his great withers to the upper surface of its heavy silver shoes, was exactly seventy-two inches. Khoon had trained the great beast to attack men, and it had killed eleven.

To Teminuchin's forge came a repulsively dirty lama, who squatted opposite the doorless entrance and started telling his beads, mumbling on each lead the sacred formula. 'Om mane padme hum!' in ceaseless reiteration.

According to one of many translations it means 'Hail to the sacred Jewel in the lotus!' in allusion to the Buddha's having been born from one of those flowers, Om and Hum being mystical and untranslatable auspicious tabulations. The continued repetition of the phrase is held to have celestial merits.)

Limbu had been sent by Gray. In view of future developments he wished o have an eye-witness of the forging of the ankh brand which Khoon had confided to him was to be made by Teminuchin.

The day's work of a medieval camp blacksmith was in full swing. Sword blades were being riveted or sharpened, iron helmets fitted with leather straps, bits and stirrups repaired, faulty links in chain-mail replaced, and a hundred and one other petty jobs attended to. The tank of animal ammonia and of unclean bedding from the stables was mingled with the biting odour of wood-smoke.

Working with Teminuchin was his only son— a cheerful, straight-limbed youth who smiled continually as he talked and worked. Teminuchin was proud of the lad, whose skill, he maintained, was equal to his own.

Begging bowl in lap, Limbu sat impassively watching them. Little eddies of wind were whirling spirals of dust and bits of straw across the walled courtyard. The clink-clink-clink of the hammers arid the rushing sound of the primitive bellows reminded him of the Street of the Ironworkers in Rawalpindi... of Neela... of Mohammed....

'Give the Holy One some bread. It Is upon the shelf. When you have done so, tell him to go,' ordered Teminuchin to his son. He disliked being watched. Only thieves were watched.

'It is a pity we have no soap to give him, my father,' laughed the youngster, tearing the big chapatti in two. Dropping the food into the wooden begging bowl, he said to Limbu, 'One of our oxen is sick.'

'Om mane padme hum!' murmured Limbu ecstatically.

'Will the beast recover, Holiness?'

'Om— yes— mane— if you give it warm — padme — milk — hum. Om hum!' The boy laughed, and Limbu's grimed face split into a grin, which was at once exorcised. 'My father says you are to go!'

'I go not. My lord, the lama Szong Hpa— seeing into the future — ordered me to sit here and bless your work. You will have need of his blessing.'

The statement was sufficient.

'Let him stay!'

A red-hot sword blade hissed as it was plunged into water. The coming of some great personages is heralded by cheers, that of others by the blowing of bugles and the fluttering of handkerchiefs or by a swelling murmur of gladness and admiration. The coming of Khoon to a day-dreaming Limbu was announced by a fierce whinny from the great stallion and a cold stillness. All work suddenly ceased. '

'Come here, Teminuchin!' called the Kagan harshly. The smith salaamed.

'The hinge of my private treasure chest, is broken.'

'Omnipotence, I come at once!'

Khoon glanced towards the stallion. The horse's great white head was pointed skyward, its upper lip curled back to show the under pinkness.

'Not thou! Thy son! Let him bring at once to my horda two hand's breadth of steel band and four spans of iron rod, together with an anvil and his tools.'

'Om, mane padme hum!' droned Limbu. 'Om mane padme hum!'

Khoon slanted a glance at him. 'Art thou the lord Szong-Hpa's chela?'

'Om mane padme —'

'Hast thou no tongue, priest?'

Limbu looked up in placid reproval, his eyes closed, 'It is not good to interrupt the prayers of a lama, Kagan!'

'Has he come to see thee, Teminuchin?'

The smith shook his head.

'Then what is his business here?' demanded Khoon. He was agitated— not by the foul murder he was going to commit, but by a fear lest there should come a hitch' in his hoped-for results. Limbu lifted limply a dangling rosary.

'Om mane― '

'Thy order hates violence. Here men fashion weapons. Why art thou come?'

'When I was a man of sin I was a smith, Kagan,' explained Limbu hollowly. 'Now I give my blessing to those who are smiths— to make fortunate their work. The work for which I pray succeeds.',

Khoon frowned. Superstition was warring with instinct. Should he ask him to come and bless the work which was about to be done in the horda? He decided not. It might be dangerous.

'Bless, then, here, and now the work that the son of this man will do for me— upon my treasure-chest.'

'As the flux for the soldering, as the water for the flour, so must be blessing mingle with the work.'

Khoon turned and left the forge. The day wore on. and still Limbu sat waiting for a named work to be started, but though he watched the smith vigilantly there, was no sign of the making of a brand.

The first intimation that it had been done elsewhere came in gruesome shape. Three Mongols entered the courtyard bearing the body of Teminuchin's son. His work finished, he had been killed by Khoon.

'He angered the Kagan. and the Kagan slew him,' they told his stonily staring father Teminuchin bade them leave him, and when they had gone crossed the courtyard and, putting his shoulder to the great doors of split pine-trunks; closed them unaided.

Save for Limbu, there was no one else in the temple courtyard. Abandoning himself to grief, the unfortunate man cast himself upon his son's body, kissing the gashed neck and crying aloud to Mongke Tengri, the Eternal Blue Sky.

After a while Limbu went to him.

'The boy is at peace,' he said gently. 'He who killed him will pay a great price. Be you at peace.'

Teminuchin raised a hideously smeared face.

'It is true. What thou saidst this morning was true! If I can serve thy lord lama, let him order me!' He looked fixedly across the courtyard at the stallion, which was pawing the stone floor of its stable. It had scented the boy's blood.

'As for the Kagan,' gritted Teminuchin, 'as thou sayest, holy lama, he shall pay a great price! An equal price!'

Limbu found Gray anxiously awaiting his return, and reported to him the murder of Teminuchin's son.

'You must try to get to the Lion's Rock in half the time it took you to get here!  Tell Shireen-bibi that she must attack this camp tonight without fail. The memsahib's and my life depend upon it!'

32

TEN MINUTES later Limbu passed through the perimeter of the camp, intoning with great gusto a Buddhist hymn.  Keeping him well in sight was the Garhwali.

Careful as was the Garhwali to keep out of sight it was  not long before Limbu learned that he was being followed — he divined by whom. A falling pebble roused his suspicions. It bounded past him while he was resting for a moment. Pebbles, the Ghurkha argued, do not jump down hillsides; they are knocked down— and generally by something alive. If the live thing that had knocked down this one was a man he was going to see him; if it was an animal he was going to make sure that it had four feet— and not two Garhwalian ones.

Below him the hillside bulged sufficiently to conceal his square, yellow-clad form, and he hastened downward. Picking up a largish rock, he set it rolling down the slope, shouting with cleverly diminishing strength as it thudded its way as if he were falling and afraid of being killed in the fall. The ruse worked. The Garhwal was soon coming stealthily towards his hiding-place.

Now Limbu knew that, despite his personal opinion of Garhwalis, fighting comes naturally to them. This man would show fight when he was attacked, as Limbu intended he should be— and not only attacked, but killed, and quickly.  First placing an openly astonished Barfy in the hollow of a tree (which she at once proceeded diligently to inspect), he slipped off his lama's robes and stood like a bronze statue, clad only in a dhoti— the narrow strip of cotton cloth worn by Hindus, and which in effect is not unlike a pair of white triangular bathing-drawers. Thrust through the waist of this gleamed the wooden-handled kukri— three and a half pounds of razor-edged steel.

'Salaam, brother!' he said, stepping quickly from concealment.

The Garhwal sprang back. 'Some one fell!' he gasped, his hand upon a square-ended and straight dhan— a sword considerably heavier than Limbu's knife.

'Some one will fall,' corrected Limbu imperturbably. 'Why are you following me?'

The gloves were off, and the Garhwali knew it.

'Do not holy lamas generally seek followers?'

Limbu let pass the gibe. He could not murder this man in cold blood, and since the latter was armed with a dhan, and knew how to use it, he was going to prove an awkward enemy to tackle.

The first move came from the Garhwali.

'Whither go you, Ghurkha?' The carefully knotted lock of long hair on Limbu's, scalp had told him everything.

'Not where thou are going, thou Garhwali dish-washer! Thy road leads to hell!'

Limbu sprang sideways as the dhan whizzed past his shoulder. 'Jail!' he shouted, whipping out the kukri and delivering an upward cut that would have ripped open the Garhwali 's stomach had it reached the mark; but the man leaped back, slicing at Limbu's legs as he did so. Leaping this way and that, into the air, backward and sideways, for some minutes they fought with savage doggedness. Limbu was seeking to get to close quarters, and failing to do so.

The two blades rasped and slashed, clicked and clinked— sometimes striking a sparkle and sometimes meeting in mid-air, there to remain, poised until, with a slow, cold, rasping sound, they ground  against each other, as the two men slowly brought their weapons down to knee-level, and there cautiously disengaged them. The Garhwall aimed a deadly blow at Limbu's head. Quickly bending his knees, the Ghurkha dodged it. But the keen edge sliced through the carefully coiled top-knot, which dropped, striking its owner's shoulder lightly as it Limbu's subsequent fury was near to be insensate. None could have done him a more hated injury.

Hither and thither flashed the leaf-shaped blade, now whirling like a circle of silver fire, now darting like a streak of white light slantwise or upward. Suddenly he rushed in under the Garhwali's guard, lowering the kukri to protect his left thigh from the coming sideways cut. Thrown off his balance by the rush, the spy turned his wrist the fraction of an inch. The flat of the dhan struck the broad hilt of the kukri, and, with a sound like the snapping of a glass rod, broke off short.

With monkey-like agility the Garhwali twisted, and, shooting his right hand across his body, gripped Limbu's wrist, joining his left to it a split second later. For the space of a minute they stood locked and immobile, glaring hate at each other, their chests heaving and their great leg muscles bulging like taut brown cables. In physical strength they were about equally matched. What the Garhwali lacked in muscle was counterbalanced by his lithe wiriness. Desperately Limbu tried, to move his right hand, but he could barely budge it The position was stalemate.

'Let go my wrist!' he gritted. 'Drop the kukri... and we finish it with our hands,' panted the Garhwall, who had a small knife concealed in one of his puttees.

'Achchha!' The Ghurkha let fall his knife, glad of the pause.  They walked apart, Limbu, before they separated, kicking the kukri out.

The rest of the fight was not pretty. Reaching down, the Garhwali drew the knife from his puttee, and, missing Limbu's eyes, drove it through his cheek. With a yell of fury the Ghurkha jerked his head forward with all his strength, his forehead cracking the spy between the eyes with the sound of a mallet hitting a wooden tent-peg. The Garhwali staggered, and in a flash Limbu darted to the kukri among the pine needles.

Snatching it up, he turned and, with a savage grunt, brought it down on to the curve where neck meets collarbone.

It was over.

Dashing the sweat from his eyes, the Ghurkha leaned against a pine-trunk. Far below he could see horsemen.

For a few moments the almond eyes scrutinised them intently. Then, "Jai! Sher Khan!' he shouted. A second later, in tones like a distant trumpet-blast, Sher Khan answered his hail.

33

AS a trickle of water increases until it rends asunder the dam, so the first small doubts in Khoon's mind increased and deepened until they had become overwhelming suspicion.

'This red elephant of a lama was assuredly an imposter. Doubtless he was also a schemer and a plotter. As soon as he had done what was needed of him he should be seized upon some pretext or other (there were many which would serve), and both he and his snivelling chela publicly executed. Khoon felt that in justification of this deed his own sword would stand. He would say (perhaps) that Szong-Hpa had asked for a huge sum of money, and when it was refused had sworn he would betray the Mongol people to the Government of India. If only he, Suleman Khoon, had had the chela present at the making of the brand! It would have been so easy to swear that directly the chela had killed Teminuchin's son he, Khoon, acting as Kagan and the rightful dispenser of swift justice, had at once slain the killer.

But it was too late. After the branding they should both die.

Khoon had taken certain precautions. He had again consulted his shamans as to the portent sand omens. These had not been good. The earthquake shock of the previous night denoted a coming disaster of some sort, the wizards said. Besides this, the very heavens themselves were uneasy because of the happenings to come, for a heavy storm was brewing— in itself an omen invariably accepted as unlucky, and at this particular time especially so, since- the Kagan had dreamed that the Great White Banner of the Sulde (guardian genius) of the Mongol people had been struck by lightning.

The shamans' most definite pronouncement had been to the effect that there was near or around the Kagan an evil influence which might rob him of his kingship and possessions. Khoon had at once thought of Szong-Hpa, though the shamans had meant Diana.

It was therefore in a murderous frame of mind that he sent the Garhwali to the lama to tell him that he was now ready to consult the heavens in this company.

After having delivered this message the Garhwali was to spread abroad in the camp a report that the lama had appeared afraid when he had told the Kagan 'the Great, Genghis himself will appear before us.' Khoon had given orders that no one was to approach the horda during the time that Szong-Hpa was closeted with him; and afterwards not until he personally called.

The clustered tents within a radius of a hundred yards of his own had been vacated until his communing with Heaven was over— in pursuance of which order Diana was taken to the Sun Temple, and there closely guarded.

As Gray, on his way to the Kagan's tent, moved between the dumpy brown habitations of a veritable city of brown felt and wicker the dirt and primitiveness of it all were unpleasantly apparent even in the light of camp-fires. Although it was only early summer, flies were clustered In sheets of shining blackness on the joints of raw meat (red or brown, according to its freshness) hanging from the wheels of the immense carts or from the sides of the tents themselves; camp refuse of all kinds, littered the ground on every side; scabbed and skinny mongrel curs were dragging offal and garbage where they willed. The smells were at times nauseating.

It was refreshing to look up at the clean blackness of the heavens, where every now and then a vivid flash of lightning lighted up vast areas of swollen and piled clouds. In those fleeting, flaring moments of brightness they resembled great masses of smoke painted in a picture and rolling up from some titanic sacrifice of a thousand hecatombs.

He found Khoon pacing his great tent agitatedly and was greeted, with a nervous gesture. After asking him to close the heavy felt curtains Khoon took from under the cushions of the divan the brand which had cost Teminuchin's son his life. Handing it to Szong-Hpa, he requested his opinion of it, stirring restlessly while the lama examined it.

It was an exact reproduction of Gray's drawing, and was about two and a half inches in length, the oval loop of the ankh being just over an inch across. The handle of the brand was wrapped round with rag.

Muttering meaningless Sanskrit words, the lama thrust the brand into the brazier of glowing charcoal. Khoon started to strip, throwing his discarded garments on to the divan.

'You should be in white robes, lama— even as the sage Usun, when he consulted the stars for the great Genghis Khan,' he said, pausing a moment in his unrobing.

'I wear the colour of fire, Kagan,' returned Szong-Hpa grimly. 'And, since we have to do with fire it is the better colour.

'It is true,' questioned Khoon, some Intuition of the truth stirring in his mind, that among the sahib people white is a sign of cowardice?'

The lama shrugged. 'How should I know?'

'A reincarnated Buddha surely knows all things?' The Mongol picked his words, and spoke very slowly. Szong-Hpa moved the brand slightly up and down, as if he had been easing a coal fire. In a few minutes he would be strangling this man. He did not wish to talk to him.

'Do not reincarnated Buddhas know all?' insisted Khoon.

'They know the Way— the Eightfold Way,' muttered Szong-Hpa, seating himself near the brazier in such a manner as to command a view of both the door and the divan. The high wind, which had been blowing since early morning had Increased in violence, and was now rushing round the pegged circular mass of the tent with a sound like a stormy sea. It was trying to rain, and a drop fell through the smoke-hole and hissed as it struck the fire, the red glow from which lit up the yellowness of Khoon.

Gray had closed, his eyes, leaving only sufficient space between the upper and lower lids to enable him to watch Khoon's legs. The Mongol was sitting crosslegged, occasionally scratching the hairs covering his chest and arms, staring with venomous intentness at the huge and motionless figure of the lama. Surely there was something familiar about the great spread of those glow-lit shoulders? Where had he seen shoulders resembling them?

The tent had become too dark to see well. But into his mind there was coming slowly— light. He had seen them... in a torture chamber...

A blue-white flash tore the darkness, and with a high-pitched crack a peal of thunder rattled, rumbled, and tumbled hollowly in the overhead gloom, thudding and re-thudding till the very earth shook. The roar died away. There was no rain. The violence of the wind dropped apart the heavy curtains covering the entrance, bringing from distant rained-on hills the smell of the forests and a welcome coolness.

A second later a tidal wave of thunder broke, rolling wrathfully across the riven sky, and bellowed shatteringly, the earth-shaking thuds redoubled and again redoubled. The hurricane seemed to be shrieking, 'Ceasse! Ceass-se!' the sound dying away into a long-drawn, sibilant whistle.

Staring at the brazier, as he crouched before it, Gray bared his right arm. Khoon's eyelids flickered the merest fraction of an inch. Picking up the leather gauntlets he had been wearing, he slipped them on his hands. The storm was now directly overhead.

Gray rose suddenly. Gripping the beraged rod-end, he withdrew the brand. For six inches of its length the rod was incandescent, the redness being tinged with white, and the whitest of the whiteness flecked with sharply minute red sparks. Several of these scintillated from the glowing metal as he moved it into an upward angle to contemplate the brand itself—and hastily drew back his head.

Should he drive the thing Into Khoon's face? Having strangled him, he would then give out that, the Kagan was asleep, and, according to his orders, was not to be disturbed.

A smashing peal of thunder shook earth and sky as the tent flared. to a daylight- lightness.

'It is ready!' came Gray's deep voice.

Holding the glowing brand like a red lamp in the gloom of the tent, he faced Khoon. At last this beast was at his mercy! The Mongol straddled his legs and put out his hand.

'Give it to me! I wish to look at it!'

The brand was advanced. (Why had he got those gauntlets on?)

With a lightning movement Khoon's right hand cracked down on to Gray's left wrist and drove the Englishman's hand against the glowing metal.

'Blast you!'

Khoon leaped at the brazier and, seizing it with both hands, hurled it at him. Burned, the tall form of Gray sprang forward in a swirl of red ashes and thrust the hot metal at Khoon's face. Khoon screamed like a tortured animal as the loop of the ankh seared his left cheek and eyeball. With the fury of a tiger he wrenched the iron from Gray's hand and struck at him with it, but Gray's forearm beat down the weapon and knocked it from Khoon's hand.

The next minute they were locked in a life-and-death struggle. Khoon had something of an advantage, for the blow he had dealt Gray's head dazed him, deadened though it was by the ear-flaps of his lamaic cap. The garnet robes were smouldering in places, but their wearer was oblivious of it. The glowing charcoal had ignited the dry felt wall, and orange tongues of flame were licking it hungrily, but neither man noticed it.

The Mongol knew that he had no chance against the big Englishman in a straightforward wrestling. With an ape-like leap he locked his mis-shapen legs about Gray's body, and, with a snake-like hissing strove to bury his yellow teeth in Gray's neck, his hands locked behind his enemy's head to give greater purchase to a. grizzly-bear hug. Keeping his chin down to balk Khoon's teeth — a common Frontier trick— Gray drove his right hand between their close-pressed bodies, shoving it upward with vicious jabs in a desperate effort to get at the Mongol's throat. His left hand was gripping the back of Khoon's neck in a ferocious grip, a powerful thumb driving into the nerves and muscles at the angle of the jaw.

Hither and thither they swayed, the Mongol breathing sharply and fiercely, Gray handicapped by his cumbersome robes, cursing under his breath and every second or two giving a grunting upward drive to his Impeded right hand.

Twice they fell and twice they rose, a snarling mass of yellow humanity clinging to Gray like some monstrous growth. Khoon, dizzy with the agony of that iron thumb, knew it was Gray's intention to strangle him, and he attempted to foil it by pressing his powerful thorax hard against the Englishman's body.

In vain Gray exerted all his great strength. The steel-muscled Mongol had twined himself about him like an octopus. Suddenly he ceased his efforts to reach Khoon's throat, and drove his hand downward.

The great tent was now well ablaze, and in a few moments they would be incinerated in an inferno of flame. Khoon, screaming with agony, realised it. Loosening his hands, he jabbed at Gray's eyes with his long-nailed forefingers, jerking back the weight of his body In an attempt to throw Gray off his balance.

To protect his eyes Gray lowered his head, twisted with a sudden turn his right hand, and in Khoon's answering spasm of agony freed himself from the encircling legs. Gripping Khoon by the waist, he thrust him from him, raised him on high, and hurled him like a stone from a catapult against ' the flaming wall of the tent where it met the ground, hoping to stun and blind him by the fall and flames, and thereafter kill him...

But the tent, wall gave way under the impact, and Khoon crashed through the flaming felt— to freedom.

34

GRAY stumbled out of the smoke filled horda into a pandemonium of terror. Although the storm had passed its zenith frequent flashes of lightning were still rending the darkness with blinding zigzags of blue and white and crackling satanically, the thunder rolling the while in one continuous, shattering peal.

Driven before the wind, sparks from the blazing tent had ignited the surrounding tents, which were spreading the roaring sea of flame. The shouting and bawling of men, the whinnying and screaming of horses, and the lowing of tethered and doomed cattle mingled with the explosions of ammunition dumps and the crashing detonations of the thunder.

A wall of red-flushed smoke eddying and curling was rolling low down towards the foothills, as if the swollen storm clouds had fallen from the heavens and, were being rolled over and over along the ground by the tremendous wind.

Khoon and the recent struggle had passed from Gray's mind. He had only one thought; he must rescue Diana.

Racing to the tent which the scarred man had mentioned, he found it crumbling into Incandescence. Grasping a fleeing Mongol by his baggy costume, he shouted.

'Where is the memsahib?' The man pointed to the Sun Temple, and, tearing himself free, fled, mad with fear. The way was blocked by flaming habitations, bullock-carts, stacks of fuel, barrels of cooking oil and dry hides. His headlong course was impeded by fleeing soldiery, neither rank nor office, nor the peril of others nor the orders screamed at them by the few superiors who were trying to give orders mattered a jot. Many of them were looting, as far as they were able, the blazing tents of their comrades and their officers, fighting savagely among themselves, striking down with redly flittering steel those who tried to wrest from them their booty or hinder their flight. Many cannoned into Gray, and were hurled back from the impact like waves from a rock, or lesser waves recoiling before a breaker.

Dodging and leaping, thrusting and striking, his garnet robes scorched, burned and tattered, Gray fought his way towards the Sun Temple. The pinewood gates were wide open, and the glare-of the conflagration lit up the courtyard. It seemed to be deserted save for some horses, among them a savagely whinnying white one of immense size. They were saddled, as if left to wait for their riders. The doors of the ancient sanctuary were open. It, too,  appeared to be empty, for he could see another open door— an oblong of scarlet glow— on the farther side of that Interior darkness.

Where was Diana? In one of the recessed chambers was seated the motionless figure of a man wrapped in a red blanket. Teminuchin, the smith. Immediately Gray entered the courtyard the blanket was cast aside; that which an apparition of his shaman father had last night revealed to Teminuchin had happened! The instrument of vengeance had come!

He ran to him, and before Gray could repeat his question, said, 'She is in there, Holy One!' It was enough.

'Get out that horse!' Gray pointed to the white stallion, and, snatching up a sledge hammer, ran up the steps. Smiling grimly, and muttering to himself Teminuchin ran to Tagan, and, seizing the white forelock, pulled the great head down to whisper long and intensively in its ear. Then, loosening the hobbles, he clattered him out on to the stone-paved courtyard, where the huge animal stood stock still, trembling in every limb.

As Gray reached the topmost step a mounted man and half a dozen followers put their horses at the flight of steps on the far side of the temple and clattered up them, the horses' hoofs striking showers of sparks from the stone.

It was Khoon, followed by six of his bodyguard. He was come for Diana, who was standing in a kind of deep side-chapel behind a double line of swordsmen.

Gray and Khoon entered the temple simultaneously from opposite sides. What followed all happened within half a minute.

'I'm here, Di!' His voice dominated the hellish uproar, and caused her to look bewilderedly towards the sound. Khoon roared to his bodyguard to deal with Gray. Half a dozen bullets tore through the garnet robes, and then the firers rode at him, only to be smashed and unhorsed by the sledge-head, whirled as if it were made of straw.

Seeing the fate of their comrades, all save four of the swordsmen who had been guarding Diana rushed forward. Them, too, the sledge hammer met and smashed, Gray's great strength sending it like a red and shattering flail through the smoke-filled air.

Two men had now seized Diana, and, despite her desperate struggles, dragged her by her backward twisted arms towards Khoon, where he sat upon his horse, his face distorted to diabolical hideousness by an insane fury and impatience. Two other men, bound her wrists as they moved to him. Heaving her across Khoon's saddle-bow, they lashed her ankles, and just as Gray floored his remaining opponents Khoon galloped across the sanctuary and slithered his heavily laden animal— a big black stallion― down the steps into the courtyard and galloped across it, his naked scimitar in his hand. Passing Teminuchin, he struck a terrific blow at him, the sword slashing through muscle and collar-bone.

'That for saying that Tagan had broken loose, you dog!' he shouted, and galloped out through the farther gates. Gray leaped down the steps after him and reached the dying Teminuchin, who was holding Tagan's rein in a convulsive grip.

'Let go!' he shouted.

Teminuchin's eyes were glazing over

'Tagan... will exact... payment...' he gasped and fell dead.

As Gray galloped out of the gates he let out a yell of joy. Shireen's horsemen were sweeping across the plain, lightning and flame flashing on naked steel and rifle barrel. He could distinguish the huge form of Sher Khan and thought he could see Shireen galloping by his side. Many of the Hillmen were firing from the shoulder as they rode, as Alam Khan had taught them to do.

'By Allah, sahib,' exclaimed Sher Khan, after giving orders for the attacking of a point, 'by the Holy Allah, sahib, that is indeed a horse for a man!'

Gray patted the stallion's neck. 'It was far too good a horse for a devil-monkey.'

'Your Honour's' orderly— who met us on our way, for we were coming to clean up this pigsty— is the only monkey we have on a horse!' laughed Sher Khan. 'Look—that is he, over there.'

Limbu, hunched in his yellow robes, was mounted on a raw Cabuli mare, clinging with one hand to the saddlebow in patent discomfort. Buckled about his waist was a large, straight-edged Hillman sword. One of his hands kept moving up to his chest, as if he were in pain.

Gray trotted over to him.

'Are you wounded?' he asked anxiously, ceasing for a moment to gaze over as. much of the level plain as could be seen.

'I have naught but my skin under these accursed robes, and she— Barfee—is afraid, sahib. Her claws are like hot pins.'

'Gray sahib!' called out Shireen, 'I have news! That son of the Devil rode north! It is a bad country. My heart is sad that neither I nor Sher Khan can go with you!'

She turned in her saddle and indicated a body of about one hundred horsemen. 'These iiwans are under your command. When you catch him bring him back to me! I have prepared certain things for him.'

The next second Gray was tearing northward across the plain, followed by a groaning and cursing Limbu— the curses being directed at the raw-boned Cabuli.

THE demoralisation of the Mongols by the burning of their camp was to some degree counterbalanced by their superior numbers— five thousand against two. Shireen's force had charged up under cover of the smoke, and was on them before they had realised its presence, more than a thousand of them being slain before their infuriated khans were able to mass them into organised resistance. Then they put up a stubborn fight.

The Hillmen were hard pressed by the detached bodies of Mongol horsemen which swept down upon their flank, delivered a ferocious attack, and rode away again— or through them— before Shireen's men were able to wheel and face them.

Born guerrilla cavalry, the Mongols were as dangerous to pursue as they were in attack, their small wiry horses as nimble as polo ponies.'

One of these flank attacks crashed into Shireen's main body shortly after Gray had left her, Sher Khan being half a mile away, directing an infantry assault upon the walled camp.

Several hundred Mongols, howling and shouting, hurled themselves at the flower of the Hillman force, and their leader, recognising Shireen, rode her down at right angles, cutting his way through her personal bodyguard and knocking over her horse by the impetus of his onslaught. She was surrounded in spite of a gallant resistance.

Her danger was reported to Sher Khan, who, when all seemed lost, thundered down roaring with fury upon the encircling Mongols at the head of a hundred and fifty picked cavalry. A desperate hand-to-hand battle followed, each side being equally brave and equally determined to conquer or die fighting.

The arrival of Sher Khan in the nick of time spelled decimation for the Mongols, whose usual tactics of riding away after delivering the attack failed.  This time it was they who were surrounded and hacked to pieces.

'Thy name should be that of the hero Rustum*, Sher Khan,' said Shireen, looking up at him with shining eyes when the Mongols had been routed.

______________

[*A great hero of Mussulman legend and romance.]

The big Hillman thrust towards her the hilt of his reddened sword.

'My sword and I are thine, gracious lady.'

'Which am I supposed to take. Sher Khan? ' she asked archly, glancing down at the light sword she had been using.

'Thou art useless without a sword, and I already have one!' Sher Khan laughed as he helped her to mount. 'Take, then, the man and his sword, beloved lady! Both are thine; they shall never be anyone's else's!'

He read his answer in her eyes.

35

GRAY had frequently to rein in the white stallion, whose speed was far superior to any of the horses of the Hillmen. He would therefore gallop half a mile ahead of them, and then pull up to look and listen for signs of Khoon and his party.

Chafing at these frequent halts, he at length decided to go ahead until he sighted Khoon. A lucky shot on his part might bring down Khoon's horse. Certainly the fact of his firing would cause some of the Mongol's party to be sent back to pursue him, and he would decoy them until they ran into Shireen's men. It was not sensible reasoning, but it brought a sense of relief from the strain of his anxiety.

Towards dawn he sighted Khoon on the black stallion, carrying Diana an riding at a gallop some distance in front of a body of about fifty men.

The  smallness of that escort inspired a fierce joy; when their respective forces did meet there could be no doubt of the result. Ignorant of the lie of the country, Gray surmised that the Mongol was making a wide detour in the hope of getting back to his main camp near the Valley of the Mirror. In this he was right.

But, like himself, Khoon did not know the country through which he was riding. Where a horse would go Khoon would take it, and that was all there was to The plain had ended, and they were now in hilly country, the main black granite hills being no more than a few miles away. Ahead of Khoon's party opened a gorge like one in Gustave Dore's illustrations to Dante's Inferno.

Sitting as still as a statue on the white stallion, silhouetted against the grey-blue sky, Gray was soon observed by .one of Khoon's escort. At once a few horsemen moved out into a fan-shaped screen, and, putting their animals at the hillside, vanished among the rocks and the still, deep shadows of waning night.

The sharp reports of their rifles soon reverberated round the hills. One of the bullets kicked up the shale under Tagan's Feet; but the mighty beast stood as steady as a rock, blowing through his nostrils as if in contempt. Gray noticed that the horse's ears were pricked in the direction of Khoon's party, and its huge body was beginning to tremble. It was not trembling with fear, for assuredly Tagan did not mow fear. It was some form of excitement, the reason for which Gray was unable to divine.

Not wishing to provide an easy target for Khoon's sharpshooters (their shooting was bad,  but they might be lucky!) he moved down from the low hill and waited for his own party to arrive.

This they did in about ten minutes.

Like a dilapidated tail-tassel of a kite, far behind the now halted main body trailed Limbu, the big sword slapping the barrel ribs of the Cabuli as he trotted.

Gray called to him: 'Give me that sword, Limbu! It will be more useful to me than to you!'

He had noticed that Khoon had a sword.

Buckling on the weapon, he drew it from its scabbard, testing its weight, approvingly. Watching him, Limbu save what one of the amused Hillmen called 'a liver-burning sigh.' He had got rid of an accursed weapon, but, not of a more accursed horse. Barfy, however, had become inactive. She seemed to have gone to sleep.

Gray took stock of his men's horses, which were showing signs of tiring.

'We must make a great effort, men,' he said. 'There is no room for failure!'

A deep murmur of approval betokened wholehearted co-operation.

'Then— gallop!'

They thundered up the stony nala, he pebbles flying on all sides. The snipers were firing desultorily, but the sniping soon stopped. Rounding a bend and moving at top speed, Gray and his men found themselves about a mile behind Khoon.

'For Allah's sake,' cried Gray, 'stretch your horses!' He knew from experience that he had but to shake Tagan's reins to outdistance them, Khoon's black stallion being the only possible exception.

Seeing themselves hopelessly outnumbered, Khoon's party scattered― not in Mongol attack tactics, but in sheer panic. Death was certain if they stayed. The prophecy of the yogi, who had said that fires would destroy them if Khoon was not truly a descendant of the great Genghis, had spread throughout the Kagan's army. Simmering discontent had crystallised into open dislike, and the garrison of the base camp was already dispersing.

One alone of all this host remained with Khoon— the pock-marked spy.  One spy, and 'the Ruler of India!'

Ordering half his men to pursue the fugitives, Gray let Tagan forge ahead. Inch by inch, foot by foot he gained upon Khoon, who, turning in his saddle, opened fire with one of the two revolvers in his holsters, the other being under Diana's body, and not able be got at. Gray returned the fire but the running duel ended in twelve misses at short range.

Gray's poor marksmanship being largely due to his fear of hitting Diana. Having no more ammunition, he threw away the pistol and drew the weapon he had got from Limbu. He was now almost alongside Khoon the sword gripped in his right hand and its blade lying keen and cold across his bridle-arm.

'Surrender, Khoon!' he shouted.

There was no reply.

'If you will surrender I promise that you shall have fair trial!' he shouted again. He would have seen that his promise was kept, despite Shireen's savage intentions and his own deep hatred of the man. Leaning forward in his saddle, he stretched out the long straight sword in prolongation of his fully extended arm,  like a lance during a tent-pegging run. But he was two feet short of the mark. He had been right when he had thought that Khoon's stallion might out up a challenge to Tagan; but the white stallion was the better beast, partly because of the double load which Khoon's horse carried.

Although the combined burden was not very much greater than Gray's own weight, the bad balance was an undoubted handicap to the gallant animal. It was still a question of gaining by inches, and the inches were steadily gained. He came level with Khoon on his right hand side. Although this gave the Mongol an advantage it rendered less likely he possibility that Diana would be inured when he cut at her captor.

36

THE pock-marked spy, seeing that his master was likely to be slain at any moment, suddenly checked his horse and, drawing his sword, swung the beast round; causing Gray to swerve sharply to avoid a crashing fall.

The two blades met, the spy's weapon snapping at the hilt under the impact of the Englishman's stroke. The next instant Gray's blade sliced through his neck and the man pitched to the ground. Desperately Gray pulled Tagan in towards him and made a pass at Khoon, who by sheer strength thereupon lifted Diana, so that she lay across his right shoulder, shielding him from a downward cut.

Holding Diana with his left hand, Khoon reached for the sword strapped to his saddle. The two blades whirled and sliced, clashed and ground, as the horses raced along, a yard or less separating the knees of their respective riders, Khoon was a master of the weapon; Gray was an average swordsman.

A burning pain in the healed wound told him that first blood was to the Mongol. Cut, thrust, and parry as he would, he could not break down Khoon's guard. The black stallion seemed to be tiring. Suddenly it stumbled and, trying to recover itself, crashed on to its knees; Khoon, striving to maintain his balance, loosened his hold on Diana, who slipped to the ground.

Gray shot past her, sawing furiously at Tagan's mouth. Relieved of the extra weight, the black horse recovered himself, and as Gray pulled up and turned Khoon galloped past him, alone. Gray cut the ropes about Diana's wrists and ankles, and giving her a quick hug, sprang to his feet, asking for someone to bandage his wound.

A few minutes later he was galloping up the nala at the head of a few picked men. They soon came upon Khoon's tracks. The black stallion seemed to have cut its knees, for there was a trail of blood splashes on the grey shale.

At the foot of a wedge-shaped cleft in the cliffs that here shot upward for a sheer thousand feet they struck Khoon's trail. Some scratches upon the rock, and near them a spot of blood, showed that their quarry was up that cleft. Gray decided to ride after Khoon. It was easily wide enough for a horse, and the slope, though stony, was not too steep.

Sending four of his men along the main nala in case he was mistaken and Khoon had gone straight ahead, he left two to watch the entrance to the cleft. The remaining two men he took with him.

The prospects of easy riding quickly grew doubtful. The cleft soon began to narrow and its floor rapidly became steeper. The horses of the two men accompanying him refused to breast the slope. Tagan surmounted it easily. Turning in his saddle, Gray looked down at his disappointed escort.

'Remain here,' he said. 'If I do not return in an hour, then let one of you come and search for me.'

Although he knew that all Khoon's chargers must be accustomed to climbing among the hills, Gray felt there was something strange about the stallion's eagerness to go where assuredly no other horse would even have ventured.

The track was now barely wide enough for Tagan's great girth, the floor rising steeply in a series of ledges comprised of tumbled rocks— much after the manner of the bed of a mountain waterfall. By craning his neck Gray could see a narrow ribbon of leaden sky above the tops of the cleft's sheer walls. Ahead of him rose a perpendicular strip of the same lead-coloured sky— a door of space, as it were. The floor of the passage ended abruptly in a perpendicular drop of thirty or forty feet to a flat promontory, some hundred yards long and half as many wide, jutting out into space, the extreme end of the cleft floor being deeply undercut. A narrow ledge curved round the base of the right-hand wall, and after a short distance splayed into a small, lozenge-shaped plateau, a steep ascent from which led up to the ultimate crest line.

Seated upon a small boulder in the centre of the lower 'bear-pit' plateau was Khoon, staring upward. Immediately below lay the black stallion. Evidently urged to a last desperate effort, it had seen the drop a second too late, and crashed to its death.

Khoon staggered to his feet.

'Go back, Teminuchin!' he shouted.

When he heard that voice Tagan attempted to rear up, causing Gray hastily to dismount. The reins loosely held, he looked down at his quarry. The haemorrhage from his neck wound had started again and he felt faint.  Evidently the shock of the fall had injured the Mongol's head and made him delirious.

'Teminuchin,' he screamed, 'obey me! Obey thy Kagan!'

The white stallion threw up its head. Letting out a shrill scream of fury, it jerked its reins from Gray's hand and moved forward: then it stood stock-still, half its fore hoofs projecting over the edge. Dazedly Gray started at the horse Then a chill ran down his spine. It seemed to him that both stirrup-irons instead of hanging straight down, were pushed forward! Somebody— or something— was seated in Tagan's saddle! The great beast had broken out in  a lather of sweat and was making quick, restless movements, like a horse worried by a horsefly. But there were no horseflies. Suddenly it sprang forward and landed with a dull rumble on to the promontory below, and again emitted that appalling screaming sound.

Grey moved unsteadily to the edge and looked down, to see Tagan, all four feet planted wide apart, standing with his massive head lifted.

'Mercy, Teminuchin! Mercy!' (Could that be Khoon's voice?) Rearing up on to its hind legs, the stallion moved open-mouthed pawing the air. The pink upper lip was curled back, revealing the terrible gleaming, chisel-edged oblongs of its teeth; the silver shoes on the spade-like forefeet shone dully as they were lifted. Khoon was speaking to it now— gibberish, it seemed to Gray— stretching his hands backward as it, instead of empty space, there were a wall behind him and he wanted its support. His words seemed to infuriate

Hastening its clumsy,  unnatural progress, the stallion struck a lightning blow at Khoon with one of its forefeet— a nervous downward thrust. Khoon screamed. He knew. He had taught the stallion to savage men. It was going to savage him— perhaps tear off his face before it tore out his entrails and stamped his brains about the rock.

'Nay, Teminuchin! Nay!'

A series of short, open-mouthed rushes by the stallion were dodged by the shrilly screaming Mongol, the thin, sharp notes of man and beast mingling. Once Khoon tried to clamber up to where Gray was standing, hypnotised by  the horror of the thing that was about to happen. But Tagan seized the Mongol's buttock in his teeth and dragged him down. What happened after that Grey did not see, but he heard sounds he hoped never to hear again.

Then came a hollow ringing of hoofs, and into sight came Tagan, stepping high and proudly round the edge of the promontory, driving down each hoof with the impact of a steam-hammer. Held in his teeth was a dangling red bag— all that was left of Khoon the Mongol— self-styled King of Tibet, Mongolia, and the Himalayan regions, descendant of Genghis Khan, Ruler of India.

With a sharp snapping of shale the edge of the plateau crumbled, and the white stallion, its great chest and forelegs crimson-splashed, fell backward into space.

37

LIMBU'S joy at seeing his mistress safe and sound touched Diana deeply.

'But what on earth made you bring poor Barty, Limbu?'

He gave her the same answer as he had given Gray; because he knew that she would be glad. Now, orthodox Hindus respect the cat, holding her to be the vehicle of Shashthi, the protectress of children. In Northern India to give food to her is part of an age-old rite, and the great god Siva, it is said, cursed all who should kill one of them. There is a Hindu superstition, too, that the body of each cat is inhabited by the soul of a wicked Brahmin. Limbu knew all these things, but none of them was his reason for bringing the kitten, since the death of Mohammed, the cook, he had become deeply attached to Barfy. For one thing, she had saved the memsahib's life, and upon no less than three occasions had betrayed the nearness of Shiv, the last of these being just before he left to join Gray. Shiv was near at hand after the killing of Firoz Khan.  Limbu's motive had been an inner conviction that the kitten wanted to go with him for reasons of her own, which he did not understand. His simple mind had concluded that it was in some way connected with Shiv.

'Barfee' probably knew that danger from the tigress threatened the sahib— or perhaps even a faithful, but unimportant Nepalese named Limbu.

Today he stood watching her cleaning her fur in the centre of the nala. while Diana clicked, unavailingly, a slender forefinger and thumb.

'I wonder why she doesn't come to me, Limbu?'

'She is thinking, memsahib,' answered the Ghurkha seriously. He had often watched Barfy 'thinking.'

Diana drew up her knees and, giving her head a neat little shake, locked her hands in front of them.

'Thinking of what?' She asked it with instinctive seriousness.

Limbu stirred restlessly. 'Of the sahib!' An uncompromisingly blunt answer.

'I see.' Diana took out a small piece of looking-glass and regarded herself; but only for a moment. Meanwhile Barfy, her small, thin tail in the air, had strolled up the nala in the direction in which Gray had gone. Limbu followed the slow-stepping cat, who, thinking he was trying to catch her, broke into a springy lope, which changed at once into swift flight when the Ghurkha started to run.

Out of sight of the escort Limbu halted a couple of minutes to shorten his lama's rope by cutting off two feet of its length. That done, he overtook the fugitive and swung her into the crook of his left arm.

The two men who Gray had left outside the cleft told him that the sahib had gone 'up there.' Limbu decided to follow him; but before doing so he said, 'I am the sahib's orderly. I think the memsahib would like to come and see this place. If one of you will ride back and bring her— with the Shireen General-sahiba's cavalry— the sahib will be pleased. Also, it may be a good thing.'

The patrol sent up the gorge returning at that moment, Limbu's hint was acted upon.

'Is your cat going to hunt rats for the sahib?' asked one of the men laughingly.

'Nay, brother. The Ghurkha is taking her up to catch Khoon!' grinned one of his companions.

'A Ghurkha and a cat should surely catch him,' remarked the man who had spoken first. Limbu, already well up the slope, faced them.

'Listen, khans! Ghurkhas and cats can climb better than any Hillman; and there are big rats— and bigger cats— in these hills than you'd care to meet!'

Which Parthian shot delivered, be resumed his upward way.

He found Gray lying senseless, his robes soaked in blood from his opened wound. Leaving Barfy to take care of herself, he proceeded to render first aid, and, having made a workmanlike job of it, surveyed his efforts with satisfaction mingled with anxiety. He had just finished fixing the rough bandage when Gray opened his eyes.

'What the hell are you doing to me?'

'I have tied up your wound, sahib.'

Gray frowned. His head was spinning, and he felt sick. A man surrounded by mad horses and Mongols doesn't want a cat staring at him. The sight of Barfy roused him to unbalanced anger.

'Take that damned cat away! Can't you see it'll do for me what it did for my wife? Take the cursed beast away, I say!'

Limbu rose, uncertain. The sahib was pagel — out of his senses; that was evident. Wounds sometimes made men go like that. The cat was doing no harm. But an order was an order. Still, where should be take her?

He was forthwith informed. 'Drop her into that bear-pit! Let her help them to fight it out! They're fighting down there, I tell you! Khoon and that demon horse! God! I must see it! All of it!'

He struggled to his feet and started for the opening. Limbu put a steadying arm about him.

'Nay, sahib! Nay!' He had looked down on to the flat-topped promontory. Once down, if the fall did not kill, only ropes could get a man up; and before ropes could be got he might be over the edge. Gray pushed him away and walked towards the edge of the drop, and there stood swaying, an uncertain hand against the rock. The little Ghurkha's heart beat in his throat. Physically powerful though he was, he knew that he was no match for Gray. But the very thought of struggling with the demi-god whom he worshipped, and to whom— body, heart, and soul, in life and in death— he was consecrated, appalled him to a dizzy faintness something like his

'Sit down, sahib! For Gods sake, sit down!' He implored. 'I'll throw you and that blasted cat down, that's what I'll do! And I'll jump down on top of you! By God, I will!'

He reached out to catch hold of the kitten to put his threat into practice, when Limbu— beseeching forgiveness of high heaven— hit him on the point of the chin. Gray went out.

Ten minutes later Limbu was sitting by his side, blinded with tears and stunned with grief and horror at the unthinkable sin he had committed. The sahib seemed to have passed from complete unconsciousness into a deep but troubled sleep. Occasionally he would mutter meaningless remarks as If he were alarmed at something he was dreaming about.

Sitting down to await Diana's arrival, Limbu idly took stock of his surroundings. He felt stiff, sore, and tired.... If that mad billi chose to clamber on to the top of rocks where she could not be reached and might be lost, that was her affair. He experienced no desire to... to go after her. No desire... His eyelids drooped.

Limbu, too, fell asleep. Limbu, too, dreamed. He dreamed that he was on parade with the regiment, which was being reviewed by a General sahib whose face was the face of Shireen and who was riding upon a tiger. The drums were rolling and a bugle blowing into his ear. His front-rank man had stuck his bayonet into the left shoulder of No. 47,677, Rifleman Limbu....

He gasped, to find himself lying upon his back with Barfy crouched by his face, her foreclaws dug into his left shoulder. She was alternately growling fiercely and emitting shrill miaows. Simultaneously, with his movement to sit up the orderly jerked his kukri from its sheath and looked towards Gray. Creeping towards the sahib was Shiv.

A spitting Barfy— an electric ball of black fur on coils of steel spring— clashed across Gray's sleeping body, waking him as she crossed his chest, and bounded into the middle of the Intervening space. Arriving there, she stood still— a very small thing, stuck ill over with very straight black hairs, like pins in a pincushion, especially her tail.

Gray's delirium had passed. Awakened, he saw his danger and rolled sideways, placing a projection in the rock between himself and that crouching death.In In Limbu's mind there were two thoughts— to kill the tigress and to save Barfy. The heavy kukri balanced in his land, he moved slowly forward, his knees slightly bent and his eyes fixed on those of Shiv. (Was his death coming to him now as a punishment for striking his beloved sahib?)

He remembered how he had once beheaded it a single stroke four black goats as offerings to Mother Kali. But the neck of a tigress is not the neck of a goat. Another six inches forward. Nor was the tigress's head fixed in a forked stick. (She hadn't moved again, but her tail was lashing more fiercely.) Nor could he, as he did in the case n the- goats, choose his stance and take his time. Nor―

As quick as lightning Limbu leaped on to a rock about four feet high. The bound that Shiv gave had a smallness— a quick shortness— that had something about it almost playful― grimly playful. That shortness was measured to bring her within striking distance of twenty-two inches of pink-mouthed, hissing fury. With a quick down-stroke of her left paw she extinguished Barfy, the hooked yellow claws drawing the small black body a foot or so towards her.

All that took but a split second. Then, gathering her immense hindquarters well under, she wriggled them for an instant, and, with a shattering roar sprang at Limbui―fanged and clawed annihilation.  The Ghurkha's arm had shot up even as Shiv's hindquarters wriggled, and as she came at him the hand holding the kukri was ready— a few inches above, and to the back of his head.

To a spellbound and helpless Gray she seemed to have actually reached him, when he shrank back and struck at her with a shout of 'Jai!' ('Victory !')

'Great God! He's missed!' exclaimed Gray, for the tigress had flashed past Limbu. But Shiv's left forepaw severed at the joint, was lying on the stones. Roaring with pain and fury, the tigress was alternately licking and biting the severed stump, and glaring at Limbu, who had jumped down from his rock and was advancing towards her, shouting, 'Jai! Jai' with all the strength of his  lungs. His fighting blood was up, and had there been forty tigers he would have faced them all.

Keeping to the beast's left, he moved quickly. If he could he intended to strike at her before she sprang again. At all costs she must be kept away from the sahib. But Shiv had no intention of springing, nor was the sahib In her thoughts. Roaring like all the devils in hell, she sat up on her haunches and took a sweeping, bear-like blow at Limbu.

Clutching the kukri with both hands, with a grunt of fury he slashed at the great claws as they came towards him— missed them— recovered himself—and fell up against the rocky wall. Then Shiv sprang; but he threw himself flat,  so that she hit the wall— a sprawling, clawing black-and-yellowness. The next second he was on his feet again, with the agility of an enraged monkey, and,, bringing the heavy, leaf-shaped, curved blade down upon her skull, halved it as a knife halves a hard-boiled egg, or a butcher's chopper the head of a sheep.

For a moment he stood looking down at the convulsively twitching body. Then before Gray could stop him he was hacking savagely at the broad gold collar set with nine great rubies. The heavy kukri soon cut through the soft metal, and the collar was wrenched open by the Ghurkha's powerful hands.

'Take it, sahib,' he said. 'It is her payment.'

38

SULTRY oppressiveness had become a dull, stifling heat. In the air was a biting tang of sulphuric acid fumes, and the occasional puffs of wind were as hot as if they came from the open doors of a furnace, a resemblance that was heightened by a continuous distant hissing like a big escape of steam.

The sky was lead-coloured and tinged with purple. Towards the north it merged into the blackness; of a towering bank of cloud, from which frequent flashes of forked lightning stabbed at the ebon masses of the hills below. The storm-centre seemed to be moving in the direction of the two men, for the muffled peals of thunder were growing louder.

Gray was preparing to descend the cleft when he heard Diana calling as she mounted. He went to meet her.

'Dl! My dear!... Yes, Limbu told me he'd sent word to you. Feeling all right? You're still looking rather dicky! Is your arm hurting you?'

At the sight of him, pale, bandaged, and blood-stained, she stopped aghast.

'I'm fine, Colin! But your poor eyes!'

He laughed, and, stretching out his hands, drew her to him. 'I'm as right as rain! A bit of a scratch opened up that old wound; that's all! As for my eyes, a week'll see them back to normal!'

'Did Khoon get away?'

'You'll never see him again, thank God! His horse savaged him, and they both went over that edge.'

The recalling of the sight he had witnessed caused him hastily to change the subject. 'I'd give a tenner to be able to lie in a nice warm bath, wouldn't you? Think of having a loofah— and hot towels! How many years does it seem since you handled a cake of soap?'

'Colin!' Oblivious of the Hillmen behind her, she raised her face, clinging to him as if her trembling body should have shielded him from harm. She saw the dead tigress.

'My God! Who killed her? You?'

'No. Limbu— plucky little fellow! I never want to see another fight like it Di. It put the fear of God into me.' Then he told her about it.

Reassured, she looked round her, 'What's Limbu doing over there? Burying something?'

The Ghurkha was slowly shovelling back into a shallow hole dug in an earth-lined angle of the rock the soil he had excavated with the blade of his kukri.

'Yes. It's that poor little devil Barfy. One can't trail a pet cat round on a show like this, Di; though I'll admit that if it hadn't been for her we'd neither of us be here now — almost to a certainty!'

'Poor, poor little Barfy! How did it happen?'

'I suppose she scented the tiger or something. The first thing I knew about it was when she ran across my chest and woke me up. I don't believe that cats have got minds, of course, but she certainly seemed to have some idea of keeping off Shiv until we could get away. Naturally Shiv killed her.' He shrugged. 'Voilá!'

She went alone to Limbu. When the Ghurkha had finished his account of the happening she said regretfully, 'If I had come earlier it might never have happened! But I was asleep when your messenger came, and they wouldn't waken me.... She was a dear little thing!'

Limbu patted the curve of the little mound, and started placing flat bits of shale along its sides.

'Memsahib, if I had not saved my life on the night I was wounded many bad things would not have happened. She was little; but she was better than I! She knew, and she was not afraid! She knew that Shiv had injured you, memsahib.'

'I wonder,' whispered Diana, wishing that flowers grew in this bare place.

'I speak a true word, memsahib. And because she knew she made me bring her... I will tell your Honour something. The sahib would laugh at me, but it, too. is true. The night before I started to come to the sahib after he had left me behind I prepared a little lamp to burn before a figure I had made of Bhishma— a soldier who was very brave in battle, and was made a god, memsahib. It is necessary to place copper coins in such a lamp before lighting it, and while I was taking them out Barfee pulled higher the wick of the lamp with her claws, so that it should burn the brighter! Then I knew that because Bhishma had loved his cat he had told Barfee where I was going, and she was thanking him!... I will place this big stone on top in case the jackals come.'

Looking down at him, Diana saw the dusty back of one of his big hands splashed as If by a drop of rain.

Through the momentary mist Diana looked down on the grim quietness of the flat-topped promontory and beyond it. It all seemed too majestic and awe-inspiring to have served as a setting for the execution of a peculiarly vile criminal.

In the midst of that crumpled sea of white-flecked peaks and gloomy gorges she recognised the extinct crater that was the Valley of the Mirror. A black oval. At right ingles to the blocked pass, at its north end, and on the either side of it, ran a short, knife-edged hilltop, another slightly larger ridge running— also at right angles— due north— that is, towards where she was standing. Evidently Kalistan and its hills were upon a plateau many thousands of feet higher.

The storm-clouds seemed to be piling up immediately above the Valley of the Mirror, every one of the vivid flashes darting from their edges seeming to go straight down into its gloomy centre. The sound of Gray speaking to her caused her to turn.

'There's going to be a hell of a storm in a few minutes, Di!'

'Yes... Look! Isn't that a marvellous sight over there?' She pointed In the direction of the Valley of the Mirror.

As she spoke the mountains under their feet trembled violently, and the steady, distant hissing was merged in a loud subterranean moaning, both of them experiencing at the same moment a shrill 'singing' sensation in their ears.

'We're in for some sort of wholesale dust-up,' remarked Gray worriedly.

With a petulant gesture she put her hands over her ears. 'I wish this singing would stop!' She glanced over her shoulder. 'I suppose we'd better go down!'

'We can't go down. We've got to see it through up here.'

She looked at him incredulously. 'Why can't we go down?'

'I wouldn't risk it even alone! Certainly not with you. If it's an earthquake we're in for it's a hundred to one we'd be smashed to death in that cleft by falling rocks. Earthquakes do strange things.'

He stopped an instant, and then added, with a poor Imitation of insouciance, 'The cleft might close.'

'Good God! Supposing it closes while we are here? Then what would we do?'

He gnawed his lip. 'I don't... quite know... what we'd do.' The remark was spoken slowly and judicially like the answer of a specialist to the anxious question of a doomed patient.

'Where is Limbu?' she asked, wide-eyed.

'I sent him down with the Hillmen.'

Although it was early afternoon it was now growing dark. The puffs of wind had ceased; breathing and movement had become a labour. The terrific tension in the air seemed to have communicated itself to them; they were experiencing a torturing conflict between an intense desire to be moving — continuously moving— and the knowledge that all continuous movement, such as the descent would have been, was impossible. They were trapped as Khoon had been trapped. And, as Khoon had done, they realised it.

They were not afraid. Both of them had too much self-control for that. Also, the thought that whatever happened would happen to them both made a self-centred physical fear impossible. But before each of their minds was the thought that the other one might have to suffer alone before death ended everything— if the worst befell them.

'It won't last long, sweetheart— the danger, period, I mean,' Gray remarked soothingly. 'A couple of hours should see us away.'

She strained him to her with a contented sigh.

'I love you so much,' she said quietly. 'If I could feel all my life the complete understanding and possession of you that to-day has brought me I would not care if every hour of it were filled with ten times as much danger! ... If I sit here much longer I shall go to sleep! Let's go and watch.'

For a while they talked of the Servant of Allah, Gray explaining that the yogi was perhaps a Bodhisattva— that is, a spiritual being of immensely high development who is capable of projecting an image of himself into millions of worlds, and who can create and assume any form he chooses.

An appalling detonation shook earth and heaven, and in the same instant the Valley of the Mirror was gashed from north to south by a vivid streak of fire. The floor of the valley had split. The subterranean thunder, which had been muttering intermittently, now swelled in a deafening crescendo. From out of the riven valley shot up an inverted wedge of blue-and-scarlet flame topped with a swiftly ascending, billowing blackness, through the thickness of which the now veiled lightning flickered palely. The height of the wedge could not have been less than several miles, its length being the whole length of the valley.

Shaken to their knees, Gray and Diana steadied themselves with their hands as the solid ground rocked beneath them. The hellish din of the volcano and the thudding concussions and crashing of falling masses of rock— they saw a whole hillside riven from the parent chain— made it impossible to speak. What was there to say? Silent prayer for preservation rules not shouting.

It had grown wanly lighter, and the full terrors of that 'Day of Judgment' catastrophe could now be seen as they happened.

A river— one second before a winding silver ribbon— vanished before their eyes like a suddenly extinguished Neon coil as its bed split open and engulfed it. The hissing of the water as it fell into the fires beneath was deafening in its intensity, billowing clouds of steam boiling up and veiling the summits of the hills.

But it was upon the Valley of the Mirror itself that the horrified gaze of the two was mainly concentrated, the imprisoned fires were being literally belched up, crepitatingly, in bright straightness of scarlet, orange, and blue flame, through which polychromatic planes of incandescence formless slacknesses were driving with incredible velocity as huge portions of the valley floor were blown skyward. Great boulders― some of them glowing dully— were falling on every side, detaching, as they struck them, even greater masses, which hurtled down with a bourdon-like droning. The black oval had now become the mouth of a glowing inferno from out of which hell seemed to be bellowing defiance at high heaven — the heavens answering with shattering thunders and down-shot lightnings.

FOR an hour the nightmare lasted. Then the cataclysm passed with the same suddenness with which it had begun. A high wind sprang up, rolling slowly before it the pall of black smoke which covered the sky. As on the previous night, there was no rain.

Gray and Diana, happy in their love and success achieved, started the downward descent to rejoin Limbu and a waiting and victorious Shireen. But only he who was the least of these four realised the quadruple debt to a small mongrel cat who lay forgotten in an earth-lined angle of rock.

There on top of a tiny mound that might have been the central bed in a child's attempt to make a garden, lay a smoking piece of slag, in shape not unlike an ankh.

Perhaps Sekhmet Bast had known of her servant Barfy.

The End

Table of Contents

- Prologue
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- Chapter 38