Caravans By Night Part 44

"They belong to the guard of his Transparency the Governor," said Na-chung.

The archers lifted their bows in salute to the Living G.o.d. A visible ripple of admiration pa.s.sed around the amphitheater. Heads were strained forward, eyes focussed upon the mailed bowmen, who aligned themselves on the right side of the arena--facing the black stakes. There was something pregnant and potent in their movements....

From a gateway opposite the archers rode a double file of soldiers.

Between them walked a line of men in dun-colored garments. As Trent saw that they were manacled a frightful suspicion fastened upon him. With dreadful suddenness the purpose of the stakes became apparent....

The bowmen stood motionless; only their chain-mail seemed possessed of life. It glittered and crawled with scaly scintillations, like the corrugated armor of a dragon.

At the stakes the soldiers drew up; dismounted. One of the manacled men screamed and gibbered as he was being bound--sounds that were like nothing human. Trent turned to Na-chung. The Englishman's face showed no emotion, but his jaw was thrust forward at an ugly angle.

The councillor smiled grimly.

"Their tongues are slit," he informed Trent; then, with a wave of his hand, he added: "Political offenders."

Trent, his features cast in a mold that for sheer inscrutability would have rivalled that of the stoniest idol, turned away--and an instant later he felt a warm breath upon his ear and heard Na-chung's suave voice.

"Thus the Governor punishes treason. Look! There is his Transparency now."

A vermilion-lacquered sedan-chair, borne on the shoulders of four guards, moved through a gateway close to the archers; was placed on the ground at the end of their stances. The official, visible only as a crimson blot in the interior, did not rise, but watched the proceedings from his seat.

Trent's eyes were drawn back irresistibly to the stakes where the prisoners were being bound, manacled wrists above their heads. Silence wrapped the amphitheater about, like tight swathing. To the Englishman, there was a terrible significance in the undernote of red that the late afternoon introduced into the scene: the five bars of the blood-red sunset quivering above the arena and reflecting upon the gilded proscenium, the deep magenta of the lamas' robes, and the red-gold glint on harness and naked metal.

At a signal the archers advanced several paces. Bow-strings were tested; arrows drawn from quivers.

A shudder, half of awful ecstasy, half of horror, swept the amphitheater, like wind rippling the surface of the sea.

Trent, a nausea spreading from the pit of his stomach to his throat, saw Sakya-muni lift one hand. His lips pressed into a line; otherwise, his immobility was unbroken.

Another s.h.i.+ver swept the amphitheater.

Sakya-muni's hand dropped.

The archers flexed their bows; clapped their heels together; stood erect. Gutstrings snapped rigid between their nocks.... The _whizz-zz-zz_ of the arrows seemed to unleash the tension. A hysterical cheer wavered up from the mult.i.tude. The manacled figures sagged, hung, drenched in the flaming red of the sunset.

Trent relaxed--but the nausea remained, a dull horror that he could almost taste.

Sakya-muni rose, as did the mult.i.tude. A low chant began, a weird, droning incantation. The mailed executioners marched out of the arena, followed by the Governor's vermilion-lacquered sedan-chair. The masked lamas and those in harness and flame-colored mantles filed toward the stairway. Lictors and acolytes descended from the proscenium; the secular lords and cardinals; the Living Buddha and his attendant Grand Lamas.... Slowly they traversed the yellow carpet, slowly they mounted the steps and vanished behind the yak-hair curtains. The red monks herded together on either side of the platform formed human rivulets that surged into the arena. The onlookers left their seats.

The Festival of the G.o.ds was over.

4

Trent and Na-chung moved up the incline, sifting through the swarm. On the gallery, at the portal of the monastery, Trent looked back. Dusk was creeping into the inflamed sky and gray motes subdued the crimson reflection. Over the heads of the people he saw the arena--saw the sagging figures starkly outlined upon the white wall.

Then he plunged into the doorway, behind Na-chung.

As they re-traveled the labyrinth of corridors and courts, there hung before Trent a picture of the arena as he last looked upon it--a grim etching. He had seen men slaughtered in recognized warfare, had seen prisoners executed, but this--There was something monstrous, something inexplicably hideous, about it. His failure to understand the uncanny impression only sharpened the horror. "Their tongues are slit--"

Na-chung's words were written as with steel upon his brain. When men's tongues are slit it is obviously for the purpose of preventing speech.

What did those wretches know? "Political offenders," the councillor had said ... yet....

So ran his thoughts as they emerged at length on the other side of Lhakang-gompa. Night was swiftly gathering, and a familiar vermilion-lacquered sedan-chair swam in the dusk of the courtyard near the gate. As Trent drew nearer, a figure in long robes stepped out. He saw the pale blot of the Governor's face.

"Ah! It is his Transparency!" exclaimed Na-chung. "He is waiting for us."

The Governor stood motionless by his sedan-chair. Not until they were within three yards of him did he stir--and as he took a step, Trent experienced a shock that was not unlike a physical blow. But his poise did not desert him; he only drew a swift breath, which he doubted if the Governor heard, and a slight smile settled over his features--as though he had known from the very first that it was Hsien Sgam who rode in the vermilion-lacquered sedan-chair and this meeting was no more than expected, even antic.i.p.ated.

"Hsien Sgam," he said, still smiling.

The Mongol--he, too, was smiling--bowed. His slender, almost feminine hands gleamed sharply-cut in the twilight.

"By that name you first knew me," he replied in the quiet, reserved voice that Trent remembered so well--a voice that chose each word with extreme care. "So, my friend, continue to know me as that."

He wore a dark silk-brocade garment; it looked crimson in the dusk. The facings were goldcloth, s.h.i.+ning dully, and a hat with upcurling brim surmounted his pale bronze features. One of those curious, vagrant questions came to Trent as he looked at the Mongol. Was this the flannel-clad fellow-pa.s.senger of the _Manchester_, he who had talked of revolutions, of Western vices and morals?... Queer.... There was little of incongruity about him now, here in his native setting; only the eyes and face--eyes of Lucifer and face of Buddha. Anomalous, unexplainable, almost--Trent hesitated at using the term, even in thought; yet why not?--almost monstrous.

"I am pleased to welcome you to s.h.i.+ngtse-lunpo," Hsein Sgam announced.

"I regretted very much"--here the sensitive lips quivered in a quick smile--"that you became impatient and left the joss-house, that night in Rangoon. It was unpardonable of me to have kept you waiting, yet unavoidable. I hope to do here what I intended to do there--discuss certain matters with which you are only partly acquainted." Then, after a pause, "I trust you find your quarters comfortable?"

Trent answered with a single word.

"I am delighted to have you accept my hospitality," resumed the Mongol.

"There are many--er--things we must discuss, but I would indeed be rude if I suggested that we take up those matters so soon after your fatiguing journey. Perhaps you will do me the honor of calling at my residence to-morrow night?... I shall send my estimable chief councillor, Na-chung, to--er--fetch you, as they say in your country."

And he did a most Western thing; he extended his hand. Trent accepted it, because he had no choice. For some inexplicable reason he felt a sudden loathing. In that instant the Mongol seemed, mentally, as misshapen as his limb. It was like a swift glimpse behind the serene Buddha-like face, and his touch was a tangible reminder that Hsien Sgam--Hsien Sgam of the slender hands and sensitive lips--was responsible for the slaughter that Trent only a short while before had witnessed. "Thus the Governor punishes treason," Na-chung had said.

The Mongol spoke, almost with clairvoyance.

"Doubtless you found in the ceremonies this afternoon a--er--slight unpleasantness; that is, it would be unpleasant to an Anglo-Saxon." He smiled. "Public executions, we of s.h.i.+ngtse-lunpo find, are necessary to bring forcibly to the people the supremacy of the State, and"--the baffling eyes were more inscrutable than ever--"as an example to those who contemplate--shall I say, _indiscretions_?"

Still smiling, Hsien Sgam limped to the sedan-chair. He entered, without another glance at Trent, and was borne away on the shoulders of the guards.

"Come," said Na-chung. "My men are waiting outside the gate."

Back through the narrow, crowded streets they rode--streets that were as chaotic as Trent's brain. The discovery that Hsien Sgam was Governor of s.h.i.+ngtse-lunpo (and, quite evidently, one of the Order of the Falcon) swung his main danger from Sarojini Nanjee to the Mongol--or rather, left him between the two perils. Of the pair, he imagined he could expect more mercy from the woman. If she and the Mongol were in league, that doubly jeopardized his position; but if they were opposing forces.... Well, frequently the third party profits by the rivalry of the other two. What puzzled him most was why Hsien Sgam had tried to kill him in Rangoon, if he believed him Tavernake, the jeweler. And Trent did not doubt for an instant, now, that the Mongol was the instigator of the bullet that Kerth had intercepted. A warm thrill of a.s.surance ran through him at thought of Kerth. He had one ally. More, of course, counting the muleteers and Dana Charteris; but the girl was more of a liability than an a.s.set, a thorn in his fragile security. If she were only somewhere else.... But she was not. And her presence troubled him.

Hsien Sgam, the Governor of s.h.i.+ngtse-lunpo. He smiled inwardly. What was the Mongol's part in the jewel mystery? He suspected that Hsien Sgam's talk of a Mongol revolution was a sheath in which his true motive in luring him to the joss-house in Rangoon lay hidden. Was--?

"By George!" he muttered, aloud.

Glancing toward Na-chung, he saw the councillor's questioning look and made an inconsequential remark, while he asked himself:

"Is Hsien Sgam ... but no ... yet ... well, why not!... But what of Chavigny, if he isn't the Falcon!"

They reached Trent's dwelling-place then. Na-chung halted at the gate, informing the Englishman that he would leave a guard.

"As your guide," he explained suavely. "You will wish to go beyond your quadrangle, and whereas your garments are a pa.s.sport anywhere in the city, it is not wise for you to venture out alone--yet." He smiled. "You see, the fact that you do not speak our language, and that my people are unfortunately suspicious, might prove ... you understand? Therefore, I have instructed the guard to accompany you when you leave the house, as a purely precautionary measure. His Transparency the Governor also wishes me to present to you the pony which you are riding, as a slight token of his esteem."

Trent thanked him and Na-chung clattered away, followed by his retinue of soldiers.