For three times a thousand years the camels and men have passed in their caravans by the Jallat Kum. Where Taklamaklan rises to the mountains, the caravans journey by the Jallat Kum.

The camels go and leave their dung to be food for the fires of those who come after. The men die and their bones dry in the sands. Under the star eyes of Jitti Karakchi are the Jallat Kum. And what is it that the stars have not seen? Nay, they have seen the men and camels of three thousand years ago come to the Jallat Kum again.

For the stars and the Jallat Kum and the spirits of the dead are

as one. From the book of Batur Madi, priest of the Kashgar lamasery

It was the spring hunt of the Tatars in the Year of the Ape, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The Tatar riders had circled through the steppe by the blue waters of Kobdo Nor, at the southern boundary of their lands, and had made a good kill of antelope, wild sheep, and yaks. And in their circle they came upon a Chutuktu lama of the Holy City of Lhassa with his followers.

And this, says the priest, Batur Madi, was the beginning of the strange events that brought Khlit, the Cossack of the Curved Saber, to Taklamaklan and trouble to the lamasery of Kashgar. A trouble which only ended with the death of many men at the Roof of the World.

The setting sun was casting its level rays across the steppe grass as the last of the beaters brought in their game on the backs of pack horses. The game was piled by the shore of the lake where Khlit, the Cossack of the Curved Saber and Kha Khan of the Jun-gar Tatars, had ordered the night’s encampment. Through the

ranks of the hunters spurred a powerful man with a scarred face, who reined his horse to a halt before the kibitka of Khlit.

“Our outriders, lord,” he cried to the Cossack, who was standing before his tent, “have come upon one who says that he is from the Holy City. He wears the orange robe of a Chutuktu lama, and his name is Dongkor Gelong.”

Khlit raised his gray head and scanned the messenger keenly. Although his costume of furred coat with wide sash and horse-hide boots was similar to those of his companions, the Cossack was taller. His hard gray eyes were not aslant like those of the Tatars. He had taken off his heavy woolen cap and his gray hair hung to his powerful stooped shoulders. A veined hand tugged thoughtfully at his drooping white mustache. The deep lines of his browned face alone showed his age.

“Dongkor Gelong,” he said in his deep voice, “must be the envoy of the Dalai Lama, whom we have come to meet. Take a hundred horsemen, Chagan, and bring him to my kibitka with all due honor. Tell the khans of the Jun-gar that he has come.”

The rider wheeled his mount and spurred away, leaping the piles of game with the ease of a man who had been weaned on mare’s milk. But the tidings had already spread through the encampment. The Tatar khans left the game they had taken and hurried to the Kha Khan’s tent, before which the standard was planted. Ranging themselves in a semicircle, they watched for the coming of the envoy from the Holy City.

Khlit’s searching gaze scrutinized the eager faces of the Tatars. They were grim men, these of the Jun-gar, descendants of Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde. The broad faces of many bore battle scars. They had been more numerous when Khlit came to them, for they had been with him in many battles. His leadership over them rested on two things: his consummate skill as a warrior, bred of fighting from the Cossack Ukraine, Persia, and Turkestan to the Tatar steppe, and his descent from Kaidu, the hero of the Tatars, whose curved sword he bore.

By sheer daring and shrewdness Khlit had held the Tatar clans together against their enemies. His craft had earned him the name of Wolf among men bred to war and conquest. And had earned him as well many enemies, chiefly among the priesthood, for Khlit alone of the Tatar khans carried the gold cross of a Christian about his neck under his tunic.

The throng of hunters parted and a cavalcade appeared, headed by Chagan, the sword-bearer, and a man in bright robes mounted on a white camel, who wore a crystal rosary on his chest. Two attendants in black and orange robes followed, an array of spear-men on camels trailing behind them.

As the white camel knelt, Khlit raised his right hand in greeting, carrying it to his mouth. He did not advance from his tent, and, seeing this, the lama remained by the head of his camel instead of coming forward. The gaze of the Tatars went eagerly from one to the other as they matched glances.

Dongkor Gelong was unlike the shamans and monks whom Khlit had seen on the steppe. He was a tall man, stout and richly robed in furs and Chinese silks; moreover, he had the carriage of one accustomed to command. He had the smooth olive skin of a Chinese and the broad frame of a Tibetan. He wore the close-fitting orange hat of a lama of the Gedum Dubpa monastery, the home of the Dalai Lama. It was evident that his stately appearance had already produced a strong effect on the Tatars, to whom the name of the Dalai Lama was an earnest of supernatural power.

“Welcome to the camp of the Jun-gar, Dongkor Gelong,” observed Khlit gravely in Tatar, which the other understood readily. “We have had a good hunt, and choice meats will be prepared for you. Tonight we will summon a kurultai council of the khans, and hear the word of the Dalai Lama who has sent you.”

Dongkor Gelong inclined his dark head courteously.

“It is well that you should hear the word of the almighty Tsong Khapa, O Kha Khan. Although it is many li from the Jun-gar steppe to the Holy City, the power of the Dalai Lama to safeguard his servants knows no limits of space.”

Evening saw a bustling preparation of mutton and horseflesh in the camp by the lake. When the envoy and his attendants had been feasted, the expectant khans assembled around a circle of fires built in front of Khlit’s kibitka. The Cossack and Dongkor Gelong sat together in the center of the circle. Behind Khlit, as was customary, loomed the stalwart form of the sword-bearer, Chagan, accompanied this time by the two Chubil Khans, who had come with the envoy from Lhassa.

At the right and left of the two leaders were seated the khans of the Jun-gar, headed by Berang, of the Ordus, and the chieftains of the Hoshot, Torgot, and Tchoros hordes. Behind these were ranged the lesser personages: cloaked shamans and tawny masters of the horse herds, together with warriors of the rank of khans who were not leaders of a horde.

The kurultai of the Jun-gar was assembled.

II

Dongkor Gelong stepped into the semicircle of light. To the watchers it seemed as if his eyes were closed, but the lama had not failed to scrutinize his listeners shrewdly. He faced toward the south, where was Lhassa, and drew a parchment from the breast of his robe. This he pressed reverently to his forehead.

“To the Khans of the Jun-gar,” he read aloud, “greeting from the almighty Tsong Khapa, Dalai Lama of the Gedun Dubpa and keeper of the sacred Kand jur books.”

Khlit stroked the scabbard across his knees pensively. He noted, as did all the listeners, that the Dalai Lama had omitted mention of the Kha Khan in his greeting. This might have been, thought Khlit, because it was the council of khans and not himself who had appealed to the master of Lhassa.

“The messenger of the khans,” went on the musical voice of Dongkor Gelong, “has brought to the Dalai Lama word of the trouble of the Jun-gar. The word that the Tatar hordes are threatened with doom and the loss of the lands which are their

birthright. In their trouble they have rightly asked aid of the only one who can restore their power.”

A murmur of agreement greeted this. Khlit chewed at his black pipe impassively. Still the lama had made no mention of him, treating the matter as one between the khans and the Dalai Lama. He did not look at Dongkor Gelong, watching instead the attentive faces of the Tatars.

“On the east the khans have complained,” continued the lama, “that the Ming armies of China have forced them across the great desert of Gobi. To the south the Khirghiz clans have invaded the Jun-gar steppe where the children of the mighty Kha Khan, Genghis, were accustomed to graze their herds.”

Another murmur, louder this time, greeted the mention of the great Tatar conqueror. Was it by chance that Dongkor Gelong spoke first of Genghis Khan, before the living Kha Khan of the Jun-gar? Had he meant to compare the two in the mind of his audience?

“To the west, by Tomsk and the Yenissei, the traders and soldiers of Muskovy are taking the lands of the Jun-gar. Many of the hordes have deserted the Jun-gar, taking with them their tumans of horsemen. Only on the north are there no enemies. And there is the land of ice—the Dead World beyond the frozen waters of Baikal. The power of the Jun-gar trembles like a reed when the wind blows. It is time they asked for aid from the glorious spiritual king whose name is heard with reverence from the Great Wall to the cities of the Moguls, from the Roof of the World to the sea.”

Chagan, the sword-bearer, was a man of tranquil wits, but he stirred uneasily. Truly, he thought, Dongkor Gelong had the voice of a golden eagle, for he painted the evils that beset the Jun-gar with an all-seeing eye. Chagan did not perceive, as the envoy went on with his oration, how cleverly Dongkor Gelong played upon the name of Genghis Khan, and the power of the master of Lhassa.

But it was clear to Chagan that Dongkor Gelong was appealing to the khans and not to the Kha Khan, Khlit, called by them the Wolf. Many glances besides his own sought out the impassive Cossack. The allegiance of the khans to Khlit, Chagan knew, was strong by reason of the Kha Khan’s leadership in battle. Khlit had broken the power of the shaman priesthood. But the shamans, with their conjuring tricks, were allied to the Dalai Lama as the fleas on the belly of a horse were kin to the horse.

So much Chagan was aware of. He, like Berang and the other khans, did not choose to realize that their present plight was the fault of the jealousy and waning power of the hordes, rather than any mistake in leadership by Khlit. Chagan leaned forward eagerly as Dongkor Gelong came to the end of his parchment and paused, one hand uplifted for his final word.

“Wisely have the khans of the Jun-gar,” he cried, “appealed to the precept of the gods. It was well they asked for an oracle. The question has been put to the oracle in Gedun Dubpa. The sacred ashes have formed the answering words, which have been truly read by the clergy of the Yellow Cap. This is the answer.”

A breathless silence greeted this. Khlit raised his keen eyes and scanned the lama. Dongkor Gelong turned and pointed at him.

“In this way may the Jun-gar restore their power and safeguard their lands from the Khirghiz. Like the sun and moon, the Lama and the Kha Khan should mount the sky together. The Kha Khan, by order of the Lama, must do this.”

He swung his long-sleeved arm until it pointed to the south.

“In the fifth moon of the Year of the Ape, the Wolf of the Jun-gar must go to the citadel of Talas on the Jallat Kum, where the river Tarim goes to its grave in the sands of Taklamaklan Desert. There he will find aid for the Jun-gar. In this manner the oracle has spoken.”

Profound silence reigned in the council. The dark faces of the khans showed blank surprise and a dawning hope. Dongkor Gelong regarded them gravely, with folded arms.

“Truly, lords of the Jun-gar,” he said in a low voice, “this is little short of a miracle. For at Lhassa none save the gods knew that the Kha Khan Khlit was surnamed the Wolf. Since I have come, I have been told that is the case. Such is the wisdom of the gods. Now, to aid his people, the Kha Khan must choose those among you whom he can most trust and travel to Talas by the Taklamaklan Desert, beyond the Thian Shan, to the south.”

There was an excited stir among the shamans at mention of the verification of the prophecy. From somewhere back in their ranks came a voice.

“We have heard the oracle of Lhassa. What is the answer of the Kha Khan?”

At this all eyes were turned to Khlit. The Cossack did not move to rise, for it was not his custom to speak hastily. Tugging at his mustache, he considered the message of Dongkor Gelong. The city of Talas he had never heard of, but it must lie a week’s fast riding to the south, if it was beyond the Thian Shan Mountains. The Taklamaklan Desert, he had heard, was a portion of the great Gobi, at a high altitude. It should not be hard to find the river Tarim at the edge of the Taklamaklan and follow it to its end. So much was clear.

The message of the Dalai Lama was little less than a command. The master of Lhassa was head of the Buddhist priests in Mongolia, China, and Central Asia. To disobey would be to risk the allegiance of his own people. And it was possible that the Dalai Lama knew of assistance that Khlit could gain at Talas. The Dalai Lama knew many things—from the eyes and ears of the Tsong Khapa, the priesthood of the lamas.

Khlit’s shrewdness probed the words of Dongkor Gelong for their inner meaning. The Dalai Lama must have heard that Khlit was a Christian. As such, he would not be favored by the clergy of the Holy City. Did Dongkor Gelong hope that Khlit would refuse to undertake the mission proposed by the oracle? Or did he reason that, having gained aid through the Dalai Lama, the Cossack’s prestige would suffer?

Khlit got to his feet and surveyed the ranks of the Tatars. Dongkor Gelong folded his arms and waited.

“Harken, Dongkor Gelong,” spoke Khlit slowly. “Look into the sky and tell me what you see.”

As one the eyes of the Tatars flew upward, the firelight glaring white on their eyeballs.

“O Kha Khan,” responded the lama composedly, “I see the crescent moon and Jitti Karakchi, the great bear among the stars. And it is the fifth moon of the Year of the Ape. The Ice Pass that leads to the Jallat Kum will be open for your coming.”

“Do you see the sun, O man of wisdom?” growled the Cossack.

“Nay; how could that be? The earth is in the dark, Erlik clouds of night.”

“Truly have you spoken, Dongkor Gelong. Then tell me, how can it be that the sun and the moon mount the sky together? Or the Kha Khan and the Dalai Lama rule one people?”

III

The Chutuktu Lama smiled and turned to the assembled warriors. “Nay,” he answered promptly, “when the moon steals into the light of day, her radiance dies because of the glory of the sun. Is not the almighty Tsong Khapa the father of many nations? In all the world there is not a king with a glory such as his. For the Dalai Lama knows the wisdom of former ages, being incarnate. The light of his wisdom points to the citadel of Talas as the salvation of the Jun-gar.”

A murmur of agreement echoed this, in which the shamans joined the loudest. The more warlike khans stirred uneasily and looked at Khlit.

“The wisdom of the master of Lhassa is beyond my knowing, O envoy of the Yellow Hat,” said Khlit slowly. “My skill is in arranging battles and the clash of armies on the steppe. Ask the Jun-gar where lies the host of Hang-Hi, general of the Son of Heaven. Or the banners of Li Jusong. They have fallen before the yak-tailed banner of Tatary. How has the Tsong Khapa thought,

in his wisdom, that we may have aid from Talas? Who are the people of Talas? I know them not.”

Dongkor Gelong bent one cotton-wrapped knee and bowed his head.

“I came as the bearer of words more precious than the seven substances, because they were inspired by the gods. Who am I to seek to explain them?”

From the ranks of listeners came the voice of the hidden shaman. “Question not what is written, O Kha Khan.” Khlit stared at his followers moodily.

“You have sworn an oath, O Khans of the Jun-gar, that my word should be law in the kurultai of the Tatars. It is not in written words but in the fellowship of warriors that a khan may put his trust. Nay, tonight I will not ask the advice of the kurultai. Does a wolf seek the will of the pack when he makes a kill? I alone will choose my course.”

In the deep silence that followed this, Dongkor Gelong raised his arms in alarmed surprise.

“Will you dare to disobey the Tsong Khapa?”

“I have chosen my path,” responded Khlit shortly. “It lies to Talas. But I will go alone.”

Cries of protest greeted this. The khans of the inner circle sprang to their feet, protesting. Berang of the Ordus declared that he would go with Khlit.

“Nay, Kha Khan,” objected Dongkor Gelong. “It was the wish of the Dalai Lama himself that you should take followers whom you could trust. The journey will be through the lands of Iskander Khan and Bassanghor Khan of the Khirghiz who have violated your boundaries—”

“I have chosen,” growled Khlit. “And I will go tonight.”

The news spread swiftly through the encampment. The Tatar hunters gathered about the kibitka and watched silently while Khlit arranged a few things in his saddlebags—some meat smoked until it was dry, milk curds hardened into cakes, a flask of kumiss, spare powder for his pistols—and selected a horse from several

that Chagan brought him. Khlit had never forsaken his fondness for a horse in favor of the hardier camel.

Still in silence the khans watched him mount. Dongkor Gelong and Berang said a few words of farewell. Khlit thought that he caught a disappointed light in the lama’s eyes. Was Dongkor Gelong sorry that he had agreed to go to Talas?

The stolid faces of his followers veiled strong feelings. Hope, disappointment, relief, and uneasiness were in the glances they fixed on him. If he had not gone, to a man they would have turned against him—such was their faith in the word of the Dalai Lama. But, now that the old Kha Khan was leaving on his mission, some felt misgiving.

Khlit sprang from the ground into the saddle—a trick of his Cossack days—not sitting, but standing erect in the saddle. The horse wheeled and darted away from the kibitka through the tents. There was hardly a Tatar who could not have done as much. Yet the trick stirred their fancy and a hoarse shout of approval followed him as he vanished into the dark.

Once clear of the encampment, Khlit reined in his horse and seated himself in the saddle. He cast a shrewd eye up at the stars and struck off across the plain to the south. The steppe here was level as the surface of a lake. A warm breeze stirred the lush grass, and his horse sniffed heavily of the fragrant air. As he rode, Khlit struck flint and steel and lighted his long-stemmed pipe. Thus did Cossacks always ride.

The magic of the steppe warmed Khlit’s blood. It was the same endless plain that stretched to the Ukraine, lighted by the same stars. It had been Khlit’s home, and here he was always happy. He muttered to himself—he had never been known to sing—fragments of Cossack songs. And then he suddenly drew his mount to a halt.

His keen ears had caught the sound of riders behind him. He judged there were several and that they were coming at a rapid pace. Alert for possible danger, he turned toward the sound and drew one of the pistols he carried in his sash.

The patter of hoofs neared him and presently he made out a group of dark shadows. At first he guessed them to be rider-less horses escaped from the encampment. Then he saw that one horse had a rider. The man saw him at the same moment and halted the small cavalcade he was leading.

“Chagan!” swore Khlit, peering at the other’s bulk in the gloom. “Devil take the dog! Why do you follow me?” The sword-bearer laughed uneasily.

“Lord,” he growled, “you said before Dongkor Gelong that you would ride to Talas alone. Wherefore I slipped from the camp and followed with extra horses, so that none would see me. Almost, I lost you in the dark.”

“I need but one horse, Chagan. Get back to the camp, where there is horseflesh to be eaten.”

Chagan laid his heavy hand on Khlit’s knee.

“Nay, lord,” he said gruffly; “you have said that a fat hound hunts but ill. Since the time of Genghis, when did not the sword-bearer follow the Kha Khan in battle or hunt?”

“Yet I give you this as a duty—go back.”

“Harken, lord.” Chagan moved nearer. “I have a thought, that you had best make haste. I have listened at the camp—”

“Dolt, offspring of a wild ass! Speak not to me of your thoughts. Silence is sweeter than the bellow of an ass.”

Khlit, knowing the uselessness of arguing with the sturdy sword-bearer, put spurs to his horse and sped away into the darkness. Chagan lost no time in following.

A streak of crimson showed to the east. The light of the stars paled overhead. From the occasional thickets that the riders passed, bird notes trilled. The crimson spread into yellow and violet. The rays of the morning sun shot up over the plain and showed Chagan with his led horses galloping a scant mile behind Khlit. By shifting, as he rode, from one mount to another, he had managed to keep within sight of the better-mettled steed of the Cossack.

Once Chagan sighted Khlit, he drew up rapidly. Seeing this, the Cossack stopped. His first words to the sword-bearer showed that his mood had altered.

“Devil roast me, Chagan, but this is a ride fit for an emperor. Hey, man, you would come to Talas? Ride then—ride! Let the horse leap between your knees. Light your pipe and feel the kiss of the harlot wind in your face. Ride to meet Erlik on his black steed of death. Hey, Tatar, come!”

Taking two of the horses from the sword-bearer, who echoed his words with an exultant shout, Khlit led the way to the south. Through the day they rode, after the manner of their kind, sleeping at intervals in the saddle and chewing on the dried meat when they were hungry.

In this manner Khlit, called the Wolf, and Chagan, the sword-bearer, made their way to the passes of the Thian Shan Mountains, swimming the river Ili, and crossing the southern steppe, to the Ice Pass. To the sands of Taklamaklan and the Jallat Kum.

This was the route from Khamil south to Talas and the caravan track, as written in the annals of Batur Madi, who had inscribed after the words Jallat Kum a mark to ward off evil spirits. For Batur Madi declared that the bones of many men were drying in the Jallat Kum and that the caravans from the east went a week’s journey to the north to avoid the Jallat Kum, where no men went willingly, unless they knew that their graves were dug there.

IV

Of the numerous passes leading through the Thian Shan Mountains to the south, Khlit chose the Ice Pass mentioned by Dongkor Gelong for two reasons. It was well to the north of the Tarim, beneath the snow-crest of the mighty Khan Tengri, and rather beyond the territory of the Khirghiz chieftains. While the de-files of the pass might well be infested with mountaineers—who were, of course, robbers—there was less danger of meeting their

enemies the Khirghiz. And Chagan pointed out that it was the quickest way to the Tarim.

Indeed Chagan was unmistakably anxious to push on with all speed. The two riders found that their choice was justified. They gained the southern end of the defile with no greater loss than two of their horses, given as toll to a chieftain of the Khan Tengri who had not demanded more because he saw that the two Tatars were well-armed and disposed to use their weapons. The high altitude of the pass, where glaciers pressed the sides of the gorge and freshets flooded the gullies, hindered their progress.

Chagan gave an exclamation of satisfaction as they began the downward path to the south, their woolen coats drawn close against the chill winds that whistled down the pass at their backs. Khlit glanced at him curiously, for the sword-bearer, who had been urging haste, was not the man to be anxious about possible danger.

“Nay, lord,” Chagan answered his blunt query, “the lamas say that spirits infest the mountain passes, and I saw no idols fastened to the trees by the way to ward them off. So—”

“So you lie like a Mussulman merchant of Samarkand. You have ridden the flesh from your horse’s belly. I have watched you counting the days of our journey on your fingers as if a young maiden awaited your coming in a comfortable yurt. Speak from your mind what is true, Chagan, and save lies for thieves and shamans.”

The sword-bearer’s slant eyes widened guiltily, and he looked involuntarily back along the trail down which they had come. Khlit’s glance followed his. The pass was empty of all save a hovering raven. Before this, Khlit had assured himself that they were not followed. Moreover, their speed had been such that none save a Tatar or Khirghiz on picked mounts could have kept near them. Why, then, had Chagan been uneasy?

“When the Dalai Lama commands, lord,” muttered the other, “it is well to hasten.”

Khlit laughed and shook his shoulders lightly.

“Aye. There is meat to that bone, Tatar. The words of the Dalai Lama are such as to blind the eyes of children or fools. But I am neither one nor the other. Truly the words of a magician are a veil. To read the truth you must tear the veil aside.”

Chagan blinked and spat forcibly.

“The Dalai Lama is not a magician, lord. I have seen the lamas raise up a man who was dead. They know all that happens in the mountains. We must guard well our tongues, for this is their land.”

“Lamas, shamans, or conjurers—they are all one, Chagan. Hey, their tricks are as many as the wiles of the steppe fox! Yet to one who knows they are but tricks there is no danger. Wherefore I would have come alone.”

Chagan turned this over in his mind and shook his head dubiously. “Nay, lord,” he said, and hesitated. “You came by these mountains to Tatary, men say. Did you see the city of Talas?”

“Nay, nor heard of it. The Dalai Lama is fond of riddles, Chagan. When we see Talas we may know the meaning of this riddle. Not before.”

From the foothills of the Thian Shan, called in the annals of Batur Madi the Kok Shal Tau, Khlit and Chagan glimpsed in the distance the wide valley of the Tarim. Here was a country different from that they had come through. The level steppe gave way to broken, wooded ridges, through which the horses took their way slowly. The defiles gleamed brown with sandstone pinnacles of rock. Game was thick and Chagan succeeded in bringing down an arkhan—a species of mountain sheep strange to them both, but eatable.

They came out abruptly from the poplars and willows of the forest to a wide sweep of sluggish water. Neither boats nor signs of habitations were visible, and the two took their course down-stream, noting that the forest thinned as they went.

The current also lost its force, and the footing became sandy. The poplars gave way to tamarisks. Khlit pushed ahead, anxious

to see the end of the river, where Dongkor Gelong had promised that they would find Talas.

The silence of the place stilled Chagan’s tongue. Khlit had never been fond of words. The Cossack surveyed their surroundings keenly as they advanced, looking back with a frown at the distant summits of the Thian Shan. Truly, this was a strange place. For on the Tarim they did not meet any horsemen. Even when they came to the end of the river at a willow thicket, there was no sign of habitation. Why had they been sent to such a spot?

Chagan pulled up his tired horse with an oath. Khlit pushed ahead to the summit of a sand dune beyond the thicket. Then he halted and leaned forward curiously.

The slight elevation of the dune gave him a view over the surrounding landscape. He saw that they were on the edge of a desert, for the tamarisk trees became scattering and a series of dunes stretched before him like the summits of waves on an ocean. A few paces below him was a rough shepherd’s aul—tree branches and thorns woven into a small enclosure in which were a score of sheep, a horse, a felt tent and a man in tattered woolen garments asleep.

Khlit trotted up to the enclosure and scanned the man. He lay flat on his face: a short, stocky figure, legs wrapped in soiled cloths and a dingy black kollah on his tousled head. A fire of sheep dung smoldered near him.

The rustle of branches, as the Cossack’s horse nibbled at the fence, startled the fellow from his sleep, and he sprang to his feet grasping at a short spear. Khlit raised his right hand reassuringly, and after a careful inspection the man advanced gingerly toward him, holding the weapon poised. Chagan came up and grinned at sight of the scared shepherd.

“Here is a poor kind of city, lord,” he grunted, “for aught but fleas. Can the man speak Tatar?”

It was soon apparent that the shepherd could not. But he showed a glimmer of understanding at the Uigur that Khlit spoke—a dialect much used by the traveling merchants of Cen-

tral Asia and therefore widely known. The Cossack questioned him to the best of his ability and turned to Chagan.

“The rascal is slower of wit than of tongue, Chagan. He is a Dungan—a Chinese Mussulman—and he lives here because his father was here before him. Azim, as he calls himself, says that the main caravan track from China to Samarkand runs past here, a short distance out in the desert.”

“What does he know of Talas?”

Khlit stroked the scabbard of his curved sword thoughtfully, his eyes on the swart face of Azim.

“He has heard the name of Talas. It lies a half-day’s ride into the desert, away from the setting sun. He has sent men there before. They came, he says, for what is buried in Talas. And here they have stayed. What that is he does not know, or he will not tell.”

“But Dongkor Gelong swore that it was at the end of the Tarim.”

“Aye—and here Azim’s words have a ring of truth. For he says that the Tarim formerly ran further into the desert. Our way lies along its riverbed.”

As the sun was still high, the two pressed on, leaving the shepherd staring at them stupidly over his aul. They found that Azim spoke the truth. They came upon a wide ravine in the sand dunes where red sandstone cropped through the soil. Khlit chose a path along the bank of the riverbed, wishing to see the nature of the country he entered.

The sun gleamed redly behind their backs when they came out upon a dune higher than the others, and Khlit pointed to the riverbed. Chagan peered at it inquisitively. Here was in truth the end of the Tarim.

The smooth sand of the dry river bed formed an arena in the gully under them. A few tamarisks clung to the slope. But at the farther end of the arena a small stream of black water, which was all that remained of the Tarim, sank into the ground.

The sword-bearer was about to urge his horse down the slope into the basin when Khlit touched him on the ann.

The Cossack pointed to the sides of the arena. The sand dunes here presented a strange appearance. Pillars of rock stood upright in the gullies; square blocks of sandstone were scattered about. Further on, walls of stone in the form of buildings were visible. But the structures had no roofs.

On the summit of the hillock at the end of the river was a mass of masonry that had once been a tower. Ruins, nearly hidden in the sand, stretched on every quarter. Khlit laughed softly to himself.

“Hey, what think you of the citadel of Talas, Chagan?”

The sword-bearer gaped at the ruins and muttered under his breath. Clearly there had once been a city of size and importance here. Now he saw only the wrecks of dwellings, unroofed and buried in the sand. Silence hung heavily over the place.

Khlit dismounted from his horse and inspected the nearest remnant of a house. To Chagan the sight of the place was unaccountable, bordering on the uncanny. The desolate city seemed to him ill-omened. But Khlit remembered that he had heard that the sands of the Taklamaklan had been advancing into the foothills of the mountains. The Cossack guessed shrewdly that the attack of the sand had driven the inhabitants from the place, perhaps several hundred years ago.

It was now clear to Khlit what Dongkor Gelong had meant. The lama had said there was a place where the sands of the Taklamaklan join the mountains. And where the river Tarim sank to its grave. They had come to the place.

But why had the Dalai Lama directed them here? Talas had been without inhabitants certainly for several generations. No living person was to be seen save the miserable shepherd Azim. Where was the Jallat Kum? The caravan path might run near them, but there was no caravansary in the ruined city of Talas. No human being stirred along the sand dunes except themselves.

Khlit had said to Chagan that Talas would solve the riddle of the Tsong Khapa’s words. But here was a deeper riddle. Khlit shook his shaggy head moodily, watching one of the horses which was descending to the basin for the tamarisk foliage that it had sighted.

Chagan, too, eyed the horse. Suddenly both men stiffened alertly.

The animal had stepped out on the smooth, moist sand of the arena. As it did so it gave a shrill scream of terror. The sound cut the silence of the place sharply. Khlit swore.

The horse had sunk to its haunches in the sand. The surface of the soil ebbed around the beast in a sinister fashion as the horse struggled to free itself. Half its trunk was now engulfed. Its head reared frantically; then it sank down into the sand which closed over it with a dull murmur. The surface of the basin was again level and smooth.

Khlit whirled at the sound of a guttural laugh behind him. A few paces away Azim sat on his bedraggled pony. The shepherd pointed to the sand of the river bed grimly.

“Jallat Kum,” he said.

V

If shadows are seen, there is danger if the owners of the shadows are hidden. Aye, even though they come with open hands, for shadows have no tongues with which to lie.

Khirghiz proverb

Chagan yawned and stretched his limbs painfully. He pushed aside his sheepskin robe and stood up, staring with bleared eyes at the rising sun which had wakened him and stamping circulation into his booted legs. For the night on the Taklamaklan was cold.

The sword-bearer buckled his belt tight and looked around at the ruins of Talas with disgust written large on his broad face. He stiffened his muscles and shook his black tangle of hair like a dog. He was not a tall man, but his shoulders were knitted to an ox’s neck, and his long arms were heavily thewed. Legs, bent to the

shape of a horse’s barrel, supported an erect and massive trunk. Men who had glanced only at his height and sleepy, pock-marked face had learned to their cost that the sword-bearer’s strength lay in muscles invisible to the eye and in an inexorable, destructive energy when aroused.

Chagan gave vent to his disgust to Khlit when he had prepared some of the arkhan meat over a fire of tamarisk roots and added some water from a goatskin purchased from Azim to their scanty stock of kumiss.

“An ill place to water at—this,” he growled. “The Jallat Kum of the Tarim river bed swallows a horse as Azim would gulp a milk curd. Ha! Azim stayed not when the stars came out. He likes not the ruins. By signs he made plain to me that it is an unholy spot, which the caravans avoid. Twice in the night I heard wailing and sighing as if the desert spirits that hamstring straying travelers were about us. By the head of Genghis Khan, I like it not.”

Khlit finished the last of the meat and drank his share of the mare’s milk calmly. Then he leaned back on the sand and scrutinized Chagan.

“How long, dog, have you been a breeder of lies? Am I a whispering maiden to be beguiled by words such as these? Not so. You have a thought, Chagan, in your thick head. You are trying to paint the thought in another guise. Why were you in a hurry to reach Talas? And now you talk of going hence.”

Chagan juggled the kumiss flask sullenly.

“Last night,” he repeated, “I wakened and heard a voice like that of a woman crying—crying and then singing. It was not far away. This is a cursed spot, for there is no woman here.”

“I heard it not.” Khlit took a twig from the fire and idly traced figures in the sand. “Harken, Chagan, I am neither magician nor oracle, but I will unravel the meaning of a riddle. It is a riddle of the master of Lhassa, who is monarch of many khans and squadrons of cavalry. Why did he send the message by Dongkor Gelong that I should come here?”

Chagan started to speak; then he thought better of it. Khlit studied his tracings in the sand idly.

“When a hunter seeks one wolf from the pack, he does not follow the pack. He sets a bait, and, when the wolf comes, he can then slay it. The master of Lhassa is crafty; he has the wisdom of many shamans. Yet it is hard to hide the bait that covers the snare. Harken, Chagan. The Jun-gar are a power on the steppe, midway between the Kallmarks and the Chinese. The Khirghiz are their own masters, yet they are not hostile to the Dalai Lama. From the Kha Khans before me, tribute in sheep, horses and cloths was sent to Lhassa. I have not sent it. When this was known, the Dalai Lama persuaded the Khirghiz to cross our frontiers for plunder.”

Chagan nodded. Most of this he had known.

“The clergy of the Yellow Hat,” went on the Cossack slowly, “are actual rulers of Kashgaria, which reaches as far north as the Thian Shan, and in Tibet to the south of the Taklamaklan. Also of portions of China by the headwaters of the Yang-tze River. To the northwest of Kashgaria and the northeast of the Yangtze the Tsong Khapa, I have heard, has pulled his magician’s veil over the Khan of the Kallmarks, and the Emperor of the Chinese. They believe he is the envoy of the gods upon earth. Such is the blindness even of a ruler of millions.”

Khlit stuck his twig upright in the center of the figures he had been tracing.

“In the heart of the Tatar steppe between the Kallmarks and China is the land of the bowmen, the Jun-gar. Like an eagle flying above the mountains, the Dalai Lama has marked Jungaria for his priests. Already the khans of the kurultai council are overawed by his magician’s tricks and the wiles of the shamans.”

“But you are his enemy, lord,” objected Chagan bluntly.

“Aye, for he sent the Khirghiz against us when the tribute stopped. Now the Dalai Lama has marked me as one who must be removed. The enmity of priests is more dangerous than the sting of a serpent. And I will not be a tribute-payer of Lhassa. We cannot make this a war, Chagan, for the Jun-gar will not take up

arms against the Dalai Lama; and, if we did, the Khirghiz and Kallmarks together have thrice our number of horsemen.”

“They are crafty fighters,” grunted Chagan. “Yet, they are not slaves to do the will of the master of Lhassa—”

“Nay; that is truth. But they have the taste of our lands and herds in their mouth. While the plundering is good, they will invade our boundaries. The Jun-gar are too far from Lhassa to enjoy the care of the Dalai Lama, yet he desires their lands for the Khirghiz and for himself. So he sent Dongkor Gelong with all his mummery to fetch me and those that I trusted here to the desert. Why? He would remove the horns from the cattle he wishes to slaughter.”

Khlit stood up and stretched himself.

“Aye, there is the veil of words that covered the trap. Chagan, I smell treachery. Long have I smelled danger; the wind whispers tidings of evil. Ha! We have come to the trap, you and I.”

“Khlit, lord,” said Chagan slowly, “I smelled the trap in the camp on the steppe. Likewise, when I bridled the horses, I heard the two Chubil Khans speaking together within a tent close by. They planned to set out in the night for the Thian Shan, to bear word of your departure to the Kashgar lamasery.”

“And still you came with me? Nay, you are one without brains.”

“I came, lord,” Chagan straightened with rough dignity, “to bring the horses, that we might arrive here before the men of the Tsong Khapa expect us. Thus you might see the jaws of the trap before it was ready. Now you can ride back to the Thian Shan safely. There is no time to be lost. And there is nothing here that can fulfill the Dalai Lama’s promise. Hasten; there is no time to be lost.”

Khlit’s mustache twitched in a hard smile.

“It is true that you are a fool, Chagan. Where am I to go? Back to the Jun-gar? Matters would be no better. And where else? Here we stay, Chagan, you and I, until we see what manner of thing the Yellow Hats have prepared for us.”

Chagan swore blackly.

“Death is brewing for us here, lord. We will fare no better than the cursed horse that walked into the Jallat Kum.”

“I will stay,” repeated Khlit. “But you can choose a horse and go.” Something like fear flashed into the stolid face of the sword-bearer.

“Nay, lord,” he cried anxiously. “I have ridden at your horse’s tail in battle and hunt. I have eaten meat and salt with you. I have slept beside you and gained honor thereby. We two are one.”

“So be it, then,” said Khlit, turning away.

Chagan left him to his thoughts and sought out the horses. These he looked over carefully, picketing them so they would not wander on the quicksand and cutting some foliage for fodder. He then inspected their horn horseshoes and made sure that the saddles had not suffered from the hard riding of the last six days. He gave them a little water from the goatskin and departed in search of a possible spring in the ruins. For the stagnant pool in the river bed was well out on the quicksand beyond reach.

After a moment of this, Chagan paused and scratched his head. He had come upon a series of tracks in the sand, made by horses shod differently from his own. He followed out the winding trails and presently compared the marks with those of Azim’s mount. They were the same.

It occurred to Chagan that the shepherd might have returned in the night. But the other had professed to be afraid of the ruins after sundown. Further inspection convinced the Tatar that the tracks were a day or two old. Azim, then, had been here before, not once but frequently in spite of his talk of evil spirits.

Tracing out the course of the tracks, Chagan found that they led to the mound of sand which rose at the end of the Tarim basin behind the place where the river had once sunk into the earth. This mound, Chagan noted, was different in shape from most of the sand dunes. It was round instead of wave-shape, and it was a good sixty feet in height. Buttresses of stone projected through the sand at points.

Chagan made the half-circle of the place. Abruptly he halted, and his jaw dropped. The sound of singing came to his ears, faint but distinct. To his fancy, it was a woman’s voice. And it seemed to issue from the mound of sand.

VI

The hair had not descended to its normal position on the back of Chagan’s head when Khlit joined him. The Cossack had heard the voice. The two men gazed at the mound curiously.

“Said I not the place was rife with evil spirits?” growled the sword-bearer. “That is the song I heard in the night.”

The voice dwindled and was silent. Khlit inspected the stone ruins which showed through the sand. Then he motioned to Chagan.

“Here is no sand dune,” he growled. “The sand has covered up a building, and one of size. Some parts of the walls show through the sand. If we look we will find a woman in the ruins.”

“Nay, then she must eat rock and drink from the Jallat Kum,” protested the Tatar. “If there was a house here, even a palace, the sand has filled it up—”

Nevertheless he followed Khlit as the Cossack climbed over the debris of rock that littered the sides of the mound. They went as far as they could, stopping at the edge of the basin which the mound adjoined. There was no sign of a person among the remnants of walls. But Khlit pointed to the tower on the summit of the mound.

Chagan objected that there were no footsteps to be seen leading to the ruined tower. Khlit, however, solved this difficulty by scrambling up the slope. The shifting sand, dislodged by his progress, fell into place again behind him, erasing all mark of his footsteps. He vanished into the pile of masonry. Presently he reappeared and directed Chagan to bind together a torch of dead tamarisk branches and to light it at their fire.

When the sword-bearer had done this, Khlit assisted him to the summit of the hillock. There he pointed to the stone tower.

Its walls had crumbled into piles of stones, projecting from the sand no more than the height of a man, but in the center of the walls a black opening led downward.

Steps were visible through the aperture. Khlit took the torch and descended into the opening, followed by Chagan. The stairs had originally led to the tower summit, for they curved down-ward along the walls. As they climbed down, sand sifted in from occasional embrasures in the walls. Chagan guessed that they had descended to about the level of the desert plain without when the steps terminated in a pile of sand.

Throwing the light of the torch around them, Khlit saw that they were in a square chamber somewhat larger than the diameter of the tower. At one side a door showed, dark in the flickering light from the burning branches.

Through this doorway Khlit went, stooping under the lintel, for the sand had piled itself a foot or so on what must have been the flooring of the building. As they stood up in the chamber beyond the door, both halted in surprise.

A candle lighted the place—a small room with stone walls, the floor cleared of sand and carpeted with rugs. Some Turkish cushions were piled in one corner, and on the cushions a girl was seated. She was unveiled and the candle glinted on her startled face, delicate and olive-hued.

She was dressed in a dainty, fur-tipped khalat and baggy trousers of nankeen. She had the very slender figure of a dancer, with the customary veil penning her black hair behind turquoise ear-rings. What held the eyes of the two men was her face, fair for middle Asia, small-mouthed and proud. Not since he had left Persia had Khlit seen a woman of such loveliness; moreover, the girl stirred his interest, for she had the garb and henna-hued countenance of a dancer—yet there was authority in the erect carriage of her small head and in her quick movements.

Chagan sniffed at the elusive scent that filled the room, a faint odor of dried rose leaves tinged with musk.

“By the winged horse of Kaidu!” he swore. “If this be truly a woman and not a spirit, it is no wonder that Azim’s horse left tracks around this place.”

The girl frowned at his words, as if trying to grasp their meaning. She rose quickly to her feet with the gliding motion of the trained dancer. Her breath rose and fell tumultuously under the khalat with her startled breathing. Her brown eyes were wide and alert. Still the look she cast them was not so much fear as curiosity. Khlit, seeing that she did not understand the Tatar of Chagan, spoke to her in Uigur.

“How came you here, little sparrow?” he asked gruffly. “And what is this place?”

She held out her hand appealingly.

“Have you water, Khan? I have had no water for a day and a night, nor food.”

For the first time Khlit noted that her olive cheeks were pinched and there were dark circles in the paint under her eyes. He took the flask of watered kumiss from the sword-bearer’s belt and gave it to her. She caught it to her lips eagerly; then, remembering, she drank a swallow slowly, repeating the name of Allah after the fashion of Islam.

“The gully jackal who bears the name of Azim has not come, as he is wont, to bring me water and rice for the last day,” she said angrily. “For that I will pull many hairs from his beard when he comes.”

Khlit scanned her idly. He had little liking for women who were soft and quarrelsome. Yet this one spoke as if she was accustomed to give orders. By her speech he guessed her from the region of Samarkand.

“How can Azim pay such a handsome harlot?” Chagan growled, for his mind admitted of but one idea at a time.

The girl caught something of his meaning. Her slender hands clenched, and she stepped close to Khlit until her perfumed veil touched his mustache.

“What says the one without breeding? Eh, have I the manner of a slave? Azim is a dog who does my bidding. Since I came here, escaped from a caravan upon a camel, he has tended to my wants, thinking to sell me for a good price.”

Khlit motioned around the chamber.

“Why did you come here?”

She scrutinized him, head on one side, with the bright curiosity of a bird.

“My name is Sheillil,” she made answer, “and I am the dancer of Samarkand. There is a fat merchant of Kashgar who thought that he had bought me for five times a hundred gold shekels. Nay, men are fools. I left the caravan during a sandstorm and came where I knew none would follow. The camel stepped upon the Jallat Kum and is not. But Azim came and showed me this place.”

Khlit said a word to Chagan, who left the tower and presently returned, grumbling, with a handful of meat he had warmed at the fire and dried milk curds. These the Cossack gave to the girl, for he saw that she was weak with hunger. When she had finished, he took up the candle, which was a large one and of good yellow wax. Sheillil took his hand and led him through a further door, into what seemed a hall of considerable size.

“Azim has fewer wits than a camel,” she commented, “but he has heard the tale of this place from his father, who heard it from his father. It is a place of strange gods. Look!”

She pointed to the walls of the chamber. Khlit saw carved wooden columns with faded paintings on the walls between them. A balcony ran around the chamber, and there was a dais of jade at one end, as if the statue of a god had been removed from it. He saw why the place had not been filled by the sand which had risen over its roof.

Evidently the structure had been a temple, built to endure. For the walls were massive blocks of stone, and the embrasures were small. Under each opening was a waist-high pile of sand

which had filtered through. A coating of sand covered the floor. Several carved ebony benches stood by the walls in a litter of rugs, bronze candlesticks and candles of the kind that Sheillil had appropriated.

“It is the temple of Talas,” whispered the girl, a little awed by the gloom of the empty chamber. “When the sands drove the people from Talas, the other houses crumbled, but this was strongly made, being the home of a god, and it stood. For a while men came to plunder, and many of them were lost in the Jallat Kum. Now it is forgotten. There are other rooms. But the god has been taken away.”

Abruptly she ceased speaking. Khlit and Chagan whirled involuntarily. The silence of the temple was disturbed by a muttering sound.

It stole in through the stone walls, echoing in the vaulted space. It was a sound that stirred their blood, vast, grumbling with a thunder-like note.

Sheillil looked from one to the other, her eyes mischievously alight.

“Eh, that is a rare music,” she said, pointing to the tower en-trance; “it is the voice of the Jallat Kum when the sands are moving. Azim calls it the singing sand.”

She touched Khlit lightly on the arm.

“Send your man up the tower. I would speak with you.”

VII

Sheillil disposed herself comfortably on the cushions in the ante-chamber of the temple, with a catlike daintiness. Leaning on one slim arm, her eyes sought the Cossack’s from under long lashes. He was conscious of the delicate perfume that came from the dancer’s garments, of the scent of rose and aloes in her hair. He seated himself cross-legged on the stones, a little distance from her.

“I wonder,” she began slowly, “how many daughters of khans have come to this temple, leaving their slippers outside, and

prayed with rich offerings before the god who is no longer here? Yet behold, I am here, a woman of Islam, and you a caphar.”

Khlit returned her gaze indifferently. He had seen many women and all were fond of talking. Sheillil puzzled him slightly, for she went unveiled and seemed without fear. He judged that she had been much with men, bought and sold in many bazaars. Still she could not be more than seventeen.

“It is written,” she pursued, “that with Allah are the keys of the unseen. Can you read the future, Khlit, Khan—”

“The devil!” Khlit stared at her. “How knew you my name?” Sheillil propped her chin on her two hands and smiled.

“I know many things, Khlit, Khan. Messages travel quickly across the steppe to the mountains where my home was. Nay, you wear the curved saber of Kaidu. Once you were in Samarkand. I have been there also, and men talk freely to me, for I am lovely as the dawn in the hill gardens of Kabul. Their blood is warmed as with wine when they look at me.”

The Cossack felt that the girl was trying to catch his glance. He lit his pipe and smoked silently.

“In Kashgar,” continued Sheillil, disappointed, “I heard it said that the horsemen of the Khirghiz were at war with the Tatars of the Jun-gar. Is that the truth?”

“The Khirghiz bands invaded our boundaries. They will come again with Summer. Why do you ask, little sparrow?”

“Because I would know, fool!” Sheillil’s delicate brows met in a frown. “There is much talk in Kashgar among the clergy of the Yellow Hat and their followers, the Usbeks. They say the strength of the Jun-gar is gone, and that their lands will be spoil for the first comer before the next snow.”

“In the cities,” Khlit responded calmly, “men say what it pleases them to hear.”

“Then it is true?” Sheillil waited for a response and, receiving none, rattled the bracelets on her round arms angrily. “The Khirghiz clans will take what land they need. I know, for I was born among them. My father was a khan. You are truly one with?

out wit. I had the thought that the owner of the sword of Kaidu would be a wise man. Why are you not with the Jun-gar?”

Khlit’s gray eyes peered at the girl from under shaggy brows, and her lips parted at the somber fire she beheld there.

“It was the word of the Dalai Lama that I could find aid here for the Jun-gar,” he said. “So I have come to learn the meaning of the message. Truly it is a strange place—”

Sheillil threw back her dark head with a peal of shrill laughter. She lay back on the cushions and laughed, rocking her slender form in joyous mirth. Khlit regarded her impassively.

“A wise khan,” she cried, “a true shepherd of his flock! Nay, tell me. What aid do you find here? A ruined city and a flea-ridden Azim. What think you now of the word of the Tsong Khapa?”

“I think,” responded Khlit slowly, “that I may hear from the Dalai Lama at this spot.”

Sheillil sat up, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Truly,” she responded, “you are a man of the steppe. It is not the way of the hillmen to wait for what is to come. Life is too short for that, and Allah has favor for the bold in heart.”

A step sounded behind them, and Chagan made his appearance.

“Azim is without,” he motioned up the steps. “He has come with two men from a passing caravan. One, who is a merchant, says that he may buy the girl Sheillil if she is fair.”

The girl tossed her head proudly. “Am I one to be sold by a shepherd? Nay, tell them to begone.”

Khlit left the dancer in the chamber to ascend the tower with Chagan. He found the Dungan shepherd with two others, mounted and of important bearing. They had met Azim, they said, at the nearby watering place on the caravan track, and the man had said he had a Uigur girl of beauty for sale.

Azim disappeared into the tower steps and presently returned, cursing and hauling at the girl, who was resisting vigorously. Sheillil had drawn her veil across her face, and, as they stumbled

down the sand slope, she tore herself free from Azim and ran to Khlit.

“I am the daughter of a khan,” she panted, “and women of my blood may not be bought and sold. Such is the law. Slay this scoundrel for me and bid the others go.”

“Nay—it is not my affair,” said Khlit shortly.

The merchants had reined their horses up to the girl, and, as she spoke, Azim seized her again, tearing the veil from her face. To Khlit’s surprise she flushed crimson with shame and turned from the strangers. Chagan grinned at the sight. One of the merchants, a stout Dungan, leaned down and tried to draw the khalat from the shoulders of the struggling girl.

Sheillil, who was weeping with rage, twisted in Azim’s grasp. Suddenly she freed one arm and snatched at the sword that hung from Chagan’s belt. So quickly had she acted that the Tatar had no chance to prevent her. The weapon was a heavy one, made for Chagan’s great strength, and the girl could barely lift it. At sight of the gleaming blade, however, Azim jumped nimbly back.

“Dolt!” cried Sheillil furiously. “Dirt, of a jackal’s begetting! Am I one to be sold by your breed?”

“She is not ugly,” said the Dungan merchant with a grin. “We will take her.”

At a sign from Khlit, Chagan stepped forward and deftly took the sword from the unsuspecting girl. The Cossack eyed Sheillil doubtfully and caught the reproachful glance she threw at Chagan. A dancing woman of the bazaars she might be, but she had the manner of a girl of noble blood. It was no business of his whether Azim disposed of her to the merchants.

“She is worth much,” put in Azim craftily. “And she can dance.”

The girl faced the merchants proudly, her slender figure tense and her cheeks flushed. Khlit stepped forward between her and the others.

“Nay,” he said gruffly. “She is not a slave. She comes from the hills, and she has the blood of a khan.” He wheeled on Azim. “Are you her master?”

The shepherd muttered that he was free to do with the girl as he chose. The merchants glanced at each other. Sheillil was a beauty and would fetch a high price at one of the city bazaars. She was worth taking.

“Azim,” said Khlit grimly, “when you have fought a battle and taken captives it will be time to speak of slaves. This woman has sought refuge here. She is not to be sold—”

“The caravan is moving on,” broke in the Dungan merchant. “We have no time to haggle. The three of you can divide the money. Here; we cannot wait—”

He fumbled in the money bag at his belt. The other merchant moved nearer to the girl, who stood close beside Chagan, watching all that went on eagerly. At a signal from the Dungan, the man spurred his horse forward, hoping to ride down the Tatar.

Chagan, however, was not to be caught unawares. The merchant had whipped out his sword, and, as Chagan sprang aside, he slashed at him. The sword-bearer warded the blow easily. The return sweep of his weapon caught the rider in the side. The man swayed and slid from his saddle to the sand.

The Tatar turned toward the Dungan. But the latter, with a startled glance at his fallen companion, wheeled his horse away. He hesitated for a moment, then he rode through the dunes in the direction he had come. The girl clapped her hands in delight.

“That was a good blow,” she cried. “See, the man is cut half-way through!”

A glance told Chagan that she spoke the truth. Picking up the dying man by the belt the sword-bearer lugged him around the mound to the slope of the Jallat Kum. Khlit, who had followed, saw the Tatar toss the body down the slope. It rolled upon the damp sands, and in a moment was gone.

“Evil comes of such women, lord,” muttered Chagan with a shake of the head. “Harken. You have said that the Tsong Khapa

has laid a trap for us. The trap is rarely baited. How else comes the dancing girl here? She is no common slave escaped from a caravan.”

Khlit made no response to this. He returned to the spot where they had left Azim, intending to question the shepherd. But Azim had vanished.

VIII

Late that afternoon Khlit sat with Sheillil on the summit of the temple mound, from which he had a good view of the ruins of Talas. The girl was humming softly to herself, cross-legged in the sand. Khlit, engrossed in his own thoughts, paid little attention to her.

Azim had not reappeared, and Chagan, making a cast into the desert, had learned that the caravan had gone on its way. The silence of the ruins irked Khlit, who had little liking for cities, living or dead. So far there had been no signs of envoys of the Dalai Lama. But Khlit reasoned shrewdly that they would seek him out, once they were aware that he had arrived. What did they want with him? What were the plans of the Tsong Khapa?

Khlit did not bother himself about what would happen at Talas. It was his policy when dealing with enemies more powerful than himself to enter their ranks, whatever the danger might be. A single man, he reasoned, was useless fighting against an overpowering force. But in the stronghold of his enemies that man might accomplish much. To learn the plans of his foe and to defeat them from within by a stroke of the coldest daring was possible only to one of Khlit’s craft, and in a country where an alliance of tribes might be broken up in a night, or two chieftains come to blows over a word.

But in following his usual scheme of attack, Khlit now faced two considerable obstacles. He could not count on the aid of his own followers, who were under the influence for the time being of the Dalai Lama and were held at home by the fear of the coming Khirghiz invasion. And in pitting his strength against the

master of Lhassa, Khlit knew that he was meeting a foeman of extraordinary keenness, whose intentions were a secret to him.

It was a desperate venture. Khlit had only two advantages in his lone struggle for the life of the Jun-gar. The clergy of Tibet, informed by Dongkor Gelong, would doubtless underestimate his own ability, as other enemies had done to their cost, aided by his simulation of blunt thickheadedness. And he was dealing with two enemies instead of one.

He glanced carelessly at the girl, who crooned to herself well-pleased with the event of the morning. Who was she? What was her mission in Talas? What master did she serve?

Sheillil yawned prettily and stretched herself.

“You are not good company, Khan,” she said idly. “Go below with the big Tatar and sleep. I will watch if any come.”

Khlit presently followed her advice. He found Chagan snoring on his back on the rugs of the anteroom. The Cossack had not intended to sleep, but he found that his head dropped on his shoulders. He had slept but a few hours of the last week, and the girl’s singing soothed him. His mind drifted away, and Chagan’s snores dwindled to silence.

He woke almost at once. Sheillil’s song had stopped. He heard muffled voices, and presently a step sounded on the stairs. Khlit became wide awake on the instant. There was not one step but several. He had only time to kick Chagan to consciousness when the light from the narrow doorway was blotted out.

Sheillil entered, and after her came a half-dozen men in a mot-ley dress ranging from the sheepskin coat of the plainsman to the black hat and long robe of a Dungan spearman. The group parted, and a man wearing a familiar garb of orange and black stepped for-ward. It was one of the Chubil Khans who had attended Dongkor Gelong.

“See, O man of the Yellow Hat,” cried Sheillil gleefully, “here be the two Tatars who came here yesterday taken drowsing like sheep in an aul. Take heed of the broad-shouldered one. He wields a sword like one possessed of Erlik.”

Chagan, who had sprung to his feet, clutched at his weapon. But Khlit motioned him back. The tower without was filled with armed men. The Chubil Khan had come well escorted. Still, men seldom traveled alone in those days of ever-present danger.

“What seek you with me?” Khlit asked bluffly.

Sheillil made a deep and mocking salaam, hands outstretched over her dark head, forgetful or heedless of the fact that she had promised to warn the Tatars of the coming of strangers.

“It is a messenger, O Khlit, from one who is wiser than you, to command your attendance—”

“At the Kashgar lamasery, Kha Khan,” put in the Chubil Khan, a crafty gleam in his narrow eyes. “The almighty Tsong Khapa, whom Heaven has honored by divine reincarnation, has further tidings for you.”

“I will hear them,” said Khlit calmly. “But I did not know the Dalai Lama was at Kashgar.”

The Chubil Khan spread both arms outward.

“I am but a lesser servant of the Tsong Khapa, Khan Tuvron; the Tsong Khapa is, like the light of the sun, everywhere among his people; yet none but the higher priesthood see his face—never strangers.”

There was a bustle in the group of men, and the tattered figure of Azim pushed forward, falling on his knees before Tuvron. He clasped the bandaged feet of the envoy, speaking, to Khlit’s surprise, the tongue of the lamas.

“O mighty Chubil Khan, do not forget your servant Azim, who tends the empty shrine of Talas and who sent you word by way of the Dungan caravan of the coming of the Tatars. I ask humbly but a single ray of light from the radiance of the beneficent Tsong Khapa—only a very tiny reward. Give your servant Azim the dancing girl Sheillil, who wandered here, for my comfort and enjoyment. Then, when I am through with her, she can be sold for a good price—”

Tuvron stared at the girl in surprise. Sheillil drew close to him and whispered. The man’s expression changed, and he would have

spoken. But the girl checked him. She placed her slippered foot on Azim’s neck, pressing his head to the floor, and laughed delightedly.

“Your comfort, Azim!” she mocked. “Little comfort would Sheillil of Samarkand be to you. It is in my mind to throw you to the Jallat Kum, but one needs you who has use for even such a low-born thing as you. Pray to your departed god to bring you a mate—from the cattle herd.”

With that she turned and ran up the tower steps. When Khlit and Chagan mounted camels and set out in the midst of the Tibetans, Sheillil rode ahead on Tuvron’s white camel, which she had chosen for herself, singing to herself as she guided them to the caravan track that led to Kashgar, a two-days’ journey to the west.

IX

There are many gods in the world, but no man shall have two

gods lest evil come to his household. Khirghiz saying

A knock sounded on the heavy door of Chu’n Yuen, armorer of Kashgar. The proprietor rose, took up a lantern, and sought the door, his potbelly shaking under the silken curtain of its costly robe. Chu’n Yuen wore the black skullcap of a Dungan. Other-wise his face and dress were those of a Chinaman, blessed with vast flesh and full years of prosperity.

Chu’n Yuen opened a narrow panel in the door at the height of his eyes and peered out cautiously. Only by consummate shrewdness had the Chinaman, who sold to the mountaineers arms brought from Damascus and Persia by caravan, been able to keep his wrinkled head whole on his plump body. By shrewdness and the fact that as a Dungan he was allied to none of the warring clans of Central Asia.

The armorer scrutinized the person who had knocked, through slant eyes. He had learned to discriminate carefully between the thin, bearded, and turbaned face of an Usbek of Kashgar and the hard, round countenance with the small, black eyes and drooping

mustache of a Khirghiz hillman. For the Usbek was keen to cheat him of his wares, while the Khirghiz would pay generously on one occasion and lay waste his shop on another.

But Chu’n Yuen saw the slender form of a veiled woman and opened the barred door readily. His visitor stepped inside with a quick flash of brown eyes around the shop and the curtained door beyond it. Chu’n Yuen barred the door again and set down the lantern with a silent chuckle. If a woman came alone to his shop at night, it could be but for one purpose. Indeed, as if reading his thoughts, she walked with a light, swaying step to the curtains and slipped into the inner chamber where the Chinaman was wont to dispense wine to those who desired.

His visitor quite clearly did not wish wine. She surveyed the greasy benches, the dingy couches and the wine casks with some-thing like contempt. The shop was empty, save for two camel drivers too drunk to sit upright. Chu’n Yuen stepped forward and inclined his massive shoulders politely.

“Here is a soft nest for those who seek good living,” he murmured. “I am a kind master and the hillmen who come here pay well, especially for a dancer who is light on her feet—”

“For a woman who has danced in the palaces of Samarkand before the sultans?” The girl’s voice sounded musically with a hint of laughter. “Nay, this does not look like a palace and you, Chu’n Yuen, have the face of one whose soul is rolled in fat.”

The brown eyes flashed at the owner of the shop quizzically, and Chu’n Yuen drew his breath quickly, for he was not used to mockery from a woman.

“If you can dance, Strumpet-tongue, I will see that the great Khirghiz chieftains come to see it—although when they were last here they carried off my Turkish pistols without a silver coin in payment.”

He grasped her hand, and made as if to pull off the veil. The girl slipped away deftly.

“Ho, you will need taming, I see. But you will not leave as easily as you entered yonder door.”

His visitor seemed not to be listening.

“The Khirghiz are here—Iskander Khan and Bassanghor Khan? Are many Khirghiz with them? Or Kallmarks?”

“They came with a small following—a hundred hillmen. There are to be horse races and games, by request of the lamas, I have heard,” said the Chinaman in surprise. “Still, that is no concern for your pretty head. Perhaps you want me to pay you silver, as a sign of good faith. If I could see your face—”

Again the girl avoided his clutch at the veil. Chu’n Yuen’s pig eyes narrowed ominously. It had been in his mind to deal gently with the mysterious woman who came unmasked to his shop. Her figure suggested beauty, which was more than the women had who were brought here by Khirghiz or Tibetan raiding parties to be inmates of the vendor’s shop. But if she flouted him, Chu’n Yuen was prepared to whip her into submission, for she would mean many shekels for him.

“Fool,” said the girl mockingly, “and half-caste thief of a race without honor! What will the mullahs of Islam say when they hear that you traffic in wine! Have you forgotten the Koran?”

In spite of himself Chu’n Yuen gave back a step and lifted his fat hand as if to ward off a blow.

“There is no word in the Koran against selling wine,” he responded sullenly, “and there is no mullah in Kashgar.”

“Fool! To sell your honor for the gold of unbelievers. Dirt for each passerby to spit upon, if he pays! Is there no word in the Koran against that—”

With a cry half of fear, half of rage, the shopkeeper lifted his fist to strike the girl. Quickly she thrust her arm in front of his scowling face. A gold bangle, glittering on her wrist, caught his eye. His hand fell to his side and his jaw dropped.

“A sign of the true faith!” he muttered. “Upon a woman’s

bracelet. Nay, I have heard—I meant no harm to a follower of

Islam. But you came here alone and at night, honorable lady—”

“Oh, it is honorable lady now,” she gibed. “How quickly your

tongue twists! Nay, remember to treat Sheillil of Samarkand with

courtesy. Or there are those who will stick a dagger between your fat ribs, Chu’n Yuen. Now take heed and tell me what I wish to know. Iskander Khan is here?”

Chu’n Yuen stared at the gold bracelet as if fascinated.

“He is here with his followers—whom may Allah curse with a lasting blight—in the caravansary without the walls. Already there have been brawls between the Khirghiz hillmen and the Usbek people of the town. Mo fi kalbi hir’Allah—t here is nothing save Allah in my heart, honorable lady.”

“Then,” said Sheillil coolly, “Iskander Khan will rejoice to know there is a wine-bartering Mussulman here who has a goodly store of weapons. This shop will make rare picking for his hill-men, and Iskander Khan, they say, has turned his face more to Lhassa than to Mecca.”

“May Allah—” Chu’n Yuen began and choked.

Verily this woman was a fiend incarnate! Sheillil read the blind fear in his quivering, fat face and judged it would not be wise to anger the shopkeeper too greatly, or he might kill her.

“Yet it may be, Chu’n Yuen,” she added gravely, “that I shall whisper to Dongkor Gelong, who is head of the lamasery here, that he has a worthy servant, an armorer and a wine dealer, who is a man of parts and may be relied on in need. Eh, what say you to that? The star of the Dalai Lama is rising in Kashgaria, and, as you know, the half-moon of Mecca is low on the horizon.”

The Chinaman’s eyes flickered shrewdly. The name of Dongkor Gelong was one to conjure with in Kashgar.

“For two days and nights,” he whispered, with a glance around the room, “the Yellow Hats, whose ways are baneful as the coming of the star of ill omen, have been passing into the city gates in numbers. They are not to be seen in the streets, for they have gone to the lamasery. And it is not the custom for Dongkor Gelong the all-powerful to celebrate games.”

Sheillil watched the shopkeeper through half-closed eyes, a gaze which he tried to meet and could not.

“Eh, you are clever, O Mandarin,” smiled the girl, and Chu’n Yuen held his head higher. “You have the eye of a steppe fox. We shall be friends, you and I. Is Dongkor Gelong in the town?”

“Alas, that cannot be known. He goes and comes like a shadow.”

“How many of the Yellow Hats are within the walls?”

“Very many. The Chubil Khans are assembling with the higher lamas. Of their followers perhaps a thousand are here—besides the Usbeks who are of their faith. They are waiting for the games, which will be the day after tomorrow.”

“Aye, they are waiting,” said Sheillil, half to herself. “Harken, Chu’n Yuen, give wine freely to the hillmen when they come. And say nothing to the Yellow Hats concerning my visit. I shall have need of you later—and you will be paid thrice over.”

Chu’n Yuen bowed profoundly. Sheillil guessed shrewdly that he would obey the first part of her instructions, but would not still his wagging tongue concerning her. Which was what she wished. She slipped through the curtains and had unbarred the outer door before the Chinaman realized she was gone.

X

In his cell in the lamasery Dongkor Gelong sat beside a plain wooden table. It was a bare room, fitted with pallet, stools, and a few books on the table, for, although Dongkor Gelong wore the high hat and ornate robe of a Chutuktu Lama, it was his pride to live simply and unostentatiously as when he was a monk.

A candle on the table cast its glint on the prominent forehead of the Tibetan, under which gleamed dark eyes in a white face— the face of an ascetic and a fanatic. He looked up as the door opened and Tuvron Khan entered with a bow. On a sign from his superior the Chubil Khan ushered in Khlit with an attendant of the lamasery and took his stand by the door.

The Cossack declined Dongkor Gelong’s courteous offer of a seat and faced the lama across the table. For a long moment the

two men studied each other, Dongkor Gelong’s long, dark countenance wearing a slight smile, Khlit’s lined face impassive.

“I think, O Kha Khan,” began the lama slowly, “that I can read your thoughts. You are thinking that you have been tricked— brought here among enemies, because you obeyed the instructions of the Tsong Khapa. Yet it is not so. You see you are an honored guest. You still have your sword, which I have heard is one to be prized above many. And it is not the fault of the master of Lhassa that you are alone. He urged that you bring your followers.”

Dongkor Gelong paused as if to hear what the Cossack would answer. But Khlit was silent.

“And you are wondering, perhaps, why the Dalai Lama should send a man of rank like yourself to such a place as Talas. It was no trickery. Nay, it had been our intention to welcome you fittingly at the spot but you traveled with such speed that you were there before us. It was not well to let the news get abroad on the steppe that you had come to Kashgar. So much the Dalai Lama in his wisdom foresaw. And he is ready to make good the words of the oracle.”

“The wisdom of the Dalai Lama is beyond my understanding,” returned Khlit calmly.

Dongkor Gelong bowed assent, although his eyes swept the Cossack’s face keenly.

“It is well spoken, O Kha Khan. You are not a fool like some of those from the steppe. Harken to the plan of the master of Lhassa. There are enemies you fear, who are planning to invade the lands of the Jun-gar. They are the Khirghiz, who are under the leader-ship of two khans, Iskander and Bassanghor. Both are formidable men in their way and, being of the hills, are independent of all authority, even that of the Tsong Khapa.”

“Aye,” said Khlit briefly.

Once again the Chutuktu Lama studied him and nodded as if satisfied.

“Iskander Khan and Bassanghor Khan are here in Kashgar,” he went on slowly. “Without those two the Khirghiz are like a body without a head. They are the ones who planned the war against you. And the Tsong Khapa has noted with grief the injuries inflicted on you. We have made, the ones of the Yellow Hat, an opportunity for you to strike at them, swiftly and fatally, and to escape unharmed.”

“To kill them?”

“Aye, both. It is for that we have brought you here. Harken, Kha Khan. We have given out the word that there will be games on the Kashgar plain in two days. The matter is easily disposed of. Both khans are reckless, and they are proud of their horseman-ship. A dancer, one of the beauties of Samarkand, has come here at our bidding. A favorite game of the Khirghiz is called the Love Chase—a sport where a woman is set loose on a horse among several riders on a plain and falls to the possession of the one who can first secure her. Nay, you can see—”

“Chagan and I,” Khlit broke in, “are among the riders. In the confusion of horsemen we could strike down the khans, saying afterward that it was a brawl. That is what you plan. But afterward—”

“The Khirghiz are few. My followers are numerous; they will surround you and Chagan before the Khirghiz understand what has happened, and you will be safe in the lamasery. Also, the Khirghiz have never seen you. They will not look for you here.”

Khlit nodded. “We will be escorted safely back to the Jun-gar boundary?”

Dongkor Gelong smiled and waved his hand amiably.

“Such is the will of the all-wise Tsong Khapa. There are other leaders of the Khirghiz who can be dealt with as they ride back to the Thian Shan passes. The pick of the hill chieftains are here in Kashgar. Unless I am mistaken, few will survive to carry on the war against the Jun-gar. And the Tsong Khapa will give you further aid through the Yellow Hats—when, of course, you show

your gratitude for his help by continuing the tribute that the Jun-gar owes to Lhassa.”

“And the Khirghiz?”

“The death of their leaders, who are overbearing ruffians with-out goodwill or understanding, will strengthen the tie of the Yellow Hats to their lands. I speak bluntly, for I see you like short and truthful phrases.”

“Aye, it is ill to lie, among true men,” assented Khlit, tugging at his mustache.

Thereupon followed a silence of such length that the attendants of Dongkor Gelong stirred expectantly, watching the Cos-sack. Khlit’s shaggy countenance was inscrutable, until he turned suddenly to Dongkor Gelong and, to their surprise, laughed heartily.

XI

“I have heard your wisdom, Chutuktu Lama,” he grinned; “now you must listen to mine. Nay, I am no shaman or conjuring monk, but I can read what is hidden. I can tell you what is in your thoughts. Would you like to hear?”

“But you have already agreed to the plan of the Tsong Khapa,” frowned Dongkor Gelong.

He studied the tall figure of the Cossack with the cold, blank stare of one who held the lash of fear over a multitude of slaves.

“Aye. That may be,” admitted Khlit. “I have no love for the Khirghiz khans. Eh, I shall tell your thoughts. The Tsong Khapa has lost the control of his priests over the Khirghiz. And the Tatars of the Jun-gar do not love to pay tribute, especially as I—an unbeliever—have taught them the folly of doing so. Is it not so?”

“Obedience to the Tsong Khapa will reward you fully,” objected the lama.

“Aye. The seed of evil will bear fruit. Am I a fledgling, to be fooled by the mummery of Lhassa?” Khlit’s voice sank with a growl.

Dongkor Gelong half-rose in his seat; then he sat back, staring at the Cossack.

“Suppose I slay this Iskander Khan and the other. Then the ill will between the Jun-gar and the Khirghiz will become a blood-feud. Do the hillmen ever forget the shedding of blood? Nay; the horde of the Thian Shan, the Kara Khirghiz, the Kazaks, and some of the Kallmark clans who are allied to them will ride against the Jun-gar steppe and lay waste our villages. Then the wisdom of the Tsong Khapa will be fulfilled, because his enemies will have weakened each other. His cursed Yellow Hats will pour over the hills and the steppe, gaining lands and power where good men have died in a blood-feud. Is this not the truth?”

Dongkor Gelong had mastered his surprise. He held up his hand calmly, although his dark eyes had narrowed.

“Take heed, Kha Khan. The Tsong Khapa, in agreement with the sacred oracle which declared in the ashes of forthcoming truth that the Jun-gar should find salvation at Talas, has laid before you a plan. Do you decline?”

Khlit’s mustache twitched in a smile which held no mirth. “It may be. What if I do?”

“You speak like one without wits.” Dongkor Gelong shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. “Harken, Kha Khan. If you set aside the word of Lhassa, the invisible forces which are at the disposal of the master of the Yellow Hats will claim you. Little you know how strong they are and how weak you are. The Jun-gar know that you came to Talas. It shall be told them how you defied the almighty Tsong Khapa—aye, your very words. And they will hear how your sinful conduct had its reward—for you will fall, by mischance, into the Jallat Kum.”

Khlit shrank back as if in horror. The full force of the lama’s trickery revealed itself to him. Also the emptiness of the pledge given by his master, the Dalai Lama. He knew that Kashgar was filled with the open and disguised followers of the Yellow Hats. He was powerless to escape from the walled city. He shivered in spite of himself, as he thought of the black sands of the Jallat Kum.

Dongkor Gelong surveyed him with a pallid smile. The Cos-sack, he thought, was not altogether to be deceived. But he had been taught a lesson.

“And Iskander Khan?” Khlit asked hoarsely.

“We will deal with him in another way. The girl Sheillil is fair, and she has been well-paid to serve the Dalai Lama. Iskander Khan will be a slave to her beauty.”

Khlit stretched out his hand and saw that it was shivering. His thoughts would not tear themselves from the Jallat Kum. He recalled the unfortunate horse that had blundered into the sands. . .

“Nay,” he complained, “if I slay Iskander Khan, even if I live, there will be a war to the death between his people and mine. Now we may still make peace. It is not too late.”

Dongkor Gelong’s face hardened.

“You have your choice. The will of the Tsong Khapa must be carried out. I am but one of his many servants. And do not think to draw your sword in the lamasery. Even now there are two men within arm’s-reach of your tall body. A move—and you go to the Jallat Kum. Azim has thrown many into the sands.”

The sweat came to Khlit’s forehead. Truly, it was asking greatly of him to face such a death for the Tatars, who, after all, were not of his faith. And, if he did die as Dongkor Gelong threatened, how would the Jun-gar be guarded against further stratagems of the Tsong Khapa?

“Not the Jallat Kum!” he cried and moistened his lips, finding them dry.

“That—or the death of the khans. Choose.”

Then it was that the lama saw what brought the light of satisfaction to his eyes and a hidden sneer to his lips. He saw the lined face of the Cossack quiver as with dread and heard the harsh voice plead brokenly for mercy. Khlit’s shoulders bowed, and he clutched the table for support. His eyes wavered about the room, wide with fear. Then he straightened with an effort at control.

“Nay, I am the Kha Khan of the Jun-gar. The strength of my people is in me. Am Ito die like that, at price of the life of Iskander Khan? Nay, let the Khirghiz die. I will slay him, and Chagan the other, as you have planned.”

Dongkor Gelong rose.

“Think not to fool us. You will be watched by those who have no mercy. You have chosen.”

“Aye,” mumbled Khlit. “I will take my place in the games. But you must have your followers at the place. And the doors of the lamasery must be open for me when I return, for I will ride here at once.”

“It is well,” agreed Dongkor Gelong.

At a sign from him the attendants led Khlit from the room. He walked slowly, as one who had been broken in spirit.

The eyes of the lama followed him from the chamber. Dongkor Gelong frowned, as if not altogether content with himself. Presently he took a small sandalwood box from the bosom of his gown.

Holding the box well above the table, the lama opened it suddenly. A flood of black wood ashes fell softly to the table. With ill-concealed eagerness the man held the candle close to the ashes. With his finger he tried to trace out diagrams in the black piles. His frown deepened. When Tuvron returned at a late hour that night the Chutuktu Lama was still musing over the ashes.

XII

It was the twelfth night of the fifth moon, as related by Batur Madi, gylong, that the tribes assembled in the courtyard of the lamasery at Kashgar. The moon shed its cold light on the summits of the hills overlooking the town, leaving the valley and the river in dense shadow. A deeper shadow revealed the mass of the lamasery, erected against the wall of the town.

Inhospitable it was, this monastery, with its massive walls of sandstone, its narrow gates and small embrasures. And it was symbolic in its gloomy secretiveness of the priests it housed.

Tonight, however, the courtyard was bright. Lanterns hung from the sides of the wide court, and torch-bearers came and went. From the narrow street outside the place a throng of turbaned and cloaked figures elbowed each other with curses in many tongues for entrance at the gate guarded by armed Tibetans.

Dongkor Gelong had so far departed from the custom of the monastery as to invite the guests from the hills to witness dancing. It was the law that no woman should enter the doors of the monastery itself, so the visitors were not surprised that the festival was held in the court, or that the lamas themselves did not put in an appearance. For rumor had it that one of the dancers of Samarkand, a girl from the sultan’s courts, would share in the dance.

These tidings stirred the expectation of the restless Khirghiz. Before the first sound of drums was heard in the street, the hillmen were crowding into the court. With them came richly dressed Jewish merchants of Bokhara, turbaned Usbeks of the town, tousled Dungan camel drivers, and Chinese travelers of the caravans. Among the throng, squatted in rows in the dirt or leaning against the walls, the hillmen made a small minority. Yet, as was their custom, they chose the best places, pushing Usbeks and Tibetans aside, reckless of clutched daggers and black looks.

Khlit and Chagan had selected a place against the monastery wall where they could see without being conspicuous. Apparently they were free to move where they wished, but they suspected that a watch was kept on them from the windows of the lamasery and that any attempt to push through the crowd to the courtyard gate would be prevented.

A space had been cleared in the center of the court, and here there were musicians with drums, tambourines, and guitars. Some boy dancers of the Usbeks stepped into the open space and began their lively posturing, watched attentively by the throng. Khlit, after a brief glance, paid no further heed to these, knowing that the purpose of Dongkor Gelong was to show Sheillil to the

visiting khans, that they could judge of her beauty before the events of the morrow.

Khlit’s keen gaze swept the crowd, seeking for the two khans of the Khirghiz. He turned carelessly to a mild-looking hafiz—a reader of poems—in a threadbare khalat.

“I have heard,” he said idly, lest the other suspect his interest, “that two khans from the hills, Iskander and Bassanghor, are here. Do you know the two, man of wisdom?”

The hafiz inclined his head and pointed to the farther side of the cleared space. Khlit made out two men who knelt in the first row of spectators. Their dark faces, lean and hawk-like, were fixed indifferently on the dancers; apparently they were waiting impatiently for the appearance of the girl. The Cossack noted that they were richly dressed, even for wealthy chieftains, in leather breeches, velvet outer robes embroidered with gold and jewels. Their sheepskin hoods were clasped at the throat with silver plates.

“The one with the scar is Iskander,” declared the hafiz, pointing. “Allah grant that he and his riders take not to plundering. Truly, he is a man without faith, serving this god or that as he chooses, but chiefly himself.”

“He looks like one who is more at ease in the hills than in a town. What does he here?”

The scholar turned his eyes to the moonlit heavens.

“Allah knows what is before and behind such as he. Nay, I have heard the lamas sent for him.”

This agreed with what Khlit had learned from Dongkor Gelong, and he was silent. He saw a flash of eagerness on the face of Iskander Khan. At the same instant a murmur went through the crowd. Those who were in the rear pushed and elbowed for a better view as several figures advanced from the courtyard gate to the cleared space.

“Here is the harlot of the desert,” growled Chagan.

Sheillil, cloaked and escorted by two sturdy Tibetans with drawn scimitars, stepped out beside the musicians. She had

pushed her veil boldly back, and a sigh went through the crowd at sight of her loveliness. Iskander Khan sat back on his heels with an exclamation of satisfaction.

The muttering and cursing of the throng was silenced as the girl slipped forward into the enclosure, dropping her heavy cloak. The torchlight glinted on her long, dark hair and on the red veil which floated behind it. The satin trousers and tiny, jeweled slippers gleamed in a double light, for the moon was now shining into the courtyard over the dark towers of the lamasery.

Khlit had seen many women dancers of the bazaars, and he paid little heed to Sheillil at first. He was surprised to hear the music change from its shrill whimper to a low monotone of drums, threaded by the soft note of the flutes. Then he saw the hafiz standing motionless, pushing against the man in front of him.

“Look, lord,” grunted Chagan. “Here is no woman, but a spirit.”

Sheillil had grasped her floating veil in both hands. The drapery billowed about her as she moved softly, whirling the veil close to her or holding it wide as her slim form bent and swayed. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, the moonlight gleamed whitely on bare throat and dainty feet.

This was no dance of the bazaars. It was freer in movement, more subtle in its intoxication. Khlit saw that the hillmen were bending forward, scarcely breathing as they watched.

The plaintive note of the flutes grew louder as the veil leaped and tossed about the girl’s form. Her eyes were wide and calm, fixed on the sky. Her smile had become fainter, almost wistful.

Then a hoarse mutter of approval ran through the watchers. Two daggers appeared in Sheillil’s hands. As she swayed, the twin blades glittered up and down her breast and about her head. Darting swiftly from man to man, Sheillil poised like a bird in flight. Before one she thrust the daggers, laughing as the man drew back, startled. To another she offered her lips swiftly—then slipped away with a glint of a dagger before the bearded face that leaned toward her.

Abruptly she whirled before Iskander Khan. The Khirghiz did not flinch at the knife that passed around his head. His slant eyes, half-closed, were fixed hungrily on the dancer, and his dark face was flushed. As she darted away, he tore the jeweled clasp from his throat and tossed it after her.

As quickly as the dance had begun, it was ended. Sheillil had disappeared among the Tibetan attendants and donned her cloak. The kneeling hillmen rose to their feet clamorously. But the drawn swords of the guards held them back. The dancer turned to make her way through the crowd.

“It is strange,” murmured the hafiz, half to himself. “That was not like a dance of a sultan’s woman. I have not seen the like in the towns. Yet it stirred the hillmen to the hazzi shaitan—the passion-spot in the heart. See; she is coming here!”

He stepped back as the girl tripped by, followed by her guards. She paused before Khlit mockingly.

“Here is a graybeard of the steppe!” she cried shrilly. “I like not such as he. Where is your felt tent and mangy pony? By Allah, the man has no wit to his tongue!”

“He has no words for a harlot,” growled Chagan, on whom the events of the morrow weighed heavily and who had no fondness for the dancer whom he held responsible for their evil plight.

Sheillil did not understand or notice the speech. She touched Khlit’s sword and peered into his face laughingly.

“Eh, it is a clown. Harken, Graybeard, if you will ride in the kök bura tomorrow, take care to sharpen that curved sword you wear. Many younger men will ride with me tomorrow. If you would guard your life, have the curved sword sharpened by Chu’n Yuen, the armorer of Kashgar. Aye, Chu’n Yuen will quicken your blood with wine in the morning.”

She smiled in the Cossack’s face, so close that he caught the subtle scent of roses that came from her garments.

“And will tell you of the Jun-gar,” she added so softly that even Chagan, who was beside them, did not hear.

With that she was gone in the crowd.

The hafiz looked after her with a sigh.

“There will be good sport at the kök bura,” he murmured. “Chu’n Yuen, who hears the whispers of Kashgar, swears that the girl Sheillil was born in the hills, where she learned to ride like a goshawk upon the wind. It will take a shrewd horseman to catch her and hold her. Allah the generous has ordained that I should be too poor to buy a horse. Yet it is well, for I have a thought there will be shedding of blood. The woman is fair-faced and shapely.”

“Aye, there will be blood, hafiz,” growled Chagan.

Khlit made no answer. In his mind was running the phrase the girl had whispered. “And will tell you of the Jun-gar.” What did Chu’n Yuen, or Sheillil, know of the Tatars? Had she news? Again he asked himself the question that had perplexed him since the day at Talas.

Who was Sheillil? What was her part in the web of intrigue woven by the lamas at Kashgar? Dongkor Gelong had said that he had bought her. If not the lama, what master did she serve?

XIII

Is there aught that goes faster than a loose-reined horse on the plains? Or a well-sped arrow from the bow?

Aye; it is the dark hand of death. Tatar proverb

Khlit had discovered that, so long as he kept to himself and in view of the attendants of the monastery, he was free to go where he chose. He had not seen Dongkor Gelong or Tuvron again. On the morning after Sheillil’s dance Chagan slept late. Khlit, how-ever, had little rest, and he was glad to leave the gloomy pile of the lamasery, with its robed attendants, for the courtyard.

He had learned that Chu’n Yuen’s shop lay in an alley on one of the streets opening into the neighborhood of the monastery. He decided to venture there, for he was curious to learn what Sheillil had meant by her whispered speech.

Sauntering across the courtyard, he approached the guards at the gate. The spearmen glanced at him keenly, but offered no op-

position when he walked through the gate into the street without. He saw, however, that two men—a Tibetan soldier and a Chubil Khan—who were loitering in the arena walked after him.

Khlit made no haste. He was aware that it would be useless to attempt to escape from his new guardians. Kashgar was walled and guarded. The men of the Yellow Hat in various garb were scattered through the streets. Should a cry be raised after him, he could not go far without being cornered.

He turned down the alley where he knew the armorer’s shop was located. The heavy door of Chu’n Yuen stood open. Chu’n Yuen himself was ordering his slaves about shrilly as they served wine to the drunken Khirghiz who lay thick on the floor of the room and the outer shop. At sight of the Cossack, the proprietor halted and approached him respectfully.

“How can I serve you, noble sir?” Chu’n Yuen murmured. “Would the honorable khan, who condescends to dignify my shop with his presence, desire to see some rare scimitars newly brought from Damascus? Or to have his own blade sharpened to an edge that will sever a floating feather?”

Khlit’s sidelong glance told him that the Tibetan soldier had followed him into the outer room. The Chubil Khan, being reluctant to enter a wine shop, had remained in the street, he guessed. He drew his curved saber and balanced the blade in one hand. Chu’n Yuen stared at the rich chasing of the steel and the delicately wrought inscription with professional interest.

“Nay, am I a drunken fool like such—” Khlit kicked one of the insensible forms on the floor contemptuously—“to give up my sword to another? Fetch me a steel, and I will temper the edge to suit myself.”

Chu’n Yuen bowed politely.

“It shall be as you wish, noble sir. In the room within a good couch and a cup of wine await you. If you will follow—”

He disappeared through the hangings. Khlit strode after with-out hesitation, but keeping the weapon poised in his hand. The Chinaman passed through the wine shop, heavy with the stench

of tobacco and stale wine, to the women’s court in the rear of his establishment. Here a few female slaves were stretched out asleep on benches.

Chu’n Yuen opened a small door and led his visitor through the courtyard wall. Khlit saw that they were in a walled garden, shaded by poplars under which rugs were placed. It was empty except for themselves and the Tibetan, who had followed closely and was now squatted by the gate.

Khlit seated himself on a rug that the shopkeeper arranged for him, his back to a tree trunk. He liked the aspect of the place little, or that of Chu’n Yuen, who bustled back into the shop with a glance at the Tibetan. The latter was in the shadow of the wall, apparently drowsing. Khlit wondered if it had been Sheillil’s wish that he should give up his weapon. One place was as good as another, however, to the Cossack who was carefully watched by the men of the Yellow Hat.

Chu’n Yuen did not return. Presently the gate opened, and a figure that Khlit recognized immediately as Sheillil entered. The Cossack had half-expected to see the girl, and he did not look up a second time as the dancer knelt beside him and offered him a bowl of wine, laying at the same time a whetstone at his knees.

Sheillil was veiled. She had changed her dancing costume for a fur-tipped khalat, boots, and a sheepskin hood. In the shadow of the hood her dark eyes peered up at the Cossack. Khlit had taken up the whetstone and was gently stroking the blade of the weapon across his knees.

“Have you news of the Jun-gar?” he asked finally, without looking up.

“Nay; how should I know aught of the Tatars?” the girl laughed softly, pleased at the involuntary disappointment she saw in the old chieftain’s face.

Khlit did not speak again, which irked her.

“Do you put faith in the word of a woman?” she mocked, watching him brightly. “Or have you come to ask aid of a slave dancer, hired to the wiles of the Tsong Khapa and his crafty ser?

vant, Dongkor Gelong? Truly, the men of the Yellow Hats have stripped your strength from you, O Kha Khan, and hold you prisoner like a trussed boar. I have heard how you pleaded for mercy from Dongkor Gelong—you have not lost your voice.”

The veins stood out on Khlit’s forehead, and the hand holding the sword trembled. Seeing this, Sheillil smiled, well pleased.

“The Tsong Khapa has a servant to attend you.” She nodded at the Tibetan by the gate. “But the fellow speaks not Uigur; so we are free to talk together, you and I. Oh, they know at the lamasery that I am here, but Dongkor Gelong has agreed that I should see you—to arrange for what is to happen this noon. I am free to come and go as I choose.”

She dropped her chin into her hands idly, watching Khlit’s stroking of the sword.

“I shall have many suitors to ride after me today at the kök bura,” she murmured, “for I am more beautiful than the flowers of the hills. Iskander Khan has sworn he will have me. He is a bold fellow. There will be scimitars drawn and blows struck. Dongkor Gelong has whispered to me that Iskander Khan will fall by your sword—from behind. Others, too, will die. It will be good sport. Have you truly sworn to kill the Khirghiz, O one without honor?”

The taunting words brought a grunt of anger from Khlit. The sword in his hand flew up. The edge of the blade drew swiftly across Sheillil’s throat, pressing in the veil that hung from her cheeks.

The girl’s eyes widened suddenly. Then she laughed musically. The veil hung by a few threads. It had been nearly severed in two under her chin. But there was not so much as a speck of blood on her throat to show where the curved sword had kissed the light veil. It had been a bold feat, by one who wielded a sword as deftly as Sheillil had whirled her tiny daggers in the dance of the night before.

Khlit was staring at her now, from deep-set eyes in which burned a sullen fire. She leaned closer to him, and the expression of her brown eyes changed.

“A shrewd blow!” she said softly. “But, if you slay the Khirghiz, it will be a curse upon your people, for there will be black war between the men from the Roof of the World and the Jun-gar. It will be the end of the power of the khans, Khirghiz and Jun-gar. The evil priesthood of the Yellow Hats will seize the citadels of the hills when the war has wasted the ranks of both sides. Oh, Dongkor Gelong is a man to be feared. He is reaching out from Kashgar for the mastery of the passes to the Roof of the World.”

Khlit studied the girl attentively. Accustomed as he was to the moods of the dancer, he found that a new note had come into her voice. Her breath was quickened under the khalat.

“Fool,” she said bitterly. “Do you think Dongkor Gelong will spare you when you have done what he desires? Your death is as needful as that of the bold Khirghiz.”

“He has promised,” responded Khlit gruffly, “that the gates of the lamasery shall be opened for me when I flee from the field of games.”

Sheillil clasped the sleeve of the Cossack’s coat.

“Men said that Khlit of the Curved Saber was crafty and wise in war. Have your wits fled? Are you stricken with fear of the Jallat Kum? Has Dongkor Gelong clouded your spirit so you cannot see that the stroke that slays Iskander Khan will be the end of your people and mine?”

Khlit sheathed his weapon and took the girl’s chin in a hand, lean but still powerful.

“Who are your people, Sheillil?” he asked.

XIV

The girl did not draw back, nor did her eyes waver. She pointed behind Khlit, upward. The Cossack, however, did not shift his gaze.

“Yonder, above the walls of Kashgar,” Sheillil whispered, “are the hills of the Roof of the World. There are my people, although I have not lived among them since I was a child.”

“Your face is not that of a Khirghiz,” growled Khlit.

“Nay; that is true.” Sheillil paused briefly. “I have heard that my people once lived in a city at the threshold of the hills. It was the city of Talas and my father’s ancestors worshiped in the mosque of Talas. Came the sand, and they took refuge in the higher land of their kingdom, called by some the Thian Shan and by us the Roof of the World. From time to time those who were strongest in faith made pilgrimages to the mosque of Talas, which was a holy spot, beloved of Allah. Now that the blight of the Tsong Khapa has reached up into the hills and taken the Jallat Kum for a burial-ground, few go there. Nevertheless, when Dongkor Gelong confided his plan to me before he went to the Jun-gar, I went to Talas to await your coming. I wished to see if you were a weakling, who would fall prey to the lama, or a strong man. When Tuvron came, I pretended to be well pleased with your plight, so that he should not suspect.”

“And then?”

“Before I was a woman,” went on Sheillil softly, “a raiding party of Usbeks, servants of the Tsong Khapa, carried me into slavery at Samarkand. But I was beautiful, and I did not die, living instead in favor and buying my freedom with gold. Yet I returned not to the hills. For a woman to be the wife of a khan must have honor, and I was a dancer. The day will come when Allah will show his mercy and I may go back.”

Khlit was silent, pondering on what she had said. The ways of women were strange to him, and Sheillil was one of many faces. “What master do you serve?” he growled.

In a flash the girl’s expression changed.

“Has the wind a master? Has the eagle of the mountaintops one whom he obeys? Nay; I follow my own will—”

“Today,” broke in Khlit, “you will be sought by many suitors. Which will you favor?”

Sheillil touched his hand appealingly.

“Iskander Khan,” she whispered. “He is the chieftain of my people. His arms are strong as his sword is quick. Many times have I watched him from a distance in Kashgar. It may be his

heart will be touched with love for Sheillil. Allah may will that he take me to his home—for Dongkor Gelong has promised that my tongue will be slit and I shall be given for the sport of the camel drivers if I fail him.”

“And so you have asked that I harm him not? That would be my death.”

“Nay,” put in the girl. “At Talas you slew a man for me. I have not forgotten. I have arranged with Chu’n Yuen, who is blind as an overfed jackal, a plan by which you and the Tatar can escape. While the kök bura is in full play ride swiftly from the horsemen to the city—the games will be on a plain without—and come to the shop of Chu’n Yuen. Most of the followers of the Yellow Hat will be at the games. Leave your tired horses in the street. Run through the shop of the armorer to this garden. In the corner behind that tree is a gate.”

Sheillil pointed to a barred door, half-concealed by bushes.

“The city wall is within a few paces, outside that gate. Chu’n Yuen is a fox with two doors to his burrow. One of the poplars overhangs the city wall—the largest tree of the group, ripped by lightning. On the farther side of the tree are nails, cleverly placed so that a man may climb to the summit of the wall. In the over-hanging branch is a rope of Chu’n Yuen’s. By this you may drop over the wall. A servant will be waiting there with fresh horses. Ride straight for the hills. You may meet a party of horsemen, but they will be friends. Do this, and you will be safe!”

The brown eyes sought Khlit’s hard face pleadingly. The Cos-sack smiled grimly.

“Many tales have you told me, little sparrow. How do I know that this one is the truth? It has the smell of a trap. And Iskander Khan is my foe—”

“Would I take so much trouble to slay you?” Sheillil demanded. “If Iskander Khan had been so minded, and I had spoken your name to him, you would not leave here alive.”

“Nay, Sheillil,” Khlit shook his head. “Then Dongkor Gelong would have disposed of your lover promptly. This is a city of lies.

Go you with Iskander Khan. The Khirghiz is no weakling; he can guard himself and you.”

“And you?”

Sheillil leaned forward breathlessly. Khlit stretched himself like one awakening from sleep.

“I, Sheillil? Chagan and I will ride from kök bura to the gates of the lamasery. Dongkor Gelong has promised that they will not be closed to us, for he will see to it himself, being kept by the law of his priesthood from attendance at the games.”

With that he rose and left the garden. The Tibetan followed silently, with a glance at Sheillil. The girl knelt with hands clenched against her sides, the veil hiding her features, but her eyes dark with a woman’s anger.

Then she sprang to her feet swiftly and unbarred the door in the bushes. When Chu’n Yuen returned, he found only the empty bowl of wine and the whetstone lying on the rug.

XV

The kök bura of Kashgar in the fifth moon of that year, it is written in the annals of Batur Madi, was long remembered by those who saw it. And the riders told their children what they had seen in the Love Chase of Sheillil of Samarkand. As is usual with those who share in an event, the tale told by them grew until it magnified the number of men killed and the mysterious events which followed upon the ending of the kök bura.

According to Batur Madi, the Love Chase grew from the first form of the kök bura, in which a slain sheep was given to a rider. This man was pursued by his comrades until another had contrived to take the sheep. But, in the Love Chase of the Khirghiz, a girl who had it in her heart to yield to a husband mounted a well-chosen horse and armed herself with a heavy whip. The spectators formed a circle about the girl and her suitors while the men tried to seize her as she eluded them. Thus, says Batur Madi, the strongest man and most skilful became the possessor of the

girl, as was fitting, while those who failed had only the stinging scars of the whiplash to heal their empty hearts.

But the kök bura of the fifth moon was such a one as had not been seen before. And in the annals of Batur Madi such a one is not recorded since that time.

Two things served to draw nearly the whole of the people of Kashgar out to the stretch of plain by the river bank on the side of the city farthest from the mountains. All, in fact, save a few drunken Khirghiz, some slaves and mendicants and Chu’n Yuen, who would not leave his shop, and Dongkor Gelong, who was never seen in public. First, rumor of weighty events that might come to pass had somehow spread among the Khirghiz and Usbeks, who rode fully armed and alert to the spot.

And Sheillil, the beauty of Samarkand and the dancer of the lamasery courtyard, was to be the object of the chase.

It was noted by the hafiz, who was among the first to arrive, that even the Chubil Khans were present, having come in a procession of state from the lamasery, preceded by manshis bearing the sacred pastils and basins wherein were glowing coals and sweet-scented roots. The lamas, mounted on silk-canopied horses and accompanied by the standards of their order, were joined by an array of the Yellow Hat soldiery.

Khlit, who was early upon the scene with Chagan and well mounted by order of Dongkor Gelong, noted that Tuvron, who was in charge of the soldiery, arranged his followers in the form of a three-sided square with the fourth side nearest the city walls. The spectators of the caravans and the townspeople were afoot. But the Tibetans and Usbeks, who were very numerous, were mounted.

Thus the watchers formed a solid wall about a cleared stretch on the plain, perhaps five hundred paces square. The followers of the Khirghiz khans were grouped in a mass on the side of the enclosure farthest from the walls of Kashgar. Iskander Khan, with his companion, Bassanghor, and several other nobles of the hill-men, rode to the center, waiting for the arrival of Sheillil. They

were joined by single riders from among the Usbeks and even a Dungan or two of rank.

Khlit and Chagan were the last to ride out from the crowd. Chagan’s powerful figure drew instant attention from the group of horsemen, who noted his Tatar dress and the ease with which he sat his rangy mount. Khlit was the object of less attention, for he was gray-haired and the manner in which he held himself betokened little interest in what was to happen.

Keenly the contestants eyed each other and the horses. Khlit saw that Iskander Khan rode a small, dun-colored pony of vicious temper, but, as he guessed shrewdly, quick and active on its feet. Bassanghor was well mounted—a mettlesome Persian horse which threaded in and out among the group at the pressure of his rider’s knees, to the delight of the watchers who were keen judges of horseflesh.

Khlit’s mustache twitched in a grim smile as he noted that all the contenders were armed—a fact which prophesied ill for some. Chagan had shaken off the gloom that had possessed him for the last two days and was taunting the Usbek youths in high good humor. Action and the prospect of conflict roused him, and Khlit, who missed nothing, saw that the Khirghiz were equally gay.

A shout went up from the spectators, who saw Sheillil, escorted by Tibetan guards, come through the throng by the walls. The girl wore her costume of the morning, with a heavy, knotted whip in her hand. She rode a white Arabian horse of Dongkor Gelong’s stables, sitting lightly in the small wooden saddle. She went directly to one of the corners of the square, and Tuvron, who was acting as judge, motioned the riders back to the opposite corner.

Here they formed in a line, Khlit taking his place between Chagan and a trembling youth in Dungan garb. Tuvron shouted to the Tibetans. The watchers nearest the riders cried out at them shrilly, a word of praise for the Usbeks and a gibe for the Khirghiz.

Some, however, were silent, for there was a tensity of suppressed excitement in the air.

Abruptly a rumble of drums sounded by Tuvron. Sheillil spurred her horse from her corner of the square. Khlit saw the line of riders dart forward. But he and Chagan held their impatient horses to a trot, keeping on one flank of the horsemen.

Sheillil had reined in her mount and was watching the on-coming group keenly. Whips waving in air, bent low on their saddles, the men were shortening the distance rapidly. As they came within fifty paces of her, Khlit saw the girl crouch and put spurs to her horse’s side. The Arab leaped and was away swiftly, quartering across the course of the approaching men.

So well timed had been Sheillil’s move that the group swept past her almost within arm’s reach. Iskander Khan, however, on his active pony was about on the instant and after her. Khlit called to Chagan and galloped down toward her. He saw Sheillil glance at them fleetingly and urge her mount farther to the side away from them.

The spectators, who had greeted the girl’s maneuver with a shout of approval, were silent for a moment. Then cries rang out. Bassanghor had approached close to Sheillil on the side away from Khlit when an Usbek rider blundered into him. A quick thrust of the shoulder of the Persian horse and the latter was on the ground, rider pinned beneath him. A Dungan coming behind was too close or too clumsy to turn out and fell headlong, lying quietly where he had rolled.

The girl smiled as she saw what had happened. Then another Usbek, angered at the fate of his countryman, rode at Bassanghor. Two swords flashed simultaneously. Bassanghor rode clear, but the other swayed in his saddle and turned his mount toward the spectators, blood streaming from the side of his neck.

The girl, who was watching her pursuers closely, was now near the point from which the men had started, Iskander Khan riding with furious swiftness close behind her, and the Cossack and Tatar holding aloof on her right hand.

Suddenly she swerved to the left, eluding a Khirghiz who grasped at her. This turn brought the riders together as they followed her, and Khlit saw another go down in the crush. The girl circled swiftly around the square, her Arab keeping easily ahead of the others. But, quickly as she maneuvered, Iskander Khan kept his place close to her horse’s tail.

A Dungan, well mounted, drew abreast of the Khirghiz leader. Instantly Iskander Khan had drawn his scimitar. The Dungan swerved away, but too late to save himself a slashed shoulder.

“Ha, lord,” chuckled Chagan, “the blood is beginning to flow, even as I foretold.”

“Keep close to the Khirghiz, fool!” growled the Cossack.

They were now in the lead of the remaining riders, who were watching each other warily with drawn weapons, and close to Iskander Khan. Sheillil threw them a swift glance, dashing the long hair from her flushed face. She was heading now straight for the side of the square nearest the walls, with the riders strung nearly across the field.

XVI

And then for the second time the watchers raised a delighted shout. Verily, this was a chase to be remembered! Seldom had such riding as that of the girl been seen by the men of Kashgar. For Sheillil had dodged once and then again to the other side. She whirled her horse on its haunches and darted back straight through the pursuers.

Iskander Khan cursed and wheeled his pony after her in time to see her lean to the side of her mount, avoiding the clutch of one rider, and strike another heavily in the face with the whip.

There were but four after her now, owing to the slain and injured and the fact that Khlit and Chagan waited, where she had turned, near the town side of the square. The two Khirghiz chieftains, one of their followers and a lone Usbek pressed her close.

“By the winged horse of Kaidu!” swore the sword-bearer. “She rides like one born of the winds. Ho! Yon Khirghiz had a taste of

the whip. See; Iskander Khan has her khalat. Nay—may the devil roast me—she has shed the cloak. They come back to us now.” “Aye,” growled Khlit. “Be ready.”

Sheillil was flying toward them, the two khans and the Usbek after her. Khlit sat his horse silently, watching closely what happened. He saw that the girl was being penned in one of the corners. At the same time he noted that Bassanghor Khan had edged toward the Usbek. Another moment and the Persian horse had crossed the path of the Usbek, who pulled up with an oath. Seeing the Khirghiz’s ready weapon, however, the other drew off.

“Ha! That was well done,” commented Chagan. “Has our time come?”

“Come,” said Khlit.

They wheeled toward the girl, who was near the corner. But Iskander Khan, coming up swiftly, was before them. The Khirghiz rose in his saddle as Sheillil leaned away from him. Then the girl reined in her horse. To Khlit it seemed that it was done purposely. A shout went up as Iskander Khan caught her bodily from the saddle and held her close.

The Khirghiz horsemen spurred toward their chief, for there were angry mutterings from the Usbeks. Then the voice of Tuvron rose above the confusion.

“Fools!” he stormed at his men, pointing. “Look yonder. After them!”

Two riders had broken through the spectators on the city side of the square and were speeding for the walls, bent low on their mounts. Khlit and Chagan, instead of following Iskander Khan, had wheeled through the square and were now nearing the gate of the almost deserted town.

Choosing the moment when the attention of spectators and riders was centered on the end of the kök bura, the Tatars had gained a good start on the horsemen who spurred after them, led by Tuvron in a black rage. Their course took them through the gate, which was unguarded, and straight to the lamasery court-yard.

Here a few servants gaped at them in surprise. As Dongkor Gelong had promised, the door of the monastery was ajar. Khlit and Chagan flung themselves from their horses and ran up the steps.

A half dozen Tibetan spearmen sprang up in the entrance, hearing the footsteps, but drew back on seeing who the two were. They had had orders to expect Khlit and Chagan and to allow them to pass. True, the Tibetans heard a confused shouting in the street outside; yet this also was to be anticipated, for they had been informed that the two Tatars might be pursued. As yet the courtyard wall concealed the pursuers from sight.

From the stairway the two crossed the main hall of the building, to the narrow flight of steps that led to the monks’ cells above. Even Chagan was silent as Khlit paused for a second to listen to the clatter of hoofs in the courtyard. The sword-bearer’s scarred face was tense and recklessly alight. The Cossack was breathing heavily from his run, but his eyes burned with a steady fire. He caught Chagan by the arm.

“Guard the stairs,” he said quickly, “for a space. Then escape— if you can.”

Chagan nodded understanding and drew his sword, the heavy, two-handed weapon that had earned him his surname.

“Nay, lord,” he growled, “we may yet win free of this cursed place. I marked a window that gave on the courtyard wall—”

But Khlit had vanished in the shadows above him. There was a rush of feet across the hall, and a group of the Yellow Hats, following the directions of a startled monk, dashed at the stairs. They drew back at sight of Chagan’s bulk in the dark stairway.

Tuvron’s voice pierced the momentary silence while Tatar and soldiers stared at each other.

“There is but one here!” the Chubil Khan cried shrilly. “Cut him down—”

The men made a rush for the steps. Chagan had taken his stand several feet above the level of the wall. He had the advantage

of being in semidarkness while his foes were exposed to view. Moreover the space was narrow. Two rapid blows of his weapon knocked down the spears that menaced him, and the head of the leading Tibetan, still wearing its bright-hued hat, went spinning among them.

Chagan gave back a step or two shrewdly as they pressed him. His long sword made deadly play in the close mass of assailants whose shorter scimitars sought vainly to pierce his guard.

“Come to the feast, dogs,” growled the Tatar with bared teeth, “the kites are waiting to pick at the eyes of the fallen, and the wolves scent carrion! Nay, this is a feast of the gods!”

He grunted as a spear scraped his leg and another tore the coat from his chest. Heaving his powerful body forward, he lashed viciously at his foes until the mass fell back with dead and torn bodies weighing on their shoulders. Chagan taunted them as he fought, reveling in the press of bodies and the shrieks of pain.

Then he saw that the hall was filled with lamas and their followers, come from the kök bura. Tuvron had vanished, however, and Chagan recalled that this was not the only stairway to the floor above. With a last shout he turned and dashed up the steps.

Through the deserted passages of the monastery he sped, his eyes strained anxiously for sight of Khlit. He met no one until he came to the door of Dongkor Gelong’s cell. Here he halted in his tracks. Through the open door he saw the figure of a guard on the floor. Khlit was calmly wiping the bloodied blade of his sword upon the man’s clothes.

At his table sat Dongkor Gelong, Chutuktu Lama of the Tsong Khapa. He was dressed in state robes. As if asleep, he rested his body and head on the table, both arms outstretched, his forehead pressed among the black wood ashes of divination beside the sandalwood box. A crimson rivulet issued from under his chin and traced its way across the table.

“Dongkor Gelong,” said Khlit grimly, seeing the sword-bearer, “has found that we are men of our word, you and I. The carrion

priest loved too well to see men tremble to know my fear of him was pretended. As we promised, we have come back to the lamasery.”

XVII

The window that Chagan had mentioned was not far from the cell of the dead lama. It was lucky for them that this was so. A passageway leading from the cell enabled them to avoid the followers of Tuvron and gain the gallery which overlooked the courtyard.

As they ran, they heard the rush of footsteps through the corridors of the upper floor as the men of the Yellow Hat spread through the place looking for them. The stairs up which they had come were guarded, as was the lower door. But Chagan, with an eye to future necessity, had seen that the window to which they came was in a sheltered spot and was wide enough to admit the passage of even his bulky frame.

As they reached the window a startled shout proclaimed that the men of the Yellow Hat had found their dead leader. A hasty glance showed Khlit that the courtyard held a great number of horses, but few men, the greater part having pressed into the monastery. There was no time to weigh their chances. It was the courtyard wall or death at the hands of the Yellow Hats behind them.

Clinging to Chagan’s hand, Khlit pushed himself through the aperture and dropped to the surface of the wall beneath them. Chagan followed at once with a leap that almost pitched him headlong to the stone pavement of the court. Their appearance was greeted with a cry by the men below.

Arrows whistled by Khlit as he ran along the flat top of the wall. The Usbeks and Yellow Hats in the courtyard were scrambling to their horses or running for the entrance. But their progress was hindered by the number of horses. Khlit and the Tatar gained the corner of the court before those within could reach the gate, some hundred paces distant.

Khlit noted that the alley leading to Chu’n Yuen’s was opposite them and nearer than the gate of the courtyard. Without slackening his pace, he leaped from the wall, landing heavily but without losing his feet. Chagan, who was heavier, fell to his knees with a grunt, for the wall was twice the height of a man.

Horsemen were issuing from the gate by now and heading down the street toward them. From the embrasures of the monastery pistols cracked. But the alley was near at hand.

Khlit heard Chagan pounding behind him and swearing. And the clatter of hoofs sounded behind the sword-bearer. If the door of the shop should be barred, they were lost. But Sheillil had promised that it would be open.

The Cossack gained the door and thrust it open with his foot. He jerked the panting Tatar inside as spear-points flashed past them with a rush of horses. Slamming the heavy gate shut, he barred it and ran through the shop. Chu’n Yuen was not to be seen.

A few men in the wine shop started to their feet as the two ran through the place and the women’s court. The garden to the rear was deserted.

They found the tree, as Sheillil had promised, and on the other side of the city wall four horses were in waiting, held by a servant. The man disappeared into the bushes as they mounted.

“By Satan’s bones!” swore Chagan. “I am glad to let a horse’s legs do my running for me after that footrace. Whither now, Khlit, lord?”

Khlit led the way at a trot out of the thicket in the direction of the hills which loomed not far away. As they came out in the open, leading the spare horses by their tethers, he pointed to the plain abreast of them.

In a cloud of dust an array of horsemen was headed in their direction at a furious pace. The leaders were Khirghiz, closely pressed by Usbek riders. In the dust he saw scimitars rise and fall and the glint of speeding arrows.

XVIII

In the annals of Batur Madi it is related how swords were drawn at the ending of the kök bura and a battle ensued which lasted until darkness. Around the person of Sheillil, the dancer of Samarkand, says Batur Madi, the Khirghiz and Usbeks fought until the slain hillmen littered the way to the mountains. Following this, the woman disappeared from the towns of Kashgaria, and it was not known whether she was among the slain or not.

Yet this is not the whole truth.

When Sheillil was caught and held by Iskander Khan, the chieftain raised a shout of triumph and would have pressed her hot face to his bearded lips to seal his conquest. But the girl twisted in his grasp until she faced him and thrust her slim hand in his beard, holding him back.

“Fool! Blind of the blind!” she hissed. “See you not this is not your doing, but mine? Harken to me if you would save your life.”

Sheer surprise held the khan silent. Surprise at her words and at hearing his own tongue spoken.

“Bend closer,” whispered Sheillil; “you alone must hear this. Great is your peril, O Khan. Dongkor Gelong has laid a trap for you here. This game was his doing, and an assassin of his was to stab you in the back as you rode after me. Failing that, the Yellow Hats in the square around us will take care that you and your men do not leave the field. It was for this he brought you to Kashgar and had me dance before you. I was to be the bait. This is the truth.”

Slowness of wit was not one of Iskander Khan’s failings. His sharp eyes bored into the girl’s flushed face as if he would strip her of her loveliness and sift the meaning of her words.

“Ha!” he growled. “Dongkor Gelong pledged our safety. Why do you say this?”

“Because I, too, am of the hills, and your people are mine.” The girl tried to shake the sturdy form of the chieftain in her earnestness. “Nay, I could not speak before this, for you would not have left the gates of Kashgar alive. If the man who was to slay

you had approached you, I would have ridden between. Allah has granted me this mercy, to open your eyes to this peril. Summon your men and ride for the hills. Look! See if it is not the truth.”

The khan tore his eyes from the quivering face of the girl and glanced around what had been the square. He beheld Usbeks and Tibetans riding toward them with black looks. Groups of the Yellow Hats under the lamas were circling toward the town. The Chinese and Dungans were fleeing the field, sensing coming trouble. Iskander Khan, still holding the girl, rose in his saddle.

“Ho! Kara Khirghiz!” he bellowed. “Here is treachery. To me, men of the hills. To me!”

Bassanghor’s shout answered him, and the Khirghiz closed their ranks, spurring to the side of their khan. The hillmen had scented conflict, and their dark faces were alight, for they loved well the giving and taking of blows. At Iskander’s rapid command they formed into a group and galloped toward the town, riding down spearmen who tried to oppose them and fleeing townspeople indifferently.

Iskander Khan, from the center of his men, had seen that the Yellow Hats were fewer on this side, and he led his men in a circle of the walls to gain the side nearest the hills where was shelter. But the lamas’ men outnumbered the Khirghiz, keeping pace closely and doing serious execution with their arrows.

Once clear of the town it became a running fight, with the Khirghiz, who were skilled at this form of warfare, making frequent stands to hold off their enemies. Yet their number became rapidly smaller. In their path two horsemen appeared, waiting their coming.

“What men are those, Sheillil?” demanded Iskander Khan.

“They are Tatars, lord,” explained the girl, who had recognized Khlit and Chagan. “They are the ones, tricked by Dongkor Gelong, who were to have slain you or suffer death themselves. Yet they did not attempt it. One is the Cossack, Khlit, the Kha Khan of the Jun-gar. They are one with us in peril.”

“Nay, they will get little but hard blows if they join us. Still, if they carry swords, they are welcome.”

Khlit and Iskander Khan exchanged no greeting when they met, beyond a quick glance, but the Cossack offered the hard-pressed chieftain the two spare horses they led. Sheillil sprang to the back of one, the khan taking the other without slackening pace.

In the book of Batur Madi it is written how the Khirghiz band fought off the men of the Yellow Hats as they rode into the foothills toward the Roof of the World. How they swam a river and held it for a while against the men of the lamas. How Khlit and a dozen Khirghiz blocked a mountain pass while the others rode ahead. And how all but a few of the hillmen fell fighting before darkness closed down on the mountain defiles and the remnant of the Khirghiz vanished into the shadows of the forests.

The moon had risen and turned the snow crests of the Thian Shan into white beacons and the mist in the valleys into a gray veil when the party of Iskander Khan came to a halt wearily. Only two horses were left them, and Iskander Khan counted only nine of his hundred left alive.

Bassanghor Khan was not among the nine.

The Khirghiz chieftain leaned against the horse which Sheillil rode and sheathed his sword.

“By the bones of my grandsire,” he said solemnly, “by the grave of my father and by the faith of a hillman of the Black Khirghiz, I swear an oath. Witness, Tatars. The passes of the hills and the caravan paths shall be closed to the breed of the Yellow Hats. Their enemies will be my friends. I and my men will bring death and dishonor upon Dongkor Gelong and those who have betrayed us and slain Bassanghor Khan.”

Sheillil leaned toward him shyly, yet with a trace of her customary boldness. Her voice was light, in spite of weariness, for Iskander Khan, who was the chieftain of her people, had said that she would be his wife and have honor for the service she had done him at Kashgar.

“It was the plan of Dongkor Gelong,” she said softly, “to make war between the Jun-gar and the Khirghiz. It was for that he summoned Khlit, the Kha Khan, and you to Kashgar. Your safety lies in an alliance. So much I learned in the towns, for men spoke freely before me. Why not have peace between the hillmen and the Tatars?”

Iskander Khan was silent in thought. Then he left Sheillil and went to where Khlit and Chagan were standing a little apart. He held up his hand.

“Treachery has made bad blood between your people and mine, Khlit,” he said bluntly. “But the blood that was shed today has made that as naught. We have fought together, you and I, and my quarrel has been yours. Henceforth, if it is your will, the boundary between our lands shall be inviolate and there will be a welcome for you and the khans of the Jun-gar in my tent. I swear it.”

Khlit nodded. By his tone Iskander Khan did not suspect how much the words he had spoken meant to the Cossack. From the time when the two from the Jun-gar had waited for the Khirghiz outside Kashgar, Khlit had hoped that they could come to an understanding.

“The boundary will be inviolate, Iskander Khan,” he repeated gravely. “And I shall tell the kurultai of the Jun-gar there is peace. I give the pledge for myself and my people.”

He went to his horse and loosened one of the saddlebags on the beast’s back. He took the bulky bag to Iskander Khan.

“Here is a gift,” he observed briefly, “to seal our new peace.”

Chagan watched silently. But as the moonlight faded some hours later and the first tinge of dawn colored the peaks at their backs, a thought came to the sword-bearer, and he turned to Khlit, who was sitting beside him, nursing his sword.

“Ho, lord,” he muttered sleepily, rubbing his sore legs, “it was a good day’s work. But when we ride back to the kurultai how will you explain the oracle of the Dalai Lama that sent you to Talas?”

Khlit laughed like one newly freed from care.

“We will tell the truth, Chagan. Has not the oracle come true? It was the word of the Dalai Lama that we should find aid for the Jun-gar in the fifth moon of the Year of the Ape. Have we not found it?”

As Khlit said, so it proved. Iskander Khan kept his word. Some said this was because of the wisdom of his wife, Sheillil of Samarkand; others, because Khlit had been his companion in battle. But others, who were wise, whispered that it was because Iskander Khan found in the saddlebag Khlit gave him the newly severed head of Dongkor Gelong.