The Eyes of Ya Long

by Harold Lamb

*I.*

It was at the crossroads just below Liang-chowfu, sometimes called the Western Gate, that Alfred McKinnon met the camel-man.

He was standing in the full flare of the midday sun, staring along the sandy track that is the caravan route leading to the plain of the Gobi. McKinnon was and is nearsighted; but he could hear the rusty _tink-tank_ of camel bells sounding from the cloud of dust that moved away from him on the trail and he knew that one of the great trade caravans was departing for Urumtsi in the Celestial Mountains across the desert, or perhaps Khotan.

"Are you sick?" he asked the man, speaking in the Tangut dialect of the western frontier of China.

The camel-man understood. A brief flash of his black eyes showed that. He wore the garb of a Tangut desertman -- sheepskin coat, bandaged legs, brown yak-hide boots and the conical black cap of his race. But he did not wish to answer.

McKinnon had ransacked the valley of Kansu, the western province, in his search for religious and flora and fauna curiosities long enough to cease to be curious. Things out of the usual no longer surprised him. Still, there was something provoking in this sight of a _maa sui_ -- an animal follower -- as undoubtedly a cameleer as the white man was a naturalist, staring after the dust of a caravan to which he must have been attached.

With a shrug he had turned to watch his own cavalcade of pack animals laden with heads of game, pelts, stuffed birds and photographic apparatus as it threaded down from a ravine into the eastward track. Then the camel-man spoke.

"Honorable uncle," he observed -- McKinnon being gray haired, bearded, spectacled and shrunken of figure, was plainly his elder, and so deserving of a respectful title -- "do you follow the way of Ya Long?"

"Yes, I am going there."

The camel-man considered this impassively, and nodded.

"May I walk in your shadow?"

"Company upon the road is always desirable, my nephew."

It was not always. Experience of many years had taught the white man that the Tanguts were lawless, prone to excitement, and, unlike the Chinese of the villages, apt to use their weapons readily. The camel-man, however, was unarmed and he was young.

He was a sinewy figure, poised on powerful legs. He stood with the assurance of strength and the calm of one who knew how to husband that strength. His broad, Mongol face was fearless and the eyes were not slanted as much as in the Tatar type.

McKinnon understand the Tangut men. They follow the paths of the long, white mountains on their shaggy ponies, hunted or hired themselves out as cameleers. Probably the father and the grandfather of this man had walked beside the caravans, to the dry cough of the beasts and the sound of bells, until their eyes had narrowed to slits under the Gobi sun and their heads had bent forward between their boney shoulders. They had crawled at nightfall into their sheepskin robes while the drowsy Mohammedan Kirghiz prayed or the gray, western lamas rattled their hand prayer wheels. They knew the bit of frost that dropped from the vast summits above them, and the never-ending toil of the road. Also the secret of tracing the desert paths by the bleached bones of dead beasts of burden.

"What is you name?" he asked.

The camel-man walked beside McKinnon's pony, oblivious of the other coolies, who betrayed all the clanlike disgust of a flock of sheep joined by a vagabond goat or even a wayward jackal. He was quite respectful, but life had fastened upon him a shell of silence.

His name was Chagan. He had not accompanied the trade caravan because he did not wish to. Instead, he was going to a village, a temple village in the Kansu hills. Why?

Tales of the beauties and mysteries of Ya Long, the village of the Sleeping Heron and of the Temple of the Five Virtues had come to his ears. So, he was bound for Ya Long.

"After all, Chagan," mused McKinnon wisely to himself, "you are just a boy curious after new sights."

That night he offered Chagan the usual privilege of food from his own supper. The Tangut declined abruptly, as he did everything, and made the Chinese headman give him some mutton and rice from the coolies' mess. McKinnon's respect for the camel-man rose higher. He knew that headman.

He observed that Chagan left the fire to make a bed of his sheepskin in the declivity of a nearby watercourse.

Late the next day they came to an itinerant astrologer seated by a rickety bridge over a gorge. This individual, scenting a rare windfall, announced:

"Go to Ya Long, excellency, to Ya Long the beautiful, Ya Long of good omen. Auspicious are the hills of Ya Long, honorable elder."

McKinnon dropped a copper coin on the mat, and the spectacled beggar kowtowed abjectly as he caught the chink of silver in the white man's pocket, casting at the same time a vindictive glance at Chagan, who was watching him mildly. Since the early ages of man the village-dwelling Chinese and the plains-dwelling Tanguts have been enemies.

"Is there a temple?" asked Chagan.

The astrologer spat.

"Not for such as reek of camels."

At this Chagan turned to McKinnon. "Go not to Ya Long, my uncle," he warned.

Now to McKinnon, who also had heard tales of Ya Long, this Temple of the Five Virtues was a matter of some professional interest. It was not a temple of the Buddhists of the orthodox sect; not one devoted to the Tsong Khapa, of Tibet. Sometimes, it was called the place of the Black Hats -- as distinguished from the Yellow Hats of Lassa -- and at other times, the abode of Bon.

The monasteries of the bonpas, the priests of Bon, were few and still fewer had had their interiors photographed, owing to the animal-like treachery of the black hats. McKinnon, after assaying the stories of his Kansu bearers for the problematic grain of truth, had concluded that the deity of Ya Long with its multitudinous arms and spirit wives had never been photographed. As a divinity of the devil-worshiping bonpas it would be worth a film or two.

The desertman pointed to where the road twisted around the shoulder of a hill, deep in the shadow of the cool gorge.

"Always, honorable uncle," he said, "the road turns and never do the mountains turn."

"Most true," assented McKinnon. "Likewise, the evil spirits that live upon hilltops can not go around corners." Experience had taught him to match proverb with proverb as well as any native wiseacre. "Have you no fear of the evil spirits of Ya Long?"

Now superstition is the core of a Chinaman's mentality. He will not marry unless the astrologers predict a favorable time; nor will his children permit him to be buried until -- sometimes months later -- the omens are right.

Chagan did not look up. His black eyes glowed as if at a curious inward thought, and he glanced casually at a muscular hand. Then he laughed.

McKinnon took out his notebook and neatly sharpened pencil. He wrote down, from habit: "Some Tanguts exhibit unusual freedom of thought; their courage is more active than the passive endurance of the Chinese; they are not hidebound, and in an emergency they may be expected to act as they see fir. They are born bandits and fighters, of course, which is probably a result of hereditary environment and their life on the barren steppe."

The soft haze of evening fell upon the hills, and the outlines of the trees became blurred. Presently a curious booming sound reached the ears of the white man. It was not the note of stone temple drums. But McKinnon knew the sound of the giant horn trumpets of the western monasteries.

He saw that the coolies stared at Chagan vindictively.

The Tangut seemed indifferent. Nor did he betray any interest when they rounded the hill and saw the vague shapes of sunset clouds etched in the purple of the lake of the Sleeping Heron, below the village. They saw the thatched roofs of the village perched on the steep mountainside, and above them the pagoda rood of the temple poised in midair like some somniferous stone giant watching its brood.

Behind them on the bridge the astrologer-beggar gathered up his mat and laughed to himself as at something very mirth-provoking in the vista of dust raised by the trotting animals. Then, folding his mat and tossing it into the bushes, he ran to the path that led up to the temple of Ya Long. At the entrance to the shrine he paused, veiling his eyes.

"T'ien Tao-ling!" he called. "Great T'ien Tao-ling -- I have news. The barbarian for whom we waited, and in whose ears my men have whispered tales, has come at last to Ya Long."

* * * *

*II.*

McKinnon's headman, being an individual of loud and persuasive tongue, had secured the cleanest corner of the inn for his patron, whom he announced as the All-Wise Barbarian Physician and Distinguished Official of Benevolent Aspect.

Outside, the red glow of a fire shone upon a ring of faces. Sparks swept up against the panoply of stars, spread over the dark outlines of the hills. In the corners of the inn yard animals slept, heedless of the dew.

McKinnon recognized Chagan and his own followers among the figures that squatted by the fire; also many men, sloe-eyed and full fed who wore silk in spite of apparent poverty. Some nodded sleepily, others looked from their neighbors' faces back into he glowing wood. One lounged by the wide gateway of the courtyard that gave upon the highroad passing through the village of Ya Long. Dice rattled somewhere in a bowl, and from the inn came the strident cry of a one-stringed instrument.

This after-dinner scene was quite familiar to McKinnon. What attracted his attention was a palanquin that had halted upon the road opposite the gate. Two barefoot bearers, each with a paper lantern, had chosen this spot to rest their load on the earth. Their gray robes and hair knotted in a curious fashion identified them as temple attendants; also their pinched, sullen faces were those of the bestial followers of Bon.

So McKinnon strolled out, to ask questions. He knew that every pair of eyes in the group by the fire followed him. He was a trifle surprised that a crowd did not collect wherever he went. A barbarian visitor to Ya Long must be an epoch-making event. But the men of Ya Long had garbed themselves in an indefinable air of secrecy.

Someone rose from the fire and followed him. Seeing that it was Chagan, McKinnon went on. He knew that only officials, and certain of the higher priesthood, were entitled to own sedans. So he asked the bearers the title of the person in the palanquin. They did not answer.

But at his voice the curtain of the lacquered box was drawn back slightly. He could make out a delicate head and dark eyes peering at him.

Surprised that it should be a woman, McKinnon stepped back. But Chagan's curiosity had been aroused. Taking the lantern from one shaft, he held it to the palanquin shutters and drew the curtain. Whereupon the two attendants muttered angrily.

Chagan stood as if turned to stone, the muscles in his powerful body tense.

McKinnon surveye4d the face that looked out at them -- fragile, startlingly white with crimson cheeks and tiny mouth. The latter was like a cherry blossom. The brows over the slant eyes were sharply black. The naturalist reflected that charcoal had traced the outline of the brows, and that alabaster paint overlaid with red had tinged the cheeks.

It was the eyes, however, that held his gaze, mild as dark flowers, vagrant as a spring breeze. Their long lashes fluttered and fell. Chagan drew a deep breath.

Experience whispered to the naturalist that it would not be wise -- such is the Chinese fear of the evil eye -- for him to address a child of Ya Long. And the woman in the sedan was not more than a child; frightened, at that. Interest prompted him to inquire why she rode in the palanquin of an official. He compromised by taking off his spectacles before speaking.

"This is the chair of T'ien Tao-ling, the about of the temple," a low voice answered him. "I am his servant, Min Tsi."

"Hardly that," though the white man, "or you wouldn't be in the ceremonial chair. But that's none of my affair."

Chagan was staring at the vision of the woman's face. Probably he had never seen a fair woman before -- certainly not one made up with all the arts of charcoal pencil and brush.

"You are from the Temple of the Five Virtues," observed McKinnon, blinking nearsighted eyes. "Will you bear to the abbot of venerated sanctity this message: a traveling physician begs the privilege of a visit to the temple?"

Min Tsi looked up with childlike interest.

"Are you truly the Distinguished Demon of Benevolent Aspect?"

McKinnon grinned under his mustache, thankful, however, that the spellbinding work of his headman had at least cleared him of the suspicion of the evil eye. The word "demon," he reflected, had been used as naturally as he himself would have said "doctor" or "clergyman."

"Say to the abbot, your master," he instructed, "that I have a memorandum written by the thrice-happy governor of Kansu, to show to him."

Min Tsi ducked her dark head in embarrassed acknowledgment. Then her eyes met those of the boy. They held for a long second, and the eyes of the girl glowed -- so thought McKinnon -- like flecks of amber.

She began to speak quickly, anxiously, like a youthful student repeating a nearly forgotten lesson. Her voice, to Chagan, was like the murmur of fallen leaves moving over the sand. The spell of it fastened upon the keen senses of the Tangut and his pulses throbbed.

A faint odor of jasmine and -- perhaps -- of poppies emanated from the palanquin. McKinnon listened curiously, fancying that he caught a light hiss that accompanied the girl's voice.

"O _kha rakcha_, barbarian devil, wanderer in the western plain, you have come to Ya Long and its shrine. With your slave, the _ki-li-ti-ki_ the tent dweller and the desertman, you have come to the Five Virtues which is the abode of Bon -- of Bon the destroyer who has breathed upon blood and who is worshipped -- "

As if to make certain her words or to listen to something else, Min Tsi broke off, continuing with more assurance but in the same parrotlike tone:

" -- who is worshiped by death. Come to the shrine of Bon and you will see the god. Through my mouth the _chutuktu_, the abbot of the lamasery bids you come. He alone has the right to enter the shrine; only accompanied by him may others enter."

McKinnon gnawed at his mustache. Chagan's eyes probed the interiors of the palanquin, and narrowed. Other eyes watched the two, sidewise, from the fire in the courtyard.

"Ya Long, in the hills is sacred. Here sits Bon. It is a place of mystery."

Chagan reached out a scarred hand slowly, as if to touch the white hand of Min Tsi. At this she drew back and the curtain fell into place. The bearers caught up the poles and trudged forward.

"Very nicely done," mediated McKinnon. "She had her lesson by heart. But why did she try to rigmarole on me, of her own accord?"

He glanced at Chagan, putting on his spectacles. The Tangut was staring after the palanquin intently, his dark eyes flickering in the fading light of the lanterns. He touched the naturalist on the arm.

"Who was the man in the chair honorable uncle? You, who are all-wise, should know. There was a man sitting in the shadow beside Min Tsi."

McKinnon rubbed his stubby chin reflectively.

"I saw no one, nephew."

"My eyes are quick in the dark. I saw."

"Hmm." The white man meditated, remembering the hissing sound that had accompanied the girl's voice. "Perhaps the abbot, T'ien Tao-ling, was in his chair."

Returning to his corner of the inn, he left Chagan seated by the fire. The desertman squatted on his quilt, gazing into the embers. The image of Min Tsi stayed in the mind's vision of the boy, and the thought of her was like scented wine in his body.

Behind his screening wall of canvas that divided him from the other occupants of the inn McKinnon sat in his camp chair beside a candle lantern and meditated, stroking his bald forehead, for the night -- in midsummer -- was warm.

Outside the caravan, voices shrilled and a dog yelped mournfully. The rattle of dice ran on. Footsteps padded from courtyard to inn and occasionally a pony or donkey moved restlessly. Long familiar with such sounds and with the habit of the Chinese of going without sleep, McKinnon glanced over his notebook and his treasured heap of specimen boxes carefully assembled near his cot. These boxes with their accompanying notes and photographs represented the labors of six or seven years, now nearly complete.

The pencil of the naturalist hovered over a blank page.

"Just why did T'ien Tao-ling want to look me over?" he wondered. "Of course that was why the _chutuktu_ came here with the girl. It seems that Ya Long hides its curiosity under a bushel basket. Chagan was certainly taken with Min Tsi's getup, which looked to me much like a courtesan's -- "

He frowned momentarily over this, and then smiled, reflecting that one thing the girl said, at least, had been true. T'ien Tao-ling _had_ welcomed him to Ya Long through the mouth of a child.

So McKinnon, the unimaginative naturalist, instead of writing down details of skull measurements, or tribal characteristics or Latin names of ferns, grass flowers or curious, stunted trees, jotted on the blank page the following idle thought in very neat handwriting:

"Time? What is time but he passage of events? And by this measure; there is not time in Ya Long. Kansu itself is only the ancient kingdom of Shule, and before that, Kansu was the kingdom of Pa. When you enter Ya Long, you step into the abyss of the past. Yes, it's a funny sensation."

* * * *

*III.*

It was noon next day when McKinnon left off measuring the dimensions of a fine _ovis poli_ head, took up his camera and went to the lamasery. Chagan fell in behind him as the naturalist climbed the winding road to the mountain shrine. They passed many _gylongs_ -- disciples -- in gray woolen robes on the way and also some women.

Their coming was expected, for T'ien Tao-ling himself met them at the portal of the covered way that ran from lamasery to the stone shrine built into the cliff. The abbot was a very tall man, with pocked face and beadlike eyes deep-sunk in his head under the black hat. Although his name was Chinese, his thin features were Tibetan. He received McKinnon's visiting card -- presented in accordance with the best official etiquette -- indifferently.

The memorandum, which was really an elaborate passport, T'ien Tao-ling accepted with gravity and scanned, holding it carefully upside down the while. His sharp eyes did not lose the opportunity of scrutinizing McKinnon, when the naturalist was not looking at him.

To McKinnon's suggestion that they visit the shrine, he offered no objection. Only he hinted at a present. The naturalist was prepared, and tendered several ounces of silver. These the abbot of the Five Virtues readily thrust into the wide sleeves of his robe, while his black eyes snapped avariciously.

Contrary to general belief among Europeans and readers of fiction who have not entered the borders of the Celestial Kingdom, it is not difficult to enter any Buddhist shrine -- as long as no local superstition is violated, and the barbarian visitor has a sufficient fee in hand.

McKinnon scrutinized with nearsighted eyes the stone figure of Bon, hideous and black with age. It stood under a round opening in the roof, against the wall of the cliff, and the light was bad. The god itself was grotesques in aspect, with several pairs of arms clasped about a miniature woman -- a symbol of erotic worship, soulless and cruel as the mind of an evil man. And this was the symbol that had shaped the mind of the priests. Tawdry curtains that might once have been cloth-of-gold hung behind it, and various figures of lesser demons occupied niches in the cliff wall -- each grinning and ugly as their parent, Bon.

When McKinnon unshipped his camera, however, T'ien Tao-ling became restless. And to the request of the zealous scientist that he stand beside the image of the god, he returned a surly negative.

McKinnon's precise mind desired a human figure in the photograph, to establish the relative size of Bon, the Destroyer. He preferred the abbot, in his robe, of course, to Chagan who was not in character with the setting. But when he reconciled himself to the Tangut and looked around for him, Chagan had disappeared. Only a moment before he had stood behind McKinnon.

"Where is the desertman?" he asked.

"I do not know." T'ien Tao-ling seemed ill-pleased. McKinnon had no means of knowing whether he lied or not.

"You need not be afraid to stand beside the shrine," he pointed out, fingering his camera reluctantly. He had journeyed a week to take the photograph.

"There is an eye in the box," evaded T'ien Tao-ling.

McKinnon sighed, realizing that he was confronted with an old superstition. He would have attempted a time exposure of the god alone, but here T'ien Tao-ling intervened.

"O One of Benevolent Aspect," he objected, "you have seen the shrine. It is enough."

"I want to make a picture of it."

The abbot gnawed his thin lip, glancing sidewise at his visitor.

"The come tomorrow," he announced, apparently anxious all at once to end the interview. McKinnon wondered whether greed for more silver, or mere superstition connected with the eye in the box belonging to the barbarian had impelled his suggestion. Hoping for better light and better results on the morrow, he left the abode of Bon.

At once T'ien Tao-ling hurried into the passage leading to the lamasery, his slippered feet moving silently over the stone floor. Through the portal leading into the main hall where the massive stone prayer-wheel stood he passed and up the steps that ran into the labyrinth corridors of the monastery. He entered his own cell, which was empty.

Scarcely pausing, the master of he lamasery drew back the curtains dividing his cell from another chamber, more richly furnished in teakwood and ebony, where incense made the air pungent. Here Min Tsi lay passively on a wall settee, watching him.

Satisfied, T'ien Tao-ling let the curtain fall, at a voice from the outer corridor. Two temple attendants ushered a reluctant Chinaman into the cell of the abbot.

T'ien Tao-ling shook his sleeve, dismissing the two.

"See that the Tangut dog is not within the lamasery," he ordered. "He has wandered from the shrine."

Then he seated himself on an ebony stool, eyeing his visitor in silence for a long time. "You are the headman of the barbarian," he observed, in his sibilant voice. "And you will answer a few questions it is my wish to ask. Is your master a friend of the governor of Kansu?"

Now the headman was an individual of quick wits -- wits confused, however, by excitement. He knew that if harm had been meant, he would not have been brought openly to the lamasery. The bonpas were only furtive in their cruelty and oppression.

"He is honored by the governor, worthy _chutuktu_."

"That is well. Is not a wise man deserving of honor? But the barbarian physician is old. Soon, because of ripe years, he must die. What will then become of his wisdom?"

The headman pondered this, and although he suspected a meaning behind the words of the abbot, he found it not.

"The one of Benevolent Aspect has provided for this," he answered. "If he should die the wisdom that he has stored in boxes and written upon paper will be carried by me and the coolies to the governor, who will send it across the great ocean -- "

"Doubtless such an eminent man must carry much wealth."

"That is true, worthy _chutuktu_." The headman saw a chance to boast and thereby increase his own importance. "He has whole boxes of silver _sycees_ and pounds of _taels_ that weigh down two or three bearers."

Now in saying this the headman lied greatly, after his kind. For McKinnon had most of his funds in drafts on local officials. But the eye of the abbot glistened.

"Did the barbarian order this wealth to be carried to his excellency, the governor?"

"Not so. In his mind the boxes of bugs and dried flowers are of greater wealth. He did not speak of the silver and the _taels_."

The abbot of the bonpas stroked his shaven forehead with a clawlike hand. The brains in that forehead were crafty beyond telling, and they were a prey to the demon of lust -- for gold.

"I have heard," he muttered, "that it is the custom of these barbarians to carry always a short gun in their pockets -- on with many bullets."

"No, my master is a man of peace. He has only the long guns, to shoot game."

The abbot nodded after the manner of a man who has satisfied himself concerning many doubtful points. He shook his sleeve, dismissing the coolie with the remark that silence is a virtue in a servant, especially silence as to conversation in the lamasery. He did not fear that the headman would repeat what he had heard, so long as he was within the limits of Ya Long, where the bonpas were absolute masters.

When the man had gone, he called in a low voice, "Min Tsi -- Min Tsi!"

The girl appeared between the curtains and T'ien Toa-ling scanned her shrewdly, his pale eyes emotionless as those of a basilisk. Those eyes could read the face of the child like a page from an open book.

"So," he murmured, "you have seen the desertman who came to your chamber not long ago. You talked to him gently in your soft voice that is like the sound of moving water. And you asked him to come tonight in the second hour after nightfall, to meet you at the water gate of Ya Long."

Min Tsi waited passively, her tiny hands tucked into the long sleeves. All the lessons of her life had been summed up in the word -- obedience. First to her father, then to the master of the lamasery.

"Because one of my men, the beggar who is an astrologer, said to the fool who is Chagan that you desired to speak with him, the desertman followed, to your room," continued T'ien Tao-ling. "And because I had ordered it -- you repeated the message. I know," he nodded sagely, "because the astrologer listened. He would not dare to lie to me."

The brown eyes of the girl looked up at him. Somehow, T'ien Tao-ling did not care to meet the glance. It was like looking into a clear pool of water, he thought, upon which the sunlight flickered vagrantly. Into his sharp features as he surveyed Min Tsi there crept a lust that was not of gold.

"You will go to the water gate," he observed, watching her without seeming to do so.

"If you wish it," Min Tsi spoke mildly.

"I do wish it." He nodded. "And since you have asked Chagan to bring the barbarian with him, that also will be done. For you said -- as I bade you -- that the stone of grief was heavy on your heart and you would like to consult the Physician of Benevolent Aspect. O Min Tsi, you are a child and you do not know. But I have seen. The desertman desires you. He thinks of you, and cannot sleep. He will come to the water gate."

At this the girl cast down her eyes. Perhaps her intuition was not as dull as the abbot suspected. But he thought of being loved by a man troubled her strangely.

T'ien Tao-ling sent her to her room and stepped out into the corridor, closing the heavy door of the cell carefully behind him. He did not want the girl to hear what he said to the three men, one of them the astrologer, who squatted in the gloom nearby.

He spoke to them in his sibilant voice and they listened intently until the long moaning of the horn trumpets sounded from without, calling the bonpas to their prayers.

"So you see," concluded T'ien Tao-ling, "the barbarian is no longer a man of Benevolent Aspect. He has tried to place a charm upon Bon, of the shrine, by means of the eye in the box he carries. Ill fate may come upon him because of this. Should he walk upon the rocks of the lake, he may fall and die." The abbot paused. "You," he observed to the astrologer, "will go to the bridge and wait, while these two will come with me and watch the barbarian fall into the lake."

The astrologer peered up at his master from bleared eyes, and waited expectantly.

"In that case," murmured T'ien Tao-ling, "some of the boxes at the inn belonging to the barbarian must be taken, to pay for his burial and the search for his body."

"That is true -- most true," nodded the astrologer. "And the desertman?"

"He has an evil thought. I have seen. He would seize Min Tsi, who belongs to me. The barbarian physician will not approve of this evil thought. If harm should come to the barbarian, at the lake, who but the desertman would be to blame?"

"Who?" echoed the astrologer. And laughed.

"The eyes of the barbarian are dim; they see only the things that are near, in daylight. He cannot see where to walk, after nightfall. And the man who is called Chagan will not dare to carry a lantern, nor is he armed with a weapon."

"That is well," nodded the astrologer. "For he is a strong man."

"Aye, a strong man can be sent to the governor as the slayer of the barbarian."

Whereupon T'ien Tao-ling departed to turn the great stone prayer wheel in the hall where his disciples were already gathered and waiting for him to lead them to the shrine.

* * * *

*IV.*

"I do not know."

The voice of Min Tsi was soft, as mild as the murmur of black water of the lake that lapped against the rocks several feel below here. The surface of the Lake of the Sleeping Heron was tranquil and dark under the stars, and against those stars rose the cedar arch that was the water-gate of Ya Long.

"You do not know?" Chagan's deep voice was resonant with repressed feeling. "But you told me to come, Min Tsi, and to bring my revered uncle, who is all-wise. We are here."

The child, her face half visible in the gloom, hung her head. Although neither McKinnon nor Chagan were tall, they towered over her slight figure.

"Why did you send for us, Min Tsi?" asked McKinnon gently. "Are you sick?"

She answered in the same parrotlike voice: "The demon of sickness has not entered me, O One of Benevolent Aspect."

Chagan tried to peer into her averted face.

"You are sad." The desertman touched the silk robe on her shoulder. She had drawn back from the arch toward the thickets that lined the rocky shore. A mild, summer wind stirred the bushes, bringing with it the scent of jasmine and aloes.

"Because you are going from Ya Long," said the girl. "I will grieve when you go to the desert."

At this Chagan was silent, seeking for words to express what was in his mind. McKinnon blinked at him in the darkness, not altogether easy in his mind. He had accompanied the Tangut for two reasons; Chagan had asked it, on behalf of Min Tsi, and McKinnon feared that the young native might get into trouble. It was not advisable to talk to any woman of the temple. And he did not want to lose his photograph of Bon, through any chance quarrel.

He stepped forward to speak, but Chagan straightened suddenly and folded his arms.

"Min Tsi," he said, "you have put a spell upon me. It is a strange magic. No woman of my people could weave such a spell. I do not understand. But I cannot sleep, and your face is like a flower in my thoughts."

McKinnon chewed at his mustache, more than a little surprised by the rush of words that came to the native's lips.

"You are a lotus flower, Min Tsi. I shall take you. I shall take your hand and you will come with me, away from Ya Long. We will go along the path that leads to the open plain. I will bring you a horse, and you will ride as swiftly as the young wind."

Min Tsi gave a faint cry. A rustle in the bushes answered it, as if the breeze had freshened. But Chagan heeded only the bent head of the girl, shadowed by its coils of dark hair.

"You are beautiful, Min Tsi," he cried. "Your face shines like the evening star. Your body is slender as a young tree. Come with me and you will ride in the caravans and see the sun rise over the plains. I will guard you from the sun, like a flower. I will bow my head at your knee. I have no wife. You will become my wife -- "

He laughed deeply and his muscular hands bent her head back.

Beside the caravan track I have a _yurt_, a tent. I have three horses and a goat. But I will get more for you. You will be Chagan's wife."

Min Tsi touched his hands with her own, which were trembling.

"I am afraid."

"You must not fear me. Did you not lay a spell upon me?"

"It is forbidden to leave the temple."

Chagan laughed again and his hands slipped to her throat, the fingers tightening slowly. The girl gave a sigh of distress, but her eyes clung to his. Her heart was laboring. Her thoughts fluttered vainly, like the pinions of a captive wild bird. No man had ever spoken to her of love before.

"Min Tsi," whispered Chagan harshly. "You are mine. I have not loved a woman before. But this is not only a spell. Nay -- it is a cord that binds and hurts. I hold you in my hands -- thus -- and your life is mine. Do not fear the evil one who is T'ien Tao-ling."

Startled, the girl placed her hand on his lips. But he tossed his head.

"Ya Long, Min Tsi," he said, "is unclean -- unclean. Instead of hands, the bonpas have claws that clutch for silver. Their eyes are jewels of evil omen that lust for women. Oh, I have heard the tales of the caravans. The voice of the bonpa is like the hiss of a snake, crawling over the sand. Thus" -- he stamped angrily -- "I will set my foot on the snake if it strikes. Because of the tales that were told to me by the camel-men, who said there were women of surpassing beauty in Ya Long, I came hither to see. And you have caught me in your spell."

McKinnon reflected that the Tangut nature was deeper than surface sight. He felt mechanically for his notebook; then checked himself, ashamed. The strained voice of Chagan had broken boyishly.

"Yet your aspect is mild as a bright star, Min Tsi. You are not like the bonpas and their women. How came you to Ya Long?"

McKinnon felt it was time to intervene.

"Chagan," he remarked, "you should not try to take this woman. She is no more than a child and she belongs to T'ien Tao-ling."

"I hear the sage words of my venerated uncle," replied the boy. "Yet I must also hear the words of the beautiful Min Tsi."

McKinnon tried another tack, seeking to turn the Tangut away from what he felt was real danger.

"Remember, my nephew," he urged, "that I must make the picture of the god Bon in the morning, at the shrine. If you stir up the anger of the bonpas, it will fall upon my head. Recall the proverb: 'Tie not the knot of hatred.'"

But now the girl spoke, swiftly, anxiously. And as she did so she drew farther away from the ticket. She felt impelled to speak to the Tangut, who had stirred the depths of her spirit with his words.

"Harken, desertman," she whispered. "Hapless Min Tsi is unworthy. I have no honored father. Because I was a girl-child my family in the Kansu village did not wish me to worship at the ancestral tablets. My father brought me to the temple of Ya Long where the priests have great wealth and sold me to T'ien Tao-ling, who paid the price of a good cow in silver because I was fair of face."

"_Hai!_" grunted Chagan.

"The women of the temple put red and white on my cheeks and bound up my hair when I would have let it fall over my face, sorrowing. Yet I am the slave of T'ien Tao-ling, who is waiting until the next moon when I shall be a woman in age nod not a child. He has other women, but he gives me the most presents."

McKinnon turned on his heel and strode away, to lean against the post of the water-gate from which steep steps led down to the lake, a dozen feet below. He was no longer willing to oppose Chagan, because he fancied he had read a message in the words of the girl. As lonely men sometimes do, he cherished certain ideals and was far from convinced that romance was dead.

Meanwhile Min Tsi hurried on, breathless with suspense and a growing fear for Chagan:

"T'ien Tao-ling said that he was the true god of Ya Long because only he could tend the shrine, except when he admitted the disciples to worship Bon. I do not know. I am sad. Sometimes I have come to the Lake of the Sleeping Heron, to climb down into the water, so I could sleep. But I was afraid. I do no want to be a water-ghost. Once the spy who wears the dress of the astrologer at the bridge saw me -- "

"_Hai!_ So he is a spy? This is verily an evil place. Say on, Min Tsi!"

But the girl tried to peer up into his face. She lowered her voice so that he had to bend close to catch the faint whisper.

"Is it true that you love me, Chagan?"

"Aye."

"Never has a man asked me for wife. And T'ien Tao-ling will not sell me."

Chagan laughed.

"You are very strong, desertman," she sighed. "I would like to ride on a horse and sit in a tent. I would not be afraid, then. It is joyful -- when you tell me to come with you -- "

"Come, then."

"Nay, how can it be? But now, when my heart is trembling with joy, I must tell you what you should know."

She glanced behind her, at the shadows, her quick ears aware of sounds in the thicket. A struggle had torn her breast. Now she had decided that she would warn Chagan, who loved her. of the peril from T'ien Tao-ling.

"T'ien Toa-ling plots," she whispered, quivering as she did so. "He sent the man who brought you to me at the lamasery. He sent me here. I think he followed, with two men. I can read evil in his face, yet what he plots I know not. Several times he has taken the money of the travelers by his tricks. And he has been talking to the spy and his two men who carried me and T'ien Tao-ling to the inn -- "

"T'ien Toa-ling sent you here?"

She hung her head, still keeping his hand in hers. Then, all at once, she fell on her knees, weeping. Chagan stood as if turned to stone. But in moments of danger the mind of a Tangut, who rides with peril behind his saddle, works quickly. He knew the trickery of the bonpas.

"He does not seek me," mused Chagan readily. "It must be my venerated uncle, who is a barbarian of great wealth."

"Evil was in the eyes of T'ien Tao-ling."

Chagan, his senses now alert, caught the murmur of a voice in the darkness nearby. Slippered feet moved somewhere over the stones. The breeze, sweeping the willows fitfully, veiled the sounds. And a cloudbank rising against the stars had made the night very dark. Chagan regretted that the benevolent barbarian who had adopted him as a friend on the road had not carried his gun.

He pressed Min Tsi down to the ground, leaning close to her.

"Crawl to the posts of the water-gate, and wait," he whispered; "do not rise from the ground, or they will see you, against the lake. Men have truly followed you. I must warn my uncle, who is a righteous man and had offered me shelter and food."

Chagan understood that he might have escaped from the men in the thicket, with Min Tsi to guide him away from Ya Long. Better than McKinnon he knew the covert hostility of the bonpas. But he would not leave McKinnon. He darted to the water-gate. The naturalist peered at him uncertainly in the gloom.

"Sit down, honored uncle," whispered the boy, "against the great post. Enemies have followed you from the village. Do not move until I call you -- "

"Nonsense!" McKinnon was not easily disturbed. But Chagan had stepped toward the willows. That naturalist would have followed, except that he heard the rush of hurrying feet and an angry exclamation.

SO he halted, realizing that if the Tangut were involved in a fight, it would be better to remain where he was. Besides, his bad sight confused him. Vaguely he could make out dark forms moving over the rocks.

Out of the darkness came a snarling grunt of pain. A heavy body thumped on the stones. McKinnon started forward, but this time a hand caught his ankle, startling him.

"Do not move from the water-gate, O very wise barbarian," pleaded the voice of Min Tsi from the earth. "Two men are fighting with Chagan and I am very frightened. He said we must remain here."

"If he is attacked -- " McKinnon began, wondering what had caused the affray.

"In this matter, his wisdom is greater even than yours, venerated uncle," rejoined Min Tsi, clinging fast to his foot. Perforce, the white man remained passive, trying to make out what was happening.

He saw a black bulk moved into the water-gate. There was a grunt, as of a strong man exerting his full strength. This was followed by a heavy splash from below.

Silence fell, to be broken by a sibilant voice not far away in the direction of the willows.

"Throw rocks upon the head of the barbarian, fools! He must not swim to shore. Destroy the evil physician and it will be a deed grateful to Bon, I, T'ien Tao-ling, promise it -- "

The voice broke off, at a second splash resembling, to McKinnon's ears, a man's body falling into the lake. He drew a quick breath, peering for T'ien Tao-ling, who must still be near the willows, but who no longer spoke.

He fancied he heard Chagan laugh, nearby, and breathe deeply as if tired. Min Tsi did not stir, nor did she release his foot. Chagan was moving back, away from the lake.

"Fools!" The cry of T'ien Tao-ling was uncertain, almost frightened. "Have you slain the Tangut, or -- "

Abruptly he squealed. Then came a scurrying of feet, followed by a moan. Then silence again. Min Tsi relaxed her hold on the foot of the naturalist and stood up.

McKinnon was more than a little perplexed. He knew that Chagan had been attacked, unsuccessfully. Quite evidently two men had been thrown into the lake. He stepped to the brink of the stone stairs.

There was no sound of movement in the water below. McKinnon sighed, and shook his head. He greatly feared that two bodies lay under the surface of the Lake of the Sleeping Heron and that Chagan had cast them there. But what of T'ien Tao-ling?

"Chagan," he called, "what have you done?"

After an interval, the Tangut spoke from the darkness.

"Venerated uncle, I have untied the knot of hatred."

Min Tsi whispered something, and Chagan added, "O, One of Benevolent Aspect, it would be wise to depart from Ya Long. The bonpas meditated evil, and T'ien Tao-ling set a trap for you. Come."

Guided by Min Tsi, McKinnon walked up the path that led, where it crossed the village highway, to the temple, and -- by the highway -- to the inn. He heard Chagan moving heavily ahead, as if the Tangut carried a burden. But it was not Min Tsi, for the girl had McKinnon by the hand. At the crossroads he paused.

"Chagan," he observed, "I don't believe the bonpas would attack me. I came to Ya Long for the picture of the shrine. I am going to make the picture the first thing in the morning."

The Tangut did not answer for a space.

"So be it, my uncle," he said. "Yet, when you make the picture you will believe there is danger."

Struck by his tone, McKinnon approached the boy and stretched out his hand. On the Tangut's cheek he felt the sticky moisture of drying blood.

"You are hurt, my nephew," he exclaimed. "Come to the inn and I will bind your wounds -- "

"Nay, Benevolent One, it is only the slashes from the knives of the evil."

"I will tend the wounds," cried Min Tsi softly. "That will be my task, for I am going with Chagan to his tent before dawn when the astrologer sits on the bridge. When you go to the temple, go early before the assembly of the priests and carry your long gun. Now, I humbly say farewell to the Benevolent One."

"And I, too," echoed Chagan's deep voice, "to my venerated uncle."

"Farewell, my nephew," said McKinnon.

He watched the two forms move away up the dark path to the temple, and noticed that Chagan seemed to be carrying a burden. As he walked along the road to the inn, he muttered.

"Good luck to the lover and his lass. Well, I don't quite know what to make of it all -- "

* * * *

*V.*

McKinnon decided, after a brief sleep, that, all things considered, it might be best to leave Ya Long; and so he instructed his headman, following a daybreak breakfast. While the pack animals were being loaded McKinnon slung a rifle on his back, picked up his camera and sought the shrine.

Around the temple some gray forms of bonpas were stirring. But the entrance to the shrine was deserted, and he thought the shire itself was empty until he came face to face with T'ien Tao-ling, poised before the image of Bon.

Another man would have reached for his rifle. McKinnon raised his camera. A strong ray of sunlight pierced the opening overhead and the light was good enough for a brief time-exposure. The aspect of the abbot was vaguely disturbing to the naturalist, but he was not easily alarmed and knew that composure was always his best weapon.

"Stay still, T'ien Tao-ling," he said evenly, "until I make the picture."

Quickly he focused the camera, opened the shutter, timed the exposure and snapped the catch with an exclamation of satisfaction. He had an excellent photograph of Bon and the priest of the god. Then the stepped closer, to peer from nearsighted eyes, surprised by the rigid silence of T'ien Tao-ling.

Thus it was that McKinnon made out for the first time that T'ien Tao-ling was not standing. The dangling bare feet of the bonpa scarcely touched the stone floor of the shrine; he hung suspended by the silk girdle about his neck, with was tied to an arm of Bon.

McKinnon sighed, reflecting on the curious contrast between the natures of Tangut and bonpa. Then, before departing for the inn and his men, he wrote carefully in his notebook the following detail:

"Photograph of Bon, taken at Ya Long shrine, Kansu. Figure of priest at side." Reading this over, moved by this painstaking accuracy, he jotted down before "priest" the word "dead."

THE END