Caravans By Night Part 52

3

To Trent there was grim irony in that ride to Lhakang-gompa. Hsien Sgam's vermilion-lacquered sedan-chair swayed along at his side, and in front and rear was a file of leather-helmeted men. In a courtyard of the great building (they rode up a stone causeway to reach it) the Mongol left his sedan-chair and Trent dismounted. One of the soldiers took the lead, Trent walking next, with Hsien Sgam and the other guards in the rear--a formation whose strategic points the Englishman did not fail to perceive.

With their entrance into the lower halls of Lhakang-gompa the usual smell of incense and putridity, a combination of odors peculiarly Tibetan, a.s.saulted their nostrils and clung as they climbed staircase after staircase; as they plunged along lamp-lit corridors where lamas moved like wraiths in the dimness; crossed courts and roofs, glimpsing the stars and the white flame of a rising moon; and even when they reached a heavily-carpeted, crimson-walled apartment that Hsien Sgam informed Trent was the first ante-chamber of Sakya-muni's audience hall.

A large room, this, and occupied by several lamas who sat at pearl-inlaid tables--chamberlains of the Yellow Pontiff. To one of these cardinals Hsien Sgam spoke, and the former parted lacquered sliding-doors and disappeared.

"I am told that His Holiness has been indisposed to-day," Hsien Sgam explained to Trent, "and has refused to see anyone, even his attendant cardinals. However, the _Donyer-chenpo_ has gone to see if he will grant us an audience."

Trent showed little interest as they waited--but the pulse in his throat was throbbing hotly. He watched with expressionless eyes the lacquered doors from behind which the _Donyer-chenpo_, or chamberlain, would reappear. And at length the cardinal came. The doors parted and he stepped out, motioning to Hsien Sgam. The latter moved forward and held a short conversation with the prelate, then nodded to Trent, who, with the soldiers at his heels, joined them.

"His Holiness has consented to see us"--this briefly from the Mongol.

Beyond the lacquered doors was a stairway that took them into a chamber similar to the one they had left. Two lamas were the only occupants, one on either side of a great door covered with cerise and gold brocade and ornamented with k.n.o.bs of gold filagree. Here they exchanged their shoes for soft black slippers, and here they left the soldiers.

The _Donyer-chenpo_ pushed back the great door. They entered. Trent was confused by darkness; then came a swis.h.i.+ng sound, and a thin line of light broadened into a triangle as draperies were pulled aside.

The first impression, due to the vastness of the audience hall and the dim glow of the b.u.t.ter-lamps, was one of s.p.a.ce and gloom and mystery. A double line of pillars strove toward a chain-spanned impluvium through which stars were visible, and along the walls were idols and holy vessels-brazen bowls and cymbals and incense-burners. Toward the rear, at the end of the avenue of columns, was a raised portion of the floor, covered with yellow silks. There, beneath a canopy and seated upon a throne whose arms were carved lions, attended by the _Kuchar Khanpo_ and the _Solen-chenpo_--state officials--was his Holiness, Sakya-muni, the Grand Lama of Tibet. He wore the yellow mitre, yellow veil and yellow vestments that Trent had seen at the Festival of the G.o.ds, and his slim hands rested motionless, as though wrought of bronze, upon the carved lions of the throne.

Hsien Sgam bowed low, whispering to Trent to do the same. As the latter drew erect he saw that the _Donyer-chenpo_ had disappeared; the following instant he heard the m.u.f.fled sound of a closing door behind him.

Meanwhile, Sakya-muni motioned them forward, his yellow mitre nodding.

"His Holiness means for us to be seated on the rugs below the throne-das," said Hsien Sgam in a hushed voice.

The two, Englishman and Mongol, took seats, cross-legged, upon the carpets before the raised portion of the floor that supported the pontifical throne. A thin voice sounded from under the veil....

"His Holiness bids you greeting," translated Hsien Sgam, "and prays that the blessing of the Three Konchog be upon you. In return, I shall give him your"--the shadow of a smile slid across the oblique eyes--"your--er--felicitations."

The two yellow-robed attendants then served tea in golden chalices.

Sakya-muni did not drink his, but blessed it and pa.s.sed it to the _Kuchar Khanpo_.... Incense brushed Trent's face, like a tangible touch.... The ceremony of tea-drinking over, he waited restlessly for the next move.

The Grand Lama spoke in his thin voice to the attendants, who backed to a corridor at one side of the audience-hall and vanished, leaving Trent and Hsien Sgam alone with the Living Buddha.... Sakya-muni was murmuring to himself--reciting a _mantra_, Trent imagined. There was something checked and imminent in the solemn quiet....

Suddenly Sakya-muni ceased murmuring. He lifted one hand. Immediately Hsien Sgam got to his feet, instructing Trent to do the same. The Grand Lama rose, his yellow vestments s.h.i.+mmering faintly in the cathedral-dusk. He spoke. Trent, who was watching the Mongol out of the corner of his eye, saw a look of surprise dwell for a second in the latter's face; saw Hsien Sgam produce from under his garments an object that glinted like blue steel; saw him pa.s.s it to Sakya-muni.

Then the reincarnation of Gaudama Siddartha removed mitre and veil with one hand (he held the glinting object in the other) and stepped down from the das--only it was not Sakya-muni who did this, but Euan Kerth in the vestments of the Lamaist pontiff; Euan Kerth, smiling his satanic smile and looking like some shaven-pated Mephistopheles.

4

The blood pulsed in Trent's temples. For once his stupefaction escaped the citadel of his impa.s.sivity. Nor could Hsien Sgam control his amazement. The Mongol stared--stared with the air of a man struggling to grasp something beyond his ken of thought, beyond possibility.

Kerth's voice broke the spell--proof to Trent that what he saw was no sorcery of the eyes.

"I'm not so sure our friend the Governor has no other firearms on his person. Suppose you investigate, major."

At the sound of the voice, a voice that spoke English, Hsien Sgam seemed to awaken to a realization of the situation. Surprise was replaced by a queer, half-dazed expression.

"I have been without wits," he said, more to himself than to the others.

"I did not for a moment consider that there might be two--that...."

Words perished on his lips. His breathing was audible--the heavy breathing of one suddenly stricken. He recovered enough to ask: "His Holiness--what have you done to him? Have you--"

"It's hardly my place to answer questions," drawled Kerth; "surely not my intention." Then: "Go ahead, major."

As Trent approached, Hsien Sgam lifted his hand.

"Am I to be forced to submit to the indignity of being searched?"

Neither Englishman answered, but Trent paused tentatively.

"If I give my word," Hsien Sgam pursued, "that I am unarmed, will not that be sufficient?"

"No weapon of any sort?"--thus Kerth, while his eyes sought Trent. The latter inclined his head slightly.

"None."

Something of the Mongol's poise and dignity had rea.s.serted itself, and a faint, illusive smile--an almost tolerant smile--touched his woman's-mouth. His slender hands worked nervously.

"I daresay I can guess your thoughts." Kerth, who was smiling, addressed Hsien Sgam. "Your Transparency thinks I dare not use this,"--fingering the steel trigger-guard--"but in that you are mistaken. You must remember that whereas you are Governor, I am--well--" He touched the yellow vestments.

As Trent watched Hsien Sgam, an emotion almost of pity smote him. He felt the t.i.tanic conflict within the Mongol, the power--warped power--behind the Buddha-like face and the heretofore puzzling eyes (eyes that were no longer puzzling, but that mirrored the raw look of ancient evil, the bitter corrosion of disappointment); power that was facing defeat. Dream of empire, of pomp and regal splendor, rusted, as his every dream had done.... An unfinished vessel, this Hsien Sgam.

(Fragments of the Mongol's story played like illuminating shafts among Trent's thoughts: the boy who wept for his father--who felt the strangle-grip of a great gray Babylon--the celibate to whom the wine of love turned stale.) The gift of life to Hsien Sgam had been ashes. All this Trent saw in his eyes--eyes that stared ahead with sick contemplation.

And now Hsien Sgam moved. He clasped his lithe, feminine hands; he took a few steps, slueing upon his twisted limb; paused; stood motionless; made a gesture of resignation.

"I am defeated," he declared in his soft voice, "but you will sink with me. It is as though you had ventured into a web; the threads will tangle you, and, like flies, you will hang there and die."

Kerth smiled. "Your teeth are extracted, Transparency," he replied. He removed another revolver from under his pallium, offering it to Trent.

"Major, I think we can talk with more ease if we go to my"--this with a smile--"my apartments. There are certain matters I wish to discuss with his Transparency, and I fear we might be interrupted here."

He moved around the das, pausing by the yellow brocade that hung behind the throne.

"Suppose I walk first, then his Transparency, then you, major. I believe that will prevent any complications."

In the rear of the das, concealed by yellow draperies, was a door that gave access to a stairway. Kerth took the lead, his robes dragging upon the stone steps. The stairs mounted at a steep grade, broke their ascent on three landings, and brought them into a small s.p.a.ce, facing coral-hued curtains. As Kerth gripped the center of the hangings, preparatory to parting them, he looked around, over his shoulder and Hsien Sgam's close-cropped head, at Trent.

"Be prepared, major," he drawled. "This is '_Thatsang_' or, as we would say it, 'Falcon's Nest.'" He laughed--a low, rather grim chuckle. "You stand face to face with the secret of Lhakang-gompa."

With that he jerked the draperies apart and the clink of the metal rings from which they hung sent a slight s.h.i.+ver down Trent's spine. He stepped between the curtains, Hsien Sgam preceding him. He found himself in a long room. Its floor and walls were bare. At the far end, in an alcove-like s.p.a.ce, raised and sectioned off from the rest of the apartment by a half-part.i.tion, was a bed. Yak-hair curtains partly hid it--only partly, for they did not conceal the limbs and the crimson garment of the body that lay upon the gold-fringed bed-robe.

Kerth had crossed the room. Now Trent halted at the break of the part.i.tion, Hsien Sgam at his side.

The face of the sleeper (Trent knew by the fall and rise of his breast that he was not dead) was Aryan, but the shape of the eyelids and brows suggested that the eyes, when open, were oblique. Lips thin and sensitive; features of an ascetic. The skull was high and shaven as bare as if hair had never grown upon it; a white bandage covered the right temple and sloped over the dome.... Trent lifted his eyes from the pale, yellow features to Kerth, who, with a slight smile, answered the inquisitive look.

"Sakya-muni is the Falcon."

Trent looked down upon the wasted features; looked up again.