Front matter (continued 4)

"I will be safe," she said, as if following his thoughts.

"I think you will see me differently—if this thing is well done," he told her. "I remember this morning in our misery over the old story, the need of doing some great thing to show you that I was not that man now, but I didn't relate it to going on to Wampli—"

"You are not the man of the Drift, as you call it. I see that, as you said—a quick review of all the hells of life. You needed it. Nothing so low as that which held him—" she pointed to the Forward Room, "—could hold you.... You must go on to-morrow, but the separation is not for you alone. Perhaps there is a dream that I must form in readiness for action. It is hard for you to go—but as hard for the one who must stay. No harder thing could be called from us. I think I could not have endured it, except for the coming of the Holy Man. He brought me strength before."

"But if, from the desert, that laughter should come at evening—"

She knelt before him an instant.

"I shall think of you and Rajananda—of your bringing back a sign for the little ones. I shall think of the days ahead—our journey out of the desert together—two on the dromedary—the task done—Nadiram behind forever—"

The thought of the hyenas had unsteadied them in spite of her courage. Hyenas meant Nadiram to Romney—and one white woman alone in the midst of a town full of Orientals—bands of desert men passing through—nothing but a Russian flag. He shivered. Anna Erivan arose to get supper. They ate in silence. The thought of to-morrow was like a gray mist between them again. They found themselves very tired; the power of Rajananda slipped farther and farther from them. Often they started to speak, but lost the impulse before the words came. Wampli was inexorable. If Romney failed now, he knew he would find himself less a man.

"It's no use. It's got to be done," he said impatiently at last, "but they seem to be binding us closer to-night rather than making it easy—"

"They?" she whispered.

"Did I say they? I think I must have meant the Fates or something of the kind. It isn't all wonder and exaltation—a meeting like this—and yet if I fail to-morrow, I am not what I thought. My work seemed here until you came to me—came running after me last night. Now that I have you, I know that I must go—but there's something impassible in the thought. I can't get over it. It's like walking along the edge of a canyon—no wings, no bridge—"

"You will go," she whispered. "To-morrow you will see the way. It will come with the morning sun. We are very tired to-night. We have been everything to-day. It's like the little picture of a whole life. Why, think of it—last night you were unconscious from weakness.... You must go to your cot now—"

"Leave so soon—the last night?"

"We will arise early. We are helpless in the dark to-night. We can't think. We are like two desolate beings, lost to each other.... I will call you early—"

"My God, don't go so soon!"

Romney didn't know his own voice, didn't know the weakness that had come to him. Her face seemed to be receding in the lamp-light.

"We are not sane!" she whispered. "Have you thought—that it is going to be too much for us? You must go.... Oh, what shall we do?"

"Let us sit in silence together," he asked her.... "The last night—to go apart so soon—"

"Do you not see that we must sleep to be sane? You must feel as I do. We are wearing—wearing. The day has been terrible. This morning, as you told me of that woman, I thought I should die. Even my Holy Man only healed me for a little while. I think it is a madness—a man and woman yearning like this. Words don't help. I look at you—and feel far off. Your hand that I reach for only tells me that to-morrow you must go. It seems nothing will do but—oh, I don't understand—I want to lose myself in your arms. It seems as if all nature were driving me to you—and that you were going away—"

He held her fast and understood it all as only a lover could, for she seemed to be speaking from his own heart. Any separation between them was poignant agony. He wanted to become identified with her—to lose himself, as she expressed it—yet the horror of the coming day prevailed upon his mind, making thoughts and words and even the movement of his hands an indescribable heaviness.

"It seems there should be but two in a world at a time like this. Our walk in the desert must have maddened me. I want some hill-country for our Meeting. I want the desert ... I must go. If I do not sleep, I shall not be strong."

"Do you think you can sleep?"

"I shall try. Perhaps—we are so exhausted."

They stood apart as if by common impulse, searching each other's eyes. It was the deep look that passes but once between a man and a woman. She drew back a little, saying quietly:

"It is not our hour."

And then a sudden pity seemed to come to her, akin to that which he had met the night before—something from his face. She came to him.

"Oh, don't think it has anything to do with the world. I would have no mere man tell us when we are one. It is nothing like that. Our marriage must be made in a better place than earth—or else we are very far apart and mad indeed. No man—none less than a saint, a master—could tell me when I am your wife—oh, yes, our Holy Man—but I would not wait for him. But don't you see—this is not the hour? Our hearts are broken. I feel Nadiram heavy upon me like a low and appraising eye. This place is full of the old. It belongs to the cries in the night—it belongs to him of the Forward Room.... Listen, to-night we must rest, or we will break to-morrow. I feel as if nothing mattered but strength for to-morrow. Go to your room—yes, go to your room and bring your cot here—"

"Anna—Anna!"

"Yes, and I will bring mine beside it—here beside it.... Yes, and we shall lie down, hand in hand, and call upon our strength—and rest—don't you remember?—like little children—"

It was in a kind of ecstasy that he moved about his room, making ready—the sweetness of the woman overcoming every other thought. He was hastening, yet he knew she would be longer in coming to the living room. His love went forth to her, often his hand and his step stilled to listen for her movement in the house. With a queer laugh, he realised that she was calling forth from his heart a force that could never come back to him—that she was necessary for life, that his days would be very few if she were taken. He was forced into the lover's establishment of every thought on an immortal basis. "Give all to love"—he had not known what that meant, even last night.

His hand touched something soft and clinging in the saddle-bags. He did not draw it forth at once, but knelt beside it, covering his eyes with his free hand. It was the crumpled bit of chiffon that he had carried so long and forgotten so remotely of late.... He held it in his hand. It was very dry and thin—a little dusty from the bag. Many pictures rushed through his mind—from Longstruth's to the house of Dr. Ti Kung. It had gone down into the Drift with him, and come up to this hour. It was done. It was good. He touched it to his cheek, and held it to the candle-flame, breathing a blessing upon the woman who had stood head and shoulders above her beloved in the doorway of Minglapo's house.

He folded the blankets and carried forth his cot to the living-room. The little dining-table was thrust back to the wall. The open fire was burning low, the lamp was set apart.

"I am almost ready," she called.

"May I not come to help you with your cot?" he answered.

"In a moment. I will let you know."

He went to the pitcher and drank a cup of cool water, then stood motionless beside the table until her trailing voice:

"Now you may come in."

It was a little white-washed room, a silver cross on the plaster above her pillow. He dropped to his knee there for an instant, his thought for her care while he was gone. She stood apart watching, her hands reaching back against the wall, her eyes burning upon him.

He placed the cot beside his and turned to the door. She came forth, very little in her bare feet and white robe, a shawl about her shoulders, holding something in her hand.

Romney waited for her to come forward, put out the lamp, and found his place. There was a moment of stillness, and then her hand came forth to meet his, and he found that it was the little silver cross that she held.

The door to the court was open, and the moonlight lay pale upon the stones.

15

Romney thought at first that it was a flutter of wings that aroused him. The room was cool and touched with gray, not of moonlight. Many vague images passed through his mind before the actual realisation of the present. He turned to find the pillow empty at his side.

He felt the cold of morning, and a silencing dread. A dark shadow hung before his eyes like the tangible presence of fear, and then a hand lifted from the blanket close to his breast and patted him softly.

Now he saw her face, low in the cot. It was turned to him, and Anna Erivan slept. He moved slightly and the hand patted him again. Romney then lay very still, reflecting upon the miracle of her mothering instinct. Without awakening she had felt his sudden stress. It was like a babe's cry, and her hand had brought it peace. The presence of her soothed him again. She was resting so sweetly that he could not arouse her now. Contemplating the magic of it all in the thin dawn light, he fell asleep again.

... Some one had come with a great message—the perfect word for him. The lips moved close to his with the story—touched his with a kind of imperishable wonder. He opened his eyes to the full sunlight, and Anna Erivan's face was close to his.

"Take me with you!" she whispered.

She was dressed and kneeling beside him. His arms went out to her.

"Take me with you!" she said again.

"It is done," he answered, yet even as he spoke he felt that he would have to suffer for that.

"You will take me with you—on your camel—into the desert!"

"Yes."

"Do you know what it means?"

"Yes."

Again in his consciousness came the sense that what he promised was a failure for which he would have to pay.

She stared into the west. "No one goes that way from Nadiram," she said. "I have been here a year, yet Wampli is but a name to me. Even you, coming from Peking, know that desert bands watch the ways around Wampli. We shall have no escort—"

"We shall pay the tariff demanded. I have credentials that worked before."

"The little parchment of Rajananda shall help us!" she exclaimed.

"Also we have Bamban, a camel-tender, good compasses."

"You think there is no danger of getting lost?" she asked, and he did not search in vain for her smile.

"I have been afraid to leave you here," he said. "There is danger, but it is here—it is everywhere, in the desert and out—if they want to bring us danger—"

"They—again," she whispered.

"I do not feel that we could be lost together. Are you afraid? Would you rather stay?"

She laughed and leaned toward him. "Those who have met our kind of fears, are not afraid of mere men and desert distances.... It will be—it will be almost too great a thing—to leave Nadiram and all this—and go out into the desert with you—"

He saw she had not said all:

"Yes—I would go without food or drink. I would go with you—for you are all that faith means.... Better and better I understand. I do not think we are to die soon—but if that is so—it will be together—a rapture in that." ....

"I have thought every day of our going out in the desert," he said.

His eyes kindled from her nearness. "I saw it the first night here—and every night as I sat at the west wall—"

"We will start to-night!"

"Yes."

"I have tea nearly ready. You will put the cots back—and this—you know where it hangs. We will take it with us tonight."

She gave him the little cross.

"Hurry now and dress, and breakfast will be ready. Don't mind me. I shall be at the fire—"

"I wonder that I did not waken when you did—that I did not hear you."

"I was very quiet."

"I awoke once in the night—and when I stirred, you patted me as if I were—"

"I was dreaming," she said softly, her face turned from him. "I was dreaming—and once I awoke in the night."

Romney felt the very core of the mystery now—his passion not to take or seize, but to give her his life. All the difference between the old and the new was in this—the difference between flesh and spirit, death and life. The thought came that this which he now knew had to do with the romances of the coming age—the passion to give one's self, not to seize something for one's own. He wanted to give her every beauty from his past and the high conceptions from the future, one by one. He had loved her spirit, her understanding mind, her presence, somehow as detached principles until this moment. Now they seemed one. All had come to the very earth of her being. He had knelt to her. The touch of her lips was the whole mystery. Nothing seemed impossible. He went to the door. Her word "to-night" was ringing through his whole being.

He sought Bamban early, to remark that they would set out for Wampli at noon.

"There is some extra baggage at the Consulate, including some provisions. We will need an extra camel and driver. In adding to the provisions in stock, arrange for four persons, Bamban, and don't spare on the little matters of extra comfort and accommodation—"

"Four persons?" said Bamban.

"Anna Erivan is going with us to Wampli."

Romney had a peculiar sense of hatred for an instant from his servant, who a moment before was inclined to prostrate himself, at least in effect. Bamban's hands were lifted, his head thrust forward from his shoulders, thin lips protruding, and a kind of dusk about his features.

"It would be better for us to return with her to Turgim in case she is not safe here, rather than to have a woman on the next part of the journey. Any delay is better than taking a woman—"

"I think we'll be able to manage according to the plan—"

"You will forgive your servant, but our mission is endangered by this plan. The solicitude of those represented by the master who came yesterday is withdrawn from any party which contains a white woman. It would be wiser for you to give up the mission and return to Peking—"

Romney coloured a little. "The master who came yesterday is friendly," he said.

"I am afraid you are taking the woman to her death—to say nothing of your own."

"Bring the camels toward the end of afternoon, Bamban."

Romney turned and walked back to the Consulate. He had met nothing of this sort before from his most excellent boy; and the fact that Bamban's resistance tallied with a fear in his own mind, added to the coldness with which he regarded the venture. He recalled his first swift rejection of taking Anna Erivan forward on the mission. So utterly had he put the thought away that it had not returned even in the great stress at the thought of separation. Yet when she asked to go, there had been no question; only the instant sense of warning which he had put from him steadily.... His step quickened. The braver way would be to change now—to explain his fear and ask her to remain. The force to accomplish this, however, did not arise in him. He had always been stubborn. He regarded his stubbornness now as something before which he was powerless.... She had asked to go. He had agreed. She was preparing even now. The journey to the desert was a part of her dream—their dream. It called him now. Rajananda—a queer sense of the old priest's love and tenderness and guardianship came to mind. Romney shared with Anna Erivan a horror for Nadiram. He did not accept the thought that he was taking the woman to her death, yet an icy draught came to him somehow from the thought, a certain grim finality. He did not know how he loved her until he was near the court. A gust of warmth, an indescribable elation, swept over him, as he perceived her against the doorway.

"You are pale," she said.

"It is a strain to be away from you," he answered.

"Bamban is Chinese. He does not understand," she said, with a touch of mirth. "I knew he would do his worst to make you go alone."

Romney found that he had hoped she would change of her own accord, but this was out of the question.

"I have locked up all his papers, and locked the Forward Room. My bags are almost ready—and yours. I helped a little in your room. I could not miss that thrill.... Ah, do not be troubled. I would die here.... Bamban does not know everything. Perhaps I will be a good omen, instead of evil. I think Rajananda would not make me stay."

"Now that's queer; I had the same thought," said Romney.

Anna Erivan was standing by the table, waiting for him to come to her.

"There should not be any mission—any task at this time," she said strangely. "There should be only two in the world—two and a desert—"

"They have given us power," he answered. "All these obstacles make us only cleave together more furiously. I think I could not have known you as I know you now, if everything had been smooth for us. Perhaps it is in the Plan. There are always rapids where two rivers come together."

For an instant her eyes burned passionately into his.

"You are wise," she whispered. "You fill a woman's dream. Last night you were like a priest. To-day you are like an adventurer—"

"To-night?"

"To-night—who knows what the desert will do?"

The camels came when the shadows were long. Bamban's face was wistful.... Romney's lips moved as one wonder-struck, as Anna Erivan emerged a last time from her room in riding-garb—starry-eyed and silent. They saved their words for the desert. Vile Nadiram was in a sunlit stupor, and did not stir as three camels crossed its face like insects—a dirty face in the late day.... They looked back. Nadiram lay still in the midst of thin sharp shadows, not a voice, not a movement—just a sprawl of lifeless browns and thin dark lines, and all around it the desert in the gold of sunset.

The woman spoke:

"A good-bye to that—the rooms, the beds, the streets, the Chinese," she whispered. "Oh, how I have hated it all—but a good-bye to that!"

They halted soon for supper, glad of the fire in the quick chill of dusk, glad for the cheer of the kettle and food. Bamban and the camel-driver sat apart. Romney raised his hand and his servant approached.

"We will set out as soon as the moon rises. And, Bamban, fill the water-cans now, and all you need from the water-hole."

This was done, and Romney led Anna Erivan to the water, and drew apart, waiting. The dusk crept in, and he thought of Bathsheba taking her bath in the fountain on the roof-tops.... All the magic of the old East opened again as he waited, but the moments were unbearably slow. His heart quickened, as after months of separation, when she appeared from the hollow—exquisite to the finger-tips, even in the desert..... The last of their fresh milk was used in that supper, and they fared very well indeed with perfect tea and dried fruit and loaves of her own baking at the Consulate.

"Are you rested for a hard night's journey?" he asked with a laugh.

"I have not been so rested since a little child," she answered.

... They were standing in the darkness by the camels, all prepared for departure, when there came out from the darkness of the desert that insane laughter, the mouthing of stones in thick wet glass.

She caught her breath and clasped his arms. She was laughing, as one who has been drenched with cold water.

"I had forgotten," she said. "It's quite all right, only I had forgotten. I'm not afraid at all.... Why, they are nothing more than jackals—"

The moon was two-thirds full and in meridian. Three nights—and moonlight all the way. Ahead, in the east, the great planet arose. Her eyes were lost in that rising. It was then Anna Erivan sang her song, like the ancient Deborah at the end of conquest:

"A star in the East—" she whispered, leaning back to him. "Our quest—by swiftest camels.... I love it. I love the night and the cold wind—-the smell of the desert and the smell of the camels. This is our flight—and what is at the end, Beloved? ... You know, you know, what it is we journey to by swiftest camels—the risen star before our eyes—"

"A little child," said Romney.

For a moment, she clung to him.

16

They were in a country of rocks. It was late afternoon of the second day's travel, and Bamban had just found a suitable place for camp. Anna Erivan's eyes had been turned toward the south for a moment. Now her hand pressed Romney's sleeve. He followed her eyes and discerned a black movement in the distance.

Silently they watched a single black figure which presently appeared more clearly, not on account of an approach, but because of an eminence gained. They saw a signal as of a wind-blown cloak. A moment later a party of horsemen appeared upon the slope of a rolling waste of sand, halted before the figure that had signalled—then all were in the saddle and sweeping forward.

Romney's eyes turned to Bamban. The little chap was kneeling in the midst of the camp-kit, but watching the horsemen. Similar parties of horsemen had been met on the out-journey, but there had not come to Bamban's face before quite such a look as now. He stepped forward to Romney.

"It is the Dugpas," he said. "They are devils."

"I think we'll take care of them all right," Romney said lightly.

Anna Erivan fixedly regarded the approach of the desert-men. There were a dozen or fourteen, riding at a gallop in a semi-circle about their leader—the faces bent forward, their black cloaks blown full behind.

"We met this sort of thing coming out," Romney explained.

His hand crept under his blouse to the place of the little parchment. She did not answer. There were no further words between them, just her quick look, haunting and tender, and his movement slightly nearer.

"Greeting—Amitabah."

Romney's salutation was returned by the leader. He came forward alone. He was old, very lean and sharp of face, singular in his preservation of wiry strength. His face was a surprise, also, since it might be called cruel or kind, according to the moment; but it was in no wise heavy with brutality. The ponies were given over to the charge of a third portion of the party and were left some distance from the camels. The relieved riders came forward in twos. The significant thing to Romney and the woman was that these were mainly men of years, a queer phantom grayness about them, gray in the black of their skin, a touch of gray in the dulled red of their lips. Life had shown them more than comes from mere desert-riding. Bamban strode in closer. The leader loosed a strap at his throat, the black cloak falling back from his shoulders. It was retained at his hips by a girdle. He shook his arms with a queer spasmodic movement, as if to straighten out a cramp of hard riding from his muscles. There was a thin line of white foam on his lips and he spat twice—pointing first to the woman, then to the camels.

"He does not want her here when we talk," said Bamban. "I will take her there."

He was back in a moment. The usual questions as to direction and motive of the journey were passed. Romney was then informed that he would not be allowed to go on to Wampli. The American drew forth the usual passports, also Anna Erivan's credentials from Russia, and had them thrust back into his hands unopened. The native leader spat again. Romney now offered the parchment from Rajananda. The other took it in his two hands, pressed it to his lips, then turned away, bowing his head close to the paper.

At this point, Bamban undertook to say something to his master, and called upon himself a look of peculiar ferocity from the second in command.

Now certain of the followers came up with long sharply-pointed poles, which were driven into the ground in the form of a square. Before the final stake was driven, Romney and the woman were bundled in. The whole enclosure was then woven with leather thongs, and the sides covered with skins and cloaks. Soon all was quiet about, the chill of night increasing.

Romney called. Bamban was summoned from the camels to interpret. The white man asked for his blanket rolls. Bamban was allowed to serve his master to this extent.... In the early darkness, a twist of dried goat's-flesh and a tin of tea were passed over the pickets.

Romney was quiet many moments, subdued with reflections of his own stubbornness. The woman's hand had come forward from the dusk, touching sometimes his hand, sometimes his knee, or patting his cheek. At last she spoke:

"I know that you are thinking that you might have done differently. You are troubled that this happened with me here, but really I do not mind. I have been many times more miserable—ah, night after night, when you came to the west wall, scores of times before you came to Nadiram—much more miserable. This that has come to us—somehow I cannot lose the great joy and beauty of our meeting and mating. I cannot think steadily of these lesser things. They come to mind, but this wonderful thing we have known routs them forth—"

"You do not falter," he whispered. "You rise and rise, Anna Erivan. I should not ask more of the Gobi, or from Earth itself, than this meeting with you. You said days ago that this was but a place of meetings and departures—perhaps you were right. But I had glimpses of a longer journey than this—that is all."

"That will come to pass—if not to Wampli and beyond—then a still longer journey together.... I am very close to you. We are warm. The thongs give easily to one's back. Will you not lie down a little?"

... His head was upon her knee, her hand lightly touching his temples.... Full darkness had given way to the moon-glow, but the orb itself had not risen for them to see. They heard a sudden restlessness from the picket-line of the horses, a movement as if the natives had started up quickly from the fire—then the soft tread of camels and a hail. The coughing snarl followed from their own camels, as the stranger-beasts came to a halt near-by. The desert greeting, "Amitabah" from the Dugpa leader now reached their ears. Another desert party had joined the camp.

For a long time the leaders intoned by the fires; then voices dwindled and the flame-shadows on the picket-wall died to the red glow of embers.... Romney was wondering if the parchment would be of value.... Anna Erivan was not asleep. The slightest movement of his hand and her pressure answered. She was so frail and yet so strong; absolutely courageous, yet so tender. This fragrance that came to him from her was like a breath from home. He was not ready for the end. He wanted earth with her, more than heaven; yet the sense of peril was somehow lost in the peace of her presence, and the madness of any human adversary was less than her power....

Romney's eyes stung with the dawn. The cloaks had suddenly been removed from the pickets and he was staring straight into the rising sun. He turned softly to greet the woman. She sat up laughing like a child. The morning air was keen and bright, the wood-smoke fragrant. Nothing from these black strangers appeared to dismay her, though the impending evil became acute in Romney's mind. The party of later arrival, consisting of a dozen horsemen, was already prepared to depart, standing at the head of their mounts, with the exception of the older men who were conferring with the leader of the original party. Bamban had been called into this conference. Romney saw him bow his head and hold his palms out, a matter of uncertain significance to the white man, though the suspicion arose that the boy was expressing himself to the effect that he had done his best to prevent the woman's coming. Queerly enough the whole spell was broken for an instant as a pair of horses, belonging to the original party, stretched their tethers too close to the camel pickets. There was a tangle, and vicious squealing of beasts, through which Romney observed that his camel driver conducted himself with singular calm.

"What a perfect night's rest," said Anna Erivan.

Romney regarded her with awe. She held up her frail arms to the light and smiled. Her girlish breast seemed moulded of new wonder for that day. It was only in detached fashion that Romney could take the facts. Neither of the parties seemed to have the slightest concern about food. The halting place of the night was clear of unpacked provisions of any kind. Apparently Bamban was not permitted to serve his own. The sun was rising. The rock-strewn desert was like a dream. The sand was drinking in its false life; the rocks were touched with morning red; the horizon was a ring of pearly azure with one flaming jewel of rose-gold. Romney turned his eyes from that rising radiance to the woman, and touched her hand.

The leader of the first party and two others now approached. Romney realised that talk was finished; that what was to be done was to be done now. Then like a thrust their purpose came to him. It was like a physical horror crawling nearer and nearer. Anna Erivan was not slower to grasp the meaning of the approach. Her arms went to him, her face close to his:

"They can only separate us a little. I am yours, body and soul, remember that—yours—yours—my Beloved."

The full madness really came to him when he understood that the woman recognised as coming to pass that which was the most rending fear of his life. It happened very quickly. Two of the pickets were pulled out, the thongs slipped, and the leader stepped back, bowing his head in sign for them to come forth. Romney was first to obey and was ordered to stand with the two desert-men at the right of the opening. Anna Erivan was beckoned to the left by the leader's side. They moved forward, not largely separated, but Romney was halted—a brown hand on each arm—by his own camels; and Anna Erivan was led forward toward the second party of horsemen, which stood in readiness to mount. Whether it was the restraining hands or the obedience of the woman—her face turned back to him—which broke Romney's control, he did not know himself, but leaping forward, he was caught and held, and the battle was on.

He heard her voice. Nothing that he did prevailed; nothing that a white man could do with his body counted against this silent pair of spine-twisters. Knee or knuckle, he could not tell, but it seemed a steel bolt was hurled into his back. He sprawled like a frog, her face and a certain amazement at his own futility queerly blended in his last flash of consciousness—his open mouth pressed into the sand.

PART THREE: THE GOBI

RAJANANDA

1

At times Romney thought he was insane. There were stretches of desert miles, and hours of travel in which he knew only the waver of a brassy film before his eyes—no sand, no sky, just a slowly moving brazen curtain that was like an emanation from burning metal.... He had awakened to the rock of the camel, and day was high. Bamban was nearest, beyond him the Dugpa leader and six of his party. They were on the western trail. Vaguely to Romney's mind came the word "Wampli." Bamban waited for him to speak.

"Did the other party give her the third camel to ride?" Romney asked.

"Yes. Also one driver is with their party."

"Where did they go?"

"I don't know. We turned out of the camp before they left. I think they went back toward Nadiram."

"Was she hurt?"

"No. They treated her with every care."

"Did she say anything—after I fell?"

"No—only for me to take good care of you. She covered her face. After that she was calm."

"Do you think they will do her harm?"

"No. They are not like that."

"Is it a matter of ransom?"

"Not in this case. They greatly reverence the little parchment from Rajananda. They gave it to me to restore to you."

"Did you tell her I was not hurt?"

"I could not. I did not know what had happened. It was at the very worst, when she seemed to know the feel of fresh power."

"You were with them, Bamban, when they made the plan to separate us. What brought it about?"

Bamban's whole concern seemed to be to answer in a way that would be exactly true and at the same time relieve his master's agony. "They asked me many questions as to our work in the desert—why we had come west from Nadiram. I told them of the mission as I know it—of the waiting leaders in Peking. Then they asked me about the woman, and I said that I was not in the knowledge of your concern with her. They asked if the woman had come from Peking with you. I said no. They asked where you had found her. I told them in Nadiram. They asked what I thought of your bringing the woman with you on this mission. I said I was your servant and that I had no authority to think. They did not make their plans regarding the separation in my hearing."

"Thank you, Bamban."

Romney could not feel his real life. The pain across his chest had returned. At intervals he talked with the boy, who answered patiently, but could give no more than has been said. The white man felt the repetitions, halted in shame, remembering suddenly that he had asked in regard to certain matters many times before—yet his mind would come up from its black depth with the same question again. At times he was childish. He would have taken Bamban's hand if it were night. He thought often of Nadiram as a safe place. It would be heaven to ride on to Wampli—if Anna Erivan were safely back in the Consulate. He had not been strong enough to leave her there! ... Now Anna Erivan was in the hands of the Dugpas, at the mercy of a desert band—carried away by dark men who frothed at the lips.... Often his face turned back. Once he broke out laughing. It was toward the end of the day....

Bamban talked to him after that—told the story again and again without questions, making him listen. Their little band halted for the evening. They meant to reach Wampli the next afternoon. The sun was down, but the sky filled with afterglow—the south still brazen, the east dull, the west ablaze, the north a cool blue-green of pasture-lands. Many times Bamban asked his master to sip the tea. Food was not to be thought of. At last the servant followed the white man's eyes, which were lost in the south.

"What do you see?" Bamban whispered.

"It has the look of a low-flying swan to me."

Bamban saw the flash of white against the sky. It was like developing a plate. A superb camel cleared in the heightening glow, all shadows and distances falling away—a mighty dromedary, pure white, lean and tall in dull gold trappings. Bamban could only think of the words of his master—a low-flying swan.

The Dugpas arose in strange formation. Straight to them that long snarling head—then the voice from the basket, the halt, the kneeling.... It was a huge round basket like a bowl. The driver touched his forehead to the ground before them, then toward the east, then toward the camel. He arose and, stepping lightly with bare foot upon the shoulder of the dromedary, glanced with deepest reverence over the rim of the basket. At that moment, Romney saw again the shrunken, shaven skull—touched with evening now, the eyes lifting dully from deep sleep.

"It's Rajananda," eagerly whispered Bamban. "It's quite all right now for us. It's as I thought—he is the master of all in these parts!"

"Rajananda—" Romney repeated.

The driver, still standing upon the camel's shoulder, caught the hem of the great yellow robe in his hand and beckoned the American to stand beside him and take the other. It was thus that Rajananda was lowered to the ground in his blanket—very gentle that delivery, as two storks would perform upon unsuspecting parents in the stillest hour.

It was the hollow of the white man's arm that presently took the chin of the Ancient, who spoke at once of the Five-fold Reason and the Nine-fold Order, cosmic and terrestrial; the plan of the Universe admitting of no imperfection, and the absolute rightness of right conduct and right emotion—all of which Bamban accepted as if eating from the ground, and Romney took with impatience until he could speak of the woman.

Rajananda was coming closer with the thought. All was well with Turgim; well with Nadiram; the desert slept in its great peace. Alone of the earth, the heart of man faltered and fell short of perfection. Black misery brooded over the heart of man; soon he, Rajananda, would pass forth from this misery, but the sufferings of the sons of men swiftly again would call him back. This coming by camel was but a symbol of his entrance by the dark way of woman's womb into the world of men again....

Romney heard the words. It was that queer listening on his part, to meanings that would unfold and become clearer afterward. Something of beauty and order came to him from the old master's presence. Rajananda now appeared to see the white man as one detached from the rest. Romney bent closer to the face in the hollow of his arm.

"There was a woman," the saint observed. "Once, before you came, she rested my head and filled my bowl in the stone square at Nadiram."

"They have taken her away from me. It was this morning, Father, two parties separating after the halt in the night. It was the hour of our mating. We were journeying on to Wampli together—"

Romney spoke softly. His voice surprised himself, for it was steady and sane.

"I am listening, for you to help me," he added in the silence.

Rajananda seemed to sleep. Romney held himself with such tensity that sweat came to his face.

"You have met. You will meet again. Nothing is lost. Man cannot put asunder that which Holy Breath has joined together. Man goes alone to the Sanctuary, and woman waits. In going alone, the man is strengthened; in waiting, the woman is purified.... And now you will sleep. Rajananda, your father, will be here beside you, and these, my desert children, will watch over us through the night."

The ancient withered hand swept slowly from one to another of the Dugpas. All had turned at the sound of Rajananda's voice. Each man bowed low as he was designated. Romney felt that sleep was utterly gone from him. And yet the night passed without breaking him—a kind of passage from one numbed dream to another.... Rajananda journeyed on with them the next morning, the dromedary abreast, held to the slower pace of the white man's beast. Questions came often to the white man, but his awe of the old priest forbade. Rajananda talked when he was ready. As the day rose, Romney met the brazen curtain again.

The picture of yesterday's dawn recurred at intervals with unabating horror; and the steady consciousness that he was moving farther and farther from his own. Sanity was difficult in this suffering, but always as it reached a certain pressure of destructiveness, its voltage seemed queerly lowered, and he lost the sand and sky, and travelled through the deadly glitter that had neither surface nor line. This emerging at the moment of shattering always had to do with Rajananda. Somehow the old master would break the spell, and Romney would hear voices and feel again the swing of the camel's tread. Presently all would sink away but the voice of the Ancient, who affirmed again and again neither the past nor the present, but what was to be:

"Your work is not done. This is the stone death that you feel. It comes to ease the pain, and the pain comes from the red of flesh. When you have faith, all will be well—"

"They tore her from me!"

"All is well with her. You have chosen the way to God through a woman. It is the harder way. When you love enough, you will find peace—"

"It is because I love her that I suffer so—"

"My son talks as a child. It is because you do not love enough. In the great love there is no separation, save that of limbs and lips and hands. You have been taken for a brief season from that, in order that you may rise to the great love which laughs at death and distance and the intervention of men. Long ago you learned this, but my son has forgotten. The woman will remember more quickly and wait with serenity. Hold your hands to the sun. Rise to the love of the Long Road—and the lesson will soon be finished. She is waiting—"

"Where—"

"In good time you shall know."

"Is there not to be a love on earth?"

"Yes; the great races of the future—the races that shall heal the world—are to come from the love of earth—"

"I want her here on earth. We had only met when she was taken away."

"You cannot know the blessedness of the valley until you have crossed the heights—"

"But we only just met, Father. All our lives we were apart."

"There is another range of hills for you to cross—"

"But she saw me carried from her as one dead—"

"Even so, she is at peace in this hour. The faith of woman comes more quickly than the faith of man. She is one of the mothers of the new race. Her children cannot be borne alone among the little valley shrines of men. Her children must breathe the strong air of the hills."

"But tell me, shall I meet her again here—down on the good earth?"

"Your master cannot speak of that. If I should tell you what you ask, you could not turn your eyes upward from the dream of the valley-shrines.... Hold up your palms, my son. Master the red of flesh that will not let you wait in peace. So long as you can be destroyed by that, you are not ready for the greater meeting with the Beloved—"

"I could die, but it would not be better than this—"

"The true Brahman speaks in that saying. We shall not know the Holy Breath in death, if we fail to find it here in the life of flesh."

There were hours of this—backward and forward. Rajananda, who seemed hardly strong enough to hold his life to the withered body, could speak and answer tirelessly through the blinding day.

"But tell me," Romney asked at last, "has she a master to make easy these hours—a master to tell her the way to meet this hardest of all lessons—to wait?"

"She has a master," said the mystic, "but not an old man like Rajananda. She does not need to be reminded by a voice from without. It is easier for a woman to wait, my son. The faith of woman comes more quickly."

2

At Wampli that night, Romney read the last of the documents given him by Nifton Bend, the one designated to be opened at this point. As he had dimly anticipated, the papers concerned Rajananda who proved to be the power of the Asiatic section in the East, the guardian of the Eastern Gate to the alleged Inner Temple, and the highest of the forces in touch with Peking, politically. Of all the Gobi hierarchy, Rajananda was alone in retaining a name and personality used in the outer world. How close he was to the great Lohan, Romney's information did not even hazard.

The American was ordered to await the coming of Rajananda in Wampli, to place his case before this priest and to accept the judgment of the latter as to whether he should journey on farther for the ultimate decisions. In a word, if Rajananda cared to close the issues of the mission, either for good or ill, so far as the Big Three were concerned, Romney's out-journey was ended. On the contrary, if Rajananda refused to act, and advised him to carry his plea for the new party in China still higher, Romney was commanded to accept the advice and to continue his advance into the desert as directed.

There was a singular nobility about the second paper, which contained the story of the dream and forming structure of New China. Romney was familiar with this study of the coming civilisation, and felt the mighty and beloved spirit of Nifton Bend in every line of the writing. The China which the Hunchback pictured for future years carried the wisest and most modern conceptions of super-national development and the brotherhood principle in the comprehension of apostles of the new social order. Romney was asked in a personal note to place the salient points of this document before Rajananda, one by one. This he was prepared and, in fact, eager to accomplish.

The third enclosure contained a sealed envelope which the American was asked not to open for the present. The accompanying sheets of this document had to do with the menace of Japan. The peril of the Japanese aggressiveness was traced, during the past two decades, to the present snapping point. Japan was shown in her position toward China and the other powers, in relation to the present world-war. The Japanese ambition was set forth from both the conservative and the more perilous angles. Nifton Bend erected in rousing outline the future of Asia under Japanese dominance, in contrast to the vast yellow peoples gathered in a fabric of fraternity and turned outward in benevolence toward the other races of the world.

There were moments in which Romney forgot his own tragedy. The old power of Nifton Bend returned to his heart, the deep thrall of service under him. Something of the breadth of force that comes from self-immolation touched his zeal afresh and brought nearer and clearer the dimension of faith and divine fire which Rajananda had laboured all that day to impress upon his torn and fevered heart. Romney was confronted with the need of drawing upon some higher potency to endure these hours. He could not change the facts of yesterday. He could not turn back until the old master and his desert children made the journey possible. In justice to Anna Erivan, he could not cease to live unless death came to him from an exterior agency, and he was sufficiently imbued with the mysticism of the Orient to believe that death, self-inflicted, would not entirely release him from the struggle and agony of the present separation. Again that night came the queer impulsive passion to transcend these limitations—instead of to bow before them; and more clearly that night he realised what Rajananda had repeated so often through the day: that the limitations were set upon him for the sole purpose of forcing him to rise in his strength and transcend them.

... Nifton Bend had found his own in Moira Kelvin, but only after he had given himself utterly to the service of a foreign people.... Romney turned back to his reading. Bamban was watching him from a shadow—that strange and sleepless boy farther from the white man's comprehension at this moment than when they had set out together from the house of Minglapo.... Just now, Romney encountered a personal note in regard to the sealed envelope:

"My dear Romney: The contents of the final envelope which is sealed are matters which need only be used in case Rajananda or others higher inquire regarding the specific means by which our new party plans to overcome the aggressiveness of the Japanese in case of their war on China. We know that this is uncertain ground for you personally, but trust that in case you are called upon, you will open this letter and state the contents to the religious masters, without bias. Perhaps you will be surprised to find that they who hold all life dear, having a deeper knowledge of the meaning of life than we are given to know, will look with philosophic calm upon the methods we plan to use, to overcome the strength of this young and brutal people. Our whole case is in your hands.

"You will be interested to know that I had intended to take this journey into the desert. I felt that my services could well be spared for so important a mission. The change of plan came as a result of that extra case against you in the police station. During the hours that elapsed before we could secure your freedom (after we had accomplished your release from the first charge) conditions arose here that demanded my remaining in the vicinity of Peking and Tientsin indefinitely. Had the Chinese officials turned you loose when we expected, your service for us would have been carried on in Japan instead of the Gobi. As it stands, we are all breathless for the issue of your travel.

"A last word: If our methods of dealing with Japan in case of war are not asked, do not open this envelope. I would spare you from it personally. On the eve of your return journey, whether it is successful or not, burn the envelope unread, and hurry home to us. There is much for you to do here. Men of your class are rare. The woman who has come to me, bringing the full cup of life, has quickened our spirits toward you afresh, and you know how animate we were before...."

Romney brooded long. He could feel the world a little—the different pulse that the Gobi had made him forget. He felt his relation to the Big Three and the world at large once more. The timeless repetitions of Rajananda came and went in his brain like the sounding of breakers; the letter from Nifton Bend contained intrinsically the fervour and courage that he held most dear from men of the world. He was called to a longer view of life than this present pit afforded. The great plan of it appeared. Out of the sorriest fall of his life had come the great meeting with his own woman. He pictured the wastrel in flapping white clothing that had sunk into the stoke-hold of the John Dividend in Manila Harbour. Upon that day and that ship depended the night of the Cross in Nadiram and the night of the Crown in the desert—upon that darkest of beings, McLean, hung an issue of starry light, for had he not borrowed five pounds from that fence-faced marine, he would have been sent to Japan instead of the desert, where his woman waited.

It was only the Terrible Now....

Romney slept. Anna Erivan came and went in his dreams. Once she was singing her magnificat in the hill-country.... The next day, Romney told the story of his mission to Rajananda. For many hours they sat together on the mud-floor of the clay-walled and palm-thatched hut in Wampli. Rajananda lay covered in his yellow robe and listened, marking the symbols of God and the Holy Breath upon the dirt of the floor with a finger-nail like a twisted kernel of dried corn. Toward evening they broke their fast together, and Romney covered his face in his hands as he listened:

"My son, you are strong. Yesterday you wanted death, but knew too much to die in the midst of gray hate and red desire. All is well with you to-day. Your eyes hold the light that sees afar off. That which you bring to me from the capital of the Empire is too great for the like of Rajananda whose thoughts are of God and not of men.... I see strange things. I see the empire of brotherhood as your white master envisions it, but it is not so near as he thinks—and his figure is not in the midst of it. We will journey on and place our story at the feet of Tsing Hsia, my stern brother in Rhadassim—a journey of five camel days into the west. Your heart is strong, my son. Your woman waits for you—"

Five camel days.... There was an instant in which Romney almost asked for mercy. He would have done this the day before, but somehow he had turned back from the last ditch once more, clutching the very substance to live on from the Unseen—a bigger and silenter man than went out from Nadiram.... He asked the stars if his woman still lived. The next morning as the sun came up, he saw himself in the tin water basin—a darkly-wasted face, beaked like a Hindu of caste, and the eyes asked the same question.

"Five camel days," he muttered. "Romney, they don't give you a chance to choose or to fight. You've either got to go on or lay down—and you can't lay down...."

He turned a look back to the East as the camel knelt for him, and sent forth the best he had of love and courage to the woman. So much surged from him that moment that an answer seemed to come back—nothing he could be sure of, nothing that had to do with actual words, perhaps illusion altogether, but his face wore a thin smile, and there was a humming about his heart.

For another whole day at Rhadassim, Romney talked, and the next day Rajananda offered his observations. All the time the stern and stolid Tsing Hsia listened, and at the end announced that one more Father should be called to the matter—Chi Yuan of Kuderfoi, a three days' journey westward by camel.... Romney felt in this accession that his last debt was paid to life.... It was Chi Yuan, on the second day after the arrival at Kuderfoi, who asked by what means the new Chinese party planned to make Japan sue for an early peace in case of struggle with China. Romney asked permission to withdraw for an hour. It was granted and he read the sealed letter from Nifton Bend.

... For a long time he sat in silence. Ten minutes was all that the reading required. He rejoined the three Holy Men, no longer impassioned for the cause of the Big Three, but merely to state the case without bias, as Nifton Bend had asked.... Romney always remembered the three bowed heads, as he entered the little tiled court where the yellow lilies grew. This was the end of his out-journey. He knew it now and was very calm. That for which he had been sent would be answered this day. The rest was but the return of the message—then Anna Erivan, if grace were still in the world for him.

Romney felt aged like the three. A little spray moved a pool of water before them. The lilies were lotus-sweet to the white man's nostrils after an eternity of desert-sand. The green cooled his brain like a dear hand. He stood with bowed head, a little at the side, and waited for them to turn from their meditation.

"Speak," said Chi Yuan.

"The new party of China is prepared to fight Japan with pestilence. Their plan is complete. Their chemists have been working for several years. I have the data here to outline to you how the servants of the Empire expect to meet the landing forces of Japan, as well as literally to impregnate the Island Empire with the germs of incurable disease—"

"The outer world of men is truly crushed in the coils of matter," said the gentle Chi Yuan.

"It is the darkest hour," said Tsing Hsia, the stern. "The dawn might be hastened by the innovation of this demoniac contrivance. Japan is young-souled. If allowed to master China and rule Asia, Japan would bring into the world a repetition of the pitiful and unholy civilisation which is destroying itself in Europe now. On the contrary, these men of New China appear to be pure. As I understand, they mean only to defend themselves and their country in case of Japan's insistence for war. I believe that their messenger should carry back from us written word of our good will—the message that we are watching with great ardour their sign of Empire, and that if they preserve their sign in purity, more and more will we carry to them the strength of the Inner Temple. In a word, I, Tsing Hsia, perceive nowhere the promise of national exemplarship for the new order of humanity as in this dream which the white man brings—"

"But warring with pestilence—" said Chi Yuan.

"It is but bringing a greater destructiveness than fire and steel," answered Tsing Hsia. "War will end when its full hideousness is perceived by the many. Pestilence will but hasten the day."

Romney was amazed that these saints who would not have crushed a worm, who knew not the taste of red meat, could thus sacrifice an empire for the good of the future as they saw it. Awe held him, at the completeness with which they ignored the individual life personally and nationally, regarding spirit and not flesh in every thought. They had not even asked for the details which had so harrowed his own heart. To them, the globe was the plane of a spiritual experiment, and not property for a group of divided peoples.

Rajananda seemed very little and dry. His hand came out to the American. He asked to be lifted a little nearer the pool. He dipped his hands in the pure water and covered them again in the Sannysin robe. The faces of the two brethren were turned to him, waiting for him to speak. After long preliminary, he said, perceiving only the future as was his fashion:

"The dream is in the world. Man will unite with his brother, race to race; and war shall be no more. Nowhere in the world has this dream, that broods upon the planet, come nearer to finding its expression in action than through the labours of this party of which our son brings tidings. But this party shall pass without knowing the material fruit of its clean desire. Its business has to do with conception, not with birth. The time of birth is not far as men reckon years, but it is not so near as these dreamers and toilers of New China believe.... They shall pass. The ancient order of Empire shall overpower them. Even now they are in the folds of the night that still lingers upon the face of the world. Asia shall be richer for their thought, but from others shall come the action. Carry to them, my son, by word of mouth the message of peace and good will from the desert. Our approval in script may find no hands to accept it, at least no party to profit by it."

Rajananda now spoke directly to Romney:

"Our westward journey is ended. To-night we depart once more, each for his own country. It has been good to see these brothers again in the flesh. In spirit we have been one these many years.... Chi Yuan, will you see to the preparations for travel, for the night is coming quickly. Our messenger must make haste in returning or he shall not find ears to pour our blessing into.

"I will return with you to Rhadassim," said Tsing Hsia.

"And I," said the plaintive Chi Yuan, "shall sit many days by this pool, meditating upon the coming and the departure of my beloved companions."

... That night, Romney smiled into the starry dark. The great northern stars burned near—Vega, Arcturus, Antares, Altair. No Inner Temple, no arcanum; just waiting and travel, broken sleep of nights and unbroken journeys by day; no phenomena, just sand and sky and low villages, flat upon the desert and burned gold-brown; no miracle but that of love, no mystery but the deep mystery of life. The white dromedary sped forward in silence, making the pace for the rested camels.... It was all haste now. The old master paused not. His desert children had been repeatedly enjoined for more rapid speed on the way to Rhadassim.... Romney's mind sped forward, beyond, to Wampli, almost to Nadiram ten days away—to the point in the desert where the Dugpas had divided, where his heart had met the hardest human test, and pulsed on.

3

The speed of the journey had not abated after Tsing Hsia was left behind at Rhadassim. A different party of desert men met them for conduct to Wampli, and the journey that had required five days coming out was made in four on the return. Rajananda's hand was seldom raised above the rim of his basket during the hours of travel. Steadily Romney's wonder increased toward the old ascetic, his place and power. It was he at the last who had spoken regarding the mission; it was Rajananda to whom all the leaders and forces of the desert bowed in reverence and fealty. Rajananda concerned himself not only with the Peking business, the worship and well-being of the Gobi tribes, and the races of the world at large, but had time and authority for the direction of a white man's romance.

The old master seemed anxious for the Big Three to have his word in the shortest possible time. Romney was worn to the bone. Every hour devoured him as they neared Wampli. To his surprise, Rajananda did not remain there, but signified his wish, after a few hours' rest, to continue toward Nadiram with the American. The utterly emaciated old body seemed to hold its ultimate force together quite as easily en route as during a period of rest in one of the settlements. In fact, it appeared to Romney at length, that Rajananda had somehow learned to master the elements of his physical being; that death would not be accidental in his case, but a kind of relinquishing sleep—a passing forth, in order and without pain. This was only a thought, but many strange powers were glimpsed from time to time in this companionship.

The Ancient was the cleanest of men. His bath each day was a desert rite, and, like all else that touched him, the food that he partook of was kept with holy care by his servant. There was not the faintest taint of senility about the old body. It was withered and dry but like sun-dried fruit. Romney often recalled the impression that Rajananda had made upon Anna Erivan when he first came to the court of the Consulate—the strength that had come to her from his passing.

Romney lived in this strength. He had need of it. More and more he realised what Rajananda had meant in this crisis, and how, first and last, his reliance for the care and welfare of Anna Erivan was held to the authority of the old ascetic. Somehow he believed that the priest had been aware of the separation of the lovers before his arrival. No word was spoken regarding this. Two new camels were supplied at Wampli for Romney and Bamban, but the white dromedary continued the journey. The full day's work of even the tawny Bikaners did not wear down this priceless beast.

The party was rejoined at Wampli by the old Dugpa leader and a dozen followers, and the journey eastward continued. Romney realised that the first camp out of Wampli would be made at the point in the desert on the road to Nadiram, where the separation had taken place.

He did not sleep during this night of travel. He did not ask what was ahead, but he heard the break in his own voice when he spoke to Rajananda of other things.

... Romney stood alone the evening of the day following at the place of the square of stakes.... Bamban called him in for tea at last when the quick dusk dimmed the faces around the fire. Rajananda had been let down from his basket in the yellow robe, and the withered old arm raised to beckon the white man near. For many moments Rajananda ordered his consciousness by prayer and the repetition of mantras, at last coming close to the matter so heavy upon Romney's heart:

"My son longs for his beloved as the heart of the bhakti yogin yearns for union with God."

"The days have been many and long, Father, nor did I leave the loved one in peace. Without you, I should have awakened from that first unconsciousness—to resist again and again until death."

"That would have been failure, my son."

"Yes; but we are not trained in the Occident to accept the tearing away of our women without resistance."

"In spirit you are true Brahman—very far from the Occident in ways of thought and life. That is why you are tested here. Had you not been ready to accept the healing of Rajananda, he should not have come to you. Our disciples are not tested more greatly than they can bear. The world had ceased to interest you. You had won the cold laugh. Only the woman of the heart could be used for lifting you to the plane of power. The plan is not to inflict agony upon you, but to burn and refine and whiten your soul. Only the woman could be used for that—"

Romney's face paled under its weathering and his lip hardened white.

"I would not make a woman suffer to test a man."

"You have a lingering of the Occidental in your idea of compassion," Rajananda said softly. "You have met a woman who does not need sparing from the truth. What you have won from these days, she has won, too. Your rising into the breadth of spirit and power has been her ascent also. Compassion does not mean to spare the beloved from ordeals. The thing called happiness so often means that content which is a kind of neglect by the gods. There is a right and a left hand to compassion. It is a unit made of the sternness of Tsing Hsia and the gentleness of Chi Yuan. It dares to wound, but it bathes the wound it makes. It loves, but always constructs. My son, you came to the desert for a greater thing than to carry a message back to your leaders—"

"I think I came for the meeting with Anna Erivan. I am here again after many days, at the point where she was taken from me.... I have been able to live through the recent days because of you, because I have put my trust in you. My Father, I feel that I cannot go much further without word from her—"

Darkness had fallen. The old hand came forth slowly from the robe. Romney's sped forward to take it.

"I have lived in your devotion and it has been a holy thing, my son. You love well. She has become more than an earth-woman to you. She has become the way to God. It is the true yoga—this love of yours, when it is lifted from the lust of the flesh. Where there is love like yours, there is no lust. Without these trials you could not have known so soon the love you will bring in good time to her breast. The ways of easily-wedded pairs sink into commonness soon—the dull and dreamless death. It is those who are kept apart, who overcome great obstacles, who learn the greatest thing of all—to wait—who touch the upper reaches of splendour in the love of man and woman, and thus prepare themselves for the greater union and the higher questing which is the love of God together."

Romney bowed his head over the aged hand. Even in this hour, Rajananda had made him forget himself once more.

"You—" he said haltingly, "you, who have never known a woman—how can you touch the arcanum of romance?"

"The seer must know the hearts of men. Knowledge of love is the knowledge of God. Love is the Wheel of Life; love is the Holy Breath that turns the Wheel. The seer is far from ready for his work in the world, who has forgotten from his breast the love of man and the love of woman. And then, my son, we are almost at the end of the night of the world. The builders are coming in to take the places of those who have torn down with war and every other madness of self. These builders must be born of men and women—the new race—but of men and women who have learned what great love means....

"So you have come to the desert for a greater message, my son, than that which you carry to the waiting ones in Peking—"

"I hear your words. They always come to me again and again afterward. Do not think that I miss what you say when I bring the thought down to the personal thing that tortures me. Tell me: am I to see Anna Erivan soon?"

The last sentence was hoarsely uttered.

"My son, is there doubt in your heart in regard to Rajananda?"

"No."

"Do you believe in my love for you, as master to disciple?"

"I do not understand it. I do not feel worthy to be your disciple, but I have every reason to believe in it."

"Will you do as I ask—a hard thing?"

Romney felt himself smothering close to the ground. He arose to his feet. There was red before his eyes, a breaking tension in his throat. The strongest thing about him—the control of his temper—was stretched to the snapping point.

He paced a moment, with clenched hands, before speaking:

"You mean to ask me to go back to the Big Three without Anna Erivan—?"

"Yes."

"I cannot.... I cannot!"

"Come to me, and take your father's hand."

Romney sat down in silence. Something flooded over him that broke down all his resistance. He wanted to weep like a young boy who was pressed too hard. Instead, he laughed—his old trick when hard driven.

"I forget that I am powerless," he said bitterly. "Why do you ask my will in the matter? She was taken by force. I do not know where she is. I am in the hands of your men. I must do their will or yours. You say that I have gained great power by this separation, but it had nothing to do with will of mine—"

"You have accepted the destiny imposed—that is enough. It honoured you in being as great as your strength. A weaker man than you would have fallen—"

"But you ask my will now, when I see that yours is greater than mine. My will is to go to Anna Erivan now—to-night! She needs me—"

"Do not speak bitterly, my son. We will abide by your will in this thing—"

"You mean that?"

"Yes. But first I will tell you that it is not the greater way."

"Why?"

"Any delay on the road to Tientsin now endangers your chance of seeing your leaders in life again. You accepted their mission. It is the work of a true lanoo to fulfil it."

"You think I did wrongly to delay in Nadiram on the way out?"

"I have never chided you for that. Others felt it failure, but they did not understand. You did not fail there. There were three, my son, who went to the Manger on swiftest camels, bearing gifts to the Child whom they found; and another who found his quest by the way, and when he was old and the last of his quest finished, he met the Master face to face.... It was Rajananda who made his desert children understand about your tarrying in Nadiram and who made my son's servant understand. But that is finished. It is different now. Delay now will leave your mission unfulfilled, and that, my son, would not leave the future shadowless—"

"But Anna Erivan—in the hands of strangers—thinking me dead. If she still lives, I must go to her. A day, an hour—"

"My son, what words were the last that you heard from the lips of this woman you love?"

"She asked me to remember that she was mine—body and soul—"

"Have you faith in that?"

"Yes—but the desert-men—"

"They are my children."

"But she has not had you for strength."

"She has not needed me for strength. My son, her faith is above yours. A woman rises into her faith more quickly than a man—"

A kind of moan came from the white man's lips.

"You mean she is at peace—that she is not crying out for me?"

"I mean that she is well and content to wait until you come. She is holding up her arms—for the white fire. When a woman is great enough for that, my son, her arms do not long remain empty."

"Do you mean to tell me that Anna Erivan would have me go to Tientsin and report this mere verbal intelligence—before going to her?"

Rajananda took his hand from Romney's and fumbled in his robe for a moment, drawing forth a little leathern packet pinned with a seven-fold swastika of gold. From an inner fold of this he drew out a paper which Romney took with a thrill of passionate joy. He had never seen Anna Erivan's writing, yet he knew that this was penned by her own hand:

My Beloved: Finish your mission and hurry back to me. Carry forth your sign even though it seems to fail for the time. I am waiting for you in the hills. They will show you where I am. Remember my last words. All is well. My love stands above all. Come swiftly to

Anna Erivan.

4

The dawn had come. Romney and Bamban were to go forward alone to Nadiram, the servant to remain there for his master to return from Tientsin. Rajananda's province did not include Nadiram, and in thinking of this, the American recalled that the famous white dromedary had not entered there. Twice, at least, he had appeared in Nadiram as a begging Sannysin.... The desert-band drew apart, all the animals in readiness for the trails; even Rajananda's servant removed himself to squat a short distance from his day-star. The old man lay upon his yellow robe, adoring his God with many perfectly appointed sayings. Romney bowed before the mystery. At last, words were brought to matters of the hour:

"... In a few weeks, my son, you will come again to this place—this man with you, for he is a good servant and will not be parted from his master after his return from the province of the Capitol."

Rajananda indicated Bamban, who stood at a little distance, and quickly turned his face away as his name was spoken. More than ever Romney realised that blackness was ahead for the Big Three, at least for Minglapo. It had never been far from his thought that Bamban would return to his former master after the Gobi mission; in fact, Romney had thought at times Bamban was absolutely Minglapo's, even in his present service.

"... First to Nadiram," Rajananda intoned, "then the long road to Turgim, and the travel lines again to Tushi-kow and on to Peking.... You have breathed again, my son, and strength has come to you. You will set your face firm to the distance, knowing that the plan of life is for joy and for the evocation of divine spirit through the human heart. You shall know through nights and days that the woman you have found is in Sanctuary—that man goes alone upon his mission and that woman waits.

"... Listen, my son: in the elder days men put away their women to worship God. The prophets, the seers, the Holy Men walked alone, and left the younger-souls of the world to bring forth sons. The time was not ripe for the race of heroes, therefore the mere children of men brought forth children. And all the masters spoke of the love of God for man and the love of man for man, and the love of woman for her child, but no one spoke of the love of man and woman. All the sacred writings passed lightly over that—even the lips of the Avatars were sealed. But now the old is destroying itself in the outer world; the last great night of matter and self is close to breaking into light; the time for heroes has come, my son, and heroes must be born of this sacred mystery—the love of man and woman. So all the priests have this message now, all the teachers and leaders of men, even I, old Rajananda who speaks to you and who has never known the kiss of woman—all are opening to the world the great story, unsealing the greatness of the love of man and woman.... For the builders are coming—coming to lift the earth—the saints are coming, my son—old Rajananda hears them singing; the heroes are coming with light about their heads and their voices beautiful with the Story of God.

"... And now I must sleep. I go to my daughter, who waits for you.... Once, before you came, she rested my head and filled my bowl in the stone square at Nadiram. Even now she waits for you in the hills of my country—not far from this place, my son—"

The withered hand came up a last time. Rajananda's servant hurried forward, and Romney helped him. Together they lifted the master in his perfect yellow robe, lowering him over the rim of his basket. The camel-driver took his place at the head of the kneeling dromedary, and his eyes shone with the risen day.... Another desert party had ridden in; they dismounted now in a half-circle opposite the escort from Wampli. It was like a pageant—the desert-men a circle of devotion. Romney watched the white camel rise and depart, the two desert-bands following. Then he called for his camels, mounted, and rode away toward Nadiram in the great wash of light.

PART FOUR: TIENTSIN

THE HUNCHBACK

1

Romney connected with Peking by telegram at Tushi-kow, and was ordered to report at the Hotel Nestor in Tientsin and to inquire for Dr. Ti Kung. At least, this was the information he drew from a long, vague and rambling telegram, the direct meaning of which was veiled, doubtless for political reasons. The whole affair was strange. He recalled how Rajananda had enjoined speed for his return, and how the aged one had been unable to see Nifton Bend in the big reconstruction activity of the East.

He reached Tientsin late at night, asked at the desk for the Doctor, and was taken upstairs at once, a boy leading the way. Several knocks brought no reply from within. At the desk again it was reported that no one had observed Dr. Ti Kung to leave the hotel—that his key was gone, that it might be well for the visitor to sit down and wait. Romney had his bags taken to a room.

It was midnight. For an hour the messenger from the Gobi sat rigid as an Oriental. It was not through effort or tension—this stillness of the American's. He had learned how to wait. He kept his back straight and his hands and head still, because he forgot them and turned his thoughts within, quite as if he sat in meditation upon a mat of kusa grass. He had to protect himself from the preying of the city—from sounds and odours and the shatteringly low vibration of massed human beings out of peace with each other. He had come from the silences, which he had mastered.

He fell into the very deeps of himself, deeper than the desert mission and the cause of the Big Three, to an area where Anna Erivan alone could reach. For thirty days he had been apart from her. Sometimes he felt, as now, that it was too great a wonder ever to come into her presence again, at least on earth where perfections are not by any means guaranteed. He felt that such a mating enforces in the human mind the sense that mystic love goes on and on.... Yet his eyes stung often with the thought of being with her again—if not on desert-sands, anywhere with the good brown earth under their feet. He loved her spirit, felt some miraculous union with it; but he loved her step beside, her movement in the house, the touch of her hand and the lift of her breast; loved her lips and eyes, loved the dream of a child of her body and soul.

From the beginning to the end (sitting rigid near the desk of the Nestor) he went through the precious scenes of his romance—all the words and pictures, the meeting, the Forward Room, the hyenas, the kiss and the quest, the cots and the cross, the camels and Rajananda's coming, the desert and the dream of a child, the desert-men and the thonged stakes, until that moment of horror—separation—that would never subside. This last invariably shook him back to the dull drag of earth again.

It was the litany of a lover. When he looked at the clock it was one in the morning. He went to his room, leaving word for Dr. Ti Kung to call him if an interview was advisable before morning.... Romney felt himself fixing for a sleepless night. There was a curious heat in his heart at the thought of meeting Nifton Bend again. Was he in Tientsin? Would Ti Kung take him to Merchant's Square and the house of Minglapo in the morning? Where was Ti Kung to-night? Perhaps some call to conference at the dais—perhaps the Doctor had given up hope of his arriving to-night.

The Big Three drew a certain love from him. They were men. They rang true. They had trusted him and been lenient in regard to his tender-heartedness in the case of the little spy. Nifton Bend had been splendid about that.... Romney never ceased to wonder that three wise men in the desert had not agreed with him about the spy's death being an atrocity, or about the questionableness of the sacrifice of Japan for the greater good of Asia. Perhaps it was his own limitation, that he considered so strongly the personal side in all things. Perhaps a man impassioned with the glory of the future, who reckons not with the lives of his brothers, his enemies or himself in order to promote his dream of coming days into action, has the greater human heart.

Now the picture of the Island of Pestilence took sharper form and clearer colour. It literally hurtled into his mind.... They would have sent him to Japan had it not been for his delay in the Chinese police-station. Doubtless that mission concerned the Chinese agents there. The myriad Chinese working in the Japanese financial world were possibly lined up in the cause he had touched; perhaps they were bound together in Young China's system. They would have to leave Japan in case of war, but their work might be done before they left.... There was nothing missing from Romney's idea of the plot to end war in the world by making it too hideous even for the militarists. His present conception covered every fact. Each part fitted perfectly. He saw it far more clearly than when he outlined the form of it to the sages of the Gobi.... Ti Kung, working in the laboratories of the West, had brought back methods of producing and propagating the cultures of all the plagues. Perhaps the packet Ti Kung had thrust upon him, to carry from Shanghai to Minglapo, had contained directions for producing certain cultures, or added information for spreading the most loathsome infections.

Romney felt the sweat start from his brow and throat. Sleep was farther and farther away. When his head started to work at a pitch like this—it had to wear itself out, a process requiring many hours.... The plan would stop war, but the Japanese nation would pay the price in extermination. The strike would come possibly before the soldiers took the field; agents of the Big Three would start to distribute infections among the crowded myriads of Japanese, among women and children—typhus, yellow fever, cholera, bubonic plague.... A few hundred of agents might ravage the entire island in a night's work, and that which they carried would require no more space than a surgeon's bag. Was this what Dr. Ti Kung called using mind instead of muscle? There would be no heavy war engines—no noise, no reek of powder, no twelve-mile projectiles. That was innocent boys' play. Taking a citadel with charges of infantry under the cover of silencing batteries—a mere sport of picked sides! ... Yet this thought held him: In the greater economy of civilisation and the future of mankind, was it not a fair price to pay—to sacrifice one nation for the elimination forever of the international curse?

Romney smiled. He could see it, but acting on it was out of his dimension. When it came to putting even a spy out of business, he had quailed.... Hours passed, sleep coming no nearer. Once he lost himself in the possibilities of waging war upon the country of an enemy by means of spies alone. Every power had great systems of espionage at work in all rival centres—enough to ravage the land of an enemy with plague. Nations would have to protect themselves from each other by the establishment of an unalterable peace. There was a lift to the vision, but carrying baneful cultures of epidemic was no job for one Romney. Sorting the pastils—not for him.

... The room was breathless. At intervals from the hall he heard the creak of a board, as of some one's slow weight pressed upon it; and twice he tiptoed to the window imagining at least that he heard the soft pad of a native foot on the iron balcony. After the second glance into the outer darkness, he shot the casement bolt, and the stuffy smell of the Chinese house thickened. Toward morning he really tried to sleep, but at the first departure he would meet a cloud of hideous rousing dreams. He was abroad early and in the street, a certain reality and grip of things returning with the movement and daylight.

Romney's heart was pumping rather fast for him. At the desk they declared that Ti Kung had not come in. His own message was uncalled for in the Doctor's box. The room-key was still gone. At breakfast he waited for word, watching the door of the dining-room. An hour later, Dr. Ti Kung not having joined him, he could no longer delay in carrying out the plans which had occurred in the night. No change at the desk, and he ventured to send a house-servant to Ti Kung's room. The boy returned saying that repeated knocking at the door had brought no answer. Romney, now convinced that something of grave importance had happened, insisted for the boy to try again. For many moments he was gone, before the Nestor people reluctantly whispered that Dr. Ti Kung had been found dead in his room.

In the street, Romney's quick step halted, his perturbation strangely broken by the personal issue. It was like the beginning of life again. He saw the passage into the desert as nearer than the night before. The Post Road from Peking was a portal to life of higher scope—romance with Anna Erivan instead of the romance of an ambitious Empire—love of woman instead of the old loves of men, peril, intrigue and adventure.... Now he wondered that he could be so heartless.... A hand touched his sleeve. Romney recognised one of the house-servants of Minglapo. He was led by him hastily to a second rickshaw. The coolies were bade to run.

2

Nifton Bend met him at the door of the shop, which was not yet opened for the day. The slim cold hand turned in his, and Romney felt as if it clutched at some inner part of him.

"Have you seen Ti Kung?".

Romney reported in swift brief terms.

"You did not sleep?" the Hunchback asked in a queer way.

"No."

"Neither did I sleep," he added slowly, "but our good Minglapo slept."

Nifton Bend touched his hand, led the way to the second floor, and entered there an apartment that was like a throne-room. In the centre was a huge canopied couch. Romney's eye sought the heart of this even before the lifted finger of the Hunchback directed.... The knees of the occupant were drawn up against the abdomen—this fact obvious before the cover was pulled back. The great face had taken on its ultimate gray and yellow; the wide mouth that had laughed so wonderfully was twisted in torture. Romney did not look far enough to ascertain the means of death.

"Fat men sleep so soundly," repeated Nifton Bend.

"But Ti Kung could not have been caught sleeping. I reached the hotel between eleven and twelve last night, and sent up word of arrival. He must have been in the room then—the thing already done."

The objects in the great room were lost for the moment in a brown mist before Romney's eyes. Then he saw that the wolf-hound head of the Hunchback was close to his own breast—the face turned up to his own face. His arm went around the low shoulder.

"The spirit of the little spy will rest easier," he whispered.

"You mean—"

"I was expecting this word from the Nestor. I expected them to find him—like our master here. As for me, I did not sleep—"

"That was my trouble last night," Romney said.

"They may not have wanted you."

Romney recalled the creaking in the hall and the fancied step upon the iron balcony.

"You think they have not finished?"

"I am sure they want me," the Hunchback said, his burning eyes upturned to his countryman's face. "We will have a cup of tea together—not here. Come—"

For a moment Romney thought they had turned to the room of the yellow lamplight, but this was not the plan. They entered the apartment which Romney himself had used—the same silken hangings so absurdly peopled with pink embroidered storks and lavender fishes. The Hunchback rang for a servant.

"I see that you have not brought all that we hoped for from the Inner Temple."

"I think they saw something of this day from the distance of the Gobi," Romney answered. "They bade me hasten back, as if the time were most precious—as if they wanted their servants Minglapo and Ti Kung to get their blessing before last night—"

"Their servants—?"

"They spoke of you and the two who have passed with love and reverence," Romney said.

Quickly he told the story of his meeting with Rajananda, Chi Yuan and Tsing Hsia—how they were gathered together at the pool in Kuderfoi, and how they listened to his own story of the work and the dream.

"They were more inclined to take your view of methods than mine," Romney added. "They did not quibble about the death of individuals, nor the manner of defense planned by Young China in case of aggression by the Japanese. They said Japan is young-souled and, if allowed to master China, would bring into the world more of the horrors known as civilised, which are destroying themselves in Europe now. They saw that you were pure. It was not necessary for me to impress my own conviction of that. In fact, the three Holy Men united in the belief that nowhere in the world was there such a promise of national exemplarship for the new order of humanity as in this beginning under your hand. They saw very far and very deep. I wish you could go to the aged arms of Rajananda now. He seems pure power to me. He bathed his hands in the pool and spoke at last, saying that you have brought the dream into the world. I think at times he saw you alone—the others only helping. He saw ahead that the time would come when man would unite with his brother, race to race. But he said that it was not quite time—that nothing of your work would be lost, but that your work had to do with conception rather than with birth—"

"Then he saw that we are to be overpowered?"

"Do you believe that you are to be overpowered?" Romney asked slowly.

"It is practically accomplished. Old China has already mastered us, but the vision cannot be covered long. The vision is in the world."