Like a black wedge driven from Hkamti Long into Upper Burma, its point touching the confluence of the Irrawaddi, lies a strip of territory that on British maps is marked "unadministered." Outposts have been established on either side, from Fort Hertz down to Myitkyina, paltry stations where, in many instances, one white man and less than a company of Gurkhas impose law upon primitive tribes. Thus, walled by civilization yet untouched by it, the people of this black wedge live. A peaceful lot now, this remnant of the once great Tai race. Copper-skinned men hunt through its cathedral forests with dah and crossbow. Baboons, buffalo and musk deer roam over its hills. Reptiles haunt the green mucous of miasmatic valleys. Fever and pestilence lurk in the purple fungi spawned by dark jungles, in bogs and in swamps where the stench of rotten orchids hangs like a poison-vapor.

Into this black wedge Trent traveled. Late afternoon of the ninth day found his caravan encamped on a spit of sand reaching out into a river, a stream that moved languorously between high canebrake. The man who sat on a collapsible campstool before his tent, smoking, was as little like the Englishman who got off the train at Myitkyina ten days before as possible. His khaki breeches and flannel shirt were streaked with dust; mud was caked upon his boots. The sun had burned him a deeper bronze, and every variety of insect, from sandfly to blood-sucker, had left marks upon him. A nine-days' growth of beard helped to cover tawny fever-stains, but blotches showed on his neck and hands.... The jungle had shown him how she initiates her neophytes.

As he sat there staring at the jade-green river, he went back, in retrospection, over the journey—not that he derived any pleasure from the recollections, but because his brain seemed inclined to reach behind and he was too mentally weary to make any effort to prevent it. To him, now, those nine days were a confused sequence. For many miles beyond the 'Nmai-hka travel was not difficult, along bridle-paths and past villages where Kachin and Maru women, flat-featured, ugly creatures, planted their taungya, and men sat outside fiber huts and chewed betel leaves; rugged, undulating country; rivers that flung their torrents over shallow beds and were spanned by rattan bridges, the latter impossible for the mules. Twice, where the water was too deep, Trent had the muleteers construct crude rafts and pole the pack-animals across. The first time they attempted this they lost a mule. Trent would always remember that scene: the shrieking porters on the raft, the look of the beast as the stream wrapped foaming arms about it and dragged it down among sharp-fanged rocks.

That night he had had his first attack of fever. For several hours he lay on his camp-bed, harassed by ticks and bloodflies, shivering and vomiting at intervals. Then he fell asleep, and when he awakened in the morning, with rain drip-dripping monotonously upon tapering fronds, his back ached and he was a furnace. All day it rained and all day Masein, the Lisu guide, attended him. The following morning he had only a slight temperature—a chronic touch of fever that remained for several days—and he pressed on.

Hourly the country grew wilder. They passed through thickets and underbrush as tall as a man. Wild pigs scurried away in the bracken, and jungle fowl preened their wings in the shadow of groping plants, taking flight at the appearance of human beings. The fourth night they were close to a stretch of burning bamboo—one of those sourceless fires that spring up and sweep over miles. It was an awesome sight, the flames flaring crimson against the sky, like the angry vomit of a crater, the bamboo stalks popping and crackling as loud as the rattle of machine-guns.

Soon their trail led into great, dim forests. There the sunlight, robbed of its pitiless blaze, sifted through interlaced branches and sucked up moisture from the ground, creating a weird green haze. The air was malarial, the ground ever soggy and in places treacherous. More than once the mules sank to their bellies in bogs and fens. The miasmas crawled with stealthy life—snakes and horrid land-crabs. Leeches bred by the millions, and the oozy corruption exuded a thin, luminous vapor that was warm and clammy and reeked of decayed matter. This noxious swamp-effluvia seemed to penetrate to every crevice of Trent's being; it saturated his brain; it tainted his thoughts. He ceased to marvel at the wilderness of plumed flowers, of dank jungle caverns where sunlight pulsed through the lacework of leaves in needles of white flame—stretches where convolvulus fought for possession of every limb and trunk, and insects rattled above stagnant pools of Death.... There were times when a fever-film separated him from the world about him and deprived objects of their individuality.

At night spunk shone like phantom eyes. Strange winged creatures wheeled out of the darkness. Baboons coughed in the bush. When the moon came out the swamps glittered like sheets of rusted gunmetal—or, if it stormed, the great jungle-expanse seemed a chapel of terror. Often Trent tried to read by the campfire. But invariably the print danced before his eyes. He would lie down outside the tent, listening to the Maru porters piping on bamboo flutes, and when he grew sleepy Masein would rub him with alcohol.... Thus he spent his evenings.

Frequently—at dusk, dawn or midday—cool hands of memory fell with silken lightness upon his feverish thoughts, the hands of the girl who had become so closely woven into the fabric of his being. During those half-delirious hours she grew to be an integral possession, a real presence, warm and tangible.... And just as frequently, perhaps more poignantly, he thought of Manlove. The silence, the isolation from his kind, seemed to press deeper the realization of what had occurred. There were moments when it seemed unreal; when the woman of the cobra-bracelet, Chatterjee and the others that played in the drama, were vague shapes in a shadow-show.... Or, if it had all happened, it was long ago, dim as a dream.... That was fever.

Too, he thought of Euan Kerth and conjectured what had become of him since that evening he hurried away in the dusk at Myitkyina. That he had lost the trail he felt certain, although there was a chance that he would appear unexpectedly, as he had done before—a very filmy chance. Had he discovered where Trent was going, he would surely have communicated with him in some way.

At several villages he inquired through Masein if another caravan had preceded his. By the negative replies it became evident that Sarojini Nanjee had taken another route, and he strongly suspected that she had deliberately sent him on the longer and more difficult of the two. After a few attempts to draw information from Masein, he decided that the Lisu knew nothing, was simply what he was represented to be—a guide.

The country beyond the swampland afforded much better traveling. To the west mountains were visible—faint pastels of gray and pearl and amethyst. In rocky gashes in the earth little cataracts fumed and tumbled, and ferns and orchids grew in damp, moss-covered hollows. Trent shot a deer and several pheasants. The higher altitude buoyed his spirits, as did the fresh venison and fowl after so much canned food. He ceased thinking morose thoughts. Yet the horror and reek of those two days in the miasmas still clung in his memory, even in his nostrils, he sometimes imagined.

Thus, on the afternoon of the ninth day, they came to the spit of sand reaching out into the river and pitched camp; and Trent, pipe in mouth, sat in front of his shelter and looked at the Maru porters swimming in the jade-green river without seeing them, while Masein gathered fuel, and the mules, tethered near to the canebrake, swung their heads and stamped in futile efforts to shake off leeches. There was nothing in the scene even to suggest that an eventful night was being ushered in.

The sun dropped lower. It chased the jade-green river with gold until it glittered like a scaly python. Fireflies glimmered in the rushes, and a bat pursued a velvety-winged moth.... Across the stream, from a Shan village somewhere close by, a gong sounded. The Marus, laughing, swam across and disappeared in the high grass. Masein called after them, but received no response, and, muttering to himself, he impaled a strip of venison upon a stick and held it over the flame. It writhed....

A few minutes later Trent was stripped and in the water. Refreshed by a swim, he dried himself and ate a meal of venison steak and tea. Stars sprinkled the still flushed sky, like drippings from a silver paint-brush, and under the spell of the jungle sunset Trent sat down in front of his tent to smoke.

It was then that he heard a faint, staccato report—like that of a revolver or a rifle.

It came from the hill-jungle behind the camp, and for several seconds afterward he listened for a repetition. Masein, too, had heard, for he stood motionless, looking at his master. But there was no second report, and the silence, the utter quiet, made Trent wonder if he had really heard anything. If it was a shot—? Well, he knew the natives had no firearms; there must be white men in the district, P. W. D. men or Government officers. In that event he did not wish to be seen, as there would be questions to answer. He therefore suggested that Masein investigate, and the Lisu plunged eagerly into the canebrake.

A moment afterward Trent's imagination supplied a solution for the shot—Kerth. He started to call Masein back, but reconsidered and waited.... His wrist-watch ticked off fifteen minutes. He noticed, abstractedly, pale flickerings on the far-away hills. When a half hour had passed he followed the native's trail through the rushes and along a narrow bridle-path. Not far from camp he met Masein.

"It is a white man, master," exclaimed the Lisu. "He has a camp there"—with a gesture.

Then he extended something that glinted softly in the gloom, and Trent took it and examined it closely. The blood throbbed in his throat.

"Where did you get this?" he demanded.

"He gave it to me, master—the white man. He said when you saw that you would come."

Without another word Trent followed the Lisu, the blood still throbbing hotly in his throat. For the thing that glinted softly was a golden bracelet with the figure of a king-cobra wrought in heavy relief upon it.

More than a half-mile from the camp, on the trail that Trent's caravan had traveled, they came to a clearing. A tent was pitched at one side, a litter of packs scattered carelessly about three mules. A shadowy form sat on a stool before the tent-door—a form that resolved into a young man in khaki and a sun-helmet. The revolver that he held shone in the deep twilight.

As Trent and the Lisu appeared he jumped up. Trent instinctively drew his weapon. The young man stumbled toward him. A yard away he paused and swayed; his revolver slipped from limp fingers.

"Major Trent!"

At the sound of the voice, Trent sprang forward and caught the slim form. It relaxed and the sun-helmet fell to the ground, releasing a wealth of hair that rippled down and showered the shoulders with coiled strands that in the fading light gleamed like molten copper.

"Oh, I knew you would come!" she gasped, with a hysterical little laugh. "I—I sent that—like Kurnavati sent her bracelet—to Humayun—only—you came—in time!"

Whereupon her head dropped back and the starlight shone upon cool, lustrous features. But she was not cool. Trent felt the heat of her body, and, apprehensive, he placed his hand upon her forehead; let it slip down until it touched the pulse in her throat; drew a sharp breath and swore. Her eyes were open—glassy, staring eyes that looked at him without seeing.

"Miss Charteris!" he said. "Where are your porters? Who's with you? You're not here alone, are you?"

She did not answer. The lids sank over her eyes, and he knew she had fainted. He looked about irresolutely. Through the trees, in the direction of his camp, he saw a quick flash.

"There was nobody else here when you first came?" he asked Masein; then, as the Lisu answered negatively, commanded: "Look in the tent."

Masein obeyed. His expression when he emerged told Trent it was empty. The Englishman lifted the girl in his arms.

"Wait here a few minutes," he instructed. "If anybody comes, report it to me."

With that he turned and strode back along the bridle-path, laboring under the weight of the girl's body.

Frequent flashes illuminated earth and sky; thunder grumbled, approaching closer with every roll. A wind had sprung up and was rustling the leaves overhead. Trent hurried, fearing the storm would break before he reached camp.

When he finally came to the sand-spit the wind was wildly whipping the tent-flap. The stars had gone, and lightning, streaks following in rapid succession, reflected a livid, sick hue upon the river. The girl was conscious when he placed her upon his cot. She clung to his hands.

"Where is the pain?" he asked. "In your back mainly?"

She only moaned; he felt a tremor pass through her. Gently freeing his hands, he went outside and shouted for one of the Marus. He swore savagely when he received no answer. After strengthening the tent-pegs, he made a search for his electric pocket-lamp. Snapping it on, he opened his medicine-case; took out a hypodermic syringe....

The rain came then, suddenly, in a drenching downpour. Sheets of water, illuminated by vivid flares, swept across the river; ruthlessly lashed the canebrake; beat deafeningly upon the canvas. Thunder crashed out in mighty belches that shook the very ground.... It seemed that the artilleries of the universe had concentrated upon earth.

Trent knelt beside Dana Charteris, holding her hands and frequently feeling her pulse. The girl went from one paroxysm of shivering into another. Gradually the opiate deadened the pain. Several times she tried to speak to him, but he put his fingers over her lips.

Meanwhile the tent-ropes strained, the wind tore through the trees. An occasional crash told of a falling limb. For over an hour this continued; then it ceased as suddenly as it had begun. When the wind died down, Trent lighted a candle. Dana Charteris was as still and white as a chiseled figure on a tomb. The sight of her made him catch his breath. As he drew nearer she opened her eyes. He lifted one burning wrist.

"My porters," she whispered. "They ran away—I—"

"You must keep very quiet," he interposed.

"Is—is it—that bad?"

He hesitated, then nodded. She closed her eyes; opened them an instant later.

"But do you want to save me? You know now ... the bracelet ..."

"You must keep quiet," he repeated. "You must help me that way."

A short while afterward, when the pattering rain had ceased and stars peeped through the doorway, Masein crept in and told Trent something. What it was the Englishman could not remember; he remembered only that he directed the Lisu to break up the girl's camp and bring her mules and supplies to the sand-spit. Every thought was focussed upon the slim hot body that rolled and tossed upon the cot. She begged for injections of opiate and sobbed when he refused. His lip was sore from the pressure of his teeth. With each shiver of pain he suffered. It was one of the few times in his career when he was afraid, dreadfully afraid.

The dark hours wore on. Shortly after first-dawn she fell into a restless feverish sleep. He slipped out to tell Masein to fetch fresh water, and as he reËntered he felt a hard object in his pocket, pressing against his thigh. It was the bracelet. He withdrew it, vanquishing by sheer force the thoughts that uprose in his mind, and placed it in his kit-bag. There it would stay until she could speak.

As morning looked down from a golden sky Dana Charteris awakened, and the battle was on again.

2

During the next two days Trent lost cognizance of time. He warred against elemental forces, armed with the crudest of weapons. Queer, unfolding moments came to him, bringing a potent consciousness of conflict that took him back to nights of tragedy and smoky turmoil—a sense of blood in throat and nostrils that soldiers know.

The girl wavered on the border of delirium. In her weakness she pleaded for false stimulation, and there were times when he was tempted, for her sake, to take the easiest course. Yet he knew that to surrender would slay the tissues of resistance that he had struggled so steadfastly to build, and he forced himself to consider only a lasting relief, suffering himself an anguish as keen as the physical and experiencing self-loathing when he performed those intimacies that were demanded of him.

He had fought death where the harvest was ghastly, perhaps had grown a little calloused, as men will when in close and constant contact with human ills, yet always, even in the case of the meanest Hindu coolie, he felt a responsibility that challenged his sparring instincts. It was as though he guarded some terrible frontier.... But nothing had ever so drawn upon him and consumed his every unit of nerve and energy as this. He felt wholly accountable for her condition, here in this remote spot. Her pain was his own, a part of him, feeding upon his vitality. He gave willingly, seeming in moments when she was drawn close to the Door to infuse into her the power to fight as he, a strong man, could fight—physically and spiritually. He was lifting her, but sinking himself as he lifted. There were periods when thought and action were no longer submissive to will; his brain felt atrophied and he was sentient only to utter exhaustion. He seemed incapable of stemming the rush of things beyond his dominion—was an atom in the path of a blinding and inexorable force. The values of human remedies and sciences dwindled in his sight. He was drained. Yet a vitalizing power, some inner dynamo, never failed to energize him. He attended to every detail himself, allowing Masein and the Marus only to take turns with a palmleaf at the bedside.... It was, after he had exhausted medical means, a grapple in the dark with foes that were neither tangible nor corporeal; when it was over he did not understand nor try to fathom the miracle that was wrought.

At dusk of the third day her temperature was almost normal and she was sleeping quietly. Trent, his face haggard, left the Lisu fanning her and lurched rather than walked to the river. He shed his clothing and lay for some time in the shallow water, his head pillowed upon one bent arm, tasting of absolute relaxation.

When he returned to the tent Dana Charteris was awake. Her hair lay in red-gold confusion about her white face—a pool of glowing shades and lights. She smiled faintly as he entered and he took the palmleaf from Masein, motioning him to leave. She spoke.

"I think we've won."

By that he knew they had. A surge of relief swept up through him. It was like a new and strange delirium; it unseated his control. He sank upon his knees, and his lips touched one cool, moist hand. The fingers of her other hand ran lightly through his hair.

"O Arnold Trent, how you fought!" she breathed tremulously. "And all the while you were wondering, wondering why I was there that night—why I—"

"Hush," he remonstrated, lifting his head, again in command of himself. "It isn't finished yet. You must promise not to speak of that—not until I ask you. Now go to sleep. That is the quickest way you can get well."

"I promise," she said weakly, tears trembling in her eyes, "if you will rest, too. Will you? You need to be strong—strong—so you can help me."

She closed her eyes; sighed. Her hand slipped from his clasp.

He spread a blanket on the sand in front of the tent; spread it, and lay down; and almost instantly sleep declared itself the emperor of his being.

3

The convalescence of Dana Charteris was short. A break in the rains had more than a little to do with her recovery, for the sunshine was a golden elixir that aroused the stricken forces of her body, was a warmth that wiped away the fever-stains and ripened a faint color in her cheeks.

Once Trent offered to read to her. She begged him instead to tell her of those tiger-hunts with his father. That seemed to touch a spring that opened secret vaults of his nature. There was color and feeling in his telling. He spoke in the abstract. She could smell the beast, flanks aquiver, and wet, monsoon jungles in his sentences—sentences that abounded with the metaphors that he liked to use.... India lived in her while he talked—India, her wildernesses and her cities, her heart-break and her treachery. Too, he taught her a few Hindustani words and phrases.

But his contributions did not alone make those hours rare. Her gifts were as precious as pearls. Gossamer dawns when the sun's sabers smote the lingering darkness and sent it reeling, when life seemed at its ripest; the languor of purple nights, campfires glowing in the dusk—all these were but vessels for the exquisite revelation of her.

Yet under their talk was a strain that never relaxed. In the main part, they spoke guardedly. The man never ceased to wonder what the consequences of the delay would be, and it concerned him more than a little what Sarojini Nanjee might do if she learned through Masein of an alien presence in the caravan; while the girl, realizing she was holding him back, yet dreading the time when he pronounced her entirely recovered, was in a constant state of chaos.

The fourth day after she passed the danger mark brought to a climax their play-acting. The sun, like a red-lacquered ball, was rolling toward the hills, shying little bronze disks at the river, and Dana Charteris was seated on a blanket in front of the tent. Trent went to his kit-bag to get a fresh supply of tobacco, and the gold bracelet slipped out. She smiled—a frightened smile. She broke the tension by saying:

"There's no use to pretend any longer. I can't endure it. I'm delaying you. I am strong enough to—to—" She stopped; began anew. "Oh, you've been fighting against it! You're afraid for me to speak, afraid—" Again she halted, groping for words.

He had picked up the bracelet. She caught his hand.

"Sit down, won't you?"

He sank beside her. But his eyes were upon the heavily-chased circlet of gold.

"You've been so kind!" she breathed. "And all along, when you realized I had been deceiving you, you tried to tell yourself it wasn't true; that there might be two bracelets like that, and that it wasn't I who wore it at Gaya that night. But there's probably not another bracelet like that in India. My brother bought it for me in Delhi. It was I who wore it at Gaya—who spoke to you on the road—who eavesdropped—who tried to cheat you—who ran away, like a coward, when it became known that Captain Manlove had been—been killed!"

Strained silence followed, the girl eagerly watching his face for some expression either of encouragement or condemnation, the man staring at the bracelet in his hands. She forced herself to go on.

"There's so much to tell that.... Well, I'll start at the very beginning, when my brother sent for me to come to India—"

Followed a recital of the meeting in Delhi and of her brother's story of the jewels of Indore.

"That night some one entered Alan's room and stole the imitation Pearl Scarf," she continued. "Alan was hurt—stabbed. Later I found the thief's turban and, inside, a scrap of paper with foreign writing upon it. When I showed it to Alan, he said it was Urdu. Translated, it read something like this: 'His name is Major Arnold Trent, of Gaya.'"

Trent lifted his eyes questioningly, and she nodded.

"Yes, your name and address. That was all.... Alan was of the opinion that the package Chavigny carried into the bazaar at Indore contained the real Pearl Scarf, and that instead of the copy he snatched that. By some means, he believed, it was traced to him—and stolen—whether by Chavigny or another he could only guess.

"I had an inspiration." She smiled slightly. "You will think me foolish—yet—yet you seemed to understand on the Manchester when I told you of the 'Caves of Kor' and the pirate island. I saw the doors of my adventure opening. Too, I wanted to help Alan. I suggested that I might learn something if I went to Gaya; Alan couldn't because of his hurt. He wouldn't hear of it at first, but I finally persuaded him—and went to Gaya, intending to go no further, not realizing—"

She broke off abruptly, shrugged.

"The afternoon I reached Gaya I hunted up your bungalow, merely to get the location. That was the time I met you on the road. I'm a poor adventurer, for that encounter frightened me dreadfully—and by the way you looked at that"—indicating the bracelet—"I knew you'd recognize it if you saw it again. That night I returned—and—" She paused, quite evidently confused. "You'll surely think I—I—"

"Go on," he said laconically.

She averted her face, a flush upon her cheeks.

"I listened outside a window and heard you tell Captain Manlove of your orders from Delhi and that you were going to Benares. After that I hurried away. As I was leaving the compound Captain Manlove came to the door. I went back to the DÂk Bungalow and sat down and thought. Oh, I thought a long while. Then I rode to the telegraph office and sent a message to Alan, saying I was leaving for Benares. While I was there an officer came in and I heard him tell the clerk that Captain Manlove had been found"—she hesitated—"dead."

The muscles of Trent's jaw tightened visibly as she pronounced the word. Otherwise he was expressionless, still staring at the bracelet. Why didn't he move or say something, she wondered? It was maddening, the way he kept silence!

"The picture of Captain Manlove," she resumed, "as I last saw him in the doorway haunted me. I thought of a hundred things that might happen if it were learned that I had gone to your bungalow just before—before his death. So"—there was a bitter note in her voice—"so I left within two hours, buying a ticket to Mughal Sarai instead of to Benares."

For the first time he asked a question; but he did not raise his eyes.

"You took the coral pendant from my room—there at Benares?"

She nodded. "That piece of coral! It caused me hours of anxiety! The afternoon you arrived I saw it in your hands while you were sitting on the portico. It rather fired my imagination, although I didn't know its significance then. After dinner, when you left the hotel, I tried to follow, but I became hopelessly lost. I had a frightful time finding my way back to the hotel. But I wasn't to be cheated; intrigue was burning in me that night. I borrowed a skeleton key and sent my servant—a man I had hired—to search your room and bring me the piece of coral. Of course, when I found that it opened and that Chavigny's alias was engraved inside, I knew I had a valuable clue. But my servant wasn't able to return it, for when he went back there was a light in your room.... I was in a dilemma. I didn't know what to do."

"But why did you send him to my room in the first place—or follow me to Benares?" he interrupted quietly. "Surely you knew I was on a Government mission and that—I sha'n't mince words—that you were interfering with affairs that didn't concern you."

"Yes, I realize that," she confessed. "Oh, I admit I was wrong—but I had entered the 'Caves of Kor' and the lure of them drew me on."

"I don't mean to be unkind," he broke in, relenting. "I—"

"You are simply telling the truth," she supplied. "I shouldn't have done it, but I deluded myself into believing I might recover the Pearl Scarf and help Alan. I was selfish enough to want him to achieve at the cost of another's failure. That was why I went on to Calcutta. I had no idea where you were going, that next morning at Benares; that is, until I saw a porter take your trunk from your room. Then I sent my servant to find out where it was bound, and—I packed quickly and followed."

"Then you tracked me to the Chinese quarter there, instead of—" He did not finish.

She knew that the truth would tarnish a memory, but she could not evade it. She smiled wanly.

"I have reached the 'Temple of Truth' in my 'Caves of Kor'! Yes, I followed, with a guide. Alan had wired me the name of a man who he said would serve me well—an old bearer of his. I waited all afternoon on the upper porch of the hotel, and when you left I followed, with Guru Singh, the bearer. We hired an automobile, instructing the driver to keep you in sight. When you left your automobile, we left ours.... Oh, those frightful places you led us through! Of course we were halted when you went into that house in that dreadful street.

"I determined then to make your acquaintance. Just before you came out I sent Guru Singh away; then I deliberately threw myself upon your mercy. But oh, I felt guilty! I realized that you didn't suspect it was all deliberate and planned!

"The next morning I made another desperate move. I had to return that piece of coral. Too, I wanted to learn your plans. I gave the pendant to Guru Singh—with instructions. To insure him against discovery, I—I asked you to go shopping with me. Guru Singh found a packet in your trunk showing that you had a berth on the Manchester to Rangoon, and that from there you were going to Myitkyina, to the shop of Da-yak, a Tibetan. But your servant happened along, and in the excitement Guru Singh forgot to leave the coral. It seemed that I'd never rid myself of it!"

The sun was almost below the hills now. A gong in the nearby Shan village rang clearly across the quiet evening. Both Trent and the girl sat motionless, listening until it died out.

"I wired Alan that I was going to Rangoon and would wait for him there," she said, taking up the thread of her story. "I didn't send it until just before I went to the boat, for I was afraid he might say no—and, oh, I wanted to see my adventure through!

"On shipboard Guru Singh at last succeeded in returning the coral—but that inevitable servant of yours appeared. I was terrified when I learned that Guru Singh had been caught! I felt responsible for it, and afterward I carried food to him several times. That was what I was doing the night I met you on deck. I was frightened, and I flung plate and all overboard. Then.... But you know what occurred then. I had come to hate myself for what I was doing, yet the thing was a Medusa. It held me and I let it draw me on.

"I met Guru Singh, by previous instructions, at the pagoda in Rangoon, and we drove to Alan's bungalow—but only to leave part of my baggage, and that night I took a train for Myitkyina with Guru Singh. When we got there I realized the presence of a strange white woman would be noticed in so small a place, so I instructed Guru Singh carefully and went back to Mandalay to wait.

"The second day in Mandalay I heard from Guru Singh. He wired for me to come. When I arrived he told me he had found where the jewels were—also that you had left Myitkyina. It seems that Da-yak was arrested"—here the muscles of Trent's jaw tensed again—"and your servant, too. Guru Singh said he bribed the jailer to let him see Da-yak, who, after he was paid liberally, told where you had gone.... He said the jewels had been taken to a city in Tibet: the name is Shingtse-lunpo. The sum of his words is that this place is the penetralia of a band called the Order of the Falcon, with a man known as the Falcon at its head. The Tibetan took oath he didn't know the Falcon. At any rate, he said that to get there one had to go first to a town across the China border—Tali-fang, he called it—and that only three men in Myitkyina knew the route to Tali-fang, one of whom had gone with your caravan and another with some one else. The third was a Buddhist priest. Da-yak said there were several ways of reaching Tali-fang and that you had been sent by the longest. At Tali-fang one would have to depend upon his own resources to get a guide to take him into Tibet, he said. That was all he would tell—or rather, he said that was all he knew."

"I don't suppose," Trent questioned, "he told who had him arrested?" Yet Trent felt that he knew without asking who had arrested Da-yak and Tambusami.

"No," she replied.

Trent nodded—more to himself than to her—and she went on.

"That the jewels were in Tibet—vast, mysterious Tibet—both frightened and fascinated me. To go where no white woman, had been—the land of Marco Polo, Orazio della Penna and Huc! You can understand the lure of it. Yet I think I must have been a little mad to have attempted it—but we all are, aren't we?

"Guru Singh—poor, dear Guru Singh!—tried to persuade me to turn back, but I wouldn't. We went to the Buddhist priest. For an extortionate sum he agreed to guide us to Tali-fang. So we outfitted a caravan, Guru Singh, the monk and I, and two days after you left Myitkyina we took the same trail. I went as a man; I thought it would excite less suspicion. Before leaving, I wrote Alan. I waited until then because I knew he would disapprove.

"At several villages we learned that you had already passed; then, the third afternoon, one of the porters, who was ahead, came back with the news that your pack-train was about a mile in advance. We marched more slowly after that. The nearness of another white person reassured me, for—oh, before that it was terrible in those jungles and swamps! I think the loneliness and the fright, after dark, would have driven me mad had I not remembered what the converted Brahmin priest, who lectured at home, said about the jungle. That comforted me.

"Last—When was it? I can't remember now—but it was late afternoon and I was sitting in front of my tent. The Buddhist priest passed. There was something about him, the way he looked at that moment, that struck me numb to the heart.... I realized what an impossible thing I was trying to do; wondered what would happen if I reached Tali-fang and found I couldn't go further. Yet—yet I couldn't turn back. As I sat there, thinking, a desperate plan unfolded.... I told Guru Singh.

"The next afternoon, late, he and the priest and my porters left for Myitkyina. Guru Singh stayed behind until—until I fired the shot—and—and your muleteer brought you. I began to feel ill, suddenly. I.... Well, that's all. I had intended to tell you that my porters deserted—and other lies, too. I knew you wouldn't leave me; you couldn't send me back, and you'd have to take me with you. But after—after all you did—I couldn't falsify; I couldn't.... Now you know the truth."

She halted—halted and waited for him to speak. But he did not. His eyes were still upon the bracelet, nor did he look up. The silence was long and tense. Finally, unable to endure it longer, she moved her hand tentatively; dropped it; raised it again and let it rest lightly upon his sleeve.

"You—you believe me—don't you?" she faltered.

He drew a deep breath; lifted his head.

"Yes," he said, looking across the river. "Yes, of course I believe you. I'm only wondering what I'm going to do with you."

He rose then and moved off rapidly toward the canebrake.

4

For over an hour Trent walked. When he returned to camp he found Dana Charteris sitting where he had left her. Masein had made a fire, and the leaping flames kindled a glow in the meshes of her red-gold hair. Eyes dark with misery met his—moist eyes.... The cobra-bracelet glinted on his wrist.

"I was abrupt a while ago," he announced, halting before her, head slightly lowered—as a man stands before a cathedral-image. "I am sorry. I was worried. I shouldn't have left as I did, nor should I have stayed away so long, but I wanted to be alone—to solve the problem. I think I have."

She smiled faintly. "Don't apologize, Arnold Trent. You've done enough for me." She paused. "You must hate me," she pressed on after a moment. "First I deceive you; then I fall sick and delay you; and when I recover, I am a stone about your neck." She laughed a mirthless little laugh. "What are you going to do with me?"

He made a gesture. "You were right. I haven't a guide to send back with you, and you can't go alone. The nearest Government post is Kwanglu—that's at least a two-days' journey. I can't afford to delay any longer. Yet if I take you with me and anything happens to you—" He hesitated, then finished: "I'd never forgive myself. So what am I to do?"

She got up, and her eyes shone with the warmth of the fire.

"I—I might be able to help you," she suggested rather timidly, as though afraid he would scorn the idea. "I've hindered you so much that the least I can do is to try to make amends. Oh, I realize what you're thinking, that I am a woman and would only be a burden, but—"

"No," he interrupted, "I wasn't thinking that—I was thinking of you. God knows, from a selfish standpoint, I would be glad enough for your companionship! But aside from the physical danger, there are other things to reckon with. That's the trouble with people; they don't consider the future. And if we come out of this alive, there's a future. It's all right for me; but you—you're a woman. And the public doesn't credit any man with honor, or any woman with self-respect, if they're thrown together under other than conventional circumstances. Don't you see what people will say when they learn of it? And they will learn of it—and you can't ignore their opinions. They couldn't understand, damn them; rather, they wouldn't.... You see?" Another pause, and he repeated: "You see?"

She nodded. "Yet I'm here"—helplessly.

"Yet you're here," he echoed, with a gesture of futility.

He strode away; turned back at a sudden thought.

"Of course, there's one thing I've overlooked in my masculine egotism. It just occurred to me that you—you might be afraid to go with me."

"No," she interposed very quietly—and to him the world seemed to expand to greater dimensions. "No. I am not afraid." That was all. Yet it thrilled him.

After a few seconds he resumed.

"You must promise to do as I say; and without asking questions. I've given my word, you know. Before we reach Tali-fang you'll have to be fixed up like a Hindu. You can be my brother, or anything you like. I'll teach you a few more Hindustani words—necessary words. You won't have to talk much, if any. There will be hardships—many—but—" He furrowed his hair. "There's no alternative."

Then, glancing down at the bracelet, he took it off.

"Here—"

"Won't you keep it?" she asked. "I sent it with a plea for succor, and you came. According to the custom, you are my bracelet-brother, sworn to honor and protect. So won't you keep it, as Humayun, the Great Mogul, kept the bracelet of Kurnavati, the Rani of Chitor?"

For answer he slipped the golden circlet over his hand. The girl, with a swift smile, turned and went into the tent. And, being a man, he could not know it was for the express purpose of crying.