“You purchased it!” the young man gasped.
“Whom else?” was the composed reply. “In this country, from the dark forests of Northern Mongolia, the temples of Pekin, or the mines on the Siberian borders, all that there is for which men seek gold comes here. We pay. They sell.”
“But you can’t keep it,” Ballaston exclaimed, “not in this country. The priests will hear. You will be forced to return it. If it belongs to any one——”
He stopped short. Wu Ling read his thoughts and smiled.
“The priests of the temple, which you and your accomplice ravaged,” he announced, “live no longer. They were murdered by the people many days ago, for their sin in permitting you to enter the temple. Furthermore, the Images are now defiled. The hand of the foreigner has touched them. They can never again take their place by the side of the Great Buddha. You bought with blood, and I with gold.”
There was the sound of shuffling footsteps close at hand. An elderly man, dressed in shabby European clothes, stood behind them. He looked over their shoulders at the Image, and there was for a moment almost a glow in his worn and lined face.
“This,” Wu Ling confided, “is a man of your race. He is of the firm—a partner—not because of business, but because he is a great scholar. He reads strange tongues, manuscripts from the monasteries of Thibet, the archives of ancient China. He was once a professor at one of your universities—Professor Endacott. He is now of the firm of Johnson and Company.”
The newcomer acknowledged indifferently the young man’s greeting.
“You are looking at a very wonderful piece of carving,” he said. “I once spent a year in Pekin to see that and its companion Image.”
“Young man has other,” Wu Ling explained blandly. “He and friend stole both from temple. This one come here—you know how. The other he has on ship, taking with him to England.”