"They made some kind of a covenant, didn't they, with the Chinese Emperor?"
"Timur said it was an agreement by which the Wusun were to keep their city inviolate, and not to leave its boundaries. Even the invading sands have not dislodged them. Timur described them as numerous as the trees of the Thian Shan, the Celestial Mountains, at first. Now only a few survive. The Chinese have posted lepers around them."
Gray nodded. Slowly the history of the Wusun was piecing itself out. A race descended from invaders from Europe before the dawn of history, they had allied themselves with the might of Genghis Khan and earned the enmity of the Chinese. Since then, with the slow persistence of the Chinese, they had been confined and diminished in number.
"You remember the legend of Prester John—in the middle ages," continued the girl eagerly. "Marco Polo tells about a powerful prince in mid-Asia who was a Christian. I have been thinking about it. Isn't the word Kerait the Mongol for Christian? Do you suppose the first Wusun were Christians?"
"They don't seem to have any especial religion, Miss Hastings—except a kind of morning and evening prayer."
"I've heard them chant the hymn. Timur says it was their ancestors'." The girl sighed. "To think that we should have found the Wusun, after all. If only my uncle——" She broke off sadly.
A step sounded outside the room and Garluk thrust his shaggy head through the curtain.
"I come from the Gur-Khan," he announced. "The Man-Who-Kills-Swiftly must come before Bassalor Khan."
"They are paging me," said Gray lightly, in answer to her questioning look. "I've got to play lawyer. But I have an experiment to try. Don't worry."
He rose, and she looked up at him pleadingly.