A perceptible coolness invaded the carriage that night, and when Trent awakened in the morning he looked out upon jade-green hills. The scenery, as well as the people who stood on the railway platforms, had changed. Great fern trees and immense clumps of bamboo grew on the hillsides.
Evening was pouring its dusky glamour over the world, and the far, misty ranges of the China frontier had purpled when Trent left the train at Myitkyina, the terminus of the Burma Railway. He caught a glimpse of Kerth hurrying away in the twilight as he despatched Tambusami to the P. W. D. Inspection Bungalow to see if quarters were available there; and, after numerous inquiries, took himself into the bazaar, to the shop of Da-yak, the Tibetan.
The latter proved to be a languid person with a blue lungyi twisted about his hips. He inspected Trent with narrow, inky-black eyes, and led him into a back-room that stank of the hundred nameless odors of the bazaar. There he glanced lazily, indifferently, at the coral symbol that the Englishman showed him.
"We expected you yesterday, Tajen," he announced indolently, in atrocious English; and Trent wondered who the "we" included. "I am instructed to tell you to go to the Inspection Bungalow and wait. I will call for you later in the evening; in an hour, perhaps."
Which concluded the interview.
Trent decided immediately that Da-yak, the Tibetan, was of no consequence, merely a mouthpiece.
He returned to the station, where he had arranged to meet Tambusami. There he waited for at least fifteen minutes. The native was in a high state of excitement when he finally arrived.
"Guru Singh is here, O Presence!" he reported. "I saw him down by the river. He was in a boat, going upstream. I cried out to him and called him a liar and a thief, and he told me I was a bastard! The swine! He knew well I could not get my hands on him!"
"And you let him get away?" Trent demanded.