"Then where is the road, indeed, if thou dost know?" interrupted the juggler.
"Did I say there was a road?" flared the Tibetan. "There is none."
"There is a road, if a road it can be called! For did not I travel it? By the Four Truths of Gaudama Siddartha, it is thou who dost lie!"
Da-yak's eyes burned with anger. "Why dost thou swear by the Lord Gaudama?"
Inwardly, the juggler smiled. "Why do rivers run down to the sea, thou dolt?" he asked—and made a mystic sign, a sign that is known to few.
Da-yak's eyes were no longer burning. But his inky-black pupils moved nervously under the lids.
"Thou dost make strange signs, O evil eye," he muttered. "How do I know that thou hast not summoned Nats to beset my shop and drive away those who might buy?" He rose. "Go find a bed in the stink where thou dost belong!"
The juggler, too, rose. He spat contemptuously.
"Kala Nag!" he hissed; which means, "black snake."
And, picking up his pack, he swaggered off—while Da-yak, with an uneasy glance over his shoulder, entered his shop. However, the juggler did not go far. In the darkness of a nearby alley, from which point he could observe anyone going in or out of Da-yak's house, he sat down to wait. But not for long. Scarcely had five minutes passed before the Tibetan emerged from the shop and, like a shadowy cinema-figure, hurried off in the gloom.