"Aye!" she resumed. "You and I"—and her fingers tightened about his hand—"shall do what the Secret Service could never do! We shall go where they could never go! We shall understand things that they could never understand! We are blessed of the gods, you and I! We shall pluck the Falcon's pinions; rob his nest. And, oh, it will be a great jest, a very great jest! If you only knew, you would laugh with me! But not yet. It would spoil the secret to tell it now."
"Yet you can tell me now," he suggested, "how far this Falcon's nest is?"
She inclined her head. "Yes, I can tell you that now." And her answer was as fantastic as the city itself: "It is nearly eight hundred miles."
Inwardly, he started. A moment passed before he spoke.
"Nearly eight hundred miles," he repeated, picturing as accurately as possible a map. "Traveling west of Myitkyina that would take us beyond the Brahmaputra; east, into China—about upper Yunnan or Kweichow; and north—well, the Tibetan border is three hundred miles from Myitkyina. Which is it: north, east or west?"
"Which seems the most likely? In which of the three regions would the Falcon's nest be in less danger of discovery by blundering British agents?"
He had guessed, but he did not wish to commit himself. He deliberately chose—
"Beyond the Brahmaputra?"
She laughed. "You are no fool. The moment I said nearly eight hundred miles you knew I meant Tibet."
He considered for some time. Then: "That's impossible." Subconsciously, he was thinking of the coral pendant.... Janesseron, a Tibetan god. Nor had he forgotten what Kerth told him in Rangoon.