He extracted cigarettes from his pocket, for he felt that a smoke would clarify his thoughts; passed the case to her. She took one with languorous grace and bent nearer for him to light it. As the match flared, he saw her eyes, again like black opals, close to his. But he learned no secrets from them; they were as baffling, as crowded with mysteries, as the black jungles ahead of him.
"There is much more to be explained," she said, tilting her head and expelling smoke from her nostrils; "certain things to be ignorant of which would surely lead to trouble...."
As they drifted on she talked, cigarette in one hand, the other resting upon the map. Before long Da-yak plied his paddle, sending little ripples over the stars that lay reflected like silver pebbles in the river. The moon rode high above the hills, a phantom dugout, and the collar of silver coins spread in extravagant display. The boatman in the rear crooned a song of ancient Hkamti—of a Sawbwa who loved a Maru maiden and forsook his kingdom for the dark-eyed daughter of delight. And Trent, listening, felt himself drawn back to the night when he stood in the bow of the Manchester, in the realm of the stars, and Romance whispered an old, old tale.
The spell did not leave until the boat grated upon a sandbank, close to a dark tangle of forest, and Da-yak sprang out. Then Sarojini Nanjee put away the map, rose and took Trent's hand.
"Your camp is only a short distance beyond the trees," she told him.
As he stepped out of the boat Da-yak made a sound like a night-bird, and a moment later there came an answering cry from the dark thicket.
4
When the juggler—he of the scar and the drooping eyelid—left the alley in the bazaar, it was to follow Da-yak. At the P. W. D. Bungalow he saw a sahib join the Tibetan—which was what he expected. From there he tracked them to the river, and stood upon the high bank watching as they cast off and glided downstream.
When they were well under way he sauntered down to the huddle of boats, and, choosing one, dropped his pack in the bow and kicked the Kachin who lay sleeping in the bottom.
"Wake up, lazy one; I would go to Waingmaw."