"They are soldiers of the Golden Army," Kee Meng announced.
As the horsemen drew nearer, Trent could see that they wore neutral-colored tunics and black leather caps, the latter having a strap under the chin and a golden, flame-shaped ornament attached to the top. Gold-hilted swords glittered in black belts, and several of the men carried queer, ancient-looking guns embossed with turquoise and coral. They came up in a cloud of dust, like figures riding out of history, and the leader stuck out his tongue by way of greeting. He examined their passports and assigned two soldiers—"to accompany us to Amber Bridge," Kee Meng explained.
With their escort they rode on toward the heat-twisted, quivering horizon that, in its very illusiveness, symbolized the uncertainty that filled both Trent and the girl. Neither spoke, but sat erect on their mounts, staring steadily, until their eyes ached, into the white sunlight.
The hot midday was waning when they reached the top of a shoulder of ground and looked upon the city. At first it was a long white blur upon the distant ranges, separated from the plain that surrounded it by a belt of green; then it assumed shape and form, and they saw it, walls and golden roofs, floating like a fabulous Atlantis in the liquid sunlight. A white bulk, seeming the extravagant creation of a mirage, towered above the walls. Gradually it emerged from the deceptive heat-waves and stood out, defined, a massive building, dominating the crenellated heap of masonry at its feet. The city's ramparts were high, yielding only a glimpse of roof-tops and the buttressed structure that was silhouetted in blinding white upon the aquamarine sky.
"The great building," said Kee Meng, "is Lhakang-gompa, of which I told you—the palace and temple of the Grand Lama."
As they rode nearer, passing barley fields and isolated groups of houses, it became evident that the belt of green encircling Shingtse-lunpo was a marsh. Apparently an outer fortification at one time stood in the swamp, for piles of broken stone reared themselves at intervals from the rush-encumbered quagmires, like the bones of a half-buried and bleaching skeleton. On the edge of the morass, flung across a stream, was a bridge; a stone causeway, perhaps a mile in length, linked it with what Trent imagined was the main gate of the city proper. The bridge itself—"Amber Bridge," Kee Meng had called it—was of mellowed stone, its enclosing walls supporting a roof glazed with tiles and inset with great lumps of raw amber. Prayer-flags drooped from the top.
Thus Shingtse-lunpo, the City of the Falcon, revealed herself to them for the first time, like an orient dream-city in the golden noonday.
As they approached Amber Bridge, two familiar lines sprang into Trent's mind and repeated themselves over and over:
With gilded gates and sunny spires ablaze,
And burnished domes half seen through luminous haze.
In the silence, sovereign but for the footfalls of the animals and the creak of sweaty saddles, he heard the swift breathing of the girl who rode at his side—saw the wonderment, the expression of fascination, of awe, that reflected in her face. Brown eyes were deep with mystery.