Trent returned to the house, passing the muleteers who were gathered about a fire in the quadrangle, and climbed to the roof. Dana Charteris was there—but asleep. For a space of seconds he stood looking down at the slim form. Her head was pillowed upon one arm and utter weariness lined the features that were revealed in the moonlight—pale, starry features. He felt a warm rush of sympathy, a moment when he loathed himself for having brought her into danger.... He turned away, moving quietly to the shaft.
At the top of the ladder he paused. The city lay before him, patches of gloom and shadow, beneath the dark bulk of the lamasery. To think that there, among those huddled buildings, was a key to the riddle—a solution that would dispel the nebulous clouds, perhaps clear the mystery of Manlove's death!
A wave of the old bitterness swept up through him; swept up and cast his features into a mold of grim resolution.
3
The next morning Trent told Dana Charteris of his talk with Euan Kerth; also, that Kee Meng was to be her bodyguard.
"But surely I can leave the compound?" she objected. "I would like to see the festival to-day—and, oh, it would be frightful here, waiting, with nothing to do! I'd worry about you every moment, yet with something to distract me ... don't you see?"
He considered a long time before he decided.
"I'm afraid it wouldn't be wise. There's no accounting for what might happen, and then...." He made a movement as though to furrow his hair, but instead passed his hand over his turban. "I'm sorry, but the risk is too great. You won't go, will you?"
She promised.
Shortly before noon Na-chung, accompanied by his escort, arrived. The Tibetan superintended the transformation of Trent from a Hindu merchant to a lamaist dignitary. It was after one o'clock when the Englishman, shaved and dressed like Na-chung—orange-yellow robe, mushroom hat and all—mounted a pony in the quadrangle, and, with the councillor at his side and a file of helmeted soldiers behind, clattered away from the house. As he passed out of the gate he looked back for a glimpse of Dana Charteris, but did not see her. A vague sense of unrest enclosed him.