He drew himself out of the stairway with little difficulty, clambering to his knees on the stone floor above and leaning back to receive the pocket-lamp. As he lifted the light he gained an impression of vastness and gloom and many indistinguishable objects. Placing the torch on the floor beside him, he grasped Sarojini's hands and pulled her through the small space—and she lingered uncomfortably long in his arms, whether by chance or otherwise, he could only wonder.
He recovered the torchlight, and the woman took it from him. The ray cleaved through shadows and stamped a bar of yellow upon a row of oblong wooden boxes; traveled across more boxes (the latter, Trent observed, the length of ordinary rifles) and brought into glowing prominence the slender objects that hung upon the walls. With a quickening of his heart-beat Trent guessed where they were—for the glowing things were swords and lances. Piles of armor shone with a repressed gleam on the floor, and numerous bright shapes outside the intimate radiance of the light resolved into jeweled pistols such as he had seen in the possession of soldiers of the Golden Army. But with the boxes he was mainly concerned; their blank sides intrigued him and challenged his fancy.
"We are in the Armory," said Sarojini Nanjee, "under the center of Lhakang-gompa—not beneath the ground, as you would imagine, but just below the surface of the rocky eminence where the building stands."
She let the light rove about the Armory, which was vast and stretched on four sides into black obscurity. A series of arches and pillars deepened the mystery; armor and various types of weapons kindled dully against a background of gloom. There were more wooden boxes in remote corners, innumerable piles of them.
"What do they contain?" he inquired, indicating the many boxes.
As he expected, she lied.
"How should I know? Armor, I fancy. Yonder"—with a gesture—"is the entrance from the monastery. Soldiers guard the other side of the door.... Come!"
As she led off under the arches and along an aisle between the boxes, Trent asked himself why stores of explosives and ammunition were hidden beneath a Tibetan monastery. Perhaps, after all, there was something to Hsien Sgam's revolution....
An arched doorway admitted them to a corridor lined with gleaming idols. Hideous frescoes were painted upon long panels between the images, and at the end was a massive crimson-stained door. Before one of the panels Sarojini stopped. The painting was monstrous and pictured a three-eyed god standing in the midst of skulls and human entrails—a god that Trent recognized with a start as the one whose image was wrought on the coral symbol of the Order of the Falcon. At regular intervals on the panel were four brass rings, each having a long scarlet tassel attached to it.
Sarojini thrust the torch into Trent's hand and caught one of the brass rings. She twisted it and tugged, and the panel yielded, sliding to one side and disclosing a dark cavity in the wall. The woman stepped in first, Trent following. The recess was not more than fifty feet in diameter—a square space with frescoed walls. Opposite the entrance, and upon a lacquered pedestal, was a silver image of Janesseron, the Three-eyed God of Thunder—and his trio of narrow little orbs looked down upon the several chests that were pushed against the walls of the small room.