2
To a room on the second story of the Governor's residence Trent was taken. An iron door shut with strident clangor behind him. He saw neither lock nor bolt as he entered, and, after waiting for several moments, he tried the door, a purely perfunctory act. To his surprise it swung back—and showed him, in the corridor-gloom, two mailed, armed soldiers. This was the first eye-proof of captivity.
Trent closed the door and delivered his attention to the room. It was large and of stone, and gory frescoes were painted upon the wall-panels. There were two windows, each barred and offering a view of the city—a waste of terraced white, almost blinding in the sunlight, crowned by the monastery and its golden roofs. Trent peered out of one window, then the other. Both looked down upon a wide roadway. For a moment he gazed at the few monks and soldiers that came and went below, then moved to a bench fixed against the wall and sank heavily, with the uncertain air of a drunken man, upon the red cushions. There was the same suggestion of intoxication in his eyes, which were veined with red from loss of sleep.
He removed his mushroom-shaped hat and furrowed his black-dyed hair. His was the despair of a gambler who has plunged, who perceives defeat for himself in the first hand and after that plays without hope, with only the will to hope.
Like something remote and beyond reach, something dim as a dream, was the thought of Dana Charteris. His interview with Hsien Sgam drove out the mystery surrounding her abduction, but left an infinitude of apprehensions. The purpose that actuated the Mongol to such a move was not obscure. Yet if she were a hostage, he need not fear for her safety—for the present. Eight o'clock—much hinged on that. What would the Mongol demand?
A deeper tide of thoughts brought to focus interests other than personal. If Sarojini Nanjee succeeded in her venture, she would be waiting at the Great Magician's Gate at the appointed time. And if he was still a prisoner then? But, even if he succeeded in freeing himself, he could not go without Dana Charteris. Nor could he abandon Kerth.... Knotted cords, and apparently no loose ends with which to work. His only foil was the fact that he held the secret of Na-chung's whereabouts—a slim weapon with which to fight a more cunningly armed opponent.
Kerth. Where was Kerth now? In Lhakang-gompa? How could he get word to him? Bribe the soldiers? He dared not try; his message might fall into Hsien Sgam's hands and thus destroy Kerth's chances.... But he did not know where to reach Kerth—a difficulty he had entirely overlooked.
He rose, and his eyes wandered about the room. As a matter of course, he tried the bars of the windows. His efforts led only to a fuller realization of his plight. Taken without violence, in a room with an unlocked door, he was as securely confined as though he were chained and in a dungeon.
He returned to the bench to wait—wait for eight o'clock. As the minutes dragged by his nerves underwent a gradual disintegration. Anxiety, mental and physical weariness—they were the destroying forces. He walked the floor.... It was exquisite torture, this waiting; something inquisitional about it. He fled from it, in thoughts, to Dana Charteris, as a persecuted worshipper to the healing coolness and quiet of temple corridors....
Sunlight ceased to reflect its glare upon the whitewashed houses, and the gilded roofs of Lhakang-gompa floated in the gathering twilight like islands on a dusky sea. A rosy light spread above the city, above the towering lamasery, and deepened from pink to sullen red, like the flaming promise of an angry Stromboli. There was something sinisterly significant—a devil's symbol—in the sunset; thrice significant to Trent as he paced his prison and watched the crimson dye staining the city. For what seemed little more than a moment Shingtse-lunpo swam in the wine-light as in blood; then night touched sun-scorched walls with soothing hands and drew a veil of secrecy over the sprawling mass of houses.