"Sarojini Nanjee is very clever. I should have known better than to oppose a woman."
A rattling laugh broke from Hsien Sgam, a laugh that was punctuated by a crash. Trent, turning, saw a rapier of corrosive flame leap from the Mongol's hand; saw it reflect hideously upon the features of Sarojini Nanjee. He sought to catch her, but she slipped from the saddle.... Her face stared up at him from a pool of black hair.
Again the rattling laugh—as the muleteers lunged at Hsien Sgam; again the crash and the rapier of corrosive flame, a broken rapier, that sank its hot shaft into the Mongol's own breast.... He hung limp between the muleteers, and a shining thing dropped from his hand to the ground. But his eyes were open. Trent saw them; Kerth, who had dismounted, saw them.
"I regret that I killed your friend, Major Trent"—the Mongol spoke in a stricken voice—"I regret, too, that I was forced to close the lips of a native who appeared at an inopportune time. It is unpardonable, major, that I stabbed this Captain Manlove—instead—of you."
Then he swayed; fell forward upon the neck of his mount. He was still alive when Trent reached him, but the Buddha-like face seemed shrunken and the oblique eyes, revealed by the searching brilliance of the moonlight, were half closed with pain. He smiled in a twisted, grotesque manner.
"Mysteries are exquisite things, major," he whispered. "Consider how delightful it—it will be, in years to come, to—to wonder whether Chavigny ... ah, Shinje!... whether he was killed in Delhi, as Sarojini claims, or died in—in Lhakang-gompa; and to wonder if she really meant to—to murder you, or if I—I lied—" He laughed softly. "You have heard of the scorpion, major, who, surrounded, stings himself to death...."
They had to lift him from the pony, and Trent, looking down upon the huddled body, knew it did not belong to the boy who went forth from Mongolia with the dream of a messiah shining in his heart.