Late afternoon of the seventeenth day, and ahead, against the brazen furnace of the sunset, the battlements of Gyangtse. Trent straightened up in his saddle as he saw the town rise above the ochre hills. Gyangtse! From there the Chumbi Valley, the passes of Sikkhim, and down into tropical India! But Gyangtse meant more than that to him.... Like the frail filament of a dream was the memory of the journey from Shingtse-lunpo—dust and bitter winds; smoke of campfires in the nostrils; and in his heart a cavernous doubt. It was this doubt that fed upon his nerve-tissues, not the travel. And Gyangtse meant that it would end. He would be lifted to lofty spheres, or....
Now, as the town unfolded in the sunset, he looked at Dana Charteris, who rode near him—rode in silence, staring ahead. (Thus she had ridden for those seventeen days—in silence and staring ahead, a wintry coolness freezing the warmth from her eyes.) Tears trembled upon her lashes.
The road took them under a bastion and toward the gate. When they were yet some distance away a uniformed figure, mounted and followed by turbaned Gurkhas, clattered out to meet them.
"Cavendish! The District Agent!"
Kerth, who was riding ahead with the muleteers and the grain-sacks, called back these words to Trent and the girl.
The uniformed figure had drawn up—a tanned young man, with the mark of a helmet-strap running across each cheek and a lonely hungering in his eyes. He was laughing and shaking hands with Trent; then he touched his helmet as he saw Dana Charteris.
They were guided into a compound where marigolds kindled a warmth against white walls. Servants with weathered, smiling faces appeared from the house, sticking out their tongues in greeting.
But Trent found a poignant sharpness in this welcome, for the winter-light in the eyes of Dana Charteris had chilled him to the soul.
2
A bath in a collapsible canvas tub; clean clothing; dinner in a high-ceilinged, cool room; and, afterward, Trent, Kerth and the young Agent talking, over cigars.