She sat erect beneath the canopy of the chair, the blue robe with its gold dragons wrapped about her. Her tranquil face in its white hair looked across the plain.... She was more beautiful than he had ever known her! A queen in this robe of the Past!
He reached his hand till it touched the one that lay on the arm of the chair. The face with its tranquil smile turned to him.
And he saw with a start that the blue of the eyes and the blue of the coat were one....
They reached the spur of the hill and Kou Ying gave the signal to halt.
Behind them in the face of the cliff the seated Buddha looked across the plain.
And ahead, far beyond them on the plain, a single figure beneath a red umbrella plodded stolidly on, moving toward the tomb of its ancestors.
And as it went the red umbrella bobbed slowly, a spot of color in the distant far-reaching grayness of the plain.