“Rukh! Rukh! Rukh! Rukh!” in a herald voice that proclaimed that the fortress-like castle was Rukh, the ground they stood on Rukh, the cave-temple, the immense horn of metallic lacquer poised on a crag beyond the castle—the most unique and surprising thing in all the amazing picture—the sky above, all of creation that mattered or counted—Rukh, imperial, incomparable Rukh—Rukh, the apex of the world.
But for all that his statement meant to them Crespin said disgustedly, “What the deuce is he rooking about?”
“Goodness knows,” Traherne rejoined.
But the woman jumped to it.
“I believe I know!” she broke in. Crespin and Traherne gazed at her in surprise—her husband incredulous, Traherne very curious. “Wait a minute!” she commanded, searching her pockets excitedly—almost, in her quiet, well-bred English way, as excited as Yazok himself. “I thought I had the paper with me. I wish I could find it. But I did have it, and I did read it. I know I did. I read it in the Leader just before we started, that the three men who murdered the Political Officer at Abdulabad came from a wild region at the back of the Himalayas, called Rukh.”
“Yes,” Traherne told them, “now that you mention it, I have heard of the place.”
“Well, that’s something,” Crespin exclaimed. “Come, we’re getting on.”
“Perhaps,” the physician said under his breath, as he turned again to Yazok the priest and accosted him once more in a few Russian words, pointing interrogatively to the palace.
But the priest’s Russian was little, less than Traherne’s own, and Yazok had no intention of being over-communicative.
“Raja Sahib,” he said—so he had some smattering of Hindustani after all—“Raja Sahib,” he repeated several times; but that was all that he would say.