“It’s a segment of the human mind, in stone!” she breathed.
He pointed to a gate tower set high upon the Wall. “The Gate of the World looking out upon Asia! It is far beyond there that Sun Yat Sen is shortly to march afoot, secretly, on his mission—to shake an empire. I’d give my soul to go! For what other life could offer a thing like that?”
He turned on a light, and abruptly pulled out some camphor chests. Opening them up, he tossed out their contents. Julie dropped down on her knees and watched the rare fabrics flow forth: lustrous brocades, and cobweb tissues, sparkling with jeweled lights. He unlocked carved and scented ivory boxes, and chains of amethysts like drops of wine trembled out in a thin stream; then came sapphires like blue winking eyes of the night, and a little sack of pearls that took Julie’s breath wholly away.
“Am I in Ali Baba’s treasure cave?” she exclaimed.
He smiled. “I have seen Ali Baba’s treasure cave, in Ceylon. There is a certain shop there which has been kept by generations of a family. Indian princes go to Ali Sherif for their jewels. Lots of these things I got there for prices unheard of in Europe. When I passed through last, Ali Sherif was celebrating his son’s marriage. I fell to praising some of the jewels of the native prince, and, stirred by the mood of the day, Ali invited me to go with him into the underground vaults of his house. There on the floors of those cellars were fabulous hills that blazed up under his torch into every incredible kind of gleaming sun—all garnered and stored away there by generations of jewel-smiths.”
Julie picked up and held admiringly in her hand a dazzling medallion of white jade with a single hieroglyphic carved upon it.
“That’s supposed to be a whale of a charm!” Barry explained, observing her fascination. “Belonged to the Imperial family. I got it at the same time I got the chair. Caples always insists that nothing short of a crime on my part could have brought either of them into my possession; but fleeing princes will part with anything for a chance at life.”
He drew a thin chain from one of the boxes, passed it through the hole that was pierced in the piece of jade, and slipped it around her neck. “There you have a charm from the Lama’s Temple in Lhassa. And there isn’t a charm in Asia to beat its power. There’s scarcely a Mongolian that won’t bow down to it. I’ll have a catch fixed for it, and send it to you.”
Julie, seated among these riches, smiled up at him, to find his whole being concentrated upon her in an intense look that lifted her out of herself into a new personality so thrillingly comprehensive that it seemed in touch with a world of vivid inspirations. Bonds seemed momentarily to be cut behind her; she felt herself slipping on wings into high areas. All about her, agitating her soul to its depths, was this great wordless offering.
Chad and Isabel had not left. Chad, who had a poetic passion for oriental art, had become absorbed in some rare vases which Barry had recently received from China. Isabel, between moments of fitful contemplation of the red chair, stirred restlessly about, contriving in her movements to reconnoiter along the gallery into the adjoining room. Turning her eyes back warily upon the preoccupied Chad, she every now and then leaned around the wall between the two doors, and obtained glimpses of what was taking place between Barry and Julie. Her dark head, listening acutely, was stealthily thrust forward and withdrawn like the head of some tropical serpent.