“Girls! Come see!”
When they had reached her side they stood staring in amazement, for there beneath them, seeming so close in the moonlight that Gale half fancied she could step on its roof, stood a Buddhist temple surrounded by a high wall.
“So that’s it! That’s the reason for the trail!” Gale exclaimed. “What a strange place for a temple.”
“It is a monastery where Buddhist monks live,” Than Shwe explained. “They are everywhere, these monks. Perhaps there are native villages not too far away, or a trail where people may get lost. They are like your Christian monks in the high Alps.”
“There is always a gate keeper,” she went on. “They may have a trail to the Secret Forest. It is but a little way. We might go down and ask.”
“It’s worth trying,” Gale agreed. And so they took to the trail again.
They had covered two-thirds of the distance when Gale, who was in the lead, came to a sudden halt.
“Look!” she whispered. “A woman.”
She pointed at a window of the temple that could be seen above the wall. There was a light in the room. Through the window they saw a tall woman. She was combing her hair.
“This is not strange,” Than Shwe whispered back. “Everyone is welcome to spend a night in one of these temples. They make a little offering in the morning, or perhaps a very good one if they are rich.”