“They go!” said Dawa Tsering. “They go!” He was excited—thrilled by the atmosphere of mystery. “There was a fellow on the wall, along there at the corner of the garden, where the tree is. He came running; and another summoned the Lama; and there was an order given. May devils eat me if they weren’t quick! They are like ants when the hill is damaged!”
Ommony approached the cloister where the candle-light threw dancing shadow, and the first thing he recognized was his own trunk, with the bags and bundles of the other actors laid alongside it, in a line with scores of other loads all roped in worn canvas covers. There was every indication of orderly but swift and sudden flight; and only one reasonable deduction possible. Dawa Tsering voiced it:
“Women—trouble! Trouble—women! It is the same thing! They bring a man to ruin in the end!”
Ommony sat down on the trunk, and suddenly jumped up again. A woman’s voice cried out of darkness from an upper story.
“Did you hear that?”
“So screams a woman when the knife goes in!” said Dawa Tsering pleasantly. He was having an entirely satisfying time. “Look to thyself! There is room to hide dead men in this place, and none the wiser!”
But Ommony was not quite sure the woman’s cry did not hold a suggestion of laughter.
A Tibetan unlocked the door of the great hall in which the rehearsals had taken place, and Maitraya emerged in a tantrum.
“Krishna! This is too much!” he snorted. “Is that you, Gupta Rao? What do you think of it? To lock us in like criminals! To take our luggage—by the Many-armed Immaculate—what is happening?”
The other actors trailed out after him, the women last, peering over the shoulders of the men in front. One of them was half-hysterical and, seeing nothing else to be afraid of, screamed at the dog. Ommony retreated into darkness. Dawa Tsering followed him, immensely free as to the shoulders, like an old-time mercenary fighting-man who foresaw trouble of the sort that was his meat and drink.