And whoever they were, they were not afraid, which was sufficient cause in itself for much hard thinking. Diana was as high at the shoulder as a Great Dane; as shaggy and lean and active as a monster from the folklore legends. As an apparition suddenly emerging out of darkness with her eyes aglare in candle-light she was enough to have thrown old hunters into panic. But instead there was nothing but laughter, much snapping of fingers and enticing noises made between the lips; and the laughter was as merry and appealing as the sudden view-hallo of children when a circus-clown kisses a pig. The Lama had to boom a second time for silence, although why he called for silence after that ringing revelation was not exactly clear; surely there was no risk, down there in the tunnel, of the noise being heard by the police. And another thing: his voice was not alarmed, not even anxious or offended; it more resembled that of an engineer who orders steam turned off, or of a clerk convening court—quite matter-of-fact, with hardly the suggestion of command in it.
Ommony let Diana stay behind there making friends. He chuckled to himself. There were few but he who knew the possibilities of that dog. Having once established in her mind that certain individuals were friends, he would have no particular difficulty in using her to penetrate any screen the Lama might contrive. There was no further need to risk an issue with the Lama by appearing over-curious; he could wait for opportunity and let Diana open up communications.
Meanwhile, it would not have helped him in the least to be inquisitive just then. The tunnel turned again and grew pitch-dark—became a stream of echoing noise in which a man could only feel his way by touching the man next to him or elbowing the wall, letting himself flow forward as it were in the general movement, which some forgotten sense reported to the brain.
Then dim light, far ahead, and at last a glimpse of sky, framing half a dozen stars, that made the tunnel seem even darker and a backward glimpse impossible. Diana came sniffing for Ommony and shoved her nose into his hand. Then she suddenly bayed at the sight of the sky in front and raced away to investigate.
Ommony did his best to memorize the details of the tunnel opening, but failed. There were steps, but not many of them. Then he found himself in a courtyard about thirty yards square, with stars overhead and the shadowy columned entrance of a place that looked in the dark like a temple behind him. He was aware that a stone floor had come sliding forward to conceal the flight of steps; a man had shouted to him to hurry lest he be caught in the gap, and he had seen that the sliding stone was two feet thick. There was no sign of the Lama, or of Samding, or the women.
There were camels in the courtyard; he knew that by the smell before he saw them kneeling in two uneven rows. Diana, who hated camels, came to heel, growling to herself in undertones, and Dawa Tsering laughed aloud.
“I smell travel and the road that runs north!” he said triumphantly. “The devil may have these hot plains! Wait while I pick us two good camels—wait here!”
He disappeared and within the minute there were sounds of hot dispute—three voices. A camel rose like an apparition from another world, and snarled as if this world were not satisfying. A heavy thump—a louder oath—and Dawa Tsering limped back.
“In the belly! Kicked me in the belly!” he gasped, unable to stand upright but with enough wind left in him for agonied speech. “I would have hamstrung the brute, but—those Tibetan—devils—eh, but it hurts!—they pushed me toward his hoof again and—yow! let me sit so—stand beside me—yah-h, I have a bellyache!”
The courtyard was alive with movement, but there was hardly a spoken word. The camels moaned and gurgled, as they always do when loads are being heaped on them, and now and then some one called out for an extra package to balance an animal’s burden; but on the whole there was even less noise than when Bedouins strike tents and vanish. After a while, as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, Ommony could make out men who certainly were not Tibetans; they wore turbans and were more like Bikaniri camel-men. Then, huge and shadowy against the sky, there loomed seven elephants with curtained howdahs, making no noise, effortless, coming through an open gate like phantoms in a dream.