“You said ‘part of the way.’ What do you mean by that?”
“Wait and see,” said the sirdar.
“No,” Ommony answered. “I will lead no man into a trap. What do you intend?”
The sirdar spoke in undertones to the Tibetan, who tossed a bundle of garments on the bed and left the room.
“You might save time,” the sirdar suggested, pointing to the bundle on the bed. His manner was polite, and more mysterious than commanding; he undid the bundle himself and spread out a Tibetan costume.
“How about you?” asked Ommony, beginning to undress.
“I go as I am.”
Ommony put on the warm Tibetan clothes and examined himself in the mirror—laughed—remarked that he looked like a monk whose asceticism consisted in at least three meals a day. But he looked better when he pulled on a cloth cap and threw a dark shawl over it. The sirdar, walking around him, viewing him carefully from every angle, appeared satisfied.
Then Dawa Tsering came, unaccompanied by the Tibetan, standing burly and enormous in his yak-hair cloak, almost filling up the doorway.
“Thou!” he said, grinning as his eyes met Ommony’s. “Say to Missish-Anbun she should return my knife to me. We go where there might be happenings.”