Part 39 (1/2)

The Rangar chuckled softly

”There are no fools in the world like English offered life and liberty! Here is the key to both!”

Heon the rock by way of explanation

”Take the key and go!”

”No!” said King

”Very well, sahib! Hear the other side of it! Beyond those two red lights there is a curtain This side of that curtain you are Athelstan King of the Khyber Rifles, or Kurram Khan, or whatever you care to call yourself Beyond it, you are what she calls you! Choose!”

King did not answer, so he continued after a pause

”You shall pass behind that curtain, if you insist Beyond it you shall knohat she knows about Ali Masjid and your brother's head! You shall know all that she knows! There shall be no secrets between you and her! She shall translate the ain King of the Khyber Rifles, or Kurraain, it shall be as you never drea arms you never saw yet, and you shall cut with your own hand the ties that bind you to England! Choose!”

”I chose long ago,” said King

”Are the gentle English never serious?” the Rangar asked ”Will you not understand that if you pass that curtain you shall know all things that Yasmini knows, but that you shall cease to be yourself? Cease-to-be-yourself! Is , ”but I hope

Rewa Gungawaited for an answer For about a 's heart Then he ar's turban above the rock He could not see it He found a niche in the rock, set his foot in it and mounted three or four feet, until his head was level with the top The Rangar was gone!

He listened for two or three ain; so he stooped to feel the floor with his hand before deciding to go forward There was no iven by the tread of countless feet He was on a highway, and there are not often pitfalls where so many feet have been

For all that he went forward as a certain Agag once did, and it wasblood-red in the light behind the two laht of ten stone steps It was peculiar to hi nearer

When he went quite close he saw carpet down the h in places; all the pattern, supposing it ever had any, orn or faded away Carpet and steps glowed red too His own face, and the hands he held in front of him were red-hot-poker color Yet outside the little ellipse of light the darkness looked like a thing to lean against, and the silence was so intense that he could hear the arteries singing by his ears

He saw the curtains htly, apparently in a little puff of wind that made the lamps waver He was very nearly sure he heard a footfall beyond the curtains and a tinkle-as of a tiny silver bell, or a jewel striking against another one

He kicked his slippers off, because there are no conditions under which bad ood policy Wide history and cocker's fa on the carpet, because living scorpions have been known to be placed under carpets on purpose on occasion And at the top, being a Secret Service man, he stooped to exaraved All round the circuures in half-relief, representing a wo She was the woman of the knife-hilt, and of the lamps in the arena! She looked like Yasmini! Only she could not be Yasmini because these lamps were so ancient and so rare that he had never seen any in the least like theh he had visited most of the museums of the East

Both lamps were alike, for he crossed over to ures of the dance were alike on either It was the sa, but the artist had chosen twenty different poses hich to immortalize his skill, and hers Both lamps burned sweet oil with a wick, and each had a chimney of horn, not at all unlike a modern lamp-chimney The horn was stained red

As he set the second la smell, and memory took back at once to Yasmini's room in the Chandni Chowk in Delhi where he had smelled it first It was the peculiar scent he had been told was Yasmini's own-a blend of scents, like a chord of music, in which musk did not predominate

He took three strides and touched the curtains, discovering now for the first time that there were two of theh, and each three feet wide, of leather, and though they looked old as the ”Hills” theood cloth They had once been decorated with figures in gold leaf, but only a little patch of yellow here and there relories

He decided to reain, and at least to make opportunity for an invitation

”Kurra the echo But the echo was the only answer It cackled at hiroan in illimitable darkness

”Kurram-urram-urram-urram-urram-ahn-hai! Urrah-ah!”