Marching Sands

by Harold Lamb

  “If only I am not too late,” he thought. “I must not be too late. That could not happen.”

  Gray had no words to frame a prayer. But, lacking words, he nevertheless prayed silently as he walked.

  The stars faded. The moon had disappeared over the plain in front of the American. The dunes turned from black to gray and to brown as the sunrise climbed behind him.

  Gray sat down on a hillock and drew out his flour cakes. These—some of them—he chewed, washing them down with water from his canteen.

  Had Sir Lionel lived to see that day? Gray thought not. Mirai Khan’s prophecy had born fruit.

  A few feet away an animal’s skull—a gazelle, by the horns—peered from the sand. Gray watched it quietly until the sun gleamed on the whitened bone. Then he rose, stretching his tired limbs, and pressed on.

  Late that afternoon he sighted the towers of Sungan slightly to the north of his course.

  * * * * *

  Working his way forward, Gray scanned the place through his glasses. He was on the summit of a ridge about a half mile from the nearest towers. The ruins lay in the center of a wide plain that seemed to be clay rather than sand.

  At intervals over the plain, sand drifts had formed. Gray wondered if it was from behind these that the lepers had advanced on the Hastings’ caravan. In the center of the plain trees and stunted tamarisks grew, indicating the presence of water.

  Throughout this scattered vegetation, the ruins pushed through the sand. Sir Lionel had been correct in his guess that the desert sand had overwhelmed the city. Gray could see that only the tops of the tumble-down walls were visible—those and the towers which presumably had been part of the palaces and temples of ancient Sungan. Even the towers were in a ruined state.

  They seemed to be formed of a dark red sandstone, which Gray knew was found in the foothills of the Thian Shan country, to the north. He judged that the structures were at least five or six centuries old. He saw some portions of walls that were surmounted by battlements. And the towers—through the glasses—showed narrow embrasures instead of modern windows.

  The sight stirred his pulse. Before him was the ancient city of the Gobi that had been the abode of a powerful race before it was invaded by the advancing sands. Past these walls the caravan of Marco Polo had journeyed. The great Venetian had spoken of a city here, where no modern explorers had found one. He had called it Pe-im.

  And in the ruins Mary Hastings might be still living, in desperate need of him.

  What interested Gray chiefly were the people of the place. He was too far to make them out clearly, and only a few were visible. This puzzled him, for Sir Lionel had mentioned a “pack of lepers.”

  He was able to see that the people were of two kinds. One was robed in a light yellow or brown garment. Several of these men were standing or sitting on ridges outside the ruins. Gray guessed that they were sentinels.

  Furthermore, he believed them to be priests. The other kind wore darker dress and appeared from time to time among the ruins. They were—or seemed to be, at that distance—both men and women.

  The thought of the girl urged Gray to action. It would be the part of wisdom to wait until nightfall before entering the city. But he could not bring himself to delay.

  He was reasonably sure, from the conduct of the men acting as sentinels, that he had not been seen as yet. He had planned no course of action. What he wanted to do, now that he had an idea of the lay of the land, was to get hold of one of the men of Sungan, leper or priest, and question him about the white woman who had been taken prisoner.

  Mary had been in Sungan at least three days and nights. Surely the people of the place must know of her. Once Gray had an idea where she was kept, he would be able to proceed.

  The venture appeared almost hopeless. How could he enter the ruins, find the girl, and bring her out safely? What would they do then? How was he to deal with the lepers, whose touch meant possible contagion?

  But he was hungry for sight of Mary—to know if she was still alive. He could not wait until night to learn this. He marked the position of the nearest men in his mind, returned the glasses to their case, loosened his automatic in its sheath, and slipped down from his lookout behind the ridge.

  “I’ve cut out sentries,” he mused grimly, “but not this kind. They don’t seem to be armed.”

  In fact, the men of Sungan were not armed—with modern weapons. But they had a deadly means of defense in the disease that bore a miserable death in its touch.

  Gray, for once, blessed the continuous dunes of the Gobi. He went forward cautiously, keeping behind the ridges and edging his way from gully to gully, crawling at times and not daring to lift his head for another look at the sentinels he had located.

  His sense of direction was good. He had crawled for the last half hour and the sun was well past mid-day when he heard voices a short distance ahead.

  Removing his hat, Gray peered over the sand vigilantly. He found that he had come almost in the line he had planned. A hundred yards away two figures were seated on a rise. They wore the yellow robes he had first noticed.

  As he watched, one rose and walked away leisurely toward the ruins. The other remained seated, head bent on his clasped arms that rested on his knees. There was something resigned, almost hopeless, in the man’s attitude.

  Gray waited until the first priest had had time to walk some distance. Then he wriggled forward alertly.

  He had no means of knowing that others were not on the further side of the ridge where the sentry sat. But he heard no further voices, and he had ascertained carefully before he set out that these two were isolated.

  Reasonably certain of his prey, Gray pulled himself from stone to stone, from depression to depression. Once the man looked up—perhaps at a slight sound. Then his head fell on his arms again. Gray rose to his feet and leaped toward the ridge silently.

  Eyes bent on the still figure of the priest, he gained the foot of the dune. The man stiffened and raised his head, as if he had sensed danger. Gray was beneath him by now, and stretched out a powerful arm.

  His hand closed on a sandaled foot and he pulled the priest down from his perch. Gray’s other hand clamped on the man’s mouth, preventing outcry. They were sheltered from view from Sungan by the ridge, and the American believed no one would notice the disappearance of the priest.

  “If you cry out, you will die,” he said in Chinese, kneeling over the other. Cautiously he removed his hand from the priest’s mouth.

  “Tell me—” he began. Then—“It’s a white man!”

  He peered at the dark, sunburned face, and the newly shaven skull.

  “Delabar,” he said slowly. “Professor Arminius Delabar, minus a beard. No mistaking your eyes, Professor. Now what, by all that’s unholy, are you doing here in this monkey rig?”

  CHAPTER XVII

  The Yellow Robe

  The man on the sand was silent, staring up at Gray in blank amazement. It was Delabar, thinner and more careworn than before. Shaven, all the lines of his face stood out, giving him the appearance of a skull over which yellow skin was stretched taut—a skull set with two smoldering, haggard eyes.

  “Speak up, man,” growled Gray. “And remember what I said about giving the alarm. I don’t know if this costume is a masquerade or not, but—I can’t afford to take chances this time.”

  Delabar did not meet his gaze. He lay back on the sand, fingers plucking at his thin lips.

  “I can’t speak,” he responded hoarsely.

  “You can. And you will. You’ll tell me what I want to know—this time. You lied to me before. Now you’ll deal a straight hand. This is not an idle threat. I must have information.”

  Delabar glanced at him fleetingly. Then looked around. No one was in sight, as they lay in a pocket in the sand.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “A whole lot. First—how did you get here? I thought all white men were barred.”

  “Wu Fang Chien,” said Delabar
moodily. “He caught me the day after I left you. He shot the coolie and had me brought here.”

  “What’s the meaning of that?” Gray nodded contemptuously at the yellow robe.

  “Wu Fang Chien punished me. He forced me to join the Buddhist priests who act as guards of Sungan. He did not want me to escape from China. Here, I was safe under his men.”

  “Hm. He trusts you enough to post you as one of the sentries.”

  “With another man. The other left to attend a council of the priests. My watch is over at sunset. In two hours.”

  Gray scanned his erstwhile companion from narrowed eyes. He decided the man was telling the truth, so far.

  “Will these Buddhist dogs come to relieve you at sunset, Delabar?”

  “No. The priests do not watch after nightfall. Some of the lepers we—Wu Fang Chien can trust make the rounds.”

  “Is Wu Fang Chien in control here—governor of Sungan?”

  Delabar licked his lips nervously. Perspiration showed on his bare forehead. “Yes. That is, the mandarin is responsible to the Chinese authorities. He has orders to keep all intruders from Sungan—on account of the lepers.”

  Gray smiled without merriment.

  “You say the priests stand guard. Are they armed?”

  “No. Not with guns. Any one who tries to escape from here is followed and brought back by the outer guards—if he doesn’t die in the desert.”

  “I see.” Gray gripped the shoulder of the man on the sand. “Did you hear me say I wanted the truth, not lies? Well, you may have been telling me the letter of the truth. But not the whole. Once you said ‘we’ instead of Wu Fang Chien. Likewise, I know enough of Chinese methods to be sure Wu wouldn’t punish a white man by elevating him to the caste of priest. You’re holding something back, Delabar. What is your real relation to Wu?”

  Delabar was silent for a long time. Staring overhead, his eyes marked and followed the movements of a wheeling vulture. His thin fingers plucked ceaselessly at the yellow robe.

  “Wu Fang Chien,” he said at length, “is my master. He is the emissary of the Buddhists in China. He has the power of life and death over those who break the laws of Buddha. I am one of his servants.”

  Delabar raised himself on one elbow.

  “A decade ago, in India, I became a Buddhist, Captain Gray. Remember, I am a Syrian born. I spent most of my youth in Bokhara, and in Kashgar, where I came under the influence of the philosophers of the yellow robe. I acknowledged the tenets of the Buddha; I bowed before the teachings of the ancient Kashiapmadunga and the wisdom that is like a lamp in the night—that burned before your Christ. And I gave up my life to ‘the world of golden effulgence.’”

  A note of tensity crept into his eager words. The dark eyes reflected a deeper fire.

  “Earthly lusts I forswore, for the celestial life that is born by ceaseless meditation, and contemplation of the Maha-yana. I was ordained in the first orders of the priesthood. That was the time when foreign missionaries began to enter China in force, in spite of the Boxer uprising and the revolt of the Tai-pings. The heads of the priesthood wanted information about this foreign faith, and the peoples of Europe. They wanted to know why the white men sought to disturb the ancient soul of China.”

  Gray whistled softly as Delabar’s character became clear.

  “I was sent to Europe. At first I kept in touch with the priesthood through Wu Fang Chien. Then came the overthrow of the Manchus, and the republic in China. But you cannot cast down the religion of eight hundred million souls by a coup d’état. The priesthood still holds its power. And it is still inviolate from the touch of the foreigner.” Gray knew that this was true. The scattered foreigners who had entered the coast cities of China, and the missionaries who claimed a few converts in the middle kingdom, were only a handful in the great mass of the Mongolians. In the interior, and throughout Central Asia and India, as in Japan, the shrines of Buddha, of Vishnu, and the temple of the Dalai Lama were undisturbed. And here, not on the coast, was the heart of Mongolia. Delabar continued, almost triumphantly.

  “Word was sent to me from Wu Fang Chien—who had heard the news from a Chinese servant of the American Museum of Natural History—that an expedition was being fitted out to explore Central Mongolia. I was ordered to volunteer to accompany it.”

  “And you did your best to wreck the expedition,” assented Gray.

  “I liked you, Captain Gray. I tried to persuade you to turn back. At Liangchowfu it was too late. When you escaped from Wu Fang Chien there, he held me responsible for the failure. The priesthood never trusted me fully.”

  “In my religion,” said Gray grimly, “there is a saying that a man can not serve two masters and save his own soul.”

  Delabar shivered.

  “The priesthood,” he muttered, “will not forgive failure. Wu Fang Chien is watching me. You can do nothing here. Go back, before we are seen together. Sungan is nothing but a leper colony. You were a fool to think otherwise.”

  “And the Wusun?”

  “Lepers! They are the only ones here except the priests.”

  Gray’s eyes hardened.

  “A lie, Delabar. Why should Wu Fang Chien kill a dozen men to keep the English caravan and myself from Sungan?” He caught and held Delabar’s startled gaze. “Where is Mary Hastings?”

  “I—who is she?”

  “You know, Delabar. The girl who came with the caravan. She was taken prisoner. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gray touched his automatic significantly.

  “I want to know,” he said quietly. “And you can tell me. It is more important than my life or your miserable existence. Where is Mary Hastings?”

  Delabar cowered before the deadly purpose in the white man’s eyes.

  “I don’t know, Captain Gray. Wu Fang Chien ordered that, when the caravan was attacked, she should be brought to him. Not killed, but taken to him. Some of the priests seized her and took her to one of the inner courts of the city. At the time, Wu Fang Chien was directing the attack on the caravan. I have not seen her since.”

  “Where is this inner court?”

  “You are a fool. You could not possibly get into the ruins without being seen. Wu Fang Chien would be glad to see you. I heard him say if the girl was spared, you would come here after her. He knew all that happened at Ansichow—”

  “Then she is alive!” Gray’s pulses leaped. “So my friend Wu is keeping the girl as bait for my coming. A clever man, Wu Fang Chien. But how did he know Sir Lionel had told me what happened at Sungan?”

  “The Englishman was followed back to where he met you. If he had been killed in the fighting here, I think Wu Fang Chien planned to send me to bring you here—”

  “Yes, he is clever.” Gray studied the matter with knitted brows. “So Wu wants to kill me off, now that I have come this far—as he did the men of the caravan? Look here! Does he know I’m near Sungan? Were you put here as—bait?”

  “No,” Delabar shook his head. “The men who were sent to attack you—the Chinese soldiers hired by Wu Fang Chien—lost track of you. Wu Fang Chien does not know where you are—yet. If he should find you here talking to me, it would be my death. I—I have learned too much of the fate of the Hastings. Oh, they were fools. Why should your people want to pry into what is hidden from them? Go back! You can do nothing for the girl.”

  Gray stared at the Buddhist curiously.

  “You haven’t learned much decency from your religion, Delabar. So the outer guards failed to make good, eh? By the way, how is it that they leave camel tracks in the sand?”

  “They wear camels’ hoofs instead of shoes. Hoofs cut from dead wild camels that the Chinese hunters kill for our food—for the lepers. It helps them to walk on the sand, and mystifies the wandering Kirghiz. Why do you want to throw your life away—?”

  “I don’t.” Gray sat down and produced some of his flour cakes. “I want to get out of Sungan with a whole skin, and with Mary Hastings.” H
e munched the cakes calmly, washing down the mouthfuls with water from his canteen. “And I’m going to get into the inner courts of Sungan. You’re going to guide me. If we’re discovered, remember you’ll be the first man to die. Now, Delabar, I want a good description of Sungan, its general plan, and the habits of your Buddhist friends.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Bassalor Danek

  Nightfall comes quickly after sunset on the Gobi plain. Waiting until the shadows concealed their movements, Gray and Delabar started toward the city of Sungan.

  The moon was not yet up. By keeping within the bushes that grew thickly hereabouts, Delabar was able to escape observation from a chance passerby. The man was plainly frightened; but Gray allowed him no opportunity to bolt.

  “You’ll stay with me until I see Mary Hastings,” he whispered warningly.

  A plan was forming in the American’s mind—a plan based on what Delabar had told him of the arrangement of the buildings of Sungan. The lepers, he knew, lived in the outer ruins, where he had seen them that afternoon. In the center of the Sungan plain, Delabar said, was a depression of considerable extent. Here were the temples and palaces, the towers of which he had seen.

  This, the old city, was surrounded by a wall. Delabar said it was occupied by the priests. And in this place Mary Hastings might be found. It was a guess; but a guess was better than nothing.

  When they came to the first stone heaps, Gray halted his guide.

  “You told me once,” he whispered, “that Sungan had a series of underground passages. Take me down into these.”

  “Through the lepers’ dwellings?”

  Gray nodded silently. Delabar was shivering—an old trick of his when nervous.

  “It is madness, Captain Gray!” he chattered. “You do not know—”

  “I know what you told me. Likewise that you don’t want me to get into these temples. Step out!”