Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/140

 stick as our friend De Veber. The next I shall hear you will be in the clutches of that precious humbug, Mirrikh,  and fancy yourself on the road to Mars.”

“By the way, have you seen Maurice this morning?” I asked anxiously, and not without good reason, for since we rose from the frugal meal spread by the young lama who had  received us, I had seen nothing of Maurice. Mr. Mirrikh had taken him by the arm and departed immediately after  our arrival.

There had been trouble about Walla, also.

The rule of the lamasery admitted no females. At Mr. Mirrikh’s earnest solicitation it had been disregarded, but poor Walla was conveyed away to some remote part of the  great enclosure, and I had spent a sleepless night in consequence of it all, the Doctor and I occupying a small  room together, lying in our blankets upon the hard stone  floor, for even here I saw no sign of beds.

“No, I have not seen Maurice,” replied the Doctor, “and upon my word I begin seriously to wonder if we shall ever  see him again.”

“For God’s sake what have you learned?” I exclaimed, grasping his arm.

“Nothing, nothing!” he replied hastily, and then speaking quite seriously for once, he continued:

“The fact is, Wylde, I like this business less than ever, and for the first time begin to feel serious alarm as to what  may be our fate. Of course, so far as I am concerned, I have no one but myself to blame. I have traveled everywhere; Thibet is an unknown land and I was anxious to see it. Moreover, I confess to you I had some curiosity to follow up our man of mystery and see the end of his  preposterous claims; yet, now that I am here, I tremble  for our safety. We are in a country governed by a religious hierarchy of the most tyrannical description. Intelligent as these lamas are in some things, they are still but half savages. Let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that Mirrikh really possesses some occult knowledge of which  the world is ignorant. Are we to witness the display of this knowledge and afterward be permitted to leave this place  alive?”

“God knows!”

“Nobody knows but the powers which control this lamasery. Don’t let the glamor of our strange journey throw