Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/142

 As we crossed this court the Doctor remarked on the general deserted aspect, and called my attention to the fact  that I had previously noticed, namely, that up against the  doors of almost all these detached buildings the snow lay  banked.

It was quite obvious that Psam-dagong was no densely populated lamasery such as the good Abbe Huc, the only  explorer who has given us a substantial record of his  Thibetan experiences, tells about.

Afterward I came to know that ten souls were all those walls encompassed, but on that morning when the young  lama conducted the Doctor and myself back across the  court and into the temple, all was mystery, and I felt that  the unknown lay before us. Since then, though years have passed, I can truthfully say that the happenings in the lamasery of Psam-dagong are enveloped in a veil of mystery still. But to return.

Through the low stone door way, above and about which wound a trailing dragon, carved in bold relief; through a  dark and narrow passage, paved and musty smelling;  through another door, and then into a large apartment, dimly lighted and shadowy, the “joss house,” the Doctor called  it, for there was a huge gilded Buddha rising at the back  with tall candles burning before the altar, which was laden  with offerings of the faithful, gifts of the wild tribes of the  adjacent mountains who, at certain seasons, seek the lamasery to prostrate themselves before this image, the representative of their God.

Now I do not know what I expected to find upon entering this place and still less am I able to record the Doctor’s  thoughts, What we found was Maurice De Veber and the  mysterious Mr. Mirrikh awaiting us. I beheld my friend with a sense of indescribable relief.

They were standing upon the tesselated pavement before the image talking in low tones together, while beside them,  upon his knees, with his head bent until it touched the pavement, crouched a man, wearing the yellow dress of the order  which controlled this shrine, a man of great age evidently,  for his features were as dried and wrinkled as a withered  apple, and the ring of hair which surrounded his tonsure, snowy white.

This is what I saw upon the occasion of my first visit to the temple.