Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/276

 well as he ever walked, across the swaying bridge. In short, it is quite impossible to tell what I might or might not have  done, had a not sharp exclamation from the Doctor warned  me that still another change had come.

It was a light flashing beneath the arch.

There stood a man in Chinese dress holding in one hand a lantern, in the other the dragon flag.

Instantly I recognized him as the man who had headed the procession which Mirrikh showed me at the foot of  the mountain, and I knew that the time for transcendental  reflection had passed, never to return.

“By Jove! There’s a whole troop of them!” gasped the Doctor. “The jig is up just as we’ve got everything fixed. We’ll be marched off to the Tale Lama and be beheaded as sure as fate.”

By this time Maurice was over the bridge and had flung his arms about—well, I suppose I might as well begin, and  say Merzilla.

“Speak to them, George. They are all Chinamen!” he cried. “Now is the time to see if Mirrikh’s letter is any good.”

Through the arch they came pouring, with a hideous din of beating tom-toms and a formidable display of glistening spears.

I pulled out the letter, glancing hastily at the line of Thibetan characters inscribed upon it, and bowing low, laid it in the hand of the fat Celestial who came shambling toward  us, evidently being in command.

He glared at me and then opened the letter—we watched him.

To save my soul from perdition I could not remember a solitary word of Chinese, though I had rather prided myself  upon my pure Pekinese accent in the old days at Swatow.

Slowly he read the letter through to the end, and then, with a changed expression, bowed low before us—so low  that the glass ball on his cap almost touched the rock.

“Peace be unto you, my lords lamas! These children of the Flowery Kingdom are at your disposal. May your path to the frontier be strewn with roses, and long life and much  happiness await you in your native land!”