Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/114

 Gray looked up quickly from his inspection of the fire. He had heard that phrase before. Delabar had used it.

"What is the pale sickness?" he asked patiently. Mirai Khan ceased yawning.

"Out in the sands, in the liu sha, hangs the pale sickness. It is in the air. It is an evil sickness. It leaves its mark on those who go too near. I have heard of men who went too far into the liu sha and did not return."

"Why?"

"It is forbidden."

"By the priests of the prophet?"

"Not so. Why should they deal with an evil thing? Is it not the law of the Koran that a man may not touch what is unclean? The rat priests of China, who worship the bronze god, have warned us from the region. I have heard the caravan merchants say that men are brought from China and placed out in the sands, the liu sha."

Gray frowned. Mirai Khan spoke frankly, and without intent to deceive him. But he spoke in the manner of his kind—in parables.

"Three times, Mirai Khan," he said, "you have said liu sha. What does that mean?"

The Kirghiz lifted some sand in his scarred hand, sifting it through his fingers to the ground.

"This is it," he explained. "We call it in my tongue the kara kum—dark sands. Yet the liu sha