Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/145

 entrance. Beside her was a tall man, well dressed. He rose.

"This is my uncle, Major Hastings, Captain Gray," she smiled. "We heard that you were in the bazaar. Are you buying curios to take back with your trophies?"

Sir Lionel returned the American's bow politely, glancing from Muhammed Bai to him curiously. Then his eye fell on the parchment. He leaned forward and uttered a sharp exclamation of interest.

"Whence came this?" he asked Muhammed Bai, in the dialect of Western Shensi.

The Turkoman peered up at him from tufted brows, looking like an aged, gray hen guarding one of its brood. "From the desert yonder. I, Muhammed Bai"

"What language is the writing?"

"How should I know, Excellency?"

"It would be hard to tell." Sir Lionel frowned thoughtfully. "The characters on the parchment are certainly not the cuneiform of Behistun; equally, they are no dialect of the older Kashgaria, or Chinese. These two languages are the only ones we would expect to find here, except possibly"

He broke off, glancing curiously at Gray.

"Have you a claim to this manuscript, sir? Are you planning to purchase it?"

Gray hesitated, feeling the cool gaze of the girl