Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/213

 it is still inviolate from the touch of the foreigner."

Gray knew that this was true. The scattered foreigners who had entered the coast cities of China, and the missionaries who claimed a few converts in the middle kingdom were only a handful in the great mass of the Mongolians. In the interior, and throughout Central Asia and India, as in Japan, the shrines of Buddha, of Vishnu, and the temple of the Dalai Lama were undisturbed. And here, not on the coast, was the heart of Mongolia. Delabar continued, almost triumphantly.

"Word was sent to me from Wu Fang Chien—who had heard the news from a Chinese servant of the American Museum of Natural History—that an expedition was being fitted out to explore Central Mongolia. I was ordered to volunteer to accompany it."

"And you did your best to wreck the expedition," assented Gray.

"I liked you, Captain Gray. I tried to persuade you to turn back. At Liangchowfu it was too late. When you escaped from Wu Fang Chien there, he held me responsible for the failure. The priesthood never trusted me fully."

"In my religion," said Gray grimly, "there is a saying that a man can not serve two masters and save his own soul."

Delabar shivered.

"The priesthood," he muttered, "will not forgive