Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/222

 from their white eyeballs. Gray cast a calculating glance about the chamber. Two exits were available. The stairs, and the passage down which he had come. Which to take, he did not know. But he was not minded to be run down at the well in the dark.

A broad, bland face looked out from the corridor by the candles. He saw the silk robe and luminous, slant eyes of Wu Fang Chien.

"So Captain Gray has come to Sungan," the mandarin said calmly, in English. "I have been expecting him"

"I did not bring him," chattered Delabar. "I gave the alarm"

Terror was in his broken words. Wu Fang Chien scrutinized the kneeling figure and his eyes hardened.

"Who can trust the word of a mongrel?" he smiled, speaking in Chinese. "Slay the dog!"

Delabar screamed, and tried to struggle to his feet. Two of the Buddhists stepped to his side and buried their weapons in his body. The scream ended in a choking gasp. Again the priests struck him with reddened knives.

He sank to the floor, his arms moving weakly in a widening pool of his own blood. Wu Fang Chien had not ceased to smile.

Gray jerked out his automatic. He fired at the priests, the reports echoing thunderously in the con-