Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/255

 and Timur conferred upon it, putting down the glasses reluctantly.

"I know not," hazarded Timur. Gray saw that his double question had confused them. To remedy his error he turned to Bassalor Danek. "Keep these small Eyes-of-Long-Sight," he said. "I give them to you."

Despite his accustomed calm, the chieftain of the Wusun gave an involuntary exclamation of pleasure. Gray pressed his advantage.

"Further proof I will give, O Bassalor Danek. Draw the curtains of the shrine that I may see the god of the Wusun. Then I will show you that my people beyond the desert knew of the god."

He reasoned swiftly that the Wusun, if Timur's account of their history had been correct, must have in their shrine some emblem of the Tatar deity—the god Natagai which Mirai Khan had described to him—or possibly some Mohammedan symbol. He rather guessed the former, since the Wusun had been isolated before the Moslem wave swept over Central Asia.

"It is not a god, O Man-from-the-Outside," demurred Timur. "It is a talisman of our fathers. Once, the Wusun had priests. In the time of Kubla Khan. Now, all that we remember is the hymn at sunset and sunrise. Almost we have forgotten the words. We have kept the talisman because once our priests, who were also warriors, cherished it."