Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/69

 Readily, the accents of the border dialect came to his tongue. The other understood.

"It will happen soon," he explained. "That is Mirai Khan, the hunter, who is smoking the pipe. When he is finished the Manchu soldier will cut off his head." Gray whistled softly. The crowd was staring at him now, intent on a new sight. Even Mirai Khan was watching him idly, apparently unconcerned about his coming demise.

"Why is he smoking the pipe?" Gray asked.

"Because he wants to. The soldier is letting him do it because Mirai Khan has promised to tell him where his long musket is, before he dies."

"Why must he die?"

The man beside him coughed and spat apathetically. "I do not know. It was ordered. Perhaps he stole the value of ten taels."

Gray knew enough of the peculiar law of China to understand that a theft of something valued at more than a certain sum was punishable by death. The sight of the tranquil Kirghiz stirred his interest.

"Ask the soldier what is the offense," he persisted, exhibiting a coin at which the Chinaman stared eagerly.

Mirai Khan, Gray was informed, had been convicted of stealing a horse worth thirteen taels. The Kirghiz had claimed that the horse was his own,