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 CHAPTER XIV

THE SECRET OF SLAT

days and nights had come and gone since the morning which had seen the palace- buildings invaded and sacked and burnt by the Sudras; and to old Slat, sitting alone in one of the courts of the upper temple of Angkor Wat, it had seemed to be the mission of each passing hour to make manifest the vanity of his hopes.

He had withdrawn now to this secluded spot that he might avoid sights and sounds sympto- matic of the prevailing anarchy, each one of which moved him to contempt, to indignation, or to disgust.

He had his seat on the floor of one of the cloisters which, raised to a height of some five feet above the flags of the square court, ran round all four sides of it. Looking across the open space, he could see the shady interior of the opposite cloister, and the steep pitch of the heavily sculptured roof above it, sloping upward to the ridge, along which the effigy of a huge snake writhed against the sky-line.

With the loving eye of the artist, he took in