The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 5 - August 1920)

I

That face clung to Tremaine's mind. Three hours ago. when he and his caravan had ridden into Tsagan-dhuntsa, he had seen it framed in the doorway of the low, swarth building that flew the Russian flag.

A white woman — here on the fringe of the world!

For four dreary months he had seen only the faces of brown and yellow women, had heard only their tongues; and the longing for the sight of a white woman, for the sound of a white woman's voice, had become a terrible thirst that threatened to wither his soul; so now — after that journey through the white hell, from Urga across the North Gobi and the Tchuchun-Shan Range into Tibet — the glimpse of that pallid face in the doorway of the Russian Consulate in this desert village inspired in him a profound reverence for its owner.

A white woman. That face haunted him. She, too, haunted him, for as she paused there in the winter twilight, glancing over her shoulder, he found something pathetically young, something almost tragic about her. He wondered vaguely at her presence in the Consulate doorway, wondered, too, if she were connected in any manner with the Consul…

He shivered involuntarily and bent lower over the argussun fire.

Since nightfall the cold of the Tibet winter had crept into the room in the Rest House where he sat wrapped in his sheepskin coat and it bit through his heavy clothing with the savageness of a fanged beast.

Following the evening meal of tsamba, talkan-cakes and tea he had retreated to his bedchamber, one of the three private rooms off the main hall of the caravanserai, the pallid face of the first white woman that he had seen in four months burning in his brain.

As he sat there, the flames painting his tanned skin a ruddy glow, he heard footsteps in the hall and a moment later the burlap in the door was thrust aside by Shagdur, his caravan-bashi.

"I have a message for you, master," announced the high-cheeked Mongol youth, halting just within the bare, dim-lit room.

"For me?" echoed Tremaine.

"Yes, master — from the lady at the Russian Consulate."

At his words Tremaine's muscles grew rigid.

"You must be mistaken, Shagdur."

The boy shook his head. "The lady called to me as I was walking along the main street, saying, 'Go to your master and ask him if he will come to the Consulate. Tell him it is urgent.' Who else could she mean but you — for are not you my master?"

With a word of thanks to the bashi Tremaine got up and strode rapidly out of the room, passing through the hall into the deserted courtyard.

A stiff wind was stirring. It bore with it, from the rear of the khan, the reek of a camel and yak, playing a melancholy dirge on the unseen harpstrings of the night.

An excellent view of the mountains that encircled the Tsagan-dhuntsa valley could be gained from the gate of the Rest House, and here Tremaine paused a moment, not, however, to observe the dreary landscape, but to assure himself that she, this girl of the Consulate doorway, had really sent for him.

Involuntarily his eyes rose to the giant ridges that painted themselves in huge smears of dun-color on the dark sky. Below them, the Pass opened wolfish jaws on the caravan-road, and above, near the snow-tipped peaks and crags, the faint outline of the whitewashed Lamaserie was sketched upon the rocks, a single light peering from its sullen portals into the night.

Leaving the courtyard of the caravanserai, Tremaine moved at a swift pace along the winding, dwelling-lined main street to the Consulate.

At the gate, where a lanthorn on one side of the doorway stuck a lurid tongue of light across the courtyard, he was halted by a huge, bearded Cossack with a Berdan rifle slung over one shoulder and a balalaika dangling from his waist.

"Are you from the Rest House, barin?" asked the Russian.

"Yes."

The Cossack saluted. "Then come with me."

Across the courtyard and into the Consulate building he followed the Muscovite.

Within it was dark, but as they entered, a door opposite the one through which they had just passed, opened, admitting a shaft of light.

In the entranceway, silhouetted upon the yellow glow, Tremaine saw a slim form; heard a voice speaking to him.

"Won't you come in?"

He advanced into the light alone, for the Cossack had retreated; passed through the door; and once within he felt that he had left Tibet behind; felt that he had shaken from him the dust of Tsagan-dhuntsa.

"It was rather bold of me to send for you in this manner," she said in a low, sweet voice, "But desperation knows no conventions."

What Tremaine saw made him catch his breath. Skin of lustrous white; wide set eyes of night blue; hair of reddish gold, parted in the center and twisted in a knot on the back of her pallid neck; a figure at once quaint, ethereal — yet intensely human. She wore… but he did not see what she wore — except that it was dark.

"My name is Miriam Amber," she told him in that low, sweet voice, offering her hand.

"Mine is Tremaine," he returned, accepting the hand which was like China silk under his callous touch: "Travis Tremaine."

She smiled at him — and for a reason that was to him inexplicable he felt a holy dread of her, the fear of one who looks for the first time upon the face of a Madonna; felt, too, that the bonds of a new thralldom were being fastened about him.

"I will have Lotus-eye take your coat and hat," she said, and struck a gong that rang silvern in the room — a room that was small and filled with a fragrant warmth, with shadows of deep amethyst.

A brazier at one end of a divan sent out waves of scented heat and a candle on an ebony table burned like a trembling ruby.

A moment after the sound of the gong a little Chinese girl clad in green silk slipped through a door, taking Tremaine's coat and hat. Then she melted into the amethyst shadows.

"Won't — won't you sit down?" the girl faltered.

Her face seemed suddenly swept free of all color; the eyes of night-blue swam star-like in a mist of tears.

"You are ill!" he exclaimed, moving to her side.

At his words she sank on the caravan-cloth cushions of the divan, her eyes dropping to the Khotan rug at her feet.

"Yes, ill in soul," he heard her murmur.

For a moment she was silent, then lifted her eyes to him and spoke:

"You must overlook my queer actions, for you don't know what I've suffered, here in this terrible village — in the solitude, with only Lotus-eye and Yashka as companions… It has seemed a million hours…"

"But the Consul?" he queried, puzzled, "Surely—"

She made a gesture that expressed absolute futility.

"Gone — his secretary gone, and my brother, too — all three in the last forty days…"

"Forty days," he echoed; "you've been in this God-forsaken place for forty days?"

A shudder swept her. "Forty days — and the only white woman… living in a house with three drink-crazed men, two Cossacks and a Chinese girl. Ah, God, if you only knew!"

Very gently, with a tenderness that came to him suddenly, he took her small hands in his, looking deep into the eyes of night-blue.

"But I want to know, Miriam Amber," he said.

She summoned a smile. "The way you said that sounded like home. I live in Richmond, Virginia."

He, too, smiled. "Richmond," he repeated. "I live in Fredericksburg, so near you — yet — we came to Tibet to meet. Strange these tricks that Chance plays — or is it Chance?… But you are in trouble and I want to hear about it."

Once more she smiled. "Sit down. I'll tell you over the tea-table…"

Again the silvern gong — again the green-clad Lotus-eye, this time bearing a tray which she placed on the little ebony table and retreated.

"I sent for you to ask you to help me," announced Miriam Amber after they were seated. "When you rode in this afternoon I felt that aid had come, and I resolved to send for you, knowing that you could suggest some plan. Now, that you're here, I hardly know where to begin—"

She poured his tea for him and passed it to him. He accepted it awkwardly, but she seemed not to notice this.

"My brother was a writer," she began. "We left the United States a year ago to travel in the East. After Egypt we visited the Holy Lands, went from Damascus through Persia; across Turkestan and ancient Dsungaria into Tibet. We were to end up in China — Pekin, Hongkong — and then home… My brother had an unfortunate habit — that of drinking — and after we left Damascus a new passion for it seized him and he drank all he could obtain—"

Clouds settled in her eyes, dimming the night-blue.

"The incidents of our journey in Tibet would make up a book of hard-ships. One late evening our little caravan rode into Tsagan-dhuntsa, and the Russian Consul and his secretary, the only two white men in this village of Sürtüng Mongols, invited us to stay at the Consulate. That very night M. Grebin, the Consul, told us the story of the Valley of Vanishing Men — rather, as the Chinese inhabitants call it, "T'su chü ti fang" — for that is the name by which Tsagan-dhuntsa is known to the desert tribes."

The clouds in her eyes darkened; for a brief instant the shadow of dread lay upon her; then the fear was mastered.

"Twenty-four year's ago a Russian merchant and his wife from Kiachta, traveling toward Dsungaria, took refuge from a storm in the Lamaserie at the head of the Pass. In those days the monastery was not forbidden. The following morning the merchant's wife was found wounded — having been attacked during the night by a vampire bat. The story goes that a week later she died — and it is believed by the Chinese and Sürtüng Mongols that her soul was reincarnated in the form of a ghoul — and returns to feast upon men… It's only a horrid tale, but" — she shuddered — "but the facts remain that once every two weeks a man of Tsagan-dhuntsa vanishes, and no trace of him is ever found…"

She leaned across the table, looking earnestly into his face.

"Do you think I'm mad? Perhaps I am — for sometimes I believe so. But to go on with my story… Every Consul sent here within the past five years has disappeared — and they are supposed to be victims of the ghoul-soul of the Russian woman."

"Unfortunately for my brother. Lance, M. Grebin, the late Consul, was a drinker — and so was his secretary. During our stay, which ran into many days, the three of them were often intoxicated — so intoxicated that they were unconscious. Whenever this occurred I was alone with Lotus-eye, the Consul's servant, and the two Cossack guards, Yashka and Alexis. But they were always very kind to me."

"The second week we were here, M. Grebin's secretary disappeared — went for a walk down by the lake and did not come back… Then, two weeks later, M. Grebin vanished in the same manner… After that Alexis, the Cossack, volunteered to go to Kurruk and appeal to the Consul there — and he left. Lance, my brother, did not drink any after M. Grebin disappeared. We were only remaining at the Consulate until Alexis returned from Kurruk."

"Then — then came the night when Lance went — three nights ago. It was snowing. About midnight I awakened and prompted by a peculiar psychic feeling, I got up. As I did I could have sworn that I heard someone singing, or wailing, out in the snow. I went into Lance's room, which was next to mine, and as I entered — he sprang up from his kang — and jumped through the window! I ran and leaned out — and as I did I heard an eerie, uncanny laugh… I called Yashka immediately and he searched — but it was useless, for the snow destroyed all footprints."

As she ended he thought he saw tears glistening in the night-blue eyes.

"That is all," she said. "Alexis, who went to Kurruk, is overdue and I am afraid he encountered Tangut robbers — or Dugpas… Now you can understand why I sent for you. But, listen—"

Once more she leaned across the table to him.

"I think I have a solution for the mystery of the Valley of Vanishing Men… The Lamaserie at the head of the Pass is like some few in the North Gobi — in that a living representative of the Divine is reputed to dwell therein. It is called the Monastery of The Shining One. Whether this Shining One is a man or a woman none know — except the monks. And only a comparatively few Lamas are cloistered there — a hundred or less. They say The Shining One has never tasted food but lives by Divine substance. In many of the Lamaseries of Tibet and the Gobi devilish rituals are practiced — and in some, it is rumored, human sacrifice is enacted—"

She halted significantly and their eyes met.

"Then you think—" he began.

"I don't know. It merely occurred to me. I told Yashka, but he believes it would be impossible to get into the Lamaserie — unless by force, and that can not be done, he said, until Alexis returns. But. oh, I am afraid to wait, for if—"

"The Lamaserie isn't accessible?" Tremaine questioned.

"It is forbidden to all who are not of the faith. No white man has been known to enter since the death of the Russian woman."

"And you believe your brother is there — dead or alive?"

Again she made that gesture of futility.

"God knows! Don't you see, the idea was something tangible, and in my grief I grasped it, hoping, praying that—" She swallowed hard.

"I understand," he told her, "and I will try to think of a plan to get in the Lamaserie and—"

"But I couldn't let you take that risk — the odds would be against you."

Tremaine smiled — an expression that lighted his frank, open face and his wide gray eyes.

"There is little or no danger," he assured her — which was not what he thought.

"But you won't try it tonight?"

"Darkness is better — and a minute lost might mean much."

Her hands closed over his. He felt them trembling. Her eyes, too, seemed to tremble — like deep blue stars…

"No, I couldn't allow you to do that, I couldn't! You have only known me for a few minutes and—"

"But we're both from Virginia," he interposed, smiling yet solemn, "and you are alone — in trouble. Perhaps your solution of the mystery is correct. And — and, you see, for four months, traveling from Urga, with forbidden Lhassa as the objective, I've journeyed — suffering the thirst and cold; listening to jackals and wolves by night; seeing only brown and yellow women, with never the sight of a white woman's face — all these hardships on a gamble, to try and penetrate the secret city. I'm a gambler through and through, and now, for the sight of your face, the face of a white woman in all this loneliness and desolation, I'm willing to play another game, to do anything — to repay you for the sight of you."

They had both risen, were standing face to face in the candle-glow and the fragrant heat from the brazier hung like a spirit-hand between them.

"I think I understand," she returned slowly; "but isn't that a one-sided bargain?"

"But I want to pay that price—"

He bent swiftly, caught her hand and lifted it to his lips. It was an impulsive, boyish act, and afterward he felt embarrassed. His face burned.

"I–I had better go now," he stammered.

Miriam Amber struck the gong, and when the green-clad Chinese girl appeared, instructed her to bring his coat and hat.

"Good-night, Travis Tremaine," she said in that low, sweet voice, "I shall be waiting here — when you come back…"

The next he knew he was taking his coat and hat from Lotus-eye, was leaving the room with the amethyst shadows, the face of Miriam Amber burning before him like a white flame.

In front of the building he encountered the huge Cossack, Yashka, standing under the lanthorn, smoking, the balalaika tucked under one arm.

"Looks as if one night is going to pass without snow," observed the American, his eyes upon the moon that was creeping up from behind the ghost-like mountains.

The Cossack shrugged his big shoulders. "It may snow and it may not. Nie znayu! I don't know!"

Tremaine moved off.

"Good night, tovarishtchi," he said over his shoulder.

"Good night, barin," returned the Muscovite.

II

Upon reaching the caravanserai, Tremaine went immediately to his room, where he found Shagdur warming himself over the argussun fire.

"Bring one of the camels with full equipment to the front immediately." he instructed. "No food necessary. I'll be back before morning — perhaps."

Shagdur stared. "You are not going to travel alone at night, master? There are Tangut robbers in this region—"

"I can take care of myself," he assured him.

As Shagdur left the room, Tremaine went to his camel-bags in one corner, removing a box of matches, a dagger and an automatic, all of which he placed in the inside pocket of his coat, and quitted the barren bedchamber, making his way to the front of the khan to await the caravan-bashi.

For some little time he paced the courtyard, his eyes frequently seeking the white-washed Lamaserie, its spectral bulk now crowned by the rising moon. The solitary light still gleamed from its sullen portals, malevolently crimson.

At length Shagdur appeared, leading a tall, white bughra, or he-camel.

"You may occupy my room in the Rest House tonight," Tremaine told him as the camel knelt. "I'll hardly be back before daylight…"

When the shaggy he-camel had regained his feet, Tremaine guided him past the shadow-wrapped dwellings of the winding main street, around the ice-crusted lake with its kamish plants and across the broad plain that spread like a carpet before the ridges.

Here the caravan-road entered the fearsome jaws of Tsagan-dhuntsa Pass, thrusting a narrow, crooked passage between lofty, towering walls of solid stone, until near the snow-clowned peaks it skirted the Lamaserie for the descent on the other side of the mountain; and Tremaine urged his ungainly mount to a trot, leaving the sentinel-crags of the lower pass behind and beginning the steep climb to the whitewashed monastery with its leering eye of crimson.

By the time he reached the stone terraces of the Lamaserie the moon had abandoned its post above the peaks, swinging hawk-like into the clear, cold sky and pouring its nacreous flood upon the ghostly, sprawling monastery.

Not many yards from the main portal Tremaine's journey ended and he forced the bughra to kneel, slipping from his back to the ground.

He patted the gaunt, shaggy beast upon the neck — while with the other hand he withdrew the dagger from his inside pocket.

"I'm damned sorry, old fellow," he said, "but it's for her — and you're willing to play the game for a white woman, aren't you?"

Then with a quick movement he jerked the beast's head back and at the same instant the blade of the dagger flashed… There followed a queer sucking, gurgling sound, and something warm rushed over his hands.

Fighting against a terrible nausea, looking away from the dark liquid that stained his hands, he deliberately slashed open the sleeve of his sheepskin coat, and when the flesh was bare, the dagger flashed again.

His teeth ground together… but it was over now.

With trembling hands he cleaned the knife on his coat, returned the weapon to his pocket, and walked with unsteady steps to the nearby portal of the Lamaserie.

At the door he halted, pounding upon the heavy nail-studded panels. After several minutes had passed without a reply he again knocked — this time louder.

At last an answer — "Patience, brother, patience!"

The voice came from behind the portal, the words being spoken in the Sürtüng Mongol dialect, a tongue with which Tremaine was familiar.

Presently there was the sound of a bolt being lifted and the door opened, revealing, outlined upon a warmth of light, the form of an emaciated yellow-robed Lama, a white silk scarve of the Order about his neck.

"Peace be with thee!" was the yellow monk's greeting. "What would'st thou have of Amgon Lama of the Monastery of The Shining One?"

Tremaine fell against the door-frame in a position that would exhibit his bloody arm to the Lama.

"Peace be with thee," he returned. "I seek aid and shelter, brother."

He felt the monk's eyes searching him.

"I perceive thee to be wounded, brother," he announced, "yet I have not the authority to admit thee to the cloister — unless perchance thou art of some other monastery?"

"The world is my monastery," returned Tremaine, "but I am hurt, brother, and can not reach the village below, for see" — he waved his hand towards the camel's carcass — "my beast is dead and I can walk no further. Above the Pass Tangut robbers fell upon my caravan and killed my comrades. My camel carried me this far before he went down. Surely thou wilt not turn me away!"

The priest hesitated, then — "Even though I perceive thee to be in sore need of succor, I can not allow thee to enter without the permission of the Grand Lama. Stay here, brother, and perchance he will have compassion upon thee…"

After the door closed behind the shaven-pated priest, Tremaine slipped to the cold ground before the entrance, feigning unconsciousness.

Presently the door opened again. Following that Tremaine heard voices and from beneath lowered lids he saw the Lama with the white silk scarf emerge, accompanied by three others, the latter number wearing mitre-shaped hats.

"His pains have caused him to swoon," reported one of the Lamas, having bent over Tremaine. "Look ye, his camel lies yonder."…

After a moment of whispered consultation the four Lamas lifted Tremaine and carried him inside the monastery. Following the harsh clang of the closing portal, he was borne some distance — up nights of stairs and through dark, incense-laden corridors — and at length placed upon something cold and hard, a kang, he imagined.

Three of the Lamas retreated, leaving, the fourth, the one with the scarf, to light a candle and examine the American; and during this performance it required great control on the part of Tremaine, for a single twitch of a muscle might have betrayed him.

Presently one of the monks returned bearing ointment, a cloth and a bowl of water. The latter he passed to the other Lama and whilst the priest of the white scarve held the receptacle he bathed and dressed the cut in Tremaine's arm.

When this was done they departed in silence, taking the candle and closing the door easily behind them.

Tremaine opened wide his eyes. Instead of the darkness that he expected as the natural result of the withdrawal of the light, a long iron-barred window allowed the stream of moonlight to crust the floor beneath the casement with pearl and bring into vague outline the walls and ceiling of a small cell-like room. There was no furniture other than the kang upon which he lay.

A raw chill pervaded the atmosphere, making him shiver and shake. Too, the ordeal through which he had just passed had left him with a feeling of physical weakness. He wondered if he would ever forget the piteous whine of the camel… A shudder swept him.

Rising from the stone bed, he crept to the door, his hand closing over the knob. To his surprise the door was not bolted, but swung inward with a mild whine of hinges, disclosing a gloom-strictured corridor.

As he started to step over the threshold his ears caught a faint pat-pat-pat — a sound that suggested the padded footfalls of a feline animal — coming from somewhere in the dark passage.

He drew back into the room, hesitated; closed the door and returned to the kang.

He had scarcely stretched himself out upon the cold stone when from beneath lowered lids he saw the door open slowly — saw a misty figure take birth in the maw of darkness. His sensation, as the person entered, was not unlike an electric shock, for, he perceived, it was a woman.

She wore something that coruscated in the moonlight and her hair, the shade of a Tibetian night, was unbound in a black flood about her shoulders. And the face! In the moonlight it was clear-cut, like a piece of marble — an alluring manifestation of a hundred voices, a face more wickedly lovely than any he had ever beheld. The lips were full, smears of dark in the wan light, and flames of jet burned in the heavy-lidded eyes.

She moved across the crusting of pearly light, her garments shimmering sinisterly, and bent over him, her body radiating a warmth that was sweet, like bruised sandalwood.

She laughed, the musical peals suggesting shattered crystals.

"My white mummy!" he heard her murmur in the Sürtüng Mongol dialect. Her voice held a lure — promised paradise… and a sweet hell.

She bent lower over him, lower, until the fragrance of bruised sandalwood dulled his senses into a lassitude.

"My mummy!"

Then she allowed her hand to caress his forehead and at the touch a thousand electric volts sent a charge through his whole body.

"O white mummy!" she crooned, "Thy brow is crowned with the pallor of flaming snows! I long to love thee, to smother thee with kisses, to let thee perish in my embrace, but not tonight, O white mummy, another time…"

Her face sank lower… until her lips met his… and in that terrible moment he was possessed of a desire to reach up and crush her to him, to return the pressure of that mouth…

Suddenly she sprang back, retreating into he full clarity of the moon. The flames of jet in her eyes leaped high; her body grew rigid, tense; she flung back her arms, the shining draperies spread as wings of woven-stars; and thus she stood for a brief instant, like a huge scintillating bat above the throat of prey.

"Red — red… like burning rubies!" fell from her lips.

A look of hellish exultation swept her face — a typhoon of emotion. She took a single step toward him, her eyes upon his arm where the skin was slashed; then conquered herself by sheer force of will — a battle that was evident in her face. He heard her teeth snap together.

The typhoon was spent.

She whirled; he saw the flash of her draperies… dust in the wake of a silver tempest… and the door clanged shut.

Once more he was alone in the cell of the Lamaserie.

III

Cold perspiration stood out on Tremaine's body. How he had been able to master himself while she fawned over him he did not know, but he did realize that he could not endure another such ordeal.

For a long time he lay there, his body quivering with reaction; and at length he rose, determined upon a course of action.

Moving to the door, he lifted the latch. The ponderous portal swung inward, revealing the blackness of the corridor — a sable flood that swam visibly before his eyes. The black-dark suggested frightful things — hidden horrors. His jaw tightened; he ground his teeth together.

Another step, a whine of unoiled hinges and it was done — the door closed and he adrift in the fluid darkness.

He still wore the sheepskin coat; the dagger and the automatic rested in his inside pocket; and his hand crept beneath the heavy garment, closing over the cold steel of the revolver. Thus armed, his unengaged hand extended to avoid a collision with any objects that might lurk in his path, he started forward.

He had advanced not more than five yards when instinct warned him to halt. His unengaged hand slipped into the pocket where the box of matches lay; a mere instant — and following a splutter, a tiny blaze was born in the Cimmerian blackness.

What he saw caused a vacant sensation in the pit of his stomach.

He was at the top of a flight of stairs that wound down into a well of darkest night. He shuddered — and the match expired.

One hand slipping over the smooth wall, the other gripping the pistol, he began the descent and after what seemed to him a deathless æon of downward steps, he emerged from the winding stairs into a corridor that was half-lit by a flickering oil lamp in a niche in the wall.

Upon reaching, the end of the hall he found, on one side, huge iron-hinged double-doors, and opposite them, another stair that sank into deep oblivion. Here lie halted, undecided which course to choose.

Stairway or doors?

The fearsome aspect of the former promised dark revelations. The double-doors could come later… He stepped into the mouth of the stair.

The descent was steep, straight as a flame, and when he reached the bottom he found himself again in a flood of sable. The atmosphere was foul — smelled of freshly turned earth.

Once more he removed the matchbox from his pocket and ignited one.

With the small flare, a mere spark in a great void, he strained his eyes.

At first he could make out only vague shapes, formless shadows; but soon his vision became accustomed to the poor light and he beheld what was evidently an unused chapel of the Lamaserie — a chapel that was fast surrendering to ruin, the walls being broken and seamed and grown in places with a loathsome fungi. The floor was strewn with rubbish and broken stones, and along the center of the chapel, placed at regular intervals, were twelve oblong boxes.

All this he glimpsed before the match went out.

He lit another immediately.

This time the twelve wooden boxes claimed his attention; they were all the same size and shape and built like coffins.

To the nearest he moved, aware of a pregnant dread within him. The lid was half off, thus revealing only a portion of the interior and its contents; but that was enough to make him fall back a step, nauseated.

"God!"

The word left his tongue involuntarily.

Again he looked — to verify what he had first seen, hoping that some sorcery of the shadows had fashioned in ironic jest the Thing that he had beheld; but no; It was there…

The match died, burning his fingertips.

"God!"

Again the word was wrung from his lips.

He struck another match and moved to the next box, peering in. He repeated this performance until he had examined the entire twelve — and the contents of each proved the same.

"T'su chü ti fang!" The Valley of Vanishing Men! He understood now and the terrible truth spread like a deadly poison through his brain.

Miriam Amber's words came back to him—

"They say The Shining One has never tasted food…"

The Shining One! And who could The Shining One be but that dark-eyed priestess of Hell who had bent over him in the room above?

The match expired. As darkness shut down upon him he resolved to continue his explorations, to penetrate the mysteries beyond the double-doors opposite the mouth of the stairway, and, if possible, exterminate this monstrous menace to the world.

The Valley of Vanishing Men! The full horror of it sent his soul reeling with nausea. That such a Thing existed on this earth he would not have believed before.

He groped his way past the oblong boxes to the stairs, ascended to the corridor where the oil lamp flickered in the niche in the wall, and paused before the massive double-doors.

Suppose there were persons within, suppose…

He steeled himself, lifted the bolt and the doors swung open under the pressure of his weight.

A single glance showed the chamber to be without occupants — a vast rectangular hall it was, from its appearance, a place of worship such as he had seen in some of the Lamaseries of the Gobi and Northeastern Tibet, its four walls ornamental with yak-horns and grotesque devil-masks and hung with cloths woven of the hair of the yellow camel. In the shadow-sunken corners, outside the intimate radiance of a globular lamp that burned on a reed table in the center of the room, were prayer-wheels and drums made of human skulls — myriad Lamist devices.

On one side of the grim apartment stood a black screen with the form of the destroying god Varchuk embroidered in gold upon it, and opposite on the left of an iron door, a large lacquered chest was pushed against the wall.

At the extreme end of the hall low steps rose between files of gray urns — relics of the Shun-lai Imperialists — to the foot of crimson, silver-threaded tapestries.

Tremaine first moved to the iron door. It opened readily and he stepped out on a small balcony high on the walls of the monastery, overhanging a dreadful chasm in the mountains — an abyss so deep, so shuddersome that the moonlight failed to penetrate its fearful depths.

He withdrew from the balcony, closing the door behind him, and crossed the hall of worship to the Urn-lined steps. At the top he faced the crimson, silver-threaded tapestries. Without hesitancy he gripped the heavy cloths and jerked them aside, the movement rattling the rings from which they hung. At his touch they seemed to spring apart.

A broad band of light cast from the gobular lamp fell over his shoulders stretching to the side of a stone sarcophagus, and here shattering to bits of argent; and into the illumination he moved, reaching the side of the sarcophagus and bending over the form therein. As he looked he throttled a cry, for the face, paler, older than when he had last seen it, was the face of — Miriam Amber.

His whole body went numb — but the following instant he realized that it was not she, that the body lying in the sarcophagus belonged to a man clad in a long black robe, his thin hands clasped across his breast.

Such a likeness! The face was the same but for a suggestion of more maturity, was, he knew, the face of her brother, Lance Amber.

Instinct prompted him to feel the heart. To his surprise, for the body lay as one dead, it was throbbing. He was alive — but that thin, haggard face! Something about it, tragically young, wrung his soul.

"Amber," he called, "Amber! Can you hear me? Can you speak?"

He returned the revolver to his pocket and began to chafe the cold hands. For fully ten minutes he employed various means to awaken the man, but he remained in the repose of the dead, silent, motionless.

Tremaine was at loss what to do next. Several minutes passed as he stood above the sarcophagus, his gaze wandering helplessly about the hall.

A faint sound aroused him to action — a sound that he identified with the bolt outside the double-doors — and his eyes quickly searched the vast chamber for a hiding place, finally alighting upon the black screen embroidered with the likeness of Varchuk.

Hastily drawing the curtains together behind him, he moved down the steps and attained the temporary security of the screen just as the ponderous double-doors swung open.

A lone figure entered — a figure in a gown of Chinese gold tissue. Tremaine caught his breath voluntarily, for it was the creature who had bent over him while he lay in the cell.

Her gilded form seemed to swim in the glow of the globular lamp as she drifted toward the crimson tapestries. Reaching the top of the steps, she thrust apart the curtains and stood for an instant with her draperies spread wing-fashion, looking >i down upon the man in the sarcophagus; then she bent over him, her dark hair cascading about her white neck, a laugh rippling from her lips.

"My king!" Tremaine heard her murmur in liquid tones.

Then she moved back, shoulders against the crimson tapestries, her eyes upon the face in the sarcophagus.

"Come forth, O Moon-brow!" she commanded.

Tremaine watched breathlessly…

Slowly, very slowly, the black clad figure in the sarcophagus sat up, his face burning with an unearthly pallor in the shadowy alcove.

"Come, O my king!" continued the caressing voice.

With a dream-like movement Lance Amber abandoned the stone sarcophagus and stood erect between the crimson tapestries, his eyes open, glassy, his black robe dragging on the floor about his feet.

The woman in the Chinese gold tissue backed down the stairs, step by step, never removing her eyes from those of the man, and with a slow tread he followed… across the hall to the lacquered chest.

"Be seated!" she commanded.

He obeyed and as he sank on the chest she bent low — lower yet — until her jet-black eyes were on a level with his…

Tremaine, watching the strange performance from behind the screen, was beginning to grasp a tangible solution for Amber's condition. Hypnosis! This gold-robed woman exerted that power over her victims. He understood now the lassitude that he had felt when she bent over him in the cell.

She was speaking again — "Now — awaken!"

At her evocation the eyes of Lance Amber lost the glassy expression, became almost normal, and he lifted one thin white hand, passing it over his brow — as if to wipe away the remaining tangles of a nightmare.

The woman laughed again, alluringly and low. He got to his feet, staring at her.

"You, you again?" he said in the half drowsy voice of the recently awakened sleeper, "Good God!"

"And why should not I be here, beloved?"

Amber dropped on the chest, his haggard face falling in his hands, and the woman knelt, locking her white arms about him.

"Art thou not glad to see me, O Moon-brow?" she purred, "Am not I fair to look upon? Does not the sight of me stir in thee some flame of love?"

A sob broke from the man.

"Love you," he echoed fiercely, thrusting her away, "Knowing you to be what you are?"

She only laughed — that siren laugh.

"I am white like thee, O Moon-brow," she went on, "My mother was white — was from a great country beyond Tibet, called Russia. This I know, for the Lamas have told me of her, of her death here, in the monastery, just after my birth… O beloved, when I could have sent thee below with my white mummies I let thee remain here — for I knew that we were made for one another. Ah, Moon-brow, thou shalt be a king! Here I am called The Shining One — I talk with the gods! Neither the Dalai Lama or the Tashi Lama, nor that spineless fool at Urga, has so much power as I! And I offer to share this glory with thee! To be the consort of The Shining One! Does that not tempt thee?"

Again the man pushed her roughly away.

"Leave me alone to die!" he entreated piteously, "My God — love you! The touch of you is like that of a leper! You are unclean, foul, accursed, a creature damned!"

The fires of jet in her eyes rose. She laughed sharply. Her hands went to her throat and unclasped a necklace of pigeon-blood rubies — a thing that shone like threaded drops of fire.

"Ah, beloved, behold these!" she cried, extending the jewels to him; "In the treasure vaults of the Lamaserie there are gems more costly than these, jewels such as are rarely seen, and all are thine if—"

"Stop!" he fairly shrieked.

With a spring he got to his feet and snatched the necklace from her hand, hurling it to the floor where it broke, scattering in tiny pools of flame.

"God in heaven, leave me alone!" he shrilled, "You have undermined my life, murdered my soul, kept me here in this damnable place until my vitality is sucked up! Now for Christ's sake let me die in peace!"

With that he struck her full in the face. She fell back, clutched at the wall and lay panting against the cloth of camel-hair.

"Thou hast struck me!" she hissed, "Whereas before thou couldst have had my love, now thou shalt know the anger of The Shining One! Thou art mine, body and soul, mine, dost thou hear? And I will take thee, break thee and fling thy body to a death worse than the horrors of the nethermost hell!"

Amber lunged at her, but she caught his arm, twisted it and sent him to his knees. Her eyes burned emerald-like.

"Thou hast no strength to resist me, for I am The Shining One, the soul of Tibet… as beautiful as the moons, as fierce as a she-wolf! My voice is like melted honey and when I call, men come from the furthest ends of the earth… and I crush them… as I will crush thee!"

She was forcing the white-faced Amber slowly to the floor, her eyes close to his — and Tremaine, watching, hypnotized, for the time unable to act, imagined he could feel the hot contamination of her breath upon his cheek…

"I — am — Tibet!" she panted in that sweet voice, "Thou hast resisted me and I… shall… have… thy… blood!"

With a desperate wrench Amber broke free, staggering back against the reed table whereon the lamp burned. The impact of his body sent the fragile affair crashing to the floor, shattering the globular lamp in a burst of flame…

A shriek, terrible, inhuman, rent the air, congealing Tremaine's blood.

"Ah, God, no… not that!"

Followed a groan — an animal snarl…

Tremaine knocked aside the screen, drawing his revolver and moving forward in the darkness. After a moment of blind groping his hand touched something — the door-knob — and with a jerk he swung the door wide.

A sword of moonlight leaped through the oblong aperture, smiting the sable shadows and falling in steely clarity across two figures — Amber and the gold-robed woman.

As the light touched the creature she reeled away from the man, throwing her shoulders against the wall, arms outflung, eyes blazing, staring at Tremaine, who was outlined in the doorway.

He lifted his revolver — fired…

With a scream of pain she hurled herself upon him. The jar of her body knocked the revolver from his grasp — sent him upon his back on the floor of the balcony; and locked together they rolled over and over, her hot breath scorching his cheek.

By a sudden twist of his arm — the same twist that she had employed to down Amber — she forced his shoulders to the floor, her eyes aflame, lips parted, baring the white teeth. Her face sank low — lower…

The touch of her was to him more revolting than contact with the most loathsome viper… yet a sort of deadly lassitude was beginning to lock its tentacles about him. He felt a sharp pain in his throat. That stung him to greater effort and with a powerful wrench he freed one arm, locking his fingers in her hair. She shrieked loosened the vise upon him.

He sprang to his feet, bent, caught her about the waist; lifted her and swung her body through the air… out over the balcony.

Another shriek…

He clung to the railing, trembling violently, watching the Thing as it shot straight down into the bowels of the awful chasm…

He turned, stumbled into the hall.

As he entered a great clamor came From the double-doors. Through a blurr he saw them burst open admitting a flood of human beings. They were so indistinct in the semi-dark that he could make out no details, but he understood. The Lamas…

He staggered out on the balcony, gripping the railing and trying to steel himself for the encounter; but weakness drove home to him; his bones seemed to melt within him, he slipped, to the floor; and before unconsciousness closed its opaque doors upon him, he beheld a huge bird-like creature winging its way out of the abyss, rising high in the air and crossing the face of the moon.

It was an enormous bat.

IV

Life came back to Tremaine slowly, with a faint roaring and crackling. As he opened his eyes he saw a vast blaze not far away, tongues of fire that lapped hungrily at a dark curtain; saw the moon, too, above the flames, seeming wreathed in smoke. Voices near him were talking.

He struggled to a sitting position, looking about dazedly.

"Ah, barin, at last you are awake—"

Following that the tangles in his vision were wiped away and he recognized the speaker — Yashka, the Cossack. At the same time he understood the flames and the voices.

A large group of men, all mounted on Tartar ponies and armed with balalaikas and Cossack whips, were gathered around him, and above — for they were near the foot of Tsagan-dhuntsa Pass — stood the whitewashed Lamaserie, swathed in smoke and flames.

"Alexis arrived from Kurruk a short while ago with a detachment of soldiers," he heard Yashka telling him. "The Consul at Kurruk sent them. The barishnya told us whither you had gone and we followed — and broke in the Lamaserie. Nearly all the Lamas fled. Some were shot. We found the barishnya's brother in a large room and you on a balcony. Then we set torches to the accursed monastery."

"And what of Amber?" queried Tremaine.

"Bad wound in the throat," returned the Cossack, "The Holy Virgin alone knows what could have made such a nasty tear! But I think he will recover. See" — he indicated a form that Tremaine had hitherto not observed, lying several feet away — "there he is."

Tremaine got up, still weak and unsteady, and moved to the outstretched Amber…

"We'd better remove him to the Consulate," he suggested, "Miss Amber will be waiting."

Yashka spoke to one of his comrades and the two Russians strapped the body of Lance Amber upon the back of a Tartar pony.

"Vperyed! Advance!" cried the leader of the Cossacks, and the troops moved down upon the plain.

Tremaine and Yashka followed on foot, the former leading the Tartar pony. That walk across the valley seemed a dream to the American — a dream that ended as they reached the Consulate.

… In the courtyard she was waiting, white with the stain of the dying moon, the trembling stars reflected in her night-blue eyes, arms outstretched to greet him.

"I wanted to go with them," he heard her saying, "But Yashka made me remain behind. It is always so — the woman behind. Tell me—"

Then she saw the form strapped to the saddle of the Tartar pony — darted to it…

In a moment she turned back to Tremaine. In her eyes he glimpsed a light such as he had rarely seen even in the risen evening star.

"Travis Tremaine," she said in that low, sweet voice, "God sent you — to me — all the way from Fredericksburg!"