Those days were ended now. The adventures, the excitement, the
sorrows, and the fiery gladness were all well beyond recall.

Peter leaned back against the thorny trunk of the cembra pine, and
sniffed the odors of drenched earth, listened to the drip and patter of
the cold, gray rain, and gazed pessimistically at the blue crest of
rock which lifted its granite shoulders high into the mist miles away.

He stretched himself, groaned, and staggered on through the mire.

The valley was filled with the blue shades of dusk when he espied some
distance beyond him what was evidently a camp, a caravan at rest. The
setting sun managed at last to burrow its way through a rift of purple
before sinking down behind the granite range, to leave China to the
mercies of its long night.

These departing rays, striking through the purple crevice, and setting
its edges smolderingly aflame with red and gold, became a narrow,
dwindling spotlight, which brought out in black relief the figures of
men and mules, of drooping tents and curling wisps of cookfire smoke.
The sun was swallowed up, and the camp vanished.

Peter plunged on, with one leg dragging more reluctantly than the
other. But he had sensed the odor of cooking food in the quiet air.

A sentry whose head was adorned by a dark-red turban presented the
point of his rifle as Peter approached. He shouted, was joined by
others, both Chinese and Bengalis, and Peter, not adverse even to being
in the hands of enemies as long as food was imminent, was inducted into
the presence of a kingly personage, who sat upon a carved teak stool.

This creature, by all appearances a mandarin, of middle age, was garbed
in a stiff, dark satin gown, heavy with gold and jewels which flashed
brightly in the light of a camp-fire. His severe, dark face was long,
and stamped with intelligence of a high order. He wore a mustache
which drooped down to form a hair wisp on either side of his small,
firm mouth.

As Peter was whisked into his presence he placed his elbow with a slow,
deliberate motion upon his knee, and rested his rounded chin in his
palm, bestowing upon the mud-spattered newcomer a look that searched
into Peter's soul.

A single enormous diamond blazed upon the knuckle of his forefinger.

He put a question in a tongue that Peter did not understand. It was a
deep, resonant voice, with the mellow, rounded tones of certain
temple-bells, such a sound as is diffused long after the harsh