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"The way of honesty is never the path to wealth," responded Shiraz, in tones of reproof. "So it is written in the Koran." Leh Shin accepted the ambiguous reply with an unmoved face. "Thy friend is under the hand of devils?" He put the remark as an idle question. "He is tormented," replied Shiraz, pulling at his beard.
"Ah, ah," said the Chinaman, placing a hubble-bubble before his guest, who condescended to shut the mouthpiece in under his long moustache, while he sat silently for nearly half an hour. "Dost thou sell beautiful things, Leh Shin?" he asked. "I have a gift to bestow, and my mind troubles me. The Lady Sahib of my late master suffered misfortune.
It contains an open bazaar street, and a mound above the town is crowned by the old royal castle. Leh, as well as the whole of the district of Ladak, is subject to the Maharaja of Kashmir, but the people are mostly of Tibetan race and their religion is Lamaism. We are now on the high road between India and Eastern Turkestan, the most elevated caravan route in the world.
But meanwhile, there was the Road before him; a rough road, full of vicissitudes and anxieties, of interests and anticipations that left him small leisure for the communings of his heart. Before leaving Leh, hill camels and ponies had been added unto him; besides twenty-one decrepit Kashmir soldiers, a type extinct since they have been handled by British officers.
The Rupchu nomads, however, delight in this climate of extremes, and regard Leh as a place only to be visited in winter, and Kulu and Kashmir as if they were the malarial swamps of the Congo! We crossed the Toglang Pass, at a height of 18,150 feet, with less suffering from ladug than on either the Digar or Kharzong Passes. Indeed Gyalpo carried me over it stopping to take breath every few yards.
Between the pillar and the sanctuary itself, was a small table covered with an embroidered shawl, worked in spangles that glittered and shone, and beneath the table were a number of smooth stones. Leh Shin locked his hands together and passed up the aisle, close to where the palm trees rustled and stirred, and fear was upon him like that of a hungry dog.
Treated in this manner, even a Sunday-school graduate could lull an uneasy conscience, and as far as Coryndon could judge, Absalom was not troubled by any warnings from that silent mentor. Out of the brain of Leh Shin's assistant the great scheme had leapt full-grown, and it only required a little careful preparation to put it into action.
Surprise does not hover; its coming events are shadowless, and its spring is the spring of a tiger out of the dark, and surprise came upon Leh Shin's assistant as it has come upon men and nations since the world first spun in space.
Anywhere among them all might be Leh Shin, the needy Chinaman, and gripping his large hands into fists, Mhtoon Pah watched for him and expected him, but watch as he might, he did not come, neither was there any sign of him among all the crowd of faces that passed and repassed before the new shrine.
The Burman walked with an easy unconscious step, but Leh Shin crept close to the wall and started when he passed a sleeping form in a doorway. Night fears and that trembling anxiety that comes when fulfilment is close at hand were upon him.
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