Then the serpent-headed one, aided by another with dragon mask, both uttering fiendish yells, pushed his companions back to the railing, just as the Penlop spoke to one of his officials who shouted across to them an angry command to leave the white woman alone. The scared maskers tumbled over each other in their hurry to quit the balcony.

Thrilled with delight the girl watched them go and then, when the entry of a fresh body of mummers into the courtyard distracted the attention of the spectators from her, she withdrew quietly to her room. She was alone, the nun having gone long ago to witness the Devil Dance from among the crowd. Muriel opened the door leading to a broad stone staircase and peered cautiously out. There was no one to be seen. All the inhabitants of the monastery were gathered in the courtyard. She stole carefully down to a side door of the lamasery chapel.

This temple was a large and lofty building richly ornamented with fine wood carvings, rich brocades and elaborately embroidered banners and hangings. The pillars supporting the roof were covered with copper plates beaten into beautiful patterns and the altars were of silver, the chief one, as in all Bhutanese chapels, being adorned by a splendid pair of elephant's tusks. Idols abounded. There was a central seated figure of Buddha thirty feet high, heavily gilt and studded with turquoises and precious stones, with a canopy and background of golden lotus leaves. On either side were attendant female figures; and images of Buddhist G.o.ds, larger than life size, stood in double rows.

Muriel concealed herself behind the colossal statue of Buddha and had not long to wait before from her hiding-place she saw two maskers, the Snake and the Dragon, enter the Temple cautiously. The latter remained on guard at the door while his companion, who carried a bundle, advanced furtively towards the great idol. As he drew near he opened the jaws of the mask and said in a low tone:

"Muriel! Muriel! Are you here?"

At the sound of the well-remembered voice the girl trembled violently.

Her heart beat quickly as she came out from behind the statue. When he beheld her the masker lifted the snake's head off; and Muriel saw that the face revealed, disguised and stained a dull yellow, was that of her lover. At the sight of it she forgot the painful past, forgot her grievance against him, forgot the other woman, the sorrow that he had caused her. As he sprang towards her with outstretched arms she cried:

"Oh, thank G.o.d you've come, dear!"

Frank caught her in his eager embrace. Then under the image of the Great Dreamer who taught that Love is Illusion, that Affection is Error, that Desire but binds closer to the revolving Wheel they kissed fondly, pa.s.sionately, like two faithful lovers met again after a lifetime of parting. And the grotesque Devil-G.o.ds around glared fiercely at them.

But the Lord Buddha looked mildly down, on his sculptured face the ineffable calm of _Nirvana_, the peace of freedom from all Desire attained at last. But, heedless of G.o.ds or devils, the man strained the woman to his heart and rained kisses on her lips, her eyes, her hair.

There was little time for dalliance. Danger encompa.s.sed them. Wargrave produced from the bundle that he carried a mask and a costume with a pair of high, felt-soled boots, which effectively disguised Muriel. Then they joined Tashi; and the three pa.s.sed out into the vestibule only just in time, for here they found a group of lamas and peasants from a distant part of the country stopping for a moment to look at the great pictured Cycle of Existence painted on the wall before they entered the temple. The vestibule opened on to a courtyard lined with the cells of the monks of the monastery and, as this led to the great quadrangle in which the Miracle Play was being performed, a stream of mummers, lamas and laymen was pa.s.sing through it, mostly going to the spectacle, although a few were coming away from it. With Muriel clinging closely to him Wargrave followed Tashi as he pushed his way through the crowd, exchanging jokes and careless banter as he went.

The rabbit-warren of steep lanes, flights of steps and bridges over ravines through the town built on the precipitous slopes of the hill was almost deserted, for most of the inhabitants had flocked to the Devil Dance. So, unmolested and unnoticed, they reached the caravanserai in which the two men had lodged for several days before the festival. Here they hurriedly changed their costumes. When they emerged from it Muriel, her hair cropped almost to the scalp and her face stained a yellowish tint, was garbed as a boy-novice of a lamasery in the priestly dress, with a great rosary round her neck. In one hand she held a begging-bowl while with the other she guided the feeble steps of the aged lama whose disciple she was supposed to be. Behind them limped a lame lay-brother of their monastery.

In this disguise the fugitives met with no hindrance as they quitted the town for the open country, heading towards the south. Only when well clear of the houses did Frank and Muriel venture to converse in their own language. Wargrave narrated all that had happened to him since they had parted. Anyone watching them beyond earshot would have wondered at the joy that shone in the face of the young _chela_ (disciple) clasping the hand of the old priest and gazing affectionately at him as they went along; for Frank was telling the girl of Violet's letter which had set him free. He described his many fruitless attempts to cross the frontier, his fortunate meeting with Badshah and the marvellous way in which the wonderful animal had helped him. Safely inside Bhutan he and Tashi had parted with the elephants in what appeared to be the same forest as the one in which Colonel Dermot and they had left the herd on their previous entry into the country. Frank had tried to imitate his chief in ordering Badshah to meet them there again; but he was very doubtful of the result.

They had not found it difficult to follow the trail left by Muriel's abductors, for once inside the border the Chinamen had not tried to hide themselves. At every village along the rough road Tashi had learned of their pa.s.sing with their captive, so the two had followed them without difficulty to Tuna, where they soon discovered where the girl was imprisoned. The festival had offered them an unhoped-for opportunity of rescuing her. Tashi, once a star performer in similar devil dances in his own monastery, procured costumes and taught his companion what to do. As the number of those taking part in the performances ran to hundreds it was easy to slip in un.o.bserved among them.

Then Muriel told of her adventures. But, far more interesting to both than the details of these mere happenings, each revealed to the other the longings, the love, the hopes and fears, that had filled his and her heart during the unhappy period of their estrangement.

Now began a wonderful odyssey that, but for the dread of pursuit and capture would have seemed a journey in Fairyland to the re-united lovers. Indeed, as they travelled on day after day and danger seemed left behind, they forgot everything in the joy of being together once more, their vows exchanged, their faith pledged, the Future a long vista of golden days of delight. It was well that Tashi was with them to be on the watch, for the lovers walked with their heads in the clouds.

And certainly theirs was an interesting pilgrimage. Bhutan is perhaps the least-known country in Asia, the last that has kept its cherished seclusion since Anglo-Indian troops burst the barrier of Tibet and flaunted the Union Jack in the streets of the fabled city of Lha.s.sa. But Bhutan is still a secret, a mysterious, land. Only a few British Envoys, from Bogle in the latter half of the 18th Century to Claude White and Bell in the beginning of this, and their companions, had intruded on its privacy before Colonel Dermot. So that for the lovers it had all the fascination of the unknown.

Sometimes, among the ice-clad peaks of the giant ranges of the Himalayas, they crossed snowy pa.s.ses fourteen thousand feet above the sea, and did not neglect to throw a stone upon the _obos_--the cairns that pious and superst.i.tious travellers erect to propitiate the spirits of the pa.s.ses. Sometimes the path led under beautiful cliffs of pure white crystalline limestone that in the brilliant sunlight shone like the finest marble. Often they journeyed through a lovely land of gently-sloping hills, of gra.s.sy uplands, of deep valleys giving delightful vistas of snow-clad mountains far away. They walked through pinewoods, through forests of maple, silver fir, and larch, and miles of huge bushes of flowering rhododendrons. They toiled up a rough and stony track over bare and desolate land that was an old moraine and under moraine terraces one above another, forming giant spurs of the rugged hills. There were dark and fearsome ravines, so deep that they could scarcely hear the roar of the foaming torrents rushing among the great boulders below as they crossed on swaying suspension bridges of iron chains. These had been built hundreds of years before by long-forgotten Chinese engineers. Three chains on one level supported the bamboo or plank footway, while one on either side served as a hand-rail, and a bamboo or gra.s.s lattice-work between them and the roadbearers hid from sight the deep gorge below. Often these bridges were only of ropes of twisted withes or gra.s.s and swung and swayed in terrifying fashion with the motion of the traveller. There were broad rivers over the eddying, swirling waters of which strong cantilever bridges of stout wooden beams were pushed out from the steep banks.

Truly a beautiful land Bhutan, at its loveliest perhaps in spring, when the hills and upland meadows where the yaks graze, ten thousand feet above the sea, blaze with the mingled colours of anemones blue and white, of yellow pansies and mauve and white irises, of large white roses and small yellow ones, of giant yellow primulas with six tiers of flowers, when the oaks and the chestnuts are clothed in young green, and the apricot, pear and orange trees are in bloom, when large and lovely blossoms cover that little-known tree that the Bhutanese call _chape_, when the bright green of the young gra.s.s runs up to the white snowfields. The woods are full of a pretty ground orchid, beautiful trailing blossoms of others droop from the boughs of the great trees, and on the magnesium limestone hills one of the rarest orchids grows in profusion.

But to the two pilgrims of Love the land seemed beautiful even now that the winter was not far distant. In the silent woods, hidden from prying eyes, they sat hand in hand and whispered to each other over and over again the oldest, sweetest story that the Earth has known. Strange to hear words of love from the lips of such a weird-looking couple; yet Muriel in her quaint disguise with her silky hair cropped to the scalp was as beautiful in her lover's eyes as when he had seen her in her prettiest frocks. And she thought the yellow-skinned, wrinkled old lama infinitely more attractive than the gay young subaltern of Ranga Duar--for he was her own now. Such is Love's glamour. Muriel had forgiven royally.

Bhutan is a Buddhist-ruled land, therefore slaying for sport and fishing in the rivers is prohibited; nay, more, the Maharajah sometimes forbids the killing of even domestic animals for food. So wild life abounds. The fugitives often saw flocks of burhel--called _nao_ in Bhutan--feeding on the precipitous slopes of the higher hills. Once Frank and Muriel excitedly watched a snow-leopard stalking one of these big-horned sheep sixteen thousand feet above the sea-level. And in these heights they even saw an occasional lynx or wolf, generally only to be found in the highest elevations bordering on Tibet. Silver-haired _langur_ apes, the white fringes around their black faces giving them a comic resemblance to aged negroes, awoke the echoes of the mountains with their deep booming cry; while in the lower valleys little brown monkeys mopped and mowed from the trees at the fugitives as they pa.s.sed. On one occasion Muriel, exhilarated by the keen, life-giving air, ran gaily on ahead of the others in a wood--and came on a tiger enjoying its midday siesta.

But the striped brute only uttered a startled "Wough! Wough!" like a big dog and dashed away through the undergrowth. Another time they disturbed a red bear feeding on the carcase of a strange beast that seemed a mixture of goat, donkey and deer--Tashi called it a _serao_. And at a lower elevation they blundered on two black bears--not flesh-eaters these, yet more dangerous--grubbing for roots, and on another occasion saw one climbing a tree in search of wild bees' nests.

In a dense jungle early one morning a beautiful black panther with a skin like watered silk glided stealthily by them, showing its white fangs and red mouth in an angry snarl as it went. And deep down in a valley they espied a rhinoceros feeding a thousand feet below them. But they came across no elephants; and Frank noted the fact despairingly as rendering even less probable a meeting with Badshah and his herd.

Bird-life abounded, from the snow partridges that flew in the hills eighteen thousand feet high to pigeons of every kind: birds of all sizes, from great eagles to the little quails that hid in the cornfields; lammergeiers that were fed on human bodies, the dead of families of high degree, exposed on a flat rock of slate with head and shoulders tied to a wooden axle that stretched the corpse like a rack.

In Bhutan ordinary folk are cremated.

On their journey the fugitives met with wayfarers of every rank and cla.s.s. On a steep mountain track they stood aside to let a high official go by. He was sitting pickaback in a cloth on a powerfully-built servant, the ends of the cloth knotted on the man's forehead. Behind trudged an escort of bare-legged swordsmen with leather shields and shining steel helmets. Coolies, male and female, followed, carrying the great man's baggage in baskets placed in the crutch of forked sticks tied on their backs. Sometimes they pa.s.sed a rival lama glaring with jealous eye at them. Often they met groups of raiyats, st.u.r.dy peasants, thick-limbed, bare-footed, bare-headed, the women clear-eyed, deep-bosomed, but uglier than the males. These did reverence to the holy men and put their modest offerings of copper coins or food into Muriel's begging-bowl.

Another time it was a family group at food, eating by the wayside. The group consisted of a stout, ruddy-faced woman with close-cropped hair, hung with many necklaces of coral and turquoise, and waited on by her three meek and submissive husbands, all brothers--for this is a land of polyandry. She invited the fugitives to share their meal, and bade her dutiful spouses serve the supposed lamas. They proffered cooked rice coloured with saffron and other food in the excellent Bhutanese baskets woven with very finely split cane. These are made in two circular parts with rounded top and bottom pieces fitting so well that water can actually be carried in them. From sealed wicker-covered bamboos the hosts filled _choongas_ (bamboo mugs) with _murwa_, the beer of the country, and _chang_, the native spirit. Frank and Muriel refused the liquor; but Tashi drank their share as well as his, to give the pious peasants an opportunity of acquiring merit. And wife and husbands thought themselves amply rewarded by a muttered blessing.

A very different figure was that of a man lame of the right leg and limping painfully down a steep hill in front of the fugitives. Muriel, full of pity, whispered to her lover after they had pa.s.sed him: "Oh, the poor wretch! Did you see, dear, he had lost the right hand as well?" But she shuddered when she learned that the cripple was a murderer punished by the severing of the tendons of the leg and the loss of the hand that struck the fatal blow.

In the cultivated valleys, where barley, buckwheat and mustard grew, there were everywhere evidences of the religious feeling of the Western Bhutanese. Every hill was crowned with a _gompa_ or chapel, _chortens_ and praying-wheels stood beside the road, and _mendongs_ or praying-walls, a mile long, their stones engraved with sacred words, were built near habitations.

In the villages the disguised fugitives were well treated. Food and lodging were offered them freely in the cabins as in the great houses of officials and rich folks, where they spent hours watching the skilled artisans among the feudal retainers of their hosts weaving silk, making woollen and cotton garments, brocade and embroideries, or hammering artistic designs on silver or copper plates backed with lac. None suspected the three of being other than they seemed. The Buddhism of Bhutan and Tibet to-day has but one article of faith--"Acquire merit by feeding and paying the lamas and they will win salvation for you." So rich and poor vied in giving their best to the holy wayfarers, and sought not to intrude on the meditations or privacy of lama and _chela_, and welcomed the cheery company of the more worldly lay brother who could crack a joke or empty a mug with any man and pitch the stone quoits or shoot an arrow in the archery contests better than the village champion.

Thus, contentedly and free from care, the three fugitives wandered on towards the south where on the frontier they expected their troubles to begin. One day when pa.s.sing a hamlet by the roadside they tarried to look on at a wedding at which a buxom country maid was being married to a family of six brothers. The village headman performed the simple ceremony, which consisted of offering a bowl of _murwa_ to the G.o.ds, then presenting a cupful to the bride and eldest bridegroom, blessing them, and expressing a hope that the union might be a fruitful one. The rest, after the usual presents had been given to the bride's relatives, was simply a matter of feasting everyone. The stranger lamas were invited to join; but Frank refused and dragged away the convivial Tashi, who was anxious to accept the invitation. Wargrave with difficulty led him aside and was so occupied in arguing with his discontented guide that he did not notice that Muriel had not followed.

A sudden cry from her and his name shrieked out wildly made him turn in alarm. To his horror he saw the girl struggling in the grasp of a Chinaman, while another on a mule and holding the bridle of a second animal was calling on the villagers in the Penlop's name to a.s.sist his comrade.

CHAPTER XV

A STRANGE RESCUE

Neither Muriel, absorbed in watching the wedding, nor the two men engrossed in their dispute had noticed the Chinese come riding along the road and pulling up when they saw the peasants gathered together. One of them had been about to question the villagers from his saddle when his eyes fell on the disguised girl standing apart from the crowd. He stared at her for a few moments. Then he spoke hurriedly to his companions, and, springing from the mule's back seized Muriel in a rough grasp.

At her cry Frank ran back, forgetting his disguise. He recognised in her a.s.sailant the pock-marked officer of the _Amban_. The man, seeing him coming, drew a revolver; but Wargrave whipped out his pistol quicker and without hesitation shot him through the heart. The Chinaman collapsed to the ground and in his fall dragged the girl down. His comrade fired at his slayer and, missing him, wheeled his mule round and galloped off.

Tashi returned the shot while Frank ran to Muriel. He fired several times and the rider was apparently hit; for he fell forward on the neck of his animal; but he recovered himself and, crouching low, was still in the saddle when a turn in the road hid him from sight.

The startled villagers scattered and fled in terror at the tragedy suddenly enacted in their midst, the six cowardly husbands deserting their new-made wife and leaving her to follow as they ran away, which she did at her utmost speed.

Frank freed Muriel from the stiffened grasp of the dead man and helped her to her feet; then the three hurried from the fatal spot, so lately filled by a cheerful crowd of merrymakers and now tenanted only by the corpse that lay with sightless eyes staring up at the blue sky. They made for the shelter of jungle-clad hills that rose a couple of miles away.

From now onwards, for two or three weeks, the fugitives led the lives of hunted rats. They travelled generally only by night, avoiding villages and farms, and keeping away from the road as much as possible. They were in the southern zone of Bhutan lying nearest the Indian frontier, a region of precipitous hills ten or twelve thousand feet high, their sides clothed with dense vegetation, of deep, fever-laden valleys of awe-inspiring gorges, of rivers liable to sudden floods and rising in a few hours thirty or forty feet.

Tashi in various disguises occasionally visited villages in search of food and information; while the lovers awaited his return in some hidden spot, Frank holding the anxious girl in his arms and trying to calm her fears. In one excursion the ex-lama got the first definite news of the pursuit. He learned that the _Amban_ had returned unexpectedly to Tuna, the plot in his favour in Pekin having failed. He was not satisfied by the tales told by the monks of the lamasery to account for Muriel's mysterious disappearance, which was that she had been carried off by devils. He insisted on a search being made for her along the road to the Indian border and sent his own Chinese guards to direct the pursuit. The companion of the pock-marked man had got back to Tuna and told of their recognition of her. Yuan Shi Hung, furious at the death of his officer but overjoyed at the discovery of the girl, set out at once with his personal followers and a body of the Penlop's soldiers to take up the chase.

The fugitives, hotly pursued, had several hair-breadth escapes. Once they almost blundered into a bivouac of their enemies at night. They succeeded at last in reaching the great forest in which Wargrave and the ex-lama had parted from the elephants, the forest which ran along the foot and clothed the northern slopes of the second-last range of mountains between them and the frontier. But alas! there was no trace of Badshah's herd; yet this was not surprising, for they found themselves in a part unknown to them. Through this vast jungle they travelled by day, until one evening they reached a deep gorge that pierced the range and seemed to promise a pa.s.sage through the mountains.

They camped for the night by its mouth, intending to enter it at sunrise. Dawn found them breaking their fast on a scanty meal of dried mutton and bananas. Suddenly Tashi stopped eating and held up a warning hand. His companions drew their pistols, Frank having given his second weapon to Muriel. Presently they heard the faint sounds of an animal's approach on their track. Just as they had risen silently to their feet three gigantic dogs appeared, scenting their trail. They were Tibetan mastiffs, such as are to be seen chained in the court yards of lamaseries. At sight of them the huge brutes stopped, crouched for an instant, showing their fangs in a fierce snarl, and then rushed at them.

Without hesitation the three fired. One of the dogs dropped dead; but the others, though wounded, came on. One bounded at Muriel. Frank threw himself in front of her, firing rapidly at it. Several bullets struck it, but the savage brute sprang at his throat. He grappled with it, striving by main strength to hold it off. Muriel rushed to his aid and putting her pistol to the mastiff's head shot it dead. Tashi meantime had killed the third.

Knowing that their pursuers must be close behind the dogs they fled into the gorge. On either hand stupendous cliffs towered up two thousand feet above them, scarcely a hundred yards apart, seeming to meet overhead and shut off the sky. Here and there the giant walls were split from top to bottom in slits opening off the main pa.s.sage. As the fugitives ran on the gorge narrowed until it was scarcely fifty yards wide, and they began to fear that it might prove only a _cul-de-sac_ in which they would be hopelessly trapped. They heard cries behind them, strangely echoed by the rocky walls. Breathless, panting, their tired limbs giving way under them, they staggered blindly on.

The pa.s.s turned sharply to the right. As they approached the bend they became aware of a dull rumbling, and the ground, which suddenly began to slope steeply down, shook violently under their feet. Wondering what new danger, what fresh horror, awaited them they stumbled on, turned the corner and stopped short in dismayed despair.

From side to side the gorge was filled with a tumultuous, racing flood of foam-flecked water, a rushing river that poured out of a natural tunnel in the steeply sloping rocky bottom of the pa.s.s as from a sluice.

It surged against the precipitous cliffs, leaping up against the walls that hemmed it in, sweeping in mad onset of white-topped waves and eddying whirlpools flinging spray high in air. The stoutest swimmer would be tossed about helplessly in it, rolled over and over, choked, suffocated, sucked under, the life beaten out of him.

For one wild moment Frank thought of seizing Muriel in his arms and springing into the raging flood, but the sheer hopelessness of escape that way checked him. It was certain death. Better to turn and face their pursuers. There was more chance of life in battling with a score or two of Bhutanese swordsmen than with the tumbling, tossing waters.

So, pistol in hand, the three retraced their steps, looking everywhere for a suitable spot to make a stand. But on either hand the cliffs rose sheer, their faces seamed here and there with cracks, but with never a crevice big enough to shelter them. They pa.s.sed the bend; and a few hundred yards beyond it some large rocks fallen from the cliff on one side lay close against its base.

Frank resolved to take their stand here. It was the only cover visible.

They fitted the holster-stocks to their pistols, converting them into carbines which could be fired from the shoulder, enabling them to aim more accurately at a longer range. Then while Tashi crept cautiously along the pa.s.s to scout, the subaltern and the girl examined the position for defence. Thus occupied they were startled by shots ringing out, echoing down the vast canyon. Taking cover they saw their companion running back followed by a body of men, a few mounted, the majority on foot. Some had fire-arms, others bows, the rest swords.