The Black Mask — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

54 More Deadly than the Viper “T_T had better go now,” he stam- mered. 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 encoun- tered the huge Cossack, Yashka, standing under the lanthorn, smok- ing, the balalatka 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. Nié enayu! 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 warm- ing 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—per- haps.” Shagdur stared. “You are not go- ing to travel alone at night, master? There are Tangut robbers in this re- gion—” ‘ “I can take care of myself,” he assured him. As Shagdur left the room, Tremaine went to his camel-bags in one cor- ner, 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 bed- chamber, making his way to the front of the khan to await the caravan- bash. For some little time he paced the courtyard, his eyes frequently seek- ing 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, lead- ing a tall, white bughra, or he-camel. “You may occupy my room in the Rest House tonight,’ Tremaine told him as the camel knelt. “Tl hardly be back before daylight.” ... When the shaggy he-camel had re- gained 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-crowned peaks it skirted the Lamaserie for the descent on the other side of the mountain; and Tre- maine urged his ungainly mount to a trot, leaving the sentinel-crags of the lower pass behind and beginning the steep climb to the whitewashed mon- astery with its leering eye of crim- son. 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 —— es a eS ee ee ee ee