The Key West Citizen

THE ROAD TO SHANGRI-LA
By FAITH BALDWIN

YESTERDAY: Lynn Britton and Dick, her half-brother, have entered a forbidden temple in Mongolia so that Lynn may have a look at the man who tomorrow will escort her on a mysterious journey to visit a Mongol prince. Dick is ill at ease, and Lynn, her lovely figure disguised in men's clothes, has caught some of his fear.

Chapter Two
The Goddess Tara

DICK laughed. "You didn't care much for Sam Telford."

"Sam made a dreadful fuss about my coming—threatened to follow me, to rake up that old—that old bank scandal about you.

He felt I shouldn't trust you because of it. But Dick," she put an affectionate hand on his, observing how old and thin and ill he looked, "to my little-girl memory you were a hero, somehow betrayed. You were so handsome, so kind, and so generous to me.

His thin grey lips twitched.

Then you don't think I'm such a bad fellow after all?"

"Life has been unkind to you. It would have been better to come home and take your medicine."

He drew back and spoke brusquely. "That's not my way."

Something moved in a corner of the building. Dick drew his electric torch. The pilgrim was squatting on the stone-paved floor, his head hidden in his arms.

Dick strode over and kicked him. The man merely cringed.

Seizing the dirty collar of his dull red coat, Dick drew the fellow to his feet, but he continued to hide his face like a frightened child. The white man laughed and shoved him back into his corner.

"Native jackal!" he said contemptuously.

"He's been watching and following us ever since we entered the gate," Lynn told her brother.

"Perhaps you know him and he doesn't want you to see his face."

Dick gave the fellow a final kick. "He's just a cowardly, begging pilgrim. I know the breed. It's the lamas you must be careful of. The pilgrims expect to be kicked around. Let's go. We should enter the temple before the monks gather for Sherdock's ceremonial visit."

Lynn followed him with an uneasy backward glance.

They crossed the terrace to another stairway leading up to the courtyard before the golden temple, with its yellow-tiled roof, the belled corners curving upward in rhythmic billowing grace.

Climbing the marble runway they crossed the portico, pushed open the door, and stepped inside the building. In the flicker of a thousand butter lamps, Lynn stopped and stared.

They revealed the images along the walls, a mammoth golden Buddha—a hideous devil-god—rows of minor deities and lohans, disciples of the Buddha. With a feeling of awe she stepped forward and put her hand on one of the smooth red lacquer columns that disappeared into lofty voids of darkness above a cloud of painted silken banners. The devil-god inspired her with something of her childhood terror at a ferociously ugly face.

Dick finished circling the room with his electric torch. There were no hidden worshippers. Motioning Lynn to follow him to a ledge in the shadows between two grimacing lohans, he tried a narrow door behind them, and found that it could be opened.

"A handy exit," he explained, sitting down beside her. "We may need it. Some of these people know things without being told. If—" he broke off. "I was a fool to bring you."

"I'll still myself to nothingness," Lynn promised.

Strange currents of air, laden with heavy incense and sharp fumes from the butter lamps, coiled about through the temple.

A soft rustling began among the banners. Lynn looked up.

"Spirits?" she joked, though she was trembling a little.

Reincarnation?

DICK'S mouth set in a grim line.

"You can expect anything in a place like this. But you would come." He turned his torch on a statue they had not observed before. It sat above an altar on the opposite side of the room. A life-sized green goddess, her face slender and pointed, her eyes long and full, her eyebrows gracefully curved.

She bent dreamingly over the altar, the right hand on her knee, palm up, the left raised to the level of her breast, long tapering fingers held in the attitude of exposition. She wore the pointed crown.

"How beautiful!" Lynn gasped.

"Why, Dick, it's an Aryan face."

"The Nepalese goddess, Tara," murmured Dick. Lynn sensed surprise and wonder in his voice.

He turned and gave his sister a sharp, prolonged scrutiny. She was studying the statue.

"Lynn," he asked with suppressed excitement, "does she remind you of someone you know?"

"Someone I know?" she repeated.

"Think," he urged, "that chin, that nose, those long, full eyes."

He finished impatiently. "What do you see when you look in the mirror?"

"Why Dick!" Lynn stared speechlessly. Her hands went to her throat. "You're right!" she whispered presently. "In my better moments I do resemble her. What an amazing coincidence."

"I'll say!" agreed her brother. "But the strange part is this. Sherdock Fuyeh declares that you—"

are a reincarnation of the goddess, the Tara.

Lynn gave him a swift look. "Do you believe that sort of thing, Dick?"

He shook his head. "Still," he admitted, "it got me for a moment. Well—we can make good use of the resemblance."

"What do you mean by such a strange statement?" she demanded.

Before he could answer they heard the shuffle of approaching feet. "Here the lamas come," he whispered nervously. "For God's sake keep yourself inconspicuous!"

Lynn found herself sharing his agitation. Furtively she watched the student monks and their elders enter in dingy red or yellow togas and take the rows of long benches filling the center of the temple room. A few gaunt pilgrims crept in and crouched along the wall.

Then came a procession carrying big red lanterns, bundles of incense sticks and ritual poles hung with streamers of red and blue and yellow inscribed with mystic characters.

"Here's Sherdock, now," whispered Dick, as two lamas bearing lighted torches preceded the visiting "incarnation."

Sherdock Fuyeh was a small man clad in shining saffron robes, a high yellow mitre on his head and velvet Chinese boots on his feet. His wise, leathery old face with its grey chin-whiskers seemed as calm and peaceful as that of the Buddha. His serenity was so palpable that Lynn felt the contagion of it.

Certainly nothing but good could come from being in the presence of such a man, she thought, with a comforting sense of relief. He discounted the scores of new and unformed souls about him.

A throne-like chair was brought forward for him. His military escort, a half-dozen tall, handsomely uniformed men, wearing Sam Browne belts and cavalry boots, lined up under the image of the green Tara.

The torches lit up their smooth Mongolian faces and made Lynn extremely conscious of how much they resembled American Indians; how different they were from the small, yellow Chinese she had been accustomed to see in California. The leader moved slightly and Lynn secured a better look at his face.

"Dick," she whispered excitedly under cover of the chatter that filled the room, "I'll wager there's white blood in that man—that Mongolian officer."

"Very likely," he agreed without glancing up. "White travelers occasionally pass through the country."

Lynn shrugged and continued to watch the young officer. He had an appearance of lineage; an air of the unconquerable, the unpredictable about him. To her eyes he seemed far superior in carriage and pride and alertness to the rest of the soldiers. Even the scar on his left cheek, shaped like a horseshoe and very noticeable, was not, somehow, unpleasing.

Lamentation

A GOLDEN bell-note stilled the chattering. Small drums struck up a special rhythm with all the gusto of a devil dance.

Then deep-toned trumpets rumbled and were silent; wind instruments like oboes sang a musical phrase simple yet moving. It was repeated with variations supported by the thunder-roll of kettle drums. Lynn felt in the music a strange, acute impression of lamentation.

Slowly a chant arose, low and melancholy at first, then deep-throated as thunder in the mountains—solemn sentences of mystic import meant to raise the mind above captivating illusions. The chanting faded away; a rapid gesture symbolizing the void fluttered among the assemblage.

Lynn had unconsciously raised her face until the light shone full upon it. She heard a swift intake of breath at her side. Dick was staring at the native officer.

"Temu Darin!" he gasped.

But the soldier was not looking at Dick; his piercing amber eyes had struck fire from Lynn, his calm incredulity changing to the shock of intimate recognition as if she were known to him. Then swiftly, his expression took on a flare of angry comprehension, for he had seen Dick.

A ragged pilgrim screamed, pointing a bony finger in Lynn's direction. It was the evil-looking Mongol of the missing ear. He shouted a native phrase that was thrown back and forth among the crowd. Excitement caught like panic in a herd of milling cattle.

Demoniac tumult broke loose.

Dick struggled frantically to open the door behind them and succeeded just as the tall officer, knocking men right and left, reached their side. Strange words passed between him and Dick.

The door slammed and Lynn and her brother were on the outside and running. At the gate the lama guard recognized them, accepted more silver from Dick and rushed them up the narrow stairs into the gate-house above.

"Safer than crossing the field to the village just now," Dick panted. But the monks searching for them did not follow. Lynn watched from the upper window.

The noisy crowd was spilling from the temple and hanging close together before the portico. The saffron-robed Sherdock Fuyeh stepped forth in the moonlight, lifted his hands, and spoke a few words, at which the lamas scattered to their dormitories at the rear of the park.

continued