His gaze sought the white cap of Mount Erlik, ghostly in the starlight, then swung to the point where he knew Yolgan lay. He had been there before, himself, had heard the deep roar of the long bronze trumpets that shaven-headed priests blow from the mountains at sunrise.

It was past midnight when he sighted fires near the willow-massed banks of a stream. At first glance he knew it was not the camp of the men he followed. The fires were too many. It was an ordu of the nomadic Kirghiz who roam the country between Mount Erlik Khan and the loose boundaries of the Mohammedan tribes. This camp lay full in the path of Yolgan and he wondered if the Englishmen had known enough to avoid it. These fierce people hated strangers. He himself, when he visite

The wizard stretched forth his hand; his fingers opened and closed like a bird's claws.

"Is that not a wonder--that this blind flesh obeys the thoughts of my mind? I walk, I breathe, I speakare they not all wonders?"

It was not strange that a passionate young beauty should be risking her life to aid him; such things had happened often enough in his life.