“I begin to feel as if it were a dream,” said Eleanor, “we have been remembering all these years—only a dream-coat. It was so long ago!” she mused. “And this is another life.” She motioned to the strange fields about them—the low houses among the trees and the carved, fantastic temple rising from the grove near by. “Almost another world!” she murmured.
The sedan chairs halted for luncheon. A little distance away, the bearers sat or lolled at rest. In the distance Kou Ying consulted with a Taoist priest, who shook his head and turned away.
They saw Kou Ying move swiftly after him and press a coin in his hand. The priest stopped and regarded it with passing motion, and spoke a few words again, and shook his head and went on to his temple.
Kou Ying returned to them with the usual formula of failure. He motioned to the bearers to take up the chairs and continue the journey.
But Richard More stayed him. “Wait,” he said. He was searching in his pocket for something.
And Richard More took from his pocket a yellow paper, and began to unfold it with slow, rustling fingers.
The Oriental’s face changed subtly. He moved toward it and reached out his hand.
Richard More looked up. “I had forgotten—that I had it,” he said absently.
Kou Ying reached to it. But Richard held it away. His finger traced a line along the paper and paused....
“This must be the place—here?” He looked about him, at the clustering houses and the Taoist temple on the right.
Kou Ying’s face bent eagerly above the paper.
“Where did you get this?” he asked huskily. There was a strange, quiet gleam in the yellow face.
“The man I told you of—Stewart—gave it to me.... I had forgotten—till now. Will it help, do you think?”
Kou Ying looked at him, almost with compassion, it seemed.
His finger touched the paper. But he made no further move to take it.
And when Richard More held it against the light they saw, gleaming high, an imperial dragon and beside it the four strange cabalistic marks.
“It is the royal seal,” said Kou Ying quietly—“the seal of a dynasty long since deposed. Only documents of rare value are inscribed on this paper.”
He waited a moment in silence. “It will tell us the way,” he said slowly-“Whoever sees that paper must speak true words—on penalty of death.”