Marching Sands
The three priests were turning slowly on their feet, supporting the bronze bowl above their heads. They moved in a kind of dance, and as they revolved, came nearer to the shrine—then retreated. Delabar watched intently.
"They will keep up the dance for twenty-four hours," he said, "without stopping. Meanwhile the other priests will watch, without taking food or drink. It induces a kind of hypnotism. They believe that at the end of the twenty-four hours, the god will enter the bowl."
Gray nodded. Wu Fang Chien had sat back and was eyeing the dance complacently.
"When this happens," Delabar went on, "the priests will leave the temple, holding the bowl in front of them. They will be followed by the towns-people who do not doubt that the god will conduct them to the criminals."
"I guess we're nominated for the guilty parties."
Gray surveyed the scene curiously, the revolving trio of brown bodies, the silent mandarin and the watching priests. He followed idly the smoke fumes that eddied up from the shrine of the bronze god. Wu Fang Chien, he mused, had decided that it was time to strike. And the mandarin was going about it with the patience of the Mongol, sure of his victim, and his own power.
Wu Fang Chien had warned them. They had not heeded the warning. The attack in Honanfu
68
