CHAPTER V
ALAI BALA SLEEPS
It had rained and ceased raining that evening as it usually did in Srinagar. Mist, tinted flame color by the setting sun, was twining around the rocky base of Jyestharudra's pinnacle. The melancholy call of the boatmen in the doongas came over the water as Monsey drifted about, alone except for his paddler, on the lagoon.
Edith had left him in a black mood. He lay back on the cushions of the doonga, his powerful body tense, a cigarette half bitten through in his nervous lips. Overhead the panoply of sunset, spreading across the arch of the sky, reflected itself on the lagoon.
Boats moved slowly under the rickety bridges. Not without reason is Srinagar called the Venice of India. Distant spots of purple that were iris beds growing over graves winked down at the twilight city.
While Monsey meditated, the ragged Kashmiri boatman propelled his craft slowly toward the bazaar quarter with its yawning shop fronts, its raft of vessels crowding together, and its poppy-covered, tumbledown roofs.
"Where will the sahib go?" the man ventured at last, feeling the inner impulse of hunger.
"To purgatory, or Abbas Abad's," growled Monsey. "Take your choice."
A moment later the gondola drew up at a painted
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