There had been no other women in his life. He smiled ruefully, reflecting upon his blundering effort to help the girl. And she was now far removed from his help. It appalled him--how little he might be able to aid her. With another man, this fear might have turned into reckless haste, or blind cursing against the fate that had befallen Mary Hastings. Gray pressed on silently, unhurried, the flame of his love burning fiercely. In this manner he would go on until he had found her, or those who had taken her. There was no alternative. Mirai Khan would have said that Gray was a fatalist, but Mirai Khan did not know the soul of a white man. "If only I am not too late," he thought. "I must not be too late. That could not happen." Gray had no words to frame a prayer. But, lacking words, he nevertheless prayed silently as he walked. The stars faded. The moon had disappeared over the plain in front of the American. The dunes turned from black to gray and to brown, as the sunrise climbed behind him. Gray sat down on a hillock, and drew out his flour cakes. These--some of them--he chewed, washing them down with water from his canteen. Had Sir Lionel lived to see that day? Gray thought not. Mirai Khan's prophecy had born fruit. A few feet away an animal's skull--a gazelle, by the horns--peered from the sand. Gray watched it quietly until the sun gleamed on the whitened bone. Then he rose, stretching his tired limbs, and pressed on. Late that afternoon he sighted the towers of Sungan slightly to the north of his course. Working his way forward, Gray scanned the place through his glasses. He was on the summit of a ridge about a half mile from the nearest towers. The ruins lay in the center of a wide plain which seemed to be clay rather than sand. At intervals over the plain sand drifts had formed. Gray wondered if it was from behind these that the lepers had advanced on the Hastings' caravan. In the center of the plain trees and stunted tamarisks grew, indicating the presence of water. Throughout this scattered vegetation the ruins pushed through the sand. Sir Lionel had been correct in his guess that the desert sand had overwhelmed the city. Gray could see that only the tops of the tumble-down walls were visible--those and the towers which presumably had been part of the palaces and temples of ancient Sungan. Even the towers were in a ruined state. They seemed to be formed of a dark red sandstone, which Gray knew was found in the foothills of the Thian Shan country, to the north. He judged that the structures were at least five or six centuries old. He saw some portions of walls which were surmounted by battlements. And the towers--through the glasses--showed narrow embrasures instead of modern windows.