"They took me down into some kind of a tunnel and kept me there until the shooting had ceased. They were escorting me along the passages when we met a party of Wusun, armed with bows. They talked to the priests, then they seemed to become angry, and the Buddhists gave me up. I don't know why the Wusun wanted me." Glancing at the beautiful girl, Gray thought that the reason was not hard to guess. He did not then understand, however, the full significance that the woman held for the Wusun. "Perhaps they recognized you as a white woman--one of their own kind," he hazarded. She shook her head dubiously. "I thought the Wusun did not know any other white people existed, Captain Gray. One of them--I heard them call him Gela, the Kha Khan--was a young man, as big as you, and not bad looking. He was angriest of all--with the priests, that is, not with me." Gray frowned. "Gela led me to the council hall of the 'Tall Ones,'" she continued, looking at him in some surprise, for the frown had not escaped her. "There I found old Bassalor Danek. I could not speak their language, but Uncle Singh taught me quite a bit of the northern Turki. Bassalor Danek was really a fine old chap, but I like Timur better." "Timur?" he asked. "One of the _tumani_?" "I don't see why you don't like them. They helped me. No, Timur seems to be a kind of councilor. He's white haired, and limps. But he speaks broken Turki, which I understand. So--I have been well treated, except that they will not let me out of this building, which belongs to Bassalor Danek." "What did the Turki-speaking fellow have to say for himself?" "He asked my name. Of course he could not pronounce it, so he christened me something that sounds like Kha Rakcha. I think Kha--it's a Kirghiz word, too--means 'white' in their tongue." "Rakcha is western Chinese for some kind of spirit," assented Gray, interested. "So they've named you the White Spirit--or, in another sense, the White Woman-Queen. Your coming seems to have been an event in the affairs of the Wusun----" "That is what Timur said." She nodded brightly. "He is one of the elders of the _kurultai_--council. I hope I made a good impression on him. He seemed to be friendly." "I think," pondered Gray seriously, "that you have made a better impression than you think. That helps a lot, because----" he was about to say that his own standing with the Wusun was none too good, thanks to Wu Fang Chien's enmity, but broke off. He did not want to alarm her. "Because they've let me come to see you," he amended awkwardly. The girl's vigilant wits were not to be hoodwinked. "That's not what you meant to say, Captain Gray," she reproached him. "It's true--" he was more successful this time--"that your coming probably earned me a respite." "A respite?" When is a woman deceived by a man's clumsy assurance? Or when does she fail to understand when something is kept back?