They had not found it difficult to follow the trail left by Muriel’s abductors, for once inside the border the Chinamen had not tried to hide themselves.  At every village along the rough road Tashi had learned of their passing with their captive, so the two had followed them without difficulty to Tuna, where they soon discovered where the girl was imprisoned.  The festival had offered them an unhoped-for opportunity of rescuing her.  Tashi, once a star performer in similar devil dances in his own monastery, procured costumes and taught his companion what to do.  As the number of those taking part in the performances ran to hundreds it was easy to slip in unobserved among them.

Then Muriel told of her adventures.  But, far more interesting to both than the details of these mere happenings, each revealed to the other the longings, the love, the hopes and fears, that had filled his and her heart during the unhappy period of their estrangement.

Now began a wonderful odyssey that, but for the dread of pursuit and capture would have seemed a journey in Fairyland to the re-united lovers.  Indeed, as they travelled on day after day and danger seemed left behind, they forgot everything in the joy of being together once more, their vows exchanged, their faith pledged, the Future a long vista of golden days of delight.  It was well that Tashi was with them to be on the watch, for the lovers walked with their heads in the clouds.

And certainly theirs was an interesting pilgrimage.  Bhutan is perhaps the least-known country in Asia, the last that has kept its cherished seclusion since Anglo-Indian troops burst the barrier of Tibet and flaunted the Union Jack in the streets of the fabled city of Lhassa.  But Bhutan is still a secret, a mysterious, land.  Only a few British Envoys, from Bogle in the latter half of the 18th Century to Claude White and Bell in the beginning of this, and their companions, had intruded on its privacy before Colonel Dermot.  So that for the lovers it had all the fascination of the unknown.

Sometimes, among the ice-clad peaks of the giant ranges of the Himalayas, they crossed snowy passes fourteen thousand feet above the sea, and did not neglect to throw a stone upon the obos—­the cairns that pious and superstitious travellers erect to propitiate the spirits of the passes.  Sometimes the path led under beautiful cliffs of pure white crystalline limestone that in the brilliant sunlight shone like the finest marble.  Often they journeyed through a lovely land of gently-sloping hills, of grassy uplands, of deep valleys giving delightful vistas of snow-clad mountains far away.  They walked through pinewoods, through forests of maple, silver fir, and larch, and miles of huge bushes of flowering rhododendrons.  They toiled up a rough and stony track over bare and desolate land that was an old moraine and under moraine terraces one above another, forming giant spurs of the rugged hills.  There were dark and fearsome