The Red Road to Shamballah

The American part of him was telling him that the flame was natural--
it was magnetic, electrical, or just some new form of luminous gas.
But almost equally strong was his Oriental feeling that this was
ghostly.

The little war-horse he rode was taking that blue light for no
ordinary fact at any rate. The animal had reared back on its haunches.
Shattuck could feel it tremble between his knees.

At first, there had been just that blue flame. It flickered in mid-air
perhaps twenty paces in advance. Its evolution was swift. It became a
pillar of blue light resting on the earth. This expanded. And now, in
the center of the blue radiance, Shattuck saw the figure of a man.

Shattuck stared.

From the time of that childhood of his, passed at treaty ports up and
down the Chinese coast, generally in the company of Chinese servants,
he had been in contact with various sorts of magic.

What was this then--a ro-long?

Many were the tales he'd heard of ro-longs---those unfortunate dead
brought back to life--boys, girls, men and women--to serve the unholy
will of some vicious master.

Were such things possible? Sure they were possible!

But, even while this speculation, with a crowd of others, was racing
through his mind, his eyes were telling him that this apparition,
whatever it was, would be unable to hurt him if he only kept his
nerve.

He quieted his horse. He took a mental survey of his surroundings.

He was in the midst of the Kara Kugen--the Black Hills of the Gobi. It
was a region with such an evil reputation for ghostly dangers that
even the wildest of the fighting nomads gave it a wide berth.

BACK of him was Kara Koto, that "Black City" he had come to find.
Ahead of him there had been a battle in progress between rival
factions of this lost city of the desert.

There was nothing to do but--face it out!

He could see now that the apparition before him--luminous, ghostly
still--was that of a high--class lama. The head was shaven. The
expression of the face was pensive.

THE nobility of this head and face gave Shattuck his first inkling as
to the identity of this ghostly visitant. It was a surmise almost
instantly strengthened when he saw the stranger's robe emerge from the
blue light-haze that enveloped it and become what looked like a tissue
of woven gold.

"The Living Buddha!" Shattuck cried, with reverential awe, and he
swung down from the pony's back.