Read "The Nine Unknown" by Talbot Mundy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It WAS noon when Narayan Singh and Ramsden, following a _chela_ fifty years of age, chose what shadows were available in streets that baked like ovens between the stifling walls. The _chela_ led them past an opening in a carved wall and gave the agreed signal, passing on as if unconscious of them. They turned and walked boldly into a ruinous temple, whose floor was deep with the dung of sacred bulls and whose only light was from little oil-dishes swung by wires from a roof invisible in gloom.
As the eyes grew used to the dark they were aware of the big bronze man in yellow who had been their prisoner, standing with his back to an inner-door with arms folded over his breast. They could see the white teeth glistening between thick lips, and the whites of his eyes with a glow behind them.