During all the long ride homewards to the Gobi, Temujin did not speak to Jamuga, nor Jamuga to him, except on one occasion.
They had circled about, the Mongols and the Tatars, and at one twilight they suddenly entered a region familiar to Jamuga, one of low terra-cotta hills carved by the wind into strange and fantastic shapes, nightmarish and grotesque. They descended into a narrow twisting valley, reddish and dry, where a river had run. Now the sun was setting, and the earth swam in unearthly colors of violet, yellow, bronze and scarlet, in which the hills drifted, lit into pink clarity by the last bloody light. The silence of the barrens, empty and motionless, fell over the whole world. Even the horsemen made no sound, as they moved down the valley, winding past colored hills in the forms of pillared temples and flattened volcanoes.
Then, suddenly, in the distance, the Lake of the Damned could be seen, dimly bluish and purple in its shores of pallid shadows. There it lay, immobile, stark and mystic, a dream drifting on the desert. Many of the horsemen had never seen it before, and they uttered faint cries, believing this to be a natural inland sea, promising coolness and rest. But they thought this only a moment, for then the awfulness, the silence, the unearthly quality of the Lake bore in upon their senses, and they were terrified. The sun had fallen, and the earth was alone, spinning in a nightmare of foglike colors and soundlessness, with the Lake in the distance, spreading into infinity, and the sky above, lost in dusty rose and fading fire.
Temujin, on his horse, stood a little in advance of the others, his lance in his hand. He faced the Lake. He looked at it a long time, and the ghastly last light of the earth and the heavens lay on his face and in his eyes. He heard some one move up to him, to his side, and after a moment, he turned his head and looked at the other man. It was Jamuga, pale and silent, who was gazing at the Lake. Behind them, the thousands of warriors waited, uneasily, wrapped in their cloaks, dark-faced and intent.
Then Jamuga spoke, pointing to the Lake: “The Lake of the Damned! The Lake of those who would conquer and destroy for their own lust and vanity! As surely as this is a frightful mirage, so is the tyrant’s dream of power, and so shall his dream end, in waste and wilderness, in illusion and death.”
Temujin looked at him with an inscrutable expression, then, very slowly, be began to smile. To Jamuga, it was a most terrible smile. Then Temujin looked over his shoulder at his people, and said in a light voice:
“This is only a mirage. Nevertheless, let us pursue it, and see what doth happen.”
The men laughed with a sound of release. Temujin spurred his horse, and, with a wild hoarse shout, he rushed down towards the Lake. The others followed, shouting and screaming, brandishing their spears and lances as though in pursuit of a foe. And, after a few minutes, Jamuga followed.
The Lake lay before them, visible and mysterious, but as they thundered down upon it, it retreated, never coming nearer. They reached a region of white and acrid borax, which rose up about them, disturbed, in clouds of choking, smarting dust. But, always retreating, always frightful and unearthly, the Lake stood in the desert.
Darkness came rapidly, and all at once the Lake had vanished, and now there was nothing for endless miles but purple shadows, like sheets of water. The sky was the color of amethysts. And now the wind rose, fierce and irresistible, sweeping over the wastes with the sound of low drumming thunder. The hills had vanished. There was nothing but the purple gale, and the immense loneliness of a dead land.
Temujin, laughing and panting, reined-in his horse, and the others did likewise. He looked at them, and they looked at him. And then he stared beyond them, at Jamuga, slowly cantering up with a sad face.
“Let us be on,” said Temujin, turning about. “We must camp very soon, for the night.”
The moon rose behind the western ramparts of the templed hills, and soon flooded earth and heaven with a milky luster. The wind was stronger, now. They were obliged to camp sooner than expected, in the shadow of a bleached wall.
But Jamuga and Temujin slept apart that night, as they had never slept before, and they did not speak for the rest of the journey.