The last of three plays by Ray Jenkins based on the diaries of Catherine, Lady McCartney, wife of the British consul in Kashgar, Chinese Turkestan.
Von le Coq, a German archaeologist. discovers the remains of the Manichean religion, a Christian sect that fled from persecution in the West in the third century AD. He sends huge quantities of statues, manuscripts and paintings back to Berlin on camel trains. He also hears about a huge library that has been uncovered at the site of a Buddhist monastery at Dunhuang on the edge of the Gobi desert. But he is prevented from going there immediately and is beaten to it by Aurel Stein, who is told about the library by the McCartneys. This proves to be one of the greatest finds in the history of the Silk Road.