Читать книгу Patrick O’Brian 3-Book Adventure Collection: The Road to Samarcand, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore - Patrick O’Brian - Страница 14

At the edge of the Takla Makan they met the old Khan of Kokonor. He was a little man with a straggling white beard and streaming white moustaches that flew out on each side of his helmet. Derrick thought he looked a curious figure to lead the fiercest horde in Mongolia, and he was surprised at the deference with which Ross and Sullivan greeted him. They dismounted before he did, and walked across the sand to shake his hand: the old Khan was ill at ease out of the saddle, and he waddled on his bowed legs as he advanced to meet them.

Everyone stood well aside in silence while the three talked. After a little while they parted: the Khan shook hands again, nodded to his sons, and was gone in a cloud of dust.

‘Was that funny little man the Khan Hulagu?’ asked Derrick.

His uncle was thinking of other things: he looked worried, and his face was dark. But after a moment he forced a smile and said, ‘That funny little man, as you call him, is the Khan. He has probably killed more men than you have ever spoken to in your life, merely in guarding his own lands: what he could do if he went on the loose, I hesitate to think. I wouldn’t call him a funny little man if I were you.’

Sullivan and Ross walked on to where the Professor stood: they drew him aside out of earshot, and Sullivan said, ‘I am afraid we have bad news. We cannot go on by the road we planned, and we cannot go back. The Kazaks have cut the roads to the Gobi, and they have defeated the Khan’s men north of the Takla Makan. He is very short of men just now, until he can get his scattered horde together, but he will give us a dozen men for a month to take us south of the Takla Makan to the Kirghiz country. We will be safe there. It is a quicker road than the one we proposed before, but it will give you no archaeology at all – it will be hard riding all the way.’

‘I am all for speed at this juncture,’ said the Professor, ‘and I feel that I would rather get the jade home than make any number of diggings, however exciting they might be. But will it be necessary to deprive this worthy man of so many of his followers?’

‘If you want to carry your head home as well as your jade,’ said Ross, ‘you will thank your stars that the Khan has made the offer. I wish that he could let us have ten times as many. Ever since this clumsy lubber Sullivan killed the Altai Khan’s son there has been a blood-feud between us and them, and they’ll be after us like a pack of wolves.’

‘Yes. That is the case,’ said Sullivan, shaking his head. ‘And that is not the only danger. The old Khan does not know exactly what has happened in the north, and there is the possibility – the very faint possibility, mind – that the Kazaks might come down through the middle of the Takla Makan and cut our road before we can get through.’ He drew a rough oval in the sand. ‘Here are we,’ he said, pointing to the narrow end of the egg, ‘and we have got to hurry along the southern edge. If they should come down thus’ – he drew a line through the middle of the egg – ‘and hit this southern edge by the Kunlun mountains before we have passed the point where they reach our path, why, then things might be very bad.’

‘Yes,’ said the Professor, gravely. ‘I quite see that.’

‘But,’ said Ross, ‘although they might be very bad, they would not be hopeless. There are some places where it is possible to get up through the Kunlun into Tibet – but we hardly need worry our heads about that. The chances of the Kazaks coming down through the desert are really very slight. Our chief aim must be to get along as fast as ever we can, and I think we should talk from our saddles, rather than wandering about like lambs waiting for the butcher.’

They stripped the column down to its bare necessities. Bale after bale they left standing in the sand, food, books and the Professor’s rubber bath: they changed all the camel-loads that could not be left behind on to horses, and by the light of the crescent moon alone they rode hard for the south. Yet fast though they went, the Mongols were not satisfied: they pushed on and on until Derrick slept in his saddle, and Li Han had to have his feet tied under his horse’s belly to keep him on. Twice young Hulagu made wide sweeping detours through stony patches of the desert, keeping the horses trotting throughout the night, although they were so tired that they could hardly stand: but in spite of all their care, on the third day they saw dust on the horizon behind them, and by noon through the binoculars they could see that below the dust rode a troop of Kazaks. It was that same evening that on the southern sky there appeared a long, low cloud that never moved. It was the Kunlun mountains, and as the sun set they could see the snow of the distant peaks glow red.

Day after day they travelled swiftly to the south, keeping to the edge of the desert for the rare wells and the grass for their horses; and day after day the Kazaks followed them. It was hard on the men, but it was harder on the horses: they carried very little corn, and the grass the horses could find was not enough to keep even those hardy beasts going at that killing pace. The mares that they brought with them for their milk dried up, and then one horse after another dropped behind. Fortunately they had many spare horses, in the Tartar fashion, and they hoped that under the mountains they would find better pasture.

When they first appeared, the Kazaks were more numerous than the flying expedition, but Hulagu had hopes of reducing their numbers: not only had they fewer spare horses, being so far from home, but they did not know the springs so well, and every night, once it was certain that they were discovered, the Kokonor men fired the grass so that there would be none for the pursuers, for during the first ten days of their flight the wind was in their faces, and the fire, when it spread, ran back towards the Kazaks.

Hulagu was right. In time the Kazaks dwindled in number to such a degree that the expedition was no longer hopelessly outnumbered, and after they had made sure of that by repeated counts, they slowed their pace to a speed that would not kill their horses – a speed that they could keep up for a month on end. The Kazaks did the same: by pressing hard they could now have caught up with the expedition, but they hung back, waiting like wolves for some disaster, some well that would fail, or for some one of the hundred mischances that could befall to happen and deliver their prey to them unarmed.

The column no longer rode in a compact line: there were the baggage horses in the centre, with the poorest riders; then a rear-guard of the Kokonor Mongols, with either Ross or Sullivan; and far in front three or four of the best horses. Chingiz and Derrick were usually sent out in front, being the lightest of the party, and the least likely to tire their horses; and all day as they rode they scanned the horizon to the north and west.

Every day as they rode south the Kunlun range rose higher in the sky, a vast series of mountains like a wall, rising abruptly from the plain: from less than half-way up they were covered with snow, and innumerable higher, more snowy peaks showed behind them. Behind that monstrous wall was Tibet, but it seemed impossible that any man should get up there, or live if he ever succeeded in his climb.

At last they began to turn right-handed to the west. The sun set in their eyes now, and now they were in the more fertile tract of country that led between the desert and the great rampart of mountains that floated above the clouds on their left, a long, thin stretch of country that would lead them to safety in the Kirghiz land.

They were in the foothills now, high, rolling, down-like slopes with grass that gave their horses heart and strength, and they were so near the mountains that they filled half the sky, towering up and up so that they had to lean back to see the tops. The days went by, so many of them that Derrick lost count of the days of the week, and they came at last to the place called Tchirek Chagu. Several of the Mongols had been here, for it was a meeting-place for those who had come down through the desert to the southern trail, and here sometimes in the earlier part of the year a few Tibetans would come down and trade. They rode with redoubled caution here, looking out far ahead; but when it was passed even Ross, who was the most cautious in saying hopeful words, said that he thought there was no longer any danger from the north. Several times they thought of turning to deal with the danger from the east, but whenever they stopped, the Kazaks stopped too. It would need several days to bring them to action, so the expedition went on, more slowly now, and almost at their ease.

They were riding along the most spectacular part of the southern trail, with the edge of the Takla Makan in sight on their right, and on their left the mountain wall rising sheer and black in the noblest precipice in the world, when one of the Mongols who had been there before pointed out the Gingbadze pass and the lamasery.

It seemed impossible that the small downward nick in the towering heights should be a pass, but as Derrick followed the pointing finger he could make out a minute square object just under it.

‘That,’ said the Mongol, ‘is the lamasery of Gingbadze, and the lamas who lived there made those steps that lead up to the pass.’ Derrick looked harder still, and he made out a thin line running up the precipice, a continuous line of steps cut out of the living rock.

‘So that is Gingbadze,’ said the Professor. ‘I have often heard of it, but I never expected to see it.’

‘Why did they cut the steps, sir?’ asked Derrick.

‘For the pilgrims,’ replied the Professor. ‘They used to go up there in great numbers to the shrine of Sidhartha’s tooth in the days before the Red-Hats ruined the monastery.’

‘Red-Hats, sir?’

‘Another sort of lama – Tibetan monks, you know. A vicious, war-like set of men, from all I hear, whatever their theories may be. I should very much like to go up there. Sullivan, do you think we could go up to Gingbadze? The Kazaks were not seen today, I believe – and even if they are still behind us, they do not seem inclined to molest us any more.’

‘No, they do seem to be falling back now: but consider, Professor, we should have to leave the horses at the foot of the pass, and if the Kazaks were to come up, where should we be then?’

‘You are quite right, of course. How foolish of me. Still, on a happier occasion, it would be very agreeable to go up.’

They rode on, and that evening they camped in long grass, the most comfortable beds they had had for weeks: the grass was already in seed, and the horses ate themselves fat. In the morning they rode out at their leisure. There was still no sign of the Kazaks behind, but wishing to see farther back Derrick and Chingiz went up a knoll that gave them a clear view for a full day’s march and more behind them. The morning air was clear and sharp, but for a long while they saw nothing on their trail.

‘There they are,’ cried Chingiz, suddenly. He pointed, and Derrick saw a movement in the distance, far away, but still much nearer than he had been looking.

‘Yes, they are still there,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. He was just about to go down again when the cry of a bird along the mountain-side made him look round. He could not see the bird, but as he searched for it his eye caught a gleam from far away, something that sent back the rays of the rising sun. The gleam winked, twinkled, and was gone: yet he thought he could make out something moving far down there, between the desert and the hill. He called Chingiz, and they stared together. ‘It may be a mirage,’ said Derrick – they had seen plenty, in the Gobi and in the Takla Makan – but Chingiz shook his head. ‘We cannot risk its being a mirage,’ he said, and they hurried back to Sullivan. Sullivan looked doubtful. ‘It hardly can be anything,’ he said, ‘but you had better take the glasses and look again. Keep well out of sight.’

They rode quickly to the knoll again, and raising only their heads above the skyline they searched the country with the glasses. Derrick caught the gleam again, a little line of flashes, and focused the glasses nearer. For a moment he could not make it out: the reflection seemed to be attached to nothing. Then the distant horseman topped the rise, and Derrick understood. All he had seen before was the row of lance-heads winking in the sun: the Kazaks had been hidden by the rising ground. The first came over the brow and into full view, then the second, then the third. He counted them: fifty, sixty, eighty-seven men. He handed the glasses to Chingiz, who gave one look and raced back.

‘Dear me, what is the matter?’ asked the Professor, as Sullivan called in the outriders and swung the column round.

‘It’s Kazaks before and Kazaks behind,’ said Sullivan. ‘There’s the desert to the north and the mountains to the south. You’ll see Gingbadze yet, Professor.’

He seemed in a high good humour, and for the moment the Professor did not understand. ‘Why should we see Gingbadze?’ he asked. ‘Only yesterday you gave some excellent reason for not going there.’

‘They have cut the road before us,’ cried Sullivan, urging his horse to a gallop. ‘We have got to reach the Gingbadze steps before nightfall, or we shall be between two fires.’

They raced through the morning and the afternoon, never drawing rein for a moment, and continually watching the skyline before them for the Kazaks who had followed them so long. If the Kazaks from the east made a stand – and they were still too numerous to be brushed aside – the delay and the noise of battle would bring the western Kazaks up at full speed, and that would be the end.

Mile after mile sped by under their horses’ hooves, and at last they saw the great rampart of the Gingbadze wall appear. Still there was no sign of the Kazaks from the east.

At last the lamasery came in sight, vanishing and appearing through the drifting clouds high above them on the right, and at last they saw the Kazaks, a straggling band of men strung out over the plain.

‘Now for it,’ said Sullivan, as he saw the Kazaks drawing together in a compact body. He could make out no more than seven or eight riders, with a few led horses. The Kazaks stood firm, and one of them fired his rifle in the air – a signal, obviously, to bring up the slower men behind.

‘Ross,’ he said, when they were within extreme rifle-range, ‘you are a better shot than I am. See what you can do.’

Ross nodded, swung out of the column and dismounted. He unslung his rifle, the rifle he called the Messenger of Bad News, and rubbed its foresight on his sleeve: he lay down tranquilly on the grass and drew a bead on the midmost Tartar. But as his finger was curled round the trigger the Kazaks wheeled and fled from the advancing column. The dust obscured them, but Ross shifted his aim to the outside man on the left and fired. The Kazak threw up his arms and almost fell; but he gripped his horse’s neck and rode on, bowed low and drooping in his saddle.

Ross galloped after the column and rejoined them as they halted at the foot of the precipice. Already they were stripping the baggage-horses, loading the essentials into packs – warm clothes, food and ammunition – and one of the oldest Mongols was hastily scrawling a map on a piece of sheepskin for Sullivan.

Olaf was high up the steps, keeping watch. From time to time he reported that the eastern Kazaks were still going, and that those from the west were not yet in sight.

‘No, Professor, you cannot take the Han bronzes,’ said Sullivan firmly, folding away the map. ‘You can carry them well up the steps, and then you must bury them. Another expedition can fetch them away. After all, they have waited two thousand years – they can wait a little longer. And you had better do the same with the jade.’

‘I will bury the bronze, if you insist,’ said the Professor, ‘but I will not be parted from the jade. It is quite light. I can easily carry it.’

‘All right, all right,’ said Sullivan, tugging at a strap, ‘but whatever you do, do it quickly. Olaf, do you see anything to the west?’

‘Nothing, Cap’n. Unless that little cloud is their dust. The sun will last another hour.’

‘Hurry, hurry!’ cried Sullivan, and they bent to their task.

In the twilight they were ready. Chingiz and two Mongols were to stay with them – the Khan’s orders had been exact, and these men were not to leave them until they were on the Kirghiz steppe – and Hulagu, Kubilai and the tribesmen were to break out to the north through the desert. They could travel faster alone, and they hoped to rejoin their own horde, which would be gathering for the war at the Kodha well, before the Kazaks could reach them.

‘Horsemen in the west,’ cried Olaf from above.

‘It is time,’ said Hulagu. ‘Let the wise man give us a wind from the north, and we are safe.’

‘He will do his best,’ said Sullivan. They shook hands, and with a few words of parting they were gone.

For a moment the expedition watched them, and then began the climb. The steps were ancient and weather-worn, but they were as sound as the day they were first cut, for they were part of the hard rock itself. The rise was close on a yard with each step, and often the tread was narrow: it was a laborious climb, and after the first hundred they were sweating, though the air was cold.

At every hundredth step, wherever the rock formation made it possible, there was a broad platform for resting, but Sullivan drove them on and on. Derrick began counting the steps as he toiled up, but after a thousand he gave up.

In the gathering darkness they mounted, always up and up, and at last Sullivan said that they could take a rest.

‘We are still within their range,’ he said, ‘but this platform lies so far back that it gives us cover.’

‘I suppose,’ said the Professor, panting under his load, ‘that there is the possibility of their pursuing us still.’

‘No, none at all,’ replied Sullivan, peering over the edge. ‘Wherever a horse can go you are not safe from a Mongol. But they will not go where they cannot ride. Besides, they would never come up here, even if they could get their horses up, for fear of the devils. These men here would not be with us if they did not believe you were a powerful magician: even as it is, they are not at all happy, and the others who are somewhere down there below us are glad not to be in their places. I cannot see them,’ he added, sweeping the plain with his glasses. The others joined him, but down there all was blank.

‘They are probably riding slowly not to make any dust,’ said Ross. ‘But it looks as though the Professor had done his business very well.’ He pointed to the northern horizon, and there they saw the familiar shape of a dust-storm looming over the desert.

‘That will cover their tracks before the morning,’ said Sullivan. ‘They were relying on you for a wind, Professor.’

The Professor violently disclaimed any magic powers, but Chingiz and the two Mongols looked at him with marked respect, whatever he might say. He felt so strongly about it that he made Derrick translate his words to Chingiz.

‘The Professor says that he has no control over the winds,’ said Derrick. ‘He says it is all nonsense and superstition. He says you mustn’t believe what they say about him.’

‘All the best magicians say that,’ said Chingiz. ‘It is part of their magic.’

They slept that night on a platform three hundred steps higher up, and in the morning they awoke in a vague world of cloud. There was white cloud below them and above, and when the morning breeze tore them, they could see nothing but the frightful precipice plunging down into vacancy, and black rocks dripping in the wet. The steps were slippery, and the temperature had dropped nearly to freezing-point. Ross was shivering with fever, but he climbed silently with the others.

They mounted blindly: they could not see twenty yards above them, nor twenty yards below. The whole world seemed to be confined within the narrow walls of the cloud: the desert below might never have existed, nor the pass above. They followed the endless steps as they rose, zig-zagging to and fro across the mountain wall: sometimes the precipice was less sheer, and then in the water-worn gullies the steps gave place to a hacked-out path. This was a great relief, but the paths were short and few, and nearly always it was the perpetual upward climb.

At noon they came quite suddenly out of the cloud, and there far above them they saw the lamasery. Beyond that there were the peaks, black and white against the pure blue of the sky: below them rolled the impenetrable clouds, layer after layer of them, stretching out as far as the eye could see. They were nearing the snow-line, but still the mountain towered over them: it seemed to be just as high as it had been when they started.

‘Is this going on for ever?’ wondered Derrick, hitching his pack up on his shoulders. He had barked his shins several times on the high steps, there was a blister forming on his heel, and he was sore all over from the weight of his load and the gruelling climb. Chang whined in sympathy, and Derrick grasped his thick fur to help him up the awkward rise.

The only one who was enjoying himself was Professor Ayrton. He had always spent his holidays in the mountains, and he was much more at home on a steep slope than in the saddle of a horse. Furthermore, the light had revealed the presence of rock-carvings, ruined shrines and inscriptions all the way up the pilgrims’ way to the lamasery, and the combination of mountaineering and ancient inscriptions rejoiced the Professor’s heart. The carvings were quite recent – a mere thousand years or so – but they made the Professor’s day. Often, as they mounted, he would ask Olaf to make a back, and he would scramble up to inspect the deep-cut writing, still clear after all the centuries. But at last, when they were just below the snow, Olaf struck.

‘Ay don’t care if it’s double-Dutch,’ he said, ‘and anyway, Ay reckon it only says “Do not spit” or maybe “Ole’s Beer is Best”. But even if it was poetry, Ay reckon the son of a sea-cook would of wrote it at a proper level if he wanted it read,’ and he stumped obstinately away.

‘I wonder that he should speak so petulantly,’ said the Professor to Derrick, ‘he is usually such an obliging fellow. How could he suppose that it was an advertisement? It reads, “The thrice-born bearer of enlightenment …”’ But Derrick trudged on without waiting for the end.

They were none of them as cheerful as the Professor. Sullivan was moody and thoughtful: he was in a new country, not sure of his bearings and worried. Ross, habitually silent, was more taciturn than ever, for his fever was rising, and the lance-wound in his thigh was hurting cruelly. He had received it in the battle of the ravine, but he had not mentioned it, and he had thought it was healing well; but now it throbbed and ached so that every step was a torment.

Slowly the lamasery crept nearer, and by the evening they were at its gates. The roof had fallen long ago, but they found shelter enough and a few low shrubs to make a fire. The next morning saw them up and over the pass. Before them lay a great valley, sloping gradually upwards towards the south and reaching a great height at its farther end. In the extra-ordinarily keen and transparent air they could see the whole length of it, dazzling white, without a living thing.

‘It is a good thing that we are carrying enough food,’ said Sullivan, looking at his rough map. ‘We must go the whole length of this valley, and then at the far end we shall find a branch leading down to the west. We take that and come to a pass that leads down to the village of Hukutu. There is a glacier about half-way down, but once we are across that we drop to Hukutu, and there we should be able to get food, yaks and a guide.’ He checked the loads of food, and said, ‘Yes, I think we should have enough if we press on. Professor, you have buried your bronzes? Good, then we must get moving.’

Twice, as they made their journey along the southern valley, they saw ibexes, but neither time could they get a shot, and they had no time, with their limited rations, to spend half a day in stalking a group of them that they saw on the ridge to their left. The travelling was not too hard, once they had got used to the unaccustomed exercise of walking with heavy loads – an exercise which called muscles into play that were quite unused on horseback – and going along the southern valley they made good time. But when they came to the western branch they met a bitter wind that pierced them through and through, a more biting, cutting wind than the icy blast of the steppe. All the time they were climbing higher and higher, and in the rarefied atmosphere their ears and their noses bled; they soon became exhausted, and they grumbled almost to the point of mutiny as Sullivan urged them on. The bitter wind that never stopped cut the heart out of them, and the sun, while it heated them too much whenever they found shelter from the wind, served most of the time only to send a blinding glare from the snow below them and on either side.

The glacier proved very difficult: it was hatched all over with profound crevasses, and without ropes or proper boots they were often on the brink of disaster. Had it not been for the Professor’s knowledge of the high mountain they would never have crossed it; but they reached the top, and there they rested. It had been painfully slow, nearly a whole day for a pitifully short distance, but it had been shockingly arduous, and they felt that they deserved their rest.

‘We had better camp just under the steep slope, and keep that to warm us up in the morning, don’t you think, Ross?’ There was no reply, and he looked round. Ross was not there. They called and shouted, but there was no answer.

They found him at last, half-way down the glacier, creeping on his hands and knees along the edge of a crevasse, still trying to find a way across. It was a narrow crevasse, but he could not see to jump it: he was completely snow-blind, and he was very ill.

Now that they knew the way up the glacier it was easier, and they brought him up to the top before nightfall: their packs stood at the foot of a steep slope of old, hard snow; it seemed a wretched place for a sick man to spend the night, but he was at the end of his strength, and they could not go on.

‘Ay got an idea,’ cried Olaf, pointing to one of the Mongols’ swords. The Mongol gave it up, with a wondering stare, and Olaf began to cut great blocks from the hard snow. ‘We done this when Ay was a whaler,’ he explained, arranging them in a circle. ‘It ban a snow house.’ He raised the circle while the others cut and carried snow, raised it layer by layer, each layer forming a narrower circle until the whole thing was a dome. He cut the door, pommelled the arch that he had made, gave it a kick or two to make sure that it held, and crept in. They heard him thumping the inside, and then he called, ‘All ship-shape, Cap’n. Sling him in.’

They helped Ross in through the low arch and laid him on their sheepskin coats. There was room for them all, huddled close and sitting round the wall, and soon the place began to warm. To be out of the wind was already a huge advantage, and to be warm as well was bliss, in spite of the drops that fell from the roof. Ross started to feel very much better: he ate a strip of horse-flesh, and shortly after fell into a profound sleep.

In the morning he still could not see anything at all, but he insisted that he was perfectly fit otherwise, and that he could carry his pack. They all felt wonderfully refreshed for a night’s sleep in comparative warmth, and they faced the climb to the pass with renewed strength. Sullivan bent the end of the Mongol’s sword over at right angles, and the Professor went ahead, cutting steps in the packed snow: Olaf led Ross, and slowly they mounted to the pass.

‘At the top we should reach our highest point,’ said Sullivan, ‘and I think we ought to see straight down to Hukutu, or at least into its valley.’

Up and up they went. The wind died at noon, and they came up out of the deep shadow of the ridge into the hot sun as they reached the pass.

But there was nothing there. No village below them, no valley: not even a descent. There was only an unending waste of snow and rock that rose, after a short plateau, on and on as far as they could see. It was heart-breaking: they stopped all together, without a word.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Ross, as he stood, holding on to Olaf’s shoulder.

‘It is not important,’ replied Sullivan, after a moment’s pause. ‘It is just that I underestimated the distance a little. I misread the map, and said that we were at the pass before we had really reached it. It is some way farther on.’

He took a compass bearing, and said cheerfully, ‘We will make for that ridge, and then I dare say we shall see our valley.’

But no one believed him. They had all seen the map, and it clearly showed the pass and the fall to the valley as being just beyond the head of the glacier. Either Atakin, the Mongol who had drawn the map, had forgotten the way, or they had climbed on the wrong side of the glacier. Before them lay the enormous stretch of country between the Kunlun range and the Himalaya, hundreds of miles of it, with a cold death in every single mile. They had been so certain of the map that they had eaten well in the snow house, and in the morning they had used almost all their fuel. Food and fuel sacks were nearly empty.

Derrick felt a kick behind that shot him a yard forward. ‘Don’t mooch along with a dismal face, boy,’ said his uncle, walking along to the head of the line and whistling as he went. But his whistling could not restore the expedition’s heart. They had made a great effort, and now, some of them at least, felt so hopeless that they trudged slowly, unwillingly, without any spirit left. It was not that each of them was not a brave man in his own place, at sea or on the dusty steppe, but here they were dealing with enemies they did not understand, the altitude had given each of them the mountain-sickness to some degree, and for the Mongols there was the added fear of their inherited beliefs.

Olaf resisted well enough, but it was the Professor who behaved the best of all. He was as nearly sure as Sullivan that the map had been mistaken, and he knew perfectly well that if they did not find Hukutu or some other human habitation in the next few days they would be in a very serious position, for there was no going back; but he exclaimed on the excellence of the snow-crust and the pleasure of walking on it, he even made Li Han run, and he encouraged them all by singing a discordant Tyrolean song. And it was he who discovered the hidden valley that lay on their right just before the midday halt: it was a narrow cleft between two snowy slopes, and as its end ran parallel to their route it had escaped the notice of the others. Even when he pointed it out, they scarcely saw it, for the white of its near side merged so perfectly with the white of its far side that it was nearly invisible.

‘While the banquet is being prepared,’ he said, ‘I think I will just go over and look down that little valley.’ He had already left the line to explore several others, and they watched him apathetically while Li Han unpacked the meagre store of food. They were squatting there when a shadow passed over the snow, and two choughs landed a little distance from them.

‘Who would have expected to find them up here?’ exclaimed Sullivan, shooting them both. ‘They were extra-ordinarily tame,’ he said, bringing them back. ‘I hope they will taste better than they look.’

They were still eating and discussing the birds when the Professor rejoined them: he sat down and ate his three pieces of meat, and when they were getting up again Derrick asked him if he had seen anything in the valley.

‘Why, yes,’ he said, in a conversational tone, ‘I looked down on a village that I take to be Hukutu. It is remarkable in that there appears to be no lamasery there, whereas I had –’

‘You saw Hukutu!’ exclaimed Derrick. ‘Where? Is it far?’

‘– whereas I had been led to suppose,’ continued the Professor, ‘that there was hardly an inhabited place in Tibet without its monastery. It is directly below us, as you always maintained, Sullivan. I should say that it is about seven thousand feet lower than we are, but I fear that the descent may present some difficulties.’

With twice the speed of their morning’s march they hurried to the narrow valley. Here the snow lay loose and drifted, and they plunged in knee-deep. It was sweltering work under the noon-day sun, trapped as it was between the narrow walls, but their fresh hope – doubly strong after such a disappointment – carried them through in the Professor’s tracks, and very soon they were staring down a dark precipice that dropped a sheer two thousand feet, ice-coated here and there with ice that trickled now in the sun, but which would freeze again that night. Below the precipice there stretched the snow, but no longer unending snow, for it stopped five thousand feet below them, and then came a brown bar of naked earth, cut by streams that shone white in the distance. Below the brownness there was green, the green of pastures, and then the whole sweep of the broad valley, a river, a few dark patches that might be trees and even the tiny squares of fields, as small as postage stamps from that vertiginous height.

‘Where is Hukutu?’ asked Sullivan.

‘You will have to lean out and look down to the left to see it,’ replied the Professor, ‘but for heaven’s sake do not go too near the edge. This is only a snow cornice, and it might give.’

Sullivan lay down and began to creep out, but the Mongols, who understood only the Professor’s pointing finger, walked boldly to the edge and peered out.

‘Take care,’ cried the Professor, and as he spoke the jutting out rim of snow gave way. The two Mongols vanished with a cry and Chingiz hurled himself on his back, but half his body was over the edge and his hands clawed in vain for a split second in the snow for a hold. Derrick hurled himself forward, flat on his stomach, and grabbed Chingiz’s right hand as it went. There was a low moan from below, and Derrick felt the grip of the fingers slacken in his own: he held with all his force, gritting his teeth, and in a moment he felt Chingiz’s left hand come up and grasp him by the wrist.

Sullivan had Derrick by the feet. ‘Have you got him?’ he cried.

‘Yes. But pull me back. The snow is giving under me.’ He felt himself slide back, and then the edge of the snow, wind-blown out from the precipice and overhanging it, gave way. A piece stretching from his chin to his stomach fell. He saw it hit Chingiz, who gave a grunt, and then Sullivan had pulled him farther back.

‘Hold on,’ called Sullivan. ‘Olaf’s coming alongside of you.’

Olaf edged himself rapidly against Derrick’s side: his long arms reached down to Chingiz’s elbows, raised him, took him by the neck and brought him up.

Derrick crawled backwards on to the firm snow and saw Chingiz sitting with his back to a rock. His face looked terribly strange and drawn, but he smiled.

‘This will hurt,’ said Sullivan, picking him up and laying him on his back. ‘His arm went backwards as he fell,’ he said to Derrick, ‘and he was hanging by it with his shoulder dislocated.’

He put his foot under Chingiz’s armpit, took his hand and pulled. The Mongol kept his face expressionless: he got up, moved his arm and nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and walked carefully towards the edge again.

They all peered down the shocking drop, but there was no sign of the two tribesmen. There was a tumble of huge boulders, flecked with snow, that hid their bodies: there was no sort of hope at all.

‘They were good men,’ said Chingiz, getting up at last.

The others said the same, and they moved slowly back into the narrow valley. There was one thought in all their minds, but no one uttered it: the Mongols had been carrying the food and the fuel.

‘What do you suggest, Professor?’ asked Sullivan. ‘We have got to get down there somehow. Two more nights up here would kill Ross, and I don’t think we’d last much longer ourselves without food. And I think it’s coming on to blow.’

‘Ice is what I am afraid of,’ said the Professor. ‘We have been very lucky in meeting so little so far. Ice …’ he paused. A distant thunder away to their left mounted, surged into a roar that made the still air tremble, and died away. ‘Ice and that,’ he said.

‘What was it?’

‘An avalanche. A still, warm day like this will bring them on wherever the snow hangs steep. In a way it would be better if the temperature were to drop – it might be better, I mean, if the wind were to start again, however unpleasant it might be for us.’

They stood thinking, and on the face of the valley opposite to them, a mile away at the most, there was a puff of powdery snow, then the deep rumble, and the side of the mountain appeared to shift. A vast expanse of snow moved slowly, and then with enormously increasing speed, rushing down the slope, breaking into an almighty rolling wave under a cloud of spray-like powder-snow it hurled itself down into the floor of the valley. They could hardly hear themselves speak under the roaring thunder. Behind them, an ice-pinnacle, quivering in the vibration, fell with a metallic crash.

‘One starts another,’ observed the Professor. ‘It is undoubtedly of the first importance to get down out of these narrow and steep-sided valleys. But the question is, how? I need not waste time pointing out that if we had ropes and crampons it would be much easier. No.’ He stroked his chin. ‘I am of the opinion,’ he said slowly, ‘that the best thing is for us to build a shelter for Ross and that unfortunate young Chingiz, who must be suffering agonies, and to leave them with Derrick, while we separate and explore this ridge in each direction. The path certainly exists: I have no doubt of that. The trouble is to find it.’

‘From the map it should be to the west-nor’-west.’

‘Then if you will go along the ridge in that direction, I will go in the other. I suggest that we meet at the camp at sunset.’

But when they met again, they had found nothing: nowhere was there a fault in the sheer plunging cliff, nowhere a hint of a path. The shadow of the night fell across the valley, and instantly the cold began again. With the setting of the sun the wind that Sullivan had prophesied sprang up, and although they were in the shelter their breath froze on their faces.

In the morning they looked out into driving snow. It looked like the end, but in an hour or two it stopped, and the Professor, Sullivan, Olaf and Li Han went out. It was beyond all words frustrating to be within sight of salvation and yet to find no way down, but although they searched all day they found nothing but one valley far to the west that might, if it were followed, and if it turned to the left, lead below the snow. At least it did slope down, and they moved the camp to there. Sullivan shot another chough, and they cooked it over a fire made from fragments of a lacquered box that Li Han carried in his pack.

They were all very silent, but at the end of their brief meal Olaf said, with a laugh, ‘Ay reckon Ay was right when Ay stowed away all that duff with Hsien Lu.’

Sullivan said nothing, but Derrick saw him look thoughtfully at Chang.

In the morning they drank the snow-water that they had melted overnight, and they went on: Chingiz could not carry a pack, and now Ross could hardly walk. The valley did descend, sometimes so sharply that the climbing down was hard, and Sullivan and Olaf had to carry Ross; but it twisted and wound, and in spite of their compass bearings they could no longer be sure that it would ever join the valley of Hukutu. That valley seemed so distant now: Derrick remembered it with an effort as he tried to distract his mind from the awful gnawing hunger that worked in his stomach like a living thing and made him shiver all the time, whether he was in the sun or not; he remembered how they had looked down into it, and how strange it had been to see that down there it was summer.

He was walking steadily behind Olaf, slowly but steadily, chewing on his leather belt. Suddenly he bumped into Olaf’s back, for Olaf had stopped.

Olaf stood still, staring down and to the left. He put his hands up to his mouth, drew a deep breath and hailed with all the force of his lungs. ‘Ahoy!’ he roared, and from the rocks the echo came back, ‘Ahoy!’ But after the echo had died, there came from far over the snows an answering hail, quavering and long-drawn, the call of a Tibetan.