STORM AND PERIL AND STRESS
We began our land journey in high spirits. Whatever perils nature might
be holding up her sleeve, our human enemies were left far behind; and
it wasn't till now that I realised fully the racking strain of suspense
we had undergone since we fled for our lives out of Shanghai. Good was
it, too, as we advanced in file, to look back over our shoulders at the
sturdy bearers and the wiry hill-ponies that carried the outfit for
our expedition. But most satisfactory of all was the thought that we
were travelling with Saunders Philipson. Poyning and I had now reached
the pitch of confidence when a man believes in his leader's ultimate
success as a certainty. The Chinese servants had known Philipson longer
than we, and their trust in him seemed by that much the more implicit.
Even the native bearers, after a few days of the master who seemed
to know their wants so well and speak their language so fluently and
pick out their small shirkings with such intimate comprehension, were
beginning to fall under the magic of his radiant personality.
The third night out, we pitched camp and dined in the nearest approach
to elegance we were to know for many a long day. Lo Eng excelled
himself in the kitchen--we hadn't yet reached the period of canned
foods--and Philipson produced three bottles of red wine which he called
upon us to help him empty.
'Let us clean it up,' he cried. 'We cannot count on re-stocking the
bins for many months--which will fall upon me, at least, with grave
hardship--but it will be merely teasing ourselves to make these bottles
spin out for a day or two. Besides which, corked wine is never nice.
Come, let us pledge success to our journey in a good deep pull!'
It sticks in my mind very clear, that scene round the camp fire.
Behind us rose great hills of red rock, now deepened by the failing
light to a crimson as dark as the wine of our toast, and sweeping away
in majestic ranks on either side of the pass through which we should
work westward. The natives were squatting round their fire a little
way off, cooking their evening meal and, I'm afraid, burning slips of
joss-paper to scare off evil spirits of the hills; while the ponies,
picketed at some distance beyond the bearers, were pulling contentedly
at the scant grass of the highlands. Beside the tarpaulin that served
us for tablecloth, Poyning, with a quaint hint of dandyism in his
rough mountaineering rig, sat puffing at one of his carefully hoarded
cigarettes through a dapper little ivory and amber holder. At this time
he still possessed his eyeglass, though I fancy it subsequently went
the way of so much more gear that we scattered along that desperate
trail. Philipson, who never smoked except to sustain some native
guise, was leaning forward, the light of the fire leaping over his
clean-chiselled features; and as he laid down his aluminium wine cup
after pledging a swift and successful trek to us all, he began to speak.
'Listen to me, you fellows,' he said earnestly. 'This is going to be
the biggest adventure any man here has ever undertaken. It will also be
the most dangerous. The journey to the _obo_ alone is severe enough,
and what lies beyond that, God knows, though from what I remember of
the look of the mountains it will be far more difficult than anything
this side. But if you follow me heart and soul, I believe I can lead
you over to the valley beyond. Trust me as you would trust the eternal
truths of life, and I shall not fail you. I know I can carry it
through!'
His voice rang, his eyes gleamed, his hands clutched and unclutched,
and altogether Saunders Philipson looked like a man inspired--which,
for my part, I fully believe he was.
A moment later he was pouring out the last of the claret with a calm
judicial air. 'Do not be alarmed if I have my dramatic moods,' he said.
'I should not speak as I do unless I felt the truth of every word
I say. Now you had better turn in, for I am going to work you hard
to-morrow. Let me give you this advice at the starting out: never be
afraid of a long march. My experience of these mountains tells me that
the man who gets through is he who makes a dash for it. It is like a
bayonet charge over open country--the quicker you cross, the safer.'
We made the long stage he foretold, and several longer after that.
Hour upon hour, hour upon hour we rode up precipitous gullies and
down seemingly impossible ravines, but always drew higher in the long
run. The mere exertion of sitting our ponies was tremendous. I soon
came to realise that never before, in a life that would be reckoned
abnormally strenuous, had I really known what fatigue meant, and
Poyning was worse off than I; but weariness never seemed to show itself
on Philipson. At the first sign of flagging anywhere, he was to hand,
helping or exhorting or bullying as the case appeared to him to demand,
and getting us on the move again when you would have said flesh and
blood could endure no more. His genius for organisation was no whit
inferior to his energy, and his sense of country more astonishing than
either. Time and again, when we had come to a sheer blind alley in the
mountains and were at the end of our strength, Philipson divined a way
out, found the necessary pass himself by searching on foot, and brought
us safe over. The distances we travelled in a day were incredible. On
one occasion we must have covered forty-five miles between sunrise and
sundown, and that over some of the roughest and steepest country we had
yet struck. Before the end of this stage Poyning was in a collapse,
so weary that he could no longer keep his saddle; whereupon Philipson
dismounted and walked beside him, holding the boy up, and for the last
mile more than half carrying him in his arms. Yet I noticed it was
Saunders Philipson who did most of the work in camp that night--the
bearers themselves were dead beat--and that Philipson was first up in
the morning, field glass in hand, scouring the mountainside for the
easiest route. I couldn't help reflecting what a magnificent leader in
war this man would have made. Good troops would have followed him to
the very ends of the earth.
I soon saw, too, the wisdom of his policy of taking mountain ranges at
a run, for here we were, with the summer still before us, and the first
great barrier range behind. The country began to descend, the going was
easier and faster, and after a few days' march down a long slant we
came within view of our first big landmark. I heard the bearers raise
a shout and saw them throw out their arms, pointing. There, still far
ahead, was a curious bluey shimmer on the rough yellow face of the
earth. Philipson was scanning this through the glasses.
'What do you make of it, Mirlees?' he cried.
'It ought to be the head waters of the Yellow River,' I replied.
'Right. Or rather, the upper waters. The actual sources are about seven
days farther on. When we reach them I can promise you a breather of
three whole days.'
All fell out as he foretold. We encamped beside the Hsing Hai, or
"Starry Lakes," which, rising out of springs in the plain, form the
beginnings of that mighty flood known many hundreds of miles farther
east as China's Sorrow. Plain the country is called by courtesy only,
for it stands at a level higher than the highest peaks of Great
Britain, and can be conceived as a plain only by contrast with the
great mountain ranges to north and south. Here we rested three days.
To me, at least, the time was one of delight; it had long been my
ambition to explore the source of the most lawless river in the world;
my notebook was almost a fixture on my knee, and I reflected that if
the expedition brought nothing else, it would at any rate enable me to
offer the geographers a few hard facts in place of the mess of theory
and surmise-at-a-distance that makes up our knowledge of this region.
Poyning spent most of the three days asleep, while Philipson was busy
with Lo Eng overhauling stores and looking for fresh bearers. The men
of Kiai had only contracted to come this far, but partly by enhanced
rewards and partly by a judicious blend of threat and blandishment
Philipson prevailed on them to stay with us until relieved. The new
company, of ten men, we raised at length from a wretched hamlet on
the foothills southward of the lakes. They were _tagliks_ (hillmen)
of indeterminate race and small prepossession, and they hadn't been
with us long before they gave us ample reason to regret the sturdy
Ssuchuanese whose place they had taken.
At dawn on the fourth day we struck out westward again, at the best
pace we could make. Speed was vital, in fact, for we should soon be at
heights where the "hot" weather nights are arctic and winter allows
nothing human to live. It was Philipson's purpose to hold on this
course until we cut across the route of his former journey, then to
work by means of his maps to the _obo_ among the mountains. Before
we had travelled many days the country was rising sharply again, its
aspect changing from hour to hour. The scattered tamarisks of the
plateau were left far behind, now nothing grew to soften the staring
nakedness of red sandstone and green slate but here and there a patch
of wiry, bleached grass, out of which the ponies could get but a meagre
supplement to the limited fodder we carried. Now and again we sighted
the beautiful yellow-brown wild ass, sometimes the fleeting form of
some type of antelope, while at night we were glad of our camp fire not
only for its warmth, but also for the protection it gave us against
the wolves we heard howling hungrily around us. Gradually, however, as
we drew higher and higher, even these signs of life dropped out of the
vast desolation, and we saw nothing but an occasional herd of yak, the
wild bull of Tibet.
This creature is one of the riddles of the animal kingdom. While of a
size and strength and savagery that would enable him to hold his own in
a lion country, he yet elects for some unfathomed reason to herd far
up the steeps of these Tibetan mountain ranges, where no other animal
barring polar bears and arctic foxes could live to dispute with him the
stunted pasture I have already mentioned. He is coated with long wool
which sweeps the ground on either side of his magnificent trunk, and
lives through the coldest winter at an altitude where even the summer
nights bring with them a temperature well below zero Fahrenheit. I have
dwelt on the queer habits of the yak because it was in our encounter
with one of the species that Saunders Philipson showed himself in a
light that almost set me wondering whether he was mortal man like the
rest of us. It was more than amazing. It was uncanny.
Uncertain as we were whether our canned stuff would last out the trip,
we were constantly on the alert for a chance to supplement it with game
of the country; and when we sighted a fine herd of yak at feed plumb in
the middle of our path one day, we decided to halt the caravan and try
a shot. Yak beef, I may remark, is a good deal better than pony-steak,
and in those cold dry altitudes will keep indefinitely.
There was no cover within close range of the herd, nor was there need
of any: the yak continued to feed after observing us, as if totally
indifferent to our approach, and I make no doubt they had never seen
human beings before. I had loaded my .45 and was edging nearer, with
Philipson and Poyning on my heels.
'Careful aim, Mirlees,' whispered Philipson to me. 'Those brutes are
not usually dangerous till they are wounded. You know where to put your
shot?'
'Just behind the shoulder is best, isn't it?'
'The only place. As for the bony parts, you might as well loose off
into a concrete wall. Now is your chance.'
I picked out a magnificent bull standing broadside on to us, and fired
at about fifty yards. The beast threw up its head with a snort of
wrath, but didn't appear to be wounded dangerously, let alone mortally.
Philipson snatched the rifle from my hand, loaded and fired again, but
it was too late. The herd, ten or eleven in number, had seen where the
attack came from. They put down their heads and charged. I yelled to
the bearers for more rifles, but the bearers had dropped everything and
scattered, leaving the ponies to stampede in terror with all our gear.
There was nothing for it now but to stampede ourselves, which we did,
heading instinctively for the shelter of a great boulder at some
distance from the spot where I had fired. Poyning and I reached it
abreast, but as I glanced back over my shoulder I saw to my horror that
Philipson hadn't followed. He stood out in the open, rifle in hand,
loading and firing rapidly, it is true, but with no more precipitation
than if he had been at the butts.
'Good God!' yelled Poyning. 'The man will be trampled flat!'
In an instant he had wheeled and dashed back, waving his arms and
shouting, as if in a wild hope to stem that terrible charge. He
might as well have shouted at a typhoon of the China seas. Philipson
continued to fire. He must have got in three shots before the rush
drew near, and the main herd swerved and went wide; but the wounded
bull came on alone, bellowing with fury. He was within ten yards of
Philipson when a shot took him between the forelegs, and I could see
that at last he was checked. The great brute swung to the right,
straight at Poyning, who leapt aside but stumbled in the doing and fell
heavily to earth. The next instant he was on his back, helpless, while
the monster drew up and lowered the enormous horns to gore.
Then ensued the most amazing sight these eyes of mine have ever beheld.
In a flash Philipson had dropped his rifle and dived forward, gripping
the horns of the yak at their tips. I expected to see him instantly
tossed high in the air, but this didn't happen. The yak paused, as
if bewildered to find this weight drop suddenly from nowhere on to
its horns. Then it seemed to me that the beast _could not move_. It
pawed the earth restlessly with its hind hoofs, but the fore hoofs
remained quite still, as did the monstrous head. You would have said
some instantaneous catalepsy had turned the animal's forequarters to
stone. I stood still, gazing, spellbound by the sight, and there, for
a span of seconds that seemed hours, we were in a tableau: Poyning
motionless and apparently stunned, the huge yak held by the horns,
Philipson holding it, and staring between the brute's eyes with a look
of tremendous, overpowering concentration.
It was a movement of Poyning's that brought me to myself. He rolled
suddenly towards the rifle. I dashed in and snatched it up and had my
cartridge in the chamber, when the yak gave a queer sort of whistling
groan, swayed slowly to one side, and fell with a thud that made the
earth jump under our feet. I fired at the same instant, but I know
the brute was dead before my bullet struck. It lay still. Saunders
Philipson was lying beside it, white as the snow on the peaks above us,
a thin trickle of blood coming from his nostrils.
In an agony of alarm I dragged him aside and rested his head on my
sheepskin coat. I was afraid at first his tremendous effort had
ruptured some blood vessel and that he would be beyond the reach of my
rough-and-ready attentions there in the wilderness. Poyning had now got
his senses fully back, and together we felt Philipson's heart--which
was beating weak and slow--and chafed his wrists and plied him with
brandy from Poyning's flask; and after some time it seemed the life
was flickering up in him again. The blood had dried quickly on his
lip, and the faintest tinge of red was coming back into his face. In
my travels at one time and another I've seen a good deal of woundings
and miscellaneous injuries to the human frame, yet I couldn't put down
Philipson's unconsciousness to any definite physical hurt. Rather he
seemed to me to display the sort of symptoms you might expect from a
man in an absolute nervous prostration.
At last, to our unspeakable relief, he stirred, sat up, and stared
round him.
'Eh? Oh, yes, I remember,' he muttered. 'The yak-herd.'
Poyning was on his knees beside him. 'Philipson,' he said hoarsely,
'you pulled me out of that at your own life's risk. I shall not forget
it. How do you feel now?'
Philipson was struggling to his feet. 'It is nothing,' he said quietly.
'You would have done as much for either of us. But we really must be
more careful in future. It was--' he glanced at the dead yak--'as much
as I could do to hold that beast.'
'Good God, man,' I cried, 'it was amazing! Six ordinary men couldn't
have held it!'
Philipson gave me a queer enigmatic smile. 'Be just, Mirlees,' he said.
'Give the yak his due. See here.' He stooped over the great beast and
pulled the clotted hair aside from its breast. 'If the brute had not
received this injury I am much afraid he would have thrown me half way
along the pass.'
'But your hands!' exclaimed Poyning, pointing to Philipson's bruised
and blackened fingers and the blood that had oozed out from under every
one of his ten nails. 'You must have put tremendous force into it! You
must have the muscles of a Hercules!'
Philipson's answer was to pull up his sleeves, revealing arms that
were muscular and shapely, but a good deal smaller than those of many
a professional athlete. 'If it were a question of muscle,' he said,
'even a badly hit yak would be too much for the hero you mention. But
the good gods have given us other powers. I used mine to-day. Let us be
thankful that I had them to use. Now for re-assembling the camp.'
We recovered the stampeded ponies, helped by Ah Sing and Lo Eng, who
had been far in the rear at the time of the brush, leading one of the
baggage animals that had gone lame and could carry no load. One by one
we got the lot, but the bearers were harder to collect. I noticed a
couple of them skulking shamefast in the middle distance, and thought
at first they were watching me; then I saw it was Philipson they were
looking at, with eyes of awe and fear. When at last they had gathered
into a sulky knot, Philipson summoned them to approach. They hesitated,
then, obviously in spite of themselves, slunk up to our leader, who
addressed them in their own dialect. I didn't know enough of this to
follow his words closely, but there was no mistaking the gist. The
hillmen were manifestly ill at ease. They shifted their weight from
one foot to the other. Under the swarthy skin and life-long dirt of
their faces a paleness became apparent. With a miserable cry one of
them dropped to his knees, head to earth, and the rest followed suit,
groaning and whining. Still the level, hard voice of Saunders Philipson
kept on. It was like some long, blighting curse to listen to. He
pointed to the yak, apparently drawing a parallel from its fate, and at
last strode up to the grovelling hillmen, stretching his blood-crusted
hands over their heads and raising his voice to a startling, terrible
shout. At this moment I happened to glance at Poyning. I may have been
mistaken, but I thought he trembled. Then I noticed I was trembling a
little myself.
Philipson ceased, motioning the bearers back to their work, and they
scuttled off, clearly relieved to find themselves still alive.
'Those fellows will behave better in future,' said our leader, turning
to us. 'They know now that the next man to fail in his duty dies. I
have also taken the precaution of making them understand that I am
bullet-proof, in case one of them should be tempted to seek revenge
with a gun.'
We halted while the bearers cut up the slain yak and prepared the
meat for transport. Ah Sing and Lo Eng were superintending the work,
in their capacity of non-commissioned officers, and I heard them
haranguing the bearers in a style the very reverse of sympathetic.
They had learned how the hillmen deserted in the hour of danger, and
I anticipated that for the next few days those bearers would have a
thin time of it. But when Ah Sing came to me a few minutes afterwards,
there wasn't much of the bullying ganger about him. Instead, he looked
strangely uncomfortable.
'My no likum dis, Misser Mirlee,' he said, shaking his head. 'My long
time sabbee master him plenty stlong. Jus' now my tinkee him too muchee
stlong.'
'What gives you that impression, Ah Sing?' I said.
His voice took on a tone of awe. 'Jus' now my look-see dat piecee
yakkum,' he said, with his hand held edgewise to his own poll. 'Him
neckee bloke-um hab got!'
Deeper and deeper we plunged into the mountain fastnesses. It was clear
from the temperature our cooking water boiled at that we had risen
to a great altitude, and Poyning and I were already troubled with
height-sickness. Philipson concocted from his medicine chest a tonic
that quickly reduced the fever, but we still had great difficulty in
getting our breath in the rarefied air, and there was worse to come,
for our route lay far higher yet. Moreover, to advance had become a
matter of the utmost hardship. Whereas on the lower levels we had
climbed under clear skies, now the heavens were frequently clouded over
black from horizon to horizon, bringing fierce squalls of snow or hail,
and a biting wind was in our teeth all day, though calming down usually
at nightfall. Philipson was working towards the _obo_ very much as if
it were a point in the ocean and he a mariner steering a course to it;
he used his maps as a chart and checked our position by observations
whenever the sky cleared. The lie of the land necessitated constant
changes of direction, and sometimes we had even to deviate from
Philipson's former route, which, it will be remembered, he had followed
on foot; but never would our leader consent to leave the course laid
down on his maps unless it was physically impossible to get the ponies
along it. As it was, our journey took us up and down steeps which rise
in my mind to this hour like a ghastly dream--one of those nightmares
when you imagine yourself to be clinging fly-like to a vertical wall
at dizzy heights. But for the energy and skill and implacable resolve
of Saunders Philipson I am perfectly certain we should never have
got through at all, and even he couldn't prevent the ponies from
succumbing one by one to the tremendous work on scant fodder. Also, two
of the _tagliks_ lost their lives in one day, slipping under their load
and falling down a deep ravine.
Worst of all, the _obo_ hadn't appeared, although by Philipson's
calculations we should have found it by now. Philipson kept up a
dogged confidence, but I could see that even he was getting uneasy. He
decided, before casting around, to push straight ahead for one more
day's march. This we did, and it was our worst day yet. Two ponies
dropped dead, and two of the remaining bearers disappeared--where, we
never discovered, though it is likely they lay down to the drowsy rest
from which there is no awakening, and were quietly left by their own
fellows. At last Philipson, who was on foot ahead, halted with a great
cry.
'This is the pass,' he shouted. 'The _obo_ is at the top end of it.'
But when we came to the place it was five or six feet deep in drifts,
and nobody short of a diviner could have said whether the _obo_ was
there or not. It was too late to investigate now: dark was coming on.
We retreated down the rugged slope and pitched camp.
That night our thermometer went down to five degrees below zero, but
the morning rose clear, with the warmest sun we had known for a week
past. The whole party set to work digging, with any tool that came to
hand, but it was to the sun we owed our discovery. Brisk runnels of
water began to tinkle away down the slope, the face of the snow sagged
and caved, until there appeared, fully thirty yards from the scene of
our blind efforts, a curious green blotch against the white. Philipson
ploughed through the soggy mess towards it with a whoop of exultation,
and a moment later the three of us were dancing round the _obo_,
cheering like schoolboys. There was no doubt about it being the one we
sought: you could see plainly the zigzag scratches where Philipson had
scraped off the dead man's message.
We were now in a regular fury to be gone. Perhaps not two days off was
the end of our quest, the rim of that mysterious depression we had come
so far to find. Philipson at once laid out his compass and set a course
due west; but at that moment I observed a strange commotion among the
bearers. They were gathered in a group at some distance from where we
stood, and I saw one of them point to the sky with an expression of
downright terror. Excited as I was, I half expected to see one of the
monstrous birds of the legend flap out over the peak surrounding us,
but it wasn't that. It was a black cloud, no bigger than the cloud of
holy writ, but curiously distinct from anything I had ever seen before.
It was expanding swiftly under our eyes, and looked, on a gigantic
scale, exactly like a big blob of ink that has fallen on to a blotter.
But the really astonishing thing about it was the speed with which it
was approaching.
'Great Scott!' gasped Poyning. 'It's coming up as fast as a train!'
If I hadn't seen this type of cloud before, Philipson evidently had,
and recognised it for something dangerous. He instantly ordered the
tents, which had just been taken down, to be opened out and erected
again length-wise--one wall of canvas five or six-fold and about six
yards long. Every rope and peg we possessed we used to secure this one
shelter, and concentrated our whole camp under the lee of it. These
preparations were rushed through, but none too soon. With a shriek the
storm was upon us, first a terrific blast of wind, then a withering
burst of hail, then thunder; and after a while, when the very snow was
scoured off the barren steeps by the force of the tempest, blinding
clouds of sand and grit that stung the skin like spirts of flame. It
was a brand of storm, as I say, new to my acquaintance, and even in the
rush and howl of it all I couldn't help noticing with astonishment that
although the thunder crashed like the splitting asunder of mountains,
we saw from first to last no sign of lightning.
We crouched under the barrier, European and native alike, and I wasn't
long in seeing the point of lumping all our canvas together. Any one
tent by itself would have gone whirling on the wings of the storm, but
this reinforced wall, though the canvas bulged as if it would split and
the poles bent like reeds in a current, held; and after withstanding
its first fury, gathered strength from the storm itself. Snow and sand
banked up against it, forming a drift some seven feet high, behind
which, so long as the wind kept to the one quarter, we could laugh at
it.
The storm didn't rise. Nor did it abate. When once the thunder had
passed, which was about an hour after the first squall, the wind
settled down to blow steadily, gale-strong, through the night. And that
was a night of horror. By what I judge to have been ten o'clock we were
as near frozen to death as men can be and still live, for the canvas
wall, though a capital bulwark against the wind, was of little efficacy
against the cold. Our thickest blankets might have been summer muslins.
Then once more we had reason to bless Philipson's uncanny foresight.
He had insisted on adding the yak-hide to our gear, though I remember
thinking at the time that it was folly to burden ourselves with a thing
of such weight; now I knew that the foolishness had been mine. As soon
as the storm burst we had given our one remaining pony the yak-hide for
a rug. The poor beast whinnied pitifully when we took it off him, but
it was his life or ours. Philipson, Poyning and myself got into the
great woolly hide, turned inside out--it was ample to hold the three of
us--and slept in fair warmth.
At last there came a little lightening of the dense gloom, which having
reckoned to be daybreak, we rose to take stock of our situation. The
pony was dead, as we knew he must be, frozen stiff and hard as iron.
The Chinese servants and the bearers all appeared to have survived
the night without frostbite; they had pooled their sheepskins and
rolled themselves into one composite knot of humanity, which, in the
circumstances, was about the wisest thing they could have done. The
storm was still blowing great guns, and even by that mirky light we
could see an alarming change in the face of the mountain; nothing but
lumpy drifts everywhere, and every crevasse filled with treacherous,
powdery snow. Worst and crowning disaster, our chronometer and watches
were ruined. The all-penetrating dust which had been swirling in eddies
and back-washes behind our shelter all night had not only filled our
eyes and ears and mouths; it had got into every piece of clockwork we
possessed. In future we should be reduced to guessing time from the
sun, if visible, and our position in a land as unmapped as the ocean,
by the roughest of dead-reckoning from distance travelled.
The wind fell about mid-day, letting down a brisk fall of snow for
some three hours; then the sky cleared, and we were shown the full
direness of our calamity. Advance or retreat was out of the question
till the snow thinned, and we set about pitching a camp in the normal
pattern--pulling down our canvas wall and resolving it into three
tents. This kept us busy till dark. An atmosphere of utter dejection
was everywhere, which even Philipson's dogged energy and inspiration
couldn't lift. For myself, it was useless to deny I had ceased to
believe we could win through. Our one great hope had failed us: we had
been counting all along on "summer" weather, whatever the difficulties
of the route; but this terrific blizzard proved that such reliance had
been mere vain imagining. I could see Poyning was a prey to similar
gloomy forebodings, and I knew from the look of the hillmen that if we
got any more help from them it would only be because of their mortal
terror of Saunders Philipson. The Chinese servants alone seemed to have
no thought of retreat. They wore the fatalistic look of men reconciled
to death, and content to humour their master's madness to the end.
That night there was again a terrific frost, but sheltered as we now
were by a canvas wall on all sides, we felt it far less than before,
and reckoned to make do with the yak-hide spread out mattress-wise
underneath us. At last, however, the cold awakened me, and sitting up,
I was a good deal startled to see that the flap of the tent was open.
I crept to it and looked out. In a direct line, and no great distance
away, was the bearers' tent; and it seemed to me that instant that a
figure was disappearing through their door. This was disquieting. If
the hillmen deserted--as I made little doubt they would if a chance
presented--they would get no wages except by robbery. Could it be that
the man I saw retreating into their tent had just visited ours, and
left the flap unfastened in his hurry? I turned to rouse Philipson and
report my suspicions. This was queerer still. Philipson's place on the
yak-hide was empty.
Now thoroughly puzzled, I wrapped my sheepskin tight round me and
stole out. I could see nothing, and heard nothing at first but muffled
snores and the swish of the night wind. Then there seemed to mingle
with these sounds a low mutter of talk, some way away. I crept towards
the sound. As I drew near, pausing at every step to listen, the noise
resolved itself into something strangely familiar, which yet for the
life of me I couldn't place. I was now so close that I could hear the
words. I stood racking my brains to remember where I had heard the like
before. Then it came to me, in about as curious a way as you could
imagine. I had been feverish all day; now my eyes played me a trick; I
began seeing things. The scene was transformed. The shadowy snow-draped
mountain side became the verandah of our inn at Nanking, and I was
listening again while Philipson spoke in that strange tongue that had
so baffled me. The vision faded, but parts of it stood clear. I was
actually looking at Philipson now. I had stolen to a sharp bluff of
rock and was peeping round the angle of it; and there, not twenty paces
from me, assuredly was Saunders Philipson; beyond him, half hidden
by his form, something tall and white. Then he himself was hidden in
darkness, as was everything else, for a cloud crossed the moon. At the
same instant there came a violent puff of wind. When the moon shone out
again I could see columns of snow, tall and white, being whirled up on
all sides.
I withdrew softly towards the tent, but before I reached it there were
quick footsteps behind me. I swung round.
'What the devil are you doing here, Mirlees?' demanded Philipson.
'I woke and found the tent-flap open,' I said, 'and came out to see
what was up. But what are you doing yourself?'
He pointed to the sky, where black clouds were gathering as the wind
freshened. 'It sounded to me as if the storm was blowing up again,'
he said. 'If it comes on like yesterday we shall have to get up and
rearrange the tents.'
There was nothing to be said to this. It was a perfectly sound
explanation. The only thing was, it was false. What Philipson's object
could be in lying to me I couldn't fathom, though I lay awake pondering
the mystery long after he was asleep; this much I knew, that for
Saunders Philipson to depart from the truth, there would have to be
some extremely potent cause. The wind continued to blow in gusts, but
at last died down altogether, and I fell into a deep sleep myself.
When I woke, Philipson had already left the tent. I could hear him
rapping out sharp orders to the bearers, and on going outside myself, I
found him energetically superintending the work of striking camp. For
the leader of an expedition in such dismal straits as ours he seemed in
wonderful spirits. The hillmen were not so cheerful. They wore a look
not only of despair but evident terror, and one glance was enough to
tell me we were going to have trouble with them.
I bore a hand in getting the tents down, but suddenly there caught my
eye something on the ground which held me stock-still, staring. It was
a trail of footsteps in the snow, a double trail, as of someone going
and coming; and it drew a straight line from the door of the bearers'
tent to the very spot where I had stood last night when I peeped round
the angle of rock. That vague form disappearing into the tent hadn't,
then, been a trick played on me by my fevered eyes. Philipson had had
another watcher.
We used our last sticks of fuel for a fire to cook breakfast, and when
we had finished the meal, one of the bearers cringed up to Philipson
and knelt down, beating his forehead on the ground. The man spoke,
still with that curiously fixed expression of despair and fear that
I had noticed on the faces of them all. Philipson heard him out, and
dismissed the fellow with a quick word, whereupon he sprang up with
alacrity and ran back to his fellows.
'You understand what the man said?' queried Philipson, turning to us.
'Not a word.'
'He voiced the unanimous desire of the gang to leave our service and go
home. I told him they would be allowed to do so.'
The pair of us looked at him in surprise. 'Great Scott!' exclaimed
Poyning. 'What on earth for?'
'Because,' replied Philipson, very positively, 'it was the one thing on
this earth to do. I know that breed. I can stand the six of them in a
row and shoot them here if I like, but neither I nor anybody else can
make them follow us farther.'
'Yet you thought we should have no more trouble with them?'
'I did. At that time they feared me more than anything else in the
world. Now a greater terror has arisen.'
'Why, what's up with them?'
'They believe the mountains are haunted hereabouts. One of them got up
in the night and saw a devil.'
I gave an involuntary start, and I am sure Philipson noticed it. I
felt his eyes were keenly on me. 'Superstitious cattle, are they not,
Mirlees?' he said. 'But one thing is absolutely certain: it is a waste
of time trying to remove their superstition by argument. I shall pay
them off and let them go.'
Poyning looked bewildered. 'How in Hades are we to get the gear along?'
he said.
'Hump it ourselves. There will still be five of us to share it.
Moreover, we can reduce the gear. _We have not much farther to go._'
'What's told you that?'
The words were out before I realised I had said them. Philipson looked
at me, and for one instant there seemed almost a shadow of suspicion,
of defiance, in his eyes. But only for an instant. When he answered me,
he might have been a city man mentioning the hour of a train.
'Plain common-sense,' said Saunders Philipson.