"Ledge by ledge outbroke new marvels, now minute, and now immense:
Earth's most exquisite disclosure, heaven's own God in evidence!"
--Browning.
"Sahib, dinner is ready."
"I also am ready. More than ready!" Lenox answered, a twinkle in his
eyes.
Zyarulla responded by a gleam of teeth as he followed his master to the
camp fire of roots and scrub, on whose summit 'dinner' was served
steaming hot; a delectable mass of mutton and rice; eaten straight from
the copper cooking vessel, lest the ice-bound breath of the mountains
freeze it before it could reach its destination. The fire itself was
small, and gave out little heat: for in the heart of the glaciers,
sixteen hundred feet up, fuel is scarce, and even more precious than
food.
The five human forms, crouching close to it, had been Lenox's sole
companions through three months of hardship and danger, sweetened by
the exhilaration of conquering such difficulties as brace a man's nerve
and fortitude to the utmost. Four of them were Gurkhas,--a Havildar
and three men; short, sturdy hill folk of the Mongol type, with the
spirits of schoolboys and the grit of heroes. The fifth was a Pathan
from Desmond's regiment, told off to act as orderly and surveyor; a man
of immovable gravity, who shared but two qualities with the
thick-headed, stout-hearted little soldiers from Nepal:--courage of the
first order, and devotion to the British officer, for whom any one of
them would have laid down his life, if need be; not as a matter of
sentiment or heroism, but simply as a matter of course. The Gurkhas
had, in fact, settled it among themselves before starting, that if any
harm came to the Sahib none of them were to disgrace the name of the
regiment by returning without their leader.
Now, as he neared the fire, looking bigger and broader than usual in
his sheep-skin coat and Balaklava cap,--his jaw and throat protected by
a beard black as his hair,--all five stood up to receive him: and the
quivering light showed that they also were muffled to the eyes.
"It is a _burra khana_[1] to-night, Hazur," the Havildar informed him
with a chuckle; his slits of eyes vanishing as his teeth flashed out.
"In a treeless country, the castor-oil is a big plant! And the cook,
having three handfuls of flour to spare, hath made us three
_chupattis_; one for your Honour, and one to be broken up among
ourselves."
"No, no, Havildar; fair play," Lenox answered, smiling. "We will
divide the three."
But seeing that insistence would damp their childish spirit of
festivity, he accepted Benjamin's portion; and satisfied his conscience
by sharing it with Brutus, the inevitable, who snuggled contentedly
under a corner of his poshteen, and thanked his stars he was not as
other dogs, a mere loafer round clubs and cantonments. It was bad to
be cold and hungry; to plunge shoulder-deep through snow, and slither
across hideous slopes of ice; but it was uplifting to share your
master's dinner and your master's bed; and there are few things more
sustaining than a sense of one's own importance in the general scheme
of things!
The fire was their mess-table, round which they dined together, to save
time and trouble in cooking; and also because community of hardship and
danger links men to one another with hooks of steel; dispels all minor
distinctions of colour and creed; reveals the Potter's raw material
underlying all.
And while they so sat, enjoying their one-course dinner as no gourmet
ever enjoyed a city feast, night and frost crept stealthily, almost
visibly, over the stupendous snow-peaks and pinnacles of opaque ice
that towered on all sides, breathing out cold; and contemplating, as if
in silent amazement, these atoms of 'valiant dust' who dared and were
beaten back, and dared again; who day by day pushed farther into their
white sanctuary of silence, in search of a pass whose existence was
guessed at rather than known. At sunset there had been a brief burst
of colour,--green and opal and rose; but by now the mountains shimmered
grey and hard as steel under the tremulous fire of the stars; and every
moment the grip of frost tightened upon half-melted glacier, upon man
and beast. For behind the little group of servants, who sat apart,
enjoying their own meal in their own fashion, stood twelve apathetic
Kashmiri ponies,--unconsidered martyrs to man's lust of
achievement,--who endured to the full the miseries of mountaineering,
and reaped none of its rewards.
Dinner over, the fire must be allowed to die down. A pipe over the
embers, and a sheep-skin bag shared with Brutus, was the evening's
unvarying programme on this detached expedition into the hidden core of
things; tents and lesser luxuries having been left with the heavy
baggage in charge of two Gurkhas at the foot of the pass.
While Lenox sat smoking, and encouraging the fire to keep alive as long
as might be, his men vied with one another in discovering sheltered
corners for the night. The Havildar was in high spirits after his
morsel of chupatti, washed down with a mouthful of rum; and the
laughter of his comrades echoed strangely among the ghostly peaks.
"You seem to be in great form, Chundra Sen," Lenox called out at last.
"What's the joke now?"
"We are seeking soft stones to sleep on, Hazur; and betting, like the
_Sahiblog_, which of us shall find the softest!" [Transcriber's note:
the "o" in "_Sahiblog_" is o-macron, Unicode U+014D.]
Lenox joined in the laugh that greeted this sally,
"Good men," he said. "Hope you find a few! First-rate joke of yours,
Havildar."
"By ill fortune, it was not I who made it, Hazur! But an officer
Sahib, up in Kabul; one who knew that it is good to laugh even when the
knife is at the throat." And the search went forward with renewed zest.
Apparently soft stones were forthcoming: for one by one the men rolled
themselves up in their blankets and sheep-skins, and slept soundly on
two hundred feet of ice under a freezing sky; leaving Lenox alone with
his pipe and his thoughts, and the silence that dwelt like a presence
in the eerie place.
As a rule a hard day on the glaciers left him so over-powered with
sleep that he could scarcely finish his smoke: but to-night his brain
was alert and active; stimulated by the knowledge that two more days of
climbing ought to bring him at last to the Pass of his dreams:--the
Pass that must be found and crossed in the teeth of all that Nature
might do to hinder him!
That discovery would close the first phase of his journey: and
to-night, looking back over it, from the day of his departure for
Simla, he saw that it had been good.
Sir Henry Forsyth, Foreign Secretary, and an old school friend of his
brother's, had instructed him to work his way up to Hunza, a small
independent state north of Kashmir, hidden among lofty mountains and
impenetrable valleys, whence robber bands--secure from retaliation--had
for long amused and enriched themselves by flying descents upon
neighbouring tribes, and upon caravans passing from Asia to India. And
now, after an unusually daring raid, the peace-loving Kirghiz of the
district had appealed to the Indian Government for protection and help.
Lenox, with his little escort of six Gurkhas and one Pathan, was to
enter this stronghold of brigands; reason with their chief, and bind
him down to good behaviour for the future. In addition, Sir Henry
suggested that instead of going to Hunza direct, he should strike out
eastward from Kashmir, working his way round through the great Mustagh
Mountains, and exploring as he went, also that he should finally push
on northward, and penetrate as far into the Pamirs as the approach of
winter would permit.
"There will be no difficulty with the authorities. I have arranged all
that; and you need not be back at Dera till October or November," the
great man had concluded, in a tone half question, half command.
"No, sir. I may as well do all I can while I'm up there."
Whereat Sir Henry had eyed him thoughtfully from between narrowed lids.
For all his great brain, he was a man of one idea: and that idea--"The
North safeguarded." Mere men, himself included, were for him no more
than pawns in the great game to be played out between two Empires, on
the chess-board of Central Asia. But . . there are pawns, and pawns:
and Sir Henry had had his eye on Lenox for some years; recognising in
him a pawn of high value; a man to be sent to the front on the first
opportunity, and kept there as long as might be. The news of his
marriage had been a shock to the Foreign Secretary: and it is
conceivable that he had wished to test Lenox by asking him to undertake
such a mission within a year of the fatal event. He was speculating
now, as he watched him, how far the 'woman complication' was likely to
count with this impenetrable Scot. With Sir Henry, after the first
year or two, the woman had not counted at all; and, unhappily for her,
she knew it.
The pause lasted so long that Lenox shifted his position: but Sir Henry
only said, "I was relieved when I got your wire."
"Surely I could not have answered otherwise?"
"I am glad you think so. But frankly, when I heard of your marriage, I
was half afraid I had lost one of my ablest men."
Lenox smiled. "Not quite as bad as that, sir, I hope."
"Well then . . what about Gilgit?"
Sir Henry spoke carelessly; but his eyes were on Lenox's face, and he
saw him flinch.
"Is that likely to be an immediate contingency?" Lenox asked quietly.
"Next, year, I should say, as things are going now."
"Well, I hope it may be possible. But . . one would have to think it
over."
"_Talk_ it over, you mean . . eh?"
Something in the tone angered Lenox.
"Yes, sir . . talk it over. That is what I meant," he had answered,
looking straightly at the other: and they had returned somewhat
abruptly to the matter in hand.
But Lenox had dined with the Foreign Secretary that night, and they had
parted good friends, as ever: Sir Henry begging the younger man to ask
him for anything that might serve to lessen the hardships and dangers
ahead of him, adding, as they shook hands: "I assure you, my dear
fellow, we who sit in Simla fully realise how much the country owes to
men of your sort; and grudge no money spent in making the way smoother
for you."
But Lenox, knowing well that hardships and perils loom larger in an
easy-chair than on the slope of a glacier, had asked for little, beyond
permission to depart, and that speedily.
A few days at Pindi had sufficed for the collecting of stores and
equipment. Then he had pushed northward in earnest, picking up his
escort of Gurkhas from their station in the foot-hills: and so on
through Kashmir, where spring had already flung her bridal veil over
the orchards, and retreating snow-wreaths had left the hills carpeted
with a mosaic of colour,--primula, iris, orchid, and groundlings
innumerable: over the Zoji-la Pass, into the shadeless, fantastic
desolation of Ladak; and on, across stark desert and soundless
snow-fields, to Leh, the terminus of all caravans from India and
Central Asia. Here Lenox had spent two days with one Captain Burrow of
the Bengal Cavalry, who, with a handful of half-starved Kashmiri
soldiers, upheld the interests of the British Raj on this uttermost
edge of Empire. Here also he found a letter from Quita; read and
re-read it, and stowed it away in his breast-pocket, trying not to be
aware of a haunting ache deep down in him, which must perforce be
ignored. The old charm of the Road, the 'glory of going on,' that
works like madness in the blood, was strong upon him as ever. But
whereas, in former journeyings, he had been one man, he was now two.
The whole-hearted ecstasy of travel would never again be his. He had
given a part of himself into a woman's keeping; and let him put the
earth's diameter between them, she would hold him still. Every week,
every day that drew him farther from her did but bring home to him more
forcibly the mysterious, compelling power of marriage, its large
reserves of loyalty, its sacred and intimate revelations, its
inexorable grip on life and character.
But meanwhile, there was the Road before him; a rough road, full of
vicissitudes and anxieties, of interests and anticipations that left
him small leisure for the communings of his heart.
Before leaving Leh, hill camels and ponies had been added unto him;
besides twenty-one decrepit Kashmir soldiers,--a type extinct since
they have been handled by British officers. These were to be deposited
by Lenox at his so-called 'base of operations,' by way of guarding the
trade route so grievously troubled by the brigand state.
Followed two more weeks of marching,--rougher marching this
time,--through the core of the lofty mountains that divide India from
Central Asia; across the terrible Depsang Plains, seventeen thousand
feet up; and over four passes choked with snow; till they came upon a
deserted fort, set in the midst of stark space, and knew that here,
indeed, was the limit of human habitation. Next day the work of
exploration had begun in earnest. Week after week, with unwearying
persistence, they had pushed on, upward, always upward, through regions
sacred to the eagles and the clouds; working along streams that cut
their way through hillsides steep as houses, or along tracks that ran
to polished ledges of rock and dropped sheer to unimaginable depths;
clambering over formidable ranges by any chance opening that could be
dignified by the name of a pass; the eternally cheery Gurkhas solacing
themselves with rum; the Pathans with opium; the Scot with rare nips of
brandy, on the bitterest nights. Still more rarely,--at wider and
wider intervals of time,--he drew from his breast-pocket a pill-box,
like the one still locked in his writing-table drawer at home. Its
contents were running very low by now; and, once gone, they would never
again be replenished. That he knew; with a knowledge born not of
arrogance, but of faith that somehow, somewhen the right must prevail.
And to-night,--as he sat alone by the fire, watching the greyness of
death quench spark after spark of living light, while a late moon
sailed leisurely into view, overlaying the steely hardness of ice and
snow with a veil of shimmering silver,--he took out the box, and opened
it. He knew it held two pellets; no more. Why not take them at once,
and so break the last link of the devil's chain? He turned them into
his palm, . . and paused, while the enemy within whispered words of
seduction hard to be withstood. But now a second voice spoke in him
also: a voice of mingled authority and pleading. Why not fling away
both box and pellets, foregoing the final degradation, the final
rapture, that every nerve in him clamoured for more imperatively than
he dared admit even to himself.
For some reason the suggestion brought Desmond vividly to his
mind:--Desmond, with his characteristic assertion: "Of course you will
succeed. You have won His great talisman." Yes. He was right!--'the
great talisman.' Surely if marriage were worth anything, if it meant
more to a man than mere domesticity, and material satisfaction, it
ought by rights to act as a talisman to protect him from the evils of
his baser self.
While thinking, he had mechanically returned the pellets to the box,
closing it firmly, crushing it between his hands; and now, with a wide
sweep of his arm, he flung it far from him, into the blue-black mystery
of a ravine that swooped past the camping-ground to the valley below.
"Thank God _that's_ done with!" he muttered; though as yet the pain
rather than the elation of conquest prevailed. Then, lifting Brutus in
his arms, as though he had been a child, he slipped, dog and all, into
his sheep-skin bag, and slept without dreams.
An hour later, a sudden gust from the north swept down the ravine.
Battalions of cloud blotted out the stars; and a host of snow-flakes
whirled above the sleeping camp, like spirits of fairies, incapable of
doing harm.
The chill discomfort of snow melting on their faces woke the men, one
by one, at an unearthly hour, to find their whole world shrouded in
white, and a mist of snow-dust still falling. But Lenox, undismayed,
ordered tea and biscuits, and lost no time in setting out.
A stiff climb up the ravine into which he had flung his pill-box lay
ahead of them; but since the side nearest the camp was unbroken
glacier, it seemed wisest to hack their way across it before attempting
the ascent.
It was freezing hard: earth and sky were muffled in fine white powder,
and scudding clouds constantly hid the moon. An ice-slope overlaid
with snow is not pleasant going at the best of times; and on this one
there were ugly rents, into which men and animals slipped, to their
sore discomfort. But the way of life is by courage and persistence:
and in time the thing was done.
The farther side proved less formidable: and while they halted to
recoup their energies, a report like thunder, followed by an
unmistakable rushing sound, made every man of them catch his breath.
It was an avalanche: and its appalling crescendo was coming straight
down the hill on which they stood.
The two Pathans remained rigid, impassive,--the greater the danger the
cooler do these men become: but the Kirghiz--a creature without
self-respect--shook so violently that he dropped the bridles of his
ponies.
"Run, Sahib . . run!" he stammered. "Or we be all dead men."
But there was nowhere to run to, even had running on an ice-slope been
possible; which it was not. Neither was it possible to guess the exact
direction of the invisible annihilation that was racing down upon them
through a mist of snow. There was nothing for it but to stand
steady--till that happened which must happen. So they stood steady,
without speech or movement, like men turned to stone.
It may have been a matter of minutes. To Lenox it seemed a matter of
years. Because, in that short breathing space, fear--overmastering
fear--gripped him as it never yet had done. A year or two ago, for all
his human love of life, he would have accepted a mountaineer's death
with something of the same pride and stoicism as a soldier accepts
death in battle. But now . . now . . life meant so infinitely more to
him, that every throbbing artery and nerve rebelled against the loss of
it. For it is happiness, more than conscience, that 'makes cowards of
us all.'
Nearer and louder grew the appalling sound. Then a great cloud of
snow-dust burst in their faces, half blinding them: and, with the roar
of an express train, the avalanche sped down the ravine; burying the
ice-slope they had just crossed; and obliterating their footsteps as
man's work is obliterated by the soundless avalanche of the years.
All five men let out their breath in an audible murmur.
"_Burra tamasha_,[2] Hazur," Yusuf Ali remarked gravely. "Never before
have I seen the like."
But for the moment Lenox had lost his voice. Ten minutes' delay in
starting, and they had been swept out of life, without a struggle or a
cry. It is this significance of trifles in determining large issues
that at times staggers faith and reason.
"The Sahib still goes forward?" the Pathan added presently, as one who
merely asks for orders: and the Sahib nodded.
But this was too much for the Kirghiz. Emboldened by terror, he flung
himself on the ground.
"I who speak am as dust beneath the feet of the Heaven-born. But
consider, Hazur, there will be many more such before the pass can be
reached."
"It is possible," Lenox answered unmoved. "It is also possible that,
like this one, they will keep out of our path. Make no more fool's
talk. Go back to the ponies."
The Kirghiz was not mistaken. There were 'many more such' during the
next few days. But Lenox was not mistaken either: for none of them
came their way. Only the muffled thunder of their descent broke the
stillness of a world whose mystery and grandeur surpassed anything
Lenox himself had ever seen.
For on the second night, a night without wind or cloud, they camped in
the heart of the great glacier: and all about them,--touched to
ethereal unreality by the light of moon and stars,--were unnumbered
crests and pinnacles, fantastically carven; black mouths of caverns,
shaggy with icicles; sudden fissures and vast continents of shadow,
like ink-stains on unsullied purity; and over-arching all, the still
wonder of the sky, pierced with points of flame.
Tired as he was, Lenox resented the need for shutting his eyes upon a
scene so stirring alike to the imagination and the heart: a scene that
lifted both, past Nature's uttermost sublime, to the Master-Builder,
whose mind is the Universe, and whose thoughts are its stars and
worlds, and the living souls of men. But for all that Nature had her
way with him; sealing up eyes and mind with the double seal of
weariness and the supreme content of the climber who knows that the
summit is at hand.
And upon the fourth day, in a blaze of sunlight, that set the uncharted
snow-fields glittering like dust of diamonds, they crossed the
Pass,--Lenox's own Pass, that no living man had set eyes or foot
upon,--and looked at last on that elusive 'other side,' that draws
certain natures like a magnet to the far-flung limits of earth.
And in this case the other side proved well worth the hardships endured
to reach it. After 30 many days cooped up between ice-walls and
precipitous heights, Lenox caught his breath at the magnitude of the
view outspread before him; an amphitheatre of 'the greater gods', ridge
beyond ridge, peak beyond dazzling peak, stabbing the blue, the highest
of them little lower than Everest's self: while across the rock-bound
valley a host of glaciers, like primeval monsters, crept downward from
the mountains that gave them birth.
As Lenox stood feasting his soul upon the splendour of it all, he knew
that this was one of the great days of his life: that only Quita's
inspiring presence was needed to crown the triumph of it. Even in the
first glow of achievement, his heart turned instinctively to hers for
sympathy and approval: and, could she have known it, her haunting fear
that the mountains would prove too strong for her had crumbled into
nothingness there and then. For if 'many waters cannot quench love,'
neither can many mountains dwarf it. When all is said, it is still
'the great amulet that makes the world a garden', and always will be,
while God's men and women have red blood in their veins.
[1] Big dinner.
[2] Great excitement.