Astounding Stories, July, 1931 Part 14

"Hi there, Professor! Hi-ho!"

And gazing upwards toward a jutting crag not ten rods beyond, he saw young Stoddard etched against the darkening sky.

In a few joyous steps, Professor Prescott had reached his audacious companion.

"Thank G.o.d!" he gasped. "I'd given you up for lost."

"Why give me up for anything so unpleasant?" was the genial reply.

"I've just been enjoying the view."

"Then--then you reached the top?" with a quick intake of breath.

"Well, not exactly, but I feel on top of the world, just the same."

The professor's spirits fell.

"Then I can't see--"

"Of course you can't see!" interrupted Stoddard. "But look at this!"

As he spoke, he drew from a pocket of his leather jacket something that caught the last light of the dying day and refracted it with weird brilliance.

Professor Prescott blinked.

"Well?"

"A diamond. As big as your fist! And here's another!"

His left hand reached into his jacket and produced a second sparkling gem.

"But--but I don't understand--"

"Granted. But you will, when I tell you I've found the Diamond Thunderbolt!"

The professor gave a shrug of scorn.

"And no doubt you've seen the snow people and have had a perfect afternoon, while--"

"No, I haven't seen any snow people, but I've had a perfect afternoon, all right! As I said, I've found the Diamond Thunderbolt; and here are a couple of chips, picked up from around the edge."

So saying, Stoddard extended his two specimens toward Professor Prescott, who disdained at first to touch them.

"Nothing but quartz!" was the deprecating comment. "The snow has affected your eyesight, as it has my own."

"I'll say it's affected _yours_, if you don't recognize diamonds when you see them. But wait till I show you the old Thunderbolt itself!

It's--"

"More quartz!" brusquely. "Be sensible, Jack. This Diamond Thunderbolt thing is a pure myth, like the snow people business. Just because this section of India is known as The Land of the Diamond Thunderbolt you think you're going to find some precious meteor or other, whereas the term applies merely to the Lama's scepter."

"Granted it does,"--a little impatiently--"but did it ever occur to you that where there's smoke, there's fire? Meteor is the word! One struck here once--a diamond meteor!--and I've found it. Take a look at these two specimens and see what you think."

Whereupon Professor Prescott accepted the glinting gems from his young friend--to gasp a moment later, as he held them tremblingly:

"Good Lord--they're diamonds, to be sure! Where did you find them?"

Stoddard hesitated before replying.

"Not far from here," he said at length, moving off. "Come, I'll show you."

But the professor stood firm on their narrow ledge.

"You must be crazy!" he exclaimed. "We'll have trouble enough now, getting back. It's practically dark already."

"Then what's the odds?" retorted the young geologist. "We've got all night."

"But our friends at Camp No. 4. Even now, they must think we are lost."

"Then further thought won't kill them. Besides, we'll be back before morning--and they can't send out a relief party sooner."

"But any moment a storm may come up. You know what that would mean."

"Does it look likely?" scoffed Stoddard, waving his hand aloft.

"See--there's the moon! She'll be our guide."

Professor Prescott looked, saw a slender shallop charting her course among the stars, and for a moment was tempted. But speedily his responsibilities rea.s.serted themselves.

"No, I can't do it," he said with finality. "I owe it to the expedition to return as soon as possible. Furthermore, there's the matter of the authorities. We a.s.sured the British we would adhere strictly to our one purpose--to scale Kinchinjunga."

"A mere formality."

"No--a definite order from the Lamas. They closed Mt. Everest, after the last expedition, you will recall. The Lama's scepter is veritably a diamond thunderbolt of power in this region."

Whereupon Stoddard's patience snapped.

"Listen!" he said. "I hurried away because I knew you'd be anxious, but I'm going back, if I have to--"

"And I say you're not!" The professor's patience, too, had snapped.

"I'm not going with you, and you're not going back alone! As the leader of this expedition, I forbid it!"

The younger man laughed raspingly, as he shook off the hand that clasped his arm, and for a moment it looked as though the two would fight, there on that dizzy ledge above the world.

Then Stoddard got control of himself.