The Great Amulet Part 71

It was late afternoon, and, come what might, he intended to requisition a guide (no easy matter) and push his way across at daylight. But neither earth nor heaven had a word of encouragement for the man who scanned them with tired, desperate eyes. At his feet the Yarkhun river whirled and foamed, a grey glacier torrent, thick with the milky sc.u.m of ice-ground salt; beyond it the ink-black gorge leading to the summit was shrouded in a scroll of threatening cloud; and the first natives whom they questioned as to the state of the pa.s.s replied unconcernedly that it had been closed four days; adding that no man who valued his life would attempt to cross it in uncertain weather.

To force his little contingent forward in the face of such news seemed nothing less than murder and suicide of an elevated type. But Lenox, gritting his teeth on a curse, despatched Zyarulla in search of more precise information, and ordered his tent to be set up without delay.

For even at times of despondency and ill-health, the man possessed his full share of that 'outward-going force' which is the hall-mark of the Scottish race; and the instant books and maps were available, he sat down, filled a pipe from his dwindling store of tobacco, and proceeded to look out possible alternatives should the worst befall.

There were two: desperate resources both, yet one degree better than imprisonment in the Yarkhun valley till it pleased the snows to melt.

They could follow the course of the river to Chitral,--no Frontier outpost then, but an independent Native State; or work their way, by faith and courage, through the wild Swat country to the Punjab. The state of both routes was unknown; the question of supplies a hopeless one; and amid a chaos of uncertainties, bad weather was the one thing that might safely be counted on in October. To crown all, their line of communication must, in either case, be broken. They would be lost to the outside world for many days, if not weeks; and apart from consideration for his wife, Lenox was the last man to enjoy creating a temporary excitement at headquarters.

None the less, after thinking himself into a blinding headache, he decided to face the Chitral route, if snow fell, and if Zyarulla brought no better news about the pa.s.s. Then, because his last cup of tea was being held in reserve for breakfast, he contented himself with goat's milk, a slab of chocolate, and native biscuits that served him for bread.

It was late before Zyarulla returned, with a companion,--a native from Yasin, on the Indian side of the Pa.s.s.

"This man, Sahib, hath even now crossed over from Darkot village," the Pathan explained, indicating the wizened leader of a forlorn hope with the air of a showman exhibiting a curiosity. "He came to fetch the remains of his sister, who died in this valley, that she may be buried among her own people. I have therefore engaged him as guide, to take the Sahib over on his return."

"The thing can be done?" Lenox asked, with an eagerness not to be repressed; and the small man bowed his head upon his hands.

"Allah alone can answer the question of the Heaven-born. For one man to travel safely among glaciers and creva.s.ses without number, it was no easy matter--and as for a company of men and ponies, how can this slave tell? Nevertheless, if the Sahib wills, and there is no snow before morning, I go before, showing the way; and that which will fall--will fall."

"Good. That is a bargain. Fulfil it, and thy reward shall be worth the winning. Let yaks be ordered from the nearest _aul_; and at daylight we set out."

The man from Yasin salaamed and departed; but at the tent door Zyarulla paused, a glitter of triumph in his eyes.

"Captain Sahib,--was it well done?"

"Excellently done," Lenox answered, smiling. "Thou art worth thy weight in tobacco of the first quality!"

And the Pathan, knowing that to his master the value of tobacco was above all the rupees ever minted, went out to patronise lesser mortals, and impress them with the fact that he was not as other men, since he had rendered signal service to "the first-best Sahib in all India, whose eyes pierce the earth, and whose feet tread upon the necks of mountains even as those of common Sahibs scatter the dust of cities!"

That night, ominous pains in his limbs and a sensation as of cold water down his spine drove Lenox to open his second and last bottle of brandy. Stimulated by the kindly spirit, he wrestled with a fowl tougher than india-rubber, and slept as a doomed man might sleep on the night of his reprieve.

But he woke to hear the tread of his sentry m.u.f.fled by new-fallen snow; and hope died in him at the sound. Outside, the world was white with it; the whole air thick with it; yet his men were striking camp and loading up, confident in the white man's reputation for achieving the impossible. Only the little guide demurred, trembling at his own audacity.

"Hazur, look whether the thing can be done. I said--if no snow fell."

"And _I_ say, if it fall or no, we cross to-day," Lenox answered, with more of a.s.surance than he felt. "Bid the yaks go forward to prepare a way for our coming."

The great s.h.a.ggy beasts went forward accordingly, head downward, ploughing a way through the snow, to make marching easier and disclose hidden pitfalls or creva.s.ses; and by the time Lenox had despatched a travesty of a breakfast, a pallid light in the east hinted that the storm might be local after all. Wet and draggled as they were, the order was given to load up and start; and even as they crossed the torrent to the foot of the glacier, earth and sky leaped suddenly into light; broken streaks of radiance danced and sparkled on the river, and the sun swept the shadows from hill and valley, converting their deathlike shroud into a glittering garment, stainless as the soul of a child.

"Inshallah!! Now all is well!"

It was the deep voice of Yusuf Ali; and Lenox heard his cheery little friend, the Havildar, make answer, "True talk, brother; the G.o.ds favour those who go forward!"

Cheered by the prospect of getting dry, and by the sun's mysterious power to exhilarate all things living, the whole party quickened their pace. But in less than an hour fresh clouds had rolled up, blotting out the sun; and on the glacier they overtook the yaks and their drivers, lumbering soberly through the snow-drifts with true Oriental disregard for time.

The men chorussed voluble excuses; but since time meant life or death, Lenox waved them aside impatiently, and ordered the guide to go on, making his own tracks as best he might. The which he did, with the help of two others, pressed into service by promises of liberal backsheesh, stepping out valiantly at the head of the mixed procession; his sister's remains--tied up in a wisp of turban--bobbing over his shoulder; driving on before him a donkey followed by a goat. And the unerring instinct by which this despised creature of G.o.d avoided hidden fissures and creva.s.ses must needs be seen to be believed.

The guides, keeping in the tracks of the animals, marked off dangerous places with their sticks; and behind them rode Lenox, m.u.f.fled to the eyes in poshteen and Balaklava cap, his league of leg barely two feet off the ground; his keen little pony--long since christened 'The Rat'--almost as trustworthy on dangerous ground as the donkey himself.

And wherever he led, all self-respecting Kashmiri ponies would follow,--even into a creva.s.se!

Through four mortal hours they plodded on, a strange procession of m.u.f.fled figures, leaving in their wake a dark, contorted track, as though some wounded thing had writhed its way upward through the frozen snow.

And by one o'clock the crest was in sight! "The G.o.ds favour those who go forward!" Chundra Sen had spoken truth. Another half hour would see them through the worst; and Lenox--scarcely able to believe in his good fortune--urged The Rat to renewed exertion, and shouted to his men to hurry on.

But the G.o.ds are nothing if not capricious; and the 'advanced guard,'

reaching the summit, found no promised land spread out below them, but a ma.s.s of blue-black cloud, heavy with snow, surging up the valley, with the rush of a tidal wave and the breath of an iceberg, blotting out creation as it came; till it shrouded the little band of men--'unconquering, yet unconquered'--in a sinister twilight, cold as Death's own self.

There was nothing to be said or done. They simply stood still, and waited for the end:--the Asiatics with the phlegm of fatalism; Lenox with the stillness of despair.

"Checkmate," he muttered grimly. "Two hours of this will about finish us off."

In two seconds his moustache was frozen to his face; his limbs numbed, so that movement became imperative. Mechanically he dismounted, stamped his feet, and beat his arms across his chest as the others were doing; a proceeding about as effective as thimblefuls of water flung on a fire. For every moment the iron clutch of frost tightened and penetrated; even, it seemed, to the life-blood in his veins. But through its deadening influence the thought of Quita struck like a knife-thrust. "G.o.d help her!" his heart cried out in bitter rebellion against his own helplessness to shield her from pain. "It will hit her hard. But she has grit;--and her art. She will live it down."

For five awful minutes the darkness held; and the men waited;--free yet helpless, like castaways on an open sea. Yet no snow fell.

Suddenly Lenox was aware of Brutus rubbing against his leg, plainly demanding what was wrong. He stooped and caressed the ugly head of his eight years' companion and friend. "Rough luck on you, old chap. You never asked to come."

For answer Brutus licked his woollen glove. And as he straightened himself, Chundra Sen came up and saluted.

"Captain Sahib, it is strange. No snow falls; and the darkness moves--moves. May be it is not the storm itself; but a cloud that will pa.s.s."

"I doubt it, Havildar," Lenox answered, smiling at the characteristic suggestion. Yet his eyes, half-blinded with snow-glare, peered anxiously southward, and detected a change; a faint hint of transparency, as though light were struggling through.

The Gurkha detected it also.

"Hazur, behold!--The cloud _will_ pa.s.s." His teeth flashed out exultant. "A good tale is not to be bought with cowries; and we shall tell this one in India before many weeks be out."

Chundra Sen was right. With astonishing swiftness the twilight paled from grey to white; a streak of spectral sunlight quivered through, like life creeping back into the face of death; and the cloud rolled harmlessly over into the Yarkhun valley behind them.

It was but a herald of the great battalion that billowed up an hour later, enveloping glacier, peak, and crag, and sealing up the pa.s.s for seven months to come.

But by then, they were clattering recklessly down the slope, helter-skelter, like a pack of children let out of school; slithering over fissured glacier and moraine, sending loose boulders flying from rock to rock; the Gurkhas shouting and laughing, the Kashmiri coolies breaking into weird s.n.a.t.c.hes of song. Even The Rat lost his sober little head, and in scuttling over a glacier slope sat suddenly down upon his tail, dog fashion, landing Lenox on his feet, and sliding away from under him, to the vociferous delight of every one but himself.

Only the two Pathans and the Scot accepted reprieve as imperturbably as they had accepted sentence of death; suggesting by their silence, in the midst of excitement, the large reserves of strength common to the natures of both.

Before five they had sighted the willows and poplars of Darkot; and by sunset they were encamped outside the village, walled in with a rugged amphitheatre of granite and limestone cliffs. Here they found the man in charge of the welcome caravan of supplies and heavy baggage, taking his ease, a little puzzled, yet in no wise troubled at the Sahib's delay.

Lenox, broken with fatigue, relief, and incipient illness, realised, as he sank into his camp chair, that throughout the past week he had kept himself going by pure force of will. And his record was a fair one, even as Frontier records go:--incessant marching in wet clothes, on a minimum of food, culminating in ten hours of severe exposure and the acutest anxiety he had ever known. And over and above all such incidentals of the day's work,--achievement, in full measure, of that which he had set out to do; not merely in respect of his mission, but in respect of that hidden struggle and victory, 'that weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount.' For he knew now that by the G.o.d-given power of sheer, unwearied resistance he had vanquished an evil the most insidious and alluring that can a.s.sail a man; knew that he had put the accursed thing under his feet; and he meant to keep it there.

But the struggle, combined with hardship and privation, had left its mark on him. The protests of Nature had been disregarded; and now she took her revenge in the sledge-hammer fashion that is hers.

By next morning the man's skin was like hot parchment, his limbs rigid with pain, his brain verging on delirium; and before evening it was clear that rheumatic fever had him in its relentless grip.

The Gurkhas and Zyarulla were in despair. Chundra Sen, goaded by responsibility for the safety of his officer, set out, straightway, by double marches for Srinagar, determined to cover the distance in ten days; while the Pathan, commanding a _charpoy_[1] from the headman of the village, remained to exorcise the 'fever devil' with the rude skill and limitless patience of his kind.

But he reaped small reward for his pains. Racked with rheumatism and burnt up with fever, Lenox had almost reached the end of his tether; and through the awful hours of delirium, Zyarulla could only crouch, helpless, by the bedside; listening, listening to the hoa.r.s.e, hurried mutterings, of which he could understand nothing beyond the frequent recurrence of the Mem-sahib's name.

Each day life flickered more uncertainly in the great gaunt frame; and on the morning when Chundra Sen, with a dapper little doctor, set his face towards Darkot, Zyarulla, kneeling beside his unheeding master, bowed his head upon his hands.

"It is the will of G.o.d," he muttered. But the formula carried no conviction to his heart, that whispered rather: "It is the work of Sheitan, the accursed."