"Love's strength standeth in Love's sacrifice,And he who suffers most has most to give."—Hamilton King.
Dinner that evening was an oppressively silent affair. The man's white Northern anger still smouldered beneath his surface immobility; while Quita, who could not bring herself to believe in the spontaneity of Richardson's engagement at mess, was instinctively measuring and crossing swords with the husband, whose personality held her captive even while it forced her every moment nearer to the danger-point of open defiance.
Both were thankful when the solemn farce of eating and drinking came to an end; and Quita rose with an audible sigh of relief.
"Are you coming into the drawing-room at all?" she asked, addressing the question to his centre shirt-stud.
"Yes—at once. I have a good deal to say to you."
She raised her eyebrows with a small polite smile, and swept on before him, her step quickened by the fact that his words had set the blood rushing through her veins. The dead weight of his silence pulverised her. Speech, however dangerous, would be pure relief.
Before following, he locked up spirit tantalus and cigar-box with his wonted deliberation; and on reaching the drawing-room found her absorbed in contemplation of Dick's portrait, hands clasped behind her, the unbroken lines of her grey-green dress lending height and dignity to her natural grace; the glitter of defiance gone out of her eyes.
Lenox set his lips, and confounded the advantages nature and art conspire to bestow upon some women, more especially when they know themselves beloved. The mere man in him had one impulse only,—to take instant possession of her; to conquer her lurking antagonism by sheer force of passion and of will. But he had sense enough to know that such primitive methods would not shift, by one hair's-breadth, their real point of division; would, in fact, be no less than inverted defeat. The heart of her was secure:—that he knew. It was her detached, elusive mind and spirit that were still to win; and a man's arms had small concern with that form of capture.
Quita vouchsafed him a glance as he entered. Then her gaze returned to the picture.
"One misses him," she said, presumably to the tall figure on the hearth-rug. "I think I have never known a man so uniformly cheerful and sweet-tempered. But it is selfish to grudge him a little change of atmosphere. And no doubt he is having a livelier evening than we are."
She was facing her husband now; but something in his aspect made her feel suddenly ashamed of using small weapons against a nature too magnanimous to retaliate. And, without giving him time to answer, she went on, a little hurriedly, "Eldred, if this intolerable state of things means that you really imagine I am—how does one put anything so detestable?—growing . . . too fond of Mr Richardson, you can set your mind at rest. Morality apart, you are much too masterful, too large—in every way—to leave room for any one else in a woman's heart, once she has let you in."
"Thank you," Lenox answered, in a non-committal tone. But a shadow passed from his face, and she saw it.
"Of course I know it has been rather marked this last week. But that was simply because for the moment he and my picture were the same thing. Being absorbed in one meant being absorbed in the other. To produce a living portrait, one needs to get inside the subject of it as far as possible. At least, I do. And on the whole, I think my method is justified by the result!"
But Lenox, as he stood listening, experienced fresh proof of man's innate spirit of perversity. For many days past he had been angered by the suspicion that in this affair of portrait painting, the subject counted for too much;—and now, when he ought to have been relieved, he found his anger rekindled to white heat by Quita's frank confession that his friend—whose heart had been wrenched from him by her so-called 'method'—counted for nothing at all. For one ignoble instant, he was tempted to break through every restraining consideration and lash her with the truth.
The fact that he did not answer her at once puzzled Quita.
"Do you understand now,mon ami?" she asked, coming a step closer."I was absorbed in an interesting subject. It is over—voilà tout."
"No, Quita; I do not understand," he answered, repressed heat hardening his voice and face more than he knew. "To a mere soldier it all sounds rather inhuman; and I can only say that if you find it so necessary to 'get inside' your subjects, as you express it, you had better make women and children your speciality, and let us poor devils alone."
"Women and children? But, my dear—what a suggestion! One does not choose one's subjects to order. Women and children don't interest me. I have always preferred to paint men, and always shall."
"Then I'm afraid it may end in your having to drop portrait painting altogether."
That touched the artist to the quick. With a small gasp—as if he had struck her—she sank upon the arm of his big chair; her hands clasped, so that the knuckles stood out sharp and white; two spots of fire burning in her cheeks.
"Do you seriously mean—what you say?" she asked, pausing between the words.
"Certainly. I am not given to speaking at random."
"You mean—you would insist?"
"I hope it would never come to that."
"Mon Dieu, no. It never would!" She flung up her head with a broken sound between a laugh and a sob. "Because—if it ever did——"
She hung on the word a moment; and in a flash Lenox saw how near they were to repeating the initial tragedy of more than six years ago.
"Quita," he broke in sharply, "listen to me before you say unconsidered things that we may both of us regret. Are we going to make havoc of everything again at the outset? Tell me that."
"How do I know? It depends on you. I think I told you then, that you might as well expect me to give up seeing or hearing as to give up my art. And that is truer—ten times truer—to-day, even though I am . . . your wife."
He saw her vibrating like a smitten harp-string; saw the quick rise and fall of the lace at her breast; and it was all a man could do to keep his hands off her. He had to remind himself that she was no child to be comforted with empty kisses; but very woman and very artist, torn between the master-forces of life.
"See here, lass," he said quietly, laying aside his half-smoked cigar. "As this is a big matter for us both, we may as well get at the root of it straight away. You said this afternoon that you could not give up your individuality because you had accepted marriage. Very well. Neither can I. That still leaves us two alternatives. Either we must give up the notion of living together; or we must be prepared to make concessions—both of us. That is why I said that marriage means compromise. If we go on much longer as we have been doing lately, seeing next to nothing of one another because the house has been converted into a surplus club for half the fellows in the station; and if you are going to spend your time 'getting inside' other men with a view to painting their portraits, we shall simply drift apart as the Nortons did. Conditions of life out here make that sort of thing fatally easy to fall into. But I tell you plainly that if there is to be no attempt at amalgamation, if we are each to go our own way, then—we must lead separate lives. I would not even have you in India. It would be a case of going home."
The two spots of fire had died out of her face, and she turned wide, startled eyes upon him.
"I don't—quite understand." Her voice was barely audible, "Are you telling me—to go?"
"My dear—can you ask that? I am only pointing out the conditions that might make such a catastrophe—inevitable. Looking things in the face may prevent future friction and misunderstanding, which are the very devil. What's more, I never realised till lately what a very big factor your art is in your life. I believe it is the biggest thing of all. Am I right?"
"I don't know. I can't tell—yet."
He straightened himself, and his face hardened.
"You can easily find out by putting the matter to practical proof. In fact, I am going to make a proposal that will not leave you very long in doubt. You have genius, Quita. I recognise that. And I want you to think seriously over all you said this afternoon about not cramping or distorting your individuality to suit my 'prejudices.' If you feel that your art must come before everything, that marriage will only hamper its full development, without making good what you lose,—in fact, if you think that the purely artist life will be better and happier for you in the long-run, I would sooner you said so frankly, I would indeed."
"Eldred!" she gasped, between indignation and fear. But he motioned her to silence.
"Hear me out first. I told you I had a good deal to say; and as I am not often taken that way, you must bear with me, for once. You know now something, at least, of what it means for a man and woman to live together, as we do. I warned you that I should prove a sorry bargain; and—take me or leave me—I cannot pretend that any amount of compromise will make me other than I am. You think me hard, narrow, conventional, in some respects, no doubt. But in a matter so vital conventional moralities go for nothing. I want the truth. If you believe, as I said, that art must stand first with you—always, I shall respect your frankness and courage in telling me so; and I will give you—such freedom as the circumstances admit."
"Mon Dieu!" she breathed, and for a second or two could say no more. She had touched the bed-rock of granite in the man at last. Then the fear that clutched at her found words, in her own despite.
"Have I killed—your love, so soon? Surely you could not make such a suggestion—in cold blood, unless—I had."
"You are simply shifting the argument," he answered without unbending. "You know whether—I love you. In fact, if it comes to that, it is you, my dear, who have not yet grasped the full meaning of the word, or you would not need to be told that the free choice I am offering you of compromise with me, or independence—without me, is the utmost proof one can give that you and your happiness stand absolutely first——"
At that she made an impulsive movement towards him, and her fingers closed upon his arm. But with inexorable gentleness he unclasped her hand, and put it from him.
"No, no," he said, and there was more pain than hardness in his tone. "Better keep clear of that form of argument, for the present. Passion settles nothing. Contact is not fusion. We have proved it,—you and I. It is not a question of what we feel. That may be taken for granted by now. It is a question of what we are, individually, intrinsically; of how much each of us is ready to forego for the sake of the one essential form of union that counts between a man and woman who are not mere materialists; and we are neither of us that. I don't want my answer to-night, nor even to-morrow. I have not spoken on impulse; and I want you to think very thoroughly over all I have said when your brain is cooler than it is just now."
"But suppose—I don't want to think it over?"
A half smile dispelled his gravity. "Knowing you intimately, I should not suppose anything else! In the two big crises of our life, remember, you were ruled purely by impulse and emotion, and you brought us very near to shipwreck in consequence. But this time, you will do what I ask, and give my slower methods a chance; because this time your decision will be final. If we are to separate again, we separate for life. That muchIhave decided. The rest—I leave in your hands."
She stood very still, like one magnetised, her gaze riveted on the carpet. His steadfast aloofness had chilled her first headlong impulse of surrender; and she knew now that he was right:—that, dearly as she loved him, independence in thought, word, and act were still the breath of life for her and for her art. He had put the matter to practical proof with a sledge-hammer directness all his own; had opened her eyes to the humiliating truth that never in all her thirty years of living had she given up anything that mattered for any one. And now——
She raised her head with a start, Zyarulla had brought in a telegram, and Lenox stood reading it with a transfigured face, an eager light in his eyes.
"What is it?" she wondered, not daring to ask. "He is going away somewhere—he is delighted. And he says I come absolutely first."
Then Lenox raised his eyes, and a lightning instinct told her that for the moment he had forgotten her existence.
"Well, Quita," he said, unconscious elation in his tone, "I think the Foreign Office must have known we had got to a difficult corner, and decided to give us a helping hand. They want me to undertake an exploration north of Kashmir, and remonstrate with a small chief who has been misbehaving up there. I am to report myself at Simlaek dum,[1] to receive detailed instructions of the mission, and we shall have time enough to think things out very thoroughly before I get back."
"Time? How long?"
Her colour had ebbed; but the change in him had steeled her to unreasoning hardness of heart.
"Six months, certain. Possibly more."
"And you are as glad as you can be. One sees that quite plainly."
Her tone stung him to sharp retort.
"Yes, I am glad—since you insist, and since I am no hypocrite."
Pride would not suffer her to remind him of his assurance, "You stand absolutely first." Instead she asked him in a repressed voice—
"Doesn't it occur to you, after your eloquence about what each of us should give up, that this is precisely where your share of the compromise comes in?"
"It occurred to me nearly a year ago," he said simply. "After our talk at Kajiar, I faced the fact that there was an end of my exploring as a hobby;—at least on the big scale that appeals to me most. It was just the price one had to pay for getting you back again; and I paid it—willingly. In fact, I should never have mentioned it, if you hadn't dragged it out of me."
The quiet of his tone, and the kindliness in the blue eyes that challenged her own, brought the blood into her face. He shamed her every way, this big husband of hers. He had counted the cost and paid it—willingly. He would not even have mentioned it. There you have the essence of the man. Her lids fell, and her incurable instinct for comedy set a faint dimple in her cheek. Here he was at his old trick of dragging her on to higher ground; and the perverse spirit of her loved and hated him for it in one breath.
"But you are going now?" she whispered, without looking up.
"Certainly. That is quite another matter. When Government needs my services for work which I have made a speciality, it would be neither right nor possible for me to refuse; and, frankly, I am glad, because I love the work, fully as much as you love yours; and because the opportunity could hardly have come at a better moment."
"And I—go back to Michael?"
"Yes. For six months you will be free to travel, paint—what you will; and for six months I shall have my mountains to grapple with." Again the light sprang to his eyes. "By the end of that time we shall know once for all how much we are ready to forego for the sake of spending our lives together. That is the ultimate test of a big thing, Quita—what one will give up for it. Marriage is a big thing; and if ours is built on the right foundations, it will stand the test. Now, I shall have a good deal to see to this evening, and I think you had better go to bed early. You look tired."
"I am tired." She realised suddenly that all the spring had gone out of her. "When do you leave?"
"To-morrow, most likely. You had better write to Michael."
"Very well. I suppose—one will be able to write toyou?"
"Yes. Now and then. But for a great part of the time I shall be beyond the reach of posts."
Though his surface hardness had melted, his voice had an impersonal note that crushed her, making her feel as if she were dealing with a cosmic force, rather than a human being;—one of his own detestable mountains, for instance. But for that, it is conceivable that there might have been something approaching a 'scene'; that she might have obeyed her unreasoning impulse to plead with him, and exhort him not to push his test of her to such pitiless lengths. As it was, she sank into a chair without answering; and he turned towards the study with a new lift of his head, a new elasticity of step that struck at her heart.
For, in truth, until he read that summons from Simla he had scarcely known how irresistibly the old free life drew him; how the white silence of the mountains called to him as friend calls friend; and the whole heart of him answered, 'I come.' 'As the dew is dried up by the sun, so are the sins of mankind by the glory of Himachal.' The words of the old Hindoo worshipper sprang to his brain, and for him they were no fanciful imagery, but a radiant truth. Six months of the Himalayas, six months of freedom from brain work, and headache, and strain,—for though loyalty denied it, the past month had been a strain,—would suffice to break the power of the hideous thing that was sapping his manhood; to dispel the great black something that shadowed his mind and spirit—to set him on his feet again, a free man.
But since he had kept the deeper source of his trouble secret from Quita, she did not hold the key to the deeper source of his joy. And now, lying back in his chair, her eyes closed, violet shadows showing beneath the black line of her lashes, she saw herself, momentarily, as a trivial thing—a mere tangle of nerves, perversity, and egotism—flung aside without hesitation, perhaps even with relief, at the first call of the larger life, the larger loyalty. Two tears stole out on to her lashes, and slipped down her check. Mere concessions to overwrought feeling, and she knew it; knew, in the depths of her, that she was no triviality, but a woman into whose hands power had been given; the power of things primeval that are the mainspring of life.
For Quita also had her secret—at once mysterious and disturbing; since to your highly-strung woman motherhood rarely comes as a matter of course—a secret that brought home to her, with a force as quiet and compelling as her husband himself, the awful sense of the human bond. He had told her she was free to choose; to take him or leave him as she saw fit. But the dice were loaded. They were bound to one another now by a far stronger power than mere law; by the power of action and consequence, which transcends all laws.
She had guessed the truth, and rebelled against it, on that day when Honor had unwittingly spoken the right word at the right moment, as those who believe in Divine transmission through human agency are apt to do. She had faced and accepted it during Eldred's absence; but had not found courage since his return to put it into words; had, in fact, with the revival of inspiration, thrust the knowledge aside, and deliberately tried to forget.
Now it came back upon her, unrebuked; and while she lay thinking over all that had passed between them, one insistent question repeated itself in her brain, "Can I tell him? Shall I tell him before he goes?" And after much debating, she decided on silence. In the first place, he would be saved anxiety if he should not return in time; and in the second place—though this consideration stood undeniably first with her—she preferred that he, at least, should believe in the fiction of their freedom; that nothing should weigh with him, or draw him back to her but his unalterable need of herself. How far her secret was her own to hide or reveal, how far she had any right to withhold such knowledge from the man on the eve of a perilous undertaking,—the man to whom insight told her it would mean immeasurably much,—were questions that simply did not enter her mind. The artist's egotism, and the woman's love of dominion, left no room for fine-drawn scruples of the kind. Never till to-night had she realised how the mountains claimed and held him; and in her sudden fear of losing him, either through misadventure or through the reawakening of the explorer in him, she lost sight of the original point at issue; of the fact that it was her own work, not his, which had threatened to stand between them.
An hour later she went into the study, where Lenox, his brow furrowed into deep lines, bent over an outspread map. A glance showed her that already in spirit he was miles away from her, planning the exploration of passes and glaciers guessed at in former journeyings, engrossed, mind and heard, in the possibilities ahead.
She came and stood beside him. "I am going now, Eldred," she said, a touch of listlessness in her tone.
He looked up and nodded. "That's right. You do look rather fagged this evening."
"Only a headache," she answered, flushing and avoiding his eyes. "I shall be all right if I sleep well."
"Do you ever sleep badly?" he asked, with the quick sympathy of the sufferer.
"Oh dear, no." She hesitated. "Are you coming?"
"Yes—later."
Still she stood irresolute. Caresses had become rare between them of late; and now pride as well as shyness checked her natural impulse. In turning away, she allowed her left hand to swing outward, ever so little, merely by way of experiment. "He won't see it," she told herself. And, as if in mute denial, his own hand met and grasped it, close and hard.
On the threshold she paused and looked back. He was miles away again, hopelessly out of reach. A sudden thought seized her, tempted her. Half a dozen words would suffice to snap the chain that held him; to bring her into his arms. Yet now it seemed impossible to speak them, even if she would; and she went out, leaving him in undisturbed possession of his maps and his mountains.
She lingered long over her undressing; and when it was over could not bring herself to put out the lamp; but lay, waiting and listening for his coming. Then, as the night slipped away and the silence became a burden, a dead weight upon brain and heart, the old haunting dread of those days in Dalhousie came back upon her, and she shivered. The Pagan in her leaned too readily to superstitious fancy, and her dread shaped itself finally in a definite thought. "If he comes to me now, I know I shall conquer the mountains in the end. But if he doesn't come, they will be too strong for me. They will take him from me for good."
And he did not come; till one of the morning, when he found her fast asleep, the lamp still burning beside her.
[1] At once.
"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 aburra khana[1] to-night, Hazúr," 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 threechupattis; 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, Hazúr; and betting, like theSahiblog, 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, Hazúr! 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."
"Talkit 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 Godthat'sdone 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] Hazúr," 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, Hazúr, 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.
"And echo circles in the air,Is this the end—is this the end?"—Tennyson.
September was drawing to a close. Every day the sun fought a losing battle against the frost and bitter winds of the Pamirs, that pierce even through sheep-skin coats to the marrow of the bones; and every night the thermometer fell to zero, or below it. For winter begins betimes on the "Roof of the World."
On just such a night of keen stars, and still, penetrating cold, Lenox sat alone in his circular tent of felt and lattice-work—the one form of habitation used by the nomads of the district—his coat-collar turned up, a rug round his legs, his fingers numb and blue, writing up the official and private records of his week's work. In the middle of the floor a fire of roots flamed and crackled cheerfully enough, the smoke, and most of the heat, escaping through a hole in the domed roof above. A felt rug or two, a camp chair and table, and three sheep-skin bags, laid out for sleeping, gave an air of rough comfort to the place. But with the thermometer at zero, fuel scarce, and provisions running very low, actual comfort was past praying for. Lenox shifted his chair an inch or two nearer the blaze, drawing the camp table along with him, and disturbing Brutus, who acted as foot-warmer in return for the privilege of sleeping under the rug.
"Sorry to shunt you, old chap," he apologised aloud. "But you're a deal better off down there than I am."
Sundry tappings on his left foot signified grateful acknowledgment of the fact, as Brutus settled himself afresh and dropped back into the land of dreams, whither Lenox would gladly have followed him. For the week had been a hard one, and he was very tired. The frost seemed to have gripped both body and brain, and too long a spell of mountaineering at high altitudes was beginning to tell upon his strength; so that he had been thankful for the flat expanses of the Pamirs, which had made riding possible and pleasant once again.
His entrance into the brigand state, and his polite, but unequivocal ultimatum to its insubordinate chief had been carried through, not without moments of uncertainty and danger, yet with complete success, and throughout the past six weeks he had been enjoying his first big tour of that strange region of raised valleys and vast, wind-swept spaces where the boundary lines of three Empires meet.
Since the night when he had flung away the cherished pill-box that now lay regally entombed under fifty feet of snow, he had suffered no collapse. His gradual method of unwinding the chain had averted that final danger and degradation. Bat there had been days when all his training in self-discipline had been needed to restrain him from applying to Zyarulla, whose kummerbund held a perennial store of the precious drug,—the more so since his Ladaki 'cook'—chosen mainly for his powers of endurance—knew rather less about the primitive requirements of camp catering than Lenox himself; and in spite of keen air and exercise his appetite had steadily fallen away. There were rare days, of course, when he could have eaten camel's flesh, and that gratefully; but there were many more when the mere man yearned towards the luxury of plate and silver, of varied meats, and the sparkle of an iced peg. To-night his 'dinner' consisted of a large cup of cocoa, some native biscuits, and a lump of milk-cheese made by the Khirgiz, whose domed huts and scattered flocks are the only signs of human life in this dry region of snow and sun and tireless wind.
On the table at his elbow, besides the steaming cocoa, were two camp candlesticks, some closely written sheets of a letter to Quita, and her last that had reached him outside Hunza five weeks ago. Each one he had received showed more clearly how the mysterious influence of absence was winning for him that volatile essence of her which had eluded his grasp throughout six months of personal contact, and years of unwearied devotion. Of the deeper, hidden forces at work on his behalf, he guessed nothing. Only he was aware of subtle changes taking place in her—of an indefinable softening and uplifting of the whole woman, that increased tenfold his longing for a reunion which promised to be closer, more consummate than the best that they had achieved as yet.
But to-night, because body and spirit were flagging unawares, the miles upon miles of inhospitable mountain country, that must be traversed before he could regain the outposts of civilised life, overpowered his imagination. To-night, for the first time, despondency and the ache of desire magnified the very real dangers ahead—the lateness of the season, the uncertainty of weather and supplies. Difficulties in respect of transport had obliged him to cut down his commissariat, despatching the remainder, with his heavy baggage, to await him on the Indian side of the Darkót Pass—the last great obstacle that cut him off from India, and from the dear woman, never dearer than at this moment. It was a risk, of course, and a big one. But mountaineering implies risks; and the man who is not prepared to face them and sleep soundly on them, had better stick to his armchair and an office.
The original risk had been increased by the fact that his programme of exploration had taken longer than he calculated, and now ominous snow-clouds, a rapidly dwindling food supply, and his own importunate heart, urged an immediate start for the terrible Wakhan Valley and the Darkót Pass. It meant a race for life—that he saw plainly enough. The chances were ten to one against the Pass being open after the 1st of October—the earliest date by which he could hope to get across.
With a sigh, he closed his diaries, emptied the cup of cocoa at a gulp, and took out of his breast-pocket a folded leather frame. It contained a photo of Quita in evening dress—a photo so disturbingly alive that in general he contented himself with the knowledge that it was there. But now he sat looking at it long and intently, till the eyes seemed to soften and speech hovered on the too-expressive lips. Almost the music of her voice was in his ears, when the night's colossal stillness was broken by voices of a very different quality—the deep tones of the two Pathans and the interpreter, who, on this lightly-equipped expedition, were sharing his tent; while the six little Gurkhas, packed like sardines into a smaller one, seemed to find the experience as amusing as they found the whole varied field of life. It takes more than mere hardship to knock the spirits out of a Gurkha.
As the three men entered, Lenox slipped the frame back into his pocket; and, with a few friendly words, gave them leave to retire into their sleeping bags, while Zyarulla laid out his master's 'bed' on the farther side of the fire. That done, he came forward, and, squatting on his heels, held out fingers like knotted twigs to the blaze. Lenox, under a pretence of reading, sat watching him spellbound, knowing precisely what would happen next. Nor was he mistaken. Presently the thawed fingers fumbled at his kummerbund, produced a discoloured twist of paper, opened it, and taking out two familiar dark pellets, tossed them down his throat. In the act he met his master's gaze fixed on him with strange intensity, and at once two more pellets appeared upon his palm.
"Will not the Sahib honour his servant by partaking also?" he asked, proffering his treasure. "The cold increaseth every hour, and the Heaven-born hath had too little food to-day."
It was a moment before Lenox could find his voice; not because temptation mastered him, but because he could scarcely believe the evidence of his brain. The sight of the forbidden thing within easy reach no longer tormented him as it would have done two months ago. The habit of resistance was beginning to take effect at last; and, almost before Zyarulla had time to wonder at his silence, Lenox had waved aside his open palm.
"No, no," he said quietly. "I have eaten enough, and thou wilt need all and more before we set foot in a bazaar again. Opium is not for Sahibs. For the Pathan people, who are made of wood and iron, it may be very well; but for the white man it is poison."
The Asiatic shook his head, and a light gleamed under his grizzled brows.
"Great is the wisdom of the Sahib; yet in this matter have I also some knowledge. The Dream Compeller is no poison, Hazúr, but Allah's bountiful gift to man, bringing strength out of weakness, peace out of turmoil, even as the rain draweth grass from parched earth. Nevertheless, it is as your Honour wills."
And Lenox, still watching the man's movements with a strange mingling of indifference and triumph, saw the miracle-worker—of whose powers he knew far more than the Pathan—disappear unhindered into the folds of the man's kummerbund; saw himself once more a free man,—captain of the soul and body given into his charge.
"Now it is time to sleep," he said, pushing back his chair, and rising so abruptly that Brutus stumbled on to his feet, and emerged from the folds of the rug with an injured air. "All things are in readiness for setting out?"
"Hazúr, all things are in readiness."
"It is well. Scatter ashes on the fire, and call me at dawn."
And as he slipped into the sheep-skin bag, his whole heart echoed the words, "It is well." Let him only win his way back to the wife whose spirit called to him across the silence and the miles, and all would be well indeed!
Ten minutes later, the candles were put out; the glow of the fire quenched; while outside the temperature fell steadily, and a sky heavy with threatening cloud brooded over the sleeping camp.
Lenox woke before dawn to find a creditable snow-peak piled above his dead fire, while flakes as large as plucked feathers whirled and fluttered down upon it through the generous hole in the roof. The three natives had vanished, sleeping bags and all; and the Ladaki cook, with the astounding patience of his kind, had coaxed into life a fire large enough to make his master a cup of tea from the few remaining spoonfuls of the magic leaf, more priceless to the mountaineer than brandy.
It was a bad beginning. Even the Gurkhas looked grave, and shook their heads. The sky, low and heavy with tumbled cloud, was a study in greys and indigoes; the earth a still, uncharted waste. No whisper of wind or trees; no sound of life; no break of colour anywhere, from the level plain to the galaxy of peaks and rounded shoulders tossed aloft like a frozen tempest. Only at intervals, far up the mountain-sides, black specks—that were grazing yaks—suggested a Khirgiz encampment cunningly hidden in the folds of the hills. Presumably the sun was up, though the east showed as lifeless and unpromising as any other quarter of the heavens.
A detailed investigation of the commissariat department—revealing a serious shortage of tea, cocoa, and rice, to say nothing of minor essentials—proved no less discouraging than the aspect of earth and sky. Only by the most stringent economy could the little store be persuaded to last out four days, by which time they hoped to be over the pass. Lenox, as usual, blamed himself.
"Extra work on siege rations is about our programme!" he remarked with grim humour to his devoted ally the little Havildar. "We must manage the first three marches in two days if possible. But I'm sorry to have let you all in for a risk of this kind."
"All right, Sahib," the Gurkha answered with a brisk salute. "We be Frontier soldiers. It is not the first time. And 'when sparrows have picked up the grain where is the use of regret?' If there be enough for your Honour all is well. The black man can tighten his belt, and forget that the stomach is empty!" He tightened his own on the spot; and went off to bid his brothers do likewise on pain of dire penalties.
Stepping down, undismayed, from the voiceless, trackless Roof of the World, they were met by a desolating wind; the feathered snow-flakes changed to a storm of sleet,—stinging, saturating; and only the knowledge that twenty-four hours delay might mean a blocked pass and another six months of isolation from his kind, induced Lenox to urge his men forward in the teeth of it.
As it was, they pushed doggedly on over snow-sodden tracks, that were speedily converted into drainage rivulets; trailing single file along the 'devil's pathways' that overhang the Wakhan river,—mere ledges cut out of the cliff's face, where a false step means dropping a hundred feet and more into the valley beneath; scrambling up giant staircases of rock, and glacierdébris; zigzagging down one or two thousand feet, by the merest suggestion of a route, only to start a fresh climb—drenched and weary—after floundering through a local torrent, rushing full 'spate' from the hills. Such crossings, without bridge or boat, through streams ice-cold as the glaciers that gave them birth, formed the most exciting episodes of the day's march. They had at least the merit of creating a diversion, if a damp and dangerous one. For the Kashmir baggage ponies, battling helplessly against a current strong enough to sweep them off their feet, could only be guided and controlled by showers of stones, and a chorus of picturesque terms of abuse from their distracted drivers. The Gurkhas, whose irrepressible spirits kept the rest from flagging, enjoyed these interludes to the top of their bent; plunging waist-deep into the icy water, shaking themselves like terriers as they scrambled out on the far side, and shouting incessantly to each other, or to the terrified animals, till the cliffs echoed with ghostly voices and laughter.
Along tracks possible and impossible Lenox rode his tireless scrap of a hill pony, who climbed like a goat, and whose unshod feet picked their way unerringly even over rocks covered with new snow that gave no foothold to man or beast. The rest walked; while the baggage ponies slid and stumbled, and scrambled in their wake with the stupefied meekness of their kind.
Journeying thus,—now drenched with snow and sleet, now heartened by rare bursts of sunshine,—through the worst bit of hill country between Persia and China, they camped at last in the grim Wakhan valley, rightly named 'the Valley of Humiliation.' To Lenox, the name struck home with a peculiar force. For his time-saving scheme had failed. The three marches had not been accomplished in two days. Evil weather, incessant delays, and the impossibility of hurrying baggage animals over dangerous ground, had prevailed against him. The valley had conquered: and for the man remained nothing but stoical acceptance of defeat, and the 'half of a broken hope' that even in heaven and earth's despite, he might yet win through in time.
On a night of intermittent moonbeams and racing cloud, the scene from the little camp across the river had a sombre majesty—a suggestion of impersonal, relentless power that crushes rather than uplifts; that dwarfs man, with his puny struggles and aspirations, to a pin-point of sand on an illimitable shore. Colossal ice-bound spurs walled them in; their sides astonishingly steep, their embattled heads shattered by sun and frost into fantastic peaks, from which masses of rock and stones are hurled down into the valley, when rain and melting snow begin their yearly task of modelling the face of the earth. And between these threatening heights the Wakhan river hurried, a pale streak of light, now grey, now silver, as the clouds, like great birds of ill-omen, chased one another across the moon.
The sinister aspect of the place had its effect on Lenox, hypersensitised as he was by anxiety over lost hours, and by the premonitory chill of fever, strengthening that prescience of disaster which saps spirit and courage more surely than disaster itself. But they were on the march again betimes, next morning, breasting the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush, which at this point can be crossed without much difficulty. Before noon they were over the crest; and Lenox, weary at last of his nightmare struggle with the mountains, dropped thankfully into the Yarkhun valley, beyond which towered his last great obstacle—the Darkót Pass.
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 scum 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 pass 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 pass. 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 fromYasin, on the Indian side of the Pass.
"This man, Sahib, hath even now crossed over from Darkót 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 crevasses 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 nearestaul; 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 muffled 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.
"Hazúr, look whether the thing can be done. I said—if no snow fell."
"AndIsay, if it fall or no, we cross to-day," Lenox answered, with more of assurance than he felt. "Bid the yaks go forward to prepare a way for our coming."
The great shaggy beasts went forward accordingly, head downward, ploughing a way through the snow, to make marching easier and disclose hidden pitfalls or crevasses; 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 gods 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 God avoided hidden fissures and crevasses 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, muffled 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 crevasse!