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, s.h.a.ggy 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 Pa.s.s,--Lenox's own Pa.s.s, 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 G.o.ds', 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 G.o.d's men and women have red blood in their veins.

[1] Big dinner.

[2] Great excitement.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

"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 alt.i.tudes 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 s.p.a.ces 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 k.u.mmerbund 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 appet.i.te 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 Darkot Pa.s.s--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 Darkot Pa.s.s. It meant a race for life--that he saw plainly enough.

The chances were ten to one against the Pa.s.s 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 k.u.mmerbund, 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, Hazur, but Allah's bountiful gift to man, bringing strength out of weakness, peace out of turmoil, even as the rain draweth gra.s.s 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 k.u.mmerbund; 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?"

"Hazur, 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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.s 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 glacier _debris_; 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 sc.r.a.p 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 sh.o.r.e. Colossal ice-bound spurs walled them in; their sides astonishingly steep, their embattled heads shattered by sun and frost into fantastic peaks, from which ma.s.ses 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 Darkot Pa.s.s.