Sullivan wiped the blood from his eyes and glanced around to find the thickest of the fray. There was none. The Kazaks were already horsed, and the survivors were racing down the gulley.
CHAPTER TEN
AT THE EDGE of the Takla Makan they met the old Khan of Kokonor. He was a little man with a straggling white beard and streaming white moustaches that flew out on each side of his helmet. Derrick thought he looked a curious figure to lead the fiercest horde in Mongolia, and he was surprised at the deference with which Ross and Sullivan greeted him. They dismounted before he did, and walked across the sand to shake his hand: the old Khan was ill at ease out of the saddle, and he waddled on his bowed legs as he advanced to meet them.
Everyone stood well aside in silence while the three talked. After a little while they parted: the Khan shook hands again, nodded to his sons, and was gone in a cloud of dust.
“Was that funny little man the Khan Hulagu?” asked Derrick.
His uncle was thinking of other things: he looked worried, and his face was dark. But after a moment he forced a smile and said, “That funny little man, as you call him, is the Khan. He has probably killed more men that you have ever spoken to in your life, merely in guarding his own lands: what he could do if he went on the loose, I hesitate to think. I wouldn’t call him a funny little man if I were you.”
Sullivan and Ross walked on to where the Professor stood: they drew him aside out of earshot, and Sullivan said, “I am afraid we have bad news. We cannot go on by the road we planned, and we cannot go back. The Kazaks have cut the roads to the Gobi, and they have defeated the Khan’s men north of the Takla Makan. He is very short of men just now, until he can get his scattered horde together, but he will give us a dozen men for a month to take us south of the Takla Makan to the Kirghiz country. We will be safe there. it is a quicker road than the one we proposed before, but it will give you no archaeology at all—it will be hard riding all the way.”
“I am all for speed at this juncture,” said the Professor, “and I feel that I would rather get the jade home than make any number of diggings, however exciting they might be. But will it be necessary to deprive this worthy man of so many of his followers?”
“If you want to carry your head home as well as your jade,” said Ross, “you will thank your stars that the Khan has made the offer. I wish that he could let us have ten times as many. Ever since this clumsy lubber Sullivan killed the Altai Khan’s son there has been a blood-feud between us and them, and they’ll be after us like a pack of wolves.”
“Yes. That is the case,” said Sullivan, shaking his head. “And that is not the only danger. The old Khan does not know exactly what has happened in the north, and there is the possibility—the very faint possibility, mind—that the Kazaks might come down through the middle of the Takla Makan and cut our road before we can get through.” He drew a rough oval in the sand. “Here are we,” he said, pointing to the narrow end of the egg, “and we have got to hurry along the southern edge. If they should come down thus”—he drew a line through the middle of the egg—“and hit this southern edge by the Kunlun mountains before we have passed the point where they reach our path, why, then things might be very bad.”
“Yes,” said the Professor, gravely. “I quite see that.”
“But,” said Ross, “although they might be very bad, they would not be hopeless. There are some places where it is possible to get up through the Kunlun into Tibet—but we hardly need worry our heads about that. The chances of the Kazaks coming down through the desert are really very slight. Our chief aim must be to get along as fast as ever we can, and I think we should talk from our saddles, rather than wandering about like lambs waiting for the butcher.”
They stripped the column down to its bare necessities. Bale after bale they left standing in the sand, food, books and the Professor’s rubber bath: they changed all the camel-loads that could not be left behind on to horses, and by the light of the crescent moon alone they rode hard for the south. Yet fast though they went, the Mongols were not satisfied: they pushed on and on until Derrick slept in his saddle, and Li Han had to have his feet tied under his horse’s belly to keep him on. Twice young Hulagu made wide sweeping detours through stony patches of the desert, keeping the horses trotting throughout the night, although they were so tired that they could hardly stand: but in spite of all their care, on the third day they saw dust on the horizon behind them, and by noon through the binoculars they could see that below the dust rode a troop of Kazaks. It was that same evening that on the southern sky there appeared a long, low cloud that never moved. It was the Kunlun mountains, and as the sun set they could see the snow of the distant peaks glow red.
Day after day they travelled swiftly to the south, keeping to the edge of the desert for the rare wells and the grass for their horses; and day after day the Kazaks followed them. It was hard on the men, but it was harder on the horses: they carried very little corn, and the grass the horses could find was not enough to keep even those hardy beasts going at that killing pace. The mares that they brought with them for their milk dried up, and then one horse after another dropped behind. Fortunately they had many spare horses, in the Tartar fashion, and they hoped that under the mountains they would find better pasture.
When they first appeared, the Kazaks were more numerous than the flying expedition, but Hulagu had hopes of reducing their numbers: not only had they fewer spare horses, being so far from home, but they did not know the springs so well, and every night, once it was certain that they were discovered, the Kokonor men fired the grass so that there would be none for the pursuers, for during the first ten days of their flight the wind was in their faces, and the fire, when it spread, ran back towards the Kazaks.
Hulagu was right. In time the Kazaks dwindled in number to such a degree that the expedition was no longer hopelessly outnumbered, and after they had made sure of that by repeated counts, they slowed their pace to a speed that would not kill their horses—a speed that they could keep up for a month on end. The Kazaks did the same: by pressing hard they could now have caught up with the expedition, but they hung back, waiting like wolves for some disaster, some well that would fail, or for some one of the hundred mischances that could befall to happen and deliver their prey to them unarmed.
The column no longer rode in a compact line: there were the baggage horses in the centre, with the poorest riders; then a rear-guard of the Kokonor Mongols, with either Ross or Sullivan; and far in front three or four of the best horses. Chingiz and Derrick were usually sent out in front, being the lightest of the party, and the least likely to tire their horses; and all day as they rode they scanned the horizon to the north and west.
Every day as they rode south the Kunlun range rose higher in the sky, a vast series of mountains like a wall, rising abruptly from the plain: from less than half-way up they were covered with snow, and innumerable higher, more snowy, peaks showed behind them. Behind that monstrous wall was Tibet, but it seemed impossible that any man should get up there, or live if he ever succeeded in his climb.
At last they began to turn right-handed to the west. The sun set in their eyes now, and now they were in the more fertile tract of country that led between the desert and the great rampart of mountains that floated above the clouds on their left, a long, thin stretch of country that would lead them to safety in the Kirghiz land.
They were in the foothills now, high, rolling, down-like slopes with grass that gave their horses heart and strength, and they were so near the mountains that they filled half the sky, towering up and up so that they had to lean back to see the tops. The days went by, so many of them that Derrick lost count of the days of the week, and they came at last to the place called Tchirek Chagu. Several of the Mongols had been here, for it was a meeting-place for those who had come down through the desert to the southern trail, and here sometimes in the earlier part of the year a few Tibetans would come down and trade. They rode with redoubled caution here, looking out far ahead; but
when it was passed even Ross, who was the most cautious in saying hopeful words, said that he thought there was no longer any danger from the north. Several times they thought of turning to deal with the danger from the east, but whenever they stopped, the Kazaks stopped too. It would need several days to bring them to action, so the expedition went on, more slowly now, and almost at their ease.
They were riding along the most spectacular part of the southern trail, with the edge of the Takla Makan in sight on their right, and on their left the mountain wall rising sheer and black in the noblest precipice in the world, when one of the Mongols who had been there before pointed out the Gingbadze pass and the lamasery.
It seemed impossible that the small downward nick in the towering heights should be a pass, but as Derrick followed the pointing finger he could make out a minute square object just under it.
“That,” said the Mongol, “is the lamasery of Gingbadze, and the lamas who lived there made those steps that lead up to the pass.” Derrick looked harder still, and he made out a thin line running up the precipice, a continuous line of steps cut out of the living rock.
“So that is Gingbadze,” said the Professor. “I have often heard of it, but I never expected to see it.”
“Why did they cut the steps, sir?” asked Derrick.
“For the pilgrims,” replied the Professor. “They used to go up there in great numbers to the shrine of Sidhartha’s tooth in the days before the Red-Hats ruined the monastery.”
“Red-Hats, sir?”
“Another sort of lama—Tibetan monks, you know. A vicious, war-like set of men, from all I hear, whatever their theories may be. I should very much like to go up there. Sullivan, do you think we could go up to Gingbadze? The Kazaks were not seen today, I believe—and even if they are still behind us, they do not seem inclined to molest us any more.”
“No, they do seem to be falling back now: but consider, Professor, we should have to leave the horses at the foot of the pass, and if the Kazaks were to come up, where should we be then?”
“You are quite right, of course. How foolish of me. Still, on a happier occasion, it would be very agreeable to go up.”
They rode on, and that evening they camped in long grass, the most comfortable beds they had had for weeks: the grass was already in seed, and the horses ate themselves fat. In the morning they rode out at their leisure. There was still no sign of the Kazaks behind, but wishing to see farther back Derrick and Chingiz went up a knoll that gave them a clear view for a full day’s march and more behind them. The morning air was clear and sharp, but for a long while they saw nothing on their trail.
“There they are,” cried Chingiz, suddenly. He pointed, and Derrick saw a movement in the distance, far away, but still much nearer than he had been looking.
“Yes, they are still there,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He was just about to go down again when the cry of a bird along the mountain-side made him look round. He could not see the bird, but as he searched for it his eye caught a gleam from far away, something that sent back the rays of the rising sun. The gleam winked, twinkled, and was gone: yet he thought he could make out something moving far down there, between the desert and the hill. He called Chingiz, and they stared together. “It may be a mirage,” said Derrick—they had seen plenty, in the Gobi and in the Takla Makan—but Chingiz shook his head. “We cannot risk its being a mirage,” he said, and they hurried back to Sullivan. Sullivan looked doubtful. “It hardly can be anything,” he said, “but you had better take the glasses and look again. Keep well out of sight.”
They rode quickly to the knoll again, and raising only their heads above the skyline they searched the country with the glasses. Derrick caught the gleam again, a little line of flashes, and focused the glasses nearer. For a moment he could not make it out: the reflection seemed to be attached to nothing. Then the distant horseman topped the rise, and Derrick understood. All he had seen before was the row of lance-heads winking in the sun: the Kazaks had been hidden by the rising ground. The first came over the brow and into full view, then the second, then the third. He counted them: fifty, sixty, eighty-seven men. He handed the glasses to Chingiz, who gave one look and raced back.
“Dear me, what is the matter?” asked the Professor, as Sullivan called in the outriders and swung the column round.
“It’s Kazaks before the Kazaks behind,” said Sullivan. “There’s the desert to the north and the mountains to the south. You’ll see Gingbadze yet, Professor.”
He seemed in a high good humour, and for the moment the Professor did not understand. “Why should we see Gingbadze?” he asked. “Only yesterday you gave some excellent reason for not going there.”
“They have cut the road before us,” cried Sullivan, urging his horse to a gallop. “We have got to reach the Gingbadze steps before nightfall, or we shall be between two fires.”
They raced through the morning and the afternoon, never drawing rein for a moment, and continually watching the skyline before them for the Kazaks who had followed them so long. If the Kazaks from the east made a stand—and they were still too numerous to be brushed aside—the delay and the noise of battle would bring the western Kazaks up at full speed, and that would be the end.
Mile after mile sped by under their horses’ hooves, and at last they saw the great rampart of the Gingbadze wall appear. Still there was no sign of the Kazaks from the east.
At last the lamasery came in sight, vanishing and appearing through the drifting clouds high above them on the right, and at last they saw the Kazaks, a straggling band of men strung out over the plain.
“Now for it,” said Sullivan, as he saw the Kazaks drawing together in a compact body. He could make out no more than seven or eight riders, with a few led horses. The Kazaks stood firm, and one of them fired his rifle in the air—a signal, obviously, to bring up the slower men behind.
“Ross,” he said, when they were within extreme rifle-range, “you are a better shot than I am. See what you can do.”
Ross nodded, swung out of the column and dismounted. He unslung his rifle, the rifle he called the Messenger of Bad News, and rubbed its foresight on his sleeve: he lay down tranquilly on the grass and drew a bead on the midmost Tartar. But as his finger was curled round the trigger the Kazaks wheeled and fled from the advancing column. The dust obscured them, but Ross shifted his aim to the outside man on the left and fired. The Kazak threw up his arms and almost fell; but he gripped his horse’s neck and rode on, bowed low and drooping in his saddle.
Ross galloped after the column and rejoined them as they halted at the foot of the precipice. Already they were stripping the baggage-horses, loading the essentials into packs—warm clothes, food and ammunition—and one of the oldest Mongols was hastily scrawling a map on a piece of sheepskin for Sullivan.
Olaf was high up the steps, keeping watch. From time to time he reported that the eastern Kazaks were still going, and that those from the west were not yet in sight.
“No, Professor, you cannot take the Han bronzes,” said Sullivan firmly, folding away the map. “You can carry them well up the steps, and then you must bury them. Another expedition can fetch them away. After all, they have waited two thousand years—they can wait a little longer. And you had better do the same with the jade.”
“I will bury the bronze, if you insist,” said the Professor, “but I will not be parted from the jade. It is quite light. I can easily carry it.”
“All right, all right,” said Sullivan, tugging at a strap, “but whatever you do, do it quickly. Olaf, do you see anything to the west?”
“Nothing, Cap’n. Unless that little cloud is their dust. The sun will last another hour.”
“Hurry, hurry!” cried Sullivan, and they bent to their task.
In the twilight they were ready. Chingiz and two Mongols were to stay with them—the Khan’s orders had been exact, and these men were not to leave them until they were on the Kirghiz steppe—and Hulagu, Kubilai and the tribesmen were to
break out to the north through the desert. They could travel faster alone, and they hoped to rejoin their own horde, which would be gathering for the war at the Kodha well, before the Kazaks could reach them.
“Horsemen in the west,” cried Olaf from above.
“It is time,” said Hulagu. “Let the wise man give us a wind from the north, and we are safe.”
“He will do his best,” said Sullivan. They shook hands, and with a few words of parting they were gone.
For a moment the expedition watched them, and then began the climb. The steps were ancient and weather-worn, but they were as sound as the day they were first cut, for they were part of the hard rock itself. The rise was close on a yard with each step, and often the tread was narrow: it was a laborious climb, and after the first hundred they were sweating, though the air was cold.
At every hundredth step, wherever the rock formation made it possible, there was a broad platform for resting, but Sullivan drove them on and on. Derrick began counting the steps as he toiled up, but after a thousand he gave up.
In the gathering darkness they mounted, always up and up, and at last Sullivan said that they could take a rest.
“We are still within their range,” he said, “but this platform lies so far back that it gives us cover.”
“I suppose,” said the Professor, panting under his load, “that there is the possibility of their pursuing us still.”
“No, none at all,” replied Sullivan, peering over the edge. “Wherever a horse can go you are not safe from a Mongol. But they will not go where they cannot ride. Besides, they would never come up here, even if they could get their horses up, for fear of the devils. These men here would not be with us if they did not believe you were a powerful magician: even as it is, they are not at all happy, and the others who are somewhere down there below us are glad not to be in their places. I cannot see them,” he added, sweeping the plain with his glasses. The others joined him, but down there all was blank.