All that day over the plain, resting at night in our own tent at the foot of the loftiest mountain I had yet seen.
Morning found us ascending the foot hills, and by noon we reached the beginning of a pass between two snowy peaks, the bed of some ancient river certainly, where huge boulders and masses of broken rock lay heaped in inexplicable confusion with a narrow trail winding in and out.
This was our road, according to Mr. Mirrikh—we were trusting entirely to his guidance now.
“Seems to me it would have paid you better to have made one jump from Benares to Psam-dagong,” I said in a sarcastic moment.
“And left you to struggle with all these dangers alone?” he replied. “You do not do me half justice, Mr. Wylde.”
“Do you mean to say that you knew you would meet us at the inn?”
“Most certainly I did.”
“And your body?”
“Was delivered there by my orders, of course.”
“Upon my word you timed it well then.”
“Such was my intention.”
“How did you manage?”
“No matter now. The Doctor is trying to overtake us. We will talk of this some other time.”
Maurice’s mule was decidedly the best, and, as usual, had gone ahead. Mr. Mirrikh and I followed, while the Doctor and our Celestial cuisiniere had fallen behind.
“Do you know, Wylde, we are running head first into a snow storm?” called the former as he spurred up the slope. “What do you think about it Mr. Mirrikh? Am I not right?”
The adept surveyed the clouds, which for some time had been gathering.
“There certainly is a storm approaching,” he said at length. “I have been blind not to notice it before.”
“I saw it half an hour back,” said the Doctor, proudly, “and I’ve been trying ever since to force this lazy brute along so as to overtake you. Is Maurice far ahead?”
I pointed upward. There, fully two hundred feet above us, was Maurice mounted on his mule, moving at a snail’s pace it seemed, but it was rapid compared with our own.
“We ought to warn him. What are we to do, Mr. Mirrikh?”
