Such was actually their purpose; but the only purpose they served that night was to amuse Maurice, who spent a good hour studying them while dreaming over his pipe.
This was after we were comfortably housed and supper eaten. Meanwhile the storm, of which we had already had a taste, being in it half an hour before we reached the guard house, was raging furiously outside.
The Doctor as usual, had laid down to sleep on the most comfortable part of the k’ang, Mirrikh was seated crosslegged facing him, busy writing in that same little book about which I had made such a stir in the old tower at Ballambong. I was pacing the floor lost in thought apparently, but actually watching the man as he wrote. I had watched him before and more than once I questioned him about those strange characters and the language they represented, but I never succeded in getting any information worth recording here.
“It is my native language,” he replied, the first time I asked him. “You cannot understand it, Mr. Wylde.”
“Learned on Mars?” was my incredulous query.
He assured me that it was so, and probably my manner of receiving the statement was what prevented me from getting further particulars. Often since I have wished that I had acted differently and learned something definite about the matter; but I neglected my opportunity and can only add that upon another occasion he told me the characters were entirely arbitrary and in no sense an alphabet, being rather stenographic—each expressing a word, several words, a thought.
How the wind howled! I can hear it now! Nor was it any wonder, when you stop to consider that we were, as I learned later, over 11,000 feet above sea level; fortunately we were under the shelter of a lofty peak which towered far above us on the northwest, and what was more to the point, a perpendicular wall of rock at least one hundred feet high rose directly behind the guard house—the location had been chosen, no doubt, for that very cause.
Cold? Well, make no mistake on that score! The k’ang was almost useless to one three feet away. I had sent Ah Schow out to throw an extra sheepskin over my mule who was far from being in condition, poor brute, and was just wondering why he did not come in again, when all at once Mr. Mirrikh leaped from the k’ang with a startled cry.
