“For God’s sake Doctor, have a care what you say.” I cried. “Here we are perched on top of this pinnacle expecting to be hurled to death at any moment. Are we to spend our last hours in senseless quarrels? Look! Look yonder through the arch on the other side of the cañon and tell me what you see.”
“By Jove! It’s a city!” cried the Doctor. “It’s Lh’asa!”
And so it was. I had espied it while the Doctor was talking. There, far in the distance, lay the metropolis of the Buddhist world. Its low houses of snowy whiteness, interspersed in every direction with the gilded roofs of numerous temples, reminded me not a little of the city I had seen in my first Martian vision; high above all towered the majestic palace of the Tale Lama.
If there was any reliance to be placed upon the statements of geographers, this could be no other city than the far-famed Lh’asa.
And if this was true, then how far were we from Psam-dagong? The length of those remarkable underground passages must have been greater even than we had supposed.
But we had ample time to ponder over the problem, for the day passed and darkness fell upon us. Still our rock stood firm.
It was a fearful day for me.
Added to the horrors of our situation was the dissension among us and poor Walla’s condition.
The girl would neither speak nor eat; she would not even respond to Maurice, but remained in what I think must have been a half entranced condition, muttering in her own language at times. At first I thought she was praying, but afterward I rather came to doubt it. As for Maurice, he positively declined to hold any communication with the Doctor—would not even answer him when he offered an apology.
Then again in that old earthen pot we had perhaps five pounds of cooked rice and not a drop of water.
The horrors of thirst were already upon us and starvation stared us in the face.
Long before night came all hope had departed, and I prayed most devoutly that the rock might fall and hurl us to our doom.
