CHAPTER I
THE PROFESSOR JOINS
SEVERN fired again. This time a crinkle of grim amusement drew down the wrinkles about bis stark blue eyes. He had dropped one of the filthy Mongolian guides who had led him into the trap. His sun-blackened face was leathery, harsh, very keen. He seemed to ignore the stench of the rotting camel whose body served him as a breastwork. On the hairy fore-shoulder were laid three cartridges—his last three.
This is an age of specialization, as folk are apt at saying without comprehending their own words. Severn was a specialist in Chinese ethnic and lingual affairs. His work on Irano-Sinica was a classic of research. His monograph of six hundred pages on the admirable Chinese system of transcribing foreign words was a monument of philology. He had proved that the anthropomorphic conceptions in ancient Chinese religion were not really anthropomorphic at all.
His specialization led him to spend a year in Chinese Turkestan, working up gradually across the Shamo Desert toward Mongolia, and studying the dialects. This was now the tag-end of the year—a year of ethnic triumph, a year of personal disaster. His wife had died in his arms and lay buried in the Gobi. A collection of Indo-Scythian documents had been burned by lazy camelmen. Severn himself had been partially frozen during a storm on the Hu-shan gravel steppes. A drowned camel had carried down all his instruments and personal belongings excepting a rifle.
Through all and much more Severn had come unembittered, gravely silent, with the same kindly, searching blue eyes and the same gentle deftness that made men love him. And now, at the year's end, he had come to life's end also.
Severn fired again, and his smile vanished. A miss; he did not like to miss. He had been ten hours without food or water, excepting such as he could get from the humps of the rotting Bactrian. Now he put his remaining cartridges into the magazine and waited. His last day on earth! A bullet snicked through the camel's fore-shoulder, spatted on a boulder and whanged off into space.
Behind Severn lay a frightful Odyssey, begun in the Chinese Turkestan deserts. Now he was somewhere at the edge of the Khangai plateau. At the back was the Gobi, or as the Chinese term it, the Shamo; ahead lay the Sajan range and Lake Baikal. Eastward lay Karakorum, the desolate ruins of the capital of Genghis Khan. Clad in Mongol skins, bearded and haggard, Severn was scarce recognizable as a white man.
He lay in a little hollow among ancient boulders, rising ground all around. It was not a good position, but he had not chosen it. About him rose the rim of the hollow, circular horizon perhaps a quarter-mile in diameter. Half-way down from the rim, on all sides, were the Mongols into whose trap his treacherous guides had led him. They numbered a dozen.
A strange ending for a man learned in ancient lores and forgotten tongues, a scholar revered by Sinologues and ethnic students alike. Here he lay in a little gray rocky bowl, all his world shrunk down to this; the man of wisdom had become a primitive barbarian who sought only to slay before he himself was slain. Ignorant of the huge riches within his brain, they would murder him for the trifle of worldly pelf he had left, and would leave that brain to the birds. Sheer wasteful destruction—the young world's way.
From here and there about the indrawing circle of death muskets and rifles banged, bullets or slugs whirred above the central figure. Severn lay motionless, waiting until his final two cartridges might tell most effectually. And as he waited he lifted bloodshot blue eyes to the rim of his little horizon.
Now he saw what he deemed a mirage, a hallucination. For, limned there against the blazing sky, sharp and distinct in every detail, he saw a group of six men who stood and watched him. Five of them were bearded men in khaki, topped by rakish turbans; those turbans gave back a sun-glitter of steel, and Severn knew the steel for the turban-rings of Sikh troopers. Sikh troopers—here! The sixth man was a white man, also in khaki, and all six were calmly gazing down as if awaiting the end of this butchery.
A croaking laugh broke from Severn. The laugh died out in a gasp of startled surprize.
The white man had raised his hand in a gesture of command. At this gesture the Sikhs lifted their rifles and fired. Real men, real rifles! More than this, from other quarters came an answering crackle of rifle-fife. Severn turned his head and saw other parties of men at the rim of the sunken basin, firing downward.
A reechoing swirl of frantic yells broke up from the bouldered waste. Here and there leaped out Mongols, filthy, skin-clad figures. They scurried from here and yon, all trying to reach the cluster of tethered ponies. Some dropped. The rifle-fire from the rim of the bowl was an irregular but continuous crackle.
Severn rose to his feet, trembling a little. He lifted his rifle, forced his hands into steadiness and fired twice; the last brace of his treacherous guides fell to the bullets. Then Severn took out his pipe, took out the pinch of tobacco wrapped in a squill of silk that he had preserved for two weeks, and filled his pipe.
He watched, sucking the unlighted pipe, for he had no light. Three of the Mongols reached the ponies; the others were dead. These three made a frantic effort to escape out of the bowl, but for them there was no escape. Bullets brought down their horses. Bullets killed them as they came to their feet again. That party was wiped out to the last man, mercilessly, efficiently, with a cold precision which startled Severn.
Who were these rescuers? Had he gone suddenly mad, or was this reality?
He sat down on the fore-shoulder of the camel. The three parties of men were Corning down from the rim of this little world, but the closest was that which he had first seen. He stared at the white man who strode ahead of the Sikhs—a tall, ruggedly handsome type with the chopped-off angular jaw that bespoke south-of-England blood. Recognition dawned in the eyes of Severn; he had met this man somewhere in the past. Ah, yes! At the Naval Club in Weihaiwei a year or so ago; it seemed centuries. He remembered the chap now.
“Hullo, Kilgore!” he exclaimed as his rescuer came up. “You haven't a match, have you?”
“Upon my word—it's Severn!” Kilgore's hand shot out. “Man, I didn't recognize you! Where's the rest of your crowd?”
Kilgore produced a match-box. Severn lighted his pipe and answered curtly—
“Dead.”
“No, not these chaps.” Kilgore frowned slightly. “I mean the party you went up-country with; Mrs. Severn, the Jansen brothers and old Tom Fellows the botanist. No word has come through from any of you for months. I never dreamed you were up this way. At last reports your expedition was around Kashgar.”
Severn met the warm smile of Kilgore with impassive features. Then he kicked at the rotting camel twice.
“This,” he said reflectively, “is what's left. And me.”
Kilgore started. The profound melancholy of those words affrighted him. He guessed that Severn was going to pieces inside, breaking up fast; it was a crucial moment. The wrong word, the wrong tone, and Severn would go mad, shoot himself, snap somewhere. Only such a man as Kilgore would have guessed this, for Severn appeared quite steady.
The Canadian—for such Kilgore really was—snapped out an order and his five Sikhs went on to join their advancing fellows. Then he produced a cigaret and lighted it. His words came fast, but not too fast, getting swift impact on Severn's brain.
“Our scouts heard the firing this morning, and we came ahead. Surrounded the place, of course; if any of these chaps had gotten away, would have been bad for us. Confounded lucky thing we've met you, Severn. You're the one man I know who might solve the enigma we're up against—the Temple of the Ten Dromedaries. We'll seize it, of course, but none of us are in your class, and we'd only waste the greatest opportunity an ethnologist could have. If you could come along with us, now—oh, hello! Here are my companions in crime.”
Severn looked up. Curiosity was already rising in his brain; he was steady now, in control again, and the critical instant was past. To join the two men came two others; Severn saw that there were a score of Sikhs engaged in rounding up the horses of the Mongol raiders, and all had been led by Kilgore and his two companions.
Severn was introduced to Day, a huge, cheerful American, and to Sir Fandi Singh, a Rajput gentleman, bearded and swart. An odd company, he thought. And before much speech had passed among them, Severn spoke his curiosity. Kilgore was handing about a canteen of lukewarm water as if he were quite unaware that Severn was perishing of thirst.
“How on earth did you fellows come to be here—with these Sikhs?”
There was a general smile, and Kilgore made off-hand response.
“Oh, we expect to reach the Temple of the Ten in a day or so. Let's get out of this devilish hot bowl and back to the horses. We can talk then in some peace.”
THEY walked back toward the rim by the way Kilgore had come, and in silence. Severn, safely over that tremendous shock of meeting white men in his present circumstances, was already afire at thought of Kilgore's words and their implications. Why not? He had heard of the Temple of the Ten Dromedaries; every one in Mongolia had heard of it, a place fabulous as the palace of Kubla Khan. The tales about it would have done credit to the Arabian romancers; singing fishes, purple grass, magic and wonders innumerable! Severn, like other men of fact, had ignored the tales, taking them for fiction pure and simple.
Day produced some chocolate and Severn seized it eagerly.
“Do you mean to say,” he demanded between bites, “that this place does exist?”
Kilgore gave him a sidelong glance and smiled in satisfaction.
“We've been there—at least, Fandi Singh and I have. We're going back. These chaps who tried to pot you were members of the temple tribe. Their own name for the place, by the way, is Darkan.”
At this word a singular light blazed up in the eyes of Severn.
“Darkan!” he murmured. “That is extraordinary!”
Kilgore smiled again, as if he had calculated the effect of this word.
The four men went on in silence. At the crest of the depression they sighted the horses, waiting at a little distance. Day placed a whistle at his lips and blew a shrill blast. The horse-guards brought forward the animals, while the Sikhs began the ascent from the basin.
Severn glanced around, his eyes sparkling.
“Where is your baggage train?” he demanded. “Your camels and”
“They come to meet us at Darkan,” said Kilgore. “They are in charge of Sheng Wu, a Chinese political agent and a most efficient man; he has an escort of fifty Manchu horsemen. We pushed ahead for a surprize stroke. Now, we'll camp here until night; do you want to clean up first and sleep afterward?”
“By all means,” rejoined Severn.
The Sikhs assembled, and Severn sahib was introduced; they were delighted at having rescued him, grinned and jested like boys, proud of their work. The last four to arrive bore two Mongol bodies, which they laid down. Kilgore beckoned to Severn.
“Here's a surprize for you! Did you ever see Mongols like these?”
Severn stood over the two bodies, astonished. They were totally unlike the usual men of the steppes, except in the common denominator of dirt. The complexions were clear, the death-fixed eyes were gray, almost without obliquity. The frontal measure was very wide.
“Broad, high brow—benevolent-looking ducks!” said Day. “But it's all in looks. They are large men, eh? No bow-legged little Tatars!”
“I think their language is a compound of Russian and Mongol,” added Kilgore. “Can you make anything of their race, Severn?”
The latter nodded thoughtfully.
“It's quite clear,” he observed. “The type has turned up before—descendants of the Russian sect of Starovertsi, or 'old believers,' who came here from Russia in the eighteenth century and were swallowed up by the Mongol Kirgiz hordes. Quite clear.”
Day stared hard at him for a moment, then clapped him lustily on the shoulder.
“You win, professor! I take off my hat to you. Come along, now—Fandi has raided our haversacks for a shirt and pants, and we'll spare you enough water for a shave”
In effect, camp had been made while they examined the two bodies. It was a simple camp; no fires, since “they hadn't de quoi,” little water, no shelter. It was the camp of men who are staking everything on one swift, sure stroke.
Severn was aided to bathe and shave, none grudging him the precious water. Enough odd garments were found to clothe him. When the job was finished, he was staggering with mental and physical weariness and reaction—but he looked and felt like a new man.
“You'd better eat no more until after you've slept, old man,” said Kilgore. “Here you are; curl up in this hollow and I'll fling a coat over you. I presume you'll throw in with us, what?”
Severn lifted his face to the clean sky, and uttered his first sane laugh in months.
“With all my heart!”