Part 10 (2/2)

CHAPTER XII.

The Watchers

IMMEDIATELY after the white-clothed figure disappeared, Zircon ordered a double guard on their encampments. Rick, Scotty, and the professors alternated in watching over the sleeping camp. Scotty was sure that the white figure was not one of the figures he had seen previously. The other figures had not been dressed in white.

On the second night after the doubling of the guard, it was Scotty's turn to stand first watch. Rick was dog-tired from the day-long hike, and the moment he stretched out he was asleep. He had no idea how long he had slept or what woke him, but he found himself starting to sit up slowly, not knowing why he was doing it. Had he heard a sound?

He strained to see into the darkness.

Then Rick heard it! Scotty's low whistle - their private signal! Again it pierced the darkness and this time he located it, off to his right.

Grabbing his tiny flashlight, he scrambled barefoot across the loose rock, gritting his teeth in anguish at each noisy crunch. He almost fell over Scotty in the darkness and with a tremble in his voice whispered, ”What is it?”

”I don't know,” Scotty answered hoa.r.s.ely. ”Sit here and watch.”

Rick eased himself to a sitting position and stared in the direction Scotty had indicated. Little lights began to dance before his eyes as he tried to pierce the darkness.

For a full quarter hour they barely breathed as they waited for some betraying sound. Finally it came.

A sliding sound, then a ripping of cloth and a soft exclamation in the dark. Then quiet again.

”Over there,” Scotty said, jabbing his finger toward the curve in the path.

Then they saw it. A white-clothed figure silhouetted against the sky.

”How did he get by the guard below?” Rick asked.

”That's probably his racket,” Scotty whispered.

They watched the figure bob up and run behind a rock and then scamper closer to them.

”We are going to take this character with the old school tackle,” Scotty whispered.

”You go high, I'll go low,” Rick answered. They crouched together.

For a moment Rick feared that the figure had heard them, but it rose again and straightened up. Too far to attack yet, but then he saw a hand stealing into the white robe and his heart leaped into his throat. He had seen knives come out of such robes, and knew they could wait no longer.

Without a sound, Rick's legs buckled and in the next split second he and Scotty were flying through the air, straight for the figure in the darkness.

Scotty hit him at the neck and Rick tackled him squarely at the knees, and the figure bounced like a rubber ball. But their quarry wasn't giving up. Arms were flailing under the white robes and legs were kicking. In a flash, Scotty was astride the prostrate figure and pinioning the arms to the ground.

”The light!” he yelled to Rick.

Rick reached for his flashlight and flipped its switch. Then he turned its beam squarely into the face of the prowler beneath them.

There, staring up into their eyes was a face Rick had thought he was never to see again.

Chahda! It seemed unbelievable that the native boy could have managed to follow them all the way from Bombay, yet there he was. Rick and Scotty fired eager questions at him but it wasn't until later, over a good breakfast, that they heard the whole story.

Fully aware that all eyes were on him, Chahda sipped a cup of steaming tea slowly and with relish, deliberately prolonging the moment with his natural flair for the dramatic.

Rick grinned to himself as Scotty and the professors s.h.i.+fted uneasily. This, he thought, was Chahda's moment, and the Hindu boy intended to make the most of it.

At last Chahda put the teacup down and smiled at the faces around him.

”Very good tea,' he said politely.

Scotty exploded. ”Come on! Can't you see we're waiting for you to tell us all about everything?”

Chahda settled himself comfortably. ”Is like this?” He smiled at Rick. ”You remember we talk about the map? How I say is not like what Sahibs in Nepal say?”

”I remember,” Rick said.

”You not believing,” Chahda accused. ”I go away, so quiet no one see, and I go to the house of a Sikh. He is old man, this one. When I know him before, he is Risaldar-Major in Nepal.”

”That's a rank in the British Colonial Cavalry,” Weiss supplied.

”He know this Tibet good,” Chahda continued. ”I think, myself, he know about this map. But he is not home. I am sitted down on the stairs and wait. Such time pa.s.ses! But does this one go?” He waved his hand in an airy gesture. ”Not Chahda! He waits some more.”

”Go on, go on,” Weiss said impatiently.

”Yes, Sahib. Soon comes the Sikh Sahib, and he is forget me, because I have new clothes, like a hazoor. But soon he remembers, and he shows me his maps of Tibet, and I show him the path from the maps.

”He looks and he makes great rumble in his beard, like so.” Chahda demonstrated with a low growl. ”He says: 'Ayah! Such a bad thing! How gets the Sahibs such a path?' And I say to him that is sent the maps by the Asiatic Geo ... Geo ...”

”Geographical Union,” Rick said helpfully.

”Yes. He knows good those people. He takes me to them, and I show the path and they say they make no path like this on the maps for the Sahibs. They draw new on maps, and say, 'This is the path we draw.'

”My friend give me the new maps, and I am run for the station. But when I come, the train is go. I see Sahib Rick. I make shout, so loud! I make shout: 'Is wrong the maps!' Then the Van Groot Sahib is bang! I am dead. My new clothes is get dirt. Soon I am waking up.” He paused dramatically. ”Is gone the maps.”

”Van Groot!” Scotty exclaimed. ”If I ever get my hands on that walking cough drop I'll break his neck! He's behind all this. He must have switched maps. That's why he was so long bringing them.”

”I'm afraid it looks that way, Scotty,” Hobart Zircon agreed.

”But why?” Julius Weiss asked. ”What could he hope to gain?”

Rick answered for all of them. ”If we knew that ...” He stopped. ”But we've said that before. Anyway, we know now that Van Groot is behind it. Van Groot and Conway, if there's any difference.”

”But Van Groot's route should take us to the Tengi-Bu Plateau,” Zircon mused.

”Are you sure of that, sir?” Rick asked. ”He might have been sending us into a dead end of some kind.”

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