Part 3 (1/2)

CHAPTER IV

THE AVALANCHE

On the ht the sunrise found us already on our path across the desert There, nearly a mile behind us, we could see the ruined statue of Buddha seated in front of the ancient uish the bent forainst it until ere quite lost to sight All the monks had e parted from them, and Kou-en even more bitterly than the rest, for he had learned to love us

”I arieved, which indeed I should not be, for such emotion partakes of sin Yet I find coh I ain in many future incarnations, and after you have put away these follies, together tread the path to perfect peace Now take with younot that should you live to return”-and he shook his head, doubtfully-”here you will be ever welcome”

So we embraced him and went sorrowfully

It will be reht fell upon us on the peak I had s For lack of any better guidefollowed these bearings, travelling almost due north-east, for in that direction had shone the fire All day in the most beautiful weather weexcept bunches of game and one or two herds of wild asses which had corass As evening approached we shot an antelope and ht the yak and a tent with us-a some tamarisk scrub, of which the dry stems furnished us with fuel Nor did we lack for water, since by scraping in the sand soaked with ht we supped in luxury upon tea and antelope lad to have, as it spared our little store of dried provisions

The nextwe ascertained our position as well as we could, and estiuess which proved very accurate, for on the evening of the fourth day of our journey we reached the botto experienced either accident or fatigue As Leo said, things were ”going like clockwork,” but I reood start often , for now cain with, the h; it took us two days to climb their lower slopes Also the heat of the sun had softened the snohich h ere to such conditions through long years of travelling, its continual glitter affected our eyes

Theof the seventh day found us in the mouth of a defile which wound away into the heart of the mountains As it seemed the only possible path, we followed it, and were much cheered to discover that here must once have run a road Not that we could see any road, indeed, for everything was buried in snow But that one lay beneath our feet ere certain, since, although we e of precipices, our path, however steep, was always flat; moreover, the rock upon one side of it had often been scarped by the hand of man Of this there could be no doubt, for as the snow did not cling here,the tool marks upon its bare surface

Also we caalleries had been built out from the mountain side, by means of beams let into it, as is still a co since rotted away, leaving a gulf between us and the continuation of the path When we o back and h ain the road, if not without difficulty and danger

What tried us more-for here our skill and experience as ed as ere to careat altitude, and to endure through the long hours of darkness penetrating and icy winds, which soughed ceaselessly down the pass

At length on the tenth day we reached the end of the defile, and as night was falling, camped there in the most bitter cold Those were miserable hours, for noe had no fuel hich to boil water, andfrozen snohile our eyes s all our wraps and the warathered from the yak in the little tent, the cold caused our teeth to chatter like castanets

The dawn came, and, after it, the sunrise We crept froed our stiffened limbs a hundred yards or so to a spot where the defile took a turn, in order that we ht thaw in the rays of the sun, which at that hour could not reach us where we had camped

Leo was round it first, and I heard him utter an exclamation In a few seconds I reached his side, and lo! before us lay our Promised Land

Far beneath us, ten thousand feet at least-for it must be remembered that we viewed it from the top of a mountain-it stretched away and away till its distances met the horizon In character it was quite flat, an alluvial plain that probably, in soe, had been the bottom of one of the vast lakes of which a number exist in Central Asia, most of them now in process of desiccation One object only relieved this dreary flatness, a single, snow-clad, and gigantic mountain, of which even at that distance-for it was very far from us-we could clearly see the outline Indeed we could see reat plu that it was an active volcano, and on the hither lip of the crater an enormous pillar of rock, whereof the top was formed to the shape of a loop

Yes, there it stood before us, that syht these ht of it our hearts beat fast and our breath cah we had not seen it during our passage of the mountains, since the peaks ahead and the rocky sides of the defile hid it froht that it overtopped the tallest of them This made it clear to us how it cah the loop could fall upon the highest snows of that towering pinnacle which we had climbed upon the further side of the desert

Also noere certain of the cause of that ray, for the smoke behind the loop explained this mystery Doubtless, at times when the volcano ake, that sht of fearful intensity, and this light it was that reached us, concentrated and directed by the loop

For the rest we thought that about thirty miles ae couldtrees upon the banks of a wide river, which flowed across the plain Also it was evident that this country had a large population who cultivated the soil, for by the aid of a pair of field glasses, one of our few rereen of springing crops pierced by irrigation canals and the lines of trees that marked the limits of the fields

Yes, there before us stretched the Promised Land, and there rose the mystic Mount, so that all we had to do was to march down the snow slopes and enter it where ould

Thus we thought in our folly, little guessing what lay before us, what terrors and weary suffering we th beneath the shadow of the Syotten, we returned to the tent, hastily sed some of our dried food, which ashed doith luave us toothache and chilled us inside, but which thirst coed the poor yak to its feet, loaded it up, and started

All this while, so great was our haste and so occupied were each of us with our own thoughts that, if ed a word Down the snow slopes we marched swiftly and without hesitation, for here the road was marked for us by means of pillars of rock set opposite to one another at intervals These pillars we observed with satisfaction, for they told us that ere still upon a highhich led to the Pro, it was one which seeone out of use, since with the exception of a feild-sheep tracks and the spoor of son of beast or man could we discover This, however, was to be explained, we reflected, by the fact that doubtless the road was only used in the summer season Or perhaps the inhabitants of the country were now stay-at-home people who never travelled it at all

Those slopes were longer than we thought; indeed, when darkness closed in we had not reached the foot of theht in the snow, pitching our tent in the shelter of an over-hanging rock As we had descended many thousand feet, the temperature proved, fortunately, a little hteen or twenty degrees of frost that night Also here and there the heat of the sun had melted the snow in secluded places, so that ere able to find water to drink, while the yak could fill its poor old sto

Again, the still dawn caared ourselves to our nu food, and started onwards Noe could no longer see the country beneath, for it and even the towering volcano were hidden froe that seeulley, towards which we headed Indeed, as the pillars showed us, thither ran the buried road By mid-day it appeared quite close to us, and we tramped on in feverish haste As it chanced, however, there was no need to hurry, for an hour later we learned the truth

Between us and the ulley rose, or rather sank, a sheer precipice that was apparently three or four hundred feet in depth, and at its foot we could hear the sound of water

Right to the edge of this precipice ran the path, for one of the stone pillars stood upon its extreme brink, and yet how could a road descend such a place as that? We stared aghast; then a possible solution occurred to us

”Don't you see,” said Leo, with a hollow laugh, ”the gulf has opened since this track was used: volcanic action probably”

”Perhaps, or perhaps there was a wooden bridge or stairhich has rotted It does not matter We must find another path, that is all,” I answered as cheerfully as I could

”Yes, and soon,” he said, ”if we do not wish to stop here for ever”

So we turned to the right and e of the precipice till, a lacier, of which the surface was sprinkled with large stones frozen into its substance This glacier hung down the face of the cliff like a petrified waterfall, but whether or no it reached the foot we could not discover At any rate, to think of atte its descent seemed out of the question From this point onwards we could see that the precipice increased in depth and far as the eye could reach was absolutely sheer

So ent back again and searched to the left of our road Here theslope of snow and below us lay that saan to fade we perceived, half a mile or more in front a bare-topped hillock of rock, which stood on the verge of the precipice, and hurried to it, thinking that froht be able to discover a way of descent

When at length we had struggled to the top, it was about a hundred and fifty feet high; e did discover was that, here also, as beyond the glacier, the gulf was infinitely deeper than at the spot where the road ended, so deep indeed that we could not see its botto water Moreover, it was quite half asun vanished behind a ht went out like that of a candle Now the ascent of this hillock had proved so steep, especially at one place, where ere obliged to climb a sort of rock ladder, that we scarcely cared to atteloo that there was little to choose between the top of this knoll and the snow plain at its foot in thequite exhausted, we deterht upon it, thereby, as ere to learn, saving our lives

Unloading the yak, we pitched our tent under the lee of the topmost knob of rock and ate a couple of handfuls of dried fish and corn-cake This was the last of the food that we had brought with us from the Lamasery, and we reflected with dis, our commissariat was now represented by the carcass of our old friend the yak Then rapped ourselves up in our thick rugs and fur garot ourbefore daylight ere awakened by a sudden and terrific sound like the booreat cannon, followed by thousands of other sounds, which ht be compared to the fusillade of musketry

”Great Heaven! What is that?” I said

We crawled froan to low in a terrified manner But if we could not see we could hear and feel The boorinding noise, thesound, I think, to which I ever listened This was accoe, steady, unnatural wind, which seemed to press upon us as water presses Then the dawn broke and

Thedown upon us in a vast avalanche of snow

Oh! what a sight was that On from the crest of the precipitous slopes above, two , gliding; piling itself in long, leaping waves, hollowing itself into cavernous valleys, like a te a powdery cloud of frozen spray

As atched, clinging to each other terrified, the first of these waves struck our hill, causing the hty mass of solid rock to quiver like a yacht beneath the impact of an ocean roller, or an aspen in a sudden rush of wind It struck and slowly separated, then with a e of the precipice on either side, and fell with a thudding sound into the un, a mere forerunner, for after it, with a slow, serpentine movement, rolled the body of the avalanche

It caainst our hill, yes, to within fifty feet of the head of it, till we thought that even that rooted rock must be torn from its foundations and hurled like a pebble to the deeps beneath And the tur of the blast caused by the co of the fall of h space and ended their journey in the gulf

Nor was this the worst of it, for as the deep snows above thinned, great boulders that had been buried beneath the-places and began to thunder down the hill At first theyup the hard snow around theinto the air with leaps such as those of shells ricocheting upon water, till in the end, singing and hurtling, many of them rushed past and even over us to vanish far beyond Some indeed struck our little uns of a battle-shi+p, and shattered there, or if they fell upon its side, tore away tons of rock and passed with them into the chasm like a meteor surrounded by its satellites Indeed, no bombardment devised and directed by man could have been half so terrible or, had there been anything to destroy, half so destructive