with that inside him Derrick felt twice the man. He listened attentively while Chingiz, with many repetitions, misunderstandings and false interpretations, explained to him that the men were common serai thieves, notorious men from Yarkand. ‘Thief,’ he kept repeating, drawing the edge of his left hand over the wrist of his right, and suddenly Derrick understood why the man who had attacked him had only had one hand.
Then they talked of many other things. Chingiz said a great deal that was incomprehensible, but the upshot of it was that everybody in the serai was away because of the races, and that he himself had only come back because he had left his money behind.
‘I am glad you came back,’ said Derrick, and when Chingiz understood at length what he meant, Derrick saw his expressionless face suddenly dissolve into an open and very pleasant grin.
Later Chingiz fixed Derrick with a meaning look and said, ‘Sullivan?’
Derrick hoped violently that Chingiz meant what he seemed to mean – that Sullivan should not be told. He had very much wanted to suggest it to the young Mongol, but he had not liked to. He shook his head, smiling, and said, ‘Much better not to tell him. He might stop me going about – you know how it is?’
Chingiz understood this first go, and replied, ‘Yes, much better. Old men are difficult. Hulagu and Kubilai are often difficult although I am a man.’ He held up his fingers to show his age. ‘Not a boy,’ he said firmly.
Derrick pointed to himself, and held up the same number of fingers. He was surprised, for he had thought Chingiz much older than himself, but they were both very pleased with the discovery, and when they parted in the evening they shook hands like old friends.
Olaf looked discontentedly at the train of animals. The expedition was ready to start, and a line of pack-horses, Mongolian ponies and camels stood waiting in the serai. ‘Those ain’t camels,’ he said to Derrick. ‘They got two humps.’
The tall, hairy beasts stared contemptuously about them, craning their necks from side to side.
‘They are camels all right,’ said Derrick, mounting his beautiful chestnut pony – a gift from Chingiz – ‘you lead them with a string. The other sort are dromedaries.’
‘Ay don’t know nothing about dromedaries,’ replied Olaf, ‘but Ay ban’t going to have nothing at all to do with these here vicious monsters. They ban’t natural. Ay reckon Ay can steer a horse with a nice mild temper; but camels with two humps – cor stone the crows.’
Li Han hurried into the square, carrying a last bundle to tie to his already groaning sumpter-horse.
‘You look gloomy, Li Han,’ said Derrick.
‘Gloomy is understatement,’ answered Li Han, with a hollow laugh. ‘Whole being is pervaded with funereal melancholy.’
‘What ban biting you, then?’ asked Olaf.
‘Have consulted most learned and expensive astrologers in entire city,’ said Li Han, wringing his hands and dropping his bundle, ‘and unanimous prognostication is utterly lugubrious. The soothsayers, the casters of the sacred sticks, the diviners of fêng-shui and the readers of the auspices all cry with one voice that journeys commenced today must meet ill-fortune and encounter physical violence. All types of esteemed seers and prophets say the same, alas, alas.’
‘You don’t believe all that rot, do you, Li Han?’ asked Derrick, who believed at least half of it himself, in spite of being a missionary’s child – one cannot go to sea and be brought up in China without superstition soaking in through one’s skin.
‘In words of immortal Duck of Bacon,’ cried Li Han, trying in spite of his agitation to tie the bundle to the unwilling horse, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, esteemed Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.’
‘Who ban this Horatio?’ asked Olaf, curiously.
‘Could we but cause the Old Man to delay,’ moaned Li Han, taking no notice, ‘to procrastinate, to sit in silent contemplation of the Temple of Heaven for a day. No hope, alas, alas.’
‘Never mind, Li Han,’ said Derrick, ‘think of the face you will gain in the Professor’s company.’
‘Yes, immense face will be gained. But doubt whether biggest face in Asia is of much use with no head behind it. I deplore violence, especially physical violence to the person.’
‘He ban gotten cold feet,’ said Olaf, with a snort of laughter that made the camels start.
‘You mustn’t be a coward,’ said Derrick.
‘Have been most timid of cowards from day of birth,’ replied Li Han, without shame, ‘and this is an inauspicious day.’
‘No it ain’t,’ said Olaf, ‘it ban Thursday.’
Ross and Sullivan came out, followed by Professor Ayrton, who was muttering about his lost spectacles.
‘All shipshape?’ asked Sullivan, running his eye over the beasts. ‘Derrick, go and give Hulagu a shout, will you? Professor, they’re on your forehead.’
‘Forehead? Oh, yes, the spectacles. Why, so they are. Thank you very much.’ For forty years Professor Ayrton had been losing his spectacles on his forehead, and for forty years he had been intensely surprised and grateful to find them there.
The three Mongols, mounted and armed, with two of their men to mind the camels, took their places, and when Li Han had lighted eleven Chinese crackers to ward off the demons of the road, the expedition moved off. They wound through the streets of Peking, a strange procession in strange surroundings, but in that city they passed unnoticed. At length they came out of Peking, and in the clear light of the early morning they went away towards the north, as straight as they could go for the Great Wall of China.
For day after day they marched along the ancient road, spanned here and there with triumphal arches to commemorate emperors dead these many hundred years. They passed through cultivated country, with the sorghum standing high on either side, and sometimes they met with other caravans coming down from the north, who told them the news of the road. Then, on the fourth day, they came in sight of the Great Wall, stretching like a ribbon away across the rolling country farther than the keenest eye could reach, a wall with innumerable towers; and on the fifth day they passed through the Hsiung Gate, a great dark tunnel through the wall, guarded by four enormous towers that were already ancient two thousand years ago.
Soon the country changed: they travelled over vast plains of thin, wiry grass, and Derrick saw, for the first time, the black yurts, the felt tents of the Mongols who grazed their herds on the rolling steppe. Li Han saw them and shuddered, for now he knew that he was in the land of the barbarians against whom his ancestors had built the wall.
On and on they marched, starting before the first light and going on through the long and dusty day. They were making a great detour round the north-western provinces of China, and Sullivan explained it to Derrick as they pored over the maps one evening, while the camp-fires of the Mongols twinkled against the dark horizon.
‘Here, you see,’ he said, pointing at the map, ‘is a part of the world which a peaceful scientific expedition must avoid if
