often have been lost under the sand-drifts: they had entered the Gobi, and the whitened bones showed far more often.
Derrick, plotting their position on the map, added one more red dot to the thin line of them, a line that marked their passage and that was now wriggling slowly onwards into the heart of the great desert. Each day’s travel was but a tiny advance on the map, but the days had mounted up, and already the red dots extended for hundreds of miles behind them to the Great Wall of China. Before them on the map stretched a much longer pencilled line that showed the route that they intended to follow: here and there small arrows pointed to the places where the Professor hoped to work, to disinter his ancient fragments and to investigate the possibilities of further excavation for a later full-scale expedition from his university, that was to be equipped with much more money, many experts and a large number of workmen for the digging.
Only once, as they crossed the worst part of the Gobi, did they see any human beings. In the middle of the day a caravan of Tibetans met them, travelling slowly towards China with their yaks and ponies. Some months later they would reach the western Chinese towns, where they would exchange their goods for tea, spend the worst of the winter, and return, after nearly a year’s absence, to their high, cold homes behind the Kunlun mountains. The travellers stopped to take stock of one another and to exchange the news of the road. Derrick looked curiously at them, and at the great mastiffs which walked at the heels of the black, heavily laden yaks. In many ways the Tibetans resembled the Mongols – most of them spoke some Mongol, too – but they were taller men. In some ways their manners were alike, and it seemed to him that the main difference was that the Tibetans were not horsemen, as the Mongols were, and that they were much more concerned with their religion. They were Buddhists of a sort, and every one of them had charms, amulets and prayer wheels stowed somewhere in the greasy clothes which swaddled them about.
They were not lovely objects, the Tibetans, and they smelt very strongly indeed; but they were friendly and hospitable, and as Derrick sat by their fire, drinking the thick Tibetan tea, full of butter and other curious things, he felt a strange thrill, for there was a certain mystery about these men from the most remote of all the countries in the world, something that set them apart from other men.
Chang did not care for the Tibetans, or their mastiffs. These were very big dogs, half wild and uncontrollably savage. After Chang had had a set-to with three of them, Derrick tied him up out of harm’s way until the morning, when he awoke to find the Tibetans already gone. They had left in the dark, and but for the smouldering fire of dried yak-dung they might have been a dream.
The worst of the desert passed under their feet, and they came to the Green Tomb: here they found the thin grass again. The country was just a little less blasted and sterile, and there was enough grazing for wild asses and a few shy antelopes. It was here that they made their first big detour, a long southward curve to the bed of a dried-up lake, where men had once lived in the distant past, although it seemed incredible. The Professor found his site, and he set them all to digging, all except the Mongols, who would have nothing whatever to do with what they considered women’s work.
It was hard and tedious work, and nobody but the Professor and Li Han cared very much for the results of the long hours of digging: there was nothing but a small heap of dusty, unrecognisable clay objects and bits of broken pot. The Professor was pleased, however, and labelled them all. ‘This,’ he said, holding up a particularly brutish fragment, ‘may well have been a quern.’
‘A quern,’ cried Li Han, rapturously. ‘Oh, sir!’
The Professor wrapped it up with care, and they moved off to the next place, three days’ march away. The second site was a repetition of the first: a few barely traceable remnants of wall, dust flying in the cold wind, and at the end of the work a small collection of reddish potsherds and one villainous little broken lamp of primitive design. But this time Olaf did at least find a piece of jade, which excited them all. But when he ran to show it, the Professor gave it a cursory glance and said, ‘No. I am afraid it has nothing to do with the site. It is quite modern, a hundred years old at the most. Probably some wandering hunter took shelter here and dropped it.’ Olaf’s face fell. ‘But at least,’ continued the Professor, not wishing to disappoint him, ‘it might bring you luck. The characters on it form a charm.’ Olaf brightened, breathed heavily on the jade, polished it on his sleeve and put it away in an inner pocket.
‘Ay reckon a man ban a fool who throws away luck on a long voyage,’ he said. Olaf persisted in regarding the expedition as a voyage, although they were by now well over a thousand miles from the nearest ocean.
‘It is strange how they have taken to green jade these days,’ said the Professor, over supper. ‘They used to despise it. In the older graves you will find nothing but mutton-fat jade. Take the most famous of all the Chinese collections, the Wu Ti, for example: there is not a single piece of green jade to be found in it. Or, at least, so they tell me. I have never seen it, of course, nor any other European. But the Chinese scholars who have seen the Wu Ti collection assure me that it is quite unrivalled, even in China. What a curse these strong nationalistic feelings are: I am sure that Wu Ti and I would get along wonderfully together, if only he would admit any foreigner to his house. Dear me, I would give a great deal to see that collection.’
‘Then why didn’t you ask Hsien Lu to show it to you?’ asked Ross. ‘It was in Shun Chi’s loot, you know.’
The Professor dropped his bowl of rice and stared at Ross without a word for some minutes. ‘Do you mean to say,’ he exclaimed at last, ‘that Shun Chi possessed the Wu Ti collection?’
‘Why, yes,’ said Sullivan. ‘He looted it when he took Chang Fu. Wu Ti had moved it there for safety, and hanged himself when he heard the news. It was the first thing that Hsien Lu looked for in the lorry behind Shun Chi’s tank.’
The Professor could not get over it. ‘That priceless jade was being jerked and banged about over mountain roads in that lorry,’ he said, ‘and exposed to the danger of bombs and bullets. Good heavens above. And I was within a few feet of it. And then I was in the same city with it, and on excellent terms with its new owner, and I never knew. How bitterly disappointing.’
‘I would have mentioned it,’ said Ross, apologetically, ‘but it never crossed my mind until this minute.’
‘I am very sorry, too,’ said Sullivan. ‘I ought to have told you. But I did not think you were interested in jade particularly.’
‘Not interested in jade!’ exclaimed the Professor, throwing up his hands. ‘It is my … well, well,’ he said, in a calmer tone, ‘it cannot be helped. And, after all, I have my Han bronzes, which are reward enough for all our pains and trouble. Let us not think about it any more.’ He smiled round the table to show that he was not at all downcast.
‘I could kick myself,’ said Ross. ‘I am very sorry. But I wonder that Hsien Lu did not think of it himself.’
‘But then,’ said the Professor, ‘if he had shown me the collection, I should certainly have been unable to conceal my admiration, and he would have felt obliged to offer it to me. Of course, I would never have accepted – its market value is truly incalculable – but it would have raised an awkward, disagreeable situation. No, it is all for the best, no doubt. And now let us dismiss the matter from our minds. Let me see, our march tomorrow should take us to this point on the map, should it not?’
It was three days after this that they came across a deep, rocky gully cut out by a stream that had dried up generations ago, and they had considerable difficulty in getting the camels across. When it came to the turn of the camel that carried the Han bronzes, Professor Ayrton skipped about like a cat on hot bricks. ‘Gently, now,’ he cried, as Olaf thumped the camel from behind, while Hulagu pulled in front. ‘Be very
