me, what is the matter?’ asked the Professor, as Sullivan called in the outriders and swung the column round.
‘It’s Kazaks before and Kazaks behind,’ said Sullivan. ‘There’s the desert to the north and the mountains to the south. You’ll see Gingbadze yet, Professor.’
He seemed in a high good humour, and for the moment the Professor did not understand. ‘Why should we see Gingbadze?’ he asked. ‘Only yesterday you gave some excellent reason for not going there.’
‘They have cut the road before us,’ cried Sullivan, urging his horse to a gallop. ‘We have got to reach the Gingbadze steps before nightfall, or we shall be between two fires.’
They raced through the morning and the afternoon, never drawing rein for a moment, and continually watching the skyline before them for the Kazaks who had followed them so long. If the Kazaks from the east made a stand – and they were still too numerous to be brushed aside – the delay and the noise of battle would bring the western Kazaks up at full speed, and that would be the end.
Mile after mile sped by under their horses’ hooves, and at last they saw the great rampart of the Gingbadze wall appear. Still there was no sign of the Kazaks from the east.
At last the lamasery came in sight, vanishing and appearing through the drifting clouds high above them on the right, and at last they saw the Kazaks, a straggling band of men strung out over the plain.
‘Now for it,’ said Sullivan, as he saw the Kazaks drawing together in a compact body. He could make out no more than seven or eight riders, with a few led horses. The Kazaks stood firm, and one of them fired his rifle in the air – a signal, obviously, to bring up the slower men behind.
‘Ross,’ he said, when they were within extreme rifle-range, ‘you are a better shot than I am. See what you can do.’
Ross nodded, swung out of the column and dismounted. He unslung his rifle, the rifle he called the Messenger of Bad News, and rubbed its foresight on his sleeve: he lay down tranquilly on the grass and drew a bead on the midmost Tartar. But as his finger was curled round the trigger the Kazaks wheeled and fled from the advancing column. The dust obscured them, but Ross shifted his aim to the outside man on the left and fired. The Kazak threw up his arms and almost fell; but he gripped his horse’s neck and rode on, bowed low and drooping in his saddle.
Ross galloped after the column and rejoined them as they halted at the foot of the precipice. Already they were stripping the baggage-horses, loading the essentials into packs – warm clothes, food and ammunition – and one of the oldest Mongols was hastily scrawling a map on a piece of sheepskin for Sullivan.
Olaf was high up the steps, keeping watch. From time to time he reported that the eastern Kazaks were still going, and that those from the west were not yet in sight.
‘No, Professor, you cannot take the Han bronzes,’ said Sullivan firmly, folding away the map. ‘You can carry them well up the steps, and then you must bury them. Another expedition can fetch them away. After all, they have waited two thousand years – they can wait a little longer. And you had better do the same with the jade.’
‘I will bury the bronze, if you insist,’ said the Professor, ‘but I will not be parted from the jade. It is quite light. I can easily carry it.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Sullivan, tugging at a strap, ‘but whatever you do, do it quickly. Olaf, do you see anything to the west?’
‘Nothing, Cap’n. Unless that little cloud is their dust. The sun will last another hour.’
‘Hurry, hurry!’ cried Sullivan, and they bent to their task.
In the twilight they were ready. Chingiz and two Mongols were to stay with them – the Khan’s orders had been exact, and these men were not to leave them until they were on the Kirghiz steppe – and Hulagu, Kubilai and the tribesmen were to break out to the north through the desert. They could travel faster alone, and they hoped to rejoin their own horde, which would be gathering for the war at the Kodha well, before the Kazaks could reach them.
‘Horsemen in the west,’ cried Olaf from above.
‘It is time,’ said Hulagu. ‘Let the wise man give us a wind from the north, and we are safe.’
‘He will do his best,’ said Sullivan. They shook hands, and with a few words of parting they were gone.
For a moment the expedition watched them, and then began the climb. The steps were ancient and weather-worn, but they were as sound as the day they were first cut, for they were part of the hard rock itself. The rise was close on a yard with each step, and often the tread was narrow: it was a laborious climb, and after the first hundred they were sweating, though the air was cold.
At every hundredth step, wherever the rock formation made it possible, there was a broad platform for resting, but Sullivan drove them on and on. Derrick began counting the steps as he toiled up, but after a thousand he gave up.
In the gathering darkness they mounted, always up and up, and at last Sullivan said that they could take a rest.
‘We are still within their range,’ he said, ‘but this platform lies so far back that it gives us cover.’
‘I suppose,’ said the Professor, panting under his load, ‘that there is the possibility of their pursuing us still.’
‘No, none at all,’ replied Sullivan, peering over the edge. ‘Wherever a horse can go you are not safe from a Mongol. But they will not go where they cannot ride. Besides, they would never come up here, even if they could get their horses up, for fear of the devils. These men here would not be with us if they did not believe you were a powerful magician: even as it is, they are not at all happy, and the others who are somewhere down there below us are glad not to be in their places. I cannot see them,’ he added, sweeping the plain with his glasses. The others joined him, but down there all was blank.
‘They are probably riding slowly not to make any dust,’ said Ross. ‘But it looks as though the Professor had done his business very well.’ He pointed to the northern horizon, and there they saw the familiar shape of a dust-storm looming over the desert.
‘That will cover their tracks before the morning,’ said Sullivan. ‘They were relying on you for a wind, Professor.’
The Professor violently disclaimed any magic powers, but Chingiz and the two Mongols looked at him with marked respect, whatever he might say. He felt so strongly about it that he made Derrick translate his words to Chingiz.
‘The Professor says that he has no control over the winds,’ said Derrick. ‘He says it is all nonsense and superstition. He says you mustn’t believe what they say about him.’
‘All the best magicians say that,’ said Chingiz. ‘It is part of their magic.’
They slept that night on a platform three hundred steps higher up, and in the morning they awoke in a vague world of cloud. There was white cloud below them and above, and when the morning breeze tore them, they could see nothing but the frightful precipice plunging down into vacancy, and black rocks dripping in the wet. The steps were slippery, and the temperature had dropped nearly to freezing-point. Ross was shivering with fever, but he climbed silently with the others.
They mounted blindly: they could not see twenty yards above them, nor twenty yards below. The whole world seemed to be
