by Van Powell
Chapter 13 SCIENTIST ROGER
Brought back to the laboratory in Mr. Clark's car, with one of theservants delegated to drive the estate carry-all in with his bicycle,Roger got a new surprise.
Mr. Clark greeted their bio-chemist and their electrical specialist,respectively Mr. Zendt and Mr. Ellison, as long-missed brothers.
"We attended the same technical college," he told Grover.
"And did we have experiences in India?" chuckled Ellison.
To himself Roger thought that here was some likely link with thekangaroo and, perhaps, with the ape of the first startling night'salarm.
He kept his thoughts behind his lips.
"But why must you restore the Eye, at so much risk?" Grover, put inpossession of facts already known to Roger, asked, "Turn it over tothose mysterious Tibetans who open safes and enter sealed rooms."
"That's the rub," Clark declared. "Are they genuine priests? Orthieves?"
"The Voice of Doom is a genuine manifestation, apparently," Doctor Ryderadded, "at least, in the mountain temple, I heard something similar tothe screaming doom. In some way they produce that noise, on a muchgreater scale of volume. It is said to be the Voice of Doom, and issupposed to come through the lips of their image of Buddha, as an omen,only when a criminal is being judged by the image, which is to say bythe temple priests--or before some calamity such as an earthquake orfamine year."
"But maybe these fellows are using that, and pretending to be priestsfrom the Forbidden Land, to scare us into giving up the gem," Mr. Clarkargued.
Real priests, bent on revenge, he insisted, struck first, spokeafterward, if at all. Or, these might be of some other sect or lamasery,as they called their mountain retreats.
"I can see that," Ellison agreed.
"It is not from them so much comes the danger to Ryder," Zendt was alsoa champion, "More from the hidden menace of the real Doom comes it."
"If I could get away," said Ellison, "I'd take back the thing forRyder."
"It is my risk. I got into this thing."
"But why do you suggest taking Roger, Doctor?" Grover asked.
"Several reasons. First: he has proved that he is accurate in discerningthe correct interpretation of sounds, which leads to the next: he isclever at photography and other scientific means of getting accuratedata. To explain that, let me say that with so much danger if it wereknown that I meant to get into the temple, a secret way to restore theEye would be safer.
"There is a hidden way to enter the temple. I do not know it, but I feelthat in some way it may be connected with that Voice of Doom, and Rogercould photograph, enlarge his takes, study them, and with his sharp eyeand keen wit, could no doubt find the secret."
"A last reason," Mr. Clark added, "is that he can operate aradio-telephone, as well as send wireless code. We might want theformer, if two parties, separated, needed to keep in constant touch. Thelatter, short-wave sending and receiving, could keep us in touch withthe outside world--even with you, Mr. Mystery Wizard Brown."
Put that way, there seemed less to make Roger uncertain.
What an adventure!
"If you could spare that husky, loyal general assistant, Potts,"suggested the doctor, "we could ask no better guardian for your cousin."
There was much to be considered; there was much apparatus to be designedand assembled, including compact, tiny cameras, hand-operated generatorto supply current where electricity never had been used, light, butpowerful step-up transformers: there had to be clothing and othertraveling needs in sparsely settled Tibet to be planned.
Time, though, coupled with a spirit of eagerness, helps in such plans,and it was soon time to say good-bye, to wave from the moving train, tohear Tip shout, "At last we got everything coagulated. We're off!" andto settle back in a parlor car seat until time to go into the diner.
Across America, and on the ship bearing the party toward theInternational Date Line in the Pacific where one day changed to anotherby the simple process of crossing the imaginary line--the way that theastronomers had worked out to adjust Time to the sun's progress--andeven when they landed in China, only slight evidence had been noticedthat the effort to secure the gem was still alive in some one's mind.
Doctor Ryder felt that it indicated that the Tibetans had really beenthe ones after the Eye; and the ransacking of a despatch box, in theirhotel room in San Francisco, he thought, had been the work of aninternational jewel thief.
Roger, while they crossed the Republic of China from Shanghai, hadplenty to interest him, and so did Potts.
That loyal if uneducated guardian voiced his astonishment at the unusualsights and experiences.
"No wonder they say these people are backward," he told Roger. "They doeverything hind-side-first. Men wear skirts and women wear pajamas. Theybuild a station where there ain't any railroad at all, and have roadswhere there ain't any traffic to use 'em."
"Well, to them that is their way. They think our way is back-ways."
"It is all in the point of view," Mr. Clark took part in the chat."Everything depends on how you look at it. The moon looks far off if youreverse your telescope, yet a star looks closer from the right end ofthe same instrument."
"I don't care," Tip was stubborn about his idea, "They _are_ a backwardrace. Look at that!"
"That" was a rickshaw boy, drawing his two wheeled carriage with twoAmerican tourist women in it. The boy deliberately swerved and ranacross the street just in front of the automobile, the travelingcompanions and Roger were using. The driver had to stand on his brakes.
"They think devils chase them, and if they turn right-angles and run infront of something, _it_ runs over the devils that can't turn corners."Potts was disgusted.
Other strange customs--strange because different from Americanhabit--kept them alert and amused as they progressed toward the placewhere arrangements had been made for the party to join a caravan thatwas on its way across Tibet bearing tea and other Chinese goods. Itseemed safest to go into the restricted territory as if bent on passingthrough it. Camels, with great fuss and grumbling, swift ponies withmany whickers of eagerness to gallop rather than walk or trot, got underway and Roger, swaying on his Ship of the Desert, bound, seemingly, forthe Kybur Pass and India, smiled as Potts found his curious steedinducing a seasickness that made him prefer to walk a good part of thetime, unless the pace was too swift, when Tip rode and suffered.
As arranged, at one of the halting places, during the night, thequartet, met by guides and bearers as arranged for by the caravanleader, quietly forsook the caravan, and rode, on wiry ponies, intodarkness and a land over which brooded the mysterious, terribleHimalayas.
Far away, in a city laboratory, with Roger's chum, Billy Summers, anexpert radio "op," Grover tuned a set, amplified, increasing outputstrength; and then, as Roger, in the Tibetan night, increased his ownsignal power as Tip ground at the generator, each knew that with theother all was well. Yes. Just then!