by Harold Lamb
Khlit saw the girl poised proudly among the black priests, veiled head high. He saw Chauna Singh's scimitar snatched from him and felt his own pistols jerked from his belt. His scabbard hung empty at his side.
“To the camels!” cried the crowd.
They were led by the bonpas to the waiting beasts. They were not molested, for it was the law of the priesthood that the sacrifices were inviolate from harm by human hands.
Nur-Jahan was cast upon the back of a kneeling camel. Khlit and the others followed her. At the eager urging of the throng, the beasts, surrounded by mounted priests and their followers, were put into motion away from the temple, to the south.
A black cloth was cast over Khlit's head and made fast.
For the rest of that day and the night the camels did not slacken their pace. The next day many hands drew Khlit from the beast and mounted him upon a horse.
They rode forward again—and upward. Still upward. The warmth of the foothills gave place to the chill of the mountain slope.
XII
All things that die on Himachal, and dying think of his snows, are blessed.
In a hundred ages of the gods the glories of Himachal could not be told. Of Himachal, where Shiva lived and the Ganges falls from the foot of Vishnu like the slender thread of a lotus flower.
Paradise is to be found on Himachal—even by the beast that bears the name of Mansarowar.
Hymn to Himachal
The shadows of the mountain slope were deepening, and the wind that whispered down the pass was cold. Gaunt pine trees reared overhead. Miles below, the level glow of the setting sun was still on the plain.
Silence reigned in the forest—a silence broken only by the fitful brush of pine branches, one against the other. The snow that had glittered up the pass was a dull gray. In the distance, to right and left, massive peaks reared their heads, and their snow crests caught the last glimmer of the sun.
Standing in the ravine, Nur-Jahan and her companions watched a cavalcade move out on the plain. The tiny figures progressed slowly across the brown expanse, horse and camel barely to be distinguished at that distance. Light glinted from the pinpoint of a spear or sword.
Then, as if by magic, the sun passed from the plain. The cavalcade vanished in the shadows.
Nur-Jahan turned to the men.
“With Allah are the keys of the unseen,” she said softly. “Yonder go the priests of Bon. Here we be, cast upon the mountain. What say you?”
Chauna Singh brushed his hand across his eyes. Long muffled in a cloth, the watching had strained his good eye.
“Nay, mil,” he said slowly. “In my mind there is a thought. It is that the evil dogs have left some of their breed to spy upon us here.”
Hamar roused himself from his reverie. “The Rajput speaks truth, Nur-Jahan,” he assented meditatively. “The servants of Bon are accustomed to keep watch upon the men they cast out to die. If we turn back, our heads will be cut from our shoulders and sent to the Khoten temple. We have offered ourselves as sacrifices. We must go forward.”
“To what?” snarled Chauna Singh. “Over our heads is the snow. It would be the work of four days to pass the peaks, by way of the lake of Lamdok Tso, to the further side—four days for strong men, with food and weapons. Nur-Jahan is a woman—and we have not eaten since sunrise.”
“Nay, more, Chauna Singh,” laughed the girl. “Your weapons are in the hands of the bonpas, who have taken our horses. Recall the word of the priest who said our way lies onward, or death awaits us.”
“It was your will, Nur-Jahan,” observed Hamar, “that we should do this. Wherefore?”
“Blind!” mocked the girl. “Allah has given you the gift of song, yet you are but a dreamer. Nay, we could not stand in Khoten. The knives of the black priests were already drawn for our slaying when I came forward from the crowd.”
“A swift death is better than to be food for rooks,” muttered Chauna Singh.
“Yet Sher Afghan gave you charge over me—to safeguard my life.”
“Aye, Nur-Jahan—it is so.” Chauna Singh bent his head calmly. “And as I have promised, I will do.”
“It is written,” sighed the minstrel, “that death among friends is like to a feast.”
“And it is also written,” said the girl, “that Allah knows what is before us. Allah weakens the stratagems of misbelievers—and beyond the summits lies Kashmir.”
She turned swiftly on Khlit, who had been moodily silent. “What say you, old warrior?”
The Cossack stretched his big frame.
“I?” He laughed low. “I thirst to have yonder carrion priests at my sword's end.”
“Ho, old khan, you are not faint of heart.” She skipped from his side up the pass a pace. “Come, Hamar, Chauna Singh. Time passes and we must press on. We will see the heights where the god Bon dwells. Come, are you beasts of burden, to be whipped? Lead, Chauna Singh. I will follow with the khan.”
The Rajput strode into the twilight without further word. Hamar accompanied him as best he could. The girl drew her khalat about her and followed, motioning Khlit to her side.
The sides of the gorge frowned down on them. There was no trail, the pass being rocky. The Cossack wondered if men hidden in the pines were watching them. The girl touched his arm. “Harken, khan,” she whispered. “Know you where we are?” Khlit shook his head. The mountains were strange to him. “We be below the Lake of Lamdok Tso, the blue lake. Here is where the votaries are led from Khoten in the evil ceremonies of the black priests. By the Lake of Lamdok Tso runs the pass of Kandrum, which leads from Kashmir. Hither we came to Khoten. There is no refuge for us in the pass—but at Lamdok Tso a man awaits us.”
As Khlit was silent, she continued.
“Hamar came from Agra with the message from Jahangir, the Mogul—” she lingered on the name softly—“to hasten back to him. Chosen warriors of his are posted near to Leh to meet us. But Hamar fell in with a man of Sher Afghan in the outskirts of the town of Leh. The fellow said that Sher Afghan, the Lion-Slayer, would send a message to Chauna Singh—and to me.”
“Where is this Lion-Slayer of yours?” grunted Khlit. “Will he not aid you against the devil priests?”
“Nay, you know not our people, khan.” In the gloom he saw her smile. “My lord is proud—and I have fled from his side. I love him not—how may it be, when I was betrothed to Jahangir? After my flight with Chauna Singh, Sher Afghan would not lift a hand to aid me.”
“Yet he sent the Rajput.”
“Aye.” The dark head tossed proudly. “I am honored of many men. Chauna Singh lives but to serve me—and Sher Afghan. He rode after me from the camp of my lord, saying that Sher Afghan had said that I should not go unattended. It is well.”
Khlit was silent, turning the matter over in his mind. Verily, these were strange folk, proud and swift to act. Their love was as quick as their hatred.
“Hamar said to the man of Sher Afghan,” continued the girl, “that if his lord would send a message, it might be dispatched to the Lake of Lamdok Tso, in the Kandrum Pass—for we must return by the pass to Kashmir. Now, when Hamar, riding but slowly, for he has a weak body, passed the trail by the border of the lake, he found the messenger already there. Sher Afghan had sent word swiftly.”
“That was the time of one moon agone,” observed Khlit.
“If it were a hundred days the man would still be there. And if we can gain the Kandrum trail, by the lake, we will find him— with food and a horse.”
“Aye, food,” growled the Cossack, who had already tightened his belt.
“Does Chauna Singh know this?” he asked after a while.
“Nay, why not?” said the girl lightly. Khlit glanced at her but could not see her face in the dim light. “Say not I have told you, khan,” she added.
“In the mountains such as these,” he meditated, “a man must carry food with him, for there is little game to be had. Either food—or a bringer of meat.”
He halted, despit
e the girl's impatient exclamation.
“Go you with Chauna Singh,” he continued. “I will follow— presently.”
“May Allah the merciful forgive me!” cried Nur-Jahan. “It is the hour of sunset prayer.”
With a deft movement she undid the white veil from her head and spread it on the earth at her feet. Khlit fumbled under his heavy sheepskin coat. Nur-Jahan saw that he drew forth something that gleamed whitely in the twilight. Seeing it, she caught her breath.
“How came that here, khan?”
“Hey, little songbird,” the Cossack laughed, “where else than beneath the tail of my coat? Think you the men of Bon could rid me of this?”
He swung his curved sword viciously about his head.
“It is good to feel it thus. Nay, I slipped it from scabbard in the throng in front of the temple and none saw it done.”
“Whither go you?” whispered Nur-Jahan, for Khlit had turned away.
“To see if the servants of the black priests follow us,” he growled. “If it is so, then we may have food. If I come not back within an hour, go you ahead with the two.”
Nur-Jahan watched his tall figure fade into the gloom down the ravine. She called softly to Chauna Singh to linger and sank to her knees on the white veil, facing, as was the law, toward Mecca.
There was no cry of the muezzin to accompany her prayer. Nothing except the rising drone of wind in the treetops overhead, where the crests of the pines swayed and lifted.
When she completed her prayer she arose and joined her waiting companions, drawing the khalat close about her slender form, for the night wind was cold. Briefly she told the Rajput whither Khlit had gone. They watched the ravine to the rear, while darkness merged the outlines of tree and boulder. Stars twinkled out over their heads.
Chauna Singh was stirring impatiently when a form appeared beside them and they heard the Cossack's boots grating in the stones.
When he came nearer they made out that he held something in his hand, something bulky, that moved of its own accord. Chauna Singh bent closer. Then he stretched out his arm and touched what was on Khlit's arm.
“A bird!” whispered the minstrel.
“Nay,” corrected the Rajput. “A falcon—a goshawk, unless I mistake its head. Whence came this, khan?”
“A rider of the black priests held it on his wrist, Chauna Singh. Lo, here is a getter of meat—if there be game hereabouts.” He stroked the hooded and shackled bird, which clung to the gauntlet. “The men of Bon follow us—but they know not one of their number is missing. The horse escaped me. The man lies back among the rocks.”
XIII
Dawn flooded into the gorge as the sun gleamed on the snow peaks overhead.
There was no mist as in the valleys of the foothills, yet the sun was long in dispelling the chill that clung to the rocks. The faces of the four were dark with chilled blood. Nevertheless, the light brought a certain amount of cheer.
They felt the brief exhilaration of those who have watched through the night and feel the first warmth of the day in their veins. They had been stumbling ahead for the last few hours, making little progress, but Chauna Singh and Khlit had forbidden a halt. Sleep came with rest, and the two warriors knew that sleep, on stomachs long empty, lowered the vitality.
There were circles under Nur-Jahan's fine eyes and her little feet limped in their leather slippers. Hamar's wrinkled face was a shade thinner. Of the four, he missed the absence of food the least, owing to his ascetic habits.
Khlit and Chauna Singh showed no trace of hardship so far. The night's march meant little to them and they were saving their strength with the experience of men accustomed to the hazards of forced journeys.
“We have not gone far, khan,” muttered the Rajput.
Khlit cast a keen glance above and below. They were still in the forest belt, with the snowline a bit nearer. He understood now why they had been placed in the ravine by the priests of Bon. The rock sides of the gorge were sheer. And impassable. They must go forward, or back.
And the men below would see that they did not go back.
“Hamar says,” went on Chauna Singh, “that the pass leads up over the snowline to the valley of the blue lake—Lamdok Tso. It is pleasing to Bon, the Destroyer, that his victims perish near the blue lake.”
“One has perished already,” laughed Khlit grimly.
“May he be born for a thousand years in the bodies of foul toads!” amended the Rajput. “Harken, khan. Let us loose the falcon. Soon we shall be above the place where game is to be found.”
“Presently. Nur-Jahan must press ahead now. When she tires we will unhood the goshawk.” Khlit tightened the shackles of the sulking bird. “We have a greater enemy than hunger.”
“Cold,” assented Chauna Singh. His glance lingered on the form of the woman ahead of them. “So be it, khan.”
They advanced up the defile steadily. Khlit, although he watched closely, saw no sign of those who were following. They had fallen back, he reasoned, trusting to the gorge to keep the four pent in.
So far they had advanced for a night and the part of a day. Nur-Jahan had told him that the Lake of Lamdok Tso lay a journey of two nights, two days and part of a third night from their starting point. And they still had the snow to face.
Khlit thought grimly that if the goshawk failed them it would go ill with the four. Yet he saw no chance of turning back. News of their venture would have spread through the foothills, and even if they succeeded in avoiding the guardians of the pass to their rear they would have no place of refuge to seek.
His talk with Chauna Singh convinced him that the Rajput did not know of the man awaiting them at the lake, in the Kandrum pass. Nur-Jahan, then, had not told her follower what she had whispered to Khlit. Hamar knew.
The minstrel, his vina slung across his shoulders, kept pace with them silently. Like most men of small frame, once the first weariness had passed off, his limbs carried him forward lightly— as easily as the two stronger, who had more weight to carry.
Nur-Jahan's strength surprised Khlit, who knew not that the Persian had been a wanderer in many lands before she met Jahangir. When the sun was high overhead that day and the woman's steps began to falter, he unhooded the goshawk, slipping the leash from the bird's claws.
Here was no opportunity to ply the art of falconry. They had sighted no quarry on the mountain slopes to fly the goshawk at. Khlit could only free the bird and pray that it would sight game for itself.
The four halted, watching the falcon ascend in wide circles. It rose until it had become a dark speck against the blue of the sky. Still it circled.
“Allah be merciful! Grant that it find prey,” uttered Nur-Jahan, eyes bent aloft.
“And near at hand,” added Chauna Singh, pointing to the rock walls that shut them in on both sides. Hamar said nothing, watching the bird with the calm of the fatalist.
“It must be well hungered,” observed the Rajput, who understood the pastime of falconry, “and it will not return until it has sighted quarry. Ho—look yonder!”
The goshawk had darted downward, wings folded. When it was once more well within sight it fluttered and circled, quartering across its previous course.
“It has sighted quarry!” cried Chauna Singh, moved out of his habitual quiet. “Now, it seeks it out—nay, it points to the thicket ahead of us. Ho—it strikes!”
The bird had disappeared among a clump of trees at one side of the ravine, some distance ahead. Chauna Singh and Khlit ran forward, scrambling over rocks and plunging across a freshet to the trees.
“Shiva send it be a mountain sheep. The bird was hungry!” Pushing into the bushes, the two cast about for the falcon. Presently the rustling of leaves attracted their attention and Chauna Singh pointed to where the bird was tearing at the body of a hare, shredding the flesh with its beak, fierce eyes gleaming redly at them.
“A hare!” growled the Rajput, angrily. “A hare among four!” Nevertheless, he tore the bird from its hold on
the warm quarry, hooded and shackled it. When Nur-Jahan and Hamar came up, Khlit had prepared the flesh of the animal, roughly, for eating. The girl shivered at sight of the blood.
“Eat,” said Chauna Singh, almost roughly. “It is not only food—but warmth.”
Obediently, she swallowed some mouthfuls of the meat, until sudden sickness stayed her. Hamar refused his portion.
“What need have I of such?” he said tranquilly. “My strength lies not in meat.”
Whereupon Chauna Singh, staring, put aside the minstrel's share for Nur-Jahan. What remained he placed in a fold of his tunic. He and Khlit ate sparingly and urged the others ahead.
The ravine they had been following through many valleys gave way to the broad shoulder of the mountain. The last trees disappeared. The wind that pressed steadily in their faces grew colder. Standing in the open, they saw a score of mighty peaks stretching away on their left hand.
On their right Khlit saw a small pile of stone, topped by a flat slab, on which were graven some signs unknown to him.
“A shrine of the god Bon,” whispered Nur-Jahan, breathing heavily because of the thin air into which they had come.
“Here be none but the god!” cried Hamar aloud. He pointed down the gorge behind him. “There our guards wait. Ahead is the heart of Himachal, home of the many-faced gods!”
Khlit glanced at him sharply. The man's eyes were glowing somberly and his voice was shrill. The Cossack wondered if the lack of food had not done him harm.
Nevertheless, it was Hamar who took the lead, guiding them upward among the ridges.
At sunset Nur-Jahan's knees gave way and she sank to the ground, uttering no cry. When Khlit and Chauna Singh touched her they saw that she was shivering.
The two glanced at each other significantly. Khlit took off his sheepskin svitza and cast it over the girl. Seeking a sheltered spot among the rocks, they rested, placing the girl between the three men.
Khlit fell asleep at once, to be roused shortly by Hamar. Chauna Singh had also slept. The Rajput gathered the passive woman in his arms and strode forward, Hamar leading.
In this fashion, relieved at times by Khlit, the man carried Nur-Jahan through the night. He spoke no word, nor did he offer to rest. Only his heavy breathing testified to the effort Chauna Singh was making.