CHAPTER III

ENTER STEPHEN POYNING

The match I had struck to light my cigarette remained burning in my fingers till it scorched them. I was waiting for Philipson to amplify that last disclosure, but he appeared to be thinking of something else; he had thrown back his head and was listening intently.

'Not a word now,' he whispered.

There was a knock on the door, and the innkeeper entered, laid four bottles and two glasses on the table between us, and withdrew with that queer bent-kneed bounce which natives use for a bow.

'Fortunately,' said Philipson, 'this inn has been patronised by foreigners in the past, for whom the woman keeps a cellar. When we arrived it was almost my first concern to explore it and take stock. This is not a vintage claret, I am afraid, but it was the best quality I could find.'

'You've made up for it in quantity, anyway,' I put in.

Philipson smiled. 'Have no fear,' he said. 'I fully understand that the burden of consumption will rest upon me. It is, I may say, a habit of mine to drink freely, and that of the best obtainable, on all occasions. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to drink large quantities of good wine.'

I thought this was a pretty naive assertion for a man to make, but Philipson seemed quite unconscious of anything queer about the remark he had made. He poured out two glasses, pledged me politely, and continued to sip with zest all the time he was talking. I fully expected to see him get soused, but, far from that, beyond causing him to speak with a little deeper earnestness, the wine left Saunders Philipson entirely unaffected. His speech remained clear, with a sort of musical, incisive clearness it always had, and the clarity with which he unfolded his tale grew, if anything, as the night advanced.

'You are, I understand, pretty hard up at present, Mirlees?' he began, coolly.

'That's so,' I replied, 'but I don't know how you came to understand it.'

'Do not trouble to inquire. I know many things about many people that would surprise them.' And with that he began to prove it, quoting facts from my career since I had come East that I had thought unknown to anybody but Ronald Mirlees.

'So you see,' he concluded, with a business-like pull at his glass, 'I have a fair general idea of your status and antecedents. But it was only last night I found out about you the fact that really concerns me.'

'What was that?'

'That you are a comrade to be relied upon,' he said with the sincerest and most matter-of-fact air in the world, 'and that you are free from any absurd prejudice against the Asiatic as such.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Your actions have proved that you, at least, do not consider him less worthy of consideration than a European. How many white men would have stepped in to see fair play for a Chinese as you did last night?'

'Perhaps not many.'

'Very few indeed at the risk of their own lives. That fact alone would have singled you out in my mind as the ideal man to help me.'

'What do you want me to do?'

'I want you to partner me in about the biggest adventure two men ever undertook.'

'And you think I'd be more inclined to say yes because I'm on the rocks?'

Philipson sat back in his chair with a frank smile. '_Touché!_' he cried. 'I ought not to have mentioned the state of your finances, if your being hard up disposes you to accept my offer, so much the better for me, but candidly, I was not leaning on that. What I want is breadth of mind, insight, sympathy, imagination. I can find any number of mere situation hunters, but the man of sympathy is rare. To meet that man at a moment when he is looking for an enterprise worthy of him I regard as a piece of unparalleled good fortune. After all, why should you scrape a livelihood writing for a public which can hardly understand you, leave alone appreciate, when you might be bidding for real fame with me?'

'You'd better let me have the story complete, Philipson,' I said.

'With all my heart. You had never heard of me before last night, I take it?'

'Never.'

'It is not greatly to be wondered at. I have spent many years in the East, but somehow the European centres never attracted me. Often I have lived native for long periods together, and beyond the consuls who have registered my name--though I never yet had to ask any other service of them--I do not suppose a dozen men in all China know me. Those that do, know me, I fear, only too well. The gentry who chased us last night in the launch are among that number. But to my story. At one time and another I have done much exploration in the interior. I have been in many places where I am convinced no white man has been before or since. The routes taken by travellers like Huc and Sven Hedin and the Prince of Orleans across the so-called "unknown" regions of Tibet I would guarantee to follow blindfold. There is not much to be found up there except snow and ice and scenery--that is, at least, by people who are obliged to hurry straight across, on the stretch about their food supply all the while. If the climate and the nature of the country allowed one time to explore, I fancy a lot of strange things would turn up. I found something very strange indeed, but it was only by the merest accident.'

'What was it?'

'An _obo_. You know what that is, of course?'

'A Tibetan prayer-mound, isn't it?'

'Exactly. They are to be found sometimes even in the uninhabited regions, having been erected by pilgrims crossing the heights. The _obo_ consists of slabs of slate--which often lies ready to hand on the mountain sides--set up like a house of cards and inscribed all over with Tibetan characters. Most European explorers who come upon one of them for the first time imagine they have got hold of something noteworthy, but disappointment awaits them. That historic record they thought they had discovered turns out, on examination, to be no more than an endless reiteration of the Tibetan devotional formula, _Om Mane Padme Hum_--"O the Jewel of the Lotus."'

'Yet you say it was something strange you found?'

'It was, indeed. At first, of course, I thought I had merely stumbled on one of those conventional monuments of piety, put up by some pilgrim on his way to Lhassa from the north and no more distinctive than a roadside crucifix in Italy. But then it struck me that this was well off the route that any pilgrim would be likely to take. There is no recognised track, of course, in those wild regions, but there are long grooves between the ranges of heights, and it is to these enormous gutters that the traveller keeps if he values his life. Even here progress is arduous in the extreme, for the surface is terribly rough even when free from ice-crusts, and many of the grooves run for hundreds of miles at an altitude never less than sixteen thousand feet, with the accompaniment of constant hailstorms and snowstorms and terrific cold. The _obo_ I found was not in one of these gutters. It stood on a small patch of level rock at the end of a pass, in the midst of a waste of rugged peaks looking for all the world like monstrous frozen waves of the sea.

'I saw beside the monument what appeared to be bleached sticks of wood, but I discovered my mistake as I came nearer. They were human bones--the skeleton of one man. Now thoroughly curious, I examined the inscription on the plaques of slate, and you may picture my excitement when I found it was not the usual text, but a longish legend scratched on the surface with, apparently, some sharp splinter of rock. I at once made an exact copy of the whole--no easy task, I may say, for the scratches had been very feebly made. At that time I did not know Tibetan well, but I knew enough to realise that this inscription had been written by the dead man--and not long before his death, to judge by the quavering way the letters were formed--for the purpose of leaving some message behind him. But what the message was, neither I nor any man of my party could fathom.

'That expedition was the most disastrous I ever knew. We had abominable luck with the weather and everything else; snowstorms beleaguered us in the mountains so long that our supplies ran out, and we were reduced to living on steaks--raw for the most part--hacked from the ponies as they dropped dead one by one. My bearers treacherously deserted me, and when at last I, the only white man of the party, staggered down into the Tsaidam marsh country with one faithful usbeg who had accompanied me from Kashgar, the pair of us were much nearer dead than alive.

'My first move after getting back to civilisation was to seek an interpretation of that legend. There are one or two European works on Tibetan, and I collected these and brushed up my knowledge of the language thoroughly; but after much hard study I found I was still unable to make sense of the inscription. The words were simple enough, but they seemed to resolve into phrases that would not come out by any ordinary method of translation. I could see far enough into the fog, however, to understand that this legend had been composed by a monk, and I assumed that the wording must be couched in some secret phraseology known only to the Tibetan priesthood. Without special knowledge I could get no further. What was I to do? I dared not show the inscription to any Tibetan of my acquaintance, for I had already a shrewd suspicion that it contained facts I should desire to keep to myself.

'I bethought me of Lhassa, the headquarters of the Tibetan faith. Thither I went, posing as a Chinese convert anxious to qualify for monastic orders, and by virtue of a handsome solatium to the abbot of a big monastery I gained admittance. There I learned many strange things, Mirlees, but little that was of any use to me. Before long I became convinced that the peculiar form of language in which my legend had been written was not known at Lhassa. But the time I spent there was not wasted. I discovered the monastic meaning of two vitally important words in the inscription, which, translated into ordinary Tibetan, came out as "Phagspa" and "Shigatse." That gave me the clue. The legend had been written by a monk of the monastery of Phagspa, in the city of Shigatse, and thither I must go for further enlightenment. I went. Here I found far greater difficulty in obtaining admission, and it was only by heavy bribery I was able to do so at all. Also, I was obliged to take a vow to reside in that gloomy monastery for ever. All went well for a while, and most hopefully for my quest. There _was_ a secret form of language used by the inmates of that place, and it was not long before I began to acquire the elements of a vocabulary in it. Yet despite my utmost care, I could not remain there without arousing suspicion. From the questions I was obliged to ask, put them as artlessly as I might, the monks soon gathered that there was some ulterior motive in my coming, that I possessed a secret which they would very strongly desire to discover. I was watched night and day. The position became unbearable. At last one of the priests who had been detailed to instruct me in the religious observances of the place intruded on my privacy in a most exasperating fashion, and it ended in blows. Several other monks came to this fellow's aid. Well, you have seen me in a ruction, Mirlees. I seldom enter such an affair without leaving my mark on it. I knocked down two of the Tibetan clergy and threw a third against a great wooden pillar so violently that I fear he perished as a result. That was the end of my novitiate as a lama. I had to run, barely getting out with my life and the precious inscription, which I always carried sewn into my inner garment.

'I pass over my escape back into China, which was a ghastly experience enough, and took months of forced marches. But I had what I wanted. Arrived in Shanghai, I sat down to translate my legend, and found I could now piece it together without difficulty. And here is the translation.'

Philipson took from his wallet a small folded slip, but paused before flattening it out.

'I must have your solemn promise of secrecy, Mirlees,' he said. 'I have risked my neck twice for this little handful of words, and I do not choose to share it with any human soul besides yourself. Are you agreeable?'

I gave the assurance he wanted, and Philipson, leaning over the table, read in a clear whisper the following remarkable statement:

"I, Sbrang Chikya Lama, being a priest of the holy brotherhood of Phagspa in the city of Shigatse, having now come to the end of this incarnation, do hereby declare:

"That having strayed from the caravan in which I journeyed with others despatched by the Ocean Priest" (Dalai Lama) "from Lhassa to the Son of Heaven" (Emperor of China) "who holds sway in the north, I lost my way in the mountains, and was mad with the madness of high places" (height-sickness) "and came at last after many wanderings and grievous pains to the land of the beings of ghostly face, who dwell by the river of white gems under skies where birds fly bigger than the children of men. And I descended into the valley which lies towards the setting sun, but having seen from afar the beings of ghostly face and becoming greatly afraid lest they, evil spirits, should enthral me to an evil _karma_" (conduct of life) "I fled swiftly into the mountains again ere they beheld me, and crossed again the great snows, hoping that in time I might meet pilgrims of our own faith who should relieve me of my distress. But I have seen no men, only the yak and the eternal snows, and being now blinded with the snows and ready to die for want of food and shelter, have written these words for warning lest any of the true brotherhood should stray from this spot towards the setting sun and should meet the devils of ghostly face and come to evil at their hands.

"Now to the Jewel of the Lotus I commend my spirit and pray I may be born again in seemly shape and nearer to the blessed Nirvana" (nothingness) "which sets a period upon life and death and rebirth."

Philipson carefully folded and replaced the paper, and looked searchingly into my face.

'What do you make of that?' he said.

'About the queerest statement I ever came into contact with,' I replied. 'How do you interpret it yourself?'

'I take it to mean that somewhere amongst those tremendous ranges there is a valley of which the world so far knows nothing. Also that that valley is inhabited.'

'By "devils of ghostly face"?'

'A white race might be called so by the writer of the legend.'

'H'm. A pretty tall order, Philipson,' I said. 'Where could they have come from?'

'That remains for me to find out.'

'But what can the fellow have meant by birds bigger than the children of men?'

'Possibly some great vulture or eagle which he had never seen in his own country. You must remember the poor wretch had been wandering alone over the mountains--for how long we don't know, and that he was starving and exhausted. No doubt to his fevered eyes the birds looked a good deal bigger than they really were.'

'But the river of white gems?'

'Ah, there we come to a real difficulty. I have pondered that phrase for weeks together, and the only explanation I can think of is this: the strayed priest struck a mountain stream, which he could see flowed down into the valley, and knelt beside it to drink. It must have been then that he noticed the white gems in the water, and the white gems, I take it, must have lain thick for him to notice them at all.'

'What do you suppose the white gems to be?'

'There is only one kind of white gem that is found in the beds of streams, Mirlees--the diamond. That one fact ought to render this valley a highly attractive locality, though for my part I may say I intend to explore it quite independently of the hope of opening up a new diamond field.'

'If there were diamonds there, isn't it likely the priest would have brought some away with him?'

'He may have done so. I noticed none near the skeleton, but then I was not looking for anything of the sort, and may easily have missed them. He may have dropped them during his retreat through the mountains. Likeliest of all, he may have been too terrified at the sight of the "devils of ghostly face" to trouble about collecting gems.'

I sat drumming my fingers on the table. It was a wild and fantastic enough story in all conscience, and they would be bold gamblers who staked much on its truth.

'Well, what do you say?' I heard Philipson's crisp, keen voice.

'I see pretty enormous obstacles. In the first place, supposing you could find the place where the legend was written--'

'Never fear. I nearly lost my life on that trip, but I kept my head through it all. I made a large-scale plan of the neighbourhood, and mapped every mile of my journey down country. I will guarantee to take you to that heap of slates direct--or as straight as the mountains permit.'

'How is it, then, if the place is so easy to find, it's never been found and made known? I've trekked with the Tibetan caravans before now, many times, but never have I heard mention of such a monument.'

'You hardly would. My _obo_ is right off the track that caravans or even explorers would be likely to follow. Even if the heap of slates were found, that would not help in the least. I was determined that if there were any great discovery to be made beyond those mountains it should be mine only. As soon as I had copied the inscription I erased it. As it stands at this moment, that cairn would be taken to be just the common type of Tibetan _obo_ with its legend obliterated by weather.'

'You seem to meet every objection, Philipson,' I said. 'But frankly, as man to man, do you really expect to find this supposed valley with its white race?'

'Why not? If that poor devil of a priest could find it, travelling alone and on foot, without equipment and without food, it will say little for my capabilities as an explorer if I cannot do as much with all the outfit for a cross-mountain expedition. Whatever happens, I shall never rest now till I have settled the question one way or the other, or left my bones up on those heights in the attempt. Why, Mirlees, an adventure like this is worth risking a dozen lives for. It will be the most wonderful exploration in history.'

Saunders Philipson's manner was always openness itself, yet had he deliberately sought around for the most cunning way to win me over he couldn't have brought forward a stronger argument than this. The lure of the thing was irresistible. Already I saw myself bringing back the secret of this hidden land to the outer world, and heard my name ringing round the planet, and saw the faces of some of my former critics among the orientalists. These folk had set me down as a reckless liar in the past. Now they would have something really to get excited about.

'I'm in it with you Philipson,' I said at last, 'in it to the death. But there's the rub--the possible death. Nasty accidents have been known to happen up on that roof of the world. I haven't money enough to pay the lawyer's fee for writing a will, but there are some manuscripts among my baggage that I don't want lost, still less stolen and printed under another man's name. I'd give a good deal to return to Shanghai before we start.'

Philipson shook his head gravely. 'Most perilous,' he said. 'The gang we escaped last night will know at any moment now that the down coast scent was false--if indeed they have not learned as much already. They will concentrate on Shanghai till a fresh trail is picked up. For either of us to show his face in the city at present would be suicidal.'

'By the way, Philipson, who _are_ the gang?'

'H'm. Of course. I did not tell you. They are members, Mirlees, of a large and powerful secret society, whose headquarters are at the monastery of Shigatse, in Tibet. During my novitiate I gathered that there was something of the sort in existence, though no mention of it was ever made to me. I fancy it started there centuries ago, as a purely religious organisation, but that it has since extended over China and taken on a character the very reverse of religious, though it still preserves the ancient hidden form of language which was used by Sbrang Chikya on the _obo_. I have been able to discover one or two things about the society since my return to Shanghai, but I little dreamed its agents were actually in the city and had marked me down for destruction.'

'You're sure of that?'

'I recognised one of my former fellow monks during our encounter in the opium hell.'

'What were you after there?'

'Facts. Since I got the translation of the legend I have been constantly on the look out for confirmation of it, however slight. It seemed impossible that a race like this people of the legend should lie hidden in their valley through the centuries without at least some vague tradition of their existence developing in neighbouring lands. I had heard of no such tradition, but other men might. I made veiled but thorough inquiries among natives who have used the caravan routes of the interior a good deal, and at last came upon a man who professed to know something about it. We were to meet in that den, then go on to his house. I now see the whole scheme. The monks at Shigatse had divined from certain questions I put to them that I was on the track of some land of gems in the interior, which had originally been discovered by one of their own fraternity. They wanted to filch my information and revenge themselves upon me for entering their monastery and penetrating some of _their_ secrets under false pretences. The fellow who was to give me information was put up as a trap, to get hold of this inscription and these--'

Philipson threw himself back in his chair, staring at the wall above my head. He then began feverishly turning over the papers he had drawn from his wallet.

'What's wrong?' I cried.

Philipson glared at me in a sort of suppressed fury. 'This is wrong, Mirlees,' he muttered between his teeth. 'The man you are partnering yourself with is about the clumsiest fool in Asia. When I came away from my house I thought I had all my papers with me. But I had not. One packet is missing--the one containing half the maps of my journey down country.'

'That's essential, of course?'

'Vital. It's this end of the trail I've left behind. The other I might dispense with--with extreme good luck I might find the _obo_ from memory if I had a correct start. As it is, I would not guarantee to get within a hundred miles of it.'

'H'm. Perhaps you'd better let me risk Shanghai after all, Philipson,' I said. 'I could get the maps as well as settle my own affairs.'

He remained staring at the wall. 'Plucky of you to volunteer, Mirlees,' he said at last, 'but if either of us is to go, I might every bit as well go myself. Both of us would stand an excellent chance of being murdered.'

At this moment there was a violent commotion outside our room. Philipson shot the papers back into his pocket and sprang up, covering the door with a revolver, as I could see, through the silk of his jacket. We heard scuffling footsteps and the voice of the Chinese landlady raised in strident wrath. Philipson tiptoed to the door, opened it quietly, and peered out, while I followed him, peeping over his shoulder. With the woman was a boy of about twenty-one, in Europe clothes and, apparently, a genial phase of alcohol, bowing and scraping to her like a dancing master and talking a sort of high-falutin jargon of which she couldn't possibly have understood two words.

When he had satisfied himself there was nobody else, Philipson stepped out on to the broad landing, with me at his heels. The newcomer turned and faced us. He was short, well-knit, clad in smartly cut pongees that had suffered a little, it seemed, from his adventures of the evening; and as he bowed to us--with just a suspicion of a lurch--his regular, freckled features broke into a smile that disclosed two rows of very small white teeth. Whatever the fellow was, he was no hobo--that much I saw at once.

'Good evening, gentlemen,' he said. 'Would you believe it, this flinty-hearted Hebe actually denies me access to my own rooms!'

The proprietress likewise turned to us, with shrill protest. 'Dis man he no hab pay money!' she screamed. 'No more long time can stay in dis house.'

The youth threw up his hands disdainfully, as if surprised. 'How paltry!' he exclaimed. 'To break the harmony of our relations over a few wretched dollars which I do not for the moment happen to possess!'

Philipson had been taking stock of the youth very comprehensively, though he didn't appear to be aware of it.

'What's your name?' demanded my friend.

The newcomer returned Philipson's keen look with equal directness, raising his eyebrows slightly. 'Abruptly asked, if I may say so,' he remarked. 'My name is Stephen Poyning, at your service'--and with this he fetched a rather grandiose sweep of the topee he was holding in his hand.

'How much do you owe her?'

Poyning faced the landlady. 'Prithee, woman,' he said, 'state the extent of indebtedness.'

'Dis man he no hab pay fifty dollar!' she returned.

Philipson pulled a wad of notes from his pocket, counted out five of ten dollars each, pushed them into the landlady's hand and took her by the shoulders and directed her downstairs with a good deal more determination than gallantry.

'Now, sir,' he said, turning to Poyning, 'having relieved your immediate needs, I venture to inquire what is your business here.'

Poyning fanned himself elegantly with his hat. 'There lies the whole pathos of the situation,' he said. 'I have none. My occupation up to this time has been merely the search for business, the quest of some small nook in the great world machine of labour. I may say that the quest has been diligently prosecuted, but utterly barren of result.'

'H'm. You cannot get a job.'

'The merchant princes of this land, sir, have been but very faintly impressed with the desirability of enlisting my services. In Shanghai--would you credit it?--I could scarce get them to believe I was not in jest; and here, too, beyond the offer of a post to pack frozen game in a warehouse--side by side, I believe, with native operatives--nothing whatever has presented itself. And I, gentlemen, took a first at the University of Oxford.'

'Come into this room,' said Philipson, leading the way.

Poyning followed. On seeing the quartette of bottles on the table his eyes lit up. 'One who understands the art of living, I observe,' he said. 'And now, worthy Macedonian, what can I do to vent my gratitude for your most timely loan?'

Philipson was staring at the youth very hard. 'Gift,' he corrected, shortly. 'Usury is not among my failings.'

Poyning bowed again. 'And a bourgeois pride is not among mine,' he said. 'Gift be it called, then, which is the more noble, and moves me to livelier thanks. How can I translate them into action?'

'Wait here for a few moments,' said Philipson, moving suddenly to the door. 'Stay in this room, the pair of you, till I come back.'

As soon as he was gone I motioned our visitor to a chair. 'You're a pretty cool hand,' I said. 'D'you always call people fancy names?'

'The wrathful Hebe, cupbearer to gods? The appellation was perhaps rather daring than apt.'

'For some reason best known to yourself you also called my friend "worthy Macedonian."'

He screwed a glass into his eye and rounded on me with an expression of astonishment--whether feigned or genuine I couldn't tell.

'Dear me,' he said, 'can it be that the allusion was lost upon you? And yet you would appear from your externals to be a man of some culture.'

'May be,' I said, nettled at his bland impudence, 'but what has that to do with it?'

'Possibly your studies have at some time or other taken you into that temple of learning known as the British Museum?'

'They have, but I still don't see what the devil you're driving at.'

'Curious,' observed Poyning. 'The Grecian type of your friend's beauty--our friend's, if I may say so--is so marked that it struck me at once. An idle fancy of mine, of course, but the reason I addressed him as worthy Macedonian was that his features bear a perfect resemblance to the busts of Alexander the Great.'