Marching Sands/Chapter 1
MARCHING SANDS
CHAPTER I
THE LOST PEOPLE
"You want me to fail."
It was neither question nor statement. It came in a level voice, the words dropping slowly from the lips of the man in the chair as if he weighed each one.
He might have been speaking aloud to himself, as he sat staring directly in front of him, powerful hands crossed placidly over his knees. He was a man that other men would look at twice, and a woman might glance at once—and remember. Yet there was nothing remarkable about him, except perhaps a singular depth of chest that made his quiet words resonant.
That and the round column of a throat bore out the evidence of strength shown in the hands. A broad, brown head showed a hard mouth, and wide-set, green eyes. These eyes were level and slow moving, like the lips—the eyes of a man who could play a poker hand and watch other men without looking at them directly.
There was a certain melancholy mirrored in the expressionless face. The melancholy that is the toll of hardships and physical suffering. This, coupled with great, though concealed, physical strength, was the curious trait of the man in the chair, Captain Robert Gray, once adventurer and explorer, now listed in the United States Army Reserve.
He had the voyager's trick of wearing excellent clothes carelessly, and the army man's trait of restrained movement and speech. He was on the verge of a vital decision; but he spoke placidly, even coldly. So much so that the man at the desk leaned forward earnestly.
"No, we don't want you to fail, Captain Gray. We want you to find out the truth and to tell us what you have found out."
"Suppose there is nothing to discover?"
"We will know we are mistaken."
"Will that satisfy you?"
"Yes."
Captain "Bob" Gray scrutinized a scar on the back of his right hand. It had been made by a Mindanao kris, and, as the edge of the kris had been poisoned, the skin was still a dull purple. Then he smiled.
"I thought," he said slowly, "that the lost people myths were out of date. I thought the last missing tribe had been located and card-indexed by the geographical and anthropological societies."
Dr. Cornelius Van Schaick did not smile. He was a slight, gray man, with alert eyes. And he was the head of the American Exploration Society, a director of the Museum of Natural History—in the office of which he was now seated with Gray—and a member of sundry scientific and historical academies.
"This is not a lost people, Captain Gray." He paused, pondering his words. "It is a branch of our own race, the Indo-Aryan, or white race. It is the Wusun—the 'Tall Ones.' We—the American Exploration Society—believe it is to be found, in the heart of Asia." He leaned back, alertly.
Gray's brows went up.
"And so you are going to send an expedition to look for it?"
"To look for it." Van Schaick nodded, with the enthusiasm of a scientist on the track of a discovery. "We are going to send you, to prove that it exists. If this is proved," he continued decisively, "we will know that a white race was dominant in Asia before the time of the great empires; that the present Central Asian may be descended from Aryan stock. We will have new light on the development of races—even on the Bible"
"Steady, Doctor!" Gray raised his hand. "You're getting out of my depth. What I want to know is this: Why do you think that I can find this white tribe in Asia—the Wusuns? I'm an army officer, out of a job and looking for one. That's why I answered your letter. I'm broke, and I need work, but"
Van Schaick peered at a paper that he drew from a pile on his desk.
"We had good reasons for selecting you, Captain Gray," he said dryly. "You have done exploration work north of the Hudson Bay; you once stamped out dysentery in a Mindanao district; you have done unusual work for the Bureau of Navigation; on active service in France you led your company"
Gray looked up quickly. "So did a thousand other American officers," he broke in.
"Ah, but very few have had a father like yours," he smiled, tapping the paper gently. "Your father, Captain Gray, was once a missionary of the Methodists, in Western Shensi. You were with him, there, until you were four years of age. I understand that he mastered the dialect of the border, thoroughly, and you also picked it up, as a child. This is correct?"
"Yes."
"And your father, before he died in this country, persisted in refreshing, from time to time, your knowledge of the dialect."
"Yes."
Van Schaick laid down the paper.
"In short, Captain Gray," he concluded, "you have a record at Washington of always getting what you go after, whether it is information or men. That can be said about many explorers, perhaps; but in your case the results are on paper. You have never failed. That is why we want you. Because, if you don't find the Wusun, we will then know they are not to be found."
"I don't think they can be found."
The scientist peered at his visitor curiously.
"Wait until you have heard our information about the white race in the heart of China, before you make up your mind," he said in his cold, concise voice, gathering the papers into their leather portmanteau. "Do you know why the Wusun have not been heard from?"
"I might guess. They seem to be in a region where no European explorers have gone"
"Have been permitted to go. Asia, Captain Gray, for all our American investigations, is a mystery to us. We think we have removed the veil from its history, and we have only detached a thread. The religion of Asia is built on its past. And religion is the pulse of Asia. The Asiatics have taught their children that, from the dawn of history, they have been lords of the civilized world. What would be the result if it were proved that a white race dominated Central Asia before the Christian era? The traditions of six hundred million people who worship their past would be shattered."
Gray was silent while the scientist placed his finger on a wall map of Asia. Van Schaick drew his finger inland from the coast of China, past the rivers and cities, past the northern border of Tibet to a blank space under the mountains of Turkestan where there was no writing.
"This is the blind spot of Asia," he said. "It has grown smaller, as Europeans journeyed through its borders. Tibet, we know. The interior of China we know, except for this blind spot. It is"
"In the Desert of Gobi."
"The one place white explorers have been prevented from visiting. And it is here we have heard the Wusun are."
"A coincidence."
Van Schaick glanced at his watch.
"If you will come with me, Captain Gray, to the meeting of the Exploration Society now in session, I will convince you it is no coincidence. Before we go, I would like to be assured of one thing. The expedition to the far end of the Gobi Desert will not be safe. It may be very dangerous. Would you be willing to undertake it?"
Gray glanced at the map and rose.
"If you can show me, Doctor," he responded, "that there is something to be found—I'd tackle it."
"Come with me," nodded Van Schaick briskly.
The halls of the museum were dark, as it was past the night hour for visitors. A small light at the stairs showed the black bulk of inanimate forms in glass compartments, and the looming outline of mounted beasts, with the white bones of prehistoric mammals.
At the entrance, Van Schaick nodded to an attendant, who summoned the scientist's car.
Their footsteps had ceased to echo along the tiled corridor. The motionless beast groups stared unwinkingly at the single light from glass eyes. Then a form moved in one of the groups.
The figure slipped from the stuffed animals, down the hall. The entrance light showed for a second a slender man in an overcoat who glanced quickly from side to side at the door to see if he was observed. Then he went out of the door, into the night.