Mirrikh, or, A Woman from Mars/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
WHAT WE FOUND IN THE STORM.
I never saw it snow as it snowed that night. I have encountered many a blizzard in the Far West, to say nothing of my experience on the Pacific Railroad, which, of course, it would be out of place to dwell upon here, and I only allude to it to show that I am not unfamiliar with blizzards. I repeat, the worst I ever saw was that night among the mountains of Eastern Thibet.
When I was outside the guard house there were Maurice and Mr. Mirrikh waiting for me amid a whirl of whitened flakes, which already covered them so completely that it was hard to tell which was skeepskin and which snow. I believe I failed to mention that we had all provided ourselves with the sheepskin coats of the country at Zhad-uan. Big clumsy things they were, too, and worn with the woolly side out. It was by advice of our adept that we purchased them—I never fully appreciated the necessity until now.
They were waiting for me and it is well they were, otherwise I might never have found them, for a camel would have been invisible five feet away from the door.
“We want a lantern!” cried Maurice. “George, you are nearest, go back and get one, like a good fellow.”
“We do not need it,” interposed the adept. “My powers of vision are quite sufficient. “Come! Come! We are wasting time.”
“Impossible!” shouted Maurice, and even then I could scarcely hear him. “You nor no other man can see in a whirl like this.”
“Friends,” he answered. “I see by a vision of which you know nothing. Every moment is precious: for God’s sake come!”
I had gained Mausice’s side by this time, and with my mouth close to his ear begged him earnestly not to go—or at least to insist on the lantern.
Somewhat to my surprise he listened to the latter part of my proposition, though utterly rejecting the former. The lantern was procured, all three of us returning to the guard house for that purpose. How well I remember the Doctor’s vigorous protest against our mad folly when we started out the second time.
“We must keep together,” said the adept, “so perhaps after all it is better with a lantern, it will be a help on that score, if no other. Give it to me. We shall have to go single file. It is not so far.”
Think of the folly of it! Where were we going and why? I find myself at a loss for words to explain the feelings I experienced when we moved away from the guard house in the face of the storm, wallowing in snow already knee deep.
We had heard no cry for help, had seen nothing, knew nothing to make it appear that our mad venture had any object. We were acting entirely on the bare claim of this singular individual to a superhuman sight. Bitterly I cursed the strange influence which he had come to exercise over Maurice, but for my friend’s sake I struggled on, firm in the belief that we had started on a fruitless quest.
It was useless to try and talk, for only by shouting could we make ourselves heard. The fury of the wind seemed to increase every moment. The snow whirled against our faces with blinding intensity, yet in spite of it all we started down the mountain road by the way we had come.
Mr. Mirrikh went first, Maurice followed, I, keeping as close to my friend as possible, brought up the rear.
On our left rose a wall of rock towering high above our heads; on the right yawned a precipice over the edge of which one false step might precipitate us to an awful fate. All this I had seen before darkness settled over the mountain and remembered it but too well. Ten minutes passed—it seemed as though we had been fighting the storm for hours. Raising my voice to the highest pitch, I called to Mr. Mirrikh and implored him to return.
“Courage!” he shouted back. “Courage, Mr. Wylde! It is but a few steps! Do you remember that big white boulder you examined on the way up and pronounced an evidence of glacial action—it is there.”
“We can’t be far from that now,” cried Maurice. “It was only a few minutes before we reached the guard house after we passed it.”
“We are close upon it!” he called. “Just a little more effort, friends! Ha! What was that? Now you will believe that I told the truth!”
It was a human voice—a cry!
Faintly it fell upon our ears, but it was real.
“Coming!” shouted Mirrikh.
I remember thinking it a pity none of us understood Thibetan that we might convey some hope to this perishing soul, but the adept with all his wonderful powers assured us that he knew no more of the tongue than we did ourselves.
Of course I objected no longer, but spoke words of cheer to Maurice, who was certainly the weakest physically of the three.
I was lost in wonder at the whole strange business. How had Mirrikh known? What was the secret of this power thus to project his vision indefinitely? I thought of clairvoyance, second sight and similar things, which until then, I had considered only so many different names for humbug and chicanery. Never before had I realized how little I understood the latent powers within every man as on that memorable night.
Again the cry and again we shouted back encouraging words. It began to look as though we were going to accomplish something after all.
“Keep well up to the left!” said the adept. “The snow is gathering on the edge of the precipice—one false step and we are lost.”
“It can’t be a great way now,” said Maurice, “and I am thankful for it. Fact is, George, I’m pretty nearly used up.”
Twenty paces brought us to the white boulder. We came upon it suddenly; almost before we knew it there it was rising before us amid the whirl of snow.
“Is there any one here?” shouted Mirrikh, flashing the lantern about.
Then for the first time I heard that voice which was to have such power to move me later on.
“Help! Oh help us! We are perishing!”
Though spoken with a very marked accent, the words were in our own language. It is hard to express the effect this produced on me, and I am sure with Maurice it was just the same.
“George! It is a woman! She is speaking English!” he shouted, as we pressed forward after the adept, who had already reached the rock.
It stood to the left with a space of perhaps six feet between it and the perpendicular wall against which the path was cut. A huge detached mass of white quartz, at least five feet in height and eight or ten in length, it offered some slight shelter from the storm.
There, in that narrow space, sat a young woman with a sheepskin drawn about her, bending over another sheepskin which lay at her feet, half buried in the snow. It covered a human form—a man. There was the grey head resting in her lap, and the feet projecting below that woolly covering. Still and silent it lay, and I seemed to know intuitively that all hope was idle. Truly death stalketh in the storm.
Not that my mind dwelt upon this—not that it was even remembered in the instant that followed.
As the adept’s lantern was flashed behind the rock and his voice spoke words of cheer, the woman’s eyes were raised and her face turned upward.
“Merciful powers! ” cried Maurice; “it’s that same girl we met on the road back from Ballambong!”