Real Gold Part 18

"No," said Cyril sadly. "Meeting my father."

Perry was silent, and his friend turned to Diego, who was going from mule to mule, examining the knots in the hide ropes by which the baggage was secured to the pack-saddles.

"Which way does the road go now?" he asked.

The man pointed straight along the black chasm running from below them away into the distance.

"Along there?" whispered Perry, as he comprehended the gesture.

"Yes, I thought so," said Cyril coolly. "There can be no other way."

"But what else did he say?" asked Perry breathlessly.

"He said, did your father want to go on any more."

"What's that?" cried the colonel.

Cyril repeated the man's remark.

"Tell him of course, till I wish him to stop."

Cyril delivered the message, and the man spoke again, gesticulating and pointing along the deep valley.

"He says, sir, that there is no place farther on where you will get a bigger valley, and that there are plenty of snow-mountains farther back."

The colonel made a gesture full of impatience.

"What does he mean, Cyril? Doesn't he want to go any farther?"

"I think that's it, sir. I'll ask him what he means."

Cyril turned to the guide again, and there was a short, eager conversation, carried on for a minute or so.

"He says, sir, that the way along the track is very dangerous. It goes along that side, to the left, and the path is very narrow. If any one slipped, he would fall right to the bottom."

"It must be the regular way across the mountains, where mules are accustomed to go, and he undertook to guide me; so tell him I go on."

Cyril conveyed the colonel's words to the man, who looked annoyed, and glanced suspiciously at the colonel as he said a few words, to which the boy replied angrily.

"What's that? what's that?" cried the colonel.

Cyril hesitated.

"Speak out, sir; what is it? Why don't you speak?"

"He said he wanted to know where you wanted to go, and what for?" said Cyril, watching the colonel rather anxiously.

"Tell him as far as I please, and where I please," said the colonel sternly. "Now then, at once; and tell him I should advise him not to ask me any more questions. Forward!"

Cyril interpreted the words, and the Indian looked sharply at his employer, to see in his eyes the glances of a man accustomed to command, and without a word he took the rein of the leading mule, and went away to the left, seeming to Perry as if he were pa.s.sing over the edge of a precipice, so suddenly the descent began, a dozen yards away.

But, as is often the case among the mountains, that which had looked so terrible at a little distance, last its dangerous aspect when boldly approached, for, following closely upon the luggage mules, Perry reached the edge of that which he had supposed to be a precipice, and found that it was only a slope, going downward; but it was quite steep enough to require great care in crossing it, and the mules showed their comprehension of the fact that it must not be attacked lightly, by the way in which they walked, slowly and carefully, making sure of every step they took, till they were well across the green slope, and on to solid rock once more.

And now it was plain that the man had not exaggerated, for their path lay along what is known to geologists as a fault in the rock of which the side of the valley was composed--that is to say, the upper part of the huge ma.s.s appeared to have slipped sidewise, leaving four or five feet of the lower part of the valley wall like a shelf, and along this the mules began to walk cautiously, taking the greatest care that their loads did not touch the side of the rock, and consequently walking as close to the edge as possible.

The man had not exaggerated in the least. The shelf-like paths they had previously traversed were in places perilous enough, but here the bottom of the chasm-like valley was quite hidden from the travellers, and imagination added largely to the depth whenever either of the boys stole a glance downward.

No one spoke, but they rode on in single line, feeling appalled by the awful nature of the place, hour after hour, for the path wound and zigzagged, and seemed without end. At every slip of a mule's hoof, at every kick against a loose stone, Cyril felt his pulses leap, and Perry turned cold with apprehension; while, whenever Cyril turned to look round at his friend, each saw in the other's face a hard set look, and a strange, almost despairing stare in his eyes.

They were conscious of there being a rus.h.i.+ng torrent somewhere far below, but it was down in the region of gloom, and they went on for hours without once catching even a gleam of the water, which at times sent up a dull thunderous roar, at others died away into a faint murmuring vibration, as if it were making for itself a subterranean channel through the bottom of the chasm. But little attention was paid to that, each of the travellers keeping his eyes fixed upon the narrow path in front, and rarely glancing up at the rocky wall on their left, or down into the profound gulf upon their right.

It was well on in the afternoon when, in turning an angle where the path shot off suddenly to their left, they came upon a wide opening lit up by the sun; but, saving that it was light, it was more repellent to the eye than the path along which they had come. For it was one wild chaos of tumbled-together rocks, looking as if, by some convulsion of nature, the whole of that portion of the valley side had been shattered and tumbled down from the shoulder of a huge mountain, destroying the pathway, and leaving in its place a broad stretch of ma.s.ses of rocks, from pieces hundreds of tons in weight, to fragments not larger than a man's head.

Progress across this appeared impossible, but the guide went on for a few minutes and then stopped; for rugged as the place was, it possessed the quality of being level enough to enable them to make a halt for refreshments, without being on a narrow shelf where there was not room for a mule to be turned.

Hideous as the place was, every face brightened, for the strain of feeling in great peril was for the time removed, and even the mules showed their satisfaction by whinnying to each other, and giving themselves a shake, as they began to sniff about and browse upon the dry vegetation which grew amongst the fallen stones.

"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the colonel, as he got off his mule, and looked round and above at the pure blue sky. "One feels as if one could breathe and move now."

"Yes," said Perry, with a shudder; "it was horrible."

"Nonsense, boy," cried the colonel. "It was not a place one would select for a nice walk, but I should not have liked to miss such a journey. People at home do not know there are such wildly-grand places in the world--eh, Cyril?"

"No, sir," replied the latter eagerly, for a pleasant word or two from the colonel was like a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne in his breast; "but it was dangerous. I should not have liked to get off my mule on that shelf."

"Not on the precipice side, certainly," said the colonel.

"Why, there wasn't any room on the other," cried Perry; "and if one had turned giddy, one would have gone down, down--ugh!"

"Yes, the place did look deep," said the colonel, "but no one did turn giddy, and the mules went along as steadily as if they had been on a turnpike road.--Well, Manning, what's the matter?"

"I was thinking about our having to go back along that there path, sir."

"Well, I daresay we shall," replied the colonel, "but you don't mind."

"Not mind, sir?" cried the old soldier gloomily.

"Not you, my man. I grant it is a little dangerous, but not so bad as walking along a shelf in the Nagari pa.s.s, with a Belooch behind every stone, taking aim at one with his long matchlock."

John Manning grinned, took off his hat, and scratched his head.

"You did not complain about the danger then," continued the colonel.

"No, sir, I didn't, did I!" said the man, wrinkling up his face a little more; "and I ain't going to grumble about this neither. I'll go wherever you lead, colonel, like a soldier should."

"Yes; I knew that when I chose you to come with us, Manning," said the colonel quietly. "Well, what about dinner? We had better have it upon that flat-topped stone."

"I shan't be five minutes, sir; but I was hesitating about that stone.