THE PASS OF PERIL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22603, 16 December 1936, Page 25

THE PASS OF PERIL

By EDMUND BARCLAY Author of " Korona," etc.

CHAPTER Xl.—(Continued) But wait! She had done that for her father! Would Ruth do as much for ' those whom she loved? It was hard to visualise her doing so, and that was definitely a point in her favour. H'mmm, was it? After all a woman who could stoop from her womanliness to serve those whom she loved was, after all . . . oh, confound it, hell and blast, here he was pacing this narrow room, coldbloodedly comparing two women I It simply was not done —not when one of them was the woman one loved 1 Ruth was like the English woodviolet, as truly simple, as truly refined, and as truly beautiful; whereas, the other was like some vivid oriental flower, exotic and compelling, a flower that Ivould soon pall on the senses by reason of its overpowering perfume! No! Hang it! That was not being fair to Myra. After all, hers was as fundamentally clean and as incisive aa a Western wind. The trouble was, he had been seeing too much of her lately. A woman had no business to mix herself up in matters like this. It threw a man off his balance. Well, the sooner he regained it, the better for him and all concerned. As for Ruth, time would tell, and he trusted to her fundamental honesty to "clear away all doubts bofor the rift between them widened too far for mending. He filled and lit his pipe, and resigned himself to waiting. When at last the signal did come, he was half asleep, but at the first low whisper from outside the grated window, he was all alert and strung for action. It was the subahdar; Clark was in position with the light machinegun, covering the retreat, should the captain decide to make a bolt for it there and then. Swiftly Garvie detailed his plan of campaign. The subahdar and the trooper were to draw back again, leaving him, Garvie, where he was. They were to secure some hidden high-point of vantage, and from there ascertain beyond all doubt of mistake tthe route to bo taken by Ali Khan and ihfi Decmings when they started out again next morning. If the subahdar thought it wise, Clark and he could follow the trail for half a day or so, to make sure that there could be no possibility of losing it. If, however, tho Pathans and the Americans were taking a definite route, say, following the old caravan track which led into the far north, then Clark and the subahdar were to rush Garvie's prison tho very next night. After making sure that his orders were thoroughly understood, Garvie dismissed the subahdar, and flinging himself down on a rickety old floorbed, slept like a log, until he was awakened by tho noise of Ali Khan's departure soon after dawn. Ho went to his window, and peered out and saw that Myra was watching for him. She waved her hand, and then slowly rode out of view without another backward glance. '

CHAPTER XII. The sun was setting in a lurid glow of cloudy fire as, a week later, Ali Khan's caravan rested at the top of a ridge which had taken them the best part of a day to climb. They had crossed the snow-line two days ago. and the awe-inspiring beauty of the mighty snow-fields which seemed to be

(COPYRIGHT)

A STORY OF THRILLING ADVENTURE AND A GREAT LOVE

"It's been a very interesting trip, Ali Khan," continued Deeming, "and it's been a groat experience, but I think it's time we got back and did a bit more work. Moreover, I don't like the food you hand out. Guess we'd better bent it back to Chunder Lai and his stew-pans in Walizanee. If that gear has arrived, I'll have that well down within a week after we get back." "it shall bo done, Sahib Deeming." And ho began detailing the escort. Deeming's eyes narrowed at this. So 'Ali Khan was meaning to turn them right back now, was he? Why not spend the night in the village below them, where it might be possible to get a good feed of chicken, or eggs at least, and then start back nice and comfortable in the morning. Ho put this plan to Ali Khan, who at first sought j to evado it.

"What's tho big idea, Ali," snapped Deeming, cutting across tho Sultan's evasions. Why are you so anxious to get rid of us?" Ali Khan shrugged his shoulders and gave in. He could not afford to quarrel with Deeming. "It is a matter connected, with my ambitions, sahib," he

poised but a few feet above them, though in reality they were several thousand feet or so higher up the mountain slopes, had stricken the Westerners into a silence broken only

by short sentences connected with the details of the day's journey. Ali Khan rode up to them on his shaggy hill pony, and with a magnificent gesture, pointed down to where in the valley could be seen a few wretched stone huts grouped round a watch-towor.

"The village below us, mem-sahib." he said, "is on the northernmost border of my kingdom. To the west of us is Afghanistan, to the east and beyond the mountains is Tibet. China lies to the north-east. Turkistan to the north and north-west. I go down into the village. You may return to Walizanee if you wish —I will send with you an efficient escort." "What do you say, Myra?" asked Deeming. "It's been some pleasurejaunt. I'll say that this is the most generous part of the world I've struck, when it comes to scenery. Just look at them mountain-tops. You'd think they were blood-stained."

Myra gazed up to where the last rays of the dying sun spilled their splendour upon the towering slopes, which seemed to lift their peaks to the very gates of heaven. The grandeur of the scene was undeniable, but it had a curiously saddening and chastening effect upon one so susceptible to the appeal of natural beauty as Myra. Instead of feeling uplifted and strengthened my these mighty crags and eternal snows, she felt depressed and humbled. The arrogance of mankind in thinking it could tame nature was displayed here as being an inane futility. Why, she could not conquer her own nature. She had given her heart to a man who did not want it, and bitter, bitter indeed, were her thoughts as she sat here at the foot of the mountains which reared themselves up to the roof of the world. Perhaps a little of the bitterness left her thoughts as she realised what a puny thing was humanity compared with these age-old, peaked solitudes. She did not answer her father's question, for she cared not what they did. She loved Michael, and all her life she would love him, but she did not wish to see him again. There was an acho in her bosom as she thought of the sardonic twist of it all —she wanted Michael, he wanted Ruth, and neither could get- their desire.

said. "Down in the village I shall meet one who has come a long way to meet me. A great general, a war-lord, he calls himself, from Southern China." "China! Are you trying to string me* Why, that's .... that's hundreds and hundreds of miles away, across them mountains." "A three months' journey by ordinary caravan, sahib, but with a military car, four-wheel drive, it may be done in less than a fortnight through certain little-known passes. This man comes to meet me here. We have great business to discuss." "What is it, Ali? Come on, out with it. You'll keep no secrets from me. Guess I'll have to foot the bill, whatever it is." "Need you really ask, sahib. Surely you know my ambition?" "Yep. You want to organise the small nations north of India into one vast confederation, foment mutiny- in the British Indian Army, and then sweep the British into the sea. It's all a pipe-dream, Ali, just nothing but a pipe-dream." "It is not—by Allah it is not!" swore the Pathan. "These mountains breed

fighting 4 men the like of which have never been seen since Attila the Hun swept the world. Millions of fanatics, who in cut and thrust fighting have not their equal the world over." "You make me tired, Ali," sneered the American. "The British are ngt to be conquered by cut-and-thrust methods."

"A wave of fanatics, strengthened by highly-trained armoured units, bombing 'planes and mechanised artillery. How long do you think the handful of British in India will resist that?"

"And where are you going to get all this military gear, and these trained mechanicians?" asked Deeming, impressed, although ho tried not to show it. "Guess they don't grow on trees." "I shall buy them from the warlords of Southern China, and shall pay them with the gold you shall give me for the Walizanee oil," replied Ali with an evil smile. "Even now General Lung Chi, who has come over the mountains from Khotan, in the Chinese province of Sinkiang, awaits me at the village below. Already I think he brings with him a trial consignment of light machine-guns and ammunition." Deeming opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it like a trap. This was more than he had bargained for. He did not doubt for one minute but that Ali Khan and his allies would, in the ultimate, be overwhelmingly crushed by the British, but what ho had visualised at first had been a more or less mild hill rising, which perhaps he could stifle at birth if he felt like it. But here was a first-class frontier war in the making, and ho was helping to make it!

"Lead on, Ali," he grunted. "Guess I'll meet the Chinese guy. It's no use your protesting. I'll have to foot the bill for all this gear you're buying, and I want to know what's what. Lead on, Myra and mo will start back in the morning. Wo won't interfere with you. So long as 1 get the oil, I don't caro what happens, or what you do, but I'm not going to be kept in the dark, so you needn't think it."

Slowly the caravan wound its way down to the village, which already Icy in darkness, ono or two twinkling lights and burning torches 011 the watch-tower showing that the caravan was expected. Deeming and his daughter rode well back in the rear, secure from being overheard. "Did you get all that, Myra?" he asked I*ll a low voice.

"Yes, pop," she replied. "I got it all. I'm thinking that Ali Klmn isn't such a fool of a fanatic as we had thought him to be. How's all this going to affect you and your oil?" "Ali Khan must hold his hand for at least six months. That should be easy to fix. I don't suppose he'll ready to move under that. He must also realise that I can't give him any more

money until I've cashed in myself on this oil stunt, and we can't negotiate a thing like that with a first-class war raging on the doorstep. Once the wells are definitely established, why then, J

guess I'll sell out and let some other guy hold the baby." "Always supposing the British don't

step in first, pop." "I've been thinking that over, Myra. The danger of that isn't as acute as at first I thought Mind you, we've done right in keeping it dark from them, and we've got to keep it dark as long as we can. But just at present the British are all for the League of Nations, respecting the rights of independent peoples, and all that sort of thing, and I guess they can't very well hop in and seize the Walizanee oil wells, not without showing themselves up as first-class hypocrites. The British can't very well do something remarkably similar to what they're preventinc ether European nations from doing in northern Africa. No sir!"

This drew new light upon the subject, and Myra pondered it in silence for a while. Finally, she spoke with ti diffidence unusual to her everyday manner of speech with her father, "I don't think I like this, pop," slie said. "War is a very nasty thing, and I'd rather that you weren't mixed up in it."

"It's got nothing to do with iw, Myra," returned her father gruffly. "All we've got to do is to mirid our own business. Ali Khan is entitled to a share of the profits from this oil proposition, and what he does with those profits is not our concern. After all, why should I worry about the British? It's their funeral, not mine. 1 shan't lose any sleep over it." He added slowly, and in a different tone of voice, "I don't see why you should either. You've got no reason to be fond of the British."

She was glad that the gathering dusk hid her features, for she did not want her father to see the tell-tale blush. Evidently those shrewd eyes of his had seen more than she had thought they had seen. Why, indeed, should she worry about the British? Ah, Michael, my dear, Michael! Her every waking thought was of him, and most of her dreams, and it was aching misery to know that he spared never a thought for her. Clear-sighted in all other respects, Myra was curiously blind in this. She knew nothing of the effect she had upon him, nor did she suspect just how much her image did occupy his thoughts, which was a pity, for even to know that one is actively disliked, or at least, emotionally distrusted, is to find some little solace. Better that, than to be ignored. She was perfectly that purely feminine vanity which even in the nicest of her sex, delights in having aroused a man's admiration, but she had hor full share of that healthy human conceit without which the average man or woman would be a spineless nonentity, and she knew herself physically and mentally to be more of a mate for Michael than that introspective piece of fragility, Ruth Conyers. And yet her fairness of mind would not let her belittle hor successful rival. A sheltered childhood and a spoiled adolescence had overdrawn a character already fine and sensitive at birth, so that she required delicate handling. Myra could see that, and could also see where Michael's character failed in appreciating Ruth rightly. With many another, woman, certainly with Myra herself, Garvie's good-tempered, somewhat amused acceptance of circumstance, would have been exactly the right attitude to adopt, but Ruth was that by no means rare type, which requires constant assurance by love itself before it can believe that it is loved. A nature overrefined, over-subtle like Ruth's, would perhaps be capable of great things and noble sacrifices, but they would have to bo drawn out of her —they would not spring into spontaneous birth. (To be continued daily)