"It's very queer. I felt as if I must walk over there, goodness knows what for. The feeling has gone now. What's wrong with me?"
"Malaria, as like as not," said Mackenzie. "Here, take a stiff dose of quinine. We don't want an invalid on our hands."
Forrester had no return of his strange vertigo, if such it were, and after supper he laughed at himself for his momentary weakness.
By the afternoon of the next day they had worked round the Camel's Hump, and, turning northwards, saw stretched out before them a tract of dense scrub, beyond which in the far distance towered the peaks of the snowy range. They decided to continue their march until sunset, hoping that somewhere amid the scrub a suitable camping place would offer itself. So difficult was the passage now, that the party became more split up than had hitherto been the case; but there was no danger of anyone straying, since the order had been given that those behind should not turn aside from the tracks of those who had preceded them.
In course of time Sher Jang reached a fairly open space, and a halt was called. The Nagas straggled in, Hamid Gul followed them and Mackenzie appeared last of all. For a few moments his companions were too much occupied to notice a diminution of their party, but presently Forrester, after a look around, cried:--
"Where are the Chinkies, Mac?"
"Aren't they here?" Mackenzie asked in return.
"You ought to know--you were contemplating their backs," Jackson remarked.
There was no sign of them. Forrester called up their Naga carriers, and Sher Jang questioned them. The men could give no information. Once or twice they had lost sight of the Chinamen as the scrub hid them from view. They had thought nothing of that.
The three white men looked at each other.