"Hazúr, look whether the thing can be done. I said—if no snow fell."
"And I say, if it fall or no, we cross to-day," Lenox answered, with more of assurance than he felt. "Bid the yaks go forward to prepare a way for our coming."
The great shaggy beasts went forward accordingly, head downward, ploughing a way through the snow, to make marching easier and disclose hidden pitfalls or crevasses; and by the time Lenox had despatched a travesty of a breakfast, a pallid light in the east hinted that the storm might be local after all. Wet and draggled as they were, the order was given to load up and start; and even as they crossed the torrent to the foot of the glacier, earth and sky leaped suddenly into light; broken streaks of radiance danced and sparkled on the river, and the sun swept the shadows from hill and valley, converting their deathlike shroud into a glittering garment, stainless as the soul of a child.
"Inshallah!! Now all is well!"
It was the deep voice of Yusuf Ali; and Lenox heard his cheery little friend, the Havildar, make answer, "True talk, brother; the gods favour those who go forward!"
Cheered by the prospect of getting dry, and by the sun's mysterious power to exhilarate all things living, the whole party quickened their pace. But in less than an hour fresh clouds had rolled up, blotting out the sun; and on the glacier they overtook the yaks and their drivers, lumbering soberly through the snow-drifts with true Oriental disregard for time.
The men chorussed voluble excuses; but since time meant life or death, Lenox waved them aside impatiently, and ordered the guide to go on, making his own tracks as best he might. The which he did, with the help of two others, pressed into service by promises of liberal backsheesh, stepping out valiantly at the head of the mixed procession; his sister's remains—tied up in a wisp of turban—bobbing over his shoulder; driving on before him a donkey followed by a goat. And the unerring instinct by which this despised creature of God avoided hidden fissures and crevasses must needs be seen to be believed.
The guides, keeping in the tracks of the animals, marked off dangerous places with their sticks; and behind them rode Lenox, muffled to the eyes in poshteen and Balaklava cap, his league of leg barely two feet off the ground; his keen little pony—long since christened 'The Rat'—almost as trustworthy on dangerous ground as the donkey himself. And wherever he led, all self-respecting Kashmiri ponies would follow,—even into a crevasse!
Through four mortal hours they plodded on, a strange procession of muffled figures, leaving in their wake a dark, contorted track, as though some wounded thing had writhed its way upward through the frozen snow.
And by one o'clock the crest was in sight! "The gods favour those who go forward!" Chundra Sen had spoken truth. Another half hour would see them through the worst; and Lenox—scarcely able to believe in his good fortune—urged The Rat to renewed exertion, and shouted to his men to hurry on.