Patrick O’Brian 3-Book Adventure Collection: The Road to Samarcand, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ not to walk so much, with his own hands he shot a snow-leopard. They had risen for days to the last high pass before Tanglha-Tso, and they were just descending again towards the snow-line when a thar dashed across their path, leaping madly over the rocks: immediately behind it came a snow-leopard, gaining on it fast in huge bounds. The Professor, who was in front, whipped up his rifle and fired. The snow-leopard seemed to check in mid-air. It fell awkwardly on its side, staining the snow with scarlet blood. It gave a great coughing roar and came straight for them. The Professor was fumbling at his spectacles: he had knocked them sideways as he fired, and the others could not shoot without hitting him. But five yards from the Professor’s maddened pony the leopard fell, rolled, twitched and lay still. Chingiz, racing through the line of plunging, panicking yaks, put a bullet between its eyes for good measure, but the great beast was already dead. Chingiz ran forward to take its whiskers for a charm, and the others gathered round it. Lying there on the snow it looked unbelievably large, with its thick yellowish fur and its long, deep-furred tail.

      ‘Big, big, big,’ cried Ngandze in admiration, stretching out his hands: he bent, cut off an ear and ate it with every appearance of appetite.

      ‘What an extraordinarily bold creature,’ said the Professor, who was still a little flustered.

      ‘They are very bold,’ said Sullivan. ‘I suppose it is because so few of them are killed.’

      ‘Professor,’ murmured Ross in his ear, ‘you were not aiming at the thar, were you?’

      ‘I cannot deny it,’ replied the Professor, with a blush, ‘but they were very close together, you know, and I assure you that I did fire on purpose.’

      Down they went, below the snow-line again and to the high pastures where the yaks were grazing by the small summer settlements of the herdsmen, down to the racing, ice-cold river and the hardy trees, and after three days more they saw the village of Tanglha-Tso, dominated by its high, white-walled monastery. It looked like a morning’s ride, but in that high, clear air they knew very well by now that distances were deceptive, and it did not surprise them to find that three days elapsed before they reached the little, dirty, huddled village.

      This was the first inhabited lamasery that Derrick had seen, and he asked his uncle whether he could go up and look into it: he also asked whether it was not dangerous for them to stay there.

      ‘Didn’t you say, Uncle, that we were going to avoid lamaseries?’ he asked finally.

      ‘If I had asked my Uncle Paddy half so many questions,’ said Sullivan, ‘he would have kicked me from Connaught to the city of Cork, and if I had asked my Uncle Murtagh – but I am a quiet, civil-tempered man and mild to a fault. In the first place, if we were to go through Tibet without passing any villages with monasteries, we would have to have wings and feed on the air, like birds of Paradise. In the second place, this is not a Red-Hat monastery: it is a small place, of no great importance, and from what I hear the abbot is a good, gentle creature. And in the third place, if I catch you peering about that lamasery, I’ll have the hide off you with a rope’s end. We must not offend their religious ideas in any way at all, and until you know their habits there’s no telling what may upset them. The Professor is going up with the Tibetans to pay his respects: he doesn’t want the whole ship’s company hanging around and gaping like a lot of stuck pigs.’

      In the evening the Professor came back. ‘I cannot tell you how charmed I am with this place,’ he said. ‘Nothing could have exceeded the friendliness of my reception. The abbot was delighted with our little offering, and he sends you each a scarf. It was extraordinarily fortunate that we arrived today, or I should have been deprived of the pleasure of his conversation: he and all his monks are to go on a pilgrimage to the Gompa Potala early tomorrow morning.’

      ‘Did you say conversation, Professor?’ asked Ross. ‘You must have done very well with your Tibetan vocabulary.’

      ‘That was the most delightful thing about it: the abbot speaks Chinese. He spent years in Peking with the Teshoo Lama many years ago – he is an old man – and he is more fluent than I am myself. He told me a great many fascinating things, and he was kind enough to say that he bitterly regretted the necessity for his journey tomorrow. He is writing a book on the ceremonies peculiar to this part of Tibet, and he gave me a detailed account of the progress of his manuscript.’

      ‘Did he tell you anything about our route?’ asked Sullivan.

      ‘Yes. But first I must give you a glimpse of the worthy abbot’s character. He astonished me by taking me for a Chinese.’

      ‘It is hardly so very astonishing, Professor,’ said Sullivan. ‘With your tinted glasses and in your present robes, I think you could very well pass for a Chinese of the taller kind, particularly among people who are not accustomed to Europeans.’

      ‘Well, be that as it may, my command of the language is hardly that of a native of the country, and when I attempted to disabuse him, he would not listen to me. With what I at first took for an unexpected discourtesy he interrupted me, and repeated emphatically that I had come from China. I agreed, but before I could go on, he said, “For all practical purposes, those who come from China are Chinese.” He then added that it would be a great pity if he or his monks were to spread it abroad that foreigners had illegally come into the land and were travelling about it without permission; whereas if it were known that a Chinese scholar was moving from point to point in a peaceable manner, no notice would be taken: the Chinese, you know, have a vague suzerainty over Tibet. I understood his meaning in time, and I thought it not improper to acquiesce in the innocent deception. I am afraid that I went so far as to describe you all as barbarian porters for whose almost-human good behaviour I could vouch. “Oh, as for the outlandish slaves,” says he, “nobody will take any notice of them, so long as you govern them strictly.”’

      ‘Almost human, sir?’ said Derrick.

      ‘I thought it necessary to flatter you, my boy,’ said the Professor kindly, ‘and seeing that I had already committed myself to deception, I felt that I might as well go on to the limit of credibility.’

      ‘I hope,’ said Sullivan gravely, ‘that it has not strained the abbot’s power of belief beyond all repair. But we must comfort ourselves with the reflection that he has never seen Derrick. But tell me, Professor, what did he say about our route?’

      ‘He was very encouraging, except for one matter; and he gave me a highly detailed map. Here it is …’ The Professor felt in his robes. ‘Bless me,’ he exclaimed after a minute, ‘I must have left it behind.’

      ‘Perhaps sitting upon?’ suggested Li Han deferentially.

      ‘Why, how very extraordinary,’ said the Professor, rising, ‘so I was. Well, here we are, you see, just by the mouth of this benign scarlet dragon. It is not, perhaps, quite as clear as your charts, but he assured me that it is accurate. No, one should hold the north to the right, thus.’ They leant over the map: it was beautifully decorated with phoenixes, dragons of different colours, and fiends, and at first it conveyed very little; but when they got used to the curious shifting scale and the various symbols, it made thoroughly good sense.

      ‘This is an absolute treasure,’ said Sullivan, with keen approval. ‘But what was the discouraging point he spoke about?’

      ‘The Red-Hats,’ replied the Professor. ‘He advised us at all costs to avoid their villages, and he has marked all the places where they are likely to be met – here, you see, and here. But there are two places where we cannot avoid them without a very long detour, and a third where it is impossible to get by without climbing a ridge that must, from his description, closely resemble the СКАЧАТЬ