Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John

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СКАЧАТЬ was up sheer banks of earth, the remains of old landslides, and as slippery as oil; sometimes through acres of great ferns where the feet sank into deep hollows among the roots: sometimes through cactus scrub which reduced their coat-skirts to rags; often through horrible oozing moss which sent up a stink like a charnel-house. The fog was dying away, and the rising moon made their immediate environment clear, but the better they could see the more hopeless the toil became.

      Hamilton panted and sobbed, and Archie’s weak leg gave him many falls. The air had none of the wholesome chill of night. A damp heat closed them in, and when now and then a faint waft came up from the valley beneath. It seemed to have a sickening scent of violets. Often they stopped for breath, but they did not lie down. Instinctively they both shrank from contact with that unhallowed soil. Once Hamilton drank from a pool in a stream, and was violently sick.

      “We must be about the height of the Matterhorn,” Archie said, “and yet it’s as hot as hell. This is a cursed place.”

      “Deed, it’s no canny,” said Hamilton, gulping with nausea.

      Before long it was clear that Hamilton’s strength was giving out. Thickset and burly as he was, this greenhouse-mountaineering was beyond him. He stumbled more often, and after each fall took longer to recover. At last he stopped.

      “I doot I’m done, sir,” he wheezed. “This bloody cemetery is ower much for me! You gang on.”

      “Nonsense,” said Archie, taking his arm. He was dog-tired himself, but to his more sensitive nerves the hatred of the place was such that it goaded him forward like a spur.

      “See, we’ll take hands. We can’t be far from the tree-line.”

      But it seemed hours before they reached it. Fortunately the slope had become easier and less encumbered, but the two men staggered on drunkenly, speaking no word, their eyes scarcely seeing, so that their falls were frequent, everything blotted from their mind but the will to bodily endurance. So blind were they that they did not notice that the fog was almost gone, and they had come out of the forest before they realised it. Suddenly Archie was aware that he was no longer climbing steeply, and then he was looking across a shelf of bare land which rose to a rim of a pale silver.

      He was breathing free air, too. A cool light wind was on his forehead.

      “Hamilton,” he cried, “I… believe… we’re clear.”

      The two dropped like logs, and the earth they sank on was not the reeking soil of the forest, but the gravel of an upland.

      Both lay for a little, their limbs too weary to stretch. Then Archie crawled to his feet.

      “Let’s go on a bit. I want to feel really quit of that damned Poison Valley. We must find a hole to sleep in.”

      They staggered on for another half-mile, weakly, but no longer so miserably. The sand and shale underfoot gleamed white as salt in the moonlight, and were broken only by boulders and small scrubby thorns. Then they found a shelf of rock which overhung so as to form a shallow cave. It was now as cold as it had been hot in the covert, the sweat had dried upon them, and the scratches on hands and face smarted in the frost. Each had a small ration of food in his pocket, charqui—which is the biltong the Gran Seco Indians prepare—some biscuits and chocolate, and Arch had a packet of raisins. They supped lightly, for thirst and hunger seemed to have left them, and, cuddled against each other for warmth, both were soon asleep.

      Archie woke in an hour’s time. He had slept scarcely all during the past three days, and even deep bodily fatigue could not drug his mind. Wild dreams had assailed him—of falling down precipices of red earth into a foetid jungle threaded by oily streams. He woke to find that the moon had set and that it was very dark. Far off there was a call like a jackal barking. There were other things alive on this shelf beside themselves.

      Then he heard a sound close at hand—the padding of soft feet on gravel. His spot-light was beside him, and he flashed it in the direction of the feet. About ten yards away stood an animal. At first he thought it was a wolf from its size till he saw its sharp muzzle and prick ears, its reddish fur, and its thick tail. It was a fox, one of the cannibal foxes of the Pais de Venenos that he had heard of from Sandy. The animal blinked in the light, and its teeth were bared in a snarl. Archie reached for Hamilton’s rifle, which lay loaded beside them, but he was too late. The great brute turned and trotted off, and passed out of sight among the boulders.

      “Enough to put me off fox-hunting for evermore,” thought Archie. After that he did not sleep, but lay watching the dark thin to shadows and the shadows lighten to dawn. The sun seemed to leap with a bound over the far Cordilleras, and a morning mist, as white and flat as a snowfield, filled the valleys. Archie’s heartsickness returned to him like a fever. Somewhere within the horizon was Janet, but by what freak of fortune was he to get her—himself a mere lost atom at the edge of his endurance, and as ignorant as a babe of this immense, uncharted, unholy world?

      Both men soon realised that the Pais de Venenos had exacted its penalty. Hamilton was clearly in a fever, which may have been due to his many cuts, and Archie felt something like a band of hot steel round his head. For breakfast they nibbled a little chocolate and ate a few raisins. Then, as far as their bodily discomfort permitted, they discussed their plans.

      “We’re up against some solid facts, Hamilton,” said Archie. “We’re looking for my wife, and I believe she’s somewhere within fifty miles, but we’ve got to admit that we’re lost ourselves. All I remember from Lord Clanroyden’s map is that if we keep going up the south wall of the Poison Country we’ll come to the main range, and south-west of that lies Pacheco. The people we’re seeking must be up on the range, but they may be north or south the of Poison Country. We couldn’t cross that infernal valley, so let’s hope they are on the south. Another thing—we mayn’t be able to get up the range—we’re neither of us in much form for mountaineering. Also, we’ve got about enough food to last us with care for two days. We shan’t want for water.”

      “I’ll no need much meat,” said Hamilton sombrely. “I cauldna swallow my breakfast, my throat’s that sair.”

      “We’re both dashed ill,” Archie agreed. “I feel like a worm, and you look like one. Maybe we’ll be better if we get higher.”

      Hamilton turned a feverish eye upwards. “I doot it’s higher we’ll be goin’. Anither kind o’ Flyin’ Corps. Angels.”

      “That’s as it may be. It’s too soon to chuck in our hand. You and I have been in as ugly places before this. We’re both going on looking for my wife till we drop. We’ll trust to the standing luck of the British Army. I’ve a sort notion we’ll find something… “

      “We’ll maybe find mair folk than we can manage.”

      “Undoubtedly. If we’re lucky enough to get that far, we’ll have to go very warily. We needn’t make plans till we what turns up. At the worst we can put up a fight.”

      Hamilton nodded, as if the thought comforted him. A fight with men against odds was the one prospect which held no terrors for him.

      The two very slowly and painfully began their march over the shelf and up to the snow-rimmed slopes which contained it. The Pais de Venenos behind them was still a solid floor of mist. Happily the going was good—flat reefs of rock with between them long stretches of gravelly sand. Archie decided that he must bear a little to his right, for there the containing wall seemed to be indented by a pass. They must find the easiest road, for they were in no condition to ascend steep rock or snow. The wind was from the east and wisps of cloud СКАЧАТЬ