Lost Horizon (5 page)

I
T WAS TYPICAL OF
Conway that he let the others waken for themselves, and made small response to their exclamations of astonishment; yet later, when Barnard sought his opinion, gave it with something of the detached fluency of a university professor elucidating a problem. He thought it likely, he said, that they were still in India; they had been flying east for several hours, too high to see much, but probably the course had been along some river valley, one stretching roughly east and west. “I wish I hadn’t to rely on memory, but my impression is that the valley of the upper Indus fits in well enough. That would have brought us by now to a very spectacular part of the world, and, as you see, so it has.”

“You know where we are, then?” Barnard interrupted.

“Well, no—I’ve never been anywhere near here before, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that mountain is Nanga Parbat, the one Mummery lost his life on. In structure and general lay-out it seems in accord with all I’ve heard about it.”

“You are a mountaineer yourself?”

“In my younger days I was keen. Only the usual Swiss climbs, of course.”

Mallinson intervened peevishly: “There’d be more point in discussing where we’re going to. I wish to God somebody could tell us.”

“Well, it looks to me as if we’re heading for that range yonder,” said Barnard. “Don’t you think so, Conway? You’ll excuse me calling you that, but if we’re all going to have a little adventure together, it’s a pity to stand on ceremony.”

Conway thought it very natural that any one should call him by his own name, and found Barnard’s apologies for so doing a trifle needless. “Oh, certainly,” he agreed, and added: “I think that range must be the Karakorams. There are several passes if our man intends to cross them.”

“Our man?” exclaimed Mallinson. “You mean our maniac! I reckon it’s time we dropped the kidnapping theory. We’re far past the Frontier country by now, there aren’t any tribes living around here. The only explanation I can think of is that the fellow’s a raving lunatic. Would anybody except a lunatic fly into this sort of country?”

“I know that nobody except a damn fine airman
could
,” retorted Barnard. “I never was great at geography, but I understand that these are reputed to be the highest mountains in the world, and if that’s so, it’ll be a pretty first-class performance to cross them.”

“And also the will of God,” put in Miss Brinklow unexpectedly.

Conway did not offer his opinion. The will of God or the lunacy of man—it seemed to him that you could take your choice, if you wanted a good enough reason for most things. Or, alternatively (and he thought of it as he contemplated the small orderliness of the cabin against the window background of such frantic natural scenery), the will of man and the lunacy of God. It must be satisfying to be quite certain which way to look at it. Then, while he watched and pondered, a strange transformation took place. The light turned to bluish over the whole mountain, with the lower slopes darkening to violet. Something deeper than his usual aloofness rose in him—not quite excitement, still less fear, but a sharp intensity of expectation. He said: “You’re quite right, Barnard, this affair grows more and more remarkable.”

“Remarkable or not, I don’t feel inclined to propose a vote of thanks about it,” Mallinson persisted. “We didn’t ask to be brought here, and Heaven knows what we shall do when we get
there
, wherever
there
is. And I don’t see that it’s any less of an outrage because the fellow happens to be a stunt flyer. Even if he is, he can be just as much a lunatic. I once heard of a pilot going mad in mid-air. This fellow must have been mad from the beginning. That’s my theory, Conway.”

Conway was silent. He found it irksome to be continually shouting above the roar of the machine, and after all, there was little point in arguing possibilities. But when Mallinson pressed for an opinion, he said: “Very well-organized lunacy, you know. Don’t forget the landing for gasoline, and also that this was the only machine that could climb to such a height.”

“That doesn’t prove he isn’t mad. He may have been mad enough to plan everything.”

“Yes, of course, that’s possible.”

“Well, then, we’ve got to decide on a plan of action. What are we going to do when he comes to earth? If he doesn’t crash and kill us all, that is. What are we going to
do
? Rush forward and congratulate him on his marvelous flight, I suppose.”

“Not on your life,” answered Barnard. “I’ll leave you to do all the rushing forward.”

Again Conway was loth to prolong the argument, especially since the American, with his level-headed banter, seemed quite capable of handling it himself. Already Conway found himself reflecting that the party might have been far less fortunately constituted. Only Mallinson was inclined to be cantankerous, and that might partly be due to the altitude. Rarefied air had different effects on people; Conway, for instance, derived from it a combination of mental clarity and physical apathy that was not unpleasant. Indeed, he breathed the clear cold air in little spasms of content. The whole situation, no doubt, was appalling, but he had no power at the moment to resent anything that proceeded so purposefully and with such captivating interest.

And there came over him, too, as he stared at that superb mountain, a glow of satisfaction that there were such places still left on earth, distant, inaccessible, as yet unhumanized. The icy rampart of the Karakorams was now more striking than ever against the northern sky, which had become mouse-colored and sinister; the peaks had a chill gleam; utterly majestic and remote, their very namelessness had dignity. Those few thousand feet by which they fell short of the known giants might save them eternally from the climbing expedition; they offered a less tempting lure to the record-breaker. Conway was the antithesis of such a type; he was inclined to see vulgarity in the Western ideal of superlatives, and “the utmost for the highest” seemed to him a less reasonable and perhaps more commonplace proposition than “the much for the high.” He did not, in fact, care for excessive striving, and he was bored by mere exploits.

While he was still contemplating the scene, twilight fell, steeping the depths in a rich, velvet gloom that spread upwards like a dye. Then the whole range, much nearer now, paled into fresh splendor; a full moon rose, touching each peak in succession like some celestial lamplighter, until the long horizon glittered against a blue-black sky. The air grew cold and a wind sprang up, tossing the machine uncomfortably. These new distresses lowered the spirits of the passengers; it had not been reckoned that the flight could go on after dusk, and now the last hope lay in the exhaustion of gasoline. That, however, was bound to come soon. Mallinson began to argue about it, and Conway, with some reluctance, for he really did not know, gave as his estimate that the utmost distance might be anything up to a thousand miles, of which they must already have covered most. “Well, where would that bring us?” queried the youth miserably.

“It’s not easy to judge, but probably some part of Tibet. If these are the Karakorams, Tibet lies beyond. One of the crests, by the way, must be K2, which is generally counted the second highest mountain in the world.”

“Next on the list after Everest,” commented Barnard. “Gee, this is some scenery.”

“And from a climber’s point of view much stiffer than Everest. The Duke of Abruzzi gave it up as an absolutely impossible peak.”

“
Oh, God
!” muttered Mallinson testily, but Barnard laughed. “I guess you must be the official guide on this trip, Conway, and I’ll admit that if I only had a flash of cafe cognac I wouldn’t care if it’s Tibet or Tennessee.”

“But what are we going to do about it?” urged Mallinson again. “Why are we here? What can be the point of it all? I don’t see how you can make jokes about it.”

“Well, it’s as good as making a scene about it, young fellow. Besides, if the man
is
off his nut, as you’ve suggested, there probably
isn’t
any point.”

“He
must
be mad. I can’t think of any other explanation. Can you, Conway?”

Conway shook his head.

Miss Brinklow turned round as she might have done during the interval of a play. “As you haven’t asked my opinion, perhaps I oughtn’t to give it,” she began, with shrill modesty, “but I should like to say that I agree with Mr. Mallinson. I’m sure the poor man can’t be quite right in his head. The pilot, I mean, of course. There would be no excuse for him, anyhow, if he were
not
mad.” She added, shouting confidentially above the din: “And do you know, this is my first trip by air! My very first! Nothing would ever induce me to do it before, though a friend of mine tried her very best to persuade me to fly from London to Paris.”

“And now you’re flying from India to Tibet instead,” said Barnard. “That’s the way things happen.”

She went on: “I once knew a missionary who had been to Tibet. He said the Tibetans were very odd people. They believe we are descended from monkeys.”

“Real smart of ’em.”

“Oh, dear, no, I don’t mean in the modern way. They’ve had the belief for hundreds of years, it’s only one of their superstitions. Of course I’m against all of it myself, and I think Darwin was far worse than any Tibetan. I take my stand on the Bible.”

“Fundamentalist, I suppose?”

But Miss Brinklow did not appear to understand the term. “I used to belong to the L.M.S.,” she shrieked, “but I disagreed with them about infant baptism.”

Conway continued to feel that this was a rather comic remark long after it had occurred to him that the initials were those of the London Missionary Society. Still picturing the inconveniences of holding a theological argument at Euston Station, he began to think that there was something slightly fascinating about Miss Brinklow. He even wondered if he could offer her any article of his clothing for the night, but decided at length that her constitution was probably wirier than his. So he huddled up, closed his eyes, and went quite easily and peacefully to sleep.

And the flight proceeded.

Suddenly they were all wakened by a lurch of the machine. Conway’s head struck the window, dazing him for the moment; a returning lurch sent him floundering between the two tiers of seats. It was much colder. The first thing he did, automatically, was to glance at his watch; it showed half-past one, he must have been asleep for some time. His ears were full of a loud, flapping sound, which he took to be imaginary until he realized that the engine had been shut off and that the plane was rushing against a gale. Then he stared through the window and could see the earth quite close, vague and snail-gray, scampering underneath. “He’s going to land!” Mallinson shouted; and Barnard, who had also been flung out of his seat, responded with a saturnine: “If he’s lucky.” Miss Brinklow, whom the entire commotion seemed to have disturbed least of all, was adjusting her hat as calmly as if Dover Harbor were just in sight.

Presently the plane touched ground. But it was a bad landing this time—“Oh, my God, damned bad,
damned
bad!” Mallinson groaned as he clutched at his seat during ten seconds of crashing and swaying. Something was heard to strain and snap, and one of the tires exploded. “That’s done it,” he added in tones of anguished pessimism. “A broken tail-skid, we’ll have to stay where we are now, that’s certain.”

Conway, never talkative at times of crisis, stretched his stiffened legs and felt his head where it had banged against the window. A bruise, nothing much. He must do something to help these people. But he was the last of the four to stand up when the plane came to rest. “Steady,” he called out as Mallinson wrenched open the door of the cabin and prepared to make the jump to earth; and eerily, in the comparative silence, the youth’s answer came: “No need to be steady—this looks like the end of the world—there’s not a soul about, anyhow.”

A moment later, chilled and shivering, they were all aware that this was so. With no sound in their ears save the fierce gusts of wind and their own crunching footsteps, they felt themselves at the mercy of something dour and savagely melancholy—a mood in which both earth and air were saturated. The moon looked to have disappeared behind clouds, and starlight illumined a tremendous emptiness heaving with wind. Without thought or knowledge, one could have guessed that this bleak world was mountain-high, and that the mountains rising from it were mountains on top of mountains. A range of them gleamed on a far horizon like a row of dog-teeth.

Mallinson, feverishly active, was already making for the cockpit. “I’m not scared of the fellow on land, whoever he is,” he cried. “I’m going to tackle him right away .…”

The others watched apprehensively, hypnotized by the spectacle of such energy. Conway sprang after him, but too late to prevent the investigation. After a few seconds, however, the youth dropped down again, gripping his arm and muttering in a hoarse, sobered staccato: “I say, Conway, it’s queer .… I think the fellow’s ill or dead or something .… I can’t get a word out of him. Come up and look .… I took his revolver, at any rate.”

“Better give it to me,” said Conway, and though still rather dazed by the recent blow on his head, he nerved himself for action. Of all times and places and situations on earth, this seemed to him to combine the most hideous discomforts. He hoisted himself stiffly into a position from which he could see, not very well, into the enclosed cockpit. There was a strong smell of gasoline, so he did not risk striking a match. He could just discern the pilot, huddled forward, his head sprawling over the controls. He shook him, unfastened his helmet, and loosened the clothes round his neck. A moment later he turned round to report: “Yes, there’s something happened to him. We must get him out.” But an observer might have added that something had happened to Conway as well. His voice was sharper, more incisive; no longer did he seem to be hovering on the brink of some profound doubtfulness. The time, the place, the cold, his fatigue, were now of less account; there was a job that simply had to be done, and the more conventional part of him was uppermost and preparing to do it.