Mirrikh, or, A Woman from Mars/Chapter 9
BOOK II.
THE TRANSMIGRATION OF A SOUL
CHAPTER IX.
THREE TRAVELERS IN THIBET.
“Shut the door!”
No wonder the Doctor said it.
The man who can leave the door open when the thermometer stands at 10 degrees Fah. below zero, is lacking in consideration for his fellow man, to say the least.
“Shut the door!” roared the Doctor, a second time. “Shut the door!”
“Maurice! Maurice! Rouse yourself old man!” I called, adding my voice to that of the Rev. Miles Philpot, which needed no addition, being a host in itself.
Maurice De Veber gave a start; turning, he stared at me for a second in a dazed fashion which had become common with him of late, and then, with a sudden movement forward, the very energy of which showed that he had at last reached a realization of the fact that the Doctor and I were rapidly freezing, slammed the door of the inn at Zhaduan.
“I’m sure I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed, turning toward the k’ang, upon which the Rev. Miles Philpot lay sprawled out in the most undignified fashion, when you come to consider his cloth. I sat beside him with my legs doubled under me like a Turk or a tailor, trying to keep from freezing above while being slowly toasted below.
“It’s all very well to beg a fellow’s pardon after you’ve let in several hundred thousand litres of cold air, French measure,” grumbled the Doctor; “what I would like to know is why you opened the door at all?”
Maurice laughed; then out came the inevitable pipe—that dear old bit of blackened briar wood which I remember so well.
“Astronomical observations,” he replied lightly; “never in all my life have I seen such a wonderful display. Orion is glorious, Sirius shines with a brilliancy positively amazing, and as for the Pleiades”
“Oh, hang the Pleiades!” broke in the Doctor. “I understand it now—you were looking at Mars.”
“And fell into one of your dreamy fits,” I added; “in spite of the risk you ran of supplying pneumonia for three.”
“You’ve hit it, George! You’ve hit it. Keep it up. I deserve it all.”
“Keep up nothing,” grumbled the Doctor. “I wish that rascal, Ah Schow, would get back with the argols to start up this fire; we’ll be sure to see the last of it in twenty minutes if he don’t.”
“One wouldn’t think so from the way the k’ang feels now,” laughed Maurice, jumping upon it, and sitting there with his feet dangling down while he lit the pipe. “The temperature is quite Cambodian beneath and decidedly Thibetan above. What we need is equalization. How’s that, Doctor? Ain’t it about so?”
“Upon my word,” grumbled the Doctor, “we need so many things that I’ve given up thinking about them, and take everything as it comes. Most of all we need common sense enough to give up this whole crazy business and start back to Calcutta before it is too late.”
“Hark! What was that?” I exclaimed suddenly.
Outside the hut a shrill cry had sounded.
It was the “sok! sok!” of the camel driver. A sound no one is likely to forget in a hurry who has had the ill-fortune to travel in Thibet.
Maurice leaped off the k’ang and seized his rifle, which stood leaning against the unplastered wall of the inn. As for the Doctor, he displayed the effects of his American training by the quick motion his hand made toward his hip pocket.
“The fun begins, boys!” he exclaimed. “Some one is coming. I felt it in my bones that fate wouldn’t let us have a quiet night here by ourselves.”
We were all three at the door in an instant, almost upsetting Ah Schow, our Chinese cook at the Nagkon Wat, who was in the act of entering with an armful of argols; dried camel’s dung, the only fuel obtainable and that universally employed to heat the k’ang in Thibet.
“Sok! Sok! Sok!” came the cry again, echoing back from the rocky walls of the mountain pass which lay below us.
Ah Schow informed us that a caravan was coming up, and experience had taught us that Ah Schow, as a rule, when he made a definite and positive statement, was pretty apt to tell the truth.
And while we stand there at the inn door waiting to prove the statement of our chef, let me make a statement on my own account.
We were in Thibet.
We were three travellers journeying through an unknown land, bound on the craziest quest in which ever man engaged.
If any one wishes to put me down as a lunatic after hearing what I have to tell, why I can only say that I would be the last to blame him. In fact, just about that time I was beginning to work around to the same opinion myself.
Now you will not find Zhad-uan put down upon the maps of Thibet; still less will it pay to look for the deserted inn which we had taken possession of that night, never guessing that the town—it consisted of a lamasery and a dozen or two mud houses—was only five miles further on, just over the mountain, on the other slope.
In truth there are no maps of Thibet of any value. If any one of the few travellers who has succeeded in penetrating the country has given a reliable map to the world I never saw it; as for the ordinary ones in the atlas, no two agree, and I vouch for it that all are equally absurd.
Nevertheless here we were in the land of the Grand Lama in spite of the lack of a map, and not a week’s journey distant from that most mysterious of cities, Lh’asa.
Scores of travellers have tried it, each failing signally; few were ever heard of once they had crossed the Thibetan frontier.
Would our fate be different from those who had gone before us into this mysterious land?
God alone knew, on that night when we three stood at the inn door, listening to the cries of the camel drivers. For my part, although not an obstacle had thus far been put in our path by human hands, I had doubts, grave doubts, whether I should ever leave the land of the Tale Lama alive.
But how to explain our motives for this singular journey?
I feel that it is a case where preliminary words and finely turned phrases would be wasted, and entire frankness will pay the best.
Here it is then—make the most of it.
I, George Wylde, my friend Maurice De Veber, late American Consul at Panompin, and the ubiquitous Philpot, were supposed to be on our way to the planet Mars!
There! I have said it, and now I feel better. Laugh at us for idiots if you will; put me down as a monstrous falsifier; treat my statement in any way that best pleases you. I can only hold up my right hand and say solemnly: “It is the truth!”
Of course it is scarcely necessary for me to add that my parti-colored acquaintance, Mr. Mirrikh, was at the bottom of it. That goes without saying, I suppose.
I will mention, however, that the beginning of our folly dates from that night when we found ourselves storm bound in the old Siamese tower; from the moment when that levitating individual gravely announced himself as a man from Mars.
And the rest of his story?
Reader, I dare not tell it; but I will mention that at this time I did not know it. It is, however, too utterly improbable to excite belief, even in the mind of a full-fledged 19th Century Buddhist, who, if you were to claim to have been transported bodily from Benares to Boston in twenty seconds, would not doubt your statement in the least.
Yet Mr. Mirrikh made his assertion with such quiet dignity, that while he spoke he almost carried me away with him; almost made me believe in a vast realm of disembodied spirits all about us, controlling our every action, our very thoughts,
“It is quite useless to talk to you Europeans about these things Wylde”—I remember distinctly the very intonations of his voice as he said it—“quite useless, I assure you, for the reason that you look upon this world as the world of causes, while in reality it is only the world of effects, a mere shadowy reflection of the vast realm of the unseen.”
“But,” I answered, “you must make us some explanation. Here you have boldly asserted something which to our minds seems an utter impossibility; that you are an inhabitant of another planet; not satisfied with this, you tell us that you propose to return to the earth from whence you came, and then cap the climax by offering to take any one of us along.”
We were still sitting together around the fire in the old stone tower when this conversation took place, for you may rest assured that after the astonishing statement made by Mr. Mirrikh with which the last chapter closed, we had no notion of letting him go until he had fully explained.
But could we have held him if he had chosen to depart?
If experience went for anything, most certainly we could not. I know now, as I knew then, that my friend Mirrikh could have left us instantly if he had so desired—left us in spite of all the bolts, bars or stone walls which we might have interposed.
Few of my readers—if indeed I ever find any—will believe that this is the simple truth; and yet it is so; and what is more, few who have traveled through India observantly will question it.
If a fakir can bring a dog down from a clear sky out of nothingness, or can climb a ladder held upright beneath the vault of heaven, and pulling it up after him, vanish ladder and all, why that which I claim for my man is but baby play. And these statements have been vouched for by unquestioned authorities. I have alluded to them before, but I bring them up again in order that, placed side by side with my claim for Mr. Mirrikh, I may have the right to demand at least equal consideration for both.
I remember well just how he looked at me; remember the curious, far-away expression upon Maurice’s face, which in the light of after events, seemed almost prophetic. Never shall I forget the utter contempt with which the Rev. Philpot treated his claims.
But nothing seemed to ruffle Mr. Mirrikh. In fact as I look back upon all our intercourse, I can now see that the only thing which ever did disturb him was the fear of disturbing others with the singularity of his face and the wild impossibility of his claims. His was the assured calmness and complete unity of purpose which we have been taught to look for in angels; and truth compels me to confess that when long in his presence I was as nothing; as an individual entity I seemed to have been annihilated; never until I knew this man had I been able to grasp the idea of the Buddhist Nirvana, where God is all and all is God. And this is the true Nirvana, unrecognized even by the great majority of Buddhists who use the word.
“Friend Wylde,” he said, in answer to my demand; “I am at as great a loss to know how to meet your mental condition as you are at a loss to meet mine; and yet with the exception of a few facts which are the property of my friends the Hindu adepts, there is not a secret I possess not freely yours to-night.”
Here was the Doctor’s chance, and he lost no time in embracing it.
“Look here, my friend, are we all three included in that deal?” he demanded.
“You are.”
Mr. Mirrikh bowed with easy grace.
“And you will answer any question I may ask which does not concern the secrets of the adepts?”
“I will.”
“I’m going to question you.”
“You are welcome to do so.”
“Am I? Wait! First, what do you use to paint your face with, and why do you paint it at all?”
Not by the least look or gesture did Mr. Mirrikh show himself ruffled.
“Examine my face,” he said, in the calmest of tones.
“It is not necessary.”
“Pardon me, but it is necessary. I demand it.”
“Humph! Can’t you see that I understand?”
“Understand what?”
“That some disease has colored your face. I thought it was painted and wanted to try you; but when you consent”
“Stop! I demand that you examine my face before you ask another question.”
The Doctor hesitated no longer.
“Your face is not artificially colored sir,” he said constrainedly, after he had looked and felt to his heart’s content.
“What do you make out of it?”
“I can make nothing out of it. It is a face built in opposition to any physiological law I know anything about. You have probably had some disease unknown outside of the East.”
“You are wrong. Had you ever been in the planet you call Mars, you would know better. Such faces, though not universal, are common there.”
“Don’t talk ridiculous rubbish.”
“I beg your pardon—I am only stating a fact.”
“I won’t listen to it,” snapped the Doctor, showing downright temper. “You’re a good one—there’s no doubt on that score—you beat the deck! But when you try to stuff me with that Mars business, you go a shade too far.”
“As you did when you opened my letter and exposed my secret, sir. You have brought this on yourself.”
“By gracious, he has you there, Doctor!” put in Maurice, rousing himself from the reverie into which he had fallen.
“Not that I blame you,” continued Mr. Mirrikh; “under similar circumstances no doubt I would have done just as you did; but when you utterly discredit my statements”
“Stuff and nonsense! Do you expect a man of my intelligence to believe that a human body can be transported from one planet to another?”
“No, sir. I do not expect it.”
“Then why say it?”
“I did not say it.”
“What am I to understand by that, when you most assuredly did?”
“You may understand whatever you please. The fact remains that to transport a human body from the planet Mars to this earth is quite impossible, as you say.”
“Yet you claim that on Mars it is customary to have faces like yours. You assert that you are a man from Mars.”
“Yes.”
“First you speak one way and then another.”
“I speak consistently, my friend. I was born in Mars, but this body which you see never left this earth, of course.”
“Oh, pshaw! Now we are getting at it,” sneered Philpot. “Some rubbishing re-incarnation nonsense. I thought as much.”
Then it was that he said it—spoke the words which turned the whole tide of my life.
“It is nothing of the sort,” he began, fixing his eyes on Maurice in a way that I have seen Hindu snake charmers fix theirs upon the deadly cobra. “My claim is that while your soul is fast to your body, I can as easily take my soul out of my body as you can pull your hand out of a glove or your foot out of a boot. When I told you that I was a man from Mars I stated the truth; when I told you that I was going to return to that planet and would be pleased to take one or all three of you back with me, I spoke the truth again. Nothing could be plainer than I am speaking now; but you do not comprehend me, and it will be useless to attempt to make you understand.”
“Might I inquire if there is any way of getting back again to the earth?” asked the Doctor, with a sneer.
“Oh, yes. You can come back whenever you please.”
“Do you go by balloon, or flying machine; or is it”
“Stop! You cannot make me angry, so you may as well spare yourself the effort. My race have no such passion as anger. I will simply state that the means by which we go is one of the secrets I have promised to keep. If you decide to accompany me, the means will be furnished at the proper time.”
“Well, I don’t know as I should mind a trip to Mars provided I could get back again. I say, Maurice, how does it strike you?”
“I am listening,” answered Maurice, quietly.
“How long would it take?” inquired the Doctor.
“That,” replied Mr. Mirrikh, “would depend entirely upon how long you cared to remain in Mars; the passage through the realm of spirit cannot be measured by time; it would be no longer than a thought.”
“Oh! We go by way of the spirit world, do we?” Well, my friend, I want you to understand that I, as a clergyman, with every opportunity to inform myself, utterly deny the existence of the so-called soul of man after death.”
It was amusing to see Philpot draw himself up as he made this statement, but it was a positive study to see the expression of pity which came over the face of my singular friend.
“For me to hear you deny the existence of a spiritual world, is precisely as it would be for you to hear me deny the existence of that little island called Great Britain, on the ground that I had never seen it.”
“Prove it! Prove your spirit world!” cried the Doctor, excitedly. “I can argue all night on that point, and”
“And you will have to argue with some one else then, for I have said my last word. Mr. De Veber, how is it with you?” Will you return with me to Mars?”
Was Maurice hypnotized?
I have often thought so, for he turned a face toward us so altered in its appearance, so radiant with enthusiasm, that I should scarcely have known it as his.
“Yes,” he answered; “I will go to Mars with you Mr. Mirrikh. When do we start?”
“Let him alone! Take your eyes off him!” I shouted, suddenly springing to my feet as a peal of crashing thunder shook the old tower again. “You shan’t hypnotize him! You shan’t”
“Sit down, Mr. Wylde! Sit down?”
What was the matter?
Everything seemed swimming before me, and yet all that Mr. Mirrikh had done was to extend his hand.
Was I also being hypnotized?
Then what of the Doctor?
Why the Doctor just sat there as motionless and rigid as the big stone stone Buddha on the other side of the fire, and all because Mirrikh had waved the other hand at him.
I sat down. More than that, I did not get up again, for in an instant I was nobody—nowhere—nothing—simply nil.
The next thing I knew it was broad daylight and there was Maurice just coming through the open door of the tower from which the shawl had been taken down; there also was Doctor Philpot lying stretched upon the stone floor snoring lustily; there was the big stone Buddha with its broken nose, frowning down upon us; there was everything but Mirrikh, and he was not.
Was it all a dream?
Had he ever been there at all? If so, where did the reality end and the dream begin?
Hello, George! So you have waked up at last, have you?” Maurice exclaimed, as his eyes rested upon me. “Time, too, I must say. Your friend has been gone this hour. I walked down to the place where we met the tiger with him. Wonderful man! I’ve made a regular engagement with him George. I am to meet him at the Lamasery of Psamdagong, in Thibet, on the 18th of December. You are to go with me, and Doc shall go along too, if he wants to. I tell you, George, there never was such a glorious proposition made to mortal man. I shall be talked of all over the civilized world; I shall visit every court in Europe; and as for scientific men they will come round me in droves. I shall write a book about it, and”
“Hold on! Hold on! What in the name of sense are you talking about?” I shouted.
Then came the answer, just as I had expected.
“Talking about? Why you must know, George. I am talking about going with your friend Mirrikh back to Mars.”
“Hypnotized, hopelessly hypnotized!” I groaned. “Oh! Maurice!”
Was it true?
Had that amazing man from Panompin controlled Maurice De Veber’s will so completely as to make him believe that it was possible to take his soul out of his body, transport it to the planet Mars and bring it back again?
Reader, he had!
Not that he controlled mine or the Doctor’s, but poor Maurice he had hard and fast.
I believe I could have killed Mr. Mirrikh that day, I felt so furious about it; but to kill your fox you must first find it, and I had never seen the man from that time till now.
Nor had Maurice. Yet it seemed to make no difference.
“George, I shall give up my position and am going to Thibet,” he said to me that morning, after we had told the Doctor all. And he did it—strange as it may seem, he did it.
“You are going with me,” he kept on declaring.
He need not have doubted that, if he were mad enough to go himself.
Briefly, we went. I, because I loved Maurice, and the Rev. Miles Philpot went because he wanted to—because he had nowhere else to go.
Maurice was mad. I believed it fully, and I blamed Mirrikh and his hypnotic powers for the whole affair.
What had been told my friend after Mirrikh had hypnotized me, Maurice would not divulge, nor did I ever fully ascertain. All I know is that Mirrikh gave him a letter of introduction to Mr. Radma Gungeet, at Benares, and from this individual Maurice received a document written in several sets of characters, which proved the very open sesame for us into that hitherto inpenetrable land—Thibet.
All we had to do was to show this to the local Buddhist priest, and lo! difficulties vanished like magic.
Now it was quite useless to attempt to turn Maurice a hair’s breadth.
Whatever was said to him, it had transformed Maurice De Veber into another individual.
For myself I had nobody but Maurice now, and I would have died sooner than desert him. As for the Rev. Miles Philpot, he would have travelled to Siberia with us so long as the brandy and tobacco held out.
Thus we found ourselves at the inn near Zhad-uan,on the northern slope of the Himalayas, a spot on God’s footstool where never Caucasian, certainly never American, trod before.
There we were, three travelers in Thibet. We had taken possession of the inn and hoped to keep it.
Fancy then our disappointment, when coming up the rocky ascent under the light of those glittering stars, I beheld a caravan, consisting of three camels and their riders, together with a sort of palanquin, borne on the shoulders of four men.
“By Jove! its coming here!” groaned the Doctor. “We shall have to share the k’ang with all that crowd.”
“Dey f’lom Lh’asa!” exclaimed Ah Schow, who had flung down the argols and was standing at our side. “Me tink dey come f’lom Trashilunpo too.”
“How do you tell, Ah Schow?” asked Maurice.
“Dat bed come f’lom Calcutta, boss. Me know!”
Now this same Ah Schow was a wonderful man in his way, I want you to understand. He had lived in Lh’asa, he told us; at all events we were amazed when we learned that to his other accomplishments the fellow added a knowledge of the Thibetan tongue, which seemed to bear out his claim. He was with us for many weeks and through many trials. The only objection I ever found to him was that having once run a wash house on Stockton street, San Francisco, he would call whichever one of us he was addressing, “boss.”
Meanwhile the caravan was steadily approaching and the shrill “sok! sok!” of the camel drivers sounded as if spoken at our very feet, the atmosphere was so wonderfully clear.
The camels came first, loaded with boxes and bales hung about their ungainly hips until it was difficult to tell where the camel ended and the luggage began. Then followed the palanquin and in the rear we could just catch a glimpse of several men mounted on mules coming up the pass.
We could not see the faces of the riders, however, and the light was too uncertain to enable us to tell by their costumes whether they were Thibetans, or Chinese traders from Bootan or Napaul.
To us they looked like so many sheep walking on their hind legs, which is not at all strange when you come to consider that they all wore huge sheepskin coats and caps with the wool turned out.
“Come! come! We must attend to the fire!” cried Maurice suddenly. “Poor wretches! They will be fairly frozen by the time they get here. Hurry, Ah Schow, and put more argols under the k’ang.”
Now the k’ang in a Thibetan or Tartar inn, is of such huge import that I must stop to tell what it is like.
Inns, in the Thibetan mountains, let it be understood, are for the most part mere shelters, maintained for the accomodation of travellers, who are expected to provide for themselves. Indeed the traveller may consider it luck even to find a shelter; he must expect nothing else, or certain disappointment awaits him. Does he want the tsamba, or barley meal, which forms the staple of diet all over these regions? If he does, and he has failed to provide himself with it beforehand, then he will be pretty apt to fare badly, for money here goes for nothing. Even if the inn is in charge of the family whose business it is to keep it clean, they will have nothing to sell, but rather will try to buy from you.
Tsamba, vermicelli, or rice, is the kind of diet to which your Thibetan traveller has to accustom himself. He must take his water cask with him; also a copper kettle, a bellows, a ladle, and a pillow, if he wants one; besides these things there are the horses or camels to be looked out for. But all this is not telling about the k’ang.
Picture to yourself four mud walls with the binding straw sticking out all over them in spots; thatch overhead, perhaps, or likely enough more mud, plastered over criss-crossed sticks, with mud pounded hard for the floor.
Such is the average inn interior, all except the k’ang, which is nothing more or less than a broad bench of planks built up against one wall, closed in front with the exception of a small opening to thrust the argols through, and numerous holes to let out the heat. Sometimes this opening is in the outside wall, and to build your fire inside you have to go out of doors.
Usually the k’ang stands about four feet high and takes up three-quarters of the room. Sometimes mats are thrown over it, or bits of carpet, if you have them. In the larger inns, in more populous districts where there are “all modern improvements,” you will find in front of the k’ang huge caldrons for cooking soup, their legs bedded in the mud with places for fires underneath, so arranged that the smoke and surplus heat passes under the k’ang and thence by the smoke hole to the outer air.
When the fire is built under the k’ang, the planks above are soon heated and will remain reasonably warm for quite a length of time. Here you sit by day and sleep by night, and if you can accustom yourself to roasting on one side and freezing on the other, you will soon learn, as we did, to make yourself very comfortable on the k’ang.
Bent upon his benevolent intentions, Maurice now lent his assistance to Ah Schow and the argols were soon gathered up and thrown under the k’ang. Meanwhile I had shut the door and the Doctor returned to his comfortable position in the warmest corner.
“May as well secure a seat while it’s possible,” he said. “Just you wait till these people come up and then see how comfortable we’ll be? I tell you there’s no such thing as sleep to-night.”
They were coming. The shouts of the camel drivers grew louder. Anxious to keep the place as warm as possible, we refrained from opening the door again, until the racket outside told us that the moment had arrived.
“Here they are!” cried Manrice. “Let’s do the hospitable, George. We would expect it if we were in their place.”
“Keep the door shut whatever else you do!” roared the Doctor. “As for me I don’t budge an inch for the biggest Lama in Thibet.”
Before we could answer, the door was flung open and in walked one of the K’ambas, or “red-capped men,” as the Chinese call the natives of eastern Thibet.
He was short and thick set, dressed in a dirty sheepskin, cut a la robe de nuit, very bunchy and reaching about to his knees, where it was met by high boot legs of red cloth with thick rawhide soles. He wore nothing on his head, nor did he seem to need it, for his long, tangled hair formed a jet black mat of amazing thickness, falling down over his shoulders and “banged” across the forehead, just above the eyes.
“Peace be with you, my brothers!” he exclaimed—Ah Schow was equal to the translation—“we have brought a guest who will be sure not to crowd you off the k’ang.”
We bowed in as near Oriental fashion as we knew how. Maurice, through Ah Schow, assuring “our elder brother,” that on the k’ang was room enough for all.
Now, to our surprise, the fellow, instead of being followed up by his companions who were crowding about the open door, retreated, and presently we saw the covered litter, palanquin, or whatever you may please to call it, brought up.
Meanwhile Maurice and I had gone out, and found ourselves facing a staring crowd of fierce looking fellows of which the man I have just described was a fair type.
Evidently they were puzzled to make us out, in spite of the fact that we were dressed in the costume of the Thibetan lamas, wearing the long black cloaks, Chinese trousers and shoes; our appearance was correct except for our hair, which we had cut as short as possible without shaving, something we ought to have done to make the illusion complete. This I ought to have mentioned before, and that I have not done so is an oversight. Of course any one who has ever read a line about Thibet knows how utterly impossible it would be for us to gain admittance to the country in any other dress.
Grouped behind their drivers were the camels, whose mournful cries had aroused our mules in the little stable back of the inn, and they were by no means slow to make their voices heard. Every camel, besides the tremendous load each carried, was hung with bells innumerable and these clanged and jangled with each movement, producing an effect truly Wagnerian; in fact between the bells and the ceaseless chatter of the drivers, even had we been perfect artists in Thibetan, it would have been quite impossible to have made ourselves heard.
“Find out who these people are and what they are going to do,” Maurice said to Ah Schow. “If they’ve got some great man in that travelling house, find out who he is so that we may do the honors of the inn in proper shape.”
This started Ah Schow off to mingle with the crowd, but before he returned with the desired information, the mystery had in part solved itself.
Six long-haired men were crowding around the litter as soon as the bearers let it down.
It was a simple affair—just a sort of hand barrow with four upright poles over which rush mats were thrown.
“Thunder and Mars! Why don’t the fellow get out?” exclaimed Maurice. “One would think it was the Grand Lama himself from all the fuss that’s being made.”
“Perhaps he’s frozen,” I suggested, cheerfully.
“Shouldn’t wonder! It must be frightful to ride in this temperature in an arrangement like that. Look, George! Look! Why they are taking him out by the heels. It’s just as you say, he must be frozen. Merciful heaven! That is what the fellow meant by a guest who would not crowd us off the k’ang. They are bringing us a corpse!”
We pushed forward, elbowed by the camel drivers who seemed just as curious as ourselves.
Between them the six men who had pressed around the litter were carrying a human form, so enveloped in sheep-skins that we could not tell at first whether it was man or woman. Only the face was exposed and as yet we were not near enough to see that.
Slowly they walked toward the inn door, the camel drivers moving aside as they advanced.
“Now is our chance for a look, George!” whispered Maurice, as they came past the spot where we had stationed ourselves. “Tell you what, old fellow, if we are to be housed up for the rest of the night with a dead man and a gang like this, I’m for taking to the road again, unless—great God! Look there!”
“What?”
“The corpse—the face!”
“I can’t see the face; it is covered with a cloth!”
“No, no! Not all covered! Look! Look!”
I leaned forward, for now the long haired bearers were in the act of passing us.
Had I been blind that I had not seen before—that I had not guessed?
The corpse was that of a man, the face was one which I, least of all men in the world should ever forget.
“Oh, Maurice!”
I could say no more, for the face seen among the sheep-skins was the face of our Mr. Mirrikh, the man from the planet Mars.