This mad business has turned out exactly as I predicted.”
“Stop a moment! Confine yourself to facts. Of course you had no more idea than I what turn affairs would take, you could not have had. When you told me you had been to Mars did you mean it, or”
“Or did I lie? Spit it right out, Wylde. No; I did not lie. I meant it at the time, but it was all imagination—hypnotism if you like—infernal black magic, I call it. Of course we have no more been to Mars than we have to the moon, nor has Maurice any such existence as you and I imagined while we were in that strange condition. Maurice is dead—dead beyond recall!”
“But to get back to the subject,” I answered coldly. “There is no use in discussing that matter any further.”
“Returning to our muttons, then, all I’ve got to say is that I don’t believe Padma has any more idea of the way to escape than we have. There is no boat at the lamasery, nor anything to make one out of. Besides these trees in the courtyard, I doubt if there is ten feet of lumber in the whole establishment. Even allowing there was, where could we go? We should be landed on the plains below here and left to freeze or starve to death, for we could not transport mules, of course, and no human being could travel through this country on foot as things are now; so you see—oh, Padma is speaking! He has ground his everlasting prayer to a finish. Let us see what he wants.”
The announcement of the old priest was simply that breakfast would be served in half an hour, and that we should be notified when it was ready if we preferred to remain on the tower and watch the progress of the flood. As I looked I perceived that most of the lamas had left us, and that Walla also had vanished.
“Have no fears. This accident was foreseen long ago and the emergency fully provided for,” the old priest said, as he left us to descend the stairs.
But the Doctor felt no such confidence, nor did I.
“I am going back to Maurice,” I said, after Padma had departed. “I shall never leave him. Either some means must be found of transporting that body, or I remain behind.”
“If you attempt to carry out that resolve you are a bigger fool than I think you,” answered the Doctor. “Upon my word I should rather think you’d be looking after that
