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The Shokas lighted a fire, sat around it, and with their heads close together held an excited council in a half-whisper. In the heated discussion some spoke louder than they imagined. The night being particularly still, and the place well adapted for carrying sound, I overheard words which put me on the alert.
Two or three other men whose faces I could not well see, as they were stooping low, were counting money and examining several articles of Indian manufacture which undoubtedly had been seized from Shokas. Having discovered the best way to pass without being seen, I went back to my men, and led them, in the middle of the night, through the Tibetan camp.
For myself I had a small quantity of tinned provisions, but I intended to keep these for worse days which, I feared, were in store for me. I carefully instructed the four Shokas how to enter the Tibetan fort one by one in their disguises, and, in order to avoid suspicion, purchase only in small quantities at a time the provisions we required.
We found a dry spot under a big bowlder, but as there was not sufficient room for all five, the two Shokas went under the shelter of another rock a little way off. This seemed natural enough. I took care of the weapons and the scientific instruments, while the Shokas had under their own sheltering bowlder the bags containing nearly all our provisions except the reserve of tinned meats.
I described to them the dangers of following me farther, and warned them fully, but they absolutely refused to leave me. "Sir, we are not Shokas," were their words. "If you die, we will die with you. We fear not death. We are sorry to see you suffer, sir, but never mind us. We are only poor people, therefore it is of no consequence."
Here the note-book was produced from under his pillow, and the English word duly written down. Odd creatures, these Shokas! The average European, half starved and frozen, would hardly give much thought to exact spelling under such trying circumstances. Poor Mansing, the leper, suffered terribly. He groaned pitiably through the entire night.
I loaded my rifle and went ahead, trying in vain to perceive the enemy in the darkness. I screened my ear with one hand. Hark!... hark!... Yet another shrill whistle! My Shokas were terrified. The sound seemed to come from directly in front of us. We immediately altered our course, wending our way upward slowly and steadily until we found ourselves at sunrise near the mountain-top.
"Yes," I murmured, incredulously. My doubt sustained a shock when Kachi returned, buoyant, saying, in his peculiar English: "Five Shokas come, sir. Then you, sir, I, sir, five coolies, sir, start night-time. What clock?" "By Jove, Kachi," I could not help exclaiming, "you are a smart lad!" "'Smart, sir?" inquired he, sharply, hearing a new word.
Galloping our hardest along the high cliff, riddled with holes and passages in which the natives live, we found ourselves at last among friends again. The Shokas, who had come over to this market to exchange their goods with the Tibetans, were astounded when they saw us. They recognized us with great difficulty. We inquired at once for Doctor Wilson.
When everything was ready the five Shokas, including Kachi and Dola, left me, swearing by the sun and all that they held most sacred that they would in no way betray me to the Tibetans. Bijesing the Johari and Nattoo agreed to accompany me as far as the Maium Pass, so that my party, including myself, now was reduced to only five men.
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