Chapter IV: The Great Decision

Wrexham refilled his pipe and settled back in his chair once more. Then he went on:

“I’ll give you first of all my reading of the things I’ve just told you, and you can tell me whether you think I’m on the right lines.

“In the first place, what do we know for certain? That somewhere in the west corner of the Gobi Desert, a large unknown bit of country, a man of apparently white race has been found. Also, a hundred years ago, my great-great-uncle says he found these unknown mountains, an old gate, and a dead white man.

“Further, that the weapons and other things found on my man are of old type. Then these strange people use Greek, or a form of it. As probably you both know, there was a lot of Greek intercourse with Central Asia about the dawn of the Christian era, and before it. There are races in Afghanistan and the north of India with unmistakable Greek characteristics to this day, and numerous legends of the days of Alexander still survive all up and down the Indian border.

“Now, to my mind all these facts are capable of but one explanation-- namely, that hidden in that desert is some isolated settlement of fair-skinned people, perhaps from the old days of Greek domination in Central Asia. Since there is not even a legend about them in the local countryside, it is pretty clear that they have been cut off for a good many centuries. Possibly at some remote period they crossed the desert, which, perhaps, was not so extensive then, before the dry area which has buried so many towns in that part began to form. Or perhaps they were driven out by one of the succeeding waves of invasion from China, and fled northward until they came upon this hidden refuge.

“Whether they are all still of pure white type is not clear, though the two individuals seen seem to be. My man certainly was. The picture of the girl further points to at least some of them having retained all their original racial characteristics.

“I take it both of you agree with this part of my theory?”

“I can think of nothing else that fits the facts,” said I. “What has Forsyth got to say about it?”

“I agree entirely with Wrexham. The writing on the back of the picture is certainly recent. I’ve done a bit of research work with old manuscripts and so on--rather a hobby of mine one time--and I’ll take my oath that that writing is not more than a few years old, judging by the ink, although the type of script must go back hundreds of years. It’s impossible that any of the present Turki or Chinese inhabitants could or would write stuff of that sort. And how could they imagine or invent an old Greek name like ‘Euphrosine’? Unless some daft European, with a gift for forgery and a knowledge of old Greek script, is faking antiques in the middle of the Gobi Desert, there’s only one reading, and that’s the one Wrexham has given us.”

“Well, since you agree with the first part of my thesis, I shall go on with the second,” continued Wrexham. “The first part establishes, as far as one can, the probability of some forgotten Greek settlement to be found beyond the northeast corner of Kashgaria. If so, it’s more than worth looking for. But before I go on, are either of you prepared to come with me? It’s an eighteen months’ job at the very least, and possibly longer. But it’s worth it, I think. Think of the old scientific blokes in Europe if we come back with an authentic account, complete with photos, and records, and perhaps with some of the inhabitants of an old Greek settlement probably much as it was in the days of Alexander.

“Whether or not there’s money in it, I don’t know. You, Harry, are probably not out for money, having enough for your wants. I am personally, but not much. I’m rather a wanderer, and nothing would please me more than a life of exploration. If we can pull this off, we shall be made men in the exploring world, and can be sure of getting sufficient financial support in future to make further expeditions.”

I’ve said that I’ve always had a taste for travel, and have spent not a little time and money on gratifying it. And here was Wrexham not only holding out a prospect of exploring an entirely unknown bit of the world, but gilding the lily with what looked like very good presumptive evidence of living survivals from past centuries. There was nothing much to draw me home. My only close relative was my sister, made a widow by Loos, who, with her two boys, kept the old manor-house farm warm for me. I had settled part of my income on her, and with that and her own little bit of money, she could keep the manor-house home up comfortably and pay for the boys’ schooling. On chucking the service, my idea had been to spend the summers at home and the winters globe-trotting.

So my mind required no making up.

“Count me in,” I said to Wrexham. “Central Asia’s called me ever since I first came East, and here you are with a whole lot of extra attractions.”

“And you, Alec? You weren’t certain before,” said Wrexham.

Forsyth leaned across the table, took up the picture, and gazed at it again.

“No, but you’d only told me part of the story. I’ll start to-morrow if you like.”

“Good! I thought you would both come. Then, now I’ll go on with the second part of my thesis as to how my great-great-uncle and I found two men under such very similar circumstances. You admit that the coincidence is more than strange.

“You remember that the old man came upon a small enclosed space at the end of the valley full of bones, and among them a new corpse killed by an arrow under the entrance gates.

“I find a man whose hands have been bound, and who has been also wounded by what might have been an arrow. Note further that No. 1 was found stripped, although his hands were bound. Ergo, he was stripped before he was killed, otherwise they’d have had to undo his hands to get his kit off.

“No. 2, on the other hand, has clothes and escapes, and what is more is armed. You don’t tie up an armed man to shoot. Note also that my old relative makes no mention of his fellow’s legs having been tied, and my man’s did not seem to have been.

“Now, I thought an awful lot over these two. And this is what it seems to me. Quite obviously men whose arms are bound are prisoners. Execution without the gates was a very typical method in all old countries, and common even now in the East.

“My own idea--perhaps fanciful--is, therefore, that whoever run this place, when they want to kill off any one, they put him outside the gates with his arms bound, and shoot him with arrows either from the gates or from the arrow-slits. Possibly the idea of leaving his legs free is to give the fellow a last sporting chance of getting away to take his luck in the desert if he can bolt before he’s killed.

“Now, my fellow seems to have had a sister--a cultured person, one would say--not the sort of sister you’d associate with a common criminal.

“My idea is that she bribed the executioners not to shoot straight, and that he bolted into the valley, where, by some preconceived arrangement, he found clothes and food, and then freed his hands against a sharp rock. He was a strongly built young fellow, and probably would make the best fight he could, even despite his wound. Possibly he knew that they were going to drop him stuff over the cliffs somewhere in the valley.

“Now, in view of the sister, it seems unlikely that he was a common criminal. A more likely solution would be either some particularly tyrannical rulers, or possibly some kind of bitter civil war. I have my own ideas as to how he got across the desert, which I can explain better when we get there.

“What do you think of my solution so far?”

We had to agree that it was as logical as any interpretation we could put upon it.

“Well, then, and this is why I’ve given it at length. If we find the place, and if we succeed in getting in, we want to be well armed, and, what’s more, have some one more reliable than the local Turkestani camel men. I have Firoz still. Could you, Harry, rake up a reliable sepoy to come?”

“I’ve got Payindah here now. Like Firoz, he’s left the army and toddles round with me. You remember him that day near Festubert when you got that gash across your face. Big Punjabi with green eyes.”

“By Jove, yes. Chap that had his bayonet smashed, and then killed another fellow with the broken end?”

“Yes, that’s him. He was very excited to-night when I said I’d run across you and was coming over to dine here. I expect he’ll come to make his salaams to-morrow.”

“He’s just the very article. Used to be pally with Firoz, too, I remember.

“Well, the other thing is, that we may find when we get there that the gate and the valley are peculiarly unhealthy. Therefore, I suggest that in making up our kit we include some kind of light strong ropes and other climbing gear. You, Harry, I know are a good climber, and Alec says he has done a bit of mountaineering at different times. Then, if the gate is no go, we can hunt around and try and find some other way in over the cliffs.”

“There’s something in that,” said Forsyth. “From your great-great-uncle’s account, the valley did not seem exactly the sort of place you could walk in by if the folk inside hadn’t invited you and didn’t like your face.”

“The last thing I want to suggest is that we take along some kind of medical kit for Alec. If we find these people are really there, they are likely to be fair to middling mediæval, if not even more primitive, though the girl’s picture rather rules out their being anything approaching savages. Therefore, a perfectly good and moderately well-equipped medicine-man might prove a most useful passport in the country. For the same reason I’m lugging along a few oddments in the engineering line to startle the natives with.”

“Yes,” said I, “all that seems very sound. Now, when do you propose that we start? The passes are no good before April, and that’s four months away.”

“Well, first of all we’ve got to fit out. I’ve got a list of kit all worked out, but we must get down to Bombay or Calcutta where one can get things. This place is no good.”

“Then I shall go on down to the C.P. and carry on with my shoot. Would you care to come as well? From there we can go on to Calcutta and fit out.”

“Yes, rather. I’ve never seen a tiger outside of a cage,” said Forsyth. “What about you, John?”

“Yes, I’ll come along, but I won’t stop long. Directly after Christmas I’ll push on and start getting things together, and you can meet me at Calcutta.”

“Then that’s that, and now for bed. One thing, John. How do you account for finding your man? I don’t mean the shooting part and the sister, but the rest? It’s one of the most extraordinary things I ever heard.”

“I don’t attempt to account for it really. But although, as you know, I don’t profess any particular kind of religion, I do believe that something or some one runs the show with some very clear design. And just as the smallest part in the biggest machine has to be made to work on appointed lines, so, too, each one of us must have some definite part to play, though we may not know what it’s all about while we’re doing it. In this case I hope it doesn’t sound as if I was talking through my hat when I say that I really do believe that for some reason or other we’re meant to get to this country which we think exists.

“Remember that my getting there didn’t save that fellow’s life. Also, you can’t quite account by mere telepathy for my feeling of some one calling me. The first day, perhaps, yes. He was probably just about dying then, and maybe his calls for help travelled in some unknown way to me, the nearest human being.

“But--when I started off into the desert--the impression disappeared, and did not reappear until I was on the point of turning back. Then it suddenly reappeared stronger than ever, and the man had been dead two days.

“I was clearly not meant to save his life, but I do think, queer as it may sound, that I was meant to find his body.

“That, combined with the chance of my great-great-uncle finding the country, the chance, if you call it so, of my picking up those old papers at home before I came out, and the chance of my being able to go up to Central Asia and of being there just at that particular moment, to me point to the fact of our being intended to get to that hidden country.

“Why I or either of you or all of us are wanted there, and what we are to do when we get there, the Power that starts us off alone knows. But I cannot help the feeling that we are meant to get there, and that we shall get there. Then beyond that all is a blank. But the getting-there part seems to me Sapper’s ‘three times’--simply a moral cert.”

“As for me, I don’t believe in anything particularly, and it’s all quite beyond me,” said Forsyth. “But the prospect is pleasing enough without worrying about the why and wherefore. I shall look forward to trying twentieth-century medicine on second-century Greeks.”

And on that we went off to bed, after arranging to meet next morning to fix up our journey on to Bombay.

But--unlike Wrexham and Forsyth--I do profess a belief--a very definite, concrete one; and, when I said my prayers that night, I prayed that we might have fortune in our undertaking, and if He meant us to go there--which, after Wrexham’s story, I could not but believe--that we might have grace and strength to carry out whatever He wanted of us.

Before I went to sleep, I read one of my “bed books,” and happened upon the verse of Psalm 23: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”

A suitable verse for old John Wrexham’s gateway, I thought, and so went to sleep.