A familiar voice spoke from the rock ledge above them.
"Happy, joyous Fourth Holiday!"
There, grinning down at them, stood Chahda!
CHAPTER XXI.
Success
FOOD had never tasted so good. The four travelers and Chahda sat around a cooking fire stuffing themselves with all the good things their recovered rations afforded. They paused between mouthfuls only long enough to answer or ask questions.
Scotty fished a can of hamburger out of the fire and opened it, explaining meanwhile: "I didn"t know whether my weight was pulling you all after me, or whether it was the wire stretching, but I didn"t want to take any chances, so when I got near enough to the ground, I just let go."
"A good thing you did!" Rick said. "Professor Weiss was already over, and my legs were kicking in s.p.a.ce. I was plenty scared, brother!"
Weiss stopped sipping hot tea long enough to add: "I cried out when I slipped over, but then I decided I was practically dead and nothing could save me. Being pulled back up again was like a miracle."
"There were plenty of miracles," Scotty said. "I ran around the plateau and b.u.mped right into a whole platoon of warriors. They didn"t notice me, I guess, because by that time I was so coated with dust that they couldn"t tell I wasn"t one of them. But I saw that it wasn"t any use trying to get into the hill. The pa.s.sageway was blocked with Mongols, all hiding from the landslide."
"We guessed as much," Zircon nodded.
"They were all bowing and praying like crazy," Scotty continued. "That was what gave me the idea of playing Genghis Khan. I skinned back through the city as fast as I could leg it. For a while, I couldn"t figure out how I was going to get over the wall, then I saw a tree right next to it. I shinned up the tree, and it bent over like a birch, and there I was on the wall. After that it was easy. I jumped down and ran to the Golden Tomb. We"d looked around before they caught us, so I knew right where the armor and stuff was. And, while I was getting into it ..."
"Chahda comes," the Hindu boy beamed.
"And how." Scotty grinned. "With my box of fireworks that I left on the yak."
"I have hear the noise," Chahda explained. "I can see you on the rock making shoots with firecracks. So I am thinking: I will make the shoots, too, and you will know that Chahda is here." But when I am come back with the box, there is Sahib Scotty!"
"It"s a good thing Scotty left his box of fireworks with the caravan," Rick said. "Those Roman candles made quite some effect, believe me. For a minute I thought it was old Genghis himself."
"Chahda"s arrival was little short of miraculous," Zircon remarked. "I, for one, never expected to see the caravan again. Or Sahmeed," he added, smiling with satisfaction at the memory of that encounter.
Chahda accepted a second helping of bacon and eggs. "Is most short, my story," he said. "I am wake up when Sahmeed is talking soft to the bearers. He is say to them: "You come with me quiet like mouses or maybeso I make the break on the neck, you bet!"
"I am almost waking up you, but I am think: If I am waking, maybe there is fight and the Sahibs is hurt! So I go with Sahmeed to Nepal, and I am tell the police and we are coming back for you."
"We figured that was what you had planned," Rick said.
"Is so," Chahda agreed. "But when a day is going by, Sahmeed says to us: "You waits here. I am go get many rupees for us. Soon we be much rich. So you wait. I come back two, three days.""
Weiss nodded. "He wanted to get back to and contact Van Groot. I imagine he was afraid of not getting his money. Do you suppose any of the other bearers knew about the city?"
"They not know." Chahda shook his head. "Sahmeed not telling us. But when he is go, I am talking to bearers. I am saying: "How we know Sahmeed is coming back? This Sahmeed, he is much bad one. He not giving us rupees. You want rupees, you come with me. The Sahibs will give much rupees. More than Sahmeed.""
The Hindu boy paused to take a sip of tea. "They talk much, those men. They say to me: "How we know the Sahibs give much rupees?" I am answer: "How you know Sahmeed come back? Also, you do not go to the Sahibs, soon is coming police to put you from jail." They listen, and they think I speak good. So we come back."
"But we weren"t there," Rick said.
"Is true. We hunt very long, and we climb hills and look some more, and then one man is seeing green jacket way high on mountain. I look, and I think maybe belongs Sahib Rick. So we hunt near there, and we are finding yak. He is near hole in mountain. I go in, and what I see!"
"Sahmeed must have already been in the city by then," Weiss guessed.
"I think Sahmeed, he is maybe Mongol," Chahda said.
"He looks like one," Rick agreed. "But I don"t think he"s one of the Mongols from the city."
"There are many Mongols in this area," Zircon said. "They"ve been pretty well absorbed by the native population, but now and then one comes across the mountains from China. Likely, Sahmeed got to Nepal that way. I imagine Van Groot met him when he first left, and hired him on the spot. They were certainly two of a kind."
"It would have done your heart good to see Professor Zircon smack that big hulk square on the chin.
"I"ll bet it jarred him loose from his mustache." Rick told Scotty.
"I"d like to have seen you swat Van Groot, too," Scotty grinned.
"Well, we needn"t worry about either of them any longer," Rick gestured toward the sealed entrance of the city. "They"re in there now, and to stay."
"You still haven"t told us how you managed that last landslide," Zircon prompted.
"Well, I figured we might need some kind of rear guard," Scotty explained. "So when I met Chahda, I told him to beat it back to the entrance and get some of the bearers and climb up the mountainside. When we first got into the city I noticed there was a sheer cliff on the inner side, but the outside of the tunnel could be climbed."
Chahda picked up the tale. "I get three mens, and we climb far up, and there is a little place where we can squeeze in, so we do, and when we come out the other side, there is the city. And we look down and we can see the steps which is going in the city from the pa.s.sage. I look good, and I find a big stone which is loose. We wait, long time. Soon comes you. Then comes Sahib Scotty, and there is many Mongols behind, so I think: "Is now, Chahda!" We push the big stone and bang! Much more stone is falling."
"It"s a good thing rock slides easily in this country," Rick said.
"That"s the strange part of it," Zircon observed. "Actually, it shouldn"t. But I have a theory that this part of Tibet, or at least this immediate area, was under water at one time. The result is this type of rock, a kind of shale."
Scotty scratched his head. "But you wouldn"t think just a firecracker explosion would blast it loose."
"That is understandable," Weiss put in. "By the time the explosion was amplified, it was far beyond a mere firecracker noise. Then, with the sound hemmed in by the valley walls, there was a great deal of reverberation - which means that the vibration on loose stone must have been very great. You"ve seen pictures of glaciers breaking off when a boat blows its whistle? The effect was similar. And very fortunate for us, too!"
"And unfortunate for Van Groot," Rick added. "He"s in there now, and I don"t know how he"ll get out."
"A lot of good his pitchblende will do him," Scotty agreed.
"The Tibetan government must know about that," Zircon said. "And about this Mongol city. We will have to see that they are notified."
"They be very happy," Chahda said. "Is most poor country, this Tibet. I read this in Worrold Alm-in-ack."
Zircon smiled at the boy. "And how are we going to repay you, Chahda?"
"Is most easy." Chahda smiled. "When you take me to "Merica, is good payment, I think!"
The four travelers looked at each other, grinning.
"He"s certainly earned his pa.s.sage," Rick said.
The others nodded.
"I don"t know how well arrange it," Zircon bellowed, "but you"re as good as in America right now, young man!"
Silence fell over the group as they completed their meal. Rick wondered: Now what? Only three days remained until the tenth. Their equipment was intact, barring the loss of the batteries Van Groot had taken, but they could never reach Tengi-Bu on time, even with the bearers and yaks.
"It seems a shame to go through so much trouble," he said, "and then not be ready to transmit on time."
"I"ve been giving that some thought," Zircon said. "Julius, have you any ideas?"
"There are a great many factors to consider, Hobart," the little professor replied thoughtfully. "First, we are actually close enough to Tengi-Bu so that the angle of transmission will not be seriously affected." He waved an arm at the encircling mountains. "But how could we hope to get a signal out of this pocket?"
"We did on the plateau, didn"t we?" Scotty pointed out.
The professors smiled. "No," they said in unison, and then grinned at each other.
Zircon explained. "Our message never got out, Scotty. The power was too weak even to activate the modulator. Julius knew it, I was sure. But I felt that doing something, even something futile, would help our morale."
"Quite so," Weiss agreed. "Hobart, if we could find a suitable location near at hand, perhaps on top of one of these near-by peaks, we could very possibly set up in time."
"Provided ground conditions were right," Zircon agreed. "Well, there is no point in worrying about it now. I propose we get a good night"s sleep and then start hunting. Fortune has smiled on us, gentlemen. I don"t believe she"ll let us down now."
It was Rick who finally located a suitable transmission point. He went back over his memories of the climb down the mountainside before he had found, and recalled seeing a near-by peak that looked very much like the Hill of the Thousand Repentant Ancestors.
Then the problem was to locate the peak. He and Scotty climbed back up the mountainside toward the place where his jacket still rested - and would certainly remain until the elements rotted it away - and spotted the peak a few miles south of their present location.
By nightfall, the professors and the three boys had scouted the location, found a gradual slope that led to the top, and had pitched camp, the bearers following with the equipment and supplies.
Only two days remained until the tenth.
They were busy days. The equipment had to be set up and tested, water and fuel had to be carried for the steam-powered generator. While Scotty and some of the bearers hunted for fuel, Rick and others of the group searched for water. Finally they found a spring that flowed in a crevice between two peaks. And then the water had to be hauled up laboriously in a bucket on a rope.
But at last the equipment was ready, except for supply voltage for the tube filaments. This was Weiss"s problem. He ransacked the spare-parts kit and finally rigged up a workable rectifier that would transform power from the big generator to the proper direct-current voltage.
Not until the predawn hours of July tenth was everything ready and the radar transmitter tested.
Rick was helping Professor Zircon make final adjustments on the big, oblong antenna when Scotty came up.
"The generator"s turning over," he reported. "It"s half past five."
A queer little chill ran down Rick"s spine. Six o"clock was the time set for the trial. From their high peak he looked out across the Tibetan mountains. To the east was a faint glow, heralding the coming of daylight, but the valleys below were still inky with darkness.
In the west, the moon was slowly dipping toward the horizon. He knew that on the other side of the world, at Spindrift Island, it was nearing eight o"clock in the evening of the previous day, July 9th. And the moon would be rising out of the sea, and his father and mother, and Barby, and the professors ... yes, even Dismal ... would be watching it and thinking of the little group in faraway Tibet.
Rick swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and hurried over to Julius Weiss, who was checking the instruments, while Chahda looked on.
"A constant four-forty volts," Weiss said. "Good. Hobart, will you take a look at the plate readings?"
In a circle around the equipment, the bearers were gathered, eyes wide, watching the final preparations.
As the minutes ticked away, Rick shivered a little from excitement as well as the early morning chill. To the east, streaks of light were sharply silhouetting the mountains.
"Six o"clock," Zircon called in a ringing voice.
Weiss opened his transmitter key, and there was the rapid click of the contact points as he tapped.
Tibet relay calling Spindrift ...
Before the message was fully out, the radar scope broke into points of green light, and harsh code from the speaker mingled with the sound of Weiss"s key.
Rick"s eyes were glued to the scope. That was their own message that activated the scope and the speaker like a badly timed echo. It had already gone to the moon and returned, traveling the 326,000-mile round trip through s.p.a.ce in slightly less than two seconds. At this very moment, Hartson Brant and the others would be receiving the message "bounce" at Spindrift, just as they were receiving it herel The signals died. The scope was quiet again, and the speaker gave forth only a faint humming.
Seconds ticked by. Would Spindrift answer? Had that echo to Weiss"s message really returned from the moon, or from the high mountains close by?
Zircon let out a bellow of delight.
The scope was flickering, and from the speaker the Morse code came over, loud, clear explosions of sound...
Spindrift calling Tibet relay via luna ... we read you loud and clear...
Then they were all shouting at once and shaking hands, and the bearers watched, awed by this miracle they did not understand.
"It"s our turn now ..." Zircon began.
"Wait!" said Weiss. "There"s more."
Again the crackling code.
Greetings to you all. Is all well?
Rick"s eyes went to the mountain wall that hid. Yes, all was well - now.
The messages would go back and forth, checking technical data, antenna settings, and so on, but the important thing was that the lunar relay had worked!
"Anything we want to tell the folks back home?" Zircon asked.
"Yes!" Rick exclaimed. "Yes!"
The others grinned their approval and Chahda beamed as Rick said: "Tell Barby thanks for the fireworks!"
THE END.