Chapter 14 CAPTIVE ROGER
Across the Tibetan plain, with its sparse vegetation and occasionalsmall and always distant group of rude huts surrounded by the grazingherd of the tiny community, the party made its way uneventfully.
Steadily the ground grew higher. Constantly the Backbone of the World,the great, forbidding, brooding Himalayan range, was a larger part ofthe landscape ahead.
The guides, through an interpreter whose English was almost minus, butwho could understand Doctor Ryder's pantomime and few recalled Tibetanphrases, had agreed reluctantly that they would avoid settled parts andkeep away from villages. His hesitation was due, as was explained, tothe greater danger of being set upon by bandits, or rough peasants whoamounted to the same thing. Yet that experience came.
At dusk, as they ate tinned food and the natives laid aside packs, caredfor the wiry ponies and made camp, the chief guide discerned theapproach of a dozen riders, galloping their sturdy mounts in a clustertoward them.
Tip, with a grunt, snatched at his revolver. Mr. Clark, almost in asnarl, ordered him not to show it.
"We must be diplomatic," the man added; and Doctor Ryder agreed.
"Roger," he said to the excited, trembling young scientificrepresentative, "can't you get something ready that might startle themor look like magic?"
Roger, in spite of his misgivings, thought hard.
"Come here, Tip." Together, conferring, they unpacked equipment.
As the silent, but menacing horsemen deployed and surrounded the camp,the youth drew on, hastily, heavy rubber gloves.
Tip, not too sure that he ought to be so far from his charge, obeyedstern orders to carry out Roger's instructions, and in the tent, sat bythe handle of the generator. The small electricity-producing unit, muchmore powerful, though no heavier than an automobile battery-generator,had its handle and flywheel geared at a high ratio, so that moderateturning rate gave the armature its correct impetus for best results.
From it, unseen in the darkness that came on, a wire ran to a spot whereRoger crouched, apparently busy with cooking utensils.
The bandits dismounted, and the group advanced, completely surroundingthe white men, who wore the native coats of rough texture but who didnot attempt to disguise their race.
The natives of the camp were evidently expecting the raid, and Roger wassure that either the chief guide or an aide had betrayed them.
It was too late to avoid the encounter and recriminations were not wise.
"You give all money," the interpreter told Doctor Ryder as the leader oftheir adversaries spoke in guttural phrases.
"Tell him we are scientists, going to study the great rocks. Tell himthat we have no money, and bid him go, before we ask our young magician,who is close in the councils of the Gods, to smite them."
The interpreter apparently gave the interpretation faithfully, from hisgestures toward Roger; but the man he addressed gave a harsh laugh.
He spoke to his men and they roared and shouted in mockery.
"Bid him go, then, and try his strength to capture that small youth whocooks the broth that gives him the strength of the Mountain Gods."
As Clark gave the phrases, he glanced at Roger.
Probably, Roger thought, the man was afraid that he would fail at thiscritical moment. Be afraid. Or show nervousness.
The bandit leader guffawed, and strode rapidly, and menacingly, inRoger's direction.
"It's your move, son," Roger mentally admonished himself. "Steady."
To Tip he called, very low, "Get set."
Tip called back, "Say when."
The bandit strode close.
"Om, man-u, pad-mi, om," muttered Roger, using the prayer so familiar toall Buddhists in Tibet.
The man paused, looking a trifle surprised at the sound.
Roger, upsetting a pan of water on the earth, rose, standing near thewet space.
In words taught him by the interpreter, he spoke.
"What do you seek?" his phrase demanded, and his voice he kept verysteady, even stern.
"You!"
The man, depending on surprise, made a quick grab, as Roger laid aside afork and with apparent aimlessness, paying no heed--outwardly--took inhis right hand a big iron ladle to stir the boiling soup.
As if unaware of the plan to attack, he went on, "Om man-u pad-mi om,"knowing that the first utterance had started Tip to whirling hisgenerator armature.
The man made a grab. As though turning, Roger maneuvered so that hisladle was just where the man made the grab--but Roger was beyond the wetspot on which the man stepped.
Stepped up to stronger voltage, carried along the wire fixed to theladle handle held in his rubber-gloved hand, Roger was immune to thecurrent that had better conductivity through the man standing on wetearth.
As his hand closed on the metal, with a startled, frightened howl, thebandit writhed and was convulsed, more by surprise than by any vastvoltage. It was enough to jar, not enough to harm.
But he could not let go.
"Cease firing," Roger called, amused as the man was contorted by thetingling, nerve-throbbing current that he could not understand.
The others, standing with mouths agape, saw their leader fall back, inawe, rubbing his arms. He spoke abruptly, staring at Rogerunbelievingly. Then he drew back, and discussed his experience inguttural grunts and abrupt gestures.
Roger, knowing that the generator was still, stirred the soupnonchalantly while the interpreter, on whispered instructions, put abrave front on the situation and demanded that the group go away beforeall should feel the stronger wrath of their super-man.
They did draw aside, conferring. But they would not go. They took theirmounts, but sat on guard.
Roger, eating with his companions, suggested that if they coulddemonstrate some visual marvel, such as a picture projected onto alight-colored tent side, it might frighten away the men.
The guides did not think they would be bothered, the interpreter said.The men would not go. They would stay on guard, and by keeping the partysurrounded, not molesting for fear of more harmful acts, but stillpreventing them from moving, the bandits would wait for instructionsfrom some one in higher authority. A messenger had ridden away.
Shortly afterward, while they sat around their fire of native fuel, theysaw, approaching, the messenger and another tall Tibetan who dismountedand approached. He wore the recognizable garb of a Lama.
"Show me your magician," he commanded.
Roger, assuming a brave air, arose.
"Come," the man beckoned, "you will show me your wonders. I will showyou mine."
"Better go," whispered Clark. "He will take you just where we want toget. Take Tip, and a radio, the battery set. And keep in touch."