“After a blow,” said a Spiti man sententiously, “it is best to sleep.”
“There is, as it were, a dizziness at the back of my neck, and a pinching in it. Let me lay my head on thy lap, chela . I am an old man, but not free from passion … We must think of the Cause of Things.”
“Give him a blanket. We dare not light a fire lest the Sahibs see.”
“Better get away to Shamlegh. None will follow us to Shamlegh.”
This was the nervous Rampur man.
“I have been Fostum Sahib’s shikarri , and I am Yankling Sahib’s shikarri . I should have been with Yankling Sahib now but for this cursed beegar . Let two men watch below with the guns lest the Sahibs do more foolishness. I shall not leave this Holy One.”
They sat down a little apart from the lama, and, after listening awhile, passed round a water-pipe whose receiver was an old Day and Martin blacking-bottle. The glow of the red charcoal as it went from hand to hand lit up the narrow, blinking eyes, the high Chinese cheekbones, and the bull-throats that melted away into the dark duffle folds round the shoulders. They looked like kobolds from some magic mine—gnomes of the hills in conclave. And while they talked, the voices of the snow-waters round them diminished one by one as the night-frost choked and clogged the runnels.
“How he stood up against us!” said a Spiti man admiring. “I remember an old ibex, out Ladakh-way, that Dupont Sahib missed on a shoulder-shot, seven seasons back, standing up just like him. Dupont Sahib was a good shikarri .”
“Not as good as Yankling Sahib.” The Ao-chung man took a pull at the whisky-bottle and passed it over. “Now hear me—unless any other man thinks he knows more.”