"Didn't want you to be too tired from moving the rock to throw us across."
"Jethuth H. Chritht! I do all the hard vork."
He disappeared with his lantern into the fog.
Some of them were bruised, and with torn skin, but all were able to do their share. They followed Nur to the boulder and, after a long rest, they began rolling it over the flat stone surface of the plateau. It wasn't easy since the rock was irregularly shaped and probably weighed more than all of them together.
Rests were frequent because of the thin air. They finally got it near the edge and then collapsed for a while.
A minute later, Joe rolled the boulder from the mists.
"I vath hoping I could beat you runtth to it," he shouted. "I vould've, too, if my boulder had been ath near am yourth." He sat down to pant.
Blessed Croomes complained that she had been cheated out of the chance to jump and so demonstrate her faith in the Lord.
"Nobody stopped you," Frigate said. "Although, to tell the truth, I was disappointed, too. The only thing that kept me back was that, if I did miss, the group would be just that much weaker. Maybe I'll try it anyway just to show I can do it."
He looked at Tai-Peng, and they both burst out laughing.
"You ain't fooling me none," Croomes said in English. "You two men was skeered to do what a woman wasn't afraid to do."
"That's the difference between you and us," Frigate said. "We're not crazy."
When they all were restored, they tied the ends of the long heavy rope around the boulders and chocked them with smaller stones. Joe let himself down over the edge backward, grabbed the sagging rope, and hand-over-handed across it. His friends seized the rope to insure that the boulder wasn't moved by his enormous weight, though it wasn't necessary. When he got quickly to the edge, some left the rope and helped him get up over the edge.
"Boy, I hope I never have to do that again!" he gasped. "I never told you guyth before, but vhen I get on a real high plathe, I alvayth have an urge to jump off."
43
GETTING TO THE LEDGE THAT LED ALONG THE MOUNTAINSIDE to the sea took them ten hours. .
"Thith ith narrow enough now, but vhen ve get to the plathe vhere thothe two Egyptianth fell, man, that'th thomething!"
Several thousand feet below was a mass of clouds. They spent eight hours sleeping and continued after they'd had their monotonous breakfast. Though the Egyptians had crawled along this trail, the group faced the rock and edged along, their fingers gripping the holes and small outthrusts of the rock.
The air became somewhat warmer. Here the water still had heat to give up after its long wandering through the arctic regions and its passage through the polar sea.
The ledge was safely traversed: They went on another plateau and came to where, as Joe had said, they would be near the sea. He walked painfully to the edge of the mountain and pointed his lantern beam down on still another ledge.
It began about six feet below the edge of the cliff, was about two feet wide, and continued downward with the same breadth until it was lost in the thin clouds. It sloped at a 45-degree angle to the horizon or would have if there had been one.
"We'll have to abandon some stuff and make our packs smaller," Burton said. "Ther£ isn't enough room for them otherwise."
"Yeah, I know. Vhat vorrieth me ith that the Ethicalth might've cut the ledge in half, Jethuth, Dick! Vhat if they found the cave down there?"
"Then we'll have to trust to the inflatable kayak you're carrying to get two of us to the tower. I've mentioned that before."
"Yeah, I know. But that ain't going to keep me from talking about it. It helpth relieve my tenthyon."
The sun never came above the top of the circling mountains. Despite this, there was a twilight illumination.
"I fell off the ledge before I got too far," Joe said. "Tho I don't know how far the path—thome path!—goeth. It may take a whole day, maybe more, to get to the bottom."
"Tom Mix said that Paheri, the Egyptian, told him that they had to stop once and eat before they got to the bottom," Burton said. "That doesn't mean much, though. The journey was fatiguing, and so they'd get hungry sooner than they usually would."
They found a shallow cave. Joe, with the help of the others, rolled a big boulder to partially block the entrance and keep the wind out. They retreated to it to eat their meal. Two lamps kept the hollow bright, but they weren't enough to cheer them. What they needed was a fire, the ancient shifting brightness and crackling warmth which had cheered their Old Stone Age ancestors and every generation since.
Tai-Peng was the only one in high spirits. He told them stories of his antics and those of the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cups, the companions of his old age, and cracked many a Chinese joke. Though the latter couldn't adequately be translated through Esperanto, they were good enough to cause some, and especially Joe Miller, to shout with laughter and pound their thighs. Then Tai-Peng composed some on-the-spot poems and concluded by brandishing his sword at the tower somewhere ahead of them.
"Soon we will be in the fortress of the Big Grail! Let those who've meddled with our lives beware! We will conquer them though they be demons! Old Kung Fu Tze warned us that humans must not concern themselves with spirits, but I was never one to pay attention to that old man! I listen to no man! I follow my own spirit! I am Tai-Peng, and I know no superior!"
He howled, "Watch out, you things that hide and skulk and refuse to face us! Watch out! Tai-Peng comes! Burton comes! Joe Miller comes!"
And so on.
"Ve thyould fathe him our vay," Joe whispered to Burton. "Ve thyure could uthe all that hot air."
Burton was watching Gilgamesh and Ah Qaaq. They reacted just like the others, laughing and clapping Tai-Peng on. But that could be just good acting by one or both. He was worried. When they got to the cave—if they did—he would have to do something about them. Even if they were innocent, he would have to try to determine if one of them, or both, was X. Either of them could be Loga. Either of them could be Thanabur.
How could he do it?
And what—if anything—was one, or both, plotting?
He ran a scenario through his mind. When they started down the trail, he'd arrange it so that Joe Miller would be in the lead. He'd be second. Ah Qaaq and Gilgamesh would be in the rear. He didn't want them to be the first to get to the cave— if it was still there and not plugged up.
The Mayan and the Sumerian—if they were such—would come in last, and they'd be disarmed as they entered the cave. They carried long knives and .69-caliber plastic-bullet revolvers. Joe and de Marbot would see that they were relieved of them. He would warn Nur and Frigate about the deed, but he wouldn't have them in on it. He still wasn't sure about the American or the Moor. His experience with the agent, the pseudo-Peter Jairus Frigate, had made him very wary of the real Frigate, if he was indeed the original. Nur seemed to be what he claimed he was, but Burton trusted no one. Even the titanthrop might be an agent. Why not? He was intelligent and capable despite his grotesque size and facial features.
Burton had to trust someone, though. There were two, himself, and, after so many years of intimacy, Alice. The others— ah, the others! He'd have to watch them closely but his instincts, whatever that much-abused term meant, and it probably didn't mean much, told him that all but two were what they said they were.
With their much-reduced packs, Joe still carrying the largest, they let themselves down on the last ledge. Moving sidewise on the toes and front of their feet, their arms extended parallel to their shoulders most of the time, they held on to whatever grip they could find, it wasn't long before they came around the curve of the mountain, perhaps two hours, though it seemed like a very long time. Then Joe stopped, and he turned his head.'