The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes - Jamyang Norbu [101]
Just then a great mass of murderously jagged ice crashed down on the very spot where I had just stood. The accidental discharge had struck the ice on the roof and dislodged a large section of it. Mr Holmes must have seen this and taken effective steps to save my life. I censured myself for my want of faith. How could I have, for even a single moment, doubted the integrity of my noble and valiant friend.
'I ... I . . . ' I stammered an embarrassed apology.
But Mr Holmes was chuckling and rubbing his hands together. 'Ha ha! Capital! I never get your limits, Hurree.'
'But ...'I began to ask. He held up his hand.
'Once again, Hurree, in your own inimitable fashion, you have demonstrated the solution, le mot de Venigme!
'But ...'
'How is your wound, Babuji?' the Lama Yonten enquired solicitously, taking my injured hand in his. 'If I may ...'
Fortunately the wound was only a superficial one. The skin at the back of my hand had been scored, but there was little bleeding. The Lama Yonten applied some herbal salve and bound it with my 'kerchief.
'Now Hurree,' said Holmes, methodically reloading my revolver, 'when I give the word, both of us will whip our weapons around the entrance and fire a few quick rounds — not at the soldiers, but at the roof above them — and then withdraw immediately.'
He handed me back my revolver. I knelt low near the floor just by the entrance. Mr Holmes crouched over me, his weapon raised by his head.
'Ready? Now!'
Both of us suddenly stuck our heads round the corner, rapidly fired half-a-dozen shots, and quickly ducked back to safety, just as the Chinese soldiers released a murderous volley in reply. With our backs pressed to the cold wall we held our breath and waited. A couple of seconds later a thunderous roar burst through the entrance, followed by a veritable storm of powder snow which so filled the air that for a minute visibility was reduced to near zero.
Gradually the snow settled down and Mr Holmes and I, firearms at the ready, cautiously walked through the entrance. Our plan had succeeded beyond our expectations, for the two unfortunate Chinamen were completely buried under a mass of icy rubble. The effect had been much greater in this chamber, not only because of the greater amount of ammunition we had expended, but also as the roof was much lower at this point, with great jagged icicles dangling from it.
We circumvented the icy grave. The Lama Yonten muttered some prayers, probably for the souls of the two wretched men entombed there. On the other side, about forty feet away, was another opening. So, this chamber was some kind of vestibule. We crossed the room and walked through this new entrance.
We were now in an enormous, circular, hall-like enclosure, easily a few thousand yards in diameter, covered by a gigantic dome of ice that must have been at least half a mile high at its central point. All around this colossal rotunda were great statues — twenty in number — of grim warriors clad in strange armour. The figures were of gigantic proportions, on a par with the great Buddha statues I had beheld in the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan. As we surveyed this awesome scene, which would have made Kubla Khan's 'stately pleasure dome' look like an inverted pudding bowl, the Lama Yonten chanced to see something.
'There is a light shining in the centre.'
I applied my telescope to my eye, but could not see very clearly. What with the cold and the damp, some condensation had formed on the inside of the eyepiece; and besides, the instrument was not a very powerful one.
'There is definitely an unusual coruscation in that vicinity,' I reported.'But I cannot make out what is causing the phenomenon.'
'We will know soon enough,' said Holmes laconically. 'Let us move on.'
Twenty minutes walk brought us before a large column of ice — a truncated stalagmite — about six feet high resting on a square stone platform two feet above the ground.