Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/178

 of dazzling brilliancy upon which the moonbeams  fell with silvery glare.

Then all at once a mighty roar burst upon the stillness and I saw it rise higher—higher—yet higher! A torrent was rushing through the gap into the valley below.

But the valley was invisible and as yet there was no water and a low range of foothills lay between us and the flood. Would it not be drained off by the valley? Would not the foothills form an effectual barrier of defence? I put these questions to the Doctor, and he put them to Padma, who answered—“No!”

There was no hope, it seemed; and then I learned the story of the lake, whose name, be it understood, was Dshambi; the “nor” being simply the Thibetan word for any large body of fresh water. To my surprise I found that it was not, properly speaking, a lake, but an artificial reservoir; or  rather a series of reservoirs, the water being held in check  by walls of masonry, the lowest one of which had now given  way. These walls were built ages before, Padma said; in fact as near as I could make out he regarded the reservoirs  as prehistoric, claiming for them an antiquity of more than  ten thousand years. Of course, not being an archæologist I do not pretend to judge of this, and will merely state that Padma further declared that the plains below Psam-dagong  were once the seat of a vast population. He told of underground ruins beneath the sand, referred to a buried city whose wants these lakes had supplied; adding that the walls  had long been in a highly dangerous condition, and that for  this reason Psam-dagong lost its prestige and became practically deserted, for pilgrims from the adjoining valleys feared  to visit it, and without the offerings of the pious pilgrim no  lamasery could live.

We continued to watch; the moments creeping slowly on until the grey of dawn began to appear in the east. All this time we could see the water rushing down the awful  precipice, foaming and tearing into the valley. In that treeless region there was absolutely nothing to stay it, nothing in the least to interfere with its progress until it should reach Psam-dagong.

And it came!

At last I saw it trickling down the foothills; the valley behind was but a hollow, enclosed on all sides; this we knew  must now be full. Faster and faster it came, but it came