He hurried forward to Doyan, across the blistering Hatter Pir, to Rhamgat— once the Shaitan Nara— the Devil's Bridge, and on to Gilgit, halting only as necessary and making no endeavour to communicate with any of his race.
At last, lean and worn, with eyes feverishly bright in their hollows he saw the triple peak of Rakapushi lifting itself from lesser hills twenty-six thousand feet into the air.
Two days later, in the dusk of the afternoon, a weary man, with Nima-Tashi worn to silence, he entered Baltit, and as he walked between the mud and stone buildings knew that the first stage of his journey was finished.
The lodging-place he found was in a house built round a courtyard, in a heavily beamed room, with rafters smoke-blackened from the hearth in the. middle of the floor. The place w
