The Hidden Treasure
Alidad came up to me as I dozed in the sun, and asked with
an alarming solemnity if I would condescend to shake hands
with him. This ceremony I performed in a mystified manner,
waiting for the sequel, when the disquieting statement was
made that Shah Riza was a bad man, but that he, Alidad,
would see to it that I came to no harm. Having accepted
this promise with a composure that had a rather chilling
effect on the emotional atmosphere, I waited while a sack
of straw for the horses' supper was collected from the deserted
fields round about, and we then proceeded across a stony
river bed north-westward, with a ravine below us on either
hand, and high barren shapes of hills rising faintly out of the
desert dust.
This way into Persia is scarcely used except by smugglers
and is steep and impracticable for heavily laden animals.
At the top of the high rampart is the pass of Gildar,
between two rounded hills. Here towards evening we
climbed, and looked on an inhospitable land, a tumult of
strata and hollows. The level ridges, that had lain peacefully
beneath some sea, were tossed up and thrown in unexpected
angles, covered with black fossil shells that lay about the
ground, and scored into barren valleys by waters that rush
destructive in spring and die in summer, leaving here and
there salt and undrinkable springs.
This country belongs to the Malikshahi Lurs, who from
their colder heights descend on it in winter, when there is a
thin coat of pasture for their flocks. But now it was deserted:
only the smuggler, walking swiftly by night, crossed its
unfriendly paths. As we rode with the evening sky deepen-
ing above us, looking round for a place to camp, I thought
that I had never seen a land so derelict, an empty husk, its
life long since departed. The slow death of the universe
was born in upon me and made visible. Even the yellow
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