Patrick O’Brian 3-Book Adventure Collection: The Road to Samarcand, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore. Patrick O’Brian

it was shut out by a spur running down from the left – but I could see three days’ march up it, and it looked all right to me. We shall have to take it: the men you saw on the ridge are certainly going to warn the monks at Thyondze, and if we go on we shall be caught between the two of them, exactly as it was down in the Takla Makan. What have you learnt from the Tibetans?’

      ‘I am sorry to say that they seem absolutely horrified by the suggestion. It was a long time before I could make them understand, but I succeeded in the end. They kept making gestures of the utmost refusal and one of them eventually whispered to me the word nahjedli, or nahjetli: he seemed unwilling even to say it, and he kept his hand over his mouth. Then, apparently as an explanation, he went over to a large patch of snow and made a hand-print in it, with another several yards away. I wish I could understand what he meant: the irritating thing is that I am almost sure that I have heard, or perhaps read, a word not unlike it. Nahjedli, nahjedli: what can it be?’ He bowed his head in thought. ‘My memory is not what it was,’ he said.

      ‘Would it mean devils, or something of that sort? You know how superstitious they are.’

      ‘That is probably it. Yet there are several other words that they use more commonly – I employed them myself, back at Tanglha-Tso. Nahjedli, nahjedli: or was it two words, nah jedli, or nah yeti?’

      As he repeated the words in a meditative voice, the Tibetans approached. They were carrying their personal belongings. The leader came to the front: he was obviously in a state of terror. He said something in a low and trembling voice, pointing up towards the valley and then back down the river: then he threw down the gold coins that they had been paid, and turned about. In another moment the four of them were running at full speed down the river.

       Chapter Twelve

      ‘This is not so bad,’ said Sullivan, heaping wood on to the fire. The leaping flames glowed pink far over the snow beyond them and lit up the low dark forms of the yaks in their shelter under the rocks.

      ‘No, indeed,’ said the Professor. ‘It is a very much pleasanter end to the day than I ever expected.’