"I don’t know. I’m dead beat. I can’t help thinking that the Kalmucks must have captured him, alive or dead. When we have rested we had better get our rifles and go and meet the Pathans. They ought to be near by this time. With them hunting on horseback and ourselves in the aeroplane we can scour the country. But we must tell our men; it’s no good starting without them." "I think you’re right. We’ll get something to eat, and by the time you’ve had a rest, no doubt the men will arrive." CHAPTER THE EIGHTH THE EDGE OF THE STORM They swung themselves across the river hand over hand on the rope. On returning to the aeroplane Bob opened a box of sardines and took out of a biscuit tin some of the flat bread-cakes baked by the Chinese cook. But neither he nor Lawrence had any appetite. After a few minutes Lawrence got up. "It’s no good," he said. "I can’t eat, and I can’t rest. It would be different if we knew for certain that the old man was gone; it’s the uncertainty that’s so wearing. Do you see anything of the Pathans?" Bob took his field-glass and went to the edge of the track, whence he had a scarcely interrupted view of a mile or more of the valley. "No, they’re not in sight," he said after a minute or two. "Shall we go and meet them?" "I’m more inclined to go down-stream, on the off-chance that we may find something." "All right. Better take our rifles, perhaps." "Why? Nurla has got clean away by this time, whether Uncle is with him or not. You may be sure he wouldn’t wait about." "Well, we’ll take our revolvers; it’s just as well to have something handy. For all we know he may be resting behind some rock." "With a rifle! Revolvers wouldn’t be much use against that." "Nor would rifles, now you mention it. He’d pot us before we saw him if he wanted to. All the same, we’ll take our revolvers." They swarmed across by the rope, gained the farther bank, and walked slowly down the track, scanning the rocky recesses as narrowly as before. They had scarcely any hope of finding their uncle’s body; but while it remained undiscovered they were ready to search again and again. It was now near midday, and the sun beat fiercely upon them. For a time they were unconscious of the heat in the intentness of their occupation, and the foreboding anxiety that filled their minds; so that they had walked much farther than they supposed when they became alive to the fatigue induced by exertion in such a temperature. Then, wiping their perspiring brows, they sank down to rest on a flattish boulder overhanging the stream. "We must give it up," said Bob wearily. "Unless Nurla has got him he’s either at the bottom of the river, or else washed down miles by this time." "I don’t care about caving in altogether," said Lawrence. "It would be some satisfaction--a mournful one--to recover his body and give him decent burial."