Lost Horizon by James Hilton Read Free Book Online Page B

sprawling over the controls. He shook him, unfastened his helmet, and loosened the clothes round his neck. A moment later he turned round to report: “Yes, there’s something happened to him. We must get him out.” But an observer might have added that something had happened to Conway as well. His voice was sharper, more incisive; no longer did he seem to be hovering on the brink of some profound doubtfulness. The time, the place, the cold, his fatigue, were now of less account; there was a job that simply had to be done, and the more conventional part of him was uppermost and preparing to do it.
    With Barnard and Mallinson assisting, the pilot was extracted from his seat and lifted to the ground. He was unconscious, not dead. Conway had no particular medical knowledge, but, as to most men who have lived in outlandish places, the phenomena of illness were mostly familiar. “Possibly a heart attack brought on by the high altitude,” he diagnosed, stooping over the unknown man. “We can do very little for him out here—there’s no shelter from this infernal wind. Better get him inside the cabin, and ourselves too. We haven’t an idea where we are, and it’s hopeless to make a move until daylight.”
    The verdict and the suggestion were both accepted without dispute. Even Mallinson concurred. They carried the man into the cabin and laid him full-length along the gangway between the seats. The interior was no warmer than outside, but offered a screen to the flurries of wind. It was the wind, before much time had passed, that became the central preoccupation of them all—the leitmotif , as it were, of the whole mournful night. It was not an ordinary wind. It was not merely a strong wind or a cold wind. It was somehow a frenzy that lived all around them, a master stamping and ranting over his own domain. It tilted the loaded machine and shook it viciously, and when Conway glanced through the windows it seemed as if the wind were whirling splinters of light out of the stars.
    The stranger lay inert, while Conway, with difficulty in the dimness and confined space, made what examination he could by the light of matches. But it did not reveal much. “His heart’s faint,” he said at last, and then Miss Brinklow, after groping in her handbag, created a small sensation. “I wonder if this would be any use to the poor man,” she proffered condescendingly. “I never touch a drop myself, but I always carry it with me in case of accidents. And this is a sort of accident, isn’t it?”
    “I should say it was,” replied Conway with grimness. He unscrewed the bottle, smelt it, and poured some of the brandy into the man’s mouth. “Just the stuff for him. Thanks.” After an interval the slightest movement of eyelids was visible. Mallinson suddenly became hysterical. “I can’t help it,” he cried, laughing wildly. “We all look such a lot of damn fools striking matches over a corpse .… And he isn’t much of a beauty, is he? Chink, I should say, if he’s anything at all.”
    “Possibly.” Conway’s voice was level and rather severe. “But he’s not a corpse yet. With a bit of luck we may bring him round.”
    “Luck? It’ll be his luck, not ours.”
    “Don’t be too sure. And shut up for the time being, anyhow.”
    There was enough of the schoolboy still in Mallinson to make him respond to the curt command of a senior, though he was obviously in poor control of himself. Conway, though sorry for him, was more concerned with the immediate problem of the pilot, since he, alone of them all, might be able to give some explanation of their plight. Conway had no desire to discuss the matter further in a merely speculative way; there had been enough of that during the journey. He was uneasy now beyond his continuing mental curiosity, for he was aware that the whole situation had ceased to be excitingly perilous and was threatening to become a trial of endurance ending in catastrophe. Keeping vigil throughout that