'A somewhat broad one, Sir,' said I doubtfully.

'Well, let us see, then, if we can narrow it. As I focus my mind upon the verse, it seems rather less impenetrable. In spite of its cryptic nature, it is not too difficult to see that what we have here is a set of instructions.'

'It is a guide to Shambala!' I cried triumphantly.

'A guide?'

'I mean it is a description of the route to that place. We have the legend that the first Grand Lama may have travelled there. Probably he recorded the route of his journey.'

'Humm. Any other reasons for thinking so?'

'Well, there are also certain words in the message which provide indications of it being some kind of travel itinerary. We have the word…umm "Proceed" in the twelfth line. Then… let me see… aah… "direction"… in the eighth and ninth lines. There are also the many references to "Mountains" and "Walls" and a "City."'

'Good Hurree, good! But not, if I may say so, quite good enough. There are difficulties with your theory. Consider just the tenth and eleventh lines… "Circle thrice the mountain of Fire, Twice the Adamantine Walls"… and others like it. Even if we were to assume that such places did exist, just going round and round them would not get us anywhere.'

'We'd be going around in circles,' I admitted, a trifle abashedly.

'Exactly There are just too many references to circles in this message to make it possible that it is a physical description of a route to some actual destination.'

'You are right, Mr Holmes,' said the Lama Yonten.'The message is probably symbolic. The circle, or the wheel, is the omniscient symbol of the essential principles of our faith; of cause and effect, of birth and death, indeed of the entire cycle of existence itself. Perhaps the message is nothing more than that – just a religious discourse couched in recondite metaphysical terms.'

'That really won't do, Your Reverence,' said Holmes, shaking his head. 'It hardly stands to reason that a man of Moriarty's unregenerate nature should take such trouble to steal a religious tract. No. The message definitely conceals something of great material advantage to the Professor. His own words seem to indicate that he is seeking some tremendous source of power.'

'But exactly what, Mr Holmes?' I demanded.

'There is an appalling directness about your questions, Hurree.' said Holmes, shaking his pipe at me. 'They come at me like bullets.'

'I am sorry, Sir, I did not mean…'

Holmes waved away my apologies. 'The answer to your question lies in the Ice Temple. I really do not think we can form any further conclusions without paying a visit to the place.'

'Well, Mr Holmes,' said the Lama, 'we shall be there in a week, when His Holiness goes there on his retreat. That is if the Regent doesn't have me arrested first and the visit stopped.'

'Then the sooner we get to the temple the better,' said Holmes crisply. 'Is it possible for the Grand Lama's travel plans to be advanced?'

'That would go against tradition,' protested the Lama. 'The date for His Holiness's departure has been especially chosen by the State Astrologer.'

'Well, Sir,' replied Holmes, a trifle brutally, 'you will have to choose between flying in the face of tradition or seeing the end of everything you have worked for, not least, the life of your master.'

The Lama Yonten was silent for sometime, head bowed low, his hand turning the beads of his rosary with soft regular clicks. Finally he sat up and said resignedly at Sherlock Holmes. 'You are, of course, right, Mr Holmes. When shall we leave?'

'The sooner the better. We must not forget that Moriarty may be making a trip of his own to the temple, if he has not been too affected by tonight's mishap. Do you think it would be possible for His Holiness to start tomorrow?'

'Tomorrow,' the Lama Yonten wailed. 'That is impossible.'

But of course, it wasn't.

Next day at dusk a small cavalcade of riders departed inconspicuously from the rear gate of the outer walls of the Jewel Park, by the deserted shores of the Kyichu River. Only a few water fowls (Tib. damcha) watched the passing of the line of men and horses. I rode alongside Mr Holmes, just behind the Grand Lama and the Lama Yonten. Tsering, Kintup and ten Thibetan soldiers rode ahead. Our company had been kept small on Mr Holmes's insistence, he very correctly feeling that anything larger would adversely affect our speed, and, more critically, the secrecy of our expedition.

The young Grand Lama, far from objecting to Holmes's precipitous decision, had been tremendously enthusiastic about it and had refused to pay any attention to the Chief Secretary's many doubts. The Lama Yonten, to give him his due, soon recovered from his initial worries and quickly got down to making all the necessary preparations for our expedition – which were considerable. We could not just 'rough it' as the Grand Lama himself was travelling with us, and proper tents, provisions and bedding had to be arranged. But it was all very efficiently accomplished before the appointed hour of our departure.

The Ice Temple of Shambala was about a hundred miles north of Lhassa – three days' hard riding. It was located, quite uniquely, under a huge mass of trapped glacial ice, squeezed between a deep rift in the Trans-Himalayan range. The Thibetans called this mountain chain Nyenchen-thang-lha after the ancient (preBuddhist) mountain god who held court there. Normally this temple was buried under the glacier, even the entrance being entirely sealed off by a massive wall of ice. But for some hitherto undiscovered reason, this front cliff of ice melts and breaks away once in about half a century, permitting entry to the temple. The Thibetans believe that the ice wall opens at the time that the gods of Thibet consider it propitious for a Grand Lama to assume the throne of the country, and that it has unfailingly opened (though there is no scientific evidence for this) for every incarnation of the Grand Lama – though the last three were prevented from visiting it at the prescribed time. Hence their tragically short lives, and the evil times in the country.

There is a definite limit to the period that the Ice Temple is accessible. About three to four weeks after the initial opening, the glacier begins to move once again and gradually seals the entrance to the Temple, keeping it sacrosanct until the time that another incarnation of the Grand Lama should be ready to sit on the Lion Throne of Thibet.

No convincing scientific explanation has ever been offered for this lusus naturae, though its existence has been reported by certain Russian explorers. My own view on the subject is, I believe, so far unique – if I may be pardoned the term – though I do not insist that it is necessarily the only correct one. The reader may take it as a mere theory; but a theory formulated by an intelligent and empirical observer.

Two distinct facts may be noted: 1. That the glacier is forced to travel in a deep gorge. 2. That the rock-face in front of the gorge – lining the ice wall – is formed of a very hard granitic rock, while the walls of the gorge itself are made up of a softer limestone. Thus, in time, the inner gorge has worn away much more than the mouth, creating a point of tremendous concentration and compression in front of the glacier.

My theory is that the enormous pressure exerted by the entire glacier on this small opening causes a marked decrease in the temperature in the ice at this point, and a subsequent hardening of its consistency (a natural phenomena that can be observed when snow is compressed to form snowballs). Thus an unusually hard and cold ice wall is formed at the front, effectively preventing the gradual melting and movement of the whole glacier, as normally occurs in all other glacial activities.

But though nature can be impeded, it can, of course, never be entirely halted. Year after year, the pressure builds up behind the ice wall, until eventually a point of surfeit is arrived at in the front, when the temperature cannot drop any more, or the ice harden. This slow build up of pressure may take up to fifty years, hence accounting for its coincidence with the coming of age of the Grand Lamas. Once this crucial stage is reached, the entire front of the narrow ice wall breaks open to reveal the entrance to the hidden temple. The sudden drop of pressure and temperature in front causes the whole phenomenon to start all over again, and slowly, in the space of many weeks, the entrance to the temple is once again covered by a solid wall of ice.