Chanden Sing's plucky resistance—Mansing secured—A signal—A treacherous Lama—Confiscation of baggage—Watches, compasses and aneroids—Fear and avidity—The air-cushion—Dragged into the encampment.
THEY lifted me and made me stand up. The brave Chanden Sing had been
struggling with all his might against fifteen or twenty foes, and had
disabled several of them. He had been pounced upon at the same moment as
I was, and had fought gallantly until, like myself, he had been
entangled, thrown down and secured by ropes. During my struggle, I heard
him call out repeatedly: "Banduk, banduk, Mansing; jaldi, banduk!" ("Rifle, rifle, Mansing; quick, my rifle!") but, alas, poor Mansing the leper, the weak and jaded coolie, had been sprung upon by four powerful Tibetans, who held him pinned to the ground as if he had been the fiercest of bandits. Mansing was a philosopher. He had saved himself the trouble of even offering any resistance; but he too, was ill-treated, beaten and tightly bound. At the beginning of the fight a shrill whistle had brought up four hundred armed soldiers who had lain in ambush round us, concealed behind the innumerable sandhills and in the depressions in the ground. They took up a position round us and covered us with their matchlocks.
All was now over, and, bound like a dangerous criminal, I looked round
to see what had become of my men. When I realised that it took the
Tibetans five hundred men all counted to arrest a starved Englishman
and his two half-dying servants, and that, even then, they dared not do
it openly, but had to resort to abject treachery; when I found that these
soldiers were picked troops from Lhassa and Sigatz (Shigatze), despatched
on purpose to arrest our progress and capture us, I could not restrain a
smile of contempt for those into whose hands we had at last fallen.
My blood boiled when, upon the order of the Lama, who the previous night
had professed to be our friend, several men advanced and searched our
pockets. They rifled us of everything we possessed, and began overhauling
our baggage. The watches and chronometer were looked upon with suspicion, their ticking causing anxiety and curiosity. They were passed round and round and mercilessly thrown about from one person to the other, until they stopped. They were then pronounced "dead." The compasses and aneroids, which they could not distinguish from watches, were soon thrown aside, as "they had no life in them," but great caution was displayed in touching our rifles, which were lying on our bedding when the tent had been torn down.
Great fears were entertained lest they should go off by themselves; and
it was only on my assurance (which made our captors ten times more
cautious) that they were not loaded, that at last they took them and
registered them in the catalogue of our confiscated property. I had upon
me a gold ring that my mother had given me when I was a child. I asked
permission to retain it, and with their superstitious nature they
immediately thought that it had occult powers, like the wands one reads
of in fairy tales.