United States or Laos ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was the man "with the head like a saddle," against whom I had been warned by the old fortune teller at the last ourton outside Van Kure! "Who is this officer?" I inquired. Although he was already quite a distance in front of us, the Cossacks whispered: "Colonel Sepailoff, Commandant of Urga City." Colonel Sepailoff, the darkest person on the canvas of Mongolian events!
He was a bloodhound, fastening his victims with the jaws of death. All the glory of the cruelty of Baron Ungern belonged to Sepailoff. Afterwards Baron Ungern once told me in Urga that this Sepailoff annoyed him and that Sepailoff could kill him just as well as others.
The Minister told me that Djam Bolon yesterday received information that Sepailoff planned to overtake me on the way and kill me. Sepailoff suspected that I had stirred up the Baron against him. Djam Bolon reported the matter to the Baron, who organized this column for my safety. The returning Mongol reported that the motor car had gone on out of sight.
Sepailoff greeted us very warmly and asked: "You are changing your horses in Khazahuduk? Does the road cross that pass ahead? I don't know the way and must overtake an envoy who went there." The Minister of War answered that we would be in Khazahuduk that evening and gave Sepailoff directions as to the road.
He was everywhere, seeing everything but never, interfering with the work of his subordinate administrators. Every one was at work. In the evening I was invited by the Chief of Staff to his quarters, where I met many intelligent officers. I related again the story of my trip and we were all chatting along animatedly when suddenly Colonel Sepailoff entered, singing to himself.
"What is this?" he asked Sepailoff in a severe, threatening voice; and, without waiting for an answer, struck him a blow with his tashur that sent him to the floor. We went out and the General ordered my luggage produced. Then he brought me to his own yurta. "Live here, now," he said. "I am very glad of this accident," he remarked with a smile, "for now I can say all that I want to."
But Olufsen unexpectedly announced that he was forced to spend some few days more in Urga a fatal decision for him, for a month later he was reported killed by Sepailoff who remained as Commandant of the city after Baron Ungern's departure. The War Minister, a stout, young Mongol, joined our caravan. When we had gone about six miles from the city, we saw an automobile coming up behind us.
I knocked on the door but no one answered me. Then I decided to go to Baron Ungern and started for the exit. The door was locked. Then I tried the other door and found that also locked. I had been trapped! I wanted at once to whistle to my friend but just then noticed a telephone on the wall and called up Baron Ungern. In a few minutes he appeared together with Sepailoff.
Baron Ungern feared Sepailoff, not as a man, but dominated by his own superstition, because Sepailoff had found in Transbaikalia a witch doctor who predicted the death of the Baron if he dismissed Sepailoff. Sepailoff knew no pardon for Bolshevik nor for any one connected with the Bolsheviki in any way.
"You see," began the host, "after your departure a soldier came from Sepailoff and took your luggage, saying that you had sent him for it; but we knew what it meant that they would first search it and afterwards. . . ." I at once understood the danger. Sepailoff could place anything he wanted in my luggage and afterwards accuse me.
Word Of The Day