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I got one of them to carry the stuff to my camp, while I, without further trouble, recovered my yaks and drove them back to where Chanden Sing and Mansing were busy lighting a fire to make some tea. Toward noon, when our things had got almost dry in the warm sun, the sky became clouded, and again it began to rain heavily.
Then they tied my wrists tightly behind my back; they bound my elbows, my chest, my neck, and my ankles. I was a prisoner! They lifted me and made me stand up. Brave Chanden Sing had been struggling with all his might against fifteen or twenty foes, and had disabled several of them.
The hours we had hoped to rest had to be spent in repairing the damage done. On the following morning we were gathering nettles for our meal when we heard the distant tinkling of fast-approaching horse-bells. We quickly put out the fires, hid our things, and hastened behind our bulwarks. I seized my rifle. Chanden Sing loaded the Martini.
His never-failing good-humor and his earnest desire to learn and to be useful were quite refreshing. My luck seemed to have turned. A few minutes later Chanden Sing, quite unaware that any one had undertaken to accompany me, entered the tent, and exclaimed, in a disgusted manner: "Shoka crab, sahib! Hunya log bura crab. Hazur, hum, do admi jaldi Lhassa giao." The Hunyas are very bad.
For instance, one day I found him polishing my shoes with my best hair-brushes. When opening soda-water bottles he generally managed to give you a spray bath, and invariably hit you in the face with the flying cork. It was owing to one of these accidents that Chanden Sing, having hurt my eye badly, was one day flung bodily out of the door.
We were detained for the night in one of the rooms of the mud house. The place was packed with soldiers who gambled the whole night, and sang and swore and fought, preventing us from sleeping for even a few minutes. We were half choked by the smoke from the fire. The next day at sunrise Chanden Sing and I were placed on yaks, not on riding-saddles, but on wooden pack-saddles.
Chanden Sing and Mansing, the two Hindoos, without any clothing except a loincloth, were squatting near the edge of the lake having their heads shaved by Bijesing, the Johari. I must confess that I was somewhat annoyed when I saw them using my best razor for the purpose.
Chanden Sing, who had been left to look after the baggage, had placed Mansing in charge, and was now by my side with the Martini-Henry rifle, when one of the women, riding astride, arrived on the scene. She was evidently furious at the cowardice of her men. I liked her for that.
At Toxem, to my delight, I beheld Chanden Sing still alive. He had been kept prisoner in the mud house, where he had remained tied upright to a post for over three days. For four days he had eaten no food nor drunk anything. He was told that I had been beheaded. He was in a dreadful condition almost dying from his wounds, cold, and starvation.
"Cut off my head!" repeated Chanden Sing, pointing with his Martini-Henry at the official. "Cut off our heads!" exclaimed the Brahmin, angrily, and the two Christian servants of Dr. "No, no, no, no! Salaam, salaam, salaam!" shouted the Magbun, with the quickness of a panic-stricken man.
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