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I am just thinking of shortening his watch by half an hour when both dogs begin to bark furiously. The Lama wakes up and rushes out, and we steal off with our weapons in the direction in which we hear the tramp of a horse going away through the mud. In a little while all is quiet again, and the dogs cease to bark. I wake up Shagdur and creep into my berth in my wet coat.
Since then two Europeans who had made the attempt to reach the place had been murdered, and others had to turn back without success. Now it was my turn to try my luck. My plan was to travel in disguise with only two followers. One was the Mongolian Lama, the other the Buriat Cossack, Shagdur. The Buriats are of Mongol race, speak Mongolian, and are Lamaists.
At length, however, we succeeded in keeping alight a small smoking fire of dung. That night I did not keep watch a minute after midnight, but waked up Shagdur mercilessly and crept into bed. On August 2 we made only fifteen and a half miles. The road was now broad and easy to follow.
It beat and rang on the Mongolian stewpans left out at the fireplace. Sometimes I tried to get a little shelter in the tent opening, but as soon as the dogs growled I had to hurry out again. At last it is midnight and my watch is at an end; but Shagdur is sleeping so soundly that I cannot find it in my heart to waken him.
The European articles I required instruments, writing materials, and a field-glass were carefully packed in a box. For defence we had two Russian rifles and a Swedish revolver. Of the caravan animals, five mules and four horses, as well as two dogs, Tiger and Lilliput, were to go with us. I rode a handsome white horse, Shagdur a tall yellow horse, and the Lama a small greyish-yellow mule.
Then Shagdur gave him a pinch of snuff which made him sneeze at least fifty times. We laughed at him when he asked whether we put pepper in our snuff, whereupon, in order to keep up our story, Shagdur roared at me, "Do not sit here and stare, boy; go and drive in the cattle." I started up at once, and had a terrible job to get the animals in to the camp.
At half-past eight Shagdur and the Lama were asleep in the tent, and my first night watch began. I strolled backwards and forwards between Tiger and Lilliput, who whined with pleasure when I stroked them. The sky was covered with dense black clouds, lighted from within by flashes of lightning, while thunder rolled around us and rain streamed down in a perfect deluge.
With some difficulty we made out two horsemen on the top of the hills driving two loose horses before them we found afterwards that one was my favourite white horse, the other Shagdur's yellow one. Shagdur sent a bullet after the scoundrels, but it only hastened their pace. It was still dark, but there was no more sleep for us.
Our positions were now reversed; Shagdur was the important man and I was only a mule-driver. With the Cossacks I always spoke Russian, but now no language must be used but Mongolian, which the Lama had been teaching me for a long time previously.
Without hesitation our courageous little Lama rode straight out into the rapid turbid current, and Shagdur and I followed. When we had crossed about half the river we rested a while on a small mud flat, from which neither bank could be seen owing to the rain.
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