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Still holding the rifle cocked at safety on my lap, I turned the muzzle of it toward the Tarjum, and purposely let my hand slide down to the trigger. He became uncomfortable. His face showed signs of apprehension. His eyes, until now fixed on the ground, became first unsteady, and then settled fixedly, with a look of distress, on the muzzle of my rifle.
The Tarjum and his men were profuse in their bows, and there was, as usual, a great display of tongues. We had rugs placed outside our principal tent. The doctor and I sat on one, asking the Tarjum to sit on the one facing us. His followers squatted around him.
You are now my friends, and you will not allow this." "Tell the Tarjum," I replied to the messenger, "that he is my friend, and I will treat him as a friend." In the morning we found thirty horsemen, fully armed, posted about one hundred yards from our tent. To go ahead with my frightened men and be followed by this company would certainly bring trouble. It was better to adopt other tactics.
Once at Kelas, I felt sure I could easily go further. On the same evening a traitor in our camp sneaked from under the tent in which my men were sleeping and paid a visit to the Tarjum. There is no doubt that he told him I was not the doctor's brother nor a Hindoo pilgrim. He disclosed that I was a sahib, and that I was on my way to Lhassa.
From what I heard afterward, it seemed that the Tarjum did not quite believe his informant; but, fresh doubts arising in his mind, he sent a message in the night, entreating us to return the way we had come. "If there is really a sahib in your party, whom you have kept concealed from me, and I let you go on, my head will be cut off by the Lhassa officials.
Early in the morning, having crossed the large stream, we proceeded in a south-westerly direction, reaching the encampment of the Tokchim Tarjum the same night. Here we were met by the officers who had on a previous occasion, during our outward journey, brought us gifts, and whom we had routed with their soldiers when they had threatened us. This time they behaved considerately.
The Tarjum complained of an ailment from which he had suffered for some time. The doctor was able to give him a suitable remedy. All officers received small presents. Then they departed. In the afternoon a messenger came from the Barca Tarjum. He had good news for us. The Tarjum wished us to understand that, "as we had been so kind to him and his followers, he regarded us as his personal friends.
Well aware of the difficulties we must encounter in travelling through such an inhospitable country, the Tarjum, they said, wished me to accept the gifts they now laid before me. With these they handed me a kata, or "the scarf of love and friendship," a long piece of thin silk-like gauze, the end of which had been cut into a fringe. In Tibet these katas accompany every gift.
The officers were most profuse in their salutations. They had removed their caps and thrown them on the ground, and they kept their tongues sticking out of their mouths until I begged them to draw them in. They professed to be the subordinates of the Tokchim Tarjum, who had despatched them to inquire after my health, and who wished me to look upon him as my best friend.
To Doctor Wilson's tent came the Tokchim Tarjum, his private secretary, Nerba, whom the reader may remember as having played an important part in my tortures, the Jong Pen's secretary, and Lapsang in his handsome green velvet coat with ample sleeves.
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