CAPTURED
In the night I heard noises several times. I went out of my tent to look for the disturbers, but failed to discover any one. This had become my nightly experience, and I attached little importance to these sounds.
In the morning Ando and two or three Tibetans came to sell us provisions and ponies. While my two servants and I were engaged in purchasing what we required, I saw a number of villagers approaching in groups. Some spun wool, others carried bags of tsamba and flour, while others led a number of ponies. Having purchased provisions to last us a couple of months, we began the selection of mounts. Naturally my servants and myself were overjoyed at our unexpected luck, after sufferings and privations of all kinds, in finding ourselves confronted with abundance of everything we could possibly desire. Chanden Sing and Mansing, who were sportsmen of the very first order, delighted at the prospect of getting animals, rode first one pony and then another to suit themselves. Chanden Sing, having selected a handsome beast, called me to examine it before paying over the purchase-money. Unsuspecting of foul play, and also because it would not have been convenient to try the various lively ponies with my rifle slung over my shoulder, I walked unarmed to the spot, about a hundred yards away from my tent, where the restless animal was being held for my inspection. The natives followed behind me, but such a thing being common in any country when one buys a horse in public, I thought nothing of it. As I stood with my hands behind my back, I well recollect the expression of delight on Chanden Sing's face when I approved of his choice. As is generally the case on such occasions, the people collected in a crowd behind me expressed in a chorus their gratuitous opinion on the superiority of the steed selected. I had just stooped to examine the pony's fore legs when I was suddenly seized from behind by several persons, who grabbed me by the neck, wrists, and legs, and threw me down on my face. I struggled and fought until I shook off some of my assailants and regained my feet; but others rushed up, and I was surrounded by some thirty men, who attacked me from every side. They clung to me with all their might, and succeeded in grabbing again my arms, legs, and head. Exhausted as I was, they knocked me down three more times, but each time I regained my feet. I fought to the bitter end with my fists, feet, head, and teeth. Each time I got one hand or leg free from their clutches, I hit right and left at any part where I could disable my opponents. Their timidity, even when in such overwhelming numbers, was indeed beyond description. It was entirely due to it, and not to my strength, for I had hardly any left, that I was able to hold my own against them for some twenty minutes. My clothes were torn in the fight. Long ropes were thrown at me from every side. I became so entangled in them that my movements were impeded. One rope which they flung and successfully twisted round my neck completed their victory. They pulled hard at it from the two ends, and while I panted and gasped with the exertion of fighting, they tugged and tugged in order to strangle me. I felt as if my eyes would shoot out of my head. I was suffocating. My sight became dim. I was in their power. Dragged down to the ground, they stamped, and kicked, and trampled upon me with their heavy nailed boots until I was stunned. Then they tied my wrists tightly behind my back; they bound my elbows, my chest, my neck, and my ankles. I was a prisoner!
PURCHASING PONIES
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. He had been pounced upon at the same moment that I was, and had fought gallantly until, like myself, he had been entangled, thrown down, and secured with 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 a 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[10] armed soldiers who had
lain in ambush round us, concealed behind the innumerable sand-hills 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 criminal, I looked round to see what had become of my men. When I realized that it took the Tibetans five hundred men,[11] 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), dispatched on purpose to arrest our progress and capture us, I could not repress 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. Then they began overhauling our baggage. The watches and chronometer were looked upon with suspicion, their ticking causing curiosity and even anxiety. They were passed round, and mercilessly thrown about from one person to the other until they stopped ticking. 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." Great caution was displayed in touching our rifles, which were lying on our bedding when the tent had been torn down.