We were told that our execution was only postponed till the next day, in order that we might be tortured until the time came for us to be put to death.
A number of Lamas and soldiers stood round jeering at us. I seized this opportunity to hail a swaggering Lama and ask him for some refreshment.
"Orcheh, orcheh nga dappa tugu duh, chuen deh, dang, yak, guram, tcha, tsamba pin!" (I am very hungry; please give me some rice, yak meat, ghur, tea, and oatmeal!) I asked, in my best Tibetan.
"Hum murr, Maharaja!" (I want butter, your Majesty!) put in Mansing, half in Hindustani and half in the Tibetan language.
This natural application for food seemed to afford intense amusement to our torturers. They formed a ring round us, and laughed at our appeal, while Mansing and I, both of us famished, were left bound in a most painful position.
The day had now waned. Our torturers did not fail to constantly remind us that the following day our heads would be severed from our bodies. I told them that it would cause us no pain, for if they gave us no food we should probably be dead from starvation by then.
Whether they realized that this might be the case, or whether some other reason moved them, I cannot say. Several Lamas, who had been most brutal, including one who had the previous day taken part in Chanden Sing's flogging, now became quite polite and treated us with a surprising amount of deference. Two Lamas were dispatched to the monastery, and returned after some time with bags of tsamba and a large raksang of boiling tea. I have hardly ever enjoyed a meal more, though the Lamas stuffed the food down my throat with their unwashed fingers so fast that they nearly choked me.
"Eat, eat as much as you can," said they, grimly, "for it may be your last meal."
And eat I did, and washed the tsamba down with quantities of buttered tea, which they poured into my mouth carelessly out of the raksang.
Mansing, whose religion did not allow him to eat food touched by people of a different caste, was eventually permitted to lick the meal out of the wooden bowl. I myself was none too proud to take the food in any way it might be offered, and when my humble "Orcheh, orcheh tchuen mangbo terokchi!" (Please give me some more!) met with the disapproval of the Lamas, and brought out the everlasting negative, "Middù, middù" I was still too hungry to waste any of the precious food given us. Upon application the Tibetans revolved the wooden bowl round and round my mouth, and I licked it as clean as if it had never been used.