Chanden Sing's plucky resistance—Mansing secured—A signal—A treacherous Lama—Confiscation of baggage—Watches, compasses and aneroids—Fear and avidity—The air-cushion—Dragged into the encampment.
They lifted me and made me stand up. The 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 as I was, and had fought gallantly until, like myself, he had been entangled, thrown down and secured by 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 any 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[27] armed soldiers who had lain in ambush round us, concealed behind the innumerable sandhills 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 dangerous criminal, I
Dragged into the Settlement
looked round to see what had become of my men. When I realised that it took the Tibetans five hundred men[28] 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), despatched on purpose to arrest our progress and capture us, I could not restrain a smile of contempt for those into whose hands we had at last fallen.
