Whether they realised that this might be the case, or whether some other reasons moved them, I cannot say; but several of the Lamas, who had been most brutal, including one who had the previous day taken a part in Chanden Sing's flogging, now became quite polite and treated us with a surprising amount of deference. Two Lamas were despatched 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 folk 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: so the Tibetans revolved the wooden bowl round and round my mouth, and I licked it as clean as if it had never been used.
CHAPTER LXXXVII
Happiness checked—Stretched on the rack—Mansing shares my fate—Drenched and in rags—An unsolved mystery.
After all the excitement of the day, we were beginning to feel a little restored and much relieved at being treated rather less roughly, were it only for a few moments, when, small as it was, the improvement in our condition was checked.
A Lama came from the monastery and gave orders right and left, and the place was again in commotion. We were pounced upon and roughly seized, and my legs were quickly untied, a number of men holding me down the while. Again they lifted me until I stood upright on the cutting edge of the prismatic log: two men seized one leg and two the other, and stretched them apart as far as they could possibly go. Then rope after rope was wound round my feet and ankles, and I was made fast as before to the log.