CHAPTER XCVII
Suna—Wilson and the Political Peshkar across the frontier—A messenger—Our progress stopped—Diverting us over the Lumpiya Pass—Condemned to certain death—We attack our guard—Lapsang and the Jong Pen's private secretary—A document—Nearing Kardam—Retracing our steps—Dogmar.
When we had been marching for several hours, our guard halted to have their tea. A man named Suna, and his brother and son, whom I had met in Garbyang, halted near us, and from them I heard that news had arrived in India that I and my two men had been beheaded, and that thereupon Doctor Wilson and the Political Peshkar Karak Sing had crossed over the frontier to ascertain the facts, and to attempt to recover my baggage, &c. My joy was intense when I heard that they were still at Taklakot. I persuaded Suna to return as fast as he could, and to inform Wilson that I was a prisoner, and tell him my whereabouts. I had barely given Suna this message when our guard seized the man and his brother and roughly dismissed them, preventing them from having any further communication with us. As soon as we were on the march again, a horseman rode up to us with strict orders from the Jong Pen of Taklakot not to let us proceed any farther towards the frontier by the Lippu Pass, which we could now have reached in two days, but to take us round by the distant Lumpiya Pass. At this time of the year the Lumpiya would be impassable; and we should have to make a further journey of at least fifteen or sixteen days, most of it over snow and ice, during which we, in our starved and weakened state, would inevitably succumb. We asked to be taken into Taklakot, but our guard refused, and in the meantime the Jong Pen of Taklakot had sent other messengers and soldiers to ensure the fulfilment of his orders, and to prevent our further progress.
Our guard, now strengthened by the Taklakot men, compelled us to leave the Taklakot track, and we began our journey towards the cold Lumpiya. This was murder, and the Tibetans, well knowing it, calculated on telling the Indian authorities that we had died a natural death on the snows.
A Bearer of Bad News
We were informed that we should be left at the point where the snows began, that the Tibetans would give us no food, no clothes and no blankets, and that we should be abandoned to our own devices. This, needless to say, meant certain death.
We determined to stand no more, and to play our last card. After travelling some two and a half miles westward of the Taklakot track, we declined to proceed any more in that direction. We said that, if they attempted to force us on, we were prepared to fight our guard, as whether we died by their swords and matchlocks, or frozen to death on the Lumpiya, was quite immaterial to us.