The guard, in perplexity, decided to let us halt there for the night, so as to have time to send a messenger to Taklakot to inform the Jong Pen, and ask for further instructions.
A Shoka-Tibetan Half-caste
During the night the order came that we must proceed, so the next morning our guard prepared to start us again towards the Lumpiya. Then we three semi-corpses collected what little strength remained in us, and suddenly made an attack on them with stones; whereupon, incredible as it may seem, our cowardly guard turned tail and bolted! We went on in the direction of Taklakot, followed at a distance by these ruffians, who were entreating us to make no further resistance and to go with them where they wanted us to go. If we did not, they said, they would all have their heads cut off. We refused to listen to them, and kept them away by throwing stones at them.
We had gone but a few miles when we met with a large force of soldiers and Lamas, despatched by the Jong Pen to prepare for our death. Unarmed, wounded, starved and exhausted as we were, it was useless attempting to fight against such odds. As it was, when they saw we were at liberty, they made ready to fire on us.
The Jong Pen's Chief Minister, a man called Lapsang, and the Jong Pen's Private Secretary, were at the head of this party. I went to shake hands with them and held a long and stormy palaver, but they kept firm and insisted on our turning away from the frontier, now that we were almost within a stone's-throw of it, and we must perforce proceed by the high Lumpiya Pass. Those were the Jong Pen's orders, and they, as well as I, must obey them. They would not give us or sell us either animals or clothes which even the small sum of money I had on me would have been sufficient to buy; and they would not provide us with an ounce of food. We emphatically protested, and said we preferred to die where we were. We asked them to kill us then and there, for we would not budge an inch westwards.
Lapsang and the Jong Pen's Private Secretary now cunningly suggested that I should give them in writing the names of the Shokas who had accompanied me to Tibet, probably with the object of confiscating their land and goods. As I said I could not write Tibetan or Hindustani, they requested me to do it in English. This I did, but substituting for the names of my men and my signature sarcastic remarks, which must have caused the Tibetans some surprise when they had the document translated.
