The sun set, yet the caravan did not appear. M. Gabet beginning to fear that some serious accident had befallen it, once more set off, and searched in every direction, up hill and down dale, but he could see nothing of us, and learn nothing of us, from the travellers whom he met.
The night advanced, and soon the Lamasery of Rache-Tchurin disappeared in the darkness. M. Gabet found himself alone in the desert, without path and without shelter, fearing alike to advance or to recede, lest he should fall into some abyss. He was fain, therefore, to stop where he was, in a narrow, sandy defile, and to pass the night there. By way of supper, he had to content himself with an Impression de Voyage. Not that provisions were wanting, by any means, but fire was, and water. Besides, the feeling of hunger was superseded by the anxieties which afflicted his heart as to the caravan. He knelt on the sand, said his evening prayer, and then lay down his head upon one of the flour-sacks beside the
camel, keeping its bridle round his arm lest the animal should stray during the night. It is needless to add that his sleep was neither sound nor continuous; the cold, bare ground is not a very eligible bed, especially for a man preyed upon by dark anxieties.
With the earliest dawn, M. Gabet mounted his camel, and though well nigh exhausted with hunger and fatigue, proceeded anew in search of his companions.
The caravan was not lost, though it was terribly astray. After M. Gabet had quitted us, in order to visit the Chinese post, we at first exactly followed the right path; but before long we entered upon a vast steppe, all trace of road insensibly faded away amidst sand so fine that the slightest wind made it undulate like sea-waves; there was no vestige upon it of the travellers who had preceded us. By-and-by the road disappeared altogether, and we found ourselves environed with yellow hills, which presented not the slightest suggestion even of vegetation. M. Huc, fearing to lose himself amid these sands, stopped the cameleer. “Samdadchiemba,” said he, “do not let us proceed at random. You see yonder, in the valley, that Tartar horseman driving a herd of oxen; go and ask him the way to Rache-Tchurin.” Samdadchiemba raised his head, and looked for a moment, closing one eye, at the sun, which was veiled with some passing clouds. “My spiritual father,” said he, “I am accustomed to wander about the desert; my opinion is, that we are quite in the right road: let us continue our course westward, and we cannot go astray.” “Well, well, since you think you know the desert, keep on.” “Oh, yes; don’t be afraid. You see that long, white line on the mountain yonder? that’s the road, after its issue from the sands.”
On Samdadchiemba’s assurance, we continued to advance in the same direction. We soon came to a road as he had promised, but it was a road disused, upon which we could see no person to confirm or contradict the assertion of Samdadchiemba, who persisted that we were on the way to Rache-Tchurin. The sun set, and the twilight gradually gave place to the darkness of night, without our discovering the least indication of the Lamasery, or, which surprised us still more, of M. Gabet, who, according to the information of the old Lama, ought to have rejoined us long ago. Samdadchiemba was silent, for he now saw that we had lost our way.
It was important to encamp before the night had altogether closed in. Perceiving a well at the end of a hollow, we set up our tent beside it. By the time our linen-house was in order, and the baggage piled, the night had completely set in; yet M. Gabet had not appeared. “Get on a camel,” said M. Huc to Samdadchiemba, “and look about for M. Gabet.” The Dchiahour made no reply;
he was thoroughly disconcerted and depressed. Driving a stake into the ground, he fastened one of the camels to it, and mounting upon the other, departed mournfully in quest of our friend. He had scarcely got out of sight, when the camel that was left behind, finding itself alone, sent forth the most frightful cries; by-and-by it became furious; it turned round and round the stake, backed to the very limit of the rope and of its long neck, made longer by painful extension, and applied every effort to get rid of the wooden curl that was passed through its nose: the spectacle of its struggle was really frightful. At last it succeeded in breaking the cord, and then dashed off boundingly into the desert. The horse and mule had also disappeared; they were hungry and thirsty; and about the tent there was not a blade of grass, not a drop of water. The well beside which we had encamped was perfectly dry; in fact, it was nothing more than an old cistern which had probably been for years useless.
Thus our little caravan, which for nearly two months had journeyed, without once separating, through the desert plains of Tartary, was now utterly dispersed; man and beast—all had disappeared. There remained only M. Huc, solitary in his little linen-house, and a prey to the most corroding anxieties. For a whole day he had neither eaten nor drunk; but under such circumstances you do not ordinarily feel either hunger or thirst; the mind is too full to give any place to the suggestions of the body; you seem environed with a thousand fearful phantoms: and great indeed were your desolation, but that you have for your safety and your consolation, prayer, the sole lever that can raise from off your heart the weight of sombre apprehensions that would otherwise crush it.
The hours passed on, and no one returned. As, in the obscurity of night, persons might pass quite close to the tent, and yet not see it, M. Huc, from time to time, ascended the adjacent hills and rocks, and, in his loudest tones, called out the names of his lost companions, but no one replied; all still was silence, and solitude. It was near midnight, when at length the plaintive cries of a camel, apparently remonstrating against being driven so fast, were heard in the distance. Samdadchiemba soon came up. He had met several Tartar horsemen who had no tidings, indeed, of M. Gabet, but from whom he learned that we had gone altogether astray; that the road we were pursuing led to a Mongol encampment, in precisely the contrary direction to Rache-Tchurin. “By day-break,” said Samdadchiemba, “we must raise the tent, and find the right path; we shall there, no doubt, meet the elder spiritual father.” “Samdadchiemba, your advice is a bubble; the tent and the baggage must remain here, for the excellent reason, that they cannot