The station-master dropped his voice, as if fearful of being heard by the Chinese outside the barrier.
"Yes, a special. We were warned by telegraph not to let the news spread among the natives. But seeing you are an officer, there's no harm in mentioning there were three hundred of your own men—Cossacks, and a sprinkling of Siberian Rifles. I suppose you are going on the same errand?"
Map of the Siberian Railway from Mao-shan to Han-ta-ho-tzü.
There was much curiosity in the station-master's voice. He was himself a soldier, and keenly interested in military matters, in which, indeed, he was more at home than in the routine of railway work. A green-coated railway sentinel passed and saluted. The captain, who was unknown to the station-master, had ridden in from Ho-ni-ho-tzü an hour before, and purchased a ticket for Hai-lin, the station for Ninguta. He had been anything but communicative, much to the chagrin of the official, to whom a gossip was the sole distraction in a very monotonous existence, exiled as he was in this out-of-the-way station. His curiosity had been aroused by the fact that the captain was leaving his horse in his charge. It was to be put on board the Harbin train when that officer returned.
"Yes," the captain replied, "the same errand."
"Ah Lum?"
"Da, da! Ah Lum. There will soon be a strong force at Ninguta."
"There must be nearly a thousand there now, to say nothing of the three hundred that passed through this morning, and as many yesterday morning. They are running them very quickly, for the empty train passed here on the way back to Harbin on the afternoon of the same day. We don't often make such running on this railway. It's more like old days on the Warsaw section. I was there before I came here. The Paris express—that is a train if you like. Although they do say that they run even faster in England. Of course that's a lie; they are all liars, the English. That's well known, is it not, little father?"
"What's that yonder?" said the officer instead of replying.