“Well, then!” said Major Noltitz, “the rascal who sent us on to the Nanking line, who would have hurled us into the Tjon valley, to walk off with the imperial treasure, is Faruskiar.”
“Faruskiar!” the passengers exclaimed. And most of them refused to believe it.
“What!” said Popof. “The manager of the company who so courageously drove off the bandits and killed their chief Ki-Tsang with his own hand?”
Then I entered on the scene.
“The major is not mistaken. It was Faruskiar who laid this fine trap for us.”
And amid the general stupefaction I told them what I knew, and what good fortune had enabled me to ascertain. I told them how I had overheard the plan of Faruskiar and his Mongols, when it was too late to stop it, but I was silent regarding the intervention of Kinko. The moment had not come, and I would do him justice in due time.
To my words there succeeded a chorus of maledictions and menaces.
What! This seigneur Faruskiar, this superb Mongol, this functionary we had seen at work! No! It was impossible.
But they had to give in to the evidence. I had seen; I had heard; I affirmed that Faruskiar was the author of this catastrophe in which all our train might have perished, was the most consummate bandit who had ever disgraced Central Asia!
“You see, Monsieur Bombarnac,” said Major Noltitz, “that I was not mistaken in my first suspicion.”