Our lives to be spared--An unpleasant march--Chanden Sing still
alive--A sleepless night--Towards the frontier--Long and painful
marches--How we slept at night--A map drawn with blood.
THE Pombo ordered that my life should be spared, and that I should on
that very day start on my return journey towards the Indian frontier. He
took from my own money one hundred and twenty rupees, which he placed in
my pocket for my wants during the journey, and commanded that, though I
must be kept chained up, I was to be treated kindly, and my servants
also.
When all was ready, Mansing and I were led on foot to Toxem, our guard
consisting of some fifty horsemen riding on ponies. We had to travel at a
great speed despite our severely lacerated feet, our aching bones, and
the sores and wounds with which we were covered all over. The soldiers
led me tied by the neck like a dog, and dragged me along when, panting,
exhausted and suffering, I could not keep up with the ponies. We crossed
several cold streams, sinking in water and mud up to our waists.
At Toxem, to my great delight, I beheld Chanden Sing still alive. He had
been kept prisoner in the mud-house, where he had remained tied upright
to a post for over three days, and for four days he had not eaten food
nor drunk anything. He was told that I had been beheaded. He was in a
dreadful condition; almost dying from his wounds, cold and starvation.
We were detained there for the night, half-choked by smoke in one of the
rooms of the mud-house packed with soldiers, who, with a woman of easy
morals, gambled the whole night, and sang and swore and fought,
preventing us from sleeping for even a few minutes.
[Illustration: CHANDEN SING TIED TO A POST]
The next day at sunrise Chanden Sing and I were placed on yaks, not on
riding saddles, but on pack-saddles such as those shown in the
illustration in chapter xl. p. 223. Poor Mansing was made to walk, and
was beaten mercilessly when, tired and worn out, he fell or remained
behind. They again tied him with a rope by the neck and dragged him along
in a most brutal manner. We had a strong guard to prevent our escaping,
and they demanded fresh relays of yaks and ponies and food for themselves
at all the encampments, so that we travelled very fast. In the first five
days we covered one hundred and seventy-eight miles, the two longest
marches being respectively forty-two and forty-five miles; but afterwards
we did not cover quite such great distances.
[Illustration: A WHITE YAK]
We suffered considerably on these long marches, as the soldiers
ill-treated us and would not allow us to eat every day for fear we should
get too strong. They let us have food only every two or three days, and
our exhaustion and the pain caused by riding those wretched yaks in our
wounded condition were terrible.
[Illustration: MAP DRAWN IN BLOOD DURING CAPTIVITY]
All our property had been taken away from us, and our clothes were in
rags and swarming with vermin. We were bare-footed and practically
naked. The first few days we generally marched from before sunrise till
sometimes an hour or two after sunset; and when we reached camp we were
torn off our yaks and our jailers fastened iron cuffs round our ankles,
in addition to those we had already round our wrists. Being considered
quite safe, we were left to sleep out in the open without a covering of
any kind, and often lying on snow or deluged with rain. Our guard
generally pitched a tent under which they slept; but even when they did
not have one, they usually went to brew their tea some fifty yards or so
from us.
Helped by my two servants, who sat by me to keep watch and to screen me,
I managed, at considerable risk, to keep a rough record of the journey
back, on a small piece of paper that had remained in my pocket when I had
been searched by the Tibetans. As I did when on the rack, I used to draw
my right hand out of its cuff, and, with a small piece of bone I had
picked up as pen, and my blood as ink, I drew brief cipher notes, and a
map of the whole route back.
Necessarily, as I had no instruments with which to take careful
observations, I had to content myself with taking my bearings by the sun,
the position of which I got fairly accurately by constantly watching the
shadow projected by my body on the ground. Of course, when it rained or
snowed, I was altogether at a loss, and had to reckon my bearings by the
observations of the previous day.