In the Forbidden Land/Chapter LXXXIV


 * Intense pain&mdash;Hustled to the execution-ground&mdash;Stretched and tied&mdash;Thirsting for blood&mdash;A parade of torturing appliances&mdash;The music&mdash;The Taram.

TWO or three men tore me roughly off the saddle. The pain in my spine caused by the spikes was intense. I asked for a moment's rest. My captors, however, refused, and, roughly thrusting me forward, said that I would be beheaded in an instant. All the people round jeered and made signs to me that my head would be cut off, and insults of all kinds were showered upon me by the crowd of Lamas and soldiers. I was hustled to the execution-ground, which lay to the left front of the tent. On the ground was a long log of wood in the shape of a prism. Upon the sharp edge of this I was made to stand, and several men held me by the body while four or five others, using their combined strength, stretched my legs as wide apart as they could go. Fixed in this painful position, the brutes securely tied me by my feet to the log of wood with cords of yak-hair. Several men were made to pull these cords, and they were so tight that they cut grooves into my skin and flesh in several places round my ankles and on my feet, many of the cuts being as much as three inches long.

When I was thus firmly bound, one ruffian, the man Nerba, whom I have mentioned before as having fired a shot at me, came forward and seized me from behind by the hair of my head. My hair was long, as it had not been cut for over five months.

The spectacle before me was overwhelming. By the Pombo's tent stood in a row the most villainous brutes I have ever set eyes upon. One, a powerful repulsive individual, held in his hand a great knobbed mallet used for fracturing bones; another carried a bow and arrows; a third held a big two-handed sword; while others made a display of various ghastly instruments of torture. The crowd, thirsting for my blood, formed up in a semicircle, leaving room for me to see the parade of the torture implements that awaited me; and, as my eyes roamed from one figure to the other, the several Lamas shook their various implements to show that they were preparing for action.

A group of three Lamas stood at the entrance of the tent. They were the musicians. One held a gigantic horn which, when blown, emitted hoarse, thundering sounds, and his companions had one a drum and the other cymbals. Another fellow some distance away continually sounded a huge gong. From the moment I was made to dismount the deafening sounds of the diabolical trio echoed all through the valley, and added to the horror of the scene.

An iron bar with a handle of wood bound in red cloth was being made red hot in a brasier. The Pombo, who had again placed something in his mouth to produce artificial foaming at the lips, and so to show his temper, worked himself up into a frenzy. A Lama handed him the implement of torture (the Taram), now red hot, and the Pombo seized it by the handle.

"Ngaghi kin meh taxon!" ("We will burn out your eyes!") cried a chorus of Lamas.

The Pombo strode up to me, brandishing the ghastly implement. I stared at him, but he kept his eyes away from me. He seemed reluctant, but the Lamas around him urged him on, lifting the man's arm towards me!

"You have come to this country to see" (alluding to what I had stated the previous day, viz., that I was a traveller and pilgrim, and had only come to see the country). "This, then, is the punishment for you!" and with these dreadful words the Pombo raised his arm and placed the red-hot iron bar parallel to, and about an inch or two from, my eyeballs, and all but touching my nose.

Instinctively I kept my eyes tightly closed, but the heat was so intense that it seemed as if my eyes, the left one especially, were being desiccated and my nose scorched.

Though the time seemed interminable, I do not think that the heated bar was before my eyes actually longer than thirty seconds or so. Yet it was quite long enough, for, when I lifted my aching eyelids, I saw everything as in a red mist. My left eye was frightfully painful, and every few seconds it seemed as if something in front of it obscured its vision. With the right eye I could still see fairly well, except that everything, as I have said, looked red instead of its usual colour. The hot iron had been thrown down and was frizzling on the wet ground a few paces from me.