In the Forbidden Land/Chapter LXXXVI


 * Mansing arrives&mdash;A pretence of killing him&mdash;Our execution postponed&mdash;Fed by the Lamas.

AN excited consultation followed, during which, in the midst of this scene of barbarity, my coolie Mansing arrived. He had fallen off his bare-back pony many times, and had been left far behind. The man who held my hair now relinquished his grasp, while another pushed me violently from in front, causing me to fall heavily backward, and putting a painful strain on all the tendons of my legs. Mansing, bruised and aching all over, was brought forward and tied by his legs to the same log of wood to which I was fastened. They informed me that they would kill my coolie first, and one brutal Lama seized him roughly by the throat. I was pushed up in a sitting posture, and a cloth was thrown over my head and face, so that I could not see what was being done. I heard poor Mansing groan pitifully, then there was a dead silence. I called him, I received no answer; so I concluded that he had been despatched. I was left in this terrible suspense for over a quarter of an hour, when at last they removed the cloth from over my head, and I beheld my coolie lying before me, bound to the log and almost unconscious, but, thank God, still alive. He told me that, when I had called him, a Lama had placed his hand upon his mouth to prevent him from answering, while, with the other hand, he had squeezed his neck so tightly as to nearly strangle him. After a while Mansing got better, and the coolness and bravery of the poor wretch during these terrible trials were really marvellous.

We were told that our execution was only postponed till the next day, in order that we might be tortured until the time came for us to be brought out to death.

A number of Lamas and soldiers stood round jeering at us. I seized the opportunity this respite afforded to hail a swaggering Lama and ask him for some refreshment.

"Orcheh, orcheh nga dappa tugu duh, chuen deh, dang, yak, guram, tcha, tsamba pin" ("I am very hungry, please give me some rice, yak meat, ghur, tea, and oatmeal!") I asked in my best Tibetan.

"Hum murr, Maharaja!" ("I want butter, your Majesty") put in Mansing, half in Hindustani and half in the Tibetan language.

This natural application for food seemed to afford intense amusement to our torturers, who had formed a ring round us, and laughed at our appeal, while Mansing and I, both of us famished, were left sitting bound in a most painful position.

The day had now waned, and our torturers did not fail to remind us constantly that the following day our heads would be severed from our bodies, which I told them would cause us no pain, for if they gave us no food we should be dead of starvation by then.

Whether they realised that this might be the case, or whether some other reasons moved them, I cannot say; but several of the Lamas, who had been most brutal, including one who had the previous day taken a part in Chanden Sing's flogging, now became quite polite and treated us with a surprising amount of deference. Two Lamas were despatched to the monastery, and returned after some time with bags of tsamba and a large raksang of boiling tea. I have hardly ever enjoyed a meal more, though the Lamas stuffed the food down my throat with their unwashed fingers so fast that they nearly choked me.

"Eat, eat as much as you can," said they grimly, "for it may be your last meal."

And eat I did, and washed the tsamba down with quantities of buttered tea, which they poured into my mouth carelessly out of the raksang.

Mansing, whose religion did not allow him to eat food touched by folk of a different caste, was eventually permitted to lick the meal out of the wooden bowl. I myself was none too proud to take the food in any way it might be offered, and when my humble "Orcheh, orcheh tchuen mangbo terokchi" ("Please give me some more") met with the disapproval of the Lamas, and brought out the everlasting negative, "Middù, middù," I was still too hungry to waste any of the precious food: so the Tibetans revolved the wooden bowl round and round my mouth, and I licked it as clean as if it had never been used.