Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/107

Rh As rapidly as possible I completed my liquidation of the Udzimi works by turning over to the young engineer who had been appointed to succeed me all the records and directions for carrying on the operations. Then I received from the doctor minute instructions, as he gave me powders and salves, grumbling all the time that I was going out only to lose my foot, because, according to him, there was a chronic inflammation of the wrenched joint threatening.

Our first search for coal began about fifteen miles from Harbin, at a place where some low, bare hillocks came down to the river, as I had an entry in my notebook that coal had been secured from there during the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Going to reconnoitre with my technical helpers, I soon found in deep gorges among the hills outcrops of thin layers of coal. We wandered about for a long time, until the sun had already begun to sink behind the hills, when we came upon a deep gulch dividing the whole range into two chains. Though the purple shadows already claimed the gulch, I decided to enter it and investigate, even though only superficially, its steeply sloping sides to find the place from which the coal had been taken some years before. As we crossed the gulch, an ever-thickening twilight began to envelop us, and from some unseen hiding-place crawled out spectres, serpentine-like creatures of hazy mist, which massed together to form a floating curtain that shut off the ravine from our view. Suddenly, in the distance, a tiny light gleamed, and after a moment a sound like a stifled cry reached our ears.

"There must be a fang-tzu in the gulch," observed one of the miners; and placing his hands to his mouth, he shouted, "Eh-ho! Man-tzu, come here!"

Only the echo answered his call. We carried on and