Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/87

Rh work in the forest just as the sun was settling behind the mountains, when suddenly I heard a volley, followed immediately by a second one. On scanning the rocky ridge above us, I saw several riders who had dismounted and were shooting into my car and a small building put up for the railway men. The Cossacks and my soldier cook tumbled out at the first volley and immediately answered the fire with the skill and calmness of old soldiers accustomed to fighting hunghutzes. Some muffled cries reached us, as we saw a man or two fall and roll on the steep, bare rocks, while the others retreated over the summit. I ran into the car and snatched up my Mauser with the wooden case that can be attached to the handle to make of the weapon practically an automatic carbine with ten rounds. Joining my men, who were prone on one side of the railway embankment, I looked about for a target. One appeared unexpectedly in the person of a Chinese who came riding round a shoulder of rock, mounted on a white horse. As he was gesticulating and giving orders to others of the brigands who gathered near him from both directions, we felt sure that he was the leader. He stood out strongly in the last rays of the setting sun, and Lisvienko, watching him, whispered across to me:

"We shall make an end of him!"

"All right," I replied, as I laid my aim.

In response to our two shots, which rang almost simultaneously, both rider and horse went down. The now frightened hunghutzes retreated, carrying their leader with them and urged along by our continuing fire.

The boldness of these banditti induced me to send in a very definite report to the General Staff, urging the necessity of delivering the neighbourhood of Ho Lin and Udzimi from these hunghutze bands. Yielding to my