Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/88

76 request, they despatched two days later from the nearest large station a strong detachment of Cossacks under the command of a captain, which at once began scouring the forest as far as Kentei Alin. They met, however, only small groups of the brigands and succeeded in making prisoners of all of them. The nearest Chinese official, accompanied by a guard and by executioners, came to take over charge of the prisoners and to pass judgment upon them. He had the brigands all chained together, carried them along to Imienpo and summarily executed them.

Before their departure, however, the brigands spent a night in a small building where the tools of the labourers were kept during non-working hours. Late in the evening Lisvienko came to me and proposed that we go to have a look at the hunghutzes, adding:

"You will see, sir, what sort of people they are. In spite of the fact that they know the executioner will tomorrow lop off their heads, they calmly play games and laugh and joke. They are wooden puppets, not human beings!" he concluded, as he spat in disgust and anger.

As we opened the door, we found the hunghutzes, with their feet encased in heavy, individual wooden stocks, sitting around a small smoking oil lamp playing dominoes and punctuating their careless laughter with wild gesticulations. After glancing at us in a mocking manner, they turned back and continued their evidently entertaining conversation. Lisvienko, knowing Chinese, translated for me some of these veritable "gallows jokes."

One of the prisoners, who was stout and very ruddy, seemed to find reason for twitting the others and plenty of material for laughter in the fact that the executioner would be likely to find a great deal of real difficulty with his neck, as he would never be able to sever it with a