Communism -- Soviet Union; Mongolia -- Description and travel
Another invisible guest was present with us at the Chinese gathering.
He lay on the ground with his head in a hole dug by the dogs under the
fence. He was perfectly still and evidently had not heard our advance.
Nearby in a ditch lay a white horse with his nose muzzled and a little
further away stood another saddled horse tied to a fence.
In the courtyard there was a great hubbub. About two thousand men
were shouting, arguing and flourishing their arms about in wild
gesticulations. Nearly all were armed with rifles, revolvers, swords
and axes. In among the crowd circulated the gamins, constantly
talking, handing out papers, explaining and assuring. Finally a big,
broad-shouldered Chinese mounted the well combing, waved his rifle about
over his head and opened a tirade in strong, sharp tones.
“He is assuring the people,” said our interpreter, “that they must
do here what the Chinese have done in Kobdo and must secure from the
Commissioner the assurance of an order to his guard not to prevent the
carrying out of their plans. Also that the Chinese Commissioner
must demand from the Russians all their weapons. ‘Then we shall take
vengeance on the Russians for their Blagoveschensk crime when they
drowned three thousand Chinese in 1900. You remain here while I go to
the Commissioner and talk with him.’”
He jumped down from the well and quickly made his way to the gate toward
the town. At once I saw the man who was lying with his head under the
fence draw back out of his hole, take his white horse from the ditch and
then run over to untie the other horse and lead them both back to our
side, which was away from the city. He left the second horse there and
hid himself around the corner of the hushun. The spokesman went out of
the gate and, seeing his horse over on the other side of the enclosure,
slung his rifle across his back and started for his mount. He had gone
about half way when the stranger behind the corner of the fence suddenly
galloped out and in a flash literally swung the man clear from the
ground up across the pommel of his saddle, where we saw him tie the
mouth of the semi-strangled Chinese with a cloth and dash off with him
toward the west away from the town.
“Who do you suppose he is?” I asked of my friend, who answered up at
once: “It must be Tushegoun Lama. . . .”
His whole appearance did strongly remind me of this mysterious Lama
avenger and his manner of addressing himself to his enemy was a strict
replica of that of Tushegoun. Late in the night we learned that some
time after their orator had gone to seek the Commissioner’s cooperation
in their venture, his head had been flung over the fence into the midst
of the waiting audience and that eight gamins had disappeared on their
way from the hushun to the town without leaving trace or trail. This
event terrorized the Chinese mob and calmed their heated spirits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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