by G. A. Henty
“I should think,” Godfrey said, “we had better get rid of our hair altogether. It will be some time before it grows, but anything will be better than it is now.”
“We have got no scissors, Godfrey, and we have no soap. If we had, those knives of ours are sharp enough to shave with.”
“We can singe it off,” Godfrey said. “Not now, but in the morning when we can see. I will do it for you, and you can do it for me. I would rather be bald-headed altogether than be such a figure as I am now.”
Accordingly in the morning they singed off their hair with red-hot brands, then they changed their clothes for those they had obtained the night before, folded up their great-coats, divided the tea, tobacco, and the greater part of the powder and shot between them, put a portion in their haversacks, and rolled the rest up in the coats, then strapped these to their shoulders and started on their way.
“Now I feel ready for anything,” Alexis said as they tramped along. “We have no weight to speak of to carry, and we have means of getting a meal occasionally. Now if we keep a little west of south we shall strike the Selenga river, which runs through Maimatchin, and then we shall be in China. We shall have to avoid the town, because I know there is a treaty between Russia and China about sending back exiles who cross the frontier. Still, when we get there we are at the starting-place of the caravans.”
“Is it a desert the whole distance?”
“No. The first part is a mountainous country with two or three rivers to cross. I don’t think the real desert is more than eight or ten days’ march across. We shall certainly have no difficulty about water for some time to come. There are plenty of squirrels in these woods; at least I expect so, for they abound in all the forests. We must knock some of them over if we can. I believe they are not bad eating, though I never tried one. Then by the streams we ought to be able to pick up some wild duck, though of course at this time of year the greater portion of them are far north. Still I have great hopes we shall be able to keep ourselves in food with the assistance of what we may be able to buy occasionally. I think the only thing we have got to fear at this part of our journey is the Buriats. The thing I am really afraid of is the getting into China. I don’t mean the frontier here; this is Mongolia, and it is only nominally Chinese; but when we get across the desert and enter China itself, I tell you frankly I don’t see our way. We neither of us can speak a word of the language. We have no papers, and we may be arrested and shut up as suspicious vagabonds. There is one thing; at Kalgan, which is close to the Great Wall, there are Russian traders, and I should go boldly to them and ask their help. Russians out of Russia are sure to be liberal, though they may not dare to be so when they are at home, and I feel sure they would help us when we tell them our story, if we can only get at them. However we need not trouble ourselves much about that at present.”
Once beyond the forest they were in an undulating country, the hills sometimes rising to a considerable height. Occasionally they saw in the distance encampments of natives, with sheep, cattle, and horses in considerable numbers. They kept clear of these, although occasionally they had to make wide detours to do so. Time was no object to them, and they made but short journeys, for the Russian, who had never been accustomed to walk long distances, had blistered both his feet badly on the first night’s journey, and the subsequent travelling had added to the inflammation. On the fourth evening they halted for the night on a little rivulet, after making only five or six miles.
“It is no use, Alexis,” Godfrey said; “we must stop here until your feet are quite well. We shall gain by it rather than lose, for when you are quite right again we could do our five-and-twenty or thirty miles a day easily, and might do forty at a push; but your feet will never get well if you go on walking, and it makes your journey a perfect penance; so I vote we establish ourselves here for three or four days. There is water and wood, and I dare say I shall be able to shoot something—at any rate you can’t go on as you are now.”
“It is horribly annoying,” Alexis said, “to be knocked up like this just at the start.”
“But it makes no difference,” Godfrey urged. “We are not due at Pekin on any given day. It is very pleasant out here, where one can enjoy one’s freedom and exult that there is no policeman or Cossack watching every movement. It would make no difference to me if we stopped here for a month. Now let me pull those boots off for you, then you can sit with your feet in this little pool.”
“Warm water would be better, Godfrey. If you will get the kettle to boil I will dip my two flannel shirts in and wrap them round and keep on at that. That will be better than cold water.”
“All right! I will soon get a fire alight. By Jove, they are bad!” he exclaimed, as Alexis pulled off his stocking. “They must have been hurting you desperately. Why did you not say how bad they were two days ago? We might as well have stopped then as now.”
“I hoped they would have got better when I put on these big boots instead of those I started with. But I did not think they were as bad as they are. I am afraid this is going to be a troublesome business, Godfrey.”
“Well, it can’t be helped,” Godfrey said cheerfully. “At any rate, don’t worry on my account.”
The Russian’s feet were indeed greatly swollen and inflamed. The skin had been rubbed off in several places, and the wounds had an angry look, their edges being a fiery red, which extended for some distance round them.
“Well, you have plenty of pluck, Alexis, or you never could have gone on walking with such feet as those. I am sure I could not have done so.”
“We thought over most difficulties, Godfrey, that we might possibly have to encounter, but not of this.”
“No, we did not think of it, though we might really have calculated upon it. After being three or four months without walking twenty yards it is only natural one’s feet should go at first. We ought to have brought some soap with us—I do not mean for washing, though we ought to have brought it for that—but for soaping the inside of our stockings. That is a first-rate dodge to prevent feet from blistering. Well, I must see about the fire. I will go up to those trees on the hillside. I daresay I shall be able to find some sticks there for lighting it. These bushes round here will do well enough when it is once fairly burning, but we shall have a great trouble to get them to light to begin with.”
In half an hour he was back with a large faggot.
“It is lucky,” he said, “there is a fallen tree. So we shall have no difficulty about firewood. We ought to have brought a hatchet when we got the other things. These knives are first-rate for cutting meat and that sort of thing, but they are of no use for rough work. My old knife is better.”
While he was talking he was engaged in cutting some shavings off the sticks. Then he split up another into somewhat larger pieces, and laying them over the shavings, struck a match, and applied it. The flame shot up brightly, and in five minutes there was an excellent fire, on which the kettle was placed.
“We had better have our dinner first, Godfrey. Then I can go on steadily with these fomentations while you take your gun and look round.”
“Perhaps that will be the best way,” Godfrey said. “We have nothing left but six squirrels. We finished the last piece of bread this morning and the meat last night. How had we better do these squirrels?”
“I will skin them, Godfrey, while you are seeing to the fire. Then we will spit them on a ramrod, and I will hold them in the flame.”
“I think we can manage better than that,” Godfrey said, and he went to the bushes and cut two sticks of a foot long with a fork at one end. He stuck these in the ground, on the opposite sides of the fire. “There,” he said, “you can lay the ramrod on these forks, and all you have got to do is to give it a turn occasionally.”
“How long do you suppose these things want cooking?”
“Not above five minutes, I should think. I know that a steak only takes about eight minutes before a good fire, and these little beggars are not half the thic
kness of a steak. They are beginning to frizzle already, and the water is just on the boil.”
The squirrels were pronounced very good eating. When the meal was over Godfrey filled the kettle again and gave it to Alexis, and then, taking his gun, started down the valley. He was away three hours, and brought back twenty birds of various sorts, but for the most part small.
“No very great sport,” he said as he emptied his haversack. “However, they will do for breakfast, and I may have better luck to-morrow. There are some fish in the pools, but I do not see how we are to get them. I saw one spring out of the water; it must have weighed a couple of pounds.”
“You might shoot them, Godfrey, if you could find a place where the bank is pretty high so as to look down on the water.”
“So I could; I did not think of that. I must try to-morrow.”
“If it hadn’t been for my feet,” Alexis said, “we should have been down on the Selenga to-morrow, and we had calculated on being able to buy food at one of the villages there.”
“We shall be able to hold on here,” Godfrey said, “for a few days, and I expect that one day’s good tramp, when your feet are better, will take us there. After that we ought to have no great difficulty till we get down near the desert.”
CONDEMNED AS A NIHILIST (Part 2)
CHAPTER VII
THE BURIAT’S CHILD
After three days’ rest the Russian’s feet were so much better that he said he should be able to make a start the next morning. Godfrey, however, would not listen to the proposal.
“We are getting on all right,” he said. “I am not much of a shot, but at any rate I am able to bag enough birds to keep us going, and though I have only succeeded in shooting one fish as yet, it was a good big one and was a real help to us. It is no use going on till your feet get really hard, for you would only be laming yourself again. It will be quite time enough to talk about making a start in three days’ time.”
The next morning Godfrey was roughly awakened by a violent kick. Starting up he saw a group of six Buriats standing round them. Three of them had guns, which were pointed at the prisoners, the others were armed with spears. Resistance was evidently useless; their guns had been removed to a distance and the knives taken from their belts before they were roused. Godfrey held out his hands to show that he surrendered, and addressed the usual Russian salutation to them. The men were short, square-built figures, with large skulls, low foreheads, flat noses, and long eyes like those of the Chinese. Their cheek-bones were high and wide apart, the complexion a yellow-brown, and the hair jet black and worn in a platted tail down the back. They made signs to their prisoners to accompany them. Alexis pulled on his boots. Two of the men with guns stood guard over them while the others examined the stores, and were evidently highly pleased with the two brightly polished knives.
“Rather an abrupt termination to our journey, Godfrey.”
“Painfully so. I was almost afraid everything was going on too well with us, Alexis. It began to look so easy that one could not understand why there should not be hundreds of prisoners every year make their way across.”
“I should not have minded so much,” Alexis said, “if we had not got such a satisfactory kit together. We had everything we really wanted for a journey across Asia.”
“Except food and water, Alexis.”
“Well, yes, those are important items certainly, and if we had difficulty about it here in a decent sort of country, what might be expected on farther? Well, we have had our outing; I only hope they won’t give us up at Irkutsk. I suppose it depends where their grazing-grounds are. There are another two months of summer; I wish we could have had our fling till then.”
Half a mile along the valley they came upon a tent, evidently belonging to the men who had taken them. They talked a good deal among themselves as they approached it, but went straight on without making a stop.
“I expect they are taking us down to some chief or other, if they call them chiefs,” Alexis said. “I expect they came out to hunt for horses or cattle that have strayed.”
Seven or eight miles farther the valley opened on to a plain, and a short distance in front of them, on the stream, stood ten tents, one of which was considerably larger than the others. Great flocks of sheep grazed on the plain, and at a distance they could see numbers of cattle, while some horses with their saddles on were hobbled near the tents.
“I think we are lucky, Godfrey. The owner of all this must be a rich man, and can hardly covet the roubles he would get for giving us up. Besides, he is sure to talk Russian.”
As they came up to the huts they saw that their occupants were all gathered, talking excitedly in front of a large tent. One of the men ran on and then returned; the news he gave was evidently bad. He talked excitedly, pointing to his own leg about half-way between the knee and the ankle. The men broke into exclamations of regret.
“I wonder what is the matter, Alexis; something has happened. I should think that someone must have met with an accident.”
“Without wishing ill to anyone, Godfrey, I sincerely wish it may be so, then I might be able to win their good-will.”
Little attention was paid to the party when they joined the group, all were too busy in discussing some event or other. Three or four minutes later a man came to the door of the tent and waved his hand, and gave some order. His dress was a handsome one. The little crowd fell back, but one of the men who had brought the captives in went up and spoke to him. He again waved his hand impatiently, and was turning to enter the tent when Alexis cried loudly: “I am a doctor, if anyone has been hurt I may be of service to him.”
The man stepped hastily forward. “Do you say you are a doctor?”
“I am.”
“Come in then,” he said abruptly, and entered the tent.
“I will call you if you can be of any use,” Alexis said to Godfrey as he followed him.
The tent was a large one. Some handsome Koord carpets covered the ground. Facing the door was another opening leading into a small tent serving as the women’s apartment.
There were several piles of sheep-skins round the tent, and by one of these three women were standing. Two of these were richly dressed in gowns of handsome striped materials. They wore head-dresses of silver work with beads of malachite and mother-of-pearl, and had heavy silver ornaments hanging on their breasts. Their hair fell down their backs in two thick braids. The other woman was evidently of inferior rank. All were leaning over a pile of skins covered with costly furs, on which a boy of seven or eight years old was lying. His father, for such the man evidently was, said something in his own language, and the women turned eagerly to Alexis.
“You are a Russian doctor!” one of the women exclaimed joyfully.
“I am, lady,” he said. “I graduated at St. Petersburg.”
“Can you do anything for my son?” she asked. “Half an hour ago he went up incautiously behind a young horse that had been driven in from the herd only yesterday and it kicked him. See, it is terrible,” and she burst into tears.
Alexis went forward and lifted a wet cloth that had been placed on the leg. A slight exclamation broke from his lips as he did so. The bone was evidently completely smashed, and one of the splintered ends projected through the skin.
“He must die,” the mother sobbed, “nothing can save him.”
The father did not speak, but looked inquiringly at Alexis. The latter made a sign to him to move to the other side of the tent.
“Well,” the Buriat asked, “must he die?”
“There is no reason for his dying,” Alexis said, “but there is no possibility of saving his leg, it must be amputated.”
“What would be the use of living without a leg?” the Buriat exclaimed.
“A great deal of use,” Alexis said quietly. “There are hundreds, aye thousands, of men in Russia who have lost a leg, some from an accident like this, or from a waggon going over them, some from a wound in battle. In some cases the leg is taken off mu
ch above the knee, but even then they are able to get about and enjoy their lives; but when it is below the knee, like this, they are able to do everything just the same as if they had both feet. They can walk and ride, and, in fact, do everything like others; besides, for such men there are people at St. Petersburg who make feet of cork, and when these are on, with a boot and trousers, or with a high boot, no one could tell that the wearer had not two feet. I have met men who had lost a leg, and they walked so well that I did not know till I was told that they had not two legs.”
“I will speak to his mother,” the Buriat said, and returning to the women he spoke to them in their own language. At first they appeared shocked and even terrified at the idea, but as he went on, evidently repeating what Alexis had told him, the expression of their faces changed. The Buriat called Alexis across.
“You cannot hesitate, lady,” he said, “when your child’s life is at stake. No Russian mother would do so for a moment. It may seem to you dreadful that he should have but one foot, but in a little time, even with so rough a limb as I could make for him, he would be running about and playing again, and, as I have been telling his father, he can obtain from St. Petersburg a foot so perfect that when wearing a high boot no one would suspect the misfortune that has happened to him.”
“Can he not be cured without that?”
“No, lady. If it had been a simple fracture his leg might be bandaged up so that it would heal in time, but, as you can see for yourself, the bone is all splintered and broken, and unless something is done mortification will set in, and in a few days he will cease to live.”
