by Daniel Defoe
make a noise, tied his feet also together, and left him onthe ground.
Two of us then waited at the door, expecting that another would come outto see what the matter was; but we waited so long till the third mancame back to us; and then nobody coming out, we knocked again gently,and immediately out came two more, and we served them just in the samemanner, but were obliged to go all with them, and lay them down by theidol some distance from one another; when going back we found two morewere come out to the door, and a third stood behind them within thedoor. We seized the two, and immediately tied them, when the thirdstepping back, and crying out, my Scots merchant went in after him, andtaking out a composition we had made, that would only smoke and stink,he set fire to it, and threw it in among them: by that time the otherScotsman and my man taking charge of the two men already bound, and tiedtogether also by the arm, led them away to the idol, and left themthere, to see if their idol would relieve them, making haste back to us.
When the furze we had thrown in had filled the hut with so much smokethat they were almost suffocated, we then threw in a small leather bagof another kind, which flamed like a candle, and following it in, wefound there were but four people left, who, it seems, were two men andtwo women, and, as we supposed, had been about some of their diabolicsacrifices. They appeared, in short, frighted to death, at least so asto sit trembling and stupid, and not able to speak neither, forthe smoke.
In a word, we took them, bound them as we had the other, and all withoutany noise, I should have said, we brought them out of the house, or hut,first; for, indeed, we were not able to bear the smoke any; more thanthey were. When we had done this, we carried them all together to theidol: when we came there we fell to work with him; and first we daubedhim all over, and his robes also, with tar, and such other stuff as wehad, which was tallow mixed with brimstone; then we stopped his eyes,and ears, and, mouth full of gunpowder; then we wrapped up a great pieceof wildfire in his bonnet; and then sticking all the combustibles we hadbrought with us upon; him, we looked about to see if we could find anything else to help to burn him; when my Scotsman remembered that by thetent, or hut, where the men were, there lay a heap of dry forage,whether straw or rushes I do not remember: away he and the otherScotsman ran, and fetched their arms full of that. When we had donethis, we took all our prisoners, and brought them, having untied theirfeet and ungagged their mouths, and made them stand up, and set themall before their monstrous idol, and then set fire to the whole.
We stayed by it a quarter of an hour, or thereabouts, til the powder inthe eyes, and mouth, and ears of the idol blew up, and, as we couldperceive, had split and deformed the shape of it; and, in a word, tillwe saw it burnt into a mere block or log of wood; and then igniting thedry forage to it, we found it would be soon quite consumed; so we beganto think of going away; but the Scotsman said, "No, we must not go, forthese poor deluded wretches will all throw themselves into the fire, andburn themselves with the idol." So we resolved to stay till the foragewas burnt down too, and then we came away and left them.
In the morning we appeared among our fellow-travellers, exceeding busyin getting ready for our journey; nor could any man suggest that we hadbeen any where but in our beds, as travellers might be supposed to be,to fit themselves for the fatigues of that day's journey.
But it did not end so; for the next day came a great multitude of thecountry people, not only of this village, but of a hundred more, foraught I know, to the town-gates; and in a most outrageous mannerdemanded satisfaction of the Russian governor, for the insulting theirpriests, and burning their great Cham-Chi-Thaungu; such a hard name theygave the monstrous creature they worshipped. The people of Nertzinskaywere at first in a great consternation; for they said the Tartars wereno less than thirty thousand, and that in a few days more they would beone hundred thousand stronger.
The Russian governor sent out messengers to appease them, and gave themall the good words imaginable. He assured them he knew nothing of it,and that there had not a soul of his garrison been abroad; that it couldnot be from any body there; and if they would let him know who it was,he should be exemplarily punished. They returned haughtily, That all thecountry reverenced the great Cham-Chi-Thaungu, who dwelt in the son,and no mortal would have dared to offer violence to his image, but someChristian miscreant; so they called them, it seems; and they thereforedenounced war against him, and all the Russians, who, they said, weremiscreants and Christians.
The governor, still patient, and unwilling to make a breach, or to haveany cause of war alleged to be given by him, the czar having straitlycharged him to treat the conquered country with gentleness and civility,gave them still all the good words he could; at last he told them, therewas a caravan gone towards Russia that morning, and perhaps it was someof them who had done them this injury; and that, if they would besatisfied with that, he would send after them, to inquire into it. Thisseemed to appease them a little; and accordingly the governor sent afterus, and gave us a particular account how the thing was, intimatingwithal, that if any in our caravan had done it, they should make theirescape; but that whether they had done it or no, we should make all thehaste forward that was possible; and that in the meantime he would keepthem in play as long as he could.
This was very friendly in the governor. However, when it came to thecaravan, there was nobody knew any thing of the matter; and, as for usthat were guilty, we were the least of all suspected; none so much asasked us the question; however, the captain of the caravan, for thetime, took the hint that the governor gave us, and we marched ortravelled two days and two nights without any considerable stop, andthen we lay at a village called Plothus; nor did we make any long stophere, but hastened on towards Jarawena, another of the czar of Muscovy'scolonies, and where we expected we should be safe; but it is to beobserved, that here we began, for two or three days march, to enter upona vast nameless desert, of which I shall say more in its place; andwhich if we had now been upon it, it is more than probable we had beenall destroyed. It was the second day's march from Plothus that by theclouds of dust behind us at a great distance, some of our people beganto be sensible we were pursued; we had entered the desert, and hadpassed by a great lake, called Schanks Osier, when we perceived a verygreat body of horse appear on the other side of the lake to the north,we travelling west. We observed they went away west, as we did; but hadsupposed we should have taken that side of the lake, whereas we veryhappily took the south side: and in two days more we saw them not, forthey, believing we were still before them, pushed on, till they came tothe river Udda: this is a very great river when it passes farther north,but when we came to it, we found it narrow and fordable.
The third day they either found their mistake, or had intelligence ofus, and came pouring in upon us towards the dusk of the evening. We had,to our great satisfaction, just pitched upon a place for our camp, whichwas very convenient for the night; for as we were upon a desert, thoughbut at the beginning of it, that was above five hundred miles over, wehad no towns to lodge at, and, indeed, expected none but the city ofJarawena, which we had yet two days march to; the desert, however, hadsome few woods in it on this side, and little river, which ran all intothe great river Udda. It was in a narrow strait, between two small butvery thick woods, that we pitched our little camp for that night,expecting to be attacked in the night.
Nobody knew but ourselves what we were pursued for; but as it was usualfor the Mogul Tartars to go about in troops in that desert, so thecaravans always fortify themselves every night against them, as againstarmies of robbers; and it was therefore no new thing to be pursued.
But we had this night, of all the nights of our travels, a mostadvantageous camp; for we lay between two woods, with a little rivuletrunning just before our front; so that we could not be surrounded orattacked any way, but in our front or rear: we took care also to makeour front as strong as we could, by placing our packs, with our camelsand horses, all in a line on the side of the river, and we felled sometrees in our rear.
In this posture we
encamped for the night; but the enemy was upon usbefore we had finished our situation: they did not come on us likethieves, as we expected, but sent three messengers to us, to demand themen to be delivered to them, that had abused their priests, and burnttheir god Cham-Chi-Thaungu, that they might burn them with fire; and,upon this, they said, they would go away, and do us no farther harm,otherwise they would burn us all with fire. Our men looked very blank atthis message, and began to stare at one another, to see who looked withmost guilt in their faces, but, _nobody_ was the word, nobody did it.The leader of the caravan sent word, he was well assured it was notdone, by any of our camp; that we were peaceable merchants, travellingon our business; that we had done no harm to them, or to any one else;and therefore they must look farther for their enemies, who had injuredthem, for we were not the people; so desired them not to disturb us;for, if they did, we should defend ourselves.
They were far from being satisfied with
