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296 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
threatened that if anybody complained he would shoot
him, and that was why no whisper of his frauds ever reached
my ears. It was very hard to have the unlimited con-
fidence which I put in this man abused in this fashion.
After this blow T felt a difficulty in breathing in Charkhlik,
and longed with burning impatience to get away up into
the crisp air of the mountains, where I hoped these gloomy
memories would soon be blown away. But before starting
I sent a special messenger to Consul Petrovsky, who
arrived at Kashgar a fortnight or so before Islam did.
Islam Bai, therefore, upon his arrival, was at once arrested,
and his baggage overhauled. After that he was set at
liberty, but on condition that he was not to leave
Kashgar before I arrived there, which happened to be a
year later. "\^^ien I saw him again he was old and
broken, and notwithstanding the many witnesses who
came to speak against him at the trial, he could not be
induced to confess his offences. After that he was taken
to Osh, and sentenced to Siberia, though I was able to
get his punishment reduced to two weeks’ imprisonment,
for the Russian authorities absolutely refused to let him
off scot free. I have never seen him since then, nor do
I wish to see him again ; he is to me as one that is dead.
I felt terribly sorry for him, for had he conducted himself
properly he would have been a distinguished man in his
native town, whereas now he had ruined himself and
utterly spoiled his career.
In comparison with this disagreeable history, another
contretemps which happened in Charkhlik was a mere
trifle. It was this. On the afternoon of the i6th May
there arrived a caravan of ten Mongol pilgrims from Tar-
bagatai (in Western Mongolia), and encamped in a grove
just outside the bazaar. Now, as it happened, Shagdur
and the Lama had met these people in Kara-shahr, and
knew that they were travelling to Lassa. We could not.
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