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354 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
We got no more sleep that night, but crouched round
a httle hre, huddled in our cloaks, and smoked and dis-
cussed the situation. Then we boiled the kettle and made
our breakfast out of tea, rice and bread. At daybreak
we saddled the two remaining horses and the mule, and
packed up our belongings and were off again.
When the rising sun tipped with red the unknown hills
in the east, we saw Ordek sitting crouched over the embers
weeping. He begged and prayed that he might go with
us instead of returning to the camp alone through that
treacherous country, where robbers seemed to spring up,
as it were, out of the very ground. But when he saw that
I was inexorable, he asked that he might at least have
the revolver ; but, unfortunately, I wanted it myself, it
was my only weapon.
Owing to my having been kept awake all night the
bright sunshine made my eyes smart. Tearing a page
out of my note-book, I wrote a few lines to Sirkin, urging
him to exercise the utmost vigilance. Further, I com-
manded Cherdon, Li Loyeh, and one other man to spend
a week in pursuing the thieves. Ordek stuffed the letter
into his girdle with the mien of a man who has but a few
minutes more to live before being led out to execution.
Hardly were we in the saddle than we saw him running
beside the lake. He was so terrified that he found his
way back by the ravines and river-beds, not daring to
follow our track in the open. All day he kept longing
for the night, and when the night came, he was afraid
of the darkness, thinking he saw an enemy in every shadow.
A couple of peaceful kulans nearly frightened him out of his
wits, then for a time he curled himself up like a hedgehog
in a hole in the rocks ; but the pelting rain filled his imagi-
nation with fresh terrors. At length, however, he reached
the entrance to the valley in which the camp was situated,
and there all other sounds were drowned in the rush of
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