ice heard by all he asked:

"Where is Faruskiar?"

They all looked about and tried to discover what had become of the
manager of the Transasiatic.

"And where is his friend Ghangir?" asked the major.

There was no reply.

"And where are the four Mongols who were in the rear van?" asked Major
Noltitz.

And none of them presented themselves.

They called my lord Faruskiar a second time.

Faruskiar made no response.

Popof entered the car where this personage was generally to be found.

It was empty.

Empty? No. Sir Francis Trevellyan was calmly seated in his place,
utterly indifferent to all that happened. Was it any business of his?
Not at all. Was he not entitled to consider that the Russo-Chinese
railways were the very apex of absurdity and disorder? A switch opened,
nobody knew by whom! A train on the wrong line! Could anything be more
ridiculous than this Russian mismanagement?

"Well, then!" said Major Noltitz, "the rascal who sent us on to the
Nanking line, who would have hurled us into the Tjon valley, to walk
off with the imperial treasure, is Faruskiar."

"Faruskiar!" the passengers exclaimed. And most of them refused to
believe it.

"What!" said Popof. "The manager of the company who so courageously
drove off the bandits and killed their chief Ki-Tsang with his own
hand?"

Then I entered on the scene.

"The major is not mistaken. It was Faruskiar who laid this fine trap
for us."

And amid the general stupefaction I told them what I knew, and what
good fortune had enabled me to ascertain. I told them how I had
overheard the plan of Faruskiar and his Mongols, when it was too late
to stop it, but I was silent regarding the intervention of Kinko. The
moment had not come, and I would do him justice in due time.

To my words there succeeded a chorus of maledictions and menaces.

What! This seigneur Faruskiar, this superb Mongol, this functionary we
had seen at work! No! It was impossible.

But they had to give in to the evidence. I had seen; I had heard; I
affirmed that Faruskiar was the author of this catastrophe in which all
our train might have perished, was the most consummate bandit who had
ever disgraced Central Asia!

"You see, Monsieur Bombarnac," said Major Noltitz, "that I was not
mistaken in my first suspicion."

"It is only too true," I replied, without any false modesty, "that I
was taken in by the grand manners of the abominable rascal."

"Monsieur Claudius," said Caterna