Karak Sing had crossed over the frontier
to ascertain the facts, and to attempt to recover my baggage, &c. My joy
was intense when I heard that they were still at Taklakot. I persuaded
Suna to return as fast as he could, and to inform Wilson that I was a
prisoner, and tell him my whereabouts. I had barely given Suna this
message when our guard seized the man and his brother and roughly
dismissed them, preventing them from having any further communication
with us. As soon as we were on the march again, a horseman rode up to us
with strict orders from the Jong Pen of Taklakot not to let us proceed
any farther towards the frontier by the Lippu Pass, which we could now
have reached in two days, but to take us round by the distant Lumpiya
Pass. At this time of the year the Lumpiya would be impassable; and we
should have to make a further journey of at least fifteen or sixteen
days, most of it over snow and ice, during which we, in our starved and
weakened state, would inevitably succumb. We asked to be taken into
Taklakot, but our guard refused, and in the meantime the Jong Pen of
Taklakot had sent other messengers and soldiers to ensure the fulfilment
of his orders, and to prevent our further progress.

Our guard, now strengthened by the Taklakot men, compelled us to leave
the Taklakot track, and we began our journey towards the cold Lumpiya.
This was murder, and the Tibetans, well knowing it, calculated on telling
the Indian authorities that we had died a natural death on the snows.

[Illustration: A BEARER OF BAD NEWS]

We were informed that we should be left at the point where the snows
began, that the Tibetans would give us no food, no clothes and no
blankets, and that we should be abandoned to our own devices. This,
needless to say, meant certain death.

We determined to stand no more, and to play our last card. After
travelling some two and a half miles westward of the Taklakot track, we
declined to proceed any more in that direction. We said that, if they
attempted to force us on, we were prepared to fight our guard, as whether
we died by their swords and matchlocks, or frozen to death on the
Lumpiya, was quite immaterial to us.

The guard, in perplexity, decided to let us halt there for the night, so
as to have time to send a messenger to Taklakot to inform the Jong Pen,
and ask for further instructions.

[Illustration: A SHOKA-TIBETAN HALF-CASTE]

During the night the order came that we must proceed, so the