第62章 THE BREATH OF DEATH(2)

"Fine!" I said. "All is perfectly clear. I shall release you but you must report to your sender that he will not welcome you back the next time. Your weapons I shall hand to the Commandant of Uliassutai."My friend, using his former terrifying care, began to untie them, repeating over and over: "And I would have fed you to the fishes in the river!" Then we all returned to the town, leaving them to go their way.

Domojiroff continued to send envoys to Baron Ungern at Urga with requests for plenary powers and money and with reports about Michailoff, Chultun Beyli, Poletika, Philipoff and myself. With Asiatic cunning he was then maintaining good relations with all those for whom he was preparing death at the hands of the severe warrior, Baron Ungern, who was receiving only one-sided reports about all the happenings in Uliassutai. Our whole colony was greatly agitated. The officers split into different parties; the soldiers collected in groups and discussed the events of the day, criticising their chiefs, and under the influence of some of Domojiroff's men began making such statements as:

"We have now seven Colonels, who all want to be in command and are all quarreling among themselves. They all ought to be pegged down and given good sound thrashings. The one who could take the greatest number of blows ought to be chosen as our chief."It was an ominous joke that proved the demoralization of the Russian detachment.

"It seems," my friend frequently observed, "that we shall soon have the pleasure of seeing a Council of Soldiers here in Uliassutai.

God and the Devil! One thing here is very unfortunate--there are no forests near into which good Christian men may dive and get away from all these cursed Soviets. It's bare, frightfully bare, this wretched Mongolia, with no place for us to hide."Really this possibility of the Soviet was approaching. On one occasion the soldiers captured the arsenal containing the weapons surrendered by the Chinese and carried them off to their barracks.

Drunkenness, gambling and fighting increased. We foreigners, carefully watching events and in fear of a catastrophe, finally decided to leave Uliassutai, that caldron of passions, controversies and denunciations. We heard that the group of Poletika was also preparing to get out a few days later. We foreigners separated into two parties, one traveling by the old caravan route across the Gobi considerably to the south of Urga to Kuku-Hoto or Kweihuacheng and Kalgan, and mine, consisting of my friend, two Polish soldiers and myself, heading for Urga via Zain Shabi, where Colonel Kazagrandi had asked me in a recent letter to meet him. Thus we left the Uliassutai where we had lived through so many exciting events.

On the sixth day after our departure there arrived in the town the Mongol-Buriat detachment under the command of the Buriat Vandaloff and the Russian Captain Bezrodnoff. Afterwards I met them in Zain Shabi. It was a detachment sent out from Urga by Baron Ungern to restore order in Uliassutai and to march on to Kobdo. On the way from Zain Shabi Bezrodnoff came across the group of Poletika and Michailoff. He instituted a search which disclosed suspicious documents in their baggage and in that of Michailoff and his wife the silver and other possessions taken from the Chinese. From this group of sixteen he sent N. N. Philipoff to Baron Ungern, released three others and shot the remaining twelve. Thus ended in Zain Shabi the life of one party of Uliassutai refugees and the activities of the group of Poletika. In Uliassutai Bezrodnoff shot Chultun Beyli for the violation of the treaty with the Chinese, and also some Bolshevist Russian colonists; arrested Domojiroff and sent him to Urga; and . . . restored order. The predictions about Chultun Beyli were fulfilled.

I knew of Domojiroff's reports regarding myself but I decided, nevertheless, to proceed to Urga and not to swing round it, as Poletika had started to do when he was accidentally captured by Bezrodnoff. I was accustomed now to looking into the eyes of danger and I set out to meet the terrible "bloody Baron." No one can decide his own fate. I did not think myself in the wrong and the feeling of fear had long since ceased to occupy a place in my menage. On the way a Mongol rider who overhauled us brought the news of the death of our acquaintances at Zain Shabi. He spent the night with me in the yurta at the ourton and related to me the following legend of death.

"It was a long time ago when the Mongolians ruled over China. The Prince of Uliassutai, Beltis Van, was mad. He executed any one he wished without trial and no one dared to pass through his town.

All the other Princes and rich Mongols surrounded Uliassutai, where Beltis raged, cut off communication on every road and allowed none to pass in or out. Famine developed in the town. They consumed all the oxen, sheep and horses and finally Beltis Van determined to make a dash with his soldiers through to the west to the land of one of his tribes, the Olets. He and his men all perished in the fight. The Princes, following the advice of the Hutuktu Buyantu, buried the dead on the slopes of the mountains surrounding Uliassutai. They buried them with incantations and exorcisings in order that Death by Violence might be kept from a further visitation to their land. The tombs were covered with heavy stones and the Hutuktu predicted that the bad demon of Death by Violence would only leave the earth when the blood of a man should he spilled upon the covering stone. Such a legend lived among us.

Now it is fulfilled. The Russians shot there three Bolsheviki and the Chinese two Mongols. The evil spirit of Beltis Van broke loose from beneath the heavy stone and now mows down the people with his scythe. The noble Chultun Beyli has perished; the Russian Noyon Michailoff also has fallen; and death has flowed out from Uliassutai all over our boundless plains. Who shall be able to stem it now? Who shall tie the ferocious hands? An evil time has fallen upon the Gods and the Good Spirits. The Evil Demons have made war upon the Good Spirits. What can man now do? Only perish, only perish. . . ."