While the train is running at full speed we talk of one thing and another.  With regard to Kachgaria, which had been mentioned, Faruskiar gave us a few very interesting details regarding the province, which had been so greatly troubled by insurrectionary movements.  It was at this epoch that the capital, holding out against Chinese covetousness, had not yet submitted to Russian domination.  Many times numbers of Celestials had been massacred in the revolts of the Turkestan chiefs, and the garrison had taken refuge in the fortress of Yanghi-Hissar.

Among these insurgent chiefs there was one, a certain Ouali-Khan-Toulla, whom I have mentioned with regard to the murder of Schlagintweit, and who for a time had become master of Kachgaria.  He was a man of great intelligence, but of uncommon ferocity.  And Faruskiar told us an anecdote giving us an idea of these pitiless Orientals.

“There was at Kachgar,” he said, “an armorer of repute, who, wishing to secure the favors of Ouali-Khan-Toulla, made a costly sword.  When he had finished his work he sent his son, a boy of ten, to present the sword, hoping to receive some recompense from the royal hand.  He received it.  The Khan admired the sword, and asked if the blade was of the first quality.  ‘Yes,’ said the boy.  ‘Then approach!’ said the Khan, and at one blow he smote off the head, which he sent back to the father with the price of the blade he had thus proved to be of excellent quality.”

This story he told really well.  Had Caterna heard it, he would have asked for a Turkestan opera on the subject.

The day passed without incident.  The train kept on at its moderate speed of forty kilometres an hour, an average that would have been raised to eighty had they listened to Baron Weissschnitzerdoerfer.  The truth is that the Chinese driver had no notion of making up the time lost between Tchertchen and Tcharkalyk.

At seven in the evening we reach Kara Nor, to stay there fifty minutes.  This lake, which is not as extensive as Lob Nor, absorbs the waters of the Soule Ho, coming down from the Nan Chan mountains.  Our eyes are charmed with the masses of verdure that clothe its southern bank, alive with the flight of numerous birds.  At eight o’clock, when we left the station, the sun had set behind the sandhills, and a sort of mirage produced by the warming of the lower zones of the atmosphere prolonged the twilight above the horizon.

The dining car has resumed its restaurant appearance, and here is the wedding banquet, instead of the usual fare.  Twenty guests have been invited to this railway love feast, and, first of them, my lord Faruskiar.  But for some reason or other he has declined Ephrinell’s invitation.

I am sorry for it, for I hoped that good luck would place me near him.

It occurred to me then that this illustrious name was worth sending to the office of the Twentieth Century, this name and also a few lines relative to the attack on the train and the details of the defense.  Never was information better worth sending by telegram, however much it might cost.  This time there is no risk of my bringing a lecture down on myself.  There is no mistake possible, as in the case of that pretended mandarin, Yen-Lou, which I shall never forget—­but then, it was in the country of the false Smerdis and that must be my excuse.