CHAPTER IX.

We started to time.  The baron could not complain this time.  After all, I understood his impatience; a minute’s delay might cause him to lose the mail boat from Tien Tsin to Japan.

The day looked promising, that is to say, there might have been a wind strong enough to put out the sun as if it were a candle, such a hurricane as sometimes stops the locomotives of the Grand Transasiatic, but to-day it is blowing from the west, and will be supportable, as it blows the train along.  We can remain out on the platforms.

I want to enter into conversation with Pan Chao.  Popof was right; he must be the son of some family of distinction who has been spending some years in Paris for education and amusement.  He ought to be one of the most regular visitors at the Twentieth Century “five o’clocks.”

Meanwhile I will attend to other business.  There is that man in the case.  A whole day will elapse before I can relieve his anxiety.  In what a state he must be!  But as it would be unwise for me to enter the van during the day, I must wait until night.

I must not forget that an interview with the Caternas is included in the programme.  There will be no difficulty in that, apparently.

What will not be so easy is to get into conversation with my No. 12, his superb lordship Faruskiar.  He seems rather stiff, does this Oriental.

Ah!  There is a name I must know as soon as possible, that of the mandarin returning to China in the form of a mortuary parcel.  With a little ingenuity Popof may manage to ascertain it from one of the Persians in charge of his Excellency.  If it would only be that of some grand functionary, the Pao-Wang, or the Ko-Wang, or the viceroy of the two Kiangs, the Prince King in person!

For an hour the train is running through the oasis.  We shall soon be in the open desert.  The soil is formed of alluvial beds extending up to the environs of Merv.  I must get accustomed to this monotony of the journey which will last up to the frontier of Turkestan.  Oasis and desert, desert and oasis.  As we approach the Pamir the scenery will change a little.  There are picturesque bits of landscape in that orographic knot which the Russians have had to cut as Alexander cut the gordian knot that was worth something to the Macedonian conqueror of Asia.  Here is a good augury for the Russian conquest.

But I must wait for this crossing of the Pamir and its varied scenery.  Beyond lay the interminable plains of Chinese Turkestan, the immense sandy desert of Gobi, where the monotony of the journey will begin again.

It is half-past ten.  Breakfast will soon be served in the dining car.  Let us take a walk through the length of the train.

Where is Ephrinell?  I do not see him at his post by the side of Miss Horatia Bluett, whom I questioned on the subject after saluting her politely.