In a moment the train began to slow, evidently preparing to stop.

Popof came into the van, and I asked him what had happened.

“An accident,” he replied.

“Serious?”

“No, a coupling has broken, and the two last vans are left behind.”

As soon as the train pulls up, a dozen travelers, of whom I am one, get out onto the track.

By the light of the lantern it is easy to see that the breakage is not due to malevolence.  But it is none the less true that the two last vans, the mortuary van and the rear van occupied by the goods guard, are missing.  How far off are they?  Nobody knows.

You should have heard the shouts of the Persian guards engaged in escorting the remains of Yen Lou, for which they were responsible!  The travelers in their van, like themselves, had not noticed when the coupling broke.  It might be an hour, two hours, since the accident.

What ought to be done was clear enough.  The train must be run backward and pick up the lost vans.

Nothing could be more simple.  But—­and this surprised me—­the behavior of my lord Faruskiar seemed very strange.  He insisted in the most pressing manner that not a moment should be lost.  He spoke to Popof, to the driver, to the stoker, and for the first time I discovered that he spoke Russian remarkably well.

There was no room for discussion.  We were all agreed on the necessity of a retrograde movement.

Only the German baron protested.  More delays!  A waste of time for the sake of a mandarin—­and a dead mandarin!

He had to walk about and bear it.  As to Sir Francis Trevellyan, he merely shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say:  “What management!  What couplings!  We should not get this sort of thing on an Anglo-Indian line!”

Major Noltitz was as much struck as I was at the behavior of my lord Faruskiar.  This Mongol, usually so calm, so impassible, with his cool look beneath his motionless eyelid, had become a prey to a sort of furious anxiety which he appeared incapable of controlling.  His companion was as excited as he was.  But what was there in these two missing vans which could be of interest to them?  They had not even any luggage in the rear van!  Was it the mandarin, Yen Lou?  Was it for that reason that at Donchak they had so carefully watched the van which contained the corpse?  I could see clearly enough that the major thought it all very suspicious.

The train began to run back as soon as we had taken our places.  The German baron attempted to curse, but Faruskiar gave him such a look that he did not care to get another, and stowed himself away in the corner.

Dawn appeared in the east when the two wagons were found a kilometre off, and the train gently slowed up to them after an hour’s run.

Faruskiar and Ghangir went to help in coupling on the vans, which was done as firmly as possible.  Major Noltitz and I noticed that they exchanged a few words with the other Mongols.  After all, there was nothing astonishing in that, for they were countrymen of theirs.