He did not really finish speaking but covered his face with his hands in fear.  He was convinced that the lot of Chultun Beyli was black as the night.

In an hour we were behind the low hills that hid the Narabanchi Kure from our sight.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE BREATH OF DEATH

We arrived at Uliassutai on the day of the return of the detachment which had gone out to disarm the convoy of Wang Tsao-tsun.  This detachment had met Colonel Domojiroff, who ordered them not only to disarm but to pillage the convoy and, unfortunately, Lieutenant Strigine executed this illegal and unwarranted command.  It was compromising and ignominious to see Russian officers and soldiers wearing the Chinese overcoats, boots and wrist watches which had been taken from the Chinese officials and the convoy.  Everyone had Chinese silver and gold also from the loot.  The Mongol wife of Wang Tsao-tsun and her brother returned with the detachment and entered a complaint of having been robbed by the Russians.  The Chinese officials and their convoy, deprived of their supplies, reached the Chinese border only after great distress from hunger and cold.  We foreigners were astounded that Lt.-Colonel Michailoff received Strigine with military honors but we caught the explanation of it later when we learned that Michailoff had been given some of the Chinese silver and his wife the handsomely decorated saddle of Fu Hsiang.  Chultun Beyli demanded that all the weapons taken from the Chinese and all the stolen property be turned over to him, as it must later be returned to the Chinese authorities; but Michailoff refused.  Afterwards we foreigners cut off all contact with the Russian detachment.  The relations between the Russians and Mongols became very strained.  Several of the Russian officers protested against the acts of Michailoff and Strigine and controversies became more and more serious.

At this time, one morning in April, an extraordinary group of armed horsemen arrived at Uliassutai.  They stayed at the house of the Bolshevik Bourdukoff, who gave them, so we were told, a great quantity of silver.  This group explained that they were former officers in the Imperial Guard.  They were Colonels Poletika, N. N. Philipoff and three of the latter’s brothers.  They announced that they wanted to collect all the White officers and soldiers then in Mongolia and China and lead them to Urianhai to fight the Bolsheviki; but that first they wanted to wipe out Ungern and return Mongolia to China.  They called themselves the representatives of the Central Organization of the Whites in Russia.

The society of Russian officers in Uliassutai invited them to a meeting, examined their documents and interrogated them.  Investigation proved that all the statements of these officers about their former connections were entirely wrong, that Poletika occupied an important position in the war commissariat of the Bolsheviki, that one of the Philipoff brothers was the assistant of Kameneff in his first attempt to reach England, that the Central White Organization in Russia did not exist, that the proposed fighting in Urianhai was but a trap for the White officers and that this group was in close relations with the Bolshevik Bourdukoff.