THE RETURN TO KHOTAN 
919 
his master, that I despised him, and that notwithstanding, 
and in defiance of him, I intended the very next day 
to set out for Cherchen. 
I got back the laconic answer, “Go; but if you do, 
I shall arrest you, and send you back to Kara-shahr under 
an escort of ten soldiers.” It was no use talking any 
more ; I must act. I quickly made up my mind what 
I should do. I would start the next morning, as I had 
announced, for Cherchen. Li Darin should then arrest 
me and send me back to Kara-shahr. Thence I would 
go on to Urumchi and enlist the help of the Russian 
consul, to procure me not only a free passage to 
Cherchen and Khotan, but also a well-merited reprimand 
to Li Darin, as well as compensation for the loss I should 
sustain through the delay. I therefore made an arrange- 
ment with the merchant who bought my camels, to take 
charge of my baggage and the horses. 1 decided to 
take Islam Bai whth me, and we packed a few necessaries 
in the straps at the back of our saddles. 
At first I was seriously annoyed at having been so 
splendidly caught ; for it was of course not to be thought 
of that I should use force or have recourse to craft against 
a rude and arrogant mandarin with 265 soldiers at his 
back. But before the day was over I viewed the journey 
to Urumchi, a distance of over four hundred miles, in 
quite a different light. I should travel along new roads 
and through interesting regions, and should see the 
Chinese capital of Central Asia, with its crowd of dis- 
tinguished mandarins, and its little Russian colony. In 
the end my mind was quite set upon the journey ; the 
only thing that drew me in the opposite direction was 
my letters in Khotan. 
However my star was more powerful than that of Li 
Darin, amban of Charkhlik. Late that same evening there 
came to my quarters a mandarin of some fifty years of 
age, with delicate and distinguished features. He intro- 
duced himself as Shi Darin, commandant of the garrison. 
He told me he had received orders to arrest me next day, 
and was come to apologize for Li Darin’s stupid conduct ; 
