926 
THROUGH ASIA 
Yakub Shah, the man who guided us to the first of the 
ancient cities in the desert, were sitting crouching round 
some boxes ; and several articles, which could only belong 
to a European, had been taken out of them and lay 
scattered over the carpet. The spy kept his own counsel, 
received his wages, and walked slowly away ; but as soon 
as he was well out of sight, he caught the first horse 
he saw, jumped on his back, and galloped off to Khotan, 
to report to the aksakal what he had seen. The aksakal 
at once carried the report to Liu Darin, and Liu Darin 
sent two officers of the law, with a party of soldiers, to 
Tavek-kel, to search the beg’s house and take possession 
of the stolen property. 
In the meantime the beg had speedily missed his new 
shepherd, and as a horse was also gone, he instantly 
guessed that something was wrong, and sent men on 
horseback as hard as they could gallop after the fugitive. 
But the spy had got too long a start ; besides, he knew 
that his own life depended upon his getting to Khotan 
first. The beg was now in an awkward predicament ; but 
he saved himself with the craft of a diplomatist : he 
hurriedly scjueezed the things back into the boxes, and 
took them to Khotan, arriving there in company with the 
men Liu Darin had sent, and handed everything over to 
him (the amban), saying that they had only been found 
two or three days before. The hunters also went to 
Khotan at the same time, and all the conspirators put 
up at the same caravanserai. But there too the aksakal 
had a spy in his service. Next day this spy came and 
reported that during the night the beg had instructed the 
hunters what they were to say when Liu Darin questioned 
them about the affair ; for there could be no doubt, he 
would very soon hold a formal inquiry as to where and 
when and how they found the things. 
But first the aksakal had the hunters before him — the 
very men, be it remembered, who had gone with Islam Bai 
to look for the tent after our shipwreck in the desert, but 
without success. They told him, that in the course of the 
winter they had gone back to the three poplars, and from 
