CHAPTER XXXII
AN OLD FORTUNE TELLER
From this point we began traveling along the ourton road. In this region the Mongols had very poor and exhausted horses, because they were forced continuously to supply mounts to the numerous envoys of Daichin Van and of Colonel Kazagrandi. We were compelled to spend the night at the last ourton before Van Kure, where a stout old Mongol and his son kept the station. After our supper he took the shoulder-blade of the sheep, which had been carefully scraped clean of all the flesh, and, looking at me, placed this bone in the coals with some incantations and said:
“I want to tell your fortune. All my predictions come true.”
When the bone had been blackened he drew it out, blew off the ashes and began to scrutinize the surface very closely and to look through it into the fire. He continued his examination for a long time and then, with fear in his face, placed the bone back in the coals.
“What did you see?” I asked, laughing.
“Be silent!” he whispered. “I made out horrible signs.”
He again took out the bone and began examining it all over, all the time whispering prayers and making strange movements. In a very solemn quiet voice he began his predictions.
“Death in the form of a tall white man with red hair will stand behind you and will watch you long and close. You will feel it and wait but Death will withdraw. . . . Another white man will become your friend. . . . Before the fourth day you will lose your acquaintances. They will die by a long knife. I already see them being eaten by the dogs. Beware of the man with a head like a saddle. He will strive for your death.”
For a long time after the fortune had been told we sat smoking and drinking tea but still the old fellow looked at me only with fear. Through my brain flashed the thought that thus must his companions in prison look at one who is condemned to death.
The next morning we left the fortune teller before the sun was up, and, when we had made about fifteen miles, hove in sight of Van Kure. I found Colonel Kazagrandi at his headquarters. He was a man of good family, an experienced engineer and a splendid officer, who had distinguished himself in the war at the defence of the island of Moon in the Baltic and afterwards in the fight with the Bolsheviki on the Volga. Colonel Kazagrandi offered me a bath in a real tub, which had its habitat in the house of the president of the local Chamber of Commerce. As I was in this house, a tall young captain entered. He had long curly red hair and an unusually white face, though heavy and stolid, with large, steel-cold eyes and with beautiful, tender, almost girlish lips. But in his eyes there was such cold cruelty that it was quite unpleasant to look at his otherwise fine face. When he left the room, our host told me that he was Captain Veseloffsky, the adjutant of General Rezukhin, who was fighting against the Bolsheviki in the north of Mongolia. They had just that day arrived for a conference with Baron Ungern.
After luncheon Colonel Kazagrandi invited me to his yurta and began discussing events in western Mongolia, where the situation had become very tense.
“Do you know Dr. Gay?” Kazagrandi asked me. “You know he helped me to form my detachment but Urga accuses him of being the agent of the Soviets.”
I made all the defences I could for Gay. He had helped me and had been exonerated by Kolchak.
“Yes, yes, and I justified Gay in such a manner,” said the Colonel, “but Rezukhin, who has just arrived today, has brought letters of Gay’s to the Bolsheviki which were seized in transit. By order of Baron Ungern, Gay and his family have today been sent to the headquarters of Rezukhin and I fear that they will not reach this destination.”
“Why?” I asked.
“They will be executed on the road!” answered Colonel Kazagrandi.
“What are we to do?” I responded. “Gay cannot be a Bolshevik, because he is too well educated and too clever for it.”
“I don’t know; I don’t know!” murmured the Colonel with a despondent gesture. “Try to speak with Rezukhin.”
I decided to proceed at once to Rezukhin but just then Colonel Philipoff entered and began talking about the errors being made in the training of the soldiers. When I had donned my coat, another man came in. He was a small sized officer with an old green Cossack cap with a visor, a torn grey Mongol overcoat and with his right hand in a black sling tied around his neck. It was General Rezukhin, to whom I was at once introduced. During the conversation the General very politely and very skilfully inquired about the lives of Philipoff and myself during the last three years, joking and laughing with discretion and modesty. When he soon took his leave, I availed myself of the chance and went out with him.
He listened very attentively and politely to me and afterwards, in his quiet voice, said:
“Dr. Gay is the agent of the Soviets, disguised as a White in order the better to see, hear and know everything. We are surrounded by our enemies. The Russian people are demoralized and will undertake any treachery for money. Such is Gay. Anyway, what is the use of discussing him further? He and his family are no longer alive. Today my men cut them to pieces five kilometres from here.”
In consternation and fear I looked at the face of this small, dapper man with such soft voice and courteous manners. In his eyes I read such hate and tenacity that I understood at once the trembling respect of all the officers whom I had seen in his presence. Afterwards in Urga I learned more of this General Rezukhin distinguished by his absolute bravery and boundless cruelty. He was the watchdog of Baron Ungern, ready to throw himself into the fire and to spring at the throat of anyone his master might indicate.
Only four days then had elapsed before “my acquaintances” died “by a long knife,” so that one part of the prediction had been thus fulfilled. And now I have to await Death’s threat to me. The delay was not long. Only two days later the Chief of the Asiatic Division of Cavalry arrived—Baron Ungern von Sternberg.
CHAPTER XXXIII
“DEATH FROM THE WHITE MAN WILL STAND BEHIND YOU”
“The terrible general, the Baron,” arrived quite unexpectedly, unnoticed by the outposts of Colonel Kazagrandi. After a talk with Kazagrandi the Baron invited Colonel N. N. Philipoff and me into his presence. Colonel Kazagrandi brought the word to me. I wanted to go at once but was detained about half an hour by the Colonel, who then sped me with the words:
“Now God help you! Go!”
It was a strange parting message, not reassuring and quite enigmatical. I took my Mauser and also hid in the cuff of my coat my cyanide of potassium. The Baron was quartered in the yurta of the military doctor. When I entered the court, Captain Veseloffsky came up to me. He had a Cossack sword and a revolver without its holster beneath his girdle. He went into the yurta to report my arrival.
“Come in,” he said, as he emerged from the tent.
At the entrance my eyes were struck with the sight of a pool of blood that had not yet had time to drain down into the ground—an ominous greeting that seemed to carry the very voice of one just gone before me. I knocked.
“Come in!” was the answer in a high tenor. As I passed the threshold, a figure in a red silk Mongolian coat rushed at me with the spring of a tiger, grabbed and shook my hand as though in flight across my path and then fell prone on the bed at the side of the tent.
“Tell me who you are! Hereabouts are many spies and agitators,” he cried out in an hysterical voice, as he fixed his eyes upon me. In one moment I perceived his appearance and psychology. A small head on wide shoulders; blonde hair in disorder; a reddish bristling moustache; a skinny, exhausted face, like those on the old Byzantine ikons. Then everything else faded from view save a big, protruding forehead overhanging steely sharp eyes. These eyes were fixed upon me like those of an animal from a cave. My observations lasted for but a flash but I understood that before me was a very dangerous man ready for an instant spring into irrevocable action. Though the danger was evident, I felt the deepest offence.
“Sit down,” he snapped out in a hissing voice, as he pointed to a chair and impatiently pulled at his moustache. I felt my anger rising through my whole body and I said to him without taking the chair:
“You have allowed yourself to offend me, Baron. My name is well enough known so that you cannot thus indulge yourself in such epithets. You can do with me as you wish, because force is on your side, but you cannot compel me to speak with one who gives me offence.”
At these words of mine he swung his feet down off the bed and with evident astonishment began to survey me, holding his breath and pulling still at his moustache. Retaining my exterior calmness, I began to glance indifferently around the yurta, and only then I noticed General Rezukhin. I bowed to him and received his silent acknowledgment. After that I swung my glance back to the Baron, who sat with bowed head and closed eyes, from time to time rubbing his brow and mumbling to himself.
Suddenly he stood up and sharply said, looking past and over me:
“Go out! There is no need of more. . . .”
I swung round and saw Captain Veseloffsky with his white, cold face. I had not heard him enter. He did a formal “about face” and passed out of the door.
“‘Death from the white man’ has stood behind me,” I thought; “but has it quite left me?”
The Baron stood thinking for some time and then began to speak in jumbled, unfinished phrases.
“I ask your pardon. . . . You must understand there are so many traitors! Honest men have disappeared. I cannot trust anybody. All names are false and assumed; documents are counterfeited. Eyes and words deceive. . . . All is demoralized, insulted by Bolshevism. I just ordered Colonel Philipoff cut down, he who called himself the representative of the Russian White Organization. In the lining of his garments were found two secret Bolshevik codes. . . . When my officer flourished his sword over him, he exclaimed: ‘Why do you kill me, Tavarische?’ I cannot trust anybody. . . .”
He was silent and I also held my peace.
“I beg your pardon!” he began anew. “I offended you; but I am not simply a man, I am a leader of great forces and have in my head so much care, sorrow and woe!”
In his voice I felt there was mingled despair and sincerity. He frankly put out his hand to me. Again silence. At last I answered:
“What do you order me to do now, for I have neither counterfeit nor real documents? But many of your officers know me and in Urga I can find many who will testify that I could be neither agitator nor. . .”
“No need, no need!” interrupted the Baron. “All is clear, all is understood! I was in your soul and I know all. It is the truth which Hutuktu Narabanchi has written about you. What can I do for you?”
I explained how my friend and I had escaped from Soviet Russia in the effort to reach our native land and how a group of Polish soldiers had joined us in the hope of getting back to Poland; and I asked that help be given us to reach the nearest port.
“With pleasure, with pleasure. . . . I will help you all,” he answered excitedly. “I shall drive you to Urga in my motor car. Tomorrow we shall start and there in Urga we shall talk about further arrangements.”
Taking my leave, I went out of the yurta. On arriving at my quarters, I found Colonel Kazagrandi in great anxiety walking up and down my room.
“Thanks be to God!” he exclaimed and crossed himself.
His joy was very touching but at the same time I thought that the Colonel could have taken much more active measures for the salvation of his guest, if he had been so minded. The agitation of this day had tired me and made me feel years older. When I looked in the mirror I was certain there were more white hairs on my head. At night I could not sleep for the flashing thoughts of the young, fine face of Colonel Philipoff, the pool of blood, the cold eyes of Captain Veseloffsky, the sound of Baron Ungern’s voice with its tones of despair and woe, until finally I sank into a heavy stupor. I was awakened by Baron Ungern who came to ask pardon that he could not take me in his motor car, because he was obliged to take Daichin Van with him. But he informed me that he had left instructions to give me his own white camel and two Cossacks as servants. I had no time to thank him before he rushed out of my room.
Sleep then entirely deserted me, so I dressed and began smoking pipe after pipe of tobacco, as I thought: “How much easier to fight the Bolsheviki on the swamps of Seybi and to cross the snowy peaks of Ulan Taiga, where the bad demons kill all the travelers they can! There everything was simple and comprehensible, but here it is all a mad nightmare, a dark and foreboding storm!” I felt some tragedy, some horror in every movement of Baron Ungern, behind whom paced this silent, white-faced Veseloffsky and Death.