"
That was a proposal worth consideration, and we assembled to consider
it, Major Noltitz, Pan-Chao, Fulk Ephrinell, Caterna, the clergyman,
Baron Weissschnitzerdoerfer, and a dozen others--all who understood
Russian.
Faruskiar spoke as follows:
"I have been looking at the portion of the line damaged by the band of
Ki-Tsang. Most of the sleepers are still in place. As to the rails, the
scoundrels have simply thrown them onto the sand, and by replacing them
end to end it would be easy to get the train over to the uninjured
track. It would not take a day to do this, and five hours afterward we
should be at Tcharkalyk."
Excellent notion, at once approved of by Popof, the driver, the
passengers, and particularly by the baron. The plan was possible, and
if there were a few rails useless, we could bring to the front those we
had already run over, and in this way get over the difficulty.
Evidently this Faruskiar is a man, he is our true chief, he is the
personage I was in want of, and I will sound his name over the entire
universe in all the trumpets of my chronicle!
And yet Major Noltitz is mistaken enough to see in him only a rival to
this Ki-Tsang, whose crimes have just received their final punishment
from his hand!
We set to work to replace the sleepers that had been shifted aside from
where they had left their mark, and we continued our task without
intermission.
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