Chapter 9

We started to time. The baron could not complain this time. After all,
I understood his impatience; a minute's delay might cause him to lose
the mail boat from Tien Tsin to Japan.

The day looked promising, that is to say, there might have been a wind
strong enough to put out the sun as if it were a candle, such a
hurricane as sometimes stops the locomotives of the Grand Transasiatic,
but to-day it is blowing from the west, and will be supportable, as it
blows the train along. We can remain out on the platforms.

I want to enter into conversation with Pan Chao. Popof was right; he
must be the son of some family of distinction who has been spending
some years in Paris for education and amusement. He ought to be one of
the most regular visitors at the _Twentieth Century_ "five o'clocks."

Meanwhile I will attend to other business. There is that man in the
case. A whole day will elapse before I can relieve his anxiety. In what
a state he must be! But as it would be unwise for me to enter the van
during the day, I must wait until night.

I must not forget that an interview with the Caternas is included in
the programme. There will be no difficulty in that, apparently.

What will not be so easy is to get into conversation with my No. 12,
his superb lordship Faruskiar. He seems rather stiff, does this
Oriental.

Ah! There is a name I must know as soon as possible, that of the
mandarin returning to China in the form of a mortuary parcel. With a
little ingenuity Popof may manage to ascertain it from one of the
Persians in charge of his Excellency. If it would only be that of some
grand functionary, the Pao-Wang, or the Ko-Wang, or the viceroy of the
two Kiangs, the Prince King in person!

For an hour the train is running through the oasis. We shall soon be in
the open desert. The soil is formed of alluvial beds extending up to
the environs of Merv. I must get accustomed to this monotony of the
journey which will last up to the frontier of Turkestan. Oasis and
desert, desert and oasis. As we approach the Pamir the scenery will
change a little. There are picturesque bits of landscape in that
orographic knot which the Russians have had to cut as Alexander cut the
gordian knot that was worth something to the Macedonian conqueror of
Asia. Here is a good augury for the Russian conquest.

But I must wait for this crossing of the Pamir and its varied scenery.
Beyond lay the interminable plains of Chinese Turkestan, the immense
sandy desert of Gobi, where the monotony of the journey will begin
again.

It is half-past ten. Breakfast will soon be served in the dining car.
Let us take a walk through the length of the train.

Where is Ephrinell? I do not see him at his