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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71f8a0a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51974 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51974) diff --git a/old/51974-0.txt b/old/51974-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 36e54c2..0000000 --- a/old/51974-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10101 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Red and Gold, by Samuel Merwin - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: In Red and Gold - -Author: Samuel Merwin - -Illustrator: Cyrus Leroy Baldridge - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51974] -Last Updated: April 27, 2018 - - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN RED AND GOLD *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -IN RED AND GOLD - -By Samuel Merwin - -Frontispiece by Cyrus Leroy Baldridge - -A. L. Burt Company Publishers, New York - -1921 - -TO - -CHARLES B. TOWNS, NEW YORK AND PEKING - -IN RED AND GOLD - - - - -CHAPTER I--FELLOW VOYAGERS - -|ON a night in October, 1911, the river steamer _Yen Hsin_ lay alongside -the godown, or warehouse, of the Chinese Navigation Company at Shanghai. -Her black hull bulked large in the darkness that was spotted with -inadequate electric lights. Her white cabins, above, lighted here and -there, loomed high and ghostly, extending as far as the eye could easily -see from the narrow wharf beneath. Swarming continuously across the -gangplanks, chanting rhythmically to keep the quick shuffling step, -crews of coolies carried heavy boxes and bales swung from bamboo poles. - -During the evening the white passengers were coming aboard by ones -and twos and finding their cabins, all of which were forward on the -promenade deck, grouped about the enclosed area that was to be at -once their dining-room and “social hall.” Here, within a narrow space, -bounded by strips of outer deck and a partition wall, these few -casual passengers were to be caught, willy-nilly, in a sort of passing -comradeship. For the greater part of this deck, amidships and aft, was -screened off for the use of traveling Chinese officials, and the two -lower decks would be crowded with lower class natives and freight. And, -not unnaturally, in the minds of nearly all the white folk, as they -settled for the night, arose questions as to the others aboard. For -strange beings of many nations dig a footing of sorts on the China -Coast, and odd contrasts occur when any few are thrown together by a -careless fate.... And so, thinking variously in their separate cabins -of the meeting to come, at breakfast about the single long table, and of -the days of voyaging into the heart of oldest China, these passengers, -one by one, fell asleep; while through open shutters floated quaint -odors and sounds from the tangle of sampans and slipper-boats that -always line the curving bund and occasional shouts and songs from late -revelers passing along the boulevard beyond the rows of trees. - -It was well after midnight when the _Yen Hsin_ drew in her lines and -swung off into the narrow channel of the Whangpoo. Drifting sampans, -without lights, scurried out of her path. With an American captain on -the strip of promenade deck, forward, that served for a bridge, a yellow -pilot, and Scotch engineers below decks, she slipped down with the tide, -past the roofed-over opium hulks that were anchored out there, past the -dimly outlined stone buildings of the British and American quarter, on -into the broader Wusung. Here a great German mail liner lay at anchor, -lighted from stem to stem. Farther down lay three American cruisers; -and below these a junk, drifting dimly by with ribbed sails flapping and -without the sign of a light, built high astern, like the ghost of a -medieval trader. - -“There's his lights now!” Thus the captain to a huge figure of a man who -stood, stooping a little, beside him, peering out at the river. And -the captain, a stocky little man with hands in the pockets of a heavy -jacket, added--“The dirty devil!” - -Indeed, a small green light showed now on the junk's quarter; and then -she was gone astern. - -After a silence, the captain said: “You may as well turn in.” - -“Perhaps I will,” replied the other. “Though I get a good deal more -sleep than I need on the river. And very little exercise.” - -“That's the devil of this life, of course. Look a' me--I'm fat!” The -captain spoke in a rough, faintly blustering tone, perhaps in a nervous -response to the well-modulated voice of his mate, “Must make even more -difference to you--the way you've lived. And at that, after all, you -ain't a slave to the river.” - -“No.... in a sense, I'm not.” The mate fell silent. - -There were, of course, vast differences in the degrees of misfortune -among the flotsam and jetsam of the coast. Captain Benjamin, now, had a -native wife and five or six half-caste children tucked away somewhere in -the Chinese city of Shanghai. - -“We've gut quite a bunch aboard this trip,” offered the captain. - -“Indeed?” - -“One or two well-known people. There's our American millionaire, Dawley -Kane. Took four outside cabins. His son's with him, and a secretary, -and a Japanese that's been up with him before. Wonder if it's a pleasure -trip--or if it means that the Kane interests are getting hold up the -river. It might, at that. They bought the Cantey line, you know, in -nineteen eight. Then there's Tex Connor, and his old sidekick the Manila -Kid, and a couple of women schoolteachers from home, and six or eight -others--customs men and casuals. And Dixie Carmichael--she's aboard. -Quite a bunch! And His Nibs gets on tomorrow at Nanking.” - -“Kang, you mean?” - -“The same. There's a story that he's ordered up to Peking. They were -talking about it yesterday at the office.” - -“Do you think he's in trouble?” - -“Can't say. But if you ask me, it don't look like such a good time to be -easy on these agitators, now does it? And they tell me he's been letting -'em off, right and left.” - -The mate stood musing, holding to the rail. “It's a problem,” he -replied, after a little, rather absently. - -“The funny thing is--he ain't going on through. Not this trip, anyhow. -We're ordered to put him off at his old place, this side of Huang Chau. -Have to use the boats. You might give them a look-see.” - -“They've gossiped about Kang before this at Shanghai.” - -“Shanghai,” cried the captain, with nervous irrelevancy, “is full of -information about China--and it's all wrong!” He added then, “Seen young -Black lately?” - -The mate moved his head in the negative. - -“Consul-general sent him down from Hankow, after old Chang stopped that -native paper of his. I ran into him yesterday, over to the bank. He says -the revolution's going to break before summer.” - -The mate made no reply to this. Every trip the captain talked in this -manner. His one deep fear was that the outbreak might take place while -he was far up the river. - -It had been supposed by all experienced observers of the Chinese scene, -that the Manchu Dynasty would not long survive the famous old empress -dowager, the vigorous and imperious little woman who was known -throughout a rational and tolerant empire, not without a degree of -affection, as “the Old Buddha.” She had at the time of the present -narrative been dead two years and more; the daily life of the infant -emperor was in the control of a new empress dowager, that Lung Yu who -was notoriously overriding the regent and dictating such policies of -government as she chose in the intervals between protracted periods of -palace revelry. - -The one really powerful personage in Peking that year was the chief -eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, a former actor, notoriously the empress's -personal favorite, who catered to her pleasures, robbed the imperial -treasury of vast sums, wreaked ugly vengeance on critical censors, and -publicly insulted dukes of the royal house. - -All this was familiar. The Manchu strain had dwindled out; and while an -empress pleased her jaded appetites by having an actor cut with the lash -in her presence for an indifferent performance, all South China, from -Canton to the Yangtze, seethed with the steadily increasing ferment -of revolution. Conspirators ranged the river and the coast. At secret -meetings in Singapore, Tokio, San Francisco and New York, new and bloody -history was planned. The oldest and hugest of empires was like a vast -crater that steamed and bubbled faintly here and there as hot vital -forces accumulated beneath. - -The mate, pondering the incalculable problem, finally spoke: “I suppose, -if this revolt should bring serious trouble to Kang, it might affect you -and me as well.” - -The captain flared up, the blustering note rising higher in his voice. -“But somebody'll have to run the boats, won't they?” - -“If they run at all.” - -His impersonal tone seemed to irritate further the captain's troubled -spirit. “If they run at all, eh? It's all right for you--you can go it -alone--you haven't got children on your mind, young ones!” - -The big man was silent again. A great hand gripped a stanchion tightly -as he gazed out at the dark expanse of water. The captain, glancing -around at him, looking a second time at that hand, turned away, with a -little sound. - -“I will say good night,” remarked the mate abruptly, and left his chief -to his uncertain thoughts. - -The steamer moved deliberately out into the wide estuary of the Yangtze, -which is at this point like a sea. Squatting at the edge of the -deck, outside the rail, the pilot spoke musically to the Chinese -quartermaster. Slowly, a little at a time, as she plowed the ruffling -water, the steamer swung off to the northwest to begin her long journey -up the mighty river to Hankow where the passengers would change for -the smaller Ichang steamer, or for the express to Peking over the still -novel trunk railway. And if, as happened not infrequently, the _Yen -Hsin_ should break down or stick in the mud, the Peking passengers would -wait a week about the round stove in the old Astor House at Hankow for -the next express. - -A mighty river indeed, is the Yangtze. During half the year battle-ships -of reasonably deep draught may reach Hankow. In the heyday of the sailing -trade clippers out of New York and blunt lime-juicers out of Liverpool -were any day sights from the bund there. Through a busy and not seldom -bloody century the merchants of a clamorous outside world have roved the -great river (where yellow merchants of the Middle Kingdom, in sampan, -barge and junk, roved fifty centuries before them) with rich cargoes -of tea (in leaden chests that bore historic ideographs on the enclosing -matting)--with hides and horns and coal from Hupeh and furs and musk -from far-away Szechuen, with soya beans and rice and bristles and -nutgalls and spices and sesamum, with varnish and tung oil and vegetable -tallow, with cotton, ramie, rape and hemp, with copper, quicksilver, -slate, lead and antimony, with porcelains and silk. Along this river -that to-day divides an empire into two vast and populous domains a -thousand thousand fortunes have been gained and lost, rebellions and -wars have raged, famines have blighted whole peoples. Forts, pagodas and -palaces have lined its banks. The gilded barges of emperors have drifted -idly on its broad bosom. Exquisite painted beauties have found mirrors -in its neighboring canals. Its waters drain to-day the dusty red plain -where Lady Ch'en, the Helen, of China, rocked a throne and died. - -The morning sun rode high. Soft-footed cabin stewards in blue robes -removed the long red tablecloth and laid a white. By ones and twos the -passengers appeared from their cabins or from the breezy deck and took -their seats, eying one another with guarded curiosity as they bowed a -morning greeting. - -Miss Andrews, of Indianapolis, stepped out from her cabin through a -narrow corridor, and then, at sight of the table, stopped short, while -her color rose slightly. Miss Andrews was slender, a year or so under -thirty, and, in a colorless way, pretty. Shy and sensitive, the scene -before her was one her mind's eye had failed to picture; the seats about -the long table were half filled, and entirely with men. She saw, in -that one quick look, the face of a young German between those of two -Englishmen. A remarkably thin man in a check suit looked up and for an -instant fixed furtive eyes on hers. Just beyond him sat a big man, with -a round wooden face and one glass eye; he turned his head with his eyes -to look at her. A quiet man of fifty-odd, with gray hair, a nearly -white mustache that was cropped close, and the expression of quiet -satisfaction that only wealth and settled authority can give, was -putting a spoonful of condensed milk into his coffee. Next to him sat -a young man--very young, certainly not much more than twenty or -twenty-one--perhaps his son (the aquiline nose and slightly receding but -wide and full forehead were the same)--rubbing out a cigarette on his -butter plate. He had been smoking before breakfast. She remembered these -two now; they had been at the Astor House in Shanghai; they were -the Kanes, of New York, the famous Kanes. They called the son, -“Rocky”--Rocky Kane. - -Unable to take in more, Miss Andrews stepped back a little way into the -corridor, deciding to wait for her traveling companion, Miss Means, of -South Bend. She could hardly go out there alone and sit down with all -those men. - -But just then a door opened and closed; and across the way, coming -directly, easily, out into the diningroom, Miss Andrews beheld the -surprising figure of a slim girl--or a girl she appeared at first -glance--of nineteen or twenty, wearing a blue, middy blouse and short -blue shirt. Her black hair was drawn loosely together at the neck and -tied with a bow of black ribbon. Her somewhat pale face, with its thin -line of a mouth, straight nose, curving black eyebrows and oddly pale -eyes, was in some measure attractive. She took her seat at the table -without hesitation, acknowledging the reserved greetings of various of -the men with a slight inclination of the head. - -It seemed to Miss Andrews that she might now go on in there. But the -thought that some of these men had surely noticed her confusion was -disconcerting; and so it was a relief to hear Miss Means pattering -on behind her. For that firmly thin little woman had fought life to a -standstill and now, except in the moments of prim severity that came -unaccountably into possession of her thoughts, found it dryly amusing. -They took their seats, these two little ladies, Miss Means laying her -copy of _Things Chinese_ beside her coffee cup; and Miss Andrews tried -to bow her casual good mornings as the curious girl in the middy blouse -had done. The girl, by the way, seemed a very little older at close -view. - -Miss Andrews stole glimpses, too, at young Mr. Rocky Kane. He was a -handsome boy, with thick chestnut hair from which he had not wholly -succeeded in brushing the curl, but she was not sure that she liked -the flush on his cheeks, or the nervous brightness of the eyes, or the -expression about the mouth. There had been stories floating about the -hotel in Shanghai. He plainly lacked discipline. But she saw that he -might easily fascinate a certain sort of woman. - -A door opened, and in from the deck came an extraordinarily tall man, -stooping as he entered. On his cap, in gilt, was lettered, “1st Mate.” - He took the seat opposite Mr. Kane, senior, next to the head of the -table. It seemed to Miss Andrews that she had never seen so tall a man; -he must have stood six feet five or six inches. He was solid, broad of -shoulder, a magnificent specimen of manhood. And though the hair was -thin on top of his head, and his grave quiet face exhibited the deep -lines of middle age, he moved with almost the springy-step of a boy. If -others at the table were difficult to place on the scale of life, this -mate was the most difficult of all. With that strong reflective face, -and the bearing of one who knows only good manners (though he said -nothing at all after his first courteously spoken, “Good morning!”) he -could not have been other than a gentleman--Miss Andrews felt that--an -American gentleman! Yet his position.... mate of a river steamer in -China....! - -The atmosphere about the table was constrained throughout the meal. The -Chinese stewards padded softly about. The one-eyed man stared around the -table without the slightest expression on his impassive face. The girl -in the middy blouse kept her head over her plate. Miss Andrews once -caught Rocky Kane glancing at her with an expression nearly as furtive -as that of the thin man in the check suit. It was after this small -incident that young Kane began helping her to this and that; and, when -they rose, followed her out to her deck chair and insisted on tucking -her up in her robe. - -“These fall breezes are pretty sharp on the river,” he said. “But say, -maybe it isn't hot in summer.” - -“I suppose it is,” murmured Miss Andrews. - -“I've been out here a couple of times with the pater. You'll find the -river interesting. Oh, not down here”--he indicated the wide expanse of -muddy water and the low-lying, distant shore--“but beyond Chinkiang -and Nanking, where it's narrower. Lots of quaint sights. The ports are -really fascinating. We stop a lot, you know. At Wuhu the water beggars -come out in tubs.” - -“In tubs!” breathed Miss Andrews. - -Miss Means joined them then, book under arm; and met his offer to tuck -her up with a crisply pointed, “No, thank you!” - -He soon drifted away. - -Said Miss Andrews: “Weren't you a little hard on him, Gerty?” - -“My dear,” replied Miss Means severely--her Puritan vein strongly -uppermost--“that young man won't do. Not at all. I saw him myself, one -night at the Astor House, going into one of those private -dining-rooms with a woman who--well, her character, or lack of it, was -unmistakable!... Right there in the hotel.... under his father's eyes. -That's what too much money will do to a young man, if you ask me!” - -“Oh....!” breathed Miss Andrews, looking out with startled eyes at the -gulls. - -It was mid-afternoon when Captain Benjamin remarked to his first mate: -“Tex Connor's got down to work, Mr. Duane. Better try to stop it, if you -don't mind. They're in young Kane's cabin--sixteen.” - -Number sixteen was the last cabin aft in the port side, next the canvas -screen that separated upper class white from upper class yellow. The -wooden shutters had been drawn over the windows and the light turned on -within. Cigarette smoke drifted thickly out. - -They were slow to open. Doane heard the not unfamiliar voice of the -Manila Kid advising against it. He had to knock repeatedly. They were -crowded together in the narrow space between berth and couch, a board -across their knees--Connor twisting his head to fix his one eye on the -intruder, the Kid, in his check suit, a German of the customs and -Rocky Kane. There were cards, chips and a heap of money in American and -English notes and gold. - -“What is it?” cried Kane. “What do you want?” - -“You'd better stop this,” said the mate quietly. - -“Oh, come, we're just having a friendly game! What right have you to -break into a private room, anyway?” - -The mate, stooping within the doorway, took the boy in with thoughtful -eyes, but did not reply directly. - -Connor, with another look upward, picked up the cards, and with the -uncanny mental quickness of a practised _croupier_ redistributed the -heap of money to its original owners, and squeezed out without a word, -the mate moving aside for him. The German left sulkily. The Kid snapped -his fingers in disgust, and followed. - -Doane was moving away when the Kid caught his elbow. He asked: “Did -Benjamin send you around?” - -Doane inclined his head. - -“Running things with a pretty high hand, you and him!” - -“Keep away from that boy,” was the quiet reply. - -The thin man looked up at the grave strong face above the massive -shoulders; hesitated; walked away. The mate was again about to leave -when young Kane spoke. He was in the doorway now, leaning there, hands -in pockets, his eyes blazing with indignation and injured pride. - -“Those men were my guests!” he cried. - -“I'm sorry, Mr. Kane, to disturb your private affairs, but--” - -“Why did you do it, then?” - -“The captain will not allow Tex Connor to play cards on this boat. At -least, not without a fair warning.” - -The boy's face pictured the confusion in his mind, as he wavered from -anger through surprise into youthful curiosity. - -“Oh....” he murmured. “Oh.... so that's Tex Connor.” - -“Yes. And Jim Watson with him. He was cashiered from the army in the -Philippines. He is generally known now, along the coast, as the Manila -Kid.” - -“So that's Tex Connor!.... He managed the North End Sporting in London, -three years ago.” - -“Very likely. I believe he is known in London and Paris.” - -“He's a professional gambler, then?” - -“I am not undertaking to characterize him. But if you would accept a -word of advice--” - -“I haven't asked for it, that I'm aware of.” An instant after he had -said this, the boy's face changed. He looked up at the immense frame of -the man before him, and into the grave face. The warm color came into -his own. “Oh, I'm sorry!” he cried. “I needn't have said that.” But -confusion still lay behind that immature face. The very presence of this -big man affected him to a degree wholly out of keeping with the fellow's -station in life, as he saw it. But he needn't have been rude. “Look -here, are you going to say anything to my father?” - -“Certainly not.” - -“Will the captain?” - -“You will have to ask him yourself. Though you could hardly expect to -keep it from him long, at this rate.” - -“Well--he's so busy! He shuts himself up all day with Braker, his -secretary. The chap with the big spectacles. You see”--Kane laughed -self-consciously; a naively boyish quality in him, kept him talking more -eagerly than he knew--“the pater's reached the stage when he feels he -ought to put himself right before the world. I guess he's been a great -old pirate, the pater--you know, wrecking railroads and grabbing banks -and going into combinations. Though it's just what all the others -have done. From what I've heard about some of them--friends of ours, -too!--you have to, nowadays, in business. No place for little men or -soft men. It's a two-fisted game. This fellow spent a couple of years -writing the pater's autobiography:--seems funny, doesn't it!--and -they're going over it together on this trip. That's why Braker came -along; there's no time at home. The original plan was to have Braker -tutor me. That was when I broke out of college. But, lord!....” - -“You'll excuse me now,” said the mate. - -Meantime the Manila Kid had sidled up to the captain. - -“Say, Cap,” he observed cautiously, “wha'd you come down on Tex like -that for?” - -“Oh, come,” replied the captain testily, not turning, “don't bother me!” - -“But what you expect us to do all this time on the river--play -jackstraws?” - -“I don't care what you do! Some trips they get up deck games.” - -“Deck games!” The Kid sniffed. - -“You'll find plenty to read in the library” - -“Read!....” - -“Then I guess you'll just have to stand it.” - -For some time they stood side by side without speaking; the captain -eying the river, the Kid moodily observing water buffalo bathing near -the bank. - -“Tex has got that Chinese heavyweight of his aboard--down below.” - -“Oh--that Tom Sung?” - -“Yep. Knocked out Bull Kennedy in three rounds at the Shanghai Sporting. -Got some matches for him up at Peking and Tientsin. Taking him over to -Japan after that. There's an American marine that's cleaned up three -ships'.” He was silent for a space; then added: “I suppose, now, if we -was to arrange a little boxing entertainment, you wouldn't stand for -that either, eh?” - -“Oh, that's all right. Take the social hall if the ladies don't object. -But who would you put up against him?” - -“Well--if we could find a young fellow on board, Tex could tell Tom to -go light.” - -“You might ask Mr. Doane. He complains he ain't getting exercise -enough.” - -“He's pretty old--still, I'd hate to go up against him myself.... Say, -you ask him, Cap!” - -“I'll think it over. He's a little.... I'll tell you now he wouldn't -stand for your making a show of it. If he did it, it 'ud just be for -exercise.” - -“Oh, that's all right!” - -Miss Means awoke with a start. It was the second morning out, at -sunrise. The engines were still, but from without an extraordinary -hubbub rent the air. Drums were beating, reed instruments wailing in -weird dissonance, and innumerable voices chattering and shouting. A -sudden crackling suggested fire-crackers in quantity. Miss means raised -herself on one elbow, and saw her roommate peeping out over the blind. - -“What is it?” she asked. - -“It looks very much like the real China we've read about,” replied Miss -Andrews, raising her voice above the din. “It's certainly very different -from Shanghai.” - -The steamer lay alongside a landing hulk at the foot of broad steps. -Warehouses crowded the bank and the bund above, some of Western -construction; but the crowded scene on hulk and steps and bund, and -among the matting-roofed sampans, hundreds of which were crowded against -the bank, was wholly Oriental. From every convenient mast and pole -pennants and banners spread their dragons on the fresh early breeze. A -temporary _pen-low_, or archway, at the top of the steps was gay with -fresh paint and streamers. In the air above were scores of kites, -designed and painted to represent dragons and birds of prey, which the -owners were maneuvering in mimic aerial warfare; swooping and darting -and diving. As Miss Means looked, one huge painted bird fell in shreds -to a neighboring roof, and the swarming assemblage cheered ecstatically. - -Soldiers were marching in good-humored disorder down the bund, in the -inevitable faded blue with blue turbans wound about their heads. It -appeared as if not another person could force his way down on the hulk -without crowding at least one of its occupants into the water, yet on -they came; and so far as our two little ladies could see none fell. -Fully two hundred of the soldiers there were, with short rifles and -bayonets. Amid great confusion they formed a lane down the steps and -across to the gangway. - -Next came a large, bright-colored sedan chair slung on cross-poles, with -eight bearers and with groups of silk-clad mandarins walking before and -behind. Farther back, swaying along, were eight or ten more chairs, each -with but four bearers and each tightly closed, waiting in line as the -chair of the great one was set carefully down on the hulk and opened by -the attending officials. - -Deliberately, smilingly, the great one stepped out. He was a man of -seventy or older, with a drooping gray mustache and narrow chin beard of -gray that contrasted oddly with the black queue. His robe was black with -a square bit of embroidery in rich color on the breast. Above his hat -of office a huge round ruby stood high on a gold mount, and a peacock -feather slanted down behind it. - -Bowing to right and left, he ascended the gangplank, the mandarins -following. There were fifteen of these, each with a round button on his -plumed hat--those in the van of red coral, the others of sapphire and -lapis lazuli, rock crystal, white stone and gold. - -One by one the lesser chairs were brought out on the hulk and opened. -From the first stepped a stout woman of mature years, richly clad in -heavily embroidered silks, with loops of pearls about her neck and -shoulders, and with painted face under the elaborately built-up -head-dress. Other women of various' ages followed, less conspicuously -clad. From the last chair appeared a young woman, slim and graceful even -in enveloping silks, her face, like the others, a mask of white paint -and rouge, with lips carmined into a perfect cupid's bow. And with -her, clutching her hand, was a little girl of six or seven, who laughed -merrily upward at the great steamer as she trotted along. - -Blue-clad servants followed, a hundred or more, and swarming -cackling women with unpainted faces and flapping black trousers, and -porters--long lines of porters--with boxes and bales and bundles swung -from the inevitable bamboo poles. - -At last they were all aboard, and the steamer moved out. - -“Who were all those women, in the chairs, do you suppose?” asked Miss -Andrews. - -“His wives, probably.” - -“Oh....!” - -“Or concubines.” - -Miss Andrews was silent. She could still see the waving crowd on the -wharf, and the banners and kites. - -“He must be at least a prince, with all that retinue.” - -Miss Andrews, thinking rapidly of Aladdin and Marco Polo, of wives -and concubines and strange barbarous ways, brought herself to say in a -nearly matter-of-fact voice: “But those women all had natural feet. I -don't understand.” - -Miss Means reached for her _Things Chinese_; looked up “Feet,” - -“Women,” - -“Dress,” and other headings; finally found an answer, through a happy -inspiration, under “Manchus.” - -“That's it!” she explained; and read: “'The Manchus do not bind the feet -of their women.'” - -“Well!” Thus Miss Andrews, after a long moment with more than a hint -of emotional stir in her usually quiet voice: “We certainly have a -remarkable assortment of fellow passengers. That curious silent girl in -the middy blouse.... traveling alone...” - -“Remarkable, and not altogether edifying,” observed the practical Miss -Means. - - - - -CHAPTER II--BETWEEN THE WORLDS - -|TOWARD noon Miss Means and Miss Andrews were in their chairs on deck, -when a gay little outburst of laughter caught their attention, and -around the canvas screen came running the child they had seen on the -wharf at Nanking. A sober Chinese servant (Miss Means and Miss Andrews -were not to know that he was a eunuch) followed at a more dignified -pace. - -The child was dressed in a quilted robe of bright flowered silk, the -skirt flaring like a bed about the ankles, the sleeves extending down -over the hands. Her shoes were high, of black cloth with paper soles. -Over the robe she wore a golden yellow vest, shortsleeved, trimmed with -ribbon and fastened with gilt buttons. Over her head and shoulders was -a hood of fox skin worn with the fur inside, tied with ribbons under -the chin, and decorated, on the top of the head, with the eyes, nose and -ears of a fox. As she scampered along the deck she lowered her head and -charged at the big first mate. He smiled, caught her shoulders, spun her -about, and set her free again; then, nodding pleasantly to the eunuch, -he passed on. - -Before the two ladies he paused to say: “We are coming into T'aiping, -the city that gave a name to China's most terrible rebellion. If you -care to step around to the other side, you'll see something of the -quaint life along the river.” - -“He seems very nice--the mate,” remarked Miss Andrews. “I find myself -wondering who he may have been. He is certainly a gentleman.” - -“I understand,” replied Miss Means coolly, “that one doesn't ask that -question on the China Coast.” They found the old river port drab and -dilapidated, yet rich in the color of teeming human life. The river, -as usual, was crowded with small craft. Nearly a score of these were -awaiting the steamer, each evidently housing an entire family under its -little arch of matting, and each extending bamboo poles with baskets -at the ends. As the steamer came to a stop, a long row of these baskets -appeared at the rail, while cries and songs arose from the water. - -The little Manchu girl had found a friend in Mr. Rocky Kane. He was -holding her on the rail and supplying her with brass cash which she -dropped gaily into the baskets. The eunuch stood smiling by. After -tiffin the child appeared again and sought her new friend. She would sit -on his knee and pry open his mouth to see where the strange sounds came -from. And his cigarettes delighted her. - -It was the Manila Kid himself who asked Miss Means and Miss Andrews -if they would mind a bit of a boxing: match in the social hall. They -promptly withdrew to their cabin, after Miss Means had uttered a -bewildered but dignified: “Not in the least! Don't think of us!” - -Shortly after dinner the cabin stewards stretched a rope around four -pillars, just forward of the dining table. The men lighted cigarettes -and cigars, and moved up with quickening interest. Tex Connor, who had -disappeared directly after the coffee, brought in his budding champion, -a large grinning yellow man in a bathrobe. The second mate, and two of -the engineers found seats about the improvised rings. Then an outer door -opened, and the great mandarin appeared, bowing and smiling courteously -with hands clasped before his breast. The fifteen lesser mandarins -followed, all rich color and rustling silk. - -The young officers sprang to their feel and arranged chairs for -the party. The great man seated himself, and his attendants grouped -themselves behind him. - -Into this expectant atmosphere came the mate, in knickerbockers and a -sweater, stooping under the lintel of the door, then straightening -up and stopping short. His eyes quickly took in the crowded little -picture--the gray-bearded mandarin in the ringside chair, backed with -a mass of Oriental color; that other personage, Dawley Kane, directly -opposite, with the aquiline nose, the guardedly keen eyes and the quite -humorless face, as truly a mandarin among the whites as was calm old -Kang among the yellows; the flushed eager face of Rocky Kane; the other -whites, all smoking, all watching him sharply, all impatient for the -show. He frowned; then, as the mandarin smiled, came gravely forward, -bent under the rope and addressed him briefly in Chinese. - -The mandarin, frankly pleased at hearing his own tongue, rose to reply. -Each clasped his own hands and bowed low, with the observance of a -long-hardened etiquette so dear to the Oriental heart. - -“How about a little bet?” whispered Rocky Kane to Tex Connor. “I -wouldn't mind taking the big fellow.” - -“What odds'll you give?” replied the impassive one. - -“Odds nothing! Your man's a trained fighter, and he must be twenty years -younger.” - -“But this man Doane's an old athlete. He's boxed, off and on, all his -life. And he's kept in condition. Look at his weight, and his reach.” - -“What's the distance?” - -“Oh--six two-minute rounds.” - -“Who'll referee?” - -“Well--one of the Englishmen.” - -But the Englishmen were not at hand. A friendly bout between yellow and -white overstepped their code. One of the customs men, an Australian, -accepted the responsibility, however. - -“I'll lay you a thousand, even,” said Rocky Kane. - -“Make it two thousand.” - -“I'll give you two thousand, even,” said Dawley Kane quietly. - -“Taken! Three thousand, altogether--gold.” - -The mate, turning away from the mandarin, caught this; stood motionless -looking at them, his brows drawing together. - -“Gentlemen,” he finally remarked, “I came here with the understanding -that it was to be only a little private exercise. I had no objection, of -course, to your looking on, some of you, but this....” - -“Oh, come!” said Connor. “It's just for points. Tom's not going to -fight you.” - -Young Kane, gripping the rope nervously with both hands, cried: “You -wouldn't quit!” - -The mate looked down at these men. “No,” he replied, in the same gravely -quiet manner, “I shall go on with it. I do this”--he made the point -firmly, with a dignity that in some degree, for the moment, overawed the -younger men--“I do it because his excellency has paid us the honor -of coming here in this democratic way. He tells me that he is fond of -boxing. I shall try to entertain him.” And he drew the sweater over his -head, and caught the gloves that the Kid tossed him. - -The elder Kane shrewdly took him in. The authority of the man was not to -be questioned. Without so much as raising his voice he had dominated -the strange little gathering. Physically he was a delight to the eye; -anywhere in the forties, his hair thin to the verge of baldness, his -strong sober face deeply lined, yet with shoulders, arms and chest that -spoke of great muscular power and a waist without a trace of the added -girth that middle age usually brings; of sound English stock, doubtless; -the sort that in the older land would ride to hounds at eighty. - -Dawley Kane looked, then, at the Chinese heavyweight. This man, though -not quite a match in size for the giant before him, appeared every -inch the athlete. Kane understood the East too well to find him at all -surprising; he had seen the strapping northern men of Yuan Shi K'ai's -new army; he knew that the trained runners of the Imperial Government -were expected, on occasion, to cover their hundred miles in a day; in -a word, that the curious common American notion of the Chinese physique -was based on an occasional glimpse of a tropical laundryman. And he -settled back in his comfortable chair confident of a run for his money. -The occasion promised, indeed, excellent entertainment. - -The mate, still with that slight frown, glanced about. Not one of the -crowded eager faces about the ropes exhibited the slightest interest in -himself as a human being. He was but the mate of a river steamer; a man -who had not kept up with his generation (the reason didn't matter)--an -individual of no standing.... He put up his hands. - -Tom Sung fell into a crouch. With his left shoulder advanced, his chin -tucked away behind it, he moved in close and darted quick but hard blows -to the stomach and heart. Duane stepped backward, and edged around him, -feeling him out, studying his hands and arms, his balance, his footwork. -It early became clear that he was a thoroughgoing professional, who -meant to go in and make a fight of it.... Doane, sparring lightly, -considered this. Conner, of course, had no sportsmanship. - -Tom's left hand shot up through Doane's guard, landing clean on his -face with a sharp thud; followed up with a remarkably quick right -swing that the mate, by sidestepping, succeeded only in turning into a -glancing blow. And then, as Doane ducked a left thrust, he uppercut with -all his strength. The blow landed on Doane's forearms with a force that -shook him from head to foot. - -A sound of breath sharply indrawn came from the spectators, to most of -whom it must have appeared that the blow had gone home. Doane, slipping -away and mopping the sweat from eyes and forehead, heard the sound; -and for an instant saw them, all leaning forward, tense, eager for a -knockout, the one possible final thrill. - -The yellow man was at him again, landing left, right and left on his -stomach, and butting a shaven head with real force against his chin. For -an instant stars danced about his eyes. Elbows had followed the head, -roughing at his face. Doane, quickly recovering, leaped back and dropped -his hands. - -“What is this?” he called sharply to Connor, whose round expressionless -face with its one cool light eye and thin little mouth looked at him -without response. “Head? Elbows? Is your man going to box, or not?” - -The eyes that turned in surprise about the ringside were not friendly. -These men cared nothing for his little difficulties; their blood was -up. They wanted what the Americans among them would term “action” and -“results.” - -Tom was tearing at him again. So it was, after all, to be a fight. No -preliminary understandings mattered. He felt a profound disgust, as by -main strength he stopped rush after rush, making full use of his greater -reach to pin Tom's arms and hurl him back; a disgust however, that was -changing gradually to anger. He had known, all his life, the peculiar -joy that comes to a man of great strength and activity in any thorough -test of his power. - -The customs man called time. - -Rocky Kane--flushed, excited, looking like a boy--felt in his pockets -for cigarettes; found none; and slipped hurriedly out to the deck. - -There a silken rustle stopped him short. - -A slim figure, enveloped in an embroidered gown, was moving back from a -cabin window. The light from within fell--during a brief second--full -on an oval face that was brightly painted, red and white, beneath glossy -black hair. The nose was straight, and not wide. The eyes, slanted only -a little, looked brightly out from under penciled brows. She was moving -swiftly toward the canvas screen; but he, more swiftly, leaped before -her, stared at her; laughed softly in sheer delighted surprise. Then, -with a quick glance about the deck, breathing out he knew not what terms -of crude compliment he reached for her; pursued her to the rail; caught -her. - -“You little beauty!” he was whispering now. “You wonder! You darling! -You're just too good to be true!” Beside himself, laughing again, he -bent over to kiss her. But she wrenched an arm free, fought him off, and -leaned, breathless, against the rail. - -“Little yellow tiger, eh?” he cried softly. “Well, I'm a big white -tiger!” - -She said in English: “This is amazing!” - -He stood frozen until she had disappeared behind the canvas screen. Then -he staggered back; stumbled against a deck chair; turning, found the -strange thin girl of the middy blouse stretched out there comfortably in -her rug. - -She said, with a cool ease: “It's so pleasant out here this evening, I -really haven't felt like going in.” - -With a muttered something--he knew not what--he rushed off to his cabin; -then rushed back into the social hall. - -The customs man called time for the second round. - -As Doane advanced to the center of the ring, Tom rushed, as before, head -down. Doane uppercut him; then threw him back, forestalling a clinch. -The next two or three rushes he met in the same determined but negative -way; hitting a few blows but for the most part pushing him off. The -sweat kept running into his eyes as he exerted nearly his full strength. -And Tom Sung's shoulders and arms glistened a bright yellow under the -electric lights. - -Rocky Kane, lighting a cigarette and tossing the blazing match away, -called loudly: “Oh, hit him! For God's sake, do something! Don't be -afraid of a Chink!” - -Doane glanced over at him. Tom rushed. Doane felt again the crash of -solid body blows delivered with all the force of more than two -hundred pounds of well-trained muscle behind them. Again he winced and -retreated. He knew well that he could endure only a certain amount of -this punishment.... Suddenly Tom struck with the sharpest impact yet. -Again that hard head butted his chin; an elbow and the heel of a glove -roughed his face.... Doane summoned all his strength to push him off. -Then he stepped deliberately forward. - -At last the primitive vigor in this giant was aroused. His eyes blazed. -There was no manner of pleasure in hurting a fellow man of any color; -but since the particular man was asking for it, insisting on it, there -was no longer a choice. The fellow had clearly been trained to this foul -sort of work. That would be Connor's way, to take every advantage, place -a large side bet and then make certain of winning. There was, of course, -no more control of boxing out here on the coast than of gambling or -other vice. - -When Tom next came forward, Doane, paying not the slightest heed to his -own defense, exchanged blows with him; planted a right swing that raised -a welt on the yellow cheek. A moment later he landed another on the same -spot. - -At the sound of these blows the men about the ringside straightened up -with electric excitement. Then again the long muscular right arm swung, -and the tightly gloved fist crashed through Tom's guard with a force -that knocked him nearly off his balance. Doane promptly brought him back -with a left hook that sounded to the now nearly frantic spectators as if -it must have broken the cheek-bone. - -Tom crouched, covered and backed away. - -“Have you had enough?” Doane asked. As there was no reply, he repeated -the question in Chinese. - -Tom, instead of answering, tried another rush, floundering wildly, -swinging his arms. - -Doane stepped firmly forward, swinging up a terrific body blow that -caught the big Chinaman at the pit of the stomach, lifted his feet clear -of the floor and dropped him heavily in a sitting position, from which -he rolled slowly over on his side. - -“What are you trying to do?” cried the Manila Kid, above the babel of -excited voices, as he rushed in there and revived his fellow champion. -“What are you trying to do--kill 'im?” - -The mate stripped off his wet gloves and tossed them to the floor. -“Teach your man to box fairly,” he replied, “or some one else will.” - With which he stepped out of the ring, drew on his sweater and, with a -courteous bow to the mandarin, went out on deck. There, after depositing -with the purser the winnings paid over by a surly Connor, Dawley Kane -found him. - -“Well!” cried the hitherto calm financier, “you put up a remarkable -fight.” - -Doane looked down at him, unable to reply. He was still breathing hard; -his thoughts were traveling strange paths. He heard the man saying other -things; asking, at length, about the mandarin. - -“He is Kang Yu,” Doane replied now, civilly enough, “Viceroy of -Nanking.” - -“No! Really? Why, he was in America!” - -“He toured the world. He has been minister at Paris, Berlin, London, I -believe. He is a great statesman--certainly the greatest out here since -Li Hung Chang.” - -“No--how extremely interesting!” - -“He is ruler of fifty million souls, or more.” The mate had found his -voice. He was speaking a thought quickly, with a very little heat, as if -eager to convince the great man of America of the standing and worth -of this great man of China. “He has his own army and his own mint. -He controls railroads, arsenals, mills and mines. Incidentally, he is -president of this line.” - -“The Chinese Navigation Company? Really! You are acquainted with him -yourself?” - -“No. But he is a commanding figure hereabouts. And of course, I--at -present I'm an employee of the Merchants' Line.” - -“Oh, yes! Yes, of course! You seem to speak Chinese.” - -“Yes”--the mate's voice was dry now--“I speak Chinese.” - -A shuffling sound reached their ears. Both turned. The viceroy had come -out of the cabin and was advancing toward them, followed by all his -mandarins. Before them he paused, and again exchanged with the mate the -charming Eastern greeting. In Chinese he said--and the language that -needs only a resonant, cultured voire to exhibit its really great -dignity and beauty, rolled like music from his tongue: “It will give me -great pleasure, sir, if you will be my guest to-morrow at twelve.” - -The mate replied, with a grave smile and a bow: “It is a privilege. I am -your servant.” - -They bowed again, with hands to breast. And all the mandarins bowed. -Then they moved away in stately silence to their quarters aft. - -Kane spoke now: “How very curious! Very curious!” - -Doane said nothing to this. - -“They really appear to have charm, these upper class people. It's a pity -they are so poorly adapted to the modern struggle.” - -Doane looked down at him, then away. As a man acquainted with the East -he knew the futility of discussing it with a Western mind; above all -with the mind of a successful business man, to whom activity, drive, -energy, were very religion. - -His own thoughts were ranging swiftly back over two thousand years, to -the strong civilization of the Han Dynasty, when disciplined Chinese -armies kept open the overland route to Bactria and Parthia, that the -silks and porcelains and pearls might travel safely to waiting Roman -hands; to the later, richer, riper centuries of Tang and Sung, after -Rome fell, when Chinese civilization stood alone, a majestic fabric -in an otherwise crumbled and chaotic world--when certain of the noblest -landscapes and portraits ever painted were finding expression, when -philosophers held high dreams of building conflicting dogma into a -single structure of comprehensive and serene faith. The Chinese alone, -down the uncounted centuries, had held their racial integrity, their -very language. Surely, at some mystical but seismic turning of the -racial tide, they would rise again among the nations. - -This giant, standing there in sweater and knickerbockers, bareheaded, -gazing out at the dark river, was not sentimentalizing. He knew well -enough the present problems. But he saw them with half-Eastern eyes; he -saw America too, with half-Eastern eyes--and so he could not talk at -all to the very able man beside him who saw the West and the world with -wholly Western eyes. No, it was futile. Even when the great New -Yorker, who had just won two thousand dollars, gold, spoke with -wholly unexpected kindness, the gulf between their two minds remained -unfathomable. - -“I want you to forgive me, sir--I do not even know your name, you -see--but, frankly, you interest me. You are altogether too much of a man -for the work you are doing here. That is clear. I would be glad to have -you tell me what the trouble is. Perhaps I could help you.” - -This from the man who held General Railways in the hollow of his hand, -and Universal Hydro-Electric, and Consolidated Shipping, and the Kane, -Wilmarth and Cantey banks, a chain that reached literally from sea to -sea across the great young country that worshiped the shell of political -freedom as insistently as the Chinese worshiped their ancestors, -yet gave over the newly vital governing power of finance into wholly -irresponsible private hands. - -The situation, grotesque in its beginning, seemed now incredible to -Doane. He drew a hand across his brow; then spoke, with compelling -courtesy but with also a dismissive power that the other felt: “You are -very kind, Mr. Kane. At some other time I shall be glad to talk with -you. But my hours are rather exacting, and I am tired.” - -“Naturally. You have given a wonderful exhibition of what a man of -character can do with his body. I wish I had you for a physical -trainer. And I wish the example might start my boy to thinking more -wholesomely... Good night!” And he extended a friendly hand. - -Mr. Kane's boy presented himself on the following morning as an acute -problem. He was about the deck, shortly after breakfast, playing with -the Manchu child. Then, after eleven, Captain Benjamin handed his mate -a note that had been scribbled in pencil on a leaf torn from a pocket -note-book and folded over. It was addressed: - -“To the Chinese Lady who spoke English last night.” And the content was -as follows: “I shouldn't have been rude, but I must see you again. Can't -you slip around the canvas this evening, late? I'll be watching for -you.” There was no signature. - -“Make it out?” asked the captain. “Old Kang sent it up to me--asks us to -speak to the young man. But how'm I to know which young man it is?” - -“Do you know how it was sent?” - -“Yes. The little princess took it back.”' - -“It won't be hard to find the man.” - -“You know?” - -“I think so.” - -“Well, just put him wise, will you?” - -“I'll speak to him.” - -“Wait a minute! You thinking of young Kane?” - -The mate inclined his head. - -“Well--you know who he is, don't you? Who they are?” - -Doane bowed again. - -“Better use a little tact.” - -Doane walked back along the deck to cabin sixteen. A fresh breeze blew -sharply here; the chairs had all been moved across to the other side -where the sunlight lay warm on the planking. Within the social hall the -second engineer--a wistful, shy young Scot--had brought his battered -talking machine to the dining table and was grinding out a comic song. -Two or three of the men were in there, listening, smoking, and sipping -highballs; Doane saw them as he passed the door. Through the open -but shuttered window of cabin number twelve came the clicking of a -typewriter and men's voices, that would be Mr. Kane, discussing his -“autobiography” with its author. - -Before number sixteen, Doane paused; sniffed the air. A curious odor was -floating out through these shutters, an odor that he knew. He sniffed -again; then abruptly knocked at the door. - -A drowsy voice answered! “What is it? What do you want?” - -“I must see you at once,” said Doane. - -There was a silence; then odd sounds--a faint rattling of glass, a -scraping, cupboard doors opening and closing. Finally the door opened -a few inches. There was Rocky Kane, hair tousled, coat, collar and tie -removed, and shirt open at the neck. Doane looked sharply at his eyes; -the pupils were abnormally small. And the odor was stronger now and of a -slightly choking tendency. - -“What are you looking at me like that for?” cried young Kane, shrinking -back a little way. - -“I think,” said Doane, “you had better let me come in and talk with -you.” - -“What right have you got saying things like that? What do you mean?” - -“I have really said nothing as yet.” - -Kane, seeming bewildered, allowed the door to swing inward and himself -stepped back. The big mate came stooping within. - -“Your note has been returned,” he said shortly; and gave him the paper. - -Kane accepted it, stared down at it, then sank back on the couch. - -“What's this to you!” he managed to cry. “What right.... what do you -mean, saying I wrote this?” - -“Because you did. You sent it back by the little girl.” - -“Well, what if I did! What right--” - -“I am here at the request of his excellency, the viceroy of Nanking. You -have been annoying his daughter. The fact that she chooses, while in her -father's household, to wear the Manchu dress, does not justify you in -treating her otherwise than as a lady. Perhaps I can't expect you to -understand that his exellency is one of the greatest statesmen alive -to-day. Nor that this young lady was educated in America, knows the -capitals of Europe better, doubtless, than yourself, and is a princess -by birth. She went to school in England and to college in Massachusetts. -Take my advice, and try no more of this sort of thing.” - -The boy was staring at him now, wholly bewildered. “Well,” he began -stumblingly, “perhaps I have been a little on the loose. But what of it! -A fellow has to have some fun, doesn't he?” - -The mate's eyes were taking in keenly the crowded little room. - -“Well,” cried Kane petulantly, “that's all, isn't it? I understand! I'll -let her alone!” - -“You don't feel that an apology might be due?” - -“Apologize? To that girl?” - -“To her father.” - -“Apologize--to a Chink?” - -The word grated strangely on Doane's nerves. Suddenly the boy cried -out: “Well--that's all? There's nothing more you want to say? What are -you--what are you looking like that for?” - -The sober deep-set eyes of the mate were resting on the high dresser at -the head of the berths. There, tucked away behind the water caraffe, was -a small lamp with a base of cloisonné work in blue and gold and a small, -half globular chimney of soot-blackened glass. - -“What are you looking at? What do you mean?” - -The boy writhed under the steady gaze of this huge man, who rested a big -hand on the upper berth and gazed gravely down at him; writhed, tossed -out a protesting arm, got to his feet and stood with a weak effort at -defiance. - -“Now I suppose you'll go to my father!” he cried. “Well, go ahead! Do -it! I don't care. I'm of age--my money's my own. He can't hurt me. And -he knows I'm on to him. Don't think I don't know some of the things -he's done--he and his crowd. Ah, we're not saints, we Kanes! We're good -fellows--we've got pep, we succeed--but we're not saints.” - -“How long have you been smoking opium?” asked the mate. - -“I don't smoke it! I mean I never did. Not until Shanghai. And you -needn't think the pater hasn't hit the pipe a bit himself. I never saw -a lamp until he took me to the big Hong dinner at Shanghai last month. -They had 'em there. And it wasn't all they had, either--” - -“If you are telling me the truth,” said the mate. - ---“I am. I tell you I am.” - -“--Then you should have no difficulty in stopping. It would take a few -weeks to form the habit. You can't smoke another pipe on this boat.” - -“But what right--good lord, if the pater would drag me out here, away -from all my friends.... you think I'm a rotter, don't you!” - -“My opinion is not in question. I must ask you to give me, now, whatever -opium you have.” - -Slowly, moodily, evidently dwelling in a confusion of sulky resentful -thoughts, the boy knelt at the cupboard and got out a small card-board -box. - -The mate opened it, and found several shells of opium within. He -promptly pitched it out over the rail. - -“This is all?” he asked. - -“Well--look in there yourself!” - -But the mate was looking at the suit-case, and at the trunk beneath the -lower berth. - -“You give me your word that you have no more?” - -“That's--all,” said the boy. - -The mate considered this answer; decided to accept it; turned to go. But -the boy caught at his sleeve. - -“You do think I'm a rotter!” he cried. “Well, maybe I am. Maybe I'm -spoiled. But what's a fellow to do? My father's a machine--that's what -he is--a ruthless machine. My mother divorced him ten years ago. She -married that English captain--got the money out of father for them to -live on, and now she's divorced him. Where do I get off? I know I'm -overstrung, nervous. I've always had everything I want. Do you wonder -that I've begun to look for something new? Perhaps I'm going to hell. I -know you think so. I can see it in your eyes. But who cares!” - -Doane stood a long time at the rail, thinking. The ship's clock in the -social hall struck eight bells. Faintly his outer ear caught it. It was -time to join his excellency. - - - - -CHAPTER III--MISS HUI FEI - -|THE luncheon table of his excellency was simply set, with two chairs of -carven blackwood, behind a high painted screen of six panels. It was at -this screen that the first mate (left by a smiling attendant) gazed with -a frown of incredulity. Cap in hand, he stepped back and studied the -painting, a landscape representing a range of mountains rising above -mist in great rock-masses, chasms where tortured trees clung, towering, -lagged peaks, all partly obscured by the softly luminous vapor--a scene -of power and beauty. Much of the brighter color had faded into the -prevailing tones of old ivory yellow shading into some thing near -Rembrandt brown; though the original, reds and blues still held vividly -in the lower right foreground, where were pictured very small, exquisite -in detail yet of as trifling importance in the majestic scheme of the -painting as are man and his works in all sober Chinese thought when -considered in relation to the grim majesty of nature, a little friendly -cluster of houses, men at work, children at play, domestic animals, a -stream with a water buffalo, a bridge, a wayfarer riding a donkey, -and cultivated fields. The ideographic signature was in rich old gold, -inscribed with unerring decorative instinct on a flat rock surface. - -The mate bent low and looked closely at the brush-work; then stepped -around an end panel and examined the texture of the silk. - -“Ah!”--it was a musical deep voice, speaking in the mandarin -tongue--“you admire my screen, Griggsby Doane.” The name was pronounced -in English. - -His excellency wore a short jacket of pale yellow over a skirt of blue, -both embroidered in large circles of lotus flowers around centers of -conventional good-fortune designs, in which the swastika was a leading -motive. His bared head was shaved only at the sides, as the top had long -been bald. He looked gentle and kind as he stood leaning on his cane -and extending a wrinkled hand; smiling in the fashion of forthright -friendship. The thin little gray beard, the unobtrusively courteous -eyes, the calm manner, all gave him an appearance of simplicity that -made it momentarily difficult to think of him as the great negotiator -of the tangled problems of statesmanship involved in the expansion of -Japan, the man who very nearly convinced Europe of American good faith -during the agitated discussion and correspondence that arose out of the -“Open Door” proposals of John Hay, a man known among the observant and -informed in London, Paris and Washington as a great statesman and a -greater gentleman. - -“I thought at first”--thus the mate, touched by the fine honor done -him (an honor that would, he quickly felt, demand tact on the -bridge)--“that it was a genuine Kuo Hsi.” - -“No. A copy.” - -“So I see. A Ming copy--at least the silk appears to be Ming--the heavy -single strand, closely woven. And the seals date very closely. If it -were woven of double strands, even in the warp alone, I should not -hesitate to call it a genuine Northern Sung.” - -“You observe closely, Griggsby Doane. It is supposed that Ch'uan Shih -made this copy.” His smile was now less one of kindness and courtesy -than, of genuine pleasure. “You shall see the original.” - -“You have that also, Your Excellency?” - -“In my home at Huang Chau.” - -“I have never seen a genuine panting of Kuo Hsi. It would be a great -privilege. I have read some of the sayings attributed to him, as taken -down by his son. One I recall--'If the artist, without realizing his -ideal, paints landscapes with a careless heart, it is like throwing -earth upon a deity, or casting impurities into the clean wind.'” - -“Yes,” added his excellency, almost eagerly, “and this--'To have in -landscape the opportunity of seeing water and peaks, of hearing the -cry of monkeys and the song of birds, without going from the room.'” - Servants appeared bearing covered dishes. His excellency placed the mate -in the seat commanding the wider view of the river. A clear broth was -served, followed by stewed shell fish with cassia mushrooms, steamed -sharks' fins set red with crabmeat and ham, roast duck stuffed with -young pine needles, and preserved pomegranates, carambolas and plums, -followed by small cups of rice wine. - -The conversation lingered with the great Sung painters, passing -naturally then to the conflict during the eleventh and twelfth centuries -between the free vitality of Buddhist thought and the deadening -formalism of the Confucian tradition. - -And Doane's thoughts, as he listened or quietly spoke, dwelt on the -attainments and character of this great man who was so simple and so -friendly. His excellency had spoken his own full name, Griggsby Doane, -which would mean that the wide-reaching, instantly responsive facilities -for gathering information that may be set at work by the glance of a -viceroy's eye or a movement of his jeweled finger had been brought into -play within the twenty-four hours. - -“My heart is there in the Sung Dynasty,” his excellency said. “I never -look upon the old canals of Hang Chow or the ruins of stone-walled lotus -gardens by the Si-hu without sadness. And Kai-feng-fu to-day wrings my -heart.” - -“Truly,” mused Doane, “it was in the days of Tang and Sung that the soul -of China so nearly found its freedom.” - -“You indeed understand, Griggsby Doane!” The two English words stood out -with odd emphasis in the musical flow of cultured Chinese speech. “Had -that spirit endured, China would to-day, I like to think, have Korea -and Manchuria and Mongolia and Sin Kiang. China would not to-day wear -a piteous smile on the lips, turning the head to hide tears of shame, -while the Russians absorb our northern frontiers and the French draw -tribute from Annam and Yunnan, while the English control this great -valley of the Yangtze, while the Germans drive their mailed fist into -Shantung, and the Japanese send their spies throughout all our land and -stand insolently at the very gate of the Forbidden City. I could not, -perhaps, speak my heart freely to one of my own countrymen, but to you I -can say, Confucian scholar though they may term me, that since what you -call the thirteenth century there has been a gradual paralysis of the -will in China, a softening of the political brain.... You will permit an -old man this latitude? I have served China without thought of self -during nearly fifty years. To the Old Buddha I was ever a loyal servant. -If toward the new emperor and the empress dowager I find it impossible -to feel so deeply, my heart is yet devoted to the throne and to my -people. If while sent abroad in service of my country it has been given -me to see much of merit in Western ways, it is not that I have become a -revolutionist, a traitor to the government of my ancestors.” - -There was a light in the kindly eyes; a strong ring in the deep voice. -He went on: - -“No, I am not a traitor. It is not that. It is that my country has -suffered, is now prostrate, with a long sickness. She must be helped; -but she must as well help herself. She is like one who has lain too long -abed. She must think, arise, act. With my poor eyes I can see no other -hope for her. Even though I myself may suffer, I can not, in truth to -my own faith, punish those who, loving China as deeply as I myself love -her, yet feel that they must goad her until she awakens from her pitiful -sleep of more than six centuries.... Nor am I a republican. China is not -like your country. In an imperial throne I must believe. Yet, she must -listen to all, study all, draw from all. Freedom of thought there must -be. We must not longer worship books and the dead. We must learn to look -about us and on before.” - -Their chairs were drawn about to the window's. Slowly the wide river -slipped off astern. - -“But you, Griggsby Doane, why are you here? This is not the life for -which you so laboriously and so worthily prepared yourself. I knew of -you over in T'ainan-fu. You were a true servant of your faith. After the -dreadful year of the Boxers you returned to your task. And during the -trouble in nineteen hundred and seven, the fighting with the Great Eye -Society in Hansi, you conducted yourself with bravery. I was at Sian-fu -that year, and was well informed. Yet you gave up the church mission.” - -The mate's eyes were fixed gloomily on the long vista of the river. For -a moment it seemed as if he would speak; and the viceroy, seeing his -lips part, leaned a little way forward; but then the lips were closed -tightly and the great head bent deliberately forward. - -“I knew,” continued his excellency, “when the Asiatic Company of New -York was negotiating with me the contract for rebuilding the banks of -the Grand Canal in Kiang-su that you had gone from T'ainan, and that you -had, as well, left the church. You had even gone from China.” - -“That was in nineteen nine,” said Doane, in the somber voice of one who -thinks moodily aloud. “I was in America then.” - -“Yes, it was in your year nineteen nine. For a time those negotiations -hung, I recall, on the question of the means to be employed in dealing -with local resentments. The trouble over the Ho Shan Company in Hansi, -of which you knew so much and which you met with such noble courage, had -taught us all to move with caution.” - -“My position in that Hansi trouble has not been clearly understood, Your -Excellency. I was there only, a short time, and was ill at that.” - -The viceroy smiled, kindly, wisely. “You went alone and on foot from -T'ainan-fu to So T'ung in the face of a Looker attack, and yourself -settled that tragic business. You then walked, without even a night's -rest, the fifty-five _li_ from T'ainan to Hung Chan. There, at the city -gate, you were attacked and severely wounded, and crawled to the house -of a Christian native. But while still weak and in a fever you walked -the three hundred _li_ to Ping Yang and made your way through the Looker -army into Monsieur Pourmont's compound....” - -He pronounced the two words “Monsieur Pour-mont” in French. What a -remarkable old man he was--mentally all alive, sensitive as a youth to -the quick currents of life! The accuracy of his information, like his -memory, was surprising. Though to the Westerner, every normal Chinese -memory is that. Merely learning the language needs or builds a -memory.... - -Most surprising was that so deep attention had been given to Doane's own -small case. The fact bewildered; was slow in coming home. For Kang was a -great man; his proper preoccupations were many; that he was a poet, and -had early aspired to the laureateship, was commonly known--indeed, Doane -had somewhere his own translation of Kang's _Ode to the Rich Earth_, -from the scroll in the author's calligraphy owned by Pao Ting Chuan at -T'ainan-fu. As an amateur in the art of his own land of fine taste and -sound historical background he was known everywhere; his collection of -early paintings, porcelains, jades and jewels being admittedly one -of the most valuable remaining in China. And he was reputed to be the -richest individual not of the royal blood (excepting perhaps Yuan Shi -K'ai). - -A contrast, not untinged with a passing bitterness, arose in Doane's -mind. Here before him quietly sat this so-called yellow man who was more -competent than perhaps any other to select his own art treasures and -write his own poems and state papers; whose journals, known to exist, -must inevitably, if not lost in a war-torn land, take their place as a -part of China's history; a man who was at once manufacturer, financier, -and statesman, on whom for a decade a weakening throne had leaned. While -in the cabin forward was a great white man as truly representative -of the new civilization as was Kang of the old; yet who hired men of -special knowledge to select the art treasures that would be left, one -day, in his name and as a monument to his culture, who even employed a -trained writer to pen the work that he proposed unblushingly to call his -“autobiography.” For such a man as Dawley Kane, whatever his manners, -Doane felt now, knew only the power of money. Through that alone his -genius functioned; the rest was a lie. On the one hand was culture, on -the other--something else. The thought bit into his brain. - -But his excellency had not finished: - -“And there, my dear Griggsby Doane, while still suffering from your -wound, you learned that those in Monsieur Pourmont's compound were -cut off from communication with their nationals at Peking. You at once -volunteered to go again, alone, through the Looker lines to the railhead -with messages, and successfully did so.... Do you wonder, my dear young -friend, that knowing this, and more, of your honesty and personal force -from my one-time assistant, Pao Ting Chuan, of T'ainan-fu, I pressed -strongly on the gentlemen from New York who represented the Asiatic -Company my desire that they secure you to act as their resident -director? And do you wonder that I regretted your refusal so to act?” - -This statement came to Doane as a surprise. - -“They offered me a position, yes,” he said, pondering on the -inexplicable ways in which the currents of life meet and cross. “But -they told me nothing of your interest.” - -His excellency smiled. “It might have raised your price. They would -think of that. The sharpest trading, Griggsby Doane, is not done in the -Orient. That I have learned from a long lifetime of struggling against -the aggressions of white nations. During the discussion of the concerted -loan to China--you recall it?--they talked of lending us a hundred -million dollars, gold. To read your New York papers was to think that we -were almost to be given the money. It seemed really a philanthropy. But -do you know what their left hands were doing while their right hands -waved in a fine gesture of aid to the struggling China? These were the -terms. First they subtracted a large commission--that for the bankers -themselves; then, what with stipulations of various sorts as to the uses -to which the money--or the credit--was to be put, mostly in purchases of -railway and war material from their own hongs at further huge profits to -themselves, they whittled it down until the actual money to be expended -under our own direction, amounted to about fifteen millions. And -with that went immense new concessions--really the signing away of an -empire--and new foreign supervision of our internal affairs. For all -these privileges we were to pay an annual interest and later repay the -full amount, one hundred millions. It was quite unbearable.” He sighed. -“But what is poor old China to do?” - -Doane nodded gravely. “I felt all that--the sort of thing--when I talked -with representatives of the Asiatic Company. Not that I blamed them, of -course. It is a point of view much larger than any of them; they are but -part of a great tendency. I couldn't go into it.” - -“Why not?” The viceroy's keen eyes dropped to the slightly faded blue -uniform, then rested again on the strong face. - -“The past few years--I will pass over the details--have been--well, not -altogether happy for me. I have been puzzled. All the rich years of my -younger manhood were given to the mission work. But I had to leave the -church. At first I felt a joy in simple hard work--I am very strong--but -hard work alone could not satisfy my thoughts.” - -“No.... No.” - -“For a time I believed that the solution of my personal problem lay in -taking the plunge into commercial life. I had come to feel, out there, -that business was, after all, the natural expression of man's active -nature in our time.” - -“Yes. Doubtless it is.” - -“It was in that state of mind that I returned home--to the States. But -it proved impossible. I am not a trader. It was too late. My character, -such as it was and is, had been formed and hardened in another mold. I -talked with old friends, but only to discover that we had between us no -common tongue of the spirit. Perhaps if I had entered business early, -as they did, I, too, would have found my early ideals being warped -gradually around to the prevailing point of view.” - -“The point stands out, though,” said the viceroy, “that you did not -enter business. You chose a more difficult course, and one which -leaves you, in ripe middle age, without the means to direct your life -effectively and in comfort.” - -“Yes,” mused Doane, though without bitterness. “I feel that, of course. -And it is hard, very hard, to lose one's country. Yet....” - -His voice dropped. He sat, elbow on crossed knees, staring at the -ever-changing river. When he spoke again, the bitter undertone was no -longer in his voice. He was gentler, but puzzled; a man who has suffered -a loss that he can not understand. - -“All my traditions,” he said, “my memories of America, were of simple -friendly communities, a land of earnest religion, of political -freedom. In my thoughts as a younger man certain great figures stood -out--Washington, Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Wendell Philips, Philips -Brooks and--yes, Henry Ward Beecher. I had deeply felt Emerson, -Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier. The Declaration of Independence could -still fire my blood. And it was such a land of simple faith that I tried -for so many years, however ineffectually, to represent here in China. -To be sure, disquieting thoughts came--church disunity, the spectacle -of unbridled license among so many of my fellow countrymen in the coast -ports, the methods of certain of our great corporations in pushing their -wares in among your people. But even when I found it necessary to leave -the church, I still believed deeply in my country.” - -He paused to control a slight unsteadiness of voice; then went on: - -“May I ask if you, Your Excellency, after your long visits in Europe, -have not come home to meet with something the same difficulty, to -find yourself looking at your own people with the eyes of a stranger, -receiving such an impression as only a stranger can receive?” - -“Indeed, yes!” cried the viceroy softly, with deep feeling. “It is the -most difficult moment, I have sometimes felt, in a man's life. It is -the summit of loneliness, for there is no man among his friends who -can share his view, and there is none who would not misunderstand and -censure him. And yet, a country, a people, like a city, does present -to the alien eye, a complete impression, it exhibits clearly outlined -characteristics that can be observed in no other way. Even the alien -lose? that clear, true impression on very short acquaintance. He then -becomes, like all the others, a part of the picture he has once seen.” - -“It is so, Your Excellency. My country, in that first, startled, clear -glance, affected me--I may as well use the word--unpleasantly. It was -utterly different from anything I had known, a trader's paradise, a -place of unbelievable confusion, of an activity that bewildered, rushing -to what end I could not understand.” - -He was speaking now not only in the Chinese language but in the idiom as -well, generalizing rhetorically as the Chinese do. It was almost as if -the words came from a Chinese mind. - -They were silent for a time Then the viceroy asked, in his gently abrupt -way: “Why did you leave the church?” - -“Because I sinned.” - -“Against the church?” - -“That, and my own faith.” - -“Were you asked to leave?” - -“No.” - -“They knew of your sin?” - -“I told them.” - -“Yet they would have kept you?” - -“Yes. My own feeling was that my superior temporized.” - -“He knew your value.” - -“I can not say as to that. But he wished me to marry again. I couldn't -do that--not in the spirit intended. Not as I felt.” - -“We are different, Griggsby Doane, you and I. I am a Manchu, you an -American. The customs of our two lands are very different. What -would seem a sin to you, might not seem so to me. Yet I, too, have a -conscience to which I must answer. I believe I understand you. It is, I -see, because of your conscience that you sit before me now, on this -boat and in this uniform, a man, as your great Edward Everett Hale has -phrased it, without a country.” - -He paused, and filled again the little pipe-bowl, studied it absently as -his wrinkled fingers worked the tobacco. His nails were trimmed short, -like those of a white man. Doane thought, swiftly, of the man's dramatic -past, sent out as he had been to become a citizen of the world by a -nation that would in very necessity fail to understand the resulting -changes in his outlook. There was his daughter; she would be almost an -American, after four years of college life. And she, now, would be a -problem indeed! What could he hope to make of her life in this Asia -where woman, like labor in his own country, was a commodity. It would -be absorbingly interesting, were it possible, to peep into that -smooth-running old brain and glimpse the problems there. They were -gossiping about him. His stately figure was to-day the center about -which coiled the life and death intrigue of Chinese officialdom and over -which hung suspended the silken power of an Oriental throne.... Doane's -personal problem shrank into nothing--a flitting memory of a little -outbreak of egotism--as he studied the old face on which the revealing -hand of Age had inscribed wisdom, kindliness and shrewdness. - -Soft footfalls sounded; then, after a moment, a sharper sound that Doane -assumed, with a slight quickening of the imagination, to be the high -wooden clogs of a Manchu lady, until he realized that no clogs could -move so lightly; no, these were little Western shoes. - -A young woman appeared, slender and comely, dressed in a tailored -suit that could have come only front New York, and smiling with shy -eagerness. She was of good height (like the Manchus of the old stock), -the face nearly oval, quite unpainted and softly pretty, with a broad -forehead that curved prettily back under the parted hair, arched -eyebrows, eyes more nearly straight than slanting (that opened a thought -less widely than those of Western people), and with a quaint, wholly -charming friendliness in her smile. - -He felt her sense of freedom; and knew as she tried to take his huge -hand in her own small one that she carried her Western ways, as her own -people would phrase it, with a proud heart. She was of those aliens who -would be happily American, eager to show her kinship with the great land -of fine free traditions. - -And holding the small hand, looking down at her, Doane found his perhaps -overstrained nerves responding warmly to her fine youth and health. He -reflected, in that swift way of his wide-ranging mind, on the amazing -change in Chinese official life that made it even remotely possible for -the viceroy to present his daughter with a heart as proud as hers. -The change had come about during the term of Doane's own residence.... -America, then, was not alone in changing. It was a shaking, puzzled and -puzzling world. - -“This,” his excellency was saying, “is my daughter, Hui Fei.” - -“I am very pleas' to meet you,” said Hui Fei. - -They sat then. The girl became at once, as in America, the center of -the talk. Though of the heedlessness not uncommonly found among American -girls she had none. She was prettily, sensitively, deferential to her -father. Somewhere back of the bright surface brain from which came the -quick eager talk and the friendly smile, deep in her nature, lay the -sense of reverence for those riper in years and in authority that was -the deepest strain in her race. She dwelt on things almost utterly -American: the brightness of New York--she said she liked it best in -October, when the shops were gay; the approaching Yale-Harvard football -game, a motoring tour through the White Mountains, happy summers at the -seashore. - -Doane watched her, speaking only at intervals, wondering if there might -not be, behind her gentle enthusiasm, some deeper understanding of her -present situation. He could not surely make out. She had humor, and when -he asked if it did not seem strange to step abruptly back into the old -life, she spoke laughingly of her many little mistakes in etiquette. -Her English he found charming. She was continually slipping back into -it from the Mandarin tongue she tried to use, and as continually, with -great gaiety, reaching back into Chinese for the equivalent phrase. She -had so nearly conquered the usual difficulty with the l's and r's as -to confuse them only when she spoke hurriedly. At these times, too, she -would leave off final consonants. The long _e_ became then, a short -_i_. Doane even smiled, with an inner sense of pleasure, at her pretty -emphasis when she once converted _people_ into _pipple_. She was, -unmistakably, a young woman of charm and personality. Despite the -quaintness of her speech, she was accustomed to thinking in the new -tongue. Her command of it was excellent; better than would commonly be -found in America. All of which, of course, intensified the problem. - -His excellency sat back, smoked comfortably, and looked on her with -frankly indulgent pride. - -A servant came with a message; bowing low. The viceroy excused himself, -leaving his daughter and Doane together. Doane asked himself, during the -pause that followed his departure, what the observant attendants beyond -the screen would be thinking. The situation, from any familiar Chinese -point of view, was unthinkable. Yet here he sat; and there, her brows -drawn together (he saw now) in sober thought, sat delightful Miss Hui -Fei. - -She said, in a low voice, while looking out at the river: “Mr. Doane, no -matter what you may think--I mus' see you. This evening. You mus' tell -me where. It mus' not be known to any one. There are spies here.” - -Doane glanced up; then, too, looked away. There could be no question now -of the girl's deeper feeling. She was determined. Her tune was honest -and forthright, with the unthinking courage of youth. It would be her -father, of course... - -But his mind had gone blank. He knew not what to think or say. - -“Please!” she murmured. “There is no one else. You must help us. Tell -me--father will be coming back.” - -And then Griggsby Doane heard his own voice saying quietly: “The boat -deck is the only place. You will find a sort of ladder near the stern. -If you can--” - -“I will go up there.” - -“It will be only just after midnight that I could arrange to be there.” - -His excellency returned then. And Doane took his leave. He had been but -a few moments in his own cabin when two actors of his excellency's suite -appeared, each with a lacquered tray, on one of which was a small chest -of tea, wrapped in red paper lettered in gold and bearing the seal stamp -of the private estate of Kang Yu, on the other an object of more than a -foot in height carefully wound about with cotton cloth. - -Doane dismissed the lictors with a Mexican dollar each and unwrapped -the larger object, which the servant had placed with great care on his -berth. It proved to be a _pi_, a disk of carven jade, in color a perfect -specimen of the pure greenish-white tint that is so highly prized by -Chinese collectors. The diameter was hardly less than ten inches, and -the actual width of the stone from the circular inner opening to the -outer rim about four inches. It stood on edge set in a pedestal of -blackwood, the carving of which was of unusual delicacy. The pedestal -was, naturally, modern, but Doane, with a mounting pulse, studied the -designs cut into the stone itself. That cutting had been done not later -than the Han Dynasty, certainly within two hundred years of the birth of -Christ. - - - - -CHAPTER IV--INTRIGUE - - -|THE _Yen Hsin_ would arrive at Kiu Kiang by mid-afternoon. - -Half an hour earlier. Doane, on the lower deck, came upon a group of -his excellency's soldiers--brown deep-chested men, picturesque in their -loose blue trousers bound in above the ankles and their blue turbans and -gray cartridge belts--conversing excitedly in whispers behind the stack -of coffins near the stern. At sight of him they broke up and slipped -away. - -A moment later, passing forward along the corridor beside the engine -room, he heard his name: “Mr. Doane! If you please!” This in English. - -He turned. Just within the doorway of one of the low-priced cabins stood -a pedler he had observed about the lower decks; a thin Chinese with an -overbred head that was shaped, beneath the cap, like a skull without -flesh upon it; the eyes concealed behind smoked glasses. - -“May I have a word with you, Mr. Doane?” - -The mate considered; then, stooping, entered the tiny cabin. The pedler -closed the door; quietly shot the bolt; then removed his cap and the -queue with it, exposing a full head of stubbly black hair, trimmed, as -is said, pompadour. The glasses came off next; discovering wide alert -eyes. And now, without the cap, the head, despite the hair and the -seriously intellectual face, looked, balanced on its thin neck, more -than ever like a skull. - -“You will not know of me, Mr. Doane. I am Sun Shi-pi of Shanghai. I -was attached, as interpreter, to the yamen of the tao-tai. I left his -service some months ago to join the republican revolutionary party. I -was arrested shortly after that at Nanking and condemned to death, but -his excellency, the viceroy--” - -“Kang?” - -“Yes. He is on this boat. He released me on condition that I go to -Japan. I kept my word--to that extent; I went to Japan--but I could -not keep my word in spirit. My life is consecrated to the cause of the -Chinese Republic. Nothing else matters. I returned to Shanghai, and was -made commander there of the 'Dare-to-dies.' You did not know of such -an organization? You will, then, before the winter is gone. We shall be -heard from. There are other such companies--at Canton, at Wuchang--at -Nanking--at every center.” - -Doane seated himself on the narrow couch and studied the quietly eager -young man. - -“You speak English with remarkable ease,” he said. - -“Oh, yes. I studied at Chicago University. And at Tokio University I -took post-graduate work.” - -“And you are frank.” - -“I can trust you. You are known to us, Mr. Doane. Wu Ting Fang trusts -you--and Sun Yat Sen, our leader, he knows and trusts you.” - -“I did know Sun Yat Sen, when he was a medical student.” - -“He knows you well. He has mentioned your name to us. That is why I am -speaking to you. America is with us. We can trust Americans.” - -Doane's mind was ranging swiftly about the situation. “You are running a -risk,” he said. - -Sun Shi-pi shrugged his shoulders. “I shall hardly survive the -revolution. That is not expected among the 'Dare-to-dies.'” - -“If his excellency's soldiers find you here they will kill you now.” - -“The officers would, of course. Many of the soldiers are with us. -Anyway, it doesn't matter.” - -“What is your errand?” - -“I will tell you. The revolution, as you doubtless know, is fully -planned.” - -“I've assumed so. There has been so much talk. And then, of course, the -outbreak in Szechuen.” - -“That was premature. It was the plan to strike in the spring. This -fighting in Szechuen has caused much confusion. Sun Yat Sen is in -America. He is going to England, and can hardly reach China within -two months. He will bring money enough for all our needs. He is the -organizer, the directing genius of the new republic. But the Szechuen -outbreak has set all the young hotheads afire.” - -“I am told that the throne has sent Tuan Fang out there to put down the -disturbance. But we have had no news lately.” - -“That is because the wires are cut. Tuan Fang will never come back. We -will pay five thousand taels, cash, to the bearer of his head, and ask -no questions. We must exterminate the Manchus. It has finally come down -to that. It is the only way out. But we must pull together. Did you know -that the Wu Chang republicans plan to strike at once?” - -“No.” - -“I have been sent there to tell them to wait. That is our gravest danger -now. If we pull together we shall win. If our emotions run away with our -judgment--” - -“The throne will defeat your forces piecemeal and destroy your morale.” - -“Exactly. My one fear is that I may not reach Wu Chang in time. -But”--with a careless gesture--“that is as it may be. I will tell you -now why I spoke to you. We need you. Our organization is incomplete as -yet, naturally. One matter of the greatest importance is that our spirit -be understood from the first by foreign countries. There is an enormous -task--diplomatic publicity, you might call it--which you, Mr. Doane, are -peculiarly fitted to undertake You know both China and the West. You -are a philosopher of mature judgment. You would work in association with -Doctor Wu Ting Fang at our Shanghai offices. There will be money. Will -you consider this?” - -“It is a wholly new thought,” Doane replied slowly. “I should have to -give it very serious consideration.” - -“But you are in sympathy with our aims?” - -“In a general way, certainly. Even though I may not share your -optimism.” - -“On your return to Shanghai would you be willing to call at once on -Doctor Wu and discuss the matter?” - -“Yes.... Yes, I will do that. I must leave you now. We are nearly at Kiu -Kiang.” - -Sun, glancing out the window, raised his hand. Doane looked; two small -German cruisers, the kaiser's flag at the taff, were steaming up-stream. - -“They know,” murmured Sun, with meaning. “I wish to God I could find -their means of information. They _all_ know. From the Japanese in -particular nothing seems to be hidden. Two or three of your American -war-ships are already up there. And the English, naturally, in force.” - -“They must be on hand to protect the foreign colony at Hankow. The -Szechuen trouble would justify such a move.” - -But Sun shook his head. “They _know_,” he repeated. Then he clasped -Doane's hand. “However.... that is a detail. It is now war. You will find -events marching fast--faster, I fear, than we republicans wish. Good-by -now. You will call on Doctor Wu.” - -The steamer moved slowly in toward the landing hulk. Doane, from the -boat deck, by the after bell pull, gazed across at the park-like -foreign bund, with its embankment of masonry and its trees. Behind -lay, compactly, the walled city. Everything looked as it had always -looked--the curious crowd along the railing, the water carriers passing -down and up the steps, the eager shouting swarm of water beggars. Below, -the coolies swung out from the hulk, ready to make their usual breakneck -leap over green water to the approaching steamer. Now--they were -jumping. The passengers were leaning out from the promenade deck to -watch and applaud.... Doane's thoughts, as he went mechanically through -his familiar duties, wandered off inland, past the battlements and -towers of the ancient city to the thousands of other ancient cities -and villages and farmsteads beyond; and he wondered if the scores of -millions of lethargic minds in all those centers of population could -really be awakened from their sleep of six hundred years and stirred -into action. - -Could a republic, he asked himself, possibly mean anything real to -those minds? The habit of mere endurance, of bare existence, was so -deep-seated, the struggle to live so intense, the opportunity so slight. -Sun Shi-pi and his kind were a semi-Western product. They were, when all -was said and done, an exotic breed. They were the ardent, adventurous -young; and they were the few. There had always been a throne in -China, always extortionate mandarins, always a popular acceptance of -conditions. - -The lines were out now. And suddenly a blue-clad soldier climbed over -the rail, below, balanced along the stern hawser, leaped to the hulk, -and was about to disappear among the coolies there when a rifle-shot -cracked and he fell. He seemed to fall, if anything, slightly before the -shot. Another soldier, following close, was caught by a second shot as -he was balancing on the hawser, and spun headlong into the water where -the propeller still churned. - -A few moments later, when Doane moved among the passengers, it became -clear that they knew nothing of the casual tragedy astern. They were all -pressing ashore for a walk in the native city, eager to buy the worked -silver that is traditionally sold there. The slim girl in the middy -blouse had apparently captured young Rocky Kane; they strolled off -across the bund together. But Dawley Kane remained aboard, stretched -out comfortably in a deck chair, listening thoughtfully to the stocky -little Japanese, one Kato, who was by now generally known to be his -_alter ego_ in the matter of buying objects of Oriental art. - -None of these folk knew or cared about China. Excepting this Kato. Him -Doane was continually encountering below decks, chatting smilingly -in Chinese with the good-natured soldiers. His work along the river, -doubtless, ranged over a wider field than his present employer would -ever learn. It would be interesting, now, to know what he was saying, -talking so rapidly and always, of course, smiling.... The rest of this -upper-deck white man's existence Doane dismissed from his mind as he -went about his work. It was all too familiar. Though later he thought of -Rocky Kane. The boy, wild though he might be, had attractive qualities. -It was not pleasant to see that girl get her hands on him. Just one more -evil influence. - -He thought, at this juncture, of the--the word came--appalling change -in himself. That he, once a fervid missionary, could stand back like -a sophisticated European, and let the wandering and vicious and broken -human creatures about him go their various ways, as might be, was -disturbing, was even saddening. Something apparently had died in him. -Sun had called him a philosopher. The Oriental, of course, even the -blazing revolutionist, admired this passive quality, this fatalistic -acceptance of the fact. He sighed. To be a philosopher was, then, to -be emotionally dead. The church had been taken out of his life, -leaving--nothing. A mate on a river steamer, in China. Life had gone -quite topsy-turvey. Even the amazing courtesy of his excellency--it -was that, when you considered--and this profound compliment from the -revolutionary junta seemed but incidents. Too many promises had smiled -at Doane, these years of his spiritual Odyssey--smiled and faded to -nothing--to permit an easy hope of anything new and beautiful. He was -beginning to believe that a man can not build and live two lives. And he -had built and lived one. - -Captain Benjamin found him; a dogged little captain with dull fright -in his eyes. “It's happened,” he said, trying desperately to attain an -offhand manner. “Company wire. They're fighting at Wu Chang. What do you -know about that!” - -Doane was silent. It was extraordinarily difficult, here by this calm -old city, on a sunny afternoon, to believe that it was, as Sun had put -it, war. - -“We're to tie up,” the captain went on, “until further orders. The -foreign concessions at Hankow were safe enough this noon, but with an -artillery battle just across the river, and an imperial army moving down -from the north over the railway, they stand a lot of show, they do.” - -“I wonder if they'll send us on.” - -“What difference will it make?” The captain's voice was rising. “You -know as well as I do that they'll be fighting at Nanking before we -could get back there. Here, too, for that matter. I tell you the whole -river'll be ablaze by to-morrow. This bloody old river! And us on a -Manchu-owned boat! A lot o' chance we stand.” - -The sight-seers strolled across the shady bund, passed a stone residence -or two and a warehouse, and made their way through the tunneled gateway -in the massive city wall. Little Miss Andrews was escorted by young -Mr. Braker. Miss Means walked with one of the customs men. Two or three -others of the men wandered on ahead. Rocky Kane and the thin girl in the -middy blouse brought up the rear. - -As they entered the crowded city within the wall a babel of sound -assailed their ears--the beating of drums and gongs, clanging cymbals, -a musket shot or two, fire-crackers; and underlying these, rising even -above them, never slackening, a continuous roar of voices. The teachers -paused in alarm, but the customs man smilingly assured them that in a -busy Chinese city the noise was to be taken for granted. - -Nearly every shop along the way was open to the street, and at each -opening men swarmed--bargaining, chaffering, quarreling. The only women -to be seen were those in black trousers on a wheelbarrow that pushed -briskly through the crowds, the barrow man shouting musically as he -shuffled along. Beggars wailed from the niches between the buildings. -Dogs snarled and barked--hundreds of dogs, fighting over scraps of offal -among the hundreds of nearly naked children. - -A mandarin came through in a chair of green lacquer and rich gold -ornament, supercilious, fat, carried by four bearers and followed by -imposing officials who wore robes of black and red and hats with red -plumes. As the street was a scant ten feet in width and the crowds must -flatten against the walls to make way the roar grew louder and higher in -pitch. - -There were shops with nothing but oils in huge jars of earthenware or -in wicker baskets lined with stout paper. There were tea shops with high -pyramids of the familiar red-and-gold parcels, and other pyramids of the -brick tea that is carried on camel back to Russia. There were the shops -of the idol makers, and others where were displayed the carven animals -and the houses and carts and implements that are burned in ancestor -worship, and the tinsel shoes. There were shops where remarkably large -coffins were piled in square heaps, some of glistening lacquer with -the ideograph characters carven or embossed in new gold. There were -varnishers, lacquerers, tobacconists; open eating houses in which could -be seen rows of pans set into brickwork. There were displays of bean -cakes, melon seeds and curious drugs. - -Two Manchu soldiers sauntered by, in uniforms of red and faded blue; -fans stuck in their belts and painted paper umbrellas folded in their -hands. One bore a hooded falcon on his wrist. - -Miss Andrews sniffed the penetrating odor of all China, that was spiced -just here with smells of garlic cooking and frying fish and pork and -strong oil? and--like the perfume of a dainty lady amid the complex -odors of a French theater--an unexpected whiff of burning incense. She -looked up between the high walls, on which hung, close together, the -long elaborate signs of the tradesmen, black and green and red with -gold, always the gold. Across the narrow opening from roof to roof, -extended a bamboo framework over which was drawn coarse yellow matting -or blue cotton cloths; and through these the sunbeams, diffused, glowed -in a warm twilight, with here and there a chance ray slanting down with -dazzling brightness on a golden sign character. - -“It's all rather terrifying,” murmured Miss Andrews, at Braker's ear, -“but it's beautiful--wonderful! I never dreamed of China being so human -and real.” - -“And to think,” said he eagerly, “that it has always been like this, and -always will be. It was just so in the days of Abraham and Isaac. The -one people in the world that doesn't change. It's their whole -philosophy--passive non-resistance, peace. And-do you know, I'm -beginning to wonder if they aren't right about it. For here they are, -you know. Greece is dead. Rome's dead. And Assyria, and Egypt. But here -they are. It's their philosophy that's done it, I suppose. Almost be -worth while to come out here and live a while, when our part of the -world gets too upset. Just for a sense of stability--somewhere.” - -These two young persons, dreaming of stability while the earth prepared -to rock beneath their feet! - -Rocky Kane and the slim girl had dropped out of sight, lingering at this -shop and that. The party later found them at a silversmith's counter. -They had bought a heap of the silver dragon-boxes and cigarette cases; -and then devised a fresh little idea in gambling, weighing ten Chinese -dollars against other ten in the balanced scales, the heavier lot -winning. - -Young Kane had got through his clothing, somehow, there in the street, -to his money belt, for he held it now carelessly rolled in one hand. He -was flushed, laughing softly. He and the thin girl were getting on. - -“Come along, you two,” remarked the customs man. “We stop only two hours -here.” - -The young couple, gathering up their purchases and the heaps of silver -dollars, slowly followed. - -“That was great!” exclaimed Rocky Kane. The thin girl, he had decided, -was a good fellow. She was always quiet, discreet, attractive. In her -curiously unobtrusive way she seemed to know everything. The face was -cold in appearance. Yet she was distinctly friendly. Made you feel that -nothing you might say could disturb or shock her. He wondered what could -be going on behind those pale quiet eyes, behind the thin lips. The -men had remarked on the fact that she was traveling alone. She was -a provocative person--the curiously youthful costume; the black hair -gathered at the neck and tied, girlishly, with a bow--really an exciting -person. The way she had taken that little scene out on deck with the -gorgeous Chinese girl--Rocky knew nothing of the distinctions between -the Asiatic peoples--who spoke English; quite as a matter of course. -Though she took everything that way. This little gambling, for instance. -She loved it--was quick at it. - -“I'm wondering about you,” he said, as they wandered along. -“Wondering--you know--why you're traveling this way. Have you got folks -up the river?” - -“Oh, no,” she replied--never in his life had he known such self-control; -there wasn't even color in her voice, just that easy quiet way, that -sense of giving out no vitality whatever. “Oh, no. I have some business -at Hankow and Peking.” - -That was all she said. The subject was closed. And yet, she hadn't -minded his asking. She was still friendly; he felt that. His feelings -rose. He giggled softly. - -“Lord!” he said, “if only the pater wasn't along!” - -“Does he hold you down?” - -“Does he? Brought me out here to discipline me. Trying to make me go -back to college--make a grind of me.... I was just thinking--here's a -nice girl to play with, and plenty of fun around, and not a thing to -drink. He gave me fits at Shanghai because I took a few drinks.” - -“You have the other stuff,” said she. He turned nervously; stared at -her. But she remained as calmly unresponsive as ever. Merely explained: -“I smelt it, outside your cabin. You ought to be careful--shut your -window tight when you smoke it.” - -He held his breath a moment; then realized, with an uprush of feeling -warmer than any he had felt before, that he had her sympathy. She would -never tell, never in the world. That big mate might, but she wouldn't. - -She added this: “I can give you a drink. Wait until things settle down -on the boat and come to my cabin--number four. Just be sure there's no -one in the corridor. And don't knock. The door will be ajar. Step right -in. Do you like saké?” - -“Do I--say, you're great! You're wonderful. I never knew a girl like -you!” - -She took this little outbreak, as she had taken all his others, without -even a smile. It was, he felt, as if they had always known each other. -They understood--perfectly. - -If he had been told, then, that this girl had been during two or three -vivid years one of the most conspicuous underworld characters along the -coast--that coast where the underworld was still, at the time of our -narrative, openly part of what small white world there was out here--a -gambler and blackmailer of what would very nearly have to be called -attainment--he would have found belief impossible, would have defended -her with the blind impulsiveness of youth. - -It was said that the steamer would not proceed at the scheduled hour, -might be delayed until night. Disgruntled white passengers settled down, -in berth and deck chair, to make the best of it. There was, it came -vaguely to light, a little trouble up the river, an outbreak of some -sort. - -Rocky Kane, a flush below his temples, slipped stealthily along the -corridor. At number four he paused; glanced nervously about; then, -grinning, pushed open the door and softly closed it behind him. - -The strange thin Miss Carmichael was combing out her black hair. With a -confused little laugh he extended his arms. But she shook her head. - -“Sit down and be sensible,” she said. “Here's the saké.” - -She produced a bottle and poured a small drink into a large glass. He -gulped it down. - -“Aren't you drinking with me?” he asked. - -“I never take anything.” - -“You're a funny girl. How'd you come to have this?” - -“It was given to me. You'd better slip along. I can't ask you to stay.” - -“But when am I going to see you, for a good visit?” - -“Oh, there'll be chances enough. Here we are.” - -“That's so. Looks as if we'd stay here a while, too. There's a battle -on, you know, up at Wu Chang and Hankow. Big row. We get all the -news from Kato. He's that Japanese that father has with him. The -revolutionists have captured Wu Chang, and are getting ready to cross -over. The imperial army's being rushed down to defend Hankow. Regular -doings. Shells were falling in the foreign concessions this morning. -Kato's got all the news there is. It's a question whether we'll go on -at all. You see the Manchus own this boat, and the republicans would -certainly get after us. There are enough foreign warships up there to -protect us, of course.... How about another drink?” - -“Better not. Your father will notice it.” - -“He won't know where I got it.” Rocky chuckled. He felt himself an -adventurous and quite manly old devil--here in the mysterious girl's -cabin, watching her as she smoothed and tied her flowing hair, and -sipping the potent liquor from Japan. “It's funny nothing seems to -surprise you. Did you know they were fighting up there?” - -“No.” - -“Wouldn't you be a little frightened if we were to steam right into a -battle?” - -“I shouldn't enjoy it particularly.” - -“Aren't you even interested? Is there anything you're interested in?” - -“Certainly--I have my interests. You must go--really.... No, be quiet! -Some one will hear! We can visit to-night--out on deck.” - -“But you're--I don't understand! Here we are--like this--and you shoo me -out. I don't even know your first name.” - -“My name is Dixie--but I don't want you to call me that.” - -“Why not? We're friends, aren't we--” - -“Of course, but they'd hear you.” - -“Oh!” - -“Wait--I'll look before you go.... It's all clear now.” - -They visited long after dinner. He was brimming with later advices from -the center of trouble up the river. Mostly she listened, studying him -with a mind that was keener and quicker and shrewder in its sordid -wisdom than he would perhaps ever understand. - -Everything that Kato had told his father and himself he passed eagerly -on to her. He was a man indeed now; making an enormous impression; -possessor of inside information of a vital sort--the viceroy's priceless -collection of jewels, jades, porcelains and historic paintings, which -Kato was advising his father to pick up for a song while red revolution -raged about the old Manchu, the dramatic plans of the republicans, their -emblems and a pass-word (Kato knew everything)--“Shui-li”--“union is -strength”; the small meeting below decks ending in the death of two -soldiers. He dramatized this last as he related it. - -The girl, lying still in her chair, listened as if but casually -interested, while her mind gathered and related to one another the -probable facts beneath his words. She was considering his dominant -quality of ungoverned hot-blooded youth. Of discretion he clearly enough -had none; which fact, viewed from her standpoint, was both important and -dangerous. For the information he so volubly conveyed she had immediate -use. That was settled, however cloudy the details. But this further -question as to the advisability of holding the boy personally to herself -she was still weighing. Two courses of action lay before her, each -leading to a possible rich prize. If the two could be combined, well and -good; she would pursue both. But it was not easy to sense out a possible -combination. The obvious first thought was to go whole-heartedly after -the larger of the prizes and as whole-heartedly forget the other. As -usual in all such choices, however, the lesser prize was the easier to -secure. Perhaps, even, by working--the word “working” was her own--with -great rapidity she might make--again her word--a killing with this wild -youth in time to discard him and pursue the still richer prize. - -Because he was, at least, the bird in hand, she submitted passively when -his fingers found hers under the steamer rug. Twilight was thickening -into night now on the river. And they were in a dim corner. He was, she -saw, at the point of almost utter disorganization. He was sensitive, -emotional, quite spoiled. It was almost too easy to do what she might -choose with him. It would be amusing to tantalize him, if there -were time; watch him struggle in the net of his own nervously unripe -emotions, perhaps shake him down (we are yet again dropping into her -phraseology) without the surrender of a _quid pro quo_. That would -please her sense of cool sharp power. But he might in that event, like -the young naval officer down at Hong Kong, shoot himself; which wouldn't -do. No, nothing in that! - -This other larger matter, now, was a problem indeed; really, as yet, -only a haze in her sensitive, strangely gifted mind. It put to the test -at once her imagination, her instinct for dangerous enterprise, -her skill at organizing the sluggish minds of others. It would mean -dangerous and intense activity. - -She asked, in a careless manner, where the viceroy kept his treasures; -and fixed in her mind the place he named--Huang Chau. - -The fool was squeezing her fingers now; unquestionably building in his -ungoverned brain an extravagant image of herself; an image wrapped -in veils of somewhat tarnished but certainly boyish innocence, -sentimentalized, curiously less interesting than the complicated -wickedness and intrigue of actual human life as it presented itself to -her. - -When he tried to kiss her she left him. But lingered to listen to -his proposal that she should follow him to his own cabin; smiled -enigmatically in the dusk beneath the deck light; humming lightly, -pleasingly, she moved away; turned to watch him bolting for his room. - -She strolled around the deck then. Apparently none other was sitting -out. The teachers and the young men were spending the evening, she knew, -with Dawley Kane at the consulate. Rocky had got out of that. Tex Connor -was in his cabin; reading, doubtless, with his one good eye. For rough -as he might be, this gambler and promoter of boxing and wrestling -reveled secretly in love stories. He read them by the hundred, the -old-fashioned paper-covered romances and tales of adventure. A pretty -able man. Tex; useful in certain sorts of undertakings; certainly useful -now; but with that curious romantic strain--a weakness, she felt. And -a difficult man, strong, arrogant, leaning on crude power and threats -where she leaned on delicately adjusted intrigue. Had Tex known better -how to cover his various trails he would be in New York or London now, -not out here on the coast picking up small change. Approaching him would -be a bit of a problem; for a year or so their ways, hers and his, had -lain far apart. It was not known, here on the boat, that they were so -much as casually acquainted. They bowed at the dining table; nothing -more. - -The Manila Kid was in the social hall, rummaging through the shelf -of battered and scratched records above the taking machine. A quaint -spirit, the Kid; weak, oddly useless, gloomily devoted to music of a -simple sort, quite without enterprise. But.... by this time the delicate -steel machinery of her mind was functioning clearly.... he would -serve now, if only as a means of solving that first little problem of -interesting Tex. - -She paused in the doorway; caught his furtive eye, and with a slight -beckoning movement of her head, moved back into the comparative -darkness. Slowly--thick-headedly of course--he came out. - -“Jim,” she said, “I'm wondering if you and Tex wouldn't like to pick up -a little money.” - -“What do you think we are?” he replied in a guarded sulky voice. “Tex -dropped three thousand at that fight. There's no talking to him. He's -rough--that's what he is.” - -“Jim--” she considered the man before her deliberately; his lank -spineless figure, his characterless, hatchet face: “Jim, send Tex to -me.” - -“Why should I, Dix? Answer me that.” - -“Don't act up, Jim. I've never handed you anything that wasn't more -than coming to you. I know all about you, Jim. Everything! I'm not -talking--but I know. This is a big proposition I've got in mind, and -you'll get your share, if you come in and stick with me? How about half -a million in jewels?” - -“I don't know's Tex would care to go in for anything like that. If it's -a yegg job--” - -“I'm not a yegg,” she replied crisply. “Ask Tex to slip around here. I -don't want to talk on that side of the deck.” - -“I suppose you wouldn't like young Kane to know what you are--er?” - -“That sort of talk won't get you anywhere, Jim.” - -“Well--I've got eyes, you know.” - -“Better learn how to use them. You hurry around to Tex's cabin. We may -have to move quickly.” Sulkily the Kid went; and shortly returned. - -“Well”--this after a silence--“what did he say? Is he coming?” - -“He wants you to go around there--to his stateroom.” - -“I won't do that. He's got to come here.” - -This decision lightened somewhat the gloom on the Kid's saturnine -countenance. He went again, more briskly. - -The girl slipped into her own cabin and consulted a folding map of China -she had there. Huang Chau--she measured roughly from the scale with her -thumb--would be seventy or eighty miles up-stream from Kiu Kiang here, -perhaps thirty-five down-stream from Hankow. - -Tex was chewing a cigar by the rail. At her step his round impassive face -turned toward her. - -She said, “Hello, Tex!” - -He replied, his one eye fixed on her: “Well, what is this job?” - -“Listen, Tex--are you game for a big one?” - -“What is it?” - -“The revolution's broken out at Hankow--or across at Wu Chang--” - -“Yes, I know!” - -“There's going to be another big battle near Hankow. The republicans are -moving over. Sure to be a mix-up.” - -“Oh. yes!” - -“There'll be loot--” - -“Oh, that!” - -“Wait! I know where there's a collection of jewels--diamonds, pearls, -rubies, emeralds--all kinds.” - -“Do you know how to get it?” - -“Yes. It's a big thing. We'd be selling stones for years in America and -Europe, Will you go in with me, fifty-fifty?” - -“What's the risk?” - -“Not much--with things so confused. Looks to me like one of those -chances that just happens once in a hundred years. Take some imagination -and nerve.” - -“Where is this stuff?” - -“I'll tell you when we get there. You'll have to trust me about that. -I've never lied to you, and you have lied to me.” - -“But--” - -“Listen! Here's the idea. There's a lot of nervous soldiers on this boat -that wouldn't mind a little loot on their own. Here's your boxer--what's -his name?” - -“Tom Sung.” Connor's eye never left her face; and she, on her part, -never flinched. - -“To those soldiers he's the biggest man on earth. _He_ wouldn't mind a -little clean-up either. Oh, there's enough, Tex--plenty! You see what -I'm getting at. With your Tom for a leader you can pick up a few of -those soldiers, enough to get away clean--” - -“But they're shooting 'em!” - -“They shot two. They'd have trouble shooting forty. Make Tom do the -work--right now, to-night, while we're lying up here. They'll follow -him; and you won't have to stand back of him if he's caught. He'll just -be one of the rebels then. Get this right, Tex! It's a real chance. -You'll never get another like it. With the soldiers we can get a -launch--hire it, even, if you want to play safe--and go right up there -and get the stuff. Nobody'll ever know it wasn't just a case of soldiers -on the loose.” - -“How're you going to get away? They'd know we weren't here, wouldn't -they?” - -“Don't try to tell me we couldn't slip out of China, if we had to. This -isn't England or America. I don't believe we'd even have to. Just a case -of playing it right--using your head.” - -“Where is this place?” - -“It's there, and I'll take you to it.” - -“You'll have to tell me.” - -Quietly she moved her head in the negative. He would hardly know that -the viceroy was not going on through to Hankow and Peking; she had the -information herself only from Rocky Kane. Nor would he know, by any -chance, the situation of his excellency's ancestral home. For Tex was -not what they termed a “sinologue”; he knew white men and women and -yellow servants, the steamers and railways, the gambling clubs and race -tracks; little else. There was then, little reason why he should think -of the viceroy at all. - -“It's anything from a million or two up, Tex,” she said coolly. “And -my information comes straight. I'll prove it by taking the chance with -you.” - -He shook his head; half turned. “Where is it?” She smiled. - -He left her abruptly then. And coolly she watched him go. It would take -a little time for Tex's imagination to rise to it; and until the last -moment he would try to bluff her down. It was just poker; they had -played that game before, she and Tex. Once he had robbed her. But not -this time--not, as she phrased it, if she saw him first. - -The Kid came edging out of the social hall. “Will he do it?” he -whispered hoarsely. - -“He says he won't,” replied Dixie. - -“Say--that's tough! I didn't think Tex would overlook a thing like that. -What's the matter?” Dixie now considered this curiously useless man. Or -useless he had always seemed to her. Now she was not so sure. “He makes -it a condition that I tell him where the stuff is.” - -“Well--Dix, you'd tell him that, wouldn't you?” The Kid was whining. “If -you really knew yourself.” - -“Of course I won't tell him, Jim. Not yet.” - -His eyes sank before hers. He fumbled in a pocket; produced a tiny wrist -watch of platinum. “Look here. Dix,” he remarked clumsily, “things ain't -always been's pleasant as they might be between you and I, but I was -wondering if you wouldn't put this on, for old times' sake, like.” - -She took the gift, weighed in in her hand. “Thank you, Jim,” she -replied. “That's awfully nice of you. Though perhaps I'd better not wear -it here on the boat.” - -“I suppose young Kane might ask questions, eh?” - -“Nothing like that. I'll wear it. Here--you snap the catch, Jim.” - -“I--I might wish it on, Dix, like the kids do.” - -“All right. Have you wished?” - -“Sure, Say, Dix, you won't mind the little place where the initials got -scratched off inside the back cover. Nobody'll see that.” - -“Surely not,” said Dixie. - -At a little after midnight Griggsby Doane mounted to the boat deck and -walked quietly aft past the funnels and the engine room ventilators. A -half moon threw shadows along the bund and among the landing hulks and -the moored silent sampans, lorchas, junks. The mile-wide river shimmered -in a million ripples. - -A slight figure rose from a skylight. - -Hui Fei wore the black jacket and trousers of the lower class Chinese -women below decks. Her head was uncovered, and her hair waved prettily -down across the wide forehead. She should have oiled it flat, of course, -to complete her disguise; this careless arrangement was charming in the -moonlight but was neither Manchu nor Chinese. - -Doane found himself holding her small hand and looking gravely down at -her. He even slowly shook his head. “You must tell me quickly what you -have to say, Miss Hui. As soon as possible you must go back. This is -very unsafe.” - -“Oh, yes,” she said. “It will not be long. It is ver' har' to say. But I -am so alone. There is no one to tell me what I mus' do.” - -She plunged bravely into her story. Her information had come from one or -another of her maids. And she had overheard gossip among the mandarins. -The throne had sent her father the silken cord. She could not discover -why. To be sure they called him a secondary devil, meaning one who -sympathised with the foreigners. The reactionary Manchus at Peking, -reveling and plotting within the sacred walls of the Forbidden City, -remembered nothing, it appeared, of the recent past. The eunuchs, always -the stormy petrels of China's darkest days, were again in power at -the palace; the great empress dowager, she whom all China termed, -half-affectionately, “the Old Buddha,” had given them their head, and -now this new young empress with all the arrogance of the Old Buddha and -none of her genius for power or her profound experience, was running -wild. And as a consequence, Kang Yu, the statesman who more than any -other was equipped to counsel her wisely during this stormy time, was -returning to the home of his ancestors to die by his own hand. It -would be said at the Forbidden City that a gracious empress dowager had -“permitted” him to go.... Doane's disturbed thoughts darted back over the -bloodstained recent history of Manchu officialdom. The Old Buddha had -“permitted” Ch'i Ying, late Manchu Viceroy of Canton, to slay himself; -and had graciously extended the same privilege to others after the Boxer -trouble of the year 1900, among them an acquaintance of Doane's, Chao -Shu-ch'iao. Others she had decapitated--Yuan Ch'ang, Li Shan, Controller -of the Household, and Hsu Ching, President of the Board of War. She -killed, too, Hsu Ching-Ch'eng, who, like Kang, had held the post of -minister in more than one of the capitals of Europe. The only known -charge against this Hsu was that he had come to admire foreign customs. - -In her narrative the girl spoke only English. Her voice was deep -in quality, without heaviness; musical, like most voices among the -better-to-do in the Middle Kingdom, Chinese and Manchu alike. And, -colored now with deep emotion, it had an appealing quality to which -Doane found a response--difficult, at the moment, to repress--among his -own emotions. He sensed, too, with a pleasure that was, in his lonely -life, stirring, the naiveté of her Western feeling. Standing here in -simple native costume, in the heart of old China, gazing wistfully out -over the tangled hundreds of sleeping junks and sampans, this girl, -freshly out of a Massachusetts college, was pleading against hope that -her father might be spared the final jealous vengeance of the mightiest -remaining Oriental throne. - -The China that Doane had so long known, that had, indeed, for better -or worse, been woven into the fiber of his being, was turning suddenly -incredible. He stared, more intently than he knew, straight down at -the slim little figure--for beside his own huge frame this tall girl -appeared as hardly more than a child--at the unadorned face that was -softly girlish, at the Mack hair waving down over the pale forehead, -glistening in the moonlight. - -“They mean to confisca'”--she left off, in her eagerness to explain, -the final _te_--“all his property. Tell me, Mister Duane, can they do -that--all his property?” - -He reflected. There would be vast areas of tea-lands and rice lands, -almost innumerable shares in these new corporations, the famous -collections of jades, paintings, carvings and jewels. Finally he -inclined his head. - -“I'm afraid they could. It would be an outrageous act, but the -government now, I'm sorry to say, is in outrageous hands. If the empress -is determined, as apparently she is, there are ways enough of getting -at all his possessions. Even through the banks.” His heart was full, his -voice tender; but he could not deceive her. He added a question: “Does -his excellency, your father, know all this?” - -She nodded. “I have tol' him. But I can no' make him see it like me. Oh, -we are so differen'. I am, you see, an American girl. I am free here,” - she laid a pretty hand on her breast. “When I try to think of all these -dreadful things--of these wicked eunuchs an' the empress who is like -thousan' of years ago--blin', childish!--an' the people who can no' yet -see it differen'--I get bewilder'. You un'erstan'. You are an American, -too. I can speak with you. That is well, because there isn' anybody else -I can speak with. An' my father admires you. If you will only speak with -him--if you will only help me make him think differen'!” - -Doane wondered what he could do, what she imagined he could do, without -influence or money. He quite forgot, in this matter of influence alone, -the significance of the viceroy's courtesy, as of Sun Shi-pi's appeal -to him. For a little too long he had been a beaten man. It was becoming -dangerously near a habit so to consider himself. And now, to make active -clear thinking impossible, emotion flooded his brain. Gently he asked her -what she would have him do. - -“My father will no' listen when I speak, He is ver' kind, ver' generous. -He has made me an American girl. That is one of the things they say is -wrong. Even for tha' they attack his good name. But when I ask Him no' -to do this, no' to die so wrongly, he speaks to me like an ol' Manchu of -long ago.” - -“He is between the worlds,” mused Doane, aloud. - -“Yes, it is that. An' I, perhaps, am between the worl's.” - -“And I.” - -“But he mus' no' do it! It is so simple! The throne will no' live. Not -one year more. I know that. They are fighting now at Wu Chang.” - -Doane inclined his head. “I know that, Miss Hui, but the revolution has -not yet gone so far that success is sure.” - -“But it is sure. The people will everywhere rise. I know it--here!” - -“That is my hope, too. But to stir this great land means so much in -effort and education. You have changed, yes. Your father has changed. -Sun Yat Sen was educated in a medical school and has lived in America -and England; he has changed. But all China--I do not want to dash your -hopes, dear Miss Hui, but I fear China is not nearly so far along as you -and I would wish.” - -“Then--even so--mus' my father die because a wicked empress has no -brains? It is no' right. Listen, please! If you, Mis'er Doane, would -jus' try to persua' my father! He will listen to you. Oh, if you woul' -stay with us, an' help us. We coul' take some money, some jewels, an' -escape down the river--to Shanghai--to Japan, or even America. My father -mus' no' die like this. There will be a few servan's we can trus'. You -speak to my father, sir, an' he will listen. I know that. He says you -have the mind of the ol' philosopher--of Lao-tze himself. He said that. -An' you have the Western strength that he admires. An' he says you -un'erstan' China. Oh, will you speak to him?” - -Doane stared out into the luminous night. This response in his breast -to her eager youth frightened him now. He had felt of late that life -mattered little; certainly not his own. But youth, and hope, and -faith--they mattered. - -He took her small hand in his own. His heart was beating high. It was -going to be hard now, to control his voice. He was, then, after all the -years, the struggles, the beatings, incurably romantic.... - -Stirred yet by the vibrant pulse of youth that in some men and women -never dies. He himself had thought this negative spirit of the past few -years a philosophy, but apparently, it was nothing of the sort. Or where -was it now? For he was suddenly all nervously alive, a man of vigor and -pride, a man of urgent emotional need.... - -“I will try,” he said. - -She clung to his hand. “I have your promise?” - -He bowed. “I must think. I should not like to fail. There will be time. -He will”--it was hard to phrase this--“he will wait, surely, until he is -at home. But you must not stay longer here. And we must not meet again -like this. I will try my best to help you.” - -It seemed a pitifully inadequate speech. But the wild impulse was upon -him to clasp her lovely person in his arms--claim her, fight for her, -live again a man's life through and for her. It was, he deliberately -thought, almost insane in him. A man with nothing to offer, not even the -great hope of youth, struggling against an emotion, a hunger, that it -was grotesque to indulge. He compressed his lips tightly. - -She seemed breathless. For a moment she pressed her hands to her cheeks -and eyes; then waved to him and went lightly down the ladder. - - - - -CHAPTER V--RESURGENCE - -|THE upper-deck passengers awoke in the morning to find the engines -still at rest, and the now familiar View of Kiu Kiang still to be seen -from port-side windows; the _Yen Hsin_ had merely been moved a hundred -yards or so below the landing hulk and anchored. There was grumbling -about the breakfast table. The captain did not appear. The huge mate was -preoccupied; explaining with grave courtesy that he had no further news. -He assumed that orders to proceed to Hankow would be forthcoming -during the day. It was understood now that the republican troops -were everywhere protecting white folk, and, in any event, the foreign -concessions up the river were well guarded by the war-ships. - -The outstanding fact was that they were to spend at least another night -on the river. The sensible thing to do, or so decided the younger men, -was to have a dance. Accordingly, before tiffin, committees were hard -at work planning decorations for the social hall. Miss Means proved a -fertile source of entertaining ideas. And it was agreed, during the day, -that Miss Andrews had a pretty taste at hanging flags. - -The Chinese day begins with the light. And little Mr. Kato, sitting -smilingly through breakfast, had already passed hours among his -below-decks acquaintance. After breakfast he sat outside with the Kanes, -senior and junior, talking rapidly. There Miss Carmichael observed them; -later, when Rocky stood by the rail throwing brass cash down into -the crowding, nosing sampans of the water beggars, she strolled his -way--looking incredibly young--carrying a book from the boat's library, -a thin finger between the pages as a mark. She smiled at the quarreling -beggars below. But he, at sight of her, grew sulky. - -“You didn't come last night,” he said, very low, his voice thick with -suddenly rising feeling. - -“No, I couldn't. You can't always plan things.” - -“Well, you said--” - -“Rocky, please! You mustn't talk like that. We can be seen.” - -“Well--” he closed his lips. It was the first time she had called him -by his name. That seemed something. And she was right; they must keep up -appearances. He felt that she was extremely clever; living her own life -as a business woman, away out here, doing as she chose, like a man, -never losing her head for a moment. Well, he would show her that he -could be a sport. - -“Kato picked up some queer news this morning, prowling around. There's a -mutiny brewing below decks. He hasn't got all the facts, yet. He's down -there now. It's the viceroy's soldiers. First thing we know they'll be -blowing up the boat.” He was gloomy about it; boyishly turning his heavy -burden of self-pity and reproach into the new channel. - -“Well,” said she, “we'll all have to take our chances, I suppose,” and -moved away a step, pausing and balancing gracefully on the balls of her -feet and smiling at him. - -“Wait,” he muttered--“don't go!” - -“It's better. No good in our being seen too much together--” - -“Too much?” - -“I'll save you some dances to-night.” - -“A lot! All of them!” - -She smiled again at this outburst; said, “We can visit afterward, -anyhow,” and moved away. - -On the other side of the deck she found the Manila Kid leaning in a -doorway, moodily chewing a match. His listless eyes at once sought her -wrist. - -“You're not wearing it,” he muttered. - -“You know why, Jim.” - -“Sure! Young Kane.” - -“Oh, Jim, where are your brains? Don't try to tell me that Tex hasn't -seen that watch.... Well, do you want him to know there's something -between us--just now--” - -“I don't know's I--” - -Her pale cool eyes swept the deck. Then she leaned beside him; opened -her book, then looked out over it at the shipping and the dimpling river -beyond; smiled in her easy way. “Jim, why didn't you tell me that Tex -has started this thing without me?” - -“I've been watching for a chance to.” - -She considered this. He went on: - -“Look here, Dixie, this is big stuff!” - -“Of course.” - -“I've been trying to figure out how we stand. I didn't quite get you -last night. Tex and his boy Tom have got a bunch of the soldiers now. -But they're moving careful because there's another show been started. -One of the regular revolutionary crowd is below there stirring 'em up. -Some of 'em are full of this republic idea, want to die for it and all -that stuff, and Tex has to move cautious to buy 'em off. Say, what does -he want so many for?” - -“The more the better.” - -“But how're you going to pay 'em?” - -“Let them loot.” - -“But Tex--and Tom--are promising them part of the real stuff, jewels.” - -“Oh, you'd probably have to promise. But when they get into it, with -plenty of loot and liquor and women, it'll be easy enough to get away -from them.” - -“But how're you going to keep 'em in hand before that? Do you know what -some of 'em are whispering around now? They want to carve up the boat. -Come right up here and go through the viceroy's outfit.” - -“But he hasn't much stuff here, Jim. We've got bigger game than that.” - -“I know--and anyway it'd bring a gunboat down on us. That's what Tex is -trying to make Tom see. Tom's in Tex's room now. But my God, Dixie, when -I think of what you've started in that offhand way o' yours....” - -“Tex'll hold them down, Jim. That's one good thing about him, he's not -weak. You're nervous. Better go in and help the teachers hang flags. -That'll soothe you. You and I mustn't talk any more either. If there's -any news for me, better send me a chit by a boy.” - -The Kid looked mournfully at her. He was a grotesque, this Jim Watson, -tall, angular, thin bony face under the tipped-back cap, bald salients -running up into his hair on either side the plastered-down front locks. -And as he gazed on this wisp of a girl who had slipped mysteriously -in among the adroit swindlers and adventuresses of the coast but a few -brief years back and had from the very beginning cleverly made her way, -his disorganized spirit yearned toward her. She had brains, and used -them. She knew how to be nice to a fellow, and the Kid hungered for -sympathy. And she was piquantly desirable: in part because men sought -her without success. Except perhaps that young naval officer at Hong -Kong, the name of no man had been seriously linked with hers; and -the fact that he was an eldest son of one of the richest and greatest -families in England in a measure removed the incident beyond the -confines of normal human experience. No, the Kid could hardly feel that -he ought to resent that. He knew, as he so moodily surveyed her, that -her sympathy--the word was his own--could be bought only at a high -price. The price, indeed, frightened him. He couldn't think along with -Dixie and Tex. Nor could he easily conceive of opposing Tex, for the man -was strong and merciless. Still.... - -“See here, Dixie, if I wasn't so fool crazy over you, do you think for -a minute I'd let you drag me into this kind of a mix-up? Why, my -God!--when I got to thinking about it last night--the risks you're -running--” - -“It's big stakes, Jim. You can't expect a million to fall into your lap. -Got to play for it. Tell me--does this Tom Sung understand English?” - -“Of course! He was a farm laborer in California, and a cook in the -United States Navy. Why?” - -“I may have to talk to him myself before we get through with it.” - -“Of course you know Tex means to rob you?” - -“Of course,” said she, smiling a little for the benefit of a customs man -who appeared up forward. “You run along now, Jim. This is no game for -weak nerves. Remember, I need you.” - -“Well--just this--” - -“Careful!” - -“--You listen, now! You won't find me getting-cold feet--” - -“I'm sure of that.” - -“And I ain't afraid o' Tex Connor, either! If you mean that I've got -to go up against him--Well, say, look here! If I go through--if I do -everything you say--how're we going to stand, you and me?” - -“I let you give me the watch, didn't I?” - -“Well--that's all right--but I asked you once to go to the Islands with -me, and you wouldn't.” - -“Not over there. I know too many people.” - -“Well, somewhere else, then! Tell me straight, now! If we pull this -off--shake down a real pile--will you go with me?” - -She looked thoughtfully at him for a brief moment; then turned again to -the river. “You know I'm fond of you, Jim.” - -“It's a trade, Dixie? If I stick to you, you'll stick to me?” - -She considered this; finally, very quietly, barely parting her lips, -replied, simply: “Yes.” - -He drew in his breath with a whistling sound. - -She added, then: “Careful, Jim! I know how you feel, but don't let -yourself talk.” - -“I know, Dix, but my God! When I think of how you've kept me dancing -this year--and now--” - -“I'll say this, Jim. Just this. If you knew everything about Tex -Connor--” - -“You mean, he's tried to--” - -“I mean certain things he's said to me. If you're as fond of me as that -you'd understand why I've felt, once or twice, like killing him. That -man is a devil, Jim.” - -Then she slipped away. - -Miss Carmichael sat deliberately through tiffin; discreetly quiet, as -always; apparently without nerves. The Kid ate rapidly, speaking not a -word, seldom looking up from his plate. Tex Connor was calmly wooden, as -always, though at intervals Miss Carmichael felt his eye on her as she -daintily nibbled her curry. - -After tiffin she was stretched comfortably in her deck chair, reading, -or seeming to, when Connor appeared, strolling along the deck, hands -deep in pockets, chewing the inevitable Manila cigar. He wore a neat -cap, and his large person was clothed in an outing suit of gray flannel. -On his feet were shoes of whitened leather with rubber soles. To any but -a shrewd student of physiognomy he might have passed for a prosperous -American business man or politician, of the bluff western sort. - -He paused at her careless nod; bent his face around and stared coldly -at her. Nothing of the real man showed; even his rough vulgarity was -concealed behind the mask and the manner. He ought to have a woman -to tell him, she thought, that he was altogether too stout to wear a -Norfolk jacket. - -“Sit down?” she asked. - -He dropped into the chair beside her. - -“Looks as if we'd be hung up here till night anyhow,” he said gruffly. -“All foolishness, too. It's safe enough between here and Hankow. -The Jardine boat came down this morning. And we land at the -concessions--don't have to go clear up to the city.” He drummed on the -chair; shifted his cigar. “I can't hang around here. Got to get up to -Peking before they close off the railroad.” - -She listened quietly to this little tirade; then remarked: “Thought over -my proposition, Tex?” - -“What proposition?.... Oh, that scheme? Sure, I've thought it over. -Nothing in it, Dix.” - -“Why not?” - -“Too complicated. Did you ever see a lot of soldiers on the loose--their -killing blood up? You could never handle 'em in the world.” - -“Oh, of course,” said she, “if you tried any coarse work. But I wouldn't -pin that on you, Tex.” - -“It's easy to talk.” Connor's voice rose slightly; he noted the fact -himself; paused and spoke with greater deliberation. “But I wouldn't -tackle a gamelike that. It ain't practical. Anyhow, Dix, I wouldn't go -it blind. I'd have to know where I was going every minute. If you wanted -to talk real business, it might be different. I might see a way to start -something. But even at that”--he got heavily to his feet.... “No, thing -for me's to stick to my own line.” - -He was moving slowly away when her slow light voice brought him up -short. “Tex,” she said, “I see you're just a cheap liar, after all.” - -Then she watched the color sweep over his face. It was something to stir -that wooden countenance with genuine emotion. She even found a perverse -thrill in the experience. - -He stood motionless for a long moment. Finally he said, none too -steadily: “You know what would happen to a man that said that to me.” - -“What would you do? Shoot?.... Where would that get you? No, Tex, -listen! Sit down here.” - -But he stood over her. - -“I know everything you're doing.” - -“Oh--you do?” - -“You're crossing me. But you can't get away with it. You know where you -are--in China! And you're tampering with the troops of the viceroy of -Nanking. My God, Tex, haven't you _any_ brains? Did you really think I'd -show my hand?” - -He chewed the cigar in silence, staring down. - -“I'll give you your choice,” she went on. “You can work with me. -fifty-fifty, or I'll have Tom Sung beheaded. And then you'll be out a -meal ticket. And all your expenses with Tom up to now. And the three -thousand you lost to the Kanes.” - -“You don't know what you're talking about! I haven't even seen Tom Sung -in twenty-four hours.” - -“That's another lie. He was in your room this morning.” - -“How do you know that? Say, if Jim Watson's been talking....” - -“He hasn't, Tex. I've got my information--and there's a lot of if--from -Kato the Japanese. Go and talk to him, if you like. Or to your friends -the Kanes.” - -Connor, the color gone from his face now, looked steadily down at her. -Slowly he drew from an inner pocket a gold-mounted case of alligator -skin and selected a fresh cigar, lighting it on the stump of the old -one. Finally he said: - -“Dix, I'm taking some rough talk from you. But never mind--now. You say -you know where the stuff is, but you won't tell me.” - -“Not now. I'll keep that information to trade with, Tex.” - -“Well and good. I'll tell you that you can't get it without a little -help from me. And you're not going to get it. Tell me where it is, and -I'll put it through and split with you. It'll have to be pretty quick, -too. If you won't, you don't get your loot. And you give up my boy -Tom--” - -“What'll you do, Tex?” She was faintly smiling. - -“Oh, I won't shoot you. I'll protect myself better'n that. But I'll run -you off the coast. You'll have turned your last card out here.” - -To this she said simply nothing. For a moment her two eyes met his one -full. Then he strolled away. And the day passed. - -Doane stood by the rail in the dusk of early evening looking in through -the open doorway. The social hall was gay with flags, the dragon of -China hung flat over the talking machine with the American and British -colors draped on either hand. The little teachers had on their brightest -and best. Miss Andrews in particular, wore a pink party gown that might -have been made by a village dressmaker--or, more likely, by herself--and -flushed prettily as she chatted with young Braker. The men were all in -their dinner coats. - -Dixie Carmichael, in the inevitable blue middy blouse, sat quietly -reading in a corner. A strange creature, always imperturbably girlish. -Duane had observed her casually on the boat and about the Astor House -at Shanghai, and despite the curious tales that drifted along the -coast--already the girl had acquired an almost legendary fame--he had -never seen her other than discreetly quiet. Men who had observed her on -the steamer from Hong Kong after the outraged British wives as good as -drummed her out of town asserted that she exhibited not so much as a -ruffle of the nerves. A girl without emotion, apparently; certainly -without a moral sense. - -She had for a time managed a gambling house on Bubbling Well Road, -Shanghai, but this year seemed to be more active up Peking way. At least -she had made several trips to the north. There were moments when her -thin, nearly expressionless face bore a look of infinite age; yet she -was young. It would be interesting, he reflected, to know of her home -and her youth, of the remarkable deficiency (or the equally remarkable -gift) that had sent her out alone, with her hair down her back, to pit -her uncanny quickness of thought and her sordid purpose against the -desperately clever rascals of the coast. - -When again he passed the doorway they were dancing--a waltz. Dixie and -young Kane were together. Miss Means, primmer than ever, moved about -with a tall Australian. Braker was with little Miss Andrews. The others -of the younger men danced humorously with one another. The Manila Kid -stood lankily, gloomily, by the talking machine, sorting records. - -There was a bustling outside the farther door; musical voices; the -shimmering of satin in the light; and the viceroy came in, escorting his -daughter and attended by all his suite. At the sight of Miss Hui Fei -as she appeared in the doorway and stepped lightly over the sill Doane -caught his breath. She wore an American costume, a gown of soft material -in rose color trimmed with silver, the stockings and little slippers in -silver as well. A girl at any college or suburban dance back home might -have dressed like that. Her richly black hair was parted on the side; -masses of it waved carelessly down over her temples and part of the -broad forehead. Her color was high, her eyes were bright. The eagerly -Western quality he had sensed in her was dominant now, triumphant as -youth can be triumphant. - -Doane, for a moment, pressed a hand to his eyes. He could not relate -this radiantly Western girl with the quaintly Oriental figure he had -last seen by moonlight on the boat deck. It was difficult, too, to -understand her bright happiness. Had her insistently modern spirit -prevailed over her father's resolve to die? Or was she, after all, -carried away by girlishly high spirits at the thought of a party? On the -latter possibility Doane set his teeth; it raided thoughts of Oriental -fatalism and surface adaptability that he could not face. Surely the -girl who had talked so earnestly, who had so clearly exhibited a Western -view of her father's predicament, was more than Oriental at heart. - -The most deeply sobering thought, of course, was that he should so -poignantly care. The mere sight of her thrilled him, shook him. All -night and during this day he had been fighting the new shining sense of -her in his heart; it was clear now that the battle was a losing one. -It was true, then; the last broken shards of his elaborately built up, -wholly mental philosophy of life had crashed hopelessly about his ears. - -The pity of it seemed to him, even then, to be that he was possessed of -such abounding vitality of body and mind. He felt a young man. He was -never ill, never even tired. Only accident, he felt, could shorten his -life. Certainly he wouldn't take it himself; he had gone all through -that. He would have to go dully on and on; he was like an engine that is -using but a fraction of its proper power. He had not known that his need -was a woman until he met this woman. To no other, he felt, could he give -the rich upwellings of emotion in his heart; and vital emotion, he -had tragically learned three years earlier, can not be repressed -indefinitely. There was a breaking point... He was, even now, bringing -up favorable arguments. This young woman, as she had admitted, like -himself, stood between the worlds. She could never be happy in China; -hardly out of it. If.... If.... Thoughts came, bitter thoughts, of his -years, of his poverty. The thing had the grip of a demoniac possession. -He had seen other men mad over the one woman, and had pitied them; but -now he.... He called himself savagely, in his heart, a fool. Yet the -wild hopes mounted. - -The waltz was over. The Kid changed the records and ground the machine. -An interpreter left the group of mandarins and spoke with one of the -Australians; led the man back to his excellency. A moment later the -music sounded again, and the Australian danced lightly away with Miss -Hui Fei in what Doane had no means of knowing was the very new -one-step. He had never danced; plainly she loved it. She moved like a -fairy--light, utterly graceful, her oval face, when she turned, flushed -a little and soberly radiant. - -Hating the man who held her so close, he turned away. He did not know -that his excellency, glimpsing him outside there in the shadows, leaned -forward and bowed; he did not observe (or care) that Dixie Carmichael -was dancing with the German customs man, while Rocky Kane, suddenly -white, lighting one cigarette on another, stood in a corner devouring -with his eyes Miss Hui Fei. A little later, when the young man spoke, -there at his side, he started; for he had heard no one approach. Rocky -was hatless; hair rumpled as if he had been running nervous fingers -through it, cheeks deeply flushed, eyes staring rather wildly. He threw -his cigarette overboard and squarely faced the huge man in blue. - -“I don't know what you'll think of me--” he began, in a breathless, -unsteady voice; then his eyes wavered. - -Doane turned with him, Dixie Carmichael stood in the doorway, watching -them. Rocky, with a nervous gesture, as if he would brush her away, -looked up again into the stern older face. He was plainly lost in -himself, burning with the confused fires of youth. - -“I don't know what you'll think of me--” he came again to a stop. -Apparently the words, “Mr. Doane,” would have completed the sentence, -but failed for some reason to find voice. Perhaps it was the habit of -his wealthy environment that restrained him even now from speaking with -more than casual respect to a uniformed employee of a river line; yet, -contradictorily, here he was, all boyish humility!.... “I'm a damn fool, -of course, I know that. But--you've seen her.” - -Doane glanced again toward the door. Dixie Carmichael had disappeared. - -“No--not that one!” cried the boy hotly; then dropped his voice. “The -girl in there! The--princess, isn't she?” - -Doane inclined his head. - -“Then she'd be the one I--well, you remember.” - -“She's the same. The Princess Hui Fei--” - -“Hughie Fay? Like that?” - -“Yes.” - -“What a lovely name!.... You--I know you won't understand! It's so hard -to--I _am_ young, of course. I've been sort of in wrong. I guess -you think I'm a pretty wild lot. I seem to have been trying about -everything. But until to-night--oh, there's no use pretending I'm not -hit all of a heap. I am. I never saw anything like her--never in my -life. I don't know what the pater would say--me falling for a Manchu -girl--you think I'm crazy, don't you?” - -“No.” - -“Perhaps I am. My head's racing. Just watching her in there makes my -pulse jump. I get bewildered. Tell me--she was all Chinese the--the -other time--all painted up. Big head-dress with flowers on it. Why did -she do that?” - -“Out of respect to her father. The rouge and the head-dress were -according to Oriental custom.” He looked directly down at the boy, -and added, deliberately, “Veneration of parents is the finest thing in -Chinese life. I sometimes think we have nothing so fine in America.” - -The boy's eyes fell. He mumbled. “Ouch! You landed there, I guess.” Then -he raised his eyes. “I can't help myself--whatever I am--but I can start -fresh, can't I? That's what I'm going to do, anyhow--start fresh.” He -squared himself. His lip quivered. - -“Will you take me in there to the viceroy, and translate my apology?” - -Doane stood a moment in silence. Then he replied, quietly, “Yes.” And -led the way into the social hall. He found himself watching, like a -spectator, the little scene.... the viceroy rising, with a quiet smile, -a gentle old man, awaiting with perfect courtesy of bearing whatever -might be forthcoming; Rocky Kane, seeming younger than before, with, in -fact, the appearance of an excited boy, the wild look still in his eyes -but the face set with supreme determination. Doane observed now that -he had a good forehead, wide and not too high. The nose was slightly -aquiline, like his father's. The eyes, so dark now, were normally blue; -the mouth sensitive; the skin fine in texture. - -“Tell him”--thus the boy--“tell him I acted like a dirty cad, that I -know better, and--and ask his pardon.” - -Doane translated discreetly. A dance was just ending, and curious eyes -were bent on the group. The mandarins stood behind the viceroy, all -gracefully at ease in their rich rubes. - -His excellency, without relaxing that smile, replied in musical -intonation. - -“What is it?” asked Rocky Kane, under his breath, all quivering -excitement; “what does he say?” - -“That he accepts your apology, with appreciation of your manliness.” - -Young Kane's nervous frown relaxed at this. He was pleased. - -“Will you,” he was saying now, “will you ask if I may dance with the -princess?” - -Doane complied. He felt now a strain of fineness in this ungoverned boy -that was oddly moving to his own emotion-clouded brain.... Hoi Fei was -approaching, the Australian at her side. - -“He suggests”--Doane found himself translating--“that you ask her. He -does not know what engagements she may have made.” - -The boy bit his lip. And then the princess was greeting the mate. “It's -nice to see you, Mr. Doane,” she was saying. “I wondered if you weren't -coming to the party.” - -It seemed to Doane that he could feel young Kane's devouring eyes -fastened on her. The moment had come in which he must act. The -Australian, sensing a situation, thanked the princess and slipped away. -Quietly, Doane said: “Miss Hui Fei, this is Mr. Kane, who has asked -permission to meet you.” - -She drew back a very little; Doane caught that; yet the courtesy of her -race did not fail her. She inclined her pretty head; even smiled. - -“Should I speak English?” asked the boy, out of sheer confusion; then: -“Miss Hui Fei”--he was white; the words came slowly, almost coldly, -between set teeth--“I am sorry for my rotten behavior the other night.” - -That was all. He waited. Miss Hui's smile faded. - -No Oriental could have come out so bluntly with it. She seemed to be -considering him. Gradually the smile returned, and with it an air of -courteous dismissal. - -“I have forgotten it.” - -Kane gathered his courage. - -“May I have a dance with you?” - -For a moment the silence was marked. Perhaps Miss Hui was gathering -herself as well. But it was only a moment; she spoke, smiling as if she -were happy, her manner gracious, even kind: “I am sorry. I have promise' -every dance. The ladies are so few to-nigh'.” - -That was all. The boy seemed somewhat slow in comprehending it. He stood -motionless; then the color returned slowly to his face, flooding it. He -bowed to her stiffly, then to her father, and rushed out on deck. - -Miss Hui smiled up at the mate. “I have save' the dance you ask',” she -said pleasantly. “It is this nex' one, if you don' mind.” - -The Manila Kid adjusted the needle and released the catch. - -“I'm sorry,” said Doane, as they moved away, “I don't dance.” - -The commonplace remark fell strangely on his own ears. It could hardly -be himself speaking. He was all glowingly warm with impulse, his logic -gone. - -“We'll sit it out,” said Miss Hui pleasantly. - -And during the brief walk across the room, beside this buoyantly -graceful girl, even while aware of the eyes upon him, he felt the magic -wine of youth thrilling through his arteries. What a fairy she was! -Snatches of poetry came; one-- - - “Were it ever so airy a tread....” - ---and lingered fragrantly after they were seated and he found himself -looking down at her, listening with something of the gravity and -kindliness of long habit when she so quickly spoke. - - - - -CHAPTER VI--CONFLAGRATION - -|A BEWILDERED, crushed Rocky Kane stood tightly holding the rail; -staring down at the softly black water that ran so smoothly along the -hull beneath; muttering in whispers that at intervals broke out into -heated speech. This strange princess had humiliated him perfectly, -completely; there had been nothing he could say, nothing to do but go; -and she had let him go without a look or a further thought. He told -himself it was unfair. He had swallowed his pride and apologized. Could -a man do more? - -But pressing upward through this chaotic mental surface of hurt pride -and insistent self-justification came an equally insistent memory of -his outrageous conduct toward her. As the moments passed, the memory -intensified into a painfully vivid picture. His native intelligence, -together with the undeveloped decency that was somewhere within him, -kept at him with dart-like, stinging thoughts. He had insulted not only -herself but her race as well, in assuming a ruthless right to make free -with her. - -Then self-justification again; how could he know that she spoke English -and dressed like the girls back home? Was it fair of her to masquerade -like that? - -He was miserably wrong, of course. And his nerves were terribly -upset. That was at least part of the trouble, his nerves; he lighted -a cigarette to steady them. The match shook in his hand. This nervous -trembling had been increasing lately; he found it an alarming symptom. -Perhaps the trouble was inherent weakness. Ability like his father's -often skipped a generation; and character. Yes, he was weak, he had -failed at everything. His college career was a wreck; a monstrous wreck, -he believed, echoes from which would follow him through life. To his -incoherent mind it seemed that he had about all the vices--drinking, -gambling, pursuing helpless girls, even smoking opium. His one faith had -been money; but now he suddenly, wretchedly, knew that even the money -might fail him. It was as easy to toss away a million as a hundred on -the red or the black. And then young men who wasted themselves acquired -diseases from the terrors of which no fortune could promise release; a -thought that had long dwelt uncomfortably in a sensitive, deep-shadowed -corner of his brain.... a brain that was racing now, beyond control. - -Her unfairness lay in so publicly snubbing him. Her father knew the -facts, as did Miss Carmichael, and the big mate, that old preacher with -a mysterious past. Who was he, anyhow--setting up to regulate other -people's lives? - -Then rose among these turbulent thoughts a picture of the princess as -she was now, there in the social hall. Tears welled into his eyes; he -brushed them away, lighted a fresh cigarette and deeply inhaled the -smoke. He had rushed out; suddenly, wildly, he desired to rush back. -She was beautiful. She had quaintly moving charm. A rare little lady! It -seemed almost that he might compel her to listen while he explained. -But what was it that he was to explain? That he was some other than the -dirty sort they all knew him to be, that he had proved himself to be? - -The wild thoughts were like a beating in his brain. It was his father's -fault, this crazy nervousness, and his mother's.... He hated that big -mate. Self-pity rose like a tidal wave, and engulfed him. He stared and -stared at the softly dark water. Beginning with about his sixteenth year -he had wrestled often with the thought of suicide, as so many sensitive -young men do. Now the water fascinated him; it was so still, it moved -so resistlessly on to the sea. “A pretty easy way to slip out. Just a -little splash---I could climb down. Nobody'd know. Nobody'd care much -of a damn. Oh, the old man would think he cared, but he wouldn't. He'll -never make a bank president out of me. And that's all he wants.” - -A voice, guardedly friendly, said, “Better not let yourself talk that -way.” - -He turned with a start. Miss Carmichael was standing there by the rail. -So he had talked aloud--another unpleasant symptom. - -“You--you saw what--” - -She inclined her head. “What's the good of letting it upset you? Lie -down for a while. A pipe or two wouldn't hurt you. You're nervous as a -witch. It would soothe you.” He stared at her. - -“Better lie down anyway,” she said, taking his arm and moving him toward -his cabin. “You don't want them to see you like this.” - -He yielded. His will was powerless. He dropped on the seat, while -she lingered, almost sympathetically, in the doorway, an unbelievably -girlish figure in the half light. Something of the influence she had -been exerting on him--which had seemed to die when Miss Hui Fei entered -the social hall--fluttered to life now. He found relief, abruptly, in -recklessness. - -“Come on in,” he said huskily. “Have a pipe with me!” - -Quietly, wholly matter-of-fact, she closed and locked the door. “We'll -shut the window, too, this time,” she said. - -“You needn't turn on the light.” He was reaching for his trunk. “Excuse -me--a minute! I can see all right. I know just where everything is.” - -“Leave the trunk out,” said she. “And lay your suit-case on it. Then we -can put the lamp on that.” - -Miss Hui Fei led Doane to a seat under the curving front windows. - -“We mus' talk as if ever'thing were ver' pleasan'.” The question rose -again, but without bitterness now, how she could smile so brightly. “I -have learn' some more. It is ver' difficul' to tell you, but.... it is -difficul' to think, even.... so strange that at firs' I laugh'.”.... -Yes, there were tears in her eyes. But how bravely she fought them back -and smiled again. He felt his own eyes filling, and turned quickly -to the window; but not so quickly that she failed to see. She was -sensitively observant, despite her own trouble. For a moment, then, -they were silent, lost in a deep common sympathy that was bread to his -starving heart. - -It was in that moment that their little conspiracy nearly broke down. -Had any of the others in the big room looked just then, gossip would -have spread swiftly; certainly sharp-eyed mandarins would have found -matter for consideration; for Hui Fei impulsively found his hand as it -rested between them on the seat, and was met with a quick warm pressure. - -And then, in another moment, she was speaking, quite herself. “My maid -has foun' out tha' they are sending the head eunuch from the Forbidden -C'ty to our home. An' that is agains' the law.” - -“Of course,” said he. “Even the Old Buddha never tried but once to send -out a eunuch on government business. That was the notorious An Te-hai. -And he never returned; he was caught in Shantung--in a barge of state -on the Grand Canal--and beheaded. Even the Old Buddha couldn't do that. -This woman is amazing. But of course there is really no government at -Peking now--only this strange anachronism.” - -“He has orders to seize all father's beautifu' things the paintings an' -stones an' carvings.” - -“The rebels may catch him. They'd make short work of him.” - -“I ask about that. The rebels have cross the river from Wu Chang to Han -Yang, but they have not yet reach the railway. That comes into Hankow -from this side.” - -“Even so,” he mused, “the train service from Peking must have broken -down. Though they're running troop trains south, of course.” - -“I haven't tol' you all of it.” Her voice was low and unsteady. “This -eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, is ordered, by the empress, to take me to Peking -too. They are all whispering about it. The empress is angry at my -foreign ways, and will marry me to a Manchu duke. She di'n' like it when -my father tol' her I mus' marry no man I di'n' choose myself.... I think -you ough' to smile.” - -Mechanically he obeyed. - -“It seems almos' funny.” murmured Miss Hui. “Sometimes I can no' believe -tha' such a thing could happen. When I think of America an' England and -all the worl' we know to-day, I can no' believe that such wicked things -can happen.” - -It was anything but unreal to Doane. He knew too well that America -and England, even all the white peoples, make up but a fraction of -the inhabitants of this strange earth. His eyes filled again as he -considered the possible--yes, the probable fate of the lovely girl at -his side. In such a time of disorganization the reckless Manchu woman at -Peking could do much. Chang might lose his head at the sound of gunfire -in Han Yang and fly back to the capital, or he might not. A capable and -corrupt eunuch would run heavy risks to gain such a prize. For a huge -prize the viceroy's collection would indeed be; many of the priceless -stones and paintings would never reach the throne. - -The thought came of trying to persuade her to save herself; a thought -that was as promptly discarded. She would not leave her father while he -lived. He, of course, would not take his own life elsewhere than in -his ancestral home. And to that home, with his inevitable escort of -underlings and soldiers, was hurrying--if not already there--this Chang -Yuan-fu, one of those powerfully venomous creatures that have figured -darkly at intervals in the history of China. - -Doane spoke low and quickly: “Can you find out when Chang's train left -Peking, Miss Hui?” - -“No, I have try ver' har' to learn. I think they don' know that. It is -so importan' to know that, too, because my father”--Her voice faltered. -Doane once again, with a swift glance to left and right, took her hand -and, for a brief moment, gripped it firmly. “You haven' yet spoken to my -father?” - -“Not yet, dear Miss Hui.... you must smile!.... I have found it very -difficult to think out a way of approaching him. Your father is a great -viceroy. He might take it ill that I should venture to interfere in what -he would feel to be the supreme sacred act of his life. He might”--Doane -hesitated--“even for you he might feel that he couldn't turn back.” - -“I know,” she said, very low. “I have thought of tha', too. But they -shall never take me to Peking.” - -He understood. The suicide of girls as a protest against unwelcome -marriage was a commonplace in China. It was, indeed, for thousands the -only way out. She knew that, of course. And she spoke there out of her -blood. - -“I will speak to-morrow,” he murmured. “Before we reach Huang Chau. We -have nothing to lose. He can only rebuff me.” - -He felt now that in this tragic drama was bound up all that might be -left to him of happiness. The guiding motive of his life was--there was -a divine recklessness in the thought--to save Hui Fei, to make her smile -again, with a happy heart. She whispered now: - -“Thank you.” - -He asked her, abruptly changing his manner, almost distantly courteous, -about her life in an American college. Little by little, as she made -the effort to follow him into this impersonal atmosphere, her brightness -returned. - -The record was scraping its last. Applause came from the dancers, -in which she joined. The Manila Kid wound the machine again, and the -dancers swung again into motion. - -“I am asking too much of you,” she murmured. “But I have been frighten'. -I coul'n' think wha' to do.” - -He had to set his teeth on the burning phrases that rushed from his long -unpractised heart, eager for utterance. “I will take you back to your -father,” he said. - -In his mind it was settled. Whatever strange events might lie before -them, they should not take her to Peking. His own life, as well as hers, -stood in the way. It had come to that with him. - -It was near to midnight when the _Yen Hsin_, on advices from Hankow, -headed again upstream. At the first throb of the engine the white -passengers stopped dancing and came out on deck. There was gaiety, even -a little cheering. - -It was perhaps two hours later when Doane, asleep in his cabin, heard -the shots, confused with the incidents of a dream. But at the first -screams of the women below decks he sprang from his berth. Some one -was banging on his door; he opened; the second engineer stood there, -coatless and hatless, a revolver in his hand, and a little blood on his -cheek. - -“All hell's broken loose below,” said the young Scotchman. “Chief's -down there. I tried to get to him, but--God, they're all over the -place--fighting one another.” - -“Who are, MacKail?” Doane hurriedly drew on trousers and coat, and -thrust his feet into his slippers. - -“The viceroy's soldiers. Revolutionary stuff.” - -Doane got his automatic pistol from a drawer in the desk; quickly filled -an extra clip with cartridges; went forward. The Scotchman had already -gone aft. - -The engine was still running, the steamer moving steadily up the moonlit -river. The uproar below decks sounded muffled, far-away. It might have -been nothing more than a little night excitement in a village along the -shore. The shooting continued. Men were shouting. There were more shrill -screams; and then splashes overside. As he hurried forward, staring over -the rail, Doane caught a passing glimpse of a face down there in the -foam and a white arm. The white men were stumbling drowsily out of their -cabins; he saw one of the customs men, in pajamas, and Tex Connor. They -hurled questions at him but he brushed them aside. - -Captain Benjamin stood over the cringing pilot with a revolver. - -“Engine room don't answer!” he shouted coolly enough. “And we can't get -to it. Take MacKail and try to get through. I'll make this rat keep her -in the channel.” - -Doane ran back. More of the men were out, talking excitedly together. He -paused to say: “Get any weapons you have, every man of you, and see that -none but women get up to this deck! Keep the men down!” - -MacKail stood at the head of the port after stairway, outside the rear -cabins, a big Australian beside him. - -“They're just naturally carving one another up,” observed the -Australian. - -“Come,” said Doane, and went down the steps. - -The noise and confusion were great down here. Women were crowding out of -the lower cabins, sobbing hysterically, tearing their hair and beating -their breasts, crowding forward and aft along the deckway or climbing -awkwardly over the rail and slipping off into the river. - -Doane shouted a reassuring word in their own tongue; pointed to the -steps; finally drew one girl forcibly back from the rail and started her -up. Others followed, screaming all the way. Still others clung to the -white men. - -Doane broke away and plunged into the dim interior of the boat. Most -of the lights were out. Dark figures were wrestling. There were grunts, -groans, savage cries of rage and triumph. A huge pole-knife caught -the light as it swung. Doane was aware of men breathing hard as they -struggled. - -He stumbled over an inert body; would have fallen had not the Australian -caught him. A tall soldier who lunged toward them with a dripping -bayonet was shot by MacKail.... There were no means here of -distinguishing the parties to this savage struggle, but in the inner -corridor it was lighter. Near at hand two of the republicans--queues cut -off, dressed in an indistinguishable but odd-appearing uniform of some -light gray stuff with a white cloth tied about the left arm, had heaped -bodies across the corridor and were shooting over them at a darker mass -just forward of the engine room. - -Doane shouted at the republicans, ordering them to withdraw. They shook -their heads angrily. One, even as he tried to reply, sank into a limp -heap with a dark stream trickling from a hole in his forehead. His -comrade bent low to reload his rifle. With the shouting of many hoarse -voices the dark mass up forward came charging down the corridor. Doane -was firing into them when MacKail and the Australian caught his arm -and drew him back through the doorway. From that position, however, -all three could shoot the blue-clad attackers as they plunged by the -opening. Then, however, they had to defend themselves. The soldiers came -on by dozens. Doane had his second clip of cartridges in his pistol. - -“Get back!” he shouted to the others. “Guard the steps--they'll be -coming up for loot!” - -They retreated. Two bodies lay huddled on the steps they had left but -a few moments earlier. A few dead women were on the deck and one or two -men. - -Even as they stepped over the bodies and mounted to the deck above, all -three men, their faculties sharpened to a supernatural degree by -the ugly thrill of combat, took in the details of what was evidently -accepted among these republican rebels as their uniform--a suit of -unmistakably American woolen underwear, the drawers supported by -bright-colored American suspenders; socks worn outside (like the -suspenders) with garters that bore the trademark name of an American -city, and finally, American shoes. So the enthusiasm of these young -revolutionists for the greatest of republics found expression! And -across the breast of each, lettered on a strip of white cloth, was the -inscription that Sun Shi-pi had so glibly translated as “Dare to Die.” - Sun must have brought along these supposedly Western uniforms in his -pedler's trunks. - -It was never to be known what surprising incidents had preceded this -sudden slaughter. The chief engineer might have told, but his mutilated -body Doane found, on his second attempt to get through, lying just -across the sill of the engine room, as if he had been stepping out to -reason with them. - -The entire battle lasted barely half an hour. It was, for the white -folk, a period of confusion and terror. Toward the end, the blue men, -utter outlaws now, made rush after rush up the various stairways and -ladders, only to be fought back at every point by the white men and the -few surviving officers of his excellency's force. They were like the -most primitive savages, knowing neither fear nor reason. The blood-lust -that at times captures the spirit of this normally phlegmatic and -reasonable people drove them for the time to the point of madness. - -At last, however, they drew off below. Two of the boats were within -their reach. These they lowered, and despite the speed of steamer and -current, though not without evident loss of life, they got them over, -tumbled into them, and fell away into the night astern. Then for the -first and last time this night Doane saw the redoubtable Tom Sung. -He stood in the nearer boat, brandishing a rifle and screeching wild -phrases in Chinese. - -MacKail took the engine room. Captain Benjamin, still, grimly, pistol -in hand, held the pilot to his task. There was no crew to clean the -shambles below decks, yet with the few loyal soldiers who had managed -to hide away now at the furnaces, the steamer wound her way steadily -up-stream. - -Doane found what had once been the earnest Sun Shi-pi in the starboard -corridor, below. On his body were the uniform, white brassard and motto -of the “Dare to Dies.” They had beheaded him. - -The passengers, clad and half clad, nervous, talkative, hung about the -decks. The two teachers, curiously self-possessed, sat side by side at -the dining table. From the quarters of his excellency, aft, came the -continuous sound of women moaning and wailing.... It was, to the eye, but -a river steamer plowing up-stream in the moonlight. But to the senses of -those aboard the situation was a nightmare, already an incredible memory -while sleep-drugged eyes were slowly opening.... To the mighty river -it was but one more incident in the vivid, often bloody drama of a -long-suffering, endlessly struggling people.... - -In his spacious cabin, his eyes shaded from the electric light by a -screen of jade set in tulip wood, dressed in his robes of ceremony, -wearing the ruby-crowned hat of state with the down-slanting peacock -feather, his excellency sat quietly reading the precepts of Chuang Tzü. - -“Hui Tzü asked,” (he read) 'Are there, then, men who have no passions? -If he be a man, how can he be without passions?' - -“'By a man without passions,' replied Chuang Tzü, I mean one who permits -neither evil nor good to disturb his inner life, but accepts whatever -comes.... The pure men of old neither loved life nor hated death. -Cheerfully they played their parts, patiently awaited the end. This is -what is called not to lead the heart away from Tao.... The true sage -ignores God; he ignores man; he ignores a beginning; he ignores matter; -he accepts life as it may be and is not overwhelmed. If he fail, what -matters it? If he succeed, is it not that he was provided through no -effort of his own with the energy necessary to success.... The life of -man passes like a galloping horse, changing at every turn. What should -he do; what should he not do? It passes as a sunbeam passes a small -opening in a wall--here for a moment, then gone.... let knowledge stop -at the unknowable. That is perfection.'” - -It is to be doubted if even Doane gave regard at the moment to the -possible origin of the fire. It had spread through two or three of -the upper cabins by way of the ventilating grills and was roaring out -through a doorway by the time he heard the new outcry and ran to -the spot. The white men were rushing about. Rocky Kane, collarless, -disheveled, was fumbling ineffectually at the emergency fire hose; him -Doane pushed aside. But the flames spread amazingly; worked through -the grill-work from cabin to cabin; soon were licking at the walls and -furniture of the social hall. - -Doane left Dawley Kane and Tex Conner--an oddly matched couple--manning -the hose, others at work with the chemical extinguishers, while he went -forward through the thickening smoke to the bridge. - -Captain Benjamin said, huskily, almost apologetically--his eyes red and -staring, his face haggard: “I'm beaching her.” - -And in another moment she struck, where the channel ran close under an -island. - -Lowering the boats without a crew proved difficult. Already the fire had -reached those forward. Doane, the other mate and MacKail did what -they could. The Chinese women crowded hither and thither, screaming, -rendering order impossible. In the confusion one boat drifted off with -only Connor, the Manila Kid, and Miss Carmichael. - -Captain Benjamin was cut off by the quick progress of the flames. The -whole forward end of the cabin structure was now a roaring furnace, -fortunately working forward on the down-stream breeze rather than aft. -The flames blazed from moment to moment higher; sparks danced higher -yet; the heat was intense. Doane sent the viceroy and his suite below, -aft, where the deck was still strewn with bodies and slippery with -blood. With three available boats, fighting back the crowding women and -the more excitable among his excellency's secretaries, he sent ashore, -first the women, then his excellency and the men. Hui Fei--she had -slipped hastily into the little Chinese costume she wore at their -midnight talk, and had thrown about it an opera cloak from New -York--went in one of the first boats; Doane himself handed her in. The -two teachers, pale, very composed, followed. At the oars were two of the -customs men, faces streaked with grime and sweat. - -To his excellency, as the last boats got away, Doane said: “I will -follow you soon. I must look once more for the captain.” - -“I will send back a boat,” said the viceroy. - -Doane ran up to the upper and promenade decks. There was no sound save -the roaring and crackling of the fire. There seemed no chance of getting -forward. In the large after cabin stood the six-fold Ming screen. -Quickly he folded it; there seemed a chance of getting it ashore. He -thought, with a passing regret, of the _pi_ of jade; but there was no -reaching his own cabin now. He stepped out on deck. There, clear aft, -leaning against the cabin wall, stood Rocky Kane, like a man half -asleep, rubbing his eyes; and crouching against his knee, clinging to -his hand, was the little princess in her gay golden yellow vest over the -flowered skirt and her quaint hood of fox skin. - -Doane caught the young man's shoulder; swung him about; looked closely -into the dull eyes with the tiny pupils. - -“So!” he cried, “that again, eh!” - -“I can't understand”--thus Rocky--“I don't see how it could have -happened. It couldn't have been my fault.” - -Doane saw now that his head had been burned above one ear; and the hand -that pressed his face was blistered white. - -“It _wasn't_ my fault! I found myself out on deck. I tried to get the -hose.” - -“Yes, I saw you. Quick--get below.” - -Doane tenderly lifted the little princess. - -Rocky was still incoherently talking; promising reform; blaming himself -in the next breath after hotly defending himself. His voice was somewhat -thick. He was drowsy--swayed and stumbled as he moved toward the stairs. - -Doane, speaking gently in Chinese to the child, stood a moment -considering. The heat was becoming intolerable. It wouldn't do to keep -the little one here. He carried her down the stairs. - -Below, the boy faced him. “I'm no good,” he whimpered. “I can't wake up. -Hit me--do something--I won't be like this.” - -Doane considered him during a brief instant. They were standing under -a light, their feet slipping on the deck, bodies lying about. With the -flat of his hand, then, Duane struck the side of the boy's head that -was not burned; struck harder than he meant, for the boy went down, and -then, after sprawling about, got muttering to his feet. - -“It's all right!” he cried unsteadily. “I asked you to do it. I'm going -to get hold of myself. I've been no good--rotten. I've touched bottom. -But I'm going to fight it out--get somewhere.” His egotism, even now -amazingly held him. Even as he spoke he was dramatizing himself. But his -pupils were widening a little; he was in earnest, crying bitterly out -of a drugged mind and conscience. And Doane, looking down at him, felt -stirring in his heart, though curiously mixed with a twinge of jealousy -for his youth and the hopes before him, something of the sympathy his -long deep experience had instilled there toward blindly struggling young -folk. Boys, after all, were normally egotists. And Heaven knew this boy -had so far been given no sort of chance! - -Doane led the way clear aft. The heat was terrific. From a row of fire -buckets he sprinkled the little princess; bathed her temples. The water -was warm, but it helped. - -Young Kane, with a nervous movement, suddenly picked up one, then -another, of the buckets and dashed them over himself. Distinctly he was -coming to life. “We may never come out of this, Mr. Doane,” he said. -“It's a terrible fix.” More and more, as he came slowly awake, he was -dramatizing the situation and himself. “But I want to say this. I've -never known a man like you. You're fine--you're big--you've helped me -as no one else has. I'll never be like you--it isn't in me. I've already -gone as close to hell as a man can go and perhaps still save himself--” - -“Can you swim?” asked Doane shortly. - -“I--why, yes, a little. I'm not what you'd call a strong swimmer.” - -Doane was wetting the princess's face and his own. There would be -little time left. There was smoke now. He found a slight difficulty in -breathing; evidently the fire had eaten through, forward, to the lower -decks. - -“They won't be able to get a boat back here,” he said, and quietly -pointed out the still blazing pieces of board that, after whirling into -the air, were drifting by. A terrific blast of heat swept about them, -indicating a change of wind. - -“Wait here a moment for me,” he added. “I must make one more effort to -find Captain Benjamin. If that fails, we can swim ashore.” - -He tried working his way forward when the heat proved too great in the -corridor, climbing out on the windward side of the hull. But the flames -were eating steadily aft; he could not get far. Beaten back, he returned -to the stem to discover that the child and Rocky Kane were gone. After -a moment he saw them in the water, a few rods away, first a gleam of -yellow that would be the jacket of the little princess, then their two -heads close together. - -He lowered himself down a boat-line and swam after them. In the water -this giant was as easily at home as in any form of exercise on land. -Within the year he had swum at night, alone, for the sheer vital -pleasure the use of his strength brought him, the nine miles from Wusung -to Shanghai--slipping between junks and steamers, past the anchored -war-ships and a great P. & O. liner from Bombay. The water was cool, -refreshing. He stretched his full length in it, rolling his face under -as one arm and then the other reached out in slow powerful strokes. - -Young Kane was having no easy time of it. He was clearly out of wind. -And the child whimpered as she clung tightly about his neck. - -“I gave you up,” he sputtered weakly. Then added, with an evidence of -spirit that Doane found not displeasing: “No, don't take her, please! -Just steady me a little.” He was struggling in short strokes, splashing -a good deal. “We ought to touch bottom now pretty quick.” - -Sampans and the boats of the cormorant fishers were edging into the -wide circle of light about the steamer. Along the shore of the island -clustered the groups of mandarins, their silk and satin robes forming a -bright spot in the vivid picture. - -Doane found the sand then; walked a little way and helped the nearly -exhausted boy to his feet. - -“They're coming down the shore,” said Rocky, trying, without great -success, to speak casually. - -Doane looked up and saw them running--white men, Chinese servants, -mandarins holding up their robes, women, and last, walking rapidly, his -excellency. - -It was Hui Fei, throwing off her cloak and running lightly ahead, -who took the frightened child from young Kane's arms and carried her -tenderly up the bank. There as the attendants gathered anxiously about -them, she tossed the child high, petted her, kissed her, until the tears -gave place to laughter. The tall eunuch wrapped the little princess then -in his own coat; and Hui Fei accepted the opera cloak that transformed -her again in an instant from a slimly quaint Manchu girl to a young -woman of New York. - -Doane stood by. Toward him she did not look. But to Rocky Kane, who -lay on the bank, she turned with bright eagerness. He got, not without -effort, to his feet. - -Smiling--happily, it seemed to the bewildered, brooding Doane--she gave -him her hand; led him to meet her father. - -“You have met Mr. Kane,” she said. “It was he who save' little sister. -He risk' his life to bring her here, father.” - -Rocky, throwing back his hair and brushing the water from his eyes, -stood, his sensitive face working nervously, very straight, very -respectful, and took the hand of the viceroy. - -There was, then, manhood in him. The viceroy recognized the fact in his -friendly smile. Hui Fei plainly recognized it as she walked, chatting -brightly, at his side, while he bent on her a gaze of boyish adoration. - -As for Doane, he moved away unobserved; dropped at length on a knoll, -rested his great head on his hands, and gazed out at the blazing -steamer. She would soon be quite gone. Poor Benjamin was gone already; -a strange little man, one of the many that drift through life without -a sense of direction, always bewildered about it, always hoping vaguely -for some better lot. It had been a tragic night; and yet all this horror -would soon seem but an incident in the spreading revolution. It had -always been so in China. In each rebellion, as in the mighty conquests -of the Mongols and the Manchus, death had stalked everywhere with a -casual terribleness. Life meant, at best, so little. Genghis Khan's -men had boasted of slaying twenty millions in the northwestern provinces -alone within the span of a single decade. The new trouble must -inevitably run its course; and what a course it might prove to be! -From the mere effort to face this immediate future Doane found his mind -recoiling; much as strong minds were to recoil, only three years later, -when the German army should march through Belgium. - -He gave up that problem, came down to the particular thought of this -swiftly growing new love that had stolen into his heart. The hope of -personal happiness had passed now. Self seemed, like the life to which -it so eagerly clung, not to matter. Instead that hope was growing into -a profound tenderness toward the girl. She was, after all--the thought -came startlingly--about the age of his own daughter, Betty, whom he -had not seen during these three strange years. Betty and her journalist -husband would be somewhere in Turkestan now; he was studying central -Asia for a book, she sketching the native types. For a long time no -letter had come.... It was a fine experience, this unbidden stir of the -emotions, this thrill. There was mystery in it, and wonder. Merely to -have that almost youthful responsiveness still at call within his breast -was an indication that life might yet hold, even for him, the derelict, -rich promise. And it was a reminder, now, to his clearing brain that his -life must be service. He must find terms on which to offer himself, his -gifts. His spirit had been molded, after all, to no lesser end. - -The viceroy drew away then from the group about the child; came -deliberately along the bank. The increasing tenderness Doane felt -toward Hui Fei reached also to her father, who was facing with such fine -dignity the grim ending of a richly useful life. Now, perhaps, he could -plead with him for the daughter's sake. Somehow, certainly, happiness -must be found for her. In pleading he would be serving her. - -His brain was swinging into something near balance; it was, after all, a -good brain, trained to function clearly, mellowed through patient years -of unhappiness. It would help him now to fight for the girl, to save -her, if he might, from the dark ways of the Forbidden City. She called -herself so naively an “American.” The West had thrilled her. She must -not be given over to the eunuch, Chang. - -So, even as he contrived a sort of self-control, even as he determined -to forget his own little moment of romantic hopefulness, the lover -within him stood triumphant over all his other selves. - - - - -CHAPTER VII--THE INSCRUTABLE WEST - -|DOANE knew nothing of the dignified figure he presented as he took -the viceroy's hand, a profoundly sobered giant, his huge frame outlined -beneath his wet garments like a Greek statue of an athlete. - -“You have helped to save the life of my child, Griggsby Doane”--thus his -excellency, in what proved to be a little set speech--“and with all my -heart I thank you. I am old. Little time is left to me. But life follows -upon death. Death is the beginning of life. It has been said by Chuang -Tzü that the personal existence of man results from convergence of the -vital fluid, and with its dispersion comes what we term death. Therefore -all things are one. All vitality exists in continuing life. And I, when -what I have thought of as my self arrives at dispersion, shall live on -in my children. My words are inadequate. My debt to you is beyond my -power to repay. Command me. I am your servant.” - -Doane bowed, hearing the words, catching something of the warm gratitude -in the heart of the old man, yet at the same moment flogged on to action -by the sense of passing time and present opportunity. It was no simple -matter, it seemed, to approach this seasoned, calmly determined mind -regarding the final personal matter of life and death. But he plunged -at it; stating simply that he had heard the gossip of the impending -tragedy, and that in conversing with the lovely Hui Fei, who was in -obvious difficulty in existing between the two greatest civilizations -without a solid footing in either, he could not bear to think of her -possible fate. - -Rang Yu listened attentively. - -“Your Excellency,” Doane pressed on, “it is not right that you should -listen to the command of a decadent throne. Forgive my frankness, my -presumption, but I must say this! True, you are a Manchu. While this -revolution continues it will be difficult for you. But before -another year shall have gone by there will be a new China. The bitter -animosities of to-day will pass. Though a Manchu, your wise counsel -will be needed. Your knowledge of the Western World will temper the -over-emphatic policies of the young hot-heads from the universities of -Japan.” - -The viceroy considered this appeal during a long moment; then, soberly, -he looked up into the massive, strongly lined face of the white man and -asked, simply: “But what would you have me do, Griggsby Doane?” - -“Your Excellency knows of the plan to seize your property?” - -Kang inclined his head. - -“If you go on to your home, it may be that everything will be taken, -even the money on your person.” - -Kang bowed again. - -“Then, Your Excellency, why not now--while you yet have the means to -do so--escape down the river with your daughter and myself? Can you -not trust yourself and her in my hands? I will find means to convey you -safely to Shanghai--perhaps to Japan or Hong Kong--where you will be -secure until further plans may be laid.” - -“Griggsby Doane,” replied the viceroy with simple candor, “you speak -indeed as a friend. And I would be false to the blood that flows in my -veins did I not prize the friendship of man for man, second only to -the love of a son for a parent, above every other quality in life. -Friendship is most properly the theme of many of the noblest poems in -our language. It is to us more than your people, who place so strong -an emphasis on love between the sexes, can perhaps bring themselves to -understand. And therefore, Griggsby Doane, your feeling toward myself -and my daughter moves my heart more deeply than I can express to you. - -“It is not surprising that news of my sorrow--of this sad ending that -is set upon my long life--should have reached you. But since you know so -much, I will tell you, as friend to friend, more. Do you know why this -sentence has been passed upon me? It is because I could not bring myself -to obey the order of the throne that the republican agitator, Sun -Shi-pi who had sought sanctuary at my yamen in Nanking should be at once -beheaded. Instead I sent for Sun Shi-pi to counsel him. I permitted him -to go to Japan on condition that he engage in no conspiracies and that -he remain away. Instead of complying with my condition he hastened to -organize revolutionary propaganda. He returned to China, appeared in -disguise on the steamer that is burning out yonder, and is now dead, -there, in his republican uniform.” - -So his information was complete! A picture rose in Doane's mind of the -headless trunk of Sun Shi-pi amid the horrors of the lower deck. - -His excellency continued: “I was denounced at the Forbidden City as a -traitor. The sentence of death followed, in the form of an edict from -the empress dowager in the name of the young emperor. Were I now to -follow Sun Shi-pi into exile in a foreign land I would mark myself for -all time as a traitor indeed; as one who, while sharing as an honored -viceroy the prosperity and dignity of the reigning dynasty, conspired -toward its downfall.” - -“But, Your Excellency, the empress dowager and the young emperor no -longer speak with the voice of the Chinese people.” - -“That could make no difference, Griggsby Doane. By edict of the Yellow -Dragon Throne of Imperial China I have been instructed to go to my -ancestors. My allegiance is only to that throne. I will obey.... -Already, Griggsby Doane, you have done for me more than one can ever -demand of a friend. And yet one more demand I must make upon you. There -is no other to whom I can turn. I have no other friend to-night. Within -a short time my secretaries will secure a launch or a junk to convey us -to my home near Huang Chau. Will you come with us there?” - -Doane, surprised, bowed in assent. - -“Thank you. The gratitude of myself and all my family and friends will -remain with you. You are a princely man.... Until later, then, good -night, Griggsby Doane.” - -He was gone. - -Doane walked farther along the bank; stood for a time absorbed in -thought that led, at length, to what seemed a new ray of light in the -darkness that was his mind. And he strode back, hunting in this group -and that for Dawley Kane. That man had offered help. Now he could give -it. - -Dawley Kane, fully dressed, unruffled, quietly smoking a cigar and -looking through a pocket notebook by the light from the river, seemed -a note of sanity in an unbelievably confused world. To him, apparently, -the nightmare of fighting and slaughter on the steamer, like the fire, -were but incidents. The only evidence the man gave out of quickened -nerves was that he talked a little more freely than usual. To Doane he -presented a surface as clear and hard as polished crystal, impenetrable, -in a sense repelling, yet, as we say, a gentleman. - -They even chatted casually, as men will, standing there looking out at -the fire (which now had reached the stem and eaten down to the lower -decks, incinerating alike the bodies of men who had died for faith and -for lust) and at the wide circle of light on the rim of which floated -the vulture-the boats of the rivermen. Doane forced himself into the -vein of the man's interest; riding roughshod over a desperate sense -of unreality. For he knew that the great masters of capital were often -proud and even finicky men who must be approached with skill. They were -kings; must be dealt with as kings. - -Kane was interested to learn what relation the fight below decks might -have to the rebellion up the river. That, clearly, was characteristic -of the man--the impersonal gathering in and relating of observable data. -His interest was deeper in the agriculture and commerce of the immense -Yangtze basin, to which subject he easily passed. His questions came -out of a present fund of knowledge--questions as to the speed, -cargo-capacity and operation-cost of the large junks that plied the -river by thousands, as to the cost of employing Chinese labor and the -average capacity of the coolie. He knew all about the slowly developing -railroads of North and Central China; commented in passing on the -surprising profits of the young Hankow-Peking line.... He seemed to -Doane to have in his mind a map or diagram of a huge, profitmaking -industrial world, to which he added such bits of line or color -as occurred in the answers to his questions. But he gave out no -conclusions, only questions. Famines, other wide-spread suffering so -tragically common in the Orient, interested him only as an impairment of -trade and industrial man power. The opium habit he viewed as an economic -problem. - -Doane, settling doggedly to his purpose, found himself analyzing the -power of this quiet man. It lay of course, in the control of money. And -money would be only a token of human energy. The religion of his own -ardent years had taken no account of earthly energy or its tokens; it -had directed the eyes of the bewildered seeker toward a mystical other -world. Yet human life, in the terms of this earth, must go on. To this -point he always came around, of late years, in his thinking, just as -the church had always come around to it. Money was vital. The church was -endlessly begging for it; in no other way could it survive to continue -turning away the puzzled eyes of the seekers. - -And the immense energy created in the human struggle to live and prosper -must continually be gathering up, here and there, into visible power -that shrewd human hands would surely seize. He felt this now as a law. -Religion had not left him. He felt more strongly than ever before that -this miraculously continuing energy implied a sublime orderly force that -transcended the outermost bounds of human intelligence. Religion was -surely there: it only wanted discovering. It had, as surely, to do with -primitive energy, with the heat of the sun and the disciplined rush of -the planets, with the tragic struggle of human business, with work and -war and sex and money.... And then he indulged in a half-smile. For this -primitive undying energy could be no other than the Tao of Lao-tzu and -Chuang Tzü. And so, after all these groping years of his errant faith, -he had fetched up, simply in Taoism. - -But that law seemed to stand. The human struggle created power that -tended to gather at convenient centers. And here beside him, smoking a -cigar, stood a man whose uncommon genius fitted him to seize that power -as it gathered and administer it; a man to whom money came--the very -winds of chance heaped it about him. And to Doane, just now, money--even -in quantity that would be to Kane hardly the income of a day or -so--meant so much that the grotesque want of it (the word “grotesque” - came) stopped his brain. - -For it was coming clear to him how completely the throne could at will, -obliterate the worldly establishment of Kang Yu. That throne, however -politically weak, yet held the savage instruments of despotic power. -Kang's sad end would come within the twenty-four hours, perhaps; -certainly he would wait only to prepare himself and to write his final -papers. The eunuch's men would be everywhere about the household; -nothing could be hidden from them, or from the spies among the -servants.... With money--a little money--Hui Fei might be saved from an -end as tragic as her father's.... The thing, surely, could be managed. -For the moment it seemed almost simple. She could be spirted away. -There might he missionaries to escort her down the river on one of the -steamers. - -It was then, while Doane's thoughts still raced hither and thither, that -Kane himself broached the vital topic. - -“This viceroy”--thus Kane--“seems to be quite a personage. He's been a -diplomat, I believe. And Kato tells me has an excellent collection of -paintings.” - -Doane felt himself turning into a trader. “You are interested in Chinese -paintings, are you not, Mr. Kane?” he asked guardedly. - -“Oh, yes. I have something of a collection. And now and then Kato picks -up something for me.” - -“I don't know, of course, how far you would care to go with it Mr. -Kane”--Doane was measuring every word as it passed his lips--“but there -is a possibility that a bargain could be struck with his excellency at -this time.” - -“Indeed?” - -“It would be advisable to act pretty quickly, I should say.” - -“Well! This is interesting. You are informed about his collection?” - -“In a general way. It is very well known out here. His collection of -landscapes of the Tang and Sung periods is supposed to be the most -complete in existence, with fine works of Ching Hao, Kuan Tung, Tung -Yuan and Chu-jan. The best known paintings of Li Chang are his. He -has several by Kao Ke-ming, and, I know, an original sixfold landscape -screen by Kuo Hsi. Then there are works of the four masters of southern -Sung--Li Tang, Lui Sungnian, Ma Yuen and Hsia Kuai. You would find -nearly all the great men of the Academy represented.” - -Doane stopped; waited to see if this list of names impressed the great -American. If he knew, in his own person, anything whatever about Chinese -painting he must exhibit at least a little feeling. But Dawley Kane said -nothing; merely lighted, with provoking deliberation, a fresh cigar. - -“It is commonly understood, too”--Doane could not resist pressing him a -little further--“that he has authentic paintings by Wu Tao-tzu, and Li -Lung-mien.” Surely these two names would stir this man who seemed at -moments no more than a calculating machine with manners. But Kane smoked -on.... “And I understand that he has a fairly complete collection of -portraits by the men of the Brush-strokes-reducing Method.” - -He finished rather lamely; fell silent, and looked out over the still -brilliantly lighted river; the river of a hundred thousand dramatic -scenes--battles and romances and struggles for trade--the great river -with its endless memories of gold and bloodshed--the river that for a -brief day was running red again. The fire out there, though red flame -and rolling smoke and whirling sparks still roared upward, was consuming -now the lower deck and the hull. Within the hour the _Yen Hsin_ would be -no more than a curving double row of charred ribs; one more casual -memory of the river. - -Still Dawley Kane smoked on. He clearly knew no enthusiasm. He was an -analyst, an appraiser, a trader to the core. He felt no discomfort, even -in friendly talk, in letting the other man wait. But Doane would say -no more. And finally, knocking the ash off his cigar with a reflective -finger, Kane remarked; “You really think that this collection would be a -good buy?” - -“Unquestionably.” - -“Have you any idea what he would ask?” - -“I don't even know that he would consider selling it.” - -“But if he were properly approached.... there are reasons____” - -“You know of his predicament?” - -“I gather that there is a predicament.” - -“Oh.... well, yes, there is. But I don't know how even to guess at the -value. Many of the paintings are priceless. In New York, at collector's -prices, and without hurrying the sale....” - -“A hundred thousand dollars?” - -“Many times more.” - -“But if he is anxious to sell--must sell” - -“There is that, of course.” - -“A hundred thousand is a good deal of money. If I were to place that -sum to his credit to-morrow, for instance, by wire, at a Shanghai bank, -don't you suppose it would tempt him?” - -“It might. Though Kang knows the value of every piece.” Doane was -finding difficulty in keeping pace with the situation. Kane would shave -every penny, as a matter of principle. That, of course, explained him; -was the secret of his wealth and power. Paintings, after all, mattered -to him only in a remote sense; you could always buy them if you chose, -if people would, as apparently they did, think better of you for buying -them. It came down to the desirability of building up and solidifying -one's name, of what Doane had heard spoken of everywhere in America -during his last visit as “publicity.” The word irritated him. -It suggested that other word, also heard everywhere in America, -“salesmanship.” These words, to the sensitively observant Doane, had -connoted an unpleasant blend of aggressive enterprise with an equally -aggressive plausibility. - -But his wits were sharpening fast. If this man was a buyer, he would be -a seller. - -“His excellency has another collection that might or might not interest -you--the value of it would be only slightly artistic--his precious -stones.” Doane threw this cut carelessly. “There is no estimating the -value of those. It might run into the millions....” He saw Kane's eyes -come to a sudden hard focus behind the veil of smoke. He was really -interested at last. And Doane, with mounting pulse, quietly added, -“He has historical jewels from many parts of Asia--head ornaments, -bracelets, ropes of matched pearls from Ceylon, old careen jade from -Khotan, quantities of the jewelry taken from Khorassan and Persia by -Genghis Khan and his sons, including a number of famous royal pieces, -and some of the jeweled ornaments brought from the temples of India by -Kublai Khan.” - -This, Doane knew, was enough. He waited, now, himself. Waited and -waited. - -“Mr. Doane”--Kane, at last, was speaking--“I would be glad to have you -approach the viceroy for me. To-night, if you think best. I will be -glad, of course, to pay you a commission.” - -“Shall I make a definite offer--for the paintings and the jewels?” - -“No.” Kane considered. “Let him set a price. Then we will make our -offer.” - -“It is safe to say, Mr. Kane”--Doane was remembering experiences of -men in church and educational work who had had to approach the great -capitalists for gifts of money--“that you could sell half the paintings -for what you might pay for the two collections at this time. That would -enable you to give the other half, as a collection bearing your own -name, to one of the art museums at home, at no cost to yourself.” - -Kane smoked thoughtfully. “I presume, Mr. Doane,” he said, “that the -predicament you spoke of can not interfere in any way with the safe -delivery of the collections.” - -Doane considered. How much did this man know? That Japanese, behind his -mask of a smile, would be deep, of course. With a sudden sinking of the -heart, Doane perceived that Kane might easily know the whole story. But -even if he did he would admit nothing. He trusted no one; that was his -calm cynical strength. He would trade to the last.... Another swift, if -random, perception of this tense moment was that much of the common talk -regarding the “inscrutable” East was utter nonsense. Read in the -light of history and habit the Oriental mind was anything but deeply -mysterious; it was, indeed, very nearly an open book. Whereas the -Western mind, with its miraculous religion, its sentimentality and -materialism and (at the same time) its cynically unscrupulous financial -power, could be baffling indeed. - -Desperate now, seeing no other way through, Doane spoke out from his -tortured heart. “Mr. Kane, the simple fact is that his excellency has -been condemned to death, and his daughter to a fate that will -almost certainly end in death for her as well. They are seizing his -property....” - -“Who are they?” - -“The Imperial Government--the empress dowager and her crew. They are -sending the chief eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, to take his paintings and -jewels, and his daughter, to Peking. Frankly, it may be necessary to -hurry matters--smuggle the things out. But the fan paintings can be -packed in parcels, the scrolls rolled small on their ivory sticks, the -jewels gathered in a few boxes. Once in white hands they would be safe. -I think. I believe I can arrange it. The porcelains and carvings you -would probably have to leave behind.” - -His voice died out. Dawley Kane was coolly appraising him. Their minds -were not meeting. - -“As you are stating it now, it is a different situation altogether,” - said Kane, the ring of tempered metal in his voice. “Obviously the man -to deal with is the eunuch, What's-his-name.” - -“But--really--” - -“He would have the collections complete including the porcelains and the -carvings. I should want them all. He would be ignorant and corrupt, of -course; we could buy him for a song. And there would be no risk. Yes, -let him get possession. Then if you would like to approach him for me I -will be glad to see that you make something for yourself.” - -Doane drew in his breath. Slowly he said: “But that, Mr. Kane, seems a -good deal like taking a profit out of the viceroy's misfortune.” - -But he caught himself. To Kane, who had made enormous profits out of -wrecked railways, who had cornered stocks and produce and mercilessly -squeezed the short sellers, this would be sentimentality. - -Doane heard himself saying: “I'm sorry. I could hardly undertake it, Mr. -Kane.” And walked away. His failure was complete. Worse, if there had -been any gaps in the information supplied by the ubiquitous little -Kato, they were filled now. The finely balanced machine that served so -smoothly as a brain in the head of the great American, would be working -on and on. Through the Japanese he could easily enough reach Chang -Yuan-fu from Hankow after the tragedy that now hovered so close over the -old viceroy and all that was his. He could make what he and his suave -kind would doubtless regard--the slang word came grimly--as a killing. - -The white men had made a small fire of dry rushes and thwarts from the -boats. There sat Hui Fei, the sleeping little princess in her arms; and, -beside her, Rocky Kane. Near by, where the men had spread coats on the -ground, Miss Means and Miss Andrews slept side by side. - -Doane walking toward the group--stopping, moving away only to turn -irresolutely back--saw young Kane reach over and take the child into his -own arms, and saw Hui Fei smile at him. He strode away then, struggling -to believe that she could do that. But she had.... After all, she knew -only that he had acted outrageously toward her, had then apologized -publicly, boyishly, and now had brought her little sister ashore, -himself falling exhausted on the bank. With those few facts, out of her -impulsively young judgment she could strike a balance in his favor. Even -at his worst he had bluntly admired her; for that she might, in the end, -forgive him. And his youth would call to her. - -Deane, indeed, forced himself to consider the boy dispassionately. The -wild oats of any spoiled youth with too much money at his disposal, -if brought together, and closely scrutinized, would make an appalling -showing. Wild young men did, of course, recover. There was in this boy a -note of intensity--passionate, eager--that was by no means all egotism. -And there was in the father a hard sort of character that had proved -itself indomitable, and that must be taken into account. Yes, it was a -simple fact, that many a young fellow had gone farther wrong than had -Rocky Kane without wrecking his adult life. You couldn't tell. And -there they were, the eager moody boy and the lovely girl, who was oddly, -quaintly conspicuous in her opera wrap, sitting very close, talking -in low tones while he walked alone. It was torture.... yet it wras an -awakening. He told himself that it was better so... Pacing back and -forth, dwelling on the quick changeableness of youth, its ardor and -sensitive hopefulness, he thought--reaching out for fellowship as -will always the hurt soul--of other lonely lives, of Abelard and Jean -Valjean, of St. Francis, even of Christ. It was odd--from his present -philosophical position of something near Taoism he felt the legendary -Christ as a profoundly human and friendly spirit, immeasurably more -tender, finer, gentler than the theological structure of thought and -conduct that had been erected in His name. He had thought himself very -nearly around the circle, back to essential good.... This process could -bring only humility. Life began to matter less. Love was a tormenting -problem of self; the mature soul must in some measure attain -selflessness if it were not to go down in the trampled dust of life. -Worldly success was an accident. It was hardly desirable; hardly -mattered. That he had within the hour pinned his hope to money, fairly -fought for it, began to seem incredible. - -The viceroy found him standing quietly by the river, turning from the -slowly dying fire out there to the slowly spreading glow in the eastern -sky. - -“I like to think,” remarked his excellency, smiling in friendly fashion, -“that when the first Buddhist patriarch, Bodhidharma, miraculously -crossed the river on a reed plucked from the southern bank, it was not -far from here, near my home.” - -“Was not your city of Huang Chau the home of Li To?” asked Doane. - -“Indeed, yes!” cried his excellency. “In some of his excursions on the -river he undoubtedly passed the site of my home.” - -Doane quoted from that most famous of rhapsodists in musical Chinese: -“'One who has hearkened to the waters roaring down from the heights of -Lung, and faint voices from the land of Ch'in; one who has listened to -the cries of monkeys on the shores of the Yangtze Kiang and the songs -of the land of Pa'.... That”--he was musing aloud, reflectively as the -Chinese do--“was written three full centuries before William of Normandy -first set foot on British soil.... Li Po so described himself.” - -They talked on, of life and philosophy, in, language interwoven with -classical allusions. Friendship, the finest relationship in Chinese -civilization, as it stood, had come to them.... It brought a kind of -peace. Doane failed to recognize this sensation as in some degree but -a phase of his painful exaltation. It seemed to him then that his -struggle, no matter what atonement might lie before, was over. He forgot -again the Western vigor that was, and to the last would be, driving his -spirit. - -Meanwhile the swiftly growing acquaintanceship of Huj Fei and Rocky Kane -was weaving its bright-tinted weft in and out through the dark warp of -Rocky's ill-spent youth. His eyes followed the slightest movement of her -slim hands and rested dog-like on her finely modeled head about which -the shining wet black hair lay close. To his quick youth she was an -exquisite fairy. He felt her as perfume in the air he breathed. Her -voice, when she drowsily, prettily spoke, fell on his ear like music -in an enchanted land. He could say little; he had never before so lost -himself. - -She tried daintily to conceal a yawn. And he, clasping the child in both -arms, turned away to hide its brother. Then, very softly, she laughed -and he laughed. - -“You must try to sleep,” he said gently. - -“I can no' let you keep my sister. You, too, are ver' tire'.” - -“It's nothing. I love to hold her. Really! You see, my life hasn't been -this way. Maybe, if I'd had a sister...” He stopped; suddenly, vividly -sensing what he had been; a hot flush flooded his sensitive face. He -could only add then: “I want you to sleep. It may be hours before -the boat comes for you. It's been such a horrible night--such a -nightmare....” - -“But you mus' res', too. One of the servan's will take my sister.” - -“No!” he cried, low, fiercely, “I won't let any one else have her!” - Sensing crudely that the child was a chord between them, he tightened -his hold. The little head rolled back on his arm; he bent over, tenderly -kissed the soft cheek, then looked over it at Hui Fei, staring. During -one brief moment their eyes met full in the flickering yellow light. - -She turned away; in lieu of speech looked about for a spot to lay her -head. - -“Here!” He laid the child on the ground; and, surprised to find himself -collarless and coatless, took off his waistcoat, rolled it up and placed -it for a pillow. “It's really pretty well dried out,” he added, with an -embarrassed little laugh.... Then, as she still said nothing, went -on, “Do just lie down there. I'll keep awake. We can't count on the -servants; they're all scared to death.” - -Still she hesitated. “I'm afraid I am ver' tire',” she finally remarked -unsteadily. “I can't think ver' clearly.” - -“Listen!” said he, hardly hearing. “I've got to tell you something. I'm -not good enough so much as to speak to you.” - -“Please!” she murmured. “I don' wan' you to talk abou'--” - -“I don't mean that. It's other things too.” His voice broke, but after a -moment he pressed on, a determined look on his curiously youthful face. -“I've done every rotten thing I could think of. I'm--well, I guess I'm -just a criminal. No, listen--please! It's true. I'm to blame for this -awful fire--smoking opium in my cabin. It was my lamp--it must have -been. I fell asleep. But I knew better, of course.... Oh, God, it's -terrible! All those lives, all this suffering! And you--I've nearly -killed you--when it was you....” Here, creditably, he caught himself. -“Don't think I'm talking wildly. I'm getting at something. Seeing you, -meeting you--and now, this--well, I've never seen anybody like you. It's -bowled me off my feet. I know what love is, now--Oh, please! I've got -to get this out. I love you. I'm crazy about you. I can say that because -pretty soon that boat'll come and you'll go and I'll never see you -again. It's right, too! I've got to start again--alone and prove that -there's good stuff in me somewhere...” - -“I'm ver' tire',” she murmured wistfully; and resting her head on the -rolled-up waistcoat she lay still. - -If she had only let him finish! There had been something--some point--he -was getting at. He hadn't meant to tire her or hurt her.... When the tall -eunuch came for the little princess he angrily drove the fellow away. -For Hui Fei was sleeping now, peacefully, like the warm little child in -his arms. - -An English gunboat was the first relief craft to arrive; in the cool -dawn; a tiny craft, built for the river, with a white freeboard low as -a monitor's and bridge structure forward of the thin high funnel. The -small boat that came ashore made a number of trips, taking off the -passengers and the surviving white officers of the _Yen Hsin_. - -His excellency refused, with calm courtesy, to set foot on the English -gunboat that was built for the river; he would wait for the junk that -had been sent for. - -Dawley Kane found his son, nodding, with the picturesquely-clad child -in his arms. The boy, glancing at the sleeping Hui Fei whose head -rested comfortably on the rolled-up waistcoat, gave the child now to the -patiently waiting eunuch, then fairly dragged his father to the boat. -With the Japanese, Kato, and oddly distant to the big mate and the -suddenly exotic-appearing viceroy in his richly embroidered satins who -had been after all only casually, for a few days, in their lives, they -embarked. - -They had nearly reached the gunboat when those on the bank heard young -Kane's voice raised in hot protest. There was a moment of argument; then -a splash. The boy could be seen then swimming back to shore. And Dawley -Kane, turning his back, went on to the gunboat, stepped aboard, and -disappeared. Rocky clambered, dripping, up the bank; came straight to -Duane, a staring, exhausted youth, very white. - -“I can't do it.” he panted. “They've just told me--Kato and the -pater--about this terrible trouble of the viceroy's and--and Miss -Hui Fei's.... The pater said it was time I--got clear of any new -entanglement. I quit him. Oh, I suppose you'll think me a--damn fool, -but”--at this point he nearly broke into tears--“but I love that -girl, Mr. Doane! If I can't be of some use to her--now, in this awful -trouble--I don't want to live. Will you--help me? And let me help?”.... -And, all blind confidence, he offered his hand to the big mate; who took -it. - -The gunboat hoisted anchor and swung about, heading down-stream. Passing -her, upward bound, came a large junk, with the rig of a trader from -Szechuen, her single huge rectangular sail, brown-umber 'n tint and -closely ribbed with battens of bamboo, flat against the one mast that -towered clumsily amidships. The eight long sweeps, in the low waist and -forward, moved rhythmically in time with the syncopated, wailing chant -of nearly a hundred oarsmen. The _tai-kung_ crouched, bamboo pole in -hand, just within the prow. - -The hull was of cypress, stained from stem to stern with yellow orpiment -and rubbed to a polish with oil. The high after-deck structure, all of -fifty feet in length, terminating in a projecting gallery-twenty feet or -higher above the water, was carved everywhere in intricately decorative -designs; as were, also, the roof over the tillerman's stand on the -deck house and the gallery railing (just within which stood a row of -flowering plants in yellow and green pots). The many small windows along -the sides were glazed with opalescent squares of ground oyster shells -and glue; those across the stern (under the gallery) with stained glass. - -To no one aboard the gunboat or among the still waiting groups on the -bank did the thought occur that this craft might be engaged in other -than peaceable business. Her like were not an uncommon sight along the -always crowded river. The passing attention she drew was merely that -aroused by a richly decorative object moving beautifully (with a -remarkably detailed reflection) through the flat water, that itself -glowed under the red and gold of the early morning sky like a great -sheet of burnished old copper. It was not observed that three white -faces peered warily out of the shadow, behind as many opened windows; -nor could it easily be seen that the figure in blue, sitting, knees -drawn up, on the deck house just behind the _laopan_ who mercilessly -urged on the sweat-shining oarsmen, was none other than the redoubtable -Tom Sung. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII--ABOARD THE YELLOW JUNK - -|IN making their escape from the steamer, Tex Connor and the Manila -Kid seized one of the small boats, manning, one at either end, the -tackle-falls. Connor was quick, rough, profane. The Kid, breathless with -excitement, hesitant, glancing back over the rail for a thinly girlish -face that did not, then, appear, worked with ten thumbs at the ropes. -Connor's end, the boat, fell first, a short way, nearly pitching him -out. He cursed this futile man, his jackal, roundly; then clung to the -tackle as the stern fell.... The Kid moaned with pain as the slipping -hemp burned the skin off his fingers, but held it just short of -disaster. - -Hot red flames licked out overhead as the boat jerkily dropped. The -women were screaming up there. A white man, the second mate, leaned -over, swearing vigorously at them. They passed an open freight gangway, -where bodies lay. - -“Ready, now!” cried Connor. “Let go with me!” - -“Wait a minute, can't you?” whined the Kid. He was peering into the dark -interior of the steamer; grasping a moment more; wrapping a handkerchief -about his left hand. “My God! Can't a fellow tie up his hand.” - -A thin blue figure appeared, stepped lightly over into the boat and -dropped on a middle thwart. - -“Dixie!” cried the Kid in falsetto. - -She wore a cap, and carried an oddly lady-like shopping bag. - -“Where'd you come from?” growled Connor. - -“I saw you start,” said the girl casually. “Come on--let's get away.” - -Connor stared at her; then turned back to his work. The boat struck the -water and drifted rapidly away down-stream. Connor, roaring angrily at -the Kid, got out an oar. - -“What are you doing?” asked Miss Carmichael very quietly. - -“Going ashore?” said Connor. - -“Oh, come, Tex!” said she. “Use your head.” - -He looked sharply, inquiringly, doubtingly at her. - -“You two better row straight down-stream as hard as you can,” she added. -“You can bet Tom Sung and that gang aren't going to show themselves at -Kiu Kiang. They've stopped somewhere below here.” - -The Kid, who was nursing his hand, looked up; wrinkled his low forehead -that was hatless, and then softly whistled. Connor made no remark, but -continued studying the girl with his one eye. Finally, with an effort at -reasserting his authority, he growled: - -“Take an oar, Jim!” - -“But my hands! My God, that rope took all the--” - -“Do you expect me to do the rowing, Jim?” said Miss Carmichael. - -The Kid yielded then. The girl settled herself comfortably in the stem, -looking back at the fire. Soon they were out of the circle of light. - -Suddenly Connor drew in his oar; stowed it away. - -“Dixie,” he remarked. “You've made up your mind to go through with this -business, eh?” - -“Certainly,” she replied. - -“You'll have to come across if you want my help. I won't go it blind.” - -Miss Carmichael glanced back at the red glow in the sky, then out toward -the slightly paling East. - -“I'll tell you by sunrise,” she said. “The thing won't keep much longer -than that, anyhow. It'll have to be fairly quick work.” - -“All right,” said Connor. “That's an agreement. Now I'm going to take -a nap. This current's taking us down fast enough. When you sight Tom's -outfit, wake me up.” With which he curled up in the bow, and soon was -snoring. - -The Kid stowed his own oar, and crept to the girl's side. - -“Careful!” she whispered. “If he should wake up....” She extricated -herself from an encircling arm. “Jim--sit still now!--It's time you and -I had an understanding. I need you, and I'm going to use you. I don't -propose to have you all steamed up, either. You'll need all the nerve -you've got. Perhaps more. I'm not at all sure that you're big enough for -what you've got to do. That's the difficulty.” - -“You promised, Dixie.” He was still absurdly breathless. “You said it -was a trade--if I'd stick to you, you'd stick to me!” - -“Certainly. But it's during the next eight or ten hours that you're -going to find out what sticking to me, means. You can have me, all -right, Jim, but you've got to earn me.” - -“I guess I'll earn you, all right.” - -“I wonder if you have the courage.” - -“By God, for you, Dixie--” - -Her hand fell lightly on his; and her voice, very small and calm, broke -in with: “Supposing I told you to kill a man. Would you do it?” - -She heard, felt, his breath stop. Then he whispered, with one swift -glance at the sleeping Connor: “If I say yes, Dixie, will you kiss me? -Right now?” - -She pressed her lips slightly; then replied: “No. Not yet. And you -needn't kill anybody until I tell you to.” - -“Is it--is it”--his whisper was huskier--“is it--him, Dixie?” He was -staring with less certainty now, at Connor. - -“No”--said she slowly--“nobody in particular. But anything may happen -to-night, Jim. And we can't falter. Not now.” - -She let him press her hand during a brief moment; then made him resume -his seat. And from behind lowered lids she watched him. - -Once he came back, to ask hoarsely: “You said he was rough with you, -Dix. Did he--did you and he--my God, if I thought that Tex had--” - -She caught his shoulder and placed a hand over his mouth: held him thus -while she said: “If he catches you back here, Jim, he'll kill you. No -fear! Now you go back there and show me that you can play cards. You're -sitting in the biggest game of your life. Jim Watson.” - -He crept back; puzzled, something hurt. There was a sting in her voice. -Could it be that the girlish Dixie was as cold-blooded as that? Treating -him like a child! Hadn't she any feelings? The question came around and -around in his muddy brain, confused with frantic uprushes of jealousy -against the big man who slept and snored in the bow.... hadn't she any -feelings?.... She was excitingly desirable. - -Just as a conquest, now; something to brag about. - -It was Dixie who sighted the soldiers, sitting in heated argument on the -bank not a hundred yards below a big junk that lay moored to stakes in -an eddy. She called sharply to Connor; they pulled straight in beside -the other two boats. - -Tom Sung came to the water's edge, a rifle (with set bayonet) in his -hand. Connor stepped out, holding the boat. The Kid, with a furtive, -glance at the big yellow fighter, and the abruptly silent shadowy group -on the bank, cautiously got out an automatic pistol and held it beside -him on the thwart. - -Dixie said sharply, for Connor's ears: “Put up that gun, Jim!” - -The Kid obeyed. - -She spoke then to Connor direct. - -“Tell your man we want that junk,” she said. “Get out these other boats -and take it, quick. Then we'll start back up-stream.” - -For a moment Connor was nonplussed. The girl's assumption of authority -was complete. Even the slow-thinking Tom Sung felt her presence and -turned abruptly from himself toward her. - -But, though angered, Connor controlled himself. She meant, after all, -business. Dixit wasn't a girl to make careless mistakes. She knew, none -better, what any success, little or big, might be worth in risks run. -So, speaking sharply, he gave his orders to Tom. - -Quietly the twenty or more outlaw soldiers came down to the boats and -pushed off. Rowing and paddling they crept up on the junk. A drowsy -watchman peeped over at the rail, forward. - -Then they were alongside. Catching at the mooring poles, the soldiers -stepped out on the wide sponson that curved down, amidships, nearly to -the water-line. Quickly, rifles slung on backs but revolvers at their -girdles and knives in their teeth, they went up the ropes hand over -hand, their bare feet dinging monkeylike to the smooth side. - -There were cries aboard now, and a confusion of running feet. The first -soldier to get a leg over the rail came tumbling back with a split -skull, bounding off the sponson into the water and sinking as he drifted -away. - -Connor and the Kid caught together at the sponson. Connor stepped -out; and calling on a belated soldier to give him a back, climbed -laboriously, puffing but determined, up over the rail, pausing at the -top only to call back for the Kid to follow. - -But that worthy hesitated, crouching, clutching at the boat painter. -“I've got to hold the boat here!” he shouted back; but Connor had -disappeared. - -There was much noise up there now--shouts, groans, appalling screeches, -shots, and that insistent pattering of feet. - -Dixie, watching critically the crouching figure on the sponson--for -the Kid was shivering and making little sounds, obviously caught in the -acute physical distress into which extreme sudden fear will at times -plunge a man--called abruptly: “Jim--look up!” - -A nearly naked Chinese was lowering himself in a deliberate gingerly -manner down a moving rope nearly overhead. - -“Kill him, Jim!” Dixie added. - -Singling out her clear voice from the tumult, the yellow man looked -fearfully down. - -The Kid, at the same moment, looked up; then, fumbling in a curiously -absent way for his pistol, glanced back at Dixie. - -“I'll hold the boat,” said she. “Go on--kill him!” She sat quietly, one -thin arm reached out to the nearest mooring pole, looking steadily up. - -The Kid, nerving himself, suddenly burst into a storm of wild oaths and -shot three times into the body above him. At the first shot the man -slipped down a little way. - -“Push him away!” Dixie cried sharply. “I don't want him falling into the -boat!” - -He was shooting again; and then with an effort diverted the falling -body. - -Dixie got up, and stood steadying herself in the gently rocking boat; -and the Kid--quit; out of breath now, and muttering, as he fondled the -hot pistol, “Well, I did it, didn't I? I did what you said!”--found in -her eyes, shining through the dusk of early dawn, a bright white -light that was, to him, disconcerting and yet profoundly thrilling. He -shivered again as he felt the spell of her strange genius. What a woman, -he was thinking again, but wildly, madly, now, to conquer. - -And she was saying, “I guess your nerve's all right.” - -Other shining yellow bodies were tumbling over the side and floating -away. - -“Help me up there, Jim!” she commanded. “Never mind tying the boat--let -it go! It's only a giveaway. Quick--give me a hand!” - -She was beside him on the sponson. He clasped her in his arms; but -before he could kiss her she slapped him sharply. “Keep your head!” she -commanded. “Put me up there!” - -He lifted her high; until she could kneel, then stand, on his shoulder. -She went over the rail as lightly as a boy. She found the soldiers in -small groups cornering one or another of the crew, torturing and hacking -at them with bayonets and knives, and during a brief moment looked -on with a curious keen interest. The master, or _laopan_, crouched, -whimpering, on the poop.... She saw Connor standing by the mast, just -above the well, amidships and forward, where were huddled the survivors -among the crew (their number surprisingly large); Connor was panting, -revolver in hand, and scowling about him. - -Dixie stepped to his side. - -“You've got to save enough of this crew to work the boat up the river, -Tex,” she remarked. - -“I'm saving enough of 'em,” he replied gruffly. “We've only killed a -dozen or so. There was more'n a hundred.” - -The heavily evil-looking Tom Sung reluctantly detached himself from one -of the groups and came over, wiping his bayonet casually on his sleeve. -Mr. Connor roughly ordered to gather his men together and make ready to -get under way. To the Kid, who came awkwardly over the rail just then, -Connor gave merely a glance. Then to Dixie, he said: - -“Come up here!” - -He led the way up the steps with the carven hand rail to the poop; gave -the _laopan_ a careless kick; stepped around the steersman's covered pit -and out astern on the high projecting gallery. - -“Now,” he said, fixing his one eye on Her, “where's this place?” - -She turned away to the pots of flowers that stood closely spaced just -within the elaborate woodwork of the railing. There were chrysanthemums, -white, yellow and deep Indian red; highly cultivated double dahlias; -red lotus blossoms; and tuberoses that filled the fresh morning air with -their heavy perfume. “Well?” Connor added explosively. - -“I said I'd tell you by sunrise, Tex,” she said, coolly pleasant; and -hummed, very softly, a music-hall tune, bending over a spreading lotus -blossom with every appearance of ingenuous girlish interest. After a -moment, she went on, “The thing now is to get this junk up the river as -fast as it will go.” - -“Where to?” He was controlling his voice, but his face, usually -expressionless, was brutally clouded.... “Push me just a little farther, -Dix, and you'll go overboard. And there won't be any flowers at the -funeral. By God, I'm not sure I wouldn't enjoy it. You got me into this -business! Now if you--” - -“Better control yourself, Tex,” said she; straightening up before -him. “I may have got you in, but it's a real job now. You've got to go -through. And you're going to need me. The place is a few miles this side -of a town called Huang Chau, on the north hank.” - -“Beyond Hankow?” - -“No, below. It's only a matter of hours getting up there, if you'll just -get this junk started.” - -“How'll we know it when we get there?” - -“All we've got to do is ask a native, anywhere along the bank, where -Kang Yu lives--his old home.” - -“Who's he?” - -“The viceroy of Nanking. Why don't you use that eye of yours once in a -while, Tex--look around you a little?” - -Slowly his mind, so quick at the vicious games of his own race, picked -up and related the facts. His face relaxed, as he thought, into the -familiar wooden expression. - -“You're sure the stones are there?” he asked, quietly now. - -She nodded; hummed again; caressed the flowers. - -“All right, Dix,” he said then, as he turned to go forward, “that sounds -square enough. I guess I can handle it all right. And I'll see that you -get your share all hunky dory.” - -“What are you figuring my share to be?” she asked, glancing casually up -from a lotus blossom. - -“Oh,” he cried without hesitation, almost playfully, “you and I aren't -going to have any trouble about that.” - -He went then; and she lingered among the flowers. - -From beyond the long deck house came shouts and wailing. The great -sweeps were got overside. The mooring poles were hoisted out and lashed -along the sponsons. The clumsy craft swung out into the river and moved -slowly forward. - -At the sound of a hasty light step Dixie looked up into the haggard gray -face of the Kid. - -“What was it?” he whispered, glancing fearfully behind him. “Wha'd he -say to you?” - -She dropped her eyes; turned away. - -“Quick! Tell me, or by God, I'll--” - -She threw up a frail white hand. - -“Not now, Jim!” - -“When?” - -“He'll have to sleep. There's work ahead.” - -“If you think _I_ can sleep--” - -“I can't either, Jim. It's dreadful. But I'm going to tell you -everything. You have a right to know. Wait till we're past the steamer. -We'd better get below now anyhow. We mustn't be seen. If we aren't, -they'll never suspect this junk. Then make sure he's asleep and come up -here. I'll be waiting.” - -The Kid brought Dixie's breakfast of rice and eggs and tea to the -gallery. - -“The cook was only wounded a little,” he explained. “Tom's got him -working now.” - -Dixie was reclining on a Canton chair of green rushes over a bamboo -frame, her head resting languidly near the tuberoses. Now and again she -drew in deeply the rich odor. And beyond the fringe of flowers and the -carven railing she could see the river. Junks moved slowly by, sliding -down with the current--somber seagoing craft out of Tientsin and Cheefoo -and Swatow and even Canton. By a village were clustered open sampans, -and slipper-boats with their coverings of arched matting. The small -craft of the fishermen with suspended nets or with roosting, crowding -cormorants clustered here and there along the channel-way. Everywhere -farmers and their coolies were at work in the fields. A family--father, -mother, boys and girls--worked tirelessly with their feet a large -irrigating wheel at the water's edge. - -The Kid seated himself on the deck and mournfully looked on while she -ate. Perversely she delayed her narrative, playing with time and life. -In her oblique way she was happy, exercising her gift for gambling on a -scale new in her experience. Indeed, for the thrill she now experienced, -Dixie Carmichael would have paid almost any price. Life itself--the mere -existing---she held almost as cheaply as the Chinese. Deliberately, with -nerves steady as steel instruments, she finished her simple breakfast -and then put the bowls aside on the deck. - -Lying back, averting her face, gazing off down the river, she began -the narrative that she had framed within the hour. Her manner, calm at -first, soon offered evidences of deeply suppressed emotion. Her voice -exhibited the first unsteadiness the Kid had ever heard in it. She -drew out an embroidered handkerchief from the pocket of her blouse -and pressed it once or twice to her eyes, as, with an air of dogged -determination, she talked on. - -The narrative itself dealt with her girlhood near San Francisco, her -chance meeting with Tex Connor, then a well-known character on the -western coast of America, her girlish infatuation with him, and an -elopement that she had supposed would end in marriage. Instead she found -her life ruined. Connor had beaten her, degraded her, driven her into -vice. She ran away from him; reached the China Coast; settled down -with every intent to become what she termed, in his and her language, a -square gambler. - -“When I took up with you a little last year, Jim, it seemed to me that -at last I'd found a man I could tie to. You never knew my real feelings. -I'm not the kind that tells much or shows much. I guess perhaps my -life's been too hard. But--oh, Jim!--well, you're, seeing the real girl -now. I'm pretty well beaten down, Jim.... You're getting the truth from -me at last. I've got to tell it--all of it--for your own sake. You're -in worse trouble than you know, right now. The cards are stacked -against you, Jim. Your life even”--her voice broke; but she got it under -control--“I'm going to save you if I can.” - -Moodily he watched her. - -“If it was anybody but Tex! He's merciless. He's strong. He never -forgets.... Listen, Jim! Tex came clear from London to find me. And -he found out about--us--you and me. That I was growing fond of you. He -never forgets and he never forgives. Oh. Jim, can't you see it! Can't -you see that that's why he took you on--so he could watch you, keep you -away from me? Can't you see what a game I've had to play? God, if you'd -heard what he said to me back here this very morning--Oh, it's too -awful! I can't tell you! He's so determined! He gets his way, Jim--Tex -gets his way!.... Oh, what can I do!” - -“No, wait--I've got to tell you the whole thing. You said he was -planning to cross me. He'll do that, of course. I don't think I care -much about that. But you, Jim--oh, you poor innocent boy! If you could -only see! You'll never get your hands on one of the viceroy's jewels.” - -She turned her face toward him. Her eyes now were swollen and wet with -tears. - -Jim, gray of face, held in his two hands a Chinese knife, balancing -it. There were stains on the blade. He must have picked it up, she -reflected, here on the junk. For it wouldn't be like him to carry such -a weapon. It seemed to her then that he was holding his breath. She saw -him moisten his blue lips with the tip of an ashen tongue. He was trying -to speak. At least his lips parted again. She waited. When the voice did -finally come, it was so hoarse that he had evident difficulty in making -it intelligible. - -“Tex may be strong--but if you think I'm afraid--” - -“Oh, Jim.... no, I don't mean that! Not that! Oh, I don't know what I'm -saying-! It's only when I think how happy you and I might be--think of -it! really rich! able to go and live decently somewhere, like regular -folks!” - -Silently, with surprising stealthy swiftness, he got to his feet. His -right hand, with the knife, busied itself in a side pocket of his coat. - -“Say the word, Dixie”--his face was contorted with the muscular effort -necessary to produce this small sound--“say the word, and I'll kill -him.” - -“Oh, no, Jim!” she covered her face with her thin hands, and sobbed, -very low. “Oh God, what can we do? Isn't there some other way?” - -“Say the word,” he whispered. - -“Would it be”--she broke down again--“would it be--where a man's a -devil, where he's threatened--wouldn't it be like defending ourselves?” - -“Say the word!” - -“Oh, Jim---God forgive me!.... Yes!” - -Her lips barely framed the word. But he read it. She watched him as -he stepped around the huge coils of tracking rope on the roof of the -steersman's pit; watched until he dropped softly down and disappeared. - -Then, lying back, very still, she listened. But the oarsmen were -chanting up forward, the _laopan_ shouting; nearer, the steersman was -singing an apparently endless falsetto narrative (as if there had -never been bloodshed). The minutes slowly passed. She drew in the sweet -exhalation of the tuberoses.... still no unusual sound. She herself -exhibited no sign of excitement beyond the hint of a cryptic smile and -the white light in her eyes.... Her shopping bag lay on her lap. Opening -it, she looked at the bracelet watch, that nestled close to a small -triangular bottle of green corrosive sublimate tablets.... The gentle -wash of the current against the hull gave out a soothing sound. The -slowly rising sun beat warmly down, and the polished deck radiated the -heat. A sensation of drowsiness was stealing over her. For a short while -she fought it off; but then, deciding that no anxiety on her part could -be of value, she yielded, closed the bag on her lap, and drifted into -slumber. - -It was pleasantly warmer still. She felt her eyes about to -open--slowly--on a presence. This languor was delicious. As an almost -ascetic epicure in sensations she rested a moment longer in it, thinking -dreamily of priceless gems heaped in her hollowed hands; of luxurious -idleness in some exotic port--Singapore, or Penang (she had loved the -tropical splendor of Penang), or in Burmah or India--Rangoon say, or -even Lucknow, Lahore and Simla. They would know less about her there. -And with the means to operate on a larger scale she should be able to -add enormously to her wealth. She decided to dress and act differently; -make a radical change in her methods. - -Her lips parted. The presence before her--coatless, little cap pushed -back off the low forehead--was Connor. He had pushed aside a flower pot -to make a seat on the rail. - -She closed her eyes again. He still wore the gray flannels and the white -shoes with the rubber soles-It would be the shoes that had enabled him -to approach without awakening her. He was smoking a cigar And the face -was wooden again--save for his eye--He at stared oddly at her. And she -thought his breathing somewhat short, just at first. - -She opened her eyes again. - -“I've had a good nap,” she said. - -He smoked, and stared. - -“Where's Jim?” she asked then; quite casually: raising herself on an -elbow. - -He made no reply; smoked on, still a thought breathless, fixing her with -his eyes. - -“He brought me some breakfast, just before I fell asleep.... What time -is it?” - -For what seemed a long space he did not even answer this; merely smoked -and stared. She had never, sensitively keen as were her perceptions, -felt so curious a hostility in Connor. She had hitherto supposed that -she understood him, short as had been their actual acquaintance---her -narrative of a past with him in America, as related to Jim, was -false--but the man before her now, sitting all but motionless on the -railing, smoking with an odd rapid intensity, holding that cold eye on -her, was wholly alien. - -Finally he replied: “It's afternoon.” - -“No!” She sat up. “Have we been going right along?” - -“Right along.” - -She stood erect; covered a yawn; then with her thin hands smoothed down -the wrinkled blue skirt about her hips. - -“I look like the devil,” she remarked. The thin hands went to her hair. -“You haven't noticed any sort of a mirror in the cabin, have you, Tex?” - -He did not reply. - -Faintly through the still air came a faint sound--a boom--boom-bom. - -“What's that?” she asked sharply. - -“Fighting around Hankow.” - -“We're not way up there?” She stepped to the side and looked out ahead. -“There's a city!” - -“Tom says it's Huang Chau.” - -“Hello! We're there!” - -He inclined his head. - -“What are you going to do?” - -“Tie up here.” - -She heard now other and more confused sounds. The junk was slowing down; -working in toward the yellow shallows. - -“Now listen!” said he. She glanced at him, then away, apparently -considering the quiet landscape; alien he was indeed, and hostile, his -manner that of an inarticulate man struggling with a set speech.... -“Listen! You're smart enough. But I want you to understand I don't trust -you.'' - -“Don't you, Tex?” - -“When I go ashore, you're to stay here--right here on this deck--where -you are now.” - -“What's the big idea, Tex?” - -“There'll be men to see that you do stay here. I want you to get this -straight.” - -“Of course,” said she musingly, “you won't be able to rob me outright. -You'll have to give me enough of a share to keep me quiet afterward.” - -He said nothing. - -“But what's to prevent the crew from getting away with the junk. I'm not -very keen about being carried off that way.” - -“You needn't worry. I'm taking the master along with me.” - -He stood then; looked meaningly at her; then went forward. She noted -that his two hip pockets bulged. - -Slowly the long narrow craft was worked in toward the land. Trackers -sculled ashore in sampans and made the great hawsers fast to stakes. -Then the crew, with a deal of shouting and many casual blows, were -assembled in the long well forward of the mast, where they huddled -abjectly. - -Keeping around the steersman's house, Dixie contrived to take in much -of the scene. There was quarreling among the soldiers. Tom Sung towered -over them, shouting rough orders. The two men that were told off (she -judged to guard her and the junk) appeared to be objecting to their part -in the affair. Obviously there would be small loot here. - -Connor came back over the deck house; stood angrily over her. She sensed -the mounting brutality in him. For that matter, his sort and their ways -with women were familiar enough to her. She had learned to take brutal -men for granted. But it had not occurred to her that Connor would strike -her. However, he did. Knocked her to her knees; then to her face; even -kicked her as she lay on the deck. He was suddenly loud, wild. - -“None o' this peeking around!” he cried. “Keep your eyes where they -belong!” And left her there. - -After a little she was able to creep to the rail and peer out through -the flowers. Frightened members of the crew were sculling the sampans -back and forth, until at length the whole party, every man except the -_laopan_ armed, fully assembled, set off inland. - -Beyond an unpleasant headache she felt no injury. She sat for a little -while; then again looked forward. The two guards were on the deck house, -talking excitedly together. While she watched they climbed down, shouted -at the huddled crew, fired a careless shot or two into the mass of them -that brought down at least one. At length two of the crew went over -the side, followed by the soldiers. A moment later the sampan appeared -moving toward the shore, the two soldiers loudly urging on the oarsmen. - -Dixie, swiftly then, rearranging her disordered hair as she walked, went -down into the cabin. - -A corridor extended along one side from the _laopans_ quarters under the -steersman's house--sounds of stifled weeping came from there, apparently -a woman or a girl--forward to the open space amidships. The rooms all -gave on this corridor, the doorways hung with curtains of blue cotton -cloth. Into one and another of these rooms she looked. There was bentwood -furniture and bedding in each---the latter tossed about. On the walls -hung neat ideographic mottoes. The grillwork about the windows and over -the doors was of a uniform and quaint design. - -Connor had taken for himself the rear room. There she found, beneath the -window a heap of matting and bedding. Thoughtfully, deliberately, she -lifted it off, piece by piece, exposing first a foot and leg, then a -bony hand, finally the entire figure of what had been Jim Watson, known, -of recent years, along Soochow Road and Bubbling Well Road as the Manila -Kid. His clothing was slashed and torn in many places. About his middle, -and about his head, were wide pools of blood that during a number of -hours, evidently, had been drying into the boards of the deck. The neck, -she observed, on closer examination, had been cut through nearly to the -vertebrae. - -During a swift moment she considered the grew-some problem; then -carefully replaced the matting and bedding. - -She went forward then to the end of the corridor; paused to look in her -shopping bag, open the triangular bottle and drop a few of the green -pills into the pocket of her middy blouse, under her handkerchief; -closed the bag and stepped out on the low midships deck. - -The sampan had just returned to the junk. The two soldiers were walking; -rapidly inland after Connor's party. She let herself quickly over the -side; stepped into the sampan; waved toward the shore. Meekly the cowed -oarsmen obeyed the pantomime order. - -She stepped out on the bank, very slim, almost pretty; tossed a Chinese -Mexican dollar into the boat, watched, with a faint, reflective smile, -the two primitive creatures as they fought over it; then walked briskly, -not without a trace of native elegance in her carriage, after the -soldiers, lightly swinging her shopping bag. - - - - -CHAPTER IX--IN A GARDEN - -|THE road--narrow, worn to a deep-rutted little canyon--circled a brown -hill, rose into a mud-gray village, where a few listless children played -among the dogs, and a few apathetic beggars, and vendors of cakes, -and wrinkled old women stared at the thin white girl who walked rapidly -and alone; wound on below the surface of the cultivated fields; came, -at length, to a wall of gray-brick crowned with tiles of bright yellow -glaze and a ridge-piece of green, and at last to a gate house with a -heavily ornamented roof of timbers and tiles. Other roofs appeared just -beyond, and interlacing foliage that was tinged, here and there, with -the red and yellow and bronze of autumn. - -The great gates, of heavy plank studded with iron spikes, stood open, -apparently unattended. Dixie Carmichael paused; pursed her lips. Her -coolly searching eyes noted an incandescent light bulb set in the -massive lintel. This, perhaps, would be the place. Almost absently, -peering through into tiled courtyards, she took two of the green tablets -from her pocket; then, holding them in her hand, stepped within, and -stood listening. The rustling of the leaves, she heard, as they swayed -in a pleasant breeze, and a softly musical tinkling sound; then a murmur -that might be voices at a distance and in some confusion; and then, -sharply, with an unearthly thrill, the silver scream of a girl.... Yes, -this would be the place. - -The buildings on either hand were silent. Doors stood open. Paper -windows were torn here and there, and the woodwork broken in. But the -flowers and the dwarf trees from Japan that stood in jars of Ming -pottery were undisturbed. - -She passed through an inner gate and around a screen of brick and found -herself in a park. There was a waterfall in a rockery, and a stream, -and a tiny lake. A path led over a series of little arching bridges of -marble into the grove beyond; and through the trees there she -caught glimpses of elaborate yellow roofs. On either hand stood -_pai-lows_--decorative arches in the pretentious Chinese manner--and -beyond each a roofed pavilion built over a bridge.... She considered -these; after a moment sauntered under the _pai-low_ at her right, -mounted the steps and dropped on the ornamented seat behind a leafy -vine. Here she was sheltered from view, yet her eyes commanded both the -main gate and the way over the marble bridges to the buildings in the -grove. - -She looked about with a sense of quiet pleasure at the gilded fretwork -beneath the curving eaves of the pavilion, the painted scrolls above -them, and the smooth found columns of aged nanmu wood that was in -color like dead oak leaves and that still exhaled a vague perfume. The -tinkling sound set up again as another breeze wandered by; and looking -up she saw four small bells of bronze suspended from the eaves.... She -sat very still, listening, looking, thinking, drawing in with a deep -inhalation the exquisite fragrance of the nanmu wood. It might be -pleasant, one day, to lease or even buy a home like this. So ran her -alert thoughts. - -The murmuring from the buildings in the grove continued, now swelling a -little, now subsiding. It was not, of itself, an alarming sound, except -for an occasional muffled shot. Her quick imagination, however, pictured -the scene--they would be running about, calling to one another, beating -in doors, rummaging everywhere. The drunkenness would doubtless be -already under way. There would be much casual but ingenious cruelty, -an orgiastic indulgence in every uttermost thrill of sense. It would be -interesting to see; she even considered, her nerves tightening slightly -at the thought, strolling back there over the bridges; but held finally -to her first impulse and continued waiting here. - -A considerable time passed; half an hour or more. Then she glimpsed -figures approaching slowly through the grove. They emerged on the -farthest of the little marble bridges. One was Tex Connor; the second -perhaps--certainly--Tom Sung. They carried armfuls of small boxes, at -the sight of which Dixie's pulse again quickened slightly; for these -would be the jewels. Tom appeared to be talking freely; as they crossed -the middle bridge he broke into song; and he reeled jovially.... Connor -walked firmly on ahead. - -They stopped by the gate screen. Connor glanced cautiously about; then -moved aside into a tiled area that was hidden from the gate and the path -by quince bushes. He called to Tom who followed. - -Miss Carmichael could look almost directly down at them through the -leaves. She watched closely as they hurriedly opened the boxes and -filled their pockets with the gems. Tom used a stone to break the golden -settings of the larger diamonds, pearls and rubies. - -A low-voiced argument followed. She heard Tom say, “I come back, all -light. But I got have a girl!” And he lurched away. - -Connor, looking angrily after him, reached back to his hip pocket; but -reconsidered. He needed Tom, if only as interpreter; and Tom, singing -unmusically as he reeled away over the marble bridges, knew it. - -Connor waited, standing irresolute, listening, turning his eye toward -the gate, then toward the trees behind him. The girl in the pavilion -considered him. She had not before observed evidence of fear in the man. -But then she had never before seen him in a situation that tested his -brain and nerve as well as his animal courage. He was at heart a bully, -of course: and she knew that bullies were cowards.... What small respect -she had at moments felt for Tex left her now. She came down to despising -him, as she despised nearly all other men of her acquaintance. Still -peering through the leaves, she saw him move a little way toward the -gate, then glance, with a start, toward the marble bridges, finally -turning back to the remaining boxes. - -He opened one of these--it was of yellow lacquer richly ornamented--and -drew out what appeared to be a tangle of strings of pearls. He turned it -over in his hands; spread it out; felt his pockets; finally unbuttoned -his shirt and thrust it in there. - -It was at this point that Dixie arose, replaced the green tablets in her -pocket, smoothed her skirt, and went lightly down the steps. He did not -hear her until she spoke. - -“Do you think Tom'll come back, Tex?” - -He whirled so clumsily that he nearly fell among the boxes and the -broken and trampled bits of gold and silver; fixed his good eye on her, -while the other, of glass, gazed vacantly over her shoulder. - -She coolly studied him--the flushed face, bulging pockets, protruding -shirt where he had stuffed in those astonishing ropes of pearls. - -He said then, vaguely: “What are you doing here?” - -“Thought I'd come along. Suppose he stays back there--drinks some more. -You'd be sort of up against it, wouldn't you?” - -“I'd be no worse off than you.” He was evasive, and more than a little -sullen. She saw that he was foolishly trying to keep his broad person -between her and the boxes. - -“You couldn't handle the junk without Tom. Not very well.... Look here, -Tex, it can't be very far to the concessions at Hankow. We could pick up -a cart, or even walk it.” - -“What good would that do?” - -“There'll be steamers down to Shanghai.” - -“And there'll be police to drag us off.” - -“How can they? What can they pin on you?” Connor's eye wavered back -toward the grove and the buildings. He was again breathing hard. “After -all this..” he muttered. “That old viceroy'll be up here, you know. -With his mob, too. And there's plenty of people here to tell....” He -was trying now to hold an arm across his middle in a position that would -conceal the treasure there. - -Her glance followed the motion, and for a moment a faintly mocking smile -hovered about her thin mouth. She said: “Saving those pearls for me, -Tex?” - -He stared at her, fixed her with that one small eye, but offered not a -word. A moment later, however, nervously signaling her to be still he -brushed by and peeped out around the quinces. - -“What is it?” she asked quickly; then moved to his side. - -Immediately beyond the farthest of the marble bridges stood a group of -ten or twelve soldiers in drunkenly earnest argument. Above them towered -the powerful shoulders and small round head of Tom Sung. In the one -quick glance she caught an impression of rifles slung across sturdy -backs, of bayonets that seemed, at that distance, oddly dark in color; -an impression, too, of confused minds and a growing primitive instinct -for violence. Tom and another swayed toward the bridge; others drew them -back and pointed toward the buildings they had left. The argument waxed. -Voices were shrilly emphatic. - -“Looks bad,” said the girl at Connor's shoulder. “You've let 'em get out -of hand, Tex.” Then, as she saw him nervously measuring with his eye -the width of the open space between the quinces and the gate screen, she -added, “Thinking of making a run for it, Tex?” - -He slowly swung that eye on her now; and for no reason pushed her -roughly away. “It's none of your business what I'm going to do,” he -replied roughly. - -But the voice was husky, and curiously light in quality. And the eye -wavered away from her intent look. This creature fell far short of the -Tex Connor of old. She spoke sharply. - -“Come up into this summer-house, Tex!” she indicated it with an upward -jerk of her head. “They won't see us there, at first. You didn't see -me. You've got your pistols. You can give me one. We ought to be able to -stand off a few Chinese drunks.” - -She could see that he was fumbling about for courage, for a plan, in a -mind that had broken down utterly. His growl of--“I'm not giving you any -pistol!”--was the flimsiest of cover. And so she left him, choosing a -moment when that loud argument beyond the bridges was at its height to -run lightly up the steps and into the pavilion. - -From this point she looked down on the thick-minded Connor as he -struggled between cupidity, fear and the bluffing pride that was so -deep a strain in the man. The one certain fact was that he couldn't -purposelessly wait there, with Tom Sung leading these outlawed soldiers -to a deed he feared to undertake alone.... They were coming over -the bridges now, Tom in the lead, lurching along and brandishing his -revolver, the others unslinging their rifles. The argument had ceased; -they were ominously quiet. - -Dixie got her tablets out again; then sat waiting, that faint mocking -smile again touching the corners of her mouth. But the smile now meant -an excitement bordering on the thrill she had lately envied the savage -folk in the grove. Such a thrill had moved those coldeyed women who sat -above the combat of gladiators in the Colosseum and with thumbs down -awaited the death agony of a fallen warrior. It had been respectable -then; now it was the perverse pleasure of a solitary social outcast. -But to this girl who could be moved by no simple pleasure it came as a -gratifying substitute for happiness. Her own danger but added a sharp -edge to the exquisite sensation. It was the ultimate gamble, in a life -in which only gambling mattered. - -Connor was fumbling first at a hip pocket where a pistol bulged, then at -a side pocket that bulged with precious stones. His eye darted this -way and that his cheeks had changed in color to a pasty gray. The girl -thought for a moment that he had actually gone out of his head. - -His action, when it finally came, was grotesquely romantic. She thought, -in a flash, of the adventure novels she had so often seen him reading. -It was to her absurd; even madly comic. For with those bulging pockets -and that gray face, a criminal run to earth by his cruder confederates, -he fell back on dignity. He strode directly out into the path, with a -sort of mock firmness, and, like a policeman on a busy corner, raised -his hand. - -Even at that he might have impressed the soldiers; for he was white, -and had been their vital and vigorous leader, and they were yellow and -low-bred and drunk. As it was, they actually stopped, just over the -nearest bridge; gave the odd appearance of huddling uncertainly there. -But Connor could not hold the pose. He broke; looked wildly about; -started, puffing like a spent runner, up the steps of the pavilion -where the girl, leaning slightly forward, drawing in her breath sharply -through parted lips, looked through the leaves. - -Several of the rifles cracked then; she heard bullets sing by. And -Connor fell forward on the steps, clawed at them for a moment, and lay -still in a slowly widening pool of thick blood. He had not so much as -drawn a weapon. Tex Connor was gone. - -They came on, laughing, with a good deal of rough banter, and gathered -up the jewels. Tom and another mounted the steps to the body and went -through the pockets of his trousers for the jewels that were there and -the pistols. As there was no coat they did not look further. And then, -merrily, they went back over the marble bridges to the buildings in the -grove where were still, perhaps, liquor and women. - -When the last of their shouts had died out, when laying her head against -the fragrant wood she could hear again the musical tinkling of the -bronze bells and the pleasant murmuring of the tiny waterfall and the -sighing of the leaves, Dixie slipped down to the body, fastidiously -avoiding the blood. It was heavy; she exerted all her wiry strength in -rolling it partly over. Then, drawing out the curious net of pearls she -let the body roll back. - -Returning to her sheltered seat she spread on her lap the amazing -garment; for a garment of some sort it appeared to be. There was even a -row of golden clasps set with very large diamonds. At a rough estimate -she decided that there were all of three thousand to four thousand -perfect pearls in the numerous strings. Turning and twisting it about, -she hit on the notion of drawing it about her shoulders and found that -it settled there like a cape. It was, indeed, just that--a cape of -pearls. She did not know that it was the only garment of its precise -sort in the world, that it had passed from one royal person to another -until, after the death of the Old Buddha in 1908 it fell into the hands -of his excellency, Kang Yu. - -She took it off; stood erect; pulled out her loosely hanging middy -blouse; and twisting the strings into a rope fastened it about her -waist, rearranging the blouse over it. The concealment was perfect. - -She sat again, then, to think out the next step. Returning to the junk -was cut of the question. It would be better to get somehow up to the -concessions and trust to her wits to explain her presence there. For Tex -had been shrewd enough about that. The concessions were a small bit of -earth with but one or two possible hotels, full of white folk and fuller -of gossip. She had had her little difficulties with the consuls as with -the rough-riding American judge who took his itinerant court from port -to port announcing firmly that he purposed ridding the East of such -“American girls” as she. Dawley Kane would surely be there, and other -survivors of the fire.... It all meant picking up a passage down the -river at the earliest possible moment; and running grave chances at -that. But her great strength lay in her impregnable self-confidence. She -feared herself least of all. - -Another problem was the getting to the concessions. It was not the best -of times for a girl to walk the highway alone. To be sure, she had come -safely through from the junk; but it had not been far, and she hadn't -had to approach a native army. She decided to wait an hour or so, until -the plunderers there in the grove should be fully drunk; then, if at the -moment it seemed the thing, to slip out and make a try for it. - -And then, a little later, evidently from the road outside the wall, came -a new sort of confused sounds; music, of flageolets and strings, and -falsetto voices, and with it a low-pitched babel of many tongues. -Whoever these new folk might be, they appeared to be turning in at the -open gate. The music stopped abruptly, in a low whine of discord, and -the talk rose in pitch. Over the brick screen appeared banners moving -jerkily about, dipping and rising, as if in the hands of agitated -persons below; a black banner, bearing in its center the triple imperial -emblems of the Sun, the other two yellow, one blazoning the familiar -dragon, the other a phoenix. - -A few banner men appeared peeping cautiously about the screen; Manchu -soldiers of the old effete army, bearing short rifles. They came on, -cautiously into the park, joined in a moment by others. An officer with -a queue and an old-fashioned sword and a military cap in place of a -turban followed and, forming them into a ragged column of fours, marched -them over the marble bridges and into the grove, where they disappeared -from view. - -Then a gorgeously colored sedan chair came swaying in, carried by many -bearers walking under stout bamboo cross-poles. Others, in the more -elaborate dress of officials, walked beside and behind it. Then came -more soldiers, who straggled informally about, some even dropping on the -gravel to rest their evidently weary bodies. - -The chair was opened in front and a tall fat man stepped rather -pompously out, wearing a robe of rose and blue and the brightly -embroidered insignia and button of a mandarin of the fourth rank. At -once a servant stepped forward with a huge umbrella which he opened and -held over the fat man. And then they waited, all of them, standing or -lying about and talking in excited groups. Several of the officials -hurried back around the screen as if to examine the deserted apartments -just within the gate, and shortly returned with much to say in their -musical singsong.... An officer espied the body of Connor lying on the -steps of the pavilion, and came with others, excitedly, to the foot -of the steps. The key of the confused talk rose at once. There was -an excited conference of many ranks about the tall fat man under the -umbrella. - -Then came, from the grove, that same sound of muffled shots, followed by -a breathless pause. More shots then, and increasing excitement here -by the screen. A number of the soldiers who had crossed the bridges -appeared, running. The man in the lead had lost turban and rifle; as -he drew near blood could be seen on his face. And now, abruptly, the -officials and the ragtag and bobtail by the screen--pole-bearers, -lictors, runners, soldiers--lost their heads. Some ran this way -and that, even into the bushes, only to reappear and follow their -clearer-headed brethren out to the gate. The umbrella-bearer dropped -his burden and vanished. The fugitives from the grove were among the -panic-stricken group now, racing with them for the gate and the highway -without; scurrying around the end of the screen like frightened rabbits; -and in pursuit, cheering and yelling, came many of the soldiers from the -junk. - -They caught the tall fat mandarin, as he was waddling around the screen, -wounded by a chance shot; leaped upon him, bringing him down screaming -with fear; beat and kicked him; with their knives and bayonets -performing subtle acts of torture which gave them evident pleasure and -of which the coldly observant Dixie Carmichael lost no detail. When the -fat body lay inert, not before, they took the sword of a fallen officer -and cut off the head, hacking clumsily. The head they placed on a pole, -marching noisily about with it; finally setting the pole upright beside -the first of the little marble bridges. Then, at last, they wandered -back into the grove and left the grisly object on the pole to dominate -obscenely the garden they had profaned. - -Dixie leaned against the smooth sweet surface of the nanmu wood and -listened, again, to the pleasantly soft sounds of waterfall and moving -leaves and little bronze bells. Her face was chalk white; her thin hands -lay limp in her lap; she knew, with an abrupt sensation of sinking, that -she was profoundly tired. But in her brain burned still a cold white -flame of excitement. Life, her instinct as the veriest child had -informed her, was anything, everything, but the simple copybook pattern -expounded by the naive folk of America and England. Life, as she -critically saw it, was a complex of primitive impulses tempered by -greeds, dreams and amazing subtleties. It was blindly possessive, -carelessly repellent, creative and destructive in a breath, at once warm -and cold, kindly and savage, impersonally heedless of the helpless -human creatures that drifted hither and yon before the winds of chance. -Cunning, in the world she saw about her, won always further than virtue, -and often further than force. - -She could not take her eyes, during a long period, from the hideous -object on the pole. Her over-stimulated thoughts were reaching quickly, -sharply, far in every direction. The feeling came, grew into belief, -that she was, mysteriously, out of her danger. She felt the ropes of -pearls under her blouse with an ecstatic little catch of the breath; and -(finally) letting her eyes drop to that other ugly object on the steps -beneath her, slowly opened her bag, drew out the bracelet watch (that -the Manila Kid had given her out of an absurd hope) and fastened it -about her wrist. And her eyes were bright with triumph. - - - - -CHAPTER X--YOUTH - -|THERE came for his excellency, as the sun mounted the sky, a large -junk of his own river fleet--great brown sails flapping against the five -masts of all heights that pointed up at crazily various angles, pennons -flying at each masthead, hull weathered darkly, mats and fenders of -woven hemp hung over the poop-rail, and a swarming pigtailed crew at the -sweeps and overside on the spunson and hard at the tracking ropes as -the _tai-kung_ screamed from the bow and the _laopan_ shouted from the -poop. - -They were ferried aboard in the small boat, Kang with his daughters and -his suite and servants, a handful of pitifully wailing women, young Kane -and Griggsby Doane. Then the trackers cast off from the shore and -the mooring poles, the sweeps moved, and with the _lao pan_ musically -calling the stroke the junk moved laboriously up-stream toward the home -of his excellency's ancestors. - -Crowded into the uninviting cabins the weary travelers sought a few -hours of rest. Even the servants and the mourning women, under the -mattings forward, fell swiftly asleep. Only Rocky Kane, his eyes staring -widely out of a sensitively white face, walked the deck; until -the thought--a new sort of thought in the life of this headstrong -youth--that he would be disturbing those below drove him aft, out beyond -the steersman to the over-hanging gallery. Here he sat on the bamboo -rail and gazed moodily down at the tireless, mighty river flowing off -astern. - -The good in the boy--made up of the intelligence, the deep-smoldering -conscience, the fineness that were woven out of his confused heritage -into his fiber--was rising now like a tide in his spirit; and the -experience was intensely painful. It seemed to his undisciplined mind -that he was, in certain of his aspects, an incredible monster. There had -been wild acts back home, a crazy instinct for excess that now took on -distinctness of outline; moments of careless evil in Japan and Shanghai; -the continuous subtle conflict with his father in which any evasion had -seemed fair; but above all these vivid memory-scenes that raced like an -uncontrollably swift panorama through his over-alert brain stood out his -vicious conduct on the ship. It was impossible at this moment to realize -mentally that the Princess Hui Fei was now his friend; he could see her -only in the bright Manchu costume as she had appeared when he first so -uncouthly spoke to her. And there were, too, the ugly moments with -the strange girl known as Dixie Carmichael. That part of it was only a -nightmare now.... The racing in his brain frightened him. He stared at -the dimpling yellow river, at a fishing boat, and finally lifted his -hurt eyes to the bright sky.... He had been going straight to hell, he -told himself, mumbling the words softly aloud. And then this lovely girl -had brought him into confusion and humility. Suddenly he had broken with -his father; that, in itself, seemed curiously unaccountable, yet there -the fact stood.... Life--eager, crowding--had rushed him off his feet. -He felt wildly adrift, carried on currents that he could not stem.... -He was, indeed, passing through one of life's deepest experiences, one -known to the somewhat unimaginative and intolerant people whose blood -ran in his veins as conviction of sin. His own careless life had -overtaken and confronted him. It had to be a bitter moment. There was -terror in it. And there was no escaping; it had to be lived through. - -A merry voice called; there was the patter of soft-clad feet, and in a -moment the little princess in her yellow hood with the fox head on -the crown was climbing into his lap. Eagerly, tenderly, he lifted her; -cuddled her close and kissed her soft cheek. Tears were frankly in his -eyes now. - -He laughed with her, nervously at first, then, in the quick -responsiveness of youth, with good humor. She came to him as health. -Together they watched the diving cormorants and the wading buffalo. -Then he hunted about until he found a bit of board and a ball of twine; -whittled the board into a flat boat, stuck a little mast in it with -a white sail made from a letter from his pocket, and towed it astern. -Together they hung on the rail, watching the craft as it bobbed over the -little waves and laughing when it capsized and lost its sail. - -She climbed into his lap again after that, and scolded him for making -the unintelligible English sounds, and made signs for him to smoke; and -he showed her his water-soaked cigarettes. - -At a low-pitched exclamation he turned with a nervous start. The tall -eunuch stood on the cabin roof; came quickly forward for the child. And -beside him was Miss Hu Fei, still of course wearing the Chinese coat -and trousers in which she had escaped from the steamer. She had, under -the warm sun, thrown aside the curiously modern opera wrap. She was -slim, young, delicately feminine. The boy gazed at her reverently. She -seemed to him a fairy, an unearthly creature, worlds beyond his reach. -In his excitement, but a few hours back--in what he had supposed to be -their last moment together, in what, indeed, had seemed the end of the -world--he had declared his love for her. That had been an uprush of pure -emotion.... He recalled it now, yet found it difficult to accept as an -occurrence. The actual world had turned unreal to him, as it does to the -sensitively young that suffer poignantly. - -To this grave young woman, oddly his shipmate, he could hardly, he felt -now, have spoken a personal word. Their acquaintance had begun at a high -emotional pitch; now it must begin again, normally. So it seemed to him. - -“We were looking for my li'l sister,” she explained, and half turned. -The eunuch had already disappeared with the child. - -“Won't you sit out here--with me?” He spoke hesitantly. “That is, unless -you are too tired to visit.” - -“I coul'n' sleep,” said she. - -Slowly she came out on the gallery. - -“There aren't any chairs,” said he. “Perhaps I could find--” - -“I don' mind.” She sank to the floor; leaned wearily against the rail. -He settled himself in a corner. - -“I couldn't sleep either. You see--Miss Hui--Miss Fei”--he broke into a -chuckle of embarrassment--“honest I don't know what to call you.” - -The unexpected touch of boyish good humor moved her nearly to a smile. -Boyish he was, sitting with his feet curled up, stabbing at the deck -with his jackknife, coatless, collarless, his thick hair tousled, -blushing pleasantly. - -“My frien's call me Hui,” she replied simply. - -“Oh--really! May I--If you would--of course I know that--but my friends -call me Rocky. The whole thing is Rockingham Bruce Kane. But....” - -“I'll call you Misser Kane,” said she. - -His face fell a very little; but quickly he recovered himself. - -“You must have wondered--I suppose it seems as if I've done a rather -crazy thing--it _must_ seem so...” She murmured, “Oh, no!” - -“Attaching myself to your party this way---at such a difficult time. I -know it was a pretty impulsive thing to do, but....” - -His voice trailed into silence. For a brief moment this wild act seemed, -however different in its significance to himself, of a piece with his -other wild acts. It was, perhaps, like all those, merely ungoverned -egotism. Her voice broke sweetly in on this moment of gloomy reverie. - -“We know tha' you woul' help us if you coul'. An' you were so -won'erful.” - -“If I only could help! You see when I spoke that way to you--I mean -telling you I loved you--” - -“Please! We won' talk abou' tha'.” - -“No. We won't. Except just this. I was beside myself. But even then, or -pretty soon afterward, I knew it was just plain selfishness.” - -“You mus'n' say that, either. Please!” - -“No--just this! Of course you don't know me. What you do know is all -against me--” - -“I have forgotten--” - -“You will never forget. But even if you were some day to like me more -than you could now, I know it would take a long time. I've got to earn -the right to be really your friend first. I'm going to try to do -that. I've started all over--to-day---my life, I mean. I'm just simply -beginning again. There's a good long scrap ahead of me. That's all about -that! But please believe that I've got a little sanity in me.” - -“Oh, I'm sure--” - -“I have. Jumping overboard like that, and swimming back to you--it -wasn't just crazy impulse, like so many of the things I've done. You -see, my father knows you and your father--yes, I mean the terrible -trouble you're in. Oh, everything comes to him, sooner or later. All the -facts. You have to figure on that, with the pater. He--well, he wanted -me to stop thinking about you. He was afraid I'd be writing to you, or -something. You see, he'd watched us talking there by the fire. And he -told me about this--this dreadful thing. And then I had to come back. -Don't you see? I couldn't go on, leaving you like this. Of course, -it's likely enough I'm just in the way here--” She was smiling wearily, -pathetically, now. - -“Oh, no--” she began. - -“It's this way,” he swept impetuously on. “Maybe I _can_ help. Anyway, -I've got to try. If your father--really--” He saw the slight shudder -that passed through her slender body, and abruptly checked the rapid -flow of words. “We've got to take care of you,” he said, with surprising -gravity and kindness. “You'll have to get back with the white people. -You mustn't be left with the yellow.” - -“I know,” said she, the strength nearly gone from her voice. “It always -seems to me that I'm an American. Though sometimes I ge' confuse'. It -isn' easy to think.” - -“I'm simply wearing you out. I mustn't. But just this--remember that I -know all about it. I've broken with my father, for the present, and I'm -happy about that. I have got some money of my own--quite a little. I've -even got a wet letter of credit in my pocket. I had just sense enough -last night to get it out of my coat. It's no good, of course, outside -of the treaty ports, but it's there. I'm here to help. And I do want to -feel that you'll call on me--for anything--and as for the rest of it--” - -He had thought himself unusually clear and cool, but at this point his -voice clouded and broke. He glanced timidly at her, and saw that her -eyes were full of tears. He had to look away then. And during a long few -moments they sat without a word. - -Then the thought came, “I'm here to help!” It was a stirring thought. He -had never helped, never in his life that he could remember. And yet the -Kanes did things; they were strong men. - -He was moodily skipping his knife over his hand, trying to catch the -point in the soft wood. Abruptly, with a surprising smile, he looked up -and asked: “Ever play mumbletepeg?” - -Her troubled eyes for an instant met his. He chuckled again in that -boyish way. And she, nervously, chuckled too. That seemed good. - -“It's sort of hard to make the blade stick in this wood,” he said -eagerly. “But we can do some of the things.” - -Griggsbv Doane, too, was far from sleep. For that matter, he was of -the strong mature sort that needs little, that can work long hours and -endure severe strain without weakening. Moving aft over the poop he saw -them, playing like two children, and stepped quietly behind the slanting -short mast that overhung the steersman. - -They made a charming picture, laughing softly as they tossed the knife. -It hadn't before occurred to him that young Kane had charm. Plainly, -now, he had. And it was good for Hui Fei, in this hour of tragic -suspense. Youth, of course, would call unto youth. That was the natural -thing. He tried to force himself to see it in that light but he moved -forward with a heavy heart. - -The junk plowed deliberately against the current. The monotonous voice -of the chanting _lao pan_, the rhythmical splash and creak of the -sweeps, the syncopated continuous song of the crowded oarsman, an -occasional warning cry from the tai-kung--these were the only sounds. -Elsewhere, lying in groups about the deck, the castaways slumbered. - -But Doane knew that his excellency was awake, shut away in the -_laopan's_ cabin, for repeatedly he had heard him moving about. Once, -through a thin partition, had come the sound of a chair scraping. It -would mean that Kang was preparing his final papers. These would be -painstakingly done. There would be memorials to the throne and to -his children and friends, couched in the language of a master of the -classics, rich in the literary allusions dear to the heart of the -scholar, Manchu and Chinese alike. - -Doane found a seat on a coil of the heavy tracking rope. His own part in -the drama through which they were all so strangely living could be -only passive. He would serve as he might. His little dream of personal -happiness, with a woman to love and new strong work to be somehow begun, -was wholly gone. - -Slowly, foot by foot, the clumsy craft crept up the river. And strangely -the scene held its peaceful, intensely busy character. Everywhere, as if -there were no revolution, as if the old river had never known wreckage -and bloodshed, the country folk toiled in the fields. Junks passed. -Irrigating wheels turned endlessly. Fishermen sat patiently watching -their cormorants or lowering and lifting their nets. A big English -steamer came booming down, with white passengers out of bloody Hankow -(the looting and burning of the native city must have been going on just -then, before the reinforced imperial troops drove the republicans back -across the river). They layabout in deck chairs, these white passengers; -or, doubtless, played bridge in the smoking-room. And Doane, as so -often during his long life, felt his thoughts turning from these idle, -self-important whites, back to the oldest of living peoples; and he -dwelt on their incalculable energy, their incredible numbers, their -ceaseless individual struggle with the land and water that kept them, at -best, barely above the line of mere sustenance. - -It was difficult, pondering all this, to believe that any revolution -could deeply stir this vast preoccupied people, submerged as they -appeared to be in ancient habit. The revolution could succeed only if -the Manchu government was ready to fall apart from the weakness of sheer -decadence. It was nothing, this revolution, but the desperate work of -agitators who had glimpsed the wealth and the individualistic tendencies -of the West. And the hot-blooded Cantonese, of course. Most of the -Chinese in America were Cantonese. The revolution was, then, a Southern -matter; it was these tropical men that had come to know America. That -was about its only strength. The great mass of yellow folk here in the -Yangtze Valley, and through the coast provinces, and all over the great -central plain and the North and Northwest were peaceable at heart; only -those Southerners were truculent, they and the scattered handfuls of -students. - -And yet, China, in the hopeful hearts of those who knew and loved the -old traditions, must somehow be modernized. Sooner or later the Manchus -would fall. The vast patient multitude must then either learn to think -for themselves in terms of modern, large-scale organization or fall into -deeper degradation. The European trading nations would strike deep and -hard in a sordid struggle for the remaining native wealth. The Japanese, -with iron policy and intriguing hand would destroy their institutions -and bring them into a pitiful slavery, economic and military. - -His own life, Doane reflected, must be spent in some way to help this -great people. The individual, confronted by so vast a problem, seemed -nothing. But the effort had to be made. Since he was not a trader, since -he could not hope now to find himself in step with the white generation -that had passed him by, all that was left was to pitch in out here. The -call of the martyred Sun Shi-pi pointed a way. - -The personal difficulty only remained. The man who loses step with -his own people and his own time must submit to being rolled under and -trampled on. There is no other form of loneliness so deep or so bitter. -And seeing nothing above and about him but the hard under side of this -hard white civilization, the unfortunate one can not hope to retain in -full vigor the incentive to effort that is the magic of the creative -white race. Every circumstance now seemed combined to hold him down and -under. The philosophy of the East with which his spirit was saturated -argued for contemplation, submission, negation (as did, for that -matter, the gospel of that Jesus to whose life the peoples that called -themselves Christian, in their every activity, every day, gave the lie). -His only driving power, then, must come out of the white spark that was, -after all, in his blood. It was only as a discordantly active white -that he could help the yellow men he loved.... And the one great -incentive--love, companionship, for which his strong heart hungered--had -flickered before him only to die out. He must somehow, at that, -prove worthy. It was to be just one more great effort in a life of -prodigiously wasted effort.... He thought, as he had thought before, in -bitter hours, of Gethsemane. But he knew, now, that he purposed going -on. Once again he was to dedicate his vigor to a cause; but this time -without the hope of youth and without love walking at his side. - -And then, quaintly, alluringly, the picture of Hui Fei took form before -his mind's eye, as if to mock his laborious philosophy, charm it away. -Like that of a boy his quick imagination wove about her bright youth, -her piquant new-old worldliness, shining veils of illusion. It was, -then, to be so. He was to live on, sadly, with a dream that would not -die.... He bowed his head. - -Their play brought relief to the overwrought nerves of the two young -people. After a time they settled comfortably against the rail. - -“You lost all your things on the steamer?” said he. “Ever'thing.” - -“So did I.” He smiled ruefully. “Even part of my clothes. But it doesn't -matter.” - -“I di'n' like to lose all my pretty things.” said she. “But they're gone -now. All excep' my opera cloak. An' I'm jus' a Manchu girl again. It's -so strange--only yes'erday it seem' to me I was a real American. I los' -my books, too--all my books.” - -He glanced up quickly. “You're fond of reading?” - -“Oh, yes. Aren' you?” - -“Why--no, I haven't been. The fellows and girls I've known didn't read -much.” - -“Tha' seems funny. When you have so much. And it's so easy to read -English. Chinese is ver' hard.” - -“What books have you read mostly?” - -She smiled. “Oh, I coul'n' say. So many! I've read the classics, of -course--Shakespeare an' Milton and Chaucer. Chaucer is so modern--don' -you think? I mean the way he makes pictures with words.” - -“What would you think,” said he, “if I confessed that I cut all those -old fellows at school and college?” - -“I've thought often,” said she gravely, “tha' you Americans are spoil' -because you have so much. So much of everything.” - -“Perhaps. I don't know. The fellows feel that those things don't help -much in later life.” - -“Oh, bu' they _do!_ You mus' have a knowledge of literature an' -philosophy. Wha' do they go to college for?” - -“Well--” Inwardly, he winced. He felt himself, without resentment, -without the faintest desire to defend the life he had known, at a -disadvantage. “To tell the truth, I suppose we go partly for a good -time. It puts off going into business four years, you know, and once -you start in business you've got to get down to it. Then there's all -the athletics, and the friends you make. Of course, most of the fellows -realize that if they make the right kind of friendships it'll help, -later, in the big game.” - -“You mean with the sons of other rich men?” she asked. - -“Why, no, not--yes, come to think of it, I suppose that's just what I -do mean. Do you know here with you, it doesn't look like much of a -picture--does it?” Thoughtfully she moved her head in the negative. “I -know a goo' deal about it,” said she. “I've watch' the college men in -America. Some of them, I think, are pretty foolish.” - -“I suppose we are,” said he glumly. “But would you have a fellow just go -in for digging?” - -She inclined her head. “I woul'. It is a grea' privilege to have years -for study.” - -He was flushing. “But you're not a dig! You--you dance, you know about -things, you can wear clothes....” - -“I don' think study is like work to me. I love it. An' I love -people--every kin', scholars, working people--you know, every kin'.” - -His moody eyes took in her eagerly mobile face; then dropped, and he -stabbed his knife at the deck. - -“Of course, we know that all is no' right 'n America. The men of money -have too much power. The govemmen' is confuse', sometimes very weak and -foolish. The newspapers don' tell all the things they shoul'. But it -is so healthy, jus' the same! There is so much chance for ever' kin' of -idea to be hear'! An' so many won'erful books! Often I think you real -Americans don' know how' won'erful it is. You get excite' abou' little -things. I love America. The women are free there. There is more hope -there than anywhere else in the worl'. An' I wish China coul' be like -that.” - -“I quit college,” said he. “You see, I've never looked at things as you -do.” - -“Bu' you have such a won'erful chance!” - -“I know. And I've wasted it. But I'm changing. I--it wouldn't be fair of -course to talk about--about what I was talking about--not now--but I -am seeing things--everything--through new eyes. They're your eyes. I'm -going at the thing differently. You see, the Kanes, when you get right -down to it, don't think about anything but money.” - -“I like to think about beauty,” said she. - -“I wonder if I could do that.” - -“Why no'?” - -“Well--it's kind of a new idea.” - -“Listen!” she reached out, plainly without a personal thought, and took -his hand. “I'm going to reci' some poetry that I love.” - -Thrilled by the clasp of her hand, his mind eager wax to the impress of -her stronger mind, his gaze clinging to her pretty mouth, he listened -while she repeated the little poem of W. B. Yeats beginning: - - “All the words that I utter, - - And all the words that I write...” - -At first he stirred restlessly; then watching, doglike, fell to -listening. The disconcerting thing was that it could mean so much to -her. For it did--her dark eyes were bright, and her chin was uplifted. -Her quaint accent and her soft, sweet voice touched his spirit with an -exquisite vague pain. - -“It is music,” said she. - -“I don't see how you remember it all,” said he listlessly. - -“Jus' the soun's. Oh, it woul' be won'erful to make words do that. So -often I wish I ha' been born American, so it woul' be my language too.” - -She went on, breathlessly, with Yeats's-- - - “When you are old and gray and full of sleep...” - -And then, still in pensive vein, she took up Kipling's _L'Envoi_--the -one beginning--“There's a whisper down the field.” Clearly she felt the -sea, too; and the yearning of those wandering souls to whom life is -a wistful adventure, and the world an inviting labyrinth of beautiful -hours. She seemed to know the _Child's Garden of Verses_ from cover to -cover, and other verse of Stevenson's. It was all strange to him, except -“In winter I get up at night.” He knew that as a song. - -And so it came about that on a dingy Yangtze junk, at the feet of a -Manchu girl from America, Rocky Kane felt for the first time the glow -and thrill of finely rhythmical English. - -She went on, almost as if she had forgotten him. William Watson's -_April, April_ she loved, she said, and read it with a quick feeling for -the capricious blend of smiles and tears. It dawned on him that she -was a born actress. He did not know, of course, that the theatrical -tradition lies deeper in Manchu and Chinese culture than in that of any -Western people. - -She recited the beautiful _Song_ of Richard Le Galliene, beginning: - - “She's somewhere in the sunlight strong....” - -And followed this with bits from Bliss Carman, and other bits from -Henley's _London Nocturnes_, and from Wilfred Blunt and Swinburne and -Mrs. Browning. She had a curiously strong feeling for the color of -Medieval Italy. She spoke reverently of Dante. Villon she knew, too, -and Racine and the French classicists. She even murmured tenderly de -Musset's _J'ai dis à mon coeur_, in French of which he caught not a word -and was ashamed. For he had cut French, too. - -And then, as the sun mounted higher and the gentle rush of the river -along the hull and the continuous chantey of the oarsmen floated, more -and more soothingly to their ears, they fell quiet, her hand still -pleasantly in his. Together they hummed certain of the current popular -songs, he thinking them good, she smiling not unhappily as her voice -blended prettily with his. And Griggsby Doane heard them. - -At last she murmured: “I think I coul' rest now.” - -“I'm glad,” said he, and drew down a coil of rope for a pillow, and left -her sleeping there. - -Doane heard his step, but for a moment could not lift his head. Finally -the boy, standing respectfully, spoke his name: “Mr. Doane!” - -“Yes.” - -“May I sit here with you?” - -“Of course. Do.” - -“I've got to talk to somebody. It's so strange. You see, she and I--Miss -Hui Fei--it's all been such a whirl I couldn't think, but....” - -That sentence never got finished. The boy dropped down on the deck and -clasped his knees. Doane, very gravely, considered him. He was young, -fresh, slim. He had changed, definitely; a degree of quiet had come to -him. And there could be no mistaking the unearthly light in his eyes. -The love that is color and sunshine and exquisite song had touched and -transformed him. - -Doane could not speak. He waited. Young Kane finally brought himself -with obvious, earnest effort in a sense to earth. But his voice was -unsteady in a boyish way. - -“Mr. Doane,” he asked, “do you believe in miracles?” - -Thoughtfully, deliberately, Doane bowed his great head. “I am forced -to,” he replied. - -“You've seen men change--from dirty, selfish brutes, I mean, to -something decent, worth while?” - -“Many times.” - -“Really?.... But does it have to be religion?” - -“I don't knew.” - -“Can it be love? The influence of a woman, I mean--a girl?” - -“Might that not be more or less the same thing?” - -“Do you really think that?” - -Again the great head bowed. And there was a long silence. Rocky broke it - -“I wish you would tell me exactly how you feel about marriage between -the races.” - -“Why--really--” - -“You must have observed a lot, all these years out here. And the pater -tells me that you're an able man, except that you've sort of lost your -perspective. He did tell me that he'd like to have you with him, if you -could only bring yourself around to our ways.” Rocky, even now, could -see this only as a profound compliment. He rushed on: “Oh, don't -misunderstand me! She doesn't love me yet. How could she? I've got -to earn the right even to speak of it again. But if I should earn the -right--in time--tell me, could an American make her happy?” - -“I'm afraid I can't answer that general question.” But Rocky felt that -he was kind. “The pater says I'd be wrecking my life. He says she'd -always be pulled two ways--you know! God! He seemed to think I had only -to ask her, and she'd come. He doesn't understand.” - -“No,” said Doane--“I'm afraid he couldn't understand.” - -“You feel that too? It's very perplexing. I know I've spoken carelessly -about the Chinese and Manchus. I looked down on them. I did! But oh, -if I could only make it clear to you how I feel now! If I could only -express it! We've been talking a long time, she and I. I don't mind -telling you I'm taking a pretty bitter lesson, right now. She knows so -much. She has such fine--well, ideals--” - -“Certainly.” - -“Oh, you've noticed that!.... Well, I feel crude beside her. Of course, I -am.” - -“Yes--you are. Even more so than you can hope to perceive now.” - -The youth winced; but took it. “Well, suppose--just suppose that I -might, one of these days, prove that I'm decent enough to ask her to be -my wife.... Oh, don't think for a minute that I don't understand all it -means. I do. I tell you I'm starting again. I'm going to fight it out.” - -“That is fine,” said Griggsby Doane, and looked squarely, gravely, -at the very young face. It was a white face, but good in outline; the -forehead, particularly, was good. And the blue eyes now met his. “I -believe you will fight it out. And I believe you have it in you to win.” - -“I'm going to try, Mr. Doane. But just suppose I do win. And suppose I -win her. It's when I think of that, that I.... I'll put it this way--to -my friends, to everybody in New York, she'd be an oddity. A novelty, -not much more. You know what most of them would think, in their hearts. -Either they'd make an exception in her case--partly on my account, -at that--or else they'd look down on her. You know how they are about -people that aren't--well, the same color that we are. Probably I -couldn't live out here. The business is mainly in New York, of course. -And she's such an enthusiastic American herself--she'd want to be there. -Some, anyway. And she's got to be happy. She's like a flower to me, now; -like an orchid. Oh, a thousand times more, but.... What could I do? How -could I plan? Oh, I'd fight for her quick enough. But you know our cold -rich Americans. They wouldn't let me fight. They'd just....” - -“My boy,” said Doane. quietly but with an authority that Rocky felt, -“you can't plan that. You can do only one thing.” - -“What thing?” - -“Stay here in China a year before you offer yourself to that lovely -girl. Study the Chinese--their language, their philosophy, their art. A -year will not advance you far, but it should be enough to show you where -you yourself stand.” - -“A year....!” - -“Listen to what I am going to try to tell you. Listen as thoughtfully -as you can. First I must tell you this--the Chinese civilization has -been--in certain aspects still remains--the finest the world has known. -With one exception, doubtless.” - -“What exception?” - -“The Grecian. You see, I have startled you.” - -“Well, I'm still sort of bewildered.” - -“Naturally. But try to think with me. The Chinese worked out their -social philosophy long ago. They have lived through a great deal that we -have only begun, from tribal struggles through conquest and imperialism -and civil war to a sort of republicanism and a fine feeling for peace -and justice. And then, when they had given up primitive desire for -fighting they were conquered by more primitive Northern tribes--first -the Mongols, and later the Manchus. The Manchus have been absorbed, have -become more or less Chinese. - -“And now a few more blunt facts that will further startle you. The -Chinese are the most democratic people in the world. No ruler can -long resist the quiet force of the scores of thousands of villages and -neighborhoods of the empire. - -“They are the most reasonable people in the world. You can no more judge -them from the so-called Tongs in New York and San Francisco, made up of -a few Cantonese expatriates, than you can judge the culture of England -by the beachcombers of the South Seas. - -“They developed, centuries before Europe, one of the finest schools of -painting the world has so far known. There is no school of reflective, -philosophical poetry so ripe and so fine as the Chinese. They have had -fifty Wordsworths, if no Shakespeare. - -“You will find Americans confusing them with the Japanese, whom -they resemble only remotely. All that is finest in Japan--in art and -literature--came originally from China.” - -“You take my breath away,” said Rocky slowly. But he was humble about -it; and that was good. - -“But listen, please. What I am trying to make clear to you is that in -old Central China--in Hang Chow, and along this fertile Yangtze Valley, -and northwest through the Great Plain to Kai Feng-fu and Sian-fu in -Shensi--where the older people flourished--germinated the thought and -the art, the humanity and the faith, that have been a source of culture -to half the world during thousands of years. - -“But you can not hope to understand this culture through Western eyes. -For you will be looking out of a Western background. You must actually -surrender your background. It is no good looking at a Chinese landscape -or a portrait with eyes that have known only European painting. Can you -see why? Because all through European painting runs the idea of copying -nature--somehow, however subtly, however influenced by the nuances -of color and light, copying. But the Chinese master never copied a -landscape He studied it, felt it, surrendered his soul to it, and then -painted the fine emotion that resulted. And, remember this, he painted -with a conscious technical skill as fine as that of Velasquez or -Whistler or Monet.” - -The youth whistled softly. “Wait, Mr. Doane, please.... the fact is, -you're clean over my head. I--I don't know a thing about our painting, -let alone theirs. You see I haven't put in much time at--” He stopped. -His smooth young brows were knit in the effort to think along new, -puzzling channels. “But she would understand,” he added, honestly, -softly. - -“Exactly! She would understand. That is what I am trying to make clear -to you.” - -“But you're sort of--well, overwhelming me.” - -“My boy.” said Doane very kindly, “you could go back home, enter -business, marry some attractive girl of your own blood who thinks no -more deeply than yourself, whose culture is as thinly veneered as your -own--forgive me. I am speaking blunt facts.” - -“Go on. I'm trying to understand.” - -“--And find happiness, in the sense that we so carelessly use the word. -But here you are, in China, proposing to offer your life to a Manchu -princess. You do seem to see clearly that there would be difficulties. -It is true that our people crudely feel themselves superior to this fine -old race. As a matter of fact, one of the worthiest tasks left in -the world is to explain East to West--draw some part of this rich old -culture in with our own more limited background. But as it stands now, -the current will be against you. So I say this--study China. Open your -mind and heart to the beauty that is here for the taking. Try to look -through the decadent surface of this tired old race and see the genius -that still slumbers within. If, then, you find yourself in the new -belief that their culture is in certain respects finer than ours--as -I myself have been forced to believe--if you can go to Hui Fei -humbly--then ask her to be your wife. For then there will be a chance -that you can make her happy. Not otherwise.” - -Doane stopped abruptly. His deep voice was rich with emotion. The -boy was stirred; and a moment later, when he felt a huge hand on his -shoulder he found it necessary to fight back the tears. The man seemed -like a father; the sort of father he had never known. - -“Don't ask her so long as a question remains in your mind. Defiance -won't do--it must be faith, and knowledge. I can't let you take the life -of that girl into your keeping on any other terms.” - -The odd emphasis of this speech passed quite by the deeply preoccupied -young mind. - -“You're right,” he replied brokenly. “I've got to wait. Everything that -you say is true--I really haven't a thing in the world to offer. I'm an -ignorant barbarian beside her.” - -“You have the great gift of youth,” said Doane gently. - -But a moment later Rocky broke out with: “But, Mr. Doane--how can I -wait? She--after her father--they're going to take her away--make her -marry somebody at Peking--somebody she doesn't even know--” - -“I don't think they will succeed in that plan,” said Doane very soberly. - -“But why not? What can she do? A girl--alone--” - -“There are tens of thousands of girls in China that have solved that -problem.” - -“But I don't see--” - -“You must still try to keep your mind open. You are treading on ground -unknown to our race.” A breathless quality crept into Doane's voice; his -eyes were fixed on the distant river bank. “I wonder if I can help you -to understand. Death--the thought of death--is to them a very different -thing--” - -“Oh!” It was more a sharp indrawing of breath than an exclamation. “You -don't mean that she would do that?” - -Doane bowed his head. - -“But she couldn't do a cowardly thing.” - -Doane brought himself, with difficulty, to utter the blunt word. -“Suicide, in China, is not always cowardice. Often it is the finest -heroism--the holding to a fine standard.” - -“Oh, no! It wouldn't ever--” - -“Please! You are a Westerner. Your feelings are those of the -younger--yes, the cruder half of the world. I must still ask you to try -to believe that there can be other sorts of feelings.” Again the great -hand rested solidly on the young shoulder; and now, at last, the boy -became slightly aware of the suffering in the heart of this older man. -Though even now he could not grasp every implication. That human love -might be a cause he did not perceive. But he sensed, warmly, the ripe -experience and the compassionate spirit of the man. - -“You have stepped impulsively into an Old-World drama,” Doane went -quietly on--“into a tragedy, indeed. No one can say what the next -developments will be. You can win, if at all, only by becoming yourself, -a fatalist; You must move with events. Certainly you can not force -them.” - -“But I can take her away,” cried the boy hotly; finishing, lamely, with -“somehow.” - -“Against her will?” - -“Well--surely--” - -“She will not leave her father.” - -“But--oh, Mr. Doane....” - -He fell silent. For a long time they sat without a word, side by side. -Here and there about the junk sleepers awoke and moved about. A few of -the women, forward, set up their wailing but more quietly now. The craft -headed in gradually toward the right bank, passing a yellow junk that -was moored inshore and moving on some distance up-stream. At a short -distance inland a brown-gray village nestled under a hillside. - -“That junk passed us before we left the island,” Rocky observed, -gloomily making talk. - -Doane's gaze followed his down-stream; then at a sound like distant -thunder, he turned and listened. “What's that?” asked the boy. - -Doane looked up into the cloudless, blazing sky. “That would be the guns -at Hankow,” he replied. - -The lictors were landed first to seek carts in the village. Then all -were taken ashore in the small boat. His excellency smilingly, with -unfailing poise, talked with Doane of the beauties of the river; even -quoted his favorite Li Po, as his quiet eyes surveyed the hills that -bordered the broad river: - - “'The birds have all flown to their trees, - - The last, last lovely cloud has drifted off, - - But we never tire in our companionship-- - - The mountains and I,'” - -The line of unpainted, springless carts, roofed with arched matting, -yellow with the fine dust of the highway, moved, squeaking, off among -the hills. Following close went the women and the servants. The junk -swung deliberately out and off down the river. - -Doane, declining a cart, walked beside that of his excellency; Rocky -Kane, deadly pale, his mouth set firmly, beside Miss Hui Fei. And so, -through the peaceful country-side they came to the long brick wall and -the heavily timbered gate house by the road, and, pausing there, heard -very faintly the soft tinkling of the little bronze bells within. It -was late afternoon. The shadows were long; and the evening birds were -twittering among the leafy branches just within the wall. - - - - -CHAPTER XI--THE LANDSCAPE SCROLL OF CHAO MENG-FU - -|ROCKY KANE, the few hours that followed were to exist in memory as a -confused sequence of swift-pressing scenes, all highly colored, vivid; -certain of them touched with horror, others passing in a flash of exotic -beauty; while the fire of hot, unreasoning young love burned all but -unbearably within his breast. - -He would remember the crowded line of carts in the sunken narrow road, -the unruly mules that plunged and entangled their harness; the huddled -women; the yellow dust that clung thickly to the bright silks of the -mandarins; the confusion about the gate, and the handful of soldiers -that came hurrying forward to help in a strange business up there; the -trains of other carts that struggled to pass in the narrow way, while -tattered muleteers shouted a babel of invective. - -He would remember the sad face of Miss Hui Fei-drawn back within the -shadow of the cart and the faint smiles that came and so quickly went; -and the efforts he made, at first, to cheer her with boyishly bright -talk of this and that. - -He would remember how he made his way forward through the press, without -recalling what had just been said, or what, precisely, could have been -the impulse driving him on; past his excellency--sitting yet in his -cart, calmly waiting, while the drabbled mandarins stood respectfully -by; and how he found the soldiers carrying oddly limp Bodies into one of -the gate houses, hiding them there. - -He would remember the picture on which he stumbled as he rounded -the inner screen of brick; Mr. Doane and an officer and two or three -soldiers standing thoughtfully about a fat body in spattered silks that -was hideously without a head; standing there in the half dusk--for the -shadows were lengthening softly into evening here under the trees--Mr. -Doane then bending over, the officer kneeling, to examine the embroidery -on the breast; and then two soldiers bringing up a pole on the end -of which grinned the missing head; and then the sound of his own -voice--curiously breathless and without body, asking, “What is it, Mr. -Doane? What terrible thing has happened?” And then, even while he was -speaking, four soldiers carrying another body by, this of a stout man in -shirt and flannel trousers, that he felt he had seen somewhere before. - -He would remember--when they had carried out the last awful reminder of -the bloodshed that had been, and while Mr. Doane pressed a hand to his -eyes as if in prayer--how he stood silent there on the gravel area, -looking up into the trees and about at the dim quaint _pai-lows_ on -either hand and at the pavilions behind them, each on its arch of -stone over placid dark water; and how the lightly moving air of evening -whispered through the trees, stirring, with the foliage, faintly musical -little bells; and how, into this moment of calm, appeared, light of -step, swinging her shopping bag as she descended the marble steps of the -pavilion at the right and came forward under the _pai-lows_, the pale -girl, Dixie Carmichael, who glanced respectfully toward Mr. Doane, and -at Rocky himself raised her black eyebrows while her thin lips softly -framed the one word, “You?” And then, after a few words--the girl said -that Tex Connor and the Manila Kid made her come; it had been a terrible -business; she thought both must have been, killed; she had contrived -to hide--how Mr. Doane asked him to take her back to the women; and -how they went, he and she, his heart beating hotly, out through the -darkening gate where paper lanterns now moved about. He felt that -for the first sharp blow at his new life. There would be other blows; -doubtless through this girl; for the old life would not give him up -without a fight. - -He was to forget what they said, he and this unaccountable, cool girl, -as he left her out there and hurried back; but would remember the -picture he found on his return--Mr. Doane striding off deliberately into -the darkness beyond the little white bridges, while the officer followed -with a lantern, and the few soldiers, also with lanterns, straggled -after. He would remember crowding himself past all of them, snatching -one of the lanterns as he ran, and falling into step at the side of the -huge determined man. - -There were broad courtyards, then, and buildings with heavily curving -roofs and columns richly colored and carved, with dim lights behind -windows of paper squares. There were drunken soldiers, who ran away, and -screaming women, and other women who would never scream or smile again. -There was litter and splintered furniture and a broken-in door here and -there. There was a familiar big soldier who plunged at Mr. Doane with a -glinting blade in his hand; and then a sharp struggle that was to last, -in retrospect, but an instant of time, for the clearer memory was of -himself binding with his handkerchief a small cut in Mr. Doane's forearm -while the soldiers carried out a wounded struggling giant, and then -shouts and shots from the courtyard when the giant escaped. And he would -remember picking up an unset ruby from the tiling and handing it to Mr. -Doane. There was the picture, then, of a melancholy procession winding -slowly through the grove with bobbing gay lanterns. - -And finally, to the boy incredibly, the place came into a degree of -order and calm. Women and men disappeared into this building and that. -Rocky sat alone on the steps of a structure that might have been a -temple, hands supporting his throbbing head. The moonlight streamed down -into the courtyard; he could see the grotesque ornaments on the eaves -of the buildings, and the large blue-and-white bowls and vases in which -grew flowering plants and dwarfed trees from Japan, and, in the farther -gate, a sentry lounging. Now and again faint sounds came from within the -largest of the buildings, voices and footsteps; and he could see lights -again dimly through the paper. He wondered what they might be doing.... -His thoughts were a fever. The spirit of Hui Fei hovered like an -exquisite dream there, but crowding in with malignant persistence came, -kept coming, pictures of Dixie Carmichael. He wondered where they had -put her. Perhaps she was already asleep. It would be like her to sleep. -She was so cold, so oddly unhealthy. Doubtless, surely, he would have to -speak with her. - -He must have dozed. Soldiers were dragging themselves sleepily about the -courtyard, rifles in hand. Two officers and a mandarin in a gown were -examining a paper by the light of a lantern. Then Mr. Doane came out and -read the paper. They talked in Chinese, Mr. Deane's as fluent as theirs. -Rocky thought drowsily about this; considered vaguely the years of study -and experience that must lie back of that fluency. - -Mr. Doane, indeed, seemed to be assuming a sort of command. With great -courtesy, but with impressive finality, he appeared to be outlining a -course to which the mandarin assented. The officers bowed and went -out through the gate. And when the mandarin and Doane then turned and -entered the largest building it was the white man who held the paper in -his hand. - -Rocky fell again into a doze; slept until he found Mr. Doane shaking -him. - -“Come with me now. You can help.” Thus the huge grave man with the deep -shadows in his face. - -And Rocky went with him, guided by a servant with a lantern, through -corridors and courtyards, glimpsing dimly massive pillars and panels -in black wood and softly red silk and railings of marble carved into -exquisite tracery. - -With the paper that the boy had drowsily observed Doane sought his -excellency. Dominated by the white man the attendant mandarin tapped at -an inner door, then hesitatingly opened; and Doane alone stepped within. - -The room was long, plain, obscurely seen by the light of a single -incandescent lamp over the formal _kang_ or platform across the farther -end. Doane had not thought of electric light in here and found it -momentarily surprising. The walls were paneled in silk; the ceiling -was heavy with beams. Against either side wall, mathematically at the -center, stood a square small table and a square stool, heavily carved. -Seated on the _kang_, with papers spread about and brushes and ink pot -directly under the light, in short quilted coat and simple black cap, -was Kang; a serenely patient figure, quietly working. He had merely -looked up; a frail old man, quite beyond the reach of annoyance, whose -eyes gazed unafraid over the rim of mere personal life into the eternal, -tireless energy that would so soon absorb all that was himself. Then, -recognizing the stalwart figure that moved forward into the light, he -rose and clasped his hands and smiled. - -“Only an unexpected crisis would lead me to intrude thus,” began Doane -in Chinese, bowing in courtly fashion and clasping his own hands before -his breast. - -“No visit from Griggsby Doane could be regarded as an intrusion in my -home,” replied his excellency. - -“I will speak quickly, in the Western fashion,” Doane went on. “His -Excellency, the General Duke Ma Ch'un, commanding before Hankow, writes -that he regrets deeply the violent death of the eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu -on your excellency's premises while dutifully engaged on the business of -her imperial majesty, and cordially requests that your excellency come -at once to headquarters as his personal guest to assist him in making an -inquiry into the tragedy. He supplements this invitation with a copy of -a telegram from His Excellency, Yuan Shih-k'ai, commanding him to guard -at once your person and property.” - -The simple elderly man, who had been a minister, a grand councilor and -a viceroy, seemed to recoil slightly as his eyes drooped to the papers -about him; then he reached, with a withered hand that trembled, for this -new paper and very slowly read it through. - -“His Excellency, Duke Ma Ch'un.” Doane added gently, “has sent a company -of soldiers to escort you fittingly to his headquarters. They are -waiting now at the outermost gate. I took it upon myself in this hour -of sorrow and confusion to advise them, through the mouths of your loyal -officers, that your excellency is not to be disturbed before dawn.” - -Slowly, with an expressionless face, the viceroy folded the paper and -laid it on the _kang_. He sank, then, beside it; with visible -effort indicating that his visitor sit as well. But Doane remained -standing--enormously tall, broad, strong; a man to command without -question of rank or authority; a man, it appeared, hardly conscious of -the calm power of personality that was so plainly his. - -“Your Excellency is aware”--thus Doane said--“that to admit the -authority of Duke Ma Ch'un at this sorrowful time is to submit both -yourself and your lovely daughter to a fate that is wholly undeserved, -one that I--if I may term myself the friend of both--can not bring -myself to consider without indulging the wish to offer strong -resistance. It has been said, 'The truly great man will always frame his -actions with careful regard to the exigencies of the moment and trim -his sail to the favoring breeze.' Your Excellency must forgive me if I -suggest that, whatever value you may place upon your own life, we can -not thus abandon your daughter, Hui Fei.” - -The viceroy's voice, when he spoke, had lost much of its timbre. It was, -indeed, the voice of a weary old man. Yet the words came forth with the -old kindly dignity. - -“I asked you, Griggsby Doane, to make with me this painful journey to my -home. We did not know then that we were moving from one scene of tragedy -to another more terrible. But motive must not wait on circumstance. -It need not be a hardship for my other children to live on in Asia as -Asiatics. As such they were born. They know no other life. They will -experience as much happiness as most. But with Hui Fei it is different. -She must not be held away from contact with the white civilization. I -did not give her this modern education for such an end as that. Hui Fei -is an experiment that is not yet completed. She must have her chance. -That is why I brought you here, Griggsbv Doane. My daughter must be got -to Shanghai. There she has friends. I have ventured to count on your -experience and good will to convey her safely there. Will you take -her--now? To-night? I had meant to send with her the jewels and the -paintings of Ming, Sung and Tang. Both collections are priceless. But -the gems are gone--to-night. The paintings, however, remain. Will you -take those and my daughter, and two servants--there are hardly more that -I can trust--and slip out by the upper gate, and in some way escort her -safely to Shanghai?” - -“She would not go,” said Doane. “Not while you, Your Excellency, live, -or while your body lies above ground.” - -The viceroy, hesitating, glanced up at the vigorous man who spoke so -firmly, then down at the scattered papers on the _kang_. In the very -calm of that shadowed face he felt the bewildering strength of the white -race; and he knew in his heart that the man was not to be gainsaid. His -mind wavered. For perhaps the first time in his shrewd, patiently subtle -life, he felt the heavy burden of his years. - -“I will send for her,” he said now, slowly. “I will give her into your -keeping. At my command she will _go_.” - -“No, Your Excellency, I have already sent word to her to prepare herself -for the journey. Again you must forgive me. Time presses. It remains -only to collect the paintings. You must have those, at the least. We -start now in a very few moments. I have found here, a prisoner in your -palace, the master of a junk that lies at the river bank, and have taken -it upon myself to detain him further. He will convey us to Shanghai. It -is now but a few hours before dawn. Hostile soldiers stand impatient at -the outermost gate, eager to heap shame upon you and all that is yours. -You must change your clothing--the dress of a servant would be best.” - -He waited, standing very still. - -“You will forgive indecision in a man of my years,” began the viceroy. -After a moment he began again: “The world has turned upside down, -Griggsby Doane.” - -“You will come?” - -The viceroy sighed. Trembling fingers reached out to gather the papers. - -“I will come.” he said. - -Adrift in unreality, fighting off from moment to moment the drowsy sense -that these strange events were but a blur of dreams in which nothing -could be true, nothing could matter, Rocky found himself at work in a -dim room, taking down in great handfuls from shelves scrolls of silk -wound on rods of ivory and putting them in lacquered boxes. Mr. Doane -was there, and the servant, and a second servant of lower class, in -ragged trousers and with his queue tied about his head. Still another -Chinese appeared, shortly, in blue gown and sleeveless short jacket; -an older man who looked, in the flickering faint light of the single -lantern, curiously like the viceroy himself. The first servant -disappeared and returned with the short poles of bamboo used everywhere -in China in carrying burdens over the shoulder, and with cords and -squares of heavy cotton cloth. - -Every bit of woodwork that his hands touched in moving about, Rocky -found to be intricately carved and gilded and inlaid with smooth -lacquer. And dimly, crowded about the walls, he half saw, half -sensed, innumerable vases, small and large, with rounding surfaces of -cream-colored crackle and blood-red and blue-and-white and green which -threw back the moving light like a softly changing kaleidoscope. And -there were screens that gave out, from their profound shadows, the glint -of gold. - -They packed the boxes together, wrapped the large and heavy cubes in the -squares of cloth and lashed them to hang from the bamboo poles. Four of -them, then, Mr. Doane, Rocky himself and the servants, each balanced -a pole over his shoulders and lifted the bulky cubes. The old man, who -surely, now, was the viceroy, carried a European hand-bag. There were -other parcels.... They made their way along a nearly dark corridor -and out into the moonlight. Here, in a porch, stood four silent -figures--Dixie Carmichael he distinguished first; then Hui Fei, wearing -a short coat and women's trousers and a loose cloak. Her hair was parted -and lay smoothly on her pretty head, glistening in the moonlight.... And -the little princess was there, clinging to the hand of her sister and -rubbing her eyes. They moved silently on, all together, following a path -that wound among shrubbery, over an arching bridge to a gate. - -Rocky could dimly see the timbers studded with spikes and the long -hinges of bronze. The servant, with a great key, unlocked the gate, -which closed softly behind them. - -The pole weighed heavily on Rocky's unaccustomed shoulder. There was a -trick of timing the step to the swing of the bales, that, stumbling a -little, he caught. He was to remember this--the little file of men and -women gathered from the two ends of the earth and walking without -a spoken sound down through a twisting, sunken Chinese road to the -Yangtze. And sensing the gathering drama of his own life, brooding over -it with slowly increasing nervous intensity, he found himself coming -awake. If this kept on he would soon be excitedly beyond sleep. But it -didn't matter. They were saving Hui Fei. Not a word of explanation had -been offered; but it was coming clear. As for the rest of it, he -asked himself how it could matter. The presence of Miss Carmichael, a -dangerous girl, an adventuress--he was thinking quite youthfully about -her--who might easily be capable of anything, who could in a moment -destroy the hope that was the only foundation, thus far, of his new -life, and perhaps would choose to destroy it--even this, he tried to -tell himself, couldn't possibly matter. Over and over, stumbling and -shuffling along, he told himself that; almost convinced himself that he -believed it. - -He was to remember most vividly of all the first glimpse, through a -notch in the hills, of the river. The viceroy paused at that point, and -turning back from the shining picture before him, where the moonlight -silvered the unruffled surface of the water, toward the home of his -ancestors over the hill, spoke in a low but again musical voice a few -lines in which even the American youth could detect the elusive vowel -rhymes of a Chinese poem. And he saw that Mr. Doane stood by with the -slightly bowed head of one who attends a religious ceremony. It was a -moving scene. But could he have understood the words the boy would have -been puzzled. For the poem--the _Surrendering_ of Po Chu-I. breathed -resignation, humility, the negative philosophy so dear to Chinese -tradition, but nothing of religion in the sense that he a Westerner, -understood the word, nothing of mysticism or romantic illusion or -childlike faith; rather a gentle recognition of the fact that life must -go as it had come, unexplained, without tangible evidence of a personal -hereafter; that, too, the individual is as nothing in the vast scheme of -nature. - -They were ferried out, shortly after this, to the great junk they had -twice seen within the twenty-four hours, her smooth sides curving yellow -in the moonlight, her decks now scraped and scrubbed clean, flowers -blooming in porcelain pots about a charming gallery that extended high -over the river astern. The crew, roused from slumber, came swarming out -from under the low-spread mattings. The _laopan_ stepped nimbly to his -post amidships on the poop. The heavy tracking ropes were hauled aboard, -and the craft swung slowly off down the current. - -Doane, with a lantern, escorted his excellency and Hui Fei, and the -whimpering little princess, to the rooms below; then returned and with -the same impersonal courtesy conducted Miss Carmichael down the steps. -But at the door he indicated she stopped short; wavered a moment, -lightly, on the balls of her feet. Then she accepted the lantern from -him, bit her lip, and let fall the curtain without replying to his -suggestion that she had better sleep if she could. - -Alone there, she held up the lantern. The floor had been lately -scrubbed; but, even so, she made out a faint broad stain in the wood. -And a bed of clean matting was spread where she had left a grisly heap. - -For a time Dixie stood by the square small window, looking out over the -shining river toward the dim northern bank with its hills that seemed -to drift at a snail's pace off astern. Her quick mind had never been -farther from sleep. Her thin hands felt through her blouse the twisted -ropes of pearls that were wound about her waist. Her lips were pressed -tightly together. These pearls represented a fortune beyond even Dixie's -calculating dreams. To keep them successfully hidden during the days, -perhaps weeks to come of floating down the river in close companionship -with these two strong observant men, and a half crazy American boy, and -clever Oriental women, would test her resourcefulness and her nerve. -Though she felt, ever, now, no doubt of the latter.... - -The thing was tremendous. Now that the confusion of the day and night -were over with, she found a thrill in considering the problem, while -her sensitive fingers pressed and pressed again the hard little globes. -There were so many of them; such beauties, she knew, in form and size -and color.... Never again would such an opportunity come to her. It was, -precisely, if on the grandest scale imaginable, her sort of achievement. -Tex was gone. The Kid was gone. No one could claim a share or a voice: -it was all hers--wealth, power, even, perhaps, at the last, something -near respectability. For money, enough of it, she knew, will accomplish -even that. While on the other, hand, to fail now, might, would, spell a -life of drab adventure along the coast, without even a goal, without a -decent hope; with, always, the pitiless years gaining on her. - -She searched, tiptoeing, about the room, lantern in hand, for a place -to hide her treasure; then reconsidered. In some way she must keep the -pearls about her person; though not, as now, looped around her waist. An -accidental touch there might start the fateful questioning. - -She put down the lantern; stood for a long time by the curtained door, -listening. From up and down the passage came only the heavy breathing of -exhausted folk. She slipped out cautiously; made her way to the sloping -deck above--how vividly familiar it was!--tiptoed lightly aft, past -the uncurious helmsman, around the huge coils of rope and the piled-up -fenders of interwoven matting, out to the pleasant gallery where the -flowers were. - -And then, as she stepped down and paused to breathe slowly, deeply, -again the heavy-sweet perfume of the tuberoses, a boyish figure sprang -up, with a nervous little gasp of surprise, from the steamer chair of -Hong Kong grass. - -She said, in her quiet way, “Oh, hello!” And then, with a quick sidelong -glance at him, accepted the chair he offered. He seemed uncertain as to -whether he would go or stay. Lowering her lids, she studied him. He was -standing the excitement well, even improving. His carriage was better; -he stood up well on his strong young legs. And he was quieter, better in -hand, though of course the never-governed, long overstimulated emotions -would not be lying very deep beneath this new, more manly surface. He -was very good-looking, really a typical American boy. - -He stood now, fingering the petals of a dahlia and gazing out astern -into the luminous night. She pondered the question of exerting herself -again to win him. The money was there, plenty of it. He would be as -helpless as ever in her experienced hands. And the mere use of her skill -in trapping and stripping him would be enjoyable.... He was lingering. - -She decided in the negative. He would surely become tempestuous. And as -surely, if she permitted that, he would discover the pearls. And--again -the thrill of mastery swept through her finely strung nerves--she had -those. They were enough. But they must be better hidden. There was her -problem still, a problem that aught at any instant become delicately -acute. She considered it, lying comfortably back in the chair, -luxuriating in the richly blended scent of the crowded blossoms, while -her nearly closed eyes studied the restless boy. - -Abruptly he turned. What now? Was he about to become tempestuous all on -his own? It would be anything but out of character. Her slight muscles -tightened, but her face betrayed no emotion, would have betrayed none -in a more searching light than this soft flood from the moon. He was -sentimental over the Manchu princess, now, of course. She hadn't missed -that. But in the case of an ungoverned boy, she well knew, the emotion -itself could be vastly more important than its immediate object But now -she was to meet with a small surprise. - -“Look here!” he began, crude, naive, as always, “there's -something--perhaps--I ought to tell you. I tried to carry on with you. -You've got a right to think anything about me--” - -At least he was keeping his voice down. She lay still; let him talk. - -“--But I've changed. Smile at that, if you want to!” - -She did smile faintly, but only at his clear, clean ignorance of the -insult that underlay his words. - -“--I _was_ on the loose. It's different now. I'm going to try to do -something with my life. Whatever happens--I mean however my luck may -seem to turn--” - -He could hardly go on with this. The next few words were swallowed down. -It was plain enough that he couldn't think clearly. And he couldn't -possibly know that he was giving her an opening through which, within -a very few moments, she was to see the outline of the policy she must -pursue during these difficult days to come on the junk. - -She lifted her head; leaned on an elbow. “Do you know,” she said, in a -voice that seemed, now, to have a note of friendliness, “I'm sorry for -you.” - -“Sorry for me!” - -“Don't think I can't see how it is. And you mustn't misunderstand me. -I'm older than you. I'm pretty experienced. My life has been hard. There -couldn't be anything serious between you and me. You've wakened up to -that.” - -The new note in her voice puzzled him, but caught his interest. He stood -looking straight down at her. - -“I know you're in love,” she went on. - -“But--” - -“Don't be silly. It's plain enough. She's very attractive. Nobody could -blame you.” - -“She's wonderful!” - -“It's nice to see you feeling that way. It--it's no good our talking -about it, you and me. All I've got to say is--please don't think I'd -bother you. I may have led a rough life at times--a girl alone, who has -to live by her wits--but--oh, well, never mind that! Every man has -had his foolish moments. I understand you better than you will ever -know--and--well, here's good luck!” And she offered her hand. - -He took it, breathless, eager. He seemed, then, on the point of pouring -out his story to this new surprising friend. But a slight sound caught -his attention. He looked up, and slowly let fall the hand that -was gripped in his; for at the break of the deck, just above them, -hesitating, very slim and wan, stood Miss Hui Fei. - -The situation was, of course, in no way so dramatic as it seemed to the -boy. He, indeed, drew back, overcome; the habit of guilty thought was -not to be thrown off in a moment. Miss Carmichael, sensing that he -would begin erecting the incident into a situation the moment he could -clumsily speak, took the matter in hand; rising, and quietly addressing -herself to the Manchu girl. Breeding, of course, was not hers, could not -be; but her calm manner and her instinct for reticence could seem, as -now, not unlike the finer quality. - -“Do have this chair,” she said. “I was going down.” - -Miss Hui Fei smiled faintly. “I coul'n' sleep,” she murmured. - -“There's one little article I suppose none of us thought to bring--” - thus Miss Carmichael, balancing in her light way on the balls of her -feet--“needle and thread.” She even indulged in a little passing laugh. -“I think my maid--” began Miss Hui Fei. - -“Oh, no! I wouldn't bother you!” - -“Yes! Please--I don' min'.” - -She turned; and the boy started impulsively toward her. Miss Carmichael -moved away, over the deck, but heard him saying, in a broken voice: - -“You'll come back? I've got to tell you something!” - -To which Miss Hui Fei replied, in a voice that was meant to be at once -pleasant and impersonal: “Why--yes. I think I'll come back. It's -so close down there.” The two young women went below. Quietly Miss -Carmichael waited in the passage. - -The needle and thread were shortly forthcoming. The white girl smiled; -seeming really friendly there in the dim ray of light that slanted in -through a window. - -“It's good of you,” she said. - -“Oh, no--it's nothing.” - -“We're in for a rather uncomfortable trip of it. I hope you'll let me do -anything I can to help you. I'm more used to knocking about, of course.” - -“We'll all make the best of it,” said the Manchu girl, and turned, with -an effort at a smile, toward the stairs. - -Miss Carmichael entered her own room. The lantern still burned, but the -candle-end was low. She saw now an iron lamp, an open dish full of oil -with a floating wick. This she lighted with the candle. Next, moving -about almost without a sound, she fastened the swaying door-curtain with -pins. Then she slipped out of her blouse and skirt; untied the pearl -cape; and seated on the bed of matting, with her back to the door, began -patiently sewing the pearls into her undergarments. It was to be a -long task. Before dawn the lamp burned out, and fearful of being caught -asleep with the amazing treasure about her she stood at the window and -let the wind blow into her face until the faintly spreading light of -dawn made the work again possible. The drowsiness that nearly overcame -her now she fought off with an iron will. Nothing mattered--nothing but -success. Her thin deft fingers worked in a tireless rhythm. Only once, -very briefly, did she yield to the impulse to weigh the exquisite -lustrous globes in her hands; to hold them close to the light. Her -tireless reason told her that this wouldn't do. It brought an excited -throbbing to her weary head.... She settled again to her task; time -enough to gloat later. By way of a healthy mental occupation she -counted the pearls as she threaded them--up to a thousand--on up to two -thousand--then (the sun was redly up now; and folk were stirring about -the deck) three thousand. In all, a few more than thirty-seven hundred -pearls she threaded about her person; and then slipped back into -blouse and skirt before permitting herself a few hours of sleep. The -diamond-studded clasps she wrapped in a bit of cloth and stuffed into -her hand-bag. - -The Chinese maid woke her then, bringing food that had been cooked, she -knew, in the brick stove up forward, where the crew slept. She could -bring herself to eat but a few mouthfuls.... This didn't matter, either. -No hardship was of consequence in such a battle as hers; she would have -submitted coolly to torture rather than surrender her prize. But it -suggested fresh tactics. She had a knack at cooking. Quietly, later -in the day--she knew better than to try effusive friendliness; to play -herself to the last would be best--she spoke to Mr. Doane of that small -gift. A kitchen was improvised in the _laopan's_ cramped quarters, aft; -and Miss Carmichael, quite intent about her business, coolly cheerful -about it, indeed, began to prove her capacity. And she knew, then, that -she was winning. They would soon be respecting her, even liking her. - -Even so she would keep her distance; then they would have to keep -theirs. That was all she needed. - -To Rocky, the most elusive memory of all this eventful night was the -conversation with Miss Hui Fei. For she returned in a moment--so he -remembered it--and sank wearily into the steamer chair. The picture of -that scene was to vary bafflingly in his mind. At times he saw himself, -torn with an emotion now so great that it seemed the end of life, -standing over her, saying, passionately: - -“I know how it looked--you're finding us here like that! And you'd have -reason. I did flirt with her. I'm ashamed now. I hadn't seen you--felt -you--like this. But that's all over. I was telling her--Please! You've -got to know!--that I love you. Or telling her enough. She understood. -And she was awfully decent. She took my hand, wished me luck.” - -There must have been a brief time then when the poor girl was -endeavoring pleasantly to turn aside this torrent of heavily freighted -words. Certainly he was talking feverishly on. He could remember pulling -down a coil of rope from the steersman's deck and sitting moodily beside -her; and there was a sensation in their minds, his and hers, of being -at cross-purposes. There was something about her, back of the weary -smile--a smile that was long to haunt him, dim in the moonlight, -exquisite in its sensitive beauty--that eluded his pressing desire until -it seemed near to driving him mad. Kipling's _East is East, and West is -West_, slipped in among his thoughts; kept coming and coming until it -became a nerve-wracking singsong in his brain. - -There was one period, fortunately very short, when he seemed to be -almost forcing a quarrel. Why, he couldn't afterward imagine. That -part of it was dreadful in the retrospect. He had reached the point, -apparently, when he couldn't longer endure the failure to reach her. -There was simply no response. It was almost as if he were frightening -her away. Perhaps it was just that. - -But the most vivid memory was of the unaccountable force that suddenly -rose in him, seizing on his tongue, his brain, his very nerves. The -power of the Kanes was abruptly his, and it brought its own skill with -it. It was, distinctly, a possession. It simply came, at this very top -of his emotional pitch. There must have been preliminaries. He must -have said things that she must have answered. But these lesser moments -dropped out. Even a day later, he could see, could almost feel, himself -on one knee beside the steamer chair, saying those amazing things, -without a shred of memory as to how he got there. Never had he so -spoken, to girl or woman; for in the escapades of the younger Rocky -there had always been a reticence if seldom a restraint. It was -precocity; the blood that was in him. - -“You beautiful, wonderful girl!” he was breathing, close to her ear. -(He was never to forget this.) “How can you hide your feelings from me? -Can't you see it's just driving me mad?.... You're adorable! -You're exquisite! You thrill me so--just your voice; the way you -walk--your hands--your hair!.... Can't you understand, dear, it isn't -what they call 'love.'” (This with a divine contempt.) “It's the cry -of my whole being. I want to give you my life. I want to know _your_ -life--study it--come to understand the wonderful people that has made -you possible! I'm going to study it--history, art, everything!.... -I worship you! I dream so of you--all the time--daytimes! I just -half-close my eyes and then, right away, I can see you, walking. And I -see you as you were at the dance on the boat.” He choked a little; then -rushed on. “And in those dreams I always take you in my arms--No, let me -say it! The angels are singing it, the wonderful truth!--I take you -in my arms and kiss your hair and your eyes. You always close your -eyes--oh, so slowly--and I press my lips on the lids. And your arms are -around my neck. I can feel your hands. But I never kiss your lips--not -in those dreams. Because that will mean that you have given me your -soul, and I always know I must wait for that.... - -“Please! You must listen! Can't you see I'm just tearing my heart out -and putting it in your hands--under your feet? There isn't any other -life for me. I can't live without you. I could give up my friends, my -home, my country, and be happy just serving you.” - -He had captured her hand; had it tight in his two hands and was kissing -it tenderly. The thrill was unbelievable now. It was ecstasy. He -could hear himself murmuring over and over, “You're so exquisite! So -thrilling! I love the way your hair lies over your forehead. I love your -eyes, especially when you smile”.... On and on. - -The tired sad girl in the steamer chair could not fail to respond in -some measure, in every sensitive nerve, to so ardent a wooing. Even when -she rose, and struggled a little to withdraw her hand, she couldn't be -angry. He was surprising; in his very boyishness, compelling. - -Then, a little later, he was sitting moodily on the extension front of -the chair, face in hands, plunged into a wordless abyss; she sat on the -edge of the steersman's deck, leaning against the rail, her face close -to a lotus plant, with one flower that looked a ghostly blue in the -fading moonlight, and just later, shaded through pink to deep red with -the first quick-spreading color of the dawn. His emotional outburst had -passed, for the moment, like a gust. He seemed to himself, already, -to have failed. His thoughts were turned, behind the gray half-covered -face, on death. For so swung the pendulum. He couldn't, in these depths, -draw significance from the remarkable fact that she had risen only to -drop down again and carry forward the talk that he let fall, and that he -had, for the time at least, swept away those mental obstacles. Certainly -Miss Hui Fei was not elusive now. - -The things she was saying, in a deliberate, matter-of-fact way, -bewildered him. - -“I don' want you to make love to me like tha'.” - -“But how can I help it? You're so wonderful. You thrill me so. I tell -you it's my whole life. I can never live on without you--not any more. -It's got to be with you, or--or nothing.” - -It was strange. This impulsive affection had grown very, very rapidly -within him; yet, even a day earlier he couldn't have pictured this -scene. Not a phrase of these burning sentences he was so fervently -uttering had been consciously framed in his mind. A part of the thrill -of the situation lay in the very fact that he was so wildly committing -himself. Now that it was being said, he felt no desire to take a word -back. He meant it all; and more--more. - -But she--still, even in the telltale morning light, quaint, charming, -adorable--was growing so practical about it. - -“You're a ver' romantic boy.” - -“I'm not! This is real! Can't you understand that it's love--forever?” - -“Please!.... I don' want you to think I don' un'erstan'. It's ver' sweet -an' generous of you--” - -“I'm not generous! I want you!” - -“I do apprecia' all it woul' mean. You offer me so much--” - -“You dear girl, I offer you everything--everything I have or am! I don't -want to live at all unless it's with you always at my side.” - -“But I don't think--Please! I woui'n' hurt you for anything. You've -helped so--helped saving my father's life an' mine. It's won'erful--but -I don' think life is like that. People mus' have so much in common to -marry in the Western way. They mus' love each other, yes. But in their -min's an' feelings they mus' share so much--their backgroun's....” - -He was out of the chair now; was beside her on the deck. - -“Listen!” he was huskily saying. “We'll get married right away in -Shanghai. We've got to! I won't let you say no! And then we won't go -back. We'll stay out here. There'll be money enough, in spite of the -pater. We'll study this East together. I'm going to devote all the rest -of my life to it. We'll build our common interest. I shall never want -anything else!” - -“How do you knew that?” - -“Can you doubt me?” He had both her hands now. He seemed so young, so -eager. He would fight for what he greatly desired, as his father had -fought before him. However crudely, boyishly, he would fight. - -“No”--her own voice was, surprisingly, a little unsteady--“of course I -don' doubt you. But how can you know what you're going to wan'--years -from now. I don' un'erstan' that. It does seem pretty romantic to me. I -don't know for myself. I coul'n' tell.” - -This, or perhaps it was her failure to rise to his ecstasy, plunged him -again into the depths. - -“It's you or nothing now,” he repeated. “You or nothing.” - -“Wha' do you mean by that?” - -“I've got to have you. If I can't, I'll--oh, I guess I'll just drop -quietly overboard. What's the use?” - -“Do you think it's fair to talk li' that?” - -“Perhaps not, but--I guess I'm beside myself.” - -“Listen!” said she now: with a friendly, even sympathetic pressure of -his trembling hands, “I'll tell you what I think. I think the thing for -you to do is to go back to college.” - -This stung him. “How can you talk like that,” he cried, “when--” - -“I don' wan' to hurt you. But please try to think this as I wan' you -to.” - -“Haven't you _any_ feeling for me?” - -“Of course, an' I'm ver' grateful.” - -“For God's sake, don't talk like that.” - -There was a pause. He withdrew his hands; plunged his feverish face into -them. - -She rose, wearily. Said: “I'm going to try to sleep.” - -“And you could go? Leaving it like this?” - -“Please! I can't help--” - -“Oh, I understand--” he was on his feet before her; caught her arms in -his hands that now were firm and young--“I haven't moved you yet, that's -all. But I will. We Kanes aren't quitters. We don't give up. And I'm not -going to give you up. I'm going to win you. Can't you see that I've got -to? That I can't live.... Listen! You're the loveliest, daintiest little -girl in the world. You're exquisite. Your voice is music to me. I've got -to live my life to that music. It'll be beautiful! Can't you see that? I -don't care how much time it takes. I'll settle down to it. But I'll win -you. And we'll be married at Shanghai?” - -He was very nearly irresistible now. The power in him was real. She -broke away; then, a surprise to herself, lingered. Strangely to her, -this ardent, still somewhat impossible boy, with his vital, Western -force, had actually created an atmosphere of romance in which she was, -for the moment, and in a degree, enveloped. She knew, clearly enough, -that she must exert herself to escape from it: but lingered. - -He caught her hands again; covered them with kisses; held them firmly -while his eyes, suddenly radiant, sought hers and, during a moving -instant, held them. She went below then. And Rocky dropped into the -steamer chair and smiled exultantly as he drifted into slumber. - -When they met again, away from the others, after an excellent luncheon -of fowl and vegetables prepared by the surprising Miss Carmichael, his -mood was wholly changed. He had charm; consciously or unconsciously, he -made it felt. - -“I wasn't fair to you,” he began. - -“If you don' min',” said she, “we jus' won' talk abou' that.” - -“Can't help it.” He smiled a little. “There's no use pretending I can -think about another thing. I'm madly in love with you--hopelessly gone. -It'll probably simplify things if you'll just accept that as a fact. -But last night--this morning--whenever it was!--after all we'd been -through--you know, it wasn't so unnatural that I got all fired up that -way.” - -As this half-smiling, half-serious youth was plainly going to be even -more difficult to manage than the ardent boy of the glowing dawn, she -was silent. - -“Here's the thing,” he went on. “I was too worn out myself to be -considerate of you. I meant every word, of course. You'll never know how -wonderful you seem to me.” This rather wistfully. They were leaning on -the rail, gazing at the rocky hills along the southern bank. “It's all -wrong for me to be so impatient. I know I've got to make good. I've got -to earn you. That won't come all at once. But I am going to try not to -get stirred up like that again. God knows you've got enough to bother -you.” - -“I'm ver' uncertain abou' my father,” said she. “How do you mean?” - -“Oh--he stays in his room. He doesn' come out with us. An' he's always -working.” - -“Well--does that mean anything? Wouldn't he naturally be busy?” - -“I don' think so. No, like this.” - -“But I don't understand what--” - -“It isn' easy to say. When a man like father--what you call a -mandarin--feels that he mus'”--her voice wavered--“that he mus' go, -there is a grea' deal that he must wri' to his frien's an' to the -governmen'. He doesn' wan' to be disturb'. I can' tell wha' he's doing. -It worries me.” - -Doane, during the sunny dreamy afternoon, heard them, now and again. -They were quite monopolizing the pleasant after gallery. And they were -drifting on into their love story. He could not restrain himself from -watching and listening. Despite the fact that his own dream was -over, Doane felt about it, in his heart, like a boy. The sight of -her quickened his pulse. Thoughts of her--mental pictures--came -irresistibly. And these, at times, puzzled his heart if never his -reason; the moment on the top deck of the steamer, when she climbed the -after ladder and first confided her tragic difficulty; the dance she -“sat out” with him. - -.... He called himself, often enough, a fool. But his spirit refused -to accept the words that formed in his mind. He was simply at war with -himself.... The sort of thing happened often enough in life, of -course. Every man lived through such periods. Men of middle age in -particular.... Thus he fell back, over and again, on reason. It was all -he could do. Plainly the experience would take a lot of living through. - -To hope that her quick youth could altogether resist Rocky's ardent -youth was asking too much, of course. The young people were almost -certain to find themselves helpless--their emotions stirred by what -they had been living through; thrown together here, romantically, on the -junk. Whatever small difficulties they might encounter in exploring each -other's nascent feelings would be softened by the very air they were -breathing. The young are often, usually, helpless when nature so works -upon them.... But Doane wasn't bitter. At times he nearly convinced -himself that he felt only concern lest they rush along too fast; -surrender their hearts, only to find too late that the necessary -affinity was not growing into flower. The boy must have some proving, of -course. That lovely girl mustn't be sacrificed. - -Late in the afternoon they were singing, softly, even humorously. Doane -caught snatches of _Mandalay_, and the college songs. That would seem -to them a fine bond, of course--the mere casual fact that both knew the -songs. For youth is quite as simple as that.... So they were rushing on -with it, while an older man pondered. Rocky hung unashamed on her every -word, every movement; waited forlornly about whenever she went below; -starting at sounds, sinking into moods, and shining with radiance -when she reappeared. He even had gentle moments.... What girl could be -insensible to all that? He himself was avoiding them, of course. There -was no helping that; certainly in this stage of the romance. - -His excellency appeared on deck during the second afternoon; greeted -Doane in friendly fashion--looking oddly simple in his servant costume; -blue gown, plain cloth slippers, skull-cap with a knot of vermilion -silk. They walked the deck together; later, they sat on a coil of rope. -In manner he was very nearly his old self; smiling a thought less, -perhaps, but as humanly direct in his talk as a Chinese. - -“We shall soon be parting, Grigsby Doane,” he remarked, “and I shall -think much of you. Do you know yet where you shall go and what you shall -do?” - -“No,” Doane replied. “All I can do now is the next thing, whatever that -may prove to be.” - -“You will help China?” - -“I shall hope for an opportunity.” - -“You are, first and last, a Westerner.” - -“I suppose that is true.” - -“I did think you a philosopher, Griggsby Doane. So you seemed to me. -Like our humble great, almost like Chuang Tzü himself. But in the moment -of crisis your nature found expression wholly in action. At such times -we of the East are likely to be negative. We are a static people. But -you, like your own, are dynamic.” - -This shrewd bit of observation struck Doane sharply. Come to think, it -was true. - -“At the critical moment you wasted not one thought in reflection. You -weighed none of the difficulties; you ignored consequences. You took -command. You acted. As a result--here we are.... I suppose you were -right. At any rate, I yielded to your active judgment. It has saved my -daughter.” - -“And you, as well, Your Excellency, if I may say so.” - -“Very well--myself too.... I shall always think of you now as I have -twice seen you--once in that curious boxing match on the steamer; and -again as you took command of me and my own house. I regret that in -my position as a Manchu, however progressive, I can not be of any -considerable service to you with the republicans. It is in their camp -that your advice will help. Only there. Shall you go to them?” - -Doane found it impossible to mention the invitation of Sun-Shi-pi. That -would be a sacred confidence. So he replied in merely general terms: - -“I should like to sit in their councils. They seem to represent, at this -time, China's only material hope. Though I am not strongly an optimist -regarding the revolution. China is so vast, so sunken in tradition, -that the real revolution must be distressingly slow. Still, I have some -familiarity with the constitutional history of my own country, and, I -think, some acquaintance with yours. And I love China. Yes, I should -like to help.” - -“You are a great man, Griggsby Doane. You have known sorrow and poverty. -To the merely successful American I do not look for much real guidance. -But China needs you. I hope she will find you out in time.” - -They talked on, of many things. His excellency was gently, at times even -whimsically, reflective. At length he touched, lightly at first, on the -subject of Rocky Kane. A little later, more openly, he asked what the -boy's standing would be in New York. - -Doane thought this over very carefully. It was curious how that -confusing element of mere feeling reappeared promptly in his mind. -But he explained, finally, that while the boy was young, and had been -passing through a phase of rather adventurous wildness, still his father -was a man of enormous prestige in society as in the financial world. The -boy had nice qualities. Given the right influences he might, with the -wealth that would one day be his, become like his father, a powerful -factor in American life. - -“I find myself somewhat puzzled,” remarked his excellency then. “He -seems devoted to my daughter. I can not easily read her mind. And I -would not attempt to direct her life as would be necessary had she been -merely a Manchu girl reared in a Manchu environment. Is she, do you -think, and as your people understand the term, in love with him? I find -their present relationship somewhat alarming.” - -“It would be difficult to say, Your Excellency--” thus Doane, simply and -gravely. “The young man is, of course, in love with her.” - -“Ah,” breathed his excellency. “You are sure of that?” - -“Yes. She is undoubtedly accustomed to play about pleasantly with young -men as do the young women of America.” Sudden, poignant memories came -of his own lovely daughter, as she had been; and of the puzzling romance -that had seemed for a time to injure her young life--a romance in which -he, her father, had played a strange part. But that was, after all, but -an echo from another life; a closed book. - -“Your daughter, I am sure,” Doane continued, “can be trusted to form her -own attachments. She is a noble as well as a beautiful girl.” - -“Indeed--you find her so, Griggsby Doane? That is pleasant to my ears. -For into the directing of her life have gone my dreams of the new China -and the new world. I would not have her choose wrongly now. But I do not -understand her. It is difficult for me to talk freely with her.” - -“I am sure,” said Doane slowly, “that if you could bring yourself to do -so”--as once or twice before, in moments of deep feeling, he forgot -to use the indirect Oriental form of address--“it would make her very -happy.” - -“You think that, Griggsby Doane?” His excellency considered this. Then -added: “I will make the effort.” - -“If I may suggest--talk with her not as father with daughter, but on an -equality, as friend with friend.” - -His excellency slowly rose; and Doane, also rising, felt for the first -time that the fine old statesman fully looked his age. He was, standing -there, smiling a thought wistfully, an old man, little short of a broken -man. And then his dry thin hand found Doane's huge one and gripped it in -the Western manner. This was a surprise, evidently as moving to Kang as -to Doane himself; for they stood thus a moment in silence. - -“My dearest hope, of late,” said the great Manchu--the smoothest of -etiquette giving way, for once, before the pressure of emotion--“has -been that my daughter's heart might be entrusted to you, Griggsby -Doane.” - -Again a silence. Then Doane: - -“That was my hope, as well.” - -“Then--” - -“No. It is plainly impossible. All life is before her. The thought has -not come to her. It never will. I see now that she could not be happy -with me. And I think she ought to be happy. I must ask you not to speak -of this again. Let youth call unto youth. And let me be her friend.” - -His excellency went below after this. Miss Hui Fei was also below, -sleeping. Rocky Kane had been playing with the little princess, out on -the gallery; but now, evidently watching his chance, he came forward to -the informal seat the mandarin had vacated. - -It was to be difficult--always difficult. The boy, plainly, couldn't -live through these tense days without a confidant. Doane steeled himself -to bear it, and to respond as a friend. There was no way out; would be -none short of Shanghai; just an exquisite torture. It was even to -grow, with each fresh contact, harder to bear. The boy was so curiously -unsophisticated, so earnest and honest an egotist. - -“--I've asked her,” he said now. - -Doane could only wait. - -“She hasn't said yes. That would be absurd, of course--so soon.” He was -so pitifully putting up a brave front. “But she does like me. And it's -something that she hasn't said no. Isn't it something?” - -That was hardly a question; it was nearer assertion--what he had to -think. Doane managed to incline his head. - -“But never mind that. God knows why I should bother you with it. You've -been so kind--such a friend. We--are friends, aren't we?” - -Doane felt himself obliged to turn and meet his eyes. And such eyes! -Ablaze with nervous light. And then he had to grip another hand--this -one young, moist, strong. But he managed that, too. - -“Listen! I do bother you awfully, but--I've been thinking--here we are, -you know. God knows when I'll find a man who could help me as you can. -And we brought all those wonderful old paintings aboard here. I've been -thinking--well, since I've got so much to learn of Chinese culture, -why not begin? Couldn't I--would they mind if I looked at some of -the pictures? And--if it isn't asking too much--you could tell me why -they're good. Just begin to give me something to go by. Isn't it as good -a way to make the break as any?” - -It was a most acceptable diversion. Doane, though several boxes of the -paintings were in his own rooms, sent a servant to ask a permission that -was cordially granted. And as there was a wind blowing, they went below, -and talked there in low voices in order not to disturb the sleeping -girl, while the elder man carefully opened a box and got out a number -of the long scrolls that were wound on rods of ivory, handling them with -reverent fingers. - -He chose one from the brush of that Chao Meng-fu who flourished under -the earliest Mongol or Yuan rulers, a roll perhaps fourteen or fifteen -inches in width, and in length, judging from the thickness, as many -feet, tied around with silk cords and fastened with tags of carven jade. -The painting itself, naturally, was on silk, which in turn was pasted on -thick, dark-toned paper, made of bamboo pulp, with borders of brocade. -The projecting ends of the ivory rollers, like the tags, were carved. - -At the edge of the scroll were, besides the seal signature of the -artist, and the date--in our chronology, A. D. 1308--many other -signatures in the conventional square seal characters of royal and -other collectors who had possessed the painting, with also, a few pithy, -appreciative epigrams from eminent critics of various periods. On that -one margin was stamped the authentic history of the particular bit of -silk, paper and pigment during its life of six full centuries; for no -hand could have forged those seals. - -There was no likelihood that the boy--lacking, as he was, in cultural -background--would exhibit any sensitive responsiveness to the exquisite -brush-work of the fine old painter or to his consciously subjective -attitude toward his art. But there is a way in which the simple Western -mind that is not preoccupied with fixed concepts of art may be led into -enjoyment of such a landscape scroll; this is to exhibit it as do the -Chinese themselves, unrolling it, very slowly, a little at a time, -deliberately absorbing the detail and the finely suggested atmosphere, -until a sensation is experienced not unlike that of making a journey -through a strange and delightful country. Doane employed this method--it -was surely what that old painter intended--and led the boy slowly from a -pastoral home, so small beneath its towering overhanging mountain -crags, that lost themselves finally in soft cloud-masses, as to appear -insignificant, out along a river where lines of reeds swayed in the -winds and boats moved patiently, across a lake that was dotted with -pavilions and pleasure craft--on and on, through varied scenes that yet -were blended with amazing craftsmanship into a continuous, harmonious -whole. - -The time crept by and by. When Doane finally explained the seal -characters at the end and retied the old silk cords with their hanging -rectangles of unclouded green jade, the sun was low over the western -hills. - -Rocky's face was flushed, his eyes nervously bright. “I don't get it -all, of course,” he said; “but it makes you feel somehow as if you'd -been reading _The Pilgrim's Progress!_” - -Doane gravely nodded. - -“Shall we look at another?” said Rocky. - -“No. That is enough. The Chinese knew better than to crowd the mind with -confused impressions of many paintings. A good picture is an experience -to be lived through, not a trophy to be glanced at.” - -“I wonder,” said the boy, “if that's why I used to hate it so when my -tutor dragged me through the Metropolitan Museum?” - -“Doubtless.” - -“And this picture has a great value, I suppose?” - -“It is virtually priceless--in East as well as West,” replied Doane as -he replaced it among its fellows in the box. - -Thus began, late but perhaps not too late, what may be regarded as the -education of young Rockingham Kane. - - - -CHAPTER XII--AT THE HOUR OF THE TIGER - -|THEY passed, that evening, the region of Peng-tze where Tao Yuan-ming, -after a scant three months as district magistrate, surrendered his -honors and retired to his humble farm near Kiu Kiang, there to write -in peace the verse and prose that have endured during sixteen crowded -centuries; and on, then, moving slowly through the precipitous Gateway -of Anking and, later, around the bend that bounds that city on the west, -south and east. Those on deck could see, indistinctly in the deepening -twilight, the vast area of houses and ruins--for Anking had not -yet recovered from the devastations of the T'ai-ping rebels in the -eighteen-sixties--where half a million yellow folk swarm like ants; and -very indistinctly indeed, farther to the north, they could see: the -blue mountains. Slowly, quietly, then, Anking, with its ruins and its -memories fell away astern. - -Half an hour later the sweeps were lashed along the rail. The great dark -sails, with their scalloped edges between the battens of bamboo, seeming -more than ever, in the dusk, like the wings of an enormous bat, were -lowered; and with many shouts and rhythmic cries the tracking ropes were -run out to mooring poles on the bank. Forward the mattings were adjusted -for the night. The smells of tobacco and frying fish drifted aft. A -youth, sipping tea by the rail, put down his cup and sang softly -in falsetto a long narrative of friendship and the mighty river and -(incidentally) the love of a maiden who slipped away from her mother's -side at night to meet a handsome student only to be slain, as was just, -by the hand of an elder brother.... From the cabin aft drifted a faint -odor of incense. A flageolet mingled its plaintive oboe-like note with -the song of the youth by the rail.... From a near-by village came soft -evening sounds, and the occasional barking of dogs, and the beat of a -watchman's gong.... The greatest of rivers--greatest in traffic and in -rich memories of the endless human drama--was settling quietly for the -night. - -At the first rays of dawn the forward deck would be again astir. Sails -would be hoisted, ropes hauled aboard and coiled; and the shining yellow -craft would resume her journey down-stream, with carven and brightly -painted eyes peering fixedly out at the bow, with carefully tended -flowers perfuming the air about the after gallery, a thing of rich and -lovely color even on the rich and lovely river; slipping by busy ports, -each with its vast tangle of small shipping and its innumerable families -of beggars in slipper-boats or tubs awaiting miserably the steamers and -their strangely prodigal white passengers. T'ai-ping itself, of bloody -memory, lay still ahead; and farther yet Nanking the glorious, and -Chin-kiang, and the great estuary. Slowly the huge craft would drift -and sail and tie, moving patiently on toward the Shanghai of -the ever-prospering white merchants, the Shanghai that somewhat -vaingloriously had dubbed itself “the Paris of the East.” And no one of -the thousands, here and there, that idly watched the golden junk as it -moved, not without a degree of magnificence, down the tireless current, -was to know that a Manchu viceroy, a prince hunted to the death by his -own blood, a statesman known to the courts of great new lands, was in -hiding within those timbers of polished cypress. Nor would they know -that a princess, his daughter yet strangely of the new order, voyaged -with him clad in the simple costume of a young Chinese woman. Nor would -they dream of certain inexplicable whites. Nor would they have cared; -for the voyage of the yellow junk was but a tiny incident in the crowded -endless drama of the river; to the millions of struggling, breeding, -dying souls along the banks and on the water, merely living was and -would be burden enough. So China merely lives--dreaming a little but -hoping hardly at all--with every eye on the furrow or the till; lives, -and dies, and--lives again and on. - -Late in the third afternoon, Rocky Kane, sitting, head forlornly in -hands, in his narrow room, heard a light step--heard it with every -sensitive nerve-tip--and, springing up, softly drew his curtain. But the -quick eagerness faded from his eyes; for it was Dixie Carmichael. - -Her thin lips curved in the faintest of smiles as she moved along the -corridor toward her own curtained door. But then, as she passed and -glanced back, her skirt, in swinging about, caught on a nail; caught -firmly; and as she stooped to release it, a string of pearls swung down, -broke, and rolled, a score of little opalescent spheres, along the deck, -a few of them nearly to Rocky's feet. He stooped--without a thought -at first--picked them up and turned them over in his fingers; then, -stepping forward to return them, observed with an odd thrill of somewhat -unpleasant excitement, that the girl had gone an ashen color and was -staring at him with something the look of a wild and hostile animal. -She turned then; glanced with furtive eyes up and down the corridor; and -swiftly gathering up the remaining pearls clutched them tightly in one -hand, extending the other and saying, in a quick half-whisper: “Give me -those.” - -He hesitated, confused, unequal to the quick clear thinking he felt, -even then, was demanded of him. - -“What are you doing with them?” he asked. - -“Not so loud! Come here!” She was indicating her own doorway; even -drawing the curtain; while her head moved just perceptibly toward the -room immediately beyond her own where Miss Hui Fei, he knew, would be -resting at this time. - -“Where did you get them?” he asked, huskily, doggedly. - -There was a long pause. Again her subtle gaze swept the corridor. “You'd -better step in here,” said she, very quiet. “I've something to say to -you.” - -Sensing, still confusedly, that he ought to see the thing through, -struggling to think, he yielded to her stronger will. - -She followed him into the room and let the curtain fall. “Give me those -pearls,” she commanded again. - -He shook his head. - -During a tense moment she studied him. She moved over by the translucent -window of ground oyster shells, itself, in the mellow afternoon light, -as opalescent as the pearls in her hand and his. Her gaze, for an -instant, sought the wide stain on the floor where the Manila Kid had, -so recently, wretchedly died; and her instant imagination considered the -incomprehensible mental attitude of these quiet Chinese who had, without -a word, disposed of the body and painstakingly cleansed the spot. No -one, observing them day by day, now, as they calmly pursued their tasks, -could suspect that the slanting quiet eyes had so lately seen murder.... -As for the youth before her she was, now that her moment of fright had -passed, supremely confident in her skill and mental strength. He was, -still, little more than an undeveloped boy. And his position, now that -he had set up his flag of reform, would be absurdly vulnerable. - -“Once more”--her low voice was cool and soft as river ice--“give them to -me.” - -He shook his head. “Tell me first where you got them.” - -“If you're determined to make a scene,” said she, “I advise you to be -quiet about it. You wouldn't want--her--to know you're in here.” - -“I--I”--this was the merest boyishness--“I've told her about--well, that -I tried to make love to you. I'm not afraid of that.” - -“Still--you wouldn't want her to hear you now.” This was awkwardly true. -And his hesitation as he tried to consider it, to work out an attitude, -ran a second too long. - -“The pearls are mine,” she pressed calmly on. “The best advice I can -give you is to return them and go.” - -“But--” - -“Do you think I want the people aboard this junk--anybody--to know that -I have them?” - -“I believe you stole them from the viceroy's place.” - -“That, of course--Well, never mind! What you may believe is nothing to -me.” - -“Will you tell Mr. Doane about them?” - -“Certainly not. And you won't.” - -“Why shouldn't I?” - -“It's none of your business.” - -“Perhaps it's my duty.” - -“Listen”--he felt himself wholly in the right, yet found difficulty in -meeting her cold pale eyes--“it's my impression that I've been acting -rather decently toward you. Of course, I could have--” - -“What could you have done?” - -“For you own good, keep your voice down. I will tell you just this--you -were pretty wild in Shanghai for a week or two.” - -“Well?” This was hurting him; but he met it. “And there's no likelihood -that you've told her all of it. Were you such a fool as to think you -could keep it all secret? Out here on the coast--and from a woman with -as many underground connections as I have?” - -“There's nothing that!--” - -“Listen! I'm not through with you. You've been a very, very rough -proposition. I know all about it. No--wait! There's something else. I -knew all about you when you were making up to me on the steamer. I could -have trapped you then--tangled your life so with mine that you could -never have got away from me, never in the world. But I didn't. I liked -you, and I didn't want to hurt you--then.” - -“You do want to hurt me now?” - -“It may be necessary.” - -“Since you're taking this position”--he was finding difficulty in -making his voice heard; there seemed to be danger of explosive -sounds--“probably I'd better just go to Mr. Doane myself with these -things.” - -“If you do that I'll wreck your life.” - -“You don't mean that you'd--” - -“You seem to be forgetting a good deal.” - -“But you--” - -“I will defend myself to the limit. I've really been easy with you. You -see, you don't know anything about me. Least of all what harm I can do. -You'd be a child in my hands. Turn against me and I'll get you if it -takes me ten years. You'll never be safe from me. Never for a minute.” - -He looked irresolutely down at the lustrous jewels in his hand. - -“You had these sewed in your skirt. There must be more there.” - -“Are you proposing to search me?” - -“No--but”.... His black youth was stabbing now, viciously, at his -boyishly sensitive heart; but still, in a degree, he met it. “I'm going -to Mr. Doane. I don't care what happens to me.” - -He even moved a soft step toward the door; but paused, lingered, -watching her. For she was rummaging among the covers of her bed. He -caught a brief glimpse of a hand-bag that she meant him not to see. She -took from a bottle two green tablets. Then she faced him. - -To the startled question of his eyes she replied: “They're corrosive -sub mate. I shall take them now unless you--give me the pearls. If you -want to have my death on your hands, take them to Mr. Doane. But -it's only fair to tell you that if you do it--if you mix in this -business--your own life won't be worth a nickel. They'll get you, and -they'll get the pearls. You're caught in a bigger game than you can -play. - -“Get out, while you can”--as the low swift words came she reached out and -took the pearls from his nerveless hand--“and I'll protect you. You can -have your pretty Manchu girl. You can ride around in a rickshaw and -look at old temples and buy embroideries. Just don't mix in affairs that -don't concern you.” - -“I”--he was pressing a hand to a white forehead--“I've got to think it -over.” - -“Remember this, too”--she laid a hand on his arm--“you could never -fasten anything on me. The proof doesn't exist. Nobody can identify -unmounted pearls. As a matter of fact I got these”.... during a brief but -to her perverse imagination an intensely pleasing moment she closed -her eyes and lived again through that strange scene on the steps of the -pavilion; again in vivid fancy rolled over the inert body that had been -Tex Connor, took the amazing cape of pearls from his shirt and rolled -the body heavily back.... “I got these from a man I knew--an old friend. -Just mind your own business and no one will harm you. But remember, -you're walking among dangers. Step carefully. Keep quiet. Better go -now.” - -He found himself in the corridor; walked slowly, uncertainly, up to the -deck; sat by the rail and, head on hand, moodily watched the river and -the hills. He asked himself if he had, by his very silence, struck a -bargain with the girl; but could find no answer to the question, only -bewilderment. Could it be that she was only a daring thief? It could, of -course, but how to get at the truth? Abruptly, then his thoughts turned -inward. His wild days had seemed, since his change of heart, of the -remote past; but they were not, they had still been the stuff of his -life within about a week. It was unnerving. He thought, something -morbidly, as the sensitive young will, about habits.... The day had gone -awry, too, in the matter of his love. A reaction had set in. Hui Fei -was keeping much to herself. It had become difficult to talk with her -at all. And that had bewildered him.... He was all adrift, with neither -sound training nor a mature philosophy to steady him, life had turned -unreal on his hands; nothing was real--not Hui or her father, certainly -not himself, not even Mr. Doane. His background, even, was slipping -away, and with it his sense of the white race. This, it seemed, was a -yellow world--swarming, heedless, queerly tragic. His soul was adrift, -and nobody cared. Toward his father and mother he felt only bitterness. -There were, it appeared, no friends. - -He thought, it seemed, confusedly, excitedly, of everything; of -everything except the important fact that he was very young. - -Early on the following morning Doane found the little princess playing -about the deck, and with a smile seated himself beside her. She settled -at once on his knee, chattering brightly in the Mandarin tongue of her -play world. - -He responded with a note of good-humored whimsy not out of key with her -alert clear imagination. It was pleasant to fall again into the little -intimacies of the language that had become, during these twenty years -and more, almost his own. He pointed out to her the trained cormorants -diving for fish, and the irrigating wheels along the banks; and then -told quaint stories--of the first water buffalo, and of the magic -rice-field. - -Soon she, too, was telling stories--of the simpleton who bought herons -for ducks, of the toad in the lotus pool, of the child that was born in -a conch shell and finally crawled with it into the sea, of the youngest -daughter who to save the life of her father married a snake, of the -magic melon that grew full of gold and the other melon that contained -hungry beggars, of the two small boys and the moon cake, and of the -curious beginning of the ant species. - -She scolded him for his failure, at the first, to laugh with her. Her -happy child quality stirred memories of old-time days in T'ainan-fu, -when his own daughter had been a child of six, playing happily about the -mission compound. They were poignant memories. His eyes were misty even -as he smiled over the bright merriment of this child, and in his heart -was a growing wistful tenderness. To be again a father would be a great -privilege. He was ripe for it now, tempered by poverty and sorrow, yet -strong, with a great emotional capacity on which the world about him -had, apparently, no claim to make. He was simply cast aside, left -carelessly in an eddy with the great stream of life flowing, bankful, -by. The experience was common enough, of course. In the great scheme -of life the fate of an individual here and there could hardly matter. -He could tell himself that, very simply, quite honestly; and yet the -strength within him would rise and rise again to assert the opposite. -The end, for himself, lay beyond the range of conscious thought; but -at least, he felt, it could not be bitterness. He seemed to have passed -that danger.... The little princess was soberly telling the old story of -the father-in-law, the father, and the crabs that were eaten by the -pig. At the conclusion she laughed merrily; and then Ending his response -somewhat unsatisfactory, scowled fiercely and with her plump fingers -bent up the corners of his mouth. - -He laughed then; and rolled her up in his arms and tossed her high in -the air. - -When Hui Fei came upon them they were gazing out over the rail. Mr. -Doane seemed to be telling a long story, to which the child listened -intently. She moved quietly near, smiling; and after listening for a few -moments seated herself on the deck behind them. - -The story puzzled her. She leaned forward, a charming picture in her -simple costume, black hair parted smoothly, oval face untouched with -powder or paint. She smiled again, then, for his story was nothing other -than a free rendering into Chinese of Stevenson's: - - “In Winter I get up at night - - And dress by yellow candle-light...” - -He went on, when that was finished, with a version of: - - “Dark brown is the river, - - Golden is the sand....” - ---and other poems from _The Child's Garden of Verses._ - -Hui Fei's eyes lighted, as she listened. Mr. Doane, it appeared, knew -nearly all of these exquisite verse-stories of happy childhood and -exhibited surprising skill in finding the Chinese equivalents for -certain elusive words. What a mind he had.... rich in reading as in -experience, ripe in wisdom, yet curiously fresh and elastic! It seemed -to her a young mind. - -The little princess was especially pleased with _My Bed Is a Boat_, and -made him repeat it. At the conclusion she clapped her hands. And then -Hui Fei joined in the applause, and laughed softly when they turned in -surprise. - -“Won't you do _The Land of Counterpane?_” she asked. - -It was later, when the child had run off to play among the flowers, that -he and she fell to talking as they had not talked during these recent -crowded days. There were silences, at first. Despite his effort to seem -merely friendly and kind, he felt a restraint that had to be fought -through. In this time, so difficult for her at every point, he felt -deeply that he must not fail her. Her greatest need, surely, was for -friendship. The excited youth who dogged her steps and hung on her most -trivial glance could not offer that. And melancholy had touched her -bright spirit; he sensitively felt that when the little princess -ran away and her smile faded. Sorrow dwelt not far behind those dark -thoughtful eyes. - -Early in the conversation she spoke of her father. Her thoughts, -clearly, were always with him. - -“I wan' to ask you,” said she simply and gravely, “if you know what he -is doing.” - -Doane moved his head in the negative. - -“He has been in his room for more than a day. When I go to his door -he is kin' but he doesn' ask me to come in. And he doesn' tell me -anything.” - -“He is not confiding in me,” said Doane. - -“I don' like that, either, Mis'er Doane. For I know he thinks of you now -as his closes' frien'. There is no other frien' who knows what you know. -An' you have save' his life an' mine. My father is not a man to fail in -frien'ship or in gratitu'.” - -Doane's eyes, despite his nearly successful inner struggles, grew misty -again. Impulsively he took her hand gently in his. At once, simply, her -slender fingers closed about his own. It seemed not unlike the trusting -affection of a child; he sensed this as a new pain. Yet there was strong -emotional quality in her; he felt it in her dark beauty, in the curve of -her cheek and the lustrous troubled splendor in her eyes, in the slender -curves of her strong young body. She was, after all, a woman grown; -aroused, doubtless, to the puzzling facts of life; a woman, with an -ardent lover close at hand, who was--this as his wholly adult mind now -saw her--already at her mating time. And feeling this he gripped her -hand more tightly than he knew. But even so, he was not unaware of his -own danger. It wouldn't do; once to release his own tightly chained -emotions would be to render himself of no greater value to her in her -bewilderment than any merely pursuing male. He set his teeth on that -thought, and abruptly withdrew his hand. - -She did not look up--her gaze was fixed on the surface of the river. -The only indication she gave that she was so much as aware of this odd -little act of his was that she started to speak, then paused for a brief -instant before going on. - -“I ask--ask myself all the time if there is anything we coul' be doing.” - -Doane's head moved again in the negative. - -“If not even his gratitu'--” - -“Gratitude,” said Doane gently, “becomes less than nothing when it is -demanded.” - -“True, it can no' be ask', but it can be given.” - -“Sometimes”--he was thinking aloud, dangerously--“I wonder if any -healthy human act is free from the motive of self-interest. Generosity -is so often self-indulgence. Self-sacrifice, even in cases where it may -be regarded as wholly sane, may be only a culmination or a confusion of -little understood desires.” - -She looked up at this; considered it. - -“Certainly,” he went on, “your father owes me nothing.” - -Her hand moved a little way toward his, only to hesitate and draw -back. She looked away, saying in a clouded voice: “He--and I--owe you -everything.” It wouldn't do. Doane waited a long moment, then spoke in -what seemed more nearly his own proper character--quietly, kindly, with -hardly an outward sign of the intensely personal feeling of which his -heart was so full. - -“Your father has spoken to me of you as an experiment.” - -“You mean my life--my education.” - -“Yes. He feels, too, that the experiment has not yet been fully worked -out. I often think of that--your future. It is interesting, you know. -You have responded amazingly to the spirit of the West. And of course -you'll have to do something about it.” - -“Oh, yes,” said she, musing, “of course.” - -“Whatever personal interests may for a time--or at times--absorb your -life”.... this was as close as he dared trust himself to the topic of -marriage__“I feel about you that your life will seek and find some -strong outward expression.” - -“Yes--I have often fel' that too. Of course, at college I like' to -speak. I went in a good 'eal for the debates, an' for class politics.” - -“You have an active mind. And you have a fine heritage. Knowing--even -feeling--both East and West as you do, your life is bound to find some -public outlet. Something.” - -“I know.” She seemed moody now, in a gentle way. Her fingers picked at -a rope. “But I don' know what. I don' think I woul' like teaching. -Writing, perhaps. Even speaking. That is so easy for me.” - -“There is a service that you are peculiarly fitted to perform.” She -glanced up quickly, waited. “It is a thought that keeps coming to my -mind. Perhaps because it will probably become the final expression of my -own life. For my life is curiously like yours in one way. You remember, -that--that night when we first talked--on the steamer--” - -“I climb' the ladder,” she murmured, picking again at the rope. - -“--And we agreed that we were both, you and I”--his voice grew -momentarily unsteady--“between the worlds.” - -“Yes. I remember.” He could barely hear her, “It is true, of course.” - -“It is true. And for myself, I feel more and more strongly every day -that I must pitch into the tremendous task of helping to make the East -known to the West.” - -“Tha' woul' be won'erful!” she breathed. - -“I have come to feel that it is the one great want in Western -civilization, that the philosophy, the art, the culture, indeed, of -China has never been woven into our heritage. It is strange, in a -way--we derived our religion from certain primitive tribes in Syria. But -they had little culture. The Christian religion teaches conduct but very -nearly ignores beauty. And then there is our insistent pushing forth -of the Individual. I have come to believe that our West will seem less -crass, less materialistic, when the individual is somewhat subdued.” - He smiled. “We need patience--sheer quality of thought--the fine art -of reflection. We shall not find these qualities at their best, even in -Europe. They exist, in full flower, only in China. And America doesn't -know that. Not now.” - -A little later he said: “That work has been begun, of course, in a small -way. A slight sense of Chinese culture is creeping into our colleges, -here and there. Some of the poetry is bring translated. The art -museums are reaching out for the old paintings. The Freer collection -of paintings will some day be thrown open to the public. But traditions -grow very slowly. It will take a hundred years to make America aware -of China as it is now aware of Italy, Egypt, Greece, even old -Assyria.... and the thing must be freed from Japanese influence--we can't -much longer afford to look at wonderful, rich old China through the -Japanese lens.” - -“An' you're going to make tha' your work,” observed Hui Fei. - -“I must. I begin to feel that it is to be the only final explanation of -my life.” - -There was a silence. Then, abruptly, in a tone he did not understand, -she asked: “Are you going to work for the Revolution?” - -“That is the immediate thing--yes. I shall offer my services.” - -“Coul' I do anything, you think? At Shanghai, I mean? Of course, I'm a -Manchu girl, but I can no' stand with the Manchu Gover'ment. I am not -even with my--my father there.” - -“It is possible. I don't know. We shall soon be there.” - -“Will you tell me then--at Shanghai?” - -He inclined his head. Suddenly he couldn't speak. She was holding to -him, as if it were a matter of course; yet he dared not read into her -attitude a personal meaning of the only sort that could satisfy his -hungry heart. The difficulty lay in his active imagination. Like that of -an eager boy it kept racing ahead of any possible set of facts. All -he could do, of course, was to go on curbing it, from hour to hour. -It would be harder seeing her at Shanghai than running away, as he had -half-consciously been planning. But it was something that she clung to -him as a friend. He mustn't, couldn't, really, fail her there. - -All of the last day they sailed the wide and steadily widening estuary. -The lead-colored water was roughened by the following wind that drove -the junk rapidly on toward her journey's end. But toward sunset wind and -sea died down, and under sweeps, late in the evening-, the craft moved -into the Wusung River and moored for the night within sight of a line of -war-ships. - -A feeling of companionship grew strongly among those fugitives, yellow -and white, as the evening advanced. They had passed together through -dangerous and dramatic scenes. Now that danger and drama were alike, -it seemed, over, with the peaceable shipping of all the world lying just -ahead up the narrow channel, with, in the morning to come, a fresh view -of the bund at Shanghai, where hotels, banks and European clubs elbowed -the great trading hongs, with motor-cars and Sikh police and the bright -flags of the home land so soon to be spread before their weary eyes, -they gathered on the after gallery to chat and watch the flashing signal -lights of the cruisers and the trains on the river bank, and dream each -his separate dream. Even Dixie Carmichael, though herself untouched by -sentiment, joined, for reasons of policy, the little party. Hui Fei -was there, between Doane and the moodily silent Rocky Kane. The Chinese -servants smilingly grouped themselves on the deck just above. And -finally--though it is custom among these Easterners to sleep during the -dark hours and rise with the morning light--his excellency appeared, -walking alone over the deck, smiling in the friendliest fashion and -greeting them with hands clasped before his breast. - -Doane felt a little hand steal for a moment into his with a nervous -pressure. His own relief was great. - -For this smiling gentleman could hardly be regarded as one about to die. -They placed him in the steamer chair of woven rushes from Canton. And -pleasantly, then, their last evening together passed in quiet talk. - -His excellency was in reminiscent mood. He had been a young officer, it -transpired, in the T'aiping Rebellion, and had fought during the last -three years of that frightful thirteen-year struggle up and down the -great river, taking part in the final assault on Su-chau as a captain in -the “Ever Victorious” army of General Gordon. Regarding that brilliant -English officer he spoke freely; Doane translating a sentence, here and -there, for young Kane. - -“Gordon never forgave Li Hung Chang,” he said, “for the murder of the -T'ai-ping Wangs, during the peace banquet. It was on Prince Li's own -barge, in the canal by the Eastern Gate of the city. Gordon claimed -that Li procured the murder. He was a hot-blooded man, Gordon, often too -quick and rough in speech. Li told me, years later, that the attack -was directed as much against himself as against the Wangs, and regarded -himself as fortunate to escape. He never forgave Gordon for his -insulting speech. But Gordon was a vigorous brave man. It was a -privilege to observe him tirelessly at work, planning by night, fighting -by day--organizing, demanding money, money, money--with great energy -moving troops and supplies. He could not be beaten. He was indeed the -'Ever Victorious.'” - -It was, later, his excellency who asked Hui Fei and young Kane to sing -the American songs that had floated on one or two occasions through his -window below. They complied; and Dixie Carmichael, in an agreeable light -voice, joined in. At the last Duane was singing bass. - -The party was breaking up--his excellency had already gone below--when -Rocky, moved to the point of exquisite pain, caught the hand of Hui Fei. - -“Please!” he whispered. “Just a word!” - -“Not now. I mus' go.” - -“But--it's our last evening--I've tried to be patient--it'll be all -different at Shanghai--I can't let you.” - -But she slipped away, leaving the youth whispering brokenly after -her. He leaned for a long time on the rail then, looking heavily at the -winking lights of the cruisers. It was a relief to see Mr. Doane coming -over the deck. Certainly he couldn't sleep. Not now. His heart was full -to breaking.... The fighting impulse rose. During this past day or so he -had seemed to be losing ground in his struggle with self. The startling -incident in Miss Carmichael's room had turned out, he felt, still -confusedly, as a defeat. It had left him unhappy. This night, out there -in the blossom-scented gallery, he had sensed the strange girl, close at -hand, cool as a child, singing the old college songs with apparent quiet -enjoyment, as an uncanny thing, a sinister force. Even when speaking to -Hui Fei, her influence had enveloped him.... This would be just one more -little battle. And it must be won. - -Accordingly he told Mr. Doane the story. The older man considered it, -slowly nodding. - -“It is probably the fact,” he said, at length, “that she stole the -pearls at Huang Chau. She was with Connor and Watson. But it is also -a fact that she might have pearls of her own. And in traveling alone -through a revolution it would be her right to conceal them as she chose. -It is true, too, that unset pearls couldn't be identified easily, if -at all. And she is clever--she wouldn't weaken under charges.... No, I -don't see what we can do, beyond watching the thing closely. As for her -threats against you, they are partly rubbish.” - -But Rocky cared little, now, what they might be. Once again he had -cleaned the black slate of his youth. His head was high again. He could -speak to Hui Fei convincingly in the morning. - -His excellency, alone in his cabin, took from his hand-bag the book of -precepts of Chuang Tzü; and seated on his pallet, by the small table on -which burned a floating wick in its vessel of oil, read thoughtfully as -follows: - -“Chuang Tzü one day saw an empty skull, bleached but intact, lying on -the ground. Striking it with his riding whip, he cried, 'Wert thou once -some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought him to this -pass?--some statesman who plunged his country into ruin and perished -in the fray?--some wretch who left behind him a legacy of shame?--some -beggar who died in the pangs of hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach -this state by the natural course of old age?' - -“When he had finished speaking, he took the skull and, placing it under -his head as a pillow, went to sleep. In the night he dreamt that the -skull appeared to him and said: 'You speak well, sir; but all you say -has reference to the life of mortals and to mortal troubles. In death -there are none of these.... In death there is no sovereign above, and -no subject below. The workings of the four seasons are unknown. Our -existences are bounded only by eternity. The happiness of a king among -men can not exceed that which we enjoy.' - -“Chuang Tzü, however, was not convinced, and said: 'Were I to prevail -upon God to allow your body to be born again, and your bones and flesh to -be renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife and -to the friends of your youth, would you be willing?' - -“At this the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and said: -'How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king, and -mingle once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?'” - -He closed the book; laid on the table his European watch; and sat for -a long time in meditation. As the hands of the watch neared the hour of -three in the morning, he took from the bag a box of writing materials, a -small red book and a bottle of white pills. - -The leaves of the book were the thinnest gold. On one of these -he inscribed, with delicate brush, the Chinese characters meaning -“Everlasting happiness.” Tearing out the leaf, then, he wrapped loosely -in it one of the pills--these were morphine, of the familiar sort -manufactured in Japan and sold extensively in China since the decline of -the opium traffic--and swallowed them together. He inscribed and took -another, and another, and another. - -Gradually a sense of drowsy comfort, of utter physical well-being, came -over him. The pupils of his eyes shrunk down to the merest pin-points. -His head drooped forward. His frail old body fell on the bed and lay -peacefully there as his spirit sought its destiny in the unchanging, -everlasting Tao. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--HIS EXCELLENCY SPEAKS - -|IT was daybreak. Doane, standing in his cabin by the opened window, -looked out with melancholy in his deep-set eyes over the muddy low -reaches that border the Wusung. It was a familiar scene; indeed he knew -it better than any spot in his native land--the railroad along the -bank, the brick warehouses, the native village of Wusung, the inevitable -humble families in the fields gathering in the last crops of the season. - -Overhead the _laopan_ was shouting, tackle creaked, the crew half sang, -half grunted their chanties. From the cruisers, one after another, -floating musically on the still air, came the call of bugles--the -_reveille_ of the American navy. So these were ships from home. The -stars and stripes would soon, at “colors,” be rippling from each gray -stem.... There was an ache in his heart. - -Then other noises came--a little confusion of them, somewhere here on -the junk--excited whispers, a sound that might have been sobbing, and -then--yes!--the low wailing of women. - -He turned; listened closely. Light feet came running along the corridor. -A familiar, lovely voice called his name, brokenly. Then Hui Fei drew -aside his curtain. Her cheeks were stained with tears. - -Quickly, his arm about her shoulders as she swayed unsteadily, but -without a word, he walked beside her along the corridor to the cabin of -his excellency.... There were the few servants, kneeling by the -inert body and bowing their heads to the floor as they mourned. Doane -straightened the body and closed the eyes.... It was Hui Fei who found -the roll of documents on the table and placed them in Doane's hands. -He saw then, through the mist that clouded his own eyes, that they were -addressed to himself: “To my dear friend, Griggsby Doane, I entrust -these my last papers.” The name alone was in English; written in a clear -hand, not unlike that of a painstaking schoolboy, each letter carefully -and roundly formed. - -Hui Fei sent the servants to another cabin, but remained herself, seated -on the floor by the side of the huge strong man who was now without -question the head of the strangely assorted family. She was calmer. -Doane did not again hear her sob; he did not even see tears. During -that difficult moment when Rocky Kane appeared in the doorway and asked -huskily, sadly, if he could help, she even smiled, very faintly, very -gently, as she moved her head in the negative. And the youth, after a -hesitant moment, left them. - -Doane spread out the documents on the floor. The first, addressed -directly to himself, he laid aside for the moment. To the second, -addressed to the throne--“by the hand of His Imperial Highness, Prince -Ch'un, Regent, as soon as it may be possible to convey to him in -this hour of China's sorrow this inadequate expression of my last -thoughts”--was attached a paper requesting that “my closest friend, -Griggsby Doane” read it thoughtfully, “in order that he may understand -fully the circumstances in which I find myself at this the end of my -long life. - -“I, your unworthy servant,”--it read--“have learned with sorrow and -tears of the decree permitting me to withdraw from this troubled life -in solitude and peace without the painful consequences of a death by -the headsman's sword. And in bowing humbly to your will I, your unworthy -servant, recognize that my life lies wholly in your hands to be disposed -of as seems best to the imperial wisdom. But in thus proving my never -weakening loyalty to the imperial will I also must express the sober -thoughts of one who has pondered long over the evils that beset our land -and who has ventured at times, weakly, to hope that China might pay -heed to certain lessons of recent history and find a way to oppose -successfully the pressure of other powerful nations upon us. For it -has been my privilege, as a long-time servant of the throne, to observe -certain of these other nations at first hand and to learn a little of -their power, which is very great. - -“On another occasion I, your unworthy servant, wittingly incurred danger -of death or imprisonment, because, in the eagerness of my convictions, -I dared to suggest certain reforms to the throne. There is a saying that -the tree which bends before the gale will never be broken off but will -grow to a ripe old age, and my hope has always been for a great and -growing China. At that time princes and ministers about the throne -asked permission to subject me to a criminal investigation, but his late -majesty was pleased to spare me. Therefore my last years have been a -boon at the hand of his late majesty.” - -There followed a clear, dignified statement of the urgent need for vast -reforms. His excellency recalled in detail his long years of service and -his decorations and honors. Quietly he called attention to the fact that -all, or nearly all, China was in revolt, that the throne tottered, that -to permit the government longer to be dominated by corrupt eunuchs was -an affront to modern as to ancient thought and morality. It was clear -to himself, he stated, that without a skilfully organized system of -gradual, perhaps rapid, modernization, China would soon crumble to -pieces under the heel of the greedy foreigners. And there was profound -pathos in the passing remark that perhaps his suicide, far from home, -his vast estate seized by government agents or despoiled by robbers, his -person, alone, beyond the reach of harm--safe, in fact, with the hated -foreigners--might stand as a final proof of his loyalty to the throne in -serving which his long life had been spent. - -“But at the moment of leaving this world I feel that my mind is not so -clear as I could wish. The text of this my memorial is ill-written and -lacking in clarity of thought. I am no such scholar as the men of olden -times; how, then, could I face the end with the calm which they showed? -But there is a saying, 'The words of a dying man are good.' Though I am -about to die, it is possible that my words are not good. I can only -hope that the empress and the emperor will pity my last sad utterance, -regarding it neither as wanton babbling nor the careless complaint of a -trifling mind. Thus shall I die without regret. I wish, indeed, that my -words may prove overwrought, in order that those who come after, perhaps -more happily, may laugh at my foolishness. - -“I pray the empress and the emperor to remember the example of our great -rulers of the past in tempering peace with mercy; that they may choose -only the worthy for public service; that they may refrain from striving -for those things desired by the foreigners, which would only plunge China -into deeper woe, but that by a careful study of what is good in foreign -lands they may help China to hold up her head among the nations and -bring us finally to prosperity and happiness. This is my last prayer, -the end and crown of my life.” - -The junk was moving up the river as Doane finished reading, passing one -of the war-ships. The bugles were blowing again. A beam of warm sunlight -slanted in through the window of stained glass and threw a kaleidoscope -of color on the wall. - -Hui Fei sat motionless, her hands folded humbly in her lap, gazing at -the floor. Her face was expressionless. She seemed wholly Oriental. - -With a sigh, Deane rolled the memorial and tied it with the ribbon. The -one beneath it, he saw now, was addressed to Hui Fei. Without a word he -handed it to her and then settled to read his own. Hers was the shorter. -When she had finished she lowered it to her lap and sat motionless, as -before. - -Doane now took up the paper addressed to himself and read as follows: - -“My friend, Griggsby Doane, grieve not for me, and be sure that in the -manner of my end I have had no wish to bring evil upon you. It is in a -measure sad that this end should come upon a hired junk instead of on -a plot of hallowed ground, as I would have chosen. But there was no -choice. I have waited until assured of my daughter's safety. - -“Inform the magistrate at Shanghai of my death, and see that my Memorial -to the Throne is forwarded promptly. Give to my daughter Hui Fei the -letter addressed to her. It my wish that you also should read that -letter, and I have so instructed her. It is also my wish that she should -read this letter to you. Buy for me a cheap coffin, and have it painted -black inside. The poor clothes I wear must serve, but I wish that the -soiled soles of my shoes be cut off. Twenty or thirty taels will be -ample for the coffin. - -“I do not believe it will be necessary for the magistrate to hold an -inquest. Please have a coating of lacquer put on the coffin, to fill up -any cracks, and have the cover nailed down pending the throne's decision -as to my remains. Then buy a small plot of ground near the Taoist temple -outside of Shanghai and have me buried as soon as possible. There is no -need to consider waiting for an opportunity to bury me at my ancestral -home; any place is good enough for a loyal and honest man. - -“You will find about a thousand taels in my bag, also the few jewels we -found at my home. Sell the jewels and keep for yourself the balance that -will remain after my burial expenses are paid. The _laopan_ of this junk -has his money. This he will deny, and will cry for more; but do not heed -him. - -“Remember there is nothing strange or abnormal in my passing; death has -become my duty. It may be true that the historic throne of the Manchus -is rocking, is falling, but despite the understanding that has been -given to me of what is good in Western civilization I have never swayed -in my heart from loyalty to that throne and steadfast devotion to its -best interests as I can see them, and I do no less than obey the mandate -of my empress and my emperor. - -“Do not grieve unduly for me. It is my wish that all of you, my friends -and family, should live happily in the life that lies before you. To -you, Griggsby Doane, out of the gratitude and admiration of my proud -heart, I give and bequeath all the little that may be left of my worldly -goods, including the money, the pitiful handful of jewels, the historic -paintings and my daughter Hui Fei. It is my wish that you will marry -her at once, and that in your best judgment you sell any or all of the -paintings to provide what money you and she may need, and also that you -and she care lovingly for the younger child. It may be better to educate -her in the Western manner, but that will be as you may decide. In the -matter of this marriage with my daughter, Hui Fei, I have sought the -opinion of each of you regarding the other. I have your assurance that -it has been your own wish. And Hui Fei informs me that she respects and -admires no man more than yourself. You will see, therefore, that I have -approached this matter in the Western spirit, and as a result I see no -reason why the marriage should be delayed or that my beloved daughter -should be left alone at the mercy of an unscrupulous world. I have -informed her, also, of my decision. My gifts to you make a most -inadequate dowry, but they are all I have. I wish for you both great -happiness and many descendants. - -“And now, Griggsby Doane, my dear friend, I take my leave of you. I, at -seventy-four years of age, can claim an unsullied record. My family tree -goes back more than seven hundred years; for three centuries there have -been members of my clan in the Imperial Household or in the Government -Bureaus, and for four hundred years we have devoted ourselves to -husbandry and scholarship. For twenty-four generations my family has -borne a good name. I die now in order that a lifetime of devotion to -duty and loyalty to the throne may be consummated.” - -Slowly Doane lowered the document. He could not speak; he could hardly -think. There beside him, still motionless, sat the young woman who was -now, by all the traditions of her people, abruptly his. - -Dutifully, observing that he had finished reading, she gave him her -own letter; and he, in exchange, handed her his. Thus they read on. And -then, again quietly exchanging the documents, they sat without a word by -the peaceful body. - -Little by little Doane's brain cleared. It was a time, he felt--_the_ -time, indeed--when all his experience, all his character and skill, must -come into use. Now, it ever, he must be wise and steady and kind. Very -gently he took her hand; it lay softly in his; she did not lift her -eyes. - -“We will not think of this matter now,” he said. “Our only thought must -be to carry out his plans regarding the funeral. If it shouldn't seem -best, later, to fulfill quite all his last wishes, perhaps he, from -the other side of the barrier, will understand what he couldn't wholly -understand while on this earth. But this I must say now---whatever -direction your life may take, try to think of me as filling, the best I -can, your father's place. I shall hope to be your dearest friend. Lean -on me. Use me. And be sure I will understand.” - -Her slim fingers tightened once again about his. - -“He was a won'erful father,” she began, and choked a little. - -He left her there; sent in her maid to her; himself mounted to the deck. - -The sun was well up. Other junks sailed up and down the tide. A -bluff-bowed freighter, flying the Dutch flag, lay at anchor near one -of the Chinese torpedo boats that had gone over to the chaotic new -republic. The American steamers were far astern, but a motor launch -flying an officer's flag and with blue uniforms visible under the -awning, plowed by on her way up to the city. In the distance, up ahead, -beyond the crowding masts and funnels of the steamers that came from all -the world, could be seen the buildings and spires and the smoke-haze of -European Shanghai.... The bund there, within a few hours now, would -be crowded with pony-carriages and motor-cars and over-fed tourists -riding in rickshaws drawn by ragged coolies. The hotels would be -thronging with talkative young women and drink-flushed men, all eagerly -retailing confused and inaccurate news of “the revolution”; out at the -British country club on Bubbling Well Road blond men would be -playing tennis in flannels: and the gambling houses would be brightly -illuminated until late at night, and the Chinese shopkeepers in Nanking -Road would be selling their souvenir trinkets, their useless little -boxes of coinsilver and cloisonne and damascene work and their painted -snuff-bottles and green soapstone necklaces and blue-and-white pottery -quite as if no troubles could ever arise to disturb the destiny of -nations. - -Doane sighed again. The last letter of his excellency was in his hand, -held tightly; though he was not at this time aware of it. He glanced -aft, and saw Rocky Kane standing on the gallery, among the flowers, -gazing not forward toward the jangling, money-seeking, pleasure-mad city -that is the principal point of contact between the culture of the West -and that of the East, but off astern, as if endeavoring to see again the -lost Yangtze Kiang of his glowing romance. - -Doane went to him; aware, then, of the paper rolled so tightly in his -hand, said--a huge figure, towering over the boy, his face sad and more -than ever deeply lined, but with a grave kindliness about the eyes: - -“My boy, it is important that you and I have a talk. Suppose we sit -down.” He indicated the steamer chair; but Rocky insisted that he take -it, himself dropping heavily down on the step of the deck. - -“How--how is she standing it?” he asked, his troubled eyes searching -that strong face before him. - -“As well as we could ask. It is bound to be very hard for -her--especially during these next few days. But she has courage. And -she knows he would wish her not to mourn.... A matter has come up that -concerns you, Rocky”--it was the first time he had used that familiar -name; the boy's moody eyes brightened momentarily, and a touch of color -rose in his cheeks--“and I don't feel I can delay telling you about it. -First, you had better let me read you this.” - -He had not thought, before this moment, of the necessity that he himself -make the translation for the boy. It had to be difficult; he would have -given much if the thing could have been managed in some less directly -personal way; but for that matter, difficulties lay so thickly about -him now that there was no good in so much as giving them a thought. And -so--deliberately, with great care to find the nearly precise English -equivalent of every obscure phrase--he read the letter through. - -He dared not look at the boy's face, but could not but become aware of -the hands that twitched, clasping and unclasping, in his lap, and of the -feet that at times nervously tapped the deck. When the task was done he -quietly folded the paper and slipped it into a pocket. - -The silence grew long and trying. Doane searched and searched his own -still confused mind for the right, the clear word; but could not, during -these earlier moments, find it. The boy, plainly, was crushed; but -behind the clouded eyes and the knit brows an emotional storm was -gathering. Doane felt that. It had to come, of course. And it would have -to be handled. - -But the first words were almost calm. - -“So that”--thus the brooding youth--“so that's how it is!” - -Doane waited. After a little the boy sprang up. “But in God's name, -why didn't you tell me!” he cried. “You've let me come and talk to you! -You--This isn't fair! You've made a fool of me! You--” Doane rose too. -They stood side by side among the heavily scented blossoms. Doane felt -moved to put a kindly hand on the slender shoulder beside him; but a -following thought cautioned him that even a touch would be resented at -this moment. - -“I didn't tell you,” he said, “because until I read this paper I didn't -know.” - -“But you must have known! You told--him. Told him you loved her! -Probably you've been telling her, too--here under my eyes. Oh, God, what -a fool I've been.... If you'd only been square with me!” - -“This is not fair,” said Doane, still very quiet. “We must talk this -out, but not now--not while you are angry.” - -“Angry! What in heaven's name is the sense of talking it out! It's -settled, isn't it?” - -“I'm not sure.” - -“That's not so!” The boy seemed to be recovering somewhat now from the -first shock of unreason. He turned away to hide the tears in his eyes. -“You've admitted to her father, if not to her, that you love her.... -Oh, why didn't I see it! Why did I have to be such an awful fool!... She -knows it now. And you know as well as I what she'll do. She'll never go -against her father's last wish--never. You know that!” - -“I recognize that she must be seeing it in that light now, but--” - -“Oh, what's the use of talk. You _know!_ For God's sake, let me alone, -can't you!” - -Doane's brows drew slowly together; but this and a note of something -near command in his voice, were the only outward indications of the -storm within his breast. - -“This is not a time for either you or me to be thinking of ourselves. -You may be sure that Hui Fei will not be thinking so. And it may help -you to realize that this situation is difficult for me, as it is for -you. It is true that Hui Fei's only thought, now, under the stress of -this sorrow, will be to submit to her father's every wish. But this -stress will pass. There is only one course to take--” - -“But--” - -“Listen to me! And try to meet the thing like a man. We will wait until -this sad business is over. We will at least try to give up thinking -of ourselves. I will see that Hui Fei and her sister are cared for by -friends.” - -“But all the time you'll be seeing her, and--” - -“I must still ask you to listen and try to think clearly. As soon as -it seems wise I will lay the situation before Hui Fei. I will try to -persuade her that her own life is, in the last analysis, more important -than even her father's dying wish. I believe that she--would--be happier -with a young man like yourself than with an--older man. It is possible -that she can be led to see that her own happiness must be a factor in -her choice. Have you the patience and the courage to wait for that?” - -He extended his hand. The boy looked at it, then up at the stern, but -still kindly face; hesitated; then, with a quivering of the lip and an -explosive--“Oh God!”--rushed away; walked very fast, almost ran, the -length of the deck; made his way through the crowded waist and around -the cook's well; and stood, his bare head thrown proudly back, in the -prow, beside the quietly wondering _tai-kung_, staring toward the long -curving sweep of the tree-shaded bund of Shanghai as it came gradually -into view around the bend just below the city. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV--THE WORLD OF FACT - -|THE yellow junk was now abreast the landing hulks of the great -international shipping companies just below the city. Rocky left the -bow and made his way to the after cabins without once lifting his somber -gaze to the silent figures on the poop. Slowly--his eyes wild, his -thoughts beyond control, bitterness in his heart--he moved along the dim -corridor. - -A puff of wind found its way through an open window; a blue curtain -swung out, discovering, through a doorway, Miss Carmichael, seated in -a chair beneath the window. It was lighter in her cabin. She had laid -aside the familiar middy blouse and skirt, and appeared to be sewing -something on her petticoat. For an instant she looked up, her eyes -meeting those of the pale youth who stood motionless in the corridor. -The curtain swung back then; but as it swung the youth stepped through -the doorway and stood within the room. - -“I don't know that I asked you in,” said she coolly. - -His eyes were intent on the amazing, glistening strings of pearls that -were looped everywhere about her clothing. - -Through narrowed lids she watched him, sitting very still, needle poised -just as she had drawn it through. On his young face was an expression of -firm decision that she had not before seen there. He looked oddly, now, -like his father. There was, apparently, a trace of the Kane iron in him. -The situation was of wholly accidental origin; he couldn't have planned -it; his first expression, out in the corridor, had been of startled -surprise; the decision to step within must have been instant; yet now, -suddenly, he meant business. She caught all that.... Here, after all, -was a young man who presented difficulties. - -“Take off those pearls,” said he quietly. - -“You are in my room,” said she as quietly. - -“I shall take the pearls when I go.” - -“You'll have my life to answer for.” - -“Your life is nothing to me.” - -“Your own life is.” - -“Never mind about that.” - -“I've warned you fairly.” - -“Stand up.” - -“You propose to take them from me by force?” - -“Yes. Unless you choose to give them to me.” - -“And you expect me to trust you with them.” - -“Yes.” - -There was a silence. - -“Of course you are stronger than I,” she observed musingly. - -He offered no reply to this. - -Her thin mouth curved into the faint smile that was as cold as her -calculating brain. “So”--said she “we're enemies, then?” - -This evidently did not interest him. - -“I think,” she went on, quietly desperate, “that I'll try crying and -screaming. I'm something of an actress.” - -“Scream your head off,” said he, the slang phrase sounding almost -courteous in this new quiet voice of his. - -“There's not a person--alive--that could prove these pearls aren't my -own.” Her voice dwelt on that one telling word, “alive,” with an almost -caressing note of satisfaction. - -He shook his head with a touch of impatience. And she was studying him, -her quick thoughts darting sharply about---darting in every conceivable -direction--for an avenue of escape. She knew, however, as the moments -passed and the pale youth stood his ground that there was only one. She -had supposed him weak. It hardly seemed that her judgment could have -gone so far wrong. - -“You're cruel to me,” she said softly. - -“Stand up.” - -Now she obeyed. He drew near. - -“I didn't think you'd turn out this sort, Rocky. You liked me at first.” - She moved a hand, hesitatingly, within reach of his own. But he ignored -it. “Aren't we going to see each other at Shanghai? Are you just going -to be brutal with me--like this?.... I'd like to see you.” - -“Will you take them off,” said he, “or must I?” - -She turned to him, with curiously mixed passions coming to life in her -face. - -“Oh, my God, Rocky!” she cried very low, “haven't you any human -feelings? Can you just come in here--into my own room--and rob me, -without a decent word?.... Haven't I played fair with you? Haven't I kept -out of your way? Haven't I?....” She moved close against him, slid her -sensitively thin hands over his shoulders; looked straight up into his -eyes, almost honestly. “Rocky, don't tell me you're this kind!”.... She -was clinging to him now. - -He caught her hands, and, without roughness but with his young strength, -removed them. She let them fall at her side. - -“I'm not going to wait much longer on you,” he said. - -“You're hard as nails, Rocky.” Her underlip was quivering; her pale eyes -were a little darker, and seemed full of feeling. She turned suddenly to -the rough bed, and reached under the cover for her shopping bag. Hiding -it from him with her body, she opened it and took out the triangular -bottle; then lingered an instant to look at the clasps of the pearl cape -that were set with large, perfectly cut diamonds. There were five of the -clasps, and perhaps fifty of the sparkling, glittering stones. In value -they would vary somewhat-: but in themselves, even without the pearls, -they represented a fortune. She quietly closed the bag and replaced it -under the covers. - -With the rough-edged little bottle in her hand she faced him. - -“I knew a girl,” she said, with a far-away look in her eyes, “who took -five of these tablets and then lived two days. She suffered terribly, -of....” - -He caught the bottle from her hand and threw it against the wall, where -it broke. The green pills rolled about the floor. - -“Oh, well,” she remarked--“I can take them after you've gone.” - -“After I've gone you can do as you think best.” - -“But something will have to be done about me. Rocky. You'll have to get -me ashore. And see about burying me.... And you'll have to explain me.” - -This moved him not at all. Apparently he _was_ to be one of the -Kanes--strong, pitiless, destined for success and power. There would -be weak moments; but all that her uncannily shrewd eyes saw in him. -For that matter, Miss Carmichael had known many men of the sort that -in America are termed “big”--certain of them with an unpleasant secret -intimacy--and each had possessed and (at moments) been possessed by -strong passions. It had never been wholly a matter of what is called -brain; always there had been emotional force, with a dark side as well -as a bright. - -Overhead the great clumsy sails creaked. Soft feet pattered about -the deck. The nasal voices of the crew broke into a chantey. A chain -rattled. - -“We must be there,” said she. “We're anchoring, I think.” And she -glanced out the window at one of the roofed-over opium hulks that lay in -those days directly opposite the bund. Finally she looked again at him. - -“Very well,” she said then; and raised her arms above her head. Swiftly, -at once, he began stripping off the festoons of pearls. The only other -thing said was her remark, in a casual tone: “It's understood that -you're using force. And you'll hear from it, of course.” - -As soon as he had gone she slipped into her blouse and skirt. Once again -she looked thoughtfully at the radiant gems that were left to her; then -went, coolly swinging the little bag, up on deck, where certain of the -crew were already drawing around to the ladder at the side the sampan -that had been towing astern. - -Rocky had gone directly, on tiptoe, to Doane's cabin. The huge sad-faced -man was there; quick, however, with a kindly smile. - -Rocky said--“I beg your pardon, sir?”--stiffly, not unlike a proud young -Briton--and from a tied-up handkerchief and bulging pockets--even from -his shirt above his tightly drawn belt--produced enormous quantities of -perfectly matched large pearls; laid them on the bed in a heap; helped -Mr. Doane make a bundle of them in a square of blue cloth. - -“They are yours, sir,” he explained. - -He withdrew then, with a coldness of manner that to the older man was -moving; and went out on deck to await his turn in the sampan. - -Doane found a temporary home for Hui Fei and her sister at the mission -compound of his friend, Doctor Henry Withery, in the Chinese city; -himself lodging with other friends. Rocky went to the Astor House, -across Soochow Creek, which was still, in 1911, a famous stopping place -for the tourists, diplomats, military and commercial men, and all the -other more prosperous among the white travelers that pour into -Shanghai from everywhere else in the world by the great ships that plow -unceasingly the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Yellow and China -Seas; to pour out again (in peaceful times) from Shanghai by rail and -by lesser craft of the river and the coast to Hong Kong and Manila -to Hankow, to Tientsin and Peking, to Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohoma and -Tokio.... and Shanghai had never been so crowded as now, with its -thousands of travelers detained, awaiting news from this or that -revolutionary center; with the American Marines and the British -and German sailors; with Manchu refugees swarming into the foreign -settlements; with revolutionists, queueless, wearing unaccustomed -European dress, parading everywhere. - -Doane found time to call at the hotel and leave word regarding the -burial of his excellency; but was not to know that Rocky, himself, -immured in his room, gave the word that he was out and there awaited the -friendly chit that Doane sent up by the blue-robed servant. Nor was he -to know that the boy dressed carefully for the ceremony, only to -find the ordeal too great for his overstrung emotions. It was as an -afterthought, a day or two later that Doane sent him Hui Fei's address. - -It was after this sad experience that Doane, in accordance with his -promise to the late Sun Shi-pi, called on Doctor Wu Ting Fang and -offered his services to the revolutionary party. Another day and he was -hard at work, bending his strong, finely trained and experienced mind -to the great task of presenting the dreams and the activities of Young -China fairly and sympathetically to the press and the governments of the -Western World.... And so Griggsbv Doane, concealing--at moments -almost from his own inner eye--the ache in his heart, the unutterable -loneliness of his solitary existence, found himself once more fitting -into the scheme of organized human life. A grave man, with sad eyes but -with a slow kindly smile, always courteously attentive to the person and -problem of the moment, thinking always clearly and objectively out of a -comprehensively tolerant background that seemed to include all nations -and all men; a gently tactful man; a tireless, powerful figure of a man, -who could work twenty hours on end without a trace of fatigue, going -through masses of minor detail without for a moment losing his broad -view of the major problems--such was the Griggsby Doane one saw at -revolutionary headquarters during that late autumn of 1911.... Life had -caught him up. Whatever his private sorrow, the world needed him now. -Rapidly, in all that confusion, he was formulating policies, helping -to direct the current of one stream of destiny. In past years Griggsby -Doane had been discussed and forgotten. He had even been laughed at as -an unfrocked missionary by ribald, dominant, not infrequently drunken -whites along the coast. It occurred to no one to laugh at him now. - -These were the days when in half the provincial capitals of China the -Manchus that had ruled during nearly three centuries were hunted to -their death, men and women alike, like vermin. Bloody heads decorated -the lamp posts that had been erected in the Western fashion beside -freshly macadamized streets. Slaughter, as in other dramatic moments in -Oriental history, had become a pastime. Palaces and wealthy homes in a -hundred cities were looted and burned, and a vast new traffic started -up in the silks and paintings and pottery and objects of art suddenly -thrown into the market.... Hankow had been taken by the imperial troops, -but was to be recaptured as a charred, gutted ruin. General Li Yuan-hung -was now “president of the Republic of China,” up at Wu Chang, by right -of military organization and popular acclaim. Admiral Sah, of the -Imperial Navy, was about to witness the unanimous mutiny of his fleet. -The great Yuan Shi-K'ai, himself a Chinese born, was in command of the -imperial troops while negotiating on either hand with the frantic throne -and the upsurging revolutionists. At Peking heads were falling and -great princes were fleeing or hiding pitifully within the walls of the -legations.... Within a few weeks Sun Yat Sen was to leave London on -his long journey eastward by way of Suez and Singapore, but without the -enormous golden treasure so confidently expected by the revolutionists. -Before his arrival, even, he was to be elected president of the new -China, in the recently captured Nanking--where a National Assembly -in cropped heads and frock coats already would be grinding out fresh -tangles of legislation.... The event was outrunning the mental -capacity of man. What was now tragic confusion would grow through the -swift-following years into tragic chaos, as the most numerous and most -nearly inert of peoples struggled out of the sluggish habit of centuries -toward the dubious light of modernity. - -But through the chaos Griggsby Doane was never for a moment to lose the -new vision that had finally cleared his long troubled mind. Behind the -crumbling of the empire, underlying the torn and bleeding surface of -Chinese life, lay a tradition finer, he was to believe until his -dying day, than any so far developed in the truculent West--a delicate -responsiveness to beauty in nature and art, a reflective quality, an -instinct for peace--it was all these at once, and more; a blend of art -in living and living in art; a finish that was exquisite in concept, a -sensitiveness that lifted the soul of man above the ugly fact. Even the -brittle perfection of Chinese etiquette--regulating every passing human -contact, clothing in silken manner the naked thought--was like a fine -lacquer over the knotted wood of life... America, he felt, with all its -earnestly insistent young virtues, worshiped the fact. To the Americans -must be preached the gospel of sensitive thought, of reflective -enjoyment of the beautiful. Those old master painters of Tang and Sung -breathed beauty; it was sweet air in their lungs; whereas in America -beauty was too often like a garment to be bought in a shop and worn for -show.... Yes, this revolutionary work was a gratifying opportunity for -service, of great momentary importance because the Chinese people must -be rescued from Manchu conquerors and their eunuchs, from disease and -famine, and from ignorance of the new world that had come amazingly, -brutally, into being while the old Middle Kingdom slumbered; but it was -not the main work. The aggressively greedy West, now, with its merchants -and war-ships and armies, was destroying the soul of China even while -teaching her a smattering of the materialistic new faith. There must be -a counter-influence; as the East now so strongly felt the West, so must -be the West made sensitively aware of the East. It was fair give and -take. It might yet help the world to find a stable balance.... This was -what the difficult life of Griggsby Doane was coming to mean. The East -had crept into his heart. So he must turn back to the West. - -For three days Mr. Doane's brief chit--with the address of Hui Fei in -the native city--burned in Rocky Kane's pocket; then, early in the third -afternoon, he went down to the Japanese steamship offices (for the keen -little brown people had already captured the Pacific traffic from the -Americans) and bought the second officer's room on a crowded liner -leaving at the end of the week for San Francisco.... On the fourth -afternoon he called a rickshaw and rode out beyond the American -post-office to the address the older man had given him. - -But Mr. Doane, it appeared, was not in; already he was established at -Doctor Wu's revolutionary headquarters. Rocky considered driving there; -even took the address and rode part of the way: but reconsidered, -returned to the hotel, and sent a messenger to Hui Fei with this chit: - -“_I'm sailing Saturday. Do you feel that you could see me for a few -moments?_” - -The reply, within the hour, bade him come. He found her in Western -dress---a tailored suit, very simple; her glistening black hair parted -smoothly--as he would always most vividly remember it--gently sad in -manner, yet able to smile. She would be like that, come to think of -it; not crushed by the tragedy, not sunken in the grief that, among -Westerners, is so often a sort of histrionic egotism.... They sat in a -tiled courtyard among dahlias. More than ever like a proud young Briton -was Rocky. - -“It is good of you to see me.” Thus he began.... “I couldn't go without -a word.” - -She murmured then: “Of course not.” - -“I want you to know, too, that I am coming to see”--he had to pause; -in this new phase of sober young manhood he had not yet achieved steady -self-control. - -She broke the silence with a question about the revolution. It is to -his credit that he talked, stumbling only at first, clearly. And as the -strain of the meeting gradually relaxed, he became aware of her sobered -but still intense absorption in the struggle; aware, too, increasingly, -of her strong gift of what is called personality. Her mind was quick, -bright, eager--better, it seemed (he had to fight bitterness here) -than his own. And she was impersonal to a degree that he couldn't yet -attain--couldn't, in fact, quite understand. He had to speak slowly and -carefully; feeling his way with a dogged determination among uprushing -emotions, moved as never before by the charm of appearance and -manner and speech of which she was so prettily unconscious.... He had -come--perhaps with more than a touch in him of (again) that Western -histrionism, the intense overstressing of the individual and his -feelings--as a man who was effacing himself that the woman he loved -might be happy with another man. Confused with this wholly unconscious -call upon the sympathies, undoubtedly, was an unphrased incredulity that -she--so strongly a person, fine and courageous and outstanding as he -knew her to be--could accept this being almost casually left as part -of a legacy to that other man. It was incredible. Unless she loved -the other man.... So he came around again to the personal; unaware, of -course, that he was feeling inevitably with his strongly individualistic -race. Even when she dwelt on race, a little later in their talk, he -found no light. He couldn't have; for the American seldom can see what -lies outside himself. - -“I don' know yet what I can do,” she was saying, very honestly and -simply (they hadn't yet mentioned Mr. Doane). “Of course I'm a Manchu, -after all. An' blood does coun'. I feel that. A good many people to-day -talk differen'ly, I know. We saw a good 'eal of Socialism at college. -The idealists to-day--the Jews an' Russians an' even some of our Chinese -students--the younger men--talk as if race doesn' matter. But of course -it does. It will ta' thousan's of years, I suppose, to bring the races -together. An' maybe it's impossible. Maybe it can' be done at all. I -think tha's the tragedy of so much of this beautiful dreaming.... An' -here you see I'm a Manchu, an' yet I wan' the Manchus put out of China. -Because they won' let China grow. An' China mus' grow, or die.” - -He was moodily watching her; head bowed a little, gazing out under knit -brows. “Do you know,” he said, “it's a queer thing to say, of course, -but sometimes you make me feel terribly young.” - -She smiled faintly. “You are--rather young, Rocky.” - -He closed his eyes and compressed his lips; his name, on her lips, was -dangerously thrilling music to him. After a moment he went doggedly on. - -“The crowds I've gone with at home haven't talked about these things. -They wouldn't think it good form.” - -“I know,” said she. “They woul'n'.” - -“I'm beginning to wonder if we're--well, intelligent, exactly. You -know--just motors and horses and girls and bridge and 'killings' in Wall -Street.” - -“Killings?” Her brows were lifted. - -“Oh--picking up a lot of money, quick.” - -“That,” she mused, “is what I sometimes worry about. You know, I love -America. I have foun' happiness there. I love the books an' the colleges -and the freedom an' all the goo' times. But it is true, I think--money -is God in America. Pipple don' like to have you say it, of course. But -I'm afraid it is true. Ever'-thing has to come to money--the gover'men', -the churches, ever'thing. I have seen that. That is the hard side of -America. I don' like that so well.” Finally--coming down, helplessly, -on the personal, yet with a courageous light in his eyes--he said: “I -do want you to know this--Hui. You won't mind my speaking of my love for -you--” - -Her hand moved a very little way upward. “Please! I can't help that. -It's my life now. I'm full of you. And it has changed me. I'm--I'm -going back.... I'm going at things differently. I want you to know that. -Because if I hadn't met you it couldn't possibly have happened. And if I -hadn't--well, learned what it means to love a wonderful girl like you. I -want you to know how big the change is that you've made.” - -“Rocky,” she said gently--“will you do something for me?” He -waited.... “I wan' you to go back to college.” - -“I've already made up my mind to that,” he replied, more quietly. “It's -the job for me now. It's the next thing.” - -“I'm glad,” said she. “An' I'd love it if you'd write to me sometimes.” - -He inclined his head. - -Then, for a moment, his old turbulent inner self unexpectedly (even to -himself), lifted its head. - -“I tried to see Mr. Doane--that is, I thought perhaps I ought to tell -him that I was coming out here.” - -She seemed slightly puzzled at this. Her lips framed questioningly the -words: “Tell him?” - -“I--I perhaps can't say much--but I'm sure you and he will be happy. -I--oh, he's a big man. He's terribly busy now, of course--you know what -he's doing--at Wu Ting Fang's headquarters?” - -She inclined her head rather wearily, saying: “He wrote me a ver' kin -note--jus' to say that he was busy.” - -“They talk about him some at the hotel. All of a sudden he seems to be a -power here.” - -She went without a further word into the house, returning with a slip -of paper. Into her manner had crept at the mention of Doane's name, -a gentler, more wistful quality that she seemed not to think of -concealing; it was even a confiding quality, intimately friendly. - -“I don' quite un'erstand it,” she said. “A gen'leman called from the -Hong Kong Bank an' lef' this.” - -Rocky read the paper; a receipt for a sealed parcel of pearls and for -other separate jewels and a sum of money. - -“Oh--he put it all there in your name,” said he, while a sudden new hope -rose into his drying throat and throbbed in his temples. - -“Yes. It puzzle' me--a little.” - -He turned the paper over and over in his fingers, once again struggling -to think.... She sat motionless, gazing at the dahlias. - -Blindly then he groped for her hands, found them and impulsively gripped -them. - -“Hui”--he whispered huskily--“tell me--if it's like this--if you--if -he.... All this time I've supposed you and he were.... I want you to come -with me to America. We both do love it there. I'll give up my life to -making you happy. I'll slave for you. I'll make of my life what you say. -just let us try it together....” - -She silently heard him out--through this and much more, leaving her -hands quietly in his. Finally then, when the emotional gust seemed in -some measure to have spent itself, she said, gently: - -“Rocky, I wan' you to listen to what I'm going to tell you. You said I -make you feel young. Well--can' you see why? Can' you see that I'm quite -an ol' lady?” - -“But that's nonsense! You--” His eyes were feasting on her soft skin and -on the exquisite curve of her cheek. - -“No--you mus' listen! First tel me how old you are.” - -Unexpectedly on the defensive, Rocky had to compose himself, arrange his -dignity, before he could reply. “I was twenty-one in the summer.” - -“Ver' good. An' I was twenty-five in the spring.” - -“But--” - -“Please! I don' know what you coul' have thought--how young you thought -I was when I wen' to college. But tha's the way it is. I'm an ol' lady. -I have learn' to like you ver' much. I'm fond of you. I wan' to feel -always tha' we're frien's. But we coul'n' be happy together. Our -interes' aren' the same--they coul'n' be. Can' you see, Rocky? If there -is something abou' me tha' stirs you--that is ver' won'erful. But we -mus'n' let it hurt you. An' that isn' the same as marriage. Marriage is -differen'--there mus' be so much in common--if a man an' woman are to -live together an' work together, they mus' think an' hope an'....” - -Her voice died out. She was gazing again, mournfully at the dahlias. -When he released her hands they lay limp in her lap. - -With a great effort of will he wished her every happiness, promised to -write, and got himself away. - -This was on Thursday. Rocky walked at a feverish pace from the native -city to the European settlement that was so quaintly not Chinese--more, -with its Western-style buildings that were decorated with ornamental -iron balconies and richly colored Chinese signs, like a “China-town” in -an American city--and wandered for a time along Nanking Road; then out -to Bubbling Well Road; away out, past the Country Club to the almost -absurdly suburban quarter with its comfortably British villas; seeing, -however, little of the busy life that moved about him, threading his -way over cross-streets without a conscious glance at the motorcars and -pony-drawn victorias (with turbanned mafoos cracking their whips) and -bicycles and the creaking passenger wheelbarrow's on which fat native -women with tiny stumps of feet rode precariously. For those few hours -were to be recalled in later years as the quietly darkest in the young -man's life. There was no question now of dissipation; he knew with the -decisiveness of the Kanes that he had turned definitely away from the -morbid oblivion of alcohol and opium, as from the unhealthy if exciting -diversion of loveless women. But the bitterness would not down all at -once. Indeed it was savagely powerful, still, to cloud his reason. The -only evidence of victory over self of which he was aware was the fact -that he could now look almost objectively at himself, and could fight. - -He was back at the hotel between seven and eight, but couldn't eat. -For an hour he walked his room, locked in. Then, in sheer loneliness, a -little afraid of himself, he went down to the spacious lounge and sat -in a corner, behind a palm, staring at a copy of the _China Press_ and -listening, all overstrung nerves, to the cackle and laughter of the -self-centered tourists and the curiously bold and loud commercial men -from across the Pacific. He heard this, in his younger way, as Doane -would have heard it, even as Hui; it was all heedless, light-brained; -careless.... Confused with the bitterness (in a bewildering degree) was a -sense of the finely reflective atmosphere that had lately enveloped him -and that he was not to lose easily. He felt--sitting, all nerves, in -this babel--the fine old Chinese gentleman who had gone serenely to the -death that was his destiny. He felt--constantly, intensely--the princess -who had brought to her American college an instinct for culture the like -of which neither he nor any of his friends at home had brought or found -there. And he felt Mr. Doane--felt a spaciousness of mind in the man, a -patience, a tolerance--felt him as a gentleman--felt him while still, -in his heart, he was bitterly fighting him.... The thing had closed over -his head--the sheer quality of these remarkable folk. He was simply out -of a cruder world. He hadn't the right to stand with them--the simple -right of character and breeding. And no amount of determination, no -amount of storming at it could alter the fact. It would take years of -patient work. Ever, then he might miss it; for his environment soon -again would be that of the cackling tourists he now hated. Even at -college it would be all the dominant athletics, the parties and the -motors and girls and drinking, the association with those sons of -prosperous families who were all consciously cementing alliances -with the financial upper class that quietly ruled America while hired -politicians prated and performed without in the smallest measure -controlling or even altering the blatant facts.... He and his kind, at -college, despised the “grind.” And you had to be a grind if you weren't -the other thing. Yet Hui Pei had managed it differently. She was neither -and both. It seemed to be a difference of mental texture.... - -A slim girl, richly dressed, with a sable wrap about her shoulders and -a pretty little hat, was threading her way among the crowding chairs and -tables and the talkative groups in the lounge. He glanced up: then looked -closely. It was Dixie Carmichael. She stood before him, wearing her icy, -faintly mocking smile. He rose. - -“How are you?” said she. - -He could only incline his head with a sort of courtesy, and contrive an -artificial smile. He seemed to have been dreaming, outrageously. Life -had begun now'. - -“I'm running down to Singapore,” said she. “Friends there. And a -look-see?” - -“Oh,” he murmured, “indeed.” She looked out-and-out rich; and she was -surprisingly pretty, without a sign that she had ever known danger or -even care. - -“Staying here?” she asked. - -“No. I start back home Saturday.” - -“So?.... Well, that'll be pleasant.” With a final glance of what seemed -almost like triumph she sailed away. And he knew that in taking the -pearls he had not taken all from her. Apparently, too, she meant him to -know it. That would be her moment of triumph. And that was all; not -a word was spoken regarding his violence or her threats.... He saw the -yellow porters carrying out her luggage of bright new leather. - -He resumed his seat; twitched for a time with increasing nervousness; -got up and went aimlessly over to the desk; asked the Malay clerk for -mail. - -A smiling little Japanese appeared, rather officious about a great lot -of bags and a trunk or two that were coming in. He had a familiar look; -even raised his hat and stepped forward with outstretched hand. It was -Kato.... And then Dawley Kane came in--tall, quiet, neatly dressed, his -nearly white mustache newly cropped. - -To his pale son Dawley Kane said merely--“Well!”--as he took his hand; -and then was busy registering. That done, he asked: “Had dinner?” Rocky -shook his head. “I don't care for any.” Daw ley Kane's quietly keen eyes -surveyed his son. “What's the matter? Not well.” - -“I'm well enough.” - -“Sit down with me, can't you?” And turning to the attending Japanese he -said: “You'll excuse me Kato. I'll be dining with my son. And tell Mr. -Braker, please.... Just a minute Rocky, till I wash my hands.” - -They were shown to a table in the great diningroom, where the cackling -was louder than in the lounge (they dine late on the coast)--where -blue-gowned waiters moved softly about as if there had never been a -revolution and wine glasses glistened and prettily bared shoulders -gleamed roundly under the electric lights. - -And Rocky, seated gloomily opposite this powerful quiet man--who took -him unerringly in of course; dishearteningly, Rocky felt--found himself -in a depression deeper than any he had known before. His father was so -strong and he brought back with him the enveloping atmosphere of the -mighty, splendidly successful white world in which they both belonged--a -world that crushed the heart out of weaker peoples while it blandly -talked the moralities. He felt it as a Juggernaut. It had the amazingly -successful racial blend of character and plausibility. That would be the -British quality; and, more roughly and confusedly, the American. - -“Getting rather interesting up the river.” remarked Dawley Kane, over -his soup. “How'd you get down?” - -“On a junk.” - -“Any trouble?” - -“Oh--some.” - -“Been here long?” - -“Several days. I'm sailing Saturday.” - -“Sailing?” Mr. Kane raised his eyebrows. “Where?” - -“Home.” - -“You decided not to consult me?” - -“Oh.... Don't ride me, father! It's the next thing. I'm going back to -college.” - -“Oh--I see.” Mr. Kane looked over the menu, ordered his roast, and -selected a red wine, cautioning the waiter to set it near the stove for -five minutes. “It's wicked to heat Burgundy,” he said, when the waiter -had gone, “but it's the only way you can get it served at the right -temperature. I discovered that when we were here before.... I gather, my -boy, that you've come to your senses in the matter of that little yellow -girl.” - -Rocky did not wince outwardly; he merely sat still. But his mind, at -last, was active. And he knew--saw it in a flash--that no explanation -he could possibly make, would be intelligible. You can not--yet--talk -across the gulf between the worlds. It was his first intelligent glimpse -of the tremendous fact that Doane had so long and so clearly felt -and seen. So he merely--at last, when his father looked closely at -him--inclined his head and said, huskily: - -“I'm going to work out this college business'. That's my job clear -enough.” - -This new attitude was to bring, later in the evening, confidences from -the father. - -“It's been an interesting journey for me, Rocky.” Thoughtfully Dawley -Kane smoked his Manila cigar. - -“It's enabled me to understand somewhat the delicate international -situation out here. I couldn't see why our agents weren't accomplishing -more. The trouble is, of course, that every square foot of China's -staked out by the European nations. If you don't believe that, just get -a concession from the Chinese Government--for a big job--water power -development, mining, railway building, or an industrial monopoly--that -part of it isn't so hard--and then try to carry it through. You'd find -out fast enough who are the real owners of China. And those owners would -never let you start. Great Britain controls this great empire of the -Yangtze Valley as completely as she controls India. France owns the -south--Russia the northwest and the north--Japan, from Korea and -Lower Manchuria is penetrating the northwest, too; they're bound, the -Japanese, to tip Russia out one of these days, and they're very clever -and patient about slipping into the British regions. They've got -the Germans to contend with, too, in the Kiochow region. But -someday--either in the event of the final break-up of China or in the -event of the European nations coming to an out-and-out squabble (which -is almost a certainty, at that) Japan will be found to have pulled off -most of the big prizes for herself. We'll have to fight Japan someday, -I suppose--over the control of the Pacific--but in the meantime, those -little people are the best bet. They know the East as the rest of us -don't, they're clever, and their diplomats aren't hampered by the sort -of half-enlightened public opinion that's always tripping us up in the -West--sentimental idealism, that sort of thing--and they control -their press infinitely better than we do. They've got everything, -the Japanese, except money. And we've got the money. It'll be just a -question of security, that's all; and watching them pretty closely. I've -made up my mind to play it that way.... A survey of the actual conditions -out here makes our American diplomacy look pretty naive. We talk -idealism--open door and all--while all the rest of them are moving in -and setting up shop and getting the money.” - -Later, in Dawley Kane's spacious suite overlooking the park-like street -where the colored lanterns of the rickshaws glowed pleasantly under -the trees, the father said, laying a hand affectionately on the boy's -shoulder: - -“I can't tell you how happy you've made me, Rocky. It looks as if you'd -turned your corner. Just don't go in for too much thinking about what -you've been through. There's nothing in remorse. As a matter of fact, -a little rough experience is a good thing for a boy. After you get your -balance you'll be all the closer to life for it.... Go ahead with your -college plans, get your degree, and then after a year or two in the New -York office I'll bring you out here. We shall be playing for big stakes. -And we shall need good men.... That's the whole problem, really--the -men. I had my eyes on this man Doane, but he turned out to be only a -sentimentalist after all.” - -It was the hopelessness of it that drove Rocky out--after a respectful -good night--and over to the revolutionary headquarters. He knew that -Mr. Doane worked most of the night; and took what sleep he got on a cot -there. - - - - -CHAPTER XV--IN A COURTYARD - -|HE sent in his name, and waited for an hour in an outer office. For -even at this late hour in the evening headquarters was a busy place. -Chinese gentlemen crowded in and out, dressed, to a man, in the frock -coats and the flapping black trousers they didn't know how to wear. High -officers slipped quietly in and out--in khaki, with the white -brassard of the Revolution on their left arms; sometimes with merely -a handkerchief tied there Orderlies and messengers came and went. And -clerks of untiring patience sat at desks. - -It was a difficult hour. Rocky had only his confused emotions to guide -him, and his hurt heart. There were moments, even, when he didn't know -why he had come. But he never thought of giving up. Whatever their -curious relations, he had to see Mr. Doane, who was now the only stable -figure in the rocking world about him. The man had been fine--square. -That he knew now. And his nervous young imagination was veering toward -hero-worship. He was utterly humble. - -Naturally he was boyish about it, when they finally led him into that -inner office. He said, flushing a little: - -“I know you're busy, Mr. Doane--” - -“Not too busy for you. I kept you waiting to clear up a lot of things.” - The man's great size and calmness of manner--the question rose; had he -ever in his life known weariness?--were comforting. - -“I'm--sailing Saturday.” - -This, for a brief moment, brought the kindly though strong and sober -face to immobility. - -“You see, sir, I've come to feel that the best thing for me is to go -back and---start clean.” - -A slight mist came over Doane's eyes. What a struggle the boy had had -of it! And how splendidly he was working through!.... Thought came about -the children of the rich in America... the problem of it.... - -“I--couldn't go without seeing you. You see, sir, it's you, I guess, -that've put me on my feet. I sort of--well, I want you to know that -I _am_ on them. It's been a strange experience, all round. A terrible -experience, of course. It shakes you....” - -“It has shaken me, too,” Doane observed simply. - -“I know. That is, I see all that more clearly now. I was going to speak -of it--it's one of the things, but first.... Mr. Doane, will you write to -me? Once in a while? I mean, will you--could you find time to answer if -I write to you? You see, it isn't going to be easy, over there. I've got -to go clean outside my own crowd. And outside my family. They won't one -of them understand what I'm up to. Not one. And--when you come right -down to it, I suppose it's a question whether the thing licks me or not. -But”--his shoulders squared; he looked directly into that kind, deeply -shadowed face--“I don't believe it will lick me!” - -“No,” said Doane, “it won't lick you.” - -“I shall never be able to shake China off now. It's got me. And I don't -know a thing about it yet. Of course I shall be reading and studying it -up.” - -“I'll send you a book once in a while.” - -“And I know I'm coming back out here someday. But it won't be as my -father wants me to come. You see, I'll have money.” - -“A great responsibility, Rocky.” - -“I know. I'm beginning to see that. But--I know all this must sound -pretty young to you!--but I'm afraid I shall be leaning on you -sometimes--” - -“Write to me at those times.” - -“All right. I will.” - -“There is an amazing health in the American people.” - -“Yes--that's so, of course.” - -“It's a curiously blundering people, of course. And there's a hard, -really a Teutonic strain--that blend of practical hard-headedness, even -of cruelty, with sentimentality--” - -Rocky's brows came together. Mr. Doane and his father plainly didn't use -that word “sentimental” in the same sense, “--it comes down to a strain -of--well, something between the old Anglo-Saxonism and the modern -Prussianism. It's in us--in our driving business tactics, our narrow -moral intolerance, our insistence on standardizing vulgar ideas--forcing -every individual into a mold--in our extraordinary glorification of the -salesman. We seem to have a good deal both of the British complacency -and the rough aggressiveness of the German. But the health is -there--wonderfully. What America needs is beauty--not the self-conscious -swarming after it of earnest and misguided suburban ladies--but a quiet -sense of the thing itself. Beauty--and simplicity--and patience--and -tolerance--and faith. Prosperity has for the moment wrecked faith there. -Simply too much money. But you'll find health growing up everywhere. -Just let yourself grow with it. You've been deeply impressed by China. -But if I were you, I'd let all that take care of itself. Never mind what -you may come to feel next year or ten years from now. It may be mainly -China or mainly America. Just work, and let yourself grow.” - -At the door they clasped hands warmly. And then, finally, Rocky got to -the point: - -“Mr. Doane--this is what I wanted to say--I saw Hui Fei this afternoon, -and--” - -Doane was silent; but still gripped his hand, “--and we talked things -all out. She knows I'm--knows I'm going back. And--this is it.... You -don't mind my.... I think you ought to find time to go over there and see -her. She seems puzzled about--I don't know quite how to say all this. -You know how I've felt--feel.... Of course, the thing is to look the -facts in the face. I hope I'm man enough to do that.” His voice was -unsteady now. “I'm not the one. I never was. She was clear about it, -to-day, but... I think you ought to see her. Oh, I'm sure it isn't just -her father's will....” - -Rocky found himself, without the slightest sense of ungentleness on the -part of Mr. Doane, through the door and confusedly saying his good-by -before the patient clerks and the waiting crowd in the anteroom. He -walked back to the hotel with a warm glow of admiration and friendship -in his heart. There would be--he knew, even then--sad hours, probably -bitter hours, in the long struggle to come. But this talk was going to -help. - -On Doane the boy's announcement had an almost crushing effect. His -spirit was not adjusted to happiness. The terrific strain of the work -was a blessing. He framed, that night and during the following day, -innumerable little chits to Hui Fei--pretexts, all, for a visit that -needed no pretext. And the day passed. Self-consciousness was upon him; -and a constant mental difficulty in making the situation credible. And -there was the pressure of time; an awareness that to Hui Fei--perhaps -even to the Witherys--his silence would soon demand a stronger -explanation than the mere pressure of business. He had to keep reminding -himself that the girl was helpless, that he himself was the only -guardian whose authority she could recognize; his reason whispering from -moment to moment that she would not touch the money he had so promptly -put at her disposal. No, she would wait. - -It was his old friend Henry Withery who brought him to it; appearing -late on the Saturday afternoon, determined to drag him off for -dinner.... Withery, looking every one of his forty-eight years, patient -resignation in the dusty blue eyes, and a fine net of wrinkles about -them. His slight limp was the only reminder of tortures inflicted by the -Boxers in 1900, out in Kansuh. He had taken over the T'ainan-fu mission -for a year after Doane left the church in 1907; and during two years now -had been here in Shanghai. - -“There's no good killing yourself here, Grig,” he said. “We've not had -ten minutes with you yet, remember. And we must talk over that girl's -affairs. She's very sweet about it, but it's plain that she's waiting on -you.” - -His tone was genial; quite the tone of their earlier friendship, with -nothing left of the constraint that had come into their relationship -during Doane's difficult years on the river--the years that couldn't -be explained, even to old friends.... And Withery knew nothing of the -curious personal problem of his and Hui Fei's lives. His manner made -that clear.... It remained to be seen whether Mrs. Withery knew. - -.... Doane, it will be noted, was still struggling, as of settled habit, -with the thought of freeing the girl from the obligation laid upon her. - -But Mrs. Withery didn't know, didn't dream. She was quite her -whole-souled self. He might have been Hui Fei's father, from anything in -her manner. He felt a conspirator. - -Her father's tragic end accounted altogether for the girl's silence. She -met him naturally, though, with a frank grip of the hand. - -It was a pleasant enough family dinner. They talked the revolution, -of course. No one in Shanghai at the beginning of that November talked -anything else. Hui Fei quietly listened; her face very sober in repose. -She seemed--she had always seemed--more delicately feminine in Western -costume. She was more slender now; her face a perfect oval under -the smooth, deep-shadowed hair. Her dark eyes, deep with stoically -controlled feeling, rested on this or that speaker. Doane found them -once or twice resting thoughtfully on himself. - -After dinner Mrs. Withery, with a glance at her husband, laid a -sympathetic hand on Hui's shoulder. - -“My dear,” she said, all friendly sympathy, “Mr. Doane's time is -precious, these days and nights. I know that you should take this -opportunity to talk over your problems with him. I shall be bustling -about here--suppose you take him out into the courtyard.” - -Without a word they walked out there; stood by a gnarled tree whose -twisted limbs extended over the low tiled roofs. There was a little -light from the windows. The long silence that followed was the most -difficult moment yet. Doane found himself breathing rather hard. In Hui -Fei he felt the calm Oriental patience that underlay all her Western -experiences. She simply waited for him to speak. - -He looked down at her, quite holding his breath. She seemed almost frail -out here, in the half light. He was fighting, with all his strength and -experience, the warm sweet feelings that drugged his brain. - -“My dear--” he began; then, when she looked frankly up at him, -hesitated. He hadn't known he was going to begin with any such phrase as -that. He got on with it.... “I'm wondering how I can best help you. If I -were a younger man there would be no question as to what I would have to -say to you.” Utterly clumsy, of course; with little light ahead; just a -dogged determination to serve her without hurting her. - -“I think a good 'eal of wha' they tell me you're doing”--thus Hui Fei, -in a low but clear voice; not looking up now. “I've almos' envied you. -Helping li' that.” - -“It must be hard for you--with all your mental interests--to sit quietly -here.” - -“My min' goes on, of course,” she said. “Yes, it isn' ver' easy.” - -This was getting them nowhere. Doane, after a deep breath, took command -of the situation. Sooner or later he would have to do that. - -“Hui, dear,” he said now--very quietly, but directly, “this is a -difficult situation for both of us. The only thing, of course, is to -meet it as frankly as we can. I learned to love your father--” - -She glanced up at this; her eyes glistened as the light caught them. - -“--but we can not blindly follow his wishes. He had seen and felt the -West, but he died a Manchu.” - -Her soft lips framed the one word, “Yes.” The softness of her whole -face, indeed, was disconcerting; it was all sober emotion, that she -plainly didn't think of trying to hide. - -“And I'm sure you'll understand me when I tell you that I can not accept -his legacy.” - -She startled him now with the low but direct question: “Why not?” - -“My dear....” He found difficulty in going on. - -“I don' know what I ought 'o say.” He barely heard this; stopped a -little. “I don' know wha' to do.” - -“Can't you, dear--isn't there some clear vision in your heart--don't you -see your way ahead? Remember, you will always have me to help--if I can -help. It will mean everything to me to be your dearest friend.” - -“I want 'o work with you,” she murmured. - -“I haven't dared believe that possible,” he said thoughtfully. - -“Do you wan' me to?” - -“Yes. But it has to be clearer than that.” He was stupid again; he -sensed it himself. “There is so much of life ahead of you. It's got to -be clear that wherever your heart may lead you, child--that you shall -have my steady friendship. The rest of it can grow as it may.” - -“I wan'....” He couldn't make out the words; he bent down close to her -lovely face. “I want 'o marry you.” - -They both stood breathless then. Timidly her hand crept into his and -nestled there. - -“Tha's the trouble”--her voice was a very little stronger--“there isn' -anything else. It's ever'thing you think an' do--ever'thing you believe. -We're both between the worl's, so....” - -The noise in his brain was like the pealing of cathedral bells at -Christmas time. Yet in this rush of ecstatic feeling he suddenly saw -clearly. The fabric of their companionship had hardly begun weaving. -All his experience, his delicacy, his fine human skill, must be employed -here. Ahead lay happiness! It was still nearly incredible.... And -there lay--extending before them in a long vista--their intense common -interest. The thing was to make a fine success of it. Build through the -years. - -And happiness was greatly important. He had so nearly missed it.... -Looking up through the branches of the old tree, he smiled. - -Then he led her into the house. - -“Have you had your talk already?” asked Mrs. Withery pleasantly. - -“We've settled everything,” said Doane. “We're going to be married.” - -“Very soon,” said Hui Fei. - - -THE END - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Red and Gold, by Samuel Merwin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN RED AND GOLD *** - -***** This file should be named 51974-0.txt or 51974-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/7/51974/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: In Red and Gold - -Author: Samuel Merwin - -Illustrator: Cyrus Leroy Baldridge - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51974] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN RED AND GOLD *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -IN RED AND GOLD - -By Samuel Merwin - -Frontispiece by Cyrus Leroy Baldridge - -A. L. Burt Company Publishers, New York - -1921 - -TO - -CHARLES B. TOWNS, NEW YORK AND PEKING - -IN RED AND GOLD - - - - -CHAPTER I--FELLOW VOYAGERS - -|ON a night in October, 1911, the river steamer _Yen Hsin_ lay alongside -the godown, or warehouse, of the Chinese Navigation Company at Shanghai. -Her black hull bulked large in the darkness that was spotted with -inadequate electric lights. Her white cabins, above, lighted here and -there, loomed high and ghostly, extending as far as the eye could easily -see from the narrow wharf beneath. Swarming continuously across the -gangplanks, chanting rhythmically to keep the quick shuffling step, -crews of coolies carried heavy boxes and bales swung from bamboo poles. - -During the evening the white passengers were coming aboard by ones -and twos and finding their cabins, all of which were forward on the -promenade deck, grouped about the enclosed area that was to be at -once their dining-room and "social hall." Here, within a narrow space, -bounded by strips of outer deck and a partition wall, these few -casual passengers were to be caught, willy-nilly, in a sort of passing -comradeship. For the greater part of this deck, amidships and aft, was -screened off for the use of traveling Chinese officials, and the two -lower decks would be crowded with lower class natives and freight. And, -not unnaturally, in the minds of nearly all the white folk, as they -settled for the night, arose questions as to the others aboard. For -strange beings of many nations dig a footing of sorts on the China -Coast, and odd contrasts occur when any few are thrown together by a -careless fate.... And so, thinking variously in their separate cabins -of the meeting to come, at breakfast about the single long table, and of -the days of voyaging into the heart of oldest China, these passengers, -one by one, fell asleep; while through open shutters floated quaint -odors and sounds from the tangle of sampans and slipper-boats that -always line the curving bund and occasional shouts and songs from late -revelers passing along the boulevard beyond the rows of trees. - -It was well after midnight when the _Yen Hsin_ drew in her lines and -swung off into the narrow channel of the Whangpoo. Drifting sampans, -without lights, scurried out of her path. With an American captain on -the strip of promenade deck, forward, that served for a bridge, a yellow -pilot, and Scotch engineers below decks, she slipped down with the tide, -past the roofed-over opium hulks that were anchored out there, past the -dimly outlined stone buildings of the British and American quarter, on -into the broader Wusung. Here a great German mail liner lay at anchor, -lighted from stem to stem. Farther down lay three American cruisers; -and below these a junk, drifting dimly by with ribbed sails flapping and -without the sign of a light, built high astern, like the ghost of a -medieval trader. - -"There's his lights now!" Thus the captain to a huge figure of a man who -stood, stooping a little, beside him, peering out at the river. And -the captain, a stocky little man with hands in the pockets of a heavy -jacket, added--"The dirty devil!" - -Indeed, a small green light showed now on the junk's quarter; and then -she was gone astern. - -After a silence, the captain said: "You may as well turn in." - -"Perhaps I will," replied the other. "Though I get a good deal more -sleep than I need on the river. And very little exercise." - -"That's the devil of this life, of course. Look a' me--I'm fat!" The -captain spoke in a rough, faintly blustering tone, perhaps in a nervous -response to the well-modulated voice of his mate, "Must make even more -difference to you--the way you've lived. And at that, after all, you -ain't a slave to the river." - -"No.... in a sense, I'm not." The mate fell silent. - -There were, of course, vast differences in the degrees of misfortune -among the flotsam and jetsam of the coast. Captain Benjamin, now, had a -native wife and five or six half-caste children tucked away somewhere in -the Chinese city of Shanghai. - -"We've gut quite a bunch aboard this trip," offered the captain. - -"Indeed?" - -"One or two well-known people. There's our American millionaire, Dawley -Kane. Took four outside cabins. His son's with him, and a secretary, -and a Japanese that's been up with him before. Wonder if it's a pleasure -trip--or if it means that the Kane interests are getting hold up the -river. It might, at that. They bought the Cantey line, you know, in -nineteen eight. Then there's Tex Connor, and his old sidekick the Manila -Kid, and a couple of women schoolteachers from home, and six or eight -others--customs men and casuals. And Dixie Carmichael--she's aboard. -Quite a bunch! And His Nibs gets on tomorrow at Nanking." - -"Kang, you mean?" - -"The same. There's a story that he's ordered up to Peking. They were -talking about it yesterday at the office." - -"Do you think he's in trouble?" - -"Can't say. But if you ask me, it don't look like such a good time to be -easy on these agitators, now does it? And they tell me he's been letting -'em off, right and left." - -The mate stood musing, holding to the rail. "It's a problem," he -replied, after a little, rather absently. - -"The funny thing is--he ain't going on through. Not this trip, anyhow. -We're ordered to put him off at his old place, this side of Huang Chau. -Have to use the boats. You might give them a look-see." - -"They've gossiped about Kang before this at Shanghai." - -"Shanghai," cried the captain, with nervous irrelevancy, "is full of -information about China--and it's all wrong!" He added then, "Seen young -Black lately?" - -The mate moved his head in the negative. - -"Consul-general sent him down from Hankow, after old Chang stopped that -native paper of his. I ran into him yesterday, over to the bank. He says -the revolution's going to break before summer." - -The mate made no reply to this. Every trip the captain talked in this -manner. His one deep fear was that the outbreak might take place while -he was far up the river. - -It had been supposed by all experienced observers of the Chinese scene, -that the Manchu Dynasty would not long survive the famous old empress -dowager, the vigorous and imperious little woman who was known -throughout a rational and tolerant empire, not without a degree of -affection, as "the Old Buddha." She had at the time of the present -narrative been dead two years and more; the daily life of the infant -emperor was in the control of a new empress dowager, that Lung Yu who -was notoriously overriding the regent and dictating such policies of -government as she chose in the intervals between protracted periods of -palace revelry. - -The one really powerful personage in Peking that year was the chief -eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, a former actor, notoriously the empress's -personal favorite, who catered to her pleasures, robbed the imperial -treasury of vast sums, wreaked ugly vengeance on critical censors, and -publicly insulted dukes of the royal house. - -All this was familiar. The Manchu strain had dwindled out; and while an -empress pleased her jaded appetites by having an actor cut with the lash -in her presence for an indifferent performance, all South China, from -Canton to the Yangtze, seethed with the steadily increasing ferment -of revolution. Conspirators ranged the river and the coast. At secret -meetings in Singapore, Tokio, San Francisco and New York, new and bloody -history was planned. The oldest and hugest of empires was like a vast -crater that steamed and bubbled faintly here and there as hot vital -forces accumulated beneath. - -The mate, pondering the incalculable problem, finally spoke: "I suppose, -if this revolt should bring serious trouble to Kang, it might affect you -and me as well." - -The captain flared up, the blustering note rising higher in his voice. -"But somebody'll have to run the boats, won't they?" - -"If they run at all." - -His impersonal tone seemed to irritate further the captain's troubled -spirit. "If they run at all, eh? It's all right for you--you can go it -alone--you haven't got children on your mind, young ones!" - -The big man was silent again. A great hand gripped a stanchion tightly -as he gazed out at the dark expanse of water. The captain, glancing -around at him, looking a second time at that hand, turned away, with a -little sound. - -"I will say good night," remarked the mate abruptly, and left his chief -to his uncertain thoughts. - -The steamer moved deliberately out into the wide estuary of the Yangtze, -which is at this point like a sea. Squatting at the edge of the -deck, outside the rail, the pilot spoke musically to the Chinese -quartermaster. Slowly, a little at a time, as she plowed the ruffling -water, the steamer swung off to the northwest to begin her long journey -up the mighty river to Hankow where the passengers would change for -the smaller Ichang steamer, or for the express to Peking over the still -novel trunk railway. And if, as happened not infrequently, the _Yen -Hsin_ should break down or stick in the mud, the Peking passengers would -wait a week about the round stove in the old Astor House at Hankow for -the next express. - -A mighty river indeed, is the Yangtze. During half the year battle-ships -of reasonably deep draught may reach Hankow. In the heyday of the sailing -trade clippers out of New York and blunt lime-juicers out of Liverpool -were any day sights from the bund there. Through a busy and not seldom -bloody century the merchants of a clamorous outside world have roved the -great river (where yellow merchants of the Middle Kingdom, in sampan, -barge and junk, roved fifty centuries before them) with rich cargoes -of tea (in leaden chests that bore historic ideographs on the enclosing -matting)--with hides and horns and coal from Hupeh and furs and musk -from far-away Szechuen, with soya beans and rice and bristles and -nutgalls and spices and sesamum, with varnish and tung oil and vegetable -tallow, with cotton, ramie, rape and hemp, with copper, quicksilver, -slate, lead and antimony, with porcelains and silk. Along this river -that to-day divides an empire into two vast and populous domains a -thousand thousand fortunes have been gained and lost, rebellions and -wars have raged, famines have blighted whole peoples. Forts, pagodas and -palaces have lined its banks. The gilded barges of emperors have drifted -idly on its broad bosom. Exquisite painted beauties have found mirrors -in its neighboring canals. Its waters drain to-day the dusty red plain -where Lady Ch'en, the Helen, of China, rocked a throne and died. - -The morning sun rode high. Soft-footed cabin stewards in blue robes -removed the long red tablecloth and laid a white. By ones and twos the -passengers appeared from their cabins or from the breezy deck and took -their seats, eying one another with guarded curiosity as they bowed a -morning greeting. - -Miss Andrews, of Indianapolis, stepped out from her cabin through a -narrow corridor, and then, at sight of the table, stopped short, while -her color rose slightly. Miss Andrews was slender, a year or so under -thirty, and, in a colorless way, pretty. Shy and sensitive, the scene -before her was one her mind's eye had failed to picture; the seats about -the long table were half filled, and entirely with men. She saw, in -that one quick look, the face of a young German between those of two -Englishmen. A remarkably thin man in a check suit looked up and for an -instant fixed furtive eyes on hers. Just beyond him sat a big man, with -a round wooden face and one glass eye; he turned his head with his eyes -to look at her. A quiet man of fifty-odd, with gray hair, a nearly -white mustache that was cropped close, and the expression of quiet -satisfaction that only wealth and settled authority can give, was -putting a spoonful of condensed milk into his coffee. Next to him sat -a young man--very young, certainly not much more than twenty or -twenty-one--perhaps his son (the aquiline nose and slightly receding but -wide and full forehead were the same)--rubbing out a cigarette on his -butter plate. He had been smoking before breakfast. She remembered these -two now; they had been at the Astor House in Shanghai; they were -the Kanes, of New York, the famous Kanes. They called the son, -"Rocky"--Rocky Kane. - -Unable to take in more, Miss Andrews stepped back a little way into the -corridor, deciding to wait for her traveling companion, Miss Means, of -South Bend. She could hardly go out there alone and sit down with all -those men. - -But just then a door opened and closed; and across the way, coming -directly, easily, out into the diningroom, Miss Andrews beheld the -surprising figure of a slim girl--or a girl she appeared at first -glance--of nineteen or twenty, wearing a blue, middy blouse and short -blue shirt. Her black hair was drawn loosely together at the neck and -tied with a bow of black ribbon. Her somewhat pale face, with its thin -line of a mouth, straight nose, curving black eyebrows and oddly pale -eyes, was in some measure attractive. She took her seat at the table -without hesitation, acknowledging the reserved greetings of various of -the men with a slight inclination of the head. - -It seemed to Miss Andrews that she might now go on in there. But the -thought that some of these men had surely noticed her confusion was -disconcerting; and so it was a relief to hear Miss Means pattering -on behind her. For that firmly thin little woman had fought life to a -standstill and now, except in the moments of prim severity that came -unaccountably into possession of her thoughts, found it dryly amusing. -They took their seats, these two little ladies, Miss Means laying her -copy of _Things Chinese_ beside her coffee cup; and Miss Andrews tried -to bow her casual good mornings as the curious girl in the middy blouse -had done. The girl, by the way, seemed a very little older at close -view. - -Miss Andrews stole glimpses, too, at young Mr. Rocky Kane. He was a -handsome boy, with thick chestnut hair from which he had not wholly -succeeded in brushing the curl, but she was not sure that she liked -the flush on his cheeks, or the nervous brightness of the eyes, or the -expression about the mouth. There had been stories floating about the -hotel in Shanghai. He plainly lacked discipline. But she saw that he -might easily fascinate a certain sort of woman. - -A door opened, and in from the deck came an extraordinarily tall man, -stooping as he entered. On his cap, in gilt, was lettered, "1st Mate." -He took the seat opposite Mr. Kane, senior, next to the head of the -table. It seemed to Miss Andrews that she had never seen so tall a man; -he must have stood six feet five or six inches. He was solid, broad of -shoulder, a magnificent specimen of manhood. And though the hair was -thin on top of his head, and his grave quiet face exhibited the deep -lines of middle age, he moved with almost the springy-step of a boy. If -others at the table were difficult to place on the scale of life, this -mate was the most difficult of all. With that strong reflective face, -and the bearing of one who knows only good manners (though he said -nothing at all after his first courteously spoken, "Good morning!") he -could not have been other than a gentleman--Miss Andrews felt that--an -American gentleman! Yet his position.... mate of a river steamer in -China....! - -The atmosphere about the table was constrained throughout the meal. The -Chinese stewards padded softly about. The one-eyed man stared around the -table without the slightest expression on his impassive face. The girl -in the middy blouse kept her head over her plate. Miss Andrews once -caught Rocky Kane glancing at her with an expression nearly as furtive -as that of the thin man in the check suit. It was after this small -incident that young Kane began helping her to this and that; and, when -they rose, followed her out to her deck chair and insisted on tucking -her up in her robe. - -"These fall breezes are pretty sharp on the river," he said. "But say, -maybe it isn't hot in summer." - -"I suppose it is," murmured Miss Andrews. - -"I've been out here a couple of times with the pater. You'll find the -river interesting. Oh, not down here"--he indicated the wide expanse of -muddy water and the low-lying, distant shore--"but beyond Chinkiang -and Nanking, where it's narrower. Lots of quaint sights. The ports are -really fascinating. We stop a lot, you know. At Wuhu the water beggars -come out in tubs." - -"In tubs!" breathed Miss Andrews. - -Miss Means joined them then, book under arm; and met his offer to tuck -her up with a crisply pointed, "No, thank you!" - -He soon drifted away. - -Said Miss Andrews: "Weren't you a little hard on him, Gerty?" - -"My dear," replied Miss Means severely--her Puritan vein strongly -uppermost--"that young man won't do. Not at all. I saw him myself, one -night at the Astor House, going into one of those private -dining-rooms with a woman who--well, her character, or lack of it, was -unmistakable!... Right there in the hotel.... under his father's eyes. -That's what too much money will do to a young man, if you ask; me!" - -"Oh....!" breathed Miss Andrews, looking out with startled eyes at the -gulls. - -It was mid-afternoon when Captain Benjamin remarked to his first mate: -"Tex Connor's got down to work, Mr. Duane. Better try to stop it, if you -don't mind. They're in young Kane's cabin--sixteen." - -Number sixteen was the last cabin aft in the port side, next the canvas -screen that separated upper class white from upper class yellow. The -wooden shutters had been drawn over the windows and the light turned on -within. Cigarette smoke drifted thickly out. - -They were slow to open. Doane heard the not unfamiliar voice of the -Manila Kid advising against it. He had to knock repeatedly. They were -crowded together in the narrow space between berth and couch, a board -across their knees--Connor twisting his head to fix his one eye on the -intruder, the Kid, in his check suit, a German of the customs and -Rocky Kane. There were cards, chips and a heap of money in American and -English notes and gold. - -"What is it?" cried Kane. "What do you want?" - -"You'd better stop this," said the mate quietly. - -"Oh, come, we're just having a friendly game! What right have you to -break into a private room, anyway?" - -The mate, stooping within the doorway, took the boy in with thoughtful -eyes, but did not reply directly. - -Connor, with another look upward, picked up the cards, and with the -uncanny mental quickness of a practised _croupier_ redistributed the -heap of money to its original owners, and squeezed out without a word, -the mate moving aside for him. The German left sulkily. The Kid snapped -his fingers in disgust, and followed. - -Doane was moving away when the Kid caught his elbow. He asked: "Did -Benjamin send you around?" - -Doane inclined his head. - -"Running things with a pretty high hand, you and him!" - -"Keep away from that boy," was the quiet reply. - -The thin man looked up at the grave strong face above the massive -shoulders; hesitated; walked away. The mate was again about to leave -when young Kane spoke. He was in the doorway now, leaning there, hands -in pockets, his eyes blazing with indignation and injured pride. - -"Those men were my guests!" he cried. - -"I'm sorry, Mr. Kane, to disturb your private affairs, but--" - -"Why did you do it, then?" - -"The captain will not allow Tex Connor to play cards on this boat. At -least, not without a fair warning." - -The boy's face pictured the confusion in his mind, as he wavered from -anger through surprise into youthful curiosity. - -"Oh...." he murmured. "Oh.... so that's Tex Connor." - -"Yes. And Jim Watson with him. He was cashiered from the army in the -Philippines. He is generally known now, along the coast, as the Manila -Kid." - -"So that's Tex Connor!.... He managed the North End Sporting in London, -three years ago." - -"Very likely. I believe he is known in London and Paris." - -"He's a professional gambler, then?" - -"I am not undertaking to characterize him. But if you would accept a -word of advice--" - -"I haven't asked for it, that I'm aware of." An instant after he had -said this, the boy's face changed. He looked up at the immense frame of -the man before him, and into the grave face. The warm color came into -his own. "Oh, I'm sorry!" he cried. "I needn't have said that." But -confusion still lay behind that immature face. The very presence of this -big man affected him to a degree wholly out of keeping with the fellow's -station in life, as he saw it. But he needn't have been rude. "Look -here, are you going to say anything to my father?" - -"Certainly not." - -"Will the captain?" - -"You will have to ask him yourself. Though you could hardly expect to -keep it from him long, at this rate." - -"Well--he's so busy! He shuts himself up all day with Braker, his -secretary. The chap with the big spectacles. You see"--Kane laughed -self-consciously; a naively boyish quality in him, kept him talking more -eagerly than he knew--"the pater's reached the stage when he feels he -ought to put himself right before the world. I guess he's been a great -old pirate, the pater--you know, wrecking railroads and grabbing banks -and going into combinations. Though it's just what all the others -have done. From what I've heard about some of them--friends of ours, -too!--you have to, nowadays, in business. No place for little men or -soft men. It's a two-fisted game. This fellow spent a couple of years -writing the pater's autobiography:--seems funny, doesn't it!--and -they're going over it together on this trip. That's why Braker came -along; there's no time at home. The original plan was to have Braker -tutor me. That was when I broke out of college. But, lord!...." - -"You'll excuse me now," said the mate. - -Meantime the Manila Kid had sidled up to the captain. - -"Say, Cap," he observed cautiously, "wha'd you come down on Tex like -that for?" - -"Oh, come," replied the captain testily, not turning, "don't bother me!" - -"But what you expect us to do all this time on the river--play -jackstraws?" - -"I don't care what you do! Some trips they get up deck games." - -"Deck games!" The Kid sniffed. - -"You'll find plenty to read in the library" - -"Read!...." - -"Then I guess you'll just have to stand it." - -For some time they stood side by side without speaking; the captain -eying the river, the Kid moodily observing water buffalo bathing near -the bank. - -"Tex has got that Chinese heavyweight of his aboard--down below." - -"Oh--that Tom Sung?" - -"Yep. Knocked out Bull Kennedy in three rounds at the Shanghai Sporting. -Got some matches for him up at Peking and Tientsin. Taking him over to -Japan after that. There's an American marine that's cleaned up three -ships'." He was silent for a space; then added: "I suppose, now, if we -was to arrange a little boxing entertainment, you wouldn't stand for -that either, eh?" - -"Oh, that's all right. Take the social hall if the ladies don't object. -But who would you put up against him?" - -"Well--if we could find a young fellow on board, Tex could tell Tom to -go light." - -"You might ask Mr. Doane. He complains he ain't getting exercise -enough." - -"He's pretty old--still, I'd hate to go up against him myself.... Say, -you ask him, Cap!" - -"I'll think it over. He's a little.... I'll tell you now he wouldn't -stand for your making a show of it. If he did it, it 'ud just be for -exercise." - -"Oh, that's all right!" - -Miss Means awoke with a start. It was the second morning out, at -sunrise. The engines were still, but from without an extraordinary -hubbub rent the air. Drums were beating, reed instruments wailing in -weird dissonance, and innumerable voices chattering and shouting. A -sudden crackling suggested fire-crackers in quantity. Miss means raised -herself on one elbow, and saw her roommate peeping out over the blind. - -"What is it?" she asked. - -"It looks very much like the real China we've read about," replied Miss -Andrews, raising her voice above the din. "It's certainly very different -from Shanghai." - -The steamer lay alongside a landing hulk at the foot of broad steps. -Warehouses crowded the bank and the bund above, some of Western -construction; but the crowded scene on hulk and steps and bund, and -among the matting-roofed sampans, hundreds of which were crowded against -the bank, was wholly Oriental. From every convenient mast and pole -pennants and banners spread their dragons on the fresh early breeze. A -temporary _pen-low_, or archway, at the top of the steps was gay with -fresh paint and streamers. In the air above were scores of kites, -designed and painted to represent dragons and birds of prey, which the -owners were maneuvering in mimic aerial warfare; swooping and darting -and diving. As Miss Means looked, one huge painted bird fell in shreds -to a neighboring roof, and the swarming assemblage cheered ecstatically. - -Soldiers were marching in good-humored disorder down the bund, in the -inevitable faded blue with blue turbans wound about their heads. It -appeared as if not another person could force his way down on the hulk -without crowding at least one of its occupants into the water, yet on -they came; and so far as our two little ladies could see none fell. -Fully two hundred of the soldiers there were, with short rifles and -bayonets. Amid great confusion they formed a lane down the steps and -across to the gangway. - -Next came a large, bright-colored sedan chair slung on cross-poles, with -eight bearers and with groups of silk-clad mandarins walking before and -behind. Farther back, swaying along, were eight or ten more chairs, each -with but four bearers and each tightly closed, waiting in line as the -chair of the great one was set carefully down on the hulk and opened by -the attending officials. - -Deliberately, smilingly, the great one stepped out. He was a man of -seventy or older, with a drooping gray mustache and narrow chin beard of -gray that contrasted oddly with the black queue. His robe was black with -a square bit of embroidery in rich color on the breast. Above his hat -of office a huge round ruby stood high on a gold mount, and a peacock -feather slanted down behind it. - -Bowing to right and left, he ascended the gangplank, the mandarins -following. There were fifteen of these, each with a round button on his -plumed hat--those in the van of red coral, the others of sapphire and -lapis lazuli, rock crystal, white stone and gold. - -One by one the lesser chairs were brought out on the hulk and opened. -From the first stepped a stout woman of mature years, richly clad in -heavily embroidered silks, with loops of pearls about her neck and -shoulders, and with painted face under the elaborately built-up -head-dress. Other women of various' ages followed, less conspicuously -clad. From the last chair appeared a young woman, slim and graceful even -in enveloping silks, her face, like the others, a mask of white paint -and rouge, with lips carmined into a perfect cupid's bow. And with -her, clutching her hand, was a little girl of six or seven, who laughed -merrily upward at the great steamer as she trotted along. - -Blue-clad servants followed, a hundred or more, and swarming -cackling women with unpainted faces and flapping black trousers, and -porters--long lines of porters--with boxes and bales and bundles swung -from the inevitable bamboo poles. - -At last they were all aboard, and the steamer moved out. - -"Who were all those women, in the chairs, do you suppose?" asked Miss -Andrews. - -"His wives, probably." - -"Oh....!" - -"Or concubines." - -Miss Andrews was silent. She could still see the waving crowd on the -wharf, and the banners and kites. - -"He must be at least a prince, with all that retinue." - -Miss Andrews, thinking rapidly of Aladdin and Marco Polo, of wives -and concubines and strange barbarous ways, brought herself to say in a -nearly matter-of-fact voice: "But those women all had natural feet. I -don't understand." - -Miss Means reached for her _Things Chinese_; looked up "Feet," - -"Women," - -"Dress," and other headings; finally found an answer, through a happy -inspiration, under "Manchus." - -"That's it!" she explained; and read: "'The Manchus do not bind the feet -of their women.'" - -"Well!" Thus Miss Andrews, after a long moment with more than a hint -of emotional stir in her usually quiet voice: "We certainly have a -remarkable assortment of fellow passengers. That curious silent girl in -the middy blouse.... traveling alone..." - -"Remarkable, and not altogether edifying," observed the practical Miss -Means. - - - - -CHAPTER II--BETWEEN THE WORLDS - -|TOWARD noon Miss Means and Miss Andrews were in their chairs on deck, -when a gay little outburst of laughter caught their attention, and -around the canvas screen came running the child they had seen on the -wharf at Nanking. A sober Chinese servant (Miss Means and Miss Andrews -were not to know that he was a eunuch) followed at a more dignified -pace. - -The child was dressed in a quilted robe of bright flowered silk, the -skirt flaring like a bed about the ankles, the sleeves extending down -over the hands. Her shoes were high, of black cloth with paper soles. -Over the robe she wore a golden yellow vest, shortsleeved, trimmed with -ribbon and fastened with gilt buttons. Over her head and shoulders was -a hood of fox skin worn with the fur inside, tied with ribbons under -the chin, and decorated, on the top of the head, with the eyes, nose and -ears of a fox. As she scampered along the deck she lowered her head and -charged at the big first mate. He smiled, caught her shoulders, spun her -about, and set her free again; then, nodding pleasantly to the eunuch, -he passed on. - -Before the two ladies he paused to say: "We are coming into T'aiping, -the city that gave a name to China's most terrible rebellion. If you -care to step around to the other side, you'll see something of the -quaint life along the river." - -"He seems very nice--the mate," remarked Miss Andrews. "I find myself -wondering who he may have been. He is certainly a gentleman." - -"I understand," replied Miss Means coolly, "that one doesn't ask that -question on the China Coast." They found the old river port drab and -dilapidated, yet rich in the color of teeming human life. The river, -as usual, was crowded with small craft. Nearly a score of these were -awaiting the steamer, each evidently housing an entire family under its -little arch of matting, and each extending bamboo poles with baskets -at the ends. As the steamer came to a stop, a long row of these baskets -appeared at the rail, while cries and songs arose from the water. - -The little Manchu girl had found a friend in Mr. Rocky Kane. He was -holding her on the rail and supplying her with brass cash which she -dropped gaily into the baskets. The eunuch stood smiling by. After -tiffin the child appeared again and sought her new friend. She would sit -on his knee and pry open his mouth to see where the strange sounds came -from. And his cigarettes delighted her. - -It was the Manila Kid himself who asked Miss Means and Miss Andrews -if they would mind a bit of a boxing: match in the social hall. They -promptly withdrew to their cabin, after Miss Means had uttered a -bewildered but dignified: "Not in the least! Don't think of us!" - -Shortly after dinner the cabin stewards stretched a rope around four -pillars, just forward of the dining table. The men lighted cigarettes -and cigars, and moved up with quickening interest. Tex Connor, who had -disappeared directly after the coffee, brought in his budding champion, -a large grinning yellow man in a bathrobe. The second mate, and two of -the engineers found seats about the improvised rings. Then an outer door -opened, and the great mandarin appeared, bowing and smiling courteously -with hands clasped before his breast. The fifteen lesser mandarins -followed, all rich color and rustling silk. - -The young officers sprang to their feel and arranged chairs for -the party. The great man seated himself, and his attendants grouped -themselves behind him. - -Into this expectant atmosphere came the mate, in knickerbockers and a -sweater, stooping under the lintel of the door, then straightening -up and stopping short. His eyes quickly took in the crowded little -picture--the gray-bearded mandarin in the ringside chair, backed with -a mass of Oriental color; that other personage, Dawley Kane, directly -opposite, with the aquiline nose, the guardedly keen eyes and the quite -humorless face, as truly a mandarin among the whites as was calm old -Kang among the yellows; the flushed eager face of Rocky Kane; the other -whites, all smoking, all watching him sharply, all impatient for the -show. He frowned; then, as the mandarin smiled, came gravely forward, -bent under the rope and addressed him briefly in Chinese. - -The mandarin, frankly pleased at hearing his own tongue, rose to reply. -Each clasped his own hands and bowed low, with the observance of a -long-hardened etiquette so dear to the Oriental heart. - -"How about a little bet?" whispered Rocky Kane to Tex Connor. "I -wouldn't mind taking the big fellow." - -"What odds'll you give?" replied the impassive one. - -"Odds nothing! Your man's a trained fighter, and he must be twenty years -younger." - -"But this man Doane's an old athlete. He's boxed, off and on, all his -life. And he's kept in condition. Look at his weight, and his reach." - -"What's the distance?" - -"Oh--six two-minute rounds." - -"Who'll referee?" - -"Well--one of the Englishmen." - -But the Englishmen were not at hand. A friendly bout between yellow and -white overstepped their code. One of the customs men, an Australian, -accepted the responsibility, however. - -"I'll lay you a thousand, even," said Rocky Kane. - -"Make it two thousand." - -"I'll give you two thousand, even," said Dawley Kane quietly. - -"Taken! Three thousand, altogether--gold." - -The mate, turning away from the mandarin, caught this; stood motionless -looking at them, his brows drawing together. - -"Gentlemen," he finally remarked, "I came here with the understanding -that it was to be only a little private exercise. I had no objection, of -course, to your looking on, some of you, but this...." - -"Oh, come!" said Connor. "It's just for points. Tom's not going to -fight you." - -Young Kane, gripping the rope nervously with both hands, cried: "You -wouldn't quit!" - -The mate looked down at these men. "No," he replied, in the same gravely -quiet manner, "I shall go on with it. I do this"--he made the point -firmly, with a dignity that in some degree, for the moment, overawed the -younger men--"I do it because his excellency has paid us the honor -of coming here in this democratic way. He tells me that he is fond of -boxing. I shall try to entertain him." And he drew the sweater over his -head, and caught the gloves that the Kid tossed him. - -The elder Kane shrewdly took him in. The authority of the man was not to -be questioned. Without so much as raising his voice he had dominated -the strange little gathering. Physically he was a delight to the eye; -anywhere In the forties, his hair thin to the verge of baldness, his -strong sober face deeply lined, yet with shoulders, arms and chest that -spoke of great muscular power and a waist without a trace of the added -girth that middle age usually brings; of sound English stock, doubtless; -the sort that in the older land would ride to hounds at eighty. - -Dawley Kane looked, then, at the Chinese heavyweight. This man, though -not quite a match in size for the giant before him, appeared every -inch the athlete. Kane understood the East too well to find him at all -surprising; he had seen the strapping northern men of Yuan Shi K'ai's -new army; he knew that the trained runners of the Imperial Government -were expected, on occasion, to cover their hundred miles in a day; in -a word, that the curious common American notion of the Chinese physique -was based on an occasional glimpse of a tropical laundryman. And he -settled back in his comfortable chair confident of a run for his money. -The occasion promised, indeed, excellent entertainment. - -The mate, still with that slight frown, glanced about. Not one of the -crowded eager faces about the ropes exhibited the slightest interest in -himself as a human being. He was but the mate of a river steamer; a man -who had not kept up with his generation (the reason didn't matter)--an -individual of no standing.... He put up his hands. - -Tom Sung fell into a crouch. With his left shoulder advanced, his chin -tucked away behind it, he moved in dose and darted quick but hard blows -to the stomach and heart. Duane stepped backward, and edged around him, -feeling him out, studying his hands and arms, his balance, his footwork. -It early became clear that he was a thoroughgoing professional, who -meant to go in and make a fight of it.... Doane, sparring lightly, -considered this. Conner, of course, had no sportsmanship. - -Tom's left hand shot up through Doane's guard, landing clean on h.-S -face with a sharp thud; followed up with a remarkably quick right -swing that the mate, by sidestepping, succeeded only in turning into a -glancing blow. And then, as Doane ducked a left thrust, he uppercut with -all his strength. The blow landed on Doane's forearms with a force that -shook him from head to foot. - -A sound of breath sharply indrawn came from the spectators, to most of -whom it must have appeared that the blow had gone home. Doane, slipping -away and mopping the sweat from eyes and forehead, heard the sound; -and for an instant saw them, all leaning forward, tense, eager for a -knockout, the one possible final thrill. - -The yellow man was at him again, landing left, right and left on his -stomach, and butting a shaven head with real force against his chin. For -an instant stars danced about his eyes. Elbows had followed the head, -roughing at his face. Doane, quickly recovering, leaped back and dropped -his hands. - -"What is this?" he called sharply to Connor, whose round expressionless -face with its one cool light eye and thin little mouth looked at him -without response. "Head? Elbows? Is your man going to box, or not?" - -The eyes that turned in surprise about the ringside were not friendly. -These men cared nothing for his little difficulties; their blood was -up. They wanted what the Americans among them would term "action" and -"results." - -Tom was tearing at him again. So it was, after all, to be a fight. No -preliminary understandings mattered. He felt a profound disgust, as by -main strength he stopped rush after rush, making full use of his greater -reach to pin Tom's arms and hurl him back; a disgust however, that was -changing gradually to anger. He had known, all his life, the peculiar -joy that comes to a man of great strength and activity in any thorough -test of his power. - -The customs man called time. - -Rocky Kane--flushed, excited, looking like a boy--felt in his pockets -for cigarettes; found none; and slipped hurriedly out to the deck. - -There a silken rustle stopped him short. - -A slim figure, enveloped in an embroidered gown, was moving back from a -cabin window. The light from within fell--during a brief second--full -on an oval face that was brightly painted, red and white, beneath glossy -black hair. The nose was straight, and not wide. The eyes, slanted only -a little, looked brightly out from under penciled brows. She was moving -swiftly toward the canvas screen; but he, more swiftly, leaped before -her, stared at her; laughed softly in sheer delighted surprise. Then, -with a quick glance about the deck, breathing out he knew not what terms -of crude compliment he reached for her; pursued her to the rail; caught -her. - -"You little beauty!" he was whispering now. "You wonder! You darling! -You're just too good to be true!" Beside himself, laughing again, he -bent over to kiss her. But she wrenched an arm free, fought him off, and -leaned, breathless, against the rail. - -"Little yellow tiger, eh?" he cried softly. "Well, I'm a big white -tiger!" - -She said in English: "This is amazing!" - -He stood frozen until she had disappeared behind the canvas screen. Then -he staggered back; stumbled against a deck chair; turning, found the -strange thin girl of the middy blouse stretched out there comfortably in -her rug. - -She said, with a cool ease: "It's so pleasant out here this evening, I -really haven't felt like going in." - -With a muttered something--he knew not what--he rushed off to his cabin; -then rushed back into the social hall. - -The customs man called time for the second round. - -As Doane advanced to the center of the ring, Tom rushed, as before, head -down. Doane uppercut him; then threw him back, forestalling a clinch. -The next two or three rushes he met in the same determined but negative -way; hitting a few blows but for the most part pushing him off. The -sweat kept running into his eyes as he exerted nearly his full strength. -And Tom Sung's shoulders and arms glistened a bright yellow under the -electric lights. - -Rocky Kane, lighting a cigarette and tossing the blazing match away, -called loudly: "Oh, hit him! For God's sake, do something! Don't be -afraid of a Chink!" - -Doane glanced over at him. Tom rushed. Doane felt again the crash of -solid body blows delivered with all the force of more than two -hundred pounds of well-trained muscle behind them. Again he winced and -retreated. He knew well that he could endure only a certain amount of -this punishment.... Suddenly Tom struck with the sharpest impact yet. -Again that hard head butted his chin; an elbow and the heel of a glove -roughed his face.... Doane summoned all his strength to push him off. -Then he stepped deliberately forward. - -At last the primitive vigor in this giant was aroused. His eyes blazed. -There was no manner of pleasure in hurting a fellow man of any color; -but since the particular man was asking for it, insisting on it, there -was no longer a choice. The fellow had clearly been trained to this foul -sort of work. That would be Connor's way, to take every advantage, place -a large side bet and then make certain of winning. There was, of course, -no more control of boxing out here on the coast than of gambling or -other vice. - -When Tom next came forward, Doane, paying not the slightest heed to his -own defense, exchanged blows with him; planted a right swing that raised -a welt on the yellow cheek. A moment later he landed another on the same -spot. - -At the sound of these blows the men about the ringside straightened up -with electric excitement. Then again the long muscular right arm swung, -and the tightly gloved fist crashed through Tom's guard with a force -that knocked him nearly off his balance. Doane promptly brought him back -with a left hook that sounded to the now nearly frantic spectators as if -it must have broken the cheek-bone. - -Tom crouched, covered and backed away. - -"Have you had enough?" Doane asked. As there was no reply, he repeated -the question in Chinese. - -Tom, instead of answering, tried another rush, floundering wildly, -swinging his arms. - -Doane stepped firmly forward, swinging up a terrific body blow that -caught the big Chinaman at the pit of the stomach, lifted his feet clear -of the floor and dropped him heavily in a sitting position, from which -he rolled slowly over on his side. - -"What are you trying to do?" cried the Manila Kid, above the babel of -excited voices, as he rushed in there and revived his fellow champion. -"What are you trying to do--kill 'im?" - -The mate stripped off his wet gloves and tossed them to the floor. -"Teach your man to box fairly," he replied, "or some one else will." -With which he stepped out of the ring, drew on his sweater and, with a -courteous bow to the mandarin, went out on deck. There, after depositing -with the purser the winnings paid over by a surly Connor, Dawley Kane -found him. - -"Well!" cried the hitherto calm financier, "you put up a remarkable -fight." - -Doane looked down at him, unable to reply. He was still breathing hard; -his thoughts were traveling strange paths. He heard the man saying other -things; asking, at length, about the mandarin. - -"He is Kang Yu," Doane replied now, civilly enough, "Viceroy of -Nanking." - -"No! Really? Why, he was in America!" - -"He toured the world. He has been minister at Paris, Berlin, London, I -believe. He is a great statesman--certainly the greatest out here since -Li Hung Chang." - -"No--how extremely interesting!" - -"He is ruler of fifty million souls, or more." The mate had found his -voice. He was speaking a thought quickly, with a very little heat, as if -eager to convince the great man of America of the standing and worth -of this great man of China. "He has his own army and his own mint. -He controls railroads, arsenals, mills and mines. Incidentally, he is -president of this line." - -"The Chinese Navigation Company? Really! You are acquainted with him -yourself?" - -"No. But he is a commanding figure hereabouts. And of course, I--at -present I'm an employee of the Merchants' Line." - -"Oh, yes! Yes, of course! You seem to speak Chinese." - -"Yes"--the mate's voice was dry now--"I speak Chinese." - -A shuffling sound reached their ears. Both turned. The viceroy had come -out of the cabin and was advancing toward them, followed by all his -mandarins. Before them he paused, and again exchanged with the mate the -charming Eastern greeting. In Chinese he said--and the language that -needs only a resonant, cultured voire to exhibit its really great -dignity and beauty, rolled like music from his tongue: "It will give me -great pleasure, sir, if you will be my guest to-morrow at twelve." - -The mate replied, with a grave smile and a bow: "It is a privilege. I am -your servant." - -They bowed again, with hands to breast. And all the mandarins bowed. -Then they moved away in stately silence to their quarters aft. - -Kane spoke now: "How very curious! Very curious!" - -Doane said nothing to this. - -"They really appear to have charm, these upper class people. It's a pity -they are so poorly adapted to the modern struggle." - -Doane looked down at him, then away. As a man acquainted with the East -he knew the futility of discussing it with a Western mind; above all -with the mind of a successful business man, to whom activity, drive, -energy, were very religion. - -His own thoughts were ranging swiftly back over two thousand years, to -the strong civilization of the Han Dynasty, when disciplined Chinese -armies kept open the overland route to Bactria and Parthia, that the -silks and porcelains and pearls might travel safely to waiting Roman -hands; to the later, richer, riper centuries of Tang and Sung, after -Rome fell, when Chinese civilization stood alone, a majestic fabric -in an otherwise crumbled and chaotic world--when certain of the noblest -landscapes and portraits ever painted were finding expression, when -philosophers held high dreams of building conflicting dogma into a -single structure of comprehensive and serene faith. The Chinese alone, -down the uncounted centuries, had held their racial integrity, their -very language. Surely, at some mystical but seismic turning of the -racial tide, they would rise again among the nations. - -This giant, standing there in sweater and knickerbockers, bareheaded, -gazing out at the dark river, was not sentimentalizing. He knew well -enough the present problems. But he saw them with half-Eastern eyes; he -saw America too, with half-Eastern eyes--and so he could not talk at -all to the very able man beside him who saw the West and the world with -wholly Western eyes. No, it was futile. Even when the great New -Yorker, who had just won two thousand dollars, gold, spoke with -wholly unexpected kindness, the gulf between their two minds remained -unfathomable. - -"I want you to forgive me, sir--I do not even know your name, you -see--but, frankly, you interest me. You are altogether too much of a man -for the work you are doing here. That is clear. I would be glad to have -you tell me what the trouble is. Perhaps I could help you." - -This from the man who held General Railways in the hollow of his hand, -and Universal Hydro-Electric, and Consolidated Shipping, and the Kane, -Wilmarth and Cantey banks, a chain that reached literally from sea to -sea across the great young country that worshiped the shell of political -freedom as insistently as the Chinese worshiped their ancestors, -yet gave over the newly vital governing power of finance into wholly -irresponsible private hands. - -The situation, grotesque in its beginning, seemed now incredible to -Doane. He drew a hand across his brow; then spoke, with compelling -courtesy but with also a dismissive power that the other felt: "You are -very kind, Mr. Kane. At some other time I shall be glad to talk with -you. But my hours are rather exacting, and I am tired." - -"Naturally. You have given a wonderful exhibition of what a man of -character can do with his body. I wish I had you for a physical -trainer. And I wish the example might start my boy to thinking more -wholesomely... Good night!" And he extended a friendly hand. - -Mr. Kane's boy presented himself on the following morning as an acute -problem. He was about the deck, shortly after breakfast, playing with -the Manchu child. Then, after eleven, Captain Benjamin handed his mate -a note that had been scribbled in pencil on a leaf torn from a pocket -note-book and folded over. It was addressed: - -"To the Chinese Lady who spoke English last night." And the content was -as follows: "I shouldn't have been rude, but I must see you again. Can't -you slip around the canvas this evening, late? I'll be watching for -you." There was no signature. - -"Make it out?" asked the captain. "Old Kang sent it up to me--asks us to -speak to the young man. But how'm I to know which young man it is?" - -"Do you know how it was sent?" - -"Yes. The little princess took it back."' - -"It won't be hard to find the man." - -"You know?" - -"I think so." - -"Well, just put him wise, will you?" - -"I'll speak to him." - -"Wait a minute! You thinking of young Kane?" - -The mate inclined his head. - -"Well--you know who he is, don't you? Who they are?" - -Doane bowed again. - -"Better use a little tact." - -Doane walked back along the deck to cabin sixteen. A fresh breeze blew -sharply here; the chairs had all been moved across to the other side -where the sunlight lay warm on the planking. Within the social hall the -second engineer--a wistful, shy young Scot--had brought his battered -talking machine to the dining table and was grinding out a comic song. -Two or three of the men were in there, listening, smoking, and sipping -highballs; Doane saw them as he passed the door. Through the open -but shuttered window of cabin number twelve came the clicking of a -typewriter and men's voices, that would be Mr. Kane, discussing his -"autobiography" with its author. - -Before number sixteen, Doane paused; sniffed the air. A curious odor was -floating out through these shutters, an odor that he knew. He sniffed -again; then abruptly knocked at the door. - -A drowsy voice answered! "What is it? What do you want?" - -"I must see you at once," said Doane. - -There was a silence; then odd sounds--a faint rattling of glass, a -scraping, cupboard doors opening and closing. Finally the door opened -a few inches. There was Rocky Kane, hair tousled, coat, collar and tie -removed, and shirt open at the neck. Doane looked sharply at his eyes; -the pupils were abnormally small. And the odor was stronger now and of a -slightly choking tendency. - -"What are you looking at me like that for?" cried young Kane, shrinking -back a little way. - -"I think," said Doane, "you had better let me come in and talk with -you." - -"What right have you got saying things like that? What do you mean?" - -"I have really said nothing as yet." - -Kane, seeming bewildered, allowed the door to swing inward and himself -stepped back. The big mate came stooping within. - -"Your note has been returned," he said shortly; and gave him the paper. - -Kane accepted it, stared down at it, then sank back on the couch. - -"What's this to you!" he managed to cry. "What right.... what do you -mean, saying I wrote this?" - -"Because you did. You sent it back by the little girl." - -"Well, what if I did! What right--" - -"I am here at the request of his excellency, the viceroy of Nanking. You -have been annoying his daughter. The fact that she chooses, while in her -father's household, to wear the Manchu dress, does not justify you in -treating her otherwise than as a lady. Perhaps I can't expect you to -understand that his exellency is one of the greatest statesmen alive -to-day. Nor that this young lady was educated in America, knows the -capitals of Europe better, doubtless, than yourself, and is a princess -by birth. She went to school in England and to college in Massachusetts. -Take my advice, and try no more of this sort of thing." - -The boy was staring at him now, wholly bewildered. "Well," he began -stumblingly, "perhaps I have been a little on the loose. But what of it! -A fellow has to have some fun, doesn't he?" - -The mate's eyes were taking in keenly the crowded little room. - -"Well," cried Kane petulantly, "that's all, isn't it? I understand! I'll -let her alone!" - -"You don't feel that an apology might be due?" - -"Apologize? To that girl?" - -"To her father." - -"Apologize--to a Chink?" - -The word grated strangely on Doane's nerves. Suddenly the boy cried -out: "Well--that's all? There's nothing more you want to say? What are -you--what are you looking like that for?" - -The sober deep-set eyes of the mate were resting on the high dresser at -the head of the berths. There, tucked away behind the water caraffe, was -a small lamp with a base of cloisonn work in blue and gold and a small, -half globular chimney of soot-blackened glass. - -"What are you looking at? What do you mean?" - -The boy writhed under the steady gaze of this huge man, who rested a big -hand on the upper berth and gazed gravely down at him; writhed, tossed -out a protesting arm, got to his feet and stood with a weak effort at -defiance. - -"Now I suppose you'll go to my father!" he cried. "Well, go ahead! Do -it! I don't care. I'm of age--my money's my own. He can't hurt me. And -he knows I'm on to him. Don't think I don't know some of the things -he's done--he and his crowd. Ah, we're not saints, we Kanes! We're good -fellows--we've got pep, we succeed--but we're not saints." - -"How long have you been smoking opium?" asked the mate. - -"I don't smoke it! I mean I never did. Not until Shanghai. And you -needn't think the pater hasn't hit the pipe a bit himself. I never saw -a lamp until he took me to the big Hong dinner at Shanghai last month. -They had 'em there. And it wasn't all they had, either--" - -"If you are telling me the truth," said the mate. - ---"I am. I tell you I am." - -"--Then you should have no difficulty in stopping. It would take a few -weeks to form the habit. You can't smoke another pipe on this boat." - -"But what right--good lord, if the pater would drag me out here, away -from all my friends.... you think I'm a rotter, don't you!" - -"My opinion is not in question. I must ask you to give me, now, whatever -opium you have." - -Slowly, moodily, evidently dwelling in a confusion of sulky resentful -thoughts, the boy knelt at the cupboard and got out a small card-board -box. - -The mate opened it, and found several shells of opium within. He -promptly pitched it out over the rail. - -"This is all?" he asked. - -"Well--look in there yourself!" - -But the mate was looking at the suit-case, and at the trunk beneath the -lower berth. - -"You give me your word that you have no more?" - -"That's--all," said the boy. - -The mate considered this answer; decided to accept it; turned to go. But -the boy caught at his sleeve. - -"You do think I'm a rotter!" he cried. "Well, maybe I am. Maybe I'm -spoiled. But what's a fellow to do? My father's a machine--that's what -he is--a ruthless machine. My mother divorced him ten years ago. She -married that English captain--got the money out of father for them to -live on, and now she's divorced him. Where do I get off? I know I'm -overstrung, nervous. I've always had everything I want. Do you wonder -that I've begun to look for something new? Perhaps I'm going to hell. I -know you think so. I can see it in your eyes. But who cares!" - -Doane stood a long time at the rail, thinking. The ship's clock in the -social hall struck eight bells. Faintly his outer ear caught it. It was -time to join his excellency. - - - - -CHAPTER III--MISS HUI FEI - -|THE luncheon table of his excellency was simply set, with two chairs of -carven blackwood, behind a high painted screen of six panels. It was at -this screen that the first mate (left by a smiling attendant) gazed with -a frown of incredulity. Cap in hand, he stepped back and studied the -painting, a landscape representing a range of mountains rising above -mist in great rock-masses, chasms where tortured trees clung, towering, -lagged peaks, all partly obscured by the softly luminous vapor--a scene -of power and beauty. Much of the brighter color had faded into the -prevailing tones of old ivory yellow shading into some thing near -Rembrandt brown; though the original, reds and blues still held vividly -in the lower right foreground, where were pictured very small, exquisite -in detail yet of as trifling importance in the majestic scheme of the -painting as are man and his works in all sober Chinese thought when -considered in relation to the grim majesty of nature, a little friendly -cluster of houses, men at work, children at play, domestic animals, a -stream with a water buffalo, a bridge, a wayfarer riding a donkey, -and cultivated fields. The ideographic signature was in rich old gold, -inscribed with unerring decorative instinct on a flat rock surface. - -The mate bent low and looked closely at the brush-work; then stepped -around an end panel and examined the texture of the silk. - -"Ah!"--it was a musical deep voice, speaking in the mandarin -tongue--"you admire my screen, Griggsby Doane." The name was pronounced -in English. - -His excellency wore a short jacket of pale yellow over a skirt of blue, -both embroidered in large circles of lotus flowers around centers of -conventional good-fortune designs, in which the swastika was a leading -motive. His bared head was shaved only at the sides, as the top had long -been bald. He looked gentle and kind as he stood leaning on his cane -and extending a wrinkled hand; smiling in the fashion of forthright -friendship. The thin little gray beard, the unobtrusively courteous -eyes, the calm manner, all gave him an appearance of simplicity that -made it momentarily difficult to think of him as the great negotiator -of the tangled problems of statesmanship involved in the expansion of -Japan, the man who very nearly convinced Europe of American good faith -during the agitated discussion and correspondence that arose out of the -"Open Door" proposals of John Hay, a man known among the observant and -informed in London, Paris and Washington as a great statesman and a -greater gentleman. - -"I thought at first"--thus the mate, touched by the fine honor done -him (an honor that would, he quickly felt, demand tact on the -bridge)--"that it was a genuine Kuo Hsi." - -"No. A copy." - -"So I see. A Ming copy--at least the silk appears to be Ming--the heavy -single strand, closely woven. And the seals date very closely. If it -were woven of double strands, even in the warp alone, I should not -hesitate to call it a genuine Northern Sung." - -"You observe closely, Griggsby Doane. It is supposed that Ch'uan Shih -made this copy." His smile was now less one of kindness and courtesy -than, of genuine pleasure. "You shall see the original." - -"You have that also, Your Excellency?" - -"In my home at Huang Chau." - -"I have never seen a genuine panting of Kuo Hsi. It would be a great -privilege. I have read some of the sayings attributed to him, as taken -down by his son. One I recall--'If the artist, without realizing his -ideal, paints landscapes with a careless heart, it is like throwing -earth upon a deity, or casting impurities into the clean wind.'" - -"Yes," added his excellency, almost eagerly, "and this--'To have in -landscape the opportunity of seeing water and peaks, of hearing the -cry of monkeys and the song of birds, without going from the room.'" -Servants appeared bearing covered dishes. His excellency placed the mate -in the seat commanding the wider view of the river. A clear broth was -served, followed by stewed shell fish with cassia mushrooms, steamed -sharks' fins set red with crabmeat and ham, roast duck stuffed with -young pine needles, and preserved pomegranates, carambolas and plums, -followed by small cups of rice wine. - -The conversation lingered with the great Sung painters, passing -naturally then to the conflict during the eleventh and twelfth centuries -between the free vitality of Buddhist thought and the deadening -formalism of the Confucian tradition. - -And Doane's thoughts, as he listened or quietly spoke, dwelt on the -attainments and character of this great man who was so simple and so -friendly. His excellency had spoken his own full name, Griggsby Doane, -which would mean that the wide-reaching, instantly responsive facilities -for gathering information that may be set at work by the glance of a -viceroy's eye or a movement of his jeweled finger had been brought into -play within the twenty-four hours. - -"My heart is there in the Sung Dynasty," his excellency said. "I never -look upon the old canals of Hang Chow or the ruins of stone-walled lotus -gardens by the Si-hu without sadness. And Kai-feng-fu to-day wrings my -heart." - -"Truly," mused Doane, "it was in the days of Tang and Sung that the soul -of China so nearly found its freedom." - -"You indeed understand, Griggsby Doane!" The two English words stood out -with odd emphasis in the musical flow of cultured Chinese speech. "Had -that spirit endured, China would to-day, I like to think, have Korea -and Manchuria and Mongolia and Sin Kiang. China would not to-day wear -a piteous smile on the lips, turning the head to hide tears of shame, -while the Russians absorb our northern frontiers and the French draw -tribute from Annam and Yunnan, while the English control this great -valley of the Yangtze, while the Germans drive their mailed fist into -Shantung, and the Japanese send their spies throughout all our land and -stand insolently at the very gate of the Forbidden City. I could not, -perhaps, speak my heart freely to one of my own countrymen, but to you I -can say, Confucian scholar though they may term me, that since what you -call the thirteenth century there has been a gradual paralysis of the -will in China, a softening of the political brain.... You will permit an -old man this latitude? I have served China without thought of self -during nearly fifty years. To the Old Buddha I was ever a loyal servant. -If toward the new emperor and the empress dowager I find it impossible -to feel so deeply, my heart is yet devoted to the throne and to my -people. If while sent abroad in service of my country it has been given -me to see much of merit in Western ways, it is not that I have become a -revolutionist, a traitor to the government of my ancestors." - -There was a light in the kindly eyes; a strong ring in the deep voice. -He went on: - -"No, I am not a traitor. It is not that. It is that my country has -suffered, is now prostrate, with a long sickness. She must be helped; -but she must as well help herself. She is like one who has lain too long -abed. She must think, arise, act. With my poor eyes I can see no other -hope for her. Even though I myself may suffer, I can not, in truth to -my own faith, punish those who, loving China as deeply as I myself love -her, yet feel that they must goad her until she awakens from her pitiful -sleep of more than six centuries.... Nor am I a republican. China is not -like your country. In an imperial throne I must believe. Yet, she must -listen to all, study all, draw from all. Freedom of thought there must -be. We must not longer worship books and the dead. We must learn to look -about us and on before." - -Their chairs were drawn about to the window's. Slowly the wide river -slipped off astern. - -"But you, Griggsby Doane, why are you here? This is not the life for -which you so laboriously and so worthily prepared yourself. I knew of -you over in T'ainan-fu. You were a true servant of your faith. After the -dreadful year of the Boxers you returned to your task. And during the -trouble in nineteen hundred and seven, the fighting with the Great Eye -Society in Hansi, you conducted yourself with bravery. I was at Sian-fu -that year, and was well informed. Yet you gave up the church mission." - -The mate's eyes were fixed gloomily on the long vista of the river. For -a moment it seemed as if he would speak; and the viceroy, seeing his -lips part, leaned a little way forward; but then the lips were closed -tightly and the great head bent deliberately forward. - -"I knew," continued his excellency, "when the Asiatic Company of New -York was negotiating with me the contract for rebuilding the banks of -the Grand Canal in Kiang-su that you had gone from T'ainan, and that you -had, as well, left the church. You had even gone from China." - -"That was in nineteen nine," said Doane, in the somber voice of one who -thinks moodily aloud. "I was in America then." - -"Yes, it was in your year nineteen nine. For a time those negotiations -hung, I recall, on the question of the means to be employed in dealing -with local resentments. The trouble over the Ho Shan Company in Hansi, -of which you knew so much and which you met with such noble courage, had -taught us all to move with caution." - -"My position in that Hansi trouble has not been clearly understood, Your -Excellency. I was there only, a short time, and was ill at that." - -The viceroy smiled, kindly, wisely. "You went alone and on foot from -T'ainan-fu to So T'ung in the face of a Looker attack, and yourself -settled that tragic business. You then walked, without even a night's -rest, the fifty-five _li_ from T'ainan to Hung Chan. There, at the city -gate, you were attacked and severely wounded, and crawled to the house -of a Christian native. But while still weak and in a fever you walked -the three hundred _li_ to Ping Yang and made your way through the Looker -army into Monsieur Pourmont's compound...." - -He pronounced the two words "Monsieur Pour-mont" in French. What a -remarkable old man he was--mentally all alive, sensitive as a youth to -the quick currents of life! The accuracy of his information, like his -memory, was surprising. Though to the Westerner, every normal Chinese -memory is that. Merely learning the language needs or builds a -memory.... - -Most surprising was that so deep attention had been given to Doane's own -small case. The fact bewildered; was slow in coming home. For Kang was a -great man; his proper preoccupations were many; that he was a poet, and -had early aspired to the laureateship, was commonly known--indeed, Doane -had somewhere his own translation of Kang's _Ode to the Rich Earth_, -from the scroll in the author's calligraphy owned by Pao Ting Chuan at -T'ainan-fu. As an amateur in the art of his own land of fine taste and -sound historical background he was known everywhere; his collection of -early paintings, porcelains, jades and jewels being admittedly one -of the most valuable remaining in China. And he was reputed to be the -richest individual not of the royal blood (excepting perhaps Yuan Shi -K'ai). - -A contrast, not untinged with a passing bitterness, arose in Doane's -mind. Here before him quietly sat this so-called yellow man who was more -competent than perhaps any other to select his own art treasures and -write his own poems and state papers; whose journals, known to exist, -must inevitably, if not lost in a war-torn land, take their place as a -part of China's history; a man who was at once manufacturer, financier, -and statesman, on whom for a decade a weakening throne had leaned. While -in the cabin forward was a great white man as truly representative -of the new civilization as was Kang of the old; yet who hired men of -special knowledge to select the art treasures that would be left, one -day, in his name and as a monument to his culture, who even employed a -trained writer to pen the work that he proposed unblushingly to call his -"autobiography." For such a man as Dawley Kane, whatever his manners, -Doane felt now, knew only the power of money. Through that alone his -genius functioned; the rest was a lie. On the one hand was culture, on -the other--something else. The thought bit into his brain. - -But his excellency had not finished: - -"And there, my dear Griggsby Doane, while still suffering from your -wound, you learned that those in Monsieur Pourmont's compound were -cut off from communication with their nationals at Peking. You at once -volunteered to go again, alone, through the Looker lines to the railhead -with messages, and successfully did so.... Do you wonder, my dear young -friend, that knowing this, and more, of your honesty and personal force -from my one-time assistant, Pao Ting Chuan, of T'ainan-fu, I pressed -strongly on the gentlemen from New York who represented the Asiatic -Company my desire that they secure you to act as their resident -director? And do you wonder that I regretted your refusal so to act?" - -This statement came to Doane as a surprise. - -"They offered me a position, yes," he said, pondering on the -inexplicable ways in which the currents of life meet and cross. "But -they told me nothing of your interest." - -His excellency smiled. "It might have raised your price. They would -think of that. The sharpest trading, Griggsby Doane, is not done in the -Orient. That I have learned from a long lifetime of struggling against -the aggressions of white nations. During the discussion of the concerted -loan to China--you recall it?--they talked of lending us a hundred -million dollars, gold. To read your New York papers was to think that we -were almost to be given the money. It seemed really a philanthropy. But -do you know what their left hands were doing while their right hands -waved in a fine gesture of aid to the struggling China? These were the -terms. First they subtracted a large commission--that for the bankers -themselves; then, what with stipulations of various sorts as to the uses -to which the money--or the credit--was to be put, mostly in purchases of -railway and war material from their own hongs at further huge profits to -themselves, they whittled it down until the actual money to be expended -under our own direction, amounted to about fifteen millions. And -with that went immense new concessions--really the signing away of an -empire--and new foreign supervision of our internal affairs. For all -these privileges we were to pay an annual interest and later repay the -full amount, one hundred millions. It was quite unbearable." He sighed. -"But what is poor old China to do?" - -Doane nodded gravely. "I felt all that--the sort of thing--when I talked -with representatives of the Asiatic Company. Not that I blamed them, of -course. It is a point of view much larger than any of them; they are but -part of a great tendency. I couldn't go into it." - -"Why not?" The viceroy's keen eyes dropped to the slightly faded blue -uniform, then rested again on the strong face. - -"The past few years--I will pass over the details--have been--well, not -altogether happy for me. I have been puzzled. All the rich years of my -younger manhood were given to the mission work. But I had to leave the -church. At first I felt a joy in simple hard work--I am very strong--but -hard work alone could not satisfy my thoughts." - -"No.... No." - -"For a time I believed that the solution of my personal problem lay in -taking the plunge into commercial life. I had come to feel, out there, -that business was, after all, the natural expression of man's active -nature in our time." - -"Yes. Doubtless it is." - -"It was in that state of mind that I returned home--to the States. But -it proved impossible. I am not a trader. It was too late. My character, -such as it was and is, had been formed and hardened in another mold. I -talked with old friends, but only to discover that we had between us no -common tongue of the spirit. Perhaps if I had entered business early, -as they did, I, too, would have found my early ideals being warped -gradually around to the prevailing point of view." - -"The point stands out, though," said the viceroy, "that you did not -enter business. You chose a more difficult course, and one which -leaves you, in ripe middle age, without the means to direct your life -effectively and in comfort." - -"Yes," mused Doane, though without bitterness. "I feel that, of course. -And it is hard, very hard, to lose one's country. Yet...." - -His voice dropped. He sat, elbow on crossed knees, staring at the -ever-changing river. When he spoke again, the bitter undertone was no -longer in his voice. He was gentler, but puzzled; a man who has suffered -a loss that he can not understand. - -"All my traditions," he said, "my memories of America, were of simple -friendly communities, a land of earnest religion, of political -freedom. In my thoughts as a younger man certain great figures stood -out--Washington, Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Wendell Philips, Philips -Brooks and--yes, Henry Ward Beecher. I had deeply felt Emerson, -Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier. The Declaration of Independence could -still fire my blood. And it was such a land of simple faith that I tried -for so many years, however ineffectually, to represent here in China. -To be sure, disquieting thoughts came--church disunity, the spectacle -of unbridled license among so many of my fellow countrymen in the coast -ports, the methods of certain of our great corporations in pushing their -wares in among your people. But even when I found it necessary to leave -the church, I still believed deeply in my country." - -He paused to control a slight unsteadiness of voice; then went on: - -"May I ask if you, Your Excellency, after your long visits in Europe, -have not come home to meet with something the same difficulty, to -find yourself looking at your own people with the eyes of a stranger, -receiving such an impression as only a stranger can receive?" - -"Indeed, yes!" cried the viceroy softly, with deep feeling. "It is the -most difficult moment, I have sometimes felt, in a man's life. It is -the summit of loneliness, for there is no man among his friends who -can share his view, and there is none who would not misunderstand and -censure him. And yet, a country, a people, like a city, does present -to the alien eye, a complete impression, it exhibits clearly outlined -characteristics that can be observed in no other way. Even the alien -lose? that clear, true impression on very short acquaintance. He then -becomes, like all the others, a part of the picture he has once seen." - -"It is so, Your Excellency. My country, in that first, startled, clear -glance, affected me--I may as well use the word--unpleasantly. It was -utterly different from anything I had known, a trader's paradise, a -place of unbelievable confusion, of an activity that bewildered, rushing -to what end I could not understand." - -He was speaking now not only in the Chinese language but in the idiom as -well, generalizing rhetorically as the Chinese do. It was almost as if -the words came from a Chinese mind. - -They were silent for a time Then the viceroy asked, in his gently abrupt -way: "Why did you leave the church?" - -"Because I sinned." - -"Against the church?" - -"That, and my own faith." - -"Were you asked to leave?" - -"No." - -"They knew of your sin?" - -"I told them." - -"Yet they would have kept you?" - -"Yes. My own feeling was that my superior temporized." - -"He knew your value." - -"I can not say as to that. But he wished me to marry again. I couldn't -do that--not in the spirit intended. Not as I felt." - -"We are different, Griggsby Doane, you and I. I am a Manchu, you an -American. The customs of our two lands are very different. What -would seem a sin to you, might not seem so to me. Yet I, too, have a -conscience to which I must answer. I believe I understand you. It is, I -see, because of your conscience that you sit before me now, on this -boat and in this uniform, a man, as your great Edward Everett Hale has -phrased it, without a country." - -He paused, and filled again the little pipe-bowl, studied it absently as -his wrinkled fingers worked the tobacco. His nails were trimmed short, -like those of a white man. Doane thought, swiftly, of the man's dramatic -past, sent out as he had been to become a citizen of the world by a -nation that would in very necessity fail to understand the resulting -changes in his outlook. There was his daughter; she would be almost an -American, after four years of college life. And she, now, would be a -problem indeed! What could he hope to make of her life in this Asia -where woman, like labor in his own country, was a commodity. It would -be absorbingly interesting, were it possible, to peep into that -smooth-running old brain and glimpse the problems there. They were -gossiping about him. His stately figure was to-day the center about -which coiled the life and death intrigue of Chinese officialdom and over -which hung suspended the silken power of an Oriental throne.... Doane's -personal problem shrank into nothing--a flitting memory of a little -outbreak of egotism--as he studied the old face on which the revealing -hand of Age had inscribed wisdom, kindliness and shrewdness. - -Soft footfalls sounded; then, after a moment, a sharper sound that Doane -assumed, with a slight quickening of the imagination, to be the high -wooden clogs of a Manchu lady, until he realized that no clogs could -move so lightly; no, these were little Western shoes. - -A young woman appeared, slender and comely, dressed in a tailored -suit that could have come only front New York, and smiling with shy -eagerness. She was of good height (like the Manchus of the old stock), -the face nearly oval, quite unpainted and softly pretty, with a broad -forehead that curved prettily back under the parted hair, arched -eyebrows, eyes more nearly straight than slanting (that opened a thought -less widely than those of Western people), and with a quaint, wholly -charming friendliness in her smile. - -He felt her sense of freedom; and knew as she tried to take his huge -hand in her own small one that she carried her Western ways, as her own -people would phrase it, with a proud heart. She was of those aliens who -would be happily American, eager to show her kinship with the great land -of fine free traditions. - -And holding the small hand, looking down at her, Doane found his perhaps -overstrained nerves responding warmly to her fine youth and health. He -reflected, in that swift way of his wide-ranging mind, on the amazing -change in Chinese official life that made it even remotely possible for -the viceroy to present his daughter with a heart as proud as hers. -The change had come about during the term of Doane's own residence.... -America, then, was not alone in changing. It was a shaking, puzzled and -puzzling world. - -"This," his excellency was saying, "is my daughter, Hui Fei." - -"I am very pleas' to meet you," said Hui Fei. - -They sat then. The girl became at once, as in America, the center of -the talk. Though of the heedlessness not uncommonly found among American -girls she had none. She was prettily, sensitively, deferential to her -father. Somewhere back of the bright surface brain from which came the -quick eager talk and the friendly smile, deep in her nature, lay the -sense of reverence for those riper in years and in authority that was -the deepest strain in her race. She dwelt on things almost utterly -American: the brightness of New York--she said she liked it best in -October, when the shops were gay; the approaching Yale-Harvard football -game, a motoring tour through the White Mountains, happy summers at the -seashore. - -Doane watched her, speaking only at intervals, wondering if there might -not be, behind her gentle enthusiasm, some deeper understanding of her -present situation. He could not surely make out. She had humor, and when -he asked if it did not seem strange to step abruptly back into the old -life, she spoke laughingly of her many little mistakes in etiquette. -Her English he found charming. She was continually slipping back into -it from the Mandarin tongue she tried to use, and as continually, with -great gaiety, reaching back into Chinese for the equivalent phrase. She -had so nearly conquered the usual difficulty with the l's and r's as -to confuse them only when she spoke hurriedly. At these times, too, she -would leave off final consonants. The long _e_ became then, a short -_i_. Doane even smiled, with an inner sense of pleasure, at her pretty -emphasis when she once converted _people_ into _pipple_. She was, -unmistakably, a young woman of charm and personality. Despite the -quaintness of her speech, she was accustomed to thinking in the new -tongue. Her command of it was excellent; better than would commonly be -found in America. All of which, of course, intensified the problem. - -His excellency sat back, smoked comfortably, and looked on her with -frankly indulgent pride. - -A servant came with a message; bowing low. The viceroy excused himself, -leaving his daughter and Doane together. Doane asked himself, during the -pause that followed his departure, what the observant attendants beyond -the screen would be thinking. The situation, from any familiar Chinese -point of view, was unthinkable. Yet here he sat; and there, her brows -drawn together (he saw now) in sober thought, sat delightful Miss Hui -Fei. - -She said, in a low voice, while looking out at the river: "Mr. Doane, no -matter what you may think--I mus' see you. This evening. You mus' tell -me where. It mus' not be known to any one. There are spies here." - -Doane glanced up; then, too, looked away. There could be no question now -of the girl's deeper feeling. She was determined. Her tune was honest -and forthright, with the unthinking courage of youth. It would be her -father, of course... - -But his mind had gone blank. He knew not what to think or say. - -"Please!" she murmured. "There is no one else You mus' help us. Tell -me--father will be coming back." - -And then Griggsby Doane heard his own voice saying quietly: "The boat -deck is the only place. You will find a sort of ladder near the stern. -If you can--" - -"I will go up there." - -"It will be only just after midnight that I could arrange to be there." - -His excellency returned then. And Doane took his leave. He had been but -a few moments in his own cabin when two actors of his excellency's suite -appeared, each with a lacquered tray, on one of which was a small chest -of tea, wrapped in red paper lettered in gold and bearing the seal stamp -of the private estate of Kang Yu, on the other an object of more than a -foot in height carefully wound about with cotton cloth. - -Doane dismissed the lictors with a Mexican dollar each and unwrapped -the larger object, which the servant had placed with great care on his -berth. It proved to be a _pi_, a disk of carven jade, in color a perfect -specimen of the pure greenish-white tint that is so highly prized by -Chinese collectors. The diameter was hardly less than ten inches, and -the actual width of the stone from the circular inner opening to the -outer rim about four inches. It stood on edge set in a pedestal of -blackwood, the carving of which was of unusual delicacy. The pedestal -was, naturally, modern, but Doane, with a mounting pulse, studied the -designs cut into the stone itself. That cutting had been done not later -than the Han Dynasty, certainly within two hundred years of the birth of -Christ. - - - - -CHAPTER IV--INTRIGUE - - -|THE _Yen Hsin_ would arrive at Kiu Kiang by mid-afternoon. - -Half an hour earlier. Doane, on the lower deck, came upon a group of -his excellency's soldiers--brown deep-chested men, picturesque in their -loose blue trousers bound in above the ankles and their blue turbans and -gray cartridge belts--conversing excitedly in whispers behind the stack -of coffins near the stern. At sight of him they broke up and slipped -away. - -A moment later, passing forward along the corridor beside the engine -room, he heard his name: "Mr. Doane! If you please!" This in English. - -He turned. Just within the doorway of one of the low-priced cabins stood -a pedler he had observed about the lower decks; a thin Chinese with an -overbred head that was shaped, beneath the cap, like a skull without -flesh upon it; the eyes concealed behind smoked glasses. - -"May I have a word with you, Mr. Doane?" - -The mate considered; then, stooping, entered the tiny cabin. The pedler -closed the door; quietly shot the bolt; then removed his cap and the -queue with it, exposing a full head of stubbly black hair, trimmed, as -is said, pompadour. The glasses came off next; discovering wide alert -eyes. And now, without the cap, the head, despite the hair and the -seriously intellectual face, looked, balanced on its thin neck, more -than ever like a skull. - -"You will not know of me, Mr. Doane. I am Sun Shi-pi of Shanghai. I -was attached, as interpreter, to the yamen of the tao-tai. I left his -service some months ago to join the republican revolutionary party. I -was arrested shortly after that at Nanking and condemned to death, but -his excellency, the viceroy--" - -"Kang?" - -"Yes. He is on this boat. He released me on condition that I go to -Japan. I kept my word--to that extent; I went to Japan--but I could -not keep my word in spirit. My life is consecrated to the cause of the -Chinese Republic. Nothing else matters. I returned to Shanghai, and was -made commander there of the 'Dare-to-dies.' You did not know of such -an organization? You will, then, before the winter is gone. We shall be -heard from. There are other such companies--at Canton, at Wuchang--at -Nanking--at every center." - -Doane seated himself on the narrow couch and studied the quietly eager -young man. - -"You speak English with remarkable ease," he said. - -"Oh, yes. I studied at Chicago University. And at Tokio University I -took post-graduate work." - -"And you are frank." - -"I can trust you. You are known to us, Mr. Doane. Wu Ting Fang trusts -you--and Sun Yat Sen, our leader, he knows and trusts you." - -"I did know Sun Yat Sen, when he was a medical student." - -"He knows you well. He has mentioned your name to us. That is why I am -speaking to you. America is with us. We can trust Americans." - -Doane's mind was ranging swiftly about the situation. "You are running a -risk," he said. - -Sun Shi-pi shrugged his shoulders. "I shall hardly survive the -revolution. That is not expected among the 'Dare-to-dies.'" - -"If his excellency's soldiers find you here they will kill you now." - -"The officers would, of course. Many of the soldiers are with us. -Anyway, it doesn't matter." - -"What is your errand?" - -"I will tell you. The revolution, as you doubtless know, is fully -planned." - -"I've assumed so. There has been so much talk. And then, of course, the -outbreak in Szechuen." - -"That was premature. It was the plan to strike in the spring. This -fighting in Szechuen has caused much confusion. Sun Yat Sen is in -America. He is going to England, and can hardly reach China within -two months. He will bring money enough for all our needs. He is the -organizer, the directing genius of the new republic. But the Szechuen -outbreak has set all the young hotheads afire." - -"I am told that the throne has sent Tuan Fang out there to put down the -disturbance. But we have had no news lately." - -"That is because the wires are cut. Tuan Fang will never come back. We -will pay five thousand taels, cash, to the bearer of his head, and ask -no questions. We must exterminate the Manchus. It has finally come down -to that. It is the only way out. But we must pull together. Did you know -that the Wu Chang republicans plan to strike at once?" - -"No." - -"I have been sent there to tell them to wait. That is our gravest danger -now. If we pull together we shall win. If our emotions run away with our -judgment--" - -"The throne will defeat your forces piecemeal and destroy your morale." - -"Exactly. My one fear is that I may not reach Wu Chang in time. -But"--with a careless gesture--"that is as it may be. I will tell you -now why I spoke to you. We need you. Our organization is incomplete as -yet, naturally. One matter of the greatest importance is that our spirit -be understood from the first by foreign countries. There is an enormous -task--diplomatic publicity, you might call it--which you, Mr. Doane, are -peculiarly fitted to undertake You know both China and the West. You -are a philosopher of mature judgment. You would work in association with -Doctor Wu Ting Fang at our Shanghai offices. There will be money. Will -you consider this?" - -"It is a wholly new thought," Doane replied slowly. "I should have to -give it very serious consideration." - -"But you are in sympathy with our aims?" - -"In a general way, certainly. Even though I may not share your -optimism." - -"On your return to Shanghai would you be willing to call at once on -Doctor Wu and discuss the matter?" - -"Yes.... Yes, I will do that. I must leave you now. We are nearly at Kiu -Kiang." - -Sun, glancing out the window, raised his hand. Doane looked; two small -German cruisers, the kaiser's flag at the taff, were steaming up-stream. - -"They know," murmured Sun, with meaning. "I wish to God I could find -their means of information. They _all_ know. From the Japanese in -particular nothing seems to be hidden. Two or three of your American -war-ships are already up there. And the English, naturally, in force." - -"They must be on hand to protect the foreign colony at Hankow. The -Szechuen trouble would justify such a move." - -But Sun shook his head. "They _know_," he repeated. Then he clasped -Doane's hand. "However.... that is a detail. It is now war. You will find -events marching fast--faster, I fear, than we republicans wish. Good-by -now. You will call on Doctor Wu." - -The steamer moved slowly in toward the landing hulk. Doane, from the -boat deck, by the after bell pull, gazed across at the park-like -foreign bund, with its embankment of masonry and its trees. Behind -lay, compactly, the walled city. Everything looked as it had always -looked--the curious crowd along the railing, the water carriers passing -down and up the steps, the eager shouting swarm of water beggars. Below, -the coolies swung out from the hulk, ready to make their usual breakneck -leap over green water to the approaching steamer. Now--they were -jumping. The passengers were leaning out from the promenade deck to -watch and applaud.... Doane's thoughts, as he went mechanically through -his familiar duties, wandered off inland, past the battlements and -towers of the ancient city to the thousands of other ancient cities -and villages and farmsteads beyond; and he wondered if the scores of -millions of lethargic minds in all those centers of population could -really be awakened from their sleep of six hundred years and stirred -into action. - -Could a republic, he asked himself, possibly mean anything real to -those minds? The habit of mere endurance, of bare existence, was so -deep-seated, the struggle to live so intense, the opportunity so slight. -Sun Shi-pi and his kind were a semi-Western product. They were, when all -was said and done, an exotic breed. They were the ardent, adventurous -young; and they were the few. There had always been a throne in -China, always extortionate mandarins, always a popular acceptance of -conditions. - -The lines were out now. And suddenly a blue-clad soldier climbed over -the rail, below, balanced along the stern hawser, leaped to the hulk, -and was about to disappear among the coolies there when a rifle-shot -cracked and he fell. He seemed to fall, if anything, slightly before the -shot. Another soldier, following close, was caught by a second shot as -he was balancing on the hawser, and spun headlong into the water where -the propeller still churned. - -A few moments later, when Doane moved among the passengers, it became -clear that they knew nothing of the casual tragedy astern. They were all -pressing ashore for a walk in the native city, eager to buy the worked -silver that is traditionally sold there. The slim girl in the middy -blouse had apparently captured young Rocky Kane; they strolled off -across the bund together. But Dawley Kane remained aboard, stretched -out comfortably in a deck chair, listening thoughtfully to the stocky -little Japanese, one Kato, who was by now generally known to be his -_alter ego_ in the matter of buying objects of Oriental art. - -None of these folk knew or cared about China. Excepting this Kato. Him -Doane was continually encountering below decks, chatting smilingly -in Chinese with the good-natured soldiers. His work along the river, -doubtless, ranged over a wider field than his present employer would -ever learn. It would be interesting, now, to know what he was saying, -talking so rapidly and always, of course, smiling.... The rest of this -upper-deck white man's existence Doane dismissed from his mind as he -went about his work. It was all too familiar. Though later he thought of -Rocky Kane. The boy, wild though he might be, had attractive qualities. -It was not pleasant to see that girl get her hands on him. Just one more -evil influence. - -He thought, at this juncture, of the--the word came--appalling change -in himself. That he, once a fervid missionary, could stand back like -a sophisticated European, and let the wandering and vicious and broken -human creatures about him go their various ways, as might be, was -disturbing, was even saddening. Something apparently had died in him. -Sun had called him a philosopher. The Oriental, of course, even the -blazing revolutionist, admired this passive quality, this fatalistic -acceptance of the fact. He sighed. To be a philosopher was, then, to -be emotionally dead. The church had been taken out of his life, -leaving--nothing. A mate on a river steamer, in China. Life had gone -quite topsy-turvey. Even the amazing courtesy of his excellency--it -was that, when you considered--and this profound compliment from the -revolutionary junta seemed but incidents. Too many promises had smiled -at Doane, these years of his spiritual Odyssey--smiled and faded to -nothing--to permit an easy hope of anything new and beautiful. He was -beginning to believe that a man can not build and live two lives. And he -had built and lived one. - -Captain Benjamin found him; a dogged little captain with dull fright -in his eyes. "It's happened," he said, trying desperately to attain an -offhand manner. "Company wire. They're fighting at Wu Chang. What do you -know about that!" - -Doane was silent. It was extraordinarily difficult, here by this calm -old city, on a sunny afternoon, to believe that it was, as Sun had put -it, war. - -"We're to tie up," the captain went on, "until further orders. The -foreign concessions at Hankow were safe enough this noon, but with an -artillery battle just across the river, and an imperial army moving down -from the north over the railway, they stand a lot of show, they do." - -"I wonder if they'll send us on." - -"What difference will it make?" The captain's voice was rising. "You -know as well as I do that they'll be fighting at Nanking before we -could get back there. Here, too, for that matter. I tell you the whole -river'll be ablaze by to-morrow. This bloody old river! And us on a -Manchu-owned boat! A lot o' chance we stand." - -The sight-seers strolled across the shady bund, passed a stone residence -or two and a warehouse, and made their way through the tunneled gateway -in the massive city wall. Little Miss Andrews was escorted by young -Mr. Braker. Miss Means walked with one of the customs men. Two or three -others of the men wandered on ahead. Rocky Kane and the thin girl in the -middy blouse brought up the rear. - -As they entered the crowded city within the wall a babel of sound -assailed their ears--the beating of drums and gongs, clanging cymbals, -a musket shot or two, fire-crackers; and underlying these, rising even -above them, never slackening, a continuous roar of voices. The teachers -paused in alarm, but the customs man smilingly assured them that in a -busy Chinese city the noise was to be taken for granted. - -Nearly every shop along the way was open to the street, and at each -opening men swarmed--bargaining, chaffering, quarreling. The only women -to be seen were those in black trousers on a wheelbarrow that pushed -briskly through the crowds, the barrow man shouting musically as he -shuffled along. Beggars wailed from the niches between the buildings. -Dogs snarled and barked--hundreds of dogs, fighting over scraps of offal -among the hundreds of nearly naked children. - -A mandarin came through in a chair of green lacquer and rich gold -ornament, supercilious, fat, carried by four bearers and followed by -imposing officials who wore robes of black and red and hats with red -plumes. As the street was a scant ten feet in width and the crowds must -flatten against the walls to make way the roar grew louder and higher in -pitch. - -There were shops with nothing but oils in huge jars of earthenware or -in wicker baskets lined with stout paper. There were tea shops with high -pyramids of the familiar red-and-gold parcels, and other pyramids of the -brick tea that is carried on camel back to Russia. There were the shops -of the idol makers, and others where were displayed the carven animals -and the houses and carts and implements that are burned in ancestor -worship, and the tinsel shoes. There were shops where remarkably large -coffins were piled in square heaps, some of glistening lacquer with -the ideograph characters carven or embossed in new gold. There were -varnishers, lacquerers, tobacconists; open eating houses in which could -be seen rows of pans set into brickwork. There were displays of bean -cakes, melon seeds and curious drugs. - -Two Manchu soldiers sauntered by, in uniforms of red and faded blue; -fans stuck in their belts and painted paper umbrellas folded in their -hands. One bore a hooded falcon on his wrist. - -Miss Andrews sniffed the penetrating odor of all China, that was spiced -just here with smells of garlic cooking and frying fish and pork and -strong oil? and--like the perfume of a dainty lady amid the complex -odors of a French theater--an unexpected whiff of burning incense. She -looked up between the high walls, on which hung, close together, the -long elaborate signs of the tradesmen, black and green and red with -gold, always the gold. Across the narrow opening from roof to roof, -extended a bamboo framework over which was drawn coarse yellow matting -or blue cotton cloths; and through these the sunbeams, diffused, glowed -in a warm twilight, with here and there a chance ray slanting down with -dazzling brightness on a golden sign character. - -"It's all rather terrifying," murmured Miss Andrews, at Braker's ear, -"but it's beautiful--wonderful! I never dreamed of China being so human -and real." - -"And to think," said he eagerly, "that it has always been like this, and -always will be. It was just so in the days of Abraham and Isaac. The -one people in the world that doesn't change. It's their whole -philosophy--passive non-resistance, peace. And-do you know, I'm -beginning to wonder if they aren't right about it. For here they are, -you know. Greece is dead. Rome's dead. And Assyria, and Egypt. But here -they are. It's their philosophy that's done it, I suppose. Almost be -worth while to come out here and live a while, when our part of the -world gets too upset. Just for a sense of stability--somewhere." - -These two young persons, dreaming of stability while the earth prepared -to rock beneath their feet! - -Rocky Kane and the slim girl had dropped out of sight, lingering at this -shop and that. The party later found them at a silversmith's counter. -They had bought a heap of the silver dragon-boxes and cigarette cases; -and then devised a fresh little idea in gambling, weighing ten Chinese -dollars against other ten in the balanced scales, the heavier lot -winning. - -Young Kane had got through his clothing, somehow, there in the street, -to his money belt, for he held it now carelessly rolled in one hand. He -was flushed, laughing softly. He and the thin girl were getting on. - -"Come along, you two," remarked the customs man. "We stop only two hours -here." - -The young couple, gathering up their purchases and the heaps of silver -dollars, slowly followed. - -"That was great!" exclaimed Rocky Kane. The thin girl, he had decided, -was a good fellow. She was always quiet, discreet, attractive. In her -curiously unobtrusive way she seemed to know everything. The face was -cold in appearance. Yet she was distinctly friendly. Made you feel that -nothing you might say could disturb or shock her. He wondered what could -be going on behind those pale quiet eyes, behind the thin lips. The -men had remarked on the fact that she was traveling alone. She was -a provocative person--the curiously youthful costume; the black hair -gathered at the neck and tied, girlishly, with a bow--really an exciting -person. The way she had taken that little scene out on deck with the -gorgeous Chinese girl--Rocky knew nothing of the distinctions between -the Asiatic peoples--who spoke English; quite as a matter of course. -Though she took everything that way. This little gambling, for instance. -She loved it--was quick at it. - -"I'm wondering about you," he said, as they wandered along. -"Wondering--you know--why you're traveling this way. Have you got folks -up the river?" - -"Oh, no," she replied--never in his life had he known such self-control; -there wasn't even color in her voice, just that easy quiet way, that -sense of giving out no vitality whatever. "Oh, no. I have some business -at Hankow and Peking." - -That was all she said. The subject was closed. And yet, she hadn't -minded his asking. She was still friendly; he felt that. His feelings -rose. He giggled softly. - -"Lord!" he said, "if only the pater wasn't along!" - -"Does he hold you down?" - -"Does he? Brought me out here to discipline me. Trying to make me go -back to college--make a grind of me.... I was just thinking--here's a -nice girl to play with, and plenty of fun around, and not a thing to -drink. He gave me fits at Shanghai because I took a few drinks." - -"You have the other stuff," said she. He turned nervously; stared at -her. But she remained as calmly unresponsive as ever. Merely explained: -"I smelt it, outside your cabin. You ought to be careful--shut your -window tight when you smoke it." - -He held his breath a moment; then realized, with an uprush of feeling -warmer than any he had felt before, that he had her sympathy. She would -never tell, never in the world. That big mate might, but she wouldn't. - -She added this: "I can give you a drink. Wait until things settle down -on the boat and come to my cabin--number four. Just be sure there's no -one in the corridor. And don't knock. The door will be ajar. Step right -in. Do you like sak?" - -"Do I--say, you're great! You're wonderful. I never knew a girl like -you!" - -She took this little outbreak, as she had taken all his others, without -even a smile. It was, he felt, as if they had always known each other. -They understood--perfectly. - -If he had been told, then, that this girl had been during two or three -vivid years one of the most conspicuous underworld characters along the -coast--that coast where the underworld was still, at the time of our -narrative, openly part of what small white world there was out here--a -gambler and blackmailer of what would very nearly have to be called -attainment--he would have found belief impossible, would have defended -her with the blind impulsiveness of youth. - -It was said that the steamer would not proceed at the scheduled hour, -might be delayed until night. Disgruntled white passengers settled down, -in berth and deck chair, to make the best of it. There was, it came -vaguely to light, a little trouble up the river, an outbreak of some -sort. - -Rocky Kane, a flush below his temples, slipped stealthily along the -corridor. At number four he paused; glanced nervously about; then, -grinning, pushed open the door and softly closed it behind him. - -The strange thin Miss Carmichael was combing out her black hair. With a -confused little laugh he extended his arms. But she shook her head. - -"Sit down and be sensible," she said. "Here's the sak." - -She produced a bottle and poured a small drink into a large glass. He -gulped it down. - -"Aren't you drinking with me?" he asked. - -"I never take anything." - -"You're a funny girl. How'd you come to have this?" - -"It was given to me. You'd better slip along. I can't ask you to stay." - -"But when am I going to see you, for a good visit?" - -"Oh, there'll be chances enough. Here we are." - -"That's so. Looks as if we'd stay here a while, too. There's a battle -on, you know, up at Wu Chang and Hankow. Big row. We get all the -news from Kato. He's that Japanese that father has with him. The -revolutionists have captured Wu Chang, and are getting ready to cross -over. The imperial army's being rushed down to defend Hankow. Regular -doings. Shells were falling in the foreign concessions this morning. -Kato's got all the news there is. It's a question whether we'll go on -at all. You see the Manchus own this boat, and the republicans would -certainly get after us. There are enough foreign warships up there to -protect us, of course.... How about another drink?" - -"Better not. Your father will notice it." - -"He won't know where I got it." Rocky chuckled. He felt himself an -adventurous and quite manly old devil--here in the mysterious girl's -cabin, watching her as she smoothed and tied her flowing hair, and -sipping the potent liquor from Japan. "It's funny nothing seems to -surprise you. Did you know they were fighting up there?" - -"No." - -"Wouldn't you be a little frightened if we were to steam right into a -battle?" - -"I shouldn't enjoy it particularly." - -"Aren't you even interested? Is there anything you're interested in?" - -"Certainly--I have my interests. You must go--really.... No, be quiet! -Some one will hear! We can visit to-night--out on deck." - -"But you're--I don't understand! Here we are--like this--and you shoo me -out. I don't even know your first name." - -"My name is Dixie--but I don't want you to call me that." - -"Why not? We're friends, aren't we--" - -"Of course, but they'd hear you." - -"Oh!" - -"Wait--I'll look before you go.... It's all clear now." - -They visited long after dinner. He was brimming with later advices from -the center of trouble up the river. Mostly she listened, studying him -with a mind that was keener and quicker and shrewder in its sordid -wisdom than he would perhaps ever understand. - -Everything that Kato had told his father and himself he passed eagerly -on to her. He was a man indeed now; making an enormous impression; -possessor of inside information of a vital sort--the viceroy's priceless -collection of jewels, jades, porcelains and historic paintings, which -Kato was advising his father to pick up for a song while red revolution -raged about the old Manchu, the dramatic plans of the republicans, their -emblems and a pass-word (Kato knew everything)--"Shui-li"--"union is -strength"; the small meeting below decks ending in the death of two -soldiers. He dramatized this last as he related it. - -The girl, lying still in her chair, listened as if but casually -interested, while her mind gathered and related to one another the -probable facts beneath his words. She was considering his dominant -quality of ungoverned hot-blooded youth. Of discretion he clearly enough -had none; which fact, viewed from her standpoint, was both important and -dangerous. For the information he so volubly conveyed she had immediate -use. That was settled, however cloudy the details. But this further -question as to the advisability of holding the boy personally to herself -she was still weighing. Two courses of action lay before her, each -leading to a possible rich prize. If the two could be combined, well and -good; she would pursue both. But it was not easy to sense out a possible -combination. The obvious first thought was to go whole-heartedly after -the larger of the prizes and as whole-heartedly forget the other. As -usual in all such choices, however, the lesser prize was the easier to -secure. Perhaps, even, by working--the word "working" was her own--with -great rapidity she might make--again her word--a killing with this wild -youth in time to discard him and pursue the still richer prize. - -Because he was, at least, the bird in hand, she submitted passively when -his fingers found hers under the steamer rug. Twilight was thickening -into night now on the river. And they were in a dim corner. He was, she -saw, at the point of almost utter disorganization. He was sensitive, -emotional, quite spoiled. It was almost too easy to do what she might -choose with him. It would be amusing to tantalize him, if there -were time; watch him struggle in the net of his own nervously unripe -emotions, perhaps shake him down (we are yet again dropping into her -phraseology) without the surrender of a _quid pro quo_. That would -please her sense of cool sharp power. But he might in that event, like -the young naval officer down at Hong Kong, shoot himself; which wouldn't -do. No, nothing in that! - -This other larger matter, now, was a problem indeed; really, as yet, -only a haze in her sensitive, strangely gifted mind. It put to the test -at once her imagination, her instinct for dangerous enterprise, -her skill at organizing the sluggish minds of others. It would mean -dangerous and intense activity. - -She asked, in a careless manner, where the viceroy kept his treasures; -and fixed in her mind the place he named--Huang Chau. - -The fool was squeezing her fingers now; unquestionably building in his -ungoverned brain an extravagant image of herself; an image wrapped -in veils of somewhat tarnished but certainly boyish innocence, -sentimentalized, curiously less interesting than the complicated -wickedness and intrigue of actual human life as it presented itself to -her. - -When he tried to kiss her she left him. But lingered to listen to -his proposal that she should follow him to his own cabin; smiled -enigmatically in the dusk beneath the deck light; humming lightly, -pleasingly, she moved away; turned to watch him bolting for his room. - -She strolled around the deck then. Apparently none other was sitting -out. The teachers and the young men were spending the evening, she knew, -with Dawley Kane at the consulate. Rocky had got out of that. Tex Connor -was in his cabin; reading, doubtless, with his one good eye. For rough -as he might be, this gambler and promoter of boxing and wrestling -reveled secretly in love stories. He read them by the hundred, the -old-fashioned paper-covered romances and tales of adventure. A pretty -able man. Tex; useful in certain sorts of undertakings; certainly useful -now; but with that curious romantic strain--a weakness, she felt. And -a difficult man, strong, arrogant, leaning on crude power and threats -where she leaned on delicately adjusted intrigue. Had Tex known better -how to cover his various trails he would be in New York or London now, -not out here on the coast picking up small change. Approaching him would -be a bit of a problem; for a year or so their ways, hers and his, had -lain far apart. It was not known, here on the boat, that they were so -much as casually acquainted. They bowed at the dining table; nothing -more. - -The Manila Kid was in the social hall, rummaging through the shelf -of battered and scratched records above the taking machine. A quaint -spirit, the Kid; weak, oddly useless, gloomily devoted to music of a -simple sort, quite without enterprise. But.... by this time the delicate -steel machinery of her mind was functioning clearly.... he would -serve now, if only as a means of solving that first little problem of -interesting Tex. - -She paused in the doorway; caught his furtive eye, and with a slight -beckoning movement of her head, moved back into the comparative -darkness. Slowly--thick-headedly of course--he came out. - -"Jim," she said, "I'm wondering if you and Tex wouldn't like to pick up -a little money." - -"What do you think we are?" he replied in a guarded sulky voice. "Tex -dropped three thousand at that fight. There's no talking to him. He's -rough--that's what he is." - -"Jim--" she considered the man before her deliberately; his lank -spineless figure, his characterless, hatchet face: "Jim, send Tex to -me." - -"Why should I, Dix? Answer me that." - -"Don't act up, Jim. I've never handed you anything that wasn't more -than coming to you. I know all about you, Jim. Everything! I'm not -talking--but I know. This is a big proposition I've got in mind, and -you'll get your share, if you come in and stick with me? How about half -a million in jewels?" - -"I don't know's Tex would care to go in for anything like that. If it's -a yegg job--" - -"I'm not a yegg," she replied crisply. "Ask Tex to slip around here. I -don't want to talk on that side of the deck." - -"I suppose you wouldn't like young Kane to know what you are--er?" - -"That sort of talk won't get you anywhere, Jim." - -"Well--I've got eyes, you know." - -"Better learn how to use them. You hurry around to Tex's cabin. We may -have to move quickly." Sulkily the Kid went; and shortly returned. - -"Well"--this after a silence--"what did he say? Is he coming?" - -"He wants you to go around there--to his stateroom." - -"I won't do that. He's got to come here." - -This decision lightened somewhat the gloom on the Kid's saturnine -countenance. He went again, more briskly. - -The girl slipped into her own cabin and consulted a folding map of China -she had there. Huang Chau--she measured roughly from the scale with her -thumb--would be seventy or eighty miles up-stream from Kiu Kiang here, -perhaps thirty-five down-stream from Hankow. - -Tex was chewing a cigar by the rail At her step his round impassive face -turned toward her. - -She said, "Hello, Tex!" - -He replied, his one eye fixed on her: "Well, what is this job?" - -"Listen, Tex--are you game for a big one?" - -"What is it?" - -"The revolution's broken out at Hankow--or across at Wu Chang--" - -"Yes, I know!" - -"There's going to be another big battle near Hankow. The republicans are -moving over. Sure to be a mix-up." - -"Oh. yes!" - -"There'll be loot--" - -"Oh, that!" - -"Wait! I know where there's a collection of jewels--diamonds, pearls, -rubies, emeralds--all kinds." - -"Do you know how to get it?" - -"Yes. It's a big thing. We'd be selling stones for years in America and -Europe, Will you go in with me, fifty-fifty?" - -"What's the risk?" - -"Not much--with things so confused. Looks to me like one of those -chances that just happens once in a hundred years. Take some imagination -and nerve." - -"Where is this stuff?" - -"I'll tell you when we get there. You'll have to trust me about that. -I've never lied to you, and you have lied to me." - -"But--" - -"Listen! Here's the idea. There's a lot of nervous soldiers on this boat -that wouldn't mind a little loot on their own. Here's your boxer--what's -his name?" - -"Tom Sung." Connor's eye never left her face; and she, on her part, -never flinched. - -"To those soldiers he's the biggest man on earth. _He_ wouldn't mind a -little clean-up either. Oh, there's enough, Tex--plenty! You see what -I'm getting at. With your Tom for a leader you can pick up a few of -those soldiers, enough to get away clean--" - -"But they're shooting 'em!" - -"They shot two. They'd have trouble shooting forty. Make Tom do the -work--right now, to-night, while we're lying up here. They'll follow -him; and you won't have to stand back of him if he's caught. He'll just -be one of the rebels then. Get this right, Tex! It's a real chance. -You'll never get another like it. With the soldiers we can get a -launch--hire it, even, if you want to play safe--and go right up there -and get the stuff. Nobody'll ever know it wasn't just a case of soldiers -on the loose." - -"How're you going to get away? They'd know we weren't here, wouldn't -they?" - -"Don't try to tell me we couldn't slip out of China, if we had to. This -isn't England or America. I don't believe we'd even have to. Just a case -of playing it right--using your head." - -"Where is this place?" - -"It's there, and I'll take you to it." - -"You'll have to tell me." - -Quietly she moved her head in the negative. He would hardly know that -the viceroy was not going on through to Hankow and Peking; she had the -information herself only from Rocky Kane. Nor would he know, by any -chance, the situation of his excellency's ancestral home. For Tex was -not what they termed a "sinologue"; he knew white men and women and -yellow servants, the steamers and railways, the gambling clubs and race -tracks; little else. There was then, little reason why he should think -of the viceroy at all. - -"It's anything from a million or two up, Tex," she said coolly. "And -my information comes straight. I'll prove it by taking the chance with -you." - -He shook his head; half turned. "Where is it?" She smiled. - -He left her abruptly then. And coolly she watched him go. It would take -a little time for Tex's imagination to rise to it; and until the last -moment he would try to bluff her down. It was just poker; they had -played that game before, she and Tex. Once he had robbed her. But not -this time--not, as she phrased it, if she saw him first. - -The Kid came edging out of the social hall. "Will he do it?" he -whispered hoarsely. - -"He says he won't," replied Dixie. - -"Say--that's tough! I didn't think Tex would overlook a thing like that. -What's the matter?" Dixie now considered this curiously useless man. Or -useless he had always seemed to her. Now she was not so sure. "He makes -it a condition that I tell him where the stuff is." - -"Well--Dix, you'd tell him that, wouldn't you?" The Kid was whining. "If -you really knew yourself." - -"Of course I won't tell him, Jim. Not yet." - -His eyes sank before hers. He fumbled in a pocket; produced a tiny wrist -watch of platinum. "Look here. Dix," he remarked clumsily, "things ain't -always been's pleasant as they might be between you and I, but I was -wondering if you wouldn't put this on, for old times' sake, like." - -She took the gift, weighed in in her hand. "Thank you, Jim," she -replied. "That's awfully nice of you. Though perhaps I'd better not wear -it here on the boat." - -"I suppose young Kane might ask questions, eh?" - -"Nothing like that. I'll wear it. Here--you snap the catch, Jim." - -"I--I might wish it on, Dix, like the kids do." - -"All right. Have you wished?" - -"Sure, Say, Dix, you won't mind the little place where the initials got -scratched off inside the back cover. Nobody'll see that." - -"Surely not," said Dixie. - -At a little after midnight Griggsby Doane mounted to the boat deck and -walked quietly aft past the funnels and the engine room ventilators. A -half moon threw shadows along the bund and among the landing hulks and -the moored silent sampans, lorchas, junks. The mile-wide river shimmered -in a million ripples. - -A slight figure rose from a skylight. - -Hui Fei wore the black jacket and trousers of the lower class Chinese -women below decks. Her head was uncovered, and her hair waved prettily -down across the wide forehead. She should have oiled it flat, of course, -to complete her disguise; this careless arrangement was charming in the -moonlight but was neither Manchu nor Chinese. - -Doane found himself holding her small hand and looking gravely down at -her. He even slowly shook his head. "You must tell me quickly what you -have to say, Miss Hui. As soon as possible you must go back. This is -very unsafe." - -"Oh, yes," she said. "It will not be long. It is ver' har' to say. But I -am so alone. There is no one to tell me what I mus' do." - -She plunged bravely into her story. Her information had come from one or -another of her maids. And she had overheard gossip among the mandarins. -The throne had sent her father the silken cord. She could not discover -why. To be sure they called him a secondary devil, meaning one who -sympathised with the foreigners. The reactionary Manchus at Peking, -reveling and plotting within the sacred walls of the Forbidden City, -remembered nothing, it appeared, of the recent past. The eunuchs, always -the stormy petrels of China's darkest days, were again in power at -the palace; the great empress dowager, she whom all China termed, -half-affectionately, "the Old Buddha," had given them their head, and -now this new young empress with all the arrogance of the Old Buddha and -none of her genius for power or her profound experience, was running -wild. And as a consequence, Kang Yu, the statesman who more than any -other was equipped to counsel her wisely during this stormy time, was -returning to the home of his ancestors to die by his own hand. It -would be said at the Forbidden City that a gracious empress dowager had -"permitted" him to go.... Doane's disturbed thoughts darted back over the -bloodstained recent history of Manchu officialdom. The Old Buddha had -"permitted" Ch'i Ying, late Manchu Viceroy of Canton, to slay himself; -and had graciously extended the same privilege to others after the Boxer -trouble of the year 1900, among them an acquaintance of Doane's, Chao -Shu-ch'iao. Others she had decapitated--Yuan Ch'ang, Li Shan, Controller -of the Household, and Hsu Ching, President of the Board of War. She -killed, too, Hsu Ching-Ch'eng, who, like Kang, had held the post of -minister in more than one of the capitals of Europe. The only known -charge against this Hsu was that he had come to admire foreign customs. - -In her narrative the girl spoke only English. Her voice was deep -in quality, without heaviness; musical, like most voices among the -better-to-do in the Middle Kingdom, Chinese and Manchu alike. And, -colored now with deep emotion, it had an appealing quality to which -Doane found a response--difficult, at the moment, to repress--among his -own emotions. He sensed, too, with a pleasure that was, in his lonely -life, stirring, the naivet of her Western feeling. Standing here in -simple native costume, in the heart of old China, gazing wistfully out -over the tangled hundreds of sleeping junks and sampans, this girl, -freshly out of a Massachusetts college, was pleading against hope that -her father might be spared the final jealous vengeance of the mightiest -remaining Oriental throne. - -The China that Doane had so long known, that had, indeed, for better -or worse, been woven into the fiber of his being, was turning suddenly -incredible. He stared, more intently than he knew, straight down at -the slim little figure--for beside his own huge frame this tall girl -appeared as hardly more than a child--at the unadorned face that was -softly girlish, at the Mack hair waving down over the pale forehead, -glistening in the moonlight. - -"They mean to confisca'"--she left off, in her eagerness to explain, -the final _te_--"all his property. Tell me, Mister Duane, can they do -that--all his property?" - -He reflected. There would be vast areas of tea-lands and rice lands, -almost innumerable shares in these new corporations, the famous -collections of jades, paintings, carvings and jewels. Finally he -inclined his head. - -"I'm afraid they could. It would be an outrageous act, but the -government now, I'm sorry to say, is in outrageous hands. If the empress -is determined, as apparently she is, there are ways enough of getting -at all his possessions. Even through the banks." His heart was full, his -voice tender; but he could not deceive her. He added a question: "Does -his excellency, your father, know all this?" - -She nodded. "I have tol' him. But I can no' make him see it like me. Oh, -we are so differen'. I am, you see, an American girl. I am free here," -she laid a pretty hand on her breast. "When I try to think of all these -dreadful things--of these wicked eunuchs an' the empress who is like -thousan' of years ago--blin', childish!--an' the people who can no' yet -see it differen'--I get bewilder'. You un'erstan'. You are an American, -too. I can speak with you. That is well, because there isn' anybody else -I can speak with. An' my father admires you. If you will only speak with -him--if you will only help me make him think differen'!" - -Doane wondered what he could do, what she imagined he could do, without -influence or money. He quite forgot, in this matter of influence alone, -the significance of the viceroy's courtesy, as of Sun Shi-pi's appeal -to him. For a little too long he had been a beaten man. It was becoming -dangerously near a habit so to consider himself. And now, to make active -dear thinking impossible, emotion flooded his brain. Gently he asked her -what she would have him do. - -"My father will no' listen when I speak, He is ver' kind, ver' generous. -He has made me an American girl. That is one of the things they say is -wrong. Even for tha' they attack his good name. But when I ask Him no' -to do this, no' to die so wrongly, he speaks to me like an ol' Manchu of -long ago." - -"He is between the worlds," mused Doane, aloud. - -"Yes, it is that. An' I, perhaps, am between the worl's." - -"And I." - -"But he mus' no' do it! It is so simple! The throne will no' live. Not -one year more. I know that. They are fighting now at Wu Chang." - -Doane inclined his head. "I know that, Miss Hui, but the revolution has -not yet gone so far that success is sure." - -"But it is sure. The people will everywhere rise. I know it--here!" - -"That is my hope, too. But to stir this great land means so much in -effort and education. You have changed, yes. Your father has changed. -Sun Yat Sen was educated in a medical school and has lived in America -and England; he has changed. But all China--I do not want to dash your -hopes, dear Miss Hui, but I fear China is not nearly so far along as you -and I would wish." - -"Then--even so--mus' my father die because a wicked empress has no -brains? It is no' right. Listen, please! If you, Mis'er Doane, would -jus' try to persua' my father! He will listen to you. Oh, if you woul' -stay with us, an' help us. We coul' take some money, some jewels, an' -escape down the river--to Shanghai--to Japan, or even America. My father -mus' no' die like this. There will be a few servan's we can trus'. You -speak to my father, sir, an' he will listen. I know that. He says you -have the mind of the ol' philosopher--of Lao-tze himself. He said that. -An' you have the Western strength that he admires. An' he says you -un'erstan' China. Oh, will you speak to him?" - -Doane stared out into the luminous night. This response in his breast -to her eager youth frightened him now. He had felt of late that life -mattered little; certainly not his own. But youth, and hope, and -faith--they mattered. - -He took her small hand in his own. His heart was beating high. It was -going to be hard now, to control his voice. He was, then, after all the -years, the struggles, the beatings, incurably romantic.... - -Stirred yet by the vibrant pulse of youth that in some men and women -never dies. He himself had thought this negative spirit of the past few -years a philosophy, but apparently, it was nothing of the sort. Or where -was it now? Tor he was suddenly all nervously alive, a man of vigor and -pride, a man of urgent emotional need.... - -"I will try," he said. - -She clung to his hand. "I have your promise?" - -He bowed. "I must think. I should not like to fail. There will be time. -He will"--it was hard to phrase this--"he will wait, surely, until he is -at home. But you must not stay longer here. And we must not meet again -like this. I will try my best to help you." - -It seemed a pitifully inadequate speech. But the wild impulse was upon -him to clasp her lovely person in his arms--claim her, fight for her, -live again a man's life through and for her. It was, he deliberately -thought, almost insane in him. A man with nothing to offer, not even the -great hope of youth, struggling against an emotion, a hunger, that it -was grotesque to indulge. He compressed his lips tightly. - -She seemed breathless. For a moment she pressed her hands to her cheeks -and eyes; then waved to him and went lightly down the ladder. - - - - -CHAPTER V--RESURGENCE - -|THE upper-deck passengers awoke in the morning to find the engines -still at rest, and the now familiar View of Kiu Kiang still to be seen -from port-side windows; the _Yen Hsin_ had merely been moved a hundred -yards or so below the landing hulk and anchored. There was grumbling -about the breakfast table. The captain did not appear. The huge mate was -preoccupied; explaining with grave courtesy that he had no further news. -He assumed that orders to proceed to Hankow would be forthcoming -during the day. It was understood now that the republican troops -were everywhere protecting white folk, and, in any event, the foreign -concessions up the river were well guarded by the war-ships. - -The outstanding fact was that they were to spend at least another night -on the river. The sensible thing to do, or so decided the younger men, -was to have a dance. Accordingly, before tiffin, committees were hard -at work planning decorations for the social hall. Miss Means proved a -fertile source of entertaining ideas. And it was agreed, during the day, -that Miss Andrews had a pretty taste at hanging flags. - -The Chinese day begins with the light. And little Mr. Kato, sitting -smilingly through breakfast, had already passed hours among his -below-decks acquaintance. After breakfast he sat outside with the Kanes, -senior and junior, talking rapidly. There Miss Carmichael observed them; -later, when Rocky stood by the rail throwing brass cash down into -the crowding, nosing sampans of the water beggars, she strolled his -way--looking incredibly young--carrying a book from the boat's library, -a thin finger between the pages as a mark. She smiled at the quarreling -beggars below. But he, at sight of her, grew sulky. - -"You didn't come last night," he said, very low, his voice thick with -suddenly rising feeling. - -"No, I couldn't. You can't always plan things." - -"Well, you said--" - -"Rocky, please! You mustn't talk like that. We can be seen." - -"Well--" he closed his lips. It was the first time she had called him -by his name. That seemed something. And she was right; they must keep up -appearances. He felt that she was extremely clever; living her own life -as a business woman, away out here, doing as she chose, like a man, -never losing her head for a moment. Well, he would show her that he -could be a sport. - -"Kato picked up some queer news this morning, prowling around. There's a -mutiny brewing below decks. He hasn't got all the facts, yet. He's down -there now. It's the viceroy's soldiers. First! thing we know they'll be -blowing up the boat." He was gloomy about it; boyishly tun ing his heavy -burden of self-pity and reproach into the new channel. - -"Well," said she, "we'll all have to take our chances, I suppose," and -moved away a step, pausing and balancing gracefully on the balls of her -feet and smiling at him. - -"Wait," he muttered--"don't go!" - -"It's better. No good in our being seen too much together--" - -"Too much?" - -"I'll save you some dances to-night." - -"A lot! All of them!" - -She smiled again at this outburst; said, "We can visit afterward, -anyhow," and moved away. - -On the other side of the deck she found the Manila Kid leaning in a -doorway, moodily chewing a match. His listless eyes at once sought her -wrist. - -"You're not wearing it," he muttered. - -"You know why, Jim." - -"Sure! Young Kane." - -"Oh, Jim, where are your brains? Don't try to tell me that Tex hasn't -seen that watch.... Well, do you want him to know there's something -between us--just now--" - -"I don't know's I--" - -Her pale cool eyes swept the deck. Then she leaned beside him; opened -her book, then looked out over it at the shipping and the dimpling river -beyond; smiled in her easy way. "Jim, why didn't you tell me that Tex -has started this thing without me?" - -"I've been watching for a chance to." - -She considered this. He went on: - -"Look here, Dixie, this is big stuff!" - -"Of course." - -"I've been trying to figure out how we stand. I didn't quite get you -last night. Tex and his boy Tom have got a bunch of the soldiers now. -But they're moving careful because there's another show been started. -One of the regular revolutionary crowd is below there stirring 'em up. -Some of 'em are full of this republic idea, want to die for it and all -that stuff, and Tex has to move cautious to buy 'em off. Say, what does -he want so many for?" - -"The more the better." - -"But how're you going to pay 'em?" - -"Let them loot." - -"But Tex--and Tom--are promising them part of the real stuff, jewels." - -"Oh, you'd probably have to promise. But when they get into it, with -plenty of loot and liquor and women, it'll be easy enough to get away -from them." - -"But how're you going to keep 'em in hand before that? Do you know what -some of 'em are whispering around now? They want to carve up the boat. -Come right up here and go through the viceroy's outfit." - -"But he hasn't much stuff here, Jim. We've got bigger game than that." - -"I know--and anyway it'd bring a gunboat down on us. That's what Tex is -trying to make Tom see. Tom's in Tex's room now. But my God, Dixie, when -I think of what you've started in that offhand way o' yours...." - -"Tex'll hold them down, Jim. That's one good thing about him, he's not -weak. You're nervous. Better go in and help the teachers hang flags. -That'll soothe you. You and I mustn't talk any more either. If there's -any news for me, better send me a chit by a boy." - -The Kid looked mournfully at her. He was a grotesque, this Jim Watson, -tall, angular, thin bony face under the tipped-back cap, bald salients -running up into his hair on either side the plastered-down front locks. -And as he gazed on this wisp of a girl who had slipped mysteriously -in among the adroit swindlers and adventuresses of the coast but a few -brief years back and had from the very beginning cleverly made her way, -his disorganized spirit yearned toward her. She had brains, and used -them. She knew how to be nice to a fellow, and the Kid hungered for -sympathy. And she was piquantly desirable: in part because men sought -her without success. Except perhaps that young naval officer at Hong -Kong, the name of no man had been seriously linked with hers; and -the fact that he was an eldest son of one of the richest and greatest -families in England in a measure removed the incident beyond the -confines of normal human experience. No, the Kid could hardly feel that -he ought to resent that. He knew, as he so moodily surveyed her, that -her sympathy--the word was his own--could be bought only at a high -price. The price, indeed, frightened him. He couldn't think along with -Dixie and Tex. Nor could he easily conceive of opposing Tex, for the man -was strong and merciless. Still.... - -"See here, Dixie, if I wasn't so fool crazy over you, do you think for -a minute I'd let you drag me into this kind of a mix-up? Why, my -God!--when I got to thinking about it last night--the risks you're -running--" - -"It's big stakes, Jim. You can't expect a million to fall into your lap. -Got to play for it. Tell me--does this Tom Sung understand English?" - -"Of course! He was a farm laborer in California, and a cook in the -United States Navy. Why?" - -"I may have to talk to him myself before we get through with it." - -"Of course you know Tex means to rob you?" - -"Of course," said she, smiling a little for the benefit of a customs man -who appeared up forward. "You run along now, Jim. This is no game for -weak nerves. Remember, I need you." - -"Well--just this--" - -"Careful!" - -"--You listen, now! You won't find me getting-cold feet--" - -"I'm sure of that." - -"And I ain't afraid o' Tex Connor, either! If you mean that I've got -to go up against him--Well, say, look here! If I go through--if I do -everything you say--how're we going to stand, you and me?" - -"I let you give me the watch, didn't I?" - -"Well--that's all right--but I asked you once to go to the Islands with -me, and you wouldn't." - -"Not over there. I know too many people." - -"Well, somewhere else, then! Tell me straight, now! If we pull this -off--shake down a real pile--will you go with me?" - -She looked thoughtfully at him for a brief moment; then turned again to -the river. "You know I'm fond of you, Jim." - -"It's a trade, Dixie? If I stick to you, you'll stick to me?" - -She considered this; finally, very quietly, barely parting her lips, -replied, simply: "Yes." - -He drew in his breath with a whistling sound. - -She added, then: "Careful, Jim! I know how you feel, but don't let -yourself talk." - -"I know, Dix, but my God! When I think of how you've kept me dancing -this year--and now--" - -"I'll say this, Jim. Just this. If you knew everything about Tex -Connor--" - -"You mean, he's tried to--" - -"I mean certain things he's said to me. If you're as fond of me as that -you'd understand why I've felt, once or twice, like killing him. That -man is a devil, Jim." - -Then she slipped away. - -Miss Carmichael sat deliberately through tiffin; discreetly quiet, as -always; apparently without nerves. The Kid ate rapidly, speaking not a -word, seldom looking up from his plate. Tex Connor was calmly wooden, as -always, though at intervals Miss Carmichael felt his eye on her as she -daintily nibbled her curry. - -After tiffin she was stretched comfortably in her deck chair, reading, -or seeming to, when Connor appeared, strolling along the deck, hands -deep in pockets, chewing the inevitable Manila cigar. He wore a neat -cap, and his large person was clothed in an outing suit of gray flannel. -On his feet were shoes of whitened leather with rubber soles. To any but -a shrewd student of physiognomy he might have passed for a prosperous -American business man or politician, of the bluff western sort. - -He paused at her careless nod; bent his face around and stared coldly -at her. Nothing of the real man showed; even his rough vulgarity was -concealed behind the mask and the manner. He ought to have a woman -to tell him, she thought, that he was altogether too stout to wear a -Norfolk jacket. - -"Sit down?" she asked. - -He dropped into the chair beside her. - -"Looks as if we'd be hung up here till night anyhow," he said gruffly. -"All foolishness, too. It's safe enough between here and Hankow. -The Jardine boat came down this morning. And we land at the -concessions--don't have to go clear up to the city." He drummed on the -chair; shifted his cigar. "I can't hang around here. Got to get up to -Peking before they close off the railroad." - -She listened quietly to this little tirade; then remarked: "Thought over -my proposition, Tex?" - -"What proposition?.... Oh, that scheme? Sure, I've thought it over. -Nothing in it, Dix." - -"Why not?" - -"Too complicated. Did you ever see a lot of soldiers on the loose--their -killing blood up? You could never handle 'em in the world." - -"Oh, of course," said she, "if you tried any coarse work. But I wouldn't -pin that on you, Tex." - -"It's easy to talk." Connor's voice rose slightly; he noted the fact -himself; paused and spoke with greater deliberation. "But I wouldn't -tackle a gamelike that. It ain't practical. Anyhow, Dix, I wouldn't go -it blind. I'd have to know where I was going every minute. If you wanted -to talk real business, it might be different. I might see a way to start -something. But even at that"--he got heavily to his feet...."No, thing -for me's to stick to my own line." - -He was moving slowly away when her slow light voice brought him up -short. "Tex," she said, "I see you're just a cheap liar, after all." - -Then she watched the color sweep over his face. It was something to stir -that wooden countenance with genuine emotion. She even found a perverse -thrill in the experience. - -He stood motionless for a long moment. Finally he said, none too -steadily: "You know what would happen to a man that said that to me." - -"What would you do? Shoot?.... Where would that get you? No, Tex, -listen! Sit down here." - -But he stood over her. - -"I know everything you're doing." - -"Oh--you do?" - -"You're crossing me. But you can't get away with it. You know where you -are--in China! And you're tampering with the troops of the viceroy of -Nanking. My God, Tex, haven't you _any_ brains? Did you really think I'd -show my hand?" - -He chewed the cigar in silence, staring down. - -"I'll give you your choice," she went on. "You can work with me. -fifty-fifty, or I'll have Tom Sung beheaded. And then you'll be out a -meal ticket. And all your expenses with Tom up to now. And the three -thousand you lost to the Kanes." - -"You don't know what you're talking about! I haven't even seen Tom Sung -in twenty-four hours." - -"That's another lie. He was in your room this morning." - -"How do you know that? Say, if Jim Watson's been talking...." - -"He hasn't, Tex. I've got my information--and there's a lot of if--from -Kato the Japanese. Go and talk to him, if you like. Or to your friends -the Kanes." - -Connor, the color gone from his face now, looked steadily down at her. -Slowly he drew from an inner pocket a gold-mounted case of alligator -skin and selected a fresh cigar, lighting it on the stump of the old -one. Finally he said: - -"Dix, I'm taking some rough talk from you. But never mind--now. You say -you know where the stuff is, but you won't tell me." - -"Not now. I'll keep that information to trade with, Tex." - -"Well and good. I'll tell you that you can't get it without a little -help from me. And you're not going to get it. Tell me where it is, and -I'll put it through and split with you. It'll have to be pretty quick, -too. If you won't, you don't get your loot. And you give up my boy -Tom--" - -"What'll you do, Tex?" She was faintly smiling. - -"Oh, I won't shoot you. I'll protect myself better'n that. But I'll run -you off the coast. You'll have turned your last card out here." - -To this she said simply nothing. For a moment her two eyes met his one -full. Then he strolled away. And the day passed. - -Doane stood by the rail in the dusk of early evening looking in through -the open doorway. The social hall was gay with flags, the dragon of -China hung flat over the talking machine with the American and British -colors draped on either hand. The little teachers had on their brightest -and best. Miss Andrews in particular, wore a pink party gown that might -have been made by a village dressmaker--or, more likely, by herself--and -flushed prettily as she chatted with young Braker. The men were all in -their dinner coats. - -Dixie Carmichael, in the inevitable blue middy blouse, sat quietly -reading in a corner. A strange creature, always imperturbably girlish. -Duane had observed her casually on the boat and about the Astor House -at Shanghai, and despite the curious tales that drifted along the -coast--already the girl had acquired an almost legendary fame--he had -never seen her other than discreetly quiet. Men who had observed her on -the steamer from Hong Kong after the outraged British wives as good as -drummed her out of town asserted that she exhibited not so much as a -ruffle of the nerves. A girl without emotion, apparently; certainly -without a moral sense. - -She had for a time managed a gambling house on Bubbling Well Road, -Shanghai, but this year seemed to be more active up Peking way. At least -she had made several trips to the north. There were moments when her -thin, nearly expressionless face bore a look of infinite age; yet she -was young. It would be interesting, he reflected, to know of her home -and her youth, of the remarkable deficiency (or the equally remarkable -gift) that had sent her out alone, with her hair down her back, to pit -her uncanny quickness of thought and her sordid purpose against the -desperately clever rascals of the coast. - -When again he passed the doorway they were dancing--a waltz. Dixie and -young Kane were together. Miss Means, primmer than ever, moved about -with a tall Australian. Braker was with little Miss Andrews. The others -of the younger men danced humorously with one another. The Manila Kid -stood lankily, gloomily, by the talking machine, sorting records. - -There was a bustling outside the farther door; musical voices; the -shimmering of satin in the light; and the viceroy came in, escorting his -daughter and attended by all his suite. At the sight of Miss Hui Fei -as she appeared in the doorway and stepped lightly over the sill Doane -caught his breath. She wore an American costume, a gown of soft material -in rose color trimmed with silver, the stockings and little slippers in -silver as well. A girl at any college or suburban dance back home might -have dressed like that. Her richly black hair was parted on the side; -masses of it waved carelessly down over her temples and part of the -broad forehead. Her color was high, her eyes were bright. The eagerly -Western quality he had sensed in her was dominant now, triumphant as -youth can be triumphant. - -Doane, for a moment, pressed a hand to his eyes. He could not relate -this radiantly Western girl with the quaintly Oriental figure he had -last seen by moonlight on the boat deck. It was difficult, too, to -understand her bright happiness. Had her insistently modern spirit -prevailed over her father's resolve to die? Or was she, after all, -carried away by girlishly high spirits at the thought of a party? On the -latter possibility Doane set his teeth; it raided thoughts of Oriental -fatalism and surface adaptability that he could not face. Surely the -girl who had talked so earnestly, who had so clearly exhibited a Western -view of her father's predicament, was more than Oriental at heart. - -The most deeply sobering thought, of course, was that he should so -poignantly care. The mere sight of her thrilled him, shook him. All -night and during this day he had been fighting the new shining sense of -her in his heart; it was clear now that the battle was a losing one. -It was true, then; the last broken shards of his elaborately built up, -wholly mental philosophy of life had crashed hopelessly about his ears. - -The pity of it seemed to him, even then, to be that he was possessed of -such abounding vitality of body and mind. He felt a young man. He was -never ill, never even tired. Only accident, he felt, could shorten his -life. Certainly he wouldn't take it himself; he had gone all through -that. He would have to go dully on and on; he was like an engine that is -using but a fraction of its proper power. He had not known that his need -was a woman until he met this woman. To no other, he felt, could he give -the rich upwellings of emotion in his heart; and vital emotion, he -had tragically learned three years earlier, can not be repressed -indefinitely. There was a breaking point... He was, even now, bringing -up favorable arguments. This young woman, as she had admitted, like -himself, stood between the worlds. She could never be happy in China; -hardly out of it. If.... If.... Thoughts came, bitter thoughts, of his -years, of his poverty. The thing had the grip of a demoniac possession. -He had seen other men mad over the one woman, and had pitied them; but -now he.... He called himself savagely, in his heart, a fool. Yet the -wild hopes mounted. - -The waltz was over. The Kid changed the records and ground the machine. -An interpreter left the group of mandarins and spoke with one of the -Australians; led the man back to his excellency. A moment later the -music sounded again, and the Australian danced lightly away with Miss -Hui Fei in what Doane had no means of knowing was the very new -one-step. He had never danced; plainly she loved it. She moved like a -fairy--light, utterly graceful, her oval face, when she turned, flushed -a little and soberly radiant. - -Hating the man who held her so close, he turned away. He did not know -that his excellency, glimpsing him outside there in the shadows, leaned -forward and bowed; he did not observe (or care) that Dixie Carmichael -was dancing with the German customs man, while Rocky Kane, suddenly -white, lighting one cigarette on another, stood in a corner devouring -with his eyes Miss Hui Fei. A little later, when the young man spoke, -there at his side, he started; for he had heard no one approach. Rocky -was hatless; hair rumpled as if he had been running nervous fingers -through it, cheeks deeply flushed, eyes staring rather wildly. He threw -his cigarette overboard and squarely faced the huge man in blue. - -"I don't know what you'll think of me--" he began, in a breathless, -unsteady voice; then his eyes wavered. - -Doane turned with him, Dixie Carmichael stood in the doorway, watching -them. Rocky, with a nervous gesture, as if he would brush her away, -looked up again into the stern older face. He was plainly lost in -himself, burning with the confused fires of youth. - -"I don't know what you'll think of me--" he came again to a stop. -Apparently the words, "Mr. Doane," would have completed the sentence, -but failed for some reason to find voice. Perhaps it was the habit of -his wealthy environment that restrained him even now from speaking with -more than casual respect to a uniformed employee of a river line; yet, -contradictorily, here he was, all boyish humility!.... "I'm a damn fool, -of course, I know that. But--you've seen her." - -Doane glanced again toward the door. Dixie Carmichael had disappeared. - -"No--not that one!" cried the boy hotly; then dropped his voice. "The -girl in there! The--princess, isn't she?" - -Doane inclined his head. - -"Then she'd be the one I--well, you remember." - -"She's the same. The Princess Hui Fei--" - -"Hughie Fay? Like that?" - -"Yes." - -"What a lovely name!.... You--I know you won't understand! It's so hard -to--I _am_ young, of course. I've been sort of in wrong. I guess -you think I'm a pretty wild lot. I seem to have been trying about -everything. But until to-night--oh, there's no use pretending I'm not -hit all of a heap. I am. I never saw anything like her--never in my -life. I don't know what the pater would say--me falling for a Manchu -girl--you think I'm crazy, don't you?" - -"No." - -"Perhaps I am. My head's racing. Just watching her in there makes my -pulse jump. I get bewildered. Tell me--she was all Chinese the--the -other time--all painted up. Big head-dress with flowers on it. Why did -she do that?" - -"Out of respect to her father. The rouge and the head-dress were -according to Oriental custom." He looked directly down at the boy, -and added, deliberately, "Veneration of parents is the finest thing in -Chinese life. I sometimes think we have nothing so fine in America." - -The boy's eyes fell. He mumbled. "Ouch! You landed there, I guess." Then -he raised his eyes. "I can't help myself--whatever I am--but I can start -fresh, can't I? That's what I'm going to do, anyhow--start fresh." He -squared himself. His lip quivered. - -"Will you take me in there to the viceroy, and translate my apology?" - -Doane stood a moment in silence. Then he replied, quietly, "Yes." And -led the way into the social hall. He found himself watching, like a -spectator, the little scene.... the viceroy rising, with a quiet smile, -a gentle old man, awaiting with perfect courtesy of bearing whatever -might be forthcoming; Rocky Kane, seeming younger than before, with, in -fact, the appearance of an excited boy, the wild look still in his eyes -but the face set with supreme determination. Doane observed now that -he had a good forehead, wide and not too high. The nose was slightly -aquiline, like his father's. The eyes, so dark now, were normally blue; -the mouth sensitive; the skin fine in texture. - -"Tell him"--thus the boy--"tell him I acted like a dirty cad, that I -know better, and--and ask his pardon." - -Doane translated discreetly. A dance was just ending, and curious eyes -were bent on the group. The mandarins stood behind the viceroy, all -gracefully at ease in their rich rubes. - -His excellency, without relaxing that smile, replied in musical -intonation. - -"What is it?" asked Rocky Kane, under his breath, all quivering -excitement; "what does he say?" - -"That he accepts your apology, with appreciation of your manliness." - -Young Kane's nervous frown relaxed at this. He was pleased. - -"Will you," he was saying now, "will you ask if I may dance with the -princess?" - -Doane complied. He felt now a strain of fineness in this ungoverned boy -that was oddly moving to his own emotion-clouded brain.... Hoi Fei was -approaching, the Australian at her side. - -"He suggests"--Doane found himself translating--"that you ask her. He -does not know what engagements she may have made." - -The boy bit his lip. And then the princess was greeting the mate. "It's -nice to see you, Mr. Doane," she was saying. "I wondered if you weren't -coming to the party." - -It seemed to Doane that he could feel young Kane's devouring eyes -fastened on her. The moment had come in which he must act. The -Australian, sensing a situation, thanked the princess and slipped away. -Quietly, Doane said: "Miss Hui Fei, this is Mr. Kane, who has asked -permission to meet you." - -She drew back a very little; Doane caught that; yet the courtesy of her -race did not fail her. She inclined her pretty head; even smiled. - -"Should I speak English?" asked the boy, out of sheer confusion; then: -"Miss Hui Fei"--he was white; the words came slowly, almost coldly, -between set teeth--"I am sorry for my rotten behavior the other night." - -That was all. He waited. Miss Hui's smile faded. - -No Oriental could have come out so bluntly with it. She seemed to be -considering him. Gradually the smile returned, and with it an air of -courteous dismissal. - -"I have forgotten it." - -Kane gathered his courage. - -"May I have a dance with you?" - -For a moment the silence was marked. Perhaps Miss Hui was gathering -herself as well. But it was only a moment; she spoke, smiling as if she -were happy, her manner gracious, even kind: "I am sorry. I have promise' -every dance. The ladies are so few to-nigh'." - -That was all. The boy seemed somewhat slow in comprehending it. He stood -motionless; then the color returned slowly to his face, flooding it. He -bowed to her stiffly, then to her father, and rushed out on deck. - -Miss Hui smiled up at the mate. "I have save' the dance you ask'," she -said pleasantly. "It is this nex' one, if you don' mind." - -The Manila Kid adjusted the needle and released the catch. - -"I'm sorry," said Doane, as they moved away, "I don't dance." - -The commonplace remark fell strangely on his own ears. It could hardly -be himself speaking. He was all glowingly warm with impulse, his logic -gone. - -"We'll sit it out," said Miss Hui pleasantly. - -And during the brief walk across the room, beside this buoyantly -graceful girl, even while aware of the eyes upon him, he felt the magic -wine of youth thrilling through his arteries. What a fairy she was! -Snatches of poetry came; one--= - -````"Were it ever so airy a tread...."= - ---and lingered fragrantly after they were seated and he found himself -looking down at her, listening with something of the gravity and -kindliness of long habit when she so quickly spoke. - - - - -CHAPTER VI--CONFLAGRATION - -|A BEWILDERED, crushed Rocky Kane stood tightly holding the rail; -staring down at the softly black water that ran so smoothly along the -hull beneath; muttering in whispers that at intervals broke out into -heated speech. This strange princess had humiliated him perfectly, -completely; there had been nothing he could say, nothing to do but go; -and she had let him go without a look or a further thought. He told -himself it was unfair. He had swallowed his pride and apologized. Could -a man do more? - -But pressing upward through this chaotic mental surface of hurt pride -and insistent self-justification came an equally insistent memory of -his outrageous conduct toward her. As the moments passed, the memory -intensified into a painfully vivid picture. His native intelligence, -together with the undeveloped decency that was somewhere within him, -kept at him with dart-like, stinging thoughts. He had insulted not only -herself but her race as well, in assuming a ruthless right to make free -with her. - -Then self-justification again; how could he know that she spoke English -and dressed like the girls back home? Was it fair of her to masquerade -like that? - -He was miserably wrong, of course. And his nerves were terribly -upset. That was at least part of the trouble, his nerves; he lighted -a cigarette to steady them. The match shook in his hand. This nervous -trembling had been increasing lately; he found it an alarming symptom. -Perhaps the trouble was inherent weakness. Ability like his father's -often skipped a generation; and character. Yes, he was weak, he had -failed at everything. His college career was a wreck; a monstrous wreck, -he believed, echoes from which would follow him through life. To his -incoherent mind it seemed that he had about all the vices--drinking, -gambling, pursuing helpless girls, even smoking opium. His one faith had -been money; but now he suddenly, wretchedly, knew that even the money -might fail him. It was as easy to toss away a million as a hundred on -the red or the black. And then young men who wasted themselves acquired -diseases from the terrors of which no fortune could promise release; a -thought that had long dwelt uncomfortably in a sensitive, deep-shadowed -corner of his brain.... a brain that was racing now, beyond control. - -Her unfairness lay in so publicly snubbing him. Her father knew the -facts, as did Miss Carmichael, and the big mate, that old preacher with -a mysterious past. Who was he, anyhow--setting up to regulate other -people's lives? - -Then rose among these turbulent thoughts a picture of the princess as -she was now, there in the social hall. Tears welled into his eyes; he -brushed them away, lighted a fresh cigarette and deeply inhaled the -smoke. He had rushed out; suddenly, wildly, he desired to rush back. -She was beautiful. She had quaintly moving charm. A rare little lady! It -seemed almost that he might compel her to listen while he explained. -But what was it that he was to explain? That he was some other than the -dirty sort they all knew him to be, that he had proved himself to be? - -The wild thoughts were like a beating in his brain. It was his father's -fault, this crazy nervousness, and his mother's.... He hated that big -mate. Self-pity rose like a tidal wave, and engulfed him. He stared and -stared at the softly dark water. Beginning with about his sixteenth year -he had wrestled often with the thought of suicide, as so many sensitive -young men do. Now the water fascinated him; it was so still, it moved -so resistlessly on to the sea. "A pretty easy way to slip out. Just a -little splash---I could climb down. Nobody'd know. Nobody'd care much -of a damn. Oh, the old man would think he cared, but he wouldn't. He'll -never make a bank president out of me. And that's all he wants." - -A voice, guardedly friendly, said, "Better not let yourself talk that -way." - -He turned with a start. Miss Carmichael was standing there by the rail. -So he had talked aloud--another unpleasant symptom. - -"You--you saw what--" - -She inclined her head. "What's the good of letting it upset you? Lie -down for a while. A pipe or two wouldn't hurt you. You're nervous as a -witch. It would soothe you." He stared at her. - -"Better lie down anyway," she said, taking his arm and moving him toward -his cabin. "You don't want them to see you like this." - -He yielded. His will was powerless. He dropped on the seat, while -she lingered, almost sympathetically, in the doorway, an unbelievably -girlish figure in the half light. Something of the influence she had -been exerting on him--which had seemed to die when Miss Hui Fei entered -the social hall--fluttered to life now. He found relief, abruptly, in -recklessness. - -"Come on in," he said huskily. "Have a pipe with me!" - -Quietly, wholly matter-of-fact, she closed and locked the door. "We'll -shut the window, too, this time," she said. - -"You needn't turn on the light." He was reaching for his trunk. "Excuse -me--a minute! I can see all right. I know just where everything is." - -"Leave the trunk out," said she. "And lay your suit-case on it. Then we -can put the lamp on that." - -Miss Hui Fei led Doane to a seat under the curving front windows. - -"We mus' talk as if ever'thing were ver' pleasan'." The question rose -again, but without bitterness now, how she could smile so brightly. "I -have learn' some more. It is ver' difficul' to tell you, but.... it is -difficul' to think, even.... so strange that at firs' I laugh'.".... -Yes, there were tears in her eyes. But how bravely she fought them back -and smiled again. He felt his own eyes filling, and turned quickly -to the window; but not so quickly that she failed to see. She was -sensitively observant, despite her own trouble. For a moment, then, -they were silent, lost in a deep common sympathy that was bread to his -starving heart. - -It was in that moment that their little conspiracy nearly broke down. -Had any of the others in the big room looked just then, gossip would -have spread swiftly; certainly sharp-eyed mandarins would have found -matter for consideration; for Hui Fei impulsively found his hand as it -rested between them on the seat, and was met with a quick warm pressure. - -And then, in another moment, she was speaking, quite herself. "My maid -has foun' out tha' they are sending the head eunuch from the Forbidden -C'ty to our home. An' that is agains' the law." - -"Of course," said he. "Even the Old Buddha never tried but once to send -out a eunuch on government business. That was the notorious An Te-hai. -And he never returned; he was caught in Shantung--in a barge of state -on the Grand Canal--and beheaded. Even the Old Buddha couldn't do that. -This woman is amazing. But of course there is really no government at -Peking now--only this strange anachronism." - -"He has orders to seize all father's beautifu' things the paintings an' -stones an' carvings." - -"The rebels may catch him. They'd make short work of him." - -"I ask' about that The rebels have cross' the river from Wu Chang to Han -Yang, but they have not yet reach' the railway. That comes into Hankow -from this side." - -"Even so," he mused, "the train service from Peking must have broken -down. Though they're running troop trains south, of course." - -"I haven't tol' you all of it." Her voice was low and unsteady. "This -eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, is ordered, by the empress, to take me to Peking -too. They are all whispering about it. The empress is angry at my -foreign ways, and will marry me to a Manchu duke. She di'n' like it when -my father tol' her I mus' marry no man I di'n' choose myself.... I think -you ough' to smile." - -Mechanically he obeyed. - -"It seems almos' funny." murmured Miss Hui. "Sometimes I can no' believe -tha' such a thing could happen. When I think of America an' England and -all the worl' we know to-day, I can no' believe that such wicked things -can happen." - -It was anything but unreal to Doane. He knew too well that America -and England, even all the white peoples, make up but a fraction of -the inhabitants of this strange earth. His eyes filled again as he -considered the possible--yes, the probable fate of the lovely girl at -his side. In such a time of disorganization the reckless Manchu woman at -Peking could do much. Chang might lose his head at the sound of gunfire -in Han Yang and fly back to the capital, or he might not. A capable and -corrupt eunuch would run heavy risks to gain such a prize. For a huge -prize the viceroy's collection would indeed be; many of the priceless -stones and paintings would never reach the throne. - -The thought came of trying to persuade her to save herself; a thought -that was as promptly discarded. She would not leave her father while he -lived. He, of course, would not take his own life elsewhere than in -his ancestral home. And to that home, with his inevitable escort of -underlings and soldiers, was hurrying--if not already there--this Chang -Yuan-fu, one of those powerfully venomous creatures that have figured -darkly at intervals in the history of China. - -Doane spoke low and quickly: "Can you find out when Chang's train left -Peking, Miss Hui?" - -"No, I have try ver' har' to learn. I think they don' know that. It is -so importan' to know that, too, because my father"--Her voice faltered. -Doane once again, with a swift glance to left and right, took her hand -and, for a brief moment, gripped it firmly. "You haven' yet spoken to my -father?" - -"Not yet, dear Miss Hui.... you must smile!.... I have found it very -difficult to think out a way of approaching him. Your father is a great -viceroy. He might take it ill that I should venture to interfere in what -he would feel to be the supreme sacred act of his life. He might"--Doane -hesitated--"even for you he might feel that he couldn't turn back." - -"I know," she said, very low. "I have thought of tha', too. But they -shall never take me to Peking." - -He understood. The suicide of girls as a protest against unwelcome -marriage was a commonplace in China. It was, indeed, for thousands the -only way out. She knew that, of course. And she spoke there out of her -blood. - -"I will speak to-morrow," he murmured. "Before we reach Huang Chau. We -have nothing to lose. He can only rebuff me." - -He felt now that in this tragic drama was bound up all that might be -left to him of happiness. The guiding motive of his life was--there was -a divine recklessness in the thought--to save Hui Fei, to make her smile -again, with a happy heart. She whispered now: - -"Thank you." - -He asked her, abruptly changing his manner, almost distantly courteous, -about her life in an American college. Little by little, as she made -the effort to follow him into this impersonal atmosphere, her brightness -returned. - -The record was scraping its last. Applause came from the dancers, -in which she joined. The Manila Kid wound the machine again, and the -dancers swung again into motion. - -"I am asking too much of you," she murmured. "But I have been frighten'. -I coul'n' think wha' to do." - -He had to set his teeth on the burning phrases that rushed from his long -unpractised heart, eager for utterance. "I will take you back to your -father," he said. - -In his mind it was settled. Whatever strange events might lie before -them, they should not take her to Peking. His own life, as well as hers, -stood in the way. It had come to that with him. - -It was near to midnight when the _Yen Hsin_, on advices from Hankow, -headed again upstream. At the first throb of the engine the white -passengers stopped dancing and came out on deck. There was gaiety, even -a little cheering. - -It was perhaps two hours later when Doane, asleep in his cabin, heard -the shots, confused with the incidents of a dream. But at the first -screams of the women below decks he sprang from his berth. Some one -was banging on his door; he opened; the second engineer stood there, -coatless and hatless, a revolver in his hand, and a little blood on his -cheek. - -"All hell's broken loose below," said the young Scotchman. "Chief's -down there. I tried to get to him, but--God, they're all over the -place--fighting one another." - -"Who are, MacKail?" Doane hurriedly drew on trousers and coat, and -thrust his feet into his slippers. - -"The viceroy's soldiers. Revolutionary stuff." - -Doane got his automatic pistol from a drawer in the desk; quickly filled -an extra clip with cartridges; went forward. The Scotchman had already -gone aft. - -The engine was still running, the steamer moving steadily up the moonlit -river. The uproar below decks sounded muffled, far-away. It might have -been nothing more than a little night excitement in a village along the -shore. The shooting continued. Men were shouting. There were more shrill -screams; and then splashes overside. As he hurried forward, staring over -the rail, Doane caught a passing glimpse of a face down there in the -foam and a white arm. The white men were stumbling drowsily out of their -cabins; he saw one of the customs men, in pajamas, and Tex Connor. They -hurled questions at him but he brushed them aside. - -Captain Benjamin stood over the cringing pilot with a revolver. - -"Engine room don't answer!" he shouted coolly enough. "And we can't get -to it. Take MacKail and try to get through. I'll make this rat keep her -in the channel." - -Doane ran back. More of the men were out, talking excitedly together. He -paused to say: "Get any weapons you have, every man of you, and see that -none but women get up to this deck! Keep the men down!" - -MacKail stood at the head of the port after stairway, outside the rear -cabins, a big Australian beside him. - -"They're just naturally carving one another up," observed the -Australian. - -"Come," said Doane, and went down the steps. - -The noise and confusion were great down here. Women were crowding out of -the lower cabins, sobbing hysterically, tearing their hair and beating -their breasts, crowding forward and aft along the deckway or climbing -awkwardly over the rail and slipping off into the river. - -Doane shouted a reassuring word in their own tongue; pointed to the -steps; finally drew one girl forcibly back from the rail and started her -up. Others followed, screaming all the way. Still others clung to the -white men. - -Doane broke away and plunged into the dim interior of the boat. Most -of the lights were out. Dark figures were wrestling. There were grunts, -groans, savage cries of rage and triumph. A huge pole-knife caught -the light as it swung. Doane was aware of men breathing hard as they -struggled. - -He stumbled over an inert body; would have fallen had not the Australian -caught him. A tall soldier who lunged toward them with a dripping -bayonet was shot by MacKail.... There were no means here of -distinguishing the parties to this savage struggle, but in the inner -corridor it was lighter. Near at hand two of the republicans--queues cut -off, dressed in an indistinguishable but odd-appearing uniform of some -light gray stuff with a white cloth tied about the left arm, had heaped -bodies across the corridor and were shooting over them at a darker mass -just forward of the engine room. - -Doane shouted at the republicans, ordering them to withdraw. They shook -their heads angrily. One, even as he tried to reply, sank into a limp -heap with a dark stream trickling from a hole in his forehead. His -comrade bent low to reload his rifle. With the shouting of many hoarse -voices the dark mass up forward came charging down the corridor. Doane -was firing into them when MacKail and the Australian caught his arm -and drew him back through the doorway. From that position, however, -all three could shoot the blue-clad attackers as they plunged by the -opening. Then, however, they had to defend themselves. The soldiers came -on by dozens. Doane had his second clip of cartridges in his pistol. - -"Get back!" he shouted to the others. "Guard the steps--they'll be -coming up for loot!" - -They retreated. Two bodies lay huddled on the steps they had left but -a few moments earlier. A few dead women were on the deck and one or two -men. - -Even as they stepped over the bodies and mounted to the deck above, all -three men, their faculties sharpened to a supernatural degree by -the ugly thrill of combat, took in the details of what was evidently -accepted among these republican rebels as their uniform--a suit of -unmistakably American woolen underwear, the drawers supported by -bright-colored American suspenders; socks worn outside (like the -suspenders) with garters that bore the trademark name of an American -city, and finally, American shoes. So the enthusiasm of these young -revolutionists for the greatest of republics found expression! And -across the breast of each, lettered on a strip of white cloth, was the -inscription that Sun Shi-pi had so glibly translated as "Dare to Die." -Sun must have brought along these supposedly Western uniforms in his -pedler's trunks. - -It was never to be known what surprising incidents had preceded this -sudden slaughter. The chief engineer might have told, but his mutilated -body Doane found, on his second attempt to get through, lying just -across the sill of the engine room, as if he had been stepping out to -reason with them. - -The entire battle lasted barely half an hour. It was, for the white -folk, a period of confusion and terror. Toward the end, the blue men, -utter outlaws now, made rush after rush up the various stairways and -ladders, only to be fought back at every point by the white men and the -few surviving officers of his excellency's force. They were like the -most primitive savages, knowing neither fear nor reason. The blood-lust -that at times captures the spirit of this normally phlegmatic and -reasonable people drove them for the time to the point of madness. - -At last, however, they drew off below. Two of the boats were within -their reach. These they lowered, and despite the speed of steamer and -current, though not without evident loss of life, they got them over, -tumbled into them, and fell away into the night astern. Then for the -first and last time this night Doane saw the redoubtable Tom Sung. -He stood in the nearer boat, brandishing a rifle and screeching wild -phrases in Chinese. - -MacKail took the engine room. Captain Benjamin, still, grimly, pistol -in hand, held the pilot to his task. There was no crew to clean the -shambles below decks, yet with the few loyal soldiers who had managed -to hide away now at the furnaces, the steamer wound her way steadily -up-stream. - -Doane found what had once been the earnest Sun Shi-pi in the starboard -corridor, below. On his body were the uniform, white brassard and motto -of the "Dare to Dies." They had beheaded him. - -The passengers, clad and half clad, nervous, talkative, hung about the -decks. The two teachers, curiously self-possessed, sat side by side at -the dining table. From the quarters of his excellency, aft, came the -continuous sound of women moaning and wailing.... It was, to the eye, but -a river steamer plowing up-stream in the moonlight. But to the senses of -those aboard the situation was a nightmare, already an incredible memory -while sleep-drugged eyes were slowly opening.... To the mighty river -it was but one more incident in the vivid, often bloody drama of a -long-suffering, endlessly struggling people.... - -In his spacious cabin, his eyes shaded from the electric light by a -screen of jade set in tulip wood, dressed in his robes of ceremony, -wearing the ruby-crowned hat of state with the down-slanting peacock -feather, his excellency sat quietly reading the precepts of Chuang Tz. - -"Hui Tz asked," (he read) 'Are there, then, men who have no passions? -If he be a man, how can he be without passions?' - -"'By a man without passions,' replied Chuang Tz, I mean one who permits -neither evil nor good to disturb his inner life, but accepts whatever -comes.... The pure men of old neither loved life nor hated death. -Cheerfully they played their parts, patiently awaited the end. This is -what is called not to lead the heart away from Tao.... The true sage -ignores God; he ignores man; he ignores a beginning; he ignores matter; -he accepts life as it may be and is not overwhelmed. If he fail, what -matters it? If he succeed, is it not that he was provided through no -effort of his own with the energy necessary to success.... The life of -man passes like a galloping horse, changing at every turn. What should -he do; what should he not do? It passes as a sunbeam passes a small -opening in a wall--here for a moment, then gone.... let knowledge stop -at the unknowable. That is perfection.'" - -It is to be doubted if even Doane gave regard at the moment to the -possible origin of the fire. It had spread through two or three of -the upper cabins by way of the ventilating grills and was roaring out -through a doorway by the time he heard the new outcry and ran to -the spot. The white men were rushing about. Rocky Kane, collarless, -disheveled, was fumbling ineffectually at the emergency fire hose; him -Doane pushed aside. But the flames spread amazingly; worked through -the grill-work from cabin to cabin; soon were licking at the walls and -furniture of the social hall. - -Doane left Dawley Kane and Tex Conner--an oddly matched couple--manning -the hose, others at work with the chemical extinguishers, while he went -forward through the thickening smoke to the bridge. - -Captain Benjamin said, huskily, almost apologetically--his eyes red and -staring, his face haggard: "I'm beaching her." - -And in another moment she struck, where the channel ran close under an -island. - -Lowering the boats without a crew proved difficult. Already the fire had -reached those forward. Doane, the other mate and MacKail did what -they could. The Chinese women crowded hither and thither, screaming, -rendering order impossible. In the confusion one boat drifted off with -only Connor, the Manila Kid, and Miss Carmichael. - -Captain Benjamin was cut off by the quick progress of the flames. The -whole forward end of the cabin structure was now a roaring furnace, -fortunately working forward on the down-stream breeze rather than aft. -The flames blazed from moment to moment higher; sparks danced higher -yet; the heat was intense. Doane sent the viceroy and his suite below, -aft, where the deck was still strewn with bodies and slippery with -blood. With three available boats, fighting back the crowding women and -the more excitable among his excellency's secretaries, he sent ashore, -first the women, then his excellency and the men. Hui Fei--she had -slipped hastily into the little Chinese costume she wore at their -midnight talk, and had thrown about it an opera cloak from New -York--went in one of the first boats; Doane himself handed her in. The -two teachers, pale, very composed, followed. At the oars were two of the -customs men, faces streaked with grime and sweat. - -To his excellency, as the last boats got away, Doane said: "I will -follow you soon. I must look once more for the captain." - -"I will send back a boat," said the viceroy. - -Doane ran up to the upper and promenade decks. There was no sound save -the roaring and crackling of the fire. There seemed no chance of getting -forward. In the large after cabin stood the six-fold Ming screen. -Quickly he folded it; there seemed a chance of getting it ashore. He -thought, with a passing regret, of the _pi_ of jade; but there was no -reaching his own cabin now. He stepped out on deck. There, clear aft, -leaning against the cabin wall, stood Rocky Kane, like a man half -asleep, rubbing his eyes; and crouching against his knee, clinging to -his hand, was the little princess in her gay golden yellow vest over the -flowered skirt and her quaint hood of fox skin. - -Doane caught the young man's shoulder; swung him about; looked closely -into the dull eyes with the tiny pupils. - -"So!" he cried, "that again, eh!" - -"I can't understand"--thus Rocky--"I don't see how it could have -happened. It couldn't have been my fault." - -Doane saw now that his head had been burned above one ear; and the hand -that pressed his face was blistered white. - -"It _wasn't_ my fault! I found myself out on deck. I tried to get the -hose." - -"Yes, I saw you. Quick--get below." - -Doane tenderly lifted the little princess. - -Rocky was still incoherently talking; promising reform; blaming himself -in the next breath after hotly defending himself. His voice was somewhat -thick. He was drowsy--swayed and stumbled as he moved toward the stairs. - -Doane, speaking gently in Chinese to the child, stood a moment -considering. The heat was becoming intolerable. It wouldn't do to keep -the little one here. He carried her down the stairs. - -Below, the boy faced him. "I'm no good," he whimpered. "I can't wake up. -Hit me--do something--I won't be like this." - -Doane considered him during a brief instant. They were standing under -a light, their feet slipping on the deck, bodies lying about. With the -flat of his hand, then, Duane struck the side of the boy's head that -was not burned; struck harder than he meant, for the boy went down, and -then, after sprawling about, got muttering to his feet. - -"It's all right!" he cried unsteadily. "I asked you to do it. I'm going -to get hold of myself. I've been no good--rotten. I've touched bottom. -But I'm going to fight it out--get somewhere." His egotism, even now -amazingly held him. Even as he spoke he was dramatizing himself. But his -pupils were widening a little; he was in earnest, crying bitterly out -of a drugged mind and conscience. And Doane, looking down at him, felt -stirring in his heart, though curiously mixed with a twinge of jealousy -for his youth and the hopes before him, something of the sympathy his -long deep experience had instilled there toward blindly struggling young -folk. Boys, after all, were normally egotists. And Heaven knew this boy -had so far been given no sort of chance! - -Doane led the way clear aft. The heat was terrific. From a row of fire -buckets he sprinkled the little princess; bathed her temples. The water -was warm, but it helped. - -Young Kane, with a nervous movement, suddenly picked up one, then -another, of the buckets and dashed them over himself. Distinctly he was -coming to life. "We may never come out of this, Mr. Doane," he said. -"It's a terrible fix." More and more, as he came slowly awake, he was -dramatizing the situation and himself. "But I want to say this. I've -never known a man like you. You're fine--you're big--you've helped me -as no one else has. I'll never be like you--it isn't in me. I've already -gone as close to hell as a man can go and perhaps still save himself--" - -"Can you swim?" asked Doane shortly. - -"I--why, yes, a little. I'm not what you'd call a strong swimmer." - -Doane was wetting the princess's face and his own. There would be -little time left. There was smoke now. He found a slight difficulty in -breathing; evidently the fire had eaten through, forward, to the lower -decks. - -"They won't be able to get a boat back here," he said, and quietly -pointed out the still blazing pieces of board that, after whirling into -the air, were drifting by. A terrific blast of heat swept about them, -indicating a change of wind. - -"Wait here a moment for me," he added. "I must make one more effort to -find Captain Benjamin. If that fails, we can swim ashore." - -He tried working his way forward when the heat proved too great in the -corridor, climbing out on the windward side of the hull. But the flames -were eating steadily aft; he could not get far. Beaten back, he returned -to the stem to discover that the child and Rocky Kane were gone. After -a moment he saw them in the water, a few rods away, first a gleam of -yellow that would be the jacket of the little princess, then their two -heads close together. - -He lowered himself down a boat-line and swam after them. In the water -this giant was as easily at home as in any form of exercise on land. -Within the year he had swum at night, alone, for the sheer vital -pleasure the use of his strength brought him, the nine miles from Wusung -to Shanghai--slipping between junks and steamers, past the anchored -war-ships and a great P. & O. liner from Bombay. The water was cool, -refreshing. He stretched his full length in it, rolling his face under -as one arm and then the other reached out in slow powerful strokes. - -Young Kane was having no easy time of it. He was clearly out of wind. -And the child whimpered as she clung tightly about his neck. - -"I gave you up," he sputtered weakly. Then added, with an evidence of -spirit that Doane found not displeasing: "No, don't take her, please! -Just steady me a little." He was struggling in short strokes, splashing -a good deal. "We ought to touch bottom now pretty quick." - -Sampans and the boats of the cormorant fishers were edging into the -wide circle of light about the steamer. Along the shore of the island -clustered the groups of mandarins, their silk and satin robes forming a -bright spot in the vivid picture. - -Doane found the sand then; walked a little way and helped the nearly -exhausted boy to his feet. - -"They're coming down the shore," said Rocky, trying, without great -success, to speak casually. - -Doane looked up and saw them running--white men, Chinese servants, -mandarins holding up their robes, women, and last, walking rapidly, his -excellency. - -It was Hui Fei, throwing off her cloak and running lightly ahead, -who took the frightened child from young Kane's arms and carried her -tenderly up the bank. There as the attendants gathered anxiously about -them, she tossed the child high, petted her, kissed her, until the tears -gave place to laughter. The tall eunuch wrapped the little princess then -in his own coat; and Hui Fei accepted the opera cloak that transformed -her again in an instant from a slimly quaint Manchu girl to a young -woman of New York. - -Doane stood by. Toward him she did not look. But to Rocky Kane, who -lay on the bank, she turned with bright eagerness. He got, not without -effort, to his feet. - -Smiling--happily, it seemed to the bewildered, brooding Doane--she gave -him her hand; led him to meet her father. - -"You have met Mr. Kane," she said. "It was he who save' little sister. -He risk' his life to bring her here, father." - -Rocky, throwing back his hair and brushing the water from his eyes, -stood, his sensitive face working nervously, very straight, very -respectful, and took the hand of the viceroy. - -There was, then, manhood in him. The viceroy recognized the fact in his -friendly smile. Hui Fei plainly recognized it as she walked, chatting -brightly, at his side, while he bent on her a gaze of boyish adoration. - -As for Doane, he moved away unobserved; dropped at length on a knoll, -rested his great head on his hands, and gazed out at the blazing -steamer. She would soon be quite gone. Poor Benjamin was gone already; -a strange little man, one of the many that drift through life without -a sense of direction, always bewildered about it, always hoping vaguely -for some better lot. It had been a tragic night; and yet all this horror -would soon seem but an incident in the spreading revolution. It had -always been so in China. In each rebellion, as in the mighty conquests -of the Mongols and the Manchus, death had stalked everywhere with a -casual terribleness. Life meant, at best, so little. Genghis Khan's -men had boasted of slaying twenty millions in the northwestern provinces -alone within the span of a single decade. The new trouble must -inevitably run its course; and what a course it might prove to be! -From the mere effort to face this immediate future Doane found his mind -recoiling; much as strong minds were to recoil, only three years later, -when the German army should march through Belgium. - -He gave up that problem, came down to the particular thought of this -swiftly growing new love that had stolen into his heart. The hope of -personal happiness had passed now. Self seemed, like the life to which -it so eagerly dung, not to matter. Instead that hope was growing into -a profound tenderness toward the girl. She was, after all--the thought -came startlingly--about the age of his own daughter, Betty, whom he -had not seen during these three strange years. Betty and her journalist -husband would be somewhere in Turkestan now; he was studying central -Asia for a book, she sketching the native types. For a long time no -letter had come.... It was a fine experience, this unbidden stir of the -emotions, this thrill. There was mystery in it, and wonder. Merely to -have that almost youthful responsiveness still at call within his breast -was an indication that life might yet hold, even for him, the derelict, -rich promise. And it was a reminder, now, to his clearing brain that his -life must be service. He must find terms on which to offer himself, his -gifts. His spirit had been molded, after all, to no lesser end. - -The viceroy drew away then from the group about the child; came -deliberately along the bank. The increasing tenderness Doane felt -toward Hui Fei reached also to her father, who was facing with such fine -dignity the grim ending of a richly useful life. Now, perhaps, he could -plead with him for the daughter's sake. Somehow, certainly, happiness -must be found for her. In pleading he would be serving her. - -His brain was swinging into something near balance; it was, after all, a -good brain, trained to function clearly, mellowed through patient years -of unhappiness. It would help him now to fight for the girl, to save -her, if he might, from the dark ways of the Forbidden City. She called -herself so naively an "American." The West had thrilled her. She must -not be given over to the eunuch, Chang. - -So, even as he contrived a sort of self-control, even as he determined -to forget his own little moment of romantic hopefulness, the lover -within him stood triumphant over all his other selves. - - - - -CHAPTER VII--THE INSCRUTABLE WEST - -|DOANE knew nothing of the dignified figure he presented as he took -the viceroy's hand, a profoundly sobered giant, his huge frame outlined -beneath his wet garments like a Greek statue of an athlete. - -"You have helped to save the life of my child, Griggsby Doane"--thus his -excellency, in what proved to be a little set speech--"and with all my -heart I thank you. I am old. Little time is left to me. But life follows -upon death. Death is the beginning of life. It has been said by Chuang -Tz that the personal existence of man results from convergence of the -vital fluid, and with its dispersion comes what we term death. Therefore -all things are one. All vitality exists in continuing life. And I, when -what I have thought of as my self arrives at dispersion, shall live on -in my children. My words are inadequate. My debt to you is beyond my -power to repay. Command me. I am your servant." - -Doane bowed, hearing the words, catching something of the warm gratitude -in the heart of the old man, yet at the same moment flogged on to action -by the sense of passing time and present opportunity. It was no simple -matter, it seemed, to approach this seasoned, calmly determined mind -regarding the final personal matter of life and death. But he plunged -at it; stating simply that he had heard the gossip of the impending -tragedy, and that in conversing with the lovely Hui Fei, who was in -obvious difficulty in existing between the two greatest civilizations -without a solid footing in either, he could not bear to think of her -possible fate. - -Rang Yu listened attentively. - -"Your Excellency," Doane pressed on, "it is not right that you should -listen to the command of a decadent throne. Forgive my frankness, my -presumption, but I must say this! True, you are a Manchu. While this -revolution continues it will be difficult for you. But before -another year shall have gone by there will be a new China. The bitter -animosities of to-day will pass. Though a Manchu, your wise counsel -will be needed. Your knowledge of the Western World will temper the -over-emphatic policies of the young hot-heads from the universities of -Japan." - -The viceroy considered this appeal during a long moment; then, soberly, -he looked up into the massive, strongly lined face of the white man and -asked, simply: "But what would you have me do, Griggsby Doane?" - -"Your Excellency knows of the plan to seize your property?" - -Kang inclined his head. - -"If you go on to your home, it may be that everything will be taken, -even the money on your person." - -Kang bowed again. - -"Then, Your Excellency, why not now--while you yet have the means to -do so--escape down the river with your daughter and myself? Can you -not trust yourself and her in my hands? I will find means to convey you -safely to Shanghai--perhaps to Japan or Hong Kong--where you will be -secure until further plans may be laid." - -"Griggsby Doane," replied the viceroy with simple candor, "you speak -indeed as a friend. And I would be false to the blood that flows in my -veins did I not prize the friendship of man for man, second only to -the love of a son for a parent, above every other quality in life. -Friendship is most properly the theme of many of the noblest poems in -our language. It is to us more than your people, who place so strong -an emphasis on love between the sexes, can perhaps bring themselves to -understand. And therefore, Griggsby Doane. your feeling toward myself -and my daughter moves my heart more deeply than I can express to you. - -"It is not surprising that news of my sorrow--of this sad ending that -is set upon my long life--should have reached you. But since you know so -much, I will tell you, as friend to friend, more. Do you know why this -sentence has been passed upon me? It is because I could not bring myself -to obey the order of the throne that the republican agitator, Sun -Shi-pi who had sought sanctuary at my yamen in Nanking should be at once -beheaded. Instead I sent for Sun Shi-pi to counsel him. I permitted him -to go to Japan on condition that he engage in no conspiracies and that -he remain away. Instead of complying with my condition he hastened to -organize revolutionary propaganda. He returned to China, appeared in -disguise on the steamer that is burning out yonder, and is now dead, -there, in his republican uniform." - -So his information was complete! A picture rose in Doane's mind of the -headless trunk of Sun Shi-pi amid the horrors of the lower deck. - -His excellency continued: "I was denounced at the Forbidden City as a -traitor. The sentence of death followed, in the form of an edict from -the empress dowager in the name of the young emperor. Were I now to -follow Sun Shi-pi into exile in a foreign land I would mark myself for -all time as a traitor indeed; as one who, while sharing as an honored -viceroy the prosperity and dignity of the reigning dynasty, conspired -toward its downfall." - -"But, Your Excellency, the empress dowager and the young emperor no -longer speak with the voice of the Chinese people." - -"That could make no difference, Griggsby Doane. By edict of the Yellow -Dragon Throne of Imperial China I have been instructed to go to my -ancestors. My allegiance is only to that throne. I will obey.... -Already, Griggsby Doane, you have done for me more than one can ever -demand of a friend. And yet one more demand I must make upon you. There -is no other to whom I can turn. I have no other friend to-night. Within -a short time my secretaries will secure a launch or a junk to convey us -to my home near Huang Chau. Will you come with us there?" - -Doane, surprised, bowed in assent. - -"Thank you. The gratitude of myself and all my family and friends will -remain with you. You are a princely man.... Until later, then, good -night, Griggsby Doane." - -He was gone. - -Doane walked farther along the bank; stood for a time absorbed in -thought that led, at length, to what seemed a new ray of light in the -darkness that was his mind. And he strode back, hunting in this group -and that for Dawley Kane. That man had offered help. Now he could give -it. - -Dawley Kane, fully dressed, unruffled, quietly smoking a cigar and -looking through a pocket notebook by the light from the river, seemed -a note of sanity in an unbelievably confused world. To him, apparently, -the nightmare of fighting and slaughter on the steamer, like the fire, -were but incidents. The only evidence the man gave out of quickened -nerves was that he talked a little more freely than usual. To Doane he -presented a surface as clear and hard as polished crystal, impenetrable, -in a sense repelling, yet, as we say, a gentleman. - -They even chatted casually, as men will, standing there looking out at -the fire (which now had reached the stem and eaten down to the lower -decks, incinerating alike the bodies of men who had died for faith and -for lust) and at the wide circle of light on the rim of which floated -the vulture-the boats of the rivermen. Doane forced himself into the -vein of the man's interest; riding roughshod over a desperate sense -of unreality. For he knew that the great masters of capital were often -proud and even finicky men who must be approached with skill. They were -kings; must be dealt with as kings. - -Kane was interested to learn what relation the fight below decks might -have to the rebellion up the river. That, clearly, was characteristic -of the man--the impersonal gathering in and relating of observable data. -His interest was deeper in the agriculture and commerce of the immense -Yangtze basin, to which subject he easily passed. His questions came -out of a present fund of knowledge--questions as to the speed, -cargo-capacity and operation-cost of the large junks that plied the -river by thousands, as to the cost of employing Chinese labor and the -average capacity of the coolie. He knew all about the slowly developing -railroads of North and Central China; commented in passing on the -surprising profits of the young Hankow-Peking line.... He seemed to -Doane to have in his mind a map or diagram of a huge, profitmaking -industrial world, to which he added such bits of line or color -as occurred in the answers to his questions. But he gave out no -conclusions, only questions. Famines, other wide-spread suffering so -tragically common in the Orient, interested him only as an impairment of -trade and industrial man power. The opium habit he viewed as an economic -problem. - -Doane, settling doggedly to his purpose, found himself analyzing the -power of this quiet man. It lay of course, in the control of money. And -money would be only a token of human energy. The religion of his own -ardent years had taken no account of earthly energy or its tokens; it -had directed the eyes of the bewildered seeker toward a mystical other -world. Yet human life, in the terms of this earth, must go on. To this -point he always came around, of late years, in his thinking, just as -the church had always come around to it. Money was vital. The church was -endlessly begging for it; in no other way could it survive to continue -turning away the puzzled eyes of the seekers. - -And the immense energy created in the human struggle to live and prosper -must continually be gathering up, here and there, into visible power -that shrewd human hands would surely seize. He felt this now as a law. -Religion had not left him. He felt more strongly than ever before that -this miraculously continuing energy implied a sublime orderly force that -transcended the outermost bounds of human intelligence. Religion was -surely there: it only wanted discovering. It had, as surely, to do with -primitive energy, with the heat of the sun and the disciplined rush of -the planets, with the tragic struggle of human business, with work and -war and sex and money.... And then he indulged in a half-smile. For this -primitive undying energy could be no other than the Tao of Lao-tzu and -Chuang Tz. And so, after all these groping years of his errant faith, -he had fetched up, simply in Taoism. - -But that law seemed to stand. The human struggle created power that -tended to gather at convenient centers. And here beside him, smoking a -cigar, stood a man whose uncommon genius fitted him to seize that power -as it gathered and administer it; a man to whom money came--the very -winds of chance heaped it about him. And to Doane, just now, money--even -in quantity that would be to Kane hardly the income of a day or -so--meant so much that the grotesque want of it (the word "grotesque" -came) stopped his brain. - -For it was coming clear to him how completely the throne could at will, -obliterate the worldly establishment of Kang Yu. That throne, however -politically weak, yet held the savage instruments of despotic power. -Kang's sad end would come within the twenty-four hours, perhaps; -certainly he would wait only to prepare himself and to write his final -papers. The eunuch's men would be everywhere about the household; -nothing could be hidden from them, or from the spies among the -servants.... With money--a little money--Hui Fei might be saved from an -end as tragic as her father's.... The thing, surely, could be managed. -For the moment it seemed almost simple. She could he spirted away. -There might he missionaries to escort her down the river on one of the -steamers. - -It was then, while Doane's thoughts still raced hither and thither, that -Kane himself broached the vital topic. - -"This viceroy"--thus Kane--"seems to be quite a personage. He's been a -diplomat, I believe. And Kato tells me has an excellent collection of -paintings." - -Doane felt himself turning into a trader. "You are interested in Chinese -paintings, are you not, Mr. Kane?" he asked guardedly. - -"Oh, yes. I have something of a collection. And now and then Kato picks -up something for me." - -"I don't know, of course, how far you would care to go with it Mr. -Kane"--Doane was measuring every word as it passed his lips--"but there -is a possibility that a bargain could be struck with his excellency at -this time." - -"Indeed?" - -"It would be advisable to act pretty quickly, I should say." - -"Well! This is interesting. You are informed about his collection?" - -"In a general way. It is very well known out here. His collection of -landscapes of the Tang and Sung periods is supposed to be the most -complete in existence, with fine works of Ching Hao, Kuan Tung, Tung -Yuan and Chu-jan. The best known paintings of Li Chang are his. He -has several by Kao Ke-ming, and, I know, an original sixfold landscape -screen by Kuo Hsi. Then there are works of the four masters of southern -Sung--Li Tang, Lui Sungnian, Ma Yuen and Hsia Kuai. You would find -nearly all the great men of the Academy represented." - -Doane stopped; waited to see if this list of names impressed the great -American. If he knew, in his own person, anything whatever about Chinese -painting he must exhibit at least a little feeling. But Dawley Kane said -nothing; merely lighted, with provoking deliberation, a fresh cigar. - -"It is commonly understood, too"--Doane could not resist pressing him a -little further--"that he has authentic paintings by Wu Tao-tzu, and Li -Lung-mien." Surely these two names would stir this man who seemed at -moments no more than a calculating machine with manners. But Kane smoked -on.... "And I understand that he has a fairly complete collection of -portraits by the men of the Brush-strokes-reducing Method." - -He finished rather lamely; fell silent, and looked out over the still -brilliantly lighted river; the river of a hundred thousand dramatic -scenes--battles and romances and struggles for trade--the great river -with its endless memories of gold and bloodshed--the river that for a -brief day was running red again. The fire out there, though red flame -and rolling smoke and whirling sparks still roared upward, was consuming -now the lower deck and the hull. Within the hour the _Yen Hsin_ would be -no more than a curving double row of charred ribs; one more casual -memory of the river. - -Still Dawley Kane smoked on. He clearly knew no enthusiasm. He was an -analyst, an appraiser, a trader to the core. He felt no discomfort, even -in friendly talk, in letting the other man wait. But Doane would say -no more. And finally, knocking the Ash off his cigar with a reflective -finger, Kane remarked; "You really think that this collection would be a -good buy?" - -"Unquestionably." - -"Have you any idea what he would ask?" - -"I don't even know that he would consider selling it." - -"But if he were properly approached.... there are reasons____" - -"You know of his predicament?" - -"I gather that there is a predicament." - -"Oh.... well, yes, there is. But I don't know how even to guess at the -value. Many of the paintings are priceless. In New York, at collector's -prices, and without hurrying the sale...." - -"A hundred thousand dollars?" - -"Many times more." - -"But if he is anxious to sell--must sell" - -"There is that, of course." - -"A hundred thousand is a good deal of money. If I were to place that -sum to his credit to-morrow, for instance, by wire, at a Shanghai hank, -don't you suppose it would tempt him?" - -"It might. Though Kang knows the value of every piece." Doane was -finding difficulty in keeping pace with the situation. Kane would shave -every penny, as a matter of principle. That, of course, explained him; -was the secret of his wealth and power. Paintings, after all, mattered -to him only in a remote sense; you could always buy them if you chose, -if people would, as apparently they did, think better of you for buying -them. It came down to the desirability of building up and solidifying -one's name, of what Doane had heard spoken of everywhere in America -during his last visit as "publicity." The word irritated him. -It suggested that other word, also heard everywhere in America, -"salesmanship." These words, to the sensitively observant Doane, had -connoted an unpleasant blend of aggressive enterprise with an equally -aggressive plausibility. - -But his wits were sharpening fast. If this man was a buyer, he would be -a seller. - -"His excellency has another collection that might or might not interest -you--the value of it would be only slightly artistic--his precious -stones." Doane threw this cut carelessly. "There is no estimating the -value of those. It might run into the millions...." He saw Kane's eyes -come to a sudden hard focus behind the veil of smoke. He was really -interested at last. And Doane, with mounting pulse, quietly added, -"He has historical jewels from many parts of Asia--head ornaments, -bracelets, ropes of matched pearls from Ceylon, old careen jade from -Khotan, quantities of the jewelry taken from Khorassan and Persia by -Genghis Khan and his sons, including a number of famous royal pieces, -and some of the jeweled ornaments brought from the temples of India by -Kublai Khan." - -This, Doane knew, was enough. He waited, now, himself. Waited and -waited. - -"Mr. Doane"--Kane, at last, was speaking--"I would be glad to have you -approach the viceroy for me. To-night, if you think best. I will be -glad, of course, to pay you a commission." - -"Shall I make a definite offer--for the paintings and the jewels?" - -"No." Kane considered. "Let him set a price. Then we will make our -offer." - -"It is safe to say, Mr. Kane"--Doane was remembering experiences of -men in church and educational work who had had to approach the great -capitalists for gifts of money--"that you could sell half the paintings -for what you might pay for the two collections at this time. That would -enable you to give the other half, as a collection bearing your own -name, to one of the art museums at home, at no cost to yourself." - -Kane smoked thoughtfully. "I presume, Mr. Doane," he said, "that the -predicament you spoke of can not interfere in any way with the safe -delivery of the collections." - -Doane considered. How much did this man know? That Japanese, behind his -mask of a smile, would be deep, of course. With a sudden sinking of the -heart, Doane perceived that Kane might easily know the whole story. But -even if he did he would admit nothing. He trusted no one; that was his -calm cynical strength. He would trade to the last.... Another swift, if -random, perception of this tense moment was that much of the common talk -regarding the "inscrutable" East was utter nonsense. Read in the -light of history and habit the Oriental mind was anything but deeply -mysterious; it was, indeed, very nearly an open book. Whereas the -Western mind, with its miraculous religion, its sentimentality and -materialism and (at the same time) its cynically unscrupulous financial -power, could be baffling indeed. - -Desperate now, seeing no other way through, Doane spoke out from his -tortured heart. "Mr. Kane, the simple fact is that his excellency has -been condemned to death, and his daughter to a fate that will -almost certainly end in death for her as well. They are seizing his -property...." - -"Who are they?" - -"The Imperial Government--the empress dowager and her crew. They are -sending the chief eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, to take his paintings and -jewels, and his daughter, to Peking. Frankly, it may be necessary to -hurry matters--smuggle the things out. But the fan paintings can be -packed in parcels, the scrolls rolled small on their ivory sticks, the -jewels gathered in a few boxes. Once in white hands they would be safe. -I think. I believe I can arrange it. The porcelains and carvings you -would probably have to leave behind." - -His voice died out. Dawley Kane was coolly appraising him. Their minds -were not meeting. - -"As you are stating it now, it is a different situation altogether," -said Kane, the ring of tempered metal in his voice. "Obviously the man -to deal with is the eunuch, What's-his-name." - -"But--really--" - -"He would have the collections complete including the porcelains and the -carvings. I should want them all. He would be ignorant and corrupt, of -course; we could buy him for a song. And there would be no risk. Yes, -let him get possession. Then if you would like to approach him for me I -will be glad to see that you make something for yourself." - -Doane drew in his breath. Slowly he said: "But that, Mr. Kane, seems a -good deal like taking a profit out of the viceroy's misfortune." - -But he caught himself. To Kane, who had made enormous profits out of -wrecked railways, who had cornered stocks and produce and mercilessly -squeezed the short sellers, this would be sentimentality. - -Doane heard himself saying: "I'm sorry. I could hardly undertake it, Mr. -Kane." And walked away. His failure was complete. Worse, if there had -been any gaps in the information supplied by the ubiquitous little -Kato, they were filled now. The finely balanced machine that served so -smoothly as a brain in the head of the great American, would be working -on and on. Through the Japanese he could easily enough reach Chang -Yuan-fu from Hankow after the tragedy that now hovered so close over the -old viceroy and all that was his. He could make what he and his suave -kind would doubtless regard--the slang word came grimly--as a killing. - -The white men had made a small fire of dry rushes and thwarts from the -boats. There sat Hui Fei, the sleeping little princess in her arms; and, -beside her, Rocky Kane. Near by, where the men had spread coats on the -ground, Miss Means and Miss Andrews slept side by side. - -Doane walking toward the group--stopping, moving away only to turn -irresolutely back--saw young Kane reach over and take the child into his -own arms, and saw Hui Fei smile at him. He strode away then, struggling -to believe that she could do that. But she had.... After all, she knew -only that he had acted outrageously toward her, had then apologized -publicly, boyishly, and now had brought her little sister ashore, -himself falling exhausted on the bank. With those few facts, out of her -impulsively young judgment she could strike a balance in his favor. Even -at his worst he had bluntly admired her; for that she might, in the end, -forgive him. And his youth would call to her. - -Deane, indeed, forced himself to consider the boy dispassionately. The -wild oats of any spoiled youth with too much money at his disposal, -if brought together, and closely scrutinized, would make an appalling -showing. Wild young men did, of course, recover. There was in this boy a -note of intensity--passionate, eager--that was by no means all egotism. -And there was in the father a hard sort of character that had proved -itself indomitable, and that must be taken into account. Yes, it was a -simple fact, that many a young fellow had gone farther wrong than had -Rocky Kane without wrecking his adult life. You couldn't tell. And -there they were, the eager moody boy and the lovely girl, who was oddly, -quaintly conspicuous in her opera wrap, sitting very close, talking -in low tones while he walked alone. It was torture.... yet it wras an -awakening. He told himself that it was better so... Pacing back and -forth, dwelling on the quick changeableness of youth, its ardor and -sensitive hopefulness, he thought--reaching out for fellowship as -will always the hurt soul--of other lonely lives, of Abelard and Jean -Valjean, of St. Francis, even of Christ. It was odd--from his present -philosophical position of something near Taoism he felt the legendary -Christ as a profoundly human and friendly spirit, immeasurably more -tender, finer, gentler than the theological structure of thought and -conduct that had been erected in His name. He had thought himself very -nearly around the circle, back to essential good.... This process could -bring only humility. Life began to matter less. Love was a tormenting -problem of self; the mature soul must in some measure attain -selflessness if it were not to go down in the trampled dust of life. -Worldly success was an accident. It was hardly desirable; hardly -mattered. That he had within the hour pinned his hope to money, fairly -fought for it, began to seem incredible. - -The viceroy found hint standing quietly by the river, turning from the -slowly dying fire out there to the slowly spreading glow in the eastern -sky. - -"I like to think," remarked his excellency, smiling in friendly fashion, -"that when the first Buddhist patriarch, Bodhidharma, miraculously -crossed the river on a reed plucked from the southern bank, it was not -far from here, near my home." - -"Was not your city of Huang Chau the home of Li To?" asked Doane. - -"Indeed, yes!" cried his excellency. "In some of his excursions on the -river he undoubtedly passed the site of my home." - -Doane quoted from that most famous of rhapsodists in musical Chinese: -"'One who has hearkened to the waters roaring down from the heights of -Lung, and faint voices from the land of Ch'in; one who has listened to -the cries of monkeys on the shores of the Yangtze Kiang and the songs -of the land of Pa'.... That"--he was musing aloud, reflectively as the -Chinese do--"was written three full centuries before William of Normandy -first set foot on British soil.... Li Po so described himself." - -They talked on, of life and philosophy, in, language interwoven with -classical allusions. Friendship, the finest relationship in Chinese -civilization, as it stood, had come to them.... It brought a kind of -peace. Doane failed to recognize this sensation as in some degree but -a phase of his painful exaltation. It seemed to him then that his -struggle, no matter what atonement might lie before, was over. He forgot -again the Western vigor that was, and to the last would be, driving his -spirit. - -Meanwhile the swiftly growing acquaintanceship of Huj Fei and Rocky Kane -was weaving its bright-tinted weft in and out through the dark warp of -Rocky's ill-spent youth. His eyes followed the slightest movement of her -slim hands and rested dog-like on her finely modeled head about which -the shining wet black hair lay close. To his quick youth she was an -exquisite fairy. He felt her as perfume in the air he breathed. Her -voice, when she drowsily, prettily spoke, fell on his ear like music -in an enchanted land. He could say little; he had never before so lost -himself. - -She tried daintily to conceal a yawn. And he, clasping the child in both -arms, turned away to hide its brother. Then, very softly, she laughed -and he laughed. - -"You must try to sleep," he said gently. - -"I can no' let you keep my sister. You, too, are ver' tire'." - -"It's nothing. I love to hold her. Really! You see, my life hasn't been -this way. Maybe, if I'd had a sister..." He stopped; suddenly, vividly -sensing what he had been; a hot flush flooded his sensitive face. He -could only add then: "I want you to sleep. It may be hours before -the boat comes for you. It's been such a horrible night--such a -nightmare...." - -"But you mus' res', too. One of the servan's will take my sister." - -"No!" he cried, low, fiercely, "I won't let any one else have her!" -Sensing crudely that the child was a chord between them, he tightened -his hold. The little head rolled back on his arm; he bent over, tenderly -kissed the soft cheek, then looked over it at Hui Fei, staring. During -one brief moment their eyes met full in the flickering yellow light. - -She turned away; in lieu of speech looked about for a spot to lay her -head. - -"Here!" He laid the child on the ground; and, surprised to find himself -collarless and coatless, took off his waistcoat, rolled it up and placed -it for a pillow. "It's really pretty well dried out," he added, with an -embarrassed little laugh.... Then, as she still said nothing, went -on, "Do just lie down there. I'll keep awake. We can't count on the -servants; they're all scared to death." - -Still she hesitated. "I'm afraid I am ver' tire'," she finally remarked -unsteadily. "I can't think ver' clearly." - -"Listen!" said he, hardly hearing. "I've got to tell you something. I'm -not good enough so much as to speak to you." - -"Please!" she murmured. "I don' wan' you to talk abou'--" - -"I don't mean that. It's other things too." His voice broke, but after a -moment he pressed on, a determined look on his curiously youthful face. -"I've done every rotten thing I could think of. I'm--well, I guess I'm -just a criminal. No, listen--please! It's true. I'm to blame for this -awful fire--smoking opium in my cabin. It was my lamp--it must have -been. I fell asleep. But I knew better, of course.... Oh, God, it's -terrible! All those lives, all this suffering! And you--I've nearly -killed you--when it was you...." Here, creditably, he caught himself. -"Don't think I'm talking wildly. I'm getting at something. Seeing you, -meeting you--and now, this--well, I've never seen anybody like you. It's -bowled me off my feet. I know what love is, now--Oh, please! I've got -to get this out. I love you. I'm crazy about you. I can say that because -pretty soon that boat'll come and you'll go and I'll never see you -again. It's right, too! I've got to start again--alone and prove that -there's good stuff in me somewhere..." - -"I'm ver' tire'," she murmured wistfully; and resting her head on the -rolled-up waistcoat she lay still. - -If she had only let him finish! There had been something--some point--he -was getting at. He hadn't meant to tire her or hurt her.... When the tall -eunuch came for the little princess he angrily drove the fellow away. -For Hui Fei was sleeping now, peacefully, like the warm little child in -his arms. - -An English gunboat was the first relief craft to arrive; in the cool -dawn; a tiny craft, built for the river, with a white freeboard low as -a monitor's and bridge structure forward of the thin high funnel. The -small boat that came ashore made a number of trips, taking off the -passengers and the surviving white officers of the _Yen Hsin_. - -His excellency refused, with calm courtesy, to set foot on the English -gunboat that was built for the river; he would wait for the junk that -had been sent for. - -Dawley Kane found his son, nodding, with the picturesquely-clad child -in his arms. The boy, glancing at the sleeping Hui Fei whose head -rested comfortably on the rolled-up waistcoat, gave the child now to the -patiently waiting eunuch, then fairly dragged his father to the boat. -With the Japanese, Kato, and oddly distant to the big mate and the -suddenly exotic-appearing viceroy in his richly embroidered satins who -had been after all only casually, for a few days, in their lives, they -embarked. - -They had nearly reached the gunboat when those on the bank heard young -Kane's voice raised in hot protest. There was a moment of argument; then -a splash. The boy could be seen then swimming back to shore. And Dawley -Kane, turning his back, went on to the gunboat, stepped aboard, and -disappeared. Rocky clambered, dripping, up the bank; came straight to -Duane, a staring, exhausted youth, very white. - -"I can't do it." he panted. "They're just told me--Kato and the -pater--about this terrible trouble of the viceroy's and--and Miss -Hui Fei's.... The pater said it was time I--got clear of any new -entanglement. I quit him. Oh, I suppose you'll think me a--damn fool, -but"--at this point he nearly broke into tears--"but I love that -girl, Mr. Doane! If I can't be of some use to her--now, in this awful -trouble--I don't want to live. Will you--help me? And let me help?".... -And, all blind confidence, he offered his hand to the big mate; who took -it. - -The gunboat hoisted anchor and swung about, heading down-stream. Passing -her, upward bound, came a large junk, with the rig of a trader from -Szechuen, her single huge rectangular sail, brown-umber 'n tint and -closely ribbed with battens of bamboo, flat against the one mast that -towered clumsily amidships. The eight long sweeps, in the low waist and -forward, moved rhythmically in time with the syncopated, wailing chant -of nearly a hundred oarsmen. The _tai-kung_ crouched, bamboo pole in -hand, just within the prow. - -The hull was of cypress, stained from stem to stern with yellow orpiment -and rubbed to a polish with oil. The high after-deck structure, all of -fifty feet in length, terminating in a projecting gallery-twenty feet or -higher above the water, was carved everywhere in intricately decorative -designs; as were, also, the roof over the tillerman's stand on the -deck house and the gallery railing (just within which stood a row of -flowering plants in yellow and green pots). The many small windows along -the sides were glazed with opalescent squares of ground oyster shells -and glue; those across the stern (under the gallery) with stained glass. - -To no one aboard the gunboat or among the still waiting groups on the -bank did the thought occur that this craft might be engaged in other -than peaceable business. Her like were not an uncommon sight along the -always crowded river. The passing attention she drew was merely that -aroused by a richly decorative object moving beautifully (with a -remarkably detailed reflection) through the flat water, that itself -glowed under the red and gold of the early morning sky like a great -sheet of burnished old copper. It was not observed that three white -faces peered warily out of the shadow, behind as many opened windows; -nor could it easily be seen that the figure in blue, sitting, knees -drawn up, on the deck house just behind the _laopan_ who mercilessly -urged on the sweat-shining oarsmen, was none other than the redoubtable -Tom Sung. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII--ABOARD THE YELLOW JUNK - -|IN making their escape from the steamer, Tex Connor and the Manila -Kid seized one of the small boats, manning, one at either end, the -tackle-falls. Connor was quick, rough, profane. The Kid, breathless with -excitement, hesitant, glancing back over the rail for a thinly girlish -face that did not, then, appear, worked with ten thumbs at the ropes. -Connor's end, the boat, fell first, a short way, nearly pitching him -out. He cursed this futile man, his jackal, roundly; then clung to the -tackle as the stern fell.... The Kid moaned with pain as the slipping -hemp burned the skin off his fingers, but held it just short of -disaster. - -Hot red flames licked out overhead as the boat jerkily dropped. The -women were screaming up there. A white man, the second mate, leaned -over, swearing vigorously at them. They passed an open freight gangway, -where bodies lay. - -"Ready, now!" cried Connor. "Let go with me!" - -"Wait a minute, can't you?" whined the Kid. He was peering into the dark -interior of the steamer; grasping a moment more; wrapping a handkerchief -about his left hand. "My God! Can't a fellow tie up his hand." - -A thin blue figure appeared, stepped lightly over into the boat and -dropped on a middle thwart. - -"Dixie!" cried the Kid in falsetto. - -She wore a cap, and carried an oddly lady-like shopping bag. - -"Where'd you come from?" growled Connor. - -"I saw you start," said the girl casually. "Come on--let's get away." - -Connor stared at her; then turned back to his work. The boat struck the -water and drifted rapidly away down-stream. Connor, roaring angrily at -the Kid, got out an oar. - -"What are you doing?" asked Miss Carmichael very quietly. - -"Going ashore?" said Connor. - -"Oh, come, Tex!" said she. "Use your head." - -He looked sharply, inquiringly, doubtingly at her. - -"You two better row straight down-stream as hard as you can," she added. -"You can bet Tom Sung and that gang aren't going to show themselves at -Kiu Kiang. They've stopped somewhere below here." - -The Kid, who was nursing his hand, looked up; wrinkled his low forehead -that was hatless, and then softly whistled. Connor made no remark, but -continued studying the girl with his one eye. Finally, with an effort at -reasserting his authority, he growled: - -"Take an oar, Jim!" - -"But my hands! My God, that rope took all the--" - -"Do you expect me to do the rowing, Jim?" said Miss Carmichael. - -The Kid yielded then. The girl settled herself comfortably in the stem, -looking back at the fire. Soon they were out of the circle of light. - -Suddenly Connor drew in his oar; stowed it away. - -"Dixie," he remarked. "You've made up your mind to go through with this -business, eh?" - -"Certainly," she replied. - -"You'll have to come across if you want my help. I won't go it blind." - -Miss Carmichael glanced back at the red glow in the sky, then out toward -the slightly paling East. - -"I'll tell you by sunrise," she said. "The thing won't keep much longer -than that, anyhow. It'll have to be fairly quick work." - -"All right," said Connor. "That's an agreement. Now I'm going to take -a nap. This current's taking us down fast enough. When you sight Tom's -outfit, wake me up." With which he curled up in the bow, and soon was -snoring. - -The Kid stowed his own oar, and crept to the girl's side. - -"Careful!" she whispered. "If he should wake up...." She extricated -herself from an encircling arm. "Jim--sit still now!--It's time you and -I had an understanding. I need you, and I'm going to use you. I don't -propose to have you all steamed up, either. You'll need all the nerve -you've got. Perhaps more. I'm not at all sure that you're big enough for -what you've got to do. That's the difficulty." - -"You promised, Dixie." He was still absurdly breathless. "You said it -was a trade--if I'd stick to you, you'd stick to me!" - -"Certainly. But it's during the next eight or ten hours that you're -going to find out what sticking to me, means. You can have me, all -right, Jim, but you've got to earn me." - -"I guess I'll earn you, all right." - -"I wonder if you have the courage." - -"By God, for you, Dixie--" - -Her hand fell lightly on his; and her voice, very small and calm, broke -in with: "Supposing I told you to kill a man. Would you do it?" - -She heard, felt, his breath stop. Then he whispered, with one swift -glance at the sleeping Connor: "If I say yes, Dixie, will you kiss me? -Right now?" - -She pressed her lips slightly; then replied: "No. Not yet. And you -needn't kill anybody until I tell you to." - -"Is it--is it"--his whisper was huskier--"is it--him, Dixie?" He was -staring with less certainty now, at Connor. - -"No"--said she slowly--"nobody in particular. But anything may happen -to-night, Jim. And we can't falter. Not now." - -She let him press her hand during a brief moment; then made him resume -his seat. And from behind lowered lids she watched him. - -Once he came back, to ask hoarsely: "You said he was rough with you, -Dix. Did he--did you and he--my God, if I thought that Tex had--" - -She caught his shoulder and placed a hand over his mouth: held him thus -while she said: "If he catches you back here, Jim, he'll kill you. No -fear! Now you go back there and show me that you can play cards. You're -sitting in the biggest game of your life. Jim Watson." - -He crept back; puzzled, something hurt. There was a sting in her voice. -Could it be that the girlish Dixie was as cold-blooded as that? Treating -him like a child! Hadn't she any feelings? The question came around and -around in his muddy brain, confused with frantic uprushes of jealousy -against the big man who slept and snored in the bow.... hadn't she any -feelings?.... She was excitingly desirable. - -Just as a conquest, now; something to brag about. - -It was Dixie who sighted the soldiers, sitting in heated argument on the -bank not a hundred yards below a big junk that lay moored to stakes in -an eddy. She called sharply to Connor; they pulled straight in beside -the other two boats. - -Tom Sung came to the water's edge, a rifle (with set bayonet) in his -hand. Connor stepped out, holding the boat. The Kid, with a furtive, -glance at the big yellow fighter, and the abruptly silent shadowy group -on the bank, cautiously got out an automatic pistol and held it beside -him on the thwart. - -Dixie said sharply, for Connor's ears: "Put up that gun, Jim!" - -The Kid obeyed. - -She spoke then to Connor direct. - -"Tell your man we want that junk," she said. "Get out these other boats -and take it, quick. Then we'll start back up-stream." - -For a moment Connor was nonplussed. The girl's assumption of authority -was complete. Even the slow-thinking Tom Sung felt her presence and -turned abruptly from himself toward her. - -But, though angered, Connor controlled himself. She meant, after all, -business. Dixit wasn't a girl to make careless mistakes. She knew, none -better, what any success, little or big, might be worth in risks run. -So, speaking sharply, he gave his orders to Tom. - -Quietly the twenty or more outlaw soldiers came down to the boats and -pushed off. Rowing and paddling they crept up on the junk. A drowsy -watchman peeped over at the rail, forward. - -Then they were alongside. Catching at the mooring poles, the soldiers -stepped out on the wide sponson that curved down, amidships, nearly to -the water-line. Quickly, rifles slung on backs but revolvers at their -girdles and knives in their teeth, they went up the ropes hand over -hand, their bare feet dinging monkeylike to the smooth side. - -There were cries aboard now, and a confusion of running feet. The first -soldier to get a leg over the rail came tumbling back with a split -skull, bounding off the sponson into the water and sinking as he drifted -away. - -Connor and the Kid caught together at the sponson. Connor stepped -out; and calling on a belated soldier to give him a back, climbed -laboriously, puffing but determined, up over the rail, pausing at the -top only to call back for the Kid to follow. - -But that worthy hesitated, crouching, clutching at the boat painter. -"I've got to hold the boat here!" he shouted back; but Connor had -disappeared. - -There was much noise up there now--shouts, groans, appalling screeches, -shots, and that insistent pattering of feet. - -Dixie, watching critically the crouching figure on the sponson--for -the Kid was shivering and making little sounds, obviously caught in the -acute physical distress into which extreme sudden fear will at times -plunge a man--called abruptly: "Jim--look up!" - -A nearly naked Chinese was lowering himself in a deliberate gingerly -manner down a moving rope nearly overhead. - -"Kill him, Jim!" Dixie added. - -Singling out her clear voice from the tumult, the yellow man looked -fearfully down. - -The Kid, at the same moment, looked up; then, fumbling in a curiously -absent way for his pistol, glanced back at Dixie. - -"I'll hold the boat," said she. "Go on--kill him!" She sat quietly, one -thin arm reached out to the nearest mooring pole, looking steadily up. - -The Kid, nerving himself, suddenly burst into a storm of wild oaths and -shot three times into the body above him. At the first shot the mar. -slipped down a little way. - -"Push him away!" Dixie cried sharply. "I don't want him falling into the -boat!" - -He was shooting again; and then with an effort diverted the falling -body. - -Dixie got up, and stood steadying herself in the gently rocking boat; -and the Kid--quit; out of breath now, and muttering, as he fondled the -hot pistol, "Well, I did it, didn't I? I did what you said!"--found in -her eyes, shining through the dusk of early dawn, a bright white -light that was, to him, disconcerting and yet profoundly thrilling. He -shivered again as he felt the spell of her strange genius. What a woman, -he was thinking again, but wildly, madly, now, to conquer. - -And she was saying, "I guess your nerve's all right." - -Other shining yellow bodies were tumbling over the side and floating -away. - -"Help me up there, Jim!" she commanded. "Never mind tying the boat--let -it go! It's only a giveaway. Quick--give me a hand!" - -She was beside him on the sponson. He clasped her in his arms; but -before he could kiss her she slapped him sharply. "Keep your head!" she -commanded. "Put me up there!" - -He lifted her high; until she could kneel, then stand, on his shoulder. -She went over the rail as lightly as a boy. She found the soldiers in -small groups cornering one or another of the crew, torturing and hacking -at them with bayonets and knives, and during a brief moment looked -on with a curious keen interest. The master, or _laopan_, crouched, -whimpering, on the poop.... She saw Connor standing by the mast, just -above the well, amidships and forward, where were huddled the survivors -among the crew (their number surprisingly large); Connor was panting, -revolver in hand, and scowling about him. - -Dixie stepped to his side. - -"You've got to save enough of this crew to work the boat up the river, -Tex," she remarked. - -"I'm saving enough of 'em," he replied gruffly. "We've only killed a -dozen or so. There was more'n a hundred." - -The heavily evil-looking Tom Sung reluctantly detached himself from one -of the groups and came over, wiping his bayonet casually on his sleeve. -Him Connor roughly ordered to gather his men together and make ready to -get under way. To the Kid, who came awkwardly over the rail just then, -Connor gave merely a glance. Then to Dixie, he said: - -"Come up here!" - -He led the way up the steps with the carven hand rail to the poop; gave -the _laopan_ a careless kick; stepped around the steersman's covered pit -and out astern on the high projecting gallery. - -"Now," he said, fixing his one eye on Her, "where's this place?" - -She turned away to the pots of flowers that stood closely spaced just -within the elaborate woodwork of the railing. There were chrysanthemums, -white, yellow and deep Indian red; highly cultivated double dahlias; -red lotus blossoms; and tuberoses that filled the fresh morning air with -their heavy perfume. "Well?" Connor added explosively. - -"I said I'd tell you by sunrise, Tex," she said, coolly pleasant; and -hummed, very softly, a music-hall tune, bending over a spreading lotus -blossom with every appearance of ingenuous girlish interest. After a -moment, she went on, "The thing now is to get this junk up the river as -fast as it will go." - -"Where to?" He was controlling his voice, but his face, usually -expressionless, was brutally clouded...."Push me just a little farther, -Dix, and you'll go overboard. And there won't be any flowers at the -funeral. By God, I'm not sure I wouldn't enjoy it. You got me into this -business! Now if you--" - -"Better control yourself, Tex," said she; straightening up before -him. "I may have got you in, but it's a real job now. You've got to go -through. And you're going to need me. The place is a few miles this side -of a town called Huang Chau, on the north hank." - -"Beyond Hankow?" - -"No, below. It's only a matter of hours getting up there, if you'll just -get this junk started." - -"How'll we know it when we get there?" - -"All we've got to do is ask a native, anywhere along the bank, where -Kang Yu lives--his old home." - -"Who's he?" - -"The viceroy of Nanking. Why don't you use that eye of yours once in a -while, Tex--look around you a little?" - -Slowly his mind, so quick at the vicious games of his own race, picked -up and related the facts. His face relaxed, as he thought, into the -familiar wooden expression. - -"You're sure the stones are there?" he asked, quietly now. - -She nodded; hummed again; caressed the flowers. - -"All right, Dix," he said then, as he turned to go forward, "that sounds -square enough. I guess I can handle it all right. And I'll see that you -get your share all hunky dory." - -"What are you figuring my share to be?" she asked, glancing casually up -from a lotus blossom. - -"Oh," he cried without hesitation, almost playfully, "you and I aren't -going to have any trouble about that." - -He went then; and she lingered among the flowers. - -From beyond the long deck house came shouts and wailing. The great -sweeps were got overside. The mooring poles were hoisted out and lashed -along the sponsons. The clumsy craft swung out into the river and moved -slowly forward. - -At the sound of a hasty light step Dixie looked up into the haggard gray -face of the Kid. - -"What was it?" he whispered, glancing fearfully behind him. "Wha'd he -say to you?" - -She dropped her eyes; turned away. - -"Quick! Tell me, or by God, I'll--" - -She threw up a frail white hand. - -"Not now, Jim!" - -"When?" - -"He'll have to sleep. There's work ahead." - -"If you think _I_ can sleep--" - -"I can't either, Jim. It's dreadful. But I'm going to tell you -everything. You have a right to know. Wait till we're past the steamer. -We'd better get below now anyhow. We mustn't be seen. If we aren't, -they'll never suspect this junk. Then make sure he's asleep and come up -here. I'll be waiting." - -The Kid brought Dixie's breakfast of rice and eggs and tea to the -gallery. - -"The cook was only wounded a little," he explained. "Tom's got him -working now." - -Dixie was reclining on a Canton chair of green rushes over a bamboo -frame, her head resting languidly near the tuberoses. Now and again she -drew in deeply the rich odor. And beyond the fringe of flowers and the -carven railing she could see the river. Junks moved slowly by, sliding -down with the current--somber seagoing craft out of Tientsin and Cheefoo -and Swatow and even Canton. By a village were clustered open sampans, -and slipper-boats with their coverings of arched matting. The small -craft of the fishermen with suspended nets or with roosting, crowding -cormorants clustered here and there along the channel-way. Everywhere -farmers and their coolies were at work in the fields. A family--father, -mother, boys and girls--worked tirelessly with their feet a large -irrigating wheel at the water's edge. - -The Kid seated himself on the deck and mournfully looked on while she -ate. Perversely she delayed her narrative, playing with time and life. -In her oblique way she was happy, exercising her gift for gambling on a -scale new in her experience. Indeed, for the thrill she now experienced, -Dixie Carmichael would have paid almost any price. Life itself--the mere -existing---she held almost as cheaply as the Chinese. Deliberately, with -nerves steady as steel instruments, she finished her simple breakfast -and then put the bowls aside on the deck. - -Lying back, averting her face, gazing off down the river, she began -the narrative that she had framed within the hour. Her manner, calm at -first, soon offered evidences of deeply suppressed emotion. Her voice -exhibited the first unsteadiness the Kid had ever heard in it. She -drew out an embroidered handkerchief from the pocket of her blouse -and pressed it once or twice to her eyes, as, with an air of dogged -determination, she talked on. - -The narrative itself dealt with her girlhood near San Francisco, her -chance meeting with Tex Connor, then a well-known character on the -western coast of America, her girlish infatuation with him, and an -elopement that she had supposed would end in marriage. Instead she found -her life ruined. Connor had beaten her, degraded her, driven her into -vice. She ran away from him; reached the China Coast; settled down -with every intent to become what she termed, in his and her language, a -square gambler. - -"When I took up with you a little last year, Jim, it seemed to me that -at last I'd found a man I could tie to. You never knew my real feelings. -I'm not the kind that tells much or shows much. I guess perhaps my -life's been too hard. But--oh, Jim!--well, you're, seeing the real girl -now. I'm pretty well beaten down, Jim.... You're getting the truth from -me at last. I've got to tell it--all of it--for your own sake. You're -in worse trouble than you know, right now. The cards are stacked -against you, Jim. Your life even"--her voice broke; but she got it under -control--"I'm going to save you if I can." - -Moodily he watched her. - -"If it was anybody but Tex! He's merciless. He's strong. He never -forgets.... Listen, Jim! Tex came clear from London to find me. And -he found out about--us--you and me. That I was growing fond of you. He -never forgets and he never forgives. Oh. Jim, can't you see it! Can't -you see that that's why he took you on--so he could watch you, keep you -away from me? Can't you see what a game I've had to play? God, if you'd -heard what he said to me back here this very morning--Oh, it's too -awful! I can't tell you! He's so determined! He gets his way, Jim--Tex -gets his way!.... Oh, what can I do!" - -"No, wait--I've got to tell you the whole thing. You said he was -planning to cross me. He'll do that, of course. I don't think I care -much about that. But you, Jim--oh, you poor innocent boy! If you could -only see! You'll never get your hands on one of the viceroy's jewels." - -She turned her face toward him. Her eyes now were swollen and wet with -tears. - -Jim, gray of face, held in his two hands a Chinese knife, balancing -it. There were stains on the blade. He must have picked it up, she -reflected, here on the junk. For it wouldn't be like him to carry such -a weapon. It seemed to her then that he was holding his breath. She saw -him moisten his blue lips with the tip of an ashen tongue. He was trying -to speak. At least his lips parted again. She waited. When the voice did -finally come, it was so hoarse that he had evident difficulty in making -it intelligible. - -"Tex may be strong--but if you think I'm afraid--" - -"Oh, Jim.... no, I don't mean that! Not that! Oh, I don't know what I'm -saying-! It's only when I think how happy you and I might be--think of -it! really rich! able to go and live decently somewhere, like regular -folks!" - -Silently, with surprising stealthy swiftness, he got to his feet. His -right hand, with the knife, busied itself in a side pocket of his coat. - -"Say the word, Dixie"--his face was contorted with the muscular effort -necessary to produce this small sound--"say the word, and I'll kill -him." - -"Oh, no, Jim!" she covered her face with her thin hands, and sobbed, -very low. "Oh God, what can we do? Isn't there some other way?" - -"Say the word," he whispered. - -"Would it be"--she broke down again--"would it be--where a man's a -devil, where he's threatened--wouldn't it be like defending ourselves?" - -"Say the word!" - -"Oh, Jim---God forgive me!.... Yes!" - -Her lips barely framed the word. But he read it. She watched him as -he stepped around the huge coils of tracking rope on the roof of the -steersman's pit; watched until he dropped softly down and disappeared. - -Then, lying back, very still, she listened. But the oarsmen were -chanting up forward, the _laopan_ shouting; nearer, the steersman was -singing an apparently endless falsetto narrative (as if there had -never been bloodshed). The minutes slowly passed. She drew in the sweet -exhalation of the tuberoses.... still no unusual sound. She herself -exhibited no sign of excitement beyond the hint of a cryptic smile and -the white light in her eyes.... Her shopping bag lay on her lap. Opening -it, she looked at the bracelet watch, that nestled close to a small -triangular bottle of green corrosive sublimate tablets.... The gentle -wash of the current against the hull gave out a soothing sound. The -slowly rising sun beat warmly down, and the polished deck radiated the -heat. A sensation of drowsiness was stealing over her. For a short while -she fought it off; but then, deciding that no anxiety on her part could -be of value, she yielded, closed the bag on her lap, and drifted into -slumber. - -It was pleasantly warmer still. She felt her eyes about to -open--slowly--on a presence. This languor was delicious. As an almost -ascetic epicure in sensations she rested a moment longer in it, thinking -dreamily of priceless gems heaped in her hollowed hands; of luxurious -idleness in some exotic port--Singapore, or Penang (she had loved the -tropical splendor of Penang), or in Burmah or India--Rangoon say, or -even Lucknow, Lahore and Simla. They would know less about her there. -And with the means to operate on a larger scale she should be able to -add enormously to her wealth. She decided to dress and act differently; -make a radical change in her methods. - -Her lips parted. The presence before her--coatless, little cap pushed -back off the low forehead--was Connor. He had pushed aside a flower pot -to make a seat on the rail. - -She closed her eyes again. He still wore the gray flannels and the white -shoes with the rubber soles-It would be the shoes that had enabled him -to approach without awakening her. He was smoking a cigar And the face -was wooden again--save for his eye--He at stared oddly at her. And she -thought his breathing somewhat short, just at first. - -She opened her eyes again. - -"I've had a good nap," she said. - -He smoked, and stared. - -"Where's Jim?" she asked then; quite casually: raising herself on an -elbow. - -He made no reply; smoked on, still a thought breathless, fixing her with -his eyes. - -"He brought me some breakfast, just before I fell asleep.... What time -is it?" - -For what seemed a long space he did not even answer this; merely smoked -and stared. She had never, sensitively keen as were her perceptions, -felt so curious a hostility in Connor. She had hitherto supposed that -she understood him, short as had been their actual acquaintance---her -narrative of a past with him in America, as related to Jim, was -false--but the man before her now, sitting all but motionless on the -railing, smoking with an odd rapid intensity, holding that cold eye on -her, was wholly alien. - -Finally he replied: "It's afternoon." - -"No!" She sat up. "Have we been going right along?" - -"Right along." - -She stood erect; covered a yawn; then with her thin hands smoothed down -the wrinkled blue skirt about her hips. - -"I look like the devil," she remarked. The thin hands went to her hair. -"You haven't noticed any sort of a mirror in the cabin, have you, Tex?" - -He did not reply. - -Faintly through the still air came a faint sound--a boom--boom-bom. - -"What's that?" she asked sharply. - -"Fighting around Hankow." - -"We're not way up there?" She stepped to the side and looked out ahead. -"There's a city!" - -"Tom says it's Huang Chau." - -"Hello! We're there!" - -He inclined his head. - -"What are you going to do?" - -"Tie up here." - -She heard now other and more confused sounds. The junk was slowing down; -working in toward the yellow shallows. - -"Now listen!" said he. She glanced at him, then away, apparently -considering the quiet landscape; alien he was indeed, and hostile, his -manner that of an inarticulate man struggling with a set speech.... -"Listen! You're smart enough. But I want you to understand I don't trust -you.'' - -"Don't you, Tex?" - -"When I go ashore, you're to stay here--right here on this deck--where -you are now." - -"What's the big idea, Tex?" - -"There'll be men to see that you do stay here. I want you to get this -straight." - -"Of course," said she musingly, "you won't be able to rob me outright. -You'll have to give me enough of a share to keep me quiet afterward." - -He said nothing. - -"But what's to prevent the crew from getting away with the junk. I'm not -very keen about being carried off that way." - -"You needn't worry. I'm taking the master along with me." - -He stood then; looked meaningly at her; then went forward. She noted -that his two hip pockets bulged. - -Slowly the long narrow craft was worked in toward the land. Trackers -sculled ashore in sampans and made the great hawsers fast to stakes. -Then the crew, with a deal of shouting and many casual blows, were -assembled in the long well forward of the mast, where they huddled -abjectly. - -Keeping around the steersman's house, Dixie contrived to take in much -of the scene. There was quarreling among the soldiers. Tom Sung towered -over them, shouting rough orders. The two men that were told off (she -judged to guard her and the junk) appeared to be objecting to their part -in the affair. Obviously there would be small loot here. - -Connor came back over the deck house; stood angrily over her. She sensed -the mounting brutality in him. For that matter, his sort and their ways -with women were familiar enough to her. She had learned to take brutal -men for granted. But it had not occurred to her that Connor would strike -her. However, he did. Knocked her to her knees; then to her face; even -kicked her as she lay on the deck. He was suddenly loud, wild. - -"None o' this peeking around!" he cried. "Keep your eyes where they -belong!" And left her there. - -After a little she was able to creep to the rail and peer out through -the flowers. Frightened members of the crew were sculling the sampans -back and forth, until at length the whole party, every man except the -_laopan_ armed, fully assembled, set off inland. - -Beyond an unpleasant headache she felt no injury. She sat for a little -while; then again looked forward. The two guards were on the deck house, -talking excitedly together. While she watched they climbed down, shouted -at the huddled crew, fired a careless shot or two into the mass of them -that brought down at least one. At length two of the crew went over -the side, followed by the soldiers. A moment later the sampan appeared -moving toward the shore, the two soldiers loudly urging on the oarsmen. - -Dixie, swiftly then, rearranging her disordered hair as she walked, went -down into the cabin. - -A corridor extended along one side from the _laopans_ quarters under the -steersman's house--sounds of stifled weeping came from there, apparently -a woman or a girl--forward to the open space amidships. The rooms all -gave on this corridor, the doorways hung with curtains of blue cotton -cloth. Into one and another of these rooms she looked There was bentwood -furniture and bedding in each---the latter tossed about. On the walls -hung neat ideographic mottoes. The grillwork about the windows and over -the doors was of a uniform and quaint design. - -Connor had taken for himself the rear room There she found, beneath the -window a heap of matting and bedding. Thoughtfully, deliberately, she -lifted it off, piece by piece, exposing first a foot and leg, then a -bony hand, finally the entire figure of what had been Jim Watson, known, -of recent years, along Soochow Road and Bubbling Well Road as the Manila -Kid. His clothing was slashed and torn in many places. About his middle, -and about his head, were wide pools of blood that during a number of -hours, evidently, had been drying into the boards of the deck. The neck, -she observed, on closer examination, had been cut through nearly to the -vertebrae. - -During a swift moment she considered the grew-some problem; then -carefully replaced the matting and bedding. - -She went forward then to the end of the corridor; paused to look in her -shopping bag, open the triangular bottle and drop a few of the green -pills into the pocket of her middy blouse, under her handkerchief; -closed the bag and stepped out on the low midships deck. - -The sampan had just returned to the junk. The two soldiers were walking; -rapidly inland after Connor's party. She let herself quickly over the -side; stepped into the sampan; waved toward the shore. Meekly the cowed -oarsmen obeyed the pantomime order. - -She stepped out on the bank, very slim, almost pretty; tossed a Chinese -Mexican dollar into the boat, watched, with a faint, reflective smile, -the two primitive creatures as they fought over it; then walked briskly, -not without a trace of native elegance in her carriage, after the -soldiers, lightly swinging her shopping bag. - - - - -CHAPTER IX--IN A GARDEN - -|THE road--narrow, worn to a deep-rutted little canyon--circled a brown -hill, rose into a mud-gray village, where a few listless children played -among the dogs, and a few apathetic beggars, and vendors of cakes, -and wrinkled old women stared at the thin white girl who walked rapidly -and alone; wound on below the surface of the cultivated fields; came, -at length, to a wall of gray-brick crowned with tiles of bright yellow -glaze and a ridge-piece of green, and at last to a gate house with a -heavily ornamented roof of timbers and tiles. Other roofs appeared just -beyond, and interlacing foliage that was tinged, here and there, with -the red and yellow and bronze of autumn. - -The great gates, of heavy plank studded with iron spikes, stood open, -apparently unattended. Dixie Carmichael paused; pursed her lips. Her -coolly searching eyes noted an incandescent light bulb set in the -massive lintel. This, perhaps, would be the place. Almost absently, -peering through into tiled courtyards, she took two of the green tablets -from her pocket; then, holding them in her hand, stepped within, and -stood listening. The rustling of the leaves, she heard, as they swayed -in a pleasant breeze, and a softly musical tinkling sound; then a murmur -that might be voices at a distance and in some confusion; and then, -sharply, with an unearthly thrill, the silver scream of a girl.... Yes, -this would be the place. - -The buildings on either hand were silent. Doors stood open. Paper -windows were tom here and there, and the woodwork broken in. But the -flowers and the dwarf trees from Japan that stood in jars of Ming -pottery were undisturbed. - -She passed through an inner gate and around a screen of brick and found -herself in a park. There was a waterfall in a rockery, and a stream, -and a tiny lake. A path led over a series of little arching bridges of -marble into the grove beyond; and through the trees there she -caught glimpses of elaborate yellow roofs. On either hand stood -_pai-lows_--decorative arches in the pretentious Chinese manner--and -beyond each a roofed pavilion built over a bridge.... She considered -these; after a moment sauntered under the _pai-low_ at her right, -mounted the steps and dropped on the ornamented seat behind a leafy -vine. Here she was sheltered from view, yet her eyes commanded both the -main gate and the way over the marble bridges to the buildings in the -grove. - -She looked about with a sense of quiet pleasure at the gilded fretwork -beneath the curving eaves of the pavilion, the painted scrolls above -them, and the smooth found columns of aged nanmu wood that was in -color like dead oak leaves and that still exhaled a vague perfume. The -tinkling sound set up again as another breeze wandered by; and looking -up she saw four small bells of bronze suspended from the eaves.... She -sat very still, listening, looking, thinking, drawing in with a deep -inhalation the exquisite fragrance of the nanmu wood. It might be -pleasant, one day, to lease or even buy a home like this. So ran her -alert thoughts. - -The murmuring from the buildings in the grove continued, now swelling a -little, now subsiding. It was not, of itself, an alarming sound, except -for an occasional muffled shot. Her quick imagination, however, pictured -the scene--they would be running about, calling to one another, beating -in doors, rummaging everywhere. The drunkenness would doubtless be -already under way. There would be much casual but ingenious cruelty, -an orgiastic indulgence in every uttermost thrill of sense. It would be -interesting to see; she even considered, her nerves tightening slightly -at the thought, strolling back there over the bridges; but held finally -to her first impulse and continued waiting here. - -A considerable time passed; half an hour or more. Then she glimpsed -figures approaching slowly through the grove. They emerged on the -farthest of the little marble bridges. One was Tex Connor; the second -perhaps--certainly--Tom Sung. They carried armfuls of small boxes, at -the sight of which Dixie's pulse again quickened slightly; for these -would be the jewels. Tom appeared to be talking freely; as they crossed -the middle bridge he broke into song; and he reeled jovially.... Connor -walked firmly on ahead. - -They stopped by the gate screen. Connor glanced cautiously about; then -moved aside into a tiled area that was hidden from the gate and the path -by quince bushes. He called to Tom who followed. - -Miss Carmichael could look almost directly down at them through the -leaves. She watched closely as they hurriedly opened the boxes and -filled their pockets with the gems. Tom used a stone to break the golden -settings of the larger diamonds, pearls and rubies. - -A low-voiced argument followed. She heard Tom say, "I come back, all -light. But I got have a girl!" And he lurched away. - -Connor, looking angrily after him, reached back to his hip pocket; but -reconsidered. He needed Tom, if only as interpreter; and Tom, singing -unmusically as he reeled away over the marble bridges, knew it. - -Connor waited, standing irresolute, listening, turning his eye toward -the gate, then toward the trees behind him. The girl in the pavilion -considered him. She had not before observed evidence of fear in the man. -But then she had never before seen him in a situation that tested his -brain and nerve as well as his animal courage. He was at heart a bully, -of course: and she knew that bullies were cowards.... What small respect -she had at moments felt for Tex left her now. She came down to despising -him, as she despised nearly all other men of her acquaintance. Still -peering through the leaves, she saw him move a little way toward the -gate, then glance, with a start, toward the marble bridges, finally -turning back to the remaining boxes. - -He opened one of these--it was of yellow lacquer richly ornamented--and -drew out what appeared to be a tangle of strings of pearls. He turned it -over in his hands; spread it out; felt his pockets; finally unbuttoned -his shirt and thrust it in there. - -It was at this point that Dixie arose, replaced the green tablets in her -pocket, smoothed her skirt, and went lightly down the steps. He did not -hear her until she spoke. - -"Do you think Tom'll come back, Tex?" - -He whirled so clumsily that he nearly fell among the boxes and the -broken and trampled bits of gold and silver; fixed his good eye on her, -while the other, of glass, gazed vacantly over her shoulder. - -She coolly studied him--the flushed face, bulging pockets, protruding -shirt where he had stuffed in those astonishing ropes of pearls. - -He said then, vaguely: "What are you doing here?" - -"Thought I'd come along. Suppose he stays back there--drinks some more. -You'd be sort of up against it, wouldn't you?" - -"I'd be no worse off than you." He was evasive, and more than a little -sullen. She saw that he was foolishly trying to keep his broad person -between her and the boxes. - -"You couldn't handle the junk without Tom. Not very well.... Look here, -Tex, it can't be very far to the concessions at Hankow. We could pick up -a cart, or even walk it." - -"What good would that do?" - -"There'll be steamers down to Shanghai." - -"And there'll be police to drag us off." - -"How can they? What can they pin on you?" Connor's eye wavered back -toward the grove and the buildings. He was again breathing hard. "After -all this.." he muttered. "That old viceroy'll be up here, you know. -With his mob, too. And there's plenty of people here to tell...." He -was trying now to hold an arm across his middle in a position that would -conceal the treasure there. - -Her glance followed the motion, and for a moment a faintly mocking smile -hovered about her thin mouth. She said: "Saving those pearls for me, -Tex?" - -He stared at her, fixed her with that one small eye, but offered not a -word. A moment later, however, nervously signaling her to be still he -brushed by and peeped out around the quinces. - -"What is it?" she asked quickly; then moved to his side. - -Immediately beyond the farthest of the marble bridges stood a group of -ten or twelve soldiers in drunkenly earnest argument. Above them towered -the powerful shoulders and small round head of Tom Sung. In the one -quick glance she caught an impression of rifles slung across sturdy -backs, of bayonets that seemed, at that distance, oddly dark in color; -an impression, too, of confused minds and a growing primitive instinct -for violence. Tom and another swayed toward the bridge; others drew them -back and pointed toward the buildings they had left. The argument waxed. -Voices were shrilly emphatic. - -"Looks bad," said the girl at Connor's shoulder. "You've let 'em get out -of hand, Tex." Then, as she saw him nervously measuring with his eye -the width of the open space between the quinces and the gate screen, she -added, "Thinking of making a run for it, Tex?" - -He slowly swung that eye on her now; and for no reason pushed her -roughly away. "It's none of your business what I'm going to do," he -replied roughly. - -But the voice was husky, and curiously light in quality. And the eye -wavered away from her intent look. This creature fell far short of the -Tex Connor of old. She spoke sharply. - -"Come up into this summer-house, Tex!" she indicated it with an upward -jerk of her head. "They won't see us there, at first. You didn't see -me. You've got your pistols. You can give me one. We ought to be able to -stand off a few Chinese drunks." - -She could see that he was fumbling about for courage, for a plan, in a -mind that had broken down utterly. His growl of--"I'm not giving you any -pistol!"--was the flimsiest of cover. And so she left him, choosing a -moment when that loud argument beyond the bridges was at its height to -run lightly up the steps and into the pavilion. - -From this point she looked down on the thick-minded Connor as he -struggled between cupidity, fear and the bluffing pride that was so -deep a strain in the man. The one certain fact was that he couldn't -purposelessly wait there, with Tom Sung leading these outlawed soldiers -to a deed he feared to undertake alone.... They were coming over -the bridges now, Tom in the lead, lurching along and brandishing his -revolver, the others unslinging their rifles. The argument had ceased; -they were ominously quiet. - -Dixie got her tablets out again; then sat waiting, that faint mocking -smile again touching the corners of her mouth. But the smile now meant -an excitement bordering on the thrill she had lately envied the savage -folk in the grove. Such a thrill had moved those coldeyed women who sat -above the combat of gladiators in the Colosseum and with thumbs down -awaited the death agony of a fallen warrior. It had been respectable -then; now it was the perverse pleasure of a solitary social outcast. -But to this girl who could be moved by no simple pleasure it came as a -gratifying substitute for happiness. Her own danger but added a sharp -edge to the exquisite sensation. It was the ultimate gamble, in a life -in which only gambling mattered. - -Connor was fumbling first at a hip pocket where a pistol bulged, then at -a side pocket that bulged with precious stones. His eye darted this -way and that his cheeks had changed in color to a pasty gray. The girl -thought for a moment that he had actually gone out of his head. - -His action, when it finally came, was grotesquely romantic. She thought, -in a flash, of the adventure novels she had so often seen him reading. -It was to her absurd; even madly comic. For with those bulging pockets -and that gray face, a criminal run to earth by his cruder confederates, -he fell back on dignity. He strode directly out into the path, with a -sort of mock firmness, and, like a policeman on a busy corner, raised -his hand. - -Even at that he might have impressed the soldiers; for he was white, -and had been their vital and vigorous leader, and they were yellow and -low-bred and drunk. As it was, they actually stopped, just over the -nearest bridge; gave the odd appearance of huddling uncertainly there. -But Connor could not hold the pose. He broke; looked wildly about; -started, puffing like a spent runner, up the steps of the pavilion -where the girl, leaning slightly forward, drawing in her breath sharply -through parted lips, looked through the leaves. - -Several of the rifles cracked then; she heard bullets sing by. And -Connor fell forward on the steps, clawed at them for a moment, and lay -still in a slowly widening pool of thick blood. He had not so much as -drawn a weapon. Tex Connor was gone. - -They came on, laughing, with a good deal of rough banter, and gathered -up the jewels. Tom and another mounted the steps to the body and went -through the pockets of his trousers for the jewels that were there and -the pistols. As there was no coat they did not look further. And then, -merrily, they went back over the marble bridges to the buildings in the -grove where were still, perhaps, liquor and women. - -When the last of their shouts had died out, when laying her head against -the fragrant wood she could hear again the musical tinkling of the -bronze bells and the pleasant murmuring of the tiny waterfall and the -sighing of the leaves, Dixie slipped down to the body, fastidiously -avoiding the blood. It was heavy; she exerted all her wiry strength in -rolling it partly over. Then, drawing out the curious net of pearls she -let the body roll back. - -Returning to her sheltered seat she spread on her lap the amazing -garment; for a garment of some sort it appeared to be. There was even a -row of golden clasps set with very large diamonds. At a rough estimate -she decided that there were all of three thousand to four thousand -perfect pearls in the numerous strings. Turning and twisting it about, -she hit on the notion of drawing it about her shoulders and found that -it settled there like a cape. It was, indeed, just that--a cape of -pearls. She did not know that it was the only garment of its precise -sort in the world, that it had passed from one royal person to another -until, after the death of the Old Buddha in 1908 it fell into the hands -of his excellency, Kang Yu. - -She took it off; stood erect; pulled out her loosely hanging middy -blouse; and twisting the strings into a rope fastened it about her -waist, rearranging the blouse over it. The concealment was perfect. - -She sat again, then, to think out the next step Returning to the junk -was cut of the question. It would be better to get somehow up to the -concessions and trust to her wits to explain her presence there For Tex -had been shrewd enough about that. The concessions were a small bit of -earth with but one or two possible hotels, full of white folk and fuller -of gossip. She had had her little difficulties with the consuls as with -the rough-riding American judge who took his itinerant court from port -to port announcing firmly that he purposed ridding the East of such -"American girls" as she. Dawley Kane would surely be there, and other -survivors of the fire.... It all meant picking up a passage down the -river at the earliest possible moment; and running grave chances at -that But her great strength lay in her impregnable self-confidence. She -feared herself least of all. - -Another problem was the getting to the concessions. It was not the best -of times for a girl to walk the highway alone. To be sure, she had come -safely through from the junk; but it had not been far, and she hadn't -had to approach a native army. She decided to wait an hour or so, until -the plunderers there in the grove should be fully drunk; then, if at the -moment it seemed the thing, to slip out and make a try for it. - -And then, a little later, evidently from the road outside the wall, came -a new sort of confused sounds; music, of flageolets and strings, and -falsetto voices, and with it a low-pitched babel of many tongues. -Whoever these new folk might be, they appeared to be turning in at the -open gate. The music stopped abruptly, in a low whine of discord, and -the talk rose in pitch. Over the brick screen appeared banners moving -jerkily about, dipping and rising, as if in the hands of agitated -persons below; a black banner, bearing in its center the triple imperial -emblems of the Sun, the other two yellow, one blazoning the familiar -dragon, the other a phoenix. - -A few banner men appeared peeping cautiously about the screen; Manchu -soldiers of the old effete army, bearing short rifles. They came on, -cautiously into the park, joined in a moment by others. An officer with -a queue and an old-fashioned sword and a military cap in place of a -turban followed and, forming them into a ragged column of fours, marched -them over the marble bridges and into the grove, where they disappeared -from view. - -Then a gorgeously colored sedan chair came swaying in, carried by many -bearers walking under stout bamboo cross-poles. Others, in the more -elaborate dress of officials, walked beside and behind it. Then came -more soldiers, who straggled informally about, some even dropping on the -gravel to rest their evidently weary bodies. - -The chair was opened in front and a tall fat man stepped rather -pompously out, wearing a robe of rose and blue and the brightly -embroidered insignia and can button of a mandarin of the fourth rank. At -once a servant stepped forward with a huge umbrella which he opened and -held over the fat man. And then they waited, all of them, standing or -lying about and talking in excited groups. Several of the officials -hurried back around the screen as if to examine the deserted apartments -just within the gate, and shortly returned with much to say in their -musical singsong.... An officer espied the body of Connor lying on the -steps of the pavilion, and came with others, excitedly, to the foot -of the steps. The key of the confused talk rose at once. There was -an excited conference of many ranks about the tall fat man under the -umbrella. - -Then came, from the grove, that same sound of muffled shots, followed by -a breathless pause. More shots then, and increasing excitement here -by the screen. A number of the soldiers who had crossed the bridges -appeared, running. The man in the lead had lost turban and rifle; as -he drew near blood could be seen on his face. And now, abruptly, the -officials and the ragtag and bobtail by the screen--pole-bearers, -lictors, runners, soldiers--lost their heads. Some ran this way -and that, even into the bushes, only to reappear and follow their -clearer-headed brethren out to the gate. The umbrella-bearer dropped -his burden and vanished. The fugitives from the grove were among the -panic-stricken group now, racing with them for the gate and the highway -without; scurrying around the end of the screen like frightened rabbits; -and in pursuit, cheering and yelling, came many of the soldiers from the -junk. - -They caught the tall fat mandarin, as he was waddling around the screen, -wounded by a chance shot; leaped upon him, bringing him down screaming -with fear; beat and kicked him; with their knives and bayonets -performing subtle acts of torture which gave them evident pleasure and -of which the coldly observant Dixie Carmichael lost no detail. When the -fat body lay inert, not before, they took the sword of a fallen officer -and cut off the head, hacking clumsily. The head they placed on a pole, -marching noisily about with it; finally setting the pole upright beside -the first of the little marble bridges. Then, at last, they wandered -back into the grove and left the grisly object on the pole to dominate -obscenely the garden they had profaned. - -Dixie leaned against the smooth sweet surface of the nanmu wood and -listened, again, to the pleasantly soft sounds of waterfall and moving -leaves and little bronze bells. Her face was chalk white; her thin hands -lay limp in her lap; she knew, with an abrupt sensation of sinking, that -she was profoundly tired. But in her brain burned still a cold white -flame of excitement. Life, her instinct as the veriest child had -informed her, was anything, everything, but the simple copybook pattern -expounded by the naive folk of America and England. Life, as she -critically saw it, was a complex of primitive impulses tempered by -greeds, dreams and amazing subtleties. It was blindly possessive, -carelessly repellent, creative and destructive in a breath, at once warm -and cold, kindly and savage, impersonally heedless of the helpless -human creatures that drifted hither and yon before the winds of chance. -Cunning, in the world she saw about her, won always further than virtue, -and often further than force. - -She could not take her eyes, during a long period, from the hideous -object on the pole. Her over-stimulated thoughts were reaching quickly, -sharply, far in every direction. The feeling came, grew into belief, -that she was, mysteriously, out of her danger. She felt the ropes of -pearls under her blouse with an ecstatic little catch of the breath; and -(finally) letting her eyes drop to that other ugly object on the steps -beneath her, slowly opened her bag, drew out the bracelet watch (that -the Manila Kid had given her out of an absurd hope) and fastened it -about her wrist. And her eyes were bright with triumph. - - - - -CHAPTER X--YOUTH - -|THERE came for his excellency, as the sun mounted the sky, a large -junk of his own river fleet--great brown sails flapping against the five -masts of all heights that pointed up at crazily various angles, pennons -flying at each masthead, hull weathered darkly, mats and fenders of -woven hemp hung over the poop-rail, and a swarming pigtailed crew at the -sweeps and overside on the spunson and hard at the tracking ropes as -the _tai-kung_ screamed from the bow and the _laopan_ shouted from the -poop. - -They were ferried aboard in the small boat, Kang with his daughters and -his suite and servants, a handful of pitifully wailing women, young Kane -and Griggsby Doane. Then the trackers cast off from the shore and -the mooring poles, the sweeps moved, and with the _lao pan_ musically -calling the stroke the junk moved laboriously up-stream toward the home -of his excellency's ancestors. - -Crowded into the uninviting cabins the weary travelers sought a few -hours of rest Even the servants and the mourning women, under the -mattings forward, fell swiftly asleep. Only Rocky Kane, his eyes staring -widely out of a sensitively white face, walked the deck; until -the thought--a new sort of thought in the life of this headstrong -youth--that he would be disturbing those below drove him aft, out beyond -the steersman to the over-hanging gallery. Here he sat on the bamboo -rail and gazed moodily down at the tireless, mighty river flowing off -astern. - -The good in the boy--made up of the intelligence, the deep-smoldering -conscience, the fineness that were woven out of his confused heritage -into his fiber--was rising now like a tide in his spirit; and the -experience was intensely painful. It seemed to his undisciplined mind -that he was, in certain of his aspects, an incredible monster. There had -been wild acts back home, a crazy instinct for excess that now took on -distinctness of outline; moments of careless evil in Japan and Shanghai; -the continuous subtle conflict with his father in which any evasion had -seemed fair; but above all these vivid memory-scenes that raced like an -uncontrollably swift panorama through his over-alert brain stood out his -vicious conduct on the ship. It was impossible at this moment to realize -mentally that the Princess Hui Fei was now his friend; he could see her -only in the bright Manchu costume as she had appeared when he first so -uncouthly spoke to her. And there were, too, the ugly moments with -the strange girl known as Dixie Carmichael. That part of it was only a -nightmare now.... The racing in his brain frightened him. He stared at -the dimpling yellow river, at a fishing boat, and finally lifted his -hurt eyes to the bright sky.... He had been going straight to hell, he -told himself, mumbling the words softly aloud. And then this lovely girl -had brought him into confusion and humility. Suddenly he had broken with -his father; that, in itself, seemed curiously unaccountable, yet there -the fact stood.... Life--eager, crowding--had rushed him off his feet. -He felt wildly adrift, carried on currents that he could not stem.... -He was, indeed, passing through one of life's deepest experiences, one -known to the somewhat unimaginative and intolerant people whose blood -ran in his veins as conviction of sin. His own careless life had -overtaken and confronted him. It had to be a bitter moment. There was -terror in it. And there was no escaping; it had to be lived through. - -A merry voice called; there was the patter of soft-clad feet, and in a -moment the little princess in her yellow hood with the fox head on -the crown was climbing into his lap. Eagerly, tenderly, he lifted her; -cuddled her close and kissed her soft cheek. Tears were frankly in his -eyes now. - -He laughed with her, nervously at first, then, in the quick -responsiveness of youth, with good humor. She came to him as health. -Together they watched the diving cormorants and the wading buffalo. -Then he hunted about until he found a bit of board and a ball of twine; -whittled the board into a flat boat, stuck a little mast in it with -a white sail made from a letter from his pocket, and towed it astern. -Together they hung on the rail, watching the craft as it bobbed over the -little waves and laughing when it capsized and lost its sail. - -She climbed into his lap again after that, and scolded him for making -the unintelligible English sounds, and made signs for him to smoke; and -he showed her his water-soaked cigarettes. - -At a low-pitched exclamation he turned with a nervous start. The tall -eunuch stood on the cabin roof; came quickly forward for the child. And -beside him was Miss Hu: Fei, still of course wearing the Chinese coat -and trousers in which she had escaped from the steamer. She had, under -the warm sun, thrown aside the curiously modern opera wrap. She was -slim, young, delicately feminine. The boy gazed at her reverently. She -seemed to him a fairy, an unearthly creature, worlds beyond his reach. -In his excitement, but a few hours back--in what he had supposed to be -their last moment together, in what, indeed, had seemed the end of the -world--he had declared his love for her. That had been an uprush of pure -emotion.... He recalled it now, yet found it difficult to accept as an -occurrence. The actual world had turned unreal to him, as it does to the -sensitively young that suffer poignantly. - -To this grave young woman, oddly his shipmate, he could hardly, he felt -now, have spoken a personal word. Their acquaintance had begun at a high -emotional pitch; now it must begin again, normally. So it seemed to him. - -"We were looking for my li'l sister," she explained, and half turned. -The eunuch had already disappeared with the child. - -"Won't you sit out here--with me?" He spoke hesitantly. "That is, unless -you are too tired to visit." - -"I coul'n' sleep," said she. - -Slowly she came out on the gallery. - -"There aren't any chairs," said he. "Perhaps I could find--" - -"I don' mind." She sank to the floor; leaned wearily against the rail. -He settled himself in a corner. - -"I couldn't sleep either. You see--Miss Hui--Miss Fei"--he broke into a -chuckle of embarrassment--"honest I don't know what to call you." - -The unexpected touch of boyish good humor moved her nearly to a smile. -Boyish he was, sitting with his feet curled up, stabbing at the deck -with his jackknife, coatless, collarless, his thick hair tousled, -blushing pleasantly. - -"My frien's call me Hui," she replied simply. - -"Oh--really! May I--If you would--of course I know that--but my friends -call me Rocky. The whole thing is Rockingham Bruce Kane. But...." - -"I'll call you Misser Kane," said she. - -His face fell a very little; but quickly he recovered himself. - -"You must have wondered--I suppose it seems as if I've done a rather -crazy thing--it _must_ seem so..." She murmured, "Oh, no!" - -"Attaching myself to your party this way---at such a difficult time. I -know it was a pretty impulsive thing to do, but...." - -His voice trailed into silence. For a brief moment this wild act seemed, -however different in its significance to himself, of a piece with his -other wild acts. It was, perhaps, like all those, merely ungoverned -egotism. Her voice broke sweetly in on this moment of gloomy reverie. - -"We know tha' you woul' help us if you coul'. An' you were so -won'erful." - -"If I only could help! You see when I spoke that way to you--I mean -telling you I loved you--" - -"Please! We won' talk abou' tha'." - -"No. We won't. Except just this. I was beside myself. But even then, or -pretty soon afterward, I knew it was just plain selfishness." - -"You mus'n' say that, either. Please!" - -"No--just this! Of course you don't know me. What you do know is all -against me--" - -"I have forgotten--" - -"You will never forget. But even if you were some day to like me more -than you could now, I know it would take a long time. I've got to earn -the right to be really your friend first. I'm going to try to do -that. I've started all over--to-day---my life, I mean. I'm just simply -beginning again. There's a good long scrap ahead of me. That's all about -that! But please believe that I've got a little sanity in me." - -"Oh, I'm sure--" - -"I have. Jumping overboard like that, and swimming back to you--it -wasn't just crazy impulse, like so many of the things I've done. You -see, my father knows you and your father--yes, I mean the terrible -trouble you're in. Oh, everything comes to him, sooner or later. All the -facts. You have to figure on that, with the pater. He--well, he wanted -me to stop thinking about you. He was afraid I'd be writing to you, or -something. You see, he'd watched us talking there by the fire. And he -told me about this--this dreadful thing. And then I had to come back. -Don't you see? I couldn't go on, leaving you like this. Of course, -it's likely enough I'm just in the way here--" She was smiling wearily, -pathetically, now. - -"Oh, no--" she began. - -"It's this way," he swept impetuously on. "Maybe I _can_ help. Anyway, -I've got to try. If your father--really--" He saw the slight shudder -that passed through her slender body, and abruptly checked the rapid -flow of words. "We've got to take care of you," he said, with surprising -gravity and kindness. "You'll have to get back with the white people. -You mustn't be left with the yellow." - -"I know," said she, the strength nearly gone from her voice. "It always -seems to me that I'm an American. Though sometimes I ge' confuse'. It -isn' easy to think." - -"I'm simply wearing you out I mustn't. But just this--remember that I -know all about it. I've broken with my father, for the present, and I'm -happy about that. I have got some money of my own--quite a little. I've -even got a wet letter of credit in my pocket. I had just sense enough -last night to get it out of my coat. It's no good, of course, outside -of the treaty ports, but it's there. I'm here to help. And I do want to -feel that you'll call on me--for anything--and as for the rest of it--" - -He had thought himself unusually clear and cool, but at this point his -voice clouded and broke He glanced timidly at her, and saw that her -eyes were full of tears. He had to look away then. And during a long few -moments they sat without a word. - -Then the thought came, "I'm here to help!" It was a stirring thought. He -had never helped, never in his life that he could remember. And yet the -Kanes did things; they were strong men. - -He was moodily skipping his knife over his hand, trying to catch the -point in the soft wood. Abruptly, with a surprising smile, he looked up -and asked: "Ever play mumbletepeg?" - -Her troubled eyes for an instant met his. He chuckled again in that -boyish way. And she, nervously, chuckled too. That seemed good. - -"It's sort of hard to make the blade stick in this wood," he said -eagerly. "But we can do some of the things." - -Griggsbv Doane, too, was far from sleep. For that matter, he was of -the strong mature sort that needs little, that can work long hours and -endure severe strain without weakening. Moving aft over the poop he saw -them, playing like two children, and stepped quietly behind the slanting -short mast that overhung the steersman. - -They made a charming picture, laughing softly as they tossed the knife. -It hadn't before occurred to him that young Kane had charm. Plainly, -now, he had. And it was good for Hui Fei, in this hour of tragic -suspense. Youth, of course, would call unto youth. That was the natural -thing. He tried to force himself to see it in that light but he moved -forward with a heavy heart. - -The junk plowed deliberately against the current. The monotonous voice -of the chanting _lao pan_, the rhythmical splash and creak of the -sweeps, the syncopated continuous song of the crowded oarsman, an -occasional warning cry from the tai-kung--these were the only sounds. -Elsewhere, lying in groups about the deck, the castaways slumbered. - -But Doane knew that his excellency was awake, shut away in the -_laopan's_ cabin, for repeatedly he had heard him moving about. Once, -through a thin partition, had come the sound of a chair scraping. It -would mean that Kang was preparing his final papers. These would be -painstakingly done. There would be memorials to the throne and to -his children and friends, couched in the language of a master of the -classics, rich in the literary allusions dear to the heart of the -scholar, Manchu and Chinese alike. - -Doane found a seat on a coil of the heavy tracking rope. His own part in -the drama through which they were all so strangely living could be -only passive. He would serve as he might. His little dream of personal -happiness, with a woman to love and new strong work to be somehow begun, -was wholly gone. - -Slowly, foot by foot, the clumsy craft crept up the river. And strangely -the scene held its peaceful, intensely busy character. Everywhere, as if -there were no revolution, as if the old river had never known wreckage -and bloodshed, the country folk toiled in the fields. Junks passed. -Irrigating wheels turned endlessly. Fishermen sat patiently watching -their cormorants or lowering and lifting their nets. A big English -steamer came booming down, with white passengers out of bloody Hankow -(the looting and burning of the native city must have been going on just -then, before the reinforced imperial troops drove the republicans back -across the river). They layabout in deck chairs, these white passengers; -or, doubtless, played bridge in the smoking-room. And Doane, as so -often during his long life, felt his thoughts turning from these idle, -self-important whites, back to the oldest of living peoples; and he -dwelt on their incalculable energy, their incredible numbers, their -ceaseless individual struggle with the land and water that kept them, at -best, barely above the line of mere sustenance. - -It was difficult, pondering all this, to believe that any revolution -could deeply stir this vast preoccupied people, submerged as they -appeared to be in ancient habit. The revolution could succeed only if -the Manchu government was ready to fall apart from the weakness of sheer -decadence. It was nothing, this revolution, but the desperate work of -agitators who had glimpsed the wealth and the individualistic tendencies -of the West. And the hot-blooded Cantonese, of course. Most of the -Chinese in America were Cantonese. The revolution was, then, a Southern -matter; it was these tropical men that had come to know America. That -was about its only strength. The great mass of yellow folk here in the -Yangtze Valley, and through the coast provinces, and all over the great -central plain and the North and Northwest were peaceable at heart; only -those Southerners were truculent, they and the scattered handfuls of -students. - -And yet, China, in the hopeful hearts of those who knew and loved the -old traditions, must somehow be modernized. Sooner or later the Manchus -would fall. The vast patient multitude must then either learn to think -for themselves in terms of modern, large-scale organization or fall into -deeper degradation. The European trading nations would strike deep and -hard in a sordid struggle for the remaining native wealth. The Japanese, -with iron policy and intriguing hand would destroy their institutions -and bring them into a pitiful slavery, economic and military. - -His own life, Doane reflected, must be spent in some way to help this -great people. The individual, confronted by so vast a problem, seemed -nothing. But the effort had to be made. Since he was not a trader, since -he could not hope now to find himself in step with the white generation -that had passed him by, all that was left was to pitch in out here. The -call of the martyred Sun Shi-pi pointed a way. - -The personal difficulty only remained. The man who loses step with -his own people and his own time must submit to being rolled under and -trampled on. There is no other form of loneliness so deep or so bitter. -And seeing nothing above and about him but the hard under side of this -hard white civilization, the unfortunate one can not hope to retain in -full vigor the incentive to effort that is the magic of the creative -white race. Every circumstance now seemed combined to hold him down and -under. The philosophy of the East with which his spirit was saturated -argued for contemplation, submission, negation (as did, for that -matter, the gospel of that Jesus to whose life the peoples that called -themselves Christian, in their every activity, every day, gave the lie). -His only driving power, then, must come out of the white spark that was, -after all, in his blood. It was only as a discordantly active white -that he could help the yellow men he loved.... And the one great -incentive--love, companionship, for which his strong heart hungered--had -flickered before him only to die out. He must somehow, at that, -prove worthy. It was to be just one more great effort in a life of -prodigiously wasted effort.... He thought, as he had thought before, in -bitter hours, of Gethsemane. But he knew, now, that he purposed going -on. Once again he was to dedicate his vigor to a cause; but this time -without the hope of youth and without love walking at his side. - -And then, quaintly, alluringly, the picture of Hui Fei took form before -his mind's eye, as if to mock his laborious philosophy, charm it away. -Like that of a boy his quick imagination wove about her bright youth, -her piquant new-old worldliness, shining veils of illusion. It was, -then, to be so. He was to live on, sadly, with a dream that would not -die.... He bowed his head. - -Their play brought relief to the overwrought nerves of the two young -people. After a time they settled comfortably against the rail. - -"You lost all your things on the steamer?" said he. "Ever'thing." - -"So did I." He smiled ruefully. "Even part of my clothes. But it doesn't -matter." - -"I di'n' like to lose all my pretty things." said she. "But they're gone -now. All excep' my opera cloak. An' I'm jus' a Manchu girl again. It's -so strange--only yes'erday it seem' to me I was a real American. I los' -my books, too--all my books." - -He glanced up quickly. "You're fond of reading?" - -"Oh, yes. Aren' you?" - -"Why--no, I haven't been. The fellows and girls I've known didn't read -much." - -"Tha' seems funny. When you have so much. And it's so easy to read -English. Chinese is ver' hard." - -"What books have you read mostly?" - -She smiled. "Oh, I coul'n' say. So many! I've read the classics, of -course--Shakespeare an' Milton and Chaucer. Chaucer is so modern--don' -you think? I mean the way he makes pictures with words." - -"What would you think," said he, "if I confessed that I cut all those -old fellows at school and college?" - -"I've thought often," said she gravely, "tha' you Americans are spoil' -because you have so much. So much of everything." - -"Perhaps. I don't know. The fellows feel that those things don't help -much in later life." - -"Oh, bu' they _do!_ You mus' have a knowledge of literature an' -philosophy. Wha' do they go to college for?" - -"Well--" Inwardly, he winced. He felt himself, without resentment, -without the faintest desire to defend the life he had known, at a -disadvantage. "To tell the truth, I suppose we go partly for a good -time. It puts off going into business four years, you know, and once -you start in business you've got to get down to it. Then there's all -the athletics, and the friends you make. Of course, most of the fellows -realize that if they make the right kind of friendships it'll help, -later, in the big game." - -"You mean with the sons of other rich men?" she asked. - -"Why, no, not--yes, come to think of it, I suppose that's just what I -do mean. Do you know here with you, it doesn't look like much of a -picture--does it?" Thoughtfully she moved her head in the negative. "I -know a goo' deal about it," said she. "I've watch' the college men in -America. Some of them, I think, are pretty foolish." - -"I suppose we are," said he glumly. "But would you have a fellow just go -in for digging?" - -She inclined her head. "I woul'. It is a grea' privilege to have years -for study." - -He was flushing. "But you're not a dig! You--you dance, you know about -things, you can wear clothes...." - -"I don' think study is like work to me. I love it. An' I love -people--every kin', scholars, working people--you know, every kin'." - -His moody eyes took in her eagerly mobile face; then dropped, and he -stabbed his knife at the deck. - -"Of course, we know that all is no' right 'n America. The men of money -have too much power. The govemmen' is confuse', sometimes very weak and -foolish. The newspapers don' tell all the things they shoul'. But it -is so healthy, jus' the same! There is so much chance for ever' kin' of -idea to be hear'! An' so many won'erful books! Often I think you real -Americans don' know how' won'erful it is. You get excite' abou' little -things. I love America. The women are free there. There is more hope -there than anywhere else in the worl'. An' I wish China coul' be like -that." - -"I quit college," said he. "You see, I've never locked at things as you -do." - -"Bu' you have such a won'erful chance!" - -"I know. And I've wasted it. But I'm changing. I--it wouldn't be fair of -course to talk about--about what I was talking about--not now--but I -am seeing things--everything--through new eyes. They're your eyes. I'm -going at the thing differently. You see, the Kanes, when you get right -down to it, don't think about anything but money." - -"I like to think about beauty," said she. - -"I wonder if I could do that." - -"Why no'?" - -"Well--it's kind of a new idea." - -"Listen!" she reached out, plainly without a personal thought, and took -his hand. "I'm going to reci' some poetry that I love." - -Thrilled by the clasp of her hand, his mind eager wax to the impress of -her stronger mind, his gaze clinging to her pretty mouth, he listened -while she repeated the little poem of W. B. Yeats beginning:= - -```"All the words that I utter, - -````And all the words that I write..."= - -At first he stirred restlessly; then watching, doglike, fell to -listening. The disconcerting thing was that it could mean so much to -her. For it did--her dark eyes were bright, and her chin was uplifted. -Her quaint accent and her soft, sweet voice touched his spirit with an -exquisite vague pain. - -"It is music," said she. - -"I don't see how you remember it all," said he listlessly. - -"Jus' the soun's. Oh, it woul' be won'erful to make words do that. So -often I wish I ha' been bom American, so it woul' be my language too." - -She went on, breathlessly, with Yeats's--= - -```"When you are old and gray and full of sleep..."= - -And then, still in pensive vein, she took up Kipling's _L'Envoi_--the -one beginning--"There's a whisper down the field." Clearly she felt the -sea, too; and the yearning of those wandering souls to whom life is -a wistful adventure, and the world an inviting labyrinth of beautiful -hours. She seemed to know the _Child's Garden of Verses_ from cover to -cover, and other verse of Stevenson's. It was all strange to him, except -"In winter I get up at night." He knew that as a song. - -And so it came about that on a dingy Yangtze junk, at the feet of a -Manchu girl from America, Rocky Kane felt for the first time the glow -and thrill of finely rhythmical English. - -She went on, almost as if she had forgotten him. William Watson's -_April, April_ she loved, she said, and read it with a quick feeling for -the capricious blend of smiles and tears. It dawned on him that she -was a born actress. He did not know, of course, that the theatrical -tradition lies deeper in Manchu and Chinese culture than in that of any -Western people. - -She recited the beautiful _Song_ of Richard Le Galliene, beginning:= - -```"She's somewhere in the sunlight strong...."= - -And followed this with bits from Bliss Carman, and other bits from -Henley's _London Nocturnes_, and from Wilfred Blunt and Swinburne and -Mrs. Browning. She had a curiously strong feeling for the color of -Medieval Italy. She spoke reverently of Dante. Villon she knew, too, -and Racine and the French classicists. She even murmured tenderly de -Musset's _J'ai dis mon coeur_, in French of which he caught not a word -and was ashamed. For he had cut French, too. - -And then, as the sun mounted higher and the gentle rush of the river -along the hull and the continuous chantey of the oarsmen floated, more -and more soothingly to their ears, they fell quiet, her hand still -pleasantly in his. Together they hummed certain of the current popular -songs, he thinking them good, she smiling not unhappily as her voice -blended prettily with his. And Griggsby Doane heard them. - -At last she murmured: "I think I coul' rest now." - -"I'm glad," said he, and drew down a coil of rope for a pillow, and left -her sleeping there. - -Doane heard his step, but for a moment could not lift his head. Finally -the boy, standing respectfully, spoke his name: "Mr. Doane!" - -"Yes." - -"May I sit here with you?" - -"Of course. Do." - -"I've got to talk to somebody. It's so strange. You see, she and I--Miss -Hui Fei--it's all been such a whirl I couldn't think, but...." - -That sentence never got finished. The boy dropped down on the deck and -clasped his knees. Doane, very gravely, considered him. He was young, -fresh, slim. He had changed, definitely; a degree of quiet had come to -him. And there could be no mistaking the unearthly light in his eyes. -The love that is color and sunshine and exquisite song had touched and -transformed him. - -Doane could not speak. He waited. Young Kane finally brought himself -with obvious, earnest effort in a sense to earth. But his voice was -unsteady in a boyish way. - -"Mr. Doane," he asked, "do you believe in miracles?" - -Thoughtfully, deliberately, Doane bowed his great head. "I am forced -to," he replied. - -"You've seen men change--from dirty, selfish brutes, I mean, to -something decent, worth while?" - -"Many times." - -"Really?.... But does it have to be religion?1' - -"I don't knew." - -"Can it be love? The influence of a woman, I mean--a girl?" - -"Might that not be more or less the same thing?" - -"Do you really think that?" - -Again the great head bowed. And there was a long silence. Rocky broke it - -"I wish you would tell me exactly how you feel about marriage between -the races." - -"Why--really--" - -"You must have observed a lot, all these years out here. And the pater -tells me that you're an able man, except that you've sort of lost your -perspective. He did tell me that he'd like to have you with him, if you -could only bring yourself around to our ways." Rocky, even now, could -see this only as a profound compliment. He rushed on: "Oh, don't -misunderstand me! She doesn't love me yet. How could she? I've got -to earn the right even to speak of it again. But if I should earn the -right--in time--tell me, could an American make her happy?" - -"I'm afraid I can't answer that general question." But Rocky felt that -he was kind. "The pater says I'd be wrecking my life. He says she'd -always be pulled two ways--you know! God! He seemed to think I had only -to ask her, and she'd come. He doesn't understand." - -"No," said Doane--"I'm afraid he couldn't understand." - -"You feel that too? It's very perplexing. I know I've spoken carelessly -about the Chinese and Manchus. I looked down on them. I did! But oh, -if I could only make it clear to you how I feel now! If I could only -express it! We've been talking a long time, she and I. I don't mind -telling you I'm taking a pretty bitter lesson, right now. She knows so -much. She has such fine--well, ideals--" - -"Certainly." - -"Oh, you've noticed that!.... Well, I feel crude beside her. Of course, I -am." - -"Yes--you are. Even more so than you can hope to perceive now." - -The youth winced; but took it. "Well, suppose--just suppose that I -might, one of these days, prove that I'm decent enough to ask her to be -my wife.... Oh, don't think for a minute that I don't understand all it -means. I do. I tell you I'm starting again. I'm going to fight it out." - -"That is fine," said Griggsby Doane, and looked squarely, gravely, -at the very young face. It was a white face, but good in outline; the -forehead, particularly, was good. And the blue eyes now met his. "I -believe you will fight it out. And I believe you have it in you to win." - -"I'm going to try, Mr. Doane. But just suppose I do win. And suppose I -win her. It's when I think of that, that I.... I'll put it this way--to -my friends, to everybody in New York, she'd be an oddity. A novelty, -not much more. You know what most of them would think, in their hearts. -Either they'd make an exception in her case--partly on my account, -at that--or else they'd look down on her. You know how they are about -people that aren't--well, the same color that we are. Probably I -couldn't live out here. The business is mainly in New York, of course. -And she's such an enthusiastic American herself--she'd want to be there. -Some, anyway. And she's got to be happy. She's like a flower to me, now; -like an orchid. Oh, a thousand times more, but.... What could I do? How -could I plan? Oh, I'd fight for her quick enough. But you know our cold -rich Americans. They wouldn't let me fight. They'd just...." - -"My boy," said Doane. quietly but with an authority that Rocky felt, -"you can't plan that. You can do only one thing." - -"What thing?" - -"Stay here in China a year before you offer yourself to that lovely -girl. Study the Chinese--their language, their philosophy, their art. A -year will not advance you far, but it should be enough to show you where -you yourself stand." - -"A year....!" - -"Listen to what I am going to try to tell you. Listen as thoughtfully -as you can. First I must tell you this--the Chinese civilization has -been--in certain aspects still remains--the finest the world has known. -With one exception, doubtless." - -"What exception?" - -"The Grecian. You see, I have startled you." - -"Well, I'm still sort of bewildered." - -"Naturally. But try to think with me. The Chinese worked out their -social philosophy long ago. They have lived through a great deal that we -have only begun, from tribal struggles through conquest and imperialism -and civil war to a sort of republicanism and a fine feeling for peace -and justice. And then, when they had given up primitive desire for -fighting they were conquered by more primitive Northern tribes--first -the Mongols, and later the Manchus. The Manchus have been absorbed, have -become more or less Chinese. - -"And now a few more blunt facts that will further startle you. The -Chinese are the most democratic people in the world. No ruler can -long resist the quiet force of the scores of thousands of villages and -neighborhoods of the empire. - -"They are the most reasonable people in the world. You can no more judge -them from the so-called Tongs in New York and San Francisco, made up of -a few Cantonese expatriates, than you can judge the culture of England -by the beachcombers of the South Seas. - -"They developed, centuries before Europe, one of the finest schools of -painting the world has so far known. There is no school of reflective, -philosophical poetry so ripe and so fine as the Chinese. They have had -fifty Wordsworths, if no Shakespeare. - -"You will find Americans confusing them with the Japanese, whom -they resemble only remotely. All that is finest in Japan--in art and -literature--came originally from China." - -"You take my breath away," said Rocky slowly. But he was humble about -it; and that was good. - -"But listen, please. What I am trying to make clear to you is that in -old Central China--in Hang Chow, and along this fertile Yangtze Valley, -and northwest through the Great Plain to Kai Feng-fu and Sian-fu in -Shensi--where the older people flourished--germinated the thought and -the art, the humanity and the faith, that have been a source of culture -to half the world during thousands of years. - -"But you can not hope to understand this culture through Western eyes. -For you will be looking out of a Western background. You must actually -surrender your background. It is no good looking at a Chinese landscape -or a portrait with eyes that have known only European painting. Can you -see why? Because all through European painting runs the idea of copying -nature--somehow, however subtly, however influenced by the nuances -of color and light, copying. But the Chinese master never copied a -landscape He studied it, felt it, surrendered his soul to it, and then -painted the fine emotion that resulted. And, remember this, he painted -with a conscious technical skill as fine as that of Velasquez or -Whistler or Monet." - -The youth whistled softly. "Wait, Mr. Doane, please.... the fact is, -you're clean over my head. I--I don't know a thing about our painting, -let alone theirs. You see I haven't put in much time at--" He stopped. -His smooth young brows were knit in the effort to think along new, -puzzling channels. "But she would understand," he added, honestly, -softly. - -"Exactly! She would understand. That is what I am trying to make clear -to you." - -"But you're sort of--well, overwhelming me." - -"My boy." said Doane very kindly, "you could go back home, enter -business, marry some attractive girl of your own blood who thinks no -more deeply than yourself, whose culture is as thinly veneered as your -own--forgive me. I am speaking blunt facts." - -"Go on. I'm trying to understand." - -"--And find happiness, in the sense that we so carelessly use the word. -But here you are, in China, proposing to offer your life to a Manchu -princess. You do seem to see clearly that there, would be difficulties. -It is true that our people crudely feel themselves superior to this fine -old race. As a matter of fact, one of the worthiest tasks left in -the world is to explain East to West--draw some part of this rich old -culture in with our own more limited background. But as it stands now, -the current will be against you. So I say this--study China. Open your -mind and heart to the beauty that is here for the taking. Try to look -through the decadent surface of this tired old race and see the genius -that still slumbers within. If, then, you find yourself in the new -belief that their culture is in certain respects finer than ours--as -I myself have been forced to believe--if you can go to Hui Fei -humbly--then ask her to be your wife. For then there will be a chance -that you can make her happy. Not otherwise." - -Doane stopped abruptly. His deep voice was rich with emotion. The -boy was stirred; and a moment later, when he felt a huge hand on his -shoulder he found it necessary to fight back the tears. The man seemed -like a father; the sort of father he had never known. - -"Don't ask her so long as a question remains in your mind. Defiance -won't do--it must be faith, and knowledge. I can't let you take the life -of that girl into your keeping on any other terms." - -The odd emphasis of this speech passed quite by the deeply preoccupied -young mind. - -"You're right," he replied brokenly. "I've got to wait. Everything that -you say is true--I really haven't a thing in the world to offer. I'm an -ignorant barbarian beside her." - -"You have the great gift of youth," said Doane gently. - -But a moment later Rocky broke out with: "But, Mr. Doane--how can I -wait? She--after her father--they're going to take her away--make her -marry somebody at Peking--somebody she doesn't even know--" - -"I don't think they will succeed in that plan," said Doane very soberly. - -"But why not? What can she do? A girl--alone--" - -"There are tens of thousands of girls in China that have solved that -problem." - -"But I don't see--" - -"You must still try to keep your mind open. You are treading on ground -unknown to our race." A breathless quality crept into Doane's voice; his -eyes were fixed on the distant river bank. "I wonder if I can help you -to understand. Death--the thought of death--is to them a very different -thing--" - -"Oh!" It was more a sharp indrawing of breath than an exclamation. "You -don't mean that she would do that?" - -Doane bowed his head. - -"But she couldn't do a cowardly thing." - -Doane brought himself, with difficulty, to utter the blunt word. -"Suicide, in China, is not always cowardice. Often it is the finest -heroism--the holding to a fine standard." - -"Oh, no! It wouldn't ever--" - -"Please! You are a Westerner. Your feelings are those of the -younger--yes, the cruder half of the world. I must still ask you to try -to believe that there can be other sorts of feelings." Again the great -hand rested solidly on the young shoulder; and now, at last, the boy -became slightly aware of the suffering in the heart of this older man. -Though even now he could not grasp every implication. That human love -might be a cause he did not perceive. But he sensed, warmly, the ripe -experience and the compassionate spirit of the man. - -"You have stepped impulsively into an Old-World drama," Doane went -quietly on--"into a tragedy, indeed. No one can say what the next -developments will be. You can win, if at all, only by becoming yourself, -a fatalist; You must move with events. Certainly you can not force -them." - -"But I can take her away," cried the boy hotly; finishing, lamely, with -"somehow." - -"Against her will?" - -"Well--surely--" - -"She will not leave her father." - -"But--oh, Mr. Doane...." - -He fell silent. For a long time they sat without a word, side by side. -Here and there about the junk sleepers awoke and moved about. A few of -the women, forward, set up their wailing but more quietly now. The craft -headed in gradually toward the right bank, passing a yellow junk that -was moored inshore and moving on some distance up-stream. At a short -distance inland a brown-gray village nestled under a hillside. - -"That junk passed us before we left the island," Rocky observed, -gloomily making talk. - -Doane's gaze followed his down-stream; then at a sound like distant -thunder, he turned and listened. "What's that?" asked the boy. - -Doane looked up into the cloudless, blazing sky. "That would be the guns -at Hankow," he replied. - -The lictors were landed first to seek carts in the village. Then all -were taken ashore in the small boat. His excellency smilingly, with -unfailing poise, talked with Doane of the beauties of the river; even -quoted his favorite Li Po, as his quiet eyes surveyed the hills that -bordered the broad river:= - -```"'The birds have all flown to their trees, - -````The last, last lovely cloud has drifted off, - -```But we never tire in our companionship-- - -````The mountains and I,'"= - -The line of unpainted, springless carts, roofed with arched matting, -yellow with the fine dust of the highway, moved, squeaking, off among -the hills. Following close went the women and the servants. The junk -swung deliberately out and off down the river. - -Doane, declining a cart, walked beside that of his excellency; Rocky -Kane, deadly pale, his mouth set firmly, beside Miss Hui Fei. And so, -through the peaceful country-side they came to the long brick wall and -the heavily timbered gate house by the road, and, pausing there, heard -very faintly the soft tinkling of the little bronze bells within. It -was late afternoon. The shadows were long; and the evening birds were -twittering among the leafy branches just within the wall. - - - - -CHAPTER XI--THE LANDSCAPE SCROLL OF CHAO MENG-FU - -|ROCKY KANE, the few hours that followed were to exist in memory as a -confused sequence of swift-pressing scenes, all highly colored, vivid; -certain of them touched with horror, others passing in a flash of exotic -beauty; while the fire of hot, unreasoning young love burned all but -unbearably within his breast. - -He would remember the crowded line of carts in the sunken narrow road, -the unruly mules that plunged and entangled their harness; the huddled -women; the yellow dust that clung thickly to the bright silks of the -mandarins; the confusion about the gate, and the handful of soldiers -that came hurrying forward to help in a strange business up there; the -trains of other carts that struggled to pass in the narrow way, while -tattered muleteers shouted a babel of invective. - -He would remember the sad face of Miss Hui Fei-drawn back within the -shadow of the cart and the faint smiles that came and so quickly went; -and the efforts he made, at first, to cheer her with boyishly bright -talk of this and that. - -He would remember how he made his way forward through the press, without -recalling what had just been said, or what, precisely, could have been -the impulse driving him on; past his excellency--sitting yet in his -cart, calmly waiting, while the drabbled man darins stood respectfully -by; and how he found the soldiers carrying oddly limp Bodies into one of -the gate houses, hiding them there. - -He would remember the picture on which he stumbled as he rounded -the inner screen of brick; Mr. Doane and an officer and two or three -soldiers standing thoughtfully about a fat body in spattered silks that -was hideously without a head; standing there in the half dusk--for the -shadows were lengthening softly into evening here under the trees--Mr. -Doane then bending over, the officer kneeling, to examine the embroidery -on the breast; and then two soldiers bringing up a pole on the end -of which grinned the missing head; and then the sound of his own -voice--curiously breathless and without body, asking, "What is it, Mr. -Doane? What terrible thing has happened?" And then, even while he was -speaking, four soldiers carrying another body by, this of a stout man in -shirt and flannel trousers, that he felt he had seen somewhere before. - -He would remember--when they had carried out the last awful reminder of -the bloodshed that had been, and while Mr. Doane pressed a hand to his -eyes as if in prayer--how he stood silent there on the gravel area, -looking up into the trees and about at the dim quaint _pai-lows_ on -either hand and at the pavilions behind them, each on its arch of -stone over placid dark water; and how the lightly moving air of evening -whispered through the trees, stirring, with the foliage, faintly musical -little bells; and how, into this moment of calm, appeared, light of -step, swinging her shopping bag as she descended the marble steps of the -pavilion at the right and came forward under the _pai-lows_, the pale -girl, Dixie Carmichael, who glanced respectfully toward Mr. Doane, and -at Rocky himself raised her black eyebrows while her thin lips softly -framed the one word, "You?" And then, after a few words--the girl said -that Tex Connor and the Manila Kid made her come; it had been a terrible -business; she thought both must have been, killed; she had contrived -to hide--how Mr. Doane asked him to take her back to the women; and -how they went, he and she, his heart beating hotly, out through the -darkening gate where paper lanterns now moved about. He felt that -for the first sharp blow at his new life. There would be other blows; -doubtless through this girl; for the old life would not give him up -without a fight. - -He was to forget what they said, he and this unaccountable, cool girl, -as he left her out there and hurried back; but would remember the -picture he found on his return--Mr. Doane striding off deliberately into -the darkness beyond the little white bridges, while the officer followed -with a lantern, and the few soldiers, also with lanterns, straggled -after. He would remember crowding himself past all of them, snatching -one of the lanterns as he ran, and falling into step at the side of the -huge determined man. - -There were broad courtyards, then, and buildings with heavily curving -roofs and columns richly colored and carved, with dim lights behind -windows of paper squares. There were drunken soldiers, who ran away, and -screaming women, and other women who would never scream or smile again. -There was litter and splintered furniture and a broken-in door here and -there. There was a familiar big soldier who plunged at Mr. Doane with a -glinting blade in his hand; and then a sharp struggle that was to last, -in retrospect, but an instant of time, for the clearer memory was of -himself binding with his handkerchief a small cut in Mr. Doane's forearm -while the soldiers carried out a wounded struggling giant, and then -shouts and shots from the courtyard when the giant escaped. And he would -remember picking up an unset ruby from the tiling and handing it to Mr. -Doane. There was the picture, then, of a melancholy procession winding -slowly through the grove with bobbing gay lanterns. - -And finally, to the boy incredibly, the place came into a degree of -order and calm. Women and men disappeared into this building and that. -Rocky sat alone on the steps of a structure that might have been a -temple, hands supporting his throbbing head. The moonlight streamed down -into the courtyard; he could see the grotesque ornaments on the eaves -of the buildings, and the large blue-and-white bowls and vases in which -grew flowering plants and dwarfed trees from Japan, and, in the farther -gate, a sentry lounging. Now and again faint sounds came from within the -largest of the buildings, voices and footsteps; and he could see lights -again dimly through the paper. He wondered what they might be doing.... -His thoughts were a fever. The spirit of Hui Fei hovered like an -exquisite dream there, but crowding in with malignant persistence came, -kept coming, pictures of Dixie Carmichael. He wondered where they had -put her. Perhaps she was already asleep. It would be like her to sleep. -She was so cold, so oddly unhealthy. Doubtless, surely, he would have to -speak with her. - -He must have dozed. Soldiers were dragging themselves sleepily about the -courtyard, rifles in hand. Two officers and a mandarin in a gown were -examining a paper by the light of a lantern. Then Mr. Doane came out and -read the paper. They talked in Chinese, Mr. Deane's as fluent as theirs. -Rocky thought drowsily about this; considered vaguely the years of study -and experience that must lie back of that fluency. - -Mr. Doane, indeed, seemed to be assuming a sort of command. With great -courtesy, but with impressive finality, he appeared to be outlining a -course to which the mandarin assented. The officers bowed and went -out through the gate. And when the mandarin and Doane then turned and -entered the largest building it was the white man who held the paper in -his hand. - -Rocky fell again into a doze; slept until he found Mr. Doane shaking -him. - -"Come with me now. You can help." Thus the huge grave man with the deep -shadows in his face. - -And Rocky went with him, guided by a servant with a lantern, through -corridors and courtyards, glimpsing dimly massive pillars and panels -in black wood and softly red silk and railings of marble carved into -exquisite tracery. - -With the paper that the boy had drowsily observed Doane sought his -excellency. Dominated by the white man the attendant mandarin tapped at -an inner door, then hesitatingly opened; and Doane alone stepped within. - -The room was long, plain, obscurely seen by the light of a single -incandescent lamp over the formal _kang_ or platform across the farther -end. Doane had not thought of electric light in here and found it -momentarily surprising. The walls were paneled in silk; the ceiling -was heavy with beams. Against either side wall, mathematically at the -center, stood a square small table and a square stool, heavily carved. -Seated on the _kang_, with papers spread about and brushes and ink pot -directly under the light, in short quilted coat and simple black cap, -was Kang; a serenely patient figure, quietly working. He had merely -looked up; a frail old man, quite beyond the reach of annoyance, whose -eyes gazed unafraid over the rim of mere personal life into the eternal, -tireless energy that would so soon absorb all that was himself. Then, -recognizing the stalwart figure that moved forward into the light, he -rose and clasped his hands and smiled. - -"Only an unexpected crisis would lead me to intrude thus," began Doane -in Chinese, bowing in courtly fashion and clasping his own hands before -his breast. - -"No visit from Griggsby Doane could be regarded as an intrusion in my -home," replied his excellency. - -"I will speak quickly, in the Western fashion," Doane went on. "His -Excellency, the General Duke Ma Ch'un, commanding before Hankow, writes -that he regrets deeply the violent death of the eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu -on your excellency's premises while dutifully engaged on the business of -her imperial majesty, and cordially requests that your excellency come -at once to headquarters as his personal guest to assist him in making an -inquiry into the tragedy. He supplements this invitation with a copy of -a telegram from His Excellency, Yuan Shih-k'ai, commanding him to guard -at once your person and property." - -The simple elderly man, who had been a minister, a grand councilor and -a viceroy, seemed to recoil slightly as his eyes drooped to the papers -about him; then he reached, with a withered hand that trembled, for this -new paper and very slowly read it through. - -"His Excellency, Duke Ma Ch'un." Doane added gently, "has sent a company -of soldiers to escort you fittingly to his headquarters. They are -waiting now at the outermost gate. I took it upon myself in this hour -of sorrow and confusion to advise them, through the mouths of your loyal -officers, that your excellency is not to be disturbed before dawn." - -Slowly, with an expressionless face, the viceroy folded the paper and -laid it on the _kang_. He sank, then, beside it; with visible -effort indicating that his visitor sit as well. But Doane remained -standing--enormously tall, broad, strong; a man to command without -question of rank or authority; a man, it appeared, hardly conscious of -the calm power of personality that was so plainly his. - -"Your Excellency is aware"--thus Doane said--"that to admit the -authority of Duke Ma Ch'un at this sorrowful time is to submit both -yourself and your lovely daughter to a fate that is wholly undeserved, -one that I--if I may term myself the friend of both--can not bring -myself to consider without indulging the wish to offer strong -resistance. It has been said, 'The truly great man will always frame his -actions with careful regard to the exigencies of the moment and trim -his sail to the favoring breeze.' Your Excellency must forgive me if I -suggest that, whatever value you may place upon your own life, we can -not thus abandon your daughter, Hui Fei." - -The viceroy's voice, when he spoke, had lost much of its timbre. It was, -indeed, the voice of a weary old man. Yet the words came forth with the -old kindly dignity. - -"I asked you, Griggsby Doane, to make with me this painful journey to my -home. We did not know then that we were moving from one scene of tragedy -to another more terrible. But motive must not wait on circumstance. -It need not be a hardship for my other children to live on in Asia as -Asiatics. As such they were born. They know no other life. They will -experience as much happiness as most. But with Hui Fei it is different. -She must not be held away from contact with the white civilization. I -did not give her this modern education for such an end as that. Hui Fei -is an experiment that is not yet completed. She must have her chance. -That is why I brought you here, Griggsbv Doane. My daughter must be got -to Shanghai. There she has friends. I have ventured to count on your -experience and good will to convey her safely there. Will you take -her--now? To-night? I had meant to send with her the jewels and the -paintings of Ming, Sung and Tang. Both collections are priceless. But -the gems are gone--to-night. The paintings, however, remain. Will you -take those and my daughter, and two servants--there are hardly more that -I can trust--and slip out by the upper gate, and in some way escort her -safely to Shanghai?" - -"She would not go," said Doane. "Not while you, Your Excellency, live, -or while your body lies above ground." - -The viceroy, hesitating, glanced up at the vigorous man who spoke so -firmly, then down at the scattered papers on the _kang_. In the very -calm of that shadowed face he felt the bewildering strength of the white -race; and he knew in his heart that the man was not to be gainsaid. His -mind wavered. For perhaps the first time in his shrewd, patiently subtle -life, he felt the heavy burden of his years. - -"I will send for her," he said now, slowly. "I will give her into your -keeping. At my command she will _go_." - -"No, Your Excellency, I have already sent word to her to prepare herself -for the journey. Again you must forgive me. Time presses. It remains -only to collect the paintings. You must have those, at the least We -start now in a very few moments. I have found here, a prisoner in your -palace, the master of a junk that lies at the river bank, and have taken -it upon myself to detain him further. He will convey us to Shanghai. It -is now but a few hours before dawn. Hostile soldiers stand impatient at -the outermost gate, eager to heap shame upon you and all that is yours. -You must change your clothing--the dress of a servant would be best." - -He waited, standing very still. - -"You will forgive indecision in a man of my years," began the viceroy. -After a moment he began again: "The world has turned upside down, -Griggsby Doane." - -"You will come?" - -The viceroy sighed. Trembling fingers reached out to gather the papers. - -"I will come." he said. - -Adrift in unreality, fighting off from moment to moment the drowsy sense -that these strange events were but a blur of dreams in which nothing -could be true, nothing could matter, Rocky found himself at work in a -dim room, taking down in great handfuls from shelves scrolls of silk -wound on rods of ivory and putting them in lacquered boxes. Mr. Doane -was there, and the servant, and a second servant of lower class, in -ragged trousers and with his queue tied about his head. Still another -Chinese appeared, shortly, in blue gown and sleeveless short jacket; -an older man who looked, in the flickering faint light of the single -lantern, curiously like the viceroy himself. The first servant -disappeared and returned with the short poles of bamboo used everywhere -in China in carrying burdens over the shoulder, and with cords and -squares of heavy cotton cloth. - -Every bit of woodwork that his hands touched in moving about, Rocky -found to be intricately carved and gilded and inlaid with smooth -lacquer. And dimly, crowded about the walls, he half saw, half -sensed, innumerable vases, small and large, with rounding surfaces of -cream-colored crackle and blood-red and blue-and-white and green which -threw back the moving light like a softly changing kaleidoscope. And -there were screens that gave out, from their profound shadows, the glint -of gold. - -They packed the boxes together, wrapped the large and heavy cubes in the -squares of cloth and lashed them to hang from the bamboo poles. Four of -them, then, Mr. Doane, Rocky himself and the servants, each balanced -a pole over his shoulders and lifted the bulky cubes. The old man, who -surely, now, was the viceroy, carried a European hand-bag. There were -other parcels.... They made their way along a nearly dark corridor -and out into the moonlight. Here, in a porch, stood four silent -figures--Dixie Carmichael he distinguished first; then Hui Fei, wearing -a short coat and women's trousers and a loose cloak. Her hair was parted -and lay smoothly on her pretty bead, glistening in the moonlight.... And -the little princess was there, clinging to the hand of her sister and -rubbing her eyes. They moved silently on, all together, following a path -that wound among shrubbery, over an arching bridge to a gate. - -Rocky could dimly see the timbers studded with spikes and the long -hinges of bronze. The servant, with a great key, unlocked the gate, -which closed softly behind them. - -The pole weighed heavily on Rocky's unaccustomed shoulder. There was a -trick of timing the step to the swing of the bales, that, stumbling a -little, he caught. He was to remember this--the little file of men and -women gathered from the two ends of the earth and walking without -a spoken sound down through a twisting, sunken Chinese road to the -Yangtze. And sensing the gathering drama of his own life, brooding over -it with slowly increasing nervous intensity, he found himself coming -awake. If this kept on he would soon be excitedly beyond sleep. But it -didn't matter. They were saving Hui Fei. Not a word of explanation had -been offered; but it was coming clear. As for the rest of it, he -asked himself how it could matter. The presence of Miss Carmichael, a -dangerous girl, an adventuress--he was thinking quite youthfully about -her--who might easily be capable of anything, who could in a moment -destroy the hope that was the only foundation, thus far, of his new -life, and perhaps would choose to destroy it--even this, he tried to -tell himself, couldn't possibly matter. Over and over, stumbling and -shuffling along, he told himself that; almost convinced himself that he -believed it. - -He was to remember most vividly of all the first glimpse, through a -notch in the hills, of the river. The viceroy paused at that point, and -turning back from the shining picture before him, where the moonlight -silvered the unruffled surface of the water, toward the home of his -ancestors over the hill, spoke in a low but again musical voice a few -lines in which even the American youth could detect the elusive vowel -rhymes of a Chinese poem. And he saw that Mr. Doane stood by with the -slightly bowed head of one who attends a religious ceremony. It was a -moving scene. But could he have understood the words the boy would have -been puzzled. For the poem--the _Surrendering_ of Po Chu-I. breathed -resignation, humility, the negative philosophy so dear to Chinese -tradition, but nothing of religion in the sense that he a Westerner, -understood the word, nothing of mysticism or romantic illusion or -childlike faith; rather a gentle recognition of the fact that life must -go as it had come, unexplained, without tangible evidence of a personal -hereafter; that, too, the individual is as nothing in the vast scheme of -nature. - -They were ferried out, shortly after this, to the great junk they had -twice seen within the twenty-four hours, her smooth sides curving yellow -in the moonlight, her decks now scraped and scrubbed clean, flowers -blooming in porcelain pots about a charming gallery that extended high -over the river astern. The crew, roused from slumber, came swarming out -from under the low-spread mattings. The _laopan_ stepped nimbly to his -post amidships on the poop. The heavy tracking ropes were hauled aboard, -and the craft swung slowly off down the current. - -Doane, with a lantern, escorted his excellency and Hui Fei, and the -whimpering little princess, to the rooms below; then returned and with -the same impersonal courtesy conducted Miss Carmichael down the steps. -But at the door he indicated she stopped short; wavered a moment, -lightly, on the balls of her feet. Then she accepted the lantern from -him, bit her lip, and let fall the curtain without replying to his -suggestion that she had better sleep if she could. - -Alone there, she held up the lantern. The floor had been lately -scrubbed; but, even so, she made out a faint broad stain in the wood. -And a bed of clean matting was spread where she had left a grisly heap. - -For a time Dixie stood by the square small window, looking out over the -shining river toward the dim northern bank with its hills that seemed -to drift at a snail's pace off astern. Her quick mind had never been -farther from sleep. Her thin hands felt through her blouse the twisted -ropes of pearls that were wound about her waist. Her lips were pressed -tightly together. These pearls represented a fortune beyond even Dixie's -calculating dreams. To keep them successfully hidden during the days, -perhaps weeks to come of floating down the river in close companionship -with these two strong observant men, and a half crazy American boy, and -clever Oriental women, would test her resourcefulness and her nerve. -Though she felt, ever, now, no doubt of the latter.... - -The thing was tremendous. Now that the confusion of the day and night -were over with, she found a thrill in considering the problem, while -her sensitive fingers pressed and pressed again the hard little globes. -There were so many of them; such beauties, she knew, in form and size -and color.... Never again would such an opportunity come to her. It was, -precisely, if on the grandest scale imaginable, her sort of achievement. -Tex was gone. The Kid was gone. No one could claim a share or a voice: -it was all hers--wealth, power, even, perhaps, at the last, something -near respectability. For money, enough of it, she knew, will accomplish -even that. While on the other, hand, to fail now, might, would, spell a -life of drab adventure along the coast, without even a goal, without a -decent hope; with, always, the pitiless years gaining on her. - -She searched, tiptoeing, about the room, lantern in hand, for a place -to hide her treasure; then reconsidered. In some way she must keep the -pearls about her person; though not, as now, looped around her waist. An -accidental touch there might start the fateful questioning. - -She put down the lantern; stood for a long time by the curtained door, -listening. From up and down the passage came only the heavy breathing of -exhausted folk. She slipped out cautiously; made her way to the sloping -deck above--how vividly familiar it was!--tiptoed lightly aft, past -the uncurious helmsman, around the huge coils of rope and the piled-up -fenders of interwoven matting, out to the pleasant gallery where the -flowers were. - -And then, as she stepped down and paused to breathe slowly, deeply, -again the heavy-sweet perfume of the tuberoses, a boyish figure sprang -up, with a nervous little gasp of surprise, from the steamer chair of -Hong Kong grass. - -She said, in her quiet way, "Oh, hello!" And then, with a quick sidelong -glance at him, accepted the chair he offered. He seemed uncertain as to -whether he would go or stay. Lowering her lids, she studied him. He was -standing the excitement well, even improving. His carriage was better; -he stood up well on his strong young legs. And he was quieter, better in -hand, though of course the never-governed, long overstimulated emotions -would not be lying very deep beneath this new, more manly surface. He -was very good-looking, really a typical American boy. - -He stood now, fingering the petals of a dahlia and gazing out astern -into the luminous night. She pondered the question of exerting herself -again to win him. The money was there, plenty of it. He would be as -helpless as ever in her experienced hands. And the mere use of her skill -in trapping and stripping him would be enjoyable.... He was lingering. - -She decided in the negative. He would surely become tempestuous. And as -surely, if she permitted that, he would discover the pearls. And--again -the thrill of mastery swept through her finely strung nerves--she had -those. They were enough. But they must be better hidden. There was her -problem still, a problem that aught at any instant become delicately -acute. She considered it, lying comfortably back in the chair, -luxuriating in the richly blended scent of the crowded blossoms, while -her nearly closed eyes studied the restless boy. - -Abruptly he turned. What now? Was he about to become tempestuous all on -his own? It would be anything but out of character. Her slight muscles -tightened, but her face betrayed no emotion, would have betrayed none -in a more searching light than this soft flood from the moon. He was -sentimental over the Manchu princess, now, of course. She hadn't missed -that. But in the case of an ungoverned boy, she well knew, the emotion -itself could he vastly more important than its immediate object But now -she was to meet with a small surprise. - -"Look here!" he began, crude, naive, as always, "there's -something--perhaps--I ought to tell you. I tried to carry on with you. -You've got a right to think anything about me--" - -At least he was keeping his voice down. She lay still; let him talk. - -"--But I've changed. Smile at that, if you want to!" - -She did smile faintly, but only at his clear, clean ignorance of the -insult that underlay his words. - -"--I _was_ on the loose. It's different now. I'm going to try to do -something with my life. Whatever happens--I mean however my luck may -seem to turn--" - -He could hardly go on with this. The next few words were swallowed down. -It was plain enough that he couldn't think clearly. And he couldn't -possibly know that he was giving her an opening through which, within -a very few moments, she was to see the outline of the policy she must -pursue during these difficult days to come on the junk. - -She lifted her head; leaned on an elbow. "Do you know," she said, in a -voice that seemed, now, to have a note of friendliness, "I'm sorry for -you." - -"Sorry for me!" - -"Don't think I can't see how it is. And you mustn't misunderstand me. -I'm older than you. I'm pretty experienced. My life has been hard. There -couldn't be anything serious between you and me. You've wakened up to -that." - -The new note in her voice puzzled him, but caught his interest. He stood -looking straight down at her. - -"I know you're in love," she went on. - -"But--" - -"Don't be silly. It's plain enough. She's very attractive. Nobody could -blame you." - -"She's wonderful!" - -"It's nice to see you feeling that way. It--it's no good our talking -about it, you and me. All I've got to say is--please don't think I'd -bother you. I may have led a rough life at times--a girl alone, who has -to live by her wits--but--oh, well, never mind that! Every man has -had his foolish moments. I understand you better than you will ever -know--and--well, here's good luck!" And she offered her hand. - -He took it, breathless, eager. He seemed, then, on the point of pouring -out his story to this new surprising friend. But a slight sound caught -his attention. He looked up, and slowly let fall the hand that -was gripped in his; for at the break of the deck, just above them, -hesitating, very slim and wan, stood Miss Hui Fei. - -The situation was, of course, in no way so dramatic as it seemed to the -boy. He, indeed, drew back, overcome; the habit of guilty thought was -not to be thrown off in a moment. Miss Carmichael, sensing that he -would begin erecting the incident into a situation the moment he could -clumsily speak, took the matter in hand; rising, and quietly addressing -herself to the Manchu girl. Breeding, of course, was not hers, could not -be; but her calm manner and her instinct for reticence could seem, as -now, not unlike the finer quality. - -"Do have this chair," she said. "I was going down." - -Miss Hui Fei smiled faintly. "I coul'n' sleep," she murmured. - -"There's one little article I suppose none of us thought to bring--" -thus Miss Carmichael, balancing in her light way on the balls of her -feet--"needle and thread." She even indulged in a little passing laugh. -"I think my maid--" began Miss Hui Fei. - -"Oh, no! I wouldn't bother you!" - -"Yes! Please--I don' min'." - -She turned; and the boy started impulsively toward her. Miss Carmichael -moved away, over the deck, but heard him saying, in a broken voice: - -"You'll come back? I've got to tell you something!" - -To which Miss Hui Fei replied, in a voice that was meant to be at once -pleasant and impersonal: "Why--yes. I think I'll come back. It's -so close down there." The two young women went below. Quietly Miss -Carmichael waited in the passage. - -The needle and thread were shortly forthcoming. The white girl smiled; -seeming really friendly there in the dim ray of light that slanted in -through a window. - -"It's good of you," she said. - -"Oh, no--it's nothing." - -"We're in for a rather uncomfortable trip of it. I hope you'll let me do -anything I can to help you. I'm more used to knocking about, of course." - -"We'll all make the best of it," said the Manchu girl, and turned, with -an effort at a smile, toward the stairs. - -Miss Carmichael entered her own room. The lantern still burned, but the -candle-end was low. She saw now an iron lamp, an open dish full of oil -with a floating wick. This she lighted with the candle. Next, moving -about almost without a sound, she fastened the swaying door-curtain with -pins. Then she slipped out of her blouse and skirt; untied the pearl -cape; and seated on the bed of matting, with her back to the door, began -patiently sewing the pearls into her undergarments. It was to be a -long task. Before dawn the lamp burned out, and fearful of being caught -asleep with the amazing treasure about her she stood at the window and -let the wind blow into her face until the faintly spreading light of -dawn made the work again possible. The drowsiness that nearly overcame -her now she fought off with an iron will. Nothing mattered--nothing but -success. Her thin deft fingers worked in a tireless rhythm. Only once, -very briefly, did she yield to the impulse to weigh the exquisite -lustrous globes in her hands; to hold them close to the light. Her -tireless reason told her that this wouldn't do. It brought an excited -throbbing to her weary head.... She settled again to her task; time -enough to gloat later. By way of a healthy mental occupation she -counted the pearls as she threaded them--up to a thousand--on up to two -thousand--then (the sun was redly up now; and folk were stirring about -the deck) three thousand. In all, a few more than thirty-seven hundred -pearls she threaded about her person; and then slipped back into -blouse and skirt before permitting herself a few hours of sleep. The -diamond-studded clasps she wrapped in a bit of cloth and stuffed into -her hand-bag. - -The Chinese maid woke her then, bringing food that had been cooked, she -knew, in the brick stove up forward, where the crew slept. She could -bring herself to eat but a few mouthfuls.... This didn't matter, either. -No hardship was of consequence in such a battle as hers; she would have -submitted coolly to torture rather than surrender her prize. But it -suggested fresh tactics. She had a knack at cooking. Quietly, later -in the day--she knew better than to try effusive friendliness; to play -herself to the last would be best--she spoke to Mr. Doane of that small -gift. A kitchen was improvised in the _laopan's_ cramped quarters, aft; -and Miss Carmichael, quite intent about her business, coolly cheerful -about it, indeed, began to prove her capacity. And she knew, then, that -she was winning. They would soon be respecting her, even liking her. - -Even so she would keep her distance; then they would have to keep -theirs. That was all she needed. - -To Rocky, the most elusive memory of all this eventful night was the -conversation with Miss Hui Fei. For she returned in a moment--so he -remembered it--and sank wearily into the steamer chair. The picture of -that scene was to vary bafflingly in his mind. At times he saw himself, -torn with an emotion now so great that it seemed the end of life, -standing over her, saying, passionately: - -"I know how it looked--you're finding us here like that! And you'd have -reason. I did flirt with her. I'm ashamed now. I hadn't seen you--felt -you--like this. But that's all over. I was telling her--Please! You've -got to know!--that I love you. Or telling her enough. She understood. -And she was awfully decent. She took my hand, wished me luck." - -There must have been a brief time then when the poor girl was -endeavoring pleasantly to turn aside this torrent of heavily freighted -words. Certainly he was talking feverishly on. He could remember pulling -down a coil of rope from the steersman's deck and sitting moodily beside -her; and there was a sensation in their minds, his and hers, of being -at cross-purposes. There was something about her, back of the weary -smile--a smile that was long to haunt him, dim in the moonlight, -exquisite in its sensitive beauty--that eluded his pressing desire until -it seemed near to driving him mad. Kipling's _East is East, and West is -West_, slipped in among his thoughts; kept coming and coming until it -became a nerve-wracking singsong in his brain. - -There was one period, fortunately very short, when he seemed to be -almost forcing a quarrel. Why, he couldn't afterward imagine. That -part of it was dreadful in the retrospect. He had reached the point, -apparently, when he couldn't longer endure the failure to reach her. -There was simply no response. It was almost as if he were frightening -her away. Perhaps it was just that. - -But the most vivid memory was of the unaccountable force that suddenly -rose in him, seizing on his tongue, his brain, his very nerves. The -power of the Kanes was abruptly his, and it brought its own skill with -it. It was, distinctly, a possession. It simply came, at this very top -of his emotional pitch. There must have been preliminaries. He must -have said things that she must have answered. But these lesser moments -dropped out. Even a day later, he could see, could almost feel, himself -on one knee beside the steamer chair, saying those amazing things, -without a shred of memory as to how he got there. Never had he so -spoken, to girl or woman; for in the escapades of the younger Rocky -there had always been a reticence if seldom a restraint. It was -precocity; the blood that was in him. - -"You beautiful, wonderful girl!" he was breathing, close to her ear. -(He was never to forget this.) "How can you hide your feelings from me? -Can't you see it's just driving me mad?.... You're adorable! -You're exquisite! You thrill me so--just your voice; the way you -walk--your hands--your hair!.... Can't you understand, dear, it isn't -what they call 'love.'" (This with a divine contempt.) "It's the cry -of my whole being. I want to give you my life. I want to know _your_ -life--study it--come to understand the wonderful people that has made -you possible! I'm going to study it--history, art, everything!.... -I worship you! I dream so of you--all the time--daytimes! I just -half-close my eyes and then, right away, I can see you, walking. And I -see you as you were at the dance on the boat." He choked a little; then -rushed on. "And in those dreams I always take you in my arms--No, let me -say it! The angels are singing it, the wonderful truth!--I take you -in my arms and kiss your hair and your eyes. You always close your -eyes--oh, so slowly--and I press my lips on the lids. And your arms are -around my neck. I can feel your hands. But I never kiss your lips--not -in those dreams. Because that will mean that you have given me your -soul, and I always know I must wait for that.... - -"Please! You must listen! Can't you see I'm just tearing my heart out -and putting it in your hands--under your feet? There isn't any other -life for me. I can't live without you. I could give up my friends, my -home, my country, and be happy just serving you." - -He had captured her hand; had it tight in his two hands and was kissing -it tenderly. The thrill was unbelievable now. It was ecstasy. He -could hear himself murmuring over and over, "You're so exquisite! So -thrilling! I love the way your hair lies over your forehead. I love your -eyes, especially when you smile".... On and on. - -The tired sad girl in the steamer chair could not fail to respond in -some measure, in every sensitive nerve, to so ardent a wooing. Even when -she rose, and struggled a little to withdraw her hand, she couldn't be -angry. He was surprising; in his very boyishness, compelling. - -Then, a little later, he was sitting moodily on the extension front of -the chair, face in hands, plunged into a wordless abyss; she sat on the -edge of the steersman's deck, leaning against the rail, her face close -to a lotus plant, with one flower that looked a ghostly blue in the -fading moonlight, and just later, shaded through pink to deep red with -the first quick-spreading color of the dawn. His emotional outburst had -passed, for the moment, like a gust. He seemed to himself, already, -to have failed. His thoughts were turned, behind the gray half-covered -face, on death. For so swung the pendulum. He couldn't, in these depths, -draw significance from the remarkable fact that she had risen only to -drop down again and carry forward the talk that he let fall, and that he -had, for the time at least, swept away those mental obstacles. Certainly -Miss Hui Fei was not elusive now. - -The things she was saying, in a deliberate, matter-of-fact way, -bewildered him. - -"I don' want you to make love to me like tha'." - -"But how can I help it? You're so wonderful. You thrill me so. I tell -you it's my whole life. I can never live on without you--not any more. -It's got to be with you, or--or nothing." - -It was strange. This impulsive affection had grown very, very rapidly -within him; yet, even a day earlier he couldn't have pictured this -scene. Not a phrase of these burning sentences he was so fervently -uttering had been consciously framed in his mind. A part of the thrill -of the situation lay in the very fact that he was so wildly committing -himself. Now that it was being said, he felt no desire to take a word -back. He meant it all; and more--more. - -But she--still, even in the telltale morning light, quaint, charming, -adorable--was growing so practical about it. - -"You're a ver' romantic boy." - -"I'm not! This is real! Can't you understand that it's love--forever?" - -"Please!.... I don' want you to think I don' un'erstan'. It's ver' sweet -an' generous of you--" - -"I'm not generous! I want you!" - -"I do apprecia' all it woul' mean. You offer me so much--" - -"You dear girl, I offer you everything--everything I have or am! I don't -want to live at all unless it's with you always at my side." - -"But I don't think--Please! I woui'n' hurt you for anything. You've -helped so--helped saving my father's life an' mine. It's won'erful--but -I don' think life is like that. People mus' have so much in common to -marry in the Western way. They mus' love each other, yes. But in their -min's an' feelings they mus' share so much--their backgroun's...." - -He was out of the chair now; was beside her on the deck. - -"Listen!" he was huskily saying. "Well get married right away in -Shanghai. We've got to! I won't let you say no! And then we won't go -back. Well stay out here. There'll be money enough, in spite of the -pater. We'll study this East together. I'm going to devote all the rest -of my life to it. Well build our common interest. I shall never want -anything else!" - -"How do you knew that?" - -"Can you doubt me?" He had both her hands now. He seemed so young, so -eager. He would fight for what he greatly desired, as his father had -fought before him. However crudely, boyishly, he would fight. - -"No"--her own voice was, surprisingly, a little unsteady--"of course I -don' doubt you. But how can you know what you're going to wan'--years -from now. I don' un'erstan' that. It does seem pretty romantic to me. I -don't know for myself. I coul'n' tell." - -This, or perhaps it was her failure to rise to his ecstasy, plunged him -again into the depths. - -"It's you or nothing now," he repeated. "You or nothing." - -"Wha' do you mean by that?" - -"I've got to have you. If I can't, I'll--oh, I guess I'll just drop -quietly overboard. What's the use?" - -"Do you think it's fair to talk li' that?" - -"Perhaps not, but--I guess I'm beside myself." - -"Listen!" said she now: with a friendly, even sympathetic pressure of -his trembling hands, "I'll tell you what I think. I think the thing for -you to do is to go back to college." - -This stung him. "How can you talk like that," he cried, "when--" - -"I don' wan' to hurt you. But please try to think this as I wan' you -to." - -"Haven't you _any_ feeling for me?" - -"Of course, an' I'm ver' grateful." - -"For God's sake, don't talk like that." - -There was a pause. He withdrew his hands; plunged his feverish face into -them. - -She rose, wearily. Said: "I'm going to try to sleep." - -"And you could go? Leaving it like this?" - -"Please! I can't help--" - -"Oh, I understand--" he was on his feet before her; caught her arms in -his hands that now were firm and young--"I haven't moved you yet, that's -all. But I will. We Kanes aren't quitters. We don't give up. And I'm not -going to give you up. I'm going to win you. Can't you see that I've got -to? That I can't live.... Listen! You're the loveliest, daintiest little -girl in the world. You're exquisite. Your voice is music to me. I've got -to live my life to that music. It'll be beautiful! Can't you see that? I -don't care how much time it takes. I'll settle down to it. But I'll win -you. And we'll be married at Shanghai?" - -He was very nearly irresistible now. The power in him was real. She -broke away; then, a surprise to herself, lingered. Strangely to her, -this ardent, still somewhat impossible boy, with his vital, Western -force, had actually created an atmosphere of romance in which she was, -for the moment, and in a degree, enveloped. She knew, clearly enough, -that she must exert herself to escape from it: but lingered. - -He caught her hands again; covered them with kisses; held them firmly -while his eyes, suddenly radiant, sought hers and, during a moving -instant, held them. She went below then. And Rocky dropped into the -steamer chair and smiled exultantly as he drifted into slumber. - -When they met again, away from the others, after an excellent luncheon -of fowl and vegetables prepared by the surprising Miss Carmichael, his -mood was wholly changed. He had charm; consciously or unconsciously, he -made it felt. - -"I wasn't fair to you," he began. - -"If you don' min'," said she, "we jus' won' talk abou' that." - -"Can't help it." He smiled a little. "There's no use pretending I can -think about another thing. I'm madly in love with you--hopelessly gone. -It'll probably simplify things if you'll just accept that as a fact. -But last night--this morning--whenever it was!--after all we'd been -through--you know, it wasn't so unnatural that I got all fired up that -way." - -As this half-smiling, half-serious youth was plainly going to be even -more difficult to manage than the ardent boy of the glowing dawn, she -was silent. - -"Here's the thing," he went on. "I was too worn out myself to be -considerate of you. I meant every word, of course. You'll never know how -wonderful you seem to me." This rather wistfully. They were leaning on -the rail, gazing at the rocky hills along the southern bank. "It's all -wrong for me to be so impatient. I know I've got to make good. I've got -to earn you. That won't come all at once. But I am going to try not to -get stirred up like that again. God knows you've got enough to bother -you." - -"I'm ver' uncertain abou' my father," said she. "How do you mean?" - -"Oh--he stays in his room. He doesn' come out with us. An' he's always -working." - -"Well--does that mean anything? Wouldn't he naturally be busy?" - -"I don' think so. No, like this." - -"But I don't understand what--" - -"It isn' easy to say. When a man like father--what you call a -mandarin--feels that he mus'"--her voice wavered--"that he mus' go, -there is a grea' deal that he must wri' to his frien's an' to the -governmen'. He doesn' wan' to be disturb'. I can' tell wha' he's doing. -It worries me." - -Doane, during the sunny dreamy afternoon, heard them, now and again. -They were quite monopolizing the pleasant after gallery. And they were -drifting on into their love story. He could not restrain himself from -watching and listening. Despite the fact that his own dream was -over, Doane felt about it, in his heart, like a boy. The sight of -her quickened his pulse. Thoughts of her--mental pictures--came -irresistibly. And these, at times, puzzled his heart if never his -reason; the moment on the top deck of the steamer, when she climbed the -after ladder and first confided her tragic difficulty; the dance she -"sat out" with him. - -.... He called himself, often enough, a fool. But his spirit refused -to accept the words that formed in his mind. He was simply at war with -himself.... The sort of thing happened often enough in life, of -course. Every man lived through such periods. Men of middle age in -particular.... Thus he fell back, over and again, on reason. It was all -he could do. Plainly the experience would take a lot of living through. - -To hope that her quick youth could altogether resist Rocky's ardent -youth was asking too much, of course. The young people were almost -certain to find themselves helpless--their emotions stirred by what -they had been living through; thrown together here, romantically, on the -junk. Whatever small difficulties they might encounter in exploring each -other's nascent feelings would be softened by the very air they were -breathing. The young are often, usually, helpless when nature so works -upon them.... But Doane wasn't bitter. At times he nearly convinced -himself that he felt only concern lest they rush along too fast; -surrender their hearts, only to find too late that the necessary -affinity was not growing into flower. The boy must have some proving, of -course. That lovely girl mustn't be sacrificed. - -Late in the afternoon they were singing, softly, even humorously. Doane -caught snatches of _Mandalay_, and the college songs. That would seem -to them a fine bond, of course--the mere casual fact that both knew the -songs. For youth is quite as simple as that.... So they were rushing on -with it, while an older man pondered. Rocky hung unashamed on her every -word, every movement; waited forlornly about whenever she went below; -starting at sounds, sinking into moods, and shining with radiance -when she reappeared. He even had gentle moments.... What girl could be -insensible to all that? He himself was avoiding them, of course. There -was no helping that; certainly in this stage of the romance. - -His excellency appeared on deck during the second afternoon; greeted -Doane in friendly fashion--looking oddly simple in his servant costume; -blue gown, plain cloth slippers, skull-cap with a knot of vermilion -silk. They walked the deck together; later, they sat on a coil of rope. -In manner he was very nearly his old self; smiling a thought less, -perhaps, but as humanly direct in his talk as a Chinese. - -"We shall soon be parting, Grigsby Doane," he remarked, "and I shall -think much of you. Do you know yet where you shall go and what you shall -do?" - -"No," Doane replied. "All I can do now is the next thing, whatever that -may prove to be." - -"You will help China?" - -"I shall hope for an opportunity." - -"You are, first and last, a Westerner." - -"I suppose that is true." - -"I did think you a philosopher, Griggsby Doane. So you seemed to me. -Like our humble great, almost like Chuang Tz himself. But in the moment -of crisis your nature found expression wholly in action. At such times -we of the East are likely to be negative. We are a static people. But -you, like your own, are dynamic." - -This shrewd bit of observation struck Doane sharply. Come to think, it -was true. - -"At the critical moment you wasted not one thought in reflection. You -weighed none of the difficulties; you ignored consequences. You took -command. You acted. As a result--here we are.... I suppose you were -right. At any rate, I yielded to your active judgment. It has saved my -daughter." - -"And you, as well, Your Excellency, if I may say so." - -"Very well--myself too.... I shall always think of you now as I have -twice seen you--once in that curious boxing match on the steamer; and -again as you took command of me and my own house. I regret that in -my position as a Manchu, however progressive, I can not be of any -considerable service to you with the republicans. It is in their camp -that your advice will help. Only there. Shall you go to them?" - -Doane found it impossible to mention the invitation of Sun-Shi-pi. That -would be a sacred confidence. So he replied in merely general terms: - -"I should like to sit in their councils. They seem to represent, at this -time, China's only material hope. Though I am not strongly an optimist -regarding the revolution. China is so vast, so sunken in tradition, -that the real revolution must be distressingly slow. Still, I have some -familiarity with the constitutional history of my own country, and, I -think, some acquaintance with yours. And I love China. Yes, I should -like to help." - -"You are a great man, Griggsby Doane. You have known sorrow and poverty. -To the merely successful American I do not look for much real guidance. -But China needs you. I hope she will find you out in time." - -They talked on, of many things. His excellency was gently, at times even -whimsically, reflective. At length he touched, lightly at first, on the -subject of Rocky Kane. A little later, more openly, he asked what the -boy's standing would be in New York. - -Doane thought this over very carefully. It was curious how that -confusing element of mere feeling reappeared promptly in his mind. -But he explained, finally, that while the boy was young, and had been -passing through a phase of rather adventurous wildness, still his father -was a man of enormous prestige in society as in the financial world. The -boy had nice qualities. Given the right influences he might, with the -wealth that would one day be his, become like his father, a powerful -factor in American life. - -"I find myself somewhat puzzled," remarked his excellency then. "He -seems devoted to my daughter. I can not easily read her mind. And I -would not attempt to direct her life as would be necessary had she been -merely a Manchu girl reared in a Manchu environment. Is she, do you -think, and as your people understand the term, in love with him? I find -their present relationship somewhat alarming." - -"It would be difficult to say, Your Excellency--" thus Doane, simply and -gravely. "The young man is, of course, in love with her." - -"Ah," breathed his excellency. "You are sure of that?" - -"Yes. She is undoubtedly accustomed to play about pleasantly with young -men as do the young women of America." Sudden, poignant memories came -of his own lovely daughter, as she had been; and of the puzzling romance -that had seemed for a time to injure her young life--a romance in which -he, her father, had played a strange part. But that was, after all, but -an echo from another life; a closed book. - -"Your daughter, I am sure," Doane continued, "can be trusted to form her -own attachments. She is a noble as well as a beautiful girl." - -"Indeed--you find her so, Griggsby Doane? That is pleasant to my ears. -For into the directing of her life have gone my dreams of the new China -and the new world. I would not have her choose wrongly now. But I do not -understand her. It is difficult for me to talk freely with her." - -"I am sure," said Doane slowly, "'that if you could bring yourself to do -so"--as once or twice before, in moments of deep feeling, he forgot -to use the indirect Oriental form of address--"it would make her very -happy." - -"You think that, Griggsby Doane?" His excellency considered this. Then -added: "I will make the effort." - -"If I may suggest--talk with her not as father with daughter, but on an -equality, as friend with friend." - -His excellency slowly rose; and Doane, also rising, felt for the first -time that the fine old statesman fully looked his age. He was, standing -there, smiling a thought wistfully, an old man, little short of a broken -man. And then his dry thin hand found Doane's huge one and gripped it in -the Western manner. This was a surprise, evidently as moving to Kang as -to Doane himself; for they stood thus a moment in silence. - -"My dearest hope, of late," said the great Manchu--the smoothest of -etiquette giving way, for once, before the pressure of emotion--"has -been that my daughter's heart might be entrusted to you, Griggsby -Doane." - -Again a silence. Then Doane: - -"That was my hope, as well." - -"Then--" - -"No. It is plainly impossible. All life is before her. The thought has -not come to her. It never will. I see now that she could not be happy -with me. And I think she ought to be happy. I must ask you not to speak -of this again. Let youth call unto youth. And let me be her friend." - -His excellency went below after this. Miss Hui Fei was also below, -sleeping. Rocky Kane had been playing with the little princess, out on -the gallery; but now, evidently watching his chance, he came forward to -the informal seat the mandarin had vacated. - -It was to be difficult--always difficult. The boy, plainly, couldn't -live through these tense days without a confidant. Doane steeled himself -to bear it, and to respond as a friend. There was no way out; would be -none short of Shanghai; just an exquisite torture. It was even to -grow, with each fresh contact, harder to bear. The boy was so curiously -unsophisticated, so earnest and honest an egotist. - -"--I've asked her," he said now. - -Doane could only wait. - -"She hasn't said yes. That would be absurd, of course--so soon." He was -so pitifully putting up a brave front. "But she does like me. And it's -something that she hasn't said no. Isn't it something?" - -That was hardly a question; it was nearer assertion--what he had to -think. Doane managed to incline his head. - -"But never mind that. God knows why I should bother you with it. You've -been so kind--such a friend. We--are friends, aren't we?" - -Doane felt himself obliged to turn and meet his eyes. And such eyes! -Ablaze with nervous light. And then he had to grip another hand--this -one young, moist, strong. But he managed that, too. - -"Listen! I do bother you awfully, but--I've been thinking--here we are, -you know. God knows when I'll find a man who could help me as you can. -And we brought all those wonderful old paintings aboard here. I've been -thinking--well, since I've got so much to learn of Chinese culture, -why not begin? Couldn't I--would they mind if I looked at some of -the pictures? And--if it isn't asking too much--you could tell me why -they're good. Just begin to give me something to go by. Isn't it as good -a way to make the break as any?" - -It was a most acceptable diversion. Doane, though several boxes of the -paintings were in his own rooms, sent a servant to ask a permission that -was cordially granted. And as there was a wind blowing, they went below, -and talked there in low voices in order not to disturb the sleeping -girl, while the elder man carefully opened a box and got out a number -of the long scrolls that were wound on rods of ivory, handling them with -reverent fingers. - -He chose one from the brush of that Chao Meng-fu who flourished under -the earliest Mongol or Yuan rulers, a roll perhaps fourteen or fifteen -inches in width, and in length, judging from the thickness, as many -feet, tied around with silk cords and fastened with tags of carven jade. -The painting itself, naturally, was on silk, which in turn was pasted on -thick, dark-toned paper, made of bamboo pulp, with borders of brocade. -The projecting ends of the ivory rollers, like the tags, were carved. - -At the edge of the scroll were, besides the seal signature of the -artist, and the date--in our chronology, A. D. 1308--many other -signatures in the conventional square seal characters of royal and -other collectors who had possessed the painting, with also, a few pithy, -appreciative epigrams from eminent critics of various periods. On that -one margin was stamped the authentic history of the particular bit of -silk, paper and pigment during its life of six full centuries; for no -hand could have forged those seals. - -There was no likelihood that the boy--lacking, as he was, in cultural -background--would exhibit any sensitive responsiveness to the exquisite -brush-work of the fine old painter or to his consciously subjective -attitude toward his art. But there is a way in which the simple Western -mind that is not preoccupied with fixed concepts of art may be led into -enjoyment of such a landscape scroll; this is to exhibit it as do the -Chinese themselves, unrolling it, very slowly, a little at a time, -deliberately absorbing the detail and the finely suggested atmosphere, -until a sensation is experienced not unlike that of making a journey -through a strange and delightful country. Doane employed this method--it -was surely what that old painter intended--and led the boy slowly from a -pastoral home, so small beneath its towering overhanging mountain -crags, that lost themselves finally in soft cloud-masses, as to appear -insignificant, out along a river where lines of reeds swayed in the -winds and boats moved patiently, across a lake that was dotted with -pavilions and pleasure craft--on and on, through varied scenes that yet -were blended with amazing craftsmanship into a continuous, harmonious -whole. - -The time crept by and by. When Doane finally explained the seal -characters at the end and retied the old silk cords with their hanging -rectangles of unclouded green jade, the sun was low over the western -hills. - -Rocky's face was flushed, his eyes nervously bright. "I don't get it -all, of course," he said; "but it makes you feel somehow as if you'd -been reading _The Pilgrim's Progress!_" - -Doane gravely nodded. - -"Shall we look at another?" said Rocky. - -"No. That is enough. The Chinese knew better than to crowd the mind with -confused impressions of many paintings. A good picture is an experience -to be lived through, not a trophy to be glanced at." - -"I wonder," said the boy, "if that's why I used to hate it so when my -tutor dragged me through the Metropolitan Museum?" - -"Doubtless." - -"And this picture has a great value, I suppose?" - -"It is virtually priceless--in East as well as West," replied Doane as -he replaced it among its fellows in the box. - -Thus began, late but perhaps not too late, what may be regarded as the -education of young Rockingham Kane. - - - -CHAPTER XII--AT THE HOUR OF THE TIGER - -|THEY passed, that evening, the region of Peng-tze where Tao Yuan-ming, -after a scant three months as district magistrate, surrendered his -honors and retired to his humble farm near Kiu Kiang, there to write -in peace the verse and prose that have endured during sixteen crowded -centuries; and on, then, moving slowly through the precipitous Gateway -of Anking and, later, around the bend that bounds that city on the west, -south and east. Those on deck could see, indistinctly in the deepening -twilight, the vast area of houses and ruins--for Anking had not -yet recovered from the devastations of the T'ai-ping rebels in the -eighteen-sixties--where half a million yellow folk swarm like ants; and -very indistinctly indeed, farther to the north, they could see: the -blue mountains. Slowly, quietly, then, Anking, with its ruins and its -memories fell away astern. - -Half an hour later the sweeps were lashed along the rail. The great dark -sails, with their scalloped edges between the battens of bamboo, seeming -more than ever, in the dusk, like the wings of an enormous bat, were -lowered; and with many shouts and rhythmic cries the tracking ropes were -run out to mooring poles on the bank. Forward the mattings were adjusted -for the night. The smells of tobacco and frying fish drifted aft. A -youth, sipping tea by the rail, put down his cup and sang softly -in falsetto a long narrative of friendship and the mighty river and -(incidentally) the love of a maiden who slipped away from her mother's -side at night to meet a handsome student only to be slain, as was just, -by the hand of an elder brother.... From the cabin aft drifted a faint -odor of incense. A flageolet mingled its plaintive oboe-like note with -the song of the youth by the rail.... From a near-by village came soft -evening sounds, and the occasional barking of dogs, and the beat of a -watchman's gong.... The greatest of rivers--greatest in traffic and in -rich memories of the endless human drama--was settling quietly for the -night. - -At the first rays of dawn the forward deck would be again astir. Sails -would be hoisted, ropes hauled aboard and coiled; and the shining yellow -craft would resume her journey down-stream, with carven and brightly -painted eyes peering fixedly out at the bow, with carefully tended -flowers perfuming the air about the after gallery, a thing of rich and -lovely color even on the rich and lovely river; slipping by busy ports, -each with its vast tangle of small shipping and its innumerable families -of beggars in slipper-boats or tubs awaiting miserably the steamers and -their strangely prodigal white passengers. T'ai-ping itself, of bloody -memory, lay still ahead; and farther yet Nanking the glorious, and -Chin-kiang, and the great estuary. Slowly the huge craft would drift -and sail and tie, moving patiently on toward the Shanghai of -the ever-prospering white merchants, the Shanghai that somewhat -vaingloriously had dubbed itself "the Paris of the East." And no one of -the thousands, here and there, that idly watched the golden junk as it -moved, not without a degree of magnificence, down the tireless current, -was to know that a Manchu viceroy, a prince hunted to the death by his -own blood, a statesman known to the courts of great new lands, was in -hiding within those timbers of polished cypress. Nor would they know -that a princess, his daughter yet strangely of the new order, voyaged -with him clad in the simple costume of a young Chinese woman. Nor would -they dream of certain inexplicable whites. Nor would they have cared; -for the voyage of the yellow junk was but a tiny incident in the crowded -endless drama of the river; to the millions of struggling, breeding, -dying souls along the banks and on the water, merely living was and -would be burden enough. So China merely lives--dreaming a little but -hoping hardly at all--with every eye on the furrow or the till; lives, -and dies, and--lives again and on. - -Late in the third afternoon, Rocky Kane, sitting, head forlornly in -hands, in his narrow room, heard a light step--heard it with every -sensitive nerve-tip--and, springing up, softly drew his curtain. But the -quick eagerness faded from his eyes; for it was Dixie Carmichael. - -Her thin lips curved in the faintest of smiles as she moved along the -corridor toward her own curtained door. But then, as she passed and -glanced back, her skirt, in swinging about, caught on a nail; caught -firmly; and as she stooped to release it, a string of pearls swung down, -broke, and rolled, a score of little opalescent spheres, along the deck, -a few of them nearly to Rocky's feet. He stooped--without a thought -at first--picked them up and turned them over in his fingers; then, -stepping forward to return them, observed with an odd thrill of somewhat -unpleasant excitement, that the girl had gone an ashen color and was -staring at him with something the look of a wild and hostile animal. -She turned then; glanced with furtive eyes up and down the corridor; and -swiftly gathering up the remaining pearls clutched them tightly in one -hand, extending the other and saying, in a quick half-whisper: "Give me -those." - -He hesitated, confused, unequal to the quick clear thinking he felt, -even then, was demanded of him. - -"What are you doing with them?" he asked. - -"Not so loud! Come here!" She was indicating her own doorway; even -drawing the curtain; while her head moved just perceptibly toward the -room immediately beyond her own where Miss Hui Fei, he knew, would be -resting at this time. - -"Where did you get them?" he asked, huskily, doggedly. - -There was a long pause. Again her subtle gaze swept the corridor. "You'd -better step in here," said she, very quiet. "I've something to say to -you." - -Sensing, still confusedly, that he ought to see the thing through, -struggling to think, he yielded to her stronger will. - -She followed him into the room and let the curtain fall. "Give me those -pearls," she commanded again. - -He shook his head. - -During a tense moment she studied him. She moved over by the translucent -window of ground oyster shells, itself, in the mellow afternoon light, -as opalescent as the pearls in her hand and his. Her gaze, for an -instant, sought the wide stain on the floor where the Manila Kid had, -so recently, wretchedly died; and her instant imagination considered the -incomprehensible mental attitude of these quiet Chinese who had, without -a word, disposed of the body and painstakingly cleansed the spot. No -one, observing them day by day, now, as they calmly pursued their tasks, -could suspect that the slanting quiet eyes had so lately seen murder.... -As for the youth before her she was, now that her moment of fright had -passed, supremely confident in her skill and mental strength. He was, -still, little more than an undeveloped boy. And his position, now that -he had set up his flag of reform, would be absurdly vulnerable. - -"Once more"--her low voice was cool and soft as river ice--"give them to -me." - -He shook his head. "Tell me first where you got them." - -"If you're determined to make a scene," said she, "I advise you to be -quiet about it. You wouldn't want--her--to know you're in here." - -"I--I"--this was the merest boyishness--"I've told her about--well, that -I tried to make love to you. I'm not afraid of that." - -"Still--you wouldn't want her to hear you now." This was awkwardly true. -And his hesitation as he tried to consider it, to work out an attitude, -ran a second too long. - -"The pearls are mine," she pressed calmly on. "The best advice I can -give you is to return them and go." - -"But--" - -"Do you think I want the people aboard this junk--anybody--to know that -I have them?" - -"I believe you stole them from the viceroy's place." - -"That, of course--Well, never mind! What you may believe is nothing to -me." - -"Will you tell Mr. Doane about them?" - -"Certainly not. And you won't." - -"Why shouldn't I?" - -"It's none of your business." - -"Perhaps it's my duty." - -"Listen"--he felt himself wholly in the right, yet found difficulty in -meeting her cold pale eyes--"it's my impression that I've been acting -rather decently toward you. Of course, I could have--" - -"What could you have done?" - -"For you own good, keep your voice down. I will tell you just this--you -were pretty wild in Shanghai for a week or two." - -"Well?" This was hurting him; but he met it. "And there's no likelihood -that you've told her all of it. Were you such a fool as to think you -could keep it all secret? Out here on the coast--and from a woman with -as many underground connections as I have?" - -"There's nothing that!--" - -"Listen! I'm not through with you. You've been a very, very rough -proposition. I know all about it. No--wait! There's something else. I -knew all about you when you were making up to me on the steamer. I could -have trapped you then--tangled your life so with mine that you could -never have got away from me, never in the world. But I didn't. I liked -you, and I didn't want to hurt you--then." - -"You do want to hurt me now?" - -"It may be necessary." - -"Since you're taking this position"--he was finding difficulty in -making his voice heard; there seemed to be danger of explosive -sounds--"probably I'd better just go to Mr. Doane myself with these -things." - -"If you do that I'll wreck your life." - -"You don't mean that you'd--" - -"You seem to be forgetting a good deal." - -"But you--" - -"I will defend myself to the limit. I've really been easy with you. You -see, you don't know anything about me. Least of all what harm I can do. -You'd be a child in my hands. Turn against me and I'll get you if it -takes me ten years. You'll never be safe from me. Never for a minute." - -He looked irresolutely down at the lustrous jewels in his hand. - -"You had these sewed in your skirt. There must be more there." - -"Are you proposing to search me?" - -"No--but".... His black youth was stabbing now, viciously, at his -boyishly sensitive heart; but still, in a degree, he met it. "I'm going -to Mr. Doane. I don't care what happens to me." - -He even moved a soft step toward the door; but paused, lingered, -watching her. For she was rummaging among the covers of her bed. He -caught a brief glimpse of a hand-bag that she meant him not to see. She -took from a bottle two green tablets. Then she faced him. - -To the startled question of his eyes she replied: "They're corrosive -sub mate. I shall take them now unless you--give me the pearls. If you -want to have my death on your hands, take them to Mr. Doane. But -it's only fair to tell you that if you do it--if you mix in this -business--your own life won't be worth a nickel. They'll get you, and -they'll get the pearls. You're caught in a bigger game than you can -play. - -"Get out, while you can"--as the low swift words came she reached out and -took the pearls from his nerveless hand--"and I'll protect you. You can -have your pretty Manchu girl. You can ride around in a rickshaw and -look at old temples and buy embroideries. Just don't mix in affairs that -don't concern you." - -"I"--he was pressing a hand to a white forehead--"I've got to think it -over." - -"Remember this, too"--she laid a hand on his arm--"you could never -fasten anything on me. The proof doesn't exist. Nobody can identify -unmounted pearls As a matter of fact I got these".... during a brief but -to her perverse imagination an intensely pleasing moment she closed -her eyes and lived again through that strange scene on the steps of the -pavilion; again in vivid fancy rolled over the inert body that had been -Tex Connor, took the amazing cape of pearls from his shirt and rolled -the body heavily back...."I got these from a man I knew--an old friend. -Just mind your own business and no one will harm you. But remember, -you're walking among dangers. Step carefully. Keep quiet. Better go -now." - -He found himself in the corridor; walked slowly, uncertainly, up to the -deck; sat by the rail and, head on hand, moodily watched the river and -the hills. He asked himself if he had, by his very silence, struck a -bargain with the girl; but could find no answer to the question, only -bewilderment. Could it be that she was only a daring thief? It could, of -course, but how to get at the truth? Abruptly, then his thoughts turned -inward. His wild days had seemed, since his change of heart, of the -remote past; but they were not, they had still been the stuff of his -life within about a week. It was unnerving. He thought, something -morbidly, as the sensitive young will, about habits.... The day had gone -awry, too, in the matter of his love. A reaction had set in. Hui Fei -was keeping much to herself. It had become difficult to talk with her -at all. And that had bewildered him.... He was all adrift, with neither -sound training nor a mature philosophy to steady him, life had turned -unreal on his hands; nothing was real--not Hui or her father, certainly -not himself, not even Mr. Doane. His background, even, was slipping -away, and with it his sense of the white race. This, it seemed, was a -yellow world--swarming, heedless, queerly tragic. His soul was adrift, -and nobody cared. Toward his father and mother he felt only bitterness. -There were, it appeared, no friends. - -He thought, it seemed, confusedly, excitedly, of everything; of -everything except the important fact that he was very young. - -Early on the following morning Doane found the little princess playing -about the deck, and with a smile seated himself beside her. She settled -at once on his knee, chattering brightly in the Mandarin tongue of her -play world. - -He responded with a note of good-humored whimsy not out of key with her -alert clear imagination. It was pleasant to fall again into the little -intimacies of the language that had become, during these twenty years -and more, almost his own. He pointed out to her the trained cormorants -diving for fish, and the irrigating wheels along the banks; and then -told quaint stories--of the first water buffalo, and of the magic -rice-field. - -Soon she, too, was telling stories--of the simpleton who bought herons -for ducks, of the toad in the lotus pool, of the child that was born in -a conch shell and finally crawled with it into the sea, of the youngest -daughter who to save the life of her father married a snake, of the -magic melon that grew full of gold and the other melon that contained -hungry beggars, of the two small boys and the moon cake, and of the -curious beginning of the ant species. - -She scolded him for his failure, at the first, to laugh with her. Her -happy child quality stirred memories of old-time days in T'ainan-fu, -when his own daughter had been a child of six, playing happily about the -mission compound. They were poignant memories. His eyes were misty even -as he smiled over the bright merriment of this child, and in his heart -was a growing wistful tenderness. To be again a father would be a great -privilege. He was ripe for it now, tempered by poverty and sorrow, yet -strong, with a great emotional capacity on which the world about him -had, apparently, no claim to make. He was simply cast aside, left -carelessly in an eddy with the great stream of life flowing, bankful, -by. The experience was common enough, of course. In the great scheme -of life the fate of an individual here and there could hardly matter. -He could tell himself that, very simply, quite honestly; and yet the -strength within him would rise and rise again to assert the opposite. -The end, for himself, lay beyond the range of conscious thought; but -at least, he felt, it could not be bitterness. He seemed to have passed -that danger.... The little princess was soberly telling the old story of -the father-in-law, the father, and the crabs that were eaten by the -pig. At the conclusion she laughed merrily; and then Ending his response -somewhat unsatisfactory, scowled fiercely and with her plump fingers -bent up the comers of his mouth. - -He laughed then; and rolled her up in his arms and tossed her high in -the air. - -When Hui Fei came upon them they were gazing out over the rail. Mr. -Doane seemed to be telling a long story, to which the child listened -intently. She moved quietly near, smiling; and after listening for a few -moments seated herself on the deck behind them. - -The story puzzled her. She leaned forward, a charming picture in her -simple costume, black hair parted smoothly, oval face untouched with -powder or paint. She smiled again, then, for his story was nothing other -than a free rendering into Chinese of Stevenson's:= - -```"In Winter I get up at night - -```And dress by yellow candle-light..."= - -He went on, when that was finished, with a version of:= - -````"Dark brown is the river, - -````Golden is the sand...."= - ---and other poems from _The Child's Garden of Verses._ - -Hui Fei's eyes lighted, as she listened. Mr. Doane, it appeared, knew -nearly all of these exquisite verse-stories of happy childhood and -exhibited surprising skill in finding the Chinese equivalents for -certain elusive words. What a mind he had.... rich in reading as in -experience, ripe in wisdom, yet curiously fresh and elastic! It seemed -to her a young mind. - -The little princess was especially pleased with _My Bed Is a Boat_, and -made him repeat it. At the conclusion she clapped her hands. And then -Hui Fei joined in the applause, and laughed softly when they turned in -surprise. - -"Won't you do _The Land of Counterpane?_" she asked. - -It was later, when the child had run off to play among the flowers, that -he and she fell to talking as they had not talked during these recent -crowded days. There were silences, at first. Despite his effort to seem -merely friendly and kind, he felt a restraint that had to be fought -through. In this time, so difficult for her at every point, he felt -deeply that he must not fail her. Her greatest need, surely, was for -friendship. The excited youth who dogged her steps and hung on her most -trivial glance could not offer that. And melancholy had touched her -bright spirit; he sensitively felt that when the little princess -ran away and her smile faded. Sorrow dwelt not far behind those dark -thoughtful eyes. - -Early in the conversation she spoke of her father. Her thoughts, -clearly, were always with him. - -"I wan' to ask you," said she simply and gravely, "if you know what he -is doing." - -Doane moved his head in the negative. - -"He has been in his room for more than a day. When I go to his door -he is kin' but he doesn' ask me to come in. And he doesn' tell me -anything." - -"He is not confiding in me," said Doane. - -"I don' like that, either, Mis'er Doane. For I know he thinks of you now -as his closes' frien'. There is no other frien' who knows what you know. -An' you have save' his life an' mine. My father is not a man to fail in -frien'ship or in gratitu'." - -Doane's eyes, despite his nearly successful inner struggles, grew misty -again. Impulsively he took her hand gently in his. At once, simply, her -slender fingers closed about his own. It seemed not unlike the trusting -affection of a child; he sensed this as a new pain. Yet there was strong -emotional quality in her; he felt it in her dark beauty, in the curve of -her cheek and the lustrous troubled splendor in her eyes, in the slender -curves of her strong young body. She was, after all, a woman grown; -aroused, doubtless, to the puzzling facts of life; a woman, with an -ardent lover close at hand, who was--this as his wholly adult mind now -saw her--already at her mating time. And feeling this he gripped her -hand more tightly than he knew. But even so, he was not unaware of his -own danger. It wouldn't do; once to release his own tightly chained -emotions would be to render himself of no greater value to her in her -bewilderment than any merely pursuing male. He set his teeth on that -thought, and abruptly withdrew his hand. - -She did not look up--her gaze was fixed on the surface of the river. -The only indication she gave that she was so much as aware of this odd -little act of his was that she started to speak, then paused for a brief -instant before going on. - -"I ask--ask myself all the time if there is anything we coul' be doing." - -Doane's head moved again in the negative. - -"If not even his gratitu'--" - -"Gratitude," said Doane gently, "becomes less than nothing when it is -demanded." - -"True, it can no' be ask', but it can be given." - -"Sometimes"--he was thinking aloud, dangerously--"I wonder if any -healthy human act is free from the motive of self-interest. Generosity -is so often self-indulgence. Self-sacrifice, even in cases where it may -be regarded as wholly sane, may be only a culmination or a confusion of -little understood desires." - -She looked up at this; considered it. - -"Certainly," he went on, "your father owes me nothing." - -Her hand moved a little way toward his, only to hesitate and draw -back. She looked away, saying in a clouded voice: "He--and I--owe you -everything." It wouldn't do. Doane waited a long moment, then spoke in -what seemed more nearly his own proper character--quietly, kindly, with -hardly an outward sign of the intensely personal feeling of which his -heart was so full. - -"Your father has spoken to me of you as an experiment." - -"You mean my life--my education." - -"Yes. He feels, too, that the experiment has not yet been fully worked -out. I often think of that--your future. It is interesting, you know. -You have responded amazingly to the spirit of the West. And of course -you'll have to do something about it." - -"Oh, yes," said she, musing, "of course." - -"Whatever personal interests may for a time--or at times--absorb your -life".... this was as close as he dared trust himself to the topic of -marriage__"I feel about you that your life will seek and find some -strong outward expression." - -"Yes--I have often fel' that too. Of course, at college I like' to -speak. I went in a good 'eal for the debates, an' for class politics." - -"You have an active mind. And you have a fine heritage. Knowing--even -feeling--both East and West as you do, your life is bound to find some -public outlet. Something." - -"I know." She seemed moody now, in a gentle way. Her fingers picked at -a rope. "But I don' know what. I don' think I woul' like teaching. -Writing, perhaps. Even speaking. That is so easy for me." - -"There is a service that you are peculiarly fitted to perform." She -glanced up quickly, waited. "It is a thought that keeps coming to my -mind. Perhaps because it will probably become the final expression of my -own life. For my life is curiously like yours in one way. You remember, -that--that night when we first talked--on the steamer--" - -"I climb' the ladder," she murmured, picking again at the rope. - -"--And we agreed that we were both, you and I"--his voice grew -momentarily unsteady--"between the worlds." - -"Yes. I remember." He could barely hear her, "It is true, of course." - -"It is true. And for myself, I feel more and more strongly every day -that I must pitch into the tremendous task of helping to make the East -known to the West." - -"Tha' woul' be won'erful!" she breathed. - -"I have come to feel that it is the one great want in Western -civilization, that the philosophy, the art, the culture, indeed, of -China has never been woven into our heritage. It is strange, in a -way--we derived our religion from certain primitive tribes in Syria. But -they had little culture. The Christian religion teaches conduct but very -nearly ignores beauty. And then there is our insistent pushing forth -of the Individual. I have come to believe that our West will seem less -crass, less materialistic, when the individual is somewhat subdued." -He smiled. "We need patience--sheer quality of thought--the fine art -of reflection. We shall not find these qualities at them best, even in -Europe. They exist, in full flower, only in China. And America doesn't -know that. Not now." - -A little later he said: "That work has been begun, of course, in a small -way. A slight sense of Chinese culture is creeping into our colleges, -here and there. Some of the poetry is bring translated. The art -museums are reaching out for the old paintings. The Freer collection -of paintings will some day be thrown open to the public. But traditions -grow very slowly. It will take a hundred years to make America aware -of China as it is now aware of Italy, Egypt, Greece, even old -Assyria.... and the thing must be freed from Japanese influence--we can't -much longer afford to look at wonderful, rich old China through the -Japanese lens." - -"An' you're going to make tha' your work," observed Hui Fei. - -"I must. I begin to feel that it is to be the only final explanation of -my life." - -There was a silence. Then, abruptly, in a tone he did not understand, -she asked: "Are you going to work for the Revolution?" - -"That is the immediate thing--yes. I shall offer my services." - -"Coul' I do anything, you think? At Shanghai, I mean? Of course, I'm a -Manchu girl, but I can no' stand with the Manchu Gover'ment. I am not -even with my--my father there." - -"It is possible. I don't know. We shall soon be there." - -"Will you tell me then--at Shanghai?" - -He inclined his head. Suddenly he couldn't speak. She was holding to -him, as if it were a matter of course; yet he dared not read into her -attitude a personal meaning of the only sort that could satisfy his -hungry heart. The difficulty lay in his active imagination. Like that of -an eager boy it kept racing ahead of any possible set of facts. All -he could do, of course, was to go on curbing it, from hour to hour. -It would be harder seeing her at Shanghai than running away, as he had -half-consciously been planning. But it was something that she clung to -him as a friend. He mustn't, couldn't, really, fail her there. - -All of the last day they sailed the wide and steadily widening estuary. -The lead-colored water was roughened by the following wind that drove -the junk rapidly on toward her journey's end. But toward sunset wind and -sea died down, and under sweeps, late in the evening-, the craft moved -into the Wusung River and moored for the night within sight of a line of -war-ships. - -A feeling of companionship grew strongly among those fugitives, yellow -and white, as the evening advanced. They had passed together through -dangerous and dramatic scenes. Now that danger and drama were alike, -it seemed, over, with the peaceable shipping of all the world lying just -ahead up the narrow channel, with, in the morning to come, a fresh view -of the bund at Shanghai, where hotels, banks and European clubs elbowed -the great trading hongs, with motor-cars and Sikh police and the bright -flags of the home land so soon to be spread before their weary eyes, -they gathered on the after gallery to chat and watch the flashing signal -lights of the cruisers and the trains on the river bank, and dream each -his separate dream. Even Dixie Carmichael, though herself untouched by -sentiment, joined, for reasons of policy, the little party. Hui Fei -was there, between Doane and the moodily silent Rocky Kane. The Chinese -servants smilingly grouped themselves on the deck just above. And -finally--though it is custom among these Easterners to sleep during the -dark hours and rise with the morning light--his excellency appeared, -walking alone over the deck, smiling in the friendliest fashion and -greeting them with hands clasped before his breast. - -Doane felt a little hand steal for a moment into his with a nervous -pressure. His own relief was great. - -For this smiling gentleman could hardly be regarded as one about to die. -They placed him in the steamer chair of woven rushes from Canton. And -pleasantly, then, their last evening together passed in quiet talk. - -His excellency was in reminiscent mood. He had been a young officer, it -transpired, in the T'aiping Rebellion, and had fought during the last -three years of that frightful thirteen-year struggle up and down the -great river, taking part in the final assault on Su-chau as a captain in -the "Ever Victorious" army of General Gordon. Regarding that brilliant -English officer he spoke freely; Doane translating a sentence, here and -there, for young Kane. - -"Gordon never forgave Li Hung Chang," he said, "for the murder of the -T'ai-ping Wangs, during the peace banquet. It was on Prince Li's own -barge, in the canal by the Eastern Gate of the city. Gordon claimed -that Li procured the murder. He was a hot-blooded man, Gordon, often too -quick and rough in speech. Li told me, years later, that the attack -was directed as much against himself as against the Wangs, and regarded -himself as fortunate to escape. He never forgave Gordon for his -insulting speech. But Gordon was a vigorous brave man. It was a -privilege to observe him tirelessly at work, planning by night, fighting -by day--organizing, demanding money, money, money--with great energy -moving troops and supplies. He could not be beaten. He was indeed the -'Ever Victorious.'" - -It was, later, his excellency who asked Hui Fei and young Kane to sing -the American songs that had floated on one or two occasions through his -window below. They complied; and Dixie Carmichael, in an agreeable light -voice, joined in. At the last Duane was singing bass. - -The party was breaking up--his excellency had already gone below--when -Rocky, moved to the point of exquisite pain, caught the hand of Hui Fei. - -"Please!" he whispered. "Just a word!" - -"Not now. I mus' go." - -"But--it's our last evening--I've tried to be patient--it'll be all -different at Shanghai--I can't let you." - -But she slipped away, leaving the youth whispering brokenly after -her. He leaned for a long time on the rail then, looking heavily at the -winking lights of the cruisers. It was a relief to see Mr. Doane coming -over the deck. Certainly he couldn't sleep. Not now. His heart was full -to breaking.... The fighting impulse rose. During this past day or so he -had seemed to be losing ground in his struggle with self. The startling -incident in Miss Carmichael's room had turned out, he felt, still -confusedly, as a defeat. It had left him unhappy. This night, out there -in the blossom-scented gallery, he had sensed the strange girl, close at -hand, cool as a child, singing the old college songs with apparent quiet -enjoyment, as an uncanny thing, a sinister force. Even when speaking to -Hui Fei, her influence had enveloped him.... This would be just one more -little battle. And it must be won. - -Accordingly he told Mr. Doane the story. The older man considered it, -slowly nodding. - -"It is probably the fact," he said, at length, "that she stole the -pearls at Huang Chau. She was with Connor and Watson. But it is also -a fact that she might have pearls of her own. And in traveling alone -through a revolution it would be her right to conceal them as she chose. -It is true, too, that unset pearls couldn't be identified easily, if -at all. And she is clever--she wouldn't weaken under charges.... No, I -don't see what we can do, beyond watching the thing closely. As for her -threats against you, they are partly rubbish." - -But Rocky cared little, now, what they might be. Once again he had -cleaned the black slate of his youth. His head was high again. He could -speak to Hui Fei convincingly in the morning. - -His excellency, alone in his cabin, took from his hand-bag the book of -precepts of Chuang Tz; and seated on his pallet, by the small table on -which burned a floating wick in its vessel of oil, read thoughtfully as -follows: - -"Chuang Tz one day saw an empty skull, bleached but intact, lying on -the ground. Striking it with his riding whip, he cried, 'Wert thou once -some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought him to this -pass?--some statesman who plunged his country into ruin and perished -in the fray?--some wretch who left behind him a legacy of shame?--some -beggar who died in the pangs of hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach -this state by the natural course of old age?' - -"When he had finished speaking, he took the skull and, placing it under -his head as a pillow, went to sleep. In the night he dreamt that the -skull appeared to him and said: 'You speak well, sir; but all you say -has reference to the life of mortals and to mortal troubles. In death -there are none of these.... In death there is no sovereign above, and -no subject below. The workings of the four seasons are unknown. Our -existences are bounded only by eternity. The happiness of a king among -men can not exceed that which we enjoy.' - -"Chuang Tz, however, was not convinced, and said: 'Were I to prevail -upon God to allow your body to be bom again, and your bones and flesh to -be renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife and -to the friends of your youth, would you be willing?' - -"At this the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and said: -'How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king, and -mingle once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?'" - -He closed the book; laid on the table his European watch; and sat for -a long time in meditation. As the hands of the watch neared the hour of -three in the morning, he took from the bag a box of writing materials, a -small red book and a bottle of white pills. - -The leaves of the book were the thinnest gold. On one of these -he inscribed, with delicate brush, the Chinese characters meaning -"Everlasting happiness." Tearing out the leaf, then, he wrapped loosely -in it one of the pills--these were morphine, of the familiar sort -manufactured in Japan and sold extensively in China since the decline of -the opium traffic--and swallowed them together. He inscribed and took -another, and another, and another. - -Gradually a sense of drowsy comfort, of utter physical well-being, came -over him. The pupils of his eyes shrunk down to the merest pin-points. -His head drooped forward. His frail old body fell on the bed and lay -peacefully there as his spirit sought its destiny in the unchanging, -everlasting Tao. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--HIS EXCELLENCY SPEAKS - -|IT was daybreak. Doane, standing in his cabin by the opened window, -looked out with melancholy in his deep-set eyes over the muddy low -reaches that border the Wusung. It was a familiar scene; indeed he knew -it better than any spot in his native land--the railroad along the -bank, the brick warehouses, the native village of Wusung, the inevitable -humble families in the fields gathering in the last crops of the season. - -Overhead the _laopan_ was shouting, tackle creaked, the crew half sang, -half grunted their chanties. From the cruisers, one after another, -floating musically on the still air, came the call of bugles--the -_reveille_ of the American navy. So these were ships from home. The -stars and stripes would soon, at "colors," be rippling from each gray -stem.... There was an ache in his heart. - -Then other noises came--a little confusion of them, somewhere here on -the junk--excited whispers, a sound that might have been sobbing, and -then--yes!--the low wailing of women. - -He turned; listened closely. Light feet came running along the corridor. -A familiar, lovely voice called his name, brokenly. Then Hui Fei drew -aside his curtain. Her cheeks were stained with tears. - -Quickly, his arm about her shoulders as she swayed unsteadily, but -without a word, he walked beside her along the corridor to the cabin of -his excellency.... There were the few servants, kneeling by the -inert body and bowing their heads to the floor as they mourned. Doane -straightened the body and closed the eyes.... It was Hui Fei who found -the roll of documents on the table and placed them in Doane's hands. -He saw then, through the mist that clouded his own eyes, that they were -addressed to himself: "To my dear friend, Griggsby Doane, I entrust -these my last papers." The name alone was in English; written in a clear -hand, not unlike that of a painstaking schoolboy, each letter carefully -and roundly formed. - -Hui Fei sent the servants to another cabin, but remained herself, seated -on the floor by the side of the huge strong man who was now without -question the head of the strangely assorted family. She was calmer. -Doane did not again hear her sob; he did not even see tears. During -that difficult moment when Rocky Kane appeared in the doorway and asked -huskily, sadly, if he could help, she even smiled, very faintly, very -gently, as she moved her head in the negative. And the youth, after a -hesitant moment, left them. - -Doane spread out the documents on the floor. The first, addressed -directly to himself, he laid aside for the moment. To the second, -addressed to the throne--"by the hand of His Imperial Highness, Prince -Ch'un, Regent, as soon as it may be possible to convey to him in -this hour of China's sorrow this inadequate expression of my last -thoughts"--was attached a paper requesting that "my closest friend, -Griggsby Doane" read it thoughtfully, "in order that he may understand -fully the circumstances in which I find myself at this the end of my -long life. - -"I, your unworthy servant,"--it read--"have learned with sorrow and -tears of the decree permitting me to withdraw from this troubled life -in solitude and peace without the painful consequences of a death by -the headsman's sword. And in bowing humbly to your will I, your unworthy -servant, recognize that my life lies wholly in your hands to be disposed -of as seems best to the imperial wisdom. But in thus proving my never -weakening loyalty to the imperial will I also must express the sober -thoughts of one who has pondered long over the evils that beset our land -and who has ventured at times, weakly, to hope that China might pay -heed to certain lessons of recent history and find a way to oppose -successfully the pressure of other powerful nations upon us. For it -has been my privilege, as a long-time servant of the throne, to observe -certain of these other nations at first hand and to learn a little of -their power, which is very great. - -"On another occasion I, your unworthy servant, wittingly incurred danger -of death or imprisonment, because, in the eagerness of my convictions, -I dared to suggest certain reforms to the throne. There is a saying that -the tree which bends before the gale will never be broken off but will -grow to a ripe old age, and my hope has always been for a great and -growing China. At that time princes and ministers about the throne -asked permission to subject me to a criminal investigation, but his late -majesty was pleased to spare me. Therefore my last years have been a -boon at the hand of his late majesty." - -There followed a clear, dignified statement of the urgent need for vast -reforms. His excellency recalled in detail his long years of service and -his decorations and honors. Quietly he called attention to the fact that -all, or nearly all, China was in revolt, that the throne tottered, that -to permit the government longer to be dominated by corrupt eunuchs was -an affront to modern as to ancient thought and morality. It was clear -to himself, he stated, that without a skilfully organized system of -gradual, perhaps rapid, modernization, China would soon crumble to -pieces under the heel of the greedy foreigners. And there was profound -pathos in the passing remark that perhaps his suicide, far from home, -his vast estate seized by government agents or despoiled by robbers, his -person, alone, beyond the reach of harm--safe, in fact, with the hated -foreigners--might stand as a final proof of his loyalty to the throne in -serving which his long life had been spent. - -"But at the moment of leaving this world I feel that my mind is not so -clear as I could wish. The text of this my memorial is ill-written and -lacking in clarity of thought. I am no such scholar as the men of olden -times; how, then, could I face the end with the calm which they showed? -But there is a saying, 'The words of a dying man are good.' Though I am -about to die, it is possible that my words are not good. I can only -hope that the empress and the emperor will pity my last sad utterance, -regarding it neither as wanton babbling nor the careless complaint of a -trifling mind. Thus shall I die without regret. I wish, indeed, that my -words may prove overwrought, in order that those who come after, perhaps -more happily, may laugh at my foolishness. - -"I pray the empress and the emperor to remember the example of our great -rulers of the past in tempering peace with mercy; that they may choose -only the worthy for public service; that they may refrain from striving -for those things desired by the foreigners, which would only plunge China -into deeper woe, but that by a careful study of what is good in foreign -lands they may help China to hold up her head among the nations and -bring us finally to prosperity and happiness. This is my last prayer, -the end and crown of my life." - -The junk was moving up the river as Doane finished reading, passing one -of the war-ships. The bugles were blowing again. A beam of warm sunlight -slanted in through the window of stained glass and threw a kaleidoscope -of color on the wall. - -Hui Fei sat motionless, her hands folded humbly in her lap, gazing at -the floor. Her face was expressionless. She seemed wholly Oriental. - -With a sigh, Deane rolled the memorial and tied it with the ribbon. The -one beneath it, he saw now, was addressed to Hui Fei. Without a word he -handed it to her and then settled to read his own. Hers was the shorter. -When she had finished she lowered it to her lap and sat motionless, as -before. - -Doane now took up the paper addressed to himself and read as follows: - -"My friend, Griggsby Doane, grieve not for me, and be sure that in the -manner of my end I have had no wish to bring evil upon you. It is in a -measure sad that this end should come upon a hired junk instead of on -a plot of hallowed ground, as I would have chosen. But there was no -choice. I have waited until assured of my daughter's safety. - -"Inform the magistrate at Shanghai of my death, and see that my Memorial -to the Throne is forwarded promptly. Give to my daughter Hui Fei the -letter addressed to her. It my wish that you also should read that -letter, and I have so instructed her. It is also my wish that she should -read this letter to you. Buy for me a cheap coffin, and have it painted -black inside. The poor clothes I wear must serve, but I wish that the -soiled soles of my shoes be cut off. Twenty or thirty taels will be -ample for the coffin. - -"I do not believe it will be necessary for the magistrate to hold an -inquest. Please have a coating of lacquer put on the coffin, to fill up -any cracks, and have the cover nailed down pending the throne's decision -as to my remains. Then buy a small plot of ground near the Taoist temple -outside of Shanghai and have me buried as soon as possible. There is no -need to consider waiting for an opportunity to bury me at my ancestral -home; any place is good enough for a loyal and honest man. - -"You will find about a thousand taels in my bag, also the few jewels we -found at my home. Sell the jewels and keep for yourself the balance that -will remain after my burial expenses are paid. The _laopan_ of this junk -has his money. This he will deny, and will cry for more; but do not heed -him. - -"Remember there is nothing strange or abnormal in my passing; death has -become my duty. It may be true that the historic throne of the Manchus -is rocking, is falling, but despite the understanding that has been -given to me of what is good in Western civilization I have never swayed -in my heart from loyalty to that throne and steadfast devotion to its -best interests as I can see them, and I do no less than obey the mandate -of my empress and my emperor. - -"Do not grieve unduly for me. It is my wish that all of you, my friends -and family, should live happily in the life that lies before you. To -you, Griggsby Doane, out of the gratitude and admiration of my proud -heart, I give and bequeath all the little that may be left of my worldly -goods, including the money, the pitiful handful of jewels, the historic -paintings and my daughter Hui Fei. It is my wish that you will marry -her at once, and that in your best judgment you sell any or all of the -paintings to provide what money you and she may need, and also that you -and she care lovingly for the younger child. It may be better to educate -her in the Western manner, but that will be as you may decide. In the -matter of this marriage with my daughter, Hui Fei, I have sought the -opinion of each of you regarding the other. I have your assurance that -it has been your own wish. And Hui Fei informs me that she respects and -admires no man more than yourself. You will see, therefore, that I have -approached this matter in the Western spirit, and as a result I see no -reason why the marriage should be delayed or that my beloved daughter -should be left alone at the mercy of an unscrupulous world. I have -informed her, also, of my decision. My gifts to you make a most -inadequate dowry, but they are all I have. I wish for you both great -happiness and many descendants. - -"And now, Griggsby Doane, my dear friend, I take my leave of you. I, at -seventy-four years of age, can claim an unsullied record. My family tree -goes back more than seven hundred years; for three centuries there have -been members of my clan in the Imperial Household or in the Government -Bureaus, and for four hundred years we have devoted ourselves to -husbandry and scholarship. For twenty-four generations my family has -borne a good name. I die now in order that a lifetime of devotion to -duty and loyalty to the throne may be consummated." - -Slowly Doane lowered the document. He could not speak; he could hardly -think. There beside him, still motionless, sat the young woman who was -now, by all the traditions of her people, abruptly his. - -Dutifully, observing that he had finished reading, she gave him her -own letter; and he, in exchange, handed her his. Thus they read on. And -then, again quietly exchanging the documents, they sat without a word by -the peaceful body. - -Little by little Doane's brain cleared. It was a time, he felt--_the_ -time, indeed--when all his experience, all his character and skill, must -come into use. Now, it ever, he must be wise and steady and kind. Very -gently he took her hand; it lay softly in his; she did not lift her -eyes. - -"We will not think of this matter now," he said. "Our only thought must -be to carry out his plans regarding the funeral. If it shouldn't seem -best, later, to fulfill quite all his last wishes, perhaps he, from -the other side of the barrier, will understand what he couldn't wholly -understand while on this earth. But this I must say now---whatever -direction your life may take, try to think of me as filling, the best I -can, your father's place. I shall hope to be your dearest friend. Lean -on me. Use me. And be sure I will understand." - -Her slim fingers tightened once again about his. - -"He was a won'erful father," she began, and choked a little. - -He left her there; sent in her maid to her; himself mounted to the deck. - -The sun was well up. Other junks sailed up and down the tide. A -bluff-bowed freighter, flying the Dutch flag, lay at anchor near one -of the Chinese torpedo boats that had gone over to the chaotic new -republic. The American steamers were far astern, but a motor launch -flying an officer's flag and with blue uniforms visible under the -awning, plowed by on her way up to the city. In the distance, up ahead, -beyond the crowding masts and funnels of the steamers that came from all -the world, could be seen the buildings and spires and the smoke-haze of -European Shanghai.... The bund there, within a few hours now, would -be crowded with pony-carriages and motor-cars and over-fed tourists -riding in rickshaws drawn by ragged coolies. The hotels would be -thronging with talkative young women and drink-flushed men, all eagerly -retailing confused and inaccurate news of "the revolution"; out at the -British country club on Bubbling Well Road blond men would be -playing tennis in flannels: and the gambling houses would be brightly -illuminated until late at night, and the Chinese shopkeepers in Nanking -Road would be selling their souvenir trinkets, their useless little -boxes of coinsilver and cloisonne and damascene work and their painted -snuff-bottles and green soapstone necklaces and blue-and-white pottery -quite as if no troubles could ever arise to disturb the destiny of -nations. - -Doane sighed again. The last letter of his excellency was in his hand, -held tightly; though he was not at this time aware of it. He glanced -aft, and saw Rocky Kane standing on the gallery, among the flowers, -gazing not forward toward the jangling, money-seeking, pleasure-mad city -that is the principal point of contact between the culture of the West -and that of the East, but off astern, as if endeavoring to see again the -lost Yangtze Kiang of his glowing romance. - -Doane went to him; aware, then, of the paper rolled so tightly in his -hand, said--a huge figure, towering over the boy, his face sad and more -than ever deeply lined, but with a grave kindliness about the eyes: - -"My boy, it is important that you and I have a talk. Suppose we sit -down." He indicated the steamer chair; but Rocky insisted that he take -it, himself dropping heavily down on the step of the deck. - -"How--how is she standing it?" he asked, his troubled eyes searching -that strong face before him. - -"As well as we could ask. It is bound to be very hard for -her--especially during these next few days. But she has courage. And -she knows he would wish her not to mourn.... A matter has come up that -concerns you, Rocky"--it was the first time he had used that familiar -name; the boy's moody eyes brightened momentarily, and a touch of color -rose in his cheeks--"and I don't feel I can delay telling you about it. -First, you had better let me read you this." - -He had not thought, before this moment, of the necessity that he himself -make the translation for the boy. It had to be difficult; he would have -given much if the thing could have been managed in some less directly -personal way; but for that matter, difficulties lay so thickly about -him now that there was no good in so much as giving them a thought. And -so--deliberately, with great care to find the nearly precise English -equivalent of every obscure phrase--he read the letter through. - -He dared not look at the boy's face, but could not but become aware of -the hands that twitched, clasping and unclasping, in his lap, and of the -feet that at times nervously tapped the deck. When the task was done he -quietly folded the paper and slipped it into a pocket. - -The silence grew long and trying. Doane searched and searched his own -still confused mind for the right, the clear word; but could not, during -these earlier moments, find it. The boy, plainly, was crushed; but -behind the clouded eyes and the knit brows an emotional storm was -gathering. Doane felt that. It had to come, of course. And it would have -to be handled. - -But the first words were almost calm. - -"So that"--thus the brooding youth--"so that's how it is!" - -Doane waited. After a little the boy sprang up. "But in God's name, -why didn't you tell me!" he cried. "You've let me come and talk to you! -You--This isn't fair! You've made a fool of me! You--" Doane rose too. -They stood side by side among the heavily scented blossoms. Doane felt -moved to put a kindly hand on the slender shoulder beside him; but a -following thought cautioned him that even a touch would be resented at -this moment. - -"I didn't tell you," he said, "because until I read this paper I didn't -know." - -"But you must have known! You told--him. Told him you loved her! -Probably you've been telling her, too--here under my eyes. Oh, God, what -a fool I've been.... If you'd only been square with me!" - -"This is not fair," said Doane, still very quiet. "We must talk this -out, but not now--not while you are angry." - -"Angry! What in heaven's name is the sense of talking it out! It's -settled, isn't it?" - -"I'm not sure." - -"That's not so!" The boy seemed to be recovering somewhat now from the -first shock of unreason. He turned away to hide the tears in his eyes. -"You've admitted to her father, if not to her, that you love her.... -Oh, why didn't I see it! Why did I have to be such an awful fool!... She -knows it now. And you know as well as I what she'll do. She'll never go -against her father's last wish--never. You know that!" - -"I recognize that she must be seeing it in that light now, but--" - -"Oh, what's the use of talk. You _know!_ For God's sake, let me alone, -can't you!" - -Doane's brows drew slowly together; but this and a note of something -near command in his voice, were the only outward indications of the -storm within his breast. - -"This is not a time for either you or me to be thinking of ourselves. -You may be sure that Hui Fei will not be thinking so. And it may help -you to realize that this situation is difficult for me, as it is for -you. It is true that Hui Fei's only thought, now, under the stress of -this sorrow, will be to submit to her father's every wish. But this -stress will pass. There is only one course to take--" - -"But--" - -"Listen to me! And try to meet the thing like a man. We will wait until -this sad business is over. We will at least try to give up thinking -of ourselves. I will see that Hui Fei and her sister are cared for by -friends." - -"But all the time you'll be seeing her, and--" - -"I must still ask you to listen and try to think clearly. As soon as -it seems wise I will lay the situation before Hui Fei. I will try to -persuade her that her own life is, in the last analysis, more important -than even her father's dying wish. I believe that she--would--be happier -with a young man like yourself than with an--older man. It is possible -that she can be led to see that her own happiness must be a factor in -her choice. Have you the patience and the courage to wait for that?" - -He extended his hand. The boy looked at it, then up at the stem, but -still kindly face; hesitated; then, with a quivering of the lip and an -explosive--"Oh God!"--rushed away; walked very fast, almost ran, the -length of the deck; made his way through the crowded waist and around -the cook's well; and stood, his bare head thrown proudly back, in the -prow, beside the quietly wondering _tai-kung_, staring toward the long -curving sweep of the tree-shaded bund of Shanghai as it came gradually -into view around the bend just below the city. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV--THE WORLD OF FACT - -|THE yellow junk was now abreast the landing hulks of the great -international shipping companies just below the city. Rocky left the -bow and made his way to the after cabins without once lifting his somber -gaze to the silent figures on the poop. Slowly--his eyes wild, his -thoughts beyond control, bitterness in his heart--he moved along the dim -corridor. - -A puff of wind found its way through an open window; a blue curtain -swung out, discovering, through a doorway, Miss Carmichael, seated in -a chair beneath the window. It was lighter in her cabin. She had laid -aside the familiar middy blouse and skirt, and appeared to be sewing -something on her petticoat. For an instant she looked up, her eyes -meeting those of the pale youth who stood motionless in the corridor. -The curtain swung back then; but as it swung the youth stepped through -the doorway and stood within the room. - -"I don't know that I asked you in," said she coolly. - -His eyes were intent on the amazing, glistening strings of pearls that -were looped everywhere about her clothing. - -Through narrowed lids she watched him, sitting very still, needle poised -just as she had drawn it through. On his young face was an expression of -firm decision that she had not before seen there. He looked oddly, now, -like his father. There was, apparently, a trace of the Kane iron in him. -The situation was of wholly accidental origin; he couldn't have planned -it; his first expression, out in the corridor, had been of startled -surprise; the decision to step within must have been instant; yet now, -suddenly, he meant business. She caught all that.... Here, after all, -was a young man who presented difficulties. - -"Take off those pearls," said he quietly. - -"You are in my room," said she as quietly. - -"I shall take the pearls when I go." - -"You'll have my life to answer for." - -"Your life is nothing to me." - -"Your own life is." - -"Never mind about that." - -"I've warned you fairly." - -"Stand up." - -"You propose to take them from me by force?" - -"Yes. Unless you choose to give them to me." - -"And you expect me to trust you with them." - -"Yes." - -There was a silence. - -"Of course you are stronger than I," she observed musingly. - -He offered no reply to this. - -Her thin mouth curved into the faint smile that was as cold as her -calculating brain. "So"--said she "we're enemies, then?" - -This evidently did not interest him. - -"I think," she went on, quietly desperate, "that I'll try crying and -screaming. I'm something of an actress." - -"Scream your head off," said he, the slang phrase sounding almost -courteous in this new quiet voice of his. - -"There's not a person--alive--that could prove these pearls aren't my -own." Her voice dwelt on that one telling word, "alive," with an almost -caressing note of satisfaction. - -He shook his head with a touch of impatience. And she was studying him, -her quick thoughts darting sharply about---darting in every conceivable -direction--for an avenue of escape. She knew, however, as the moments -passed and the pale youth stood his ground that there was only one. She -had supposed him weak. It hardly seemed that her judgment could have -gone so far wrong. - -"You're cruel to me," she said softly. - -"Stand up." - -Now she obeyed. He drew near. - -"I didn't think you'd turn out this sort, Rocky. You liked me at first." -She moved a hand, hesitatingly, within reach of his own. But he ignored -it. "Aren't we going to see each other at Shanghai? Are you just going -to be brutal with me--like this?.... I'd like to see you." - -"Will you take them off," said he, "or must I?" - -She turned to him, with curiously mixed passions coming to life in her -face. - -"Oh, my God, Rocky!" she cried very low, "haven't you any human -feelings? Can you just come in here--into my own room--and rob me, -without a decent word?.... Haven't I played fair with you? Haven't I kept -out of your way? Haven't I?...." She moved close against him, slid her -sensitively thin hands over his shoulders; looked straight up into his -eyes, almost honestly. "Rocky, don't tell me you're this kind!".... She -was clinging to him now. - -He caught her hands, and, without roughness but with his young strength, -removed them. She let them fall at her side. - -"I'm not going to wait much longer on you," he said. - -"You're hard as nails, Rocky." Her underlip was quivering; her pale eyes -were a little darker, and seemed full of feeling. She turned suddenly to -the rough bed, and reached under the cover for her shopping bag. Hiding -it from him with her body, she opened it and took out the triangular -bottle; then lingered an instant to look at the clasps of the pearl cape -that were set with large, perfectly cut diamonds. There were five of the -clasps, and perhaps fifty of the sparkling, glittering stones. In value -they would vary somewhat-: but in themselves, even without the pearls, -they represented a fortune. She quietly closed the bag and replaced it -under the covers. - -With the rough-edged little bottle in her hand she faced him. - -"I knew a girl," she said, with a far-away look in her eyes, "who took -five of these tablets and then lived two days. She suffered terribly, -of...." - -He caught the bottle from her hand and threw it against the wall, where -it broke. The green pills rolled about the floor. - -"Oh, well," she remarked--"I can take them after you've gone." - -"After I've gone you can do as you think best." - -"But something will have to be done about me. Rocky. You'll have to get -me ashore. And see about burying me.... And you'll have to explain me." - -This moved him not at all. Apparently he _was_ to be one of the -Kanes--strong, pitiless, destined for success and power. There would -be weak moments; but all that her uncannily shrewd eyes saw in him. -For that matter, Miss Carmichael had known many men of the sort that -in America are termed "big"--certain of them with an unpleasant secret -intimacy--and each had possessed and (at moments) been possessed by -strong passions. It had never been wholly a matter of what is called -brain; always there had been emotional force, with a dark side as well -as a bright. - -Overhead the great clumsy sails creaked. Soft feet pattered about -the deck. The nasal voices of the crew broke into a chantey. A chain -rattled. - -"We must be there," said she. "We're anchoring, I think." And she -glanced out the window at one of the roofed-over opium hulks that lay in -those days directly opposite the bund. Finally she looked again at him. - -"Very well," she said then; and raised her arms above her head. Swiftly, -at once, he began stripping off the festoons of pearls. The only other -thing said was her remark, in a casual tone: "It's understood that -you're using force. And you'll hear from it, of course." - -As soon as he had gone she slipped into her blouse and skirt. Once again -she looked thoughtfully at the radiant gems that were left to her; then -went, coolly swinging the little bag, up on deck, where certain of the -crew were already drawing around to the ladder at the side the sampan -that had been towing astern. - -Rocky had gone directly, on tiptoe, to Doane's cabin. The huge sad-faced -man was there; quick, however, with a kindly smile. - -Rocky said--"I beg your pardon, sir?"--stiffly, not unlike a proud young -Briton--and from a tied-up handkerchief and bulging pockets--even from -his shirt above his tightly drawn belt--produced enormous quantities of -perfectly matched large pearls; laid them on the bed in a heap; helped -Mr. Doane make a bundle of them in a square of blue cloth. - -"They are yours, sir," he explained. - -He withdrew then, with a coldness of manner that to the older man was -moving; and went out on deck to await his turn in the sampan. - -Doane found a temporary home for Hui Fei and her sister at the mission -compound of his friend, Doctor Henry Withery, in the Chinese city; -himself lodging with other friends. Rocky went to the Astor House, -across Soochow Creek, which was still, in 1911, a famous stopping place -for the tourists, diplomats, military and commercial men, and all the -other more prosperous among the white travelers that pour into -Shanghai from everywhere else in the world by the great ships that plow -unceasingly the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Yellow and China -Seas; to pour out again (in peaceful times) from Shanghai by rail and -by lesser craft of the river and the coast to Hong Kong and Manila -to Hankow, to Tientsin and Peking, to Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohoma and -Tokio.... and Shanghai had never been so crowded as now, with its -thousands of travelers detained, awaiting news from this or that -revolutionary center; with the American Marines and the British -and German sailors; with Manchu refugees swarming into the foreign -settlements; with revolutionists, queueless, wearing unaccustomed -European dress, parading everywhere. - -Doane found time to call at the hotel and leave word regarding the -burial of his excellency; but was not to know that Rocky, himself, -immured in his room, gave the word that he was out and there awaited the -friendly chit that Doane sent up by the blue-robed servant. Nor was he -to know that the boy dressed carefully for the ceremony, only to -find the ordeal too great for his overstrung emotions. It was as an -afterthought, a day or two later that Doane sent him Hui Fei's address. - -It was after this sad experience that Doane, in accordance with his -promise to the late Sun Shi-pi, called on Doctor Wu Ting Fang and -offered his services to the revolutionary party. Another day and he was -hard at work, bending his strong, finely trained and experienced mind -to the great task of presenting the dreams and the activities of Young -China fairly and sympathetically to the press and the governments of the -Western World.... And so Griggsbv Doane, concealing--at moments -almost from his own inner eye--the ache in his heart, the unutterable -loneliness of his solitary existence, found himself once more fitting -into the scheme of organized human life. A grave man, with sad eyes but -with a slow kindly smile, always courteously attentive to the person and -problem of the moment, thinking always clearly and objectively out of a -comprehensively tolerant background that seemed to include all nations -and all men; a gently tactful man; a tireless, powerful figure of a man, -who could work twenty hours on end without a trace of fatigue, going -through masses of minor detail without for a moment losing his broad -view of the major problems--such was the Griggsby Doane one saw at -revolutionary headquarters during that late autumn of 1911.... Life had -caught him up. Whatever his private sorrow, the world needed him now. -Rapidly, in all that confusion, he was formulating policies, helping -to direct the current of one stream of destiny. In past years Griggsby -Doane had been discussed and forgotten. He had even been laughed at as -an unfrocked missionary by ribald, dominant, not infrequently drunken -whites along the coast. It occurred to no one to laugh at him now. - -These were the days when in half the provincial capitals of China the -Manchus that had ruled during nearly three centuries were hunted to -their death, men and women alike, like vermin. Bloody heads decorated -the lamp posts that had been erected in the Western fashion beside -freshly macadamized streets. Slaughter, as in other dramatic moments in -Oriental history, had become a pastime. Palaces and wealthy homes in a -hundred cities were looted and burned, and a vast new traffic started -up in the silks and paintings and pottery and objects of art suddenly -thrown into the market.... Hankow had been taken by the imperial troops, -but was to be recaptured as a charred, gutted ruin. General Li Yuan-hung -was now "president of the Republic of China," up at Wu Chang, by right -of military organization and popular acclaim. Admiral Sah, of the -Imperial Navy, was about to witness the unanimous mutiny of his fleet. -The great Yuan Shi-K'ai, himself a Chinese born, was in command of the -imperial troops while negotiating on either hand with the frantic throne -and the upsurging revolutionists. At Peking heads were falling and -great princes were fleeing or hiding pitifully within the walls of the -legations.... Within a few weeks Sun Yat Sen was to leave London on -his long journey eastward by way of Suez and Singapore, but without the -enormous golden treasure so confidently expected by the revolutionists. -Before his arrival, even, he was to be elected president of the new -China, in the recently captured Nanking--where a National Assembly -in cropped heads and frock coats already would be grinding out fresh -tangles of legislation.... The event was outrunning the mental -capacity of man. What was now tragic confusion would grow through the -swift-following years into tragic chaos, as the most numerous and most -nearly inert of peoples struggled out of the sluggish habit of centuries -toward the dubious light of modernity. - -But through the chaos Griggsby Doane was never for a moment to lose the -new vision that had finally cleared his long troubled mind. Behind the -crumbling of the empire, underlying the torn and bleeding surface of -Chinese life, lay a tradition finer, he was to believe until his -dying day, than any so far developed in the truculent West--a delicate -responsiveness to beauty in nature and art, a reflective quality, an -instinct for peace--it was all these at once, and more; a blend of art -in living and living in art; a finish that was exquisite in concept, a -sensitiveness that lifted the soul of man above the ugly fact. Even the -brittle perfection of Chinese etiquette--regulating every passing human -contact, clothing in silken manner the naked thought--was like a fine -lacquer over the knotted wood of life... America, he felt, with all its -earnestly insistent young virtues, worshiped the fact. To the Americans -must be preached the gospel of sensitive thought, of reflective -enjoyment of the beautiful. Those old master painters of Tang and Sung -breathed beauty; it was sweet air in their lungs; whereas in America -beauty was too often like a garment to be bought in a shop and worn for -show.... Yes, this revolutionary work was a gratifying opportunity for -service, of great momentary importance because the Chinese people must -be rescued from Manchu conquerors and their eunuchs, from disease and -famine, and from ignorance of the new world that had come amazingly, -brutally, into being while the old Middle Kingdom slumbered; but it was -not the main work. The aggressively greedy West, now, with its merchants -and war-ships and armies, was destroying the soul of China even while -teaching her a smattering of the materialistic new faith. There must be -a counter-influence; as the East now so strongly felt the West, so must -be the West made sensitively aware of the East. It was fair give and -take. It might yet help the world to find a stable balance.... This was -what the difficult life of Griggsby Doane was coming to mean. The East -had crept into his heart. So he must turn back to the West. - -For three days Mr. Doane's brief chit--with the address of Hui Fei in -the native city--burned in Rocky Kane's pocket; then, early in the third -afternoon, he went down to the Japanese steamship offices (for the keen -little brown people had already captured the Pacific traffic from the -Americans) and bought the second officer's room on a crowded liner -leaving at the end of the week for San Francisco.... On the fourth -afternoon he called a rickshaw and rode out beyond the American -post-office to the address the older man had given him. - -But Mr. Doane, it appeared, was not in; already he was established at -Doctor Wu's revolutionary headquarters. Rocky considered driving there; -even took the address and rode part of the way: but reconsidered, -returned to the hotel, and sent a messenger to Hui Fei with this chit: - -"_I'm sailing Saturday. Do you feel that you could see me for a few -moments?_" - -The reply, within the hour, bade him come. He found her in Western -dress---a tailored suit, very simple; her glistening black hair parted -smoothly--as he would always most vividly remember it--gently sad in -manner, yet able to smile. She would be like that, come to think of -it; not crushed by the tragedy, not sunken in the grief that, among -Westerners, is so often a sort of histrionic egotism.... They sat in a -tiled courtyard among dahlias. More than ever like a proud young Briton -was Rocky. - -"It is good of you to see me." Thus he began.... "I couldn't go without -a word." - -She murmured then: "Of course not." - -"I want you to know, too, that I am coming to see"--he had to pause; -in this new phase of sober young manhood he had not yet achieved steady -self-control. - -She broke the silence with a question about the revolution. It is to -his credit that he talked, stumbling only at first, clearly. And as the -strain of the meeting gradually relaxed, he became aware of her sobered -but still intense absorption in the struggle; aware, too, increasingly, -of her strong gift of what is called personality. Her mind was quick, -bright, eager--better, it seemed (he had to fight bitterness here) -than his own. And she was impersonal to a degree that he couldn't yet -attain--couldn't, in fact, quite understand. He had to speak slowly and -carefully; feeling his way with a dogged determination among uprushing -emotions, moved as never before by the charm of appearance and -manner and speech of which she was so prettily unconscious.... He had -come--perhaps with more than a touch in him of (again) that Western -histrionism, the intense overstressing of the individual and his -feelings--as a man who was effacing himself that the woman he loved -might be happy with another man. Confused with this wholly unconscious -call upon the sympathies, undoubtedly, was an unphrased incredulity that -she--so strongly a person, fine and courageous and outstanding as he -knew her to be--could accept this being almost casually left as part -of a legacy to that other man. It was incredible. Unless she loved -the other man.... So he came around again to the personal; unaware, of -course, that he was feeling inevitably with his strongly individualistic -race. Even when she dwelt on race, a little later in their talk, he -found no light. He couldn't have; for the American seldom can see what -lies outside himself. - -"I don' know yet what I can do," she was saying, very honestly and -simply (they hadn't yet mentioned Mr. Doane). "Of course I'm a Manchu, -after all. An' blood does coun'. I feel that. A good many people to-day -talk differen'ly, I know. We saw a good 'eal of Socialism at college. -The idealists to-day--the Jews an' Russians an' even some of our Chinese -students--the younger men--talk as if race doesn' matter. But of course -it does. It will ta' thousan's of years, I suppose, to bring the races -together. An' maybe it's impossible. Maybe it can' be done at all. I -think tha's the tragedy of so much of this beautiful dreaming.... An' -here you see I'm a Manchu, an' yet I wan' the Manchus put out of China. -Because they won' let China grow. An' China mus' grow, or die." - -He was moodily watching her; head bowed a little, gazing out under knit -brows. "Do you know," he said, "it's a queer thing to say, of course, -but sometimes you make me feel terribly young." - -She smiled faintly. "You are--rather young, Rocky." - -He closed his eyes and compressed his lips; his name, on her lips, was -dangerously thrilling music to him. After a moment he went doggedly on. - -"The crowds I've gone with at home haven't talked about these things. -They wouldn't think it good form." - -"I know," said she. "They woul'n'." - -"I'm beginning to wonder if we're--well, intelligent, exactly. You -know--just motors and horses and girls and bridge and 'killings' in Wall -Street." - -"Killings?" Her brows were lifted. - -"Oh--picking up a lot of money, quick." - -"That," she mused, "is what I sometimes worry about. You know, I love -America. I have foun' happiness there. I love the books an' the colleges -and the freedom an' all the goo' times. But it is true, I think--money -is God in America. Pipple don' like to have you say it, of course. But -I'm afraid it is true. Ever'-thing has to come to money--the gover'men', -the churches, ever'thing. I have seen that. That is the hard side of -America. I don' like that so well." Finally--coming down, helplessly, -on the personal, yet with a courageous light in Ins eyes--he said: "I -do want you to know this--Hui. You won't mind my speaking of my love for -you--" - -Her hand moved a very little way upward. "Please! I can't help that. -It's my life now. I'm full of you. And it has changed me. I'm--I'm -going back.... I'm going at things differently. I want you to know that. -Because if I hadn't met you it couldn't possibly have happened. And if I -hadn't--well, learned what it means to love a wonderful girl like you. I -want you to know how big the change is that you've made." - -"Rocky," she said gently--"will you do something for me?" He -waited...."I wan' you to go back to college." - -"I've already made up my mind to that," he replied, more quietly. "It's -the job for me now. It's the next thing." - -"I'm glad," said she. "An' I'd love it if you'd write to me sometimes." - -He inclined his head. - -Then, for a moment, his old turbulent inner self unexpectedly (even to -himself), lifted its head. - -"I tried to see Mr. Doane--that is, I thought perhaps I ought to tell -him that I was coming out here." - -She seemed slightly puzzled at this. Her lips framed questioningly the -words: "Tell him?" - -"I--I perhaps can't say much--but I'm sure you and he will be happy. -I--oh, he's a big man. He's terribly busy now, of course--you know what -he's doing--at Wu Ting Fang's headquarters?" - -She inclined her head rather wearily, saying: "He wrote me a ver' kin -note--jus' to say that he was busy." - -"They talk about him some at the hotel. All of a sudden he seems to be a -power here." - -She went without a further word into the house, returning with a slip -of paper. Into her manner had crept at the mention of Doane's name, -a gentler, more wistful quality that she seemed not to think of -concealing; it was even a confiding quality, intimately friendly. - -"I don' quite un'erstand it," she said. "A gen'leman called from the -Hong Kong Bank an' lef' this." - -Rocky read the paper; a receipt for a sealed parcel of pearls and for -other separate jewels and a sum of money. - -"Oh--he put it all there in your name," said he, while a sudden new hope -rose into his drying throat and throbbed in his temples. - -"Yes. It puzzle' me--a little." - -He turned the paper over and over in his fingers, once again struggling -to think.... She sat motionless, gazing at the dahlias. - -Blindly then he groped for her hands, found them and impulsively gripped -them. - -"Hui"--he whispered huskily--"tell me--if it's like this--if you--if -he.... All this time I've supposed you and he were.... I want you to come -with me to America. We both do love it there. I'll give up my life to -making you happy. I'll slave for you. I'll make of my life what you say. -just let us try it together...." - -She silently heard him out--through this and much more, leaving her -hands quietly in his. Finally then, when the emotional gust seemed in -some measure to have spent itself, she said, gently: - -"Rocky, I wan' you to listen to what I'm going to tell you. You said I -make you feel young. Well--can' you see why? Can' you see that I'm quite -an ol' lady?" - -"But that's nonsense! You--" His eyes were feasting on her soft skin and -on the exquisite curve of her cheek. - -"No--you mus' listen! First tel me how old you are." - -Unexpectedly on the defensive, Rocky had to compose himself, arrange his -dignity, before he could reply. "I was twenty-one in the summer." - -"Ver' good. An' I was twenty-five in the spring." - -"But--" - -"Please! I don' know what you coul' have thought--how young you thought -I was when I wen' to college. But tha's the way it is. I'm an ol' lady. -I have learn' to like you ver' much. I'm fond of you. I wan' to feel -always tha' we're frien's. But we coul'n' be happy together. Our -interes' aren' the same--they coul'n' be. Can' you see, Rocky? If there -is something abou' me tha' stirs you--that is ver' won'erful. But we -mus'n' let it hurt you. An' that isn' the same as marriage. Marriage is -differen'--there mus' be so much in common--if a man an' woman are to -live together an' work together, they mus' think an' hope an'...." - -Her voice died out. She was gazing again, mournfully at the dahlias. -When he released her hands they lay limp in her lap. - -With a great effort of will he wished her every happiness, promised to -write, and got himself away. - -This was on Thursday. Rocky walked at a feverish pace from the native -city to the European settlement that was so quaintly not Chinese--more, -with its Western-style buildings that were decorated with ornamental -iron balconies and richly colored Chinese signs, like a "China-town" in -an American city--and wandered for a time along Nanking Road; then out -to Bubbling Well Road; away out, past the Country Club to the almost -absurdly suburban quarter with its comfortably British villas; seeing, -however, little of the busy life that moved about him, threading his -way over cross-streets without a conscious glance at the motorcars and -pony-drawn victorias (with turbanned mafoos cracking their whips) and -bicycles and the creaking passenger wheelbarrow's on which fat native -women with tiny stumps of feet rode precariously. For those few hours -were to be recalled in later years as the quietly darkest in the young -man's life. There was no question now of dissipation; he knew with the -decisiveness of the Kanes that he had turned definitely away from the -morbid oblivion of alcohol and opium, as from the unhealthy if exciting -diversion of loveless women. But the bitterness would not down all at -once. Indeed it was savagely powerful, still, to cloud his reason. The -only evidence of victory over self of which he was aware was the fact -that he could now look almost objectively at himself, and could fight. - -He was back at the hotel between seven and eight, but couldn't eat. -For an hour he walked his room, locked in. Then, in sheer loneliness, a -little afraid of himself, he went down to the spacious lounge and sat -in a corner, behind a palm, staring at a copy of the _China Press_ and -listening, all overstrung nerves, to the cackle and laughter of the -self-centered tourists and the curiously bold and loud commercial men -from across the Pacific. He heard this, in his younger way, as Doane -would have heard it, even as Hui; it was all heedless, light-brained; -careless.... Confused with the bitterness (in a bewildering degree) was a -sense of the finely reflective atmosphere that had lately enveloped him -and that he was not to lose easily. He felt--sitting, all nerves, in -this babel--the fine old Chinese gentleman who had gone serenely to the -death that was his destiny. He felt--constantly, intensely--the princess -who had brought to her American college an instinct for culture the like -of which neither he nor any of his friends at home had brought or found -there. And he felt Mr. Doane--felt a spaciousness of mind in the man, a -patience, a tolerance--felt him as a gentleman--felt him while still, -in his heart, he was bitterly fighting him.... The thing had closed over -his head--the sheer quality of these remarkable folk. He was simply out -of a cruder world. He hadn't the right to stand with them--the simple -right of character and breeding. And no amount of determination, no -amount of storming at it could alter the fact. It would take years of -patient work. Ever, then he might miss it; for his environment soon -again would be that of the cackling tourists he now hated. Even at -college it would be all the dominant athletics, the parties and the -motors and girls and drinking, the association with those sons of -prosperous families who were all consciously cementing alliances -with the financial upper class that quietly ruled America while hired -politicians prated and performed without in the smallest measure -controlling or even altering the blatant facts.... He and his kind, at -college, despised the "grind." And you had to be a grind if you weren't -the other thing. Yet Hui Pei had managed it differently. She was neither -and both. It seemed to be a difference of mental texture.... - -A slim girl, richly dressed, with a sable wrap about her shoulders and -a pretty little hat, was threading her way among the crowding chairs and -tables and the talkative groups in the lounge. He glanced up: then looked -closely. It was Dixie Carmichael. She stood before him, wearing her icy, -faintly mocking smile. He rose. - -"How are you?" said she. - -He could only incline his head with a sort of courtesy, and contrive an -artificial smile. He seemed to have been dreaming, outrageously. Life -had begun now'. - -"I'm running down to Singapore," said she. "Friends there. And a -look-see?" - -"Oh," he murmured, "indeed." She looked out-and-out rich; and she was -surprisingly pretty, without a sign that she had ever known danger or -even care. - -"Staying here?" she asked. - -"No. I start back home Saturday." - -"So?.... Well, that'll be pleasant." With a final glance of what seemed -almost like triumph she sailed away. And he knew that in taking the -pearls he had not taken all from her. Apparently, too, she meant him to -know it. That would be her moment of triumph. And that was all; not -a word was spoken regarding his violence or her threats.... He saw the -yellow porters carrying out her luggage of bright new leather. - -He resumed his seat; twitched for a time with increasing nervousness; -got up and went aimlessly over to the desk; asked the Malay clerk for -mail. - -A smiling little Japanese appeared, rather officious about a great lot -of bags and a trunk or two that were coming in. He had a familiar look; -even raised his hat and stepped forward with outstretched hand. It was -Kato.... And then Dawley Kane came in--tall, quiet, neatly dressed, his -nearly white mustache newly cropped. - -To his pale son Dawley Kane said merely--"Well!"--as he took his hand; -and then was busy registering. That done, he asked: "Had dinner?" Rocky -shook his head. "I don't care for any." Daw ley Kane's quietly keen eyes -surveyed his son. "What's the matter? Not well." - -"I'm well enough." - -"Sit down with me, can't you?" And turning to the attending Japanese he -said: "You'll excuse me Kato. I'll be dining with my son. And tell Mr. -Braker, please.... Just a minute. Rocky, till I wash my hands." - -They were shown to a table in the great diningroom, where the cackling -was louder than in the lounge (they dine late on the coast)--where -blue-gowned waiters moved softly about as if there had never been a -revolution and wine glasses glistened and prettily bared shoulders -gleamed roundly under the electric lights. - -And Rocky, seated gloomily opposite this powerful quiet man--who took -him unerringly in of course; dishearteningly, Rocky felt--found himself -in a depression deeper than any he had known before. His father was so -strong and he brought back with him the enveloping atmosphere of the -mighty, splendidly successful white world in which they both belonged--a -world that crushed the heart out of weaker peoples while it blandly -talked the moralities. He felt it as a Juggernaut. It had the amazingly -successful racial blend of character and plausibility. That would be the -British quality; and, more roughly and confusedly, the American. - -"Getting rather interesting up the river." remarked Dawley Kane, over -his soup. "How'd you get down?" - -"On a junk." - -"Any trouble?" - -"Oh--some." - -"Been here long?" - -"Several days. I'm sailing Saturday." - -"Sailing?" Mr. Kane raised his eyebrows. "Where?" - -"Home." - -"You decided not to consult me?" - -"Oh.... Don't ride me, father! It's the next thing. I'm going back to -college." - -"Oh--I see." Mr. Kane looked over the menu, ordered his roast, and -selected a red wine, cautioning the waiter to set it near the stove for -five minutes. "It's wicked to heat Burgundy," he said, when the waiter -had gone, "but it's the only way you can get it served at the right -temperature. I discovered that when we were here before.... I gather, my -boy, that you've come to your senses in the matter of that little yellow -girl." - -Rocky did not wince outwardly; he merely sat still. But his mind, at -last, was active. And he knew--saw it in a flash--that no explanation -he could possibly make, would be intelligible. You can not--yet--talk -across the gulf between the worlds. It was his first intelligent glimpse -of the tremendous fact that Doane had so long and so clearly felt -and seen. So he merely--at last, when his father looked closely at -him--inclined his head and said, huskily: - -"I'm going to work out this college business'. That's my job clear -enough." - -This new attitude was to bring, later in the evening, confidences from -the father. - -"It's been an interesting journey for me, Rocky." Thoughtfully Dawley -Kane smoked his Manila cigar. - -"It's enabled me to understand somewhat the delicate international -situation out here. I couldn't see why our agents weren't accomplishing -more. The trouble is, of course, that every square foot of China's -staked out by the European nations. If you don't believe that, just get -a concession from the Chinese Government--for a big job--water power -development, mining, railway building, or an industrial monopoly--that -part of it isn't so hard--and then try to carry it through. You'd find -out fast enough who are the real owners of China. And those owners would -never let you start. Great Britain controls this great empire of the -Yangtze Valley as completely as she controls India. France owns the -south--Russia the northwest and the north--Japan, from Korea and -Lower Manchuria is penetrating the northwest, too; they're bound, the -Japanese, to tip Russia out one of these days, and they're very clever -and patient about slipping into the British regions. They've got -the Germans to contend with, too, in the Kiochow region. But -someday--either in the event of the final break-up of China or in the -event of the European nations coming to an out-and-out squabble (which -is almost a certainty, at that) Japan will be found to have pulled off -most of the big prizes for herself. We'll have to fight Japan someday, -I suppose--over the control of the Pacific--but in the meantime, those -little people are the best bet. They know the East as the rest of us -don't, they're clever, and their diplomats aren't hampered by the sort -of half-enlightened public opinion that's always tripping us up in the -West--sentimental idealism, that sort of thing--and they control -their press infinitely better than we do. They've got everything, -the Japanese, except money. And we've got the money. It'll be just a -question of security, that's all; and watching them pretty closely. I've -made up my mind to play it that way.... A survey of the actual conditions -out here makes our American diplomacy look pretty naive. We talk -idealism--open door and all--while all the rest of them are moving in -and setting up shop and getting the money." - -Later, in Dawley Kane's spacious suite overlooking the park-like street -where the colored lanterns of the rickshaws glowed pleasantly under -the trees, the father said, laying a hand affectionately on the boy's -shoulder: - -"I can't tell you how happy you've made me, Rocky. It looks as if you'd -turned your corner. Just don't go in for too much thinking about what -you've been through. There's nothing in remorse. As a matter of fact, -a little rough experience is a good thing for a boy. After you get your -balance you'll be all the closer to life for it.... Go ahead with your -college plans, get your degree, and then after a year or two in the New -York office I'll bring you out here. We shall be playing for big stakes. -And we shall need good men.... That's the whole problem, really--the -men. I had my eyes on this man Doane, but he turned out to be only a -sentimentalist after all." - -It was the hopelessness of it that drove Rocky out--after a respectful -good night--and over to the revolutionary headquarters. He knew that -Mr. Doane worked most of the night; and took what sleep he got on a cot -there. - - - - -CHAPTER XV--IN A COURTYARD - -|HE sent in his name, and waited for an hour in an outer office. For -even at this late hour in the evening headquarters was a busy place. -Chinese gentlemen crowded in and out, dressed, to a man, in the frock -coats and the flapping black trousers they didn't know how to wear. High -officers slipped quietly in and out--in khaki, with the white -brassard of the Revolution on their left arms; sometimes with merely -a handkerchief tied there Orderlies and messengers came and went. And -clerks of untiring patience sat at desks. - -It was a difficult hour. Rocky had only his confused emotions to guide -him, and his hurt heart There were moments, even, when he didn't know -why he had come. But he never thought of giving up. Whatever their -curious relations, he had to see Mr. Doane, who was now the only stable -figure in the rocking world about him. The man had been fine--square. -That he knew now. And his nervous young imagination was veering toward -hero-worship. He was utterly humble. - -Naturally he was boyish about it, when they finally led him into that -inner office. He said, flushing a little: - -"I know you're busy, Mr. Doane--" - -"Not too busy for you. I kept you waiting to clear up a lot of things." -The man's great size and calmness of manner--the question rose; had he -ever in his life known weariness?--were comforting. - -"I'm--sailing Saturday." - -This, for a brief moment, brought the kindly though strong and sober -face to immobility. - -"You see, sir, I've come to feel that the best thing for me is to go -back and---start clean." - -A slight mist came over Doane's eyes. What a struggle the boy had had -of it! And how splendidly he was working through!.... Thought came about -the children of the rich in America... the problem of it.... - -"I--couldn't go without seeing you. You see, sir, it's you, I guess, -that've put me on my feet. I sort of--well, I want you to know that -I _am_ on them. It's been a strange experience, all round. A terrible -experience, of course. It shakes you...." - -"It has shaken me, too," Doane observed simply. - -"I know. That is, I see all that more clearly now. I was going to speak -of it--it's one of the things, but first.... Mr. Doane, will you write to -me? Once in a while? I mean, will you--could you find time to answer if -I write to you? You see, it isn't going to be easy, over there. I've got -to go clean outside my own crowd. And outside my family. They won't one -of them understand what I'm up to. Not one. And--when you come right -down to it, I suppose it's a question whether the thing licks me or not. -But"--his shoulders squared; he looked directly into that kind, deeply -shadowed face--"I don't believe it will lick me!" - -"No," said Doane, "it won't lick you." - -"I shall never be able to shake China off now. It's got me. And I don't -know a thing about it yet Of course I shall be reading and studying it -up." - -"I'll send you a book once in a while." - -"And I know I'm coming back out here someday. But it won't be as my -father wants me to come. You see, I'll have money." - -"A great responsibility, Rocky." - -"I know. I'm beginning to see that. But--I know all this must sound -pretty young to you!--but I'm afraid I shall be leaning on you -sometimes--" - -"Write to me at those times." - -"All right. I will." - -"There is an amazing health in the American people." - -"Yes--that's so, of course." - -"It's a curiously blundering people, of course. And there's a hard, -really a Teutonic strain--that blend of practical hard-headedness, even -of cruelty, with sentimentality--" - -Rocky's brows came together. Mr. Doane and his father plainly didn't use -that word "sentimental" in the same sense, "--it comes down to a strain -of--well, something between the old Anglo-Saxonism and the modern -Prussianism. It's in us--in our driving business tactics, our narrow -moral intolerance, our insistence on standardizing vulgar ideas--forcing -every individual into a mold--in our extraordinary glorification of the -salesman. We seem to have a good deal both of the British complacency -and the rough aggressiveness of the German. But the health is -there--wonderfully. What America needs is beauty--not the self-conscious -swarming after it of earnest and misguided suburban ladies--but a quiet -sense of the thing itself. Beauty--and simplicity--and patience--and -tolerance--and faith. Prosperity has for the moment wrecked faith there. -Simply too much money. But you'll find health growing up everywhere. -Just let yourself grow with it. You've been deeply impressed by China. -But if I were you, I'd let all that take care of itself. Never mind what -you may come to feel next year or ten years from now. It may be mainly -China or mainly America. Just work, and let yourself grow." - -At the door they clasped hands warmly. And then, finally, Rocky got to -the point: - -"Mr. Doane--this is what I wanted to say--I saw Hui Fei this afternoon, -and--" - -Doane was silent; but still gripped his hand, "--and we talked things -all out. She knows I'm--knows I'm going back. And--this is it.... You -don't mind my.... I think you ought to find time to go over there and see -her. She seems puzzled about--I don't know quite how to say all this. -You know how I've felt--feel.... Of course, the thing is to look the -facts in the face. I hope I'm man enough to do that." His voice was -unsteady now. "I'm not the one. I never was. She was dear about it, -to-day, but... I think you ought to see her. Oh, I'm sure it isn't just -her father's will...." - -Rocky found himself, without the slightest sense of ungentleness on the -part of Mr. Doane, through the door and confusedly saying his good-by -before the patient clerks and the waiting crowd in the anteroom. He -walked back to the hotel with a warm glow of admiration and friendship -in his heart. There would be--he knew, even then--sad hours, probably -bitter hours, in the long struggle to come. But this talk was going to -help. - -On Doane the boy's announcement had an almost crushing effect. His -spirit was not adjusted to happiness. The terrific strain of the work -was a blessing. He framed, that night and during the following day, -innumerable little chits to Hui Fei--pretexts, all, for a visit that -needed no pretext. And the day passed. Self-consciousness was upon him; -and a constant mental difficulty in making the situation credible. And -there was the pressure of time; an awareness that to Hui Fei--perhaps -even to the Witherys--his silence would soon demand a stronger -explanation than the mere pressure of business. He had to keep reminding -himself that the girl was helpless, that he himself was the only -guardian whose authority she could recognize; his reason whispering from -moment to moment that she would not touch the money he had so promptly -put at her disposal. No, she would wait. - -It was his old friend Henry Withery who brought him to it; appearing -late on the Saturday afternoon, determined to drag him off for -dinner.... Withery, looking every one of his forty-eight years, patient -resignation in the dusty blue eyes, and a fine net of wrinkles about -them. His slight limp was the only reminder of tortures inflicted by the -Boxers in 1900, out in Kansuh. He had taken over the T'ainan-fu mission -for a year after Doane left the church in 1907; and during two years now -had been here in Shanghai. - -"There's no good killing yourself here, Grig," he said. "We've not had -ten minutes with you yet, remember. And we must talk over that girl's -affairs. She's very sweet about it, but it's plain that she's waiting on -you." - -His tone was genial; quite the tone of their earlier friendship, with -nothing left of the constraint that had come into their relationship -during Doane's difficult years on the river--the years that couldn't -be explained, even to old friends.... And Withery knew nothing of the -curious personal problem of his and Hui Fei's lives. His manner made -that clear.... It remained to be seen whether Mrs. Withery knew. - -.... Doane, it will be noted, was still struggling, as of settled habit, -with the thought of freeing the girl from the obligation laid upon her. - -But Mrs. Withery didn't know, didn't dream. She was quite her -whole-souled self. He might have been Hui Fei's father, from anything in -her manner. He felt a conspirator. - -Her father's tragic end accounted altogether for the girl's silence. She -met him naturally, though, with a frank grip of the hand. - -It was a pleasant enough family dinner. They talked the revolution, -of course. No one in Shanghai at the beginning of that November talked -anything else. Hui Fei quietly listened; her face very sober in repose. -She seemed--she had always seemed--more delicately feminine in Western -costume. She was more slender now; her face a perfect oval under -the smooth, deep-shadowed hair. Her dark eyes, deep with stoically -controlled feeling, rested on this or that speaker. Doane found them -once or twice resting thoughtfully on himself. - -After dinner Mrs. Withery, with a glance at her husband, laid a -sympathetic hand on Hui's shoulder. - -"My dear," she said, all friendly sympathy, "Mr. Doane's time is -precious, these days and nights. I know that you should take this -opportunity to talk over your problems with him. I shall be bustling -about here--suppose you take him out into the courtyard." - -Without a word they walked out there; stood by a gnarled tree whose -twisted limbs extended over the low tiled roofs. There was a little -light from the windows. The long silence that followed was the most -difficult moment yet. Doane found himself breathing rather hard. In Hui -Fei he felt the calm Oriental patience that underlay all her Western -experiences. She simply waited for him to speak. - -He looked down at her, quite holding his breath. She seemed almost frail -out here, in the half light. He was fighting, with all his strength and -experience, the warm sweet feelings that drugged his brain. - -"My dear--" he began; then, when she looked frankly up at him, -hesitated. He hadn't known he was going to begin with any such phrase as -that. He got on with it...."I'm wondering how I can best help you. If I -were a younger man there would be no question as to what I would have to -say to you." Utterly clumsy, of course; with little light ahead; just a -dogged determination to serve her without hurting her. - -"I think a good 'eal of wha' they tell me you're doing"--thus Hui Fei, -in a low but clear voice; not looking up now. "I've almos' envied you. -Helping li' that." - -"It must be hard for you--with all your mental interests--to sit quietly -here." - -"My min' goes on, of course," she said. "Yes, it isn' ver' easy." - -This was getting them nowhere. Doane, after a deep breath, took command -of the situation. Sooner or later he would have to do that. - -"Hui, dear," he said now--very quietly, but directly, "this is a -difficult situation for both of us. The only thing, of course, is to -meet it as frankly as we can. I learned to love your father--" - -She glanced up at this; her eyes glistened as the light caught them. - -"--but we can not blindly follow his wishes. He had seen and felt the -West, but he died a Manchu." - -Her soft lips framed the one word, "Yes." The softness of her whole -face, indeed, was disconcerting; it was all sober emotion, that she -plainly didn't think of trying to hide. - -"And I'm sure you'll understand me when I tell you that I can not accept -his legacy." - -She startled him now with the low but direct question: "Why not?" - -"My dear...." He found difficulty in going on. - -"I don' know what I ought 'o say." He barely heard this; stopped a -little. "I don' know wha' to do." - -"Can't you, dear--isn't there some clear vision in your heart--don't you -see your way ahead? Remember, you will always have me to help--if I can -help. It will mean everything to me to be your dearest friend." - -"I want 'o work with you," she murmured. - -"I haven't dared believe that possible," he said thoughtfully. - -"Do you wan' me to?" - -"Yes. But it has to be clearer than that." He was stupid again; he -sensed it himself. "There is so much of life ahead of you. It's got to -be clear that wherever your heart may lead you, child--that you shall -have my steady friendship. The rest of it can grow as it may." - -"I wan'...." He couldn't make out the words; he bent down close to her -lovely face. "I want 'o marry you." - -They both stood breathless then. Timidly her hand crept into his and -nestled there. - -"Tha's the trouble"--her voice was a very little stronger--"there isn' -anything else. It's ever'thing you think an' do--ever'thing you believe. -We're both between the worl's, so...." - -The noise in his brain was like the pealing of cathedral bells at -Christmas time. Yet in this rush of ecstatic feeling he suddenly saw -clearly. The fabric of their companionship had hardly begun weaving. -All his experience, his delicacy, his fine human skill, must be employed -here. Ahead lay happiness! It was still nearly incredible.... And -there lay--extending before them in a long vista--their intense common -interest. The thing was to make a fine success of it. Build through the -years. - -And happiness was greatly important. He had so nearly missed it.... -Looking up through the branches of the old tree, he smiled. - -Then he led her into the house. - -"Have you had your talk already?" asked Mrs. Withery pleasantly. - -"We've settled everything," said Doane. "We're going to be married." - -"Very soon," said Hui Fei. - - -THE END - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Red and Gold, by Samuel Merwin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN RED AND GOLD *** - -***** This file should be named 51974-8.txt or 51974-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/7/51974/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: In Red and Gold - -Author: Samuel Merwin - -Illustrator: Cyrus Leroy Baldridge - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51974] -Last Updated: April 27, 2018 - - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN RED AND GOLD *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - IN RED AND GOLD - </h1> - <h2> - By Samuel Merwin - </h2> - <h3> - Frontispiece by Cyrus Leroy Baldridge - </h3> - <h4> - A. L. Burt Company Publishers, New York - </h4> - <h3> - 1921 - </h3> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0001.jpg" alt="0001 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0001.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0006.jpg" alt="0006 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0006.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0007.jpg" alt="0007 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0007.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <h3> - TO - </h3> - <h3> - CHARLES B. TOWNS, NEW YORK AND PEKING - </h3> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I—FELLOW VOYAGERS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II—BETWEEN THE WORLDS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III—MISS HUI FEI </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV—INTRIGUE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V—RESURGENCE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI—CONFLAGRATION </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII—THE INSCRUTABLE WEST </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII—ABOARD THE YELLOW JUNK </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX—IN A GARDEN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X—YOUTH </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI—THE LANDSCAPE SCROLL OF CHAO - MENG-FU </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII—AT THE HOUR OF THE TIGER </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII—HIS EXCELLENCY SPEAKS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV—THE WORLD OF FACT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV—IN A COURTYARD </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER I—FELLOW VOYAGERS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N a night in - October, 1911, the river steamer <i>Yen Hsin</i> lay alongside the godown, - or warehouse, of the Chinese Navigation Company at Shanghai. Her black - hull bulked large in the darkness that was spotted with inadequate - electric lights. Her white cabins, above, lighted here and there, loomed - high and ghostly, extending as far as the eye could easily see from the - narrow wharf beneath. Swarming continuously across the gangplanks, - chanting rhythmically to keep the quick shuffling step, crews of coolies - carried heavy boxes and bales swung from bamboo poles. - </p> - <p> - During the evening the white passengers were coming aboard by ones and - twos and finding their cabins, all of which were forward on the promenade - deck, grouped about the enclosed area that was to be at once their - dining-room and “social hall.” Here, within a narrow space, bounded by - strips of outer deck and a partition wall, these few casual passengers - were to be caught, willy-nilly, in a sort of passing comradeship. For the - greater part of this deck, amidships and aft, was screened off for the use - of traveling Chinese officials, and the two lower decks would be crowded - with lower class natives and freight. And, not unnaturally, in the minds - of nearly all the white folk, as they settled for the night, arose - questions as to the others aboard. For strange beings of many nations dig - a footing of sorts on the China Coast, and odd contrasts occur when any - few are thrown together by a careless fate.... And so, thinking variously - in their separate cabins of the meeting to come, at breakfast about the - single long table, and of the days of voyaging into the heart of oldest - China, these passengers, one by one, fell asleep; while through open - shutters floated quaint odors and sounds from the tangle of sampans and - slipper-boats that always line the curving bund and occasional shouts and - songs from late revelers passing along the boulevard beyond the rows of - trees. - </p> - <p> - It was well after midnight when the <i>Yen Hsin</i> drew in her lines and - swung off into the narrow channel of the Whangpoo. Drifting sampans, - without lights, scurried out of her path. With an American captain on the - strip of promenade deck, forward, that served for a bridge, a yellow - pilot, and Scotch engineers below decks, she slipped down with the tide, - past the roofed-over opium hulks that were anchored out there, past the - dimly outlined stone buildings of the British and American quarter, on - into the broader Wusung. Here a great German mail liner lay at anchor, - lighted from stem to stem. Farther down lay three American cruisers; and - below these a junk, drifting dimly by with ribbed sails flapping and - without the sign of a light, built high astern, like the ghost of a - medieval trader. - </p> - <p> - “There's his lights now!” Thus the captain to a huge figure of a man who - stood, stooping a little, beside him, peering out at the river. And the - captain, a stocky little man with hands in the pockets of a heavy jacket, - added—“The dirty devil!” - </p> - <p> - Indeed, a small green light showed now on the junk's quarter; and then she - was gone astern. - </p> - <p> - After a silence, the captain said: “You may as well turn in.” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps I will,” replied the other. “Though I get a good deal more sleep - than I need on the river. And very little exercise.” - </p> - <p> - “That's the devil of this life, of course. Look a' me—I'm fat!” The - captain spoke in a rough, faintly blustering tone, perhaps in a nervous - response to the well-modulated voice of his mate, “Must make even more - difference to you—the way you've lived. And at that, after all, you - ain't a slave to the river.” - </p> - <p> - “No.... in a sense, I'm not.” The mate fell silent. - </p> - <p> - There were, of course, vast differences in the degrees of misfortune among - the flotsam and jetsam of the coast. Captain Benjamin, now, had a native - wife and five or six half-caste children tucked away somewhere in the - Chinese city of Shanghai. - </p> - <p> - “We've gut quite a bunch aboard this trip,” offered the captain. - </p> - <p> - “Indeed?” - </p> - <p> - “One or two well-known people. There's our American millionaire, Dawley - Kane. Took four outside cabins. His son's with him, and a secretary, and a - Japanese that's been up with him before. Wonder if it's a pleasure trip—or - if it means that the Kane interests are getting hold up the river. It - might, at that. They bought the Cantey line, you know, in nineteen eight. - Then there's Tex Connor, and his old sidekick the Manila Kid, and a couple - of women schoolteachers from home, and six or eight others—customs - men and casuals. And Dixie Carmichael—she's aboard. Quite a bunch! - And His Nibs gets on tomorrow at Nanking.” - </p> - <p> - “Kang, you mean?” - </p> - <p> - “The same. There's a story that he's ordered up to Peking. They were - talking about it yesterday at the office.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you think he's in trouble?” - </p> - <p> - “Can't say. But if you ask me, it don't look like such a good time to be - easy on these agitators, now does it? And they tell me he's been letting - 'em off, right and left.” - </p> - <p> - The mate stood musing, holding to the rail. “It's a problem,” he replied, - after a little, rather absently. - </p> - <p> - “The funny thing is—he ain't going on through. Not this trip, - anyhow. We're ordered to put him off at his old place, this side of Huang - Chau. Have to use the boats. You might give them a look-see.” - </p> - <p> - “They've gossiped about Kang before this at Shanghai.” - </p> - <p> - “Shanghai,” cried the captain, with nervous irrelevancy, “is full of - information about China—and it's all wrong!” He added then, “Seen - young Black lately?” - </p> - <p> - The mate moved his head in the negative. - </p> - <p> - “Consul-general sent him down from Hankow, after old Chang stopped that - native paper of his. I ran into him yesterday, over to the bank. He says - the revolution's going to break before summer.” - </p> - <p> - The mate made no reply to this. Every trip the captain talked in this - manner. His one deep fear was that the outbreak might take place while he - was far up the river. - </p> - <p> - It had been supposed by all experienced observers of the Chinese scene, - that the Manchu Dynasty would not long survive the famous old empress - dowager, the vigorous and imperious little woman who was known throughout - a rational and tolerant empire, not without a degree of affection, as “the - Old Buddha.” She had at the time of the present narrative been dead two - years and more; the daily life of the infant emperor was in the control of - a new empress dowager, that Lung Yu who was notoriously overriding the - regent and dictating such policies of government as she chose in the - intervals between protracted periods of palace revelry. - </p> - <p> - The one really powerful personage in Peking that year was the chief - eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, a former actor, notoriously the empress's personal - favorite, who catered to her pleasures, robbed the imperial treasury of - vast sums, wreaked ugly vengeance on critical censors, and publicly - insulted dukes of the royal house. - </p> - <p> - All this was familiar. The Manchu strain had dwindled out; and while an - empress pleased her jaded appetites by having an actor cut with the lash - in her presence for an indifferent performance, all South China, from - Canton to the Yangtze, seethed with the steadily increasing ferment of - revolution. Conspirators ranged the river and the coast. At secret - meetings in Singapore, Tokio, San Francisco and New York, new and bloody - history was planned. The oldest and hugest of empires was like a vast - crater that steamed and bubbled faintly here and there as hot vital forces - accumulated beneath. - </p> - <p> - The mate, pondering the incalculable problem, finally spoke: “I suppose, - if this revolt should bring serious trouble to Kang, it might affect you - and me as well.” - </p> - <p> - The captain flared up, the blustering note rising higher in his voice. - “But somebody'll have to run the boats, won't they?” - </p> - <p> - “If they run at all.” - </p> - <p> - His impersonal tone seemed to irritate further the captain's troubled - spirit. “If they run at all, eh? It's all right for you—you can go - it alone—you haven't got children on your mind, young ones!” - </p> - <p> - The big man was silent again. A great hand gripped a stanchion tightly as - he gazed out at the dark expanse of water. The captain, glancing around at - him, looking a second time at that hand, turned away, with a little sound. - </p> - <p> - “I will say good night,” remarked the mate abruptly, and left his chief to - his uncertain thoughts. - </p> - <p> - The steamer moved deliberately out into the wide estuary of the Yangtze, - which is at this point like a sea. Squatting at the edge of the deck, - outside the rail, the pilot spoke musically to the Chinese quartermaster. - Slowly, a little at a time, as she plowed the ruffling water, the steamer - swung off to the northwest to begin her long journey up the mighty river - to Hankow where the passengers would change for the smaller Ichang - steamer, or for the express to Peking over the still novel trunk railway. - And if, as happened not infrequently, the <i>Yen Hsin</i> should break - down or stick in the mud, the Peking passengers would wait a week about - the round stove in the old Astor House at Hankow for the next express. - </p> - <p> - A mighty river indeed, is the Yangtze. During half the year battle-ships - of reasonably deep draught may reach Hankow. In the heyday of the sailing - trade clippers out of New York and blunt lime-juicers out of Liverpool - were any day sights from the bund there. Through a busy and not seldom - bloody century the merchants of a clamorous outside world have roved the - great river (where yellow merchants of the Middle Kingdom, in sampan, - barge and junk, roved fifty centuries before them) with rich cargoes of - tea (in leaden chests that bore historic ideographs on the enclosing - matting)—with hides and horns and coal from Hupeh and furs and musk - from far-away Szechuen, with soya beans and rice and bristles and nutgalls - and spices and sesamum, with varnish and tung oil and vegetable tallow, - with cotton, ramie, rape and hemp, with copper, quicksilver, slate, lead - and antimony, with porcelains and silk. Along this river that to-day - divides an empire into two vast and populous domains a thousand thousand - fortunes have been gained and lost, rebellions and wars have raged, - famines have blighted whole peoples. Forts, pagodas and palaces have lined - its banks. The gilded barges of emperors have drifted idly on its broad - bosom. Exquisite painted beauties have found mirrors in its neighboring - canals. Its waters drain to-day the dusty red plain where Lady Ch'en, the - Helen, of China, rocked a throne and died. - </p> - <p> - The morning sun rode high. Soft-footed cabin stewards in blue robes - removed the long red tablecloth and laid a white. By ones and twos the - passengers appeared from their cabins or from the breezy deck and took - their seats, eying one another with guarded curiosity as they bowed a - morning greeting. - </p> - <p> - Miss Andrews, of Indianapolis, stepped out from her cabin through a narrow - corridor, and then, at sight of the table, stopped short, while her color - rose slightly. Miss Andrews was slender, a year or so under thirty, and, - in a colorless way, pretty. Shy and sensitive, the scene before her was - one her mind's eye had failed to picture; the seats about the long table - were half filled, and entirely with men. She saw, in that one quick look, - the face of a young German between those of two Englishmen. A remarkably - thin man in a check suit looked up and for an instant fixed furtive eyes - on hers. Just beyond him sat a big man, with a round wooden face and one - glass eye; he turned his head with his eyes to look at her. A quiet man of - fifty-odd, with gray hair, a nearly white mustache that was cropped close, - and the expression of quiet satisfaction that only wealth and settled - authority can give, was putting a spoonful of condensed milk into his - coffee. Next to him sat a young man—very young, certainly not much - more than twenty or twenty-one—perhaps his son (the aquiline nose - and slightly receding but wide and full forehead were the same)—rubbing - out a cigarette on his butter plate. He had been smoking before breakfast. - She remembered these two now; they had been at the Astor House in - Shanghai; they were the Kanes, of New York, the famous Kanes. They called - the son, “Rocky”—Rocky Kane. - </p> - <p> - Unable to take in more, Miss Andrews stepped back a little way into the - corridor, deciding to wait for her traveling companion, Miss Means, of - South Bend. She could hardly go out there alone and sit down with all - those men. - </p> - <p> - But just then a door opened and closed; and across the way, coming - directly, easily, out into the diningroom, Miss Andrews beheld the - surprising figure of a slim girl—or a girl she appeared at first - glance—of nineteen or twenty, wearing a blue, middy blouse and short - blue shirt. Her black hair was drawn loosely together at the neck and tied - with a bow of black ribbon. Her somewhat pale face, with its thin line of - a mouth, straight nose, curving black eyebrows and oddly pale eyes, was in - some measure attractive. She took her seat at the table without - hesitation, acknowledging the reserved greetings of various of the men - with a slight inclination of the head. - </p> - <p> - It seemed to Miss Andrews that she might now go on in there. But the - thought that some of these men had surely noticed her confusion was - disconcerting; and so it was a relief to hear Miss Means pattering on - behind her. For that firmly thin little woman had fought life to a - standstill and now, except in the moments of prim severity that came - unaccountably into possession of her thoughts, found it dryly amusing. - They took their seats, these two little ladies, Miss Means laying her copy - of <i>Things Chinese</i> beside her coffee cup; and Miss Andrews tried to - bow her casual good mornings as the curious girl in the middy blouse had - done. The girl, by the way, seemed a very little older at close view. - </p> - <p> - Miss Andrews stole glimpses, too, at young Mr. Rocky Kane. He was a - handsome boy, with thick chestnut hair from which he had not wholly - succeeded in brushing the curl, but she was not sure that she liked the - flush on his cheeks, or the nervous brightness of the eyes, or the - expression about the mouth. There had been stories floating about the - hotel in Shanghai. He plainly lacked discipline. But she saw that he might - easily fascinate a certain sort of woman. - </p> - <p> - A door opened, and in from the deck came an extraordinarily tall man, - stooping as he entered. On his cap, in gilt, was lettered, “1st Mate.” He - took the seat opposite Mr. Kane, senior, next to the head of the table. It - seemed to Miss Andrews that she had never seen so tall a man; he must have - stood six feet five or six inches. He was solid, broad of shoulder, a - magnificent specimen of manhood. And though the hair was thin on top of - his head, and his grave quiet face exhibited the deep lines of middle age, - he moved with almost the springy-step of a boy. If others at the table - were difficult to place on the scale of life, this mate was the most - difficult of all. With that strong reflective face, and the bearing of one - who knows only good manners (though he said nothing at all after his first - courteously spoken, “Good morning!”) he could not have been other than a - gentleman—Miss Andrews felt that—an American gentleman! Yet - his position.... mate of a river steamer in China....! - </p> - <p> - The atmosphere about the table was constrained throughout the meal. The - Chinese stewards padded softly about. The one-eyed man stared around the - table without the slightest expression on his impassive face. The girl in - the middy blouse kept her head over her plate. Miss Andrews once caught - Rocky Kane glancing at her with an expression nearly as furtive as that of - the thin man in the check suit. It was after this small incident that - young Kane began helping her to this and that; and, when they rose, - followed her out to her deck chair and insisted on tucking her up in her - robe. - </p> - <p> - “These fall breezes are pretty sharp on the river,” he said. “But say, - maybe it isn't hot in summer.” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose it is,” murmured Miss Andrews. - </p> - <p> - “I've been out here a couple of times with the pater. You'll find the - river interesting. Oh, not down here”—he indicated the wide expanse - of muddy water and the low-lying, distant shore—“but beyond - Chinkiang and Nanking, where it's narrower. Lots of quaint sights. The - ports are really fascinating. We stop a lot, you know. At Wuhu the water - beggars come out in tubs.” - </p> - <p> - “In tubs!” breathed Miss Andrews. - </p> - <p> - Miss Means joined them then, book under arm; and met his offer to tuck her - up with a crisply pointed, “No, thank you!” - </p> - <p> - He soon drifted away. - </p> - <p> - Said Miss Andrews: “Weren't you a little hard on him, Gerty?” - </p> - <p> - “My dear,” replied Miss Means severely—her Puritan vein strongly - uppermost—“that young man won't do. Not at all. I saw him myself, - one night at the Astor House, going into one of those private dining-rooms - with a woman who—well, her character, or lack of it, was - unmistakable!... Right there in the hotel.... under his father's eyes. - That's what too much money will do to a young man, if you ask me!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh....!” breathed Miss Andrews, looking out with startled eyes at the - gulls. - </p> - <p> - It was mid-afternoon when Captain Benjamin remarked to his first mate: - “Tex Connor's got down to work, Mr. Duane. Better try to stop it, if you - don't mind. They're in young Kane's cabin—sixteen.” - </p> - <p> - Number sixteen was the last cabin aft in the port side, next the canvas - screen that separated upper class white from upper class yellow. The - wooden shutters had been drawn over the windows and the light turned on - within. Cigarette smoke drifted thickly out. - </p> - <p> - They were slow to open. Doane heard the not unfamiliar voice of the Manila - Kid advising against it. He had to knock repeatedly. They were crowded - together in the narrow space between berth and couch, a board across their - knees—Connor twisting his head to fix his one eye on the intruder, - the Kid, in his check suit, a German of the customs and Rocky Kane. There - were cards, chips and a heap of money in American and English notes and - gold. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” cried Kane. “What do you want?” - </p> - <p> - “You'd better stop this,” said the mate quietly. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come, we're just having a friendly game! What right have you to break - into a private room, anyway?” - </p> - <p> - The mate, stooping within the doorway, took the boy in with thoughtful - eyes, but did not reply directly. - </p> - <p> - Connor, with another look upward, picked up the cards, and with the - uncanny mental quickness of a practised <i>croupier</i> redistributed the - heap of money to its original owners, and squeezed out without a word, the - mate moving aside for him. The German left sulkily. The Kid snapped his - fingers in disgust, and followed. - </p> - <p> - Doane was moving away when the Kid caught his elbow. He asked: “Did - Benjamin send you around?” - </p> - <p> - Doane inclined his head. - </p> - <p> - “Running things with a pretty high hand, you and him!” - </p> - <p> - “Keep away from that boy,” was the quiet reply. - </p> - <p> - The thin man looked up at the grave strong face above the massive - shoulders; hesitated; walked away. The mate was again about to leave when - young Kane spoke. He was in the doorway now, leaning there, hands in - pockets, his eyes blazing with indignation and injured pride. - </p> - <p> - “Those men were my guests!” he cried. - </p> - <p> - “I'm sorry, Mr. Kane, to disturb your private affairs, but—” - </p> - <p> - “Why did you do it, then?” - </p> - <p> - “The captain will not allow Tex Connor to play cards on this boat. At - least, not without a fair warning.” - </p> - <p> - The boy's face pictured the confusion in his mind, as he wavered from - anger through surprise into youthful curiosity. - </p> - <p> - “Oh....” he murmured. “Oh.... so that's Tex Connor.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. And Jim Watson with him. He was cashiered from the army in the - Philippines. He is generally known now, along the coast, as the Manila - Kid.” - </p> - <p> - “So that's Tex Connor!.... He managed the North End Sporting in London, - three years ago.” - </p> - <p> - “Very likely. I believe he is known in London and Paris.” - </p> - <p> - “He's a professional gambler, then?” - </p> - <p> - “I am not undertaking to characterize him. But if you would accept a word - of advice—” - </p> - <p> - “I haven't asked for it, that I'm aware of.” An instant after he had said - this, the boy's face changed. He looked up at the immense frame of the man - before him, and into the grave face. The warm color came into his own. - “Oh, I'm sorry!” he cried. “I needn't have said that.” But confusion still - lay behind that immature face. The very presence of this big man affected - him to a degree wholly out of keeping with the fellow's station in life, - as he saw it. But he needn't have been rude. “Look here, are you going to - say anything to my father?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly not.” - </p> - <p> - “Will the captain?” - </p> - <p> - “You will have to ask him yourself. Though you could hardly expect to keep - it from him long, at this rate.” - </p> - <p> - “Well—he's so busy! He shuts himself up all day with Braker, his - secretary. The chap with the big spectacles. You see”—Kane laughed - self-consciously; a naively boyish quality in him, kept him talking more - eagerly than he knew—“the pater's reached the stage when he feels he - ought to put himself right before the world. I guess he's been a great old - pirate, the pater—you know, wrecking railroads and grabbing banks - and going into combinations. Though it's just what all the others have - done. From what I've heard about some of them—friends of ours, too!—you - have to, nowadays, in business. No place for little men or soft men. It's - a two-fisted game. This fellow spent a couple of years writing the pater's - autobiography:—seems funny, doesn't it!—and they're going over - it together on this trip. That's why Braker came along; there's no time at - home. The original plan was to have Braker tutor me. That was when I broke - out of college. But, lord!....” - </p> - <p> - “You'll excuse me now,” said the mate. - </p> - <p> - Meantime the Manila Kid had sidled up to the captain. - </p> - <p> - “Say, Cap,” he observed cautiously, “wha'd you come down on Tex like that - for?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come,” replied the captain testily, not turning, “don't bother me!” - </p> - <p> - “But what you expect us to do all this time on the river—play - jackstraws?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't care what you do! Some trips they get up deck games.” - </p> - <p> - “Deck games!” The Kid sniffed. - </p> - <p> - “You'll find plenty to read in the library” - </p> - <p> - “Read!....” - </p> - <p> - “Then I guess you'll just have to stand it.” - </p> - <p> - For some time they stood side by side without speaking; the captain eying - the river, the Kid moodily observing water buffalo bathing near the bank. - </p> - <p> - “Tex has got that Chinese heavyweight of his aboard—down below.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh—that Tom Sung?” - </p> - <p> - “Yep. Knocked out Bull Kennedy in three rounds at the Shanghai Sporting. - Got some matches for him up at Peking and Tientsin. Taking him over to - Japan after that. There's an American marine that's cleaned up three - ships'.” He was silent for a space; then added: “I suppose, now, if we was - to arrange a little boxing entertainment, you wouldn't stand for that - either, eh?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, that's all right. Take the social hall if the ladies don't object. - But who would you put up against him?” - </p> - <p> - “Well—if we could find a young fellow on board, Tex could tell Tom - to go light.” - </p> - <p> - “You might ask Mr. Doane. He complains he ain't getting exercise enough.” - </p> - <p> - “He's pretty old—still, I'd hate to go up against him myself.... - Say, you ask him, Cap!” - </p> - <p> - “I'll think it over. He's a little.... I'll tell you now he wouldn't stand - for your making a show of it. If he did it, it 'ud just be for exercise.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, that's all right!” - </p> - <p> - Miss Means awoke with a start. It was the second morning out, at sunrise. - The engines were still, but from without an extraordinary hubbub rent the - air. Drums were beating, reed instruments wailing in weird dissonance, and - innumerable voices chattering and shouting. A sudden crackling suggested - fire-crackers in quantity. Miss means raised herself on one elbow, and saw - her roommate peeping out over the blind. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “It looks very much like the real China we've read about,” replied Miss - Andrews, raising her voice above the din. “It's certainly very different - from Shanghai.” - </p> - <p> - The steamer lay alongside a landing hulk at the foot of broad steps. - Warehouses crowded the bank and the bund above, some of Western - construction; but the crowded scene on hulk and steps and bund, and among - the matting-roofed sampans, hundreds of which were crowded against the - bank, was wholly Oriental. From every convenient mast and pole pennants - and banners spread their dragons on the fresh early breeze. A temporary <i>pen-low</i>, - or archway, at the top of the steps was gay with fresh paint and - streamers. In the air above were scores of kites, designed and painted to - represent dragons and birds of prey, which the owners were maneuvering in - mimic aerial warfare; swooping and darting and diving. As Miss Means - looked, one huge painted bird fell in shreds to a neighboring roof, and - the swarming assemblage cheered ecstatically. - </p> - <p> - Soldiers were marching in good-humored disorder down the bund, in the - inevitable faded blue with blue turbans wound about their heads. It - appeared as if not another person could force his way down on the hulk - without crowding at least one of its occupants into the water, yet on they - came; and so far as our two little ladies could see none fell. Fully two - hundred of the soldiers there were, with short rifles and bayonets. Amid - great confusion they formed a lane down the steps and across to the - gangway. - </p> - <p> - Next came a large, bright-colored sedan chair slung on cross-poles, with - eight bearers and with groups of silk-clad mandarins walking before and - behind. Farther back, swaying along, were eight or ten more chairs, each - with but four bearers and each tightly closed, waiting in line as the - chair of the great one was set carefully down on the hulk and opened by - the attending officials. - </p> - <p> - Deliberately, smilingly, the great one stepped out. He was a man of - seventy or older, with a drooping gray mustache and narrow chin beard of - gray that contrasted oddly with the black queue. His robe was black with a - square bit of embroidery in rich color on the breast. Above his hat of - office a huge round ruby stood high on a gold mount, and a peacock feather - slanted down behind it. - </p> - <p> - Bowing to right and left, he ascended the gangplank, the mandarins - following. There were fifteen of these, each with a round button on his - plumed hat—those in the van of red coral, the others of sapphire and - lapis lazuli, rock crystal, white stone and gold. - </p> - <p> - One by one the lesser chairs were brought out on the hulk and opened. From - the first stepped a stout woman of mature years, richly clad in heavily - embroidered silks, with loops of pearls about her neck and shoulders, and - with painted face under the elaborately built-up head-dress. Other women - of various' ages followed, less conspicuously clad. From the last chair - appeared a young woman, slim and graceful even in enveloping silks, her - face, like the others, a mask of white paint and rouge, with lips carmined - into a perfect cupid's bow. And with her, clutching her hand, was a little - girl of six or seven, who laughed merrily upward at the great steamer as - she trotted along. - </p> - <p> - Blue-clad servants followed, a hundred or more, and swarming cackling - women with unpainted faces and flapping black trousers, and porters—long - lines of porters—with boxes and bales and bundles swung from the - inevitable bamboo poles. - </p> - <p> - At last they were all aboard, and the steamer moved out. - </p> - <p> - “Who were all those women, in the chairs, do you suppose?” asked Miss - Andrews. - </p> - <p> - “His wives, probably.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh....!” - </p> - <p> - “Or concubines.” - </p> - <p> - Miss Andrews was silent. She could still see the waving crowd on the - wharf, and the banners and kites. - </p> - <p> - “He must be at least a prince, with all that retinue.” - </p> - <p> - Miss Andrews, thinking rapidly of Aladdin and Marco Polo, of wives and - concubines and strange barbarous ways, brought herself to say in a nearly - matter-of-fact voice: “But those women all had natural feet. I don't - understand.” - </p> - <p> - Miss Means reached for her <i>Things Chinese</i>; looked up “Feet,” - </p> - <p> - “Women,” - </p> - <p> - “Dress,” and other headings; finally found an answer, through a happy - inspiration, under “Manchus.” - </p> - <p> - “That's it!” she explained; and read: “'The Manchus do not bind the feet - of their women.'” - </p> - <p> - “Well!” Thus Miss Andrews, after a long moment with more than a hint of - emotional stir in her usually quiet voice: “We certainly have a remarkable - assortment of fellow passengers. That curious silent girl in the middy - blouse.... traveling alone...” - </p> - <p> - “Remarkable, and not altogether edifying,” observed the practical Miss - Means. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER II—BETWEEN THE WORLDS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>OWARD noon Miss - Means and Miss Andrews were in their chairs on deck, when a gay little - outburst of laughter caught their attention, and around the canvas screen - came running the child they had seen on the wharf at Nanking. A sober - Chinese servant (Miss Means and Miss Andrews were not to know that he was - a eunuch) followed at a more dignified pace. - </p> - <p> - The child was dressed in a quilted robe of bright flowered silk, the skirt - flaring like a bed about the ankles, the sleeves extending down over the - hands. Her shoes were high, of black cloth with paper soles. Over the robe - she wore a golden yellow vest, shortsleeved, trimmed with ribbon and - fastened with gilt buttons. Over her head and shoulders was a hood of fox - skin worn with the fur inside, tied with ribbons under the chin, and - decorated, on the top of the head, with the eyes, nose and ears of a fox. - As she scampered along the deck she lowered her head and charged at the - big first mate. He smiled, caught her shoulders, spun her about, and set - her free again; then, nodding pleasantly to the eunuch, he passed on. - </p> - <p> - Before the two ladies he paused to say: “We are coming into T'aiping, the - city that gave a name to China's most terrible rebellion. If you care to - step around to the other side, you'll see something of the quaint life - along the river.” - </p> - <p> - “He seems very nice—the mate,” remarked Miss Andrews. “I find myself - wondering who he may have been. He is certainly a gentleman.” - </p> - <p> - “I understand,” replied Miss Means coolly, “that one doesn't ask that - question on the China Coast.” They found the old river port drab and - dilapidated, yet rich in the color of teeming human life. The river, as - usual, was crowded with small craft. Nearly a score of these were awaiting - the steamer, each evidently housing an entire family under its little arch - of matting, and each extending bamboo poles with baskets at the ends. As - the steamer came to a stop, a long row of these baskets appeared at the - rail, while cries and songs arose from the water. - </p> - <p> - The little Manchu girl had found a friend in Mr. Rocky Kane. He was - holding her on the rail and supplying her with brass cash which she - dropped gaily into the baskets. The eunuch stood smiling by. After tiffin - the child appeared again and sought her new friend. She would sit on his - knee and pry open his mouth to see where the strange sounds came from. And - his cigarettes delighted her. - </p> - <p> - It was the Manila Kid himself who asked Miss Means and Miss Andrews if - they would mind a bit of a boxing: match in the social hall. They promptly - withdrew to their cabin, after Miss Means had uttered a bewildered but - dignified: “Not in the least! Don't think of us!” - </p> - <p> - Shortly after dinner the cabin stewards stretched a rope around four - pillars, just forward of the dining table. The men lighted cigarettes and - cigars, and moved up with quickening interest. Tex Connor, who had - disappeared directly after the coffee, brought in his budding champion, a - large grinning yellow man in a bathrobe. The second mate, and two of the - engineers found seats about the improvised rings. Then an outer door - opened, and the great mandarin appeared, bowing and smiling courteously - with hands clasped before his breast. The fifteen lesser mandarins - followed, all rich color and rustling silk. - </p> - <p> - The young officers sprang to their feel and arranged chairs for the party. - The great man seated himself, and his attendants grouped themselves behind - him. - </p> - <p> - Into this expectant atmosphere came the mate, in knickerbockers and a - sweater, stooping under the lintel of the door, then straightening up and - stopping short. His eyes quickly took in the crowded little picture—the - gray-bearded mandarin in the ringside chair, backed with a mass of - Oriental color; that other personage, Dawley Kane, directly opposite, with - the aquiline nose, the guardedly keen eyes and the quite humorless face, - as truly a mandarin among the whites as was calm old Kang among the - yellows; the flushed eager face of Rocky Kane; the other whites, all - smoking, all watching him sharply, all impatient for the show. He frowned; - then, as the mandarin smiled, came gravely forward, bent under the rope - and addressed him briefly in Chinese. - </p> - <p> - The mandarin, frankly pleased at hearing his own tongue, rose to reply. - Each clasped his own hands and bowed low, with the observance of a - long-hardened etiquette so dear to the Oriental heart. - </p> - <p> - “How about a little bet?” whispered Rocky Kane to Tex Connor. “I wouldn't - mind taking the big fellow.” - </p> - <p> - “What odds'll you give?” replied the impassive one. - </p> - <p> - “Odds nothing! Your man's a trained fighter, and he must be twenty years - younger.” - </p> - <p> - “But this man Doane's an old athlete. He's boxed, off and on, all his - life. And he's kept in condition. Look at his weight, and his reach.” - </p> - <p> - “What's the distance?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh—six two-minute rounds.” - </p> - <p> - “Who'll referee?” - </p> - <p> - “Well—one of the Englishmen.” - </p> - <p> - But the Englishmen were not at hand. A friendly bout between yellow and - white overstepped their code. One of the customs men, an Australian, - accepted the responsibility, however. - </p> - <p> - “I'll lay you a thousand, even,” said Rocky Kane. - </p> - <p> - “Make it two thousand.” - </p> - <p> - “I'll give you two thousand, even,” said Dawley Kane quietly. - </p> - <p> - “Taken! Three thousand, altogether—gold.” - </p> - <p> - The mate, turning away from the mandarin, caught this; stood motionless - looking at them, his brows drawing together. - </p> - <p> - “Gentlemen,” he finally remarked, “I came here with the understanding that - it was to be only a little private exercise. I had no objection, of - course, to your looking on, some of you, but this....” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come!” said Connor. “It's just for points. Tom's not going to fight - you.” - </p> - <p> - Young Kane, gripping the rope nervously with both hands, cried: “You - wouldn't quit!” - </p> - <p> - The mate looked down at these men. “No,” he replied, in the same gravely - quiet manner, “I shall go on with it. I do this”—he made the point - firmly, with a dignity that in some degree, for the moment, overawed the - younger men—“I do it because his excellency has paid us the honor of - coming here in this democratic way. He tells me that he is fond of boxing. - I shall try to entertain him.” And he drew the sweater over his head, and - caught the gloves that the Kid tossed him. - </p> - <p> - The elder Kane shrewdly took him in. The authority of the man was not to - be questioned. Without so much as raising his voice he had dominated the - strange little gathering. Physically he was a delight to the eye; anywhere - In the forties, his hair thin to the verge of baldness, his strong sober - face deeply lined, yet with shoulders, arms and chest that spoke of great - muscular power and a waist without a trace of the added girth that middle - age usually brings; of sound English stock, doubtless; the sort that in - the older land would ride to hounds at eighty. - </p> - <p> - Dawley Kane looked, then, at the Chinese heavyweight. This man, though not - quite a match in size for the giant before him, appeared every inch the - athlete. Kane understood the East too well to find him at all surprising; - he had seen the strapping northern men of Yuan Shi K'ai's new army; he - knew that the trained runners of the Imperial Government were expected, on - occasion, to cover their hundred miles in a day; in a word, that the - curious common American notion of the Chinese physique was based on an - occasional glimpse of a tropical laundryman. And he settled back in his - comfortable chair confident of a run for his money. The occasion promised, - indeed, excellent entertainment. - </p> - <p> - The mate, still with that slight frown, glanced about. Not one of the - crowded eager faces about the ropes exhibited the slightest interest in - himself as a human being. He was but the mate of a river steamer; a man - who had not kept up with his generation (the reason didn't matter)—an - individual of no standing.... He put up his hands. - </p> - <p> - Tom Sung fell into a crouch. With his left shoulder advanced, his chin - tucked away behind it, he moved in close and darted quick but hard blows to - the stomach and heart. Duane stepped backward, and edged around him, - feeling him out, studying his hands and arms, his balance, his footwork. - It early became clear that he was a thoroughgoing professional, who meant - to go in and make a fight of it.... Doane, sparring lightly, considered - this. Conner, of course, had no sportsmanship. - </p> - <p> - Tom's left hand shot up through Doane's guard, landing clean on his face - with a sharp thud; followed up with a remarkably quick right swing that - the mate, by sidestepping, succeeded only in turning into a glancing blow. - And then, as Doane ducked a left thrust, he uppercut with all his - strength. The blow landed on Doane's forearms with a force that shook him - from head to foot. - </p> - <p> - A sound of breath sharply indrawn came from the spectators, to most of - whom it must have appeared that the blow had gone home. Doane, slipping - away and mopping the sweat from eyes and forehead, heard the sound; and - for an instant saw them, all leaning forward, tense, eager for a knockout, - the one possible final thrill. - </p> - <p> - The yellow man was at him again, landing left, right and left on his - stomach, and butting a shaven head with real force against his chin. For - an instant stars danced about his eyes. Elbows had followed the head, - roughing at his face. Doane, quickly recovering, leaped back and dropped - his hands. - </p> - <p> - “What is this?” he called sharply to Connor, whose round expressionless - face with its one cool light eye and thin little mouth looked at him - without response. “Head? Elbows? Is your man going to box, or not?” - </p> - <p> - The eyes that turned in surprise about the ringside were not friendly. - These men cared nothing for his little difficulties; their blood was up. - They wanted what the Americans among them would term “action” and - “results.” - </p> - <p> - Tom was tearing at him again. So it was, after all, to be a fight. No - preliminary understandings mattered. He felt a profound disgust, as by - main strength he stopped rush after rush, making full use of his greater - reach to pin Tom's arms and hurl him back; a disgust however, that was - changing gradually to anger. He had known, all his life, the peculiar joy - that comes to a man of great strength and activity in any thorough test of - his power. - </p> - <p> - The customs man called time. - </p> - <p> - Rocky Kane—flushed, excited, looking like a boy—felt in his - pockets for cigarettes; found none; and slipped hurriedly out to the deck. - </p> - <p> - There a silken rustle stopped him short. - </p> - <p> - A slim figure, enveloped in an embroidered gown, was moving back from a - cabin window. The light from within fell—during a brief second—full - on an oval face that was brightly painted, red and white, beneath glossy - black hair. The nose was straight, and not wide. The eyes, slanted only a - little, looked brightly out from under penciled brows. She was moving - swiftly toward the canvas screen; but he, more swiftly, leaped before her, - stared at her; laughed softly in sheer delighted surprise. Then, with a - quick glance about the deck, breathing out he knew not what terms of crude - compliment he reached for her; pursued her to the rail; caught her. - </p> - <p> - “You little beauty!” he was whispering now. “You wonder! You darling! - You're just too good to be true!” Beside himself, laughing again, he bent - over to kiss her. But she wrenched an arm free, fought him off, and - leaned, breathless, against the rail. - </p> - <p> - “Little yellow tiger, eh?” he cried softly. “Well, I'm a big white tiger!” - </p> - <p> - She said in English: “This is amazing!” - </p> - <p> - He stood frozen until she had disappeared behind the canvas screen. Then - he staggered back; stumbled against a deck chair; turning, found the - strange thin girl of the middy blouse stretched out there comfortably in - her rug. - </p> - <p> - She said, with a cool ease: “It's so pleasant out here this evening, I - really haven't felt like going in.” - </p> - <p> - With a muttered something—he knew not what—he rushed off to - his cabin; then rushed back into the social hall. - </p> - <p> - The customs man called time for the second round. - </p> - <p> - As Doane advanced to the center of the ring, Tom rushed, as before, head - down. Doane uppercut him; then threw him back, forestalling a clinch. The - next two or three rushes he met in the same determined but negative way; - hitting a few blows but for the most part pushing him off. The sweat kept - running into his eyes as he exerted nearly his full strength. And Tom - Sung's shoulders and arms glistened a bright yellow under the electric - lights. - </p> - <p> - Rocky Kane, lighting a cigarette and tossing the blazing match away, - called loudly: “Oh, hit him! For God's sake, do something! Don't be afraid - of a Chink!” - </p> - <p> - Doane glanced over at him. Tom rushed. Doane felt again the crash of solid - body blows delivered with all the force of more than two hundred pounds of - well-trained muscle behind them. Again he winced and retreated. He knew - well that he could endure only a certain amount of this punishment.... - Suddenly Tom struck with the sharpest impact yet. Again that hard head - butted his chin; an elbow and the heel of a glove roughed his face.... - Doane summoned all his strength to push him off. Then he stepped - deliberately forward. - </p> - <p> - At last the primitive vigor in this giant was aroused. His eyes blazed. - There was no manner of pleasure in hurting a fellow man of any color; but - since the particular man was asking for it, insisting on it, there was no - longer a choice. The fellow had clearly been trained to this foul sort of - work. That would be Connor's way, to take every advantage, place a large - side bet and then make certain of winning. There was, of course, no more - control of boxing out here on the coast than of gambling or other vice. - </p> - <p> - When Tom next came forward, Doane, paying not the slightest heed to his - own defense, exchanged blows with him; planted a right swing that raised a - welt on the yellow cheek. A moment later he landed another on the same - spot. - </p> - <p> - At the sound of these blows the men about the ringside straightened up - with electric excitement. Then again the long muscular right arm swung, - and the tightly gloved fist crashed through Tom's guard with a force that - knocked him nearly off his balance. Doane promptly brought him back with a - left hook that sounded to the now nearly frantic spectators as if it must - have broken the cheek-bone. - </p> - <p> - Tom crouched, covered and backed away. - </p> - <p> - “Have you had enough?” Doane asked. As there was no reply, he repeated the - question in Chinese. - </p> - <p> - Tom, instead of answering, tried another rush, floundering wildly, - swinging his arms. - </p> - <p> - Doane stepped firmly forward, swinging up a terrific body blow that caught - the big Chinaman at the pit of the stomach, lifted his feet clear of the - floor and dropped him heavily in a sitting position, from which he rolled - slowly over on his side. - </p> - <p> - “What are you trying to do?” cried the Manila Kid, above the babel of - excited voices, as he rushed in there and revived his fellow champion. - “What are you trying to do—kill 'im?” - </p> - <p> - The mate stripped off his wet gloves and tossed them to the floor. “Teach - your man to box fairly,” he replied, “or some one else will.” With which - he stepped out of the ring, drew on his sweater and, with a courteous bow - to the mandarin, went out on deck. There, after depositing with the purser - the winnings paid over by a surly Connor, Dawley Kane found him. - </p> - <p> - “Well!” cried the hitherto calm financier, “you put up a remarkable - fight.” - </p> - <p> - Doane looked down at him, unable to reply. He was still breathing hard; - his thoughts were traveling strange paths. He heard the man saying other - things; asking, at length, about the mandarin. - </p> - <p> - “He is Kang Yu,” Doane replied now, civilly enough, “Viceroy of Nanking.” - </p> - <p> - “No! Really? Why, he was in America!” - </p> - <p> - “He toured the world. He has been minister at Paris, Berlin, London, I - believe. He is a great statesman—certainly the greatest out here - since Li Hung Chang.” - </p> - <p> - “No—how extremely interesting!” - </p> - <p> - “He is ruler of fifty million souls, or more.” The mate had found his - voice. He was speaking a thought quickly, with a very little heat, as if - eager to convince the great man of America of the standing and worth of - this great man of China. “He has his own army and his own mint. He - controls railroads, arsenals, mills and mines. Incidentally, he is - president of this line.” - </p> - <p> - “The Chinese Navigation Company? Really! You are acquainted with him - yourself?” - </p> - <p> - “No. But he is a commanding figure hereabouts. And of course, I—at - present I'm an employee of the Merchants' Line.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes! Yes, of course! You seem to speak Chinese.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes”—the mate's voice was dry now—“I speak Chinese.” - </p> - <p> - A shuffling sound reached their ears. Both turned. The viceroy had come - out of the cabin and was advancing toward them, followed by all his - mandarins. Before them he paused, and again exchanged with the mate the - charming Eastern greeting. In Chinese he said—and the language that - needs only a resonant, cultured voire to exhibit its really great dignity - and beauty, rolled like music from his tongue: “It will give me great - pleasure, sir, if you will be my guest to-morrow at twelve.” - </p> - <p> - The mate replied, with a grave smile and a bow: “It is a privilege. I am - your servant.” - </p> - <p> - They bowed again, with hands to breast. And all the mandarins bowed. Then - they moved away in stately silence to their quarters aft. - </p> - <p> - Kane spoke now: “How very curious! Very curious!” - </p> - <p> - Doane said nothing to this. - </p> - <p> - “They really appear to have charm, these upper class people. It's a pity - they are so poorly adapted to the modern struggle.” - </p> - <p> - Doane looked down at him, then away. As a man acquainted with the East he - knew the futility of discussing it with a Western mind; above all with the - mind of a successful business man, to whom activity, drive, energy, were - very religion. - </p> - <p> - His own thoughts were ranging swiftly back over two thousand years, to the - strong civilization of the Han Dynasty, when disciplined Chinese armies - kept open the overland route to Bactria and Parthia, that the silks and - porcelains and pearls might travel safely to waiting Roman hands; to the - later, richer, riper centuries of Tang and Sung, after Rome fell, when - Chinese civilization stood alone, a majestic fabric in an otherwise - crumbled and chaotic world—when certain of the noblest landscapes - and portraits ever painted were finding expression, when philosophers held - high dreams of building conflicting dogma into a single structure of - comprehensive and serene faith. The Chinese alone, down the uncounted - centuries, had held their racial integrity, their very language. Surely, - at some mystical but seismic turning of the racial tide, they would rise - again among the nations. - </p> - <p> - This giant, standing there in sweater and knickerbockers, bareheaded, - gazing out at the dark river, was not sentimentalizing. He knew well - enough the present problems. But he saw them with half-Eastern eyes; he - saw America too, with half-Eastern eyes—and so he could not talk at - all to the very able man beside him who saw the West and the world with - wholly Western eyes. No, it was futile. Even when the great New Yorker, - who had just won two thousand dollars, gold, spoke with wholly unexpected - kindness, the gulf between their two minds remained unfathomable. - </p> - <p> - “I want you to forgive me, sir—I do not even know your name, you see—but, - frankly, you interest me. You are altogether too much of a man for the - work you are doing here. That is clear. I would be glad to have you tell - me what the trouble is. Perhaps I could help you.” - </p> - <p> - This from the man who held General Railways in the hollow of his hand, and - Universal Hydro-Electric, and Consolidated Shipping, and the Kane, - Wilmarth and Cantey banks, a chain that reached literally from sea to sea - across the great young country that worshiped the shell of political - freedom as insistently as the Chinese worshiped their ancestors, yet gave - over the newly vital governing power of finance into wholly irresponsible - private hands. - </p> - <p> - The situation, grotesque in its beginning, seemed now incredible to Doane. - He drew a hand across his brow; then spoke, with compelling courtesy but - with also a dismissive power that the other felt: “You are very kind, Mr. - Kane. At some other time I shall be glad to talk with you. But my hours - are rather exacting, and I am tired.” - </p> - <p> - “Naturally. You have given a wonderful exhibition of what a man of - character can do with his body. I wish I had you for a physical trainer. - And I wish the example might start my boy to thinking more wholesomely... - Good night!” And he extended a friendly hand. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Kane's boy presented himself on the following morning as an acute - problem. He was about the deck, shortly after breakfast, playing with the - Manchu child. Then, after eleven, Captain Benjamin handed his mate a note - that had been scribbled in pencil on a leaf torn from a pocket note-book - and folded over. It was addressed: - </p> - <p> - “To the Chinese Lady who spoke English last night.” And the content was as - follows: “I shouldn't have been rude, but I must see you again. Can't you - slip around the canvas this evening, late? I'll be watching for you.” - There was no signature. - </p> - <p> - “Make it out?” asked the captain. “Old Kang sent it up to me—asks us - to speak to the young man. But how'm I to know which young man it is?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you know how it was sent?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. The little princess took it back.”' - </p> - <p> - “It won't be hard to find the man.” - </p> - <p> - “You know?” - </p> - <p> - “I think so.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, just put him wise, will you?” - </p> - <p> - “I'll speak to him.” - </p> - <p> - “Wait a minute! You thinking of young Kane?” - </p> - <p> - The mate inclined his head. - </p> - <p> - “Well—you know who he is, don't you? Who they are?” - </p> - <p> - Doane bowed again. - </p> - <p> - “Better use a little tact.” - </p> - <p> - Doane walked back along the deck to cabin sixteen. A fresh breeze blew - sharply here; the chairs had all been moved across to the other side where - the sunlight lay warm on the planking. Within the social hall the second - engineer—a wistful, shy young Scot—had brought his battered - talking machine to the dining table and was grinding out a comic song. Two - or three of the men were in there, listening, smoking, and sipping - highballs; Doane saw them as he passed the door. Through the open but - shuttered window of cabin number twelve came the clicking of a typewriter - and men's voices, that would be Mr. Kane, discussing his “autobiography” - with its author. - </p> - <p> - Before number sixteen, Doane paused; sniffed the air. A curious odor was - floating out through these shutters, an odor that he knew. He sniffed - again; then abruptly knocked at the door. - </p> - <p> - A drowsy voice answered! “What is it? What do you want?” - </p> - <p> - “I must see you at once,” said Doane. - </p> - <p> - There was a silence; then odd sounds—a faint rattling of glass, a - scraping, cupboard doors opening and closing. Finally the door opened a - few inches. There was Rocky Kane, hair tousled, coat, collar and tie - removed, and shirt open at the neck. Doane looked sharply at his eyes; the - pupils were abnormally small. And the odor was stronger now and of a - slightly choking tendency. - </p> - <p> - “What are you looking at me like that for?” cried young Kane, shrinking - back a little way. - </p> - <p> - “I think,” said Doane, “you had better let me come in and talk with you.” - </p> - <p> - “What right have you got saying things like that? What do you mean?” - </p> - <p> - “I have really said nothing as yet.” - </p> - <p> - Kane, seeming bewildered, allowed the door to swing inward and himself - stepped back. The big mate came stooping within. - </p> - <p> - “Your note has been returned,” he said shortly; and gave him the paper. - </p> - <p> - Kane accepted it, stared down at it, then sank back on the couch. - </p> - <p> - “What's this to you!” he managed to cry. “What right.... what do you mean, - saying I wrote this?” - </p> - <p> - “Because you did. You sent it back by the little girl.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, what if I did! What right—” - </p> - <p> - “I am here at the request of his excellency, the viceroy of Nanking. You - have been annoying his daughter. The fact that she chooses, while in her - father's household, to wear the Manchu dress, does not justify you in - treating her otherwise than as a lady. Perhaps I can't expect you to - understand that his exellency is one of the greatest statesmen alive - to-day. Nor that this young lady was educated in America, knows the - capitals of Europe better, doubtless, than yourself, and is a princess by - birth. She went to school in England and to college in Massachusetts. Take - my advice, and try no more of this sort of thing.” - </p> - <p> - The boy was staring at him now, wholly bewildered. “Well,” he began - stumblingly, “perhaps I have been a little on the loose. But what of it! A - fellow has to have some fun, doesn't he?” - </p> - <p> - The mate's eyes were taking in keenly the crowded little room. - </p> - <p> - “Well,” cried Kane petulantly, “that's all, isn't it? I understand! I'll - let her alone!” - </p> - <p> - “You don't feel that an apology might be due?” - </p> - <p> - “Apologize? To that girl?” - </p> - <p> - “To her father.” - </p> - <p> - “Apologize—to a Chink?” - </p> - <p> - The word grated strangely on Doane's nerves. Suddenly the boy cried out: - “Well—that's all? There's nothing more you want to say? What are you—what - are you looking like that for?” - </p> - <p> - The sober deep-set eyes of the mate were resting on the high dresser at - the head of the berths. There, tucked away behind the water caraffe, was a - small lamp with a base of cloisonné work in blue and gold and a small, - half globular chimney of soot-blackened glass. - </p> - <p> - “What are you looking at? What do you mean?” - </p> - <p> - The boy writhed under the steady gaze of this huge man, who rested a big - hand on the upper berth and gazed gravely down at him; writhed, tossed out - a protesting arm, got to his feet and stood with a weak effort at - defiance. - </p> - <p> - “Now I suppose you'll go to my father!” he cried. “Well, go ahead! Do it! - I don't care. I'm of age—my money's my own. He can't hurt me. And he - knows I'm on to him. Don't think I don't know some of the things he's done—he - and his crowd. Ah, we're not saints, we Kanes! We're good fellows—we've - got pep, we succeed—but we're not saints.” - </p> - <p> - “How long have you been smoking opium?” asked the mate. - </p> - <p> - “I don't smoke it! I mean I never did. Not until Shanghai. And you needn't - think the pater hasn't hit the pipe a bit himself. I never saw a lamp - until he took me to the big Hong dinner at Shanghai last month. They had - 'em there. And it wasn't all they had, either—” - </p> - <p> - “If you are telling me the truth,” said the mate. - </p> - <p> - —“I am. I tell you I am.” - </p> - <p> - “—Then you should have no difficulty in stopping. It would take a - few weeks to form the habit. You can't smoke another pipe on this boat.” - </p> - <p> - “But what right—good lord, if the pater would drag me out here, away - from all my friends.... you think I'm a rotter, don't you!” - </p> - <p> - “My opinion is not in question. I must ask you to give me, now, whatever - opium you have.” - </p> - <p> - Slowly, moodily, evidently dwelling in a confusion of sulky resentful - thoughts, the boy knelt at the cupboard and got out a small card-board - box. - </p> - <p> - The mate opened it, and found several shells of opium within. He promptly - pitched it out over the rail. - </p> - <p> - “This is all?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “Well—look in there yourself!” - </p> - <p> - But the mate was looking at the suit-case, and at the trunk beneath the - lower berth. - </p> - <p> - “You give me your word that you have no more?” - </p> - <p> - “That's—all,” said the boy. - </p> - <p> - The mate considered this answer; decided to accept it; turned to go. But - the boy caught at his sleeve. - </p> - <p> - “You do think I'm a rotter!” he cried. “Well, maybe I am. Maybe I'm - spoiled. But what's a fellow to do? My father's a machine—that's - what he is—a ruthless machine. My mother divorced him ten years ago. - She married that English captain—got the money out of father for - them to live on, and now she's divorced him. Where do I get off? I know - I'm overstrung, nervous. I've always had everything I want. Do you wonder - that I've begun to look for something new? Perhaps I'm going to hell. I - know you think so. I can see it in your eyes. But who cares!” - </p> - <p> - Doane stood a long time at the rail, thinking. The ship's clock in the - social hall struck eight bells. Faintly his outer ear caught it. It was - time to join his excellency. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER III—MISS HUI FEI - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE luncheon table - of his excellency was simply set, with two chairs of carven blackwood, - behind a high painted screen of six panels. It was at this screen that the - first mate (left by a smiling attendant) gazed with a frown of - incredulity. Cap in hand, he stepped back and studied the painting, a - landscape representing a range of mountains rising above mist in great - rock-masses, chasms where tortured trees clung, towering, lagged peaks, - all partly obscured by the softly luminous vapor—a scene of power - and beauty. Much of the brighter color had faded into the prevailing tones - of old ivory yellow shading into some thing near Rembrandt brown; though - the original, reds and blues still held vividly in the lower right - foreground, where were pictured very small, exquisite in detail yet of as - trifling importance in the majestic scheme of the painting as are man and - his works in all sober Chinese thought when considered in relation to the - grim majesty of nature, a little friendly cluster of houses, men at work, - children at play, domestic animals, a stream with a water buffalo, a - bridge, a wayfarer riding a donkey, and cultivated fields. The ideographic - signature was in rich old gold, inscribed with unerring decorative - instinct on a flat rock surface. - </p> - <p> - The mate bent low and looked closely at the brush-work; then stepped - around an end panel and examined the texture of the silk. - </p> - <p> - “Ah!”—it was a musical deep voice, speaking in the mandarin tongue—“you - admire my screen, Griggsby Doane.” The name was pronounced in English. - </p> - <p> - His excellency wore a short jacket of pale yellow over a skirt of blue, - both embroidered in large circles of lotus flowers around centers of - conventional good-fortune designs, in which the swastika was a leading - motive. His bared head was shaved only at the sides, as the top had long - been bald. He looked gentle and kind as he stood leaning on his cane and - extending a wrinkled hand; smiling in the fashion of forthright - friendship. The thin little gray beard, the unobtrusively courteous eyes, - the calm manner, all gave him an appearance of simplicity that made it - momentarily difficult to think of him as the great negotiator of the - tangled problems of statesmanship involved in the expansion of Japan, the - man who very nearly convinced Europe of American good faith during the - agitated discussion and correspondence that arose out of the “Open Door” - proposals of John Hay, a man known among the observant and informed in - London, Paris and Washington as a great statesman and a greater gentleman. - </p> - <p> - “I thought at first”—thus the mate, touched by the fine honor done - him (an honor that would, he quickly felt, demand tact on the bridge)—“that - it was a genuine Kuo Hsi.” - </p> - <p> - “No. A copy.” - </p> - <p> - “So I see. A Ming copy—at least the silk appears to be Ming—the - heavy single strand, closely woven. And the seals date very closely. If it - were woven of double strands, even in the warp alone, I should not - hesitate to call it a genuine Northern Sung.” - </p> - <p> - “You observe closely, Griggsby Doane. It is supposed that Ch'uan Shih made - this copy.” His smile was now less one of kindness and courtesy than, of - genuine pleasure. “You shall see the original.” - </p> - <p> - “You have that also, Your Excellency?” - </p> - <p> - “In my home at Huang Chau.” - </p> - <p> - “I have never seen a genuine panting of Kuo Hsi. It would be a great - privilege. I have read some of the sayings attributed to him, as taken - down by his son. One I recall—'If the artist, without realizing his - ideal, paints landscapes with a careless heart, it is like throwing earth - upon a deity, or casting impurities into the clean wind.'” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” added his excellency, almost eagerly, “and this—'To have in - landscape the opportunity of seeing water and peaks, of hearing the cry of - monkeys and the song of birds, without going from the room.'” Servants - appeared bearing covered dishes. His excellency placed the mate in the - seat commanding the wider view of the river. A clear broth was served, - followed by stewed shell fish with cassia mushrooms, steamed sharks' fins - set red with crabmeat and ham, roast duck stuffed with young pine needles, - and preserved pomegranates, carambolas and plums, followed by small cups - of rice wine. - </p> - <p> - The conversation lingered with the great Sung painters, passing naturally - then to the conflict during the eleventh and twelfth centuries between the - free vitality of Buddhist thought and the deadening formalism of the - Confucian tradition. - </p> - <p> - And Doane's thoughts, as he listened or quietly spoke, dwelt on the - attainments and character of this great man who was so simple and so - friendly. His excellency had spoken his own full name, Griggsby Doane, - which would mean that the wide-reaching, instantly responsive facilities - for gathering information that may be set at work by the glance of a - viceroy's eye or a movement of his jeweled finger had been brought into - play within the twenty-four hours. - </p> - <p> - “My heart is there in the Sung Dynasty,” his excellency said. “I never - look upon the old canals of Hang Chow or the ruins of stone-walled lotus - gardens by the Si-hu without sadness. And Kai-feng-fu to-day wrings my - heart.” - </p> - <p> - “Truly,” mused Doane, “it was in the days of Tang and Sung that the soul - of China so nearly found its freedom.” - </p> - <p> - “You indeed understand, Griggsby Doane!” The two English words stood out - with odd emphasis in the musical flow of cultured Chinese speech. “Had - that spirit endured, China would to-day, I like to think, have Korea and - Manchuria and Mongolia and Sin Kiang. China would not to-day wear a - piteous smile on the lips, turning the head to hide tears of shame, while - the Russians absorb our northern frontiers and the French draw tribute - from Annam and Yunnan, while the English control this great valley of the - Yangtze, while the Germans drive their mailed fist into Shantung, and the - Japanese send their spies throughout all our land and stand insolently at - the very gate of the Forbidden City. I could not, perhaps, speak my heart - freely to one of my own countrymen, but to you I can say, Confucian - scholar though they may term me, that since what you call the thirteenth - century there has been a gradual paralysis of the will in China, a - softening of the political brain.... You will permit an old man this - latitude? I have served China without thought of self during nearly fifty - years. To the Old Buddha I was ever a loyal servant. If toward the new - emperor and the empress dowager I find it impossible to feel so deeply, my - heart is yet devoted to the throne and to my people. If while sent abroad - in service of my country it has been given me to see much of merit in - Western ways, it is not that I have become a revolutionist, a traitor to - the government of my ancestors.” - </p> - <p> - There was a light in the kindly eyes; a strong ring in the deep voice. He - went on: - </p> - <p> - “No, I am not a traitor. It is not that. It is that my country has - suffered, is now prostrate, with a long sickness. She must be helped; but - she must as well help herself. She is like one who has lain too long abed. - She must think, arise, act. With my poor eyes I can see no other hope for - her. Even though I myself may suffer, I can not, in truth to my own faith, - punish those who, loving China as deeply as I myself love her, yet feel - that they must goad her until she awakens from her pitiful sleep of more - than six centuries.... Nor am I a republican. China is not like your - country. In an imperial throne I must believe. Yet, she must listen to - all, study all, draw from all. Freedom of thought there must be. We must - not longer worship books and the dead. We must learn to look about us and - on before.” - </p> - <p> - Their chairs were drawn about to the window's. Slowly the wide river - slipped off astern. - </p> - <p> - “But you, Griggsby Doane, why are you here? This is not the life for which - you so laboriously and so worthily prepared yourself. I knew of you over - in T'ainan-fu. You were a true servant of your faith. After the dreadful - year of the Boxers you returned to your task. And during the trouble in - nineteen hundred and seven, the fighting with the Great Eye Society in - Hansi, you conducted yourself with bravery. I was at Sian-fu that year, - and was well informed. Yet you gave up the church mission.” - </p> - <p> - The mate's eyes were fixed gloomily on the long vista of the river. For a - moment it seemed as if he would speak; and the viceroy, seeing his lips - part, leaned a little way forward; but then the lips were closed tightly - and the great head bent deliberately forward. - </p> - <p> - “I knew,” continued his excellency, “when the Asiatic Company of New York - was negotiating with me the contract for rebuilding the banks of the Grand - Canal in Kiang-su that you had gone from T'ainan, and that you had, as - well, left the church. You had even gone from China.” - </p> - <p> - “That was in nineteen nine,” said Doane, in the somber voice of one who - thinks moodily aloud. “I was in America then.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it was in your year nineteen nine. For a time those negotiations - hung, I recall, on the question of the means to be employed in dealing - with local resentments. The trouble over the Ho Shan Company in Hansi, of - which you knew so much and which you met with such noble courage, had - taught us all to move with caution.” - </p> - <p> - “My position in that Hansi trouble has not been clearly understood, Your - Excellency. I was there only, a short time, and was ill at that.” - </p> - <p> - The viceroy smiled, kindly, wisely. “You went alone and on foot from - T'ainan-fu to So T'ung in the face of a Looker attack, and yourself - settled that tragic business. You then walked, without even a night's - rest, the fifty-five <i>li</i> from T'ainan to Hung Chan. There, at the - city gate, you were attacked and severely wounded, and crawled to the - house of a Christian native. But while still weak and in a fever you - walked the three hundred <i>li</i> to Ping Yang and made your way through - the Looker army into Monsieur Pourmont's compound....” - </p> - <p> - He pronounced the two words “Monsieur Pour-mont” in French. What a - remarkable old man he was—mentally all alive, sensitive as a youth - to the quick currents of life! The accuracy of his information, like his - memory, was surprising. Though to the Westerner, every normal Chinese - memory is that. Merely learning the language needs or builds a memory.... - </p> - <p> - Most surprising was that so deep attention had been given to Doane's own - small case. The fact bewildered; was slow in coming home. For Kang was a - great man; his proper preoccupations were many; that he was a poet, and - had early aspired to the laureateship, was commonly known—indeed, - Doane had somewhere his own translation of Kang's <i>Ode to the Rich Earth</i>, - from the scroll in the author's calligraphy owned by Pao Ting Chuan at - T'ainan-fu. As an amateur in the art of his own land of fine taste and - sound historical background he was known everywhere; his collection of - early paintings, porcelains, jades and jewels being admittedly one of the - most valuable remaining in China. And he was reputed to be the richest - individual not of the royal blood (excepting perhaps Yuan Shi K'ai). - </p> - <p> - A contrast, not untinged with a passing bitterness, arose in Doane's mind. - Here before him quietly sat this so-called yellow man who was more - competent than perhaps any other to select his own art treasures and write - his own poems and state papers; whose journals, known to exist, must - inevitably, if not lost in a war-torn land, take their place as a part of - China's history; a man who was at once manufacturer, financier, and - statesman, on whom for a decade a weakening throne had leaned. While in - the cabin forward was a great white man as truly representative of the new - civilization as was Kang of the old; yet who hired men of special - knowledge to select the art treasures that would be left, one day, in his - name and as a monument to his culture, who even employed a trained writer - to pen the work that he proposed unblushingly to call his “autobiography.” - For such a man as Dawley Kane, whatever his manners, Doane felt now, knew - only the power of money. Through that alone his genius functioned; the - rest was a lie. On the one hand was culture, on the other—something - else. The thought bit into his brain. - </p> - <p> - But his excellency had not finished: - </p> - <p> - “And there, my dear Griggsby Doane, while still suffering from your wound, - you learned that those in Monsieur Pourmont's compound were cut off from - communication with their nationals at Peking. You at once volunteered to - go again, alone, through the Looker lines to the railhead with messages, - and successfully did so.... Do you wonder, my dear young friend, that - knowing this, and more, of your honesty and personal force from my - one-time assistant, Pao Ting Chuan, of T'ainan-fu, I pressed strongly on - the gentlemen from New York who represented the Asiatic Company my desire - that they secure you to act as their resident director? And do you wonder - that I regretted your refusal so to act?” - </p> - <p> - This statement came to Doane as a surprise. - </p> - <p> - “They offered me a position, yes,” he said, pondering on the inexplicable - ways in which the currents of life meet and cross. “But they told me - nothing of your interest.” - </p> - <p> - His excellency smiled. “It might have raised your price. They would think - of that. The sharpest trading, Griggsby Doane, is not done in the Orient. - That I have learned from a long lifetime of struggling against the - aggressions of white nations. During the discussion of the concerted loan - to China—you recall it?—they talked of lending us a hundred - million dollars, gold. To read your New York papers was to think that we - were almost to be given the money. It seemed really a philanthropy. But do - you know what their left hands were doing while their right hands waved in - a fine gesture of aid to the struggling China? These were the terms. First - they subtracted a large commission—that for the bankers themselves; - then, what with stipulations of various sorts as to the uses to which the - money—or the credit—was to be put, mostly in purchases of - railway and war material from their own hongs at further huge profits to - themselves, they whittled it down until the actual money to be expended - under our own direction, amounted to about fifteen millions. And with that - went immense new concessions—really the signing away of an empire—and - new foreign supervision of our internal affairs. For all these privileges - we were to pay an annual interest and later repay the full amount, one - hundred millions. It was quite unbearable.” He sighed. “But what is poor - old China to do?” - </p> - <p> - Doane nodded gravely. “I felt all that—the sort of thing—when - I talked with representatives of the Asiatic Company. Not that I blamed - them, of course. It is a point of view much larger than any of them; they - are but part of a great tendency. I couldn't go into it.” - </p> - <p> - “Why not?” The viceroy's keen eyes dropped to the slightly faded blue - uniform, then rested again on the strong face. - </p> - <p> - “The past few years—I will pass over the details—have been—well, - not altogether happy for me. I have been puzzled. All the rich years of my - younger manhood were given to the mission work. But I had to leave the - church. At first I felt a joy in simple hard work—I am very strong—but - hard work alone could not satisfy my thoughts.” - </p> - <p> - “No.... No.” - </p> - <p> - “For a time I believed that the solution of my personal problem lay in - taking the plunge into commercial life. I had come to feel, out there, - that business was, after all, the natural expression of man's active - nature in our time.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. Doubtless it is.” - </p> - <p> - “It was in that state of mind that I returned home—to the States. - But it proved impossible. I am not a trader. It was too late. My - character, such as it was and is, had been formed and hardened in another - mold. I talked with old friends, but only to discover that we had between - us no common tongue of the spirit. Perhaps if I had entered business - early, as they did, I, too, would have found my early ideals being warped - gradually around to the prevailing point of view.” - </p> - <p> - “The point stands out, though,” said the viceroy, “that you did not enter - business. You chose a more difficult course, and one which leaves you, in - ripe middle age, without the means to direct your life effectively and in - comfort.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” mused Doane, though without bitterness. “I feel that, of course. - And it is hard, very hard, to lose one's country. Yet....” - </p> - <p> - His voice dropped. He sat, elbow on crossed knees, staring at the - ever-changing river. When he spoke again, the bitter undertone was no - longer in his voice. He was gentler, but puzzled; a man who has suffered a - loss that he can not understand. - </p> - <p> - “All my traditions,” he said, “my memories of America, were of simple - friendly communities, a land of earnest religion, of political freedom. In - my thoughts as a younger man certain great figures stood out—Washington, - Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Wendell Philips, Philips Brooks and—yes, - Henry Ward Beecher. I had deeply felt Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell and - Whittier. The Declaration of Independence could still fire my blood. And - it was such a land of simple faith that I tried for so many years, however - ineffectually, to represent here in China. To be sure, disquieting - thoughts came—church disunity, the spectacle of unbridled license - among so many of my fellow countrymen in the coast ports, the methods of - certain of our great corporations in pushing their wares in among your - people. But even when I found it necessary to leave the church, I still - believed deeply in my country.” - </p> - <p> - He paused to control a slight unsteadiness of voice; then went on: - </p> - <p> - “May I ask if you, Your Excellency, after your long visits in Europe, have - not come home to meet with something the same difficulty, to find yourself - looking at your own people with the eyes of a stranger, receiving such an - impression as only a stranger can receive?” - </p> - <p> - “Indeed, yes!” cried the viceroy softly, with deep feeling. “It is the - most difficult moment, I have sometimes felt, in a man's life. It is the - summit of loneliness, for there is no man among his friends who can share - his view, and there is none who would not misunderstand and censure him. - And yet, a country, a people, like a city, does present to the alien eye, - a complete impression, it exhibits clearly outlined characteristics that - can be observed in no other way. Even the alien lose that clear, true - impression on very short acquaintance. He then becomes, like all the - others, a part of the picture he has once seen.” - </p> - <p> - “It is so, Your Excellency. My country, in that first, startled, clear - glance, affected me—I may as well use the word—unpleasantly. - It was utterly different from anything I had known, a trader's paradise, a - place of unbelievable confusion, of an activity that bewildered, rushing - to what end I could not understand.” - </p> - <p> - He was speaking now not only in the Chinese language but in the idiom as - well, generalizing rhetorically as the Chinese do. It was almost as if the - words came from a Chinese mind. - </p> - <p> - They were silent for a time Then the viceroy asked, in his gently abrupt - way: “Why did you leave the church?” - </p> - <p> - “Because I sinned.” - </p> - <p> - “Against the church?” - </p> - <p> - “That, and my own faith.” - </p> - <p> - “Were you asked to leave?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “They knew of your sin?” - </p> - <p> - “I told them.” - </p> - <p> - “Yet they would have kept you?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. My own feeling was that my superior temporized.” - </p> - <p> - “He knew your value.” - </p> - <p> - “I can not say as to that. But he wished me to marry again. I couldn't do - that—not in the spirit intended. Not as I felt.” - </p> - <p> - “We are different, Griggsby Doane, you and I. I am a Manchu, you an - American. The customs of our two lands are very different. What would seem - a sin to you, might not seem so to me. Yet I, too, have a conscience to - which I must answer. I believe I understand you. It is, I see, because of - your conscience that you sit before me now, on this boat and in this - uniform, a man, as your great Edward Everett Hale has phrased it, without - a country.” - </p> - <p> - He paused, and filled again the little pipe-bowl, studied it absently as - his wrinkled fingers worked the tobacco. His nails were trimmed short, - like those of a white man. Doane thought, swiftly, of the man's dramatic - past, sent out as he had been to become a citizen of the world by a nation - that would in very necessity fail to understand the resulting changes in - his outlook. There was his daughter; she would be almost an American, - after four years of college life. And she, now, would be a problem indeed! - What could he hope to make of her life in this Asia where woman, like - labor in his own country, was a commodity. It would be absorbingly - interesting, were it possible, to peep into that smooth-running old brain - and glimpse the problems there. They were gossiping about him. His stately - figure was to-day the center about which coiled the life and death - intrigue of Chinese officialdom and over which hung suspended the silken - power of an Oriental throne.... Doane's personal problem shrank into - nothing—a flitting memory of a little outbreak of egotism—as - he studied the old face on which the revealing hand of Age had inscribed - wisdom, kindliness and shrewdness. - </p> - <p> - Soft footfalls sounded; then, after a moment, a sharper sound that Doane - assumed, with a slight quickening of the imagination, to be the high - wooden clogs of a Manchu lady, until he realized that no clogs could move - so lightly; no, these were little Western shoes. - </p> - <p> - A young woman appeared, slender and comely, dressed in a tailored suit - that could have come only front New York, and smiling with shy eagerness. - She was of good height (like the Manchus of the old stock), the face - nearly oval, quite unpainted and softly pretty, with a broad forehead that - curved prettily back under the parted hair, arched eyebrows, eyes more - nearly straight than slanting (that opened a thought less widely than - those of Western people), and with a quaint, wholly charming friendliness - in her smile. - </p> - <p> - He felt her sense of freedom; and knew as she tried to take his huge hand - in her own small one that she carried her Western ways, as her own people - would phrase it, with a proud heart. She was of those aliens who would be - happily American, eager to show her kinship with the great land of fine - free traditions. - </p> - <p> - And holding the small hand, looking down at her, Doane found his perhaps - overstrained nerves responding warmly to her fine youth and health. He - reflected, in that swift way of his wide-ranging mind, on the amazing - change in Chinese official life that made it even remotely possible for - the viceroy to present his daughter with a heart as proud as hers. The - change had come about during the term of Doane's own residence.... - America, then, was not alone in changing. It was a shaking, puzzled and - puzzling world. - </p> - <p> - “This,” his excellency was saying, “is my daughter, Hui Fei.” - </p> - <p> - “I am very pleas' to meet you,” said Hui Fei. - </p> - <p> - They sat then. The girl became at once, as in America, the center of the - talk. Though of the heedlessness not uncommonly found among American girls - she had none. She was prettily, sensitively, deferential to her father. - Somewhere back of the bright surface brain from which came the quick eager - talk and the friendly smile, deep in her nature, lay the sense of - reverence for those riper in years and in authority that was the deepest - strain in her race. She dwelt on things almost utterly American: the - brightness of New York—she said she liked it best in October, when - the shops were gay; the approaching Yale-Harvard football game, a motoring - tour through the White Mountains, happy summers at the seashore. - </p> - <p> - Doane watched her, speaking only at intervals, wondering if there might - not be, behind her gentle enthusiasm, some deeper understanding of her - present situation. He could not surely make out. She had humor, and when - he asked if it did not seem strange to step abruptly back into the old - life, she spoke laughingly of her many little mistakes in etiquette. Her - English he found charming. She was continually slipping back into it from - the Mandarin tongue she tried to use, and as continually, with great - gaiety, reaching back into Chinese for the equivalent phrase. She had so - nearly conquered the usual difficulty with the l's and r's as to confuse - them only when she spoke hurriedly. At these times, too, she would leave - off final consonants. The long <i>e</i> became then, a short <i>i</i>. - Doane even smiled, with an inner sense of pleasure, at her pretty emphasis - when she once converted <i>people</i> into <i>pipple</i>. She was, - unmistakably, a young woman of charm and personality. Despite the - quaintness of her speech, she was accustomed to thinking in the new - tongue. Her command of it was excellent; better than would commonly be - found in America. All of which, of course, intensified the problem. - </p> - <p> - His excellency sat back, smoked comfortably, and looked on her with - frankly indulgent pride. - </p> - <p> - A servant came with a message; bowing low. The viceroy excused himself, - leaving his daughter and Doane together. Doane asked himself, during the - pause that followed his departure, what the observant attendants beyond - the screen would be thinking. The situation, from any familiar Chinese - point of view, was unthinkable. Yet here he sat; and there, her brows - drawn together (he saw now) in sober thought, sat delightful Miss Hui Fei. - </p> - <p> - She said, in a low voice, while looking out at the river: “Mr. Doane, no - matter what you may think—I mus' see you. This evening. You mus' - tell me where. It mus' not be known to any one. There are spies here.” - </p> - <p> - Doane glanced up; then, too, looked away. There could be no question now - of the girl's deeper feeling. She was determined. Her tune was honest and - forthright, with the unthinking courage of youth. It would be her father, - of course... - </p> - <p> - But his mind had gone blank. He knew not what to think or say. - </p> - <p> - “Please!” she murmured. “There is no one else. You must help us. Tell me—father - will be coming back.” - </p> - <p> - And then Griggsby Doane heard his own voice saying quietly: “The boat deck - is the only place. You will find a sort of ladder near the stern. If you - can—” - </p> - <p> - “I will go up there.” - </p> - <p> - “It will be only just after midnight that I could arrange to be there.” - </p> - <p> - His excellency returned then. And Doane took his leave. He had been but a - few moments in his own cabin when two actors of his excellency's suite - appeared, each with a lacquered tray, on one of which was a small chest of - tea, wrapped in red paper lettered in gold and bearing the seal stamp of - the private estate of Kang Yu, on the other an object of more than a foot - in height carefully wound about with cotton cloth. - </p> - <p> - Doane dismissed the lictors with a Mexican dollar each and unwrapped the - larger object, which the servant had placed with great care on his berth. - It proved to be a <i>pi</i>, a disk of carven jade, in color a perfect - specimen of the pure greenish-white tint that is so highly prized by - Chinese collectors. The diameter was hardly less than ten inches, and the - actual width of the stone from the circular inner opening to the outer rim - about four inches. It stood on edge set in a pedestal of blackwood, the - carving of which was of unusual delicacy. The pedestal was, naturally, - modern, but Doane, with a mounting pulse, studied the designs cut into the - stone itself. That cutting had been done not later than the Han Dynasty, - certainly within two hundred years of the birth of Christ. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER IV—INTRIGUE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE <i>Yen Hsin</i> - would arrive at Kiu Kiang by mid-afternoon. - </p> - <p> - Half an hour earlier. Doane, on the lower deck, came upon a group of his - excellency's soldiers—brown deep-chested men, picturesque in their - loose blue trousers bound in above the ankles and their blue turbans and - gray cartridge belts—conversing excitedly in whispers behind the - stack of coffins near the stern. At sight of him they broke up and slipped - away. - </p> - <p> - A moment later, passing forward along the corridor beside the engine room, - he heard his name: “Mr. Doane! If you please!” This in English. - </p> - <p> - He turned. Just within the doorway of one of the low-priced cabins stood a - pedler he had observed about the lower decks; a thin Chinese with an - overbred head that was shaped, beneath the cap, like a skull without flesh - upon it; the eyes concealed behind smoked glasses. - </p> - <p> - “May I have a word with you, Mr. Doane?” - </p> - <p> - The mate considered; then, stooping, entered the tiny cabin. The pedler - closed the door; quietly shot the bolt; then removed his cap and the queue - with it, exposing a full head of stubbly black hair, trimmed, as is said, - pompadour. The glasses came off next; discovering wide alert eyes. And - now, without the cap, the head, despite the hair and the seriously - intellectual face, looked, balanced on its thin neck, more than ever like - a skull. - </p> - <p> - “You will not know of me, Mr. Doane. I am Sun Shi-pi of Shanghai. I was - attached, as interpreter, to the yamen of the tao-tai. I left his service - some months ago to join the republican revolutionary party. I was arrested - shortly after that at Nanking and condemned to death, but his excellency, - the viceroy—” - </p> - <p> - “Kang?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. He is on this boat. He released me on condition that I go to Japan. - I kept my word—to that extent; I went to Japan—but I could not - keep my word in spirit. My life is consecrated to the cause of the Chinese - Republic. Nothing else matters. I returned to Shanghai, and was made - commander there of the 'Dare-to-dies.' You did not know of such an - organization? You will, then, before the winter is gone. We shall be heard - from. There are other such companies—at Canton, at Wuchang—at - Nanking—at every center.” - </p> - <p> - Doane seated himself on the narrow couch and studied the quietly eager - young man. - </p> - <p> - “You speak English with remarkable ease,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes. I studied at Chicago University. And at Tokio University I took - post-graduate work.” - </p> - <p> - “And you are frank.” - </p> - <p> - “I can trust you. You are known to us, Mr. Doane. Wu Ting Fang trusts you—and - Sun Yat Sen, our leader, he knows and trusts you.” - </p> - <p> - “I did know Sun Yat Sen, when he was a medical student.” - </p> - <p> - “He knows you well. He has mentioned your name to us. That is why I am - speaking to you. America is with us. We can trust Americans.” - </p> - <p> - Doane's mind was ranging swiftly about the situation. “You are running a - risk,” he said. - </p> - <p> - Sun Shi-pi shrugged his shoulders. “I shall hardly survive the revolution. - That is not expected among the 'Dare-to-dies.'” - </p> - <p> - “If his excellency's soldiers find you here they will kill you now.” - </p> - <p> - “The officers would, of course. Many of the soldiers are with us. Anyway, - it doesn't matter.” - </p> - <p> - “What is your errand?” - </p> - <p> - “I will tell you. The revolution, as you doubtless know, is fully - planned.” - </p> - <p> - “I've assumed so. There has been so much talk. And then, of course, the - outbreak in Szechuen.” - </p> - <p> - “That was premature. It was the plan to strike in the spring. This - fighting in Szechuen has caused much confusion. Sun Yat Sen is in America. - He is going to England, and can hardly reach China within two months. He - will bring money enough for all our needs. He is the organizer, the - directing genius of the new republic. But the Szechuen outbreak has set - all the young hotheads afire.” - </p> - <p> - “I am told that the throne has sent Tuan Fang out there to put down the - disturbance. But we have had no news lately.” - </p> - <p> - “That is because the wires are cut. Tuan Fang will never come back. We - will pay five thousand taels, cash, to the bearer of his head, and ask no - questions. We must exterminate the Manchus. It has finally come down to - that. It is the only way out. But we must pull together. Did you know that - the Wu Chang republicans plan to strike at once?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “I have been sent there to tell them to wait. That is our gravest danger - now. If we pull together we shall win. If our emotions run away with our - judgment—” - </p> - <p> - “The throne will defeat your forces piecemeal and destroy your morale.” - </p> - <p> - “Exactly. My one fear is that I may not reach Wu Chang in time. But”—with - a careless gesture—“that is as it may be. I will tell you now why I - spoke to you. We need you. Our organization is incomplete as yet, - naturally. One matter of the greatest importance is that our spirit be - understood from the first by foreign countries. There is an enormous task—diplomatic - publicity, you might call it—which you, Mr. Doane, are peculiarly - fitted to undertake You know both China and the West. You are a - philosopher of mature judgment. You would work in association with Doctor - Wu Ting Fang at our Shanghai offices. There will be money. Will you - consider this?” - </p> - <p> - “It is a wholly new thought,” Doane replied slowly. “I should have to give - it very serious consideration.” - </p> - <p> - “But you are in sympathy with our aims?” - </p> - <p> - “In a general way, certainly. Even though I may not share your optimism.” - </p> - <p> - “On your return to Shanghai would you be willing to call at once on Doctor - Wu and discuss the matter?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.... Yes, I will do that. I must leave you now. We are nearly at Kiu - Kiang.” - </p> - <p> - Sun, glancing out the window, raised his hand. Doane looked; two small - German cruisers, the kaiser's flag at the taff, were steaming up-stream. - </p> - <p> - “They know,” murmured Sun, with meaning. “I wish to God I could find their - means of information. They <i>all</i> know. From the Japanese in - particular nothing seems to be hidden. Two or three of your American - war-ships are already up there. And the English, naturally, in force.” - </p> - <p> - “They must be on hand to protect the foreign colony at Hankow. The - Szechuen trouble would justify such a move.” - </p> - <p> - But Sun shook his head. “They <i>know</i>,” he repeated. Then he clasped - Doane's hand. “However.... that is a detail. It is now war. You will find - events marching fast—faster, I fear, than we republicans wish. - Good-by now. You will call on Doctor Wu.” - </p> - <p> - The steamer moved slowly in toward the landing hulk. Doane, from the boat - deck, by the after bell pull, gazed across at the park-like foreign bund, - with its embankment of masonry and its trees. Behind lay, compactly, the - walled city. Everything looked as it had always looked—the curious - crowd along the railing, the water carriers passing down and up the steps, - the eager shouting swarm of water beggars. Below, the coolies swung out - from the hulk, ready to make their usual breakneck leap over green water - to the approaching steamer. Now—they were jumping. The passengers - were leaning out from the promenade deck to watch and applaud.... Doane's - thoughts, as he went mechanically through his familiar duties, wandered - off inland, past the battlements and towers of the ancient city to the - thousands of other ancient cities and villages and farmsteads beyond; and - he wondered if the scores of millions of lethargic minds in all those - centers of population could really be awakened from their sleep of six - hundred years and stirred into action. - </p> - <p> - Could a republic, he asked himself, possibly mean anything real to those - minds? The habit of mere endurance, of bare existence, was so deep-seated, - the struggle to live so intense, the opportunity so slight. Sun Shi-pi and - his kind were a semi-Western product. They were, when all was said and - done, an exotic breed. They were the ardent, adventurous young; and they - were the few. There had always been a throne in China, always extortionate - mandarins, always a popular acceptance of conditions. - </p> - <p> - The lines were out now. And suddenly a blue-clad soldier climbed over the - rail, below, balanced along the stern hawser, leaped to the hulk, and was - about to disappear among the coolies there when a rifle-shot cracked and - he fell. He seemed to fall, if anything, slightly before the shot. Another - soldier, following close, was caught by a second shot as he was balancing - on the hawser, and spun headlong into the water where the propeller still - churned. - </p> - <p> - A few moments later, when Doane moved among the passengers, it became - clear that they knew nothing of the casual tragedy astern. They were all - pressing ashore for a walk in the native city, eager to buy the worked - silver that is traditionally sold there. The slim girl in the middy blouse - had apparently captured young Rocky Kane; they strolled off across the - bund together. But Dawley Kane remained aboard, stretched out comfortably - in a deck chair, listening thoughtfully to the stocky little Japanese, one - Kato, who was by now generally known to be his <i>alter ego</i> in the - matter of buying objects of Oriental art. - </p> - <p> - None of these folk knew or cared about China. Excepting this Kato. Him - Doane was continually encountering below decks, chatting smilingly in - Chinese with the good-natured soldiers. His work along the river, - doubtless, ranged over a wider field than his present employer would ever - learn. It would be interesting, now, to know what he was saying, talking - so rapidly and always, of course, smiling.... The rest of this upper-deck - white man's existence Doane dismissed from his mind as he went about his - work. It was all too familiar. Though later he thought of Rocky Kane. The - boy, wild though he might be, had attractive qualities. It was not - pleasant to see that girl get her hands on him. Just one more evil - influence. - </p> - <p> - He thought, at this juncture, of the—the word came—appalling - change in himself. That he, once a fervid missionary, could stand back - like a sophisticated European, and let the wandering and vicious and - broken human creatures about him go their various ways, as might be, was - disturbing, was even saddening. Something apparently had died in him. Sun - had called him a philosopher. The Oriental, of course, even the blazing - revolutionist, admired this passive quality, this fatalistic acceptance of - the fact. He sighed. To be a philosopher was, then, to be emotionally - dead. The church had been taken out of his life, leaving—nothing. A - mate on a river steamer, in China. Life had gone quite topsy-turvey. Even - the amazing courtesy of his excellency—it was that, when you - considered—and this profound compliment from the revolutionary junta - seemed but incidents. Too many promises had smiled at Doane, these years - of his spiritual Odyssey—smiled and faded to nothing—to permit - an easy hope of anything new and beautiful. He was beginning to believe - that a man can not build and live two lives. And he had built and lived - one. - </p> - <p> - Captain Benjamin found him; a dogged little captain with dull fright in - his eyes. “It's happened,” he said, trying desperately to attain an - offhand manner. “Company wire. They're fighting at Wu Chang. What do you - know about that!” - </p> - <p> - Doane was silent. It was extraordinarily difficult, here by this calm old - city, on a sunny afternoon, to believe that it was, as Sun had put it, - war. - </p> - <p> - “We're to tie up,” the captain went on, “until further orders. The foreign - concessions at Hankow were safe enough this noon, but with an artillery - battle just across the river, and an imperial army moving down from the - north over the railway, they stand a lot of show, they do.” - </p> - <p> - “I wonder if they'll send us on.” - </p> - <p> - “What difference will it make?” The captain's voice was rising. “You know - as well as I do that they'll be fighting at Nanking before we could get - back there. Here, too, for that matter. I tell you the whole river'll be - ablaze by to-morrow. This bloody old river! And us on a Manchu-owned boat! - A lot o' chance we stand.” - </p> - <p> - The sight-seers strolled across the shady bund, passed a stone residence - or two and a warehouse, and made their way through the tunneled gateway in - the massive city wall. Little Miss Andrews was escorted by young Mr. - Braker. Miss Means walked with one of the customs men. Two or three others - of the men wandered on ahead. Rocky Kane and the thin girl in the middy - blouse brought up the rear. - </p> - <p> - As they entered the crowded city within the wall a babel of sound assailed - their ears—the beating of drums and gongs, clanging cymbals, a - musket shot or two, fire-crackers; and underlying these, rising even above - them, never slackening, a continuous roar of voices. The teachers paused - in alarm, but the customs man smilingly assured them that in a busy - Chinese city the noise was to be taken for granted. - </p> - <p> - Nearly every shop along the way was open to the street, and at each - opening men swarmed—bargaining, chaffering, quarreling. The only - women to be seen were those in black trousers on a wheelbarrow that pushed - briskly through the crowds, the barrow man shouting musically as he - shuffled along. Beggars wailed from the niches between the buildings. Dogs - snarled and barked—hundreds of dogs, fighting over scraps of offal - among the hundreds of nearly naked children. - </p> - <p> - A mandarin came through in a chair of green lacquer and rich gold - ornament, supercilious, fat, carried by four bearers and followed by - imposing officials who wore robes of black and red and hats with red - plumes. As the street was a scant ten feet in width and the crowds must - flatten against the walls to make way the roar grew louder and higher in - pitch. - </p> - <p> - There were shops with nothing but oils in huge jars of earthenware or in - wicker baskets lined with stout paper. There were tea shops with high - pyramids of the familiar red-and-gold parcels, and other pyramids of the - brick tea that is carried on camel back to Russia. There were the shops of - the idol makers, and others where were displayed the carven animals and - the houses and carts and implements that are burned in ancestor worship, - and the tinsel shoes. There were shops where remarkably large coffins were - piled in square heaps, some of glistening lacquer with the ideograph - characters carven or embossed in new gold. There were varnishers, - lacquerers, tobacconists; open eating houses in which could be seen rows - of pans set into brickwork. There were displays of bean cakes, melon seeds - and curious drugs. - </p> - <p> - Two Manchu soldiers sauntered by, in uniforms of red and faded blue; fans - stuck in their belts and painted paper umbrellas folded in their hands. - One bore a hooded falcon on his wrist. - </p> - <p> - Miss Andrews sniffed the penetrating odor of all China, that was spiced - just here with smells of garlic cooking and frying fish and pork and - strong oil? and—like the perfume of a dainty lady amid the complex - odors of a French theater—an unexpected whiff of burning incense. - She looked up between the high walls, on which hung, close together, the - long elaborate signs of the tradesmen, black and green and red with gold, - always the gold. Across the narrow opening from roof to roof, extended a - bamboo framework over which was drawn coarse yellow matting or blue cotton - cloths; and through these the sunbeams, diffused, glowed in a warm - twilight, with here and there a chance ray slanting down with dazzling - brightness on a golden sign character. - </p> - <p> - “It's all rather terrifying,” murmured Miss Andrews, at Braker's ear, “but - it's beautiful—wonderful! I never dreamed of China being so human - and real.” - </p> - <p> - “And to think,” said he eagerly, “that it has always been like this, and - always will be. It was just so in the days of Abraham and Isaac. The one - people in the world that doesn't change. It's their whole philosophy—passive - non-resistance, peace. And-do you know, I'm beginning to wonder if they - aren't right about it. For here they are, you know. Greece is dead. Rome's - dead. And Assyria, and Egypt. But here they are. It's their philosophy - that's done it, I suppose. Almost be worth while to come out here and live - a while, when our part of the world gets too upset. Just for a sense of - stability—somewhere.” - </p> - <p> - These two young persons, dreaming of stability while the earth prepared to - rock beneath their feet! - </p> - <p> - Rocky Kane and the slim girl had dropped out of sight, lingering at this - shop and that. The party later found them at a silversmith's counter. They - had bought a heap of the silver dragon-boxes and cigarette cases; and then - devised a fresh little idea in gambling, weighing ten Chinese dollars - against other ten in the balanced scales, the heavier lot winning. - </p> - <p> - Young Kane had got through his clothing, somehow, there in the street, to - his money belt, for he held it now carelessly rolled in one hand. He was - flushed, laughing softly. He and the thin girl were getting on. - </p> - <p> - “Come along, you two,” remarked the customs man. “We stop only two hours - here.” - </p> - <p> - The young couple, gathering up their purchases and the heaps of silver - dollars, slowly followed. - </p> - <p> - “That was great!” exclaimed Rocky Kane. The thin girl, he had decided, was - a good fellow. She was always quiet, discreet, attractive. In her - curiously unobtrusive way she seemed to know everything. The face was cold - in appearance. Yet she was distinctly friendly. Made you feel that nothing - you might say could disturb or shock her. He wondered what could be going - on behind those pale quiet eyes, behind the thin lips. The men had - remarked on the fact that she was traveling alone. She was a provocative - person—the curiously youthful costume; the black hair gathered at - the neck and tied, girlishly, with a bow—really an exciting person. - The way she had taken that little scene out on deck with the gorgeous - Chinese girl—Rocky knew nothing of the distinctions between the - Asiatic peoples—who spoke English; quite as a matter of course. - Though she took everything that way. This little gambling, for instance. - She loved it—was quick at it. - </p> - <p> - “I'm wondering about you,” he said, as they wandered along. “Wondering—you - know—why you're traveling this way. Have you got folks up the - river?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no,” she replied—never in his life had he known such - self-control; there wasn't even color in her voice, just that easy quiet - way, that sense of giving out no vitality whatever. “Oh, no. I have some - business at Hankow and Peking.” - </p> - <p> - That was all she said. The subject was closed. And yet, she hadn't minded - his asking. She was still friendly; he felt that. His feelings rose. He - giggled softly. - </p> - <p> - “Lord!” he said, “if only the pater wasn't along!” - </p> - <p> - “Does he hold you down?” - </p> - <p> - “Does he? Brought me out here to discipline me. Trying to make me go back - to college—make a grind of me.... I was just thinking—here's a - nice girl to play with, and plenty of fun around, and not a thing to - drink. He gave me fits at Shanghai because I took a few drinks.” - </p> - <p> - “You have the other stuff,” said she. He turned nervously; stared at her. - But she remained as calmly unresponsive as ever. Merely explained: “I - smelt it, outside your cabin. You ought to be careful—shut your - window tight when you smoke it.” - </p> - <p> - He held his breath a moment; then realized, with an uprush of feeling - warmer than any he had felt before, that he had her sympathy. She would - never tell, never in the world. That big mate might, but she wouldn't. - </p> - <p> - She added this: “I can give you a drink. Wait until things settle down on - the boat and come to my cabin—number four. Just be sure there's no - one in the corridor. And don't knock. The door will be ajar. Step right - in. Do you like saké?” - </p> - <p> - “Do I—say, you're great! You're wonderful. I never knew a girl like - you!” - </p> - <p> - She took this little outbreak, as she had taken all his others, without - even a smile. It was, he felt, as if they had always known each other. - They understood—perfectly. - </p> - <p> - If he had been told, then, that this girl had been during two or three - vivid years one of the most conspicuous underworld characters along the - coast—that coast where the underworld was still, at the time of our - narrative, openly part of what small white world there was out here—a - gambler and blackmailer of what would very nearly have to be called - attainment—he would have found belief impossible, would have - defended her with the blind impulsiveness of youth. - </p> - <p> - It was said that the steamer would not proceed at the scheduled hour, - might be delayed until night. Disgruntled white passengers settled down, - in berth and deck chair, to make the best of it. There was, it came - vaguely to light, a little trouble up the river, an outbreak of some sort. - </p> - <p> - Rocky Kane, a flush below his temples, slipped stealthily along the - corridor. At number four he paused; glanced nervously about; then, - grinning, pushed open the door and softly closed it behind him. - </p> - <p> - The strange thin Miss Carmichael was combing out her black hair. With a - confused little laugh he extended his arms. But she shook her head. - </p> - <p> - “Sit down and be sensible,” she said. “Here's the saké.” - </p> - <p> - She produced a bottle and poured a small drink into a large glass. He - gulped it down. - </p> - <p> - “Aren't you drinking with me?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “I never take anything.” - </p> - <p> - “You're a funny girl. How'd you come to have this?” - </p> - <p> - “It was given to me. You'd better slip along. I can't ask you to stay.” - </p> - <p> - “But when am I going to see you, for a good visit?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, there'll be chances enough. Here we are.” - </p> - <p> - “That's so. Looks as if we'd stay here a while, too. There's a battle on, - you know, up at Wu Chang and Hankow. Big row. We get all the news from - Kato. He's that Japanese that father has with him. The revolutionists have - captured Wu Chang, and are getting ready to cross over. The imperial - army's being rushed down to defend Hankow. Regular doings. Shells were - falling in the foreign concessions this morning. Kato's got all the news - there is. It's a question whether we'll go on at all. You see the Manchus - own this boat, and the republicans would certainly get after us. There are - enough foreign warships up there to protect us, of course.... How about - another drink?” - </p> - <p> - “Better not. Your father will notice it.” - </p> - <p> - “He won't know where I got it.” Rocky chuckled. He felt himself an - adventurous and quite manly old devil—here in the mysterious girl's - cabin, watching her as she smoothed and tied her flowing hair, and sipping - the potent liquor from Japan. “It's funny nothing seems to surprise you. - Did you know they were fighting up there?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “Wouldn't you be a little frightened if we were to steam right into a - battle?” - </p> - <p> - “I shouldn't enjoy it particularly.” - </p> - <p> - “Aren't you even interested? Is there anything you're interested in?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly—I have my interests. You must go—really.... No, be - quiet! Some one will hear! We can visit to-night—out on deck.” - </p> - <p> - “But you're—I don't understand! Here we are—like this—and - you shoo me out. I don't even know your first name.” - </p> - <p> - “My name is Dixie—but I don't want you to call me that.” - </p> - <p> - “Why not? We're friends, aren't we—” - </p> - <p> - “Of course, but they'd hear you.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” - </p> - <p> - “Wait—I'll look before you go.... It's all clear now.” - </p> - <p> - They visited long after dinner. He was brimming with later advices from - the center of trouble up the river. Mostly she listened, studying him with - a mind that was keener and quicker and shrewder in its sordid wisdom than - he would perhaps ever understand. - </p> - <p> - Everything that Kato had told his father and himself he passed eagerly on - to her. He was a man indeed now; making an enormous impression; possessor - of inside information of a vital sort—the viceroy's priceless - collection of jewels, jades, porcelains and historic paintings, which Kato - was advising his father to pick up for a song while red revolution raged - about the old Manchu, the dramatic plans of the republicans, their emblems - and a pass-word (Kato knew everything)—“Shui-li”—“union is - strength”; the small meeting below decks ending in the death of two - soldiers. He dramatized this last as he related it. - </p> - <p> - The girl, lying still in her chair, listened as if but casually - interested, while her mind gathered and related to one another the - probable facts beneath his words. She was considering his dominant quality - of ungoverned hot-blooded youth. Of discretion he clearly enough had none; - which fact, viewed from her standpoint, was both important and dangerous. - For the information he so volubly conveyed she had immediate use. That was - settled, however cloudy the details. But this further question as to the - advisability of holding the boy personally to herself she was still - weighing. Two courses of action lay before her, each leading to a possible - rich prize. If the two could be combined, well and good; she would pursue - both. But it was not easy to sense out a possible combination. The obvious - first thought was to go whole-heartedly after the larger of the prizes and - as whole-heartedly forget the other. As usual in all such choices, - however, the lesser prize was the easier to secure. Perhaps, even, by - working—the word “working” was her own—with great rapidity she - might make—again her word—a killing with this wild youth in - time to discard him and pursue the still richer prize. - </p> - <p> - Because he was, at least, the bird in hand, she submitted passively when - his fingers found hers under the steamer rug. Twilight was thickening into - night now on the river. And they were in a dim corner. He was, she saw, at - the point of almost utter disorganization. He was sensitive, emotional, - quite spoiled. It was almost too easy to do what she might choose with - him. It would be amusing to tantalize him, if there were time; watch him - struggle in the net of his own nervously unripe emotions, perhaps shake - him down (we are yet again dropping into her phraseology) without the - surrender of a <i>quid pro quo</i>. That would please her sense of cool - sharp power. But he might in that event, like the young naval officer down - at Hong Kong, shoot himself; which wouldn't do. No, nothing in that! - </p> - <p> - This other larger matter, now, was a problem indeed; really, as yet, only - a haze in her sensitive, strangely gifted mind. It put to the test at once - her imagination, her instinct for dangerous enterprise, her skill at - organizing the sluggish minds of others. It would mean dangerous and - intense activity. - </p> - <p> - She asked, in a careless manner, where the viceroy kept his treasures; and - fixed in her mind the place he named—Huang Chau. - </p> - <p> - The fool was squeezing her fingers now; unquestionably building in his - ungoverned brain an extravagant image of herself; an image wrapped in - veils of somewhat tarnished but certainly boyish innocence, - sentimentalized, curiously less interesting than the complicated - wickedness and intrigue of actual human life as it presented itself to - her. - </p> - <p> - When he tried to kiss her she left him. But lingered to listen to his - proposal that she should follow him to his own cabin; smiled enigmatically - in the dusk beneath the deck light; humming lightly, pleasingly, she moved - away; turned to watch him bolting for his room. - </p> - <p> - She strolled around the deck then. Apparently none other was sitting out. - The teachers and the young men were spending the evening, she knew, with - Dawley Kane at the consulate. Rocky had got out of that. Tex Connor was in - his cabin; reading, doubtless, with his one good eye. For rough as he - might be, this gambler and promoter of boxing and wrestling reveled - secretly in love stories. He read them by the hundred, the old-fashioned - paper-covered romances and tales of adventure. A pretty able man. Tex; - useful in certain sorts of undertakings; certainly useful now; but with - that curious romantic strain—a weakness, she felt. And a difficult - man, strong, arrogant, leaning on crude power and threats where she leaned - on delicately adjusted intrigue. Had Tex known better how to cover his - various trails he would be in New York or London now, not out here on the - coast picking up small change. Approaching him would be a bit of a - problem; for a year or so their ways, hers and his, had lain far apart. It - was not known, here on the boat, that they were so much as casually - acquainted. They bowed at the dining table; nothing more. - </p> - <p> - The Manila Kid was in the social hall, rummaging through the shelf of - battered and scratched records above the taking machine. A quaint spirit, - the Kid; weak, oddly useless, gloomily devoted to music of a simple sort, - quite without enterprise. But.... by this time the delicate steel - machinery of her mind was functioning clearly.... he would serve now, if - only as a means of solving that first little problem of interesting Tex. - </p> - <p> - She paused in the doorway; caught his furtive eye, and with a slight - beckoning movement of her head, moved back into the comparative darkness. - Slowly—thick-headedly of course—he came out. - </p> - <p> - “Jim,” she said, “I'm wondering if you and Tex wouldn't like to pick up a - little money.” - </p> - <p> - “What do you think we are?” he replied in a guarded sulky voice. “Tex - dropped three thousand at that fight. There's no talking to him. He's - rough—that's what he is.” - </p> - <p> - “Jim—” she considered the man before her deliberately; his lank - spineless figure, his characterless, hatchet face: “Jim, send Tex to me.” - </p> - <p> - “Why should I, Dix? Answer me that.” - </p> - <p> - “Don't act up, Jim. I've never handed you anything that wasn't more than - coming to you. I know all about you, Jim. Everything! I'm not talking—but - I know. This is a big proposition I've got in mind, and you'll get your - share, if you come in and stick with me? How about half a million in - jewels?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know's Tex would care to go in for anything like that. If it's a - yegg job—” - </p> - <p> - “I'm not a yegg,” she replied crisply. “Ask Tex to slip around here. I - don't want to talk on that side of the deck.” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose you wouldn't like young Kane to know what you are—er?” - </p> - <p> - “That sort of talk won't get you anywhere, Jim.” - </p> - <p> - “Well—I've got eyes, you know.” - </p> - <p> - “Better learn how to use them. You hurry around to Tex's cabin. We may - have to move quickly.” Sulkily the Kid went; and shortly returned. - </p> - <p> - “Well”—this after a silence—“what did he say? Is he coming?” - </p> - <p> - “He wants you to go around there—to his stateroom.” - </p> - <p> - “I won't do that. He's got to come here.” - </p> - <p> - This decision lightened somewhat the gloom on the Kid's saturnine - countenance. He went again, more briskly. - </p> - <p> - The girl slipped into her own cabin and consulted a folding map of China - she had there. Huang Chau—she measured roughly from the scale with - her thumb—would be seventy or eighty miles up-stream from Kiu Kiang - here, perhaps thirty-five down-stream from Hankow. - </p> - <p> - Tex was chewing a cigar by the rail. At her step his round impassive face - turned toward her. - </p> - <p> - She said, “Hello, Tex!” - </p> - <p> - He replied, his one eye fixed on her: “Well, what is this job?” - </p> - <p> - “Listen, Tex—are you game for a big one?” - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” - </p> - <p> - “The revolution's broken out at Hankow—or across at Wu Chang—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I know!” - </p> - <p> - “There's going to be another big battle near Hankow. The republicans are - moving over. Sure to be a mix-up.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes!” - </p> - <p> - “There'll be loot—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, that!” - </p> - <p> - “Wait! I know where there's a collection of jewels—diamonds, pearls, - rubies, emeralds—all kinds.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you know how to get it?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. It's a big thing. We'd be selling stones for years in America and - Europe, Will you go in with me, fifty-fifty?” - </p> - <p> - “What's the risk?” - </p> - <p> - “Not much—with things so confused. Looks to me like one of those - chances that just happens once in a hundred years. Take some imagination - and nerve.” - </p> - <p> - “Where is this stuff?” - </p> - <p> - “I'll tell you when we get there. You'll have to trust me about that. I've - never lied to you, and you have lied to me.” - </p> - <p> - “But—” - </p> - <p> - “Listen! Here's the idea. There's a lot of nervous soldiers on this boat - that wouldn't mind a little loot on their own. Here's your boxer—what's - his name?” - </p> - <p> - “Tom Sung.” Connor's eye never left her face; and she, on her part, never - flinched. - </p> - <p> - “To those soldiers he's the biggest man on earth. <i>He</i> wouldn't mind - a little clean-up either. Oh, there's enough, Tex—plenty! You see - what I'm getting at. With your Tom for a leader you can pick up a few of - those soldiers, enough to get away clean—” - </p> - <p> - “But they're shooting 'em!” - </p> - <p> - “They shot two. They'd have trouble shooting forty. Make Tom do the work—right - now, to-night, while we're lying up here. They'll follow him; and you - won't have to stand back of him if he's caught. He'll just be one of the - rebels then. Get this right, Tex! It's a real chance. You'll never get - another like it. With the soldiers we can get a launch—hire it, - even, if you want to play safe—and go right up there and get the - stuff. Nobody'll ever know it wasn't just a case of soldiers on the - loose.” - </p> - <p> - “How're you going to get away? They'd know we weren't here, wouldn't - they?” - </p> - <p> - “Don't try to tell me we couldn't slip out of China, if we had to. This - isn't England or America. I don't believe we'd even have to. Just a case - of playing it right—using your head.” - </p> - <p> - “Where is this place?” - </p> - <p> - “It's there, and I'll take you to it.” - </p> - <p> - “You'll have to tell me.” - </p> - <p> - Quietly she moved her head in the negative. He would hardly know that the - viceroy was not going on through to Hankow and Peking; she had the - information herself only from Rocky Kane. Nor would he know, by any - chance, the situation of his excellency's ancestral home. For Tex was not - what they termed a “sinologue”; he knew white men and women and yellow - servants, the steamers and railways, the gambling clubs and race tracks; - little else. There was then, little reason why he should think of the - viceroy at all. - </p> - <p> - “It's anything from a million or two up, Tex,” she said coolly. “And my - information comes straight. I'll prove it by taking the chance with you.” - </p> - <p> - He shook his head; half turned. “Where is it?” She smiled. - </p> - <p> - He left her abruptly then. And coolly she watched him go. It would take a - little time for Tex's imagination to rise to it; and until the last moment - he would try to bluff her down. It was just poker; they had played that - game before, she and Tex. Once he had robbed her. But not this time—not, - as she phrased it, if she saw him first. - </p> - <p> - The Kid came edging out of the social hall. “Will he do it?” he whispered - hoarsely. - </p> - <p> - “He says he won't,” replied Dixie. - </p> - <p> - “Say—that's tough! I didn't think Tex would overlook a thing like - that. What's the matter?” Dixie now considered this curiously useless man. - Or useless he had always seemed to her. Now she was not so sure. “He makes - it a condition that I tell him where the stuff is.” - </p> - <p> - “Well—Dix, you'd tell him that, wouldn't you?” The Kid was whining. - “If you really knew yourself.” - </p> - <p> - “Of course I won't tell him, Jim. Not yet.” - </p> - <p> - His eyes sank before hers. He fumbled in a pocket; produced a tiny wrist - watch of platinum. “Look here. Dix,” he remarked clumsily, “things ain't - always been's pleasant as they might be between you and I, but I was - wondering if you wouldn't put this on, for old times' sake, like.” - </p> - <p> - She took the gift, weighed in in her hand. “Thank you, Jim,” she replied. - “That's awfully nice of you. Though perhaps I'd better not wear it here on - the boat.” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose young Kane might ask questions, eh?” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing like that. I'll wear it. Here—you snap the catch, Jim.” - </p> - <p> - “I—I might wish it on, Dix, like the kids do.” - </p> - <p> - “All right. Have you wished?” - </p> - <p> - “Sure, Say, Dix, you won't mind the little place where the initials got - scratched off inside the back cover. Nobody'll see that.” - </p> - <p> - “Surely not,” said Dixie. - </p> - <p> - At a little after midnight Griggsby Doane mounted to the boat deck and - walked quietly aft past the funnels and the engine room ventilators. A - half moon threw shadows along the bund and among the landing hulks and the - moored silent sampans, lorchas, junks. The mile-wide river shimmered in a - million ripples. - </p> - <p> - A slight figure rose from a skylight. - </p> - <p> - Hui Fei wore the black jacket and trousers of the lower class Chinese - women below decks. Her head was uncovered, and her hair waved prettily - down across the wide forehead. She should have oiled it flat, of course, - to complete her disguise; this careless arrangement was charming in the - moonlight but was neither Manchu nor Chinese. - </p> - <p> - Doane found himself holding her small hand and looking gravely down at - her. He even slowly shook his head. “You must tell me quickly what you - have to say, Miss Hui. As soon as possible you must go back. This is very - unsafe.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes,” she said. “It will not be long. It is ver' har' to say. But I - am so alone. There is no one to tell me what I mus' do.” - </p> - <p> - She plunged bravely into her story. Her information had come from one or - another of her maids. And she had overheard gossip among the mandarins. - The throne had sent her father the silken cord. She could not discover - why. To be sure they called him a secondary devil, meaning one who - sympathised with the foreigners. The reactionary Manchus at Peking, - reveling and plotting within the sacred walls of the Forbidden City, - remembered nothing, it appeared, of the recent past. The eunuchs, always - the stormy petrels of China's darkest days, were again in power at the - palace; the great empress dowager, she whom all China termed, - half-affectionately, “the Old Buddha,” had given them their head, and now - this new young empress with all the arrogance of the Old Buddha and none - of her genius for power or her profound experience, was running wild. And - as a consequence, Kang Yu, the statesman who more than any other was - equipped to counsel her wisely during this stormy time, was returning to - the home of his ancestors to die by his own hand. It would be said at the - Forbidden City that a gracious empress dowager had “permitted” him to - go.... Doane's disturbed thoughts darted back over the bloodstained recent - history of Manchu officialdom. The Old Buddha had “permitted” Ch'i Ying, - late Manchu Viceroy of Canton, to slay himself; and had graciously - extended the same privilege to others after the Boxer trouble of the year - 1900, among them an acquaintance of Doane's, Chao Shu-ch'iao. Others she - had decapitated—Yuan Ch'ang, Li Shan, Controller of the Household, - and Hsu Ching, President of the Board of War. She killed, too, Hsu - Ching-Ch'eng, who, like Kang, had held the post of minister in more than - one of the capitals of Europe. The only known charge against this Hsu was - that he had come to admire foreign customs. - </p> - <p> - In her narrative the girl spoke only English. Her voice was deep in - quality, without heaviness; musical, like most voices among the - better-to-do in the Middle Kingdom, Chinese and Manchu alike. And, colored - now with deep emotion, it had an appealing quality to which Doane found a - response—difficult, at the moment, to repress—among his own - emotions. He sensed, too, with a pleasure that was, in his lonely life, - stirring, the naiveté of her Western feeling. Standing here in simple - native costume, in the heart of old China, gazing wistfully out over the - tangled hundreds of sleeping junks and sampans, this girl, freshly out of - a Massachusetts college, was pleading against hope that her father might - be spared the final jealous vengeance of the mightiest remaining Oriental - throne. - </p> - <p> - The China that Doane had so long known, that had, indeed, for better or - worse, been woven into the fiber of his being, was turning suddenly - incredible. He stared, more intently than he knew, straight down at the - slim little figure—for beside his own huge frame this tall girl - appeared as hardly more than a child—at the unadorned face that was - softly girlish, at the Mack hair waving down over the pale forehead, - glistening in the moonlight. - </p> - <p> - “They mean to confisca'”—she left off, in her eagerness to explain, - the final <i>te</i>—“all his property. Tell me, Mister Duane, can - they do that—all his property?” - </p> - <p> - He reflected. There would be vast areas of tea-lands and rice lands, - almost innumerable shares in these new corporations, the famous - collections of jades, paintings, carvings and jewels. Finally he inclined - his head. - </p> - <p> - “I'm afraid they could. It would be an outrageous act, but the government - now, I'm sorry to say, is in outrageous hands. If the empress is - determined, as apparently she is, there are ways enough of getting at all - his possessions. Even through the banks.” His heart was full, his voice - tender; but he could not deceive her. He added a question: “Does his - excellency, your father, know all this?” - </p> - <p> - She nodded. “I have tol' him. But I can no' make him see it like me. Oh, - we are so differen'. I am, you see, an American girl. I am free here,” she - laid a pretty hand on her breast. “When I try to think of all these - dreadful things—of these wicked eunuchs an' the empress who is like - thousan' of years ago—blin', childish!—an' the people who can - no' yet see it differen'—I get bewilder'. You un'erstan'. You are an - American, too. I can speak with you. That is well, because there isn' - anybody else I can speak with. An' my father admires you. If you will only - speak with him—if you will only help me make him think differen'!” - </p> - <p> - Doane wondered what he could do, what she imagined he could do, without - influence or money. He quite forgot, in this matter of influence alone, - the significance of the viceroy's courtesy, as of Sun Shi-pi's appeal to - him. For a little too long he had been a beaten man. It was becoming - dangerously near a habit so to consider himself. And now, to make active - clear thinking impossible, emotion flooded his brain. Gently he asked her - what she would have him do. - </p> - <p> - “My father will no' listen when I speak, He is ver' kind, ver' generous. - He has made me an American girl. That is one of the things they say is - wrong. Even for tha' they attack his good name. But when I ask Him no' to - do this, no' to die so wrongly, he speaks to me like an ol' Manchu of long - ago.” - </p> - <p> - “He is between the worlds,” mused Doane, aloud. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it is that. An' I, perhaps, am between the worl's.” - </p> - <p> - “And I.” - </p> - <p> - “But he mus' no' do it! It is so simple! The throne will no' live. Not one - year more. I know that. They are fighting now at Wu Chang.” - </p> - <p> - Doane inclined his head. “I know that, Miss Hui, but the revolution has - not yet gone so far that success is sure.” - </p> - <p> - “But it is sure. The people will everywhere rise. I know it—here!” - </p> - <p> - “That is my hope, too. But to stir this great land means so much in effort - and education. You have changed, yes. Your father has changed. Sun Yat Sen - was educated in a medical school and has lived in America and England; he - has changed. But all China—I do not want to dash your hopes, dear - Miss Hui, but I fear China is not nearly so far along as you and I would - wish.” - </p> - <p> - “Then—even so—mus' my father die because a wicked empress has - no brains? It is no' right. Listen, please! If you, Mis'er Doane, would - jus' try to persua' my father! He will listen to you. Oh, if you woul' - stay with us, an' help us. We coul' take some money, some jewels, an' - escape down the river—to Shanghai—to Japan, or even America. - My father mus' no' die like this. There will be a few servan's we can - trus'. You speak to my father, sir, an' he will listen. I know that. He - says you have the mind of the ol' philosopher—of Lao-tze himself. He - said that. An' you have the Western strength that he admires. An' he says - you un'erstan' China. Oh, will you speak to him?” - </p> - <p> - Doane stared out into the luminous night. This response in his breast to - her eager youth frightened him now. He had felt of late that life mattered - little; certainly not his own. But youth, and hope, and faith—they - mattered. - </p> - <p> - He took her small hand in his own. His heart was beating high. It was - going to be hard now, to control his voice. He was, then, after all the - years, the struggles, the beatings, incurably romantic.... - </p> - <p> - Stirred yet by the vibrant pulse of youth that in some men and women never - dies. He himself had thought this negative spirit of the past few years a - philosophy, but apparently, it was nothing of the sort. Or where was it - now? For he was suddenly all nervously alive, a man of vigor and pride, a - man of urgent emotional need.... - </p> - <p> - “I will try,” he said. - </p> - <p> - She clung to his hand. “I have your promise?” - </p> - <p> - He bowed. “I must think. I should not like to fail. There will be time. He - will”—it was hard to phrase this—“he will wait, surely, until - he is at home. But you must not stay longer here. And we must not meet - again like this. I will try my best to help you.” - </p> - <p> - It seemed a pitifully inadequate speech. But the wild impulse was upon him - to clasp her lovely person in his arms—claim her, fight for her, - live again a man's life through and for her. It was, he deliberately - thought, almost insane in him. A man with nothing to offer, not even the - great hope of youth, struggling against an emotion, a hunger, that it was - grotesque to indulge. He compressed his lips tightly. - </p> - <p> - She seemed breathless. For a moment she pressed her hands to her cheeks - and eyes; then waved to him and went lightly down the ladder. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER V—RESURGENCE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE upper-deck - passengers awoke in the morning to find the engines still at rest, and the - now familiar View of Kiu Kiang still to be seen from port-side windows; - the <i>Yen Hsin</i> had merely been moved a hundred yards or so below the - landing hulk and anchored. There was grumbling about the breakfast table. - The captain did not appear. The huge mate was preoccupied; explaining with - grave courtesy that he had no further news. He assumed that orders to - proceed to Hankow would be forthcoming during the day. It was understood - now that the republican troops were everywhere protecting white folk, and, - in any event, the foreign concessions up the river were well guarded by - the war-ships. - </p> - <p> - The outstanding fact was that they were to spend at least another night on - the river. The sensible thing to do, or so decided the younger men, was to - have a dance. Accordingly, before tiffin, committees were hard at work - planning decorations for the social hall. Miss Means proved a fertile - source of entertaining ideas. And it was agreed, during the day, that Miss - Andrews had a pretty taste at hanging flags. - </p> - <p> - The Chinese day begins with the light. And little Mr. Kato, sitting - smilingly through breakfast, had already passed hours among his - below-decks acquaintance. After breakfast he sat outside with the Kanes, - senior and junior, talking rapidly. There Miss Carmichael observed them; - later, when Rocky stood by the rail throwing brass cash down into the - crowding, nosing sampans of the water beggars, she strolled his way—looking - incredibly young—carrying a book from the boat's library, a thin - finger between the pages as a mark. She smiled at the quarreling beggars - below. But he, at sight of her, grew sulky. - </p> - <p> - “You didn't come last night,” he said, very low, his voice thick with - suddenly rising feeling. - </p> - <p> - “No, I couldn't. You can't always plan things.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you said—” - </p> - <p> - “Rocky, please! You mustn't talk like that. We can be seen.” - </p> - <p> - “Well—” he closed his lips. It was the first time she had called him - by his name. That seemed something. And she was right; they must keep up - appearances. He felt that she was extremely clever; living her own life as - a business woman, away out here, doing as she chose, like a man, never - losing her head for a moment. Well, he would show her that he could be a - sport. - </p> - <p> - “Kato picked up some queer news this morning, prowling around. There's a - mutiny brewing below decks. He hasn't got all the facts, yet. He's down - there now. It's the viceroy's soldiers. First thing we know they'll be - blowing up the boat.” He was gloomy about it; boyishly turning his heavy - burden of self-pity and reproach into the new channel. - </p> - <p> - “Well,” said she, “we'll all have to take our chances, I suppose,” and - moved away a step, pausing and balancing gracefully on the balls of her - feet and smiling at him. - </p> - <p> - “Wait,” he muttered—“don't go!” - </p> - <p> - “It's better. No good in our being seen too much together—” - </p> - <p> - “Too much?” - </p> - <p> - “I'll save you some dances to-night.” - </p> - <p> - “A lot! All of them!” - </p> - <p> - She smiled again at this outburst; said, “We can visit afterward, anyhow,” - and moved away. - </p> - <p> - On the other side of the deck she found the Manila Kid leaning in a - doorway, moodily chewing a match. His listless eyes at once sought her - wrist. - </p> - <p> - “You're not wearing it,” he muttered. - </p> - <p> - “You know why, Jim.” - </p> - <p> - “Sure! Young Kane.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Jim, where are your brains? Don't try to tell me that Tex hasn't seen - that watch.... Well, do you want him to know there's something between us—just - now—” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know's I—” - </p> - <p> - Her pale cool eyes swept the deck. Then she leaned beside him; opened her - book, then looked out over it at the shipping and the dimpling river - beyond; smiled in her easy way. “Jim, why didn't you tell me that Tex has - started this thing without me?” - </p> - <p> - “I've been watching for a chance to.” - </p> - <p> - She considered this. He went on: - </p> - <p> - “Look here, Dixie, this is big stuff!” - </p> - <p> - “Of course.” - </p> - <p> - “I've been trying to figure out how we stand. I didn't quite get you last - night. Tex and his boy Tom have got a bunch of the soldiers now. But - they're moving careful because there's another show been started. One of - the regular revolutionary crowd is below there stirring 'em up. Some of - 'em are full of this republic idea, want to die for it and all that stuff, - and Tex has to move cautious to buy 'em off. Say, what does he want so - many for?” - </p> - <p> - “The more the better.” - </p> - <p> - “But how're you going to pay 'em?” - </p> - <p> - “Let them loot.” - </p> - <p> - “But Tex—and Tom—are promising them part of the real stuff, - jewels.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you'd probably have to promise. But when they get into it, with - plenty of loot and liquor and women, it'll be easy enough to get away from - them.” - </p> - <p> - “But how're you going to keep 'em in hand before that? Do you know what - some of 'em are whispering around now? They want to carve up the boat. - Come right up here and go through the viceroy's outfit.” - </p> - <p> - “But he hasn't much stuff here, Jim. We've got bigger game than that.” - </p> - <p> - “I know—and anyway it'd bring a gunboat down on us. That's what Tex - is trying to make Tom see. Tom's in Tex's room now. But my God, Dixie, - when I think of what you've started in that offhand way o' yours....” - </p> - <p> - “Tex'll hold them down, Jim. That's one good thing about him, he's not - weak. You're nervous. Better go in and help the teachers hang flags. - That'll soothe you. You and I mustn't talk any more either. If there's any - news for me, better send me a chit by a boy.” - </p> - <p> - The Kid looked mournfully at her. He was a grotesque, this Jim Watson, - tall, angular, thin bony face under the tipped-back cap, bald salients - running up into his hair on either side the plastered-down front locks. - And as he gazed on this wisp of a girl who had slipped mysteriously in - among the adroit swindlers and adventuresses of the coast but a few brief - years back and had from the very beginning cleverly made her way, his - disorganized spirit yearned toward her. She had brains, and used them. She - knew how to be nice to a fellow, and the Kid hungered for sympathy. And - she was piquantly desirable: in part because men sought her without - success. Except perhaps that young naval officer at Hong Kong, the name of - no man had been seriously linked with hers; and the fact that he was an - eldest son of one of the richest and greatest families in England in a - measure removed the incident beyond the confines of normal human - experience. No, the Kid could hardly feel that he ought to resent that. He - knew, as he so moodily surveyed her, that her sympathy—the word was - his own—could be bought only at a high price. The price, indeed, - frightened him. He couldn't think along with Dixie and Tex. Nor could he - easily conceive of opposing Tex, for the man was strong and merciless. - Still.... - </p> - <p> - “See here, Dixie, if I wasn't so fool crazy over you, do you think for a - minute I'd let you drag me into this kind of a mix-up? Why, my God!—when - I got to thinking about it last night—the risks you're running—” - </p> - <p> - “It's big stakes, Jim. You can't expect a million to fall into your lap. - Got to play for it. Tell me—does this Tom Sung understand English?” - </p> - <p> - “Of course! He was a farm laborer in California, and a cook in the United - States Navy. Why?” - </p> - <p> - “I may have to talk to him myself before we get through with it.” - </p> - <p> - “Of course you know Tex means to rob you?” - </p> - <p> - “Of course,” said she, smiling a little for the benefit of a customs man - who appeared up forward. “You run along now, Jim. This is no game for weak - nerves. Remember, I need you.” - </p> - <p> - “Well—just this—” - </p> - <p> - “Careful!” - </p> - <p> - “—You listen, now! You won't find me getting-cold feet—” - </p> - <p> - “I'm sure of that.” - </p> - <p> - “And I ain't afraid o' Tex Connor, either! If you mean that I've got to go - up against him—Well, say, look here! If I go through—if I do - everything you say—how're we going to stand, you and me?” - </p> - <p> - “I let you give me the watch, didn't I?” - </p> - <p> - “Well—that's all right—but I asked you once to go to the - Islands with me, and you wouldn't.” - </p> - <p> - “Not over there. I know too many people.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, somewhere else, then! Tell me straight, now! If we pull this off—shake - down a real pile—will you go with me?” - </p> - <p> - She looked thoughtfully at him for a brief moment; then turned again to - the river. “You know I'm fond of you, Jim.” - </p> - <p> - “It's a trade, Dixie? If I stick to you, you'll stick to me?” - </p> - <p> - She considered this; finally, very quietly, barely parting her lips, - replied, simply: “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - He drew in his breath with a whistling sound. - </p> - <p> - She added, then: “Careful, Jim! I know how you feel, but don't let - yourself talk.” - </p> - <p> - “I know, Dix, but my God! When I think of how you've kept me dancing this - year—and now—” - </p> - <p> - “I'll say this, Jim. Just this. If you knew everything about Tex Connor—” - </p> - <p> - “You mean, he's tried to—” - </p> - <p> - “I mean certain things he's said to me. If you're as fond of me as that - you'd understand why I've felt, once or twice, like killing him. That man - is a devil, Jim.” - </p> - <p> - Then she slipped away. - </p> - <p> - Miss Carmichael sat deliberately through tiffin; discreetly quiet, as - always; apparently without nerves. The Kid ate rapidly, speaking not a - word, seldom looking up from his plate. Tex Connor was calmly wooden, as - always, though at intervals Miss Carmichael felt his eye on her as she - daintily nibbled her curry. - </p> - <p> - After tiffin she was stretched comfortably in her deck chair, reading, or - seeming to, when Connor appeared, strolling along the deck, hands deep in - pockets, chewing the inevitable Manila cigar. He wore a neat cap, and his - large person was clothed in an outing suit of gray flannel. On his feet - were shoes of whitened leather with rubber soles. To any but a shrewd - student of physiognomy he might have passed for a prosperous American - business man or politician, of the bluff western sort. - </p> - <p> - He paused at her careless nod; bent his face around and stared coldly at - her. Nothing of the real man showed; even his rough vulgarity was - concealed behind the mask and the manner. He ought to have a woman to tell - him, she thought, that he was altogether too stout to wear a Norfolk - jacket. - </p> - <p> - “Sit down?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - He dropped into the chair beside her. - </p> - <p> - “Looks as if we'd be hung up here till night anyhow,” he said gruffly. - “All foolishness, too. It's safe enough between here and Hankow. The - Jardine boat came down this morning. And we land at the concessions—don't - have to go clear up to the city.” He drummed on the chair; shifted his - cigar. “I can't hang around here. Got to get up to Peking before they - close off the railroad.” - </p> - <p> - She listened quietly to this little tirade; then remarked: “Thought over - my proposition, Tex?” - </p> - <p> - “What proposition?.... Oh, that scheme? Sure, I've thought it over. - Nothing in it, Dix.” - </p> - <p> - “Why not?” - </p> - <p> - “Too complicated. Did you ever see a lot of soldiers on the loose—their - killing blood up? You could never handle 'em in the world.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, of course,” said she, “if you tried any coarse work. But I wouldn't - pin that on you, Tex.” - </p> - <p> - “It's easy to talk.” Connor's voice rose slightly; he noted the fact - himself; paused and spoke with greater deliberation. “But I wouldn't - tackle a gamelike that. It ain't practical. Anyhow, Dix, I wouldn't go it - blind. I'd have to know where I was going every minute. If you wanted to - talk real business, it might be different. I might see a way to start - something. But even at that”—he got heavily to his feet...."No, - thing for me's to stick to my own line.” - </p> - <p> - He was moving slowly away when her slow light voice brought him up short. - “Tex,” she said, “I see you're just a cheap liar, after all.” - </p> - <p> - Then she watched the color sweep over his face. It was something to stir - that wooden countenance with genuine emotion. She even found a perverse - thrill in the experience. - </p> - <p> - He stood motionless for a long moment. Finally he said, none too steadily: - “You know what would happen to a man that said that to me.” - </p> - <p> - “What would you do? Shoot?.... Where would that get you? No, Tex, listen! - Sit down here.” - </p> - <p> - But he stood over her. - </p> - <p> - “I know everything you're doing.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh—you do?” - </p> - <p> - “You're crossing me. But you can't get away with it. You know where you - are—in China! And you're tampering with the troops of the viceroy of - Nanking. My God, Tex, haven't you <i>any</i> brains? Did you really think - I'd show my hand?” - </p> - <p> - He chewed the cigar in silence, staring down. - </p> - <p> - “I'll give you your choice,” she went on. “You can work with me. - fifty-fifty, or I'll have Tom Sung beheaded. And then you'll be out a meal - ticket. And all your expenses with Tom up to now. And the three thousand - you lost to the Kanes.” - </p> - <p> - “You don't know what you're talking about! I haven't even seen Tom Sung in - twenty-four hours.” - </p> - <p> - “That's another lie. He was in your room this morning.” - </p> - <p> - “How do you know that? Say, if Jim Watson's been talking....” - </p> - <p> - “He hasn't, Tex. I've got my information—and there's a lot of if—from - Kato the Japanese. Go and talk to him, if you like. Or to your friends the - Kanes.” - </p> - <p> - Connor, the color gone from his face now, looked steadily down at her. - Slowly he drew from an inner pocket a gold-mounted case of alligator skin - and selected a fresh cigar, lighting it on the stump of the old one. - Finally he said: - </p> - <p> - “Dix, I'm taking some rough talk from you. But never mind—now. You - say you know where the stuff is, but you won't tell me.” - </p> - <p> - “Not now. I'll keep that information to trade with, Tex.” - </p> - <p> - “Well and good. I'll tell you that you can't get it without a little help - from me. And you're not going to get it. Tell me where it is, and I'll put - it through and split with you. It'll have to be pretty quick, too. If you - won't, you don't get your loot. And you give up my boy Tom—” - </p> - <p> - “What'll you do, Tex?” She was faintly smiling. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I won't shoot you. I'll protect myself better'n that. But I'll run - you off the coast. You'll have turned your last card out here.” - </p> - <p> - To this she said simply nothing. For a moment her two eyes met his one - full. Then he strolled away. And the day passed. - </p> - <p> - Doane stood by the rail in the dusk of early evening looking in through - the open doorway. The social hall was gay with flags, the dragon of China - hung flat over the talking machine with the American and British colors - draped on either hand. The little teachers had on their brightest and - best. Miss Andrews in particular, wore a pink party gown that might have - been made by a village dressmaker—or, more likely, by herself—and - flushed prettily as she chatted with young Braker. The men were all in - their dinner coats. - </p> - <p> - Dixie Carmichael, in the inevitable blue middy blouse, sat quietly reading - in a corner. A strange creature, always imperturbably girlish. Duane had - observed her casually on the boat and about the Astor House at Shanghai, - and despite the curious tales that drifted along the coast—already - the girl had acquired an almost legendary fame—he had never seen her - other than discreetly quiet. Men who had observed her on the steamer from - Hong Kong after the outraged British wives as good as drummed her out of - town asserted that she exhibited not so much as a ruffle of the nerves. A - girl without emotion, apparently; certainly without a moral sense. - </p> - <p> - She had for a time managed a gambling house on Bubbling Well Road, - Shanghai, but this year seemed to be more active up Peking way. At least - she had made several trips to the north. There were moments when her thin, - nearly expressionless face bore a look of infinite age; yet she was young. - It would be interesting, he reflected, to know of her home and her youth, - of the remarkable deficiency (or the equally remarkable gift) that had - sent her out alone, with her hair down her back, to pit her uncanny - quickness of thought and her sordid purpose against the desperately clever - rascals of the coast. - </p> - <p> - When again he passed the doorway they were dancing—a waltz. Dixie - and young Kane were together. Miss Means, primmer than ever, moved about - with a tall Australian. Braker was with little Miss Andrews. The others of - the younger men danced humorously with one another. The Manila Kid stood - lankily, gloomily, by the talking machine, sorting records. - </p> - <p> - There was a bustling outside the farther door; musical voices; the - shimmering of satin in the light; and the viceroy came in, escorting his - daughter and attended by all his suite. At the sight of Miss Hui Fei as - she appeared in the doorway and stepped lightly over the sill Doane caught - his breath. She wore an American costume, a gown of soft material in rose - color trimmed with silver, the stockings and little slippers in silver as - well. A girl at any college or suburban dance back home might have dressed - like that. Her richly black hair was parted on the side; masses of it - waved carelessly down over her temples and part of the broad forehead. Her - color was high, her eyes were bright. The eagerly Western quality he had - sensed in her was dominant now, triumphant as youth can be triumphant. - </p> - <p> - Doane, for a moment, pressed a hand to his eyes. He could not relate this - radiantly Western girl with the quaintly Oriental figure he had last seen - by moonlight on the boat deck. It was difficult, too, to understand her - bright happiness. Had her insistently modern spirit prevailed over her - father's resolve to die? Or was she, after all, carried away by girlishly - high spirits at the thought of a party? On the latter possibility Doane - set his teeth; it raided thoughts of Oriental fatalism and surface - adaptability that he could not face. Surely the girl who had talked so - earnestly, who had so clearly exhibited a Western view of her father's - predicament, was more than Oriental at heart. - </p> - <p> - The most deeply sobering thought, of course, was that he should so - poignantly care. The mere sight of her thrilled him, shook him. All night - and during this day he had been fighting the new shining sense of her in - his heart; it was clear now that the battle was a losing one. It was true, - then; the last broken shards of his elaborately built up, wholly mental - philosophy of life had crashed hopelessly about his ears. - </p> - <p> - The pity of it seemed to him, even then, to be that he was possessed of - such abounding vitality of body and mind. He felt a young man. He was - never ill, never even tired. Only accident, he felt, could shorten his - life. Certainly he wouldn't take it himself; he had gone all through that. - He would have to go dully on and on; he was like an engine that is using - but a fraction of its proper power. He had not known that his need was a - woman until he met this woman. To no other, he felt, could he give the - rich upwellings of emotion in his heart; and vital emotion, he had - tragically learned three years earlier, can not be repressed indefinitely. - There was a breaking point... He was, even now, bringing up favorable - arguments. This young woman, as she had admitted, like himself, stood - between the worlds. She could never be happy in China; hardly out of it. - If.... If.... Thoughts came, bitter thoughts, of his years, of his - poverty. The thing had the grip of a demoniac possession. He had seen - other men mad over the one woman, and had pitied them; but now he.... He - called himself savagely, in his heart, a fool. Yet the wild hopes mounted. - </p> - <p> - The waltz was over. The Kid changed the records and ground the machine. An - interpreter left the group of mandarins and spoke with one of the - Australians; led the man back to his excellency. A moment later the music - sounded again, and the Australian danced lightly away with Miss Hui Fei in - what Doane had no means of knowing was the very new one-step. He had never - danced; plainly she loved it. She moved like a fairy—light, utterly - graceful, her oval face, when she turned, flushed a little and soberly - radiant. - </p> - <p> - Hating the man who held her so close, he turned away. He did not know that - his excellency, glimpsing him outside there in the shadows, leaned forward - and bowed; he did not observe (or care) that Dixie Carmichael was dancing - with the German customs man, while Rocky Kane, suddenly white, lighting - one cigarette on another, stood in a corner devouring with his eyes Miss - Hui Fei. A little later, when the young man spoke, there at his side, he - started; for he had heard no one approach. Rocky was hatless; hair rumpled - as if he had been running nervous fingers through it, cheeks deeply - flushed, eyes staring rather wildly. He threw his cigarette overboard and - squarely faced the huge man in blue. - </p> - <p> - “I don't know what you'll think of me—” he began, in a breathless, - unsteady voice; then his eyes wavered. - </p> - <p> - Doane turned with him, Dixie Carmichael stood in the doorway, watching - them. Rocky, with a nervous gesture, as if he would brush her away, looked - up again into the stern older face. He was plainly lost in himself, - burning with the confused fires of youth. - </p> - <p> - “I don't know what you'll think of me—” he came again to a stop. - Apparently the words, “Mr. Doane,” would have completed the sentence, but - failed for some reason to find voice. Perhaps it was the habit of his - wealthy environment that restrained him even now from speaking with more - than casual respect to a uniformed employee of a river line; yet, - contradictorily, here he was, all boyish humility!.... “I'm a damn fool, - of course, I know that. But—you've seen her.” - </p> - <p> - Doane glanced again toward the door. Dixie Carmichael had disappeared. - </p> - <p> - “No—not that one!” cried the boy hotly; then dropped his voice. “The - girl in there! The—princess, isn't she?” - </p> - <p> - Doane inclined his head. - </p> - <p> - “Then she'd be the one I—well, you remember.” - </p> - <p> - “She's the same. The Princess Hui Fei—” - </p> - <p> - “Hughie Fay? Like that?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “What a lovely name!.... You—I know you won't understand! It's so - hard to—I <i>am</i> young, of course. I've been sort of in wrong. I - guess you think I'm a pretty wild lot. I seem to have been trying about - everything. But until to-night—oh, there's no use pretending I'm not - hit all of a heap. I am. I never saw anything like her—never in my - life. I don't know what the pater would say—me falling for a Manchu - girl—you think I'm crazy, don't you?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps I am. My head's racing. Just watching her in there makes my pulse - jump. I get bewildered. Tell me—she was all Chinese the—the - other time—all painted up. Big head-dress with flowers on it. Why - did she do that?” - </p> - <p> - “Out of respect to her father. The rouge and the head-dress were according - to Oriental custom.” He looked directly down at the boy, and added, - deliberately, “Veneration of parents is the finest thing in Chinese life. - I sometimes think we have nothing so fine in America.” - </p> - <p> - The boy's eyes fell. He mumbled. “Ouch! You landed there, I guess.” Then - he raised his eyes. “I can't help myself—whatever I am—but I - can start fresh, can't I? That's what I'm going to do, anyhow—start - fresh.” He squared himself. His lip quivered. - </p> - <p> - “Will you take me in there to the viceroy, and translate my apology?” - </p> - <p> - Doane stood a moment in silence. Then he replied, quietly, “Yes.” And led - the way into the social hall. He found himself watching, like a spectator, - the little scene.... the viceroy rising, with a quiet smile, a gentle old - man, awaiting with perfect courtesy of bearing whatever might be - forthcoming; Rocky Kane, seeming younger than before, with, in fact, the - appearance of an excited boy, the wild look still in his eyes but the face - set with supreme determination. Doane observed now that he had a good - forehead, wide and not too high. The nose was slightly aquiline, like his - father's. The eyes, so dark now, were normally blue; the mouth sensitive; - the skin fine in texture. - </p> - <p> - “Tell him”—thus the boy—“tell him I acted like a dirty cad, - that I know better, and—and ask his pardon.” - </p> - <p> - Doane translated discreetly. A dance was just ending, and curious eyes - were bent on the group. The mandarins stood behind the viceroy, all - gracefully at ease in their rich rubes. - </p> - <p> - His excellency, without relaxing that smile, replied in musical - intonation. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” asked Rocky Kane, under his breath, all quivering - excitement; “what does he say?” - </p> - <p> - “That he accepts your apology, with appreciation of your manliness.” - </p> - <p> - Young Kane's nervous frown relaxed at this. He was pleased. - </p> - <p> - “Will you,” he was saying now, “will you ask if I may dance with the - princess?” - </p> - <p> - Doane complied. He felt now a strain of fineness in this ungoverned boy - that was oddly moving to his own emotion-clouded brain.... Hoi Fei was - approaching, the Australian at her side. - </p> - <p> - “He suggests”—Doane found himself translating—“that you ask - her. He does not know what engagements she may have made.” - </p> - <p> - The boy bit his lip. And then the princess was greeting the mate. “It's - nice to see you, Mr. Doane,” she was saying. “I wondered if you weren't - coming to the party.” - </p> - <p> - It seemed to Doane that he could feel young Kane's devouring eyes fastened - on her. The moment had come in which he must act. The Australian, sensing - a situation, thanked the princess and slipped away. Quietly, Doane said: - “Miss Hui Fei, this is Mr. Kane, who has asked permission to meet you.” - </p> - <p> - She drew back a very little; Doane caught that; yet the courtesy of her - race did not fail her. She inclined her pretty head; even smiled. - </p> - <p> - “Should I speak English?” asked the boy, out of sheer confusion; then: - “Miss Hui Fei”—he was white; the words came slowly, almost coldly, - between set teeth—“I am sorry for my rotten behavior the other - night.” - </p> - <p> - That was all. He waited. Miss Hui's smile faded. - </p> - <p> - No Oriental could have come out so bluntly with it. She seemed to be - considering him. Gradually the smile returned, and with it an air of - courteous dismissal. - </p> - <p> - “I have forgotten it.” - </p> - <p> - Kane gathered his courage. - </p> - <p> - “May I have a dance with you?” - </p> - <p> - For a moment the silence was marked. Perhaps Miss Hui was gathering - herself as well. But it was only a moment; she spoke, smiling as if she - were happy, her manner gracious, even kind: “I am sorry. I have promise' - every dance. The ladies are so few to-nigh'.” - </p> - <p> - That was all. The boy seemed somewhat slow in comprehending it. He stood - motionless; then the color returned slowly to his face, flooding it. He - bowed to her stiffly, then to her father, and rushed out on deck. - </p> - <p> - Miss Hui smiled up at the mate. “I have save' the dance you ask',” she - said pleasantly. “It is this nex' one, if you don' mind.” - </p> - <p> - The Manila Kid adjusted the needle and released the catch. - </p> - <p> - “I'm sorry,” said Doane, as they moved away, “I don't dance.” - </p> - <p> - The commonplace remark fell strangely on his own ears. It could hardly be - himself speaking. He was all glowingly warm with impulse, his logic gone. - </p> - <p> - “We'll sit it out,” said Miss Hui pleasantly. - </p> - <p> - And during the brief walk across the room, beside this buoyantly graceful - girl, even while aware of the eyes upon him, he felt the magic wine of - youth thrilling through his arteries. What a fairy she was! Snatches of - poetry came; one—= - </p> - <p> - "Were it ever so airy a tread...."= - </p> - <p> - —and lingered fragrantly after they were seated and he found himself - looking down at her, listening with something of the gravity and - kindliness of long habit when she so quickly spoke. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VI—CONFLAGRATION - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> BEWILDERED, - crushed Rocky Kane stood tightly holding the rail; staring down at the - softly black water that ran so smoothly along the hull beneath; muttering - in whispers that at intervals broke out into heated speech. This strange - princess had humiliated him perfectly, completely; there had been nothing - he could say, nothing to do but go; and she had let him go without a look - or a further thought. He told himself it was unfair. He had swallowed his - pride and apologized. Could a man do more? - </p> - <p> - But pressing upward through this chaotic mental surface of hurt pride and - insistent self-justification came an equally insistent memory of his - outrageous conduct toward her. As the moments passed, the memory - intensified into a painfully vivid picture. His native intelligence, - together with the undeveloped decency that was somewhere within him, kept - at him with dart-like, stinging thoughts. He had insulted not only herself - but her race as well, in assuming a ruthless right to make free with her. - </p> - <p> - Then self-justification again; how could he know that she spoke English - and dressed like the girls back home? Was it fair of her to masquerade - like that? - </p> - <p> - He was miserably wrong, of course. And his nerves were terribly upset. - That was at least part of the trouble, his nerves; he lighted a cigarette - to steady them. The match shook in his hand. This nervous trembling had - been increasing lately; he found it an alarming symptom. Perhaps the - trouble was inherent weakness. Ability like his father's often skipped a - generation; and character. Yes, he was weak, he had failed at everything. - His college career was a wreck; a monstrous wreck, he believed, echoes - from which would follow him through life. To his incoherent mind it seemed - that he had about all the vices—drinking, gambling, pursuing - helpless girls, even smoking opium. His one faith had been money; but now - he suddenly, wretchedly, knew that even the money might fail him. It was - as easy to toss away a million as a hundred on the red or the black. And - then young men who wasted themselves acquired diseases from the terrors of - which no fortune could promise release; a thought that had long dwelt - uncomfortably in a sensitive, deep-shadowed corner of his brain.... a - brain that was racing now, beyond control. - </p> - <p> - Her unfairness lay in so publicly snubbing him. Her father knew the facts, - as did Miss Carmichael, and the big mate, that old preacher with a - mysterious past. Who was he, anyhow—setting up to regulate other - people's lives? - </p> - <p> - Then rose among these turbulent thoughts a picture of the princess as she - was now, there in the social hall. Tears welled into his eyes; he brushed - them away, lighted a fresh cigarette and deeply inhaled the smoke. He had - rushed out; suddenly, wildly, he desired to rush back. She was beautiful. - She had quaintly moving charm. A rare little lady! It seemed almost that - he might compel her to listen while he explained. But what was it that he - was to explain? That he was some other than the dirty sort they all knew - him to be, that he had proved himself to be? - </p> - <p> - The wild thoughts were like a beating in his brain. It was his father's - fault, this crazy nervousness, and his mother's.... He hated that big - mate. Self-pity rose like a tidal wave, and engulfed him. He stared and - stared at the softly dark water. Beginning with about his sixteenth year - he had wrestled often with the thought of suicide, as so many sensitive - young men do. Now the water fascinated him; it was so still, it moved so - resistlessly on to the sea. “A pretty easy way to slip out. Just a little - splash—-I could climb down. Nobody'd know. Nobody'd care much of a - damn. Oh, the old man would think he cared, but he wouldn't. He'll never - make a bank president out of me. And that's all he wants.” - </p> - <p> - A voice, guardedly friendly, said, “Better not let yourself talk that - way.” - </p> - <p> - He turned with a start. Miss Carmichael was standing there by the rail. So - he had talked aloud—another unpleasant symptom. - </p> - <p> - “You—you saw what—” - </p> - <p> - She inclined her head. “What's the good of letting it upset you? Lie down - for a while. A pipe or two wouldn't hurt you. You're nervous as a witch. - It would soothe you.” He stared at her. - </p> - <p> - “Better lie down anyway,” she said, taking his arm and moving him toward - his cabin. “You don't want them to see you like this.” - </p> - <p> - He yielded. His will was powerless. He dropped on the seat, while she - lingered, almost sympathetically, in the doorway, an unbelievably girlish - figure in the half light. Something of the influence she had been exerting - on him—which had seemed to die when Miss Hui Fei entered the social - hall—fluttered to life now. He found relief, abruptly, in - recklessness. - </p> - <p> - “Come on in,” he said huskily. “Have a pipe with me!” - </p> - <p> - Quietly, wholly matter-of-fact, she closed and locked the door. “We'll - shut the window, too, this time,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “You needn't turn on the light.” He was reaching for his trunk. “Excuse me—a - minute! I can see all right. I know just where everything is.” - </p> - <p> - “Leave the trunk out,” said she. “And lay your suit-case on it. Then we - can put the lamp on that.” - </p> - <p> - Miss Hui Fei led Doane to a seat under the curving front windows. - </p> - <p> - “We mus' talk as if ever'thing were ver' pleasan'.” The question rose - again, but without bitterness now, how she could smile so brightly. “I - have learn' some more. It is ver' difficul' to tell you, but.... it is - difficul' to think, even.... so strange that at firs' I laugh'.”.... Yes, - there were tears in her eyes. But how bravely she fought them back and - smiled again. He felt his own eyes filling, and turned quickly to the - window; but not so quickly that she failed to see. She was sensitively - observant, despite her own trouble. For a moment, then, they were silent, - lost in a deep common sympathy that was bread to his starving heart. - </p> - <p> - It was in that moment that their little conspiracy nearly broke down. Had - any of the others in the big room looked just then, gossip would have - spread swiftly; certainly sharp-eyed mandarins would have found matter for - consideration; for Hui Fei impulsively found his hand as it rested between - them on the seat, and was met with a quick warm pressure. - </p> - <p> - And then, in another moment, she was speaking, quite herself. “My maid has - foun' out tha' they are sending the head eunuch from the Forbidden C'ty to - our home. An' that is agains' the law.” - </p> - <p> - “Of course,” said he. “Even the Old Buddha never tried but once to send - out a eunuch on government business. That was the notorious An Te-hai. And - he never returned; he was caught in Shantung—in a barge of state on - the Grand Canal—and beheaded. Even the Old Buddha couldn't do that. - This woman is amazing. But of course there is really no government at - Peking now—only this strange anachronism.” - </p> - <p> - “He has orders to seize all father's beautifu' things the paintings an' - stones an' carvings.” - </p> - <p> - “The rebels may catch him. They'd make short work of him.” - </p> - <p> - “I ask about that. The rebels have cross the river from Wu Chang to Han - Yang, but they have not yet reach the railway. That comes into Hankow - from this side.” - </p> - <p> - “Even so,” he mused, “the train service from Peking must have broken down. - Though they're running troop trains south, of course.” - </p> - <p> - “I haven't tol' you all of it.” Her voice was low and unsteady. “This - eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, is ordered, by the empress, to take me to Peking - too. They are all whispering about it. The empress is angry at my foreign - ways, and will marry me to a Manchu duke. She di'n' like it when my father - tol' her I mus' marry no man I di'n' choose myself.... I think you ough' - to smile.” - </p> - <p> - Mechanically he obeyed. - </p> - <p> - “It seems almos' funny.” murmured Miss Hui. “Sometimes I can no' believe - tha' such a thing could happen. When I think of America an' England and - all the worl' we know to-day, I can no' believe that such wicked things - can happen.” - </p> - <p> - It was anything but unreal to Doane. He knew too well that America and - England, even all the white peoples, make up but a fraction of the - inhabitants of this strange earth. His eyes filled again as he considered - the possible—yes, the probable fate of the lovely girl at his side. - In such a time of disorganization the reckless Manchu woman at Peking - could do much. Chang might lose his head at the sound of gunfire in Han - Yang and fly back to the capital, or he might not. A capable and corrupt - eunuch would run heavy risks to gain such a prize. For a huge prize the - viceroy's collection would indeed be; many of the priceless stones and - paintings would never reach the throne. - </p> - <p> - The thought came of trying to persuade her to save herself; a thought that - was as promptly discarded. She would not leave her father while he lived. - He, of course, would not take his own life elsewhere than in his ancestral - home. And to that home, with his inevitable escort of underlings and - soldiers, was hurrying—if not already there—this Chang - Yuan-fu, one of those powerfully venomous creatures that have figured - darkly at intervals in the history of China. - </p> - <p> - Doane spoke low and quickly: “Can you find out when Chang's train left - Peking, Miss Hui?” - </p> - <p> - “No, I have try ver' har' to learn. I think they don' know that. It is so - importan' to know that, too, because my father”—Her voice faltered. - Doane once again, with a swift glance to left and right, took her hand - and, for a brief moment, gripped it firmly. “You haven' yet spoken to my - father?” - </p> - <p> - “Not yet, dear Miss Hui.... you must smile!.... I have found it very - difficult to think out a way of approaching him. Your father is a great - viceroy. He might take it ill that I should venture to interfere in what - he would feel to be the supreme sacred act of his life. He might”—Doane - hesitated—“even for you he might feel that he couldn't turn back.” - </p> - <p> - “I know,” she said, very low. “I have thought of tha', too. But they shall - never take me to Peking.” - </p> - <p> - He understood. The suicide of girls as a protest against unwelcome - marriage was a commonplace in China. It was, indeed, for thousands the - only way out. She knew that, of course. And she spoke there out of her - blood. - </p> - <p> - “I will speak to-morrow,” he murmured. “Before we reach Huang Chau. We - have nothing to lose. He can only rebuff me.” - </p> - <p> - He felt now that in this tragic drama was bound up all that might be left - to him of happiness. The guiding motive of his life was—there was a - divine recklessness in the thought—to save Hui Fei, to make her - smile again, with a happy heart. She whispered now: - </p> - <p> - “Thank you.” - </p> - <p> - He asked her, abruptly changing his manner, almost distantly courteous, - about her life in an American college. Little by little, as she made the - effort to follow him into this impersonal atmosphere, her brightness - returned. - </p> - <p> - The record was scraping its last. Applause came from the dancers, in which - she joined. The Manila Kid wound the machine again, and the dancers swung - again into motion. - </p> - <p> - “I am asking too much of you,” she murmured. “But I have been frighten'. I - coul'n' think wha' to do.” - </p> - <p> - He had to set his teeth on the burning phrases that rushed from his long - unpractised heart, eager for utterance. “I will take you back to your - father,” he said. - </p> - <p> - In his mind it was settled. Whatever strange events might lie before them, - they should not take her to Peking. His own life, as well as hers, stood - in the way. It had come to that with him. - </p> - <p> - It was near to midnight when the <i>Yen Hsin</i>, on advices from Hankow, - headed again upstream. At the first throb of the engine the white - passengers stopped dancing and came out on deck. There was gaiety, even a - little cheering. - </p> - <p> - It was perhaps two hours later when Doane, asleep in his cabin, heard the - shots, confused with the incidents of a dream. But at the first screams of - the women below decks he sprang from his berth. Some one was banging on - his door; he opened; the second engineer stood there, coatless and - hatless, a revolver in his hand, and a little blood on his cheek. - </p> - <p> - “All hell's broken loose below,” said the young Scotchman. “Chief's down - there. I tried to get to him, but—God, they're all over the place—fighting - one another.” - </p> - <p> - “Who are, MacKail?” Doane hurriedly drew on trousers and coat, and thrust - his feet into his slippers. - </p> - <p> - “The viceroy's soldiers. Revolutionary stuff.” - </p> - <p> - Doane got his automatic pistol from a drawer in the desk; quickly filled - an extra clip with cartridges; went forward. The Scotchman had already - gone aft. - </p> - <p> - The engine was still running, the steamer moving steadily up the moonlit - river. The uproar below decks sounded muffled, far-away. It might have - been nothing more than a little night excitement in a village along the - shore. The shooting continued. Men were shouting. There were more shrill - screams; and then splashes overside. As he hurried forward, staring over - the rail, Doane caught a passing glimpse of a face down there in the foam - and a white arm. The white men were stumbling drowsily out of their - cabins; he saw one of the customs men, in pajamas, and Tex Connor. They - hurled questions at him but he brushed them aside. - </p> - <p> - Captain Benjamin stood over the cringing pilot with a revolver. - </p> - <p> - “Engine room don't answer!” he shouted coolly enough. “And we can't get to - it. Take MacKail and try to get through. I'll make this rat keep her in - the channel.” - </p> - <p> - Doane ran back. More of the men were out, talking excitedly together. He - paused to say: “Get any weapons you have, every man of you, and see that - none but women get up to this deck! Keep the men down!” - </p> - <p> - MacKail stood at the head of the port after stairway, outside the rear - cabins, a big Australian beside him. - </p> - <p> - “They're just naturally carving one another up,” observed the Australian. - </p> - <p> - “Come,” said Doane, and went down the steps. - </p> - <p> - The noise and confusion were great down here. Women were crowding out of - the lower cabins, sobbing hysterically, tearing their hair and beating - their breasts, crowding forward and aft along the deckway or climbing - awkwardly over the rail and slipping off into the river. - </p> - <p> - Doane shouted a reassuring word in their own tongue; pointed to the steps; - finally drew one girl forcibly back from the rail and started her up. - Others followed, screaming all the way. Still others clung to the white - men. - </p> - <p> - Doane broke away and plunged into the dim interior of the boat. Most of - the lights were out. Dark figures were wrestling. There were grunts, - groans, savage cries of rage and triumph. A huge pole-knife caught the - light as it swung. Doane was aware of men breathing hard as they - struggled. - </p> - <p> - He stumbled over an inert body; would have fallen had not the Australian - caught him. A tall soldier who lunged toward them with a dripping bayonet - was shot by MacKail.... There were no means here of distinguishing the - parties to this savage struggle, but in the inner corridor it was lighter. - Near at hand two of the republicans—queues cut off, dressed in an - indistinguishable but odd-appearing uniform of some light gray stuff with - a white cloth tied about the left arm, had heaped bodies across the - corridor and were shooting over them at a darker mass just forward of the - engine room. - </p> - <p> - Doane shouted at the republicans, ordering them to withdraw. They shook - their heads angrily. One, even as he tried to reply, sank into a limp heap - with a dark stream trickling from a hole in his forehead. His comrade bent - low to reload his rifle. With the shouting of many hoarse voices the dark - mass up forward came charging down the corridor. Doane was firing into - them when MacKail and the Australian caught his arm and drew him back - through the doorway. From that position, however, all three could shoot - the blue-clad attackers as they plunged by the opening. Then, however, - they had to defend themselves. The soldiers came on by dozens. Doane had - his second clip of cartridges in his pistol. - </p> - <p> - “Get back!” he shouted to the others. “Guard the steps—they'll be - coming up for loot!” - </p> - <p> - They retreated. Two bodies lay huddled on the steps they had left but a - few moments earlier. A few dead women were on the deck and one or two men. - </p> - <p> - Even as they stepped over the bodies and mounted to the deck above, all - three men, their faculties sharpened to a supernatural degree by the ugly - thrill of combat, took in the details of what was evidently accepted among - these republican rebels as their uniform—a suit of unmistakably - American woolen underwear, the drawers supported by bright-colored - American suspenders; socks worn outside (like the suspenders) with garters - that bore the trademark name of an American city, and finally, American - shoes. So the enthusiasm of these young revolutionists for the greatest of - republics found expression! And across the breast of each, lettered on a - strip of white cloth, was the inscription that Sun Shi-pi had so glibly - translated as “Dare to Die.” Sun must have brought along these supposedly - Western uniforms in his pedler's trunks. - </p> - <p> - It was never to be known what surprising incidents had preceded this - sudden slaughter. The chief engineer might have told, but his mutilated - body Doane found, on his second attempt to get through, lying just across - the sill of the engine room, as if he had been stepping out to reason with - them. - </p> - <p> - The entire battle lasted barely half an hour. It was, for the white folk, - a period of confusion and terror. Toward the end, the blue men, utter - outlaws now, made rush after rush up the various stairways and ladders, - only to be fought back at every point by the white men and the few - surviving officers of his excellency's force. They were like the most - primitive savages, knowing neither fear nor reason. The blood-lust that at - times captures the spirit of this normally phlegmatic and reasonable - people drove them for the time to the point of madness. - </p> - <p> - At last, however, they drew off below. Two of the boats were within their - reach. These they lowered, and despite the speed of steamer and current, - though not without evident loss of life, they got them over, tumbled into - them, and fell away into the night astern. Then for the first and last - time this night Doane saw the redoubtable Tom Sung. He stood in the nearer - boat, brandishing a rifle and screeching wild phrases in Chinese. - </p> - <p> - MacKail took the engine room. Captain Benjamin, still, grimly, pistol in - hand, held the pilot to his task. There was no crew to clean the shambles - below decks, yet with the few loyal soldiers who had managed to hide away - now at the furnaces, the steamer wound her way steadily up-stream. - </p> - <p> - Doane found what had once been the earnest Sun Shi-pi in the starboard - corridor, below. On his body were the uniform, white brassard and motto of - the “Dare to Dies.” They had beheaded him. - </p> - <p> - The passengers, clad and half clad, nervous, talkative, hung about the - decks. The two teachers, curiously self-possessed, sat side by side at the - dining table. From the quarters of his excellency, aft, came the - continuous sound of women moaning and wailing.... It was, to the eye, but - a river steamer plowing up-stream in the moonlight. But to the senses of - those aboard the situation was a nightmare, already an incredible memory - while sleep-drugged eyes were slowly opening.... To the mighty river it - was but one more incident in the vivid, often bloody drama of a - long-suffering, endlessly struggling people.... - </p> - <p> - In his spacious cabin, his eyes shaded from the electric light by a screen - of jade set in tulip wood, dressed in his robes of ceremony, wearing the - ruby-crowned hat of state with the down-slanting peacock feather, his - excellency sat quietly reading the precepts of Chuang Tzü. - </p> - <p> - “Hui Tzü asked,” (he read) 'Are there, then, men who have no passions? If - he be a man, how can he be without passions?' - </p> - <p> - “'By a man without passions,' replied Chuang Tzü, I mean one who permits - neither evil nor good to disturb his inner life, but accepts whatever - comes.... The pure men of old neither loved life nor hated death. - Cheerfully they played their parts, patiently awaited the end. This is - what is called not to lead the heart away from Tao.... The true sage - ignores God; he ignores man; he ignores a beginning; he ignores matter; he - accepts life as it may be and is not overwhelmed. If he fail, what matters - it? If he succeed, is it not that he was provided through no effort of his - own with the energy necessary to success.... The life of man passes like a - galloping horse, changing at every turn. What should he do; what should he - not do? It passes as a sunbeam passes a small opening in a wall—here - for a moment, then gone.... let knowledge stop at the unknowable. That is - perfection.'” - </p> - <p> - It is to be doubted if even Doane gave regard at the moment to the - possible origin of the fire. It had spread through two or three of the - upper cabins by way of the ventilating grills and was roaring out through - a doorway by the time he heard the new outcry and ran to the spot. The - white men were rushing about. Rocky Kane, collarless, disheveled, was - fumbling ineffectually at the emergency fire hose; him Doane pushed aside. - But the flames spread amazingly; worked through the grill-work from cabin - to cabin; soon were licking at the walls and furniture of the social hall. - </p> - <p> - Doane left Dawley Kane and Tex Conner—an oddly matched couple—manning - the hose, others at work with the chemical extinguishers, while he went - forward through the thickening smoke to the bridge. - </p> - <p> - Captain Benjamin said, huskily, almost apologetically—his eyes red - and staring, his face haggard: “I'm beaching her.” - </p> - <p> - And in another moment she struck, where the channel ran close under an - island. - </p> - <p> - Lowering the boats without a crew proved difficult. Already the fire had - reached those forward. Doane, the other mate and MacKail did what they - could. The Chinese women crowded hither and thither, screaming, rendering - order impossible. In the confusion one boat drifted off with only Connor, - the Manila Kid, and Miss Carmichael. - </p> - <p> - Captain Benjamin was cut off by the quick progress of the flames. The - whole forward end of the cabin structure was now a roaring furnace, - fortunately working forward on the down-stream breeze rather than aft. The - flames blazed from moment to moment higher; sparks danced higher yet; the - heat was intense. Doane sent the viceroy and his suite below, aft, where - the deck was still strewn with bodies and slippery with blood. With three - available boats, fighting back the crowding women and the more excitable - among his excellency's secretaries, he sent ashore, first the women, then - his excellency and the men. Hui Fei—she had slipped hastily into the - little Chinese costume she wore at their midnight talk, and had thrown - about it an opera cloak from New York—went in one of the first - boats; Doane himself handed her in. The two teachers, pale, very composed, - followed. At the oars were two of the customs men, faces streaked with - grime and sweat. - </p> - <p> - To his excellency, as the last boats got away, Doane said: “I will follow - you soon. I must look once more for the captain.” - </p> - <p> - “I will send back a boat,” said the viceroy. - </p> - <p> - Doane ran up to the upper and promenade decks. There was no sound save the - roaring and crackling of the fire. There seemed no chance of getting - forward. In the large after cabin stood the six-fold Ming screen. Quickly - he folded it; there seemed a chance of getting it ashore. He thought, with - a passing regret, of the <i>pi</i> of jade; but there was no reaching his - own cabin now. He stepped out on deck. There, clear aft, leaning against - the cabin wall, stood Rocky Kane, like a man half asleep, rubbing his - eyes; and crouching against his knee, clinging to his hand, was the little - princess in her gay golden yellow vest over the flowered skirt and her - quaint hood of fox skin. - </p> - <p> - Doane caught the young man's shoulder; swung him about; looked closely - into the dull eyes with the tiny pupils. - </p> - <p> - “So!” he cried, “that again, eh!” - </p> - <p> - “I can't understand”—thus Rocky—“I don't see how it could have - happened. It couldn't have been my fault.” - </p> - <p> - Doane saw now that his head had been burned above one ear; and the hand - that pressed his face was blistered white. - </p> - <p> - “It <i>wasn't</i> my fault! I found myself out on deck. I tried to get the - hose.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I saw you. Quick—get below.” - </p> - <p> - Doane tenderly lifted the little princess. - </p> - <p> - Rocky was still incoherently talking; promising reform; blaming himself in - the next breath after hotly defending himself. His voice was somewhat - thick. He was drowsy—swayed and stumbled as he moved toward the - stairs. - </p> - <p> - Doane, speaking gently in Chinese to the child, stood a moment - considering. The heat was becoming intolerable. It wouldn't do to keep the - little one here. He carried her down the stairs. - </p> - <p> - Below, the boy faced him. “I'm no good,” he whimpered. “I can't wake up. - Hit me—do something—I won't be like this.” - </p> - <p> - Doane considered him during a brief instant. They were standing under a - light, their feet slipping on the deck, bodies lying about. With the flat - of his hand, then, Duane struck the side of the boy's head that was not - burned; struck harder than he meant, for the boy went down, and then, - after sprawling about, got muttering to his feet. - </p> - <p> - “It's all right!” he cried unsteadily. “I asked you to do it. I'm going to - get hold of myself. I've been no good—rotten. I've touched bottom. - But I'm going to fight it out—get somewhere.” His egotism, even now - amazingly held him. Even as he spoke he was dramatizing himself. But his - pupils were widening a little; he was in earnest, crying bitterly out of a - drugged mind and conscience. And Doane, looking down at him, felt stirring - in his heart, though curiously mixed with a twinge of jealousy for his - youth and the hopes before him, something of the sympathy his long deep - experience had instilled there toward blindly struggling young folk. Boys, - after all, were normally egotists. And Heaven knew this boy had so far - been given no sort of chance! - </p> - <p> - Doane led the way clear aft. The heat was terrific. From a row of fire - buckets he sprinkled the little princess; bathed her temples. The water - was warm, but it helped. - </p> - <p> - Young Kane, with a nervous movement, suddenly picked up one, then another, - of the buckets and dashed them over himself. Distinctly he was coming to - life. “We may never come out of this, Mr. Doane,” he said. “It's a - terrible fix.” More and more, as he came slowly awake, he was dramatizing - the situation and himself. “But I want to say this. I've never known a man - like you. You're fine—you're big—you've helped me as no one - else has. I'll never be like you—it isn't in me. I've already gone - as close to hell as a man can go and perhaps still save himself—” - </p> - <p> - “Can you swim?” asked Doane shortly. - </p> - <p> - “I—why, yes, a little. I'm not what you'd call a strong swimmer.” - </p> - <p> - Doane was wetting the princess's face and his own. There would be little - time left. There was smoke now. He found a slight difficulty in breathing; - evidently the fire had eaten through, forward, to the lower decks. - </p> - <p> - “They won't be able to get a boat back here,” he said, and quietly pointed - out the still blazing pieces of board that, after whirling into the air, - were drifting by. A terrific blast of heat swept about them, indicating a - change of wind. - </p> - <p> - “Wait here a moment for me,” he added. “I must make one more effort to - find Captain Benjamin. If that fails, we can swim ashore.” - </p> - <p> - He tried working his way forward when the heat proved too great in the - corridor, climbing out on the windward side of the hull. But the flames - were eating steadily aft; he could not get far. Beaten back, he returned - to the stem to discover that the child and Rocky Kane were gone. After a - moment he saw them in the water, a few rods away, first a gleam of yellow - that would be the jacket of the little princess, then their two heads - close together. - </p> - <p> - He lowered himself down a boat-line and swam after them. In the water this - giant was as easily at home as in any form of exercise on land. Within the - year he had swum at night, alone, for the sheer vital pleasure the use of - his strength brought him, the nine miles from Wusung to Shanghai—slipping - between junks and steamers, past the anchored war-ships and a great P. - & O. liner from Bombay. The water was cool, refreshing. He stretched - his full length in it, rolling his face under as one arm and then the - other reached out in slow powerful strokes. - </p> - <p> - Young Kane was having no easy time of it. He was clearly out of wind. And - the child whimpered as she clung tightly about his neck. - </p> - <p> - “I gave you up,” he sputtered weakly. Then added, with an evidence of - spirit that Doane found not displeasing: “No, don't take her, please! Just - steady me a little.” He was struggling in short strokes, splashing a good - deal. “We ought to touch bottom now pretty quick.” - </p> - <p> - Sampans and the boats of the cormorant fishers were edging into the wide - circle of light about the steamer. Along the shore of the island clustered - the groups of mandarins, their silk and satin robes forming a bright spot - in the vivid picture. - </p> - <p> - Doane found the sand then; walked a little way and helped the nearly - exhausted boy to his feet. - </p> - <p> - “They're coming down the shore,” said Rocky, trying, without great - success, to speak casually. - </p> - <p> - Doane looked up and saw them running—white men, Chinese servants, - mandarins holding up their robes, women, and last, walking rapidly, his - excellency. - </p> - <p> - It was Hui Fei, throwing off her cloak and running lightly ahead, who took - the frightened child from young Kane's arms and carried her tenderly up - the bank. There as the attendants gathered anxiously about them, she - tossed the child high, petted her, kissed her, until the tears gave place - to laughter. The tall eunuch wrapped the little princess then in his own - coat; and Hui Fei accepted the opera cloak that transformed her again in - an instant from a slimly quaint Manchu girl to a young woman of New York. - </p> - <p> - Doane stood by. Toward him she did not look. But to Rocky Kane, who lay on - the bank, she turned with bright eagerness. He got, not without effort, to - his feet. - </p> - <p> - Smiling—happily, it seemed to the bewildered, brooding Doane—she - gave him her hand; led him to meet her father. - </p> - <p> - “You have met Mr. Kane,” she said. “It was he who save' little sister. He - risk' his life to bring her here, father.” - </p> - <p> - Rocky, throwing back his hair and brushing the water from his eyes, stood, - his sensitive face working nervously, very straight, very respectful, and - took the hand of the viceroy. - </p> - <p> - There was, then, manhood in him. The viceroy recognized the fact in his - friendly smile. Hui Fei plainly recognized it as she walked, chatting - brightly, at his side, while he bent on her a gaze of boyish adoration. - </p> - <p> - As for Doane, he moved away unobserved; dropped at length on a knoll, - rested his great head on his hands, and gazed out at the blazing steamer. - She would soon be quite gone. Poor Benjamin was gone already; a strange - little man, one of the many that drift through life without a sense of - direction, always bewildered about it, always hoping vaguely for some - better lot. It had been a tragic night; and yet all this horror would soon - seem but an incident in the spreading revolution. It had always been so in - China. In each rebellion, as in the mighty conquests of the Mongols and - the Manchus, death had stalked everywhere with a casual terribleness. Life - meant, at best, so little. Genghis Khan's men had boasted of slaying - twenty millions in the northwestern provinces alone within the span of a - single decade. The new trouble must inevitably run its course; and what a - course it might prove to be! From the mere effort to face this immediate - future Doane found his mind recoiling; much as strong minds were to - recoil, only three years later, when the German army should march through - Belgium. - </p> - <p> - He gave up that problem, came down to the particular thought of this - swiftly growing new love that had stolen into his heart. The hope of - personal happiness had passed now. Self seemed, like the life to which it - so eagerly clung, not to matter. Instead that hope was growing into a - profound tenderness toward the girl. She was, after all—the thought - came startlingly—about the age of his own daughter, Betty, whom he - had not seen during these three strange years. Betty and her journalist - husband would be somewhere in Turkestan now; he was studying central Asia - for a book, she sketching the native types. For a long time no letter had - come.... It was a fine experience, this unbidden stir of the emotions, - this thrill. There was mystery in it, and wonder. Merely to have that - almost youthful responsiveness still at call within his breast was an - indication that life might yet hold, even for him, the derelict, rich - promise. And it was a reminder, now, to his clearing brain that his life - must be service. He must find terms on which to offer himself, his gifts. - His spirit had been molded, after all, to no lesser end. - </p> - <p> - The viceroy drew away then from the group about the child; came - deliberately along the bank. The increasing tenderness Doane felt toward - Hui Fei reached also to her father, who was facing with such fine dignity - the grim ending of a richly useful life. Now, perhaps, he could plead with - him for the daughter's sake. Somehow, certainly, happiness must be found - for her. In pleading he would be serving her. - </p> - <p> - His brain was swinging into something near balance; it was, after all, a - good brain, trained to function clearly, mellowed through patient years of - unhappiness. It would help him now to fight for the girl, to save her, if - he might, from the dark ways of the Forbidden City. She called herself so - naively an “American.” The West had thrilled her. She must not be given - over to the eunuch, Chang. - </p> - <p> - So, even as he contrived a sort of self-control, even as he determined to - forget his own little moment of romantic hopefulness, the lover within him - stood triumphant over all his other selves. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VII—THE INSCRUTABLE WEST - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>OANE knew nothing - of the dignified figure he presented as he took the viceroy's hand, a - profoundly sobered giant, his huge frame outlined beneath his wet garments - like a Greek statue of an athlete. - </p> - <p> - “You have helped to save the life of my child, Griggsby Doane”—thus - his excellency, in what proved to be a little set speech—“and with - all my heart I thank you. I am old. Little time is left to me. But life - follows upon death. Death is the beginning of life. It has been said by - Chuang Tzü that the personal existence of man results from convergence of - the vital fluid, and with its dispersion comes what we term death. - Therefore all things are one. All vitality exists in continuing life. And - I, when what I have thought of as my self arrives at dispersion, shall - live on in my children. My words are inadequate. My debt to you is beyond - my power to repay. Command me. I am your servant.” - </p> - <p> - Doane bowed, hearing the words, catching something of the warm gratitude - in the heart of the old man, yet at the same moment flogged on to action - by the sense of passing time and present opportunity. It was no simple - matter, it seemed, to approach this seasoned, calmly determined mind - regarding the final personal matter of life and death. But he plunged at - it; stating simply that he had heard the gossip of the impending tragedy, - and that in conversing with the lovely Hui Fei, who was in obvious - difficulty in existing between the two greatest civilizations without a - solid footing in either, he could not bear to think of her possible fate. - </p> - <p> - Rang Yu listened attentively. - </p> - <p> - “Your Excellency,” Doane pressed on, “it is not right that you should - listen to the command of a decadent throne. Forgive my frankness, my - presumption, but I must say this! True, you are a Manchu. While this - revolution continues it will be difficult for you. But before another year - shall have gone by there will be a new China. The bitter animosities of - to-day will pass. Though a Manchu, your wise counsel will be needed. Your - knowledge of the Western World will temper the over-emphatic policies of - the young hot-heads from the universities of Japan.” - </p> - <p> - The viceroy considered this appeal during a long moment; then, soberly, he - looked up into the massive, strongly lined face of the white man and - asked, simply: “But what would you have me do, Griggsby Doane?” - </p> - <p> - “Your Excellency knows of the plan to seize your property?” - </p> - <p> - Kang inclined his head. - </p> - <p> - “If you go on to your home, it may be that everything will be taken, even - the money on your person.” - </p> - <p> - Kang bowed again. - </p> - <p> - “Then, Your Excellency, why not now—while you yet have the means to - do so—escape down the river with your daughter and myself? Can you - not trust yourself and her in my hands? I will find means to convey you - safely to Shanghai—perhaps to Japan or Hong Kong—where you - will be secure until further plans may be laid.” - </p> - <p> - “Griggsby Doane,” replied the viceroy with simple candor, “you speak - indeed as a friend. And I would be false to the blood that flows in my - veins did I not prize the friendship of man for man, second only to the - love of a son for a parent, above every other quality in life. Friendship - is most properly the theme of many of the noblest poems in our language. - It is to us more than your people, who place so strong an emphasis on love - between the sexes, can perhaps bring themselves to understand. And - therefore, Griggsby Doane, your feeling toward myself and my daughter - moves my heart more deeply than I can express to you. - </p> - <p> - “It is not surprising that news of my sorrow—of this sad ending that - is set upon my long life—should have reached you. But since you know - so much, I will tell you, as friend to friend, more. Do you know why this - sentence has been passed upon me? It is because I could not bring myself - to obey the order of the throne that the republican agitator, Sun Shi-pi - who had sought sanctuary at my yamen in Nanking should be at once - beheaded. Instead I sent for Sun Shi-pi to counsel him. I permitted him to - go to Japan on condition that he engage in no conspiracies and that he - remain away. Instead of complying with my condition he hastened to - organize revolutionary propaganda. He returned to China, appeared in - disguise on the steamer that is burning out yonder, and is now dead, - there, in his republican uniform.” - </p> - <p> - So his information was complete! A picture rose in Doane's mind of the - headless trunk of Sun Shi-pi amid the horrors of the lower deck. - </p> - <p> - His excellency continued: “I was denounced at the Forbidden City as a - traitor. The sentence of death followed, in the form of an edict from the - empress dowager in the name of the young emperor. Were I now to follow Sun - Shi-pi into exile in a foreign land I would mark myself for all time as a - traitor indeed; as one who, while sharing as an honored viceroy the - prosperity and dignity of the reigning dynasty, conspired toward its - downfall.” - </p> - <p> - “But, Your Excellency, the empress dowager and the young emperor no longer - speak with the voice of the Chinese people.” - </p> - <p> - “That could make no difference, Griggsby Doane. By edict of the Yellow - Dragon Throne of Imperial China I have been instructed to go to my - ancestors. My allegiance is only to that throne. I will obey.... Already, - Griggsby Doane, you have done for me more than one can ever demand of a - friend. And yet one more demand I must make upon you. There is no other to - whom I can turn. I have no other friend to-night. Within a short time my - secretaries will secure a launch or a junk to convey us to my home near - Huang Chau. Will you come with us there?” - </p> - <p> - Doane, surprised, bowed in assent. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. The gratitude of myself and all my family and friends will - remain with you. You are a princely man.... Until later, then, good night, - Griggsby Doane.” - </p> - <p> - He was gone. - </p> - <p> - Doane walked farther along the bank; stood for a time absorbed in thought - that led, at length, to what seemed a new ray of light in the darkness - that was his mind. And he strode back, hunting in this group and that for - Dawley Kane. That man had offered help. Now he could give it. - </p> - <p> - Dawley Kane, fully dressed, unruffled, quietly smoking a cigar and looking - through a pocket notebook by the light from the river, seemed a note of - sanity in an unbelievably confused world. To him, apparently, the - nightmare of fighting and slaughter on the steamer, like the fire, were - but incidents. The only evidence the man gave out of quickened nerves was - that he talked a little more freely than usual. To Doane he presented a - surface as clear and hard as polished crystal, impenetrable, in a sense - repelling, yet, as we say, a gentleman. - </p> - <p> - They even chatted casually, as men will, standing there looking out at the - fire (which now had reached the stem and eaten down to the lower decks, - incinerating alike the bodies of men who had died for faith and for lust) - and at the wide circle of light on the rim of which floated the - vulture-the boats of the rivermen. Doane forced himself into the vein of - the man's interest; riding roughshod over a desperate sense of unreality. - For he knew that the great masters of capital were often proud and even - finicky men who must be approached with skill. They were kings; must be - dealt with as kings. - </p> - <p> - Kane was interested to learn what relation the fight below decks might - have to the rebellion up the river. That, clearly, was characteristic of - the man—the impersonal gathering in and relating of observable data. - His interest was deeper in the agriculture and commerce of the immense - Yangtze basin, to which subject he easily passed. His questions came out - of a present fund of knowledge—questions as to the speed, - cargo-capacity and operation-cost of the large junks that plied the river - by thousands, as to the cost of employing Chinese labor and the average - capacity of the coolie. He knew all about the slowly developing railroads - of North and Central China; commented in passing on the surprising profits - of the young Hankow-Peking line.... He seemed to Doane to have in his mind - a map or diagram of a huge, profitmaking industrial world, to which he - added such bits of line or color as occurred in the answers to his - questions. But he gave out no conclusions, only questions. Famines, other - wide-spread suffering so tragically common in the Orient, interested him - only as an impairment of trade and industrial man power. The opium habit - he viewed as an economic problem. - </p> - <p> - Doane, settling doggedly to his purpose, found himself analyzing the power - of this quiet man. It lay of course, in the control of money. And money - would be only a token of human energy. The religion of his own ardent - years had taken no account of earthly energy or its tokens; it had - directed the eyes of the bewildered seeker toward a mystical other world. - Yet human life, in the terms of this earth, must go on. To this point he - always came around, of late years, in his thinking, just as the church had - always come around to it. Money was vital. The church was endlessly - begging for it; in no other way could it survive to continue turning away - the puzzled eyes of the seekers. - </p> - <p> - And the immense energy created in the human struggle to live and prosper - must continually be gathering up, here and there, into visible power that - shrewd human hands would surely seize. He felt this now as a law. Religion - had not left him. He felt more strongly than ever before that this - miraculously continuing energy implied a sublime orderly force that - transcended the outermost bounds of human intelligence. Religion was - surely there: it only wanted discovering. It had, as surely, to do with - primitive energy, with the heat of the sun and the disciplined rush of the - planets, with the tragic struggle of human business, with work and war and - sex and money.... And then he indulged in a half-smile. For this primitive - undying energy could be no other than the Tao of Lao-tzu and Chuang Tzü. - And so, after all these groping years of his errant faith, he had fetched - up, simply in Taoism. - </p> - <p> - But that law seemed to stand. The human struggle created power that tended - to gather at convenient centers. And here beside him, smoking a cigar, - stood a man whose uncommon genius fitted him to seize that power as it - gathered and administer it; a man to whom money came—the very winds - of chance heaped it about him. And to Doane, just now, money—even in - quantity that would be to Kane hardly the income of a day or so—meant - so much that the grotesque want of it (the word “grotesque” came) stopped - his brain. - </p> - <p> - For it was coming clear to him how completely the throne could at will, - obliterate the worldly establishment of Kang Yu. That throne, however - politically weak, yet held the savage instruments of despotic power. - Kang's sad end would come within the twenty-four hours, perhaps; certainly - he would wait only to prepare himself and to write his final papers. The - eunuch's men would be everywhere about the household; nothing could be - hidden from them, or from the spies among the servants.... With money—a - little money—Hui Fei might be saved from an end as tragic as her - father's.... The thing, surely, could be managed. For the moment it seemed - almost simple. She could be spirted away. There might he missionaries to - escort her down the river on one of the steamers. - </p> - <p> - It was then, while Doane's thoughts still raced hither and thither, that - Kane himself broached the vital topic. - </p> - <p> - “This viceroy”—thus Kane—“seems to be quite a personage. He's - been a diplomat, I believe. And Kato tells me has an excellent collection - of paintings.” - </p> - <p> - Doane felt himself turning into a trader. “You are interested in Chinese - paintings, are you not, Mr. Kane?” he asked guardedly. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes. I have something of a collection. And now and then Kato picks up - something for me.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know, of course, how far you would care to go with it Mr. Kane”—Doane - was measuring every word as it passed his lips—“but there is a - possibility that a bargain could be struck with his excellency at this - time.” - </p> - <p> - “Indeed?” - </p> - <p> - “It would be advisable to act pretty quickly, I should say.” - </p> - <p> - “Well! This is interesting. You are informed about his collection?” - </p> - <p> - “In a general way. It is very well known out here. His collection of - landscapes of the Tang and Sung periods is supposed to be the most - complete in existence, with fine works of Ching Hao, Kuan Tung, Tung Yuan - and Chu-jan. The best known paintings of Li Chang are his. He has several - by Kao Ke-ming, and, I know, an original sixfold landscape screen by Kuo - Hsi. Then there are works of the four masters of southern Sung—Li - Tang, Lui Sungnian, Ma Yuen and Hsia Kuai. You would find nearly all the - great men of the Academy represented.” - </p> - <p> - Doane stopped; waited to see if this list of names impressed the great - American. If he knew, in his own person, anything whatever about Chinese - painting he must exhibit at least a little feeling. But Dawley Kane said - nothing; merely lighted, with provoking deliberation, a fresh cigar. - </p> - <p> - “It is commonly understood, too”—Doane could not resist pressing him - a little further—“that he has authentic paintings by Wu Tao-tzu, and - Li Lung-mien.” Surely these two names would stir this man who seemed at - moments no more than a calculating machine with manners. But Kane smoked - on.... “And I understand that he has a fairly complete collection of - portraits by the men of the Brush-strokes-reducing Method.” - </p> - <p> - He finished rather lamely; fell silent, and looked out over the still - brilliantly lighted river; the river of a hundred thousand dramatic scenes—battles - and romances and struggles for trade—the great river with its - endless memories of gold and bloodshed—the river that for a brief - day was running red again. The fire out there, though red flame and - rolling smoke and whirling sparks still roared upward, was consuming now - the lower deck and the hull. Within the hour the <i>Yen Hsin</i> would be - no more than a curving double row of charred ribs; one more casual memory - of the river. - </p> - <p> - Still Dawley Kane smoked on. He clearly knew no enthusiasm. He was an - analyst, an appraiser, a trader to the core. He felt no discomfort, even - in friendly talk, in letting the other man wait. But Doane would say no - more. And finally, knocking the ash off his cigar with a reflective - finger, Kane remarked; “You really think that this collection would be a - good buy?” - </p> - <p> - “Unquestionably.” - </p> - <p> - “Have you any idea what he would ask?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't even know that he would consider selling it.” - </p> - <p> - “But if he were properly approached.... there are reasons____” - </p> - <p> - “You know of his predicament?” - </p> - <p> - “I gather that there is a predicament.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh.... well, yes, there is. But I don't know how even to guess at the - value. Many of the paintings are priceless. In New York, at collector's - prices, and without hurrying the sale....” - </p> - <p> - “A hundred thousand dollars?” - </p> - <p> - “Many times more.” - </p> - <p> - “But if he is anxious to sell—must sell” - </p> - <p> - “There is that, of course.” - </p> - <p> - “A hundred thousand is a good deal of money. If I were to place that sum - to his credit to-morrow, for instance, by wire, at a Shanghai bank, don't - you suppose it would tempt him?” - </p> - <p> - “It might. Though Kang knows the value of every piece.” Doane was finding - difficulty in keeping pace with the situation. Kane would shave every - penny, as a matter of principle. That, of course, explained him; was the - secret of his wealth and power. Paintings, after all, mattered to him only - in a remote sense; you could always buy them if you chose, if people - would, as apparently they did, think better of you for buying them. It - came down to the desirability of building up and solidifying one's name, - of what Doane had heard spoken of everywhere in America during his last - visit as “publicity.” The word irritated him. It suggested that other - word, also heard everywhere in America, “salesmanship.” These words, to - the sensitively observant Doane, had connoted an unpleasant blend of - aggressive enterprise with an equally aggressive plausibility. - </p> - <p> - But his wits were sharpening fast. If this man was a buyer, he would be a - seller. - </p> - <p> - “His excellency has another collection that might or might not interest - you—the value of it would be only slightly artistic—his - precious stones.” Doane threw this cut carelessly. “There is no estimating - the value of those. It might run into the millions....” He saw Kane's eyes - come to a sudden hard focus behind the veil of smoke. He was really - interested at last. And Doane, with mounting pulse, quietly added, “He has - historical jewels from many parts of Asia—head ornaments, bracelets, - ropes of matched pearls from Ceylon, old careen jade from Khotan, - quantities of the jewelry taken from Khorassan and Persia by Genghis Khan - and his sons, including a number of famous royal pieces, and some of the - jeweled ornaments brought from the temples of India by Kublai Khan.” - </p> - <p> - This, Doane knew, was enough. He waited, now, himself. Waited and waited. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Doane”—Kane, at last, was speaking—“I would be glad to - have you approach the viceroy for me. To-night, if you think best. I will - be glad, of course, to pay you a commission.” - </p> - <p> - “Shall I make a definite offer—for the paintings and the jewels?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” Kane considered. “Let him set a price. Then we will make our offer.” - </p> - <p> - “It is safe to say, Mr. Kane”—Doane was remembering experiences of - men in church and educational work who had had to approach the great - capitalists for gifts of money—“that you could sell half the - paintings for what you might pay for the two collections at this time. - That would enable you to give the other half, as a collection bearing your - own name, to one of the art museums at home, at no cost to yourself.” - </p> - <p> - Kane smoked thoughtfully. “I presume, Mr. Doane,” he said, “that the - predicament you spoke of can not interfere in any way with the safe - delivery of the collections.” - </p> - <p> - Doane considered. How much did this man know? That Japanese, behind his - mask of a smile, would be deep, of course. With a sudden sinking of the - heart, Doane perceived that Kane might easily know the whole story. But - even if he did he would admit nothing. He trusted no one; that was his - calm cynical strength. He would trade to the last.... Another swift, if - random, perception of this tense moment was that much of the common talk - regarding the “inscrutable” East was utter nonsense. Read in the light of - history and habit the Oriental mind was anything but deeply mysterious; it - was, indeed, very nearly an open book. Whereas the Western mind, with its - miraculous religion, its sentimentality and materialism and (at the same - time) its cynically unscrupulous financial power, could be baffling - indeed. - </p> - <p> - Desperate now, seeing no other way through, Doane spoke out from his - tortured heart. “Mr. Kane, the simple fact is that his excellency has been - condemned to death, and his daughter to a fate that will almost certainly - end in death for her as well. They are seizing his property....” - </p> - <p> - “Who are they?” - </p> - <p> - “The Imperial Government—the empress dowager and her crew. They are - sending the chief eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, to take his paintings and jewels, - and his daughter, to Peking. Frankly, it may be necessary to hurry matters—smuggle - the things out. But the fan paintings can be packed in parcels, the - scrolls rolled small on their ivory sticks, the jewels gathered in a few - boxes. Once in white hands they would be safe. I think. I believe I can - arrange it. The porcelains and carvings you would probably have to leave - behind.” - </p> - <p> - His voice died out. Dawley Kane was coolly appraising him. Their minds - were not meeting. - </p> - <p> - “As you are stating it now, it is a different situation altogether,” said - Kane, the ring of tempered metal in his voice. “Obviously the man to deal - with is the eunuch, What's-his-name.” - </p> - <p> - “But—really—” - </p> - <p> - “He would have the collections complete including the porcelains and the - carvings. I should want them all. He would be ignorant and corrupt, of - course; we could buy him for a song. And there would be no risk. Yes, let - him get possession. Then if you would like to approach him for me I will - be glad to see that you make something for yourself.” - </p> - <p> - Doane drew in his breath. Slowly he said: “But that, Mr. Kane, seems a - good deal like taking a profit out of the viceroy's misfortune.” - </p> - <p> - But he caught himself. To Kane, who had made enormous profits out of - wrecked railways, who had cornered stocks and produce and mercilessly - squeezed the short sellers, this would be sentimentality. - </p> - <p> - Doane heard himself saying: “I'm sorry. I could hardly undertake it, Mr. - Kane.” And walked away. His failure was complete. Worse, if there had been - any gaps in the information supplied by the ubiquitous little Kato, they - were filled now. The finely balanced machine that served so smoothly as a - brain in the head of the great American, would be working on and on. - Through the Japanese he could easily enough reach Chang Yuan-fu from - Hankow after the tragedy that now hovered so close over the old viceroy - and all that was his. He could make what he and his suave kind would - doubtless regard—the slang word came grimly—as a killing. - </p> - <p> - The white men had made a small fire of dry rushes and thwarts from the - boats. There sat Hui Fei, the sleeping little princess in her arms; and, - beside her, Rocky Kane. Near by, where the men had spread coats on the - ground, Miss Means and Miss Andrews slept side by side. - </p> - <p> - Doane walking toward the group—stopping, moving away only to turn - irresolutely back—saw young Kane reach over and take the child into - his own arms, and saw Hui Fei smile at him. He strode away then, - struggling to believe that she could do that. But she had.... After all, - she knew only that he had acted outrageously toward her, had then - apologized publicly, boyishly, and now had brought her little sister - ashore, himself falling exhausted on the bank. With those few facts, out - of her impulsively young judgment she could strike a balance in his favor. - Even at his worst he had bluntly admired her; for that she might, in the - end, forgive him. And his youth would call to her. - </p> - <p> - Deane, indeed, forced himself to consider the boy dispassionately. The - wild oats of any spoiled youth with too much money at his disposal, if - brought together, and closely scrutinized, would make an appalling - showing. Wild young men did, of course, recover. There was in this boy a - note of intensity—passionate, eager—that was by no means all - egotism. And there was in the father a hard sort of character that had - proved itself indomitable, and that must be taken into account. Yes, it - was a simple fact, that many a young fellow had gone farther wrong than - had Rocky Kane without wrecking his adult life. You couldn't tell. And - there they were, the eager moody boy and the lovely girl, who was oddly, - quaintly conspicuous in her opera wrap, sitting very close, talking in low - tones while he walked alone. It was torture.... yet it wras an awakening. - He told himself that it was better so... Pacing back and forth, dwelling - on the quick changeableness of youth, its ardor and sensitive hopefulness, - he thought—reaching out for fellowship as will always the hurt soul—of - other lonely lives, of Abelard and Jean Valjean, of St. Francis, even of - Christ. It was odd—from his present philosophical position of - something near Taoism he felt the legendary Christ as a profoundly human - and friendly spirit, immeasurably more tender, finer, gentler than the - theological structure of thought and conduct that had been erected in His - name. He had thought himself very nearly around the circle, back to - essential good.... This process could bring only humility. Life began to - matter less. Love was a tormenting problem of self; the mature soul must - in some measure attain selflessness if it were not to go down in the - trampled dust of life. Worldly success was an accident. It was hardly - desirable; hardly mattered. That he had within the hour pinned his hope to - money, fairly fought for it, began to seem incredible. - </p> - <p> - The viceroy found him standing quietly by the river, turning from the - slowly dying fire out there to the slowly spreading glow in the eastern - sky. - </p> - <p> - “I like to think,” remarked his excellency, smiling in friendly fashion, - “that when the first Buddhist patriarch, Bodhidharma, miraculously crossed - the river on a reed plucked from the southern bank, it was not far from - here, near my home.” - </p> - <p> - “Was not your city of Huang Chau the home of Li To?” asked Doane. - </p> - <p> - “Indeed, yes!” cried his excellency. “In some of his excursions on the - river he undoubtedly passed the site of my home.” - </p> - <p> - Doane quoted from that most famous of rhapsodists in musical Chinese: - “'One who has hearkened to the waters roaring down from the heights of - Lung, and faint voices from the land of Ch'in; one who has listened to the - cries of monkeys on the shores of the Yangtze Kiang and the songs of the - land of Pa'.... That”—he was musing aloud, reflectively as the - Chinese do—“was written three full centuries before William of - Normandy first set foot on British soil.... Li Po so described himself.” - </p> - <p> - They talked on, of life and philosophy, in, language interwoven with - classical allusions. Friendship, the finest relationship in Chinese - civilization, as it stood, had come to them.... It brought a kind of - peace. Doane failed to recognize this sensation as in some degree but a - phase of his painful exaltation. It seemed to him then that his struggle, - no matter what atonement might lie before, was over. He forgot again the - Western vigor that was, and to the last would be, driving his spirit. - </p> - <p> - Meanwhile the swiftly growing acquaintanceship of Huj Fei and Rocky Kane - was weaving its bright-tinted weft in and out through the dark warp of - Rocky's ill-spent youth. His eyes followed the slightest movement of her - slim hands and rested dog-like on her finely modeled head about which the - shining wet black hair lay close. To his quick youth she was an exquisite - fairy. He felt her as perfume in the air he breathed. Her voice, when she - drowsily, prettily spoke, fell on his ear like music in an enchanted land. - He could say little; he had never before so lost himself. - </p> - <p> - She tried daintily to conceal a yawn. And he, clasping the child in both - arms, turned away to hide its brother. Then, very softly, she laughed and - he laughed. - </p> - <p> - “You must try to sleep,” he said gently. - </p> - <p> - “I can no' let you keep my sister. You, too, are ver' tire'.” - </p> - <p> - “It's nothing. I love to hold her. Really! You see, my life hasn't been - this way. Maybe, if I'd had a sister...” He stopped; suddenly, vividly - sensing what he had been; a hot flush flooded his sensitive face. He could - only add then: “I want you to sleep. It may be hours before the boat comes - for you. It's been such a horrible night—such a nightmare....” - </p> - <p> - “But you mus' res', too. One of the servan's will take my sister.” - </p> - <p> - “No!” he cried, low, fiercely, “I won't let any one else have her!” - Sensing crudely that the child was a chord between them, he tightened his - hold. The little head rolled back on his arm; he bent over, tenderly - kissed the soft cheek, then looked over it at Hui Fei, staring. During one - brief moment their eyes met full in the flickering yellow light. - </p> - <p> - She turned away; in lieu of speech looked about for a spot to lay her - head. - </p> - <p> - “Here!” He laid the child on the ground; and, surprised to find himself - collarless and coatless, took off his waistcoat, rolled it up and placed - it for a pillow. “It's really pretty well dried out,” he added, with an - embarrassed little laugh.... Then, as she still said nothing, went on, “Do - just lie down there. I'll keep awake. We can't count on the servants; - they're all scared to death.” - </p> - <p> - Still she hesitated. “I'm afraid I am ver' tire',” she finally remarked - unsteadily. “I can't think ver' clearly.” - </p> - <p> - “Listen!” said he, hardly hearing. “I've got to tell you something. I'm - not good enough so much as to speak to you.” - </p> - <p> - “Please!” she murmured. “I don' wan' you to talk abou'—” - </p> - <p> - “I don't mean that. It's other things too.” His voice broke, but after a - moment he pressed on, a determined look on his curiously youthful face. - “I've done every rotten thing I could think of. I'm—well, I guess - I'm just a criminal. No, listen—please! It's true. I'm to blame for - this awful fire—smoking opium in my cabin. It was my lamp—it - must have been. I fell asleep. But I knew better, of course.... Oh, God, - it's terrible! All those lives, all this suffering! And you—I've - nearly killed you—when it was you....” Here, creditably, he caught - himself. “Don't think I'm talking wildly. I'm getting at something. Seeing - you, meeting you—and now, this—well, I've never seen anybody - like you. It's bowled me off my feet. I know what love is, now—Oh, - please! I've got to get this out. I love you. I'm crazy about you. I can - say that because pretty soon that boat'll come and you'll go and I'll - never see you again. It's right, too! I've got to start again—alone - and prove that there's good stuff in me somewhere...” - </p> - <p> - “I'm ver' tire',” she murmured wistfully; and resting her head on the - rolled-up waistcoat she lay still. - </p> - <p> - If she had only let him finish! There had been something—some point—he - was getting at. He hadn't meant to tire her or hurt her.... When the tall - eunuch came for the little princess he angrily drove the fellow away. For - Hui Fei was sleeping now, peacefully, like the warm little child in his - arms. - </p> - <p> - An English gunboat was the first relief craft to arrive; in the cool dawn; - a tiny craft, built for the river, with a white freeboard low as a - monitor's and bridge structure forward of the thin high funnel. The small - boat that came ashore made a number of trips, taking off the passengers - and the surviving white officers of the <i>Yen Hsin</i>. - </p> - <p> - His excellency refused, with calm courtesy, to set foot on the English - gunboat that was built for the river; he would wait for the junk that had - been sent for. - </p> - <p> - Dawley Kane found his son, nodding, with the picturesquely-clad child in - his arms. The boy, glancing at the sleeping Hui Fei whose head rested - comfortably on the rolled-up waistcoat, gave the child now to the - patiently waiting eunuch, then fairly dragged his father to the boat. With - the Japanese, Kato, and oddly distant to the big mate and the suddenly - exotic-appearing viceroy in his richly embroidered satins who had been - after all only casually, for a few days, in their lives, they embarked. - </p> - <p> - They had nearly reached the gunboat when those on the bank heard young - Kane's voice raised in hot protest. There was a moment of argument; then a - splash. The boy could be seen then swimming back to shore. And Dawley - Kane, turning his back, went on to the gunboat, stepped aboard, and - disappeared. Rocky clambered, dripping, up the bank; came straight to - Duane, a staring, exhausted youth, very white. - </p> - <p> - “I can't do it.” he panted. “They've just told me—Kato and the pater—about - this terrible trouble of the viceroy's and—and Miss Hui Fei's.... - The pater said it was time I—got clear of any new entanglement. I - quit him. Oh, I suppose you'll think me a—damn fool, but”—at - this point he nearly broke into tears—“but I love that girl, Mr. - Doane! If I can't be of some use to her—now, in this awful trouble—I - don't want to live. Will you—help me? And let me help?”.... And, all - blind confidence, he offered his hand to the big mate; who took it. - </p> - <p> - The gunboat hoisted anchor and swung about, heading down-stream. Passing - her, upward bound, came a large junk, with the rig of a trader from - Szechuen, her single huge rectangular sail, brown-umber 'n tint and - closely ribbed with battens of bamboo, flat against the one mast that - towered clumsily amidships. The eight long sweeps, in the low waist and - forward, moved rhythmically in time with the syncopated, wailing chant of - nearly a hundred oarsmen. The <i>tai-kung</i> crouched, bamboo pole in - hand, just within the prow. - </p> - <p> - The hull was of cypress, stained from stem to stern with yellow orpiment - and rubbed to a polish with oil. The high after-deck structure, all of - fifty feet in length, terminating in a projecting gallery-twenty feet or - higher above the water, was carved everywhere in intricately decorative - designs; as were, also, the roof over the tillerman's stand on the deck - house and the gallery railing (just within which stood a row of flowering - plants in yellow and green pots). The many small windows along the sides - were glazed with opalescent squares of ground oyster shells and glue; - those across the stern (under the gallery) with stained glass. - </p> - <p> - To no one aboard the gunboat or among the still waiting groups on the bank - did the thought occur that this craft might be engaged in other than - peaceable business. Her like were not an uncommon sight along the always - crowded river. The passing attention she drew was merely that aroused by a - richly decorative object moving beautifully (with a remarkably detailed - reflection) through the flat water, that itself glowed under the red and - gold of the early morning sky like a great sheet of burnished old copper. - It was not observed that three white faces peered warily out of the - shadow, behind as many opened windows; nor could it easily be seen that - the figure in blue, sitting, knees drawn up, on the deck house just behind - the <i>laopan</i> who mercilessly urged on the sweat-shining oarsmen, was - none other than the redoubtable Tom Sung. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VIII—ABOARD THE YELLOW JUNK - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N making their - escape from the steamer, Tex Connor and the Manila Kid seized one of the - small boats, manning, one at either end, the tackle-falls. Connor was - quick, rough, profane. The Kid, breathless with excitement, hesitant, - glancing back over the rail for a thinly girlish face that did not, then, - appear, worked with ten thumbs at the ropes. Connor's end, the boat, fell - first, a short way, nearly pitching him out. He cursed this futile man, - his jackal, roundly; then clung to the tackle as the stern fell.... The - Kid moaned with pain as the slipping hemp burned the skin off his fingers, - but held it just short of disaster. - </p> - <p> - Hot red flames licked out overhead as the boat jerkily dropped. The women - were screaming up there. A white man, the second mate, leaned over, - swearing vigorously at them. They passed an open freight gangway, where - bodies lay. - </p> - <p> - “Ready, now!” cried Connor. “Let go with me!” - </p> - <p> - “Wait a minute, can't you?” whined the Kid. He was peering into the dark - interior of the steamer; grasping a moment more; wrapping a handkerchief - about his left hand. “My God! Can't a fellow tie up his hand.” - </p> - <p> - A thin blue figure appeared, stepped lightly over into the boat and - dropped on a middle thwart. - </p> - <p> - “Dixie!” cried the Kid in falsetto. - </p> - <p> - She wore a cap, and carried an oddly lady-like shopping bag. - </p> - <p> - “Where'd you come from?” growled Connor. - </p> - <p> - “I saw you start,” said the girl casually. “Come on—let's get away.” - </p> - <p> - Connor stared at her; then turned back to his work. The boat struck the - water and drifted rapidly away down-stream. Connor, roaring angrily at the - Kid, got out an oar. - </p> - <p> - “What are you doing?” asked Miss Carmichael very quietly. - </p> - <p> - “Going ashore?” said Connor. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come, Tex!” said she. “Use your head.” - </p> - <p> - He looked sharply, inquiringly, doubtingly at her. - </p> - <p> - “You two better row straight down-stream as hard as you can,” she added. - “You can bet Tom Sung and that gang aren't going to show themselves at Kiu - Kiang. They've stopped somewhere below here.” - </p> - <p> - The Kid, who was nursing his hand, looked up; wrinkled his low forehead - that was hatless, and then softly whistled. Connor made no remark, but - continued studying the girl with his one eye. Finally, with an effort at - reasserting his authority, he growled: - </p> - <p> - “Take an oar, Jim!” - </p> - <p> - “But my hands! My God, that rope took all the—” - </p> - <p> - “Do you expect me to do the rowing, Jim?” said Miss Carmichael. - </p> - <p> - The Kid yielded then. The girl settled herself comfortably in the stem, - looking back at the fire. Soon they were out of the circle of light. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly Connor drew in his oar; stowed it away. - </p> - <p> - “Dixie,” he remarked. “You've made up your mind to go through with this - business, eh?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly,” she replied. - </p> - <p> - “You'll have to come across if you want my help. I won't go it blind.” - </p> - <p> - Miss Carmichael glanced back at the red glow in the sky, then out toward - the slightly paling East. - </p> - <p> - “I'll tell you by sunrise,” she said. “The thing won't keep much longer - than that, anyhow. It'll have to be fairly quick work.” - </p> - <p> - “All right,” said Connor. “That's an agreement. Now I'm going to take a - nap. This current's taking us down fast enough. When you sight Tom's - outfit, wake me up.” With which he curled up in the bow, and soon was - snoring. - </p> - <p> - The Kid stowed his own oar, and crept to the girl's side. - </p> - <p> - “Careful!” she whispered. “If he should wake up....” She extricated - herself from an encircling arm. “Jim—sit still now!—It's time - you and I had an understanding. I need you, and I'm going to use you. I - don't propose to have you all steamed up, either. You'll need all the - nerve you've got. Perhaps more. I'm not at all sure that you're big enough - for what you've got to do. That's the difficulty.” - </p> - <p> - “You promised, Dixie.” He was still absurdly breathless. “You said it was - a trade—if I'd stick to you, you'd stick to me!” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly. But it's during the next eight or ten hours that you're going - to find out what sticking to me, means. You can have me, all right, Jim, - but you've got to earn me.” - </p> - <p> - “I guess I'll earn you, all right.” - </p> - <p> - “I wonder if you have the courage.” - </p> - <p> - “By God, for you, Dixie—” - </p> - <p> - Her hand fell lightly on his; and her voice, very small and calm, broke in - with: “Supposing I told you to kill a man. Would you do it?” - </p> - <p> - She heard, felt, his breath stop. Then he whispered, with one swift glance - at the sleeping Connor: “If I say yes, Dixie, will you kiss me? Right now?” - </p> - <p> - She pressed her lips slightly; then replied: “No. Not yet. And you needn't - kill anybody until I tell you to.” - </p> - <p> - “Is it—is it”—his whisper was huskier—“is it—him, - Dixie?” He was staring with less certainty now, at Connor. - </p> - <p> - “No”—said she slowly—“nobody in particular. But anything may - happen to-night, Jim. And we can't falter. Not now.” - </p> - <p> - She let him press her hand during a brief moment; then made him resume his - seat. And from behind lowered lids she watched him. - </p> - <p> - Once he came back, to ask hoarsely: “You said he was rough with you, Dix. - Did he—did you and he—my God, if I thought that Tex had—” - </p> - <p> - She caught his shoulder and placed a hand over his mouth: held him thus - while she said: “If he catches you back here, Jim, he'll kill you. No - fear! Now you go back there and show me that you can play cards. You're - sitting in the biggest game of your life. Jim Watson.” - </p> - <p> - He crept back; puzzled, something hurt. There was a sting in her voice. - Could it be that the girlish Dixie was as cold-blooded as that? Treating - him like a child! Hadn't she any feelings? The question came around and - around in his muddy brain, confused with frantic uprushes of jealousy - against the big man who slept and snored in the bow.... hadn't she any - feelings?.... She was excitingly desirable. - </p> - <p> - Just as a conquest, now; something to brag about. - </p> - <p> - It was Dixie who sighted the soldiers, sitting in heated argument on the - bank not a hundred yards below a big junk that lay moored to stakes in an - eddy. She called sharply to Connor; they pulled straight in beside the - other two boats. - </p> - <p> - Tom Sung came to the water's edge, a rifle (with set bayonet) in his hand. - Connor stepped out, holding the boat. The Kid, with a furtive, glance at - the big yellow fighter, and the abruptly silent shadowy group on the bank, - cautiously got out an automatic pistol and held it beside him on the - thwart. - </p> - <p> - Dixie said sharply, for Connor's ears: “Put up that gun, Jim!” - </p> - <p> - The Kid obeyed. - </p> - <p> - She spoke then to Connor direct. - </p> - <p> - “Tell your man we want that junk,” she said. “Get out these other boats - and take it, quick. Then we'll start back up-stream.” - </p> - <p> - For a moment Connor was nonplussed. The girl's assumption of authority was - complete. Even the slow-thinking Tom Sung felt her presence and turned - abruptly from himself toward her. - </p> - <p> - But, though angered, Connor controlled himself. She meant, after all, - business. Dixit wasn't a girl to make careless mistakes. She knew, none - better, what any success, little or big, might be worth in risks run. So, - speaking sharply, he gave his orders to Tom. - </p> - <p> - Quietly the twenty or more outlaw soldiers came down to the boats and - pushed off. Rowing and paddling they crept up on the junk. A drowsy - watchman peeped over at the rail, forward. - </p> - <p> - Then they were alongside. Catching at the mooring poles, the soldiers - stepped out on the wide sponson that curved down, amidships, nearly to the - water-line. Quickly, rifles slung on backs but revolvers at their girdles - and knives in their teeth, they went up the ropes hand over hand, their - bare feet dinging monkeylike to the smooth side. - </p> - <p> - There were cries aboard now, and a confusion of running feet. The first - soldier to get a leg over the rail came tumbling back with a split skull, - bounding off the sponson into the water and sinking as he drifted away. - </p> - <p> - Connor and the Kid caught together at the sponson. Connor stepped out; and - calling on a belated soldier to give him a back, climbed laboriously, - puffing but determined, up over the rail, pausing at the top only to call - back for the Kid to follow. - </p> - <p> - But that worthy hesitated, crouching, clutching at the boat painter. “I've - got to hold the boat here!” he shouted back; but Connor had disappeared. - </p> - <p> - There was much noise up there now—shouts, groans, appalling - screeches, shots, and that insistent pattering of feet. - </p> - <p> - Dixie, watching critically the crouching figure on the sponson—for - the Kid was shivering and making little sounds, obviously caught in the - acute physical distress into which extreme sudden fear will at times - plunge a man—called abruptly: “Jim—look up!” - </p> - <p> - A nearly naked Chinese was lowering himself in a deliberate gingerly - manner down a moving rope nearly overhead. - </p> - <p> - “Kill him, Jim!” Dixie added. - </p> - <p> - Singling out her clear voice from the tumult, the yellow man looked - fearfully down. - </p> - <p> - The Kid, at the same moment, looked up; then, fumbling in a curiously - absent way for his pistol, glanced back at Dixie. - </p> - <p> - “I'll hold the boat,” said she. “Go on—kill him!” She sat quietly, - one thin arm reached out to the nearest mooring pole, looking steadily up. - </p> - <p> - The Kid, nerving himself, suddenly burst into a storm of wild oaths and - shot three times into the body above him. At the first shot the man - slipped down a little way. - </p> - <p> - “Push him away!” Dixie cried sharply. “I don't want him falling into the - boat!” - </p> - <p> - He was shooting again; and then with an effort diverted the falling body. - </p> - <p> - Dixie got up, and stood steadying herself in the gently rocking boat; and - the Kid—quit; out of breath now, and muttering, as he fondled the - hot pistol, “Well, I did it, didn't I? I did what you said!”—found - in her eyes, shining through the dusk of early dawn, a bright white light - that was, to him, disconcerting and yet profoundly thrilling. He shivered - again as he felt the spell of her strange genius. What a woman, he was - thinking again, but wildly, madly, now, to conquer. - </p> - <p> - And she was saying, “I guess your nerve's all right.” - </p> - <p> - Other shining yellow bodies were tumbling over the side and floating away. - </p> - <p> - “Help me up there, Jim!” she commanded. “Never mind tying the boat—let - it go! It's only a giveaway. Quick—give me a hand!” - </p> - <p> - She was beside him on the sponson. He clasped her in his arms; but before - he could kiss her she slapped him sharply. “Keep your head!” she - commanded. “Put me up there!” - </p> - <p> - He lifted her high; until she could kneel, then stand, on his shoulder. - She went over the rail as lightly as a boy. She found the soldiers in - small groups cornering one or another of the crew, torturing and hacking - at them with bayonets and knives, and during a brief moment looked on with - a curious keen interest. The master, or <i>laopan</i>, crouched, - whimpering, on the poop.... She saw Connor standing by the mast, just - above the well, amidships and forward, where were huddled the survivors - among the crew (their number surprisingly large); Connor was panting, - revolver in hand, and scowling about him. - </p> - <p> - Dixie stepped to his side. - </p> - <p> - “You've got to save enough of this crew to work the boat up the river, - Tex,” she remarked. - </p> - <p> - “I'm saving enough of 'em,” he replied gruffly. “We've only killed a dozen - or so. There was more'n a hundred.” - </p> - <p> - The heavily evil-looking Tom Sung reluctantly detached himself from one of - the groups and came over, wiping his bayonet casually on his sleeve. Mr. - Connor roughly ordered to gather his men together and make ready to get - under way. To the Kid, who came awkwardly over the rail just then, Connor - gave merely a glance. Then to Dixie, he said: - </p> - <p> - “Come up here!” - </p> - <p> - He led the way up the steps with the carven hand rail to the poop; gave - the <i>laopan</i> a careless kick; stepped around the steersman's covered - pit and out astern on the high projecting gallery. - </p> - <p> - “Now,” he said, fixing his one eye on Her, “where's this place?” - </p> - <p> - She turned away to the pots of flowers that stood closely spaced just - within the elaborate woodwork of the railing. There were chrysanthemums, - white, yellow and deep Indian red; highly cultivated double dahlias; red - lotus blossoms; and tuberoses that filled the fresh morning air with their - heavy perfume. “Well?” Connor added explosively. - </p> - <p> - “I said I'd tell you by sunrise, Tex,” she said, coolly pleasant; and - hummed, very softly, a music-hall tune, bending over a spreading lotus - blossom with every appearance of ingenuous girlish interest. After a - moment, she went on, “The thing now is to get this junk up the river as - fast as it will go.” - </p> - <p> - “Where to?” He was controlling his voice, but his face, usually - expressionless, was brutally clouded...."Push me just a little farther, - Dix, and you'll go overboard. And there won't be any flowers at the - funeral. By God, I'm not sure I wouldn't enjoy it. You got me into this - business! Now if you—” - </p> - <p> - “Better control yourself, Tex,” said she; straightening up before him. “I - may have got you in, but it's a real job now. You've got to go through. - And you're going to need me. The place is a few miles this side of a town - called Huang Chau, on the north hank.” - </p> - <p> - “Beyond Hankow?” - </p> - <p> - “No, below. It's only a matter of hours getting up there, if you'll just - get this junk started.” - </p> - <p> - “How'll we know it when we get there?” - </p> - <p> - “All we've got to do is ask a native, anywhere along the bank, where Kang - Yu lives—his old home.” - </p> - <p> - “Who's he?” - </p> - <p> - “The viceroy of Nanking. Why don't you use that eye of yours once in a - while, Tex—look around you a little?” - </p> - <p> - Slowly his mind, so quick at the vicious games of his own race, picked up - and related the facts. His face relaxed, as he thought, into the familiar - wooden expression. - </p> - <p> - “You're sure the stones are there?” he asked, quietly now. - </p> - <p> - She nodded; hummed again; caressed the flowers. - </p> - <p> - “All right, Dix,” he said then, as he turned to go forward, “that sounds - square enough. I guess I can handle it all right. And I'll see that you - get your share all hunky dory.” - </p> - <p> - “What are you figuring my share to be?” she asked, glancing casually up - from a lotus blossom. - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” he cried without hesitation, almost playfully, “you and I aren't - going to have any trouble about that.” - </p> - <p> - He went then; and she lingered among the flowers. - </p> - <p> - From beyond the long deck house came shouts and wailing. The great sweeps - were got overside. The mooring poles were hoisted out and lashed along the - sponsons. The clumsy craft swung out into the river and moved slowly - forward. - </p> - <p> - At the sound of a hasty light step Dixie looked up into the haggard gray - face of the Kid. - </p> - <p> - “What was it?” he whispered, glancing fearfully behind him. “Wha'd he say - to you?” - </p> - <p> - She dropped her eyes; turned away. - </p> - <p> - “Quick! Tell me, or by God, I'll—” - </p> - <p> - She threw up a frail white hand. - </p> - <p> - “Not now, Jim!” - </p> - <p> - “When?” - </p> - <p> - “He'll have to sleep. There's work ahead.” - </p> - <p> - “If you think <i>I</i> can sleep—” - </p> - <p> - “I can't either, Jim. It's dreadful. But I'm going to tell you everything. - You have a right to know. Wait till we're past the steamer. We'd better - get below now anyhow. We mustn't be seen. If we aren't, they'll never - suspect this junk. Then make sure he's asleep and come up here. I'll be - waiting.” - </p> - <p> - The Kid brought Dixie's breakfast of rice and eggs and tea to the gallery. - </p> - <p> - “The cook was only wounded a little,” he explained. “Tom's got him working - now.” - </p> - <p> - Dixie was reclining on a Canton chair of green rushes over a bamboo frame, - her head resting languidly near the tuberoses. Now and again she drew in - deeply the rich odor. And beyond the fringe of flowers and the carven - railing she could see the river. Junks moved slowly by, sliding down with - the current—somber seagoing craft out of Tientsin and Cheefoo and - Swatow and even Canton. By a village were clustered open sampans, and - slipper-boats with their coverings of arched matting. The small craft of - the fishermen with suspended nets or with roosting, crowding cormorants - clustered here and there along the channel-way. Everywhere farmers and - their coolies were at work in the fields. A family—father, mother, - boys and girls—worked tirelessly with their feet a large irrigating - wheel at the water's edge. - </p> - <p> - The Kid seated himself on the deck and mournfully looked on while she ate. - Perversely she delayed her narrative, playing with time and life. In her - oblique way she was happy, exercising her gift for gambling on a scale new - in her experience. Indeed, for the thrill she now experienced, Dixie - Carmichael would have paid almost any price. Life itself—the mere - existing—-she held almost as cheaply as the Chinese. Deliberately, - with nerves steady as steel instruments, she finished her simple breakfast - and then put the bowls aside on the deck. - </p> - <p> - Lying back, averting her face, gazing off down the river, she began the - narrative that she had framed within the hour. Her manner, calm at first, - soon offered evidences of deeply suppressed emotion. Her voice exhibited - the first unsteadiness the Kid had ever heard in it. She drew out an - embroidered handkerchief from the pocket of her blouse and pressed it once - or twice to her eyes, as, with an air of dogged determination, she talked - on. - </p> - <p> - The narrative itself dealt with her girlhood near San Francisco, her - chance meeting with Tex Connor, then a well-known character on the western - coast of America, her girlish infatuation with him, and an elopement that - she had supposed would end in marriage. Instead she found her life ruined. - Connor had beaten her, degraded her, driven her into vice. She ran away - from him; reached the China Coast; settled down with every intent to - become what she termed, in his and her language, a square gambler. - </p> - <p> - “When I took up with you a little last year, Jim, it seemed to me that at - last I'd found a man I could tie to. You never knew my real feelings. I'm - not the kind that tells much or shows much. I guess perhaps my life's been - too hard. But—oh, Jim!—well, you're, seeing the real girl now. - I'm pretty well beaten down, Jim.... You're getting the truth from me at - last. I've got to tell it—all of it—for your own sake. You're - in worse trouble than you know, right now. The cards are stacked against - you, Jim. Your life even”—her voice broke; but she got it under - control—“I'm going to save you if I can.” - </p> - <p> - Moodily he watched her. - </p> - <p> - “If it was anybody but Tex! He's merciless. He's strong. He never - forgets.... Listen, Jim! Tex came clear from London to find me. And he - found out about—us—you and me. That I was growing fond of you. - He never forgets and he never forgives. Oh. Jim, can't you see it! Can't - you see that that's why he took you on—so he could watch you, keep - you away from me? Can't you see what a game I've had to play? God, if - you'd heard what he said to me back here this very morning—Oh, it's - too awful! I can't tell you! He's so determined! He gets his way, Jim—Tex - gets his way!.... Oh, what can I do!” - </p> - <p> - “No, wait—I've got to tell you the whole thing. You said he was - planning to cross me. He'll do that, of course. I don't think I care much - about that. But you, Jim—oh, you poor innocent boy! If you could - only see! You'll never get your hands on one of the viceroy's jewels.” - </p> - <p> - She turned her face toward him. Her eyes now were swollen and wet with - tears. - </p> - <p> - Jim, gray of face, held in his two hands a Chinese knife, balancing it. - There were stains on the blade. He must have picked it up, she reflected, - here on the junk. For it wouldn't be like him to carry such a weapon. It - seemed to her then that he was holding his breath. She saw him moisten his - blue lips with the tip of an ashen tongue. He was trying to speak. At - least his lips parted again. She waited. When the voice did finally come, - it was so hoarse that he had evident difficulty in making it intelligible. - </p> - <p> - “Tex may be strong—but if you think I'm afraid—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Jim.... no, I don't mean that! Not that! Oh, I don't know what I'm - saying-! It's only when I think how happy you and I might be—think - of it! really rich! able to go and live decently somewhere, like regular - folks!” - </p> - <p> - Silently, with surprising stealthy swiftness, he got to his feet. His - right hand, with the knife, busied itself in a side pocket of his coat. - </p> - <p> - “Say the word, Dixie”—his face was contorted with the muscular - effort necessary to produce this small sound—“say the word, and I'll - kill him.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no, Jim!” she covered her face with her thin hands, and sobbed, very - low. “Oh God, what can we do? Isn't there some other way?” - </p> - <p> - “Say the word,” he whispered. - </p> - <p> - “Would it be”—she broke down again—“would it be—where a - man's a devil, where he's threatened—wouldn't it be like defending - ourselves?” - </p> - <p> - “Say the word!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Jim—-God forgive me!.... Yes!” - </p> - <p> - Her lips barely framed the word. But he read it. She watched him as he - stepped around the huge coils of tracking rope on the roof of the - steersman's pit; watched until he dropped softly down and disappeared. - </p> - <p> - Then, lying back, very still, she listened. But the oarsmen were chanting - up forward, the <i>laopan</i> shouting; nearer, the steersman was singing - an apparently endless falsetto narrative (as if there had never been - bloodshed). The minutes slowly passed. She drew in the sweet exhalation of - the tuberoses.... still no unusual sound. She herself exhibited no sign of - excitement beyond the hint of a cryptic smile and the white light in her - eyes.... Her shopping bag lay on her lap. Opening it, she looked at the - bracelet watch, that nestled close to a small triangular bottle of green - corrosive sublimate tablets.... The gentle wash of the current against the - hull gave out a soothing sound. The slowly rising sun beat warmly down, - and the polished deck radiated the heat. A sensation of drowsiness was - stealing over her. For a short while she fought it off; but then, deciding - that no anxiety on her part could be of value, she yielded, closed the bag - on her lap, and drifted into slumber. - </p> - <p> - It was pleasantly warmer still. She felt her eyes about to open—slowly—on - a presence. This languor was delicious. As an almost ascetic epicure in - sensations she rested a moment longer in it, thinking dreamily of - priceless gems heaped in her hollowed hands; of luxurious idleness in some - exotic port—Singapore, or Penang (she had loved the tropical - splendor of Penang), or in Burmah or India—Rangoon say, or even - Lucknow, Lahore and Simla. They would know less about her there. And with - the means to operate on a larger scale she should be able to add - enormously to her wealth. She decided to dress and act differently; make a - radical change in her methods. - </p> - <p> - Her lips parted. The presence before her—coatless, little cap pushed - back off the low forehead—was Connor. He had pushed aside a flower - pot to make a seat on the rail. - </p> - <p> - She closed her eyes again. He still wore the gray flannels and the white - shoes with the rubber soles-It would be the shoes that had enabled him to - approach without awakening her. He was smoking a cigar And the face was - wooden again—save for his eye—He at stared oddly at her. And - she thought his breathing somewhat short, just at first. - </p> - <p> - She opened her eyes again. - </p> - <p> - “I've had a good nap,” she said. - </p> - <p> - He smoked, and stared. - </p> - <p> - “Where's Jim?” she asked then; quite casually: raising herself on an - elbow. - </p> - <p> - He made no reply; smoked on, still a thought breathless, fixing her with - his eyes. - </p> - <p> - “He brought me some breakfast, just before I fell asleep.... What time is - it?” - </p> - <p> - For what seemed a long space he did not even answer this; merely smoked - and stared. She had never, sensitively keen as were her perceptions, felt - so curious a hostility in Connor. She had hitherto supposed that she - understood him, short as had been their actual acquaintance—-her - narrative of a past with him in America, as related to Jim, was false—but - the man before her now, sitting all but motionless on the railing, smoking - with an odd rapid intensity, holding that cold eye on her, was wholly - alien. - </p> - <p> - Finally he replied: “It's afternoon.” - </p> - <p> - “No!” She sat up. “Have we been going right along?” - </p> - <p> - “Right along.” - </p> - <p> - She stood erect; covered a yawn; then with her thin hands smoothed down - the wrinkled blue skirt about her hips. - </p> - <p> - “I look like the devil,” she remarked. The thin hands went to her hair. - “You haven't noticed any sort of a mirror in the cabin, have you, Tex?” - </p> - <p> - He did not reply. - </p> - <p> - Faintly through the still air came a faint sound—a boom—boom-bom. - </p> - <p> - “What's that?” she asked sharply. - </p> - <p> - “Fighting around Hankow.” - </p> - <p> - “We're not way up there?” She stepped to the side and looked out ahead. - “There's a city!” - </p> - <p> - “Tom says it's Huang Chau.” - </p> - <p> - “Hello! We're there!” - </p> - <p> - He inclined his head. - </p> - <p> - “What are you going to do?” - </p> - <p> - “Tie up here.” - </p> - <p> - She heard now other and more confused sounds. The junk was slowing down; - working in toward the yellow shallows. - </p> - <p> - “Now listen!” said he. She glanced at him, then away, apparently - considering the quiet landscape; alien he was indeed, and hostile, his - manner that of an inarticulate man struggling with a set speech.... - “Listen! You're smart enough. But I want you to understand I don't trust - you.'' - </p> - <p> - “Don't you, Tex?” - </p> - <p> - “When I go ashore, you're to stay here—right here on this deck—where - you are now.” - </p> - <p> - “What's the big idea, Tex?” - </p> - <p> - “There'll be men to see that you do stay here. I want you to get this - straight.” - </p> - <p> - “Of course,” said she musingly, “you won't be able to rob me outright. - You'll have to give me enough of a share to keep me quiet afterward.” - </p> - <p> - He said nothing. - </p> - <p> - “But what's to prevent the crew from getting away with the junk. I'm not - very keen about being carried off that way.” - </p> - <p> - “You needn't worry. I'm taking the master along with me.” - </p> - <p> - He stood then; looked meaningly at her; then went forward. She noted that - his two hip pockets bulged. - </p> - <p> - Slowly the long narrow craft was worked in toward the land. Trackers - sculled ashore in sampans and made the great hawsers fast to stakes. Then - the crew, with a deal of shouting and many casual blows, were assembled in - the long well forward of the mast, where they huddled abjectly. - </p> - <p> - Keeping around the steersman's house, Dixie contrived to take in much of - the scene. There was quarreling among the soldiers. Tom Sung towered over - them, shouting rough orders. The two men that were told off (she judged to - guard her and the junk) appeared to be objecting to their part in the - affair. Obviously there would be small loot here. - </p> - <p> - Connor came back over the deck house; stood angrily over her. She sensed - the mounting brutality in him. For that matter, his sort and their ways - with women were familiar enough to her. She had learned to take brutal men - for granted. But it had not occurred to her that Connor would strike her. - However, he did. Knocked her to her knees; then to her face; even kicked - her as she lay on the deck. He was suddenly loud, wild. - </p> - <p> - “None o' this peeking around!” he cried. “Keep your eyes where they - belong!” And left her there. - </p> - <p> - After a little she was able to creep to the rail and peer out through the - flowers. Frightened members of the crew were sculling the sampans back and - forth, until at length the whole party, every man except the <i>laopan</i> - armed, fully assembled, set off inland. - </p> - <p> - Beyond an unpleasant headache she felt no injury. She sat for a little - while; then again looked forward. The two guards were on the deck house, - talking excitedly together. While she watched they climbed down, shouted - at the huddled crew, fired a careless shot or two into the mass of them - that brought down at least one. At length two of the crew went over the - side, followed by the soldiers. A moment later the sampan appeared moving - toward the shore, the two soldiers loudly urging on the oarsmen. - </p> - <p> - Dixie, swiftly then, rearranging her disordered hair as she walked, went - down into the cabin. - </p> - <p> - A corridor extended along one side from the <i>laopans</i> quarters under - the steersman's house—sounds of stifled weeping came from there, - apparently a woman or a girl—forward to the open space amidships. - The rooms all gave on this corridor, the doorways hung with curtains of - blue cotton cloth. Into one and another of these rooms she looked. There - was bentwood furniture and bedding in each—-the latter tossed about. - On the walls hung neat ideographic mottoes. The grillwork about the - windows and over the doors was of a uniform and quaint design. - </p> - <p> - Connor had taken for himself the rear room. There she found, beneath the - window a heap of matting and bedding. Thoughtfully, deliberately, she - lifted it off, piece by piece, exposing first a foot and leg, then a bony - hand, finally the entire figure of what had been Jim Watson, known, of - recent years, along Soochow Road and Bubbling Well Road as the Manila Kid. - His clothing was slashed and torn in many places. About his middle, and - about his head, were wide pools of blood that during a number of hours, - evidently, had been drying into the boards of the deck. The neck, she - observed, on closer examination, had been cut through nearly to the - vertebrae. - </p> - <p> - During a swift moment she considered the grew-some problem; then carefully - replaced the matting and bedding. - </p> - <p> - She went forward then to the end of the corridor; paused to look in her - shopping bag, open the triangular bottle and drop a few of the green pills - into the pocket of her middy blouse, under her handkerchief; closed the - bag and stepped out on the low midships deck. - </p> - <p> - The sampan had just returned to the junk. The two soldiers were walking; - rapidly inland after Connor's party. She let herself quickly over the - side; stepped into the sampan; waved toward the shore. Meekly the cowed - oarsmen obeyed the pantomime order. - </p> - <p> - She stepped out on the bank, very slim, almost pretty; tossed a Chinese - Mexican dollar into the boat, watched, with a faint, reflective smile, the - two primitive creatures as they fought over it; then walked briskly, not - without a trace of native elegance in her carriage, after the soldiers, - lightly swinging her shopping bag. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER IX—IN A GARDEN - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE road—narrow, - worn to a deep-rutted little canyon—circled a brown hill, rose into - a mud-gray village, where a few listless children played among the dogs, - and a few apathetic beggars, and vendors of cakes, and wrinkled old women - stared at the thin white girl who walked rapidly and alone; wound on below - the surface of the cultivated fields; came, at length, to a wall of - gray-brick crowned with tiles of bright yellow glaze and a ridge-piece of - green, and at last to a gate house with a heavily ornamented roof of - timbers and tiles. Other roofs appeared just beyond, and interlacing - foliage that was tinged, here and there, with the red and yellow and - bronze of autumn. - </p> - <p> - The great gates, of heavy plank studded with iron spikes, stood open, - apparently unattended. Dixie Carmichael paused; pursed her lips. Her - coolly searching eyes noted an incandescent light bulb set in the massive - lintel. This, perhaps, would be the place. Almost absently, peering - through into tiled courtyards, she took two of the green tablets from her - pocket; then, holding them in her hand, stepped within, and stood - listening. The rustling of the leaves, she heard, as they swayed in a - pleasant breeze, and a softly musical tinkling sound; then a murmur that - might be voices at a distance and in some confusion; and then, sharply, - with an unearthly thrill, the silver scream of a girl.... Yes, this would - be the place. - </p> - <p> - The buildings on either hand were silent. Doors stood open. Paper windows - were torn here and there, and the woodwork broken in. But the flowers and - the dwarf trees from Japan that stood in jars of Ming pottery were - undisturbed. - </p> - <p> - She passed through an inner gate and around a screen of brick and found - herself in a park. There was a waterfall in a rockery, and a stream, and a - tiny lake. A path led over a series of little arching bridges of marble - into the grove beyond; and through the trees there she caught glimpses of - elaborate yellow roofs. On either hand stood <i>pai-lows</i>—decorative - arches in the pretentious Chinese manner—and beyond each a roofed - pavilion built over a bridge.... She considered these; after a moment - sauntered under the <i>pai-low</i> at her right, mounted the steps and - dropped on the ornamented seat behind a leafy vine. Here she was sheltered - from view, yet her eyes commanded both the main gate and the way over the - marble bridges to the buildings in the grove. - </p> - <p> - She looked about with a sense of quiet pleasure at the gilded fretwork - beneath the curving eaves of the pavilion, the painted scrolls above them, - and the smooth found columns of aged nanmu wood that was in color like - dead oak leaves and that still exhaled a vague perfume. The tinkling sound - set up again as another breeze wandered by; and looking up she saw four - small bells of bronze suspended from the eaves.... She sat very still, - listening, looking, thinking, drawing in with a deep inhalation the - exquisite fragrance of the nanmu wood. It might be pleasant, one day, to - lease or even buy a home like this. So ran her alert thoughts. - </p> - <p> - The murmuring from the buildings in the grove continued, now swelling a - little, now subsiding. It was not, of itself, an alarming sound, except - for an occasional muffled shot. Her quick imagination, however, pictured - the scene—they would be running about, calling to one another, - beating in doors, rummaging everywhere. The drunkenness would doubtless be - already under way. There would be much casual but ingenious cruelty, an - orgiastic indulgence in every uttermost thrill of sense. It would be - interesting to see; she even considered, her nerves tightening slightly at - the thought, strolling back there over the bridges; but held finally to - her first impulse and continued waiting here. - </p> - <p> - A considerable time passed; half an hour or more. Then she glimpsed - figures approaching slowly through the grove. They emerged on the farthest - of the little marble bridges. One was Tex Connor; the second perhaps—certainly—Tom - Sung. They carried armfuls of small boxes, at the sight of which Dixie's - pulse again quickened slightly; for these would be the jewels. Tom - appeared to be talking freely; as they crossed the middle bridge he broke - into song; and he reeled jovially.... Connor walked firmly on ahead. - </p> - <p> - They stopped by the gate screen. Connor glanced cautiously about; then - moved aside into a tiled area that was hidden from the gate and the path - by quince bushes. He called to Tom who followed. - </p> - <p> - Miss Carmichael could look almost directly down at them through the - leaves. She watched closely as they hurriedly opened the boxes and filled - their pockets with the gems. Tom used a stone to break the golden settings - of the larger diamonds, pearls and rubies. - </p> - <p> - A low-voiced argument followed. She heard Tom say, “I come back, all - light. But I got have a girl!” And he lurched away. - </p> - <p> - Connor, looking angrily after him, reached back to his hip pocket; but - reconsidered. He needed Tom, if only as interpreter; and Tom, singing - unmusically as he reeled away over the marble bridges, knew it. - </p> - <p> - Connor waited, standing irresolute, listening, turning his eye toward the - gate, then toward the trees behind him. The girl in the pavilion - considered him. She had not before observed evidence of fear in the man. - But then she had never before seen him in a situation that tested his - brain and nerve as well as his animal courage. He was at heart a bully, of - course: and she knew that bullies were cowards.... What small respect she - had at moments felt for Tex left her now. She came down to despising him, - as she despised nearly all other men of her acquaintance. Still peering - through the leaves, she saw him move a little way toward the gate, then - glance, with a start, toward the marble bridges, finally turning back to - the remaining boxes. - </p> - <p> - He opened one of these—it was of yellow lacquer richly ornamented—and - drew out what appeared to be a tangle of strings of pearls. He turned it - over in his hands; spread it out; felt his pockets; finally unbuttoned his - shirt and thrust it in there. - </p> - <p> - It was at this point that Dixie arose, replaced the green tablets in her - pocket, smoothed her skirt, and went lightly down the steps. He did not - hear her until she spoke. - </p> - <p> - “Do you think Tom'll come back, Tex?” - </p> - <p> - He whirled so clumsily that he nearly fell among the boxes and the broken - and trampled bits of gold and silver; fixed his good eye on her, while the - other, of glass, gazed vacantly over her shoulder. - </p> - <p> - She coolly studied him—the flushed face, bulging pockets, protruding - shirt where he had stuffed in those astonishing ropes of pearls. - </p> - <p> - He said then, vaguely: “What are you doing here?” - </p> - <p> - “Thought I'd come along. Suppose he stays back there—drinks some - more. You'd be sort of up against it, wouldn't you?” - </p> - <p> - “I'd be no worse off than you.” He was evasive, and more than a little - sullen. She saw that he was foolishly trying to keep his broad person - between her and the boxes. - </p> - <p> - “You couldn't handle the junk without Tom. Not very well.... Look here, - Tex, it can't be very far to the concessions at Hankow. We could pick up a - cart, or even walk it.” - </p> - <p> - “What good would that do?” - </p> - <p> - “There'll be steamers down to Shanghai.” - </p> - <p> - “And there'll be police to drag us off.” - </p> - <p> - “How can they? What can they pin on you?” Connor's eye wavered back toward - the grove and the buildings. He was again breathing hard. “After all - this..” he muttered. “That old viceroy'll be up here, you know. With his - mob, too. And there's plenty of people here to tell....” He was trying now - to hold an arm across his middle in a position that would conceal the - treasure there. - </p> - <p> - Her glance followed the motion, and for a moment a faintly mocking smile - hovered about her thin mouth. She said: “Saving those pearls for me, Tex?” - </p> - <p> - He stared at her, fixed her with that one small eye, but offered not a - word. A moment later, however, nervously signaling her to be still he - brushed by and peeped out around the quinces. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” she asked quickly; then moved to his side. - </p> - <p> - Immediately beyond the farthest of the marble bridges stood a group of ten - or twelve soldiers in drunkenly earnest argument. Above them towered the - powerful shoulders and small round head of Tom Sung. In the one quick - glance she caught an impression of rifles slung across sturdy backs, of - bayonets that seemed, at that distance, oddly dark in color; an - impression, too, of confused minds and a growing primitive instinct for - violence. Tom and another swayed toward the bridge; others drew them back - and pointed toward the buildings they had left. The argument waxed. Voices - were shrilly emphatic. - </p> - <p> - “Looks bad,” said the girl at Connor's shoulder. “You've let 'em get out - of hand, Tex.” Then, as she saw him nervously measuring with his eye the - width of the open space between the quinces and the gate screen, she - added, “Thinking of making a run for it, Tex?” - </p> - <p> - He slowly swung that eye on her now; and for no reason pushed her roughly - away. “It's none of your business what I'm going to do,” he replied - roughly. - </p> - <p> - But the voice was husky, and curiously light in quality. And the eye - wavered away from her intent look. This creature fell far short of the Tex - Connor of old. She spoke sharply. - </p> - <p> - “Come up into this summer-house, Tex!” she indicated it with an upward - jerk of her head. “They won't see us there, at first. You didn't see me. - You've got your pistols. You can give me one. We ought to be able to stand - off a few Chinese drunks.” - </p> - <p> - She could see that he was fumbling about for courage, for a plan, in a - mind that had broken down utterly. His growl of—“I'm not giving you - any pistol!”—was the flimsiest of cover. And so she left him, - choosing a moment when that loud argument beyond the bridges was at its - height to run lightly up the steps and into the pavilion. - </p> - <p> - From this point she looked down on the thick-minded Connor as he struggled - between cupidity, fear and the bluffing pride that was so deep a strain in - the man. The one certain fact was that he couldn't purposelessly wait - there, with Tom Sung leading these outlawed soldiers to a deed he feared - to undertake alone.... They were coming over the bridges now, Tom in the - lead, lurching along and brandishing his revolver, the others unslinging - their rifles. The argument had ceased; they were ominously quiet. - </p> - <p> - Dixie got her tablets out again; then sat waiting, that faint mocking - smile again touching the corners of her mouth. But the smile now meant an - excitement bordering on the thrill she had lately envied the savage folk - in the grove. Such a thrill had moved those coldeyed women who sat above - the combat of gladiators in the Colosseum and with thumbs down awaited the - death agony of a fallen warrior. It had been respectable then; now it was - the perverse pleasure of a solitary social outcast. But to this girl who - could be moved by no simple pleasure it came as a gratifying substitute - for happiness. Her own danger but added a sharp edge to the exquisite - sensation. It was the ultimate gamble, in a life in which only gambling - mattered. - </p> - <p> - Connor was fumbling first at a hip pocket where a pistol bulged, then at a - side pocket that bulged with precious stones. His eye darted this way and - that his cheeks had changed in color to a pasty gray. The girl thought for - a moment that he had actually gone out of his head. - </p> - <p> - His action, when it finally came, was grotesquely romantic. She thought, - in a flash, of the adventure novels she had so often seen him reading. It - was to her absurd; even madly comic. For with those bulging pockets and - that gray face, a criminal run to earth by his cruder confederates, he - fell back on dignity. He strode directly out into the path, with a sort of - mock firmness, and, like a policeman on a busy corner, raised his hand. - </p> - <p> - Even at that he might have impressed the soldiers; for he was white, and - had been their vital and vigorous leader, and they were yellow and - low-bred and drunk. As it was, they actually stopped, just over the - nearest bridge; gave the odd appearance of huddling uncertainly there. But - Connor could not hold the pose. He broke; looked wildly about; started, - puffing like a spent runner, up the steps of the pavilion where the girl, - leaning slightly forward, drawing in her breath sharply through parted - lips, looked through the leaves. - </p> - <p> - Several of the rifles cracked then; she heard bullets sing by. And Connor - fell forward on the steps, clawed at them for a moment, and lay still in a - slowly widening pool of thick blood. He had not so much as drawn a weapon. - Tex Connor was gone. - </p> - <p> - They came on, laughing, with a good deal of rough banter, and gathered up - the jewels. Tom and another mounted the steps to the body and went through - the pockets of his trousers for the jewels that were there and the - pistols. As there was no coat they did not look further. And then, - merrily, they went back over the marble bridges to the buildings in the - grove where were still, perhaps, liquor and women. - </p> - <p> - When the last of their shouts had died out, when laying her head against - the fragrant wood she could hear again the musical tinkling of the bronze - bells and the pleasant murmuring of the tiny waterfall and the sighing of - the leaves, Dixie slipped down to the body, fastidiously avoiding the - blood. It was heavy; she exerted all her wiry strength in rolling it - partly over. Then, drawing out the curious net of pearls she let the body - roll back. - </p> - <p> - Returning to her sheltered seat she spread on her lap the amazing garment; - for a garment of some sort it appeared to be. There was even a row of - golden clasps set with very large diamonds. At a rough estimate she - decided that there were all of three thousand to four thousand perfect - pearls in the numerous strings. Turning and twisting it about, she hit on - the notion of drawing it about her shoulders and found that it settled - there like a cape. It was, indeed, just that—a cape of pearls. She - did not know that it was the only garment of its precise sort in the - world, that it had passed from one royal person to another until, after - the death of the Old Buddha in 1908 it fell into the hands of his - excellency, Kang Yu. - </p> - <p> - She took it off; stood erect; pulled out her loosely hanging middy blouse; - and twisting the strings into a rope fastened it about her waist, - rearranging the blouse over it. The concealment was perfect. - </p> - <p> - She sat again, then, to think out the next step. Returning to the junk was - cut of the question. It would be better to get somehow up to the - concessions and trust to her wits to explain her presence there. For Tex - had been shrewd enough about that. The concessions were a small bit of - earth with but one or two possible hotels, full of white folk and fuller - of gossip. She had had her little difficulties with the consuls as with - the rough-riding American judge who took his itinerant court from port to - port announcing firmly that he purposed ridding the East of such “American - girls” as she. Dawley Kane would surely be there, and other survivors of - the fire.... It all meant picking up a passage down the river at the - earliest possible moment; and running grave chances at that. But her great - strength lay in her impregnable self-confidence. She feared herself least - of all. - </p> - <p> - Another problem was the getting to the concessions. It was not the best of - times for a girl to walk the highway alone. To be sure, she had come - safely through from the junk; but it had not been far, and she hadn't had - to approach a native army. She decided to wait an hour or so, until the - plunderers there in the grove should be fully drunk; then, if at the - moment it seemed the thing, to slip out and make a try for it. - </p> - <p> - And then, a little later, evidently from the road outside the wall, came a - new sort of confused sounds; music, of flageolets and strings, and - falsetto voices, and with it a low-pitched babel of many tongues. Whoever - these new folk might be, they appeared to be turning in at the open gate. - The music stopped abruptly, in a low whine of discord, and the talk rose - in pitch. Over the brick screen appeared banners moving jerkily about, - dipping and rising, as if in the hands of agitated persons below; a black - banner, bearing in its center the triple imperial emblems of the Sun, the - other two yellow, one blazoning the familiar dragon, the other a phoenix. - </p> - <p> - A few banner men appeared peeping cautiously about the screen; Manchu - soldiers of the old effete army, bearing short rifles. They came on, - cautiously into the park, joined in a moment by others. An officer with a - queue and an old-fashioned sword and a military cap in place of a turban - followed and, forming them into a ragged column of fours, marched them - over the marble bridges and into the grove, where they disappeared from - view. - </p> - <p> - Then a gorgeously colored sedan chair came swaying in, carried by many - bearers walking under stout bamboo cross-poles. Others, in the more - elaborate dress of officials, walked beside and behind it. Then came more - soldiers, who straggled informally about, some even dropping on the gravel - to rest their evidently weary bodies. - </p> - <p> - The chair was opened in front and a tall fat man stepped rather pompously - out, wearing a robe of rose and blue and the brightly embroidered insignia - and button of a mandarin of the fourth rank. At once a servant stepped - forward with a huge umbrella which he opened and held over the fat man. - And then they waited, all of them, standing or lying about and talking in - excited groups. Several of the officials hurried back around the screen as - if to examine the deserted apartments just within the gate, and shortly - returned with much to say in their musical singsong.... An officer espied - the body of Connor lying on the steps of the pavilion, and came with - others, excitedly, to the foot of the steps. The key of the confused talk - rose at once. There was an excited conference of many ranks about the tall - fat man under the umbrella. - </p> - <p> - Then came, from the grove, that same sound of muffled shots, followed by a - breathless pause. More shots then, and increasing excitement here by the - screen. A number of the soldiers who had crossed the bridges appeared, - running. The man in the lead had lost turban and rifle; as he drew near - blood could be seen on his face. And now, abruptly, the officials and the - ragtag and bobtail by the screen—pole-bearers, lictors, runners, - soldiers—lost their heads. Some ran this way and that, even into the - bushes, only to reappear and follow their clearer-headed brethren out to - the gate. The umbrella-bearer dropped his burden and vanished. The - fugitives from the grove were among the panic-stricken group now, racing - with them for the gate and the highway without; scurrying around the end - of the screen like frightened rabbits; and in pursuit, cheering and - yelling, came many of the soldiers from the junk. - </p> - <p> - They caught the tall fat mandarin, as he was waddling around the screen, - wounded by a chance shot; leaped upon him, bringing him down screaming - with fear; beat and kicked him; with their knives and bayonets performing - subtle acts of torture which gave them evident pleasure and of which the - coldly observant Dixie Carmichael lost no detail. When the fat body lay - inert, not before, they took the sword of a fallen officer and cut off the - head, hacking clumsily. The head they placed on a pole, marching noisily - about with it; finally setting the pole upright beside the first of the - little marble bridges. Then, at last, they wandered back into the grove - and left the grisly object on the pole to dominate obscenely the garden - they had profaned. - </p> - <p> - Dixie leaned against the smooth sweet surface of the nanmu wood and - listened, again, to the pleasantly soft sounds of waterfall and moving - leaves and little bronze bells. Her face was chalk white; her thin hands - lay limp in her lap; she knew, with an abrupt sensation of sinking, that - she was profoundly tired. But in her brain burned still a cold white flame - of excitement. Life, her instinct as the veriest child had informed her, - was anything, everything, but the simple copybook pattern expounded by the - naive folk of America and England. Life, as she critically saw it, was a - complex of primitive impulses tempered by greeds, dreams and amazing - subtleties. It was blindly possessive, carelessly repellent, creative and - destructive in a breath, at once warm and cold, kindly and savage, - impersonally heedless of the helpless human creatures that drifted hither - and yon before the winds of chance. Cunning, in the world she saw about - her, won always further than virtue, and often further than force. - </p> - <p> - She could not take her eyes, during a long period, from the hideous object - on the pole. Her over-stimulated thoughts were reaching quickly, sharply, - far in every direction. The feeling came, grew into belief, that she was, - mysteriously, out of her danger. She felt the ropes of pearls under her - blouse with an ecstatic little catch of the breath; and (finally) letting - her eyes drop to that other ugly object on the steps beneath her, slowly - opened her bag, drew out the bracelet watch (that the Manila Kid had given - her out of an absurd hope) and fastened it about her wrist. And her eyes - were bright with triumph. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER X—YOUTH - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HERE came for his - excellency, as the sun mounted the sky, a large junk of his own river - fleet—great brown sails flapping against the five masts of all - heights that pointed up at crazily various angles, pennons flying at each - masthead, hull weathered darkly, mats and fenders of woven hemp hung over - the poop-rail, and a swarming pigtailed crew at the sweeps and overside on - the spunson and hard at the tracking ropes as the <i>tai-kung</i> screamed - from the bow and the <i>laopan</i> shouted from the poop. - </p> - <p> - They were ferried aboard in the small boat, Kang with his daughters and - his suite and servants, a handful of pitifully wailing women, young Kane - and Griggsby Doane. Then the trackers cast off from the shore and the - mooring poles, the sweeps moved, and with the <i>lao pan</i> musically - calling the stroke the junk moved laboriously up-stream toward the home of - his excellency's ancestors. - </p> - <p> - Crowded into the uninviting cabins the weary travelers sought a few hours - of rest. Even the servants and the mourning women, under the mattings - forward, fell swiftly asleep. Only Rocky Kane, his eyes staring widely out - of a sensitively white face, walked the deck; until the thought—a - new sort of thought in the life of this headstrong youth—that he - would be disturbing those below drove him aft, out beyond the steersman to - the over-hanging gallery. Here he sat on the bamboo rail and gazed moodily - down at the tireless, mighty river flowing off astern. - </p> - <p> - The good in the boy—made up of the intelligence, the deep-smoldering - conscience, the fineness that were woven out of his confused heritage into - his fiber—was rising now like a tide in his spirit; and the - experience was intensely painful. It seemed to his undisciplined mind that - he was, in certain of his aspects, an incredible monster. There had been - wild acts back home, a crazy instinct for excess that now took on - distinctness of outline; moments of careless evil in Japan and Shanghai; - the continuous subtle conflict with his father in which any evasion had - seemed fair; but above all these vivid memory-scenes that raced like an - uncontrollably swift panorama through his over-alert brain stood out his - vicious conduct on the ship. It was impossible at this moment to realize - mentally that the Princess Hui Fei was now his friend; he could see her - only in the bright Manchu costume as she had appeared when he first so - uncouthly spoke to her. And there were, too, the ugly moments with the - strange girl known as Dixie Carmichael. That part of it was only a - nightmare now.... The racing in his brain frightened him. He stared at the - dimpling yellow river, at a fishing boat, and finally lifted his hurt eyes - to the bright sky.... He had been going straight to hell, he told himself, - mumbling the words softly aloud. And then this lovely girl had brought him - into confusion and humility. Suddenly he had broken with his father; that, - in itself, seemed curiously unaccountable, yet there the fact stood.... - Life—eager, crowding—had rushed him off his feet. He felt - wildly adrift, carried on currents that he could not stem.... He was, - indeed, passing through one of life's deepest experiences, one known to - the somewhat unimaginative and intolerant people whose blood ran in his - veins as conviction of sin. His own careless life had overtaken and - confronted him. It had to be a bitter moment. There was terror in it. And - there was no escaping; it had to be lived through. - </p> - <p> - A merry voice called; there was the patter of soft-clad feet, and in a - moment the little princess in her yellow hood with the fox head on the - crown was climbing into his lap. Eagerly, tenderly, he lifted her; cuddled - her close and kissed her soft cheek. Tears were frankly in his eyes now. - </p> - <p> - He laughed with her, nervously at first, then, in the quick responsiveness - of youth, with good humor. She came to him as health. Together they - watched the diving cormorants and the wading buffalo. Then he hunted about - until he found a bit of board and a ball of twine; whittled the board into - a flat boat, stuck a little mast in it with a white sail made from a - letter from his pocket, and towed it astern. Together they hung on the - rail, watching the craft as it bobbed over the little waves and laughing - when it capsized and lost its sail. - </p> - <p> - She climbed into his lap again after that, and scolded him for making the - unintelligible English sounds, and made signs for him to smoke; and he - showed her his water-soaked cigarettes. - </p> - <p> - At a low-pitched exclamation he turned with a nervous start. The tall - eunuch stood on the cabin roof; came quickly forward for the child. And - beside him was Miss Hu Fei, still of course wearing the Chinese coat and - trousers in which she had escaped from the steamer. She had, under the - warm sun, thrown aside the curiously modern opera wrap. She was slim, - young, delicately feminine. The boy gazed at her reverently. She seemed to - him a fairy, an unearthly creature, worlds beyond his reach. In his - excitement, but a few hours back—in what he had supposed to be their - last moment together, in what, indeed, had seemed the end of the world—he - had declared his love for her. That had been an uprush of pure emotion.... - He recalled it now, yet found it difficult to accept as an occurrence. The - actual world had turned unreal to him, as it does to the sensitively young - that suffer poignantly. - </p> - <p> - To this grave young woman, oddly his shipmate, he could hardly, he felt - now, have spoken a personal word. Their acquaintance had begun at a high - emotional pitch; now it must begin again, normally. So it seemed to him. - </p> - <p> - “We were looking for my li'l sister,” she explained, and half turned. The - eunuch had already disappeared with the child. - </p> - <p> - “Won't you sit out here—with me?” He spoke hesitantly. “That is, - unless you are too tired to visit.” - </p> - <p> - “I coul'n' sleep,” said she. - </p> - <p> - Slowly she came out on the gallery. - </p> - <p> - “There aren't any chairs,” said he. “Perhaps I could find—” - </p> - <p> - “I don' mind.” She sank to the floor; leaned wearily against the rail. He - settled himself in a corner. - </p> - <p> - “I couldn't sleep either. You see—Miss Hui—Miss Fei”—he - broke into a chuckle of embarrassment—“honest I don't know what to - call you.” - </p> - <p> - The unexpected touch of boyish good humor moved her nearly to a smile. - Boyish he was, sitting with his feet curled up, stabbing at the deck with - his jackknife, coatless, collarless, his thick hair tousled, blushing - pleasantly. - </p> - <p> - “My frien's call me Hui,” she replied simply. - </p> - <p> - “Oh—really! May I—If you would—of course I know that—but - my friends call me Rocky. The whole thing is Rockingham Bruce Kane. - But....” - </p> - <p> - “I'll call you Misser Kane,” said she. - </p> - <p> - His face fell a very little; but quickly he recovered himself. - </p> - <p> - “You must have wondered—I suppose it seems as if I've done a rather - crazy thing—it <i>must</i> seem so...” She murmured, “Oh, no!” - </p> - <p> - “Attaching myself to your party this way—-at such a difficult time. - I know it was a pretty impulsive thing to do, but....” - </p> - <p> - His voice trailed into silence. For a brief moment this wild act seemed, - however different in its significance to himself, of a piece with his - other wild acts. It was, perhaps, like all those, merely ungoverned - egotism. Her voice broke sweetly in on this moment of gloomy reverie. - </p> - <p> - “We know tha' you woul' help us if you coul'. An' you were so won'erful.” - </p> - <p> - “If I only could help! You see when I spoke that way to you—I mean - telling you I loved you—” - </p> - <p> - “Please! We won' talk abou' tha'.” - </p> - <p> - “No. We won't. Except just this. I was beside myself. But even then, or - pretty soon afterward, I knew it was just plain selfishness.” - </p> - <p> - “You mus'n' say that, either. Please!” - </p> - <p> - “No—just this! Of course you don't know me. What you do know is all - against me—” - </p> - <p> - “I have forgotten—” - </p> - <p> - “You will never forget. But even if you were some day to like me more than - you could now, I know it would take a long time. I've got to earn the - right to be really your friend first. I'm going to try to do that. I've - started all over—to-day—-my life, I mean. I'm just simply - beginning again. There's a good long scrap ahead of me. That's all about - that! But please believe that I've got a little sanity in me.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I'm sure—” - </p> - <p> - “I have. Jumping overboard like that, and swimming back to you—it - wasn't just crazy impulse, like so many of the things I've done. You see, - my father knows you and your father—yes, I mean the terrible trouble - you're in. Oh, everything comes to him, sooner or later. All the facts. - You have to figure on that, with the pater. He—well, he wanted me to - stop thinking about you. He was afraid I'd be writing to you, or - something. You see, he'd watched us talking there by the fire. And he told - me about this—this dreadful thing. And then I had to come back. - Don't you see? I couldn't go on, leaving you like this. Of course, it's - likely enough I'm just in the way here—” She was smiling wearily, - pathetically, now. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no—” she began. - </p> - <p> - “It's this way,” he swept impetuously on. “Maybe I <i>can</i> help. - Anyway, I've got to try. If your father—really—” He saw the - slight shudder that passed through her slender body, and abruptly checked - the rapid flow of words. “We've got to take care of you,” he said, with - surprising gravity and kindness. “You'll have to get back with the white - people. You mustn't be left with the yellow.” - </p> - <p> - “I know,” said she, the strength nearly gone from her voice. “It always - seems to me that I'm an American. Though sometimes I ge' confuse'. It isn' - easy to think.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm simply wearing you out. I mustn't. But just this—remember that I - know all about it. I've broken with my father, for the present, and I'm - happy about that. I have got some money of my own—quite a little. - I've even got a wet letter of credit in my pocket. I had just sense enough - last night to get it out of my coat. It's no good, of course, outside of - the treaty ports, but it's there. I'm here to help. And I do want to feel - that you'll call on me—for anything—and as for the rest of it—” - </p> - <p> - He had thought himself unusually clear and cool, but at this point his - voice clouded and broke. He glanced timidly at her, and saw that her eyes - were full of tears. He had to look away then. And during a long few - moments they sat without a word. - </p> - <p> - Then the thought came, “I'm here to help!” It was a stirring thought. He - had never helped, never in his life that he could remember. And yet the - Kanes did things; they were strong men. - </p> - <p> - He was moodily skipping his knife over his hand, trying to catch the point - in the soft wood. Abruptly, with a surprising smile, he looked up and - asked: “Ever play mumbletepeg?” - </p> - <p> - Her troubled eyes for an instant met his. He chuckled again in that boyish - way. And she, nervously, chuckled too. That seemed good. - </p> - <p> - “It's sort of hard to make the blade stick in this wood,” he said eagerly. - “But we can do some of the things.” - </p> - <p> - Griggsbv Doane, too, was far from sleep. For that matter, he was of the - strong mature sort that needs little, that can work long hours and endure - severe strain without weakening. Moving aft over the poop he saw them, - playing like two children, and stepped quietly behind the slanting short - mast that overhung the steersman. - </p> - <p> - They made a charming picture, laughing softly as they tossed the knife. It - hadn't before occurred to him that young Kane had charm. Plainly, now, he - had. And it was good for Hui Fei, in this hour of tragic suspense. Youth, - of course, would call unto youth. That was the natural thing. He tried to - force himself to see it in that light but he moved forward with a heavy - heart. - </p> - <p> - The junk plowed deliberately against the current. The monotonous voice of - the chanting <i>lao pan</i>, the rhythmical splash and creak of the - sweeps, the syncopated continuous song of the crowded oarsman, an - occasional warning cry from the tai-kung—these were the only sounds. - Elsewhere, lying in groups about the deck, the castaways slumbered. - </p> - <p> - But Doane knew that his excellency was awake, shut away in the <i>laopan's</i> - cabin, for repeatedly he had heard him moving about. Once, through a thin - partition, had come the sound of a chair scraping. It would mean that Kang - was preparing his final papers. These would be painstakingly done. There - would be memorials to the throne and to his children and friends, couched - in the language of a master of the classics, rich in the literary - allusions dear to the heart of the scholar, Manchu and Chinese alike. - </p> - <p> - Doane found a seat on a coil of the heavy tracking rope. His own part in - the drama through which they were all so strangely living could be only - passive. He would serve as he might. His little dream of personal - happiness, with a woman to love and new strong work to be somehow begun, - was wholly gone. - </p> - <p> - Slowly, foot by foot, the clumsy craft crept up the river. And strangely - the scene held its peaceful, intensely busy character. Everywhere, as if - there were no revolution, as if the old river had never known wreckage and - bloodshed, the country folk toiled in the fields. Junks passed. Irrigating - wheels turned endlessly. Fishermen sat patiently watching their cormorants - or lowering and lifting their nets. A big English steamer came booming - down, with white passengers out of bloody Hankow (the looting and burning - of the native city must have been going on just then, before the - reinforced imperial troops drove the republicans back across the river). - They layabout in deck chairs, these white passengers; or, doubtless, - played bridge in the smoking-room. And Doane, as so often during his long - life, felt his thoughts turning from these idle, self-important whites, - back to the oldest of living peoples; and he dwelt on their incalculable - energy, their incredible numbers, their ceaseless individual struggle with - the land and water that kept them, at best, barely above the line of mere - sustenance. - </p> - <p> - It was difficult, pondering all this, to believe that any revolution could - deeply stir this vast preoccupied people, submerged as they appeared to be - in ancient habit. The revolution could succeed only if the Manchu - government was ready to fall apart from the weakness of sheer decadence. - It was nothing, this revolution, but the desperate work of agitators who - had glimpsed the wealth and the individualistic tendencies of the West. - And the hot-blooded Cantonese, of course. Most of the Chinese in America - were Cantonese. The revolution was, then, a Southern matter; it was these - tropical men that had come to know America. That was about its only - strength. The great mass of yellow folk here in the Yangtze Valley, and - through the coast provinces, and all over the great central plain and the - North and Northwest were peaceable at heart; only those Southerners were - truculent, they and the scattered handfuls of students. - </p> - <p> - And yet, China, in the hopeful hearts of those who knew and loved the old - traditions, must somehow be modernized. Sooner or later the Manchus would - fall. The vast patient multitude must then either learn to think for - themselves in terms of modern, large-scale organization or fall into - deeper degradation. The European trading nations would strike deep and - hard in a sordid struggle for the remaining native wealth. The Japanese, - with iron policy and intriguing hand would destroy their institutions and - bring them into a pitiful slavery, economic and military. - </p> - <p> - His own life, Doane reflected, must be spent in some way to help this - great people. The individual, confronted by so vast a problem, seemed - nothing. But the effort had to be made. Since he was not a trader, since - he could not hope now to find himself in step with the white generation - that had passed him by, all that was left was to pitch in out here. The - call of the martyred Sun Shi-pi pointed a way. - </p> - <p> - The personal difficulty only remained. The man who loses step with his own - people and his own time must submit to being rolled under and trampled on. - There is no other form of loneliness so deep or so bitter. And seeing - nothing above and about him but the hard under side of this hard white - civilization, the unfortunate one can not hope to retain in full vigor the - incentive to effort that is the magic of the creative white race. Every - circumstance now seemed combined to hold him down and under. The - philosophy of the East with which his spirit was saturated argued for - contemplation, submission, negation (as did, for that matter, the gospel - of that Jesus to whose life the peoples that called themselves Christian, - in their every activity, every day, gave the lie). His only driving power, - then, must come out of the white spark that was, after all, in his blood. - It was only as a discordantly active white that he could help the yellow - men he loved.... And the one great incentive—love, companionship, - for which his strong heart hungered—had flickered before him only to - die out. He must somehow, at that, prove worthy. It was to be just one - more great effort in a life of prodigiously wasted effort.... He thought, - as he had thought before, in bitter hours, of Gethsemane. But he knew, - now, that he purposed going on. Once again he was to dedicate his vigor to - a cause; but this time without the hope of youth and without love walking - at his side. - </p> - <p> - And then, quaintly, alluringly, the picture of Hui Fei took form before - his mind's eye, as if to mock his laborious philosophy, charm it away. - Like that of a boy his quick imagination wove about her bright youth, her - piquant new-old worldliness, shining veils of illusion. It was, then, to - be so. He was to live on, sadly, with a dream that would not die.... He - bowed his head. - </p> - <p> - Their play brought relief to the overwrought nerves of the two young - people. After a time they settled comfortably against the rail. - </p> - <p> - “You lost all your things on the steamer?” said he. “Ever'thing.” - </p> - <p> - “So did I.” He smiled ruefully. “Even part of my clothes. But it doesn't - matter.” - </p> - <p> - “I di'n' like to lose all my pretty things.” said she. “But they're gone - now. All excep' my opera cloak. An' I'm jus' a Manchu girl again. It's so - strange—only yes'erday it seem' to me I was a real American. I los' - my books, too—all my books.” - </p> - <p> - He glanced up quickly. “You're fond of reading?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes. Aren' you?” - </p> - <p> - “Why—no, I haven't been. The fellows and girls I've known didn't - read much.” - </p> - <p> - “Tha' seems funny. When you have so much. And it's so easy to read - English. Chinese is ver' hard.” - </p> - <p> - “What books have you read mostly?” - </p> - <p> - She smiled. “Oh, I coul'n' say. So many! I've read the classics, of course—Shakespeare - an' Milton and Chaucer. Chaucer is so modern—don' you think? I mean - the way he makes pictures with words.” - </p> - <p> - “What would you think,” said he, “if I confessed that I cut all those old - fellows at school and college?” - </p> - <p> - “I've thought often,” said she gravely, “tha' you Americans are spoil' - because you have so much. So much of everything.” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps. I don't know. The fellows feel that those things don't help much - in later life.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, bu' they <i>do!</i> You mus' have a knowledge of literature an' - philosophy. Wha' do they go to college for?” - </p> - <p> - “Well—” Inwardly, he winced. He felt himself, without resentment, - without the faintest desire to defend the life he had known, at a - disadvantage. “To tell the truth, I suppose we go partly for a good time. - It puts off going into business four years, you know, and once you start - in business you've got to get down to it. Then there's all the athletics, - and the friends you make. Of course, most of the fellows realize that if - they make the right kind of friendships it'll help, later, in the big - game.” - </p> - <p> - “You mean with the sons of other rich men?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “Why, no, not—yes, come to think of it, I suppose that's just what I - do mean. Do you know here with you, it doesn't look like much of a picture—does - it?” Thoughtfully she moved her head in the negative. “I know a goo' deal - about it,” said she. “I've watch' the college men in America. Some of - them, I think, are pretty foolish.” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose we are,” said he glumly. “But would you have a fellow just go - in for digging?” - </p> - <p> - She inclined her head. “I woul'. It is a grea' privilege to have years for - study.” - </p> - <p> - He was flushing. “But you're not a dig! You—you dance, you know - about things, you can wear clothes....” - </p> - <p> - “I don' think study is like work to me. I love it. An' I love people—every - kin', scholars, working people—you know, every kin'.” - </p> - <p> - His moody eyes took in her eagerly mobile face; then dropped, and he - stabbed his knife at the deck. - </p> - <p> - “Of course, we know that all is no' right 'n America. The men of money - have too much power. The govemmen' is confuse', sometimes very weak and - foolish. The newspapers don' tell all the things they shoul'. But it is so - healthy, jus' the same! There is so much chance for ever' kin' of idea to - be hear'! An' so many won'erful books! Often I think you real Americans - don' know how' won'erful it is. You get excite' abou' little things. I - love America. The women are free there. There is more hope there than - anywhere else in the worl'. An' I wish China coul' be like that.” - </p> - <p> - “I quit college,” said he. “You see, I've never looked at things as you - do.” - </p> - <p> - “Bu' you have such a won'erful chance!” - </p> - <p> - “I know. And I've wasted it. But I'm changing. I—it wouldn't be fair - of course to talk about—about what I was talking about—not now—but - I am seeing things—everything—through new eyes. They're your - eyes. I'm going at the thing differently. You see, the Kanes, when you get - right down to it, don't think about anything but money.” - </p> - <p> - “I like to think about beauty,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “I wonder if I could do that.” - </p> - <p> - “Why no'?” - </p> - <p> - “Well—it's kind of a new idea.” - </p> - <p> - “Listen!” she reached out, plainly without a personal thought, and took - his hand. “I'm going to reci' some poetry that I love.” - </p> - <p> - Thrilled by the clasp of her hand, his mind eager wax to the impress of - her stronger mind, his gaze clinging to her pretty mouth, he listened - while she repeated the little poem of W. B. Yeats beginning:= - </p> - <p> - "All the words that I utter, - </p> - <p> - And all the words that I write..."= - </p> - <p> - At first he stirred restlessly; then watching, doglike, fell to listening. - The disconcerting thing was that it could mean so much to her. For it did—her - dark eyes were bright, and her chin was uplifted. Her quaint accent and - her soft, sweet voice touched his spirit with an exquisite vague pain. - </p> - <p> - “It is music,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “I don't see how you remember it all,” said he listlessly. - </p> - <p> - “Jus' the soun's. Oh, it woul' be won'erful to make words do that. So - often I wish I ha' been born American, so it woul' be my language too.” - </p> - <p> - She went on, breathlessly, with Yeats's—= - </p> - <p> - "When you are old and gray and full of sleep..."= - </p> - <p> - And then, still in pensive vein, she took up Kipling's <i>L'Envoi</i>—the - one beginning—“There's a whisper down the field.” Clearly she felt - the sea, too; and the yearning of those wandering souls to whom life is a - wistful adventure, and the world an inviting labyrinth of beautiful hours. - She seemed to know the <i>Child's Garden of Verses</i> from cover to - cover, and other verse of Stevenson's. It was all strange to him, except - “In winter I get up at night.” He knew that as a song. - </p> - <p> - And so it came about that on a dingy Yangtze junk, at the feet of a Manchu - girl from America, Rocky Kane felt for the first time the glow and thrill - of finely rhythmical English. - </p> - <p> - She went on, almost as if she had forgotten him. William Watson's <i>April, - April</i> she loved, she said, and read it with a quick feeling for the - capricious blend of smiles and tears. It dawned on him that she was a born - actress. He did not know, of course, that the theatrical tradition lies - deeper in Manchu and Chinese culture than in that of any Western people. - </p> - <p> - She recited the beautiful <i>Song</i> of Richard Le Galliene, beginning:= - </p> - <p> - "She's somewhere in the sunlight strong...."= - </p> - <p> - And followed this with bits from Bliss Carman, and other bits from - Henley's <i>London Nocturnes</i>, and from Wilfred Blunt and Swinburne and - Mrs. Browning. She had a curiously strong feeling for the color of - Medieval Italy. She spoke reverently of Dante. Villon she knew, too, and - Racine and the French classicists. She even murmured tenderly de Musset's - <i>J'ai dis à mon coeur</i>, in French of which he caught not a word and - was ashamed. For he had cut French, too. - </p> - <p> - And then, as the sun mounted higher and the gentle rush of the river along - the hull and the continuous chantey of the oarsmen floated, more and more - soothingly to their ears, they fell quiet, her hand still pleasantly in - his. Together they hummed certain of the current popular songs, he - thinking them good, she smiling not unhappily as her voice blended - prettily with his. And Griggsby Doane heard them. - </p> - <p> - At last she murmured: “I think I coul' rest now.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm glad,” said he, and drew down a coil of rope for a pillow, and left - her sleeping there. - </p> - <p> - Doane heard his step, but for a moment could not lift his head. Finally - the boy, standing respectfully, spoke his name: “Mr. Doane!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “May I sit here with you?” - </p> - <p> - “Of course. Do.” - </p> - <p> - “I've got to talk to somebody. It's so strange. You see, she and I—Miss - Hui Fei—it's all been such a whirl I couldn't think, but....” - </p> - <p> - That sentence never got finished. The boy dropped down on the deck and - clasped his knees. Doane, very gravely, considered him. He was young, - fresh, slim. He had changed, definitely; a degree of quiet had come to - him. And there could be no mistaking the unearthly light in his eyes. The - love that is color and sunshine and exquisite song had touched and - transformed him. - </p> - <p> - Doane could not speak. He waited. Young Kane finally brought himself with - obvious, earnest effort in a sense to earth. But his voice was unsteady in - a boyish way. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Doane,” he asked, “do you believe in miracles?” - </p> - <p> - Thoughtfully, deliberately, Doane bowed his great head. “I am forced to,” - he replied. - </p> - <p> - “You've seen men change—from dirty, selfish brutes, I mean, to - something decent, worth while?” - </p> - <p> - “Many times.” - </p> - <p> - “Really?.... But does it have to be religion?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't knew.” - </p> - <p> - “Can it be love? The influence of a woman, I mean—a girl?” - </p> - <p> - “Might that not be more or less the same thing?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you really think that?” - </p> - <p> - Again the great head bowed. And there was a long silence. Rocky broke it - </p> - <p> - “I wish you would tell me exactly how you feel about marriage between the - races.” - </p> - <p> - “Why—really—” - </p> - <p> - “You must have observed a lot, all these years out here. And the pater - tells me that you're an able man, except that you've sort of lost your - perspective. He did tell me that he'd like to have you with him, if you - could only bring yourself around to our ways.” Rocky, even now, could see - this only as a profound compliment. He rushed on: “Oh, don't misunderstand - me! She doesn't love me yet. How could she? I've got to earn the right - even to speak of it again. But if I should earn the right—in time—tell - me, could an American make her happy?” - </p> - <p> - “I'm afraid I can't answer that general question.” But Rocky felt that he - was kind. “The pater says I'd be wrecking my life. He says she'd always be - pulled two ways—you know! God! He seemed to think I had only to ask - her, and she'd come. He doesn't understand.” - </p> - <p> - “No,” said Doane—“I'm afraid he couldn't understand.” - </p> - <p> - “You feel that too? It's very perplexing. I know I've spoken carelessly - about the Chinese and Manchus. I looked down on them. I did! But oh, if I - could only make it clear to you how I feel now! If I could only express - it! We've been talking a long time, she and I. I don't mind telling you - I'm taking a pretty bitter lesson, right now. She knows so much. She has - such fine—well, ideals—” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you've noticed that!.... Well, I feel crude beside her. Of course, I - am.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes—you are. Even more so than you can hope to perceive now.” - </p> - <p> - The youth winced; but took it. “Well, suppose—just suppose that I - might, one of these days, prove that I'm decent enough to ask her to be my - wife.... Oh, don't think for a minute that I don't understand all it - means. I do. I tell you I'm starting again. I'm going to fight it out.” - </p> - <p> - “That is fine,” said Griggsby Doane, and looked squarely, gravely, at the - very young face. It was a white face, but good in outline; the forehead, - particularly, was good. And the blue eyes now met his. “I believe you will - fight it out. And I believe you have it in you to win.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm going to try, Mr. Doane. But just suppose I do win. And suppose I win - her. It's when I think of that, that I.... I'll put it this way—to - my friends, to everybody in New York, she'd be an oddity. A novelty, not - much more. You know what most of them would think, in their hearts. Either - they'd make an exception in her case—partly on my account, at that—or - else they'd look down on her. You know how they are about people that - aren't—well, the same color that we are. Probably I couldn't live - out here. The business is mainly in New York, of course. And she's such an - enthusiastic American herself—she'd want to be there. Some, anyway. - And she's got to be happy. She's like a flower to me, now; like an orchid. - Oh, a thousand times more, but.... What could I do? How could I plan? Oh, - I'd fight for her quick enough. But you know our cold rich Americans. They - wouldn't let me fight. They'd just....” - </p> - <p> - “My boy,” said Doane. quietly but with an authority that Rocky felt, “you - can't plan that. You can do only one thing.” - </p> - <p> - “What thing?” - </p> - <p> - “Stay here in China a year before you offer yourself to that lovely girl. - Study the Chinese—their language, their philosophy, their art. A - year will not advance you far, but it should be enough to show you where - you yourself stand.” - </p> - <p> - “A year....!” - </p> - <p> - “Listen to what I am going to try to tell you. Listen as thoughtfully as - you can. First I must tell you this—the Chinese civilization has - been—in certain aspects still remains—the finest the world has - known. With one exception, doubtless.” - </p> - <p> - “What exception?” - </p> - <p> - “The Grecian. You see, I have startled you.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I'm still sort of bewildered.” - </p> - <p> - “Naturally. But try to think with me. The Chinese worked out their social - philosophy long ago. They have lived through a great deal that we have - only begun, from tribal struggles through conquest and imperialism and - civil war to a sort of republicanism and a fine feeling for peace and - justice. And then, when they had given up primitive desire for fighting - they were conquered by more primitive Northern tribes—first the - Mongols, and later the Manchus. The Manchus have been absorbed, have - become more or less Chinese. - </p> - <p> - “And now a few more blunt facts that will further startle you. The Chinese - are the most democratic people in the world. No ruler can long resist the - quiet force of the scores of thousands of villages and neighborhoods of - the empire. - </p> - <p> - “They are the most reasonable people in the world. You can no more judge - them from the so-called Tongs in New York and San Francisco, made up of a - few Cantonese expatriates, than you can judge the culture of England by - the beachcombers of the South Seas. - </p> - <p> - “They developed, centuries before Europe, one of the finest schools of - painting the world has so far known. There is no school of reflective, - philosophical poetry so ripe and so fine as the Chinese. They have had - fifty Wordsworths, if no Shakespeare. - </p> - <p> - “You will find Americans confusing them with the Japanese, whom they - resemble only remotely. All that is finest in Japan—in art and - literature—came originally from China.” - </p> - <p> - “You take my breath away,” said Rocky slowly. But he was humble about it; - and that was good. - </p> - <p> - “But listen, please. What I am trying to make clear to you is that in old - Central China—in Hang Chow, and along this fertile Yangtze Valley, - and northwest through the Great Plain to Kai Feng-fu and Sian-fu in Shensi—where - the older people flourished—germinated the thought and the art, the - humanity and the faith, that have been a source of culture to half the - world during thousands of years. - </p> - <p> - “But you can not hope to understand this culture through Western eyes. For - you will be looking out of a Western background. You must actually - surrender your background. It is no good looking at a Chinese landscape or - a portrait with eyes that have known only European painting. Can you see - why? Because all through European painting runs the idea of copying nature—somehow, - however subtly, however influenced by the nuances of color and light, - copying. But the Chinese master never copied a landscape He studied it, - felt it, surrendered his soul to it, and then painted the fine emotion - that resulted. And, remember this, he painted with a conscious technical - skill as fine as that of Velasquez or Whistler or Monet.” - </p> - <p> - The youth whistled softly. “Wait, Mr. Doane, please.... the fact is, - you're clean over my head. I—I don't know a thing about our - painting, let alone theirs. You see I haven't put in much time at—” - He stopped. His smooth young brows were knit in the effort to think along - new, puzzling channels. “But she would understand,” he added, honestly, - softly. - </p> - <p> - “Exactly! She would understand. That is what I am trying to make clear to - you.” - </p> - <p> - “But you're sort of—well, overwhelming me.” - </p> - <p> - “My boy.” said Doane very kindly, “you could go back home, enter business, - marry some attractive girl of your own blood who thinks no more deeply - than yourself, whose culture is as thinly veneered as your own—forgive - me. I am speaking blunt facts.” - </p> - <p> - “Go on. I'm trying to understand.” - </p> - <p> - “—And find happiness, in the sense that we so carelessly use the - word. But here you are, in China, proposing to offer your life to a Manchu - princess. You do seem to see clearly that there would be difficulties. It - is true that our people crudely feel themselves superior to this fine old - race. As a matter of fact, one of the worthiest tasks left in the world is - to explain East to West—draw some part of this rich old culture in - with our own more limited background. But as it stands now, the current - will be against you. So I say this—study China. Open your mind and - heart to the beauty that is here for the taking. Try to look through the - decadent surface of this tired old race and see the genius that still - slumbers within. If, then, you find yourself in the new belief that their - culture is in certain respects finer than ours—as I myself have been - forced to believe—if you can go to Hui Fei humbly—then ask her - to be your wife. For then there will be a chance that you can make her - happy. Not otherwise.” - </p> - <p> - Doane stopped abruptly. His deep voice was rich with emotion. The boy was - stirred; and a moment later, when he felt a huge hand on his shoulder he - found it necessary to fight back the tears. The man seemed like a father; - the sort of father he had never known. - </p> - <p> - “Don't ask her so long as a question remains in your mind. Defiance won't - do—it must be faith, and knowledge. I can't let you take the life of - that girl into your keeping on any other terms.” - </p> - <p> - The odd emphasis of this speech passed quite by the deeply preoccupied - young mind. - </p> - <p> - “You're right,” he replied brokenly. “I've got to wait. Everything that - you say is true—I really haven't a thing in the world to offer. I'm - an ignorant barbarian beside her.” - </p> - <p> - “You have the great gift of youth,” said Doane gently. - </p> - <p> - But a moment later Rocky broke out with: “But, Mr. Doane—how can I - wait? She—after her father—they're going to take her away—make - her marry somebody at Peking—somebody she doesn't even know—” - </p> - <p> - “I don't think they will succeed in that plan,” said Doane very soberly. - </p> - <p> - “But why not? What can she do? A girl—alone—” - </p> - <p> - “There are tens of thousands of girls in China that have solved that - problem.” - </p> - <p> - “But I don't see—” - </p> - <p> - “You must still try to keep your mind open. You are treading on ground - unknown to our race.” A breathless quality crept into Doane's voice; his - eyes were fixed on the distant river bank. “I wonder if I can help you to - understand. Death—the thought of death—is to them a very - different thing—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” It was more a sharp indrawing of breath than an exclamation. “You - don't mean that she would do that?” - </p> - <p> - Doane bowed his head. - </p> - <p> - “But she couldn't do a cowardly thing.” - </p> - <p> - Doane brought himself, with difficulty, to utter the blunt word. “Suicide, - in China, is not always cowardice. Often it is the finest heroism—the - holding to a fine standard.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no! It wouldn't ever—” - </p> - <p> - “Please! You are a Westerner. Your feelings are those of the younger—yes, - the cruder half of the world. I must still ask you to try to believe that - there can be other sorts of feelings.” Again the great hand rested solidly - on the young shoulder; and now, at last, the boy became slightly aware of - the suffering in the heart of this older man. Though even now he could not - grasp every implication. That human love might be a cause he did not - perceive. But he sensed, warmly, the ripe experience and the compassionate - spirit of the man. - </p> - <p> - “You have stepped impulsively into an Old-World drama,” Doane went quietly - on—“into a tragedy, indeed. No one can say what the next - developments will be. You can win, if at all, only by becoming yourself, a - fatalist; You must move with events. Certainly you can not force them.” - </p> - <p> - “But I can take her away,” cried the boy hotly; finishing, lamely, with - “somehow.” - </p> - <p> - “Against her will?” - </p> - <p> - “Well—surely—” - </p> - <p> - “She will not leave her father.” - </p> - <p> - “But—oh, Mr. Doane....” - </p> - <p> - He fell silent. For a long time they sat without a word, side by side. - Here and there about the junk sleepers awoke and moved about. A few of the - women, forward, set up their wailing but more quietly now. The craft - headed in gradually toward the right bank, passing a yellow junk that was - moored inshore and moving on some distance up-stream. At a short distance - inland a brown-gray village nestled under a hillside. - </p> - <p> - “That junk passed us before we left the island,” Rocky observed, gloomily - making talk. - </p> - <p> - Doane's gaze followed his down-stream; then at a sound like distant - thunder, he turned and listened. “What's that?” asked the boy. - </p> - <p> - Doane looked up into the cloudless, blazing sky. “That would be the guns - at Hankow,” he replied. - </p> - <p> - The lictors were landed first to seek carts in the village. Then all were - taken ashore in the small boat. His excellency smilingly, with unfailing - poise, talked with Doane of the beauties of the river; even quoted his - favorite Li Po, as his quiet eyes surveyed the hills that bordered the - broad river:= - </p> - <p> - “'The birds have all flown to their trees, - </p> - <p> - The last, last lovely cloud has drifted off, - </p> - <p> - But we never tire in our companionship— - </p> - <p> - The mountains and I,'”= - </p> - <p> - The line of unpainted, springless carts, roofed with arched matting, - yellow with the fine dust of the highway, moved, squeaking, off among the - hills. Following close went the women and the servants. The junk swung - deliberately out and off down the river. - </p> - <p> - Doane, declining a cart, walked beside that of his excellency; Rocky Kane, - deadly pale, his mouth set firmly, beside Miss Hui Fei. And so, through - the peaceful country-side they came to the long brick wall and the heavily - timbered gate house by the road, and, pausing there, heard very faintly - the soft tinkling of the little bronze bells within. It was late - afternoon. The shadows were long; and the evening birds were twittering - among the leafy branches just within the wall. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XI—THE LANDSCAPE SCROLL OF CHAO MENG-FU - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">R</span>OCKY KANE, the few - hours that followed were to exist in memory as a confused sequence of - swift-pressing scenes, all highly colored, vivid; certain of them touched - with horror, others passing in a flash of exotic beauty; while the fire of - hot, unreasoning young love burned all but unbearably within his breast. - </p> - <p> - He would remember the crowded line of carts in the sunken narrow road, the - unruly mules that plunged and entangled their harness; the huddled women; - the yellow dust that clung thickly to the bright silks of the mandarins; - the confusion about the gate, and the handful of soldiers that came - hurrying forward to help in a strange business up there; the trains of - other carts that struggled to pass in the narrow way, while tattered - muleteers shouted a babel of invective. - </p> - <p> - He would remember the sad face of Miss Hui Fei-drawn back within the - shadow of the cart and the faint smiles that came and so quickly went; and - the efforts he made, at first, to cheer her with boyishly bright talk of - this and that. - </p> - <p> - He would remember how he made his way forward through the press, without - recalling what had just been said, or what, precisely, could have been the - impulse driving him on; past his excellency—sitting yet in his cart, - calmly waiting, while the drabbled mandarins stood respectfully by; and - how he found the soldiers carrying oddly limp Bodies into one of the gate - houses, hiding them there. - </p> - <p> - He would remember the picture on which he stumbled as he rounded the inner - screen of brick; Mr. Doane and an officer and two or three soldiers - standing thoughtfully about a fat body in spattered silks that was - hideously without a head; standing there in the half dusk—for the - shadows were lengthening softly into evening here under the trees—Mr. - Doane then bending over, the officer kneeling, to examine the embroidery - on the breast; and then two soldiers bringing up a pole on the end of - which grinned the missing head; and then the sound of his own voice—curiously - breathless and without body, asking, “What is it, Mr. Doane? What terrible - thing has happened?” And then, even while he was speaking, four soldiers - carrying another body by, this of a stout man in shirt and flannel - trousers, that he felt he had seen somewhere before. - </p> - <p> - He would remember—when they had carried out the last awful reminder - of the bloodshed that had been, and while Mr. Doane pressed a hand to his - eyes as if in prayer—how he stood silent there on the gravel area, - looking up into the trees and about at the dim quaint <i>pai-lows</i> on - either hand and at the pavilions behind them, each on its arch of stone - over placid dark water; and how the lightly moving air of evening - whispered through the trees, stirring, with the foliage, faintly musical - little bells; and how, into this moment of calm, appeared, light of step, - swinging her shopping bag as she descended the marble steps of the - pavilion at the right and came forward under the <i>pai-lows</i>, the pale - girl, Dixie Carmichael, who glanced respectfully toward Mr. Doane, and at - Rocky himself raised her black eyebrows while her thin lips softly framed - the one word, “You?” And then, after a few words—the girl said that - Tex Connor and the Manila Kid made her come; it had been a terrible - business; she thought both must have been, killed; she had contrived to - hide—how Mr. Doane asked him to take her back to the women; and how - they went, he and she, his heart beating hotly, out through the darkening - gate where paper lanterns now moved about. He felt that for the first - sharp blow at his new life. There would be other blows; doubtless through - this girl; for the old life would not give him up without a fight. - </p> - <p> - He was to forget what they said, he and this unaccountable, cool girl, as - he left her out there and hurried back; but would remember the picture he - found on his return—Mr. Doane striding off deliberately into the - darkness beyond the little white bridges, while the officer followed with - a lantern, and the few soldiers, also with lanterns, straggled after. He - would remember crowding himself past all of them, snatching one of the - lanterns as he ran, and falling into step at the side of the huge - determined man. - </p> - <p> - There were broad courtyards, then, and buildings with heavily curving - roofs and columns richly colored and carved, with dim lights behind - windows of paper squares. There were drunken soldiers, who ran away, and - screaming women, and other women who would never scream or smile again. - There was litter and splintered furniture and a broken-in door here and - there. There was a familiar big soldier who plunged at Mr. Doane with a - glinting blade in his hand; and then a sharp struggle that was to last, in - retrospect, but an instant of time, for the clearer memory was of himself - binding with his handkerchief a small cut in Mr. Doane's forearm while the - soldiers carried out a wounded struggling giant, and then shouts and shots - from the courtyard when the giant escaped. And he would remember picking - up an unset ruby from the tiling and handing it to Mr. Doane. There was - the picture, then, of a melancholy procession winding slowly through the - grove with bobbing gay lanterns. - </p> - <p> - And finally, to the boy incredibly, the place came into a degree of order - and calm. Women and men disappeared into this building and that. Rocky sat - alone on the steps of a structure that might have been a temple, hands - supporting his throbbing head. The moonlight streamed down into the - courtyard; he could see the grotesque ornaments on the eaves of the - buildings, and the large blue-and-white bowls and vases in which grew - flowering plants and dwarfed trees from Japan, and, in the farther gate, a - sentry lounging. Now and again faint sounds came from within the largest - of the buildings, voices and footsteps; and he could see lights again - dimly through the paper. He wondered what they might be doing.... His - thoughts were a fever. The spirit of Hui Fei hovered like an exquisite - dream there, but crowding in with malignant persistence came, kept coming, - pictures of Dixie Carmichael. He wondered where they had put her. Perhaps - she was already asleep. It would be like her to sleep. She was so cold, so - oddly unhealthy. Doubtless, surely, he would have to speak with her. - </p> - <p> - He must have dozed. Soldiers were dragging themselves sleepily about the - courtyard, rifles in hand. Two officers and a mandarin in a gown were - examining a paper by the light of a lantern. Then Mr. Doane came out and - read the paper. They talked in Chinese, Mr. Deane's as fluent as theirs. - Rocky thought drowsily about this; considered vaguely the years of study - and experience that must lie back of that fluency. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Doane, indeed, seemed to be assuming a sort of command. With great - courtesy, but with impressive finality, he appeared to be outlining a - course to which the mandarin assented. The officers bowed and went out - through the gate. And when the mandarin and Doane then turned and entered - the largest building it was the white man who held the paper in his hand. - </p> - <p> - Rocky fell again into a doze; slept until he found Mr. Doane shaking him. - </p> - <p> - “Come with me now. You can help.” Thus the huge grave man with the deep - shadows in his face. - </p> - <p> - And Rocky went with him, guided by a servant with a lantern, through - corridors and courtyards, glimpsing dimly massive pillars and panels in - black wood and softly red silk and railings of marble carved into - exquisite tracery. - </p> - <p> - With the paper that the boy had drowsily observed Doane sought his - excellency. Dominated by the white man the attendant mandarin tapped at an - inner door, then hesitatingly opened; and Doane alone stepped within. - </p> - <p> - The room was long, plain, obscurely seen by the light of a single - incandescent lamp over the formal <i>kang</i> or platform across the - farther end. Doane had not thought of electric light in here and found it - momentarily surprising. The walls were paneled in silk; the ceiling was - heavy with beams. Against either side wall, mathematically at the center, - stood a square small table and a square stool, heavily carved. Seated on - the <i>kang</i>, with papers spread about and brushes and ink pot directly - under the light, in short quilted coat and simple black cap, was Kang; a - serenely patient figure, quietly working. He had merely looked up; a frail - old man, quite beyond the reach of annoyance, whose eyes gazed unafraid - over the rim of mere personal life into the eternal, tireless energy that - would so soon absorb all that was himself. Then, recognizing the stalwart - figure that moved forward into the light, he rose and clasped his hands - and smiled. - </p> - <p> - “Only an unexpected crisis would lead me to intrude thus,” began Doane in - Chinese, bowing in courtly fashion and clasping his own hands before his - breast. - </p> - <p> - “No visit from Griggsby Doane could be regarded as an intrusion in my - home,” replied his excellency. - </p> - <p> - “I will speak quickly, in the Western fashion,” Doane went on. “His - Excellency, the General Duke Ma Ch'un, commanding before Hankow, writes - that he regrets deeply the violent death of the eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu on - your excellency's premises while dutifully engaged on the business of her - imperial majesty, and cordially requests that your excellency come at once - to headquarters as his personal guest to assist him in making an inquiry - into the tragedy. He supplements this invitation with a copy of a telegram - from His Excellency, Yuan Shih-k'ai, commanding him to guard at once your - person and property.” - </p> - <p> - The simple elderly man, who had been a minister, a grand councilor and a - viceroy, seemed to recoil slightly as his eyes drooped to the papers about - him; then he reached, with a withered hand that trembled, for this new - paper and very slowly read it through. - </p> - <p> - “His Excellency, Duke Ma Ch'un.” Doane added gently, “has sent a company - of soldiers to escort you fittingly to his headquarters. They are waiting - now at the outermost gate. I took it upon myself in this hour of sorrow - and confusion to advise them, through the mouths of your loyal officers, - that your excellency is not to be disturbed before dawn.” - </p> - <p> - Slowly, with an expressionless face, the viceroy folded the paper and laid - it on the <i>kang</i>. He sank, then, beside it; with visible effort - indicating that his visitor sit as well. But Doane remained standing—enormously - tall, broad, strong; a man to command without question of rank or - authority; a man, it appeared, hardly conscious of the calm power of - personality that was so plainly his. - </p> - <p> - “Your Excellency is aware”—thus Doane said—“that to admit the - authority of Duke Ma Ch'un at this sorrowful time is to submit both - yourself and your lovely daughter to a fate that is wholly undeserved, one - that I—if I may term myself the friend of both—can not bring - myself to consider without indulging the wish to offer strong resistance. - It has been said, 'The truly great man will always frame his actions with - careful regard to the exigencies of the moment and trim his sail to the - favoring breeze.' Your Excellency must forgive me if I suggest that, - whatever value you may place upon your own life, we can not thus abandon - your daughter, Hui Fei.” - </p> - <p> - The viceroy's voice, when he spoke, had lost much of its timbre. It was, - indeed, the voice of a weary old man. Yet the words came forth with the - old kindly dignity. - </p> - <p> - “I asked you, Griggsby Doane, to make with me this painful journey to my - home. We did not know then that we were moving from one scene of tragedy - to another more terrible. But motive must not wait on circumstance. It - need not be a hardship for my other children to live on in Asia as - Asiatics. As such they were born. They know no other life. They will - experience as much happiness as most. But with Hui Fei it is different. - She must not be held away from contact with the white civilization. I did - not give her this modern education for such an end as that. Hui Fei is an - experiment that is not yet completed. She must have her chance. That is - why I brought you here, Griggsbv Doane. My daughter must be got to - Shanghai. There she has friends. I have ventured to count on your - experience and good will to convey her safely there. Will you take her—now? - To-night? I had meant to send with her the jewels and the paintings of - Ming, Sung and Tang. Both collections are priceless. But the gems are gone—to-night. - The paintings, however, remain. Will you take those and my daughter, and - two servants—there are hardly more that I can trust—and slip - out by the upper gate, and in some way escort her safely to Shanghai?” - </p> - <p> - “She would not go,” said Doane. “Not while you, Your Excellency, live, or - while your body lies above ground.” - </p> - <p> - The viceroy, hesitating, glanced up at the vigorous man who spoke so - firmly, then down at the scattered papers on the <i>kang</i>. In the very - calm of that shadowed face he felt the bewildering strength of the white - race; and he knew in his heart that the man was not to be gainsaid. His - mind wavered. For perhaps the first time in his shrewd, patiently subtle - life, he felt the heavy burden of his years. - </p> - <p> - “I will send for her,” he said now, slowly. “I will give her into your - keeping. At my command she will <i>go</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “No, Your Excellency, I have already sent word to her to prepare herself - for the journey. Again you must forgive me. Time presses. It remains only - to collect the paintings. You must have those, at the least. We start now - in a very few moments. I have found here, a prisoner in your palace, the - master of a junk that lies at the river bank, and have taken it upon - myself to detain him further. He will convey us to Shanghai. It is now but - a few hours before dawn. Hostile soldiers stand impatient at the outermost - gate, eager to heap shame upon you and all that is yours. You must change - your clothing—the dress of a servant would be best.” - </p> - <p> - He waited, standing very still. - </p> - <p> - “You will forgive indecision in a man of my years,” began the viceroy. - After a moment he began again: “The world has turned upside down, Griggsby - Doane.” - </p> - <p> - “You will come?” - </p> - <p> - The viceroy sighed. Trembling fingers reached out to gather the papers. - </p> - <p> - “I will come.” he said. - </p> - <p> - Adrift in unreality, fighting off from moment to moment the drowsy sense - that these strange events were but a blur of dreams in which nothing could - be true, nothing could matter, Rocky found himself at work in a dim room, - taking down in great handfuls from shelves scrolls of silk wound on rods - of ivory and putting them in lacquered boxes. Mr. Doane was there, and the - servant, and a second servant of lower class, in ragged trousers and with - his queue tied about his head. Still another Chinese appeared, shortly, in - blue gown and sleeveless short jacket; an older man who looked, in the - flickering faint light of the single lantern, curiously like the viceroy - himself. The first servant disappeared and returned with the short poles - of bamboo used everywhere in China in carrying burdens over the shoulder, - and with cords and squares of heavy cotton cloth. - </p> - <p> - Every bit of woodwork that his hands touched in moving about, Rocky found - to be intricately carved and gilded and inlaid with smooth lacquer. And - dimly, crowded about the walls, he half saw, half sensed, innumerable - vases, small and large, with rounding surfaces of cream-colored crackle - and blood-red and blue-and-white and green which threw back the moving - light like a softly changing kaleidoscope. And there were screens that - gave out, from their profound shadows, the glint of gold. - </p> - <p> - They packed the boxes together, wrapped the large and heavy cubes in the - squares of cloth and lashed them to hang from the bamboo poles. Four of - them, then, Mr. Doane, Rocky himself and the servants, each balanced a - pole over his shoulders and lifted the bulky cubes. The old man, who - surely, now, was the viceroy, carried a European hand-bag. There were - other parcels.... They made their way along a nearly dark corridor and out - into the moonlight. Here, in a porch, stood four silent figures—Dixie - Carmichael he distinguished first; then Hui Fei, wearing a short coat and - women's trousers and a loose cloak. Her hair was parted and lay smoothly - on her pretty head, glistening in the moonlight.... And the little - princess was there, clinging to the hand of her sister and rubbing her - eyes. They moved silently on, all together, following a path that wound - among shrubbery, over an arching bridge to a gate. - </p> - <p> - Rocky could dimly see the timbers studded with spikes and the long hinges - of bronze. The servant, with a great key, unlocked the gate, which closed - softly behind them. - </p> - <p> - The pole weighed heavily on Rocky's unaccustomed shoulder. There was a - trick of timing the step to the swing of the bales, that, stumbling a - little, he caught. He was to remember this—the little file of men - and women gathered from the two ends of the earth and walking without a - spoken sound down through a twisting, sunken Chinese road to the Yangtze. - And sensing the gathering drama of his own life, brooding over it with - slowly increasing nervous intensity, he found himself coming awake. If - this kept on he would soon be excitedly beyond sleep. But it didn't - matter. They were saving Hui Fei. Not a word of explanation had been - offered; but it was coming clear. As for the rest of it, he asked himself - how it could matter. The presence of Miss Carmichael, a dangerous girl, an - adventuress—he was thinking quite youthfully about her—who - might easily be capable of anything, who could in a moment destroy the - hope that was the only foundation, thus far, of his new life, and perhaps - would choose to destroy it—even this, he tried to tell himself, - couldn't possibly matter. Over and over, stumbling and shuffling along, he - told himself that; almost convinced himself that he believed it. - </p> - <p> - He was to remember most vividly of all the first glimpse, through a notch - in the hills, of the river. The viceroy paused at that point, and turning - back from the shining picture before him, where the moonlight silvered the - unruffled surface of the water, toward the home of his ancestors over the - hill, spoke in a low but again musical voice a few lines in which even the - American youth could detect the elusive vowel rhymes of a Chinese poem. - And he saw that Mr. Doane stood by with the slightly bowed head of one who - attends a religious ceremony. It was a moving scene. But could he have - understood the words the boy would have been puzzled. For the poem—the - <i>Surrendering</i> of Po Chu-I. breathed resignation, humility, the - negative philosophy so dear to Chinese tradition, but nothing of religion - in the sense that he a Westerner, understood the word, nothing of - mysticism or romantic illusion or childlike faith; rather a gentle - recognition of the fact that life must go as it had come, unexplained, - without tangible evidence of a personal hereafter; that, too, the - individual is as nothing in the vast scheme of nature. - </p> - <p> - They were ferried out, shortly after this, to the great junk they had - twice seen within the twenty-four hours, her smooth sides curving yellow - in the moonlight, her decks now scraped and scrubbed clean, flowers - blooming in porcelain pots about a charming gallery that extended high - over the river astern. The crew, roused from slumber, came swarming out - from under the low-spread mattings. The <i>laopan</i> stepped nimbly to - his post amidships on the poop. The heavy tracking ropes were hauled - aboard, and the craft swung slowly off down the current. - </p> - <p> - Doane, with a lantern, escorted his excellency and Hui Fei, and the - whimpering little princess, to the rooms below; then returned and with the - same impersonal courtesy conducted Miss Carmichael down the steps. But at - the door he indicated she stopped short; wavered a moment, lightly, on the - balls of her feet. Then she accepted the lantern from him, bit her lip, - and let fall the curtain without replying to his suggestion that she had - better sleep if she could. - </p> - <p> - Alone there, she held up the lantern. The floor had been lately scrubbed; - but, even so, she made out a faint broad stain in the wood. And a bed of - clean matting was spread where she had left a grisly heap. - </p> - <p> - For a time Dixie stood by the square small window, looking out over the - shining river toward the dim northern bank with its hills that seemed to - drift at a snail's pace off astern. Her quick mind had never been farther - from sleep. Her thin hands felt through her blouse the twisted ropes of - pearls that were wound about her waist. Her lips were pressed tightly - together. These pearls represented a fortune beyond even Dixie's - calculating dreams. To keep them successfully hidden during the days, - perhaps weeks to come of floating down the river in close companionship - with these two strong observant men, and a half crazy American boy, and - clever Oriental women, would test her resourcefulness and her nerve. - Though she felt, ever, now, no doubt of the latter.... - </p> - <p> - The thing was tremendous. Now that the confusion of the day and night were - over with, she found a thrill in considering the problem, while her - sensitive fingers pressed and pressed again the hard little globes. There - were so many of them; such beauties, she knew, in form and size and - color.... Never again would such an opportunity come to her. It was, - precisely, if on the grandest scale imaginable, her sort of achievement. - Tex was gone. The Kid was gone. No one could claim a share or a voice: it - was all hers—wealth, power, even, perhaps, at the last, something - near respectability. For money, enough of it, she knew, will accomplish - even that. While on the other, hand, to fail now, might, would, spell a - life of drab adventure along the coast, without even a goal, without a - decent hope; with, always, the pitiless years gaining on her. - </p> - <p> - She searched, tiptoeing, about the room, lantern in hand, for a place to - hide her treasure; then reconsidered. In some way she must keep the pearls - about her person; though not, as now, looped around her waist. An - accidental touch there might start the fateful questioning. - </p> - <p> - She put down the lantern; stood for a long time by the curtained door, - listening. From up and down the passage came only the heavy breathing of - exhausted folk. She slipped out cautiously; made her way to the sloping - deck above—how vividly familiar it was!—tiptoed lightly aft, - past the uncurious helmsman, around the huge coils of rope and the - piled-up fenders of interwoven matting, out to the pleasant gallery where - the flowers were. - </p> - <p> - And then, as she stepped down and paused to breathe slowly, deeply, again - the heavy-sweet perfume of the tuberoses, a boyish figure sprang up, with - a nervous little gasp of surprise, from the steamer chair of Hong Kong - grass. - </p> - <p> - She said, in her quiet way, “Oh, hello!” And then, with a quick sidelong - glance at him, accepted the chair he offered. He seemed uncertain as to - whether he would go or stay. Lowering her lids, she studied him. He was - standing the excitement well, even improving. His carriage was better; he - stood up well on his strong young legs. And he was quieter, better in - hand, though of course the never-governed, long overstimulated emotions - would not be lying very deep beneath this new, more manly surface. He was - very good-looking, really a typical American boy. - </p> - <p> - He stood now, fingering the petals of a dahlia and gazing out astern into - the luminous night. She pondered the question of exerting herself again to - win him. The money was there, plenty of it. He would be as helpless as - ever in her experienced hands. And the mere use of her skill in trapping - and stripping him would be enjoyable.... He was lingering. - </p> - <p> - She decided in the negative. He would surely become tempestuous. And as - surely, if she permitted that, he would discover the pearls. And—again - the thrill of mastery swept through her finely strung nerves—she had - those. They were enough. But they must be better hidden. There was her - problem still, a problem that aught at any instant become delicately - acute. She considered it, lying comfortably back in the chair, luxuriating - in the richly blended scent of the crowded blossoms, while her nearly - closed eyes studied the restless boy. - </p> - <p> - Abruptly he turned. What now? Was he about to become tempestuous all on - his own? It would be anything but out of character. Her slight muscles - tightened, but her face betrayed no emotion, would have betrayed none in a - more searching light than this soft flood from the moon. He was - sentimental over the Manchu princess, now, of course. She hadn't missed - that. But in the case of an ungoverned boy, she well knew, the emotion - itself could be vastly more important than its immediate object But now - she was to meet with a small surprise. - </p> - <p> - “Look here!” he began, crude, naive, as always, “there's something—perhaps—I - ought to tell you. I tried to carry on with you. You've got a right to - think anything about me—” - </p> - <p> - At least he was keeping his voice down. She lay still; let him talk. - </p> - <p> - “—But I've changed. Smile at that, if you want to!” - </p> - <p> - She did smile faintly, but only at his clear, clean ignorance of the - insult that underlay his words. - </p> - <p> - “—I <i>was</i> on the loose. It's different now. I'm going to try to - do something with my life. Whatever happens—I mean however my luck - may seem to turn—” - </p> - <p> - He could hardly go on with this. The next few words were swallowed down. - It was plain enough that he couldn't think clearly. And he couldn't - possibly know that he was giving her an opening through which, within a - very few moments, she was to see the outline of the policy she must pursue - during these difficult days to come on the junk. - </p> - <p> - She lifted her head; leaned on an elbow. “Do you know,” she said, in a - voice that seemed, now, to have a note of friendliness, “I'm sorry for - you.” - </p> - <p> - “Sorry for me!” - </p> - <p> - “Don't think I can't see how it is. And you mustn't misunderstand me. I'm - older than you. I'm pretty experienced. My life has been hard. There - couldn't be anything serious between you and me. You've wakened up to - that.” - </p> - <p> - The new note in her voice puzzled him, but caught his interest. He stood - looking straight down at her. - </p> - <p> - “I know you're in love,” she went on. - </p> - <p> - “But—” - </p> - <p> - “Don't be silly. It's plain enough. She's very attractive. Nobody could - blame you.” - </p> - <p> - “She's wonderful!” - </p> - <p> - “It's nice to see you feeling that way. It—it's no good our talking - about it, you and me. All I've got to say is—please don't think I'd - bother you. I may have led a rough life at times—a girl alone, who - has to live by her wits—but—oh, well, never mind that! Every - man has had his foolish moments. I understand you better than you will - ever know—and—well, here's good luck!” And she offered her - hand. - </p> - <p> - He took it, breathless, eager. He seemed, then, on the point of pouring - out his story to this new surprising friend. But a slight sound caught his - attention. He looked up, and slowly let fall the hand that was gripped in - his; for at the break of the deck, just above them, hesitating, very slim - and wan, stood Miss Hui Fei. - </p> - <p> - The situation was, of course, in no way so dramatic as it seemed to the - boy. He, indeed, drew back, overcome; the habit of guilty thought was not - to be thrown off in a moment. Miss Carmichael, sensing that he would begin - erecting the incident into a situation the moment he could clumsily speak, - took the matter in hand; rising, and quietly addressing herself to the - Manchu girl. Breeding, of course, was not hers, could not be; but her calm - manner and her instinct for reticence could seem, as now, not unlike the - finer quality. - </p> - <p> - “Do have this chair,” she said. “I was going down.” - </p> - <p> - Miss Hui Fei smiled faintly. “I coul'n' sleep,” she murmured. - </p> - <p> - “There's one little article I suppose none of us thought to bring—” - thus Miss Carmichael, balancing in her light way on the balls of her feet—“needle - and thread.” She even indulged in a little passing laugh. “I think my maid—” - began Miss Hui Fei. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no! I wouldn't bother you!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes! Please—I don' min'.” - </p> - <p> - She turned; and the boy started impulsively toward her. Miss Carmichael - moved away, over the deck, but heard him saying, in a broken voice: - </p> - <p> - “You'll come back? I've got to tell you something!” - </p> - <p> - To which Miss Hui Fei replied, in a voice that was meant to be at once - pleasant and impersonal: “Why—yes. I think I'll come back. It's so - close down there.” The two young women went below. Quietly Miss Carmichael - waited in the passage. - </p> - <p> - The needle and thread were shortly forthcoming. The white girl smiled; - seeming really friendly there in the dim ray of light that slanted in - through a window. - </p> - <p> - “It's good of you,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no—it's nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “We're in for a rather uncomfortable trip of it. I hope you'll let me do - anything I can to help you. I'm more used to knocking about, of course.” - </p> - <p> - “We'll all make the best of it,” said the Manchu girl, and turned, with an - effort at a smile, toward the stairs. - </p> - <p> - Miss Carmichael entered her own room. The lantern still burned, but the - candle-end was low. She saw now an iron lamp, an open dish full of oil - with a floating wick. This she lighted with the candle. Next, moving about - almost without a sound, she fastened the swaying door-curtain with pins. - Then she slipped out of her blouse and skirt; untied the pearl cape; and - seated on the bed of matting, with her back to the door, began patiently - sewing the pearls into her undergarments. It was to be a long task. Before - dawn the lamp burned out, and fearful of being caught asleep with the - amazing treasure about her she stood at the window and let the wind blow - into her face until the faintly spreading light of dawn made the work - again possible. The drowsiness that nearly overcame her now she fought off - with an iron will. Nothing mattered—nothing but success. Her thin - deft fingers worked in a tireless rhythm. Only once, very briefly, did she - yield to the impulse to weigh the exquisite lustrous globes in her hands; - to hold them close to the light. Her tireless reason told her that this - wouldn't do. It brought an excited throbbing to her weary head.... She - settled again to her task; time enough to gloat later. By way of a healthy - mental occupation she counted the pearls as she threaded them—up to - a thousand—on up to two thousand—then (the sun was redly up - now; and folk were stirring about the deck) three thousand. In all, a few - more than thirty-seven hundred pearls she threaded about her person; and - then slipped back into blouse and skirt before permitting herself a few - hours of sleep. The diamond-studded clasps she wrapped in a bit of cloth - and stuffed into her hand-bag. - </p> - <p> - The Chinese maid woke her then, bringing food that had been cooked, she - knew, in the brick stove up forward, where the crew slept. She could bring - herself to eat but a few mouthfuls.... This didn't matter, either. No - hardship was of consequence in such a battle as hers; she would have - submitted coolly to torture rather than surrender her prize. But it - suggested fresh tactics. She had a knack at cooking. Quietly, later in the - day—she knew better than to try effusive friendliness; to play - herself to the last would be best—she spoke to Mr. Doane of that - small gift. A kitchen was improvised in the <i>laopan's</i> cramped - quarters, aft; and Miss Carmichael, quite intent about her business, - coolly cheerful about it, indeed, began to prove her capacity. And she - knew, then, that she was winning. They would soon be respecting her, even - liking her. - </p> - <p> - Even so she would keep her distance; then they would have to keep theirs. - That was all she needed. - </p> - <p> - To Rocky, the most elusive memory of all this eventful night was the - conversation with Miss Hui Fei. For she returned in a moment—so he - remembered it—and sank wearily into the steamer chair. The picture - of that scene was to vary bafflingly in his mind. At times he saw himself, - torn with an emotion now so great that it seemed the end of life, standing - over her, saying, passionately: - </p> - <p> - “I know how it looked—you're finding us here like that! And you'd - have reason. I did flirt with her. I'm ashamed now. I hadn't seen you—felt - you—like this. But that's all over. I was telling her—Please! - You've got to know!—that I love you. Or telling her enough. She - understood. And she was awfully decent. She took my hand, wished me luck.” - </p> - <p> - There must have been a brief time then when the poor girl was endeavoring - pleasantly to turn aside this torrent of heavily freighted words. - Certainly he was talking feverishly on. He could remember pulling down a - coil of rope from the steersman's deck and sitting moodily beside her; and - there was a sensation in their minds, his and hers, of being at - cross-purposes. There was something about her, back of the weary smile—a - smile that was long to haunt him, dim in the moonlight, exquisite in its - sensitive beauty—that eluded his pressing desire until it seemed - near to driving him mad. Kipling's <i>East is East, and West is West</i>, - slipped in among his thoughts; kept coming and coming until it became a - nerve-wracking singsong in his brain. - </p> - <p> - There was one period, fortunately very short, when he seemed to be almost - forcing a quarrel. Why, he couldn't afterward imagine. That part of it was - dreadful in the retrospect. He had reached the point, apparently, when he - couldn't longer endure the failure to reach her. There was simply no - response. It was almost as if he were frightening her away. Perhaps it was - just that. - </p> - <p> - But the most vivid memory was of the unaccountable force that suddenly - rose in him, seizing on his tongue, his brain, his very nerves. The power - of the Kanes was abruptly his, and it brought its own skill with it. It - was, distinctly, a possession. It simply came, at this very top of his - emotional pitch. There must have been preliminaries. He must have said - things that she must have answered. But these lesser moments dropped out. - Even a day later, he could see, could almost feel, himself on one knee - beside the steamer chair, saying those amazing things, without a shred of - memory as to how he got there. Never had he so spoken, to girl or woman; - for in the escapades of the younger Rocky there had always been a - reticence if seldom a restraint. It was precocity; the blood that was in - him. - </p> - <p> - “You beautiful, wonderful girl!” he was breathing, close to her ear. (He - was never to forget this.) “How can you hide your feelings from me? Can't - you see it's just driving me mad?.... You're adorable! You're exquisite! - You thrill me so—just your voice; the way you walk—your hands—your - hair!.... Can't you understand, dear, it isn't what they call 'love.'” - (This with a divine contempt.) “It's the cry of my whole being. I want to - give you my life. I want to know <i>your</i> life—study it—come - to understand the wonderful people that has made you possible! I'm going - to study it—history, art, everything!.... I worship you! I dream so - of you—all the time—daytimes! I just half-close my eyes and - then, right away, I can see you, walking. And I see you as you were at the - dance on the boat.” He choked a little; then rushed on. “And in those - dreams I always take you in my arms—No, let me say it! The angels - are singing it, the wonderful truth!—I take you in my arms and kiss - your hair and your eyes. You always close your eyes—oh, so slowly—and - I press my lips on the lids. And your arms are around my neck. I can feel - your hands. But I never kiss your lips—not in those dreams. Because - that will mean that you have given me your soul, and I always know I must - wait for that.... - </p> - <p> - “Please! You must listen! Can't you see I'm just tearing my heart out and - putting it in your hands—under your feet? There isn't any other life - for me. I can't live without you. I could give up my friends, my home, my - country, and be happy just serving you.” - </p> - <p> - He had captured her hand; had it tight in his two hands and was kissing it - tenderly. The thrill was unbelievable now. It was ecstasy. He could hear - himself murmuring over and over, “You're so exquisite! So thrilling! I - love the way your hair lies over your forehead. I love your eyes, - especially when you smile”.... On and on. - </p> - <p> - The tired sad girl in the steamer chair could not fail to respond in some - measure, in every sensitive nerve, to so ardent a wooing. Even when she - rose, and struggled a little to withdraw her hand, she couldn't be angry. - He was surprising; in his very boyishness, compelling. - </p> - <p> - Then, a little later, he was sitting moodily on the extension front of the - chair, face in hands, plunged into a wordless abyss; she sat on the edge - of the steersman's deck, leaning against the rail, her face close to a - lotus plant, with one flower that looked a ghostly blue in the fading - moonlight, and just later, shaded through pink to deep red with the first - quick-spreading color of the dawn. His emotional outburst had passed, for - the moment, like a gust. He seemed to himself, already, to have failed. - His thoughts were turned, behind the gray half-covered face, on death. For - so swung the pendulum. He couldn't, in these depths, draw significance - from the remarkable fact that she had risen only to drop down again and - carry forward the talk that he let fall, and that he had, for the time at - least, swept away those mental obstacles. Certainly Miss Hui Fei was not - elusive now. - </p> - <p> - The things she was saying, in a deliberate, matter-of-fact way, bewildered - him. - </p> - <p> - “I don' want you to make love to me like tha'.” - </p> - <p> - “But how can I help it? You're so wonderful. You thrill me so. I tell you - it's my whole life. I can never live on without you—not any more. - It's got to be with you, or—or nothing.” - </p> - <p> - It was strange. This impulsive affection had grown very, very rapidly - within him; yet, even a day earlier he couldn't have pictured this scene. - Not a phrase of these burning sentences he was so fervently uttering had - been consciously framed in his mind. A part of the thrill of the situation - lay in the very fact that he was so wildly committing himself. Now that it - was being said, he felt no desire to take a word back. He meant it all; - and more—more. - </p> - <p> - But she—still, even in the telltale morning light, quaint, charming, - adorable—was growing so practical about it. - </p> - <p> - “You're a ver' romantic boy.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm not! This is real! Can't you understand that it's love—forever?” - </p> - <p> - “Please!.... I don' want you to think I don' un'erstan'. It's ver' sweet - an' generous of you—” - </p> - <p> - “I'm not generous! I want you!” - </p> - <p> - “I do apprecia' all it woul' mean. You offer me so much—” - </p> - <p> - “You dear girl, I offer you everything—everything I have or am! I - don't want to live at all unless it's with you always at my side.” - </p> - <p> - “But I don't think—Please! I woui'n' hurt you for anything. You've - helped so—helped saving my father's life an' mine. It's won'erful—but - I don' think life is like that. People mus' have so much in common to - marry in the Western way. They mus' love each other, yes. But in their - min's an' feelings they mus' share so much—their backgroun's....” - </p> - <p> - He was out of the chair now; was beside her on the deck. - </p> - <p> - “Listen!” he was huskily saying. “We'll get married right away in Shanghai. - We've got to! I won't let you say no! And then we won't go back. Well stay - out here. There'll be money enough, in spite of the pater. We'll study - this East together. I'm going to devote all the rest of my life to it. - We'll build our common interest. I shall never want anything else!” - </p> - <p> - “How do you knew that?” - </p> - <p> - “Can you doubt me?” He had both her hands now. He seemed so young, so - eager. He would fight for what he greatly desired, as his father had - fought before him. However crudely, boyishly, he would fight. - </p> - <p> - “No”—her own voice was, surprisingly, a little unsteady—“of - course I don' doubt you. But how can you know what you're going to wan'—years - from now. I don' un'erstan' that. It does seem pretty romantic to me. I - don't know for myself. I coul'n' tell.” - </p> - <p> - This, or perhaps it was her failure to rise to his ecstasy, plunged him - again into the depths. - </p> - <p> - “It's you or nothing now,” he repeated. “You or nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “Wha' do you mean by that?” - </p> - <p> - “I've got to have you. If I can't, I'll—oh, I guess I'll just drop - quietly overboard. What's the use?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you think it's fair to talk li' that?” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps not, but—I guess I'm beside myself.” - </p> - <p> - “Listen!” said she now: with a friendly, even sympathetic pressure of his - trembling hands, “I'll tell you what I think. I think the thing for you to - do is to go back to college.” - </p> - <p> - This stung him. “How can you talk like that,” he cried, “when—” - </p> - <p> - “I don' wan' to hurt you. But please try to think this as I wan' you to.” - </p> - <p> - “Haven't you <i>any</i> feeling for me?” - </p> - <p> - “Of course, an' I'm ver' grateful.” - </p> - <p> - “For God's sake, don't talk like that.” - </p> - <p> - There was a pause. He withdrew his hands; plunged his feverish face into - them. - </p> - <p> - She rose, wearily. Said: “I'm going to try to sleep.” - </p> - <p> - “And you could go? Leaving it like this?” - </p> - <p> - “Please! I can't help—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I understand—” he was on his feet before her; caught her arms - in his hands that now were firm and young—“I haven't moved you yet, - that's all. But I will. We Kanes aren't quitters. We don't give up. And - I'm not going to give you up. I'm going to win you. Can't you see that - I've got to? That I can't live.... Listen! You're the loveliest, daintiest - little girl in the world. You're exquisite. Your voice is music to me. - I've got to live my life to that music. It'll be beautiful! Can't you see - that? I don't care how much time it takes. I'll settle down to it. But - I'll win you. And we'll be married at Shanghai?” - </p> - <p> - He was very nearly irresistible now. The power in him was real. She broke - away; then, a surprise to herself, lingered. Strangely to her, this - ardent, still somewhat impossible boy, with his vital, Western force, had - actually created an atmosphere of romance in which she was, for the - moment, and in a degree, enveloped. She knew, clearly enough, that she - must exert herself to escape from it: but lingered. - </p> - <p> - He caught her hands again; covered them with kisses; held them firmly - while his eyes, suddenly radiant, sought hers and, during a moving - instant, held them. She went below then. And Rocky dropped into the - steamer chair and smiled exultantly as he drifted into slumber. - </p> - <p> - When they met again, away from the others, after an excellent luncheon of - fowl and vegetables prepared by the surprising Miss Carmichael, his mood - was wholly changed. He had charm; consciously or unconsciously, he made it - felt. - </p> - <p> - “I wasn't fair to you,” he began. - </p> - <p> - “If you don' min',” said she, “we jus' won' talk abou' that.” - </p> - <p> - “Can't help it.” He smiled a little. “There's no use pretending I can - think about another thing. I'm madly in love with you—hopelessly - gone. It'll probably simplify things if you'll just accept that as a fact. - But last night—this morning—whenever it was!—after all - we'd been through—you know, it wasn't so unnatural that I got all - fired up that way.” - </p> - <p> - As this half-smiling, half-serious youth was plainly going to be even more - difficult to manage than the ardent boy of the glowing dawn, she was - silent. - </p> - <p> - “Here's the thing,” he went on. “I was too worn out myself to be - considerate of you. I meant every word, of course. You'll never know how - wonderful you seem to me.” This rather wistfully. They were leaning on the - rail, gazing at the rocky hills along the southern bank. “It's all wrong - for me to be so impatient. I know I've got to make good. I've got to earn - you. That won't come all at once. But I am going to try not to get stirred - up like that again. God knows you've got enough to bother you.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm ver' uncertain abou' my father,” said she. “How do you mean?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh—he stays in his room. He doesn' come out with us. An' he's - always working.” - </p> - <p> - “Well—does that mean anything? Wouldn't he naturally be busy?” - </p> - <p> - “I don' think so. No, like this.” - </p> - <p> - “But I don't understand what—” - </p> - <p> - “It isn' easy to say. When a man like father—what you call a - mandarin—feels that he mus'”—her voice wavered—“that he - mus' go, there is a grea' deal that he must wri' to his frien's an' to the - governmen'. He doesn' wan' to be disturb'. I can' tell wha' he's doing. It - worries me.” - </p> - <p> - Doane, during the sunny dreamy afternoon, heard them, now and again. They - were quite monopolizing the pleasant after gallery. And they were drifting - on into their love story. He could not restrain himself from watching and - listening. Despite the fact that his own dream was over, Doane felt about - it, in his heart, like a boy. The sight of her quickened his pulse. - Thoughts of her—mental pictures—came irresistibly. And these, - at times, puzzled his heart if never his reason; the moment on the top - deck of the steamer, when she climbed the after ladder and first confided - her tragic difficulty; the dance she “sat out” with him. - </p> - <p> - .... He called himself, often enough, a fool. But his spirit refused to - accept the words that formed in his mind. He was simply at war with - himself.... The sort of thing happened often enough in life, of course. - Every man lived through such periods. Men of middle age in particular.... - Thus he fell back, over and again, on reason. It was all he could do. - Plainly the experience would take a lot of living through. - </p> - <p> - To hope that her quick youth could altogether resist Rocky's ardent youth - was asking too much, of course. The young people were almost certain to - find themselves helpless—their emotions stirred by what they had - been living through; thrown together here, romantically, on the junk. - Whatever small difficulties they might encounter in exploring each other's - nascent feelings would be softened by the very air they were breathing. - The young are often, usually, helpless when nature so works upon them.... - But Doane wasn't bitter. At times he nearly convinced himself that he felt - only concern lest they rush along too fast; surrender their hearts, only - to find too late that the necessary affinity was not growing into flower. - The boy must have some proving, of course. That lovely girl mustn't be - sacrificed. - </p> - <p> - Late in the afternoon they were singing, softly, even humorously. Doane - caught snatches of <i>Mandalay</i>, and the college songs. That would seem - to them a fine bond, of course—the mere casual fact that both knew - the songs. For youth is quite as simple as that.... So they were rushing - on with it, while an older man pondered. Rocky hung unashamed on her every - word, every movement; waited forlornly about whenever she went below; - starting at sounds, sinking into moods, and shining with radiance when she - reappeared. He even had gentle moments.... What girl could be insensible - to all that? He himself was avoiding them, of course. There was no helping - that; certainly in this stage of the romance. - </p> - <p> - His excellency appeared on deck during the second afternoon; greeted Doane - in friendly fashion—looking oddly simple in his servant costume; - blue gown, plain cloth slippers, skull-cap with a knot of vermilion silk. - They walked the deck together; later, they sat on a coil of rope. In - manner he was very nearly his old self; smiling a thought less, perhaps, - but as humanly direct in his talk as a Chinese. - </p> - <p> - “We shall soon be parting, Grigsby Doane,” he remarked, “and I shall think - much of you. Do you know yet where you shall go and what you shall do?” - </p> - <p> - “No,” Doane replied. “All I can do now is the next thing, whatever that - may prove to be.” - </p> - <p> - “You will help China?” - </p> - <p> - “I shall hope for an opportunity.” - </p> - <p> - “You are, first and last, a Westerner.” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose that is true.” - </p> - <p> - “I did think you a philosopher, Griggsby Doane. So you seemed to me. Like - our humble great, almost like Chuang Tzü himself. But in the moment of - crisis your nature found expression wholly in action. At such times we of - the East are likely to be negative. We are a static people. But you, like - your own, are dynamic.” - </p> - <p> - This shrewd bit of observation struck Doane sharply. Come to think, it was - true. - </p> - <p> - “At the critical moment you wasted not one thought in reflection. You - weighed none of the difficulties; you ignored consequences. You took - command. You acted. As a result—here we are.... I suppose you were - right. At any rate, I yielded to your active judgment. It has saved my - daughter.” - </p> - <p> - “And you, as well, Your Excellency, if I may say so.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well—myself too.... I shall always think of you now as I have - twice seen you—once in that curious boxing match on the steamer; and - again as you took command of me and my own house. I regret that in my - position as a Manchu, however progressive, I can not be of any - considerable service to you with the republicans. It is in their camp that - your advice will help. Only there. Shall you go to them?” - </p> - <p> - Doane found it impossible to mention the invitation of Sun-Shi-pi. That - would be a sacred confidence. So he replied in merely general terms: - </p> - <p> - “I should like to sit in their councils. They seem to represent, at this - time, China's only material hope. Though I am not strongly an optimist - regarding the revolution. China is so vast, so sunken in tradition, that - the real revolution must be distressingly slow. Still, I have some - familiarity with the constitutional history of my own country, and, I - think, some acquaintance with yours. And I love China. Yes, I should like - to help.” - </p> - <p> - “You are a great man, Griggsby Doane. You have known sorrow and poverty. - To the merely successful American I do not look for much real guidance. - But China needs you. I hope she will find you out in time.” - </p> - <p> - They talked on, of many things. His excellency was gently, at times even - whimsically, reflective. At length he touched, lightly at first, on the - subject of Rocky Kane. A little later, more openly, he asked what the - boy's standing would be in New York. - </p> - <p> - Doane thought this over very carefully. It was curious how that confusing - element of mere feeling reappeared promptly in his mind. But he explained, - finally, that while the boy was young, and had been passing through a - phase of rather adventurous wildness, still his father was a man of - enormous prestige in society as in the financial world. The boy had nice - qualities. Given the right influences he might, with the wealth that would - one day be his, become like his father, a powerful factor in American - life. - </p> - <p> - “I find myself somewhat puzzled,” remarked his excellency then. “He seems - devoted to my daughter. I can not easily read her mind. And I would not - attempt to direct her life as would be necessary had she been merely a - Manchu girl reared in a Manchu environment. Is she, do you think, and as - your people understand the term, in love with him? I find their present - relationship somewhat alarming.” - </p> - <p> - “It would be difficult to say, Your Excellency—” thus Doane, simply - and gravely. “The young man is, of course, in love with her.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah,” breathed his excellency. “You are sure of that?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. She is undoubtedly accustomed to play about pleasantly with young - men as do the young women of America.” Sudden, poignant memories came of - his own lovely daughter, as she had been; and of the puzzling romance that - had seemed for a time to injure her young life—a romance in which - he, her father, had played a strange part. But that was, after all, but an - echo from another life; a closed book. - </p> - <p> - “Your daughter, I am sure,” Doane continued, “can be trusted to form her - own attachments. She is a noble as well as a beautiful girl.” - </p> - <p> - “Indeed—you find her so, Griggsby Doane? That is pleasant to my - ears. For into the directing of her life have gone my dreams of the new - China and the new world. I would not have her choose wrongly now. But I do - not understand her. It is difficult for me to talk freely with her.” - </p> - <p> - “I am sure,” said Doane slowly, “that if you could bring yourself to do - so”—as once or twice before, in moments of deep feeling, he forgot - to use the indirect Oriental form of address—“it would make her very - happy.” - </p> - <p> - “You think that, Griggsby Doane?” His excellency considered this. Then - added: “I will make the effort.” - </p> - <p> - “If I may suggest—talk with her not as father with daughter, but on - an equality, as friend with friend.” - </p> - <p> - His excellency slowly rose; and Doane, also rising, felt for the first - time that the fine old statesman fully looked his age. He was, standing - there, smiling a thought wistfully, an old man, little short of a broken - man. And then his dry thin hand found Doane's huge one and gripped it in - the Western manner. This was a surprise, evidently as moving to Kang as to - Doane himself; for they stood thus a moment in silence. - </p> - <p> - “My dearest hope, of late,” said the great Manchu—the smoothest of - etiquette giving way, for once, before the pressure of emotion—“has - been that my daughter's heart might be entrusted to you, Griggsby Doane.” - </p> - <p> - Again a silence. Then Doane: - </p> - <p> - “That was my hope, as well.” - </p> - <p> - “Then—” - </p> - <p> - “No. It is plainly impossible. All life is before her. The thought has not - come to her. It never will. I see now that she could not be happy with me. - And I think she ought to be happy. I must ask you not to speak of this - again. Let youth call unto youth. And let me be her friend.” - </p> - <p> - His excellency went below after this. Miss Hui Fei was also below, - sleeping. Rocky Kane had been playing with the little princess, out on the - gallery; but now, evidently watching his chance, he came forward to the - informal seat the mandarin had vacated. - </p> - <p> - It was to be difficult—always difficult. The boy, plainly, couldn't - live through these tense days without a confidant. Doane steeled himself - to bear it, and to respond as a friend. There was no way out; would be - none short of Shanghai; just an exquisite torture. It was even to grow, - with each fresh contact, harder to bear. The boy was so curiously - unsophisticated, so earnest and honest an egotist. - </p> - <p> - “—I've asked her,” he said now. - </p> - <p> - Doane could only wait. - </p> - <p> - “She hasn't said yes. That would be absurd, of course—so soon.” He - was so pitifully putting up a brave front. “But she does like me. And it's - something that she hasn't said no. Isn't it something?” - </p> - <p> - That was hardly a question; it was nearer assertion—what he had to - think. Doane managed to incline his head. - </p> - <p> - “But never mind that. God knows why I should bother you with it. You've - been so kind—such a friend. We—are friends, aren't we?” - </p> - <p> - Doane felt himself obliged to turn and meet his eyes. And such eyes! - Ablaze with nervous light. And then he had to grip another hand—this - one young, moist, strong. But he managed that, too. - </p> - <p> - “Listen! I do bother you awfully, but—I've been thinking—here - we are, you know. God knows when I'll find a man who could help me as you - can. And we brought all those wonderful old paintings aboard here. I've - been thinking—well, since I've got so much to learn of Chinese - culture, why not begin? Couldn't I—would they mind if I looked at - some of the pictures? And—if it isn't asking too much—you - could tell me why they're good. Just begin to give me something to go by. - Isn't it as good a way to make the break as any?” - </p> - <p> - It was a most acceptable diversion. Doane, though several boxes of the - paintings were in his own rooms, sent a servant to ask a permission that - was cordially granted. And as there was a wind blowing, they went below, - and talked there in low voices in order not to disturb the sleeping girl, - while the elder man carefully opened a box and got out a number of the - long scrolls that were wound on rods of ivory, handling them with reverent - fingers. - </p> - <p> - He chose one from the brush of that Chao Meng-fu who flourished under the - earliest Mongol or Yuan rulers, a roll perhaps fourteen or fifteen inches - in width, and in length, judging from the thickness, as many feet, tied - around with silk cords and fastened with tags of carven jade. The painting - itself, naturally, was on silk, which in turn was pasted on thick, - dark-toned paper, made of bamboo pulp, with borders of brocade. The - projecting ends of the ivory rollers, like the tags, were carved. - </p> - <p> - At the edge of the scroll were, besides the seal signature of the artist, - and the date—in our chronology, A. D. 1308—many other - signatures in the conventional square seal characters of royal and other - collectors who had possessed the painting, with also, a few pithy, - appreciative epigrams from eminent critics of various periods. On that one - margin was stamped the authentic history of the particular bit of silk, - paper and pigment during its life of six full centuries; for no hand could - have forged those seals. - </p> - <p> - There was no likelihood that the boy—lacking, as he was, in cultural - background—would exhibit any sensitive responsiveness to the - exquisite brush-work of the fine old painter or to his consciously - subjective attitude toward his art. But there is a way in which the simple - Western mind that is not preoccupied with fixed concepts of art may be led - into enjoyment of such a landscape scroll; this is to exhibit it as do the - Chinese themselves, unrolling it, very slowly, a little at a time, - deliberately absorbing the detail and the finely suggested atmosphere, - until a sensation is experienced not unlike that of making a journey - through a strange and delightful country. Doane employed this method—it - was surely what that old painter intended—and led the boy slowly - from a pastoral home, so small beneath its towering overhanging mountain - crags, that lost themselves finally in soft cloud-masses, as to appear - insignificant, out along a river where lines of reeds swayed in the winds - and boats moved patiently, across a lake that was dotted with pavilions - and pleasure craft—on and on, through varied scenes that yet were - blended with amazing craftsmanship into a continuous, harmonious whole. - </p> - <p> - The time crept by and by. When Doane finally explained the seal characters - at the end and retied the old silk cords with their hanging rectangles of - unclouded green jade, the sun was low over the western hills. - </p> - <p> - Rocky's face was flushed, his eyes nervously bright. “I don't get it all, - of course,” he said; “but it makes you feel somehow as if you'd been - reading <i>The Pilgrim's Progress!</i>” - </p> - <p> - Doane gravely nodded. - </p> - <p> - “Shall we look at another?” said Rocky. - </p> - <p> - “No. That is enough. The Chinese knew better than to crowd the mind with - confused impressions of many paintings. A good picture is an experience to - be lived through, not a trophy to be glanced at.” - </p> - <p> - “I wonder,” said the boy, “if that's why I used to hate it so when my - tutor dragged me through the Metropolitan Museum?” - </p> - <p> - “Doubtless.” - </p> - <p> - “And this picture has a great value, I suppose?” - </p> - <p> - “It is virtually priceless—in East as well as West,” replied Doane - as he replaced it among its fellows in the box. - </p> - <p> - Thus began, late but perhaps not too late, what may be regarded as the - education of young Rockingham Kane. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XII—AT THE HOUR OF THE TIGER - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HEY passed, that - evening, the region of Peng-tze where Tao Yuan-ming, after a scant three - months as district magistrate, surrendered his honors and retired to his - humble farm near Kiu Kiang, there to write in peace the verse and prose - that have endured during sixteen crowded centuries; and on, then, moving - slowly through the precipitous Gateway of Anking and, later, around the - bend that bounds that city on the west, south and east. Those on deck - could see, indistinctly in the deepening twilight, the vast area of houses - and ruins—for Anking had not yet recovered from the devastations of - the T'ai-ping rebels in the eighteen-sixties—where half a million - yellow folk swarm like ants; and very indistinctly indeed, farther to the - north, they could see: the blue mountains. Slowly, quietly, then, Anking, - with its ruins and its memories fell away astern. - </p> - <p> - Half an hour later the sweeps were lashed along the rail. The great dark - sails, with their scalloped edges between the battens of bamboo, seeming - more than ever, in the dusk, like the wings of an enormous bat, were - lowered; and with many shouts and rhythmic cries the tracking ropes were - run out to mooring poles on the bank. Forward the mattings were adjusted - for the night. The smells of tobacco and frying fish drifted aft. A youth, - sipping tea by the rail, put down his cup and sang softly in falsetto a - long narrative of friendship and the mighty river and (incidentally) the - love of a maiden who slipped away from her mother's side at night to meet - a handsome student only to be slain, as was just, by the hand of an elder - brother.... From the cabin aft drifted a faint odor of incense. A - flageolet mingled its plaintive oboe-like note with the song of the youth - by the rail.... From a near-by village came soft evening sounds, and the - occasional barking of dogs, and the beat of a watchman's gong.... The - greatest of rivers—greatest in traffic and in rich memories of the - endless human drama—was settling quietly for the night. - </p> - <p> - At the first rays of dawn the forward deck would be again astir. Sails - would be hoisted, ropes hauled aboard and coiled; and the shining yellow - craft would resume her journey down-stream, with carven and brightly - painted eyes peering fixedly out at the bow, with carefully tended flowers - perfuming the air about the after gallery, a thing of rich and lovely - color even on the rich and lovely river; slipping by busy ports, each with - its vast tangle of small shipping and its innumerable families of beggars - in slipper-boats or tubs awaiting miserably the steamers and their - strangely prodigal white passengers. T'ai-ping itself, of bloody memory, - lay still ahead; and farther yet Nanking the glorious, and Chin-kiang, and - the great estuary. Slowly the huge craft would drift and sail and tie, - moving patiently on toward the Shanghai of the ever-prospering white - merchants, the Shanghai that somewhat vaingloriously had dubbed itself - “the Paris of the East.” And no one of the thousands, here and there, that - idly watched the golden junk as it moved, not without a degree of - magnificence, down the tireless current, was to know that a Manchu - viceroy, a prince hunted to the death by his own blood, a statesman known - to the courts of great new lands, was in hiding within those timbers of - polished cypress. Nor would they know that a princess, his daughter yet - strangely of the new order, voyaged with him clad in the simple costume of - a young Chinese woman. Nor would they dream of certain inexplicable - whites. Nor would they have cared; for the voyage of the yellow junk was - but a tiny incident in the crowded endless drama of the river; to the - millions of struggling, breeding, dying souls along the banks and on the - water, merely living was and would be burden enough. So China merely lives—dreaming - a little but hoping hardly at all—with every eye on the furrow or - the till; lives, and dies, and—lives again and on. - </p> - <p> - Late in the third afternoon, Rocky Kane, sitting, head forlornly in hands, - in his narrow room, heard a light step—heard it with every sensitive - nerve-tip—and, springing up, softly drew his curtain. But the quick - eagerness faded from his eyes; for it was Dixie Carmichael. - </p> - <p> - Her thin lips curved in the faintest of smiles as she moved along the - corridor toward her own curtained door. But then, as she passed and - glanced back, her skirt, in swinging about, caught on a nail; caught - firmly; and as she stooped to release it, a string of pearls swung down, - broke, and rolled, a score of little opalescent spheres, along the deck, a - few of them nearly to Rocky's feet. He stooped—without a thought at - first—picked them up and turned them over in his fingers; then, - stepping forward to return them, observed with an odd thrill of somewhat - unpleasant excitement, that the girl had gone an ashen color and was - staring at him with something the look of a wild and hostile animal. She - turned then; glanced with furtive eyes up and down the corridor; and - swiftly gathering up the remaining pearls clutched them tightly in one - hand, extending the other and saying, in a quick half-whisper: “Give me - those.” - </p> - <p> - He hesitated, confused, unequal to the quick clear thinking he felt, even - then, was demanded of him. - </p> - <p> - “What are you doing with them?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “Not so loud! Come here!” She was indicating her own doorway; even drawing - the curtain; while her head moved just perceptibly toward the room - immediately beyond her own where Miss Hui Fei, he knew, would be resting - at this time. - </p> - <p> - “Where did you get them?” he asked, huskily, doggedly. - </p> - <p> - There was a long pause. Again her subtle gaze swept the corridor. “You'd - better step in here,” said she, very quiet. “I've something to say to - you.” - </p> - <p> - Sensing, still confusedly, that he ought to see the thing through, - struggling to think, he yielded to her stronger will. - </p> - <p> - She followed him into the room and let the curtain fall. “Give me those - pearls,” she commanded again. - </p> - <p> - He shook his head. - </p> - <p> - During a tense moment she studied him. She moved over by the translucent - window of ground oyster shells, itself, in the mellow afternoon light, as - opalescent as the pearls in her hand and his. Her gaze, for an instant, - sought the wide stain on the floor where the Manila Kid had, so recently, - wretchedly died; and her instant imagination considered the - incomprehensible mental attitude of these quiet Chinese who had, without a - word, disposed of the body and painstakingly cleansed the spot. No one, - observing them day by day, now, as they calmly pursued their tasks, could - suspect that the slanting quiet eyes had so lately seen murder.... As for - the youth before her she was, now that her moment of fright had passed, - supremely confident in her skill and mental strength. He was, still, - little more than an undeveloped boy. And his position, now that he had set - up his flag of reform, would be absurdly vulnerable. - </p> - <p> - “Once more”—her low voice was cool and soft as river ice—“give - them to me.” - </p> - <p> - He shook his head. “Tell me first where you got them.” - </p> - <p> - “If you're determined to make a scene,” said she, “I advise you to be - quiet about it. You wouldn't want—her—to know you're in here.” - </p> - <p> - “I—I”—this was the merest boyishness—“I've told her - about—well, that I tried to make love to you. I'm not afraid of - that.” - </p> - <p> - “Still—you wouldn't want her to hear you now.” This was awkwardly - true. And his hesitation as he tried to consider it, to work out an - attitude, ran a second too long. - </p> - <p> - “The pearls are mine,” she pressed calmly on. “The best advice I can give - you is to return them and go.” - </p> - <p> - “But—” - </p> - <p> - “Do you think I want the people aboard this junk—anybody—to - know that I have them?” - </p> - <p> - “I believe you stole them from the viceroy's place.” - </p> - <p> - “That, of course—Well, never mind! What you may believe is nothing - to me.” - </p> - <p> - “Will you tell Mr. Doane about them?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly not. And you won't.” - </p> - <p> - “Why shouldn't I?” - </p> - <p> - “It's none of your business.” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps it's my duty.” - </p> - <p> - “Listen”—he felt himself wholly in the right, yet found difficulty - in meeting her cold pale eyes—“it's my impression that I've been - acting rather decently toward you. Of course, I could have—” - </p> - <p> - “What could you have done?” - </p> - <p> - “For you own good, keep your voice down. I will tell you just this—you - were pretty wild in Shanghai for a week or two.” - </p> - <p> - “Well?” This was hurting him; but he met it. “And there's no likelihood - that you've told her all of it. Were you such a fool as to think you could - keep it all secret? Out here on the coast—and from a woman with as - many underground connections as I have?” - </p> - <p> - “There's nothing that!—” - </p> - <p> - “Listen! I'm not through with you. You've been a very, very rough - proposition. I know all about it. No—wait! There's something else. I - knew all about you when you were making up to me on the steamer. I could - have trapped you then—tangled your life so with mine that you could - never have got away from me, never in the world. But I didn't. I liked - you, and I didn't want to hurt you—then.” - </p> - <p> - “You do want to hurt me now?” - </p> - <p> - “It may be necessary.” - </p> - <p> - “Since you're taking this position”—he was finding difficulty in - making his voice heard; there seemed to be danger of explosive sounds—“probably - I'd better just go to Mr. Doane myself with these things.” - </p> - <p> - “If you do that I'll wreck your life.” - </p> - <p> - “You don't mean that you'd—” - </p> - <p> - “You seem to be forgetting a good deal.” - </p> - <p> - “But you—” - </p> - <p> - “I will defend myself to the limit. I've really been easy with you. You - see, you don't know anything about me. Least of all what harm I can do. - You'd be a child in my hands. Turn against me and I'll get you if it takes - me ten years. You'll never be safe from me. Never for a minute.” - </p> - <p> - He looked irresolutely down at the lustrous jewels in his hand. - </p> - <p> - “You had these sewed in your skirt. There must be more there.” - </p> - <p> - “Are you proposing to search me?” - </p> - <p> - “No—but”.... His black youth was stabbing now, viciously, at his - boyishly sensitive heart; but still, in a degree, he met it. “I'm going to - Mr. Doane. I don't care what happens to me.” - </p> - <p> - He even moved a soft step toward the door; but paused, lingered, watching - her. For she was rummaging among the covers of her bed. He caught a brief - glimpse of a hand-bag that she meant him not to see. She took from a - bottle two green tablets. Then she faced him. - </p> - <p> - To the startled question of his eyes she replied: “They're corrosive sub - mate. I shall take them now unless you—give me the pearls. If you - want to have my death on your hands, take them to Mr. Doane. But it's only - fair to tell you that if you do it—if you mix in this business—your - own life won't be worth a nickel. They'll get you, and they'll get the - pearls. You're caught in a bigger game than you can play. - </p> - <p> - “Get out, while you can”—as the low swift words came she reached out - and took the pearls from his nerveless hand—“and I'll protect you. - You can have your pretty Manchu girl. You can ride around in a rickshaw - and look at old temples and buy embroideries. Just don't mix in affairs - that don't concern you.” - </p> - <p> - “I”—he was pressing a hand to a white forehead—“I've got to - think it over.” - </p> - <p> - “Remember this, too”—she laid a hand on his arm—“you could - never fasten anything on me. The proof doesn't exist. Nobody can identify - unmounted pearls. As a matter of fact I got these”... during a brief but - to her perverse imagination an intensely pleasing moment she closed her - eyes and lived again through that strange scene on the steps of the - pavilion; again in vivid fancy rolled over the inert body that had been - Tex Connor, took the amazing cape of pearls from his shirt and rolled the - body heavily back...."I got these from a man I knew—an old friend. - Just mind your own business and no one will harm you. But remember, you're - walking among dangers. Step carefully. Keep quiet. Better go now.” - </p> - <p> - He found himself in the corridor; walked slowly, uncertainly, up to the - deck; sat by the rail and, head on hand, moodily watched the river and the - hills. He asked himself if he had, by his very silence, struck a bargain - with the girl; but could find no answer to the question, only - bewilderment. Could it be that she was only a daring thief? It could, of - course, but how to get at the truth? Abruptly, then his thoughts turned - inward. His wild days had seemed, since his change of heart, of the remote - past; but they were not, they had still been the stuff of his life within - about a week. It was unnerving. He thought, something morbidly, as the - sensitive young will, about habits.... The day had gone awry, too, in the - matter of his love. A reaction had set in. Hui Fei was keeping much to - herself. It had become difficult to talk with her at all. And that had - bewildered him.... He was all adrift, with neither sound training nor a - mature philosophy to steady him, life had turned unreal on his hands; - nothing was real—not Hui or her father, certainly not himself, not - even Mr. Doane. His background, even, was slipping away, and with it his - sense of the white race. This, it seemed, was a yellow world—swarming, - heedless, queerly tragic. His soul was adrift, and nobody cared. Toward - his father and mother he felt only bitterness. There were, it appeared, no - friends. - </p> - <p> - He thought, it seemed, confusedly, excitedly, of everything; of everything - except the important fact that he was very young. - </p> - <p> - Early on the following morning Doane found the little princess playing - about the deck, and with a smile seated himself beside her. She settled at - once on his knee, chattering brightly in the Mandarin tongue of her play - world. - </p> - <p> - He responded with a note of good-humored whimsy not out of key with her - alert clear imagination. It was pleasant to fall again into the little - intimacies of the language that had become, during these twenty years and - more, almost his own. He pointed out to her the trained cormorants diving - for fish, and the irrigating wheels along the banks; and then told quaint - stories—of the first water buffalo, and of the magic rice-field. - </p> - <p> - Soon she, too, was telling stories—of the simpleton who bought - herons for ducks, of the toad in the lotus pool, of the child that was - born in a conch shell and finally crawled with it into the sea, of the - youngest daughter who to save the life of her father married a snake, of - the magic melon that grew full of gold and the other melon that contained - hungry beggars, of the two small boys and the moon cake, and of the - curious beginning of the ant species. - </p> - <p> - She scolded him for his failure, at the first, to laugh with her. Her - happy child quality stirred memories of old-time days in T'ainan-fu, when - his own daughter had been a child of six, playing happily about the - mission compound. They were poignant memories. His eyes were misty even as - he smiled over the bright merriment of this child, and in his heart was a - growing wistful tenderness. To be again a father would be a great - privilege. He was ripe for it now, tempered by poverty and sorrow, yet - strong, with a great emotional capacity on which the world about him had, - apparently, no claim to make. He was simply cast aside, left carelessly in - an eddy with the great stream of life flowing, bankful, by. The experience - was common enough, of course. In the great scheme of life the fate of an - individual here and there could hardly matter. He could tell himself that, - very simply, quite honestly; and yet the strength within him would rise - and rise again to assert the opposite. The end, for himself, lay beyond - the range of conscious thought; but at least, he felt, it could not be - bitterness. He seemed to have passed that danger.... The little princess - was soberly telling the old story of the father-in-law, the father, and - the crabs that were eaten by the pig. At the conclusion she laughed - merrily; and then Ending his response somewhat unsatisfactory, scowled - fiercely and with her plump fingers bent up the corers of his mouth. - </p> - <p> - He laughed then; and rolled her up in his arms and tossed her high in the - air. - </p> - <p> - When Hui Fei came upon them they were gazing out over the rail. Mr. Doane - seemed to be telling a long story, to which the child listened intently. - She moved quietly near, smiling; and after listening for a few moments - seated herself on the deck behind them. - </p> - <p> - The story puzzled her. She leaned forward, a charming picture in her - simple costume, black hair parted smoothly, oval face untouched with - powder or paint. She smiled again, then, for his story was nothing other - than a free rendering into Chinese of Stevenson's:= - </p> - <p> - "In Winter I get up at night - </p> - <p> - And dress by yellow candle-light..."= - </p> - <p> - He went on, when that was finished, with a version of:= - </p> - <p> - "Dark brown is the river, - </p> - <p> - Golden is the sand...."= - </p> - <p> - —and other poems from <i>The Child's Garden of Verses.</i> - </p> - <p> - Hui Fei's eyes lighted, as she listened. Mr. Doane, it appeared, knew - nearly all of these exquisite verse-stories of happy childhood and - exhibited surprising skill in finding the Chinese equivalents for certain - elusive words. What a mind he had.... rich in reading as in experience, - ripe in wisdom, yet curiously fresh and elastic! It seemed to her a young - mind. - </p> - <p> - The little princess was especially pleased with <i>My Bed Is a Boat</i>, - and made him repeat it. At the conclusion she clapped her hands. And then - Hui Fei joined in the applause, and laughed softly when they turned in - surprise. - </p> - <p> - “Won't you do <i>The Land of Counterpane?</i>” she asked. - </p> - <p> - It was later, when the child had run off to play among the flowers, that - he and she fell to talking as they had not talked during these recent - crowded days. There were silences, at first. Despite his effort to seem - merely friendly and kind, he felt a restraint that had to be fought - through. In this time, so difficult for her at every point, he felt deeply - that he must not fail her. Her greatest need, surely, was for friendship. - The excited youth who dogged her steps and hung on her most trivial glance - could not offer that. And melancholy had touched her bright spirit; he - sensitively felt that when the little princess ran away and her smile - faded. Sorrow dwelt not far behind those dark thoughtful eyes. - </p> - <p> - Early in the conversation she spoke of her father. Her thoughts, clearly, - were always with him. - </p> - <p> - “I wan' to ask you,” said she simply and gravely, “if you know what he is - doing.” - </p> - <p> - Doane moved his head in the negative. - </p> - <p> - “He has been in his room for more than a day. When I go to his door he is - kin' but he doesn' ask me to come in. And he doesn' tell me anything.” - </p> - <p> - “He is not confiding in me,” said Doane. - </p> - <p> - “I don' like that, either, Mis'er Doane. For I know he thinks of you now - as his closes' frien'. There is no other frien' who knows what you know. - An' you have save' his life an' mine. My father is not a man to fail in - frien'ship or in gratitu'.” - </p> - <p> - Doane's eyes, despite his nearly successful inner struggles, grew misty - again. Impulsively he took her hand gently in his. At once, simply, her - slender fingers closed about his own. It seemed not unlike the trusting - affection of a child; he sensed this as a new pain. Yet there was strong - emotional quality in her; he felt it in her dark beauty, in the curve of - her cheek and the lustrous troubled splendor in her eyes, in the slender - curves of her strong young body. She was, after all, a woman grown; - aroused, doubtless, to the puzzling facts of life; a woman, with an ardent - lover close at hand, who was—this as his wholly adult mind now saw - her—already at her mating time. And feeling this he gripped her hand - more tightly than he knew. But even so, he was not unaware of his own - danger. It wouldn't do; once to release his own tightly chained emotions - would be to render himself of no greater value to her in her bewilderment - than any merely pursuing male. He set his teeth on that thought, and - abruptly withdrew his hand. - </p> - <p> - She did not look up—her gaze was fixed on the surface of the river. - The only indication she gave that she was so much as aware of this odd - little act of his was that she started to speak, then paused for a brief - instant before going on. - </p> - <p> - “I ask—ask myself all the time if there is anything we coul' be - doing.” - </p> - <p> - Doane's head moved again in the negative. - </p> - <p> - “If not even his gratitu'—” - </p> - <p> - “Gratitude,” said Doane gently, “becomes less than nothing when it is - demanded.” - </p> - <p> - “True, it can no' be ask', but it can be given.” - </p> - <p> - “Sometimes”—he was thinking aloud, dangerously—“I wonder if - any healthy human act is free from the motive of self-interest. Generosity - is so often self-indulgence. Self-sacrifice, even in cases where it may be - regarded as wholly sane, may be only a culmination or a confusion of - little understood desires.” - </p> - <p> - She looked up at this; considered it. - </p> - <p> - “Certainly,” he went on, “your father owes me nothing.” - </p> - <p> - Her hand moved a little way toward his, only to hesitate and draw back. - She looked away, saying in a clouded voice: “He—and I—owe you - everything.” It wouldn't do. Doane waited a long moment, then spoke in - what seemed more nearly his own proper character—quietly, kindly, - with hardly an outward sign of the intensely personal feeling of which his - heart was so full. - </p> - <p> - “Your father has spoken to me of you as an experiment.” - </p> - <p> - “You mean my life—my education.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. He feels, too, that the experiment has not yet been fully worked - out. I often think of that—your future. It is interesting, you know. - You have responded amazingly to the spirit of the West. And of course - you'll have to do something about it.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes,” said she, musing, “of course.” - </p> - <p> - “Whatever personal interests may for a time—or at times—absorb - your life”.... this was as close as he dared trust himself to the topic of - marriage__"I feel about you that your life will seek and find some strong - outward expression.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes—I have often fel' that too. Of course, at college I like' to - speak. I went in a good 'eal for the debates, an' for class politics.” - </p> - <p> - “You have an active mind. And you have a fine heritage. Knowing—even - feeling—both East and West as you do, your life is bound to find - some public outlet. Something.” - </p> - <p> - “I know.” She seemed moody now, in a gentle way. Her fingers picked at a - rope. “But I don' know what. I don' think I woul' like teaching. Writing, - perhaps. Even speaking. That is so easy for me.” - </p> - <p> - “There is a service that you are peculiarly fitted to perform.” She - glanced up quickly, waited. “It is a thought that keeps coming to my mind. - Perhaps because it will probably become the final expression of my own - life. For my life is curiously like yours in one way. You remember, that—that - night when we first talked—on the steamer—” - </p> - <p> - “I climb' the ladder,” she murmured, picking again at the rope. - </p> - <p> - “—And we agreed that we were both, you and I”—his voice grew - momentarily unsteady—“between the worlds.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. I remember.” He could barely hear her, “It is true, of course.” - </p> - <p> - “It is true. And for myself, I feel more and more strongly every day that - I must pitch into the tremendous task of helping to make the East known to - the West.” - </p> - <p> - “Tha' woul' be won'erful!” she breathed. - </p> - <p> - “I have come to feel that it is the one great want in Western - civilization, that the philosophy, the art, the culture, indeed, of China - has never been woven into our heritage. It is strange, in a way—we - derived our religion from certain primitive tribes in Syria. But they had - little culture. The Christian religion teaches conduct but very nearly - ignores beauty. And then there is our insistent pushing forth of the - Individual. I have come to believe that our West will seem less crass, - less materialistic, when the individual is somewhat subdued.” He smiled. - “We need patience—sheer quality of thought—the fine art of - reflection. We shall not find these qualities at their best, even in - Europe. They exist, in full flower, only in China. And America doesn't - know that. Not now.” - </p> - <p> - A little later he said: “That work has been begun, of course, in a small - way. A slight sense of Chinese culture is creeping into our colleges, here - and there. Some of the poetry is bring translated. The art museums are - reaching out for the old paintings. The Freer collection of paintings will - some day be thrown open to the public. But traditions grow very slowly. It - will take a hundred years to make America aware of China as it is now - aware of Italy, Egypt, Greece, even old Assyria.... and the thing must be - freed from Japanese influence—we can't much longer afford to look at - wonderful, rich old China through the Japanese lens.” - </p> - <p> - “An' you're going to make tha' your work,” observed Hui Fei. - </p> - <p> - “I must. I begin to feel that it is to be the only final explanation of my - life.” - </p> - <p> - There was a silence. Then, abruptly, in a tone he did not understand, she - asked: “Are you going to work for the Revolution?” - </p> - <p> - “That is the immediate thing—yes. I shall offer my services.” - </p> - <p> - “Coul' I do anything, you think? At Shanghai, I mean? Of course, I'm a - Manchu girl, but I can no' stand with the Manchu Gover'ment. I am not even - with my—my father there.” - </p> - <p> - “It is possible. I don't know. We shall soon be there.” - </p> - <p> - “Will you tell me then—at Shanghai?” - </p> - <p> - He inclined his head. Suddenly he couldn't speak. She was holding to him, - as if it were a matter of course; yet he dared not read into her attitude - a personal meaning of the only sort that could satisfy his hungry heart. - The difficulty lay in his active imagination. Like that of an eager boy it - kept racing ahead of any possible set of facts. All he could do, of - course, was to go on curbing it, from hour to hour. It would be harder - seeing her at Shanghai than running away, as he had half-consciously been - planning. But it was something that she clung to him as a friend. He - mustn't, couldn't, really, fail her there. - </p> - <p> - All of the last day they sailed the wide and steadily widening estuary. - The lead-colored water was roughened by the following wind that drove the - junk rapidly on toward her journey's end. But toward sunset wind and sea - died down, and under sweeps, late in the evening-, the craft moved into - the Wusung River and moored for the night within sight of a line of - war-ships. - </p> - <p> - A feeling of companionship grew strongly among those fugitives, yellow and - white, as the evening advanced. They had passed together through dangerous - and dramatic scenes. Now that danger and drama were alike, it seemed, - over, with the peaceable shipping of all the world lying just ahead up the - narrow channel, with, in the morning to come, a fresh view of the bund at - Shanghai, where hotels, banks and European clubs elbowed the great trading - hongs, with motor-cars and Sikh police and the bright flags of the home - land so soon to be spread before their weary eyes, they gathered on the - after gallery to chat and watch the flashing signal lights of the cruisers - and the trains on the river bank, and dream each his separate dream. Even - Dixie Carmichael, though herself untouched by sentiment, joined, for - reasons of policy, the little party. Hui Fei was there, between Doane and - the moodily silent Rocky Kane. The Chinese servants smilingly grouped - themselves on the deck just above. And finally—though it is custom - among these Easterners to sleep during the dark hours and rise with the - morning light—his excellency appeared, walking alone over the deck, - smiling in the friendliest fashion and greeting them with hands clasped - before his breast. - </p> - <p> - Doane felt a little hand steal for a moment into his with a nervous - pressure. His own relief was great. - </p> - <p> - For this smiling gentleman could hardly be regarded as one about to die. - They placed him in the steamer chair of woven rushes from Canton. And - pleasantly, then, their last evening together passed in quiet talk. - </p> - <p> - His excellency was in reminiscent mood. He had been a young officer, it - transpired, in the T'aiping Rebellion, and had fought during the last - three years of that frightful thirteen-year struggle up and down the great - river, taking part in the final assault on Su-chau as a captain in the - “Ever Victorious” army of General Gordon. Regarding that brilliant English - officer he spoke freely; Doane translating a sentence, here and there, for - young Kane. - </p> - <p> - “Gordon never forgave Li Hung Chang,” he said, “for the murder of the - T'ai-ping Wangs, during the peace banquet. It was on Prince Li's own - barge, in the canal by the Eastern Gate of the city. Gordon claimed that - Li procured the murder. He was a hot-blooded man, Gordon, often too quick - and rough in speech. Li told me, years later, that the attack was directed - as much against himself as against the Wangs, and regarded himself as - fortunate to escape. He never forgave Gordon for his insulting speech. But - Gordon was a vigorous brave man. It was a privilege to observe him - tirelessly at work, planning by night, fighting by day—organizing, - demanding money, money, money—with great energy moving troops and - supplies. He could not be beaten. He was indeed the 'Ever Victorious.'” - </p> - <p> - It was, later, his excellency who asked Hui Fei and young Kane to sing the - American songs that had floated on one or two occasions through his window - below. They complied; and Dixie Carmichael, in an agreeable light voice, - joined in. At the last Duane was singing bass. - </p> - <p> - The party was breaking up—his excellency had already gone below—when - Rocky, moved to the point of exquisite pain, caught the hand of Hui Fei. - </p> - <p> - “Please!” he whispered. “Just a word!” - </p> - <p> - “Not now. I mus' go.” - </p> - <p> - “But—it's our last evening—I've tried to be patient—it'll - be all different at Shanghai—I can't let you.” - </p> - <p> - But she slipped away, leaving the youth whispering brokenly after her. He - leaned for a long time on the rail then, looking heavily at the winking - lights of the cruisers. It was a relief to see Mr. Doane coming over the - deck. Certainly he couldn't sleep. Not now. His heart was full to - breaking.... The fighting impulse rose. During this past day or so he had - seemed to be losing ground in his struggle with self. The startling - incident in Miss Carmichael's room had turned out, he felt, still - confusedly, as a defeat. It had left him unhappy. This night, out there in - the blossom-scented gallery, he had sensed the strange girl, close at - hand, cool as a child, singing the old college songs with apparent quiet - enjoyment, as an uncanny thing, a sinister force. Even when speaking to - Hui Fei, her influence had enveloped him.... This would be just one more - little battle. And it must be won. - </p> - <p> - Accordingly he told Mr. Doane the story. The older man considered it, - slowly nodding. - </p> - <p> - “It is probably the fact,” he said, at length, “that she stole the pearls - at Huang Chau. She was with Connor and Watson. But it is also a fact that - she might have pearls of her own. And in traveling alone through a - revolution it would be her right to conceal them as she chose. It is true, - too, that unset pearls couldn't be identified easily, if at all. And she - is clever—she wouldn't weaken under charges.... No, I don't see what - we can do, beyond watching the thing closely. As for her threats against - you, they are partly rubbish.” - </p> - <p> - But Rocky cared little, now, what they might be. Once again he had cleaned - the black slate of his youth. His head was high again. He could speak to - Hui Fei convincingly in the morning. - </p> - <p> - His excellency, alone in his cabin, took from his hand-bag the book of - precepts of Chuang Tzü; and seated on his pallet, by the small table on - which burned a floating wick in its vessel of oil, read thoughtfully as - follows: - </p> - <p> - “Chuang Tzü one day saw an empty skull, bleached but intact, lying on the - ground. Striking it with his riding whip, he cried, 'Wert thou once some - ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought him to this pass?—some - statesman who plunged his country into ruin and perished in the fray?—some - wretch who left behind him a legacy of shame?—some beggar who died - in the pangs of hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach this state by the - natural course of old age?' - </p> - <p> - “When he had finished speaking, he took the skull and, placing it under - his head as a pillow, went to sleep. In the night he dreamt that the skull - appeared to him and said: 'You speak well, sir; but all you say has - reference to the life of mortals and to mortal troubles. In death there - are none of these.... In death there is no sovereign above, and no subject - below. The workings of the four seasons are unknown. Our existences are - bounded only by eternity. The happiness of a king among men can not exceed - that which we enjoy.' - </p> - <p> - “Chuang Tzü, however, was not convinced, and said: 'Were I to prevail upon - God to allow your body to be born again, and your bones and flesh to be - renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife and to the - friends of your youth, would you be willing?' - </p> - <p> - “At this the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and said: - 'How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king, and mingle - once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?'” - </p> - <p> - He closed the book; laid on the table his European watch; and sat for a - long time in meditation. As the hands of the watch neared the hour of - three in the morning, he took from the bag a box of writing materials, a - small red book and a bottle of white pills. - </p> - <p> - The leaves of the book were the thinnest gold. On one of these he - inscribed, with delicate brush, the Chinese characters meaning - “Everlasting happiness.” Tearing out the leaf, then, he wrapped loosely in - it one of the pills—these were morphine, of the familiar sort - manufactured in Japan and sold extensively in China since the decline of - the opium traffic—and swallowed them together. He inscribed and took - another, and another, and another. - </p> - <p> - Gradually a sense of drowsy comfort, of utter physical well-being, came - over him. The pupils of his eyes shrunk down to the merest pin-points. His - head drooped forward. His frail old body fell on the bed and lay - peacefully there as his spirit sought its destiny in the unchanging, - everlasting Tao. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XIII—HIS EXCELLENCY SPEAKS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was daybreak. - Doane, standing in his cabin by the opened window, looked out with - melancholy in his deep-set eyes over the muddy low reaches that border the - Wusung. It was a familiar scene; indeed he knew it better than any spot in - his native land—the railroad along the bank, the brick warehouses, - the native village of Wusung, the inevitable humble families in the fields - gathering in the last crops of the season. - </p> - <p> - Overhead the <i>laopan</i> was shouting, tackle creaked, the crew half - sang, half grunted their chanties. From the cruisers, one after another, - floating musically on the still air, came the call of bugles—the <i>reveille</i> - of the American navy. So these were ships from home. The stars and stripes - would soon, at “colors,” be rippling from each gray stem.... There was an - ache in his heart. - </p> - <p> - Then other noises came—a little confusion of them, somewhere here on - the junk—excited whispers, a sound that might have been sobbing, and - then—yes!—the low wailing of women. - </p> - <p> - He turned; listened closely. Light feet came running along the corridor. A - familiar, lovely voice called his name, brokenly. Then Hui Fei drew aside - his curtain. Her cheeks were stained with tears. - </p> - <p> - Quickly, his arm about her shoulders as she swayed unsteadily, but without - a word, he walked beside her along the corridor to the cabin of his - excellency.... There were the few servants, kneeling by the inert body and - bowing their heads to the floor as they mourned. Doane straightened the - body and closed the eyes.... It was Hui Fei who found the roll of - documents on the table and placed them in Doane's hands. He saw then, - through the mist that clouded his own eyes, that they were addressed to - himself: “To my dear friend, Griggsby Doane, I entrust these my last - papers.” The name alone was in English; written in a clear hand, not - unlike that of a painstaking schoolboy, each letter carefully and roundly - formed. - </p> - <p> - Hui Fei sent the servants to another cabin, but remained herself, seated - on the floor by the side of the huge strong man who was now without - question the head of the strangely assorted family. She was calmer. Doane - did not again hear her sob; he did not even see tears. During that - difficult moment when Rocky Kane appeared in the doorway and asked - huskily, sadly, if he could help, she even smiled, very faintly, very - gently, as she moved her head in the negative. And the youth, after a - hesitant moment, left them. - </p> - <p> - Doane spread out the documents on the floor. The first, addressed directly - to himself, he laid aside for the moment. To the second, addressed to the - throne—“by the hand of His Imperial Highness, Prince Ch'un, Regent, - as soon as it may be possible to convey to him in this hour of China's - sorrow this inadequate expression of my last thoughts”—was attached - a paper requesting that “my closest friend, Griggsby Doane” read it - thoughtfully, “in order that he may understand fully the circumstances in - which I find myself at this the end of my long life. - </p> - <p> - “I, your unworthy servant,”—it read—“have learned with sorrow - and tears of the decree permitting me to withdraw from this troubled life - in solitude and peace without the painful consequences of a death by the - headsman's sword. And in bowing humbly to your will I, your unworthy - servant, recognize that my life lies wholly in your hands to be disposed - of as seems best to the imperial wisdom. But in thus proving my never - weakening loyalty to the imperial will I also must express the sober - thoughts of one who has pondered long over the evils that beset our land - and who has ventured at times, weakly, to hope that China might pay heed - to certain lessons of recent history and find a way to oppose successfully - the pressure of other powerful nations upon us. For it has been my - privilege, as a long-time servant of the throne, to observe certain of - these other nations at first hand and to learn a little of their power, - which is very great. - </p> - <p> - “On another occasion I, your unworthy servant, wittingly incurred danger - of death or imprisonment, because, in the eagerness of my convictions, I - dared to suggest certain reforms to the throne. There is a saying that the - tree which bends before the gale will never be broken off but will grow to - a ripe old age, and my hope has always been for a great and growing China. - At that time princes and ministers about the throne asked permission to - subject me to a criminal investigation, but his late majesty was pleased - to spare me. Therefore my last years have been a boon at the hand of his - late majesty.” - </p> - <p> - There followed a clear, dignified statement of the urgent need for vast - reforms. His excellency recalled in detail his long years of service and - his decorations and honors. Quietly he called attention to the fact that - all, or nearly all, China was in revolt, that the throne tottered, that to - permit the government longer to be dominated by corrupt eunuchs was an - affront to modern as to ancient thought and morality. It was clear to - himself, he stated, that without a skilfully organized system of gradual, - perhaps rapid, modernization, China would soon crumble to pieces under the - heel of the greedy foreigners. And there was profound pathos in the - passing remark that perhaps his suicide, far from home, his vast estate - seized by government agents or despoiled by robbers, his person, alone, - beyond the reach of harm—safe, in fact, with the hated foreigners—might - stand as a final proof of his loyalty to the throne in serving which his - long life had been spent. - </p> - <p> - “But at the moment of leaving this world I feel that my mind is not so - clear as I could wish. The text of this my memorial is ill-written and - lacking in clarity of thought. I am no such scholar as the men of olden - times; how, then, could I face the end with the calm which they showed? - But there is a saying, 'The words of a dying man are good.' Though I am - about to die, it is possible that my words are not good. I can only hope - that the empress and the emperor will pity my last sad utterance, - regarding it neither as wanton babbling nor the careless complaint of a - trifling mind. Thus shall I die without regret. I wish, indeed, that my - words may prove overwrought, in order that those who come after, perhaps - more happily, may laugh at my foolishness. - </p> - <p> - “I pray the empress and the emperor to remember the example of our great - rulers of the past in tempering peace with mercy; that they may choose - only the worthy for public service; that they may refrain from striving - for those things desired by the foreigners, which would only plunge China - into deeper woe, but that by a careful study of what is good in foreign - lands they may help China to hold up her head among the nations and bring - us finally to prosperity and happiness. This is my last prayer, the end - and crown of my life.” - </p> - <p> - The junk was moving up the river as Doane finished reading, passing one of - the war-ships. The bugles were blowing again. A beam of warm sunlight - slanted in through the window of stained glass and threw a kaleidoscope of - color on the wall. - </p> - <p> - Hui Fei sat motionless, her hands folded humbly in her lap, gazing at the - floor. Her face was expressionless. She seemed wholly Oriental. - </p> - <p> - With a sigh, Deane rolled the memorial and tied it with the ribbon. The - one beneath it, he saw now, was addressed to Hui Fei. Without a word he - handed it to her and then settled to read his own. Hers was the shorter. - When she had finished she lowered it to her lap and sat motionless, as - before. - </p> - <p> - Doane now took up the paper addressed to himself and read as follows: - </p> - <p> - “My friend, Griggsby Doane, grieve not for me, and be sure that in the - manner of my end I have had no wish to bring evil upon you. It is in a - measure sad that this end should come upon a hired junk instead of on a - plot of hallowed ground, as I would have chosen. But there was no choice. - I have waited until assured of my daughter's safety. - </p> - <p> - “Inform the magistrate at Shanghai of my death, and see that my Memorial - to the Throne is forwarded promptly. Give to my daughter Hui Fei the - letter addressed to her. It my wish that you also should read that letter, - and I have so instructed her. It is also my wish that she should read this - letter to you. Buy for me a cheap coffin, and have it painted black - inside. The poor clothes I wear must serve, but I wish that the soiled - soles of my shoes be cut off. Twenty or thirty taels will be ample for the - coffin. - </p> - <p> - “I do not believe it will be necessary for the magistrate to hold an - inquest. Please have a coating of lacquer put on the coffin, to fill up - any cracks, and have the cover nailed down pending the throne's decision - as to my remains. Then buy a small plot of ground near the Taoist temple - outside of Shanghai and have me buried as soon as possible. There is no - need to consider waiting for an opportunity to bury me at my ancestral - home; any place is good enough for a loyal and honest man. - </p> - <p> - “You will find about a thousand taels in my bag, also the few jewels we - found at my home. Sell the jewels and keep for yourself the balance that - will remain after my burial expenses are paid. The <i>laopan</i> of this - junk has his money. This he will deny, and will cry for more; but do not - heed him. - </p> - <p> - “Remember there is nothing strange or abnormal in my passing; death has - become my duty. It may be true that the historic throne of the Manchus is - rocking, is falling, but despite the understanding that has been given to - me of what is good in Western civilization I have never swayed in my heart - from loyalty to that throne and steadfast devotion to its best interests - as I can see them, and I do no less than obey the mandate of my empress - and my emperor. - </p> - <p> - “Do not grieve unduly for me. It is my wish that all of you, my friends - and family, should live happily in the life that lies before you. To you, - Griggsby Doane, out of the gratitude and admiration of my proud heart, I - give and bequeath all the little that may be left of my worldly goods, - including the money, the pitiful handful of jewels, the historic paintings - and my daughter Hui Fei. It is my wish that you will marry her at once, - and that in your best judgment you sell any or all of the paintings to - provide what money you and she may need, and also that you and she care - lovingly for the younger child. It may be better to educate her in the - Western manner, but that will be as you may decide. In the matter of this - marriage with my daughter, Hui Fei, I have sought the opinion of each of - you regarding the other. I have your assurance that it has been your own - wish. And Hui Fei informs me that she respects and admires no man more - than yourself. You will see, therefore, that I have approached this matter - in the Western spirit, and as a result I see no reason why the marriage - should be delayed or that my beloved daughter should be left alone at the - mercy of an unscrupulous world. I have informed her, also, of my decision. - My gifts to you make a most inadequate dowry, but they are all I have. I - wish for you both great happiness and many descendants. - </p> - <p> - “And now, Griggsby Doane, my dear friend, I take my leave of you. I, at - seventy-four years of age, can claim an unsullied record. My family tree - goes back more than seven hundred years; for three centuries there have - been members of my clan in the Imperial Household or in the Government - Bureaus, and for four hundred years we have devoted ourselves to husbandry - and scholarship. For twenty-four generations my family has borne a good - name. I die now in order that a lifetime of devotion to duty and loyalty - to the throne may be consummated.” - </p> - <p> - Slowly Doane lowered the document. He could not speak; he could hardly - think. There beside him, still motionless, sat the young woman who was - now, by all the traditions of her people, abruptly his. - </p> - <p> - Dutifully, observing that he had finished reading, she gave him her own - letter; and he, in exchange, handed her his. Thus they read on. And then, - again quietly exchanging the documents, they sat without a word by the - peaceful body. - </p> - <p> - Little by little Doane's brain cleared. It was a time, he felt—<i>the</i> - time, indeed—when all his experience, all his character and skill, - must come into use. Now, it ever, he must be wise and steady and kind. - Very gently he took her hand; it lay softly in his; she did not lift her - eyes. - </p> - <p> - “We will not think of this matter now,” he said. “Our only thought must be - to carry out his plans regarding the funeral. If it shouldn't seem best, - later, to fulfill quite all his last wishes, perhaps he, from the other - side of the barrier, will understand what he couldn't wholly understand - while on this earth. But this I must say now—-whatever direction - your life may take, try to think of me as filling, the best I can, your - father's place. I shall hope to be your dearest friend. Lean on me. Use - me. And be sure I will understand.” - </p> - <p> - Her slim fingers tightened once again about his. - </p> - <p> - “He was a won'erful father,” she began, and choked a little. - </p> - <p> - He left her there; sent in her maid to her; himself mounted to the deck. - </p> - <p> - The sun was well up. Other junks sailed up and down the tide. A - bluff-bowed freighter, flying the Dutch flag, lay at anchor near one of - the Chinese torpedo boats that had gone over to the chaotic new republic. - The American steamers were far astern, but a motor launch flying an - officer's flag and with blue uniforms visible under the awning, plowed by - on her way up to the city. In the distance, up ahead, beyond the crowding - masts and funnels of the steamers that came from all the world, could be - seen the buildings and spires and the smoke-haze of European Shanghai.... - The bund there, within a few hours now, would be crowded with - pony-carriages and motor-cars and over-fed tourists riding in rickshaws - drawn by ragged coolies. The hotels would be thronging with talkative - young women and drink-flushed men, all eagerly retailing confused and - inaccurate news of “the revolution”; out at the British country club on - Bubbling Well Road blond men would be playing tennis in flannels: and the - gambling houses would be brightly illuminated until late at night, and the - Chinese shopkeepers in Nanking Road would be selling their souvenir - trinkets, their useless little boxes of coinsilver and cloisonne and - damascene work and their painted snuff-bottles and green soapstone - necklaces and blue-and-white pottery quite as if no troubles could ever - arise to disturb the destiny of nations. - </p> - <p> - Doane sighed again. The last letter of his excellency was in his hand, - held tightly; though he was not at this time aware of it. He glanced aft, - and saw Rocky Kane standing on the gallery, among the flowers, gazing not - forward toward the jangling, money-seeking, pleasure-mad city that is the - principal point of contact between the culture of the West and that of the - East, but off astern, as if endeavoring to see again the lost Yangtze - Kiang of his glowing romance. - </p> - <p> - Doane went to him; aware, then, of the paper rolled so tightly in his - hand, said—a huge figure, towering over the boy, his face sad and - more than ever deeply lined, but with a grave kindliness about the eyes: - </p> - <p> - “My boy, it is important that you and I have a talk. Suppose we sit down.” - He indicated the steamer chair; but Rocky insisted that he take it, - himself dropping heavily down on the step of the deck. - </p> - <p> - “How—how is she standing it?” he asked, his troubled eyes searching - that strong face before him. - </p> - <p> - “As well as we could ask. It is bound to be very hard for her—especially - during these next few days. But she has courage. And she knows he would - wish her not to mourn.... A matter has come up that concerns you, Rocky”—it - was the first time he had used that familiar name; the boy's moody eyes - brightened momentarily, and a touch of color rose in his cheeks—“and - I don't feel I can delay telling you about it. First, you had better let - me read you this.” - </p> - <p> - He had not thought, before this moment, of the necessity that he himself - make the translation for the boy. It had to be difficult; he would have - given much if the thing could have been managed in some less directly - personal way; but for that matter, difficulties lay so thickly about him - now that there was no good in so much as giving them a thought. And so—deliberately, - with great care to find the nearly precise English equivalent of every - obscure phrase—he read the letter through. - </p> - <p> - He dared not look at the boy's face, but could not but become aware of the - hands that twitched, clasping and unclasping, in his lap, and of the feet - that at times nervously tapped the deck. When the task was done he quietly - folded the paper and slipped it into a pocket. - </p> - <p> - The silence grew long and trying. Doane searched and searched his own - still confused mind for the right, the clear word; but could not, during - these earlier moments, find it. The boy, plainly, was crushed; but behind - the clouded eyes and the knit brows an emotional storm was gathering. - Doane felt that. It had to come, of course. And it would have to be - handled. - </p> - <p> - But the first words were almost calm. - </p> - <p> - “So that”—thus the brooding youth—“so that's how it is!” - </p> - <p> - Doane waited. After a little the boy sprang up. “But in God's name, why - didn't you tell me!” he cried. “You've let me come and talk to you! You—This - isn't fair! You've made a fool of me! You—” Doane rose too. They - stood side by side among the heavily scented blossoms. Doane felt moved to - put a kindly hand on the slender shoulder beside him; but a following - thought cautioned him that even a touch would be resented at this moment. - </p> - <p> - “I didn't tell you,” he said, “because until I read this paper I didn't - know.” - </p> - <p> - “But you must have known! You told—him. Told him you loved her! - Probably you've been telling her, too—here under my eyes. Oh, God, - what a fool I've been.... If you'd only been square with me!” - </p> - <p> - “This is not fair,” said Doane, still very quiet. “We must talk this out, - but not now—not while you are angry.” - </p> - <p> - “Angry! What in heaven's name is the sense of talking it out! It's - settled, isn't it?” - </p> - <p> - “I'm not sure.” - </p> - <p> - “That's not so!” The boy seemed to be recovering somewhat now from the - first shock of unreason. He turned away to hide the tears in his eyes. - “You've admitted to her father, if not to her, that you love her.... Oh, - why didn't I see it! Why did I have to be such an awful fool!... She knows - it now. And you know as well as I what she'll do. She'll never go against - her father's last wish—never. You know that!” - </p> - <p> - “I recognize that she must be seeing it in that light now, but—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, what's the use of talk. You <i>know!</i> For God's sake, let me - alone, can't you!” - </p> - <p> - Doane's brows drew slowly together; but this and a note of something near - command in his voice, were the only outward indications of the storm - within his breast. - </p> - <p> - “This is not a time for either you or me to be thinking of ourselves. You - may be sure that Hui Fei will not be thinking so. And it may help you to - realize that this situation is difficult for me, as it is for you. It is - true that Hui Fei's only thought, now, under the stress of this sorrow, - will be to submit to her father's every wish. But this stress will pass. - There is only one course to take—” - </p> - <p> - “But—” - </p> - <p> - “Listen to me! And try to meet the thing like a man. We will wait until - this sad business is over. We will at least try to give up thinking of - ourselves. I will see that Hui Fei and her sister are cared for by - friends.” - </p> - <p> - “But all the time you'll be seeing her, and—” - </p> - <p> - “I must still ask you to listen and try to think clearly. As soon as it - seems wise I will lay the situation before Hui Fei. I will try to persuade - her that her own life is, in the last analysis, more important than even - her father's dying wish. I believe that she—would—be happier - with a young man like yourself than with an—older man. It is - possible that she can be led to see that her own happiness must be a - factor in her choice. Have you the patience and the courage to wait for - that?” - </p> - <p> - He extended his hand. The boy looked at it, then up at the stern, but still - kindly face; hesitated; then, with a quivering of the lip and an explosive—“Oh - God!”—rushed away; walked very fast, almost ran, the length of the - deck; made his way through the crowded waist and around the cook's well; - and stood, his bare head thrown proudly back, in the prow, beside the - quietly wondering <i>tai-kung</i>, staring toward the long curving sweep - of the tree-shaded bund of Shanghai as it came gradually into view around - the bend just below the city. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XIV—THE WORLD OF FACT - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE yellow junk was - now abreast the landing hulks of the great international shipping - companies just below the city. Rocky left the bow and made his way to the - after cabins without once lifting his somber gaze to the silent figures on - the poop. Slowly—his eyes wild, his thoughts beyond control, - bitterness in his heart—he moved along the dim corridor. - </p> - <p> - A puff of wind found its way through an open window; a blue curtain swung - out, discovering, through a doorway, Miss Carmichael, seated in a chair - beneath the window. It was lighter in her cabin. She had laid aside the - familiar middy blouse and skirt, and appeared to be sewing something on - her petticoat. For an instant she looked up, her eyes meeting those of the - pale youth who stood motionless in the corridor. The curtain swung back - then; but as it swung the youth stepped through the doorway and stood - within the room. - </p> - <p> - “I don't know that I asked you in,” said she coolly. - </p> - <p> - His eyes were intent on the amazing, glistening strings of pearls that - were looped everywhere about her clothing. - </p> - <p> - Through narrowed lids she watched him, sitting very still, needle poised - just as she had drawn it through. On his young face was an expression of - firm decision that she had not before seen there. He looked oddly, now, - like his father. There was, apparently, a trace of the Kane iron in him. - The situation was of wholly accidental origin; he couldn't have planned - it; his first expression, out in the corridor, had been of startled - surprise; the decision to step within must have been instant; yet now, - suddenly, he meant business. She caught all that.... Here, after all, was - a young man who presented difficulties. - </p> - <p> - “Take off those pearls,” said he quietly. - </p> - <p> - “You are in my room,” said she as quietly. - </p> - <p> - “I shall take the pearls when I go.” - </p> - <p> - “You'll have my life to answer for.” - </p> - <p> - “Your life is nothing to me.” - </p> - <p> - “Your own life is.” - </p> - <p> - “Never mind about that.” - </p> - <p> - “I've warned you fairly.” - </p> - <p> - “Stand up.” - </p> - <p> - “You propose to take them from me by force?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. Unless you choose to give them to me.” - </p> - <p> - “And you expect me to trust you with them.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - There was a silence. - </p> - <p> - “Of course you are stronger than I,” she observed musingly. - </p> - <p> - He offered no reply to this. - </p> - <p> - Her thin mouth curved into the faint smile that was as cold as her - calculating brain. “So”—said she “we're enemies, then?” - </p> - <p> - This evidently did not interest him. - </p> - <p> - “I think,” she went on, quietly desperate, “that I'll try crying and - screaming. I'm something of an actress.” - </p> - <p> - “Scream your head off,” said he, the slang phrase sounding almost - courteous in this new quiet voice of his. - </p> - <p> - “There's not a person—alive—that could prove these pearls - aren't my own.” Her voice dwelt on that one telling word, “alive,” with an - almost caressing note of satisfaction. - </p> - <p> - He shook his head with a touch of impatience. And she was studying him, - her quick thoughts darting sharply about—-darting in every - conceivable direction—for an avenue of escape. She knew, however, as - the moments passed and the pale youth stood his ground that there was only - one. She had supposed him weak. It hardly seemed that her judgment could - have gone so far wrong. - </p> - <p> - “You're cruel to me,” she said softly. - </p> - <p> - “Stand up.” - </p> - <p> - Now she obeyed. He drew near. - </p> - <p> - “I didn't think you'd turn out this sort, Rocky. You liked me at first.” - She moved a hand, hesitatingly, within reach of his own. But he ignored - it. “Aren't we going to see each other at Shanghai? Are you just going to - be brutal with me—like this?.... I'd like to see you.” - </p> - <p> - “Will you take them off,” said he, “or must I?” - </p> - <p> - She turned to him, with curiously mixed passions coming to life in her - face. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, my God, Rocky!” she cried very low, “haven't you any human feelings? - Can you just come in here—into my own room—and rob me, without - a decent word?.... Haven't I played fair with you? Haven't I kept out of - your way? Haven't I?....” She moved close against him, slid her - sensitively thin hands over his shoulders; looked straight up into his - eyes, almost honestly. “Rocky, don't tell me you're this kind!”.... She - was clinging to him now. - </p> - <p> - He caught her hands, and, without roughness but with his young strength, - removed them. She let them fall at her side. - </p> - <p> - “I'm not going to wait much longer on you,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “You're hard as nails, Rocky.” Her underlip was quivering; her pale eyes - were a little darker, and seemed full of feeling. She turned suddenly to - the rough bed, and reached under the cover for her shopping bag. Hiding it - from him with her body, she opened it and took out the triangular bottle; - then lingered an instant to look at the clasps of the pearl cape that were - set with large, perfectly cut diamonds. There were five of the clasps, and - perhaps fifty of the sparkling, glittering stones. In value they would - vary somewhat-: but in themselves, even without the pearls, they - represented a fortune. She quietly closed the bag and replaced it under - the covers. - </p> - <p> - With the rough-edged little bottle in her hand she faced him. - </p> - <p> - “I knew a girl,” she said, with a far-away look in her eyes, “who took - five of these tablets and then lived two days. She suffered terribly, - of....” - </p> - <p> - He caught the bottle from her hand and threw it against the wall, where it - broke. The green pills rolled about the floor. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, well,” she remarked—“I can take them after you've gone.” - </p> - <p> - “After I've gone you can do as you think best.” - </p> - <p> - “But something will have to be done about me. Rocky. You'll have to get me - ashore. And see about burying me.... And you'll have to explain me.” - </p> - <p> - This moved him not at all. Apparently he <i>was</i> to be one of the Kanes—strong, - pitiless, destined for success and power. There would be weak moments; but - all that her uncannily shrewd eyes saw in him. For that matter, Miss - Carmichael had known many men of the sort that in America are termed “big”—certain - of them with an unpleasant secret intimacy—and each had possessed - and (at moments) been possessed by strong passions. It had never been - wholly a matter of what is called brain; always there had been emotional - force, with a dark side as well as a bright. - </p> - <p> - Overhead the great clumsy sails creaked. Soft feet pattered about the - deck. The nasal voices of the crew broke into a chantey. A chain rattled. - </p> - <p> - “We must be there,” said she. “We're anchoring, I think.” And she glanced - out the window at one of the roofed-over opium hulks that lay in those - days directly opposite the bund. Finally she looked again at him. - </p> - <p> - “Very well,” she said then; and raised her arms above her head. Swiftly, - at once, he began stripping off the festoons of pearls. The only other - thing said was her remark, in a casual tone: “It's understood that you're - using force. And you'll hear from it, of course.” - </p> - <p> - As soon as he had gone she slipped into her blouse and skirt. Once again - she looked thoughtfully at the radiant gems that were left to her; then - went, coolly swinging the little bag, up on deck, where certain of the - crew were already drawing around to the ladder at the side the sampan that - had been towing astern. - </p> - <p> - Rocky had gone directly, on tiptoe, to Doane's cabin. The huge sad-faced - man was there; quick, however, with a kindly smile. - </p> - <p> - Rocky said—“I beg your pardon, sir?”—stiffly, not unlike a - proud young Briton—and from a tied-up handkerchief and bulging - pockets—even from his shirt above his tightly drawn belt—produced - enormous quantities of perfectly matched large pearls; laid them on the - bed in a heap; helped Mr. Doane make a bundle of them in a square of blue - cloth. - </p> - <p> - “They are yours, sir,” he explained. - </p> - <p> - He withdrew then, with a coldness of manner that to the older man was - moving; and went out on deck to await his turn in the sampan. - </p> - <p> - Doane found a temporary home for Hui Fei and her sister at the mission - compound of his friend, Doctor Henry Withery, in the Chinese city; himself - lodging with other friends. Rocky went to the Astor House, across Soochow - Creek, which was still, in 1911, a famous stopping place for the tourists, - diplomats, military and commercial men, and all the other more prosperous - among the white travelers that pour into Shanghai from everywhere else in - the world by the great ships that plow unceasingly the Pacific and Indian - Oceans and the Yellow and China Seas; to pour out again (in peaceful - times) from Shanghai by rail and by lesser craft of the river and the - coast to Hong Kong and Manila to Hankow, to Tientsin and Peking, to - Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohoma and Tokio.... and Shanghai had never been so - crowded as now, with its thousands of travelers detained, awaiting news - from this or that revolutionary center; with the American Marines and the - British and German sailors; with Manchu refugees swarming into the foreign - settlements; with revolutionists, queueless, wearing unaccustomed European - dress, parading everywhere. - </p> - <p> - Doane found time to call at the hotel and leave word regarding the burial - of his excellency; but was not to know that Rocky, himself, immured in his - room, gave the word that he was out and there awaited the friendly chit - that Doane sent up by the blue-robed servant. Nor was he to know that the - boy dressed carefully for the ceremony, only to find the ordeal too great - for his overstrung emotions. It was as an afterthought, a day or two later - that Doane sent him Hui Fei's address. - </p> - <p> - It was after this sad experience that Doane, in accordance with his - promise to the late Sun Shi-pi, called on Doctor Wu Ting Fang and offered - his services to the revolutionary party. Another day and he was hard at - work, bending his strong, finely trained and experienced mind to the great - task of presenting the dreams and the activities of Young China fairly and - sympathetically to the press and the governments of the Western World.... - And so Griggsbv Doane, concealing—at moments almost from his own - inner eye—the ache in his heart, the unutterable loneliness of his - solitary existence, found himself once more fitting into the scheme of - organized human life. A grave man, with sad eyes but with a slow kindly - smile, always courteously attentive to the person and problem of the - moment, thinking always clearly and objectively out of a comprehensively - tolerant background that seemed to include all nations and all men; a - gently tactful man; a tireless, powerful figure of a man, who could work - twenty hours on end without a trace of fatigue, going through masses of - minor detail without for a moment losing his broad view of the major - problems—such was the Griggsby Doane one saw at revolutionary - headquarters during that late autumn of 1911.... Life had caught him up. - Whatever his private sorrow, the world needed him now. Rapidly, in all - that confusion, he was formulating policies, helping to direct the current - of one stream of destiny. In past years Griggsby Doane had been discussed - and forgotten. He had even been laughed at as an unfrocked missionary by - ribald, dominant, not infrequently drunken whites along the coast. It - occurred to no one to laugh at him now. - </p> - <p> - These were the days when in half the provincial capitals of China the - Manchus that had ruled during nearly three centuries were hunted to their - death, men and women alike, like vermin. Bloody heads decorated the lamp - posts that had been erected in the Western fashion beside freshly - macadamized streets. Slaughter, as in other dramatic moments in Oriental - history, had become a pastime. Palaces and wealthy homes in a hundred - cities were looted and burned, and a vast new traffic started up in the - silks and paintings and pottery and objects of art suddenly thrown into - the market.... Hankow had been taken by the imperial troops, but was to be - recaptured as a charred, gutted ruin. General Li Yuan-hung was now - “president of the Republic of China,” up at Wu Chang, by right of military - organization and popular acclaim. Admiral Sah, of the Imperial Navy, was - about to witness the unanimous mutiny of his fleet. The great Yuan - Shi-K'ai, himself a Chinese born, was in command of the imperial troops - while negotiating on either hand with the frantic throne and the upsurging - revolutionists. At Peking heads were falling and great princes were - fleeing or hiding pitifully within the walls of the legations.... Within a - few weeks Sun Yat Sen was to leave London on his long journey eastward by - way of Suez and Singapore, but without the enormous golden treasure so - confidently expected by the revolutionists. Before his arrival, even, he - was to be elected president of the new China, in the recently captured - Nanking—where a National Assembly in cropped heads and frock coats - already would be grinding out fresh tangles of legislation.... The event - was outrunning the mental capacity of man. What was now tragic confusion - would grow through the swift-following years into tragic chaos, as the - most numerous and most nearly inert of peoples struggled out of the - sluggish habit of centuries toward the dubious light of modernity. - </p> - <p> - But through the chaos Griggsby Doane was never for a moment to lose the - new vision that had finally cleared his long troubled mind. Behind the - crumbling of the empire, underlying the torn and bleeding surface of - Chinese life, lay a tradition finer, he was to believe until his dying - day, than any so far developed in the truculent West—a delicate - responsiveness to beauty in nature and art, a reflective quality, an - instinct for peace—it was all these at once, and more; a blend of - art in living and living in art; a finish that was exquisite in concept, a - sensitiveness that lifted the soul of man above the ugly fact. Even the - brittle perfection of Chinese etiquette—regulating every passing - human contact, clothing in silken manner the naked thought—was like - a fine lacquer over the knotted wood of life... America, he felt, with all - its earnestly insistent young virtues, worshiped the fact. To the - Americans must be preached the gospel of sensitive thought, of reflective - enjoyment of the beautiful. Those old master painters of Tang and Sung - breathed beauty; it was sweet air in their lungs; whereas in America - beauty was too often like a garment to be bought in a shop and worn for - show.... Yes, this revolutionary work was a gratifying opportunity for - service, of great momentary importance because the Chinese people must be - rescued from Manchu conquerors and their eunuchs, from disease and famine, - and from ignorance of the new world that had come amazingly, brutally, - into being while the old Middle Kingdom slumbered; but it was not the main - work. The aggressively greedy West, now, with its merchants and war-ships - and armies, was destroying the soul of China even while teaching her a - smattering of the materialistic new faith. There must be a - counter-influence; as the East now so strongly felt the West, so must be - the West made sensitively aware of the East. It was fair give and take. It - might yet help the world to find a stable balance.... This was what the - difficult life of Griggsby Doane was coming to mean. The East had crept - into his heart. So he must turn back to the West. - </p> - <p> - For three days Mr. Doane's brief chit—with the address of Hui Fei in - the native city—burned in Rocky Kane's pocket; then, early in the - third afternoon, he went down to the Japanese steamship offices (for the - keen little brown people had already captured the Pacific traffic from the - Americans) and bought the second officer's room on a crowded liner leaving - at the end of the week for San Francisco.... On the fourth afternoon he - called a rickshaw and rode out beyond the American post-office to the - address the older man had given him. - </p> - <p> - But Mr. Doane, it appeared, was not in; already he was established at - Doctor Wu's revolutionary headquarters. Rocky considered driving there; - even took the address and rode part of the way: but reconsidered, returned - to the hotel, and sent a messenger to Hui Fei with this chit: - </p> - <p> - “<i>I'm sailing Saturday. Do you feel that you could see me for a few - moments?</i>” - </p> - <p> - The reply, within the hour, bade him come. He found her in Western dress—-a - tailored suit, very simple; her glistening black hair parted smoothly—as - he would always most vividly remember it—gently sad in manner, yet - able to smile. She would be like that, come to think of it; not crushed by - the tragedy, not sunken in the grief that, among Westerners, is so often a - sort of histrionic egotism.... They sat in a tiled courtyard among - dahlias. More than ever like a proud young Briton was Rocky. - </p> - <p> - “It is good of you to see me.” Thus he began.... “I couldn't go without a - word.” - </p> - <p> - She murmured then: “Of course not.” - </p> - <p> - “I want you to know, too, that I am coming to see”—he had to pause; - in this new phase of sober young manhood he had not yet achieved steady - self-control. - </p> - <p> - She broke the silence with a question about the revolution. It is to his - credit that he talked, stumbling only at first, clearly. And as the strain - of the meeting gradually relaxed, he became aware of her sobered but still - intense absorption in the struggle; aware, too, increasingly, of her - strong gift of what is called personality. Her mind was quick, bright, - eager—better, it seemed (he had to fight bitterness here) than his - own. And she was impersonal to a degree that he couldn't yet attain—couldn't, - in fact, quite understand. He had to speak slowly and carefully; feeling - his way with a dogged determination among uprushing emotions, moved as - never before by the charm of appearance and manner and speech of which she - was so prettily unconscious.... He had come—perhaps with more than a - touch in him of (again) that Western histrionism, the intense - overstressing of the individual and his feelings—as a man who was - effacing himself that the woman he loved might be happy with another man. - Confused with this wholly unconscious call upon the sympathies, - undoubtedly, was an unphrased incredulity that she—so strongly a - person, fine and courageous and outstanding as he knew her to be—could - accept this being almost casually left as part of a legacy to that other - man. It was incredible. Unless she loved the other man.... So he came - around again to the personal; unaware, of course, that he was feeling - inevitably with his strongly individualistic race. Even when she dwelt on - race, a little later in their talk, he found no light. He couldn't have; - for the American seldom can see what lies outside himself. - </p> - <p> - “I don' know yet what I can do,” she was saying, very honestly and simply - (they hadn't yet mentioned Mr. Doane). “Of course I'm a Manchu, after all. - An' blood does coun'. I feel that. A good many people to-day talk - differen'ly, I know. We saw a good 'eal of Socialism at college. The - idealists to-day—the Jews an' Russians an' even some of our Chinese - students—the younger men—talk as if race doesn' matter. But of - course it does. It will ta' thousan's of years, I suppose, to bring the - races together. An' maybe it's impossible. Maybe it can' be done at all. I - think tha's the tragedy of so much of this beautiful dreaming.... An' here - you see I'm a Manchu, an' yet I wan' the Manchus put out of China. Because - they won' let China grow. An' China mus' grow, or die.” - </p> - <p> - He was moodily watching her; head bowed a little, gazing out under knit - brows. “Do you know,” he said, “it's a queer thing to say, of course, but - sometimes you make me feel terribly young.” - </p> - <p> - She smiled faintly. “You are—rather young, Rocky.” - </p> - <p> - He closed his eyes and compressed his lips; his name, on her lips, was - dangerously thrilling music to him. After a moment he went doggedly on. - </p> - <p> - “The crowds I've gone with at home haven't talked about these things. They - wouldn't think it good form.” - </p> - <p> - “I know,” said she. “They woul'n'.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm beginning to wonder if we're—well, intelligent, exactly. You - know—just motors and horses and girls and bridge and 'killings' in - Wall Street.” - </p> - <p> - “Killings?” Her brows were lifted. - </p> - <p> - “Oh—picking up a lot of money, quick.” - </p> - <p> - “That,” she mused, “is what I sometimes worry about. You know, I love - America. I have foun' happiness there. I love the books an' the colleges - and the freedom an' all the goo' times. But it is true, I think—money - is God in America. Pipple don' like to have you say it, of course. But I'm - afraid it is true. Ever'-thing has to come to money—the gover'men', - the churches, ever'thing. I have seen that. That is the hard side of - America. I don' like that so well.” Finally—coming down, helplessly, - on the personal, yet with a courageous light in his eyes—he said: “I - do want you to know this—Hui. You won't mind my speaking of my love - for you—” - </p> - <p> - Her hand moved a very little way upward. “Please! I can't help that. It's - my life now. I'm full of you. And it has changed me. I'm—I'm going - back.... I'm going at things differently. I want you to know that. Because - if I hadn't met you it couldn't possibly have happened. And if I hadn't—well, - learned what it means to love a wonderful girl like you. I want you to - know how big the change is that you've made.” - </p> - <p> - “Rocky,” she said gently—“will you do something for me?” He - waited...."I wan' you to go back to college.” - </p> - <p> - “I've already made up my mind to that,” he replied, more quietly. “It's - the job for me now. It's the next thing.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm glad,” said she. “An' I'd love it if you'd write to me sometimes.” - </p> - <p> - He inclined his head. - </p> - <p> - Then, for a moment, his old turbulent inner self unexpectedly (even to - himself), lifted its head. - </p> - <p> - “I tried to see Mr. Doane—that is, I thought perhaps I ought to tell - him that I was coming out here.” - </p> - <p> - She seemed slightly puzzled at this. Her lips framed questioningly the - words: “Tell him?” - </p> - <p> - “I—I perhaps can't say much—but I'm sure you and he will be - happy. I—oh, he's a big man. He's terribly busy now, of course—you - know what he's doing—at Wu Ting Fang's headquarters?” - </p> - <p> - She inclined her head rather wearily, saying: “He wrote me a ver' kin note—jus' - to say that he was busy.” - </p> - <p> - “They talk about him some at the hotel. All of a sudden he seems to be a - power here.” - </p> - <p> - She went without a further word into the house, returning with a slip of - paper. Into her manner had crept at the mention of Doane's name, a - gentler, more wistful quality that she seemed not to think of concealing; - it was even a confiding quality, intimately friendly. - </p> - <p> - “I don' quite un'erstand it,” she said. “A gen'leman called from the Hong - Kong Bank an' lef' this.” - </p> - <p> - Rocky read the paper; a receipt for a sealed parcel of pearls and for - other separate jewels and a sum of money. - </p> - <p> - “Oh—he put it all there in your name,” said he, while a sudden new - hope rose into his drying throat and throbbed in his temples. - </p> - <p> - “Yes. It puzzle' me—a little.” - </p> - <p> - He turned the paper over and over in his fingers, once again struggling to - think.... She sat motionless, gazing at the dahlias. - </p> - <p> - Blindly then he groped for her hands, found them and impulsively gripped - them. - </p> - <p> - “Hui”—he whispered huskily—“tell me—if it's like this—if - you—if he.... All this time I've supposed you and he were.... I want - you to come with me to America. We both do love it there. I'll give up my - life to making you happy. I'll slave for you. I'll make of my life what - you say. just let us try it together....” - </p> - <p> - She silently heard him out—through this and much more, leaving her - hands quietly in his. Finally then, when the emotional gust seemed in some - measure to have spent itself, she said, gently: - </p> - <p> - “Rocky, I wan' you to listen to what I'm going to tell you. You said I - make you feel young. Well—can' you see why? Can' you see that I'm - quite an ol' lady?” - </p> - <p> - “But that's nonsense! You—” His eyes were feasting on her soft skin - and on the exquisite curve of her cheek. - </p> - <p> - “No—you mus' listen! First tel me how old you are.” - </p> - <p> - Unexpectedly on the defensive, Rocky had to compose himself, arrange his - dignity, before he could reply. “I was twenty-one in the summer.” - </p> - <p> - “Ver' good. An' I was twenty-five in the spring.” - </p> - <p> - “But—” - </p> - <p> - “Please! I don' know what you coul' have thought—how young you - thought I was when I wen' to college. But tha's the way it is. I'm an ol' - lady. I have learn' to like you ver' much. I'm fond of you. I wan' to feel - always tha' we're frien's. But we coul'n' be happy together. Our interes' - aren' the same—they coul'n' be. Can' you see, Rocky? If there is - something abou' me tha' stirs you—that is ver' won'erful. But we - mus'n' let it hurt you. An' that isn' the same as marriage. Marriage is - differen'—there mus' be so much in common—if a man an' woman - are to live together an' work together, they mus' think an' hope an'....” - </p> - <p> - Her voice died out. She was gazing again, mournfully at the dahlias. When - he released her hands they lay limp in her lap. - </p> - <p> - With a great effort of will he wished her every happiness, promised to - write, and got himself away. - </p> - <p> - This was on Thursday. Rocky walked at a feverish pace from the native city - to the European settlement that was so quaintly not Chinese—more, - with its Western-style buildings that were decorated with ornamental iron - balconies and richly colored Chinese signs, like a “China-town” in an - American city—and wandered for a time along Nanking Road; then out - to Bubbling Well Road; away out, past the Country Club to the almost - absurdly suburban quarter with its comfortably British villas; seeing, - however, little of the busy life that moved about him, threading his way - over cross-streets without a conscious glance at the motorcars and - pony-drawn victorias (with turbanned mafoos cracking their whips) and - bicycles and the creaking passenger wheelbarrow's on which fat native - women with tiny stumps of feet rode precariously. For those few hours were - to be recalled in later years as the quietly darkest in the young man's - life. There was no question now of dissipation; he knew with the - decisiveness of the Kanes that he had turned definitely away from the - morbid oblivion of alcohol and opium, as from the unhealthy if exciting - diversion of loveless women. But the bitterness would not down all at - once. Indeed it was savagely powerful, still, to cloud his reason. The - only evidence of victory over self of which he was aware was the fact that - he could now look almost objectively at himself, and could fight. - </p> - <p> - He was back at the hotel between seven and eight, but couldn't eat. For an - hour he walked his room, locked in. Then, in sheer loneliness, a little - afraid of himself, he went down to the spacious lounge and sat in a - corner, behind a palm, staring at a copy of the <i>China Press</i> and - listening, all overstrung nerves, to the cackle and laughter of the - self-centered tourists and the curiously bold and loud commercial men from - across the Pacific. He heard this, in his younger way, as Doane would have - heard it, even as Hui; it was all heedless, light-brained; careless.... - Confused with the bitterness (in a bewildering degree) was a sense of the - finely reflective atmosphere that had lately enveloped him and that he was - not to lose easily. He felt—sitting, all nerves, in this babel—the - fine old Chinese gentleman who had gone serenely to the death that was his - destiny. He felt—constantly, intensely—the princess who had - brought to her American college an instinct for culture the like of which - neither he nor any of his friends at home had brought or found there. And - he felt Mr. Doane—felt a spaciousness of mind in the man, a - patience, a tolerance—felt him as a gentleman—felt him while - still, in his heart, he was bitterly fighting him.... The thing had closed - over his head—the sheer quality of these remarkable folk. He was - simply out of a cruder world. He hadn't the right to stand with them—the - simple right of character and breeding. And no amount of determination, no - amount of storming at it could alter the fact. It would take years of - patient work. Ever, then he might miss it; for his environment soon again - would be that of the cackling tourists he now hated. Even at college it - would be all the dominant athletics, the parties and the motors and girls - and drinking, the association with those sons of prosperous families who - were all consciously cementing alliances with the financial upper class - that quietly ruled America while hired politicians prated and performed - without in the smallest measure controlling or even altering the blatant - facts.... He and his kind, at college, despised the “grind.” And you had - to be a grind if you weren't the other thing. Yet Hui Pei had managed it - differently. She was neither and both. It seemed to be a difference of - mental texture.... - </p> - <p> - A slim girl, richly dressed, with a sable wrap about her shoulders and a - pretty little hat, was threading her way among the crowding chairs and - tables and the talkative groups in the lounge. He glanced up: then looked - closely. It was Dixie Carmichael. She stood before him, wearing her icy, - faintly mocking smile. He rose. - </p> - <p> - “How are you?” said she. - </p> - <p> - He could only incline his head with a sort of courtesy, and contrive an - artificial smile. He seemed to have been dreaming, outrageously. Life had - begun now'. - </p> - <p> - “I'm running down to Singapore,” said she. “Friends there. And a - look-see?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” he murmured, “indeed.” She looked out-and-out rich; and she was - surprisingly pretty, without a sign that she had ever known danger or even - care. - </p> - <p> - “Staying here?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “No. I start back home Saturday.” - </p> - <p> - “So?.... Well, that'll be pleasant.” With a final glance of what seemed - almost like triumph she sailed away. And he knew that in taking the pearls - he had not taken all from her. Apparently, too, she meant him to know it. - That would be her moment of triumph. And that was all; not a word was - spoken regarding his violence or her threats.... He saw the yellow porters - carrying out her luggage of bright new leather. - </p> - <p> - He resumed his seat; twitched for a time with increasing nervousness; got - up and went aimlessly over to the desk; asked the Malay clerk for mail. - </p> - <p> - A smiling little Japanese appeared, rather officious about a great lot of - bags and a trunk or two that were coming in. He had a familiar look; even - raised his hat and stepped forward with outstretched hand. It was Kato.... - And then Dawley Kane came in—tall, quiet, neatly dressed, his nearly - white mustache newly cropped. - </p> - <p> - To his pale son Dawley Kane said merely—“Well!”—as he took his - hand; and then was busy registering. That done, he asked: “Had dinner?” - Rocky shook his head. “I don't care for any.” Daw ley Kane's quietly keen - eyes surveyed his son. “What's the matter? Not well.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm well enough.” - </p> - <p> - “Sit down with me, can't you?” And turning to the attending Japanese he - said: “You'll excuse me Kato. I'll be dining with my son. And tell Mr. - Braker, please.... Just a minute Rocky, till I wash my hands.” - </p> - <p> - They were shown to a table in the great diningroom, where the cackling was - louder than in the lounge (they dine late on the coast)—where - blue-gowned waiters moved softly about as if there had never been a - revolution and wine glasses glistened and prettily bared shoulders gleamed - roundly under the electric lights. - </p> - <p> - And Rocky, seated gloomily opposite this powerful quiet man—who took - him unerringly in of course; dishearteningly, Rocky felt—found - himself in a depression deeper than any he had known before. His father - was so strong and he brought back with him the enveloping atmosphere of - the mighty, splendidly successful white world in which they both belonged—a - world that crushed the heart out of weaker peoples while it blandly talked - the moralities. He felt it as a Juggernaut. It had the amazingly - successful racial blend of character and plausibility. That would be the - British quality; and, more roughly and confusedly, the American. - </p> - <p> - “Getting rather interesting up the river.” remarked Dawley Kane, over his - soup. “How'd you get down?” - </p> - <p> - “On a junk.” - </p> - <p> - “Any trouble?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh—some.” - </p> - <p> - “Been here long?” - </p> - <p> - “Several days. I'm sailing Saturday.” - </p> - <p> - “Sailing?” Mr. Kane raised his eyebrows. “Where?” - </p> - <p> - “Home.” - </p> - <p> - “You decided not to consult me?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh.... Don't ride me, father! It's the next thing. I'm going back to - college.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh—I see.” Mr. Kane looked over the menu, ordered his roast, and - selected a red wine, cautioning the waiter to set it near the stove for - five minutes. “It's wicked to heat Burgundy,” he said, when the waiter had - gone, “but it's the only way you can get it served at the right - temperature. I discovered that when we were here before.... I gather, my - boy, that you've come to your senses in the matter of that little yellow - girl.” - </p> - <p> - Rocky did not wince outwardly; he merely sat still. But his mind, at last, - was active. And he knew—saw it in a flash—that no explanation - he could possibly make, would be intelligible. You can not—yet—talk - across the gulf between the worlds. It was his first intelligent glimpse - of the tremendous fact that Doane had so long and so clearly felt and - seen. So he merely—at last, when his father looked closely at him—inclined - his head and said, huskily: - </p> - <p> - “I'm going to work out this college business'. That's my job clear - enough.” - </p> - <p> - This new attitude was to bring, later in the evening, confidences from the - father. - </p> - <p> - “It's been an interesting journey for me, Rocky.” Thoughtfully Dawley Kane - smoked his Manila cigar. - </p> - <p> - “It's enabled me to understand somewhat the delicate international - situation out here. I couldn't see why our agents weren't accomplishing - more. The trouble is, of course, that every square foot of China's staked - out by the European nations. If you don't believe that, just get a - concession from the Chinese Government—for a big job—water - power development, mining, railway building, or an industrial monopoly—that - part of it isn't so hard—and then try to carry it through. You'd - find out fast enough who are the real owners of China. And those owners - would never let you start. Great Britain controls this great empire of the - Yangtze Valley as completely as she controls India. France owns the south—Russia - the northwest and the north—Japan, from Korea and Lower Manchuria is - penetrating the northwest, too; they're bound, the Japanese, to tip Russia - out one of these days, and they're very clever and patient about slipping - into the British regions. They've got the Germans to contend with, too, in - the Kiochow region. But someday—either in the event of the final - break-up of China or in the event of the European nations coming to an - out-and-out squabble (which is almost a certainty, at that) Japan will be - found to have pulled off most of the big prizes for herself. We'll have to - fight Japan someday, I suppose—over the control of the Pacific—but - in the meantime, those little people are the best bet. They know the East - as the rest of us don't, they're clever, and their diplomats aren't - hampered by the sort of half-enlightened public opinion that's always - tripping us up in the West—sentimental idealism, that sort of thing—and - they control their press infinitely better than we do. They've got - everything, the Japanese, except money. And we've got the money. It'll be - just a question of security, that's all; and watching them pretty closely. - I've made up my mind to play it that way.... A survey of the actual - conditions out here makes our American diplomacy look pretty naive. We - talk idealism—open door and all—while all the rest of them are - moving in and setting up shop and getting the money.” - </p> - <p> - Later, in Dawley Kane's spacious suite overlooking the park-like street - where the colored lanterns of the rickshaws glowed pleasantly under the - trees, the father said, laying a hand affectionately on the boy's - shoulder: - </p> - <p> - “I can't tell you how happy you've made me, Rocky. It looks as if you'd - turned your corner. Just don't go in for too much thinking about what - you've been through. There's nothing in remorse. As a matter of fact, a - little rough experience is a good thing for a boy. After you get your - balance you'll be all the closer to life for it.... Go ahead with your - college plans, get your degree, and then after a year or two in the New - York office I'll bring you out here. We shall be playing for big stakes. - And we shall need good men.... That's the whole problem, really—the - men. I had my eyes on this man Doane, but he turned out to be only a - sentimentalist after all.” - </p> - <p> - It was the hopelessness of it that drove Rocky out—after a - respectful good night—and over to the revolutionary headquarters. He - knew that Mr. Doane worked most of the night; and took what sleep he got - on a cot there. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XV—IN A COURTYARD - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>E sent in his - name, and waited for an hour in an outer office. For even at this late - hour in the evening headquarters was a busy place. Chinese gentlemen - crowded in and out, dressed, to a man, in the frock coats and the flapping - black trousers they didn't know how to wear. High officers slipped quietly - in and out—in khaki, with the white brassard of the Revolution on - their left arms; sometimes with merely a handkerchief tied there Orderlies - and messengers came and went. And clerks of untiring patience sat at - desks. - </p> - <p> - It was a difficult hour. Rocky had only his confused emotions to guide - him, and his hurt heart. There were moments, even, when he didn't know why - he had come. But he never thought of giving up. Whatever their curious - relations, he had to see Mr. Doane, who was now the only stable figure in - the rocking world about him. The man had been fine—square. That he - knew now. And his nervous young imagination was veering toward - hero-worship. He was utterly humble. - </p> - <p> - Naturally he was boyish about it, when they finally led him into that - inner office. He said, flushing a little: - </p> - <p> - “I know you're busy, Mr. Doane—” - </p> - <p> - “Not too busy for you. I kept you waiting to clear up a lot of things.” - The man's great size and calmness of manner—the question rose; had - he ever in his life known weariness?—were comforting. - </p> - <p> - “I'm—sailing Saturday.” - </p> - <p> - This, for a brief moment, brought the kindly though strong and sober face - to immobility. - </p> - <p> - “You see, sir, I've come to feel that the best thing for me is to go back - and—-start clean.” - </p> - <p> - A slight mist came over Doane's eyes. What a struggle the boy had had of - it! And how splendidly he was working through!.... Thought came about the - children of the rich in America... the problem of it.... - </p> - <p> - “I—couldn't go without seeing you. You see, sir, it's you, I guess, - that've put me on my feet. I sort of—well, I want you to know that I - <i>am</i> on them. It's been a strange experience, all round. A terrible - experience, of course. It shakes you....” - </p> - <p> - “It has shaken me, too,” Doane observed simply. - </p> - <p> - “I know. That is, I see all that more clearly now. I was going to speak of - it—it's one of the things, but first.... Mr. Doane, will you write - to me? Once in a while? I mean, will you—could you find time to - answer if I write to you? You see, it isn't going to be easy, over there. - I've got to go clean outside my own crowd. And outside my family. They - won't one of them understand what I'm up to. Not one. And—when you - come right down to it, I suppose it's a question whether the thing licks - me or not. But”—his shoulders squared; he looked directly into that - kind, deeply shadowed face—“I don't believe it will lick me!” - </p> - <p> - “No,” said Doane, “it won't lick you.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall never be able to shake China off now. It's got me. And I don't - know a thing about it yet. Of course I shall be reading and studying it - up.” - </p> - <p> - “I'll send you a book once in a while.” - </p> - <p> - “And I know I'm coming back out here someday. But it won't be as my father - wants me to come. You see, I'll have money.” - </p> - <p> - “A great responsibility, Rocky.” - </p> - <p> - “I know. I'm beginning to see that. But—I know all this must sound - pretty young to you!—but I'm afraid I shall be leaning on you - sometimes—” - </p> - <p> - “Write to me at those times.” - </p> - <p> - “All right. I will.” - </p> - <p> - “There is an amazing health in the American people.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes—that's so, of course.” - </p> - <p> - “It's a curiously blundering people, of course. And there's a hard, really - a Teutonic strain—that blend of practical hard-headedness, even of - cruelty, with sentimentality—” - </p> - <p> - Rocky's brows came together. Mr. Doane and his father plainly didn't use - that word “sentimental” in the same sense, “—it comes down to a - strain of—well, something between the old Anglo-Saxonism and the - modern Prussianism. It's in us—in our driving business tactics, our - narrow moral intolerance, our insistence on standardizing vulgar ideas—forcing - every individual into a mold—in our extraordinary glorification of - the salesman. We seem to have a good deal both of the British complacency - and the rough aggressiveness of the German. But the health is there—wonderfully. - What America needs is beauty—not the self-conscious swarming after - it of earnest and misguided suburban ladies—but a quiet sense of the - thing itself. Beauty—and simplicity—and patience—and - tolerance—and faith. Prosperity has for the moment wrecked faith - there. Simply too much money. But you'll find health growing up - everywhere. Just let yourself grow with it. You've been deeply impressed - by China. But if I were you, I'd let all that take care of itself. Never - mind what you may come to feel next year or ten years from now. It may be - mainly China or mainly America. Just work, and let yourself grow.” - </p> - <p> - At the door they clasped hands warmly. And then, finally, Rocky got to the - point: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Doane—this is what I wanted to say—I saw Hui Fei this - afternoon, and—” - </p> - <p> - Doane was silent; but still gripped his hand, “—and we talked things - all out. She knows I'm—knows I'm going back. And—this is - it.... You don't mind my.... I think you ought to find time to go over - there and see her. She seems puzzled about—I don't know quite how to - say all this. You know how I've felt—feel.... Of course, the thing - is to look the facts in the face. I hope I'm man enough to do that.” His - voice was unsteady now. “I'm not the one. I never was. She was clear about - it, to-day, but... I think you ought to see her. Oh, I'm sure it isn't - just her father's will....” - </p> - <p> - Rocky found himself, without the slightest sense of ungentleness on the - part of Mr. Doane, through the door and confusedly saying his good-by - before the patient clerks and the waiting crowd in the anteroom. He walked - back to the hotel with a warm glow of admiration and friendship in his - heart. There would be—he knew, even then—sad hours, probably - bitter hours, in the long struggle to come. But this talk was going to - help. - </p> - <p> - On Doane the boy's announcement had an almost crushing effect. His spirit - was not adjusted to happiness. The terrific strain of the work was a - blessing. He framed, that night and during the following day, innumerable - little chits to Hui Fei—pretexts, all, for a visit that needed no - pretext. And the day passed. Self-consciousness was upon him; and a - constant mental difficulty in making the situation credible. And there was - the pressure of time; an awareness that to Hui Fei—perhaps even to - the Witherys—his silence would soon demand a stronger explanation - than the mere pressure of business. He had to keep reminding himself that - the girl was helpless, that he himself was the only guardian whose - authority she could recognize; his reason whispering from moment to moment - that she would not touch the money he had so promptly put at her disposal. - No, she would wait. - </p> - <p> - It was his old friend Henry Withery who brought him to it; appearing late - on the Saturday afternoon, determined to drag him off for dinner.... - Withery, looking every one of his forty-eight years, patient resignation - in the dusty blue eyes, and a fine net of wrinkles about them. His slight - limp was the only reminder of tortures inflicted by the Boxers in 1900, - out in Kansuh. He had taken over the T'ainan-fu mission for a year after - Doane left the church in 1907; and during two years now had been here in - Shanghai. - </p> - <p> - “There's no good killing yourself here, Grig,” he said. “We've not had ten - minutes with you yet, remember. And we must talk over that girl's affairs. - She's very sweet about it, but it's plain that she's waiting on you.” - </p> - <p> - His tone was genial; quite the tone of their earlier friendship, with - nothing left of the constraint that had come into their relationship - during Doane's difficult years on the river—the years that couldn't - be explained, even to old friends.... And Withery knew nothing of the - curious personal problem of his and Hui Fei's lives. His manner made that - clear.... It remained to be seen whether Mrs. Withery knew. - </p> - <p> - .... Doane, it will be noted, was still struggling, as of settled habit, - with the thought of freeing the girl from the obligation laid upon her. - </p> - <p> - But Mrs. Withery didn't know, didn't dream. She was quite her whole-souled - self. He might have been Hui Fei's father, from anything in her manner. He - felt a conspirator. - </p> - <p> - Her father's tragic end accounted altogether for the girl's silence. She - met him naturally, though, with a frank grip of the hand. - </p> - <p> - It was a pleasant enough family dinner. They talked the revolution, of - course. No one in Shanghai at the beginning of that November talked - anything else. Hui Fei quietly listened; her face very sober in repose. - She seemed—she had always seemed—more delicately feminine in - Western costume. She was more slender now; her face a perfect oval under - the smooth, deep-shadowed hair. Her dark eyes, deep with stoically - controlled feeling, rested on this or that speaker. Doane found them once - or twice resting thoughtfully on himself. - </p> - <p> - After dinner Mrs. Withery, with a glance at her husband, laid a - sympathetic hand on Hui's shoulder. - </p> - <p> - “My dear,” she said, all friendly sympathy, “Mr. Doane's time is precious, - these days and nights. I know that you should take this opportunity to - talk over your problems with him. I shall be bustling about here—suppose - you take him out into the courtyard.” - </p> - <p> - Without a word they walked out there; stood by a gnarled tree whose - twisted limbs extended over the low tiled roofs. There was a little light - from the windows. The long silence that followed was the most difficult - moment yet. Doane found himself breathing rather hard. In Hui Fei he felt - the calm Oriental patience that underlay all her Western experiences. She - simply waited for him to speak. - </p> - <p> - He looked down at her, quite holding his breath. She seemed almost frail - out here, in the half light. He was fighting, with all his strength and - experience, the warm sweet feelings that drugged his brain. - </p> - <p> - “My dear—” he began; then, when she looked frankly up at him, - hesitated. He hadn't known he was going to begin with any such phrase as - that. He got on with it...."I'm wondering how I can best help you. If I - were a younger man there would be no question as to what I would have to - say to you.” Utterly clumsy, of course; with little light ahead; just a - dogged determination to serve her without hurting her. - </p> - <p> - “I think a good 'eal of wha' they tell me you're doing”—thus Hui - Fei, in a low but clear voice; not looking up now. “I've almos' envied - you. Helping li' that.” - </p> - <p> - “It must be hard for you—with all your mental interests—to sit - quietly here.” - </p> - <p> - “My min' goes on, of course,” she said. “Yes, it isn' ver' easy.” - </p> - <p> - This was getting them nowhere. Doane, after a deep breath, took command of - the situation. Sooner or later he would have to do that. - </p> - <p> - “Hui, dear,” he said now—very quietly, but directly, “this is a - difficult situation for both of us. The only thing, of course, is to meet - it as frankly as we can. I learned to love your father—” - </p> - <p> - She glanced up at this; her eyes glistened as the light caught them. - </p> - <p> - “—but we can not blindly follow his wishes. He had seen and felt the - West, but he died a Manchu.” - </p> - <p> - Her soft lips framed the one word, “Yes.” The softness of her whole face, - indeed, was disconcerting; it was all sober emotion, that she plainly - didn't think of trying to hide. - </p> - <p> - “And I'm sure you'll understand me when I tell you that I can not accept - his legacy.” - </p> - <p> - She startled him now with the low but direct question: “Why not?” - </p> - <p> - “My dear....” He found difficulty in going on. - </p> - <p> - “I don' know what I ought 'o say.” He barely heard this; stopped a little. - “I don' know wha' to do.” - </p> - <p> - “Can't you, dear—isn't there some clear vision in your heart—don't - you see your way ahead? Remember, you will always have me to help—if - I can help. It will mean everything to me to be your dearest friend.” - </p> - <p> - “I want 'o work with you,” she murmured. - </p> - <p> - “I haven't dared believe that possible,” he said thoughtfully. - </p> - <p> - “Do you wan' me to?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. But it has to be clearer than that.” He was stupid again; he sensed - it himself. “There is so much of life ahead of you. It's got to be clear - that wherever your heart may lead you, child—that you shall have my - steady friendship. The rest of it can grow as it may.” - </p> - <p> - “I wan'....” He couldn't make out the words; he bent down close to her - lovely face. “I want 'o marry you.” - </p> - <p> - They both stood breathless then. Timidly her hand crept into his and - nestled there. - </p> - <p> - “Tha's the trouble”—her voice was a very little stronger—“there - isn' anything else. It's ever'thing you think an' do—ever'thing you - believe. We're both between the worl's, so....” - </p> - <p> - The noise in his brain was like the pealing of cathedral bells at - Christmas time. Yet in this rush of ecstatic feeling he suddenly saw - clearly. The fabric of their companionship had hardly begun weaving. All - his experience, his delicacy, his fine human skill, must be employed here. - Ahead lay happiness! It was still nearly incredible.... And there lay—extending - before them in a long vista—their intense common interest. The thing - was to make a fine success of it. Build through the years. - </p> - <p> - And happiness was greatly important. He had so nearly missed it.... - Looking up through the branches of the old tree, he smiled. - </p> - <p> - Then he led her into the house. - </p> - <p> - “Have you had your talk already?” asked Mrs. Withery pleasantly. - </p> - <p> - “We've settled everything,” said Doane. “We're going to be married.” - </p> - <p> - “Very soon,” said Hui Fei. - </p> - <h3> - THE END - </h3> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Red and Gold, by Samuel Merwin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN RED AND GOLD *** - -***** This file should be named 51974-h.htm or 51974-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/7/51974/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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-Title: In Red and Gold
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- <h1>
- IN RED AND GOLD
- </h1>
- <h2>
- By Samuel Merwin
- </h2>
- <h3>
- Frontispiece by Cyrus Leroy Baldridge
- </h3>
- <h4>
- A. L. Burt Company Publishers, New York
- </h4>
- <h3>
- 1921
- </h3>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0001.jpg" alt="0001 " width="100%" /><br />
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- <a href="images/0001.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
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- <img src="images/0007.jpg" alt="0007 " width="100%" /><br />
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- <a href="images/0007.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <h3>
- TO
- </h3>
- <h3>
- CHARLES B. TOWNS, NEW YORK AND PEKING
- </h3>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- <b>CONTENTS</b>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I—FELLOW VOYAGERS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II—BETWEEN THE WORLDS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III—MISS HUI FEI </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV—INTRIGUE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V—RESURGENCE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI—CONFLAGRATION </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII—THE INSCRUTABLE WEST </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII—ABOARD THE YELLOW JUNK </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX—IN A GARDEN </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X—YOUTH </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI—THE LANDSCAPE SCROLL OF CHAO
- MENG-FU </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII—AT THE HOUR OF THE TIGER </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII—HIS EXCELLENCY SPEAKS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV—THE WORLD OF FACT </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV—IN A COURTYARD </a>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER I—FELLOW VOYAGERS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N a night in
- October, 1911, the river steamer <i>Yen Hsin</i> lay alongside the godown,
- or warehouse, of the Chinese Navigation Company at Shanghai. Her black
- hull bulked large in the darkness that was spotted with inadequate
- electric lights. Her white cabins, above, lighted here and there, loomed
- high and ghostly, extending as far as the eye could easily see from the
- narrow wharf beneath. Swarming continuously across the gangplanks,
- chanting rhythmically to keep the quick shuffling step, crews of coolies
- carried heavy boxes and bales swung from bamboo poles.
- </p>
- <p>
- During the evening the white passengers were coming aboard by ones and
- twos and finding their cabins, all of which were forward on the promenade
- deck, grouped about the enclosed area that was to be at once their
- dining-room and “social hall.” Here, within a narrow space, bounded by
- strips of outer deck and a partition wall, these few casual passengers
- were to be caught, willy-nilly, in a sort of passing comradeship. For the
- greater part of this deck, amidships and aft, was screened off for the use
- of traveling Chinese officials, and the two lower decks would be crowded
- with lower class natives and freight. And, not unnaturally, in the minds
- of nearly all the white folk, as they settled for the night, arose
- questions as to the others aboard. For strange beings of many nations dig
- a footing of sorts on the China Coast, and odd contrasts occur when any
- few are thrown together by a careless fate.... And so, thinking variously
- in their separate cabins of the meeting to come, at breakfast about the
- single long table, and of the days of voyaging into the heart of oldest
- China, these passengers, one by one, fell asleep; while through open
- shutters floated quaint odors and sounds from the tangle of sampans and
- slipper-boats that always line the curving bund and occasional shouts and
- songs from late revelers passing along the boulevard beyond the rows of
- trees.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was well after midnight when the <i>Yen Hsin</i> drew in her lines and
- swung off into the narrow channel of the Whangpoo. Drifting sampans,
- without lights, scurried out of her path. With an American captain on the
- strip of promenade deck, forward, that served for a bridge, a yellow
- pilot, and Scotch engineers below decks, she slipped down with the tide,
- past the roofed-over opium hulks that were anchored out there, past the
- dimly outlined stone buildings of the British and American quarter, on
- into the broader Wusung. Here a great German mail liner lay at anchor,
- lighted from stem to stem. Farther down lay three American cruisers; and
- below these a junk, drifting dimly by with ribbed sails flapping and
- without the sign of a light, built high astern, like the ghost of a
- medieval trader.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's his lights now!” Thus the captain to a huge figure of a man who
- stood, stooping a little, beside him, peering out at the river. And the
- captain, a stocky little man with hands in the pockets of a heavy jacket,
- added—“The dirty devil!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Indeed, a small green light showed now on the junk's quarter; and then she
- was gone astern.
- </p>
- <p>
- After a silence, the captain said: “You may as well turn in.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps I will,” replied the other. “Though I get a good deal more sleep
- than I need on the river. And very little exercise.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's the devil of this life, of course. Look a' me—I'm fat!” The
- captain spoke in a rough, faintly blustering tone, perhaps in a nervous
- response to the well-modulated voice of his mate, “Must make even more
- difference to you—the way you've lived. And at that, after all, you
- ain't a slave to the river.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.... in a sense, I'm not.” The mate fell silent.
- </p>
- <p>
- There were, of course, vast differences in the degrees of misfortune among
- the flotsam and jetsam of the coast. Captain Benjamin, now, had a native
- wife and five or six half-caste children tucked away somewhere in the
- Chinese city of Shanghai.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We've gut quite a bunch aboard this trip,” offered the captain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “One or two well-known people. There's our American millionaire, Dawley
- Kane. Took four outside cabins. His son's with him, and a secretary, and a
- Japanese that's been up with him before. Wonder if it's a pleasure trip—or
- if it means that the Kane interests are getting hold up the river. It
- might, at that. They bought the Cantey line, you know, in nineteen eight.
- Then there's Tex Connor, and his old sidekick the Manila Kid, and a couple
- of women schoolteachers from home, and six or eight others—customs
- men and casuals. And Dixie Carmichael—she's aboard. Quite a bunch!
- And His Nibs gets on tomorrow at Nanking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kang, you mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The same. There's a story that he's ordered up to Peking. They were
- talking about it yesterday at the office.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you think he's in trouble?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can't say. But if you ask me, it don't look like such a good time to be
- easy on these agitators, now does it? And they tell me he's been letting
- 'em off, right and left.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate stood musing, holding to the rail. “It's a problem,” he replied,
- after a little, rather absently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The funny thing is—he ain't going on through. Not this trip,
- anyhow. We're ordered to put him off at his old place, this side of Huang
- Chau. Have to use the boats. You might give them a look-see.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They've gossiped about Kang before this at Shanghai.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shanghai,” cried the captain, with nervous irrelevancy, “is full of
- information about China—and it's all wrong!” He added then, “Seen
- young Black lately?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate moved his head in the negative.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Consul-general sent him down from Hankow, after old Chang stopped that
- native paper of his. I ran into him yesterday, over to the bank. He says
- the revolution's going to break before summer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate made no reply to this. Every trip the captain talked in this
- manner. His one deep fear was that the outbreak might take place while he
- was far up the river.
- </p>
- <p>
- It had been supposed by all experienced observers of the Chinese scene,
- that the Manchu Dynasty would not long survive the famous old empress
- dowager, the vigorous and imperious little woman who was known throughout
- a rational and tolerant empire, not without a degree of affection, as “the
- Old Buddha.” She had at the time of the present narrative been dead two
- years and more; the daily life of the infant emperor was in the control of
- a new empress dowager, that Lung Yu who was notoriously overriding the
- regent and dictating such policies of government as she chose in the
- intervals between protracted periods of palace revelry.
- </p>
- <p>
- The one really powerful personage in Peking that year was the chief
- eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, a former actor, notoriously the empress's personal
- favorite, who catered to her pleasures, robbed the imperial treasury of
- vast sums, wreaked ugly vengeance on critical censors, and publicly
- insulted dukes of the royal house.
- </p>
- <p>
- All this was familiar. The Manchu strain had dwindled out; and while an
- empress pleased her jaded appetites by having an actor cut with the lash
- in her presence for an indifferent performance, all South China, from
- Canton to the Yangtze, seethed with the steadily increasing ferment of
- revolution. Conspirators ranged the river and the coast. At secret
- meetings in Singapore, Tokio, San Francisco and New York, new and bloody
- history was planned. The oldest and hugest of empires was like a vast
- crater that steamed and bubbled faintly here and there as hot vital forces
- accumulated beneath.
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate, pondering the incalculable problem, finally spoke: “I suppose,
- if this revolt should bring serious trouble to Kang, it might affect you
- and me as well.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The captain flared up, the blustering note rising higher in his voice.
- “But somebody'll have to run the boats, won't they?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If they run at all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His impersonal tone seemed to irritate further the captain's troubled
- spirit. “If they run at all, eh? It's all right for you—you can go
- it alone—you haven't got children on your mind, young ones!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The big man was silent again. A great hand gripped a stanchion tightly as
- he gazed out at the dark expanse of water. The captain, glancing around at
- him, looking a second time at that hand, turned away, with a little sound.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will say good night,” remarked the mate abruptly, and left his chief to
- his uncertain thoughts.
- </p>
- <p>
- The steamer moved deliberately out into the wide estuary of the Yangtze,
- which is at this point like a sea. Squatting at the edge of the deck,
- outside the rail, the pilot spoke musically to the Chinese quartermaster.
- Slowly, a little at a time, as she plowed the ruffling water, the steamer
- swung off to the northwest to begin her long journey up the mighty river
- to Hankow where the passengers would change for the smaller Ichang
- steamer, or for the express to Peking over the still novel trunk railway.
- And if, as happened not infrequently, the <i>Yen Hsin</i> should break
- down or stick in the mud, the Peking passengers would wait a week about
- the round stove in the old Astor House at Hankow for the next express.
- </p>
- <p>
- A mighty river indeed, is the Yangtze. During half the year battle-ships
- of reasonably deep draught may reach Hankow. In the heyday of the sailing
- trade clippers out of New York and blunt lime-juicers out of Liverpool
- were any day sights from the bund there. Through a busy and not seldom
- bloody century the merchants of a clamorous outside world have roved the
- great river (where yellow merchants of the Middle Kingdom, in sampan,
- barge and junk, roved fifty centuries before them) with rich cargoes of
- tea (in leaden chests that bore historic ideographs on the enclosing
- matting)—with hides and horns and coal from Hupeh and furs and musk
- from far-away Szechuen, with soya beans and rice and bristles and nutgalls
- and spices and sesamum, with varnish and tung oil and vegetable tallow,
- with cotton, ramie, rape and hemp, with copper, quicksilver, slate, lead
- and antimony, with porcelains and silk. Along this river that to-day
- divides an empire into two vast and populous domains a thousand thousand
- fortunes have been gained and lost, rebellions and wars have raged,
- famines have blighted whole peoples. Forts, pagodas and palaces have lined
- its banks. The gilded barges of emperors have drifted idly on its broad
- bosom. Exquisite painted beauties have found mirrors in its neighboring
- canals. Its waters drain to-day the dusty red plain where Lady Ch'en, the
- Helen, of China, rocked a throne and died.
- </p>
- <p>
- The morning sun rode high. Soft-footed cabin stewards in blue robes
- removed the long red tablecloth and laid a white. By ones and twos the
- passengers appeared from their cabins or from the breezy deck and took
- their seats, eying one another with guarded curiosity as they bowed a
- morning greeting.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Andrews, of Indianapolis, stepped out from her cabin through a narrow
- corridor, and then, at sight of the table, stopped short, while her color
- rose slightly. Miss Andrews was slender, a year or so under thirty, and,
- in a colorless way, pretty. Shy and sensitive, the scene before her was
- one her mind's eye had failed to picture; the seats about the long table
- were half filled, and entirely with men. She saw, in that one quick look,
- the face of a young German between those of two Englishmen. A remarkably
- thin man in a check suit looked up and for an instant fixed furtive eyes
- on hers. Just beyond him sat a big man, with a round wooden face and one
- glass eye; he turned his head with his eyes to look at her. A quiet man of
- fifty-odd, with gray hair, a nearly white mustache that was cropped close,
- and the expression of quiet satisfaction that only wealth and settled
- authority can give, was putting a spoonful of condensed milk into his
- coffee. Next to him sat a young man—very young, certainly not much
- more than twenty or twenty-one—perhaps his son (the aquiline nose
- and slightly receding but wide and full forehead were the same)—rubbing
- out a cigarette on his butter plate. He had been smoking before breakfast.
- She remembered these two now; they had been at the Astor House in
- Shanghai; they were the Kanes, of New York, the famous Kanes. They called
- the son, “Rocky”—Rocky Kane.
- </p>
- <p>
- Unable to take in more, Miss Andrews stepped back a little way into the
- corridor, deciding to wait for her traveling companion, Miss Means, of
- South Bend. She could hardly go out there alone and sit down with all
- those men.
- </p>
- <p>
- But just then a door opened and closed; and across the way, coming
- directly, easily, out into the diningroom, Miss Andrews beheld the
- surprising figure of a slim girl—or a girl she appeared at first
- glance—of nineteen or twenty, wearing a blue, middy blouse and short
- blue shirt. Her black hair was drawn loosely together at the neck and tied
- with a bow of black ribbon. Her somewhat pale face, with its thin line of
- a mouth, straight nose, curving black eyebrows and oddly pale eyes, was in
- some measure attractive. She took her seat at the table without
- hesitation, acknowledging the reserved greetings of various of the men
- with a slight inclination of the head.
- </p>
- <p>
- It seemed to Miss Andrews that she might now go on in there. But the
- thought that some of these men had surely noticed her confusion was
- disconcerting; and so it was a relief to hear Miss Means pattering on
- behind her. For that firmly thin little woman had fought life to a
- standstill and now, except in the moments of prim severity that came
- unaccountably into possession of her thoughts, found it dryly amusing.
- They took their seats, these two little ladies, Miss Means laying her copy
- of <i>Things Chinese</i> beside her coffee cup; and Miss Andrews tried to
- bow her casual good mornings as the curious girl in the middy blouse had
- done. The girl, by the way, seemed a very little older at close view.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Andrews stole glimpses, too, at young Mr. Rocky Kane. He was a
- handsome boy, with thick chestnut hair from which he had not wholly
- succeeded in brushing the curl, but she was not sure that she liked the
- flush on his cheeks, or the nervous brightness of the eyes, or the
- expression about the mouth. There had been stories floating about the
- hotel in Shanghai. He plainly lacked discipline. But she saw that he might
- easily fascinate a certain sort of woman.
- </p>
- <p>
- A door opened, and in from the deck came an extraordinarily tall man,
- stooping as he entered. On his cap, in gilt, was lettered, “1st Mate.” He
- took the seat opposite Mr. Kane, senior, next to the head of the table. It
- seemed to Miss Andrews that she had never seen so tall a man; he must have
- stood six feet five or six inches. He was solid, broad of shoulder, a
- magnificent specimen of manhood. And though the hair was thin on top of
- his head, and his grave quiet face exhibited the deep lines of middle age,
- he moved with almost the springy-step of a boy. If others at the table
- were difficult to place on the scale of life, this mate was the most
- difficult of all. With that strong reflective face, and the bearing of one
- who knows only good manners (though he said nothing at all after his first
- courteously spoken, “Good morning!”) he could not have been other than a
- gentleman—Miss Andrews felt that—an American gentleman! Yet
- his position.... mate of a river steamer in China....!
- </p>
- <p>
- The atmosphere about the table was constrained throughout the meal. The
- Chinese stewards padded softly about. The one-eyed man stared around the
- table without the slightest expression on his impassive face. The girl in
- the middy blouse kept her head over her plate. Miss Andrews once caught
- Rocky Kane glancing at her with an expression nearly as furtive as that of
- the thin man in the check suit. It was after this small incident that
- young Kane began helping her to this and that; and, when they rose,
- followed her out to her deck chair and insisted on tucking her up in her
- robe.
- </p>
- <p>
- “These fall breezes are pretty sharp on the river,” he said. “But say,
- maybe it isn't hot in summer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose it is,” murmured Miss Andrews.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've been out here a couple of times with the pater. You'll find the
- river interesting. Oh, not down here”—he indicated the wide expanse
- of muddy water and the low-lying, distant shore—“but beyond
- Chinkiang and Nanking, where it's narrower. Lots of quaint sights. The
- ports are really fascinating. We stop a lot, you know. At Wuhu the water
- beggars come out in tubs.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In tubs!” breathed Miss Andrews.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Means joined them then, book under arm; and met his offer to tuck her
- up with a crisply pointed, “No, thank you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He soon drifted away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Said Miss Andrews: “Weren't you a little hard on him, Gerty?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear,” replied Miss Means severely—her Puritan vein strongly
- uppermost—“that young man won't do. Not at all. I saw him myself,
- one night at the Astor House, going into one of those private dining-rooms
- with a woman who—well, her character, or lack of it, was
- unmistakable!... Right there in the hotel.... under his father's eyes.
- That's what too much money will do to a young man, if you ask me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh....!” breathed Miss Andrews, looking out with startled eyes at the
- gulls.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was mid-afternoon when Captain Benjamin remarked to his first mate:
- “Tex Connor's got down to work, Mr. Duane. Better try to stop it, if you
- don't mind. They're in young Kane's cabin—sixteen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Number sixteen was the last cabin aft in the port side, next the canvas
- screen that separated upper class white from upper class yellow. The
- wooden shutters had been drawn over the windows and the light turned on
- within. Cigarette smoke drifted thickly out.
- </p>
- <p>
- They were slow to open. Doane heard the not unfamiliar voice of the Manila
- Kid advising against it. He had to knock repeatedly. They were crowded
- together in the narrow space between berth and couch, a board across their
- knees—Connor twisting his head to fix his one eye on the intruder,
- the Kid, in his check suit, a German of the customs and Rocky Kane. There
- were cards, chips and a heap of money in American and English notes and
- gold.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?” cried Kane. “What do you want?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'd better stop this,” said the mate quietly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, come, we're just having a friendly game! What right have you to break
- into a private room, anyway?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate, stooping within the doorway, took the boy in with thoughtful
- eyes, but did not reply directly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Connor, with another look upward, picked up the cards, and with the
- uncanny mental quickness of a practised <i>croupier</i> redistributed the
- heap of money to its original owners, and squeezed out without a word, the
- mate moving aside for him. The German left sulkily. The Kid snapped his
- fingers in disgust, and followed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane was moving away when the Kid caught his elbow. He asked: “Did
- Benjamin send you around?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane inclined his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Running things with a pretty high hand, you and him!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Keep away from that boy,” was the quiet reply.
- </p>
- <p>
- The thin man looked up at the grave strong face above the massive
- shoulders; hesitated; walked away. The mate was again about to leave when
- young Kane spoke. He was in the doorway now, leaning there, hands in
- pockets, his eyes blazing with indignation and injured pride.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Those men were my guests!” he cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm sorry, Mr. Kane, to disturb your private affairs, but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why did you do it, then?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The captain will not allow Tex Connor to play cards on this boat. At
- least, not without a fair warning.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The boy's face pictured the confusion in his mind, as he wavered from
- anger through surprise into youthful curiosity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh....” he murmured. “Oh.... so that's Tex Connor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. And Jim Watson with him. He was cashiered from the army in the
- Philippines. He is generally known now, along the coast, as the Manila
- Kid.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So that's Tex Connor!.... He managed the North End Sporting in London,
- three years ago.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very likely. I believe he is known in London and Paris.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He's a professional gambler, then?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not undertaking to characterize him. But if you would accept a word
- of advice—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I haven't asked for it, that I'm aware of.” An instant after he had said
- this, the boy's face changed. He looked up at the immense frame of the man
- before him, and into the grave face. The warm color came into his own.
- “Oh, I'm sorry!” he cried. “I needn't have said that.” But confusion still
- lay behind that immature face. The very presence of this big man affected
- him to a degree wholly out of keeping with the fellow's station in life,
- as he saw it. But he needn't have been rude. “Look here, are you going to
- say anything to my father?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly not.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will the captain?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will have to ask him yourself. Though you could hardly expect to keep
- it from him long, at this rate.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—he's so busy! He shuts himself up all day with Braker, his
- secretary. The chap with the big spectacles. You see”—Kane laughed
- self-consciously; a naively boyish quality in him, kept him talking more
- eagerly than he knew—“the pater's reached the stage when he feels he
- ought to put himself right before the world. I guess he's been a great old
- pirate, the pater—you know, wrecking railroads and grabbing banks
- and going into combinations. Though it's just what all the others have
- done. From what I've heard about some of them—friends of ours, too!—you
- have to, nowadays, in business. No place for little men or soft men. It's
- a two-fisted game. This fellow spent a couple of years writing the pater's
- autobiography:—seems funny, doesn't it!—and they're going over
- it together on this trip. That's why Braker came along; there's no time at
- home. The original plan was to have Braker tutor me. That was when I broke
- out of college. But, lord!....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll excuse me now,” said the mate.
- </p>
- <p>
- Meantime the Manila Kid had sidled up to the captain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say, Cap,” he observed cautiously, “wha'd you come down on Tex like that
- for?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, come,” replied the captain testily, not turning, “don't bother me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But what you expect us to do all this time on the river—play
- jackstraws?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't care what you do! Some trips they get up deck games.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Deck games!” The Kid sniffed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll find plenty to read in the library”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Read!....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then I guess you'll just have to stand it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- For some time they stood side by side without speaking; the captain eying
- the river, the Kid moodily observing water buffalo bathing near the bank.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tex has got that Chinese heavyweight of his aboard—down below.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—that Tom Sung?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yep. Knocked out Bull Kennedy in three rounds at the Shanghai Sporting.
- Got some matches for him up at Peking and Tientsin. Taking him over to
- Japan after that. There's an American marine that's cleaned up three
- ships'.” He was silent for a space; then added: “I suppose, now, if we was
- to arrange a little boxing entertainment, you wouldn't stand for that
- either, eh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, that's all right. Take the social hall if the ladies don't object.
- But who would you put up against him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—if we could find a young fellow on board, Tex could tell Tom
- to go light.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You might ask Mr. Doane. He complains he ain't getting exercise enough.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He's pretty old—still, I'd hate to go up against him myself....
- Say, you ask him, Cap!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll think it over. He's a little.... I'll tell you now he wouldn't stand
- for your making a show of it. If he did it, it 'ud just be for exercise.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, that's all right!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Means awoke with a start. It was the second morning out, at sunrise.
- The engines were still, but from without an extraordinary hubbub rent the
- air. Drums were beating, reed instruments wailing in weird dissonance, and
- innumerable voices chattering and shouting. A sudden crackling suggested
- fire-crackers in quantity. Miss means raised herself on one elbow, and saw
- her roommate peeping out over the blind.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It looks very much like the real China we've read about,” replied Miss
- Andrews, raising her voice above the din. “It's certainly very different
- from Shanghai.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The steamer lay alongside a landing hulk at the foot of broad steps.
- Warehouses crowded the bank and the bund above, some of Western
- construction; but the crowded scene on hulk and steps and bund, and among
- the matting-roofed sampans, hundreds of which were crowded against the
- bank, was wholly Oriental. From every convenient mast and pole pennants
- and banners spread their dragons on the fresh early breeze. A temporary <i>pen-low</i>,
- or archway, at the top of the steps was gay with fresh paint and
- streamers. In the air above were scores of kites, designed and painted to
- represent dragons and birds of prey, which the owners were maneuvering in
- mimic aerial warfare; swooping and darting and diving. As Miss Means
- looked, one huge painted bird fell in shreds to a neighboring roof, and
- the swarming assemblage cheered ecstatically.
- </p>
- <p>
- Soldiers were marching in good-humored disorder down the bund, in the
- inevitable faded blue with blue turbans wound about their heads. It
- appeared as if not another person could force his way down on the hulk
- without crowding at least one of its occupants into the water, yet on they
- came; and so far as our two little ladies could see none fell. Fully two
- hundred of the soldiers there were, with short rifles and bayonets. Amid
- great confusion they formed a lane down the steps and across to the
- gangway.
- </p>
- <p>
- Next came a large, bright-colored sedan chair slung on cross-poles, with
- eight bearers and with groups of silk-clad mandarins walking before and
- behind. Farther back, swaying along, were eight or ten more chairs, each
- with but four bearers and each tightly closed, waiting in line as the
- chair of the great one was set carefully down on the hulk and opened by
- the attending officials.
- </p>
- <p>
- Deliberately, smilingly, the great one stepped out. He was a man of
- seventy or older, with a drooping gray mustache and narrow chin beard of
- gray that contrasted oddly with the black queue. His robe was black with a
- square bit of embroidery in rich color on the breast. Above his hat of
- office a huge round ruby stood high on a gold mount, and a peacock feather
- slanted down behind it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Bowing to right and left, he ascended the gangplank, the mandarins
- following. There were fifteen of these, each with a round button on his
- plumed hat—those in the van of red coral, the others of sapphire and
- lapis lazuli, rock crystal, white stone and gold.
- </p>
- <p>
- One by one the lesser chairs were brought out on the hulk and opened. From
- the first stepped a stout woman of mature years, richly clad in heavily
- embroidered silks, with loops of pearls about her neck and shoulders, and
- with painted face under the elaborately built-up head-dress. Other women
- of various' ages followed, less conspicuously clad. From the last chair
- appeared a young woman, slim and graceful even in enveloping silks, her
- face, like the others, a mask of white paint and rouge, with lips carmined
- into a perfect cupid's bow. And with her, clutching her hand, was a little
- girl of six or seven, who laughed merrily upward at the great steamer as
- she trotted along.
- </p>
- <p>
- Blue-clad servants followed, a hundred or more, and swarming cackling
- women with unpainted faces and flapping black trousers, and porters—long
- lines of porters—with boxes and bales and bundles swung from the
- inevitable bamboo poles.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last they were all aboard, and the steamer moved out.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who were all those women, in the chairs, do you suppose?” asked Miss
- Andrews.
- </p>
- <p>
- “His wives, probably.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh....!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Or concubines.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Andrews was silent. She could still see the waving crowd on the
- wharf, and the banners and kites.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He must be at least a prince, with all that retinue.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Andrews, thinking rapidly of Aladdin and Marco Polo, of wives and
- concubines and strange barbarous ways, brought herself to say in a nearly
- matter-of-fact voice: “But those women all had natural feet. I don't
- understand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Means reached for her <i>Things Chinese</i>; looked up “Feet,”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Women,”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dress,” and other headings; finally found an answer, through a happy
- inspiration, under “Manchus.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's it!” she explained; and read: “'The Manchus do not bind the feet
- of their women.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well!” Thus Miss Andrews, after a long moment with more than a hint of
- emotional stir in her usually quiet voice: “We certainly have a remarkable
- assortment of fellow passengers. That curious silent girl in the middy
- blouse.... traveling alone...”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Remarkable, and not altogether edifying,” observed the practical Miss
- Means.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER II—BETWEEN THE WORLDS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>OWARD noon Miss
- Means and Miss Andrews were in their chairs on deck, when a gay little
- outburst of laughter caught their attention, and around the canvas screen
- came running the child they had seen on the wharf at Nanking. A sober
- Chinese servant (Miss Means and Miss Andrews were not to know that he was
- a eunuch) followed at a more dignified pace.
- </p>
- <p>
- The child was dressed in a quilted robe of bright flowered silk, the skirt
- flaring like a bed about the ankles, the sleeves extending down over the
- hands. Her shoes were high, of black cloth with paper soles. Over the robe
- she wore a golden yellow vest, shortsleeved, trimmed with ribbon and
- fastened with gilt buttons. Over her head and shoulders was a hood of fox
- skin worn with the fur inside, tied with ribbons under the chin, and
- decorated, on the top of the head, with the eyes, nose and ears of a fox.
- As she scampered along the deck she lowered her head and charged at the
- big first mate. He smiled, caught her shoulders, spun her about, and set
- her free again; then, nodding pleasantly to the eunuch, he passed on.
- </p>
- <p>
- Before the two ladies he paused to say: “We are coming into T'aiping, the
- city that gave a name to China's most terrible rebellion. If you care to
- step around to the other side, you'll see something of the quaint life
- along the river.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He seems very nice—the mate,” remarked Miss Andrews. “I find myself
- wondering who he may have been. He is certainly a gentleman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I understand,” replied Miss Means coolly, “that one doesn't ask that
- question on the China Coast.” They found the old river port drab and
- dilapidated, yet rich in the color of teeming human life. The river, as
- usual, was crowded with small craft. Nearly a score of these were awaiting
- the steamer, each evidently housing an entire family under its little arch
- of matting, and each extending bamboo poles with baskets at the ends. As
- the steamer came to a stop, a long row of these baskets appeared at the
- rail, while cries and songs arose from the water.
- </p>
- <p>
- The little Manchu girl had found a friend in Mr. Rocky Kane. He was
- holding her on the rail and supplying her with brass cash which she
- dropped gaily into the baskets. The eunuch stood smiling by. After tiffin
- the child appeared again and sought her new friend. She would sit on his
- knee and pry open his mouth to see where the strange sounds came from. And
- his cigarettes delighted her.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was the Manila Kid himself who asked Miss Means and Miss Andrews if
- they would mind a bit of a boxing: match in the social hall. They promptly
- withdrew to their cabin, after Miss Means had uttered a bewildered but
- dignified: “Not in the least! Don't think of us!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Shortly after dinner the cabin stewards stretched a rope around four
- pillars, just forward of the dining table. The men lighted cigarettes and
- cigars, and moved up with quickening interest. Tex Connor, who had
- disappeared directly after the coffee, brought in his budding champion, a
- large grinning yellow man in a bathrobe. The second mate, and two of the
- engineers found seats about the improvised rings. Then an outer door
- opened, and the great mandarin appeared, bowing and smiling courteously
- with hands clasped before his breast. The fifteen lesser mandarins
- followed, all rich color and rustling silk.
- </p>
- <p>
- The young officers sprang to their feel and arranged chairs for the party.
- The great man seated himself, and his attendants grouped themselves behind
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Into this expectant atmosphere came the mate, in knickerbockers and a
- sweater, stooping under the lintel of the door, then straightening up and
- stopping short. His eyes quickly took in the crowded little picture—the
- gray-bearded mandarin in the ringside chair, backed with a mass of
- Oriental color; that other personage, Dawley Kane, directly opposite, with
- the aquiline nose, the guardedly keen eyes and the quite humorless face,
- as truly a mandarin among the whites as was calm old Kang among the
- yellows; the flushed eager face of Rocky Kane; the other whites, all
- smoking, all watching him sharply, all impatient for the show. He frowned;
- then, as the mandarin smiled, came gravely forward, bent under the rope
- and addressed him briefly in Chinese.
- </p>
- <p>
- The mandarin, frankly pleased at hearing his own tongue, rose to reply.
- Each clasped his own hands and bowed low, with the observance of a
- long-hardened etiquette so dear to the Oriental heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How about a little bet?” whispered Rocky Kane to Tex Connor. “I wouldn't
- mind taking the big fellow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What odds'll you give?” replied the impassive one.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Odds nothing! Your man's a trained fighter, and he must be twenty years
- younger.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But this man Doane's an old athlete. He's boxed, off and on, all his
- life. And he's kept in condition. Look at his weight, and his reach.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's the distance?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—six two-minute rounds.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who'll referee?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—one of the Englishmen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But the Englishmen were not at hand. A friendly bout between yellow and
- white overstepped their code. One of the customs men, an Australian,
- accepted the responsibility, however.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll lay you a thousand, even,” said Rocky Kane.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Make it two thousand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll give you two thousand, even,” said Dawley Kane quietly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Taken! Three thousand, altogether—gold.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate, turning away from the mandarin, caught this; stood motionless
- looking at them, his brows drawing together.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gentlemen,” he finally remarked, “I came here with the understanding that
- it was to be only a little private exercise. I had no objection, of
- course, to your looking on, some of you, but this....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, come!” said Connor. “It's just for points. Tom's not going to fight
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Kane, gripping the rope nervously with both hands, cried: “You
- wouldn't quit!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate looked down at these men. “No,” he replied, in the same gravely
- quiet manner, “I shall go on with it. I do this”—he made the point
- firmly, with a dignity that in some degree, for the moment, overawed the
- younger men—“I do it because his excellency has paid us the honor of
- coming here in this democratic way. He tells me that he is fond of boxing.
- I shall try to entertain him.” And he drew the sweater over his head, and
- caught the gloves that the Kid tossed him.
- </p>
- <p>
- The elder Kane shrewdly took him in. The authority of the man was not to
- be questioned. Without so much as raising his voice he had dominated the
- strange little gathering. Physically he was a delight to the eye; anywhere
- In the forties, his hair thin to the verge of baldness, his strong sober
- face deeply lined, yet with shoulders, arms and chest that spoke of great
- muscular power and a waist without a trace of the added girth that middle
- age usually brings; of sound English stock, doubtless; the sort that in
- the older land would ride to hounds at eighty.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dawley Kane looked, then, at the Chinese heavyweight. This man, though not
- quite a match in size for the giant before him, appeared every inch the
- athlete. Kane understood the East too well to find him at all surprising;
- he had seen the strapping northern men of Yuan Shi K'ai's new army; he
- knew that the trained runners of the Imperial Government were expected, on
- occasion, to cover their hundred miles in a day; in a word, that the
- curious common American notion of the Chinese physique was based on an
- occasional glimpse of a tropical laundryman. And he settled back in his
- comfortable chair confident of a run for his money. The occasion promised,
- indeed, excellent entertainment.
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate, still with that slight frown, glanced about. Not one of the
- crowded eager faces about the ropes exhibited the slightest interest in
- himself as a human being. He was but the mate of a river steamer; a man
- who had not kept up with his generation (the reason didn't matter)—an
- individual of no standing.... He put up his hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom Sung fell into a crouch. With his left shoulder advanced, his chin
- tucked away behind it, he moved in close and darted quick but hard blows to
- the stomach and heart. Duane stepped backward, and edged around him,
- feeling him out, studying his hands and arms, his balance, his footwork.
- It early became clear that he was a thoroughgoing professional, who meant
- to go in and make a fight of it.... Doane, sparring lightly, considered
- this. Conner, of course, had no sportsmanship.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom's left hand shot up through Doane's guard, landing clean on his face
- with a sharp thud; followed up with a remarkably quick right swing that
- the mate, by sidestepping, succeeded only in turning into a glancing blow.
- And then, as Doane ducked a left thrust, he uppercut with all his
- strength. The blow landed on Doane's forearms with a force that shook him
- from head to foot.
- </p>
- <p>
- A sound of breath sharply indrawn came from the spectators, to most of
- whom it must have appeared that the blow had gone home. Doane, slipping
- away and mopping the sweat from eyes and forehead, heard the sound; and
- for an instant saw them, all leaning forward, tense, eager for a knockout,
- the one possible final thrill.
- </p>
- <p>
- The yellow man was at him again, landing left, right and left on his
- stomach, and butting a shaven head with real force against his chin. For
- an instant stars danced about his eyes. Elbows had followed the head,
- roughing at his face. Doane, quickly recovering, leaped back and dropped
- his hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is this?” he called sharply to Connor, whose round expressionless
- face with its one cool light eye and thin little mouth looked at him
- without response. “Head? Elbows? Is your man going to box, or not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The eyes that turned in surprise about the ringside were not friendly.
- These men cared nothing for his little difficulties; their blood was up.
- They wanted what the Americans among them would term “action” and
- “results.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom was tearing at him again. So it was, after all, to be a fight. No
- preliminary understandings mattered. He felt a profound disgust, as by
- main strength he stopped rush after rush, making full use of his greater
- reach to pin Tom's arms and hurl him back; a disgust however, that was
- changing gradually to anger. He had known, all his life, the peculiar joy
- that comes to a man of great strength and activity in any thorough test of
- his power.
- </p>
- <p>
- The customs man called time.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky Kane—flushed, excited, looking like a boy—felt in his
- pockets for cigarettes; found none; and slipped hurriedly out to the deck.
- </p>
- <p>
- There a silken rustle stopped him short.
- </p>
- <p>
- A slim figure, enveloped in an embroidered gown, was moving back from a
- cabin window. The light from within fell—during a brief second—full
- on an oval face that was brightly painted, red and white, beneath glossy
- black hair. The nose was straight, and not wide. The eyes, slanted only a
- little, looked brightly out from under penciled brows. She was moving
- swiftly toward the canvas screen; but he, more swiftly, leaped before her,
- stared at her; laughed softly in sheer delighted surprise. Then, with a
- quick glance about the deck, breathing out he knew not what terms of crude
- compliment he reached for her; pursued her to the rail; caught her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You little beauty!” he was whispering now. “You wonder! You darling!
- You're just too good to be true!” Beside himself, laughing again, he bent
- over to kiss her. But she wrenched an arm free, fought him off, and
- leaned, breathless, against the rail.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Little yellow tiger, eh?” he cried softly. “Well, I'm a big white tiger!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She said in English: “This is amazing!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He stood frozen until she had disappeared behind the canvas screen. Then
- he staggered back; stumbled against a deck chair; turning, found the
- strange thin girl of the middy blouse stretched out there comfortably in
- her rug.
- </p>
- <p>
- She said, with a cool ease: “It's so pleasant out here this evening, I
- really haven't felt like going in.”
- </p>
- <p>
- With a muttered something—he knew not what—he rushed off to
- his cabin; then rushed back into the social hall.
- </p>
- <p>
- The customs man called time for the second round.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Doane advanced to the center of the ring, Tom rushed, as before, head
- down. Doane uppercut him; then threw him back, forestalling a clinch. The
- next two or three rushes he met in the same determined but negative way;
- hitting a few blows but for the most part pushing him off. The sweat kept
- running into his eyes as he exerted nearly his full strength. And Tom
- Sung's shoulders and arms glistened a bright yellow under the electric
- lights.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky Kane, lighting a cigarette and tossing the blazing match away,
- called loudly: “Oh, hit him! For God's sake, do something! Don't be afraid
- of a Chink!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane glanced over at him. Tom rushed. Doane felt again the crash of solid
- body blows delivered with all the force of more than two hundred pounds of
- well-trained muscle behind them. Again he winced and retreated. He knew
- well that he could endure only a certain amount of this punishment....
- Suddenly Tom struck with the sharpest impact yet. Again that hard head
- butted his chin; an elbow and the heel of a glove roughed his face....
- Doane summoned all his strength to push him off. Then he stepped
- deliberately forward.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last the primitive vigor in this giant was aroused. His eyes blazed.
- There was no manner of pleasure in hurting a fellow man of any color; but
- since the particular man was asking for it, insisting on it, there was no
- longer a choice. The fellow had clearly been trained to this foul sort of
- work. That would be Connor's way, to take every advantage, place a large
- side bet and then make certain of winning. There was, of course, no more
- control of boxing out here on the coast than of gambling or other vice.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Tom next came forward, Doane, paying not the slightest heed to his
- own defense, exchanged blows with him; planted a right swing that raised a
- welt on the yellow cheek. A moment later he landed another on the same
- spot.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the sound of these blows the men about the ringside straightened up
- with electric excitement. Then again the long muscular right arm swung,
- and the tightly gloved fist crashed through Tom's guard with a force that
- knocked him nearly off his balance. Doane promptly brought him back with a
- left hook that sounded to the now nearly frantic spectators as if it must
- have broken the cheek-bone.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom crouched, covered and backed away.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you had enough?” Doane asked. As there was no reply, he repeated the
- question in Chinese.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom, instead of answering, tried another rush, floundering wildly,
- swinging his arms.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane stepped firmly forward, swinging up a terrific body blow that caught
- the big Chinaman at the pit of the stomach, lifted his feet clear of the
- floor and dropped him heavily in a sitting position, from which he rolled
- slowly over on his side.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you trying to do?” cried the Manila Kid, above the babel of
- excited voices, as he rushed in there and revived his fellow champion.
- “What are you trying to do—kill 'im?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate stripped off his wet gloves and tossed them to the floor. “Teach
- your man to box fairly,” he replied, “or some one else will.” With which
- he stepped out of the ring, drew on his sweater and, with a courteous bow
- to the mandarin, went out on deck. There, after depositing with the purser
- the winnings paid over by a surly Connor, Dawley Kane found him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well!” cried the hitherto calm financier, “you put up a remarkable
- fight.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane looked down at him, unable to reply. He was still breathing hard;
- his thoughts were traveling strange paths. He heard the man saying other
- things; asking, at length, about the mandarin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is Kang Yu,” Doane replied now, civilly enough, “Viceroy of Nanking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No! Really? Why, he was in America!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He toured the world. He has been minister at Paris, Berlin, London, I
- believe. He is a great statesman—certainly the greatest out here
- since Li Hung Chang.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—how extremely interesting!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is ruler of fifty million souls, or more.” The mate had found his
- voice. He was speaking a thought quickly, with a very little heat, as if
- eager to convince the great man of America of the standing and worth of
- this great man of China. “He has his own army and his own mint. He
- controls railroads, arsenals, mills and mines. Incidentally, he is
- president of this line.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Chinese Navigation Company? Really! You are acquainted with him
- yourself?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. But he is a commanding figure hereabouts. And of course, I—at
- present I'm an employee of the Merchants' Line.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes! Yes, of course! You seem to speak Chinese.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes”—the mate's voice was dry now—“I speak Chinese.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A shuffling sound reached their ears. Both turned. The viceroy had come
- out of the cabin and was advancing toward them, followed by all his
- mandarins. Before them he paused, and again exchanged with the mate the
- charming Eastern greeting. In Chinese he said—and the language that
- needs only a resonant, cultured voire to exhibit its really great dignity
- and beauty, rolled like music from his tongue: “It will give me great
- pleasure, sir, if you will be my guest to-morrow at twelve.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate replied, with a grave smile and a bow: “It is a privilege. I am
- your servant.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They bowed again, with hands to breast. And all the mandarins bowed. Then
- they moved away in stately silence to their quarters aft.
- </p>
- <p>
- Kane spoke now: “How very curious! Very curious!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane said nothing to this.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They really appear to have charm, these upper class people. It's a pity
- they are so poorly adapted to the modern struggle.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane looked down at him, then away. As a man acquainted with the East he
- knew the futility of discussing it with a Western mind; above all with the
- mind of a successful business man, to whom activity, drive, energy, were
- very religion.
- </p>
- <p>
- His own thoughts were ranging swiftly back over two thousand years, to the
- strong civilization of the Han Dynasty, when disciplined Chinese armies
- kept open the overland route to Bactria and Parthia, that the silks and
- porcelains and pearls might travel safely to waiting Roman hands; to the
- later, richer, riper centuries of Tang and Sung, after Rome fell, when
- Chinese civilization stood alone, a majestic fabric in an otherwise
- crumbled and chaotic world—when certain of the noblest landscapes
- and portraits ever painted were finding expression, when philosophers held
- high dreams of building conflicting dogma into a single structure of
- comprehensive and serene faith. The Chinese alone, down the uncounted
- centuries, had held their racial integrity, their very language. Surely,
- at some mystical but seismic turning of the racial tide, they would rise
- again among the nations.
- </p>
- <p>
- This giant, standing there in sweater and knickerbockers, bareheaded,
- gazing out at the dark river, was not sentimentalizing. He knew well
- enough the present problems. But he saw them with half-Eastern eyes; he
- saw America too, with half-Eastern eyes—and so he could not talk at
- all to the very able man beside him who saw the West and the world with
- wholly Western eyes. No, it was futile. Even when the great New Yorker,
- who had just won two thousand dollars, gold, spoke with wholly unexpected
- kindness, the gulf between their two minds remained unfathomable.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want you to forgive me, sir—I do not even know your name, you see—but,
- frankly, you interest me. You are altogether too much of a man for the
- work you are doing here. That is clear. I would be glad to have you tell
- me what the trouble is. Perhaps I could help you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This from the man who held General Railways in the hollow of his hand, and
- Universal Hydro-Electric, and Consolidated Shipping, and the Kane,
- Wilmarth and Cantey banks, a chain that reached literally from sea to sea
- across the great young country that worshiped the shell of political
- freedom as insistently as the Chinese worshiped their ancestors, yet gave
- over the newly vital governing power of finance into wholly irresponsible
- private hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- The situation, grotesque in its beginning, seemed now incredible to Doane.
- He drew a hand across his brow; then spoke, with compelling courtesy but
- with also a dismissive power that the other felt: “You are very kind, Mr.
- Kane. At some other time I shall be glad to talk with you. But my hours
- are rather exacting, and I am tired.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Naturally. You have given a wonderful exhibition of what a man of
- character can do with his body. I wish I had you for a physical trainer.
- And I wish the example might start my boy to thinking more wholesomely...
- Good night!” And he extended a friendly hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Kane's boy presented himself on the following morning as an acute
- problem. He was about the deck, shortly after breakfast, playing with the
- Manchu child. Then, after eleven, Captain Benjamin handed his mate a note
- that had been scribbled in pencil on a leaf torn from a pocket note-book
- and folded over. It was addressed:
- </p>
- <p>
- “To the Chinese Lady who spoke English last night.” And the content was as
- follows: “I shouldn't have been rude, but I must see you again. Can't you
- slip around the canvas this evening, late? I'll be watching for you.”
- There was no signature.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Make it out?” asked the captain. “Old Kang sent it up to me—asks us
- to speak to the young man. But how'm I to know which young man it is?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know how it was sent?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. The little princess took it back.”'
- </p>
- <p>
- “It won't be hard to find the man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, just put him wise, will you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll speak to him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait a minute! You thinking of young Kane?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate inclined his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—you know who he is, don't you? Who they are?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane bowed again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Better use a little tact.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane walked back along the deck to cabin sixteen. A fresh breeze blew
- sharply here; the chairs had all been moved across to the other side where
- the sunlight lay warm on the planking. Within the social hall the second
- engineer—a wistful, shy young Scot—had brought his battered
- talking machine to the dining table and was grinding out a comic song. Two
- or three of the men were in there, listening, smoking, and sipping
- highballs; Doane saw them as he passed the door. Through the open but
- shuttered window of cabin number twelve came the clicking of a typewriter
- and men's voices, that would be Mr. Kane, discussing his “autobiography”
- with its author.
- </p>
- <p>
- Before number sixteen, Doane paused; sniffed the air. A curious odor was
- floating out through these shutters, an odor that he knew. He sniffed
- again; then abruptly knocked at the door.
- </p>
- <p>
- A drowsy voice answered! “What is it? What do you want?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must see you at once,” said Doane.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a silence; then odd sounds—a faint rattling of glass, a
- scraping, cupboard doors opening and closing. Finally the door opened a
- few inches. There was Rocky Kane, hair tousled, coat, collar and tie
- removed, and shirt open at the neck. Doane looked sharply at his eyes; the
- pupils were abnormally small. And the odor was stronger now and of a
- slightly choking tendency.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you looking at me like that for?” cried young Kane, shrinking
- back a little way.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think,” said Doane, “you had better let me come in and talk with you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What right have you got saying things like that? What do you mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have really said nothing as yet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Kane, seeming bewildered, allowed the door to swing inward and himself
- stepped back. The big mate came stooping within.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your note has been returned,” he said shortly; and gave him the paper.
- </p>
- <p>
- Kane accepted it, stared down at it, then sank back on the couch.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's this to you!” he managed to cry. “What right.... what do you mean,
- saying I wrote this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because you did. You sent it back by the little girl.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, what if I did! What right—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am here at the request of his excellency, the viceroy of Nanking. You
- have been annoying his daughter. The fact that she chooses, while in her
- father's household, to wear the Manchu dress, does not justify you in
- treating her otherwise than as a lady. Perhaps I can't expect you to
- understand that his exellency is one of the greatest statesmen alive
- to-day. Nor that this young lady was educated in America, knows the
- capitals of Europe better, doubtless, than yourself, and is a princess by
- birth. She went to school in England and to college in Massachusetts. Take
- my advice, and try no more of this sort of thing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The boy was staring at him now, wholly bewildered. “Well,” he began
- stumblingly, “perhaps I have been a little on the loose. But what of it! A
- fellow has to have some fun, doesn't he?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate's eyes were taking in keenly the crowded little room.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” cried Kane petulantly, “that's all, isn't it? I understand! I'll
- let her alone!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You don't feel that an apology might be due?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Apologize? To that girl?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To her father.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Apologize—to a Chink?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The word grated strangely on Doane's nerves. Suddenly the boy cried out:
- “Well—that's all? There's nothing more you want to say? What are you—what
- are you looking like that for?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The sober deep-set eyes of the mate were resting on the high dresser at
- the head of the berths. There, tucked away behind the water caraffe, was a
- small lamp with a base of cloisonné work in blue and gold and a small,
- half globular chimney of soot-blackened glass.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you looking at? What do you mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The boy writhed under the steady gaze of this huge man, who rested a big
- hand on the upper berth and gazed gravely down at him; writhed, tossed out
- a protesting arm, got to his feet and stood with a weak effort at
- defiance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now I suppose you'll go to my father!” he cried. “Well, go ahead! Do it!
- I don't care. I'm of age—my money's my own. He can't hurt me. And he
- knows I'm on to him. Don't think I don't know some of the things he's done—he
- and his crowd. Ah, we're not saints, we Kanes! We're good fellows—we've
- got pep, we succeed—but we're not saints.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How long have you been smoking opium?” asked the mate.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't smoke it! I mean I never did. Not until Shanghai. And you needn't
- think the pater hasn't hit the pipe a bit himself. I never saw a lamp
- until he took me to the big Hong dinner at Shanghai last month. They had
- 'em there. And it wasn't all they had, either—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you are telling me the truth,” said the mate.
- </p>
- <p>
- —“I am. I tell you I am.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “—Then you should have no difficulty in stopping. It would take a
- few weeks to form the habit. You can't smoke another pipe on this boat.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But what right—good lord, if the pater would drag me out here, away
- from all my friends.... you think I'm a rotter, don't you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My opinion is not in question. I must ask you to give me, now, whatever
- opium you have.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly, moodily, evidently dwelling in a confusion of sulky resentful
- thoughts, the boy knelt at the cupboard and got out a small card-board
- box.
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate opened it, and found several shells of opium within. He promptly
- pitched it out over the rail.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is all?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—look in there yourself!”
- </p>
- <p>
- But the mate was looking at the suit-case, and at the trunk beneath the
- lower berth.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You give me your word that you have no more?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's—all,” said the boy.
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate considered this answer; decided to accept it; turned to go. But
- the boy caught at his sleeve.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do think I'm a rotter!” he cried. “Well, maybe I am. Maybe I'm
- spoiled. But what's a fellow to do? My father's a machine—that's
- what he is—a ruthless machine. My mother divorced him ten years ago.
- She married that English captain—got the money out of father for
- them to live on, and now she's divorced him. Where do I get off? I know
- I'm overstrung, nervous. I've always had everything I want. Do you wonder
- that I've begun to look for something new? Perhaps I'm going to hell. I
- know you think so. I can see it in your eyes. But who cares!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane stood a long time at the rail, thinking. The ship's clock in the
- social hall struck eight bells. Faintly his outer ear caught it. It was
- time to join his excellency.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER III—MISS HUI FEI
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE luncheon table
- of his excellency was simply set, with two chairs of carven blackwood,
- behind a high painted screen of six panels. It was at this screen that the
- first mate (left by a smiling attendant) gazed with a frown of
- incredulity. Cap in hand, he stepped back and studied the painting, a
- landscape representing a range of mountains rising above mist in great
- rock-masses, chasms where tortured trees clung, towering, lagged peaks,
- all partly obscured by the softly luminous vapor—a scene of power
- and beauty. Much of the brighter color had faded into the prevailing tones
- of old ivory yellow shading into some thing near Rembrandt brown; though
- the original, reds and blues still held vividly in the lower right
- foreground, where were pictured very small, exquisite in detail yet of as
- trifling importance in the majestic scheme of the painting as are man and
- his works in all sober Chinese thought when considered in relation to the
- grim majesty of nature, a little friendly cluster of houses, men at work,
- children at play, domestic animals, a stream with a water buffalo, a
- bridge, a wayfarer riding a donkey, and cultivated fields. The ideographic
- signature was in rich old gold, inscribed with unerring decorative
- instinct on a flat rock surface.
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate bent low and looked closely at the brush-work; then stepped
- around an end panel and examined the texture of the silk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah!”—it was a musical deep voice, speaking in the mandarin tongue—“you
- admire my screen, Griggsby Doane.” The name was pronounced in English.
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency wore a short jacket of pale yellow over a skirt of blue,
- both embroidered in large circles of lotus flowers around centers of
- conventional good-fortune designs, in which the swastika was a leading
- motive. His bared head was shaved only at the sides, as the top had long
- been bald. He looked gentle and kind as he stood leaning on his cane and
- extending a wrinkled hand; smiling in the fashion of forthright
- friendship. The thin little gray beard, the unobtrusively courteous eyes,
- the calm manner, all gave him an appearance of simplicity that made it
- momentarily difficult to think of him as the great negotiator of the
- tangled problems of statesmanship involved in the expansion of Japan, the
- man who very nearly convinced Europe of American good faith during the
- agitated discussion and correspondence that arose out of the “Open Door”
- proposals of John Hay, a man known among the observant and informed in
- London, Paris and Washington as a great statesman and a greater gentleman.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought at first”—thus the mate, touched by the fine honor done
- him (an honor that would, he quickly felt, demand tact on the bridge)—“that
- it was a genuine Kuo Hsi.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. A copy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So I see. A Ming copy—at least the silk appears to be Ming—the
- heavy single strand, closely woven. And the seals date very closely. If it
- were woven of double strands, even in the warp alone, I should not
- hesitate to call it a genuine Northern Sung.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You observe closely, Griggsby Doane. It is supposed that Ch'uan Shih made
- this copy.” His smile was now less one of kindness and courtesy than, of
- genuine pleasure. “You shall see the original.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have that also, Your Excellency?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In my home at Huang Chau.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have never seen a genuine panting of Kuo Hsi. It would be a great
- privilege. I have read some of the sayings attributed to him, as taken
- down by his son. One I recall—'If the artist, without realizing his
- ideal, paints landscapes with a careless heart, it is like throwing earth
- upon a deity, or casting impurities into the clean wind.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” added his excellency, almost eagerly, “and this—'To have in
- landscape the opportunity of seeing water and peaks, of hearing the cry of
- monkeys and the song of birds, without going from the room.'” Servants
- appeared bearing covered dishes. His excellency placed the mate in the
- seat commanding the wider view of the river. A clear broth was served,
- followed by stewed shell fish with cassia mushrooms, steamed sharks' fins
- set red with crabmeat and ham, roast duck stuffed with young pine needles,
- and preserved pomegranates, carambolas and plums, followed by small cups
- of rice wine.
- </p>
- <p>
- The conversation lingered with the great Sung painters, passing naturally
- then to the conflict during the eleventh and twelfth centuries between the
- free vitality of Buddhist thought and the deadening formalism of the
- Confucian tradition.
- </p>
- <p>
- And Doane's thoughts, as he listened or quietly spoke, dwelt on the
- attainments and character of this great man who was so simple and so
- friendly. His excellency had spoken his own full name, Griggsby Doane,
- which would mean that the wide-reaching, instantly responsive facilities
- for gathering information that may be set at work by the glance of a
- viceroy's eye or a movement of his jeweled finger had been brought into
- play within the twenty-four hours.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My heart is there in the Sung Dynasty,” his excellency said. “I never
- look upon the old canals of Hang Chow or the ruins of stone-walled lotus
- gardens by the Si-hu without sadness. And Kai-feng-fu to-day wrings my
- heart.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Truly,” mused Doane, “it was in the days of Tang and Sung that the soul
- of China so nearly found its freedom.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You indeed understand, Griggsby Doane!” The two English words stood out
- with odd emphasis in the musical flow of cultured Chinese speech. “Had
- that spirit endured, China would to-day, I like to think, have Korea and
- Manchuria and Mongolia and Sin Kiang. China would not to-day wear a
- piteous smile on the lips, turning the head to hide tears of shame, while
- the Russians absorb our northern frontiers and the French draw tribute
- from Annam and Yunnan, while the English control this great valley of the
- Yangtze, while the Germans drive their mailed fist into Shantung, and the
- Japanese send their spies throughout all our land and stand insolently at
- the very gate of the Forbidden City. I could not, perhaps, speak my heart
- freely to one of my own countrymen, but to you I can say, Confucian
- scholar though they may term me, that since what you call the thirteenth
- century there has been a gradual paralysis of the will in China, a
- softening of the political brain.... You will permit an old man this
- latitude? I have served China without thought of self during nearly fifty
- years. To the Old Buddha I was ever a loyal servant. If toward the new
- emperor and the empress dowager I find it impossible to feel so deeply, my
- heart is yet devoted to the throne and to my people. If while sent abroad
- in service of my country it has been given me to see much of merit in
- Western ways, it is not that I have become a revolutionist, a traitor to
- the government of my ancestors.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a light in the kindly eyes; a strong ring in the deep voice. He
- went on:
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I am not a traitor. It is not that. It is that my country has
- suffered, is now prostrate, with a long sickness. She must be helped; but
- she must as well help herself. She is like one who has lain too long abed.
- She must think, arise, act. With my poor eyes I can see no other hope for
- her. Even though I myself may suffer, I can not, in truth to my own faith,
- punish those who, loving China as deeply as I myself love her, yet feel
- that they must goad her until she awakens from her pitiful sleep of more
- than six centuries.... Nor am I a republican. China is not like your
- country. In an imperial throne I must believe. Yet, she must listen to
- all, study all, draw from all. Freedom of thought there must be. We must
- not longer worship books and the dead. We must learn to look about us and
- on before.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Their chairs were drawn about to the window's. Slowly the wide river
- slipped off astern.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you, Griggsby Doane, why are you here? This is not the life for which
- you so laboriously and so worthily prepared yourself. I knew of you over
- in T'ainan-fu. You were a true servant of your faith. After the dreadful
- year of the Boxers you returned to your task. And during the trouble in
- nineteen hundred and seven, the fighting with the Great Eye Society in
- Hansi, you conducted yourself with bravery. I was at Sian-fu that year,
- and was well informed. Yet you gave up the church mission.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate's eyes were fixed gloomily on the long vista of the river. For a
- moment it seemed as if he would speak; and the viceroy, seeing his lips
- part, leaned a little way forward; but then the lips were closed tightly
- and the great head bent deliberately forward.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I knew,” continued his excellency, “when the Asiatic Company of New York
- was negotiating with me the contract for rebuilding the banks of the Grand
- Canal in Kiang-su that you had gone from T'ainan, and that you had, as
- well, left the church. You had even gone from China.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That was in nineteen nine,” said Doane, in the somber voice of one who
- thinks moodily aloud. “I was in America then.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, it was in your year nineteen nine. For a time those negotiations
- hung, I recall, on the question of the means to be employed in dealing
- with local resentments. The trouble over the Ho Shan Company in Hansi, of
- which you knew so much and which you met with such noble courage, had
- taught us all to move with caution.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My position in that Hansi trouble has not been clearly understood, Your
- Excellency. I was there only, a short time, and was ill at that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The viceroy smiled, kindly, wisely. “You went alone and on foot from
- T'ainan-fu to So T'ung in the face of a Looker attack, and yourself
- settled that tragic business. You then walked, without even a night's
- rest, the fifty-five <i>li</i> from T'ainan to Hung Chan. There, at the
- city gate, you were attacked and severely wounded, and crawled to the
- house of a Christian native. But while still weak and in a fever you
- walked the three hundred <i>li</i> to Ping Yang and made your way through
- the Looker army into Monsieur Pourmont's compound....”
- </p>
- <p>
- He pronounced the two words “Monsieur Pour-mont” in French. What a
- remarkable old man he was—mentally all alive, sensitive as a youth
- to the quick currents of life! The accuracy of his information, like his
- memory, was surprising. Though to the Westerner, every normal Chinese
- memory is that. Merely learning the language needs or builds a memory....
- </p>
- <p>
- Most surprising was that so deep attention had been given to Doane's own
- small case. The fact bewildered; was slow in coming home. For Kang was a
- great man; his proper preoccupations were many; that he was a poet, and
- had early aspired to the laureateship, was commonly known—indeed,
- Doane had somewhere his own translation of Kang's <i>Ode to the Rich Earth</i>,
- from the scroll in the author's calligraphy owned by Pao Ting Chuan at
- T'ainan-fu. As an amateur in the art of his own land of fine taste and
- sound historical background he was known everywhere; his collection of
- early paintings, porcelains, jades and jewels being admittedly one of the
- most valuable remaining in China. And he was reputed to be the richest
- individual not of the royal blood (excepting perhaps Yuan Shi K'ai).
- </p>
- <p>
- A contrast, not untinged with a passing bitterness, arose in Doane's mind.
- Here before him quietly sat this so-called yellow man who was more
- competent than perhaps any other to select his own art treasures and write
- his own poems and state papers; whose journals, known to exist, must
- inevitably, if not lost in a war-torn land, take their place as a part of
- China's history; a man who was at once manufacturer, financier, and
- statesman, on whom for a decade a weakening throne had leaned. While in
- the cabin forward was a great white man as truly representative of the new
- civilization as was Kang of the old; yet who hired men of special
- knowledge to select the art treasures that would be left, one day, in his
- name and as a monument to his culture, who even employed a trained writer
- to pen the work that he proposed unblushingly to call his “autobiography.”
- For such a man as Dawley Kane, whatever his manners, Doane felt now, knew
- only the power of money. Through that alone his genius functioned; the
- rest was a lie. On the one hand was culture, on the other—something
- else. The thought bit into his brain.
- </p>
- <p>
- But his excellency had not finished:
- </p>
- <p>
- “And there, my dear Griggsby Doane, while still suffering from your wound,
- you learned that those in Monsieur Pourmont's compound were cut off from
- communication with their nationals at Peking. You at once volunteered to
- go again, alone, through the Looker lines to the railhead with messages,
- and successfully did so.... Do you wonder, my dear young friend, that
- knowing this, and more, of your honesty and personal force from my
- one-time assistant, Pao Ting Chuan, of T'ainan-fu, I pressed strongly on
- the gentlemen from New York who represented the Asiatic Company my desire
- that they secure you to act as their resident director? And do you wonder
- that I regretted your refusal so to act?”
- </p>
- <p>
- This statement came to Doane as a surprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They offered me a position, yes,” he said, pondering on the inexplicable
- ways in which the currents of life meet and cross. “But they told me
- nothing of your interest.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency smiled. “It might have raised your price. They would think
- of that. The sharpest trading, Griggsby Doane, is not done in the Orient.
- That I have learned from a long lifetime of struggling against the
- aggressions of white nations. During the discussion of the concerted loan
- to China—you recall it?—they talked of lending us a hundred
- million dollars, gold. To read your New York papers was to think that we
- were almost to be given the money. It seemed really a philanthropy. But do
- you know what their left hands were doing while their right hands waved in
- a fine gesture of aid to the struggling China? These were the terms. First
- they subtracted a large commission—that for the bankers themselves;
- then, what with stipulations of various sorts as to the uses to which the
- money—or the credit—was to be put, mostly in purchases of
- railway and war material from their own hongs at further huge profits to
- themselves, they whittled it down until the actual money to be expended
- under our own direction, amounted to about fifteen millions. And with that
- went immense new concessions—really the signing away of an empire—and
- new foreign supervision of our internal affairs. For all these privileges
- we were to pay an annual interest and later repay the full amount, one
- hundred millions. It was quite unbearable.” He sighed. “But what is poor
- old China to do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane nodded gravely. “I felt all that—the sort of thing—when
- I talked with representatives of the Asiatic Company. Not that I blamed
- them, of course. It is a point of view much larger than any of them; they
- are but part of a great tendency. I couldn't go into it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not?” The viceroy's keen eyes dropped to the slightly faded blue
- uniform, then rested again on the strong face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The past few years—I will pass over the details—have been—well,
- not altogether happy for me. I have been puzzled. All the rich years of my
- younger manhood were given to the mission work. But I had to leave the
- church. At first I felt a joy in simple hard work—I am very strong—but
- hard work alone could not satisfy my thoughts.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.... No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For a time I believed that the solution of my personal problem lay in
- taking the plunge into commercial life. I had come to feel, out there,
- that business was, after all, the natural expression of man's active
- nature in our time.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. Doubtless it is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was in that state of mind that I returned home—to the States.
- But it proved impossible. I am not a trader. It was too late. My
- character, such as it was and is, had been formed and hardened in another
- mold. I talked with old friends, but only to discover that we had between
- us no common tongue of the spirit. Perhaps if I had entered business
- early, as they did, I, too, would have found my early ideals being warped
- gradually around to the prevailing point of view.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The point stands out, though,” said the viceroy, “that you did not enter
- business. You chose a more difficult course, and one which leaves you, in
- ripe middle age, without the means to direct your life effectively and in
- comfort.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” mused Doane, though without bitterness. “I feel that, of course.
- And it is hard, very hard, to lose one's country. Yet....”
- </p>
- <p>
- His voice dropped. He sat, elbow on crossed knees, staring at the
- ever-changing river. When he spoke again, the bitter undertone was no
- longer in his voice. He was gentler, but puzzled; a man who has suffered a
- loss that he can not understand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “All my traditions,” he said, “my memories of America, were of simple
- friendly communities, a land of earnest religion, of political freedom. In
- my thoughts as a younger man certain great figures stood out—Washington,
- Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Wendell Philips, Philips Brooks and—yes,
- Henry Ward Beecher. I had deeply felt Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell and
- Whittier. The Declaration of Independence could still fire my blood. And
- it was such a land of simple faith that I tried for so many years, however
- ineffectually, to represent here in China. To be sure, disquieting
- thoughts came—church disunity, the spectacle of unbridled license
- among so many of my fellow countrymen in the coast ports, the methods of
- certain of our great corporations in pushing their wares in among your
- people. But even when I found it necessary to leave the church, I still
- believed deeply in my country.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He paused to control a slight unsteadiness of voice; then went on:
- </p>
- <p>
- “May I ask if you, Your Excellency, after your long visits in Europe, have
- not come home to meet with something the same difficulty, to find yourself
- looking at your own people with the eyes of a stranger, receiving such an
- impression as only a stranger can receive?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed, yes!” cried the viceroy softly, with deep feeling. “It is the
- most difficult moment, I have sometimes felt, in a man's life. It is the
- summit of loneliness, for there is no man among his friends who can share
- his view, and there is none who would not misunderstand and censure him.
- And yet, a country, a people, like a city, does present to the alien eye,
- a complete impression, it exhibits clearly outlined characteristics that
- can be observed in no other way. Even the alien lose that clear, true
- impression on very short acquaintance. He then becomes, like all the
- others, a part of the picture he has once seen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is so, Your Excellency. My country, in that first, startled, clear
- glance, affected me—I may as well use the word—unpleasantly.
- It was utterly different from anything I had known, a trader's paradise, a
- place of unbelievable confusion, of an activity that bewildered, rushing
- to what end I could not understand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was speaking now not only in the Chinese language but in the idiom as
- well, generalizing rhetorically as the Chinese do. It was almost as if the
- words came from a Chinese mind.
- </p>
- <p>
- They were silent for a time Then the viceroy asked, in his gently abrupt
- way: “Why did you leave the church?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because I sinned.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Against the church?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That, and my own faith.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Were you asked to leave?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They knew of your sin?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I told them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yet they would have kept you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. My own feeling was that my superior temporized.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He knew your value.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can not say as to that. But he wished me to marry again. I couldn't do
- that—not in the spirit intended. Not as I felt.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We are different, Griggsby Doane, you and I. I am a Manchu, you an
- American. The customs of our two lands are very different. What would seem
- a sin to you, might not seem so to me. Yet I, too, have a conscience to
- which I must answer. I believe I understand you. It is, I see, because of
- your conscience that you sit before me now, on this boat and in this
- uniform, a man, as your great Edward Everett Hale has phrased it, without
- a country.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He paused, and filled again the little pipe-bowl, studied it absently as
- his wrinkled fingers worked the tobacco. His nails were trimmed short,
- like those of a white man. Doane thought, swiftly, of the man's dramatic
- past, sent out as he had been to become a citizen of the world by a nation
- that would in very necessity fail to understand the resulting changes in
- his outlook. There was his daughter; she would be almost an American,
- after four years of college life. And she, now, would be a problem indeed!
- What could he hope to make of her life in this Asia where woman, like
- labor in his own country, was a commodity. It would be absorbingly
- interesting, were it possible, to peep into that smooth-running old brain
- and glimpse the problems there. They were gossiping about him. His stately
- figure was to-day the center about which coiled the life and death
- intrigue of Chinese officialdom and over which hung suspended the silken
- power of an Oriental throne.... Doane's personal problem shrank into
- nothing—a flitting memory of a little outbreak of egotism—as
- he studied the old face on which the revealing hand of Age had inscribed
- wisdom, kindliness and shrewdness.
- </p>
- <p>
- Soft footfalls sounded; then, after a moment, a sharper sound that Doane
- assumed, with a slight quickening of the imagination, to be the high
- wooden clogs of a Manchu lady, until he realized that no clogs could move
- so lightly; no, these were little Western shoes.
- </p>
- <p>
- A young woman appeared, slender and comely, dressed in a tailored suit
- that could have come only front New York, and smiling with shy eagerness.
- She was of good height (like the Manchus of the old stock), the face
- nearly oval, quite unpainted and softly pretty, with a broad forehead that
- curved prettily back under the parted hair, arched eyebrows, eyes more
- nearly straight than slanting (that opened a thought less widely than
- those of Western people), and with a quaint, wholly charming friendliness
- in her smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- He felt her sense of freedom; and knew as she tried to take his huge hand
- in her own small one that she carried her Western ways, as her own people
- would phrase it, with a proud heart. She was of those aliens who would be
- happily American, eager to show her kinship with the great land of fine
- free traditions.
- </p>
- <p>
- And holding the small hand, looking down at her, Doane found his perhaps
- overstrained nerves responding warmly to her fine youth and health. He
- reflected, in that swift way of his wide-ranging mind, on the amazing
- change in Chinese official life that made it even remotely possible for
- the viceroy to present his daughter with a heart as proud as hers. The
- change had come about during the term of Doane's own residence....
- America, then, was not alone in changing. It was a shaking, puzzled and
- puzzling world.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This,” his excellency was saying, “is my daughter, Hui Fei.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am very pleas' to meet you,” said Hui Fei.
- </p>
- <p>
- They sat then. The girl became at once, as in America, the center of the
- talk. Though of the heedlessness not uncommonly found among American girls
- she had none. She was prettily, sensitively, deferential to her father.
- Somewhere back of the bright surface brain from which came the quick eager
- talk and the friendly smile, deep in her nature, lay the sense of
- reverence for those riper in years and in authority that was the deepest
- strain in her race. She dwelt on things almost utterly American: the
- brightness of New York—she said she liked it best in October, when
- the shops were gay; the approaching Yale-Harvard football game, a motoring
- tour through the White Mountains, happy summers at the seashore.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane watched her, speaking only at intervals, wondering if there might
- not be, behind her gentle enthusiasm, some deeper understanding of her
- present situation. He could not surely make out. She had humor, and when
- he asked if it did not seem strange to step abruptly back into the old
- life, she spoke laughingly of her many little mistakes in etiquette. Her
- English he found charming. She was continually slipping back into it from
- the Mandarin tongue she tried to use, and as continually, with great
- gaiety, reaching back into Chinese for the equivalent phrase. She had so
- nearly conquered the usual difficulty with the l's and r's as to confuse
- them only when she spoke hurriedly. At these times, too, she would leave
- off final consonants. The long <i>e</i> became then, a short <i>i</i>.
- Doane even smiled, with an inner sense of pleasure, at her pretty emphasis
- when she once converted <i>people</i> into <i>pipple</i>. She was,
- unmistakably, a young woman of charm and personality. Despite the
- quaintness of her speech, she was accustomed to thinking in the new
- tongue. Her command of it was excellent; better than would commonly be
- found in America. All of which, of course, intensified the problem.
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency sat back, smoked comfortably, and looked on her with
- frankly indulgent pride.
- </p>
- <p>
- A servant came with a message; bowing low. The viceroy excused himself,
- leaving his daughter and Doane together. Doane asked himself, during the
- pause that followed his departure, what the observant attendants beyond
- the screen would be thinking. The situation, from any familiar Chinese
- point of view, was unthinkable. Yet here he sat; and there, her brows
- drawn together (he saw now) in sober thought, sat delightful Miss Hui Fei.
- </p>
- <p>
- She said, in a low voice, while looking out at the river: “Mr. Doane, no
- matter what you may think—I mus' see you. This evening. You mus'
- tell me where. It mus' not be known to any one. There are spies here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane glanced up; then, too, looked away. There could be no question now
- of the girl's deeper feeling. She was determined. Her tune was honest and
- forthright, with the unthinking courage of youth. It would be her father,
- of course...
- </p>
- <p>
- But his mind had gone blank. He knew not what to think or say.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please!” she murmured. “There is no one else. You must help us. Tell me—father
- will be coming back.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And then Griggsby Doane heard his own voice saying quietly: “The boat deck
- is the only place. You will find a sort of ladder near the stern. If you
- can—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will go up there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will be only just after midnight that I could arrange to be there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency returned then. And Doane took his leave. He had been but a
- few moments in his own cabin when two actors of his excellency's suite
- appeared, each with a lacquered tray, on one of which was a small chest of
- tea, wrapped in red paper lettered in gold and bearing the seal stamp of
- the private estate of Kang Yu, on the other an object of more than a foot
- in height carefully wound about with cotton cloth.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane dismissed the lictors with a Mexican dollar each and unwrapped the
- larger object, which the servant had placed with great care on his berth.
- It proved to be a <i>pi</i>, a disk of carven jade, in color a perfect
- specimen of the pure greenish-white tint that is so highly prized by
- Chinese collectors. The diameter was hardly less than ten inches, and the
- actual width of the stone from the circular inner opening to the outer rim
- about four inches. It stood on edge set in a pedestal of blackwood, the
- carving of which was of unusual delicacy. The pedestal was, naturally,
- modern, but Doane, with a mounting pulse, studied the designs cut into the
- stone itself. That cutting had been done not later than the Han Dynasty,
- certainly within two hundred years of the birth of Christ.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER IV—INTRIGUE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE <i>Yen Hsin</i>
- would arrive at Kiu Kiang by mid-afternoon.
- </p>
- <p>
- Half an hour earlier. Doane, on the lower deck, came upon a group of his
- excellency's soldiers—brown deep-chested men, picturesque in their
- loose blue trousers bound in above the ankles and their blue turbans and
- gray cartridge belts—conversing excitedly in whispers behind the
- stack of coffins near the stern. At sight of him they broke up and slipped
- away.
- </p>
- <p>
- A moment later, passing forward along the corridor beside the engine room,
- he heard his name: “Mr. Doane! If you please!” This in English.
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned. Just within the doorway of one of the low-priced cabins stood a
- pedler he had observed about the lower decks; a thin Chinese with an
- overbred head that was shaped, beneath the cap, like a skull without flesh
- upon it; the eyes concealed behind smoked glasses.
- </p>
- <p>
- “May I have a word with you, Mr. Doane?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mate considered; then, stooping, entered the tiny cabin. The pedler
- closed the door; quietly shot the bolt; then removed his cap and the queue
- with it, exposing a full head of stubbly black hair, trimmed, as is said,
- pompadour. The glasses came off next; discovering wide alert eyes. And
- now, without the cap, the head, despite the hair and the seriously
- intellectual face, looked, balanced on its thin neck, more than ever like
- a skull.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will not know of me, Mr. Doane. I am Sun Shi-pi of Shanghai. I was
- attached, as interpreter, to the yamen of the tao-tai. I left his service
- some months ago to join the republican revolutionary party. I was arrested
- shortly after that at Nanking and condemned to death, but his excellency,
- the viceroy—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kang?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. He is on this boat. He released me on condition that I go to Japan.
- I kept my word—to that extent; I went to Japan—but I could not
- keep my word in spirit. My life is consecrated to the cause of the Chinese
- Republic. Nothing else matters. I returned to Shanghai, and was made
- commander there of the 'Dare-to-dies.' You did not know of such an
- organization? You will, then, before the winter is gone. We shall be heard
- from. There are other such companies—at Canton, at Wuchang—at
- Nanking—at every center.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane seated himself on the narrow couch and studied the quietly eager
- young man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You speak English with remarkable ease,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes. I studied at Chicago University. And at Tokio University I took
- post-graduate work.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you are frank.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can trust you. You are known to us, Mr. Doane. Wu Ting Fang trusts you—and
- Sun Yat Sen, our leader, he knows and trusts you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I did know Sun Yat Sen, when he was a medical student.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He knows you well. He has mentioned your name to us. That is why I am
- speaking to you. America is with us. We can trust Americans.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane's mind was ranging swiftly about the situation. “You are running a
- risk,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sun Shi-pi shrugged his shoulders. “I shall hardly survive the revolution.
- That is not expected among the 'Dare-to-dies.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If his excellency's soldiers find you here they will kill you now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The officers would, of course. Many of the soldiers are with us. Anyway,
- it doesn't matter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is your errand?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will tell you. The revolution, as you doubtless know, is fully
- planned.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've assumed so. There has been so much talk. And then, of course, the
- outbreak in Szechuen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That was premature. It was the plan to strike in the spring. This
- fighting in Szechuen has caused much confusion. Sun Yat Sen is in America.
- He is going to England, and can hardly reach China within two months. He
- will bring money enough for all our needs. He is the organizer, the
- directing genius of the new republic. But the Szechuen outbreak has set
- all the young hotheads afire.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am told that the throne has sent Tuan Fang out there to put down the
- disturbance. But we have had no news lately.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is because the wires are cut. Tuan Fang will never come back. We
- will pay five thousand taels, cash, to the bearer of his head, and ask no
- questions. We must exterminate the Manchus. It has finally come down to
- that. It is the only way out. But we must pull together. Did you know that
- the Wu Chang republicans plan to strike at once?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have been sent there to tell them to wait. That is our gravest danger
- now. If we pull together we shall win. If our emotions run away with our
- judgment—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The throne will defeat your forces piecemeal and destroy your morale.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly. My one fear is that I may not reach Wu Chang in time. But”—with
- a careless gesture—“that is as it may be. I will tell you now why I
- spoke to you. We need you. Our organization is incomplete as yet,
- naturally. One matter of the greatest importance is that our spirit be
- understood from the first by foreign countries. There is an enormous task—diplomatic
- publicity, you might call it—which you, Mr. Doane, are peculiarly
- fitted to undertake You know both China and the West. You are a
- philosopher of mature judgment. You would work in association with Doctor
- Wu Ting Fang at our Shanghai offices. There will be money. Will you
- consider this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is a wholly new thought,” Doane replied slowly. “I should have to give
- it very serious consideration.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you are in sympathy with our aims?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In a general way, certainly. Even though I may not share your optimism.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “On your return to Shanghai would you be willing to call at once on Doctor
- Wu and discuss the matter?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.... Yes, I will do that. I must leave you now. We are nearly at Kiu
- Kiang.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Sun, glancing out the window, raised his hand. Doane looked; two small
- German cruisers, the kaiser's flag at the taff, were steaming up-stream.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They know,” murmured Sun, with meaning. “I wish to God I could find their
- means of information. They <i>all</i> know. From the Japanese in
- particular nothing seems to be hidden. Two or three of your American
- war-ships are already up there. And the English, naturally, in force.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They must be on hand to protect the foreign colony at Hankow. The
- Szechuen trouble would justify such a move.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But Sun shook his head. “They <i>know</i>,” he repeated. Then he clasped
- Doane's hand. “However.... that is a detail. It is now war. You will find
- events marching fast—faster, I fear, than we republicans wish.
- Good-by now. You will call on Doctor Wu.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The steamer moved slowly in toward the landing hulk. Doane, from the boat
- deck, by the after bell pull, gazed across at the park-like foreign bund,
- with its embankment of masonry and its trees. Behind lay, compactly, the
- walled city. Everything looked as it had always looked—the curious
- crowd along the railing, the water carriers passing down and up the steps,
- the eager shouting swarm of water beggars. Below, the coolies swung out
- from the hulk, ready to make their usual breakneck leap over green water
- to the approaching steamer. Now—they were jumping. The passengers
- were leaning out from the promenade deck to watch and applaud.... Doane's
- thoughts, as he went mechanically through his familiar duties, wandered
- off inland, past the battlements and towers of the ancient city to the
- thousands of other ancient cities and villages and farmsteads beyond; and
- he wondered if the scores of millions of lethargic minds in all those
- centers of population could really be awakened from their sleep of six
- hundred years and stirred into action.
- </p>
- <p>
- Could a republic, he asked himself, possibly mean anything real to those
- minds? The habit of mere endurance, of bare existence, was so deep-seated,
- the struggle to live so intense, the opportunity so slight. Sun Shi-pi and
- his kind were a semi-Western product. They were, when all was said and
- done, an exotic breed. They were the ardent, adventurous young; and they
- were the few. There had always been a throne in China, always extortionate
- mandarins, always a popular acceptance of conditions.
- </p>
- <p>
- The lines were out now. And suddenly a blue-clad soldier climbed over the
- rail, below, balanced along the stern hawser, leaped to the hulk, and was
- about to disappear among the coolies there when a rifle-shot cracked and
- he fell. He seemed to fall, if anything, slightly before the shot. Another
- soldier, following close, was caught by a second shot as he was balancing
- on the hawser, and spun headlong into the water where the propeller still
- churned.
- </p>
- <p>
- A few moments later, when Doane moved among the passengers, it became
- clear that they knew nothing of the casual tragedy astern. They were all
- pressing ashore for a walk in the native city, eager to buy the worked
- silver that is traditionally sold there. The slim girl in the middy blouse
- had apparently captured young Rocky Kane; they strolled off across the
- bund together. But Dawley Kane remained aboard, stretched out comfortably
- in a deck chair, listening thoughtfully to the stocky little Japanese, one
- Kato, who was by now generally known to be his <i>alter ego</i> in the
- matter of buying objects of Oriental art.
- </p>
- <p>
- None of these folk knew or cared about China. Excepting this Kato. Him
- Doane was continually encountering below decks, chatting smilingly in
- Chinese with the good-natured soldiers. His work along the river,
- doubtless, ranged over a wider field than his present employer would ever
- learn. It would be interesting, now, to know what he was saying, talking
- so rapidly and always, of course, smiling.... The rest of this upper-deck
- white man's existence Doane dismissed from his mind as he went about his
- work. It was all too familiar. Though later he thought of Rocky Kane. The
- boy, wild though he might be, had attractive qualities. It was not
- pleasant to see that girl get her hands on him. Just one more evil
- influence.
- </p>
- <p>
- He thought, at this juncture, of the—the word came—appalling
- change in himself. That he, once a fervid missionary, could stand back
- like a sophisticated European, and let the wandering and vicious and
- broken human creatures about him go their various ways, as might be, was
- disturbing, was even saddening. Something apparently had died in him. Sun
- had called him a philosopher. The Oriental, of course, even the blazing
- revolutionist, admired this passive quality, this fatalistic acceptance of
- the fact. He sighed. To be a philosopher was, then, to be emotionally
- dead. The church had been taken out of his life, leaving—nothing. A
- mate on a river steamer, in China. Life had gone quite topsy-turvey. Even
- the amazing courtesy of his excellency—it was that, when you
- considered—and this profound compliment from the revolutionary junta
- seemed but incidents. Too many promises had smiled at Doane, these years
- of his spiritual Odyssey—smiled and faded to nothing—to permit
- an easy hope of anything new and beautiful. He was beginning to believe
- that a man can not build and live two lives. And he had built and lived
- one.
- </p>
- <p>
- Captain Benjamin found him; a dogged little captain with dull fright in
- his eyes. “It's happened,” he said, trying desperately to attain an
- offhand manner. “Company wire. They're fighting at Wu Chang. What do you
- know about that!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane was silent. It was extraordinarily difficult, here by this calm old
- city, on a sunny afternoon, to believe that it was, as Sun had put it,
- war.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We're to tie up,” the captain went on, “until further orders. The foreign
- concessions at Hankow were safe enough this noon, but with an artillery
- battle just across the river, and an imperial army moving down from the
- north over the railway, they stand a lot of show, they do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder if they'll send us on.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What difference will it make?” The captain's voice was rising. “You know
- as well as I do that they'll be fighting at Nanking before we could get
- back there. Here, too, for that matter. I tell you the whole river'll be
- ablaze by to-morrow. This bloody old river! And us on a Manchu-owned boat!
- A lot o' chance we stand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The sight-seers strolled across the shady bund, passed a stone residence
- or two and a warehouse, and made their way through the tunneled gateway in
- the massive city wall. Little Miss Andrews was escorted by young Mr.
- Braker. Miss Means walked with one of the customs men. Two or three others
- of the men wandered on ahead. Rocky Kane and the thin girl in the middy
- blouse brought up the rear.
- </p>
- <p>
- As they entered the crowded city within the wall a babel of sound assailed
- their ears—the beating of drums and gongs, clanging cymbals, a
- musket shot or two, fire-crackers; and underlying these, rising even above
- them, never slackening, a continuous roar of voices. The teachers paused
- in alarm, but the customs man smilingly assured them that in a busy
- Chinese city the noise was to be taken for granted.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nearly every shop along the way was open to the street, and at each
- opening men swarmed—bargaining, chaffering, quarreling. The only
- women to be seen were those in black trousers on a wheelbarrow that pushed
- briskly through the crowds, the barrow man shouting musically as he
- shuffled along. Beggars wailed from the niches between the buildings. Dogs
- snarled and barked—hundreds of dogs, fighting over scraps of offal
- among the hundreds of nearly naked children.
- </p>
- <p>
- A mandarin came through in a chair of green lacquer and rich gold
- ornament, supercilious, fat, carried by four bearers and followed by
- imposing officials who wore robes of black and red and hats with red
- plumes. As the street was a scant ten feet in width and the crowds must
- flatten against the walls to make way the roar grew louder and higher in
- pitch.
- </p>
- <p>
- There were shops with nothing but oils in huge jars of earthenware or in
- wicker baskets lined with stout paper. There were tea shops with high
- pyramids of the familiar red-and-gold parcels, and other pyramids of the
- brick tea that is carried on camel back to Russia. There were the shops of
- the idol makers, and others where were displayed the carven animals and
- the houses and carts and implements that are burned in ancestor worship,
- and the tinsel shoes. There were shops where remarkably large coffins were
- piled in square heaps, some of glistening lacquer with the ideograph
- characters carven or embossed in new gold. There were varnishers,
- lacquerers, tobacconists; open eating houses in which could be seen rows
- of pans set into brickwork. There were displays of bean cakes, melon seeds
- and curious drugs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Two Manchu soldiers sauntered by, in uniforms of red and faded blue; fans
- stuck in their belts and painted paper umbrellas folded in their hands.
- One bore a hooded falcon on his wrist.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Andrews sniffed the penetrating odor of all China, that was spiced
- just here with smells of garlic cooking and frying fish and pork and
- strong oil? and—like the perfume of a dainty lady amid the complex
- odors of a French theater—an unexpected whiff of burning incense.
- She looked up between the high walls, on which hung, close together, the
- long elaborate signs of the tradesmen, black and green and red with gold,
- always the gold. Across the narrow opening from roof to roof, extended a
- bamboo framework over which was drawn coarse yellow matting or blue cotton
- cloths; and through these the sunbeams, diffused, glowed in a warm
- twilight, with here and there a chance ray slanting down with dazzling
- brightness on a golden sign character.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's all rather terrifying,” murmured Miss Andrews, at Braker's ear, “but
- it's beautiful—wonderful! I never dreamed of China being so human
- and real.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And to think,” said he eagerly, “that it has always been like this, and
- always will be. It was just so in the days of Abraham and Isaac. The one
- people in the world that doesn't change. It's their whole philosophy—passive
- non-resistance, peace. And-do you know, I'm beginning to wonder if they
- aren't right about it. For here they are, you know. Greece is dead. Rome's
- dead. And Assyria, and Egypt. But here they are. It's their philosophy
- that's done it, I suppose. Almost be worth while to come out here and live
- a while, when our part of the world gets too upset. Just for a sense of
- stability—somewhere.”
- </p>
- <p>
- These two young persons, dreaming of stability while the earth prepared to
- rock beneath their feet!
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky Kane and the slim girl had dropped out of sight, lingering at this
- shop and that. The party later found them at a silversmith's counter. They
- had bought a heap of the silver dragon-boxes and cigarette cases; and then
- devised a fresh little idea in gambling, weighing ten Chinese dollars
- against other ten in the balanced scales, the heavier lot winning.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Kane had got through his clothing, somehow, there in the street, to
- his money belt, for he held it now carelessly rolled in one hand. He was
- flushed, laughing softly. He and the thin girl were getting on.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come along, you two,” remarked the customs man. “We stop only two hours
- here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The young couple, gathering up their purchases and the heaps of silver
- dollars, slowly followed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That was great!” exclaimed Rocky Kane. The thin girl, he had decided, was
- a good fellow. She was always quiet, discreet, attractive. In her
- curiously unobtrusive way she seemed to know everything. The face was cold
- in appearance. Yet she was distinctly friendly. Made you feel that nothing
- you might say could disturb or shock her. He wondered what could be going
- on behind those pale quiet eyes, behind the thin lips. The men had
- remarked on the fact that she was traveling alone. She was a provocative
- person—the curiously youthful costume; the black hair gathered at
- the neck and tied, girlishly, with a bow—really an exciting person.
- The way she had taken that little scene out on deck with the gorgeous
- Chinese girl—Rocky knew nothing of the distinctions between the
- Asiatic peoples—who spoke English; quite as a matter of course.
- Though she took everything that way. This little gambling, for instance.
- She loved it—was quick at it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm wondering about you,” he said, as they wandered along. “Wondering—you
- know—why you're traveling this way. Have you got folks up the
- river?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no,” she replied—never in his life had he known such
- self-control; there wasn't even color in her voice, just that easy quiet
- way, that sense of giving out no vitality whatever. “Oh, no. I have some
- business at Hankow and Peking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That was all she said. The subject was closed. And yet, she hadn't minded
- his asking. She was still friendly; he felt that. His feelings rose. He
- giggled softly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lord!” he said, “if only the pater wasn't along!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Does he hold you down?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Does he? Brought me out here to discipline me. Trying to make me go back
- to college—make a grind of me.... I was just thinking—here's a
- nice girl to play with, and plenty of fun around, and not a thing to
- drink. He gave me fits at Shanghai because I took a few drinks.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have the other stuff,” said she. He turned nervously; stared at her.
- But she remained as calmly unresponsive as ever. Merely explained: “I
- smelt it, outside your cabin. You ought to be careful—shut your
- window tight when you smoke it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He held his breath a moment; then realized, with an uprush of feeling
- warmer than any he had felt before, that he had her sympathy. She would
- never tell, never in the world. That big mate might, but she wouldn't.
- </p>
- <p>
- She added this: “I can give you a drink. Wait until things settle down on
- the boat and come to my cabin—number four. Just be sure there's no
- one in the corridor. And don't knock. The door will be ajar. Step right
- in. Do you like saké?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do I—say, you're great! You're wonderful. I never knew a girl like
- you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She took this little outbreak, as she had taken all his others, without
- even a smile. It was, he felt, as if they had always known each other.
- They understood—perfectly.
- </p>
- <p>
- If he had been told, then, that this girl had been during two or three
- vivid years one of the most conspicuous underworld characters along the
- coast—that coast where the underworld was still, at the time of our
- narrative, openly part of what small white world there was out here—a
- gambler and blackmailer of what would very nearly have to be called
- attainment—he would have found belief impossible, would have
- defended her with the blind impulsiveness of youth.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was said that the steamer would not proceed at the scheduled hour,
- might be delayed until night. Disgruntled white passengers settled down,
- in berth and deck chair, to make the best of it. There was, it came
- vaguely to light, a little trouble up the river, an outbreak of some sort.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky Kane, a flush below his temples, slipped stealthily along the
- corridor. At number four he paused; glanced nervously about; then,
- grinning, pushed open the door and softly closed it behind him.
- </p>
- <p>
- The strange thin Miss Carmichael was combing out her black hair. With a
- confused little laugh he extended his arms. But she shook her head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sit down and be sensible,” she said. “Here's the saké.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She produced a bottle and poured a small drink into a large glass. He
- gulped it down.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aren't you drinking with me?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I never take anything.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're a funny girl. How'd you come to have this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was given to me. You'd better slip along. I can't ask you to stay.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But when am I going to see you, for a good visit?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, there'll be chances enough. Here we are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's so. Looks as if we'd stay here a while, too. There's a battle on,
- you know, up at Wu Chang and Hankow. Big row. We get all the news from
- Kato. He's that Japanese that father has with him. The revolutionists have
- captured Wu Chang, and are getting ready to cross over. The imperial
- army's being rushed down to defend Hankow. Regular doings. Shells were
- falling in the foreign concessions this morning. Kato's got all the news
- there is. It's a question whether we'll go on at all. You see the Manchus
- own this boat, and the republicans would certainly get after us. There are
- enough foreign warships up there to protect us, of course.... How about
- another drink?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Better not. Your father will notice it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He won't know where I got it.” Rocky chuckled. He felt himself an
- adventurous and quite manly old devil—here in the mysterious girl's
- cabin, watching her as she smoothed and tied her flowing hair, and sipping
- the potent liquor from Japan. “It's funny nothing seems to surprise you.
- Did you know they were fighting up there?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wouldn't you be a little frightened if we were to steam right into a
- battle?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shouldn't enjoy it particularly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aren't you even interested? Is there anything you're interested in?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly—I have my interests. You must go—really.... No, be
- quiet! Some one will hear! We can visit to-night—out on deck.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you're—I don't understand! Here we are—like this—and
- you shoo me out. I don't even know your first name.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My name is Dixie—but I don't want you to call me that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not? We're friends, aren't we—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course, but they'd hear you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait—I'll look before you go.... It's all clear now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They visited long after dinner. He was brimming with later advices from
- the center of trouble up the river. Mostly she listened, studying him with
- a mind that was keener and quicker and shrewder in its sordid wisdom than
- he would perhaps ever understand.
- </p>
- <p>
- Everything that Kato had told his father and himself he passed eagerly on
- to her. He was a man indeed now; making an enormous impression; possessor
- of inside information of a vital sort—the viceroy's priceless
- collection of jewels, jades, porcelains and historic paintings, which Kato
- was advising his father to pick up for a song while red revolution raged
- about the old Manchu, the dramatic plans of the republicans, their emblems
- and a pass-word (Kato knew everything)—“Shui-li”—“union is
- strength”; the small meeting below decks ending in the death of two
- soldiers. He dramatized this last as he related it.
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl, lying still in her chair, listened as if but casually
- interested, while her mind gathered and related to one another the
- probable facts beneath his words. She was considering his dominant quality
- of ungoverned hot-blooded youth. Of discretion he clearly enough had none;
- which fact, viewed from her standpoint, was both important and dangerous.
- For the information he so volubly conveyed she had immediate use. That was
- settled, however cloudy the details. But this further question as to the
- advisability of holding the boy personally to herself she was still
- weighing. Two courses of action lay before her, each leading to a possible
- rich prize. If the two could be combined, well and good; she would pursue
- both. But it was not easy to sense out a possible combination. The obvious
- first thought was to go whole-heartedly after the larger of the prizes and
- as whole-heartedly forget the other. As usual in all such choices,
- however, the lesser prize was the easier to secure. Perhaps, even, by
- working—the word “working” was her own—with great rapidity she
- might make—again her word—a killing with this wild youth in
- time to discard him and pursue the still richer prize.
- </p>
- <p>
- Because he was, at least, the bird in hand, she submitted passively when
- his fingers found hers under the steamer rug. Twilight was thickening into
- night now on the river. And they were in a dim corner. He was, she saw, at
- the point of almost utter disorganization. He was sensitive, emotional,
- quite spoiled. It was almost too easy to do what she might choose with
- him. It would be amusing to tantalize him, if there were time; watch him
- struggle in the net of his own nervously unripe emotions, perhaps shake
- him down (we are yet again dropping into her phraseology) without the
- surrender of a <i>quid pro quo</i>. That would please her sense of cool
- sharp power. But he might in that event, like the young naval officer down
- at Hong Kong, shoot himself; which wouldn't do. No, nothing in that!
- </p>
- <p>
- This other larger matter, now, was a problem indeed; really, as yet, only
- a haze in her sensitive, strangely gifted mind. It put to the test at once
- her imagination, her instinct for dangerous enterprise, her skill at
- organizing the sluggish minds of others. It would mean dangerous and
- intense activity.
- </p>
- <p>
- She asked, in a careless manner, where the viceroy kept his treasures; and
- fixed in her mind the place he named—Huang Chau.
- </p>
- <p>
- The fool was squeezing her fingers now; unquestionably building in his
- ungoverned brain an extravagant image of herself; an image wrapped in
- veils of somewhat tarnished but certainly boyish innocence,
- sentimentalized, curiously less interesting than the complicated
- wickedness and intrigue of actual human life as it presented itself to
- her.
- </p>
- <p>
- When he tried to kiss her she left him. But lingered to listen to his
- proposal that she should follow him to his own cabin; smiled enigmatically
- in the dusk beneath the deck light; humming lightly, pleasingly, she moved
- away; turned to watch him bolting for his room.
- </p>
- <p>
- She strolled around the deck then. Apparently none other was sitting out.
- The teachers and the young men were spending the evening, she knew, with
- Dawley Kane at the consulate. Rocky had got out of that. Tex Connor was in
- his cabin; reading, doubtless, with his one good eye. For rough as he
- might be, this gambler and promoter of boxing and wrestling reveled
- secretly in love stories. He read them by the hundred, the old-fashioned
- paper-covered romances and tales of adventure. A pretty able man. Tex;
- useful in certain sorts of undertakings; certainly useful now; but with
- that curious romantic strain—a weakness, she felt. And a difficult
- man, strong, arrogant, leaning on crude power and threats where she leaned
- on delicately adjusted intrigue. Had Tex known better how to cover his
- various trails he would be in New York or London now, not out here on the
- coast picking up small change. Approaching him would be a bit of a
- problem; for a year or so their ways, hers and his, had lain far apart. It
- was not known, here on the boat, that they were so much as casually
- acquainted. They bowed at the dining table; nothing more.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Manila Kid was in the social hall, rummaging through the shelf of
- battered and scratched records above the taking machine. A quaint spirit,
- the Kid; weak, oddly useless, gloomily devoted to music of a simple sort,
- quite without enterprise. But.... by this time the delicate steel
- machinery of her mind was functioning clearly.... he would serve now, if
- only as a means of solving that first little problem of interesting Tex.
- </p>
- <p>
- She paused in the doorway; caught his furtive eye, and with a slight
- beckoning movement of her head, moved back into the comparative darkness.
- Slowly—thick-headedly of course—he came out.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jim,” she said, “I'm wondering if you and Tex wouldn't like to pick up a
- little money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you think we are?” he replied in a guarded sulky voice. “Tex
- dropped three thousand at that fight. There's no talking to him. He's
- rough—that's what he is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jim—” she considered the man before her deliberately; his lank
- spineless figure, his characterless, hatchet face: “Jim, send Tex to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why should I, Dix? Answer me that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't act up, Jim. I've never handed you anything that wasn't more than
- coming to you. I know all about you, Jim. Everything! I'm not talking—but
- I know. This is a big proposition I've got in mind, and you'll get your
- share, if you come in and stick with me? How about half a million in
- jewels?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know's Tex would care to go in for anything like that. If it's a
- yegg job—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm not a yegg,” she replied crisply. “Ask Tex to slip around here. I
- don't want to talk on that side of the deck.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose you wouldn't like young Kane to know what you are—er?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That sort of talk won't get you anywhere, Jim.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—I've got eyes, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Better learn how to use them. You hurry around to Tex's cabin. We may
- have to move quickly.” Sulkily the Kid went; and shortly returned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well”—this after a silence—“what did he say? Is he coming?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He wants you to go around there—to his stateroom.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I won't do that. He's got to come here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This decision lightened somewhat the gloom on the Kid's saturnine
- countenance. He went again, more briskly.
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl slipped into her own cabin and consulted a folding map of China
- she had there. Huang Chau—she measured roughly from the scale with
- her thumb—would be seventy or eighty miles up-stream from Kiu Kiang
- here, perhaps thirty-five down-stream from Hankow.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tex was chewing a cigar by the rail. At her step his round impassive face
- turned toward her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She said, “Hello, Tex!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He replied, his one eye fixed on her: “Well, what is this job?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen, Tex—are you game for a big one?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The revolution's broken out at Hankow—or across at Wu Chang—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I know!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's going to be another big battle near Hankow. The republicans are
- moving over. Sure to be a mix-up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There'll be loot—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, that!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait! I know where there's a collection of jewels—diamonds, pearls,
- rubies, emeralds—all kinds.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know how to get it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. It's a big thing. We'd be selling stones for years in America and
- Europe, Will you go in with me, fifty-fifty?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's the risk?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not much—with things so confused. Looks to me like one of those
- chances that just happens once in a hundred years. Take some imagination
- and nerve.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is this stuff?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll tell you when we get there. You'll have to trust me about that. I've
- never lied to you, and you have lied to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen! Here's the idea. There's a lot of nervous soldiers on this boat
- that wouldn't mind a little loot on their own. Here's your boxer—what's
- his name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tom Sung.” Connor's eye never left her face; and she, on her part, never
- flinched.
- </p>
- <p>
- “To those soldiers he's the biggest man on earth. <i>He</i> wouldn't mind
- a little clean-up either. Oh, there's enough, Tex—plenty! You see
- what I'm getting at. With your Tom for a leader you can pick up a few of
- those soldiers, enough to get away clean—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But they're shooting 'em!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They shot two. They'd have trouble shooting forty. Make Tom do the work—right
- now, to-night, while we're lying up here. They'll follow him; and you
- won't have to stand back of him if he's caught. He'll just be one of the
- rebels then. Get this right, Tex! It's a real chance. You'll never get
- another like it. With the soldiers we can get a launch—hire it,
- even, if you want to play safe—and go right up there and get the
- stuff. Nobody'll ever know it wasn't just a case of soldiers on the
- loose.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How're you going to get away? They'd know we weren't here, wouldn't
- they?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't try to tell me we couldn't slip out of China, if we had to. This
- isn't England or America. I don't believe we'd even have to. Just a case
- of playing it right—using your head.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is this place?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's there, and I'll take you to it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll have to tell me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Quietly she moved her head in the negative. He would hardly know that the
- viceroy was not going on through to Hankow and Peking; she had the
- information herself only from Rocky Kane. Nor would he know, by any
- chance, the situation of his excellency's ancestral home. For Tex was not
- what they termed a “sinologue”; he knew white men and women and yellow
- servants, the steamers and railways, the gambling clubs and race tracks;
- little else. There was then, little reason why he should think of the
- viceroy at all.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's anything from a million or two up, Tex,” she said coolly. “And my
- information comes straight. I'll prove it by taking the chance with you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He shook his head; half turned. “Where is it?” She smiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- He left her abruptly then. And coolly she watched him go. It would take a
- little time for Tex's imagination to rise to it; and until the last moment
- he would try to bluff her down. It was just poker; they had played that
- game before, she and Tex. Once he had robbed her. But not this time—not,
- as she phrased it, if she saw him first.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid came edging out of the social hall. “Will he do it?” he whispered
- hoarsely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He says he won't,” replied Dixie.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say—that's tough! I didn't think Tex would overlook a thing like
- that. What's the matter?” Dixie now considered this curiously useless man.
- Or useless he had always seemed to her. Now she was not so sure. “He makes
- it a condition that I tell him where the stuff is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—Dix, you'd tell him that, wouldn't you?” The Kid was whining.
- “If you really knew yourself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course I won't tell him, Jim. Not yet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His eyes sank before hers. He fumbled in a pocket; produced a tiny wrist
- watch of platinum. “Look here. Dix,” he remarked clumsily, “things ain't
- always been's pleasant as they might be between you and I, but I was
- wondering if you wouldn't put this on, for old times' sake, like.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She took the gift, weighed in in her hand. “Thank you, Jim,” she replied.
- “That's awfully nice of you. Though perhaps I'd better not wear it here on
- the boat.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose young Kane might ask questions, eh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing like that. I'll wear it. Here—you snap the catch, Jim.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I—I might wish it on, Dix, like the kids do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All right. Have you wished?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sure, Say, Dix, you won't mind the little place where the initials got
- scratched off inside the back cover. Nobody'll see that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Surely not,” said Dixie.
- </p>
- <p>
- At a little after midnight Griggsby Doane mounted to the boat deck and
- walked quietly aft past the funnels and the engine room ventilators. A
- half moon threw shadows along the bund and among the landing hulks and the
- moored silent sampans, lorchas, junks. The mile-wide river shimmered in a
- million ripples.
- </p>
- <p>
- A slight figure rose from a skylight.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hui Fei wore the black jacket and trousers of the lower class Chinese
- women below decks. Her head was uncovered, and her hair waved prettily
- down across the wide forehead. She should have oiled it flat, of course,
- to complete her disguise; this careless arrangement was charming in the
- moonlight but was neither Manchu nor Chinese.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane found himself holding her small hand and looking gravely down at
- her. He even slowly shook his head. “You must tell me quickly what you
- have to say, Miss Hui. As soon as possible you must go back. This is very
- unsafe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes,” she said. “It will not be long. It is ver' har' to say. But I
- am so alone. There is no one to tell me what I mus' do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She plunged bravely into her story. Her information had come from one or
- another of her maids. And she had overheard gossip among the mandarins.
- The throne had sent her father the silken cord. She could not discover
- why. To be sure they called him a secondary devil, meaning one who
- sympathised with the foreigners. The reactionary Manchus at Peking,
- reveling and plotting within the sacred walls of the Forbidden City,
- remembered nothing, it appeared, of the recent past. The eunuchs, always
- the stormy petrels of China's darkest days, were again in power at the
- palace; the great empress dowager, she whom all China termed,
- half-affectionately, “the Old Buddha,” had given them their head, and now
- this new young empress with all the arrogance of the Old Buddha and none
- of her genius for power or her profound experience, was running wild. And
- as a consequence, Kang Yu, the statesman who more than any other was
- equipped to counsel her wisely during this stormy time, was returning to
- the home of his ancestors to die by his own hand. It would be said at the
- Forbidden City that a gracious empress dowager had “permitted” him to
- go.... Doane's disturbed thoughts darted back over the bloodstained recent
- history of Manchu officialdom. The Old Buddha had “permitted” Ch'i Ying,
- late Manchu Viceroy of Canton, to slay himself; and had graciously
- extended the same privilege to others after the Boxer trouble of the year
- 1900, among them an acquaintance of Doane's, Chao Shu-ch'iao. Others she
- had decapitated—Yuan Ch'ang, Li Shan, Controller of the Household,
- and Hsu Ching, President of the Board of War. She killed, too, Hsu
- Ching-Ch'eng, who, like Kang, had held the post of minister in more than
- one of the capitals of Europe. The only known charge against this Hsu was
- that he had come to admire foreign customs.
- </p>
- <p>
- In her narrative the girl spoke only English. Her voice was deep in
- quality, without heaviness; musical, like most voices among the
- better-to-do in the Middle Kingdom, Chinese and Manchu alike. And, colored
- now with deep emotion, it had an appealing quality to which Doane found a
- response—difficult, at the moment, to repress—among his own
- emotions. He sensed, too, with a pleasure that was, in his lonely life,
- stirring, the naiveté of her Western feeling. Standing here in simple
- native costume, in the heart of old China, gazing wistfully out over the
- tangled hundreds of sleeping junks and sampans, this girl, freshly out of
- a Massachusetts college, was pleading against hope that her father might
- be spared the final jealous vengeance of the mightiest remaining Oriental
- throne.
- </p>
- <p>
- The China that Doane had so long known, that had, indeed, for better or
- worse, been woven into the fiber of his being, was turning suddenly
- incredible. He stared, more intently than he knew, straight down at the
- slim little figure—for beside his own huge frame this tall girl
- appeared as hardly more than a child—at the unadorned face that was
- softly girlish, at the Mack hair waving down over the pale forehead,
- glistening in the moonlight.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They mean to confisca'”—she left off, in her eagerness to explain,
- the final <i>te</i>—“all his property. Tell me, Mister Duane, can
- they do that—all his property?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He reflected. There would be vast areas of tea-lands and rice lands,
- almost innumerable shares in these new corporations, the famous
- collections of jades, paintings, carvings and jewels. Finally he inclined
- his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm afraid they could. It would be an outrageous act, but the government
- now, I'm sorry to say, is in outrageous hands. If the empress is
- determined, as apparently she is, there are ways enough of getting at all
- his possessions. Even through the banks.” His heart was full, his voice
- tender; but he could not deceive her. He added a question: “Does his
- excellency, your father, know all this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She nodded. “I have tol' him. But I can no' make him see it like me. Oh,
- we are so differen'. I am, you see, an American girl. I am free here,” she
- laid a pretty hand on her breast. “When I try to think of all these
- dreadful things—of these wicked eunuchs an' the empress who is like
- thousan' of years ago—blin', childish!—an' the people who can
- no' yet see it differen'—I get bewilder'. You un'erstan'. You are an
- American, too. I can speak with you. That is well, because there isn'
- anybody else I can speak with. An' my father admires you. If you will only
- speak with him—if you will only help me make him think differen'!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane wondered what he could do, what she imagined he could do, without
- influence or money. He quite forgot, in this matter of influence alone,
- the significance of the viceroy's courtesy, as of Sun Shi-pi's appeal to
- him. For a little too long he had been a beaten man. It was becoming
- dangerously near a habit so to consider himself. And now, to make active
- clear thinking impossible, emotion flooded his brain. Gently he asked her
- what she would have him do.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My father will no' listen when I speak, He is ver' kind, ver' generous.
- He has made me an American girl. That is one of the things they say is
- wrong. Even for tha' they attack his good name. But when I ask Him no' to
- do this, no' to die so wrongly, he speaks to me like an ol' Manchu of long
- ago.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is between the worlds,” mused Doane, aloud.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, it is that. An' I, perhaps, am between the worl's.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he mus' no' do it! It is so simple! The throne will no' live. Not one
- year more. I know that. They are fighting now at Wu Chang.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane inclined his head. “I know that, Miss Hui, but the revolution has
- not yet gone so far that success is sure.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But it is sure. The people will everywhere rise. I know it—here!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is my hope, too. But to stir this great land means so much in effort
- and education. You have changed, yes. Your father has changed. Sun Yat Sen
- was educated in a medical school and has lived in America and England; he
- has changed. But all China—I do not want to dash your hopes, dear
- Miss Hui, but I fear China is not nearly so far along as you and I would
- wish.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then—even so—mus' my father die because a wicked empress has
- no brains? It is no' right. Listen, please! If you, Mis'er Doane, would
- jus' try to persua' my father! He will listen to you. Oh, if you woul'
- stay with us, an' help us. We coul' take some money, some jewels, an'
- escape down the river—to Shanghai—to Japan, or even America.
- My father mus' no' die like this. There will be a few servan's we can
- trus'. You speak to my father, sir, an' he will listen. I know that. He
- says you have the mind of the ol' philosopher—of Lao-tze himself. He
- said that. An' you have the Western strength that he admires. An' he says
- you un'erstan' China. Oh, will you speak to him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane stared out into the luminous night. This response in his breast to
- her eager youth frightened him now. He had felt of late that life mattered
- little; certainly not his own. But youth, and hope, and faith—they
- mattered.
- </p>
- <p>
- He took her small hand in his own. His heart was beating high. It was
- going to be hard now, to control his voice. He was, then, after all the
- years, the struggles, the beatings, incurably romantic....
- </p>
- <p>
- Stirred yet by the vibrant pulse of youth that in some men and women never
- dies. He himself had thought this negative spirit of the past few years a
- philosophy, but apparently, it was nothing of the sort. Or where was it
- now? For he was suddenly all nervously alive, a man of vigor and pride, a
- man of urgent emotional need....
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will try,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- She clung to his hand. “I have your promise?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He bowed. “I must think. I should not like to fail. There will be time. He
- will”—it was hard to phrase this—“he will wait, surely, until
- he is at home. But you must not stay longer here. And we must not meet
- again like this. I will try my best to help you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It seemed a pitifully inadequate speech. But the wild impulse was upon him
- to clasp her lovely person in his arms—claim her, fight for her,
- live again a man's life through and for her. It was, he deliberately
- thought, almost insane in him. A man with nothing to offer, not even the
- great hope of youth, struggling against an emotion, a hunger, that it was
- grotesque to indulge. He compressed his lips tightly.
- </p>
- <p>
- She seemed breathless. For a moment she pressed her hands to her cheeks
- and eyes; then waved to him and went lightly down the ladder.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER V—RESURGENCE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE upper-deck
- passengers awoke in the morning to find the engines still at rest, and the
- now familiar View of Kiu Kiang still to be seen from port-side windows;
- the <i>Yen Hsin</i> had merely been moved a hundred yards or so below the
- landing hulk and anchored. There was grumbling about the breakfast table.
- The captain did not appear. The huge mate was preoccupied; explaining with
- grave courtesy that he had no further news. He assumed that orders to
- proceed to Hankow would be forthcoming during the day. It was understood
- now that the republican troops were everywhere protecting white folk, and,
- in any event, the foreign concessions up the river were well guarded by
- the war-ships.
- </p>
- <p>
- The outstanding fact was that they were to spend at least another night on
- the river. The sensible thing to do, or so decided the younger men, was to
- have a dance. Accordingly, before tiffin, committees were hard at work
- planning decorations for the social hall. Miss Means proved a fertile
- source of entertaining ideas. And it was agreed, during the day, that Miss
- Andrews had a pretty taste at hanging flags.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Chinese day begins with the light. And little Mr. Kato, sitting
- smilingly through breakfast, had already passed hours among his
- below-decks acquaintance. After breakfast he sat outside with the Kanes,
- senior and junior, talking rapidly. There Miss Carmichael observed them;
- later, when Rocky stood by the rail throwing brass cash down into the
- crowding, nosing sampans of the water beggars, she strolled his way—looking
- incredibly young—carrying a book from the boat's library, a thin
- finger between the pages as a mark. She smiled at the quarreling beggars
- below. But he, at sight of her, grew sulky.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You didn't come last night,” he said, very low, his voice thick with
- suddenly rising feeling.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I couldn't. You can't always plan things.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, you said—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rocky, please! You mustn't talk like that. We can be seen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—” he closed his lips. It was the first time she had called him
- by his name. That seemed something. And she was right; they must keep up
- appearances. He felt that she was extremely clever; living her own life as
- a business woman, away out here, doing as she chose, like a man, never
- losing her head for a moment. Well, he would show her that he could be a
- sport.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kato picked up some queer news this morning, prowling around. There's a
- mutiny brewing below decks. He hasn't got all the facts, yet. He's down
- there now. It's the viceroy's soldiers. First thing we know they'll be
- blowing up the boat.” He was gloomy about it; boyishly turning his heavy
- burden of self-pity and reproach into the new channel.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” said she, “we'll all have to take our chances, I suppose,” and
- moved away a step, pausing and balancing gracefully on the balls of her
- feet and smiling at him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait,” he muttered—“don't go!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's better. No good in our being seen too much together—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Too much?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll save you some dances to-night.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A lot! All of them!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She smiled again at this outburst; said, “We can visit afterward, anyhow,”
- and moved away.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the other side of the deck she found the Manila Kid leaning in a
- doorway, moodily chewing a match. His listless eyes at once sought her
- wrist.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're not wearing it,” he muttered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know why, Jim.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sure! Young Kane.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Jim, where are your brains? Don't try to tell me that Tex hasn't seen
- that watch.... Well, do you want him to know there's something between us—just
- now—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know's I—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her pale cool eyes swept the deck. Then she leaned beside him; opened her
- book, then looked out over it at the shipping and the dimpling river
- beyond; smiled in her easy way. “Jim, why didn't you tell me that Tex has
- started this thing without me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've been watching for a chance to.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She considered this. He went on:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look here, Dixie, this is big stuff!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've been trying to figure out how we stand. I didn't quite get you last
- night. Tex and his boy Tom have got a bunch of the soldiers now. But
- they're moving careful because there's another show been started. One of
- the regular revolutionary crowd is below there stirring 'em up. Some of
- 'em are full of this republic idea, want to die for it and all that stuff,
- and Tex has to move cautious to buy 'em off. Say, what does he want so
- many for?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The more the better.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But how're you going to pay 'em?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let them loot.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But Tex—and Tom—are promising them part of the real stuff,
- jewels.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you'd probably have to promise. But when they get into it, with
- plenty of loot and liquor and women, it'll be easy enough to get away from
- them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But how're you going to keep 'em in hand before that? Do you know what
- some of 'em are whispering around now? They want to carve up the boat.
- Come right up here and go through the viceroy's outfit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he hasn't much stuff here, Jim. We've got bigger game than that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know—and anyway it'd bring a gunboat down on us. That's what Tex
- is trying to make Tom see. Tom's in Tex's room now. But my God, Dixie,
- when I think of what you've started in that offhand way o' yours....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tex'll hold them down, Jim. That's one good thing about him, he's not
- weak. You're nervous. Better go in and help the teachers hang flags.
- That'll soothe you. You and I mustn't talk any more either. If there's any
- news for me, better send me a chit by a boy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid looked mournfully at her. He was a grotesque, this Jim Watson,
- tall, angular, thin bony face under the tipped-back cap, bald salients
- running up into his hair on either side the plastered-down front locks.
- And as he gazed on this wisp of a girl who had slipped mysteriously in
- among the adroit swindlers and adventuresses of the coast but a few brief
- years back and had from the very beginning cleverly made her way, his
- disorganized spirit yearned toward her. She had brains, and used them. She
- knew how to be nice to a fellow, and the Kid hungered for sympathy. And
- she was piquantly desirable: in part because men sought her without
- success. Except perhaps that young naval officer at Hong Kong, the name of
- no man had been seriously linked with hers; and the fact that he was an
- eldest son of one of the richest and greatest families in England in a
- measure removed the incident beyond the confines of normal human
- experience. No, the Kid could hardly feel that he ought to resent that. He
- knew, as he so moodily surveyed her, that her sympathy—the word was
- his own—could be bought only at a high price. The price, indeed,
- frightened him. He couldn't think along with Dixie and Tex. Nor could he
- easily conceive of opposing Tex, for the man was strong and merciless.
- Still....
- </p>
- <p>
- “See here, Dixie, if I wasn't so fool crazy over you, do you think for a
- minute I'd let you drag me into this kind of a mix-up? Why, my God!—when
- I got to thinking about it last night—the risks you're running—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's big stakes, Jim. You can't expect a million to fall into your lap.
- Got to play for it. Tell me—does this Tom Sung understand English?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course! He was a farm laborer in California, and a cook in the United
- States Navy. Why?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I may have to talk to him myself before we get through with it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course you know Tex means to rob you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course,” said she, smiling a little for the benefit of a customs man
- who appeared up forward. “You run along now, Jim. This is no game for weak
- nerves. Remember, I need you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—just this—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Careful!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “—You listen, now! You won't find me getting-cold feet—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm sure of that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I ain't afraid o' Tex Connor, either! If you mean that I've got to go
- up against him—Well, say, look here! If I go through—if I do
- everything you say—how're we going to stand, you and me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I let you give me the watch, didn't I?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—that's all right—but I asked you once to go to the
- Islands with me, and you wouldn't.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not over there. I know too many people.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, somewhere else, then! Tell me straight, now! If we pull this off—shake
- down a real pile—will you go with me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked thoughtfully at him for a brief moment; then turned again to
- the river. “You know I'm fond of you, Jim.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's a trade, Dixie? If I stick to you, you'll stick to me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She considered this; finally, very quietly, barely parting her lips,
- replied, simply: “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He drew in his breath with a whistling sound.
- </p>
- <p>
- She added, then: “Careful, Jim! I know how you feel, but don't let
- yourself talk.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know, Dix, but my God! When I think of how you've kept me dancing this
- year—and now—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll say this, Jim. Just this. If you knew everything about Tex Connor—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mean, he's tried to—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I mean certain things he's said to me. If you're as fond of me as that
- you'd understand why I've felt, once or twice, like killing him. That man
- is a devil, Jim.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then she slipped away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Carmichael sat deliberately through tiffin; discreetly quiet, as
- always; apparently without nerves. The Kid ate rapidly, speaking not a
- word, seldom looking up from his plate. Tex Connor was calmly wooden, as
- always, though at intervals Miss Carmichael felt his eye on her as she
- daintily nibbled her curry.
- </p>
- <p>
- After tiffin she was stretched comfortably in her deck chair, reading, or
- seeming to, when Connor appeared, strolling along the deck, hands deep in
- pockets, chewing the inevitable Manila cigar. He wore a neat cap, and his
- large person was clothed in an outing suit of gray flannel. On his feet
- were shoes of whitened leather with rubber soles. To any but a shrewd
- student of physiognomy he might have passed for a prosperous American
- business man or politician, of the bluff western sort.
- </p>
- <p>
- He paused at her careless nod; bent his face around and stared coldly at
- her. Nothing of the real man showed; even his rough vulgarity was
- concealed behind the mask and the manner. He ought to have a woman to tell
- him, she thought, that he was altogether too stout to wear a Norfolk
- jacket.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sit down?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- He dropped into the chair beside her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Looks as if we'd be hung up here till night anyhow,” he said gruffly.
- “All foolishness, too. It's safe enough between here and Hankow. The
- Jardine boat came down this morning. And we land at the concessions—don't
- have to go clear up to the city.” He drummed on the chair; shifted his
- cigar. “I can't hang around here. Got to get up to Peking before they
- close off the railroad.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She listened quietly to this little tirade; then remarked: “Thought over
- my proposition, Tex?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What proposition?.... Oh, that scheme? Sure, I've thought it over.
- Nothing in it, Dix.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Too complicated. Did you ever see a lot of soldiers on the loose—their
- killing blood up? You could never handle 'em in the world.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, of course,” said she, “if you tried any coarse work. But I wouldn't
- pin that on you, Tex.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's easy to talk.” Connor's voice rose slightly; he noted the fact
- himself; paused and spoke with greater deliberation. “But I wouldn't
- tackle a gamelike that. It ain't practical. Anyhow, Dix, I wouldn't go it
- blind. I'd have to know where I was going every minute. If you wanted to
- talk real business, it might be different. I might see a way to start
- something. But even at that”—he got heavily to his feet...."No,
- thing for me's to stick to my own line.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was moving slowly away when her slow light voice brought him up short.
- “Tex,” she said, “I see you're just a cheap liar, after all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then she watched the color sweep over his face. It was something to stir
- that wooden countenance with genuine emotion. She even found a perverse
- thrill in the experience.
- </p>
- <p>
- He stood motionless for a long moment. Finally he said, none too steadily:
- “You know what would happen to a man that said that to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What would you do? Shoot?.... Where would that get you? No, Tex, listen!
- Sit down here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But he stood over her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know everything you're doing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—you do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're crossing me. But you can't get away with it. You know where you
- are—in China! And you're tampering with the troops of the viceroy of
- Nanking. My God, Tex, haven't you <i>any</i> brains? Did you really think
- I'd show my hand?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He chewed the cigar in silence, staring down.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll give you your choice,” she went on. “You can work with me.
- fifty-fifty, or I'll have Tom Sung beheaded. And then you'll be out a meal
- ticket. And all your expenses with Tom up to now. And the three thousand
- you lost to the Kanes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You don't know what you're talking about! I haven't even seen Tom Sung in
- twenty-four hours.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's another lie. He was in your room this morning.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you know that? Say, if Jim Watson's been talking....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He hasn't, Tex. I've got my information—and there's a lot of if—from
- Kato the Japanese. Go and talk to him, if you like. Or to your friends the
- Kanes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Connor, the color gone from his face now, looked steadily down at her.
- Slowly he drew from an inner pocket a gold-mounted case of alligator skin
- and selected a fresh cigar, lighting it on the stump of the old one.
- Finally he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dix, I'm taking some rough talk from you. But never mind—now. You
- say you know where the stuff is, but you won't tell me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not now. I'll keep that information to trade with, Tex.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well and good. I'll tell you that you can't get it without a little help
- from me. And you're not going to get it. Tell me where it is, and I'll put
- it through and split with you. It'll have to be pretty quick, too. If you
- won't, you don't get your loot. And you give up my boy Tom—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What'll you do, Tex?” She was faintly smiling.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I won't shoot you. I'll protect myself better'n that. But I'll run
- you off the coast. You'll have turned your last card out here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- To this she said simply nothing. For a moment her two eyes met his one
- full. Then he strolled away. And the day passed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane stood by the rail in the dusk of early evening looking in through
- the open doorway. The social hall was gay with flags, the dragon of China
- hung flat over the talking machine with the American and British colors
- draped on either hand. The little teachers had on their brightest and
- best. Miss Andrews in particular, wore a pink party gown that might have
- been made by a village dressmaker—or, more likely, by herself—and
- flushed prettily as she chatted with young Braker. The men were all in
- their dinner coats.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dixie Carmichael, in the inevitable blue middy blouse, sat quietly reading
- in a corner. A strange creature, always imperturbably girlish. Duane had
- observed her casually on the boat and about the Astor House at Shanghai,
- and despite the curious tales that drifted along the coast—already
- the girl had acquired an almost legendary fame—he had never seen her
- other than discreetly quiet. Men who had observed her on the steamer from
- Hong Kong after the outraged British wives as good as drummed her out of
- town asserted that she exhibited not so much as a ruffle of the nerves. A
- girl without emotion, apparently; certainly without a moral sense.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had for a time managed a gambling house on Bubbling Well Road,
- Shanghai, but this year seemed to be more active up Peking way. At least
- she had made several trips to the north. There were moments when her thin,
- nearly expressionless face bore a look of infinite age; yet she was young.
- It would be interesting, he reflected, to know of her home and her youth,
- of the remarkable deficiency (or the equally remarkable gift) that had
- sent her out alone, with her hair down her back, to pit her uncanny
- quickness of thought and her sordid purpose against the desperately clever
- rascals of the coast.
- </p>
- <p>
- When again he passed the doorway they were dancing—a waltz. Dixie
- and young Kane were together. Miss Means, primmer than ever, moved about
- with a tall Australian. Braker was with little Miss Andrews. The others of
- the younger men danced humorously with one another. The Manila Kid stood
- lankily, gloomily, by the talking machine, sorting records.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a bustling outside the farther door; musical voices; the
- shimmering of satin in the light; and the viceroy came in, escorting his
- daughter and attended by all his suite. At the sight of Miss Hui Fei as
- she appeared in the doorway and stepped lightly over the sill Doane caught
- his breath. She wore an American costume, a gown of soft material in rose
- color trimmed with silver, the stockings and little slippers in silver as
- well. A girl at any college or suburban dance back home might have dressed
- like that. Her richly black hair was parted on the side; masses of it
- waved carelessly down over her temples and part of the broad forehead. Her
- color was high, her eyes were bright. The eagerly Western quality he had
- sensed in her was dominant now, triumphant as youth can be triumphant.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane, for a moment, pressed a hand to his eyes. He could not relate this
- radiantly Western girl with the quaintly Oriental figure he had last seen
- by moonlight on the boat deck. It was difficult, too, to understand her
- bright happiness. Had her insistently modern spirit prevailed over her
- father's resolve to die? Or was she, after all, carried away by girlishly
- high spirits at the thought of a party? On the latter possibility Doane
- set his teeth; it raided thoughts of Oriental fatalism and surface
- adaptability that he could not face. Surely the girl who had talked so
- earnestly, who had so clearly exhibited a Western view of her father's
- predicament, was more than Oriental at heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- The most deeply sobering thought, of course, was that he should so
- poignantly care. The mere sight of her thrilled him, shook him. All night
- and during this day he had been fighting the new shining sense of her in
- his heart; it was clear now that the battle was a losing one. It was true,
- then; the last broken shards of his elaborately built up, wholly mental
- philosophy of life had crashed hopelessly about his ears.
- </p>
- <p>
- The pity of it seemed to him, even then, to be that he was possessed of
- such abounding vitality of body and mind. He felt a young man. He was
- never ill, never even tired. Only accident, he felt, could shorten his
- life. Certainly he wouldn't take it himself; he had gone all through that.
- He would have to go dully on and on; he was like an engine that is using
- but a fraction of its proper power. He had not known that his need was a
- woman until he met this woman. To no other, he felt, could he give the
- rich upwellings of emotion in his heart; and vital emotion, he had
- tragically learned three years earlier, can not be repressed indefinitely.
- There was a breaking point... He was, even now, bringing up favorable
- arguments. This young woman, as she had admitted, like himself, stood
- between the worlds. She could never be happy in China; hardly out of it.
- If.... If.... Thoughts came, bitter thoughts, of his years, of his
- poverty. The thing had the grip of a demoniac possession. He had seen
- other men mad over the one woman, and had pitied them; but now he.... He
- called himself savagely, in his heart, a fool. Yet the wild hopes mounted.
- </p>
- <p>
- The waltz was over. The Kid changed the records and ground the machine. An
- interpreter left the group of mandarins and spoke with one of the
- Australians; led the man back to his excellency. A moment later the music
- sounded again, and the Australian danced lightly away with Miss Hui Fei in
- what Doane had no means of knowing was the very new one-step. He had never
- danced; plainly she loved it. She moved like a fairy—light, utterly
- graceful, her oval face, when she turned, flushed a little and soberly
- radiant.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hating the man who held her so close, he turned away. He did not know that
- his excellency, glimpsing him outside there in the shadows, leaned forward
- and bowed; he did not observe (or care) that Dixie Carmichael was dancing
- with the German customs man, while Rocky Kane, suddenly white, lighting
- one cigarette on another, stood in a corner devouring with his eyes Miss
- Hui Fei. A little later, when the young man spoke, there at his side, he
- started; for he had heard no one approach. Rocky was hatless; hair rumpled
- as if he had been running nervous fingers through it, cheeks deeply
- flushed, eyes staring rather wildly. He threw his cigarette overboard and
- squarely faced the huge man in blue.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know what you'll think of me—” he began, in a breathless,
- unsteady voice; then his eyes wavered.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane turned with him, Dixie Carmichael stood in the doorway, watching
- them. Rocky, with a nervous gesture, as if he would brush her away, looked
- up again into the stern older face. He was plainly lost in himself,
- burning with the confused fires of youth.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know what you'll think of me—” he came again to a stop.
- Apparently the words, “Mr. Doane,” would have completed the sentence, but
- failed for some reason to find voice. Perhaps it was the habit of his
- wealthy environment that restrained him even now from speaking with more
- than casual respect to a uniformed employee of a river line; yet,
- contradictorily, here he was, all boyish humility!.... “I'm a damn fool,
- of course, I know that. But—you've seen her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane glanced again toward the door. Dixie Carmichael had disappeared.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—not that one!” cried the boy hotly; then dropped his voice. “The
- girl in there! The—princess, isn't she?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane inclined his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then she'd be the one I—well, you remember.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She's the same. The Princess Hui Fei—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hughie Fay? Like that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What a lovely name!.... You—I know you won't understand! It's so
- hard to—I <i>am</i> young, of course. I've been sort of in wrong. I
- guess you think I'm a pretty wild lot. I seem to have been trying about
- everything. But until to-night—oh, there's no use pretending I'm not
- hit all of a heap. I am. I never saw anything like her—never in my
- life. I don't know what the pater would say—me falling for a Manchu
- girl—you think I'm crazy, don't you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps I am. My head's racing. Just watching her in there makes my pulse
- jump. I get bewildered. Tell me—she was all Chinese the—the
- other time—all painted up. Big head-dress with flowers on it. Why
- did she do that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Out of respect to her father. The rouge and the head-dress were according
- to Oriental custom.” He looked directly down at the boy, and added,
- deliberately, “Veneration of parents is the finest thing in Chinese life.
- I sometimes think we have nothing so fine in America.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The boy's eyes fell. He mumbled. “Ouch! You landed there, I guess.” Then
- he raised his eyes. “I can't help myself—whatever I am—but I
- can start fresh, can't I? That's what I'm going to do, anyhow—start
- fresh.” He squared himself. His lip quivered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you take me in there to the viceroy, and translate my apology?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane stood a moment in silence. Then he replied, quietly, “Yes.” And led
- the way into the social hall. He found himself watching, like a spectator,
- the little scene.... the viceroy rising, with a quiet smile, a gentle old
- man, awaiting with perfect courtesy of bearing whatever might be
- forthcoming; Rocky Kane, seeming younger than before, with, in fact, the
- appearance of an excited boy, the wild look still in his eyes but the face
- set with supreme determination. Doane observed now that he had a good
- forehead, wide and not too high. The nose was slightly aquiline, like his
- father's. The eyes, so dark now, were normally blue; the mouth sensitive;
- the skin fine in texture.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell him”—thus the boy—“tell him I acted like a dirty cad,
- that I know better, and—and ask his pardon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane translated discreetly. A dance was just ending, and curious eyes
- were bent on the group. The mandarins stood behind the viceroy, all
- gracefully at ease in their rich rubes.
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency, without relaxing that smile, replied in musical
- intonation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?” asked Rocky Kane, under his breath, all quivering
- excitement; “what does he say?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That he accepts your apology, with appreciation of your manliness.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Kane's nervous frown relaxed at this. He was pleased.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you,” he was saying now, “will you ask if I may dance with the
- princess?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane complied. He felt now a strain of fineness in this ungoverned boy
- that was oddly moving to his own emotion-clouded brain.... Hoi Fei was
- approaching, the Australian at her side.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He suggests”—Doane found himself translating—“that you ask
- her. He does not know what engagements she may have made.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The boy bit his lip. And then the princess was greeting the mate. “It's
- nice to see you, Mr. Doane,” she was saying. “I wondered if you weren't
- coming to the party.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It seemed to Doane that he could feel young Kane's devouring eyes fastened
- on her. The moment had come in which he must act. The Australian, sensing
- a situation, thanked the princess and slipped away. Quietly, Doane said:
- “Miss Hui Fei, this is Mr. Kane, who has asked permission to meet you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She drew back a very little; Doane caught that; yet the courtesy of her
- race did not fail her. She inclined her pretty head; even smiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Should I speak English?” asked the boy, out of sheer confusion; then:
- “Miss Hui Fei”—he was white; the words came slowly, almost coldly,
- between set teeth—“I am sorry for my rotten behavior the other
- night.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That was all. He waited. Miss Hui's smile faded.
- </p>
- <p>
- No Oriental could have come out so bluntly with it. She seemed to be
- considering him. Gradually the smile returned, and with it an air of
- courteous dismissal.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have forgotten it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Kane gathered his courage.
- </p>
- <p>
- “May I have a dance with you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- For a moment the silence was marked. Perhaps Miss Hui was gathering
- herself as well. But it was only a moment; she spoke, smiling as if she
- were happy, her manner gracious, even kind: “I am sorry. I have promise'
- every dance. The ladies are so few to-nigh'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That was all. The boy seemed somewhat slow in comprehending it. He stood
- motionless; then the color returned slowly to his face, flooding it. He
- bowed to her stiffly, then to her father, and rushed out on deck.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Hui smiled up at the mate. “I have save' the dance you ask',” she
- said pleasantly. “It is this nex' one, if you don' mind.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Manila Kid adjusted the needle and released the catch.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm sorry,” said Doane, as they moved away, “I don't dance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The commonplace remark fell strangely on his own ears. It could hardly be
- himself speaking. He was all glowingly warm with impulse, his logic gone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We'll sit it out,” said Miss Hui pleasantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- And during the brief walk across the room, beside this buoyantly graceful
- girl, even while aware of the eyes upon him, he felt the magic wine of
- youth thrilling through his arteries. What a fairy she was! Snatches of
- poetry came; one—=
- </p>
- <p>
- "Were it ever so airy a tread...."=
- </p>
- <p>
- —and lingered fragrantly after they were seated and he found himself
- looking down at her, listening with something of the gravity and
- kindliness of long habit when she so quickly spoke.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VI—CONFLAGRATION
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> BEWILDERED,
- crushed Rocky Kane stood tightly holding the rail; staring down at the
- softly black water that ran so smoothly along the hull beneath; muttering
- in whispers that at intervals broke out into heated speech. This strange
- princess had humiliated him perfectly, completely; there had been nothing
- he could say, nothing to do but go; and she had let him go without a look
- or a further thought. He told himself it was unfair. He had swallowed his
- pride and apologized. Could a man do more?
- </p>
- <p>
- But pressing upward through this chaotic mental surface of hurt pride and
- insistent self-justification came an equally insistent memory of his
- outrageous conduct toward her. As the moments passed, the memory
- intensified into a painfully vivid picture. His native intelligence,
- together with the undeveloped decency that was somewhere within him, kept
- at him with dart-like, stinging thoughts. He had insulted not only herself
- but her race as well, in assuming a ruthless right to make free with her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then self-justification again; how could he know that she spoke English
- and dressed like the girls back home? Was it fair of her to masquerade
- like that?
- </p>
- <p>
- He was miserably wrong, of course. And his nerves were terribly upset.
- That was at least part of the trouble, his nerves; he lighted a cigarette
- to steady them. The match shook in his hand. This nervous trembling had
- been increasing lately; he found it an alarming symptom. Perhaps the
- trouble was inherent weakness. Ability like his father's often skipped a
- generation; and character. Yes, he was weak, he had failed at everything.
- His college career was a wreck; a monstrous wreck, he believed, echoes
- from which would follow him through life. To his incoherent mind it seemed
- that he had about all the vices—drinking, gambling, pursuing
- helpless girls, even smoking opium. His one faith had been money; but now
- he suddenly, wretchedly, knew that even the money might fail him. It was
- as easy to toss away a million as a hundred on the red or the black. And
- then young men who wasted themselves acquired diseases from the terrors of
- which no fortune could promise release; a thought that had long dwelt
- uncomfortably in a sensitive, deep-shadowed corner of his brain.... a
- brain that was racing now, beyond control.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her unfairness lay in so publicly snubbing him. Her father knew the facts,
- as did Miss Carmichael, and the big mate, that old preacher with a
- mysterious past. Who was he, anyhow—setting up to regulate other
- people's lives?
- </p>
- <p>
- Then rose among these turbulent thoughts a picture of the princess as she
- was now, there in the social hall. Tears welled into his eyes; he brushed
- them away, lighted a fresh cigarette and deeply inhaled the smoke. He had
- rushed out; suddenly, wildly, he desired to rush back. She was beautiful.
- She had quaintly moving charm. A rare little lady! It seemed almost that
- he might compel her to listen while he explained. But what was it that he
- was to explain? That he was some other than the dirty sort they all knew
- him to be, that he had proved himself to be?
- </p>
- <p>
- The wild thoughts were like a beating in his brain. It was his father's
- fault, this crazy nervousness, and his mother's.... He hated that big
- mate. Self-pity rose like a tidal wave, and engulfed him. He stared and
- stared at the softly dark water. Beginning with about his sixteenth year
- he had wrestled often with the thought of suicide, as so many sensitive
- young men do. Now the water fascinated him; it was so still, it moved so
- resistlessly on to the sea. “A pretty easy way to slip out. Just a little
- splash—-I could climb down. Nobody'd know. Nobody'd care much of a
- damn. Oh, the old man would think he cared, but he wouldn't. He'll never
- make a bank president out of me. And that's all he wants.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A voice, guardedly friendly, said, “Better not let yourself talk that
- way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned with a start. Miss Carmichael was standing there by the rail. So
- he had talked aloud—another unpleasant symptom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You—you saw what—”
- </p>
- <p>
- She inclined her head. “What's the good of letting it upset you? Lie down
- for a while. A pipe or two wouldn't hurt you. You're nervous as a witch.
- It would soothe you.” He stared at her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Better lie down anyway,” she said, taking his arm and moving him toward
- his cabin. “You don't want them to see you like this.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He yielded. His will was powerless. He dropped on the seat, while she
- lingered, almost sympathetically, in the doorway, an unbelievably girlish
- figure in the half light. Something of the influence she had been exerting
- on him—which had seemed to die when Miss Hui Fei entered the social
- hall—fluttered to life now. He found relief, abruptly, in
- recklessness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come on in,” he said huskily. “Have a pipe with me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Quietly, wholly matter-of-fact, she closed and locked the door. “We'll
- shut the window, too, this time,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You needn't turn on the light.” He was reaching for his trunk. “Excuse me—a
- minute! I can see all right. I know just where everything is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Leave the trunk out,” said she. “And lay your suit-case on it. Then we
- can put the lamp on that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Hui Fei led Doane to a seat under the curving front windows.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We mus' talk as if ever'thing were ver' pleasan'.” The question rose
- again, but without bitterness now, how she could smile so brightly. “I
- have learn' some more. It is ver' difficul' to tell you, but.... it is
- difficul' to think, even.... so strange that at firs' I laugh'.”.... Yes,
- there were tears in her eyes. But how bravely she fought them back and
- smiled again. He felt his own eyes filling, and turned quickly to the
- window; but not so quickly that she failed to see. She was sensitively
- observant, despite her own trouble. For a moment, then, they were silent,
- lost in a deep common sympathy that was bread to his starving heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was in that moment that their little conspiracy nearly broke down. Had
- any of the others in the big room looked just then, gossip would have
- spread swiftly; certainly sharp-eyed mandarins would have found matter for
- consideration; for Hui Fei impulsively found his hand as it rested between
- them on the seat, and was met with a quick warm pressure.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then, in another moment, she was speaking, quite herself. “My maid has
- foun' out tha' they are sending the head eunuch from the Forbidden C'ty to
- our home. An' that is agains' the law.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course,” said he. “Even the Old Buddha never tried but once to send
- out a eunuch on government business. That was the notorious An Te-hai. And
- he never returned; he was caught in Shantung—in a barge of state on
- the Grand Canal—and beheaded. Even the Old Buddha couldn't do that.
- This woman is amazing. But of course there is really no government at
- Peking now—only this strange anachronism.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He has orders to seize all father's beautifu' things the paintings an'
- stones an' carvings.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The rebels may catch him. They'd make short work of him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I ask about that. The rebels have cross the river from Wu Chang to Han
- Yang, but they have not yet reach the railway. That comes into Hankow
- from this side.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Even so,” he mused, “the train service from Peking must have broken down.
- Though they're running troop trains south, of course.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I haven't tol' you all of it.” Her voice was low and unsteady. “This
- eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, is ordered, by the empress, to take me to Peking
- too. They are all whispering about it. The empress is angry at my foreign
- ways, and will marry me to a Manchu duke. She di'n' like it when my father
- tol' her I mus' marry no man I di'n' choose myself.... I think you ough'
- to smile.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mechanically he obeyed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It seems almos' funny.” murmured Miss Hui. “Sometimes I can no' believe
- tha' such a thing could happen. When I think of America an' England and
- all the worl' we know to-day, I can no' believe that such wicked things
- can happen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was anything but unreal to Doane. He knew too well that America and
- England, even all the white peoples, make up but a fraction of the
- inhabitants of this strange earth. His eyes filled again as he considered
- the possible—yes, the probable fate of the lovely girl at his side.
- In such a time of disorganization the reckless Manchu woman at Peking
- could do much. Chang might lose his head at the sound of gunfire in Han
- Yang and fly back to the capital, or he might not. A capable and corrupt
- eunuch would run heavy risks to gain such a prize. For a huge prize the
- viceroy's collection would indeed be; many of the priceless stones and
- paintings would never reach the throne.
- </p>
- <p>
- The thought came of trying to persuade her to save herself; a thought that
- was as promptly discarded. She would not leave her father while he lived.
- He, of course, would not take his own life elsewhere than in his ancestral
- home. And to that home, with his inevitable escort of underlings and
- soldiers, was hurrying—if not already there—this Chang
- Yuan-fu, one of those powerfully venomous creatures that have figured
- darkly at intervals in the history of China.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane spoke low and quickly: “Can you find out when Chang's train left
- Peking, Miss Hui?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I have try ver' har' to learn. I think they don' know that. It is so
- importan' to know that, too, because my father”—Her voice faltered.
- Doane once again, with a swift glance to left and right, took her hand
- and, for a brief moment, gripped it firmly. “You haven' yet spoken to my
- father?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not yet, dear Miss Hui.... you must smile!.... I have found it very
- difficult to think out a way of approaching him. Your father is a great
- viceroy. He might take it ill that I should venture to interfere in what
- he would feel to be the supreme sacred act of his life. He might”—Doane
- hesitated—“even for you he might feel that he couldn't turn back.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know,” she said, very low. “I have thought of tha', too. But they shall
- never take me to Peking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He understood. The suicide of girls as a protest against unwelcome
- marriage was a commonplace in China. It was, indeed, for thousands the
- only way out. She knew that, of course. And she spoke there out of her
- blood.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will speak to-morrow,” he murmured. “Before we reach Huang Chau. We
- have nothing to lose. He can only rebuff me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He felt now that in this tragic drama was bound up all that might be left
- to him of happiness. The guiding motive of his life was—there was a
- divine recklessness in the thought—to save Hui Fei, to make her
- smile again, with a happy heart. She whispered now:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He asked her, abruptly changing his manner, almost distantly courteous,
- about her life in an American college. Little by little, as she made the
- effort to follow him into this impersonal atmosphere, her brightness
- returned.
- </p>
- <p>
- The record was scraping its last. Applause came from the dancers, in which
- she joined. The Manila Kid wound the machine again, and the dancers swung
- again into motion.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am asking too much of you,” she murmured. “But I have been frighten'. I
- coul'n' think wha' to do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He had to set his teeth on the burning phrases that rushed from his long
- unpractised heart, eager for utterance. “I will take you back to your
- father,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- In his mind it was settled. Whatever strange events might lie before them,
- they should not take her to Peking. His own life, as well as hers, stood
- in the way. It had come to that with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was near to midnight when the <i>Yen Hsin</i>, on advices from Hankow,
- headed again upstream. At the first throb of the engine the white
- passengers stopped dancing and came out on deck. There was gaiety, even a
- little cheering.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was perhaps two hours later when Doane, asleep in his cabin, heard the
- shots, confused with the incidents of a dream. But at the first screams of
- the women below decks he sprang from his berth. Some one was banging on
- his door; he opened; the second engineer stood there, coatless and
- hatless, a revolver in his hand, and a little blood on his cheek.
- </p>
- <p>
- “All hell's broken loose below,” said the young Scotchman. “Chief's down
- there. I tried to get to him, but—God, they're all over the place—fighting
- one another.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who are, MacKail?” Doane hurriedly drew on trousers and coat, and thrust
- his feet into his slippers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The viceroy's soldiers. Revolutionary stuff.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane got his automatic pistol from a drawer in the desk; quickly filled
- an extra clip with cartridges; went forward. The Scotchman had already
- gone aft.
- </p>
- <p>
- The engine was still running, the steamer moving steadily up the moonlit
- river. The uproar below decks sounded muffled, far-away. It might have
- been nothing more than a little night excitement in a village along the
- shore. The shooting continued. Men were shouting. There were more shrill
- screams; and then splashes overside. As he hurried forward, staring over
- the rail, Doane caught a passing glimpse of a face down there in the foam
- and a white arm. The white men were stumbling drowsily out of their
- cabins; he saw one of the customs men, in pajamas, and Tex Connor. They
- hurled questions at him but he brushed them aside.
- </p>
- <p>
- Captain Benjamin stood over the cringing pilot with a revolver.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Engine room don't answer!” he shouted coolly enough. “And we can't get to
- it. Take MacKail and try to get through. I'll make this rat keep her in
- the channel.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane ran back. More of the men were out, talking excitedly together. He
- paused to say: “Get any weapons you have, every man of you, and see that
- none but women get up to this deck! Keep the men down!”
- </p>
- <p>
- MacKail stood at the head of the port after stairway, outside the rear
- cabins, a big Australian beside him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They're just naturally carving one another up,” observed the Australian.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come,” said Doane, and went down the steps.
- </p>
- <p>
- The noise and confusion were great down here. Women were crowding out of
- the lower cabins, sobbing hysterically, tearing their hair and beating
- their breasts, crowding forward and aft along the deckway or climbing
- awkwardly over the rail and slipping off into the river.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane shouted a reassuring word in their own tongue; pointed to the steps;
- finally drew one girl forcibly back from the rail and started her up.
- Others followed, screaming all the way. Still others clung to the white
- men.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane broke away and plunged into the dim interior of the boat. Most of
- the lights were out. Dark figures were wrestling. There were grunts,
- groans, savage cries of rage and triumph. A huge pole-knife caught the
- light as it swung. Doane was aware of men breathing hard as they
- struggled.
- </p>
- <p>
- He stumbled over an inert body; would have fallen had not the Australian
- caught him. A tall soldier who lunged toward them with a dripping bayonet
- was shot by MacKail.... There were no means here of distinguishing the
- parties to this savage struggle, but in the inner corridor it was lighter.
- Near at hand two of the republicans—queues cut off, dressed in an
- indistinguishable but odd-appearing uniform of some light gray stuff with
- a white cloth tied about the left arm, had heaped bodies across the
- corridor and were shooting over them at a darker mass just forward of the
- engine room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane shouted at the republicans, ordering them to withdraw. They shook
- their heads angrily. One, even as he tried to reply, sank into a limp heap
- with a dark stream trickling from a hole in his forehead. His comrade bent
- low to reload his rifle. With the shouting of many hoarse voices the dark
- mass up forward came charging down the corridor. Doane was firing into
- them when MacKail and the Australian caught his arm and drew him back
- through the doorway. From that position, however, all three could shoot
- the blue-clad attackers as they plunged by the opening. Then, however,
- they had to defend themselves. The soldiers came on by dozens. Doane had
- his second clip of cartridges in his pistol.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Get back!” he shouted to the others. “Guard the steps—they'll be
- coming up for loot!”
- </p>
- <p>
- They retreated. Two bodies lay huddled on the steps they had left but a
- few moments earlier. A few dead women were on the deck and one or two men.
- </p>
- <p>
- Even as they stepped over the bodies and mounted to the deck above, all
- three men, their faculties sharpened to a supernatural degree by the ugly
- thrill of combat, took in the details of what was evidently accepted among
- these republican rebels as their uniform—a suit of unmistakably
- American woolen underwear, the drawers supported by bright-colored
- American suspenders; socks worn outside (like the suspenders) with garters
- that bore the trademark name of an American city, and finally, American
- shoes. So the enthusiasm of these young revolutionists for the greatest of
- republics found expression! And across the breast of each, lettered on a
- strip of white cloth, was the inscription that Sun Shi-pi had so glibly
- translated as “Dare to Die.” Sun must have brought along these supposedly
- Western uniforms in his pedler's trunks.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was never to be known what surprising incidents had preceded this
- sudden slaughter. The chief engineer might have told, but his mutilated
- body Doane found, on his second attempt to get through, lying just across
- the sill of the engine room, as if he had been stepping out to reason with
- them.
- </p>
- <p>
- The entire battle lasted barely half an hour. It was, for the white folk,
- a period of confusion and terror. Toward the end, the blue men, utter
- outlaws now, made rush after rush up the various stairways and ladders,
- only to be fought back at every point by the white men and the few
- surviving officers of his excellency's force. They were like the most
- primitive savages, knowing neither fear nor reason. The blood-lust that at
- times captures the spirit of this normally phlegmatic and reasonable
- people drove them for the time to the point of madness.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last, however, they drew off below. Two of the boats were within their
- reach. These they lowered, and despite the speed of steamer and current,
- though not without evident loss of life, they got them over, tumbled into
- them, and fell away into the night astern. Then for the first and last
- time this night Doane saw the redoubtable Tom Sung. He stood in the nearer
- boat, brandishing a rifle and screeching wild phrases in Chinese.
- </p>
- <p>
- MacKail took the engine room. Captain Benjamin, still, grimly, pistol in
- hand, held the pilot to his task. There was no crew to clean the shambles
- below decks, yet with the few loyal soldiers who had managed to hide away
- now at the furnaces, the steamer wound her way steadily up-stream.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane found what had once been the earnest Sun Shi-pi in the starboard
- corridor, below. On his body were the uniform, white brassard and motto of
- the “Dare to Dies.” They had beheaded him.
- </p>
- <p>
- The passengers, clad and half clad, nervous, talkative, hung about the
- decks. The two teachers, curiously self-possessed, sat side by side at the
- dining table. From the quarters of his excellency, aft, came the
- continuous sound of women moaning and wailing.... It was, to the eye, but
- a river steamer plowing up-stream in the moonlight. But to the senses of
- those aboard the situation was a nightmare, already an incredible memory
- while sleep-drugged eyes were slowly opening.... To the mighty river it
- was but one more incident in the vivid, often bloody drama of a
- long-suffering, endlessly struggling people....
- </p>
- <p>
- In his spacious cabin, his eyes shaded from the electric light by a screen
- of jade set in tulip wood, dressed in his robes of ceremony, wearing the
- ruby-crowned hat of state with the down-slanting peacock feather, his
- excellency sat quietly reading the precepts of Chuang Tzü.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hui Tzü asked,” (he read) 'Are there, then, men who have no passions? If
- he be a man, how can he be without passions?'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'By a man without passions,' replied Chuang Tzü, I mean one who permits
- neither evil nor good to disturb his inner life, but accepts whatever
- comes.... The pure men of old neither loved life nor hated death.
- Cheerfully they played their parts, patiently awaited the end. This is
- what is called not to lead the heart away from Tao.... The true sage
- ignores God; he ignores man; he ignores a beginning; he ignores matter; he
- accepts life as it may be and is not overwhelmed. If he fail, what matters
- it? If he succeed, is it not that he was provided through no effort of his
- own with the energy necessary to success.... The life of man passes like a
- galloping horse, changing at every turn. What should he do; what should he
- not do? It passes as a sunbeam passes a small opening in a wall—here
- for a moment, then gone.... let knowledge stop at the unknowable. That is
- perfection.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- It is to be doubted if even Doane gave regard at the moment to the
- possible origin of the fire. It had spread through two or three of the
- upper cabins by way of the ventilating grills and was roaring out through
- a doorway by the time he heard the new outcry and ran to the spot. The
- white men were rushing about. Rocky Kane, collarless, disheveled, was
- fumbling ineffectually at the emergency fire hose; him Doane pushed aside.
- But the flames spread amazingly; worked through the grill-work from cabin
- to cabin; soon were licking at the walls and furniture of the social hall.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane left Dawley Kane and Tex Conner—an oddly matched couple—manning
- the hose, others at work with the chemical extinguishers, while he went
- forward through the thickening smoke to the bridge.
- </p>
- <p>
- Captain Benjamin said, huskily, almost apologetically—his eyes red
- and staring, his face haggard: “I'm beaching her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And in another moment she struck, where the channel ran close under an
- island.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lowering the boats without a crew proved difficult. Already the fire had
- reached those forward. Doane, the other mate and MacKail did what they
- could. The Chinese women crowded hither and thither, screaming, rendering
- order impossible. In the confusion one boat drifted off with only Connor,
- the Manila Kid, and Miss Carmichael.
- </p>
- <p>
- Captain Benjamin was cut off by the quick progress of the flames. The
- whole forward end of the cabin structure was now a roaring furnace,
- fortunately working forward on the down-stream breeze rather than aft. The
- flames blazed from moment to moment higher; sparks danced higher yet; the
- heat was intense. Doane sent the viceroy and his suite below, aft, where
- the deck was still strewn with bodies and slippery with blood. With three
- available boats, fighting back the crowding women and the more excitable
- among his excellency's secretaries, he sent ashore, first the women, then
- his excellency and the men. Hui Fei—she had slipped hastily into the
- little Chinese costume she wore at their midnight talk, and had thrown
- about it an opera cloak from New York—went in one of the first
- boats; Doane himself handed her in. The two teachers, pale, very composed,
- followed. At the oars were two of the customs men, faces streaked with
- grime and sweat.
- </p>
- <p>
- To his excellency, as the last boats got away, Doane said: “I will follow
- you soon. I must look once more for the captain.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will send back a boat,” said the viceroy.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane ran up to the upper and promenade decks. There was no sound save the
- roaring and crackling of the fire. There seemed no chance of getting
- forward. In the large after cabin stood the six-fold Ming screen. Quickly
- he folded it; there seemed a chance of getting it ashore. He thought, with
- a passing regret, of the <i>pi</i> of jade; but there was no reaching his
- own cabin now. He stepped out on deck. There, clear aft, leaning against
- the cabin wall, stood Rocky Kane, like a man half asleep, rubbing his
- eyes; and crouching against his knee, clinging to his hand, was the little
- princess in her gay golden yellow vest over the flowered skirt and her
- quaint hood of fox skin.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane caught the young man's shoulder; swung him about; looked closely
- into the dull eyes with the tiny pupils.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So!” he cried, “that again, eh!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can't understand”—thus Rocky—“I don't see how it could have
- happened. It couldn't have been my fault.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane saw now that his head had been burned above one ear; and the hand
- that pressed his face was blistered white.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It <i>wasn't</i> my fault! I found myself out on deck. I tried to get the
- hose.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I saw you. Quick—get below.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane tenderly lifted the little princess.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky was still incoherently talking; promising reform; blaming himself in
- the next breath after hotly defending himself. His voice was somewhat
- thick. He was drowsy—swayed and stumbled as he moved toward the
- stairs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane, speaking gently in Chinese to the child, stood a moment
- considering. The heat was becoming intolerable. It wouldn't do to keep the
- little one here. He carried her down the stairs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Below, the boy faced him. “I'm no good,” he whimpered. “I can't wake up.
- Hit me—do something—I won't be like this.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane considered him during a brief instant. They were standing under a
- light, their feet slipping on the deck, bodies lying about. With the flat
- of his hand, then, Duane struck the side of the boy's head that was not
- burned; struck harder than he meant, for the boy went down, and then,
- after sprawling about, got muttering to his feet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's all right!” he cried unsteadily. “I asked you to do it. I'm going to
- get hold of myself. I've been no good—rotten. I've touched bottom.
- But I'm going to fight it out—get somewhere.” His egotism, even now
- amazingly held him. Even as he spoke he was dramatizing himself. But his
- pupils were widening a little; he was in earnest, crying bitterly out of a
- drugged mind and conscience. And Doane, looking down at him, felt stirring
- in his heart, though curiously mixed with a twinge of jealousy for his
- youth and the hopes before him, something of the sympathy his long deep
- experience had instilled there toward blindly struggling young folk. Boys,
- after all, were normally egotists. And Heaven knew this boy had so far
- been given no sort of chance!
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane led the way clear aft. The heat was terrific. From a row of fire
- buckets he sprinkled the little princess; bathed her temples. The water
- was warm, but it helped.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Kane, with a nervous movement, suddenly picked up one, then another,
- of the buckets and dashed them over himself. Distinctly he was coming to
- life. “We may never come out of this, Mr. Doane,” he said. “It's a
- terrible fix.” More and more, as he came slowly awake, he was dramatizing
- the situation and himself. “But I want to say this. I've never known a man
- like you. You're fine—you're big—you've helped me as no one
- else has. I'll never be like you—it isn't in me. I've already gone
- as close to hell as a man can go and perhaps still save himself—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can you swim?” asked Doane shortly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I—why, yes, a little. I'm not what you'd call a strong swimmer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane was wetting the princess's face and his own. There would be little
- time left. There was smoke now. He found a slight difficulty in breathing;
- evidently the fire had eaten through, forward, to the lower decks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They won't be able to get a boat back here,” he said, and quietly pointed
- out the still blazing pieces of board that, after whirling into the air,
- were drifting by. A terrific blast of heat swept about them, indicating a
- change of wind.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait here a moment for me,” he added. “I must make one more effort to
- find Captain Benjamin. If that fails, we can swim ashore.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He tried working his way forward when the heat proved too great in the
- corridor, climbing out on the windward side of the hull. But the flames
- were eating steadily aft; he could not get far. Beaten back, he returned
- to the stem to discover that the child and Rocky Kane were gone. After a
- moment he saw them in the water, a few rods away, first a gleam of yellow
- that would be the jacket of the little princess, then their two heads
- close together.
- </p>
- <p>
- He lowered himself down a boat-line and swam after them. In the water this
- giant was as easily at home as in any form of exercise on land. Within the
- year he had swum at night, alone, for the sheer vital pleasure the use of
- his strength brought him, the nine miles from Wusung to Shanghai—slipping
- between junks and steamers, past the anchored war-ships and a great P.
- & O. liner from Bombay. The water was cool, refreshing. He stretched
- his full length in it, rolling his face under as one arm and then the
- other reached out in slow powerful strokes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Kane was having no easy time of it. He was clearly out of wind. And
- the child whimpered as she clung tightly about his neck.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I gave you up,” he sputtered weakly. Then added, with an evidence of
- spirit that Doane found not displeasing: “No, don't take her, please! Just
- steady me a little.” He was struggling in short strokes, splashing a good
- deal. “We ought to touch bottom now pretty quick.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Sampans and the boats of the cormorant fishers were edging into the wide
- circle of light about the steamer. Along the shore of the island clustered
- the groups of mandarins, their silk and satin robes forming a bright spot
- in the vivid picture.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane found the sand then; walked a little way and helped the nearly
- exhausted boy to his feet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They're coming down the shore,” said Rocky, trying, without great
- success, to speak casually.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane looked up and saw them running—white men, Chinese servants,
- mandarins holding up their robes, women, and last, walking rapidly, his
- excellency.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was Hui Fei, throwing off her cloak and running lightly ahead, who took
- the frightened child from young Kane's arms and carried her tenderly up
- the bank. There as the attendants gathered anxiously about them, she
- tossed the child high, petted her, kissed her, until the tears gave place
- to laughter. The tall eunuch wrapped the little princess then in his own
- coat; and Hui Fei accepted the opera cloak that transformed her again in
- an instant from a slimly quaint Manchu girl to a young woman of New York.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane stood by. Toward him she did not look. But to Rocky Kane, who lay on
- the bank, she turned with bright eagerness. He got, not without effort, to
- his feet.
- </p>
- <p>
- Smiling—happily, it seemed to the bewildered, brooding Doane—she
- gave him her hand; led him to meet her father.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have met Mr. Kane,” she said. “It was he who save' little sister. He
- risk' his life to bring her here, father.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky, throwing back his hair and brushing the water from his eyes, stood,
- his sensitive face working nervously, very straight, very respectful, and
- took the hand of the viceroy.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was, then, manhood in him. The viceroy recognized the fact in his
- friendly smile. Hui Fei plainly recognized it as she walked, chatting
- brightly, at his side, while he bent on her a gaze of boyish adoration.
- </p>
- <p>
- As for Doane, he moved away unobserved; dropped at length on a knoll,
- rested his great head on his hands, and gazed out at the blazing steamer.
- She would soon be quite gone. Poor Benjamin was gone already; a strange
- little man, one of the many that drift through life without a sense of
- direction, always bewildered about it, always hoping vaguely for some
- better lot. It had been a tragic night; and yet all this horror would soon
- seem but an incident in the spreading revolution. It had always been so in
- China. In each rebellion, as in the mighty conquests of the Mongols and
- the Manchus, death had stalked everywhere with a casual terribleness. Life
- meant, at best, so little. Genghis Khan's men had boasted of slaying
- twenty millions in the northwestern provinces alone within the span of a
- single decade. The new trouble must inevitably run its course; and what a
- course it might prove to be! From the mere effort to face this immediate
- future Doane found his mind recoiling; much as strong minds were to
- recoil, only three years later, when the German army should march through
- Belgium.
- </p>
- <p>
- He gave up that problem, came down to the particular thought of this
- swiftly growing new love that had stolen into his heart. The hope of
- personal happiness had passed now. Self seemed, like the life to which it
- so eagerly clung, not to matter. Instead that hope was growing into a
- profound tenderness toward the girl. She was, after all—the thought
- came startlingly—about the age of his own daughter, Betty, whom he
- had not seen during these three strange years. Betty and her journalist
- husband would be somewhere in Turkestan now; he was studying central Asia
- for a book, she sketching the native types. For a long time no letter had
- come.... It was a fine experience, this unbidden stir of the emotions,
- this thrill. There was mystery in it, and wonder. Merely to have that
- almost youthful responsiveness still at call within his breast was an
- indication that life might yet hold, even for him, the derelict, rich
- promise. And it was a reminder, now, to his clearing brain that his life
- must be service. He must find terms on which to offer himself, his gifts.
- His spirit had been molded, after all, to no lesser end.
- </p>
- <p>
- The viceroy drew away then from the group about the child; came
- deliberately along the bank. The increasing tenderness Doane felt toward
- Hui Fei reached also to her father, who was facing with such fine dignity
- the grim ending of a richly useful life. Now, perhaps, he could plead with
- him for the daughter's sake. Somehow, certainly, happiness must be found
- for her. In pleading he would be serving her.
- </p>
- <p>
- His brain was swinging into something near balance; it was, after all, a
- good brain, trained to function clearly, mellowed through patient years of
- unhappiness. It would help him now to fight for the girl, to save her, if
- he might, from the dark ways of the Forbidden City. She called herself so
- naively an “American.” The West had thrilled her. She must not be given
- over to the eunuch, Chang.
- </p>
- <p>
- So, even as he contrived a sort of self-control, even as he determined to
- forget his own little moment of romantic hopefulness, the lover within him
- stood triumphant over all his other selves.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VII—THE INSCRUTABLE WEST
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>OANE knew nothing
- of the dignified figure he presented as he took the viceroy's hand, a
- profoundly sobered giant, his huge frame outlined beneath his wet garments
- like a Greek statue of an athlete.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have helped to save the life of my child, Griggsby Doane”—thus
- his excellency, in what proved to be a little set speech—“and with
- all my heart I thank you. I am old. Little time is left to me. But life
- follows upon death. Death is the beginning of life. It has been said by
- Chuang Tzü that the personal existence of man results from convergence of
- the vital fluid, and with its dispersion comes what we term death.
- Therefore all things are one. All vitality exists in continuing life. And
- I, when what I have thought of as my self arrives at dispersion, shall
- live on in my children. My words are inadequate. My debt to you is beyond
- my power to repay. Command me. I am your servant.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane bowed, hearing the words, catching something of the warm gratitude
- in the heart of the old man, yet at the same moment flogged on to action
- by the sense of passing time and present opportunity. It was no simple
- matter, it seemed, to approach this seasoned, calmly determined mind
- regarding the final personal matter of life and death. But he plunged at
- it; stating simply that he had heard the gossip of the impending tragedy,
- and that in conversing with the lovely Hui Fei, who was in obvious
- difficulty in existing between the two greatest civilizations without a
- solid footing in either, he could not bear to think of her possible fate.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rang Yu listened attentively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your Excellency,” Doane pressed on, “it is not right that you should
- listen to the command of a decadent throne. Forgive my frankness, my
- presumption, but I must say this! True, you are a Manchu. While this
- revolution continues it will be difficult for you. But before another year
- shall have gone by there will be a new China. The bitter animosities of
- to-day will pass. Though a Manchu, your wise counsel will be needed. Your
- knowledge of the Western World will temper the over-emphatic policies of
- the young hot-heads from the universities of Japan.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The viceroy considered this appeal during a long moment; then, soberly, he
- looked up into the massive, strongly lined face of the white man and
- asked, simply: “But what would you have me do, Griggsby Doane?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your Excellency knows of the plan to seize your property?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Kang inclined his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you go on to your home, it may be that everything will be taken, even
- the money on your person.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Kang bowed again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, Your Excellency, why not now—while you yet have the means to
- do so—escape down the river with your daughter and myself? Can you
- not trust yourself and her in my hands? I will find means to convey you
- safely to Shanghai—perhaps to Japan or Hong Kong—where you
- will be secure until further plans may be laid.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Griggsby Doane,” replied the viceroy with simple candor, “you speak
- indeed as a friend. And I would be false to the blood that flows in my
- veins did I not prize the friendship of man for man, second only to the
- love of a son for a parent, above every other quality in life. Friendship
- is most properly the theme of many of the noblest poems in our language.
- It is to us more than your people, who place so strong an emphasis on love
- between the sexes, can perhaps bring themselves to understand. And
- therefore, Griggsby Doane, your feeling toward myself and my daughter
- moves my heart more deeply than I can express to you.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is not surprising that news of my sorrow—of this sad ending that
- is set upon my long life—should have reached you. But since you know
- so much, I will tell you, as friend to friend, more. Do you know why this
- sentence has been passed upon me? It is because I could not bring myself
- to obey the order of the throne that the republican agitator, Sun Shi-pi
- who had sought sanctuary at my yamen in Nanking should be at once
- beheaded. Instead I sent for Sun Shi-pi to counsel him. I permitted him to
- go to Japan on condition that he engage in no conspiracies and that he
- remain away. Instead of complying with my condition he hastened to
- organize revolutionary propaganda. He returned to China, appeared in
- disguise on the steamer that is burning out yonder, and is now dead,
- there, in his republican uniform.”
- </p>
- <p>
- So his information was complete! A picture rose in Doane's mind of the
- headless trunk of Sun Shi-pi amid the horrors of the lower deck.
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency continued: “I was denounced at the Forbidden City as a
- traitor. The sentence of death followed, in the form of an edict from the
- empress dowager in the name of the young emperor. Were I now to follow Sun
- Shi-pi into exile in a foreign land I would mark myself for all time as a
- traitor indeed; as one who, while sharing as an honored viceroy the
- prosperity and dignity of the reigning dynasty, conspired toward its
- downfall.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, Your Excellency, the empress dowager and the young emperor no longer
- speak with the voice of the Chinese people.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That could make no difference, Griggsby Doane. By edict of the Yellow
- Dragon Throne of Imperial China I have been instructed to go to my
- ancestors. My allegiance is only to that throne. I will obey.... Already,
- Griggsby Doane, you have done for me more than one can ever demand of a
- friend. And yet one more demand I must make upon you. There is no other to
- whom I can turn. I have no other friend to-night. Within a short time my
- secretaries will secure a launch or a junk to convey us to my home near
- Huang Chau. Will you come with us there?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane, surprised, bowed in assent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. The gratitude of myself and all my family and friends will
- remain with you. You are a princely man.... Until later, then, good night,
- Griggsby Doane.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was gone.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane walked farther along the bank; stood for a time absorbed in thought
- that led, at length, to what seemed a new ray of light in the darkness
- that was his mind. And he strode back, hunting in this group and that for
- Dawley Kane. That man had offered help. Now he could give it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dawley Kane, fully dressed, unruffled, quietly smoking a cigar and looking
- through a pocket notebook by the light from the river, seemed a note of
- sanity in an unbelievably confused world. To him, apparently, the
- nightmare of fighting and slaughter on the steamer, like the fire, were
- but incidents. The only evidence the man gave out of quickened nerves was
- that he talked a little more freely than usual. To Doane he presented a
- surface as clear and hard as polished crystal, impenetrable, in a sense
- repelling, yet, as we say, a gentleman.
- </p>
- <p>
- They even chatted casually, as men will, standing there looking out at the
- fire (which now had reached the stem and eaten down to the lower decks,
- incinerating alike the bodies of men who had died for faith and for lust)
- and at the wide circle of light on the rim of which floated the
- vulture-the boats of the rivermen. Doane forced himself into the vein of
- the man's interest; riding roughshod over a desperate sense of unreality.
- For he knew that the great masters of capital were often proud and even
- finicky men who must be approached with skill. They were kings; must be
- dealt with as kings.
- </p>
- <p>
- Kane was interested to learn what relation the fight below decks might
- have to the rebellion up the river. That, clearly, was characteristic of
- the man—the impersonal gathering in and relating of observable data.
- His interest was deeper in the agriculture and commerce of the immense
- Yangtze basin, to which subject he easily passed. His questions came out
- of a present fund of knowledge—questions as to the speed,
- cargo-capacity and operation-cost of the large junks that plied the river
- by thousands, as to the cost of employing Chinese labor and the average
- capacity of the coolie. He knew all about the slowly developing railroads
- of North and Central China; commented in passing on the surprising profits
- of the young Hankow-Peking line.... He seemed to Doane to have in his mind
- a map or diagram of a huge, profitmaking industrial world, to which he
- added such bits of line or color as occurred in the answers to his
- questions. But he gave out no conclusions, only questions. Famines, other
- wide-spread suffering so tragically common in the Orient, interested him
- only as an impairment of trade and industrial man power. The opium habit
- he viewed as an economic problem.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane, settling doggedly to his purpose, found himself analyzing the power
- of this quiet man. It lay of course, in the control of money. And money
- would be only a token of human energy. The religion of his own ardent
- years had taken no account of earthly energy or its tokens; it had
- directed the eyes of the bewildered seeker toward a mystical other world.
- Yet human life, in the terms of this earth, must go on. To this point he
- always came around, of late years, in his thinking, just as the church had
- always come around to it. Money was vital. The church was endlessly
- begging for it; in no other way could it survive to continue turning away
- the puzzled eyes of the seekers.
- </p>
- <p>
- And the immense energy created in the human struggle to live and prosper
- must continually be gathering up, here and there, into visible power that
- shrewd human hands would surely seize. He felt this now as a law. Religion
- had not left him. He felt more strongly than ever before that this
- miraculously continuing energy implied a sublime orderly force that
- transcended the outermost bounds of human intelligence. Religion was
- surely there: it only wanted discovering. It had, as surely, to do with
- primitive energy, with the heat of the sun and the disciplined rush of the
- planets, with the tragic struggle of human business, with work and war and
- sex and money.... And then he indulged in a half-smile. For this primitive
- undying energy could be no other than the Tao of Lao-tzu and Chuang Tzü.
- And so, after all these groping years of his errant faith, he had fetched
- up, simply in Taoism.
- </p>
- <p>
- But that law seemed to stand. The human struggle created power that tended
- to gather at convenient centers. And here beside him, smoking a cigar,
- stood a man whose uncommon genius fitted him to seize that power as it
- gathered and administer it; a man to whom money came—the very winds
- of chance heaped it about him. And to Doane, just now, money—even in
- quantity that would be to Kane hardly the income of a day or so—meant
- so much that the grotesque want of it (the word “grotesque” came) stopped
- his brain.
- </p>
- <p>
- For it was coming clear to him how completely the throne could at will,
- obliterate the worldly establishment of Kang Yu. That throne, however
- politically weak, yet held the savage instruments of despotic power.
- Kang's sad end would come within the twenty-four hours, perhaps; certainly
- he would wait only to prepare himself and to write his final papers. The
- eunuch's men would be everywhere about the household; nothing could be
- hidden from them, or from the spies among the servants.... With money—a
- little money—Hui Fei might be saved from an end as tragic as her
- father's.... The thing, surely, could be managed. For the moment it seemed
- almost simple. She could be spirted away. There might he missionaries to
- escort her down the river on one of the steamers.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was then, while Doane's thoughts still raced hither and thither, that
- Kane himself broached the vital topic.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This viceroy”—thus Kane—“seems to be quite a personage. He's
- been a diplomat, I believe. And Kato tells me has an excellent collection
- of paintings.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane felt himself turning into a trader. “You are interested in Chinese
- paintings, are you not, Mr. Kane?” he asked guardedly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes. I have something of a collection. And now and then Kato picks up
- something for me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know, of course, how far you would care to go with it Mr. Kane”—Doane
- was measuring every word as it passed his lips—“but there is a
- possibility that a bargain could be struck with his excellency at this
- time.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would be advisable to act pretty quickly, I should say.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well! This is interesting. You are informed about his collection?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In a general way. It is very well known out here. His collection of
- landscapes of the Tang and Sung periods is supposed to be the most
- complete in existence, with fine works of Ching Hao, Kuan Tung, Tung Yuan
- and Chu-jan. The best known paintings of Li Chang are his. He has several
- by Kao Ke-ming, and, I know, an original sixfold landscape screen by Kuo
- Hsi. Then there are works of the four masters of southern Sung—Li
- Tang, Lui Sungnian, Ma Yuen and Hsia Kuai. You would find nearly all the
- great men of the Academy represented.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane stopped; waited to see if this list of names impressed the great
- American. If he knew, in his own person, anything whatever about Chinese
- painting he must exhibit at least a little feeling. But Dawley Kane said
- nothing; merely lighted, with provoking deliberation, a fresh cigar.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is commonly understood, too”—Doane could not resist pressing him
- a little further—“that he has authentic paintings by Wu Tao-tzu, and
- Li Lung-mien.” Surely these two names would stir this man who seemed at
- moments no more than a calculating machine with manners. But Kane smoked
- on.... “And I understand that he has a fairly complete collection of
- portraits by the men of the Brush-strokes-reducing Method.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He finished rather lamely; fell silent, and looked out over the still
- brilliantly lighted river; the river of a hundred thousand dramatic scenes—battles
- and romances and struggles for trade—the great river with its
- endless memories of gold and bloodshed—the river that for a brief
- day was running red again. The fire out there, though red flame and
- rolling smoke and whirling sparks still roared upward, was consuming now
- the lower deck and the hull. Within the hour the <i>Yen Hsin</i> would be
- no more than a curving double row of charred ribs; one more casual memory
- of the river.
- </p>
- <p>
- Still Dawley Kane smoked on. He clearly knew no enthusiasm. He was an
- analyst, an appraiser, a trader to the core. He felt no discomfort, even
- in friendly talk, in letting the other man wait. But Doane would say no
- more. And finally, knocking the ash off his cigar with a reflective
- finger, Kane remarked; “You really think that this collection would be a
- good buy?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Unquestionably.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you any idea what he would ask?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't even know that he would consider selling it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But if he were properly approached.... there are reasons____”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know of his predicament?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I gather that there is a predicament.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh.... well, yes, there is. But I don't know how even to guess at the
- value. Many of the paintings are priceless. In New York, at collector's
- prices, and without hurrying the sale....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A hundred thousand dollars?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Many times more.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But if he is anxious to sell—must sell”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is that, of course.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A hundred thousand is a good deal of money. If I were to place that sum
- to his credit to-morrow, for instance, by wire, at a Shanghai bank, don't
- you suppose it would tempt him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It might. Though Kang knows the value of every piece.” Doane was finding
- difficulty in keeping pace with the situation. Kane would shave every
- penny, as a matter of principle. That, of course, explained him; was the
- secret of his wealth and power. Paintings, after all, mattered to him only
- in a remote sense; you could always buy them if you chose, if people
- would, as apparently they did, think better of you for buying them. It
- came down to the desirability of building up and solidifying one's name,
- of what Doane had heard spoken of everywhere in America during his last
- visit as “publicity.” The word irritated him. It suggested that other
- word, also heard everywhere in America, “salesmanship.” These words, to
- the sensitively observant Doane, had connoted an unpleasant blend of
- aggressive enterprise with an equally aggressive plausibility.
- </p>
- <p>
- But his wits were sharpening fast. If this man was a buyer, he would be a
- seller.
- </p>
- <p>
- “His excellency has another collection that might or might not interest
- you—the value of it would be only slightly artistic—his
- precious stones.” Doane threw this cut carelessly. “There is no estimating
- the value of those. It might run into the millions....” He saw Kane's eyes
- come to a sudden hard focus behind the veil of smoke. He was really
- interested at last. And Doane, with mounting pulse, quietly added, “He has
- historical jewels from many parts of Asia—head ornaments, bracelets,
- ropes of matched pearls from Ceylon, old careen jade from Khotan,
- quantities of the jewelry taken from Khorassan and Persia by Genghis Khan
- and his sons, including a number of famous royal pieces, and some of the
- jeweled ornaments brought from the temples of India by Kublai Khan.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This, Doane knew, was enough. He waited, now, himself. Waited and waited.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Doane”—Kane, at last, was speaking—“I would be glad to
- have you approach the viceroy for me. To-night, if you think best. I will
- be glad, of course, to pay you a commission.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shall I make a definite offer—for the paintings and the jewels?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.” Kane considered. “Let him set a price. Then we will make our offer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is safe to say, Mr. Kane”—Doane was remembering experiences of
- men in church and educational work who had had to approach the great
- capitalists for gifts of money—“that you could sell half the
- paintings for what you might pay for the two collections at this time.
- That would enable you to give the other half, as a collection bearing your
- own name, to one of the art museums at home, at no cost to yourself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Kane smoked thoughtfully. “I presume, Mr. Doane,” he said, “that the
- predicament you spoke of can not interfere in any way with the safe
- delivery of the collections.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane considered. How much did this man know? That Japanese, behind his
- mask of a smile, would be deep, of course. With a sudden sinking of the
- heart, Doane perceived that Kane might easily know the whole story. But
- even if he did he would admit nothing. He trusted no one; that was his
- calm cynical strength. He would trade to the last.... Another swift, if
- random, perception of this tense moment was that much of the common talk
- regarding the “inscrutable” East was utter nonsense. Read in the light of
- history and habit the Oriental mind was anything but deeply mysterious; it
- was, indeed, very nearly an open book. Whereas the Western mind, with its
- miraculous religion, its sentimentality and materialism and (at the same
- time) its cynically unscrupulous financial power, could be baffling
- indeed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Desperate now, seeing no other way through, Doane spoke out from his
- tortured heart. “Mr. Kane, the simple fact is that his excellency has been
- condemned to death, and his daughter to a fate that will almost certainly
- end in death for her as well. They are seizing his property....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who are they?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Imperial Government—the empress dowager and her crew. They are
- sending the chief eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, to take his paintings and jewels,
- and his daughter, to Peking. Frankly, it may be necessary to hurry matters—smuggle
- the things out. But the fan paintings can be packed in parcels, the
- scrolls rolled small on their ivory sticks, the jewels gathered in a few
- boxes. Once in white hands they would be safe. I think. I believe I can
- arrange it. The porcelains and carvings you would probably have to leave
- behind.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His voice died out. Dawley Kane was coolly appraising him. Their minds
- were not meeting.
- </p>
- <p>
- “As you are stating it now, it is a different situation altogether,” said
- Kane, the ring of tempered metal in his voice. “Obviously the man to deal
- with is the eunuch, What's-his-name.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—really—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He would have the collections complete including the porcelains and the
- carvings. I should want them all. He would be ignorant and corrupt, of
- course; we could buy him for a song. And there would be no risk. Yes, let
- him get possession. Then if you would like to approach him for me I will
- be glad to see that you make something for yourself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane drew in his breath. Slowly he said: “But that, Mr. Kane, seems a
- good deal like taking a profit out of the viceroy's misfortune.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But he caught himself. To Kane, who had made enormous profits out of
- wrecked railways, who had cornered stocks and produce and mercilessly
- squeezed the short sellers, this would be sentimentality.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane heard himself saying: “I'm sorry. I could hardly undertake it, Mr.
- Kane.” And walked away. His failure was complete. Worse, if there had been
- any gaps in the information supplied by the ubiquitous little Kato, they
- were filled now. The finely balanced machine that served so smoothly as a
- brain in the head of the great American, would be working on and on.
- Through the Japanese he could easily enough reach Chang Yuan-fu from
- Hankow after the tragedy that now hovered so close over the old viceroy
- and all that was his. He could make what he and his suave kind would
- doubtless regard—the slang word came grimly—as a killing.
- </p>
- <p>
- The white men had made a small fire of dry rushes and thwarts from the
- boats. There sat Hui Fei, the sleeping little princess in her arms; and,
- beside her, Rocky Kane. Near by, where the men had spread coats on the
- ground, Miss Means and Miss Andrews slept side by side.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane walking toward the group—stopping, moving away only to turn
- irresolutely back—saw young Kane reach over and take the child into
- his own arms, and saw Hui Fei smile at him. He strode away then,
- struggling to believe that she could do that. But she had.... After all,
- she knew only that he had acted outrageously toward her, had then
- apologized publicly, boyishly, and now had brought her little sister
- ashore, himself falling exhausted on the bank. With those few facts, out
- of her impulsively young judgment she could strike a balance in his favor.
- Even at his worst he had bluntly admired her; for that she might, in the
- end, forgive him. And his youth would call to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Deane, indeed, forced himself to consider the boy dispassionately. The
- wild oats of any spoiled youth with too much money at his disposal, if
- brought together, and closely scrutinized, would make an appalling
- showing. Wild young men did, of course, recover. There was in this boy a
- note of intensity—passionate, eager—that was by no means all
- egotism. And there was in the father a hard sort of character that had
- proved itself indomitable, and that must be taken into account. Yes, it
- was a simple fact, that many a young fellow had gone farther wrong than
- had Rocky Kane without wrecking his adult life. You couldn't tell. And
- there they were, the eager moody boy and the lovely girl, who was oddly,
- quaintly conspicuous in her opera wrap, sitting very close, talking in low
- tones while he walked alone. It was torture.... yet it wras an awakening.
- He told himself that it was better so... Pacing back and forth, dwelling
- on the quick changeableness of youth, its ardor and sensitive hopefulness,
- he thought—reaching out for fellowship as will always the hurt soul—of
- other lonely lives, of Abelard and Jean Valjean, of St. Francis, even of
- Christ. It was odd—from his present philosophical position of
- something near Taoism he felt the legendary Christ as a profoundly human
- and friendly spirit, immeasurably more tender, finer, gentler than the
- theological structure of thought and conduct that had been erected in His
- name. He had thought himself very nearly around the circle, back to
- essential good.... This process could bring only humility. Life began to
- matter less. Love was a tormenting problem of self; the mature soul must
- in some measure attain selflessness if it were not to go down in the
- trampled dust of life. Worldly success was an accident. It was hardly
- desirable; hardly mattered. That he had within the hour pinned his hope to
- money, fairly fought for it, began to seem incredible.
- </p>
- <p>
- The viceroy found him standing quietly by the river, turning from the
- slowly dying fire out there to the slowly spreading glow in the eastern
- sky.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I like to think,” remarked his excellency, smiling in friendly fashion,
- “that when the first Buddhist patriarch, Bodhidharma, miraculously crossed
- the river on a reed plucked from the southern bank, it was not far from
- here, near my home.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Was not your city of Huang Chau the home of Li To?” asked Doane.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed, yes!” cried his excellency. “In some of his excursions on the
- river he undoubtedly passed the site of my home.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane quoted from that most famous of rhapsodists in musical Chinese:
- “'One who has hearkened to the waters roaring down from the heights of
- Lung, and faint voices from the land of Ch'in; one who has listened to the
- cries of monkeys on the shores of the Yangtze Kiang and the songs of the
- land of Pa'.... That”—he was musing aloud, reflectively as the
- Chinese do—“was written three full centuries before William of
- Normandy first set foot on British soil.... Li Po so described himself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They talked on, of life and philosophy, in, language interwoven with
- classical allusions. Friendship, the finest relationship in Chinese
- civilization, as it stood, had come to them.... It brought a kind of
- peace. Doane failed to recognize this sensation as in some degree but a
- phase of his painful exaltation. It seemed to him then that his struggle,
- no matter what atonement might lie before, was over. He forgot again the
- Western vigor that was, and to the last would be, driving his spirit.
- </p>
- <p>
- Meanwhile the swiftly growing acquaintanceship of Huj Fei and Rocky Kane
- was weaving its bright-tinted weft in and out through the dark warp of
- Rocky's ill-spent youth. His eyes followed the slightest movement of her
- slim hands and rested dog-like on her finely modeled head about which the
- shining wet black hair lay close. To his quick youth she was an exquisite
- fairy. He felt her as perfume in the air he breathed. Her voice, when she
- drowsily, prettily spoke, fell on his ear like music in an enchanted land.
- He could say little; he had never before so lost himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- She tried daintily to conceal a yawn. And he, clasping the child in both
- arms, turned away to hide its brother. Then, very softly, she laughed and
- he laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must try to sleep,” he said gently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can no' let you keep my sister. You, too, are ver' tire'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's nothing. I love to hold her. Really! You see, my life hasn't been
- this way. Maybe, if I'd had a sister...” He stopped; suddenly, vividly
- sensing what he had been; a hot flush flooded his sensitive face. He could
- only add then: “I want you to sleep. It may be hours before the boat comes
- for you. It's been such a horrible night—such a nightmare....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you mus' res', too. One of the servan's will take my sister.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No!” he cried, low, fiercely, “I won't let any one else have her!”
- Sensing crudely that the child was a chord between them, he tightened his
- hold. The little head rolled back on his arm; he bent over, tenderly
- kissed the soft cheek, then looked over it at Hui Fei, staring. During one
- brief moment their eyes met full in the flickering yellow light.
- </p>
- <p>
- She turned away; in lieu of speech looked about for a spot to lay her
- head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here!” He laid the child on the ground; and, surprised to find himself
- collarless and coatless, took off his waistcoat, rolled it up and placed
- it for a pillow. “It's really pretty well dried out,” he added, with an
- embarrassed little laugh.... Then, as she still said nothing, went on, “Do
- just lie down there. I'll keep awake. We can't count on the servants;
- they're all scared to death.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Still she hesitated. “I'm afraid I am ver' tire',” she finally remarked
- unsteadily. “I can't think ver' clearly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen!” said he, hardly hearing. “I've got to tell you something. I'm
- not good enough so much as to speak to you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please!” she murmured. “I don' wan' you to talk abou'—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't mean that. It's other things too.” His voice broke, but after a
- moment he pressed on, a determined look on his curiously youthful face.
- “I've done every rotten thing I could think of. I'm—well, I guess
- I'm just a criminal. No, listen—please! It's true. I'm to blame for
- this awful fire—smoking opium in my cabin. It was my lamp—it
- must have been. I fell asleep. But I knew better, of course.... Oh, God,
- it's terrible! All those lives, all this suffering! And you—I've
- nearly killed you—when it was you....” Here, creditably, he caught
- himself. “Don't think I'm talking wildly. I'm getting at something. Seeing
- you, meeting you—and now, this—well, I've never seen anybody
- like you. It's bowled me off my feet. I know what love is, now—Oh,
- please! I've got to get this out. I love you. I'm crazy about you. I can
- say that because pretty soon that boat'll come and you'll go and I'll
- never see you again. It's right, too! I've got to start again—alone
- and prove that there's good stuff in me somewhere...”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm ver' tire',” she murmured wistfully; and resting her head on the
- rolled-up waistcoat she lay still.
- </p>
- <p>
- If she had only let him finish! There had been something—some point—he
- was getting at. He hadn't meant to tire her or hurt her.... When the tall
- eunuch came for the little princess he angrily drove the fellow away. For
- Hui Fei was sleeping now, peacefully, like the warm little child in his
- arms.
- </p>
- <p>
- An English gunboat was the first relief craft to arrive; in the cool dawn;
- a tiny craft, built for the river, with a white freeboard low as a
- monitor's and bridge structure forward of the thin high funnel. The small
- boat that came ashore made a number of trips, taking off the passengers
- and the surviving white officers of the <i>Yen Hsin</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency refused, with calm courtesy, to set foot on the English
- gunboat that was built for the river; he would wait for the junk that had
- been sent for.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dawley Kane found his son, nodding, with the picturesquely-clad child in
- his arms. The boy, glancing at the sleeping Hui Fei whose head rested
- comfortably on the rolled-up waistcoat, gave the child now to the
- patiently waiting eunuch, then fairly dragged his father to the boat. With
- the Japanese, Kato, and oddly distant to the big mate and the suddenly
- exotic-appearing viceroy in his richly embroidered satins who had been
- after all only casually, for a few days, in their lives, they embarked.
- </p>
- <p>
- They had nearly reached the gunboat when those on the bank heard young
- Kane's voice raised in hot protest. There was a moment of argument; then a
- splash. The boy could be seen then swimming back to shore. And Dawley
- Kane, turning his back, went on to the gunboat, stepped aboard, and
- disappeared. Rocky clambered, dripping, up the bank; came straight to
- Duane, a staring, exhausted youth, very white.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can't do it.” he panted. “They've just told me—Kato and the pater—about
- this terrible trouble of the viceroy's and—and Miss Hui Fei's....
- The pater said it was time I—got clear of any new entanglement. I
- quit him. Oh, I suppose you'll think me a—damn fool, but”—at
- this point he nearly broke into tears—“but I love that girl, Mr.
- Doane! If I can't be of some use to her—now, in this awful trouble—I
- don't want to live. Will you—help me? And let me help?”.... And, all
- blind confidence, he offered his hand to the big mate; who took it.
- </p>
- <p>
- The gunboat hoisted anchor and swung about, heading down-stream. Passing
- her, upward bound, came a large junk, with the rig of a trader from
- Szechuen, her single huge rectangular sail, brown-umber 'n tint and
- closely ribbed with battens of bamboo, flat against the one mast that
- towered clumsily amidships. The eight long sweeps, in the low waist and
- forward, moved rhythmically in time with the syncopated, wailing chant of
- nearly a hundred oarsmen. The <i>tai-kung</i> crouched, bamboo pole in
- hand, just within the prow.
- </p>
- <p>
- The hull was of cypress, stained from stem to stern with yellow orpiment
- and rubbed to a polish with oil. The high after-deck structure, all of
- fifty feet in length, terminating in a projecting gallery-twenty feet or
- higher above the water, was carved everywhere in intricately decorative
- designs; as were, also, the roof over the tillerman's stand on the deck
- house and the gallery railing (just within which stood a row of flowering
- plants in yellow and green pots). The many small windows along the sides
- were glazed with opalescent squares of ground oyster shells and glue;
- those across the stern (under the gallery) with stained glass.
- </p>
- <p>
- To no one aboard the gunboat or among the still waiting groups on the bank
- did the thought occur that this craft might be engaged in other than
- peaceable business. Her like were not an uncommon sight along the always
- crowded river. The passing attention she drew was merely that aroused by a
- richly decorative object moving beautifully (with a remarkably detailed
- reflection) through the flat water, that itself glowed under the red and
- gold of the early morning sky like a great sheet of burnished old copper.
- It was not observed that three white faces peered warily out of the
- shadow, behind as many opened windows; nor could it easily be seen that
- the figure in blue, sitting, knees drawn up, on the deck house just behind
- the <i>laopan</i> who mercilessly urged on the sweat-shining oarsmen, was
- none other than the redoubtable Tom Sung.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VIII—ABOARD THE YELLOW JUNK
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N making their
- escape from the steamer, Tex Connor and the Manila Kid seized one of the
- small boats, manning, one at either end, the tackle-falls. Connor was
- quick, rough, profane. The Kid, breathless with excitement, hesitant,
- glancing back over the rail for a thinly girlish face that did not, then,
- appear, worked with ten thumbs at the ropes. Connor's end, the boat, fell
- first, a short way, nearly pitching him out. He cursed this futile man,
- his jackal, roundly; then clung to the tackle as the stern fell.... The
- Kid moaned with pain as the slipping hemp burned the skin off his fingers,
- but held it just short of disaster.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hot red flames licked out overhead as the boat jerkily dropped. The women
- were screaming up there. A white man, the second mate, leaned over,
- swearing vigorously at them. They passed an open freight gangway, where
- bodies lay.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ready, now!” cried Connor. “Let go with me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait a minute, can't you?” whined the Kid. He was peering into the dark
- interior of the steamer; grasping a moment more; wrapping a handkerchief
- about his left hand. “My God! Can't a fellow tie up his hand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A thin blue figure appeared, stepped lightly over into the boat and
- dropped on a middle thwart.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dixie!” cried the Kid in falsetto.
- </p>
- <p>
- She wore a cap, and carried an oddly lady-like shopping bag.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where'd you come from?” growled Connor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I saw you start,” said the girl casually. “Come on—let's get away.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Connor stared at her; then turned back to his work. The boat struck the
- water and drifted rapidly away down-stream. Connor, roaring angrily at the
- Kid, got out an oar.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you doing?” asked Miss Carmichael very quietly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Going ashore?” said Connor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, come, Tex!” said she. “Use your head.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked sharply, inquiringly, doubtingly at her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You two better row straight down-stream as hard as you can,” she added.
- “You can bet Tom Sung and that gang aren't going to show themselves at Kiu
- Kiang. They've stopped somewhere below here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid, who was nursing his hand, looked up; wrinkled his low forehead
- that was hatless, and then softly whistled. Connor made no remark, but
- continued studying the girl with his one eye. Finally, with an effort at
- reasserting his authority, he growled:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take an oar, Jim!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But my hands! My God, that rope took all the—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you expect me to do the rowing, Jim?” said Miss Carmichael.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid yielded then. The girl settled herself comfortably in the stem,
- looking back at the fire. Soon they were out of the circle of light.
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly Connor drew in his oar; stowed it away.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dixie,” he remarked. “You've made up your mind to go through with this
- business, eh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly,” she replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll have to come across if you want my help. I won't go it blind.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Carmichael glanced back at the red glow in the sky, then out toward
- the slightly paling East.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll tell you by sunrise,” she said. “The thing won't keep much longer
- than that, anyhow. It'll have to be fairly quick work.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All right,” said Connor. “That's an agreement. Now I'm going to take a
- nap. This current's taking us down fast enough. When you sight Tom's
- outfit, wake me up.” With which he curled up in the bow, and soon was
- snoring.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid stowed his own oar, and crept to the girl's side.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Careful!” she whispered. “If he should wake up....” She extricated
- herself from an encircling arm. “Jim—sit still now!—It's time
- you and I had an understanding. I need you, and I'm going to use you. I
- don't propose to have you all steamed up, either. You'll need all the
- nerve you've got. Perhaps more. I'm not at all sure that you're big enough
- for what you've got to do. That's the difficulty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You promised, Dixie.” He was still absurdly breathless. “You said it was
- a trade—if I'd stick to you, you'd stick to me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly. But it's during the next eight or ten hours that you're going
- to find out what sticking to me, means. You can have me, all right, Jim,
- but you've got to earn me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I guess I'll earn you, all right.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder if you have the courage.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By God, for you, Dixie—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her hand fell lightly on his; and her voice, very small and calm, broke in
- with: “Supposing I told you to kill a man. Would you do it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She heard, felt, his breath stop. Then he whispered, with one swift glance
- at the sleeping Connor: “If I say yes, Dixie, will you kiss me? Right now?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She pressed her lips slightly; then replied: “No. Not yet. And you needn't
- kill anybody until I tell you to.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it—is it”—his whisper was huskier—“is it—him,
- Dixie?” He was staring with less certainty now, at Connor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No”—said she slowly—“nobody in particular. But anything may
- happen to-night, Jim. And we can't falter. Not now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She let him press her hand during a brief moment; then made him resume his
- seat. And from behind lowered lids she watched him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Once he came back, to ask hoarsely: “You said he was rough with you, Dix.
- Did he—did you and he—my God, if I thought that Tex had—”
- </p>
- <p>
- She caught his shoulder and placed a hand over his mouth: held him thus
- while she said: “If he catches you back here, Jim, he'll kill you. No
- fear! Now you go back there and show me that you can play cards. You're
- sitting in the biggest game of your life. Jim Watson.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He crept back; puzzled, something hurt. There was a sting in her voice.
- Could it be that the girlish Dixie was as cold-blooded as that? Treating
- him like a child! Hadn't she any feelings? The question came around and
- around in his muddy brain, confused with frantic uprushes of jealousy
- against the big man who slept and snored in the bow.... hadn't she any
- feelings?.... She was excitingly desirable.
- </p>
- <p>
- Just as a conquest, now; something to brag about.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was Dixie who sighted the soldiers, sitting in heated argument on the
- bank not a hundred yards below a big junk that lay moored to stakes in an
- eddy. She called sharply to Connor; they pulled straight in beside the
- other two boats.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom Sung came to the water's edge, a rifle (with set bayonet) in his hand.
- Connor stepped out, holding the boat. The Kid, with a furtive, glance at
- the big yellow fighter, and the abruptly silent shadowy group on the bank,
- cautiously got out an automatic pistol and held it beside him on the
- thwart.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dixie said sharply, for Connor's ears: “Put up that gun, Jim!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid obeyed.
- </p>
- <p>
- She spoke then to Connor direct.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell your man we want that junk,” she said. “Get out these other boats
- and take it, quick. Then we'll start back up-stream.”
- </p>
- <p>
- For a moment Connor was nonplussed. The girl's assumption of authority was
- complete. Even the slow-thinking Tom Sung felt her presence and turned
- abruptly from himself toward her.
- </p>
- <p>
- But, though angered, Connor controlled himself. She meant, after all,
- business. Dixit wasn't a girl to make careless mistakes. She knew, none
- better, what any success, little or big, might be worth in risks run. So,
- speaking sharply, he gave his orders to Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- Quietly the twenty or more outlaw soldiers came down to the boats and
- pushed off. Rowing and paddling they crept up on the junk. A drowsy
- watchman peeped over at the rail, forward.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then they were alongside. Catching at the mooring poles, the soldiers
- stepped out on the wide sponson that curved down, amidships, nearly to the
- water-line. Quickly, rifles slung on backs but revolvers at their girdles
- and knives in their teeth, they went up the ropes hand over hand, their
- bare feet dinging monkeylike to the smooth side.
- </p>
- <p>
- There were cries aboard now, and a confusion of running feet. The first
- soldier to get a leg over the rail came tumbling back with a split skull,
- bounding off the sponson into the water and sinking as he drifted away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Connor and the Kid caught together at the sponson. Connor stepped out; and
- calling on a belated soldier to give him a back, climbed laboriously,
- puffing but determined, up over the rail, pausing at the top only to call
- back for the Kid to follow.
- </p>
- <p>
- But that worthy hesitated, crouching, clutching at the boat painter. “I've
- got to hold the boat here!” he shouted back; but Connor had disappeared.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was much noise up there now—shouts, groans, appalling
- screeches, shots, and that insistent pattering of feet.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dixie, watching critically the crouching figure on the sponson—for
- the Kid was shivering and making little sounds, obviously caught in the
- acute physical distress into which extreme sudden fear will at times
- plunge a man—called abruptly: “Jim—look up!”
- </p>
- <p>
- A nearly naked Chinese was lowering himself in a deliberate gingerly
- manner down a moving rope nearly overhead.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kill him, Jim!” Dixie added.
- </p>
- <p>
- Singling out her clear voice from the tumult, the yellow man looked
- fearfully down.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid, at the same moment, looked up; then, fumbling in a curiously
- absent way for his pistol, glanced back at Dixie.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll hold the boat,” said she. “Go on—kill him!” She sat quietly,
- one thin arm reached out to the nearest mooring pole, looking steadily up.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid, nerving himself, suddenly burst into a storm of wild oaths and
- shot three times into the body above him. At the first shot the man
- slipped down a little way.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Push him away!” Dixie cried sharply. “I don't want him falling into the
- boat!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was shooting again; and then with an effort diverted the falling body.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dixie got up, and stood steadying herself in the gently rocking boat; and
- the Kid—quit; out of breath now, and muttering, as he fondled the
- hot pistol, “Well, I did it, didn't I? I did what you said!”—found
- in her eyes, shining through the dusk of early dawn, a bright white light
- that was, to him, disconcerting and yet profoundly thrilling. He shivered
- again as he felt the spell of her strange genius. What a woman, he was
- thinking again, but wildly, madly, now, to conquer.
- </p>
- <p>
- And she was saying, “I guess your nerve's all right.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Other shining yellow bodies were tumbling over the side and floating away.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Help me up there, Jim!” she commanded. “Never mind tying the boat—let
- it go! It's only a giveaway. Quick—give me a hand!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She was beside him on the sponson. He clasped her in his arms; but before
- he could kiss her she slapped him sharply. “Keep your head!” she
- commanded. “Put me up there!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He lifted her high; until she could kneel, then stand, on his shoulder.
- She went over the rail as lightly as a boy. She found the soldiers in
- small groups cornering one or another of the crew, torturing and hacking
- at them with bayonets and knives, and during a brief moment looked on with
- a curious keen interest. The master, or <i>laopan</i>, crouched,
- whimpering, on the poop.... She saw Connor standing by the mast, just
- above the well, amidships and forward, where were huddled the survivors
- among the crew (their number surprisingly large); Connor was panting,
- revolver in hand, and scowling about him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dixie stepped to his side.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You've got to save enough of this crew to work the boat up the river,
- Tex,” she remarked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm saving enough of 'em,” he replied gruffly. “We've only killed a dozen
- or so. There was more'n a hundred.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The heavily evil-looking Tom Sung reluctantly detached himself from one of
- the groups and came over, wiping his bayonet casually on his sleeve. Mr.
- Connor roughly ordered to gather his men together and make ready to get
- under way. To the Kid, who came awkwardly over the rail just then, Connor
- gave merely a glance. Then to Dixie, he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come up here!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He led the way up the steps with the carven hand rail to the poop; gave
- the <i>laopan</i> a careless kick; stepped around the steersman's covered
- pit and out astern on the high projecting gallery.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now,” he said, fixing his one eye on Her, “where's this place?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She turned away to the pots of flowers that stood closely spaced just
- within the elaborate woodwork of the railing. There were chrysanthemums,
- white, yellow and deep Indian red; highly cultivated double dahlias; red
- lotus blossoms; and tuberoses that filled the fresh morning air with their
- heavy perfume. “Well?” Connor added explosively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I said I'd tell you by sunrise, Tex,” she said, coolly pleasant; and
- hummed, very softly, a music-hall tune, bending over a spreading lotus
- blossom with every appearance of ingenuous girlish interest. After a
- moment, she went on, “The thing now is to get this junk up the river as
- fast as it will go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where to?” He was controlling his voice, but his face, usually
- expressionless, was brutally clouded...."Push me just a little farther,
- Dix, and you'll go overboard. And there won't be any flowers at the
- funeral. By God, I'm not sure I wouldn't enjoy it. You got me into this
- business! Now if you—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Better control yourself, Tex,” said she; straightening up before him. “I
- may have got you in, but it's a real job now. You've got to go through.
- And you're going to need me. The place is a few miles this side of a town
- called Huang Chau, on the north hank.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Beyond Hankow?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, below. It's only a matter of hours getting up there, if you'll just
- get this junk started.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How'll we know it when we get there?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All we've got to do is ask a native, anywhere along the bank, where Kang
- Yu lives—his old home.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who's he?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The viceroy of Nanking. Why don't you use that eye of yours once in a
- while, Tex—look around you a little?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly his mind, so quick at the vicious games of his own race, picked up
- and related the facts. His face relaxed, as he thought, into the familiar
- wooden expression.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're sure the stones are there?” he asked, quietly now.
- </p>
- <p>
- She nodded; hummed again; caressed the flowers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “All right, Dix,” he said then, as he turned to go forward, “that sounds
- square enough. I guess I can handle it all right. And I'll see that you
- get your share all hunky dory.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you figuring my share to be?” she asked, glancing casually up
- from a lotus blossom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” he cried without hesitation, almost playfully, “you and I aren't
- going to have any trouble about that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He went then; and she lingered among the flowers.
- </p>
- <p>
- From beyond the long deck house came shouts and wailing. The great sweeps
- were got overside. The mooring poles were hoisted out and lashed along the
- sponsons. The clumsy craft swung out into the river and moved slowly
- forward.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the sound of a hasty light step Dixie looked up into the haggard gray
- face of the Kid.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What was it?” he whispered, glancing fearfully behind him. “Wha'd he say
- to you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She dropped her eyes; turned away.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Quick! Tell me, or by God, I'll—”
- </p>
- <p>
- She threw up a frail white hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not now, Jim!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He'll have to sleep. There's work ahead.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you think <i>I</i> can sleep—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can't either, Jim. It's dreadful. But I'm going to tell you everything.
- You have a right to know. Wait till we're past the steamer. We'd better
- get below now anyhow. We mustn't be seen. If we aren't, they'll never
- suspect this junk. Then make sure he's asleep and come up here. I'll be
- waiting.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid brought Dixie's breakfast of rice and eggs and tea to the gallery.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The cook was only wounded a little,” he explained. “Tom's got him working
- now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Dixie was reclining on a Canton chair of green rushes over a bamboo frame,
- her head resting languidly near the tuberoses. Now and again she drew in
- deeply the rich odor. And beyond the fringe of flowers and the carven
- railing she could see the river. Junks moved slowly by, sliding down with
- the current—somber seagoing craft out of Tientsin and Cheefoo and
- Swatow and even Canton. By a village were clustered open sampans, and
- slipper-boats with their coverings of arched matting. The small craft of
- the fishermen with suspended nets or with roosting, crowding cormorants
- clustered here and there along the channel-way. Everywhere farmers and
- their coolies were at work in the fields. A family—father, mother,
- boys and girls—worked tirelessly with their feet a large irrigating
- wheel at the water's edge.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Kid seated himself on the deck and mournfully looked on while she ate.
- Perversely she delayed her narrative, playing with time and life. In her
- oblique way she was happy, exercising her gift for gambling on a scale new
- in her experience. Indeed, for the thrill she now experienced, Dixie
- Carmichael would have paid almost any price. Life itself—the mere
- existing—-she held almost as cheaply as the Chinese. Deliberately,
- with nerves steady as steel instruments, she finished her simple breakfast
- and then put the bowls aside on the deck.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lying back, averting her face, gazing off down the river, she began the
- narrative that she had framed within the hour. Her manner, calm at first,
- soon offered evidences of deeply suppressed emotion. Her voice exhibited
- the first unsteadiness the Kid had ever heard in it. She drew out an
- embroidered handkerchief from the pocket of her blouse and pressed it once
- or twice to her eyes, as, with an air of dogged determination, she talked
- on.
- </p>
- <p>
- The narrative itself dealt with her girlhood near San Francisco, her
- chance meeting with Tex Connor, then a well-known character on the western
- coast of America, her girlish infatuation with him, and an elopement that
- she had supposed would end in marriage. Instead she found her life ruined.
- Connor had beaten her, degraded her, driven her into vice. She ran away
- from him; reached the China Coast; settled down with every intent to
- become what she termed, in his and her language, a square gambler.
- </p>
- <p>
- “When I took up with you a little last year, Jim, it seemed to me that at
- last I'd found a man I could tie to. You never knew my real feelings. I'm
- not the kind that tells much or shows much. I guess perhaps my life's been
- too hard. But—oh, Jim!—well, you're, seeing the real girl now.
- I'm pretty well beaten down, Jim.... You're getting the truth from me at
- last. I've got to tell it—all of it—for your own sake. You're
- in worse trouble than you know, right now. The cards are stacked against
- you, Jim. Your life even”—her voice broke; but she got it under
- control—“I'm going to save you if I can.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Moodily he watched her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If it was anybody but Tex! He's merciless. He's strong. He never
- forgets.... Listen, Jim! Tex came clear from London to find me. And he
- found out about—us—you and me. That I was growing fond of you.
- He never forgets and he never forgives. Oh. Jim, can't you see it! Can't
- you see that that's why he took you on—so he could watch you, keep
- you away from me? Can't you see what a game I've had to play? God, if
- you'd heard what he said to me back here this very morning—Oh, it's
- too awful! I can't tell you! He's so determined! He gets his way, Jim—Tex
- gets his way!.... Oh, what can I do!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, wait—I've got to tell you the whole thing. You said he was
- planning to cross me. He'll do that, of course. I don't think I care much
- about that. But you, Jim—oh, you poor innocent boy! If you could
- only see! You'll never get your hands on one of the viceroy's jewels.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She turned her face toward him. Her eyes now were swollen and wet with
- tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jim, gray of face, held in his two hands a Chinese knife, balancing it.
- There were stains on the blade. He must have picked it up, she reflected,
- here on the junk. For it wouldn't be like him to carry such a weapon. It
- seemed to her then that he was holding his breath. She saw him moisten his
- blue lips with the tip of an ashen tongue. He was trying to speak. At
- least his lips parted again. She waited. When the voice did finally come,
- it was so hoarse that he had evident difficulty in making it intelligible.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tex may be strong—but if you think I'm afraid—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Jim.... no, I don't mean that! Not that! Oh, I don't know what I'm
- saying-! It's only when I think how happy you and I might be—think
- of it! really rich! able to go and live decently somewhere, like regular
- folks!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Silently, with surprising stealthy swiftness, he got to his feet. His
- right hand, with the knife, busied itself in a side pocket of his coat.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say the word, Dixie”—his face was contorted with the muscular
- effort necessary to produce this small sound—“say the word, and I'll
- kill him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no, Jim!” she covered her face with her thin hands, and sobbed, very
- low. “Oh God, what can we do? Isn't there some other way?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say the word,” he whispered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would it be”—she broke down again—“would it be—where a
- man's a devil, where he's threatened—wouldn't it be like defending
- ourselves?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say the word!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Jim—-God forgive me!.... Yes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her lips barely framed the word. But he read it. She watched him as he
- stepped around the huge coils of tracking rope on the roof of the
- steersman's pit; watched until he dropped softly down and disappeared.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then, lying back, very still, she listened. But the oarsmen were chanting
- up forward, the <i>laopan</i> shouting; nearer, the steersman was singing
- an apparently endless falsetto narrative (as if there had never been
- bloodshed). The minutes slowly passed. She drew in the sweet exhalation of
- the tuberoses.... still no unusual sound. She herself exhibited no sign of
- excitement beyond the hint of a cryptic smile and the white light in her
- eyes.... Her shopping bag lay on her lap. Opening it, she looked at the
- bracelet watch, that nestled close to a small triangular bottle of green
- corrosive sublimate tablets.... The gentle wash of the current against the
- hull gave out a soothing sound. The slowly rising sun beat warmly down,
- and the polished deck radiated the heat. A sensation of drowsiness was
- stealing over her. For a short while she fought it off; but then, deciding
- that no anxiety on her part could be of value, she yielded, closed the bag
- on her lap, and drifted into slumber.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was pleasantly warmer still. She felt her eyes about to open—slowly—on
- a presence. This languor was delicious. As an almost ascetic epicure in
- sensations she rested a moment longer in it, thinking dreamily of
- priceless gems heaped in her hollowed hands; of luxurious idleness in some
- exotic port—Singapore, or Penang (she had loved the tropical
- splendor of Penang), or in Burmah or India—Rangoon say, or even
- Lucknow, Lahore and Simla. They would know less about her there. And with
- the means to operate on a larger scale she should be able to add
- enormously to her wealth. She decided to dress and act differently; make a
- radical change in her methods.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her lips parted. The presence before her—coatless, little cap pushed
- back off the low forehead—was Connor. He had pushed aside a flower
- pot to make a seat on the rail.
- </p>
- <p>
- She closed her eyes again. He still wore the gray flannels and the white
- shoes with the rubber soles-It would be the shoes that had enabled him to
- approach without awakening her. He was smoking a cigar And the face was
- wooden again—save for his eye—He at stared oddly at her. And
- she thought his breathing somewhat short, just at first.
- </p>
- <p>
- She opened her eyes again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've had a good nap,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- He smoked, and stared.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where's Jim?” she asked then; quite casually: raising herself on an
- elbow.
- </p>
- <p>
- He made no reply; smoked on, still a thought breathless, fixing her with
- his eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He brought me some breakfast, just before I fell asleep.... What time is
- it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- For what seemed a long space he did not even answer this; merely smoked
- and stared. She had never, sensitively keen as were her perceptions, felt
- so curious a hostility in Connor. She had hitherto supposed that she
- understood him, short as had been their actual acquaintance—-her
- narrative of a past with him in America, as related to Jim, was false—but
- the man before her now, sitting all but motionless on the railing, smoking
- with an odd rapid intensity, holding that cold eye on her, was wholly
- alien.
- </p>
- <p>
- Finally he replied: “It's afternoon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No!” She sat up. “Have we been going right along?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Right along.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She stood erect; covered a yawn; then with her thin hands smoothed down
- the wrinkled blue skirt about her hips.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I look like the devil,” she remarked. The thin hands went to her hair.
- “You haven't noticed any sort of a mirror in the cabin, have you, Tex?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He did not reply.
- </p>
- <p>
- Faintly through the still air came a faint sound—a boom—boom-bom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's that?” she asked sharply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fighting around Hankow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We're not way up there?” She stepped to the side and looked out ahead.
- “There's a city!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tom says it's Huang Chau.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hello! We're there!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He inclined his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you going to do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tie up here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She heard now other and more confused sounds. The junk was slowing down;
- working in toward the yellow shallows.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now listen!” said he. She glanced at him, then away, apparently
- considering the quiet landscape; alien he was indeed, and hostile, his
- manner that of an inarticulate man struggling with a set speech....
- “Listen! You're smart enough. But I want you to understand I don't trust
- you.''
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't you, Tex?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When I go ashore, you're to stay here—right here on this deck—where
- you are now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's the big idea, Tex?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There'll be men to see that you do stay here. I want you to get this
- straight.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course,” said she musingly, “you won't be able to rob me outright.
- You'll have to give me enough of a share to keep me quiet afterward.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He said nothing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But what's to prevent the crew from getting away with the junk. I'm not
- very keen about being carried off that way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You needn't worry. I'm taking the master along with me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He stood then; looked meaningly at her; then went forward. She noted that
- his two hip pockets bulged.
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly the long narrow craft was worked in toward the land. Trackers
- sculled ashore in sampans and made the great hawsers fast to stakes. Then
- the crew, with a deal of shouting and many casual blows, were assembled in
- the long well forward of the mast, where they huddled abjectly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Keeping around the steersman's house, Dixie contrived to take in much of
- the scene. There was quarreling among the soldiers. Tom Sung towered over
- them, shouting rough orders. The two men that were told off (she judged to
- guard her and the junk) appeared to be objecting to their part in the
- affair. Obviously there would be small loot here.
- </p>
- <p>
- Connor came back over the deck house; stood angrily over her. She sensed
- the mounting brutality in him. For that matter, his sort and their ways
- with women were familiar enough to her. She had learned to take brutal men
- for granted. But it had not occurred to her that Connor would strike her.
- However, he did. Knocked her to her knees; then to her face; even kicked
- her as she lay on the deck. He was suddenly loud, wild.
- </p>
- <p>
- “None o' this peeking around!” he cried. “Keep your eyes where they
- belong!” And left her there.
- </p>
- <p>
- After a little she was able to creep to the rail and peer out through the
- flowers. Frightened members of the crew were sculling the sampans back and
- forth, until at length the whole party, every man except the <i>laopan</i>
- armed, fully assembled, set off inland.
- </p>
- <p>
- Beyond an unpleasant headache she felt no injury. She sat for a little
- while; then again looked forward. The two guards were on the deck house,
- talking excitedly together. While she watched they climbed down, shouted
- at the huddled crew, fired a careless shot or two into the mass of them
- that brought down at least one. At length two of the crew went over the
- side, followed by the soldiers. A moment later the sampan appeared moving
- toward the shore, the two soldiers loudly urging on the oarsmen.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dixie, swiftly then, rearranging her disordered hair as she walked, went
- down into the cabin.
- </p>
- <p>
- A corridor extended along one side from the <i>laopans</i> quarters under
- the steersman's house—sounds of stifled weeping came from there,
- apparently a woman or a girl—forward to the open space amidships.
- The rooms all gave on this corridor, the doorways hung with curtains of
- blue cotton cloth. Into one and another of these rooms she looked. There
- was bentwood furniture and bedding in each—-the latter tossed about.
- On the walls hung neat ideographic mottoes. The grillwork about the
- windows and over the doors was of a uniform and quaint design.
- </p>
- <p>
- Connor had taken for himself the rear room. There she found, beneath the
- window a heap of matting and bedding. Thoughtfully, deliberately, she
- lifted it off, piece by piece, exposing first a foot and leg, then a bony
- hand, finally the entire figure of what had been Jim Watson, known, of
- recent years, along Soochow Road and Bubbling Well Road as the Manila Kid.
- His clothing was slashed and torn in many places. About his middle, and
- about his head, were wide pools of blood that during a number of hours,
- evidently, had been drying into the boards of the deck. The neck, she
- observed, on closer examination, had been cut through nearly to the
- vertebrae.
- </p>
- <p>
- During a swift moment she considered the grew-some problem; then carefully
- replaced the matting and bedding.
- </p>
- <p>
- She went forward then to the end of the corridor; paused to look in her
- shopping bag, open the triangular bottle and drop a few of the green pills
- into the pocket of her middy blouse, under her handkerchief; closed the
- bag and stepped out on the low midships deck.
- </p>
- <p>
- The sampan had just returned to the junk. The two soldiers were walking;
- rapidly inland after Connor's party. She let herself quickly over the
- side; stepped into the sampan; waved toward the shore. Meekly the cowed
- oarsmen obeyed the pantomime order.
- </p>
- <p>
- She stepped out on the bank, very slim, almost pretty; tossed a Chinese
- Mexican dollar into the boat, watched, with a faint, reflective smile, the
- two primitive creatures as they fought over it; then walked briskly, not
- without a trace of native elegance in her carriage, after the soldiers,
- lightly swinging her shopping bag.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER IX—IN A GARDEN
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE road—narrow,
- worn to a deep-rutted little canyon—circled a brown hill, rose into
- a mud-gray village, where a few listless children played among the dogs,
- and a few apathetic beggars, and vendors of cakes, and wrinkled old women
- stared at the thin white girl who walked rapidly and alone; wound on below
- the surface of the cultivated fields; came, at length, to a wall of
- gray-brick crowned with tiles of bright yellow glaze and a ridge-piece of
- green, and at last to a gate house with a heavily ornamented roof of
- timbers and tiles. Other roofs appeared just beyond, and interlacing
- foliage that was tinged, here and there, with the red and yellow and
- bronze of autumn.
- </p>
- <p>
- The great gates, of heavy plank studded with iron spikes, stood open,
- apparently unattended. Dixie Carmichael paused; pursed her lips. Her
- coolly searching eyes noted an incandescent light bulb set in the massive
- lintel. This, perhaps, would be the place. Almost absently, peering
- through into tiled courtyards, she took two of the green tablets from her
- pocket; then, holding them in her hand, stepped within, and stood
- listening. The rustling of the leaves, she heard, as they swayed in a
- pleasant breeze, and a softly musical tinkling sound; then a murmur that
- might be voices at a distance and in some confusion; and then, sharply,
- with an unearthly thrill, the silver scream of a girl.... Yes, this would
- be the place.
- </p>
- <p>
- The buildings on either hand were silent. Doors stood open. Paper windows
- were torn here and there, and the woodwork broken in. But the flowers and
- the dwarf trees from Japan that stood in jars of Ming pottery were
- undisturbed.
- </p>
- <p>
- She passed through an inner gate and around a screen of brick and found
- herself in a park. There was a waterfall in a rockery, and a stream, and a
- tiny lake. A path led over a series of little arching bridges of marble
- into the grove beyond; and through the trees there she caught glimpses of
- elaborate yellow roofs. On either hand stood <i>pai-lows</i>—decorative
- arches in the pretentious Chinese manner—and beyond each a roofed
- pavilion built over a bridge.... She considered these; after a moment
- sauntered under the <i>pai-low</i> at her right, mounted the steps and
- dropped on the ornamented seat behind a leafy vine. Here she was sheltered
- from view, yet her eyes commanded both the main gate and the way over the
- marble bridges to the buildings in the grove.
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked about with a sense of quiet pleasure at the gilded fretwork
- beneath the curving eaves of the pavilion, the painted scrolls above them,
- and the smooth found columns of aged nanmu wood that was in color like
- dead oak leaves and that still exhaled a vague perfume. The tinkling sound
- set up again as another breeze wandered by; and looking up she saw four
- small bells of bronze suspended from the eaves.... She sat very still,
- listening, looking, thinking, drawing in with a deep inhalation the
- exquisite fragrance of the nanmu wood. It might be pleasant, one day, to
- lease or even buy a home like this. So ran her alert thoughts.
- </p>
- <p>
- The murmuring from the buildings in the grove continued, now swelling a
- little, now subsiding. It was not, of itself, an alarming sound, except
- for an occasional muffled shot. Her quick imagination, however, pictured
- the scene—they would be running about, calling to one another,
- beating in doors, rummaging everywhere. The drunkenness would doubtless be
- already under way. There would be much casual but ingenious cruelty, an
- orgiastic indulgence in every uttermost thrill of sense. It would be
- interesting to see; she even considered, her nerves tightening slightly at
- the thought, strolling back there over the bridges; but held finally to
- her first impulse and continued waiting here.
- </p>
- <p>
- A considerable time passed; half an hour or more. Then she glimpsed
- figures approaching slowly through the grove. They emerged on the farthest
- of the little marble bridges. One was Tex Connor; the second perhaps—certainly—Tom
- Sung. They carried armfuls of small boxes, at the sight of which Dixie's
- pulse again quickened slightly; for these would be the jewels. Tom
- appeared to be talking freely; as they crossed the middle bridge he broke
- into song; and he reeled jovially.... Connor walked firmly on ahead.
- </p>
- <p>
- They stopped by the gate screen. Connor glanced cautiously about; then
- moved aside into a tiled area that was hidden from the gate and the path
- by quince bushes. He called to Tom who followed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Carmichael could look almost directly down at them through the
- leaves. She watched closely as they hurriedly opened the boxes and filled
- their pockets with the gems. Tom used a stone to break the golden settings
- of the larger diamonds, pearls and rubies.
- </p>
- <p>
- A low-voiced argument followed. She heard Tom say, “I come back, all
- light. But I got have a girl!” And he lurched away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Connor, looking angrily after him, reached back to his hip pocket; but
- reconsidered. He needed Tom, if only as interpreter; and Tom, singing
- unmusically as he reeled away over the marble bridges, knew it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Connor waited, standing irresolute, listening, turning his eye toward the
- gate, then toward the trees behind him. The girl in the pavilion
- considered him. She had not before observed evidence of fear in the man.
- But then she had never before seen him in a situation that tested his
- brain and nerve as well as his animal courage. He was at heart a bully, of
- course: and she knew that bullies were cowards.... What small respect she
- had at moments felt for Tex left her now. She came down to despising him,
- as she despised nearly all other men of her acquaintance. Still peering
- through the leaves, she saw him move a little way toward the gate, then
- glance, with a start, toward the marble bridges, finally turning back to
- the remaining boxes.
- </p>
- <p>
- He opened one of these—it was of yellow lacquer richly ornamented—and
- drew out what appeared to be a tangle of strings of pearls. He turned it
- over in his hands; spread it out; felt his pockets; finally unbuttoned his
- shirt and thrust it in there.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was at this point that Dixie arose, replaced the green tablets in her
- pocket, smoothed her skirt, and went lightly down the steps. He did not
- hear her until she spoke.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you think Tom'll come back, Tex?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He whirled so clumsily that he nearly fell among the boxes and the broken
- and trampled bits of gold and silver; fixed his good eye on her, while the
- other, of glass, gazed vacantly over her shoulder.
- </p>
- <p>
- She coolly studied him—the flushed face, bulging pockets, protruding
- shirt where he had stuffed in those astonishing ropes of pearls.
- </p>
- <p>
- He said then, vaguely: “What are you doing here?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thought I'd come along. Suppose he stays back there—drinks some
- more. You'd be sort of up against it, wouldn't you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'd be no worse off than you.” He was evasive, and more than a little
- sullen. She saw that he was foolishly trying to keep his broad person
- between her and the boxes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You couldn't handle the junk without Tom. Not very well.... Look here,
- Tex, it can't be very far to the concessions at Hankow. We could pick up a
- cart, or even walk it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What good would that do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There'll be steamers down to Shanghai.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And there'll be police to drag us off.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How can they? What can they pin on you?” Connor's eye wavered back toward
- the grove and the buildings. He was again breathing hard. “After all
- this..” he muttered. “That old viceroy'll be up here, you know. With his
- mob, too. And there's plenty of people here to tell....” He was trying now
- to hold an arm across his middle in a position that would conceal the
- treasure there.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her glance followed the motion, and for a moment a faintly mocking smile
- hovered about her thin mouth. She said: “Saving those pearls for me, Tex?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He stared at her, fixed her with that one small eye, but offered not a
- word. A moment later, however, nervously signaling her to be still he
- brushed by and peeped out around the quinces.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?” she asked quickly; then moved to his side.
- </p>
- <p>
- Immediately beyond the farthest of the marble bridges stood a group of ten
- or twelve soldiers in drunkenly earnest argument. Above them towered the
- powerful shoulders and small round head of Tom Sung. In the one quick
- glance she caught an impression of rifles slung across sturdy backs, of
- bayonets that seemed, at that distance, oddly dark in color; an
- impression, too, of confused minds and a growing primitive instinct for
- violence. Tom and another swayed toward the bridge; others drew them back
- and pointed toward the buildings they had left. The argument waxed. Voices
- were shrilly emphatic.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Looks bad,” said the girl at Connor's shoulder. “You've let 'em get out
- of hand, Tex.” Then, as she saw him nervously measuring with his eye the
- width of the open space between the quinces and the gate screen, she
- added, “Thinking of making a run for it, Tex?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He slowly swung that eye on her now; and for no reason pushed her roughly
- away. “It's none of your business what I'm going to do,” he replied
- roughly.
- </p>
- <p>
- But the voice was husky, and curiously light in quality. And the eye
- wavered away from her intent look. This creature fell far short of the Tex
- Connor of old. She spoke sharply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come up into this summer-house, Tex!” she indicated it with an upward
- jerk of her head. “They won't see us there, at first. You didn't see me.
- You've got your pistols. You can give me one. We ought to be able to stand
- off a few Chinese drunks.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She could see that he was fumbling about for courage, for a plan, in a
- mind that had broken down utterly. His growl of—“I'm not giving you
- any pistol!”—was the flimsiest of cover. And so she left him,
- choosing a moment when that loud argument beyond the bridges was at its
- height to run lightly up the steps and into the pavilion.
- </p>
- <p>
- From this point she looked down on the thick-minded Connor as he struggled
- between cupidity, fear and the bluffing pride that was so deep a strain in
- the man. The one certain fact was that he couldn't purposelessly wait
- there, with Tom Sung leading these outlawed soldiers to a deed he feared
- to undertake alone.... They were coming over the bridges now, Tom in the
- lead, lurching along and brandishing his revolver, the others unslinging
- their rifles. The argument had ceased; they were ominously quiet.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dixie got her tablets out again; then sat waiting, that faint mocking
- smile again touching the corners of her mouth. But the smile now meant an
- excitement bordering on the thrill she had lately envied the savage folk
- in the grove. Such a thrill had moved those coldeyed women who sat above
- the combat of gladiators in the Colosseum and with thumbs down awaited the
- death agony of a fallen warrior. It had been respectable then; now it was
- the perverse pleasure of a solitary social outcast. But to this girl who
- could be moved by no simple pleasure it came as a gratifying substitute
- for happiness. Her own danger but added a sharp edge to the exquisite
- sensation. It was the ultimate gamble, in a life in which only gambling
- mattered.
- </p>
- <p>
- Connor was fumbling first at a hip pocket where a pistol bulged, then at a
- side pocket that bulged with precious stones. His eye darted this way and
- that his cheeks had changed in color to a pasty gray. The girl thought for
- a moment that he had actually gone out of his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- His action, when it finally came, was grotesquely romantic. She thought,
- in a flash, of the adventure novels she had so often seen him reading. It
- was to her absurd; even madly comic. For with those bulging pockets and
- that gray face, a criminal run to earth by his cruder confederates, he
- fell back on dignity. He strode directly out into the path, with a sort of
- mock firmness, and, like a policeman on a busy corner, raised his hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- Even at that he might have impressed the soldiers; for he was white, and
- had been their vital and vigorous leader, and they were yellow and
- low-bred and drunk. As it was, they actually stopped, just over the
- nearest bridge; gave the odd appearance of huddling uncertainly there. But
- Connor could not hold the pose. He broke; looked wildly about; started,
- puffing like a spent runner, up the steps of the pavilion where the girl,
- leaning slightly forward, drawing in her breath sharply through parted
- lips, looked through the leaves.
- </p>
- <p>
- Several of the rifles cracked then; she heard bullets sing by. And Connor
- fell forward on the steps, clawed at them for a moment, and lay still in a
- slowly widening pool of thick blood. He had not so much as drawn a weapon.
- Tex Connor was gone.
- </p>
- <p>
- They came on, laughing, with a good deal of rough banter, and gathered up
- the jewels. Tom and another mounted the steps to the body and went through
- the pockets of his trousers for the jewels that were there and the
- pistols. As there was no coat they did not look further. And then,
- merrily, they went back over the marble bridges to the buildings in the
- grove where were still, perhaps, liquor and women.
- </p>
- <p>
- When the last of their shouts had died out, when laying her head against
- the fragrant wood she could hear again the musical tinkling of the bronze
- bells and the pleasant murmuring of the tiny waterfall and the sighing of
- the leaves, Dixie slipped down to the body, fastidiously avoiding the
- blood. It was heavy; she exerted all her wiry strength in rolling it
- partly over. Then, drawing out the curious net of pearls she let the body
- roll back.
- </p>
- <p>
- Returning to her sheltered seat she spread on her lap the amazing garment;
- for a garment of some sort it appeared to be. There was even a row of
- golden clasps set with very large diamonds. At a rough estimate she
- decided that there were all of three thousand to four thousand perfect
- pearls in the numerous strings. Turning and twisting it about, she hit on
- the notion of drawing it about her shoulders and found that it settled
- there like a cape. It was, indeed, just that—a cape of pearls. She
- did not know that it was the only garment of its precise sort in the
- world, that it had passed from one royal person to another until, after
- the death of the Old Buddha in 1908 it fell into the hands of his
- excellency, Kang Yu.
- </p>
- <p>
- She took it off; stood erect; pulled out her loosely hanging middy blouse;
- and twisting the strings into a rope fastened it about her waist,
- rearranging the blouse over it. The concealment was perfect.
- </p>
- <p>
- She sat again, then, to think out the next step. Returning to the junk was
- cut of the question. It would be better to get somehow up to the
- concessions and trust to her wits to explain her presence there. For Tex
- had been shrewd enough about that. The concessions were a small bit of
- earth with but one or two possible hotels, full of white folk and fuller
- of gossip. She had had her little difficulties with the consuls as with
- the rough-riding American judge who took his itinerant court from port to
- port announcing firmly that he purposed ridding the East of such “American
- girls” as she. Dawley Kane would surely be there, and other survivors of
- the fire.... It all meant picking up a passage down the river at the
- earliest possible moment; and running grave chances at that. But her great
- strength lay in her impregnable self-confidence. She feared herself least
- of all.
- </p>
- <p>
- Another problem was the getting to the concessions. It was not the best of
- times for a girl to walk the highway alone. To be sure, she had come
- safely through from the junk; but it had not been far, and she hadn't had
- to approach a native army. She decided to wait an hour or so, until the
- plunderers there in the grove should be fully drunk; then, if at the
- moment it seemed the thing, to slip out and make a try for it.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then, a little later, evidently from the road outside the wall, came a
- new sort of confused sounds; music, of flageolets and strings, and
- falsetto voices, and with it a low-pitched babel of many tongues. Whoever
- these new folk might be, they appeared to be turning in at the open gate.
- The music stopped abruptly, in a low whine of discord, and the talk rose
- in pitch. Over the brick screen appeared banners moving jerkily about,
- dipping and rising, as if in the hands of agitated persons below; a black
- banner, bearing in its center the triple imperial emblems of the Sun, the
- other two yellow, one blazoning the familiar dragon, the other a phoenix.
- </p>
- <p>
- A few banner men appeared peeping cautiously about the screen; Manchu
- soldiers of the old effete army, bearing short rifles. They came on,
- cautiously into the park, joined in a moment by others. An officer with a
- queue and an old-fashioned sword and a military cap in place of a turban
- followed and, forming them into a ragged column of fours, marched them
- over the marble bridges and into the grove, where they disappeared from
- view.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then a gorgeously colored sedan chair came swaying in, carried by many
- bearers walking under stout bamboo cross-poles. Others, in the more
- elaborate dress of officials, walked beside and behind it. Then came more
- soldiers, who straggled informally about, some even dropping on the gravel
- to rest their evidently weary bodies.
- </p>
- <p>
- The chair was opened in front and a tall fat man stepped rather pompously
- out, wearing a robe of rose and blue and the brightly embroidered insignia
- and button of a mandarin of the fourth rank. At once a servant stepped
- forward with a huge umbrella which he opened and held over the fat man.
- And then they waited, all of them, standing or lying about and talking in
- excited groups. Several of the officials hurried back around the screen as
- if to examine the deserted apartments just within the gate, and shortly
- returned with much to say in their musical singsong.... An officer espied
- the body of Connor lying on the steps of the pavilion, and came with
- others, excitedly, to the foot of the steps. The key of the confused talk
- rose at once. There was an excited conference of many ranks about the tall
- fat man under the umbrella.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then came, from the grove, that same sound of muffled shots, followed by a
- breathless pause. More shots then, and increasing excitement here by the
- screen. A number of the soldiers who had crossed the bridges appeared,
- running. The man in the lead had lost turban and rifle; as he drew near
- blood could be seen on his face. And now, abruptly, the officials and the
- ragtag and bobtail by the screen—pole-bearers, lictors, runners,
- soldiers—lost their heads. Some ran this way and that, even into the
- bushes, only to reappear and follow their clearer-headed brethren out to
- the gate. The umbrella-bearer dropped his burden and vanished. The
- fugitives from the grove were among the panic-stricken group now, racing
- with them for the gate and the highway without; scurrying around the end
- of the screen like frightened rabbits; and in pursuit, cheering and
- yelling, came many of the soldiers from the junk.
- </p>
- <p>
- They caught the tall fat mandarin, as he was waddling around the screen,
- wounded by a chance shot; leaped upon him, bringing him down screaming
- with fear; beat and kicked him; with their knives and bayonets performing
- subtle acts of torture which gave them evident pleasure and of which the
- coldly observant Dixie Carmichael lost no detail. When the fat body lay
- inert, not before, they took the sword of a fallen officer and cut off the
- head, hacking clumsily. The head they placed on a pole, marching noisily
- about with it; finally setting the pole upright beside the first of the
- little marble bridges. Then, at last, they wandered back into the grove
- and left the grisly object on the pole to dominate obscenely the garden
- they had profaned.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dixie leaned against the smooth sweet surface of the nanmu wood and
- listened, again, to the pleasantly soft sounds of waterfall and moving
- leaves and little bronze bells. Her face was chalk white; her thin hands
- lay limp in her lap; she knew, with an abrupt sensation of sinking, that
- she was profoundly tired. But in her brain burned still a cold white flame
- of excitement. Life, her instinct as the veriest child had informed her,
- was anything, everything, but the simple copybook pattern expounded by the
- naive folk of America and England. Life, as she critically saw it, was a
- complex of primitive impulses tempered by greeds, dreams and amazing
- subtleties. It was blindly possessive, carelessly repellent, creative and
- destructive in a breath, at once warm and cold, kindly and savage,
- impersonally heedless of the helpless human creatures that drifted hither
- and yon before the winds of chance. Cunning, in the world she saw about
- her, won always further than virtue, and often further than force.
- </p>
- <p>
- She could not take her eyes, during a long period, from the hideous object
- on the pole. Her over-stimulated thoughts were reaching quickly, sharply,
- far in every direction. The feeling came, grew into belief, that she was,
- mysteriously, out of her danger. She felt the ropes of pearls under her
- blouse with an ecstatic little catch of the breath; and (finally) letting
- her eyes drop to that other ugly object on the steps beneath her, slowly
- opened her bag, drew out the bracelet watch (that the Manila Kid had given
- her out of an absurd hope) and fastened it about her wrist. And her eyes
- were bright with triumph.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER X—YOUTH
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HERE came for his
- excellency, as the sun mounted the sky, a large junk of his own river
- fleet—great brown sails flapping against the five masts of all
- heights that pointed up at crazily various angles, pennons flying at each
- masthead, hull weathered darkly, mats and fenders of woven hemp hung over
- the poop-rail, and a swarming pigtailed crew at the sweeps and overside on
- the spunson and hard at the tracking ropes as the <i>tai-kung</i> screamed
- from the bow and the <i>laopan</i> shouted from the poop.
- </p>
- <p>
- They were ferried aboard in the small boat, Kang with his daughters and
- his suite and servants, a handful of pitifully wailing women, young Kane
- and Griggsby Doane. Then the trackers cast off from the shore and the
- mooring poles, the sweeps moved, and with the <i>lao pan</i> musically
- calling the stroke the junk moved laboriously up-stream toward the home of
- his excellency's ancestors.
- </p>
- <p>
- Crowded into the uninviting cabins the weary travelers sought a few hours
- of rest. Even the servants and the mourning women, under the mattings
- forward, fell swiftly asleep. Only Rocky Kane, his eyes staring widely out
- of a sensitively white face, walked the deck; until the thought—a
- new sort of thought in the life of this headstrong youth—that he
- would be disturbing those below drove him aft, out beyond the steersman to
- the over-hanging gallery. Here he sat on the bamboo rail and gazed moodily
- down at the tireless, mighty river flowing off astern.
- </p>
- <p>
- The good in the boy—made up of the intelligence, the deep-smoldering
- conscience, the fineness that were woven out of his confused heritage into
- his fiber—was rising now like a tide in his spirit; and the
- experience was intensely painful. It seemed to his undisciplined mind that
- he was, in certain of his aspects, an incredible monster. There had been
- wild acts back home, a crazy instinct for excess that now took on
- distinctness of outline; moments of careless evil in Japan and Shanghai;
- the continuous subtle conflict with his father in which any evasion had
- seemed fair; but above all these vivid memory-scenes that raced like an
- uncontrollably swift panorama through his over-alert brain stood out his
- vicious conduct on the ship. It was impossible at this moment to realize
- mentally that the Princess Hui Fei was now his friend; he could see her
- only in the bright Manchu costume as she had appeared when he first so
- uncouthly spoke to her. And there were, too, the ugly moments with the
- strange girl known as Dixie Carmichael. That part of it was only a
- nightmare now.... The racing in his brain frightened him. He stared at the
- dimpling yellow river, at a fishing boat, and finally lifted his hurt eyes
- to the bright sky.... He had been going straight to hell, he told himself,
- mumbling the words softly aloud. And then this lovely girl had brought him
- into confusion and humility. Suddenly he had broken with his father; that,
- in itself, seemed curiously unaccountable, yet there the fact stood....
- Life—eager, crowding—had rushed him off his feet. He felt
- wildly adrift, carried on currents that he could not stem.... He was,
- indeed, passing through one of life's deepest experiences, one known to
- the somewhat unimaginative and intolerant people whose blood ran in his
- veins as conviction of sin. His own careless life had overtaken and
- confronted him. It had to be a bitter moment. There was terror in it. And
- there was no escaping; it had to be lived through.
- </p>
- <p>
- A merry voice called; there was the patter of soft-clad feet, and in a
- moment the little princess in her yellow hood with the fox head on the
- crown was climbing into his lap. Eagerly, tenderly, he lifted her; cuddled
- her close and kissed her soft cheek. Tears were frankly in his eyes now.
- </p>
- <p>
- He laughed with her, nervously at first, then, in the quick responsiveness
- of youth, with good humor. She came to him as health. Together they
- watched the diving cormorants and the wading buffalo. Then he hunted about
- until he found a bit of board and a ball of twine; whittled the board into
- a flat boat, stuck a little mast in it with a white sail made from a
- letter from his pocket, and towed it astern. Together they hung on the
- rail, watching the craft as it bobbed over the little waves and laughing
- when it capsized and lost its sail.
- </p>
- <p>
- She climbed into his lap again after that, and scolded him for making the
- unintelligible English sounds, and made signs for him to smoke; and he
- showed her his water-soaked cigarettes.
- </p>
- <p>
- At a low-pitched exclamation he turned with a nervous start. The tall
- eunuch stood on the cabin roof; came quickly forward for the child. And
- beside him was Miss Hu Fei, still of course wearing the Chinese coat and
- trousers in which she had escaped from the steamer. She had, under the
- warm sun, thrown aside the curiously modern opera wrap. She was slim,
- young, delicately feminine. The boy gazed at her reverently. She seemed to
- him a fairy, an unearthly creature, worlds beyond his reach. In his
- excitement, but a few hours back—in what he had supposed to be their
- last moment together, in what, indeed, had seemed the end of the world—he
- had declared his love for her. That had been an uprush of pure emotion....
- He recalled it now, yet found it difficult to accept as an occurrence. The
- actual world had turned unreal to him, as it does to the sensitively young
- that suffer poignantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- To this grave young woman, oddly his shipmate, he could hardly, he felt
- now, have spoken a personal word. Their acquaintance had begun at a high
- emotional pitch; now it must begin again, normally. So it seemed to him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We were looking for my li'l sister,” she explained, and half turned. The
- eunuch had already disappeared with the child.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Won't you sit out here—with me?” He spoke hesitantly. “That is,
- unless you are too tired to visit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I coul'n' sleep,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly she came out on the gallery.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There aren't any chairs,” said he. “Perhaps I could find—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don' mind.” She sank to the floor; leaned wearily against the rail. He
- settled himself in a corner.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I couldn't sleep either. You see—Miss Hui—Miss Fei”—he
- broke into a chuckle of embarrassment—“honest I don't know what to
- call you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The unexpected touch of boyish good humor moved her nearly to a smile.
- Boyish he was, sitting with his feet curled up, stabbing at the deck with
- his jackknife, coatless, collarless, his thick hair tousled, blushing
- pleasantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My frien's call me Hui,” she replied simply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—really! May I—If you would—of course I know that—but
- my friends call me Rocky. The whole thing is Rockingham Bruce Kane.
- But....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll call you Misser Kane,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- His face fell a very little; but quickly he recovered himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must have wondered—I suppose it seems as if I've done a rather
- crazy thing—it <i>must</i> seem so...” She murmured, “Oh, no!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Attaching myself to your party this way—-at such a difficult time.
- I know it was a pretty impulsive thing to do, but....”
- </p>
- <p>
- His voice trailed into silence. For a brief moment this wild act seemed,
- however different in its significance to himself, of a piece with his
- other wild acts. It was, perhaps, like all those, merely ungoverned
- egotism. Her voice broke sweetly in on this moment of gloomy reverie.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We know tha' you woul' help us if you coul'. An' you were so won'erful.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I only could help! You see when I spoke that way to you—I mean
- telling you I loved you—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please! We won' talk abou' tha'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. We won't. Except just this. I was beside myself. But even then, or
- pretty soon afterward, I knew it was just plain selfishness.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mus'n' say that, either. Please!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—just this! Of course you don't know me. What you do know is all
- against me—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have forgotten—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will never forget. But even if you were some day to like me more than
- you could now, I know it would take a long time. I've got to earn the
- right to be really your friend first. I'm going to try to do that. I've
- started all over—to-day—-my life, I mean. I'm just simply
- beginning again. There's a good long scrap ahead of me. That's all about
- that! But please believe that I've got a little sanity in me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I'm sure—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have. Jumping overboard like that, and swimming back to you—it
- wasn't just crazy impulse, like so many of the things I've done. You see,
- my father knows you and your father—yes, I mean the terrible trouble
- you're in. Oh, everything comes to him, sooner or later. All the facts.
- You have to figure on that, with the pater. He—well, he wanted me to
- stop thinking about you. He was afraid I'd be writing to you, or
- something. You see, he'd watched us talking there by the fire. And he told
- me about this—this dreadful thing. And then I had to come back.
- Don't you see? I couldn't go on, leaving you like this. Of course, it's
- likely enough I'm just in the way here—” She was smiling wearily,
- pathetically, now.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no—” she began.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's this way,” he swept impetuously on. “Maybe I <i>can</i> help.
- Anyway, I've got to try. If your father—really—” He saw the
- slight shudder that passed through her slender body, and abruptly checked
- the rapid flow of words. “We've got to take care of you,” he said, with
- surprising gravity and kindness. “You'll have to get back with the white
- people. You mustn't be left with the yellow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know,” said she, the strength nearly gone from her voice. “It always
- seems to me that I'm an American. Though sometimes I ge' confuse'. It isn'
- easy to think.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm simply wearing you out. I mustn't. But just this—remember that I
- know all about it. I've broken with my father, for the present, and I'm
- happy about that. I have got some money of my own—quite a little.
- I've even got a wet letter of credit in my pocket. I had just sense enough
- last night to get it out of my coat. It's no good, of course, outside of
- the treaty ports, but it's there. I'm here to help. And I do want to feel
- that you'll call on me—for anything—and as for the rest of it—”
- </p>
- <p>
- He had thought himself unusually clear and cool, but at this point his
- voice clouded and broke. He glanced timidly at her, and saw that her eyes
- were full of tears. He had to look away then. And during a long few
- moments they sat without a word.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then the thought came, “I'm here to help!” It was a stirring thought. He
- had never helped, never in his life that he could remember. And yet the
- Kanes did things; they were strong men.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was moodily skipping his knife over his hand, trying to catch the point
- in the soft wood. Abruptly, with a surprising smile, he looked up and
- asked: “Ever play mumbletepeg?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her troubled eyes for an instant met his. He chuckled again in that boyish
- way. And she, nervously, chuckled too. That seemed good.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's sort of hard to make the blade stick in this wood,” he said eagerly.
- “But we can do some of the things.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Griggsbv Doane, too, was far from sleep. For that matter, he was of the
- strong mature sort that needs little, that can work long hours and endure
- severe strain without weakening. Moving aft over the poop he saw them,
- playing like two children, and stepped quietly behind the slanting short
- mast that overhung the steersman.
- </p>
- <p>
- They made a charming picture, laughing softly as they tossed the knife. It
- hadn't before occurred to him that young Kane had charm. Plainly, now, he
- had. And it was good for Hui Fei, in this hour of tragic suspense. Youth,
- of course, would call unto youth. That was the natural thing. He tried to
- force himself to see it in that light but he moved forward with a heavy
- heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- The junk plowed deliberately against the current. The monotonous voice of
- the chanting <i>lao pan</i>, the rhythmical splash and creak of the
- sweeps, the syncopated continuous song of the crowded oarsman, an
- occasional warning cry from the tai-kung—these were the only sounds.
- Elsewhere, lying in groups about the deck, the castaways slumbered.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Doane knew that his excellency was awake, shut away in the <i>laopan's</i>
- cabin, for repeatedly he had heard him moving about. Once, through a thin
- partition, had come the sound of a chair scraping. It would mean that Kang
- was preparing his final papers. These would be painstakingly done. There
- would be memorials to the throne and to his children and friends, couched
- in the language of a master of the classics, rich in the literary
- allusions dear to the heart of the scholar, Manchu and Chinese alike.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane found a seat on a coil of the heavy tracking rope. His own part in
- the drama through which they were all so strangely living could be only
- passive. He would serve as he might. His little dream of personal
- happiness, with a woman to love and new strong work to be somehow begun,
- was wholly gone.
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly, foot by foot, the clumsy craft crept up the river. And strangely
- the scene held its peaceful, intensely busy character. Everywhere, as if
- there were no revolution, as if the old river had never known wreckage and
- bloodshed, the country folk toiled in the fields. Junks passed. Irrigating
- wheels turned endlessly. Fishermen sat patiently watching their cormorants
- or lowering and lifting their nets. A big English steamer came booming
- down, with white passengers out of bloody Hankow (the looting and burning
- of the native city must have been going on just then, before the
- reinforced imperial troops drove the republicans back across the river).
- They layabout in deck chairs, these white passengers; or, doubtless,
- played bridge in the smoking-room. And Doane, as so often during his long
- life, felt his thoughts turning from these idle, self-important whites,
- back to the oldest of living peoples; and he dwelt on their incalculable
- energy, their incredible numbers, their ceaseless individual struggle with
- the land and water that kept them, at best, barely above the line of mere
- sustenance.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was difficult, pondering all this, to believe that any revolution could
- deeply stir this vast preoccupied people, submerged as they appeared to be
- in ancient habit. The revolution could succeed only if the Manchu
- government was ready to fall apart from the weakness of sheer decadence.
- It was nothing, this revolution, but the desperate work of agitators who
- had glimpsed the wealth and the individualistic tendencies of the West.
- And the hot-blooded Cantonese, of course. Most of the Chinese in America
- were Cantonese. The revolution was, then, a Southern matter; it was these
- tropical men that had come to know America. That was about its only
- strength. The great mass of yellow folk here in the Yangtze Valley, and
- through the coast provinces, and all over the great central plain and the
- North and Northwest were peaceable at heart; only those Southerners were
- truculent, they and the scattered handfuls of students.
- </p>
- <p>
- And yet, China, in the hopeful hearts of those who knew and loved the old
- traditions, must somehow be modernized. Sooner or later the Manchus would
- fall. The vast patient multitude must then either learn to think for
- themselves in terms of modern, large-scale organization or fall into
- deeper degradation. The European trading nations would strike deep and
- hard in a sordid struggle for the remaining native wealth. The Japanese,
- with iron policy and intriguing hand would destroy their institutions and
- bring them into a pitiful slavery, economic and military.
- </p>
- <p>
- His own life, Doane reflected, must be spent in some way to help this
- great people. The individual, confronted by so vast a problem, seemed
- nothing. But the effort had to be made. Since he was not a trader, since
- he could not hope now to find himself in step with the white generation
- that had passed him by, all that was left was to pitch in out here. The
- call of the martyred Sun Shi-pi pointed a way.
- </p>
- <p>
- The personal difficulty only remained. The man who loses step with his own
- people and his own time must submit to being rolled under and trampled on.
- There is no other form of loneliness so deep or so bitter. And seeing
- nothing above and about him but the hard under side of this hard white
- civilization, the unfortunate one can not hope to retain in full vigor the
- incentive to effort that is the magic of the creative white race. Every
- circumstance now seemed combined to hold him down and under. The
- philosophy of the East with which his spirit was saturated argued for
- contemplation, submission, negation (as did, for that matter, the gospel
- of that Jesus to whose life the peoples that called themselves Christian,
- in their every activity, every day, gave the lie). His only driving power,
- then, must come out of the white spark that was, after all, in his blood.
- It was only as a discordantly active white that he could help the yellow
- men he loved.... And the one great incentive—love, companionship,
- for which his strong heart hungered—had flickered before him only to
- die out. He must somehow, at that, prove worthy. It was to be just one
- more great effort in a life of prodigiously wasted effort.... He thought,
- as he had thought before, in bitter hours, of Gethsemane. But he knew,
- now, that he purposed going on. Once again he was to dedicate his vigor to
- a cause; but this time without the hope of youth and without love walking
- at his side.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then, quaintly, alluringly, the picture of Hui Fei took form before
- his mind's eye, as if to mock his laborious philosophy, charm it away.
- Like that of a boy his quick imagination wove about her bright youth, her
- piquant new-old worldliness, shining veils of illusion. It was, then, to
- be so. He was to live on, sadly, with a dream that would not die.... He
- bowed his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- Their play brought relief to the overwrought nerves of the two young
- people. After a time they settled comfortably against the rail.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You lost all your things on the steamer?” said he. “Ever'thing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So did I.” He smiled ruefully. “Even part of my clothes. But it doesn't
- matter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I di'n' like to lose all my pretty things.” said she. “But they're gone
- now. All excep' my opera cloak. An' I'm jus' a Manchu girl again. It's so
- strange—only yes'erday it seem' to me I was a real American. I los'
- my books, too—all my books.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He glanced up quickly. “You're fond of reading?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes. Aren' you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why—no, I haven't been. The fellows and girls I've known didn't
- read much.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tha' seems funny. When you have so much. And it's so easy to read
- English. Chinese is ver' hard.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What books have you read mostly?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She smiled. “Oh, I coul'n' say. So many! I've read the classics, of course—Shakespeare
- an' Milton and Chaucer. Chaucer is so modern—don' you think? I mean
- the way he makes pictures with words.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What would you think,” said he, “if I confessed that I cut all those old
- fellows at school and college?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've thought often,” said she gravely, “tha' you Americans are spoil'
- because you have so much. So much of everything.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps. I don't know. The fellows feel that those things don't help much
- in later life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, bu' they <i>do!</i> You mus' have a knowledge of literature an'
- philosophy. Wha' do they go to college for?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—” Inwardly, he winced. He felt himself, without resentment,
- without the faintest desire to defend the life he had known, at a
- disadvantage. “To tell the truth, I suppose we go partly for a good time.
- It puts off going into business four years, you know, and once you start
- in business you've got to get down to it. Then there's all the athletics,
- and the friends you make. Of course, most of the fellows realize that if
- they make the right kind of friendships it'll help, later, in the big
- game.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mean with the sons of other rich men?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, no, not—yes, come to think of it, I suppose that's just what I
- do mean. Do you know here with you, it doesn't look like much of a picture—does
- it?” Thoughtfully she moved her head in the negative. “I know a goo' deal
- about it,” said she. “I've watch' the college men in America. Some of
- them, I think, are pretty foolish.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose we are,” said he glumly. “But would you have a fellow just go
- in for digging?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She inclined her head. “I woul'. It is a grea' privilege to have years for
- study.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was flushing. “But you're not a dig! You—you dance, you know
- about things, you can wear clothes....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don' think study is like work to me. I love it. An' I love people—every
- kin', scholars, working people—you know, every kin'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His moody eyes took in her eagerly mobile face; then dropped, and he
- stabbed his knife at the deck.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course, we know that all is no' right 'n America. The men of money
- have too much power. The govemmen' is confuse', sometimes very weak and
- foolish. The newspapers don' tell all the things they shoul'. But it is so
- healthy, jus' the same! There is so much chance for ever' kin' of idea to
- be hear'! An' so many won'erful books! Often I think you real Americans
- don' know how' won'erful it is. You get excite' abou' little things. I
- love America. The women are free there. There is more hope there than
- anywhere else in the worl'. An' I wish China coul' be like that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I quit college,” said he. “You see, I've never looked at things as you
- do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bu' you have such a won'erful chance!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know. And I've wasted it. But I'm changing. I—it wouldn't be fair
- of course to talk about—about what I was talking about—not now—but
- I am seeing things—everything—through new eyes. They're your
- eyes. I'm going at the thing differently. You see, the Kanes, when you get
- right down to it, don't think about anything but money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I like to think about beauty,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder if I could do that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why no'?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—it's kind of a new idea.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen!” she reached out, plainly without a personal thought, and took
- his hand. “I'm going to reci' some poetry that I love.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Thrilled by the clasp of her hand, his mind eager wax to the impress of
- her stronger mind, his gaze clinging to her pretty mouth, he listened
- while she repeated the little poem of W. B. Yeats beginning:=
- </p>
- <p>
- "All the words that I utter,
- </p>
- <p>
- And all the words that I write..."=
- </p>
- <p>
- At first he stirred restlessly; then watching, doglike, fell to listening.
- The disconcerting thing was that it could mean so much to her. For it did—her
- dark eyes were bright, and her chin was uplifted. Her quaint accent and
- her soft, sweet voice touched his spirit with an exquisite vague pain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is music,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't see how you remember it all,” said he listlessly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jus' the soun's. Oh, it woul' be won'erful to make words do that. So
- often I wish I ha' been born American, so it woul' be my language too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She went on, breathlessly, with Yeats's—=
- </p>
- <p>
- "When you are old and gray and full of sleep..."=
- </p>
- <p>
- And then, still in pensive vein, she took up Kipling's <i>L'Envoi</i>—the
- one beginning—“There's a whisper down the field.” Clearly she felt
- the sea, too; and the yearning of those wandering souls to whom life is a
- wistful adventure, and the world an inviting labyrinth of beautiful hours.
- She seemed to know the <i>Child's Garden of Verses</i> from cover to
- cover, and other verse of Stevenson's. It was all strange to him, except
- “In winter I get up at night.” He knew that as a song.
- </p>
- <p>
- And so it came about that on a dingy Yangtze junk, at the feet of a Manchu
- girl from America, Rocky Kane felt for the first time the glow and thrill
- of finely rhythmical English.
- </p>
- <p>
- She went on, almost as if she had forgotten him. William Watson's <i>April,
- April</i> she loved, she said, and read it with a quick feeling for the
- capricious blend of smiles and tears. It dawned on him that she was a born
- actress. He did not know, of course, that the theatrical tradition lies
- deeper in Manchu and Chinese culture than in that of any Western people.
- </p>
- <p>
- She recited the beautiful <i>Song</i> of Richard Le Galliene, beginning:=
- </p>
- <p>
- "She's somewhere in the sunlight strong...."=
- </p>
- <p>
- And followed this with bits from Bliss Carman, and other bits from
- Henley's <i>London Nocturnes</i>, and from Wilfred Blunt and Swinburne and
- Mrs. Browning. She had a curiously strong feeling for the color of
- Medieval Italy. She spoke reverently of Dante. Villon she knew, too, and
- Racine and the French classicists. She even murmured tenderly de Musset's
- <i>J'ai dis à mon coeur</i>, in French of which he caught not a word and
- was ashamed. For he had cut French, too.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then, as the sun mounted higher and the gentle rush of the river along
- the hull and the continuous chantey of the oarsmen floated, more and more
- soothingly to their ears, they fell quiet, her hand still pleasantly in
- his. Together they hummed certain of the current popular songs, he
- thinking them good, she smiling not unhappily as her voice blended
- prettily with his. And Griggsby Doane heard them.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last she murmured: “I think I coul' rest now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm glad,” said he, and drew down a coil of rope for a pillow, and left
- her sleeping there.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane heard his step, but for a moment could not lift his head. Finally
- the boy, standing respectfully, spoke his name: “Mr. Doane!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “May I sit here with you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course. Do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've got to talk to somebody. It's so strange. You see, she and I—Miss
- Hui Fei—it's all been such a whirl I couldn't think, but....”
- </p>
- <p>
- That sentence never got finished. The boy dropped down on the deck and
- clasped his knees. Doane, very gravely, considered him. He was young,
- fresh, slim. He had changed, definitely; a degree of quiet had come to
- him. And there could be no mistaking the unearthly light in his eyes. The
- love that is color and sunshine and exquisite song had touched and
- transformed him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane could not speak. He waited. Young Kane finally brought himself with
- obvious, earnest effort in a sense to earth. But his voice was unsteady in
- a boyish way.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Doane,” he asked, “do you believe in miracles?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Thoughtfully, deliberately, Doane bowed his great head. “I am forced to,”
- he replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You've seen men change—from dirty, selfish brutes, I mean, to
- something decent, worth while?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Many times.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Really?.... But does it have to be religion?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't knew.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can it be love? The influence of a woman, I mean—a girl?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Might that not be more or less the same thing?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you really think that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Again the great head bowed. And there was a long silence. Rocky broke it
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish you would tell me exactly how you feel about marriage between the
- races.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why—really—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must have observed a lot, all these years out here. And the pater
- tells me that you're an able man, except that you've sort of lost your
- perspective. He did tell me that he'd like to have you with him, if you
- could only bring yourself around to our ways.” Rocky, even now, could see
- this only as a profound compliment. He rushed on: “Oh, don't misunderstand
- me! She doesn't love me yet. How could she? I've got to earn the right
- even to speak of it again. But if I should earn the right—in time—tell
- me, could an American make her happy?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm afraid I can't answer that general question.” But Rocky felt that he
- was kind. “The pater says I'd be wrecking my life. He says she'd always be
- pulled two ways—you know! God! He seemed to think I had only to ask
- her, and she'd come. He doesn't understand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” said Doane—“I'm afraid he couldn't understand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You feel that too? It's very perplexing. I know I've spoken carelessly
- about the Chinese and Manchus. I looked down on them. I did! But oh, if I
- could only make it clear to you how I feel now! If I could only express
- it! We've been talking a long time, she and I. I don't mind telling you
- I'm taking a pretty bitter lesson, right now. She knows so much. She has
- such fine—well, ideals—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you've noticed that!.... Well, I feel crude beside her. Of course, I
- am.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes—you are. Even more so than you can hope to perceive now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The youth winced; but took it. “Well, suppose—just suppose that I
- might, one of these days, prove that I'm decent enough to ask her to be my
- wife.... Oh, don't think for a minute that I don't understand all it
- means. I do. I tell you I'm starting again. I'm going to fight it out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is fine,” said Griggsby Doane, and looked squarely, gravely, at the
- very young face. It was a white face, but good in outline; the forehead,
- particularly, was good. And the blue eyes now met his. “I believe you will
- fight it out. And I believe you have it in you to win.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm going to try, Mr. Doane. But just suppose I do win. And suppose I win
- her. It's when I think of that, that I.... I'll put it this way—to
- my friends, to everybody in New York, she'd be an oddity. A novelty, not
- much more. You know what most of them would think, in their hearts. Either
- they'd make an exception in her case—partly on my account, at that—or
- else they'd look down on her. You know how they are about people that
- aren't—well, the same color that we are. Probably I couldn't live
- out here. The business is mainly in New York, of course. And she's such an
- enthusiastic American herself—she'd want to be there. Some, anyway.
- And she's got to be happy. She's like a flower to me, now; like an orchid.
- Oh, a thousand times more, but.... What could I do? How could I plan? Oh,
- I'd fight for her quick enough. But you know our cold rich Americans. They
- wouldn't let me fight. They'd just....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My boy,” said Doane. quietly but with an authority that Rocky felt, “you
- can't plan that. You can do only one thing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What thing?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stay here in China a year before you offer yourself to that lovely girl.
- Study the Chinese—their language, their philosophy, their art. A
- year will not advance you far, but it should be enough to show you where
- you yourself stand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A year....!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen to what I am going to try to tell you. Listen as thoughtfully as
- you can. First I must tell you this—the Chinese civilization has
- been—in certain aspects still remains—the finest the world has
- known. With one exception, doubtless.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What exception?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Grecian. You see, I have startled you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I'm still sort of bewildered.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Naturally. But try to think with me. The Chinese worked out their social
- philosophy long ago. They have lived through a great deal that we have
- only begun, from tribal struggles through conquest and imperialism and
- civil war to a sort of republicanism and a fine feeling for peace and
- justice. And then, when they had given up primitive desire for fighting
- they were conquered by more primitive Northern tribes—first the
- Mongols, and later the Manchus. The Manchus have been absorbed, have
- become more or less Chinese.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And now a few more blunt facts that will further startle you. The Chinese
- are the most democratic people in the world. No ruler can long resist the
- quiet force of the scores of thousands of villages and neighborhoods of
- the empire.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They are the most reasonable people in the world. You can no more judge
- them from the so-called Tongs in New York and San Francisco, made up of a
- few Cantonese expatriates, than you can judge the culture of England by
- the beachcombers of the South Seas.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They developed, centuries before Europe, one of the finest schools of
- painting the world has so far known. There is no school of reflective,
- philosophical poetry so ripe and so fine as the Chinese. They have had
- fifty Wordsworths, if no Shakespeare.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will find Americans confusing them with the Japanese, whom they
- resemble only remotely. All that is finest in Japan—in art and
- literature—came originally from China.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You take my breath away,” said Rocky slowly. But he was humble about it;
- and that was good.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But listen, please. What I am trying to make clear to you is that in old
- Central China—in Hang Chow, and along this fertile Yangtze Valley,
- and northwest through the Great Plain to Kai Feng-fu and Sian-fu in Shensi—where
- the older people flourished—germinated the thought and the art, the
- humanity and the faith, that have been a source of culture to half the
- world during thousands of years.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you can not hope to understand this culture through Western eyes. For
- you will be looking out of a Western background. You must actually
- surrender your background. It is no good looking at a Chinese landscape or
- a portrait with eyes that have known only European painting. Can you see
- why? Because all through European painting runs the idea of copying nature—somehow,
- however subtly, however influenced by the nuances of color and light,
- copying. But the Chinese master never copied a landscape He studied it,
- felt it, surrendered his soul to it, and then painted the fine emotion
- that resulted. And, remember this, he painted with a conscious technical
- skill as fine as that of Velasquez or Whistler or Monet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The youth whistled softly. “Wait, Mr. Doane, please.... the fact is,
- you're clean over my head. I—I don't know a thing about our
- painting, let alone theirs. You see I haven't put in much time at—”
- He stopped. His smooth young brows were knit in the effort to think along
- new, puzzling channels. “But she would understand,” he added, honestly,
- softly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly! She would understand. That is what I am trying to make clear to
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you're sort of—well, overwhelming me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My boy.” said Doane very kindly, “you could go back home, enter business,
- marry some attractive girl of your own blood who thinks no more deeply
- than yourself, whose culture is as thinly veneered as your own—forgive
- me. I am speaking blunt facts.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go on. I'm trying to understand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “—And find happiness, in the sense that we so carelessly use the
- word. But here you are, in China, proposing to offer your life to a Manchu
- princess. You do seem to see clearly that there would be difficulties. It
- is true that our people crudely feel themselves superior to this fine old
- race. As a matter of fact, one of the worthiest tasks left in the world is
- to explain East to West—draw some part of this rich old culture in
- with our own more limited background. But as it stands now, the current
- will be against you. So I say this—study China. Open your mind and
- heart to the beauty that is here for the taking. Try to look through the
- decadent surface of this tired old race and see the genius that still
- slumbers within. If, then, you find yourself in the new belief that their
- culture is in certain respects finer than ours—as I myself have been
- forced to believe—if you can go to Hui Fei humbly—then ask her
- to be your wife. For then there will be a chance that you can make her
- happy. Not otherwise.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane stopped abruptly. His deep voice was rich with emotion. The boy was
- stirred; and a moment later, when he felt a huge hand on his shoulder he
- found it necessary to fight back the tears. The man seemed like a father;
- the sort of father he had never known.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't ask her so long as a question remains in your mind. Defiance won't
- do—it must be faith, and knowledge. I can't let you take the life of
- that girl into your keeping on any other terms.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The odd emphasis of this speech passed quite by the deeply preoccupied
- young mind.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're right,” he replied brokenly. “I've got to wait. Everything that
- you say is true—I really haven't a thing in the world to offer. I'm
- an ignorant barbarian beside her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have the great gift of youth,” said Doane gently.
- </p>
- <p>
- But a moment later Rocky broke out with: “But, Mr. Doane—how can I
- wait? She—after her father—they're going to take her away—make
- her marry somebody at Peking—somebody she doesn't even know—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't think they will succeed in that plan,” said Doane very soberly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But why not? What can she do? A girl—alone—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are tens of thousands of girls in China that have solved that
- problem.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I don't see—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must still try to keep your mind open. You are treading on ground
- unknown to our race.” A breathless quality crept into Doane's voice; his
- eyes were fixed on the distant river bank. “I wonder if I can help you to
- understand. Death—the thought of death—is to them a very
- different thing—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh!” It was more a sharp indrawing of breath than an exclamation. “You
- don't mean that she would do that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane bowed his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But she couldn't do a cowardly thing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane brought himself, with difficulty, to utter the blunt word. “Suicide,
- in China, is not always cowardice. Often it is the finest heroism—the
- holding to a fine standard.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no! It wouldn't ever—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please! You are a Westerner. Your feelings are those of the younger—yes,
- the cruder half of the world. I must still ask you to try to believe that
- there can be other sorts of feelings.” Again the great hand rested solidly
- on the young shoulder; and now, at last, the boy became slightly aware of
- the suffering in the heart of this older man. Though even now he could not
- grasp every implication. That human love might be a cause he did not
- perceive. But he sensed, warmly, the ripe experience and the compassionate
- spirit of the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have stepped impulsively into an Old-World drama,” Doane went quietly
- on—“into a tragedy, indeed. No one can say what the next
- developments will be. You can win, if at all, only by becoming yourself, a
- fatalist; You must move with events. Certainly you can not force them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I can take her away,” cried the boy hotly; finishing, lamely, with
- “somehow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Against her will?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—surely—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She will not leave her father.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—oh, Mr. Doane....”
- </p>
- <p>
- He fell silent. For a long time they sat without a word, side by side.
- Here and there about the junk sleepers awoke and moved about. A few of the
- women, forward, set up their wailing but more quietly now. The craft
- headed in gradually toward the right bank, passing a yellow junk that was
- moored inshore and moving on some distance up-stream. At a short distance
- inland a brown-gray village nestled under a hillside.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That junk passed us before we left the island,” Rocky observed, gloomily
- making talk.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane's gaze followed his down-stream; then at a sound like distant
- thunder, he turned and listened. “What's that?” asked the boy.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane looked up into the cloudless, blazing sky. “That would be the guns
- at Hankow,” he replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- The lictors were landed first to seek carts in the village. Then all were
- taken ashore in the small boat. His excellency smilingly, with unfailing
- poise, talked with Doane of the beauties of the river; even quoted his
- favorite Li Po, as his quiet eyes surveyed the hills that bordered the
- broad river:=
- </p>
- <p>
- “'The birds have all flown to their trees,
- </p>
- <p>
- The last, last lovely cloud has drifted off,
- </p>
- <p>
- But we never tire in our companionship—
- </p>
- <p>
- The mountains and I,'”=
- </p>
- <p>
- The line of unpainted, springless carts, roofed with arched matting,
- yellow with the fine dust of the highway, moved, squeaking, off among the
- hills. Following close went the women and the servants. The junk swung
- deliberately out and off down the river.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane, declining a cart, walked beside that of his excellency; Rocky Kane,
- deadly pale, his mouth set firmly, beside Miss Hui Fei. And so, through
- the peaceful country-side they came to the long brick wall and the heavily
- timbered gate house by the road, and, pausing there, heard very faintly
- the soft tinkling of the little bronze bells within. It was late
- afternoon. The shadows were long; and the evening birds were twittering
- among the leafy branches just within the wall.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XI—THE LANDSCAPE SCROLL OF CHAO MENG-FU
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">R</span>OCKY KANE, the few
- hours that followed were to exist in memory as a confused sequence of
- swift-pressing scenes, all highly colored, vivid; certain of them touched
- with horror, others passing in a flash of exotic beauty; while the fire of
- hot, unreasoning young love burned all but unbearably within his breast.
- </p>
- <p>
- He would remember the crowded line of carts in the sunken narrow road, the
- unruly mules that plunged and entangled their harness; the huddled women;
- the yellow dust that clung thickly to the bright silks of the mandarins;
- the confusion about the gate, and the handful of soldiers that came
- hurrying forward to help in a strange business up there; the trains of
- other carts that struggled to pass in the narrow way, while tattered
- muleteers shouted a babel of invective.
- </p>
- <p>
- He would remember the sad face of Miss Hui Fei-drawn back within the
- shadow of the cart and the faint smiles that came and so quickly went; and
- the efforts he made, at first, to cheer her with boyishly bright talk of
- this and that.
- </p>
- <p>
- He would remember how he made his way forward through the press, without
- recalling what had just been said, or what, precisely, could have been the
- impulse driving him on; past his excellency—sitting yet in his cart,
- calmly waiting, while the drabbled mandarins stood respectfully by; and
- how he found the soldiers carrying oddly limp Bodies into one of the gate
- houses, hiding them there.
- </p>
- <p>
- He would remember the picture on which he stumbled as he rounded the inner
- screen of brick; Mr. Doane and an officer and two or three soldiers
- standing thoughtfully about a fat body in spattered silks that was
- hideously without a head; standing there in the half dusk—for the
- shadows were lengthening softly into evening here under the trees—Mr.
- Doane then bending over, the officer kneeling, to examine the embroidery
- on the breast; and then two soldiers bringing up a pole on the end of
- which grinned the missing head; and then the sound of his own voice—curiously
- breathless and without body, asking, “What is it, Mr. Doane? What terrible
- thing has happened?” And then, even while he was speaking, four soldiers
- carrying another body by, this of a stout man in shirt and flannel
- trousers, that he felt he had seen somewhere before.
- </p>
- <p>
- He would remember—when they had carried out the last awful reminder
- of the bloodshed that had been, and while Mr. Doane pressed a hand to his
- eyes as if in prayer—how he stood silent there on the gravel area,
- looking up into the trees and about at the dim quaint <i>pai-lows</i> on
- either hand and at the pavilions behind them, each on its arch of stone
- over placid dark water; and how the lightly moving air of evening
- whispered through the trees, stirring, with the foliage, faintly musical
- little bells; and how, into this moment of calm, appeared, light of step,
- swinging her shopping bag as she descended the marble steps of the
- pavilion at the right and came forward under the <i>pai-lows</i>, the pale
- girl, Dixie Carmichael, who glanced respectfully toward Mr. Doane, and at
- Rocky himself raised her black eyebrows while her thin lips softly framed
- the one word, “You?” And then, after a few words—the girl said that
- Tex Connor and the Manila Kid made her come; it had been a terrible
- business; she thought both must have been, killed; she had contrived to
- hide—how Mr. Doane asked him to take her back to the women; and how
- they went, he and she, his heart beating hotly, out through the darkening
- gate where paper lanterns now moved about. He felt that for the first
- sharp blow at his new life. There would be other blows; doubtless through
- this girl; for the old life would not give him up without a fight.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was to forget what they said, he and this unaccountable, cool girl, as
- he left her out there and hurried back; but would remember the picture he
- found on his return—Mr. Doane striding off deliberately into the
- darkness beyond the little white bridges, while the officer followed with
- a lantern, and the few soldiers, also with lanterns, straggled after. He
- would remember crowding himself past all of them, snatching one of the
- lanterns as he ran, and falling into step at the side of the huge
- determined man.
- </p>
- <p>
- There were broad courtyards, then, and buildings with heavily curving
- roofs and columns richly colored and carved, with dim lights behind
- windows of paper squares. There were drunken soldiers, who ran away, and
- screaming women, and other women who would never scream or smile again.
- There was litter and splintered furniture and a broken-in door here and
- there. There was a familiar big soldier who plunged at Mr. Doane with a
- glinting blade in his hand; and then a sharp struggle that was to last, in
- retrospect, but an instant of time, for the clearer memory was of himself
- binding with his handkerchief a small cut in Mr. Doane's forearm while the
- soldiers carried out a wounded struggling giant, and then shouts and shots
- from the courtyard when the giant escaped. And he would remember picking
- up an unset ruby from the tiling and handing it to Mr. Doane. There was
- the picture, then, of a melancholy procession winding slowly through the
- grove with bobbing gay lanterns.
- </p>
- <p>
- And finally, to the boy incredibly, the place came into a degree of order
- and calm. Women and men disappeared into this building and that. Rocky sat
- alone on the steps of a structure that might have been a temple, hands
- supporting his throbbing head. The moonlight streamed down into the
- courtyard; he could see the grotesque ornaments on the eaves of the
- buildings, and the large blue-and-white bowls and vases in which grew
- flowering plants and dwarfed trees from Japan, and, in the farther gate, a
- sentry lounging. Now and again faint sounds came from within the largest
- of the buildings, voices and footsteps; and he could see lights again
- dimly through the paper. He wondered what they might be doing.... His
- thoughts were a fever. The spirit of Hui Fei hovered like an exquisite
- dream there, but crowding in with malignant persistence came, kept coming,
- pictures of Dixie Carmichael. He wondered where they had put her. Perhaps
- she was already asleep. It would be like her to sleep. She was so cold, so
- oddly unhealthy. Doubtless, surely, he would have to speak with her.
- </p>
- <p>
- He must have dozed. Soldiers were dragging themselves sleepily about the
- courtyard, rifles in hand. Two officers and a mandarin in a gown were
- examining a paper by the light of a lantern. Then Mr. Doane came out and
- read the paper. They talked in Chinese, Mr. Deane's as fluent as theirs.
- Rocky thought drowsily about this; considered vaguely the years of study
- and experience that must lie back of that fluency.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Doane, indeed, seemed to be assuming a sort of command. With great
- courtesy, but with impressive finality, he appeared to be outlining a
- course to which the mandarin assented. The officers bowed and went out
- through the gate. And when the mandarin and Doane then turned and entered
- the largest building it was the white man who held the paper in his hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky fell again into a doze; slept until he found Mr. Doane shaking him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come with me now. You can help.” Thus the huge grave man with the deep
- shadows in his face.
- </p>
- <p>
- And Rocky went with him, guided by a servant with a lantern, through
- corridors and courtyards, glimpsing dimly massive pillars and panels in
- black wood and softly red silk and railings of marble carved into
- exquisite tracery.
- </p>
- <p>
- With the paper that the boy had drowsily observed Doane sought his
- excellency. Dominated by the white man the attendant mandarin tapped at an
- inner door, then hesitatingly opened; and Doane alone stepped within.
- </p>
- <p>
- The room was long, plain, obscurely seen by the light of a single
- incandescent lamp over the formal <i>kang</i> or platform across the
- farther end. Doane had not thought of electric light in here and found it
- momentarily surprising. The walls were paneled in silk; the ceiling was
- heavy with beams. Against either side wall, mathematically at the center,
- stood a square small table and a square stool, heavily carved. Seated on
- the <i>kang</i>, with papers spread about and brushes and ink pot directly
- under the light, in short quilted coat and simple black cap, was Kang; a
- serenely patient figure, quietly working. He had merely looked up; a frail
- old man, quite beyond the reach of annoyance, whose eyes gazed unafraid
- over the rim of mere personal life into the eternal, tireless energy that
- would so soon absorb all that was himself. Then, recognizing the stalwart
- figure that moved forward into the light, he rose and clasped his hands
- and smiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Only an unexpected crisis would lead me to intrude thus,” began Doane in
- Chinese, bowing in courtly fashion and clasping his own hands before his
- breast.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No visit from Griggsby Doane could be regarded as an intrusion in my
- home,” replied his excellency.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will speak quickly, in the Western fashion,” Doane went on. “His
- Excellency, the General Duke Ma Ch'un, commanding before Hankow, writes
- that he regrets deeply the violent death of the eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu on
- your excellency's premises while dutifully engaged on the business of her
- imperial majesty, and cordially requests that your excellency come at once
- to headquarters as his personal guest to assist him in making an inquiry
- into the tragedy. He supplements this invitation with a copy of a telegram
- from His Excellency, Yuan Shih-k'ai, commanding him to guard at once your
- person and property.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The simple elderly man, who had been a minister, a grand councilor and a
- viceroy, seemed to recoil slightly as his eyes drooped to the papers about
- him; then he reached, with a withered hand that trembled, for this new
- paper and very slowly read it through.
- </p>
- <p>
- “His Excellency, Duke Ma Ch'un.” Doane added gently, “has sent a company
- of soldiers to escort you fittingly to his headquarters. They are waiting
- now at the outermost gate. I took it upon myself in this hour of sorrow
- and confusion to advise them, through the mouths of your loyal officers,
- that your excellency is not to be disturbed before dawn.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly, with an expressionless face, the viceroy folded the paper and laid
- it on the <i>kang</i>. He sank, then, beside it; with visible effort
- indicating that his visitor sit as well. But Doane remained standing—enormously
- tall, broad, strong; a man to command without question of rank or
- authority; a man, it appeared, hardly conscious of the calm power of
- personality that was so plainly his.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your Excellency is aware”—thus Doane said—“that to admit the
- authority of Duke Ma Ch'un at this sorrowful time is to submit both
- yourself and your lovely daughter to a fate that is wholly undeserved, one
- that I—if I may term myself the friend of both—can not bring
- myself to consider without indulging the wish to offer strong resistance.
- It has been said, 'The truly great man will always frame his actions with
- careful regard to the exigencies of the moment and trim his sail to the
- favoring breeze.' Your Excellency must forgive me if I suggest that,
- whatever value you may place upon your own life, we can not thus abandon
- your daughter, Hui Fei.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The viceroy's voice, when he spoke, had lost much of its timbre. It was,
- indeed, the voice of a weary old man. Yet the words came forth with the
- old kindly dignity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I asked you, Griggsby Doane, to make with me this painful journey to my
- home. We did not know then that we were moving from one scene of tragedy
- to another more terrible. But motive must not wait on circumstance. It
- need not be a hardship for my other children to live on in Asia as
- Asiatics. As such they were born. They know no other life. They will
- experience as much happiness as most. But with Hui Fei it is different.
- She must not be held away from contact with the white civilization. I did
- not give her this modern education for such an end as that. Hui Fei is an
- experiment that is not yet completed. She must have her chance. That is
- why I brought you here, Griggsbv Doane. My daughter must be got to
- Shanghai. There she has friends. I have ventured to count on your
- experience and good will to convey her safely there. Will you take her—now?
- To-night? I had meant to send with her the jewels and the paintings of
- Ming, Sung and Tang. Both collections are priceless. But the gems are gone—to-night.
- The paintings, however, remain. Will you take those and my daughter, and
- two servants—there are hardly more that I can trust—and slip
- out by the upper gate, and in some way escort her safely to Shanghai?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She would not go,” said Doane. “Not while you, Your Excellency, live, or
- while your body lies above ground.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The viceroy, hesitating, glanced up at the vigorous man who spoke so
- firmly, then down at the scattered papers on the <i>kang</i>. In the very
- calm of that shadowed face he felt the bewildering strength of the white
- race; and he knew in his heart that the man was not to be gainsaid. His
- mind wavered. For perhaps the first time in his shrewd, patiently subtle
- life, he felt the heavy burden of his years.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will send for her,” he said now, slowly. “I will give her into your
- keeping. At my command she will <i>go</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, Your Excellency, I have already sent word to her to prepare herself
- for the journey. Again you must forgive me. Time presses. It remains only
- to collect the paintings. You must have those, at the least. We start now
- in a very few moments. I have found here, a prisoner in your palace, the
- master of a junk that lies at the river bank, and have taken it upon
- myself to detain him further. He will convey us to Shanghai. It is now but
- a few hours before dawn. Hostile soldiers stand impatient at the outermost
- gate, eager to heap shame upon you and all that is yours. You must change
- your clothing—the dress of a servant would be best.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He waited, standing very still.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will forgive indecision in a man of my years,” began the viceroy.
- After a moment he began again: “The world has turned upside down, Griggsby
- Doane.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will come?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The viceroy sighed. Trembling fingers reached out to gather the papers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will come.” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- Adrift in unreality, fighting off from moment to moment the drowsy sense
- that these strange events were but a blur of dreams in which nothing could
- be true, nothing could matter, Rocky found himself at work in a dim room,
- taking down in great handfuls from shelves scrolls of silk wound on rods
- of ivory and putting them in lacquered boxes. Mr. Doane was there, and the
- servant, and a second servant of lower class, in ragged trousers and with
- his queue tied about his head. Still another Chinese appeared, shortly, in
- blue gown and sleeveless short jacket; an older man who looked, in the
- flickering faint light of the single lantern, curiously like the viceroy
- himself. The first servant disappeared and returned with the short poles
- of bamboo used everywhere in China in carrying burdens over the shoulder,
- and with cords and squares of heavy cotton cloth.
- </p>
- <p>
- Every bit of woodwork that his hands touched in moving about, Rocky found
- to be intricately carved and gilded and inlaid with smooth lacquer. And
- dimly, crowded about the walls, he half saw, half sensed, innumerable
- vases, small and large, with rounding surfaces of cream-colored crackle
- and blood-red and blue-and-white and green which threw back the moving
- light like a softly changing kaleidoscope. And there were screens that
- gave out, from their profound shadows, the glint of gold.
- </p>
- <p>
- They packed the boxes together, wrapped the large and heavy cubes in the
- squares of cloth and lashed them to hang from the bamboo poles. Four of
- them, then, Mr. Doane, Rocky himself and the servants, each balanced a
- pole over his shoulders and lifted the bulky cubes. The old man, who
- surely, now, was the viceroy, carried a European hand-bag. There were
- other parcels.... They made their way along a nearly dark corridor and out
- into the moonlight. Here, in a porch, stood four silent figures—Dixie
- Carmichael he distinguished first; then Hui Fei, wearing a short coat and
- women's trousers and a loose cloak. Her hair was parted and lay smoothly
- on her pretty head, glistening in the moonlight.... And the little
- princess was there, clinging to the hand of her sister and rubbing her
- eyes. They moved silently on, all together, following a path that wound
- among shrubbery, over an arching bridge to a gate.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky could dimly see the timbers studded with spikes and the long hinges
- of bronze. The servant, with a great key, unlocked the gate, which closed
- softly behind them.
- </p>
- <p>
- The pole weighed heavily on Rocky's unaccustomed shoulder. There was a
- trick of timing the step to the swing of the bales, that, stumbling a
- little, he caught. He was to remember this—the little file of men
- and women gathered from the two ends of the earth and walking without a
- spoken sound down through a twisting, sunken Chinese road to the Yangtze.
- And sensing the gathering drama of his own life, brooding over it with
- slowly increasing nervous intensity, he found himself coming awake. If
- this kept on he would soon be excitedly beyond sleep. But it didn't
- matter. They were saving Hui Fei. Not a word of explanation had been
- offered; but it was coming clear. As for the rest of it, he asked himself
- how it could matter. The presence of Miss Carmichael, a dangerous girl, an
- adventuress—he was thinking quite youthfully about her—who
- might easily be capable of anything, who could in a moment destroy the
- hope that was the only foundation, thus far, of his new life, and perhaps
- would choose to destroy it—even this, he tried to tell himself,
- couldn't possibly matter. Over and over, stumbling and shuffling along, he
- told himself that; almost convinced himself that he believed it.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was to remember most vividly of all the first glimpse, through a notch
- in the hills, of the river. The viceroy paused at that point, and turning
- back from the shining picture before him, where the moonlight silvered the
- unruffled surface of the water, toward the home of his ancestors over the
- hill, spoke in a low but again musical voice a few lines in which even the
- American youth could detect the elusive vowel rhymes of a Chinese poem.
- And he saw that Mr. Doane stood by with the slightly bowed head of one who
- attends a religious ceremony. It was a moving scene. But could he have
- understood the words the boy would have been puzzled. For the poem—the
- <i>Surrendering</i> of Po Chu-I. breathed resignation, humility, the
- negative philosophy so dear to Chinese tradition, but nothing of religion
- in the sense that he a Westerner, understood the word, nothing of
- mysticism or romantic illusion or childlike faith; rather a gentle
- recognition of the fact that life must go as it had come, unexplained,
- without tangible evidence of a personal hereafter; that, too, the
- individual is as nothing in the vast scheme of nature.
- </p>
- <p>
- They were ferried out, shortly after this, to the great junk they had
- twice seen within the twenty-four hours, her smooth sides curving yellow
- in the moonlight, her decks now scraped and scrubbed clean, flowers
- blooming in porcelain pots about a charming gallery that extended high
- over the river astern. The crew, roused from slumber, came swarming out
- from under the low-spread mattings. The <i>laopan</i> stepped nimbly to
- his post amidships on the poop. The heavy tracking ropes were hauled
- aboard, and the craft swung slowly off down the current.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane, with a lantern, escorted his excellency and Hui Fei, and the
- whimpering little princess, to the rooms below; then returned and with the
- same impersonal courtesy conducted Miss Carmichael down the steps. But at
- the door he indicated she stopped short; wavered a moment, lightly, on the
- balls of her feet. Then she accepted the lantern from him, bit her lip,
- and let fall the curtain without replying to his suggestion that she had
- better sleep if she could.
- </p>
- <p>
- Alone there, she held up the lantern. The floor had been lately scrubbed;
- but, even so, she made out a faint broad stain in the wood. And a bed of
- clean matting was spread where she had left a grisly heap.
- </p>
- <p>
- For a time Dixie stood by the square small window, looking out over the
- shining river toward the dim northern bank with its hills that seemed to
- drift at a snail's pace off astern. Her quick mind had never been farther
- from sleep. Her thin hands felt through her blouse the twisted ropes of
- pearls that were wound about her waist. Her lips were pressed tightly
- together. These pearls represented a fortune beyond even Dixie's
- calculating dreams. To keep them successfully hidden during the days,
- perhaps weeks to come of floating down the river in close companionship
- with these two strong observant men, and a half crazy American boy, and
- clever Oriental women, would test her resourcefulness and her nerve.
- Though she felt, ever, now, no doubt of the latter....
- </p>
- <p>
- The thing was tremendous. Now that the confusion of the day and night were
- over with, she found a thrill in considering the problem, while her
- sensitive fingers pressed and pressed again the hard little globes. There
- were so many of them; such beauties, she knew, in form and size and
- color.... Never again would such an opportunity come to her. It was,
- precisely, if on the grandest scale imaginable, her sort of achievement.
- Tex was gone. The Kid was gone. No one could claim a share or a voice: it
- was all hers—wealth, power, even, perhaps, at the last, something
- near respectability. For money, enough of it, she knew, will accomplish
- even that. While on the other, hand, to fail now, might, would, spell a
- life of drab adventure along the coast, without even a goal, without a
- decent hope; with, always, the pitiless years gaining on her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She searched, tiptoeing, about the room, lantern in hand, for a place to
- hide her treasure; then reconsidered. In some way she must keep the pearls
- about her person; though not, as now, looped around her waist. An
- accidental touch there might start the fateful questioning.
- </p>
- <p>
- She put down the lantern; stood for a long time by the curtained door,
- listening. From up and down the passage came only the heavy breathing of
- exhausted folk. She slipped out cautiously; made her way to the sloping
- deck above—how vividly familiar it was!—tiptoed lightly aft,
- past the uncurious helmsman, around the huge coils of rope and the
- piled-up fenders of interwoven matting, out to the pleasant gallery where
- the flowers were.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then, as she stepped down and paused to breathe slowly, deeply, again
- the heavy-sweet perfume of the tuberoses, a boyish figure sprang up, with
- a nervous little gasp of surprise, from the steamer chair of Hong Kong
- grass.
- </p>
- <p>
- She said, in her quiet way, “Oh, hello!” And then, with a quick sidelong
- glance at him, accepted the chair he offered. He seemed uncertain as to
- whether he would go or stay. Lowering her lids, she studied him. He was
- standing the excitement well, even improving. His carriage was better; he
- stood up well on his strong young legs. And he was quieter, better in
- hand, though of course the never-governed, long overstimulated emotions
- would not be lying very deep beneath this new, more manly surface. He was
- very good-looking, really a typical American boy.
- </p>
- <p>
- He stood now, fingering the petals of a dahlia and gazing out astern into
- the luminous night. She pondered the question of exerting herself again to
- win him. The money was there, plenty of it. He would be as helpless as
- ever in her experienced hands. And the mere use of her skill in trapping
- and stripping him would be enjoyable.... He was lingering.
- </p>
- <p>
- She decided in the negative. He would surely become tempestuous. And as
- surely, if she permitted that, he would discover the pearls. And—again
- the thrill of mastery swept through her finely strung nerves—she had
- those. They were enough. But they must be better hidden. There was her
- problem still, a problem that aught at any instant become delicately
- acute. She considered it, lying comfortably back in the chair, luxuriating
- in the richly blended scent of the crowded blossoms, while her nearly
- closed eyes studied the restless boy.
- </p>
- <p>
- Abruptly he turned. What now? Was he about to become tempestuous all on
- his own? It would be anything but out of character. Her slight muscles
- tightened, but her face betrayed no emotion, would have betrayed none in a
- more searching light than this soft flood from the moon. He was
- sentimental over the Manchu princess, now, of course. She hadn't missed
- that. But in the case of an ungoverned boy, she well knew, the emotion
- itself could be vastly more important than its immediate object But now
- she was to meet with a small surprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look here!” he began, crude, naive, as always, “there's something—perhaps—I
- ought to tell you. I tried to carry on with you. You've got a right to
- think anything about me—”
- </p>
- <p>
- At least he was keeping his voice down. She lay still; let him talk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “—But I've changed. Smile at that, if you want to!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She did smile faintly, but only at his clear, clean ignorance of the
- insult that underlay his words.
- </p>
- <p>
- “—I <i>was</i> on the loose. It's different now. I'm going to try to
- do something with my life. Whatever happens—I mean however my luck
- may seem to turn—”
- </p>
- <p>
- He could hardly go on with this. The next few words were swallowed down.
- It was plain enough that he couldn't think clearly. And he couldn't
- possibly know that he was giving her an opening through which, within a
- very few moments, she was to see the outline of the policy she must pursue
- during these difficult days to come on the junk.
- </p>
- <p>
- She lifted her head; leaned on an elbow. “Do you know,” she said, in a
- voice that seemed, now, to have a note of friendliness, “I'm sorry for
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sorry for me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't think I can't see how it is. And you mustn't misunderstand me. I'm
- older than you. I'm pretty experienced. My life has been hard. There
- couldn't be anything serious between you and me. You've wakened up to
- that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The new note in her voice puzzled him, but caught his interest. He stood
- looking straight down at her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know you're in love,” she went on.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't be silly. It's plain enough. She's very attractive. Nobody could
- blame you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She's wonderful!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's nice to see you feeling that way. It—it's no good our talking
- about it, you and me. All I've got to say is—please don't think I'd
- bother you. I may have led a rough life at times—a girl alone, who
- has to live by her wits—but—oh, well, never mind that! Every
- man has had his foolish moments. I understand you better than you will
- ever know—and—well, here's good luck!” And she offered her
- hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- He took it, breathless, eager. He seemed, then, on the point of pouring
- out his story to this new surprising friend. But a slight sound caught his
- attention. He looked up, and slowly let fall the hand that was gripped in
- his; for at the break of the deck, just above them, hesitating, very slim
- and wan, stood Miss Hui Fei.
- </p>
- <p>
- The situation was, of course, in no way so dramatic as it seemed to the
- boy. He, indeed, drew back, overcome; the habit of guilty thought was not
- to be thrown off in a moment. Miss Carmichael, sensing that he would begin
- erecting the incident into a situation the moment he could clumsily speak,
- took the matter in hand; rising, and quietly addressing herself to the
- Manchu girl. Breeding, of course, was not hers, could not be; but her calm
- manner and her instinct for reticence could seem, as now, not unlike the
- finer quality.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do have this chair,” she said. “I was going down.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Hui Fei smiled faintly. “I coul'n' sleep,” she murmured.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's one little article I suppose none of us thought to bring—”
- thus Miss Carmichael, balancing in her light way on the balls of her feet—“needle
- and thread.” She even indulged in a little passing laugh. “I think my maid—”
- began Miss Hui Fei.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no! I wouldn't bother you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes! Please—I don' min'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She turned; and the boy started impulsively toward her. Miss Carmichael
- moved away, over the deck, but heard him saying, in a broken voice:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll come back? I've got to tell you something!”
- </p>
- <p>
- To which Miss Hui Fei replied, in a voice that was meant to be at once
- pleasant and impersonal: “Why—yes. I think I'll come back. It's so
- close down there.” The two young women went below. Quietly Miss Carmichael
- waited in the passage.
- </p>
- <p>
- The needle and thread were shortly forthcoming. The white girl smiled;
- seeming really friendly there in the dim ray of light that slanted in
- through a window.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's good of you,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no—it's nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We're in for a rather uncomfortable trip of it. I hope you'll let me do
- anything I can to help you. I'm more used to knocking about, of course.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We'll all make the best of it,” said the Manchu girl, and turned, with an
- effort at a smile, toward the stairs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Carmichael entered her own room. The lantern still burned, but the
- candle-end was low. She saw now an iron lamp, an open dish full of oil
- with a floating wick. This she lighted with the candle. Next, moving about
- almost without a sound, she fastened the swaying door-curtain with pins.
- Then she slipped out of her blouse and skirt; untied the pearl cape; and
- seated on the bed of matting, with her back to the door, began patiently
- sewing the pearls into her undergarments. It was to be a long task. Before
- dawn the lamp burned out, and fearful of being caught asleep with the
- amazing treasure about her she stood at the window and let the wind blow
- into her face until the faintly spreading light of dawn made the work
- again possible. The drowsiness that nearly overcame her now she fought off
- with an iron will. Nothing mattered—nothing but success. Her thin
- deft fingers worked in a tireless rhythm. Only once, very briefly, did she
- yield to the impulse to weigh the exquisite lustrous globes in her hands;
- to hold them close to the light. Her tireless reason told her that this
- wouldn't do. It brought an excited throbbing to her weary head.... She
- settled again to her task; time enough to gloat later. By way of a healthy
- mental occupation she counted the pearls as she threaded them—up to
- a thousand—on up to two thousand—then (the sun was redly up
- now; and folk were stirring about the deck) three thousand. In all, a few
- more than thirty-seven hundred pearls she threaded about her person; and
- then slipped back into blouse and skirt before permitting herself a few
- hours of sleep. The diamond-studded clasps she wrapped in a bit of cloth
- and stuffed into her hand-bag.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Chinese maid woke her then, bringing food that had been cooked, she
- knew, in the brick stove up forward, where the crew slept. She could bring
- herself to eat but a few mouthfuls.... This didn't matter, either. No
- hardship was of consequence in such a battle as hers; she would have
- submitted coolly to torture rather than surrender her prize. But it
- suggested fresh tactics. She had a knack at cooking. Quietly, later in the
- day—she knew better than to try effusive friendliness; to play
- herself to the last would be best—she spoke to Mr. Doane of that
- small gift. A kitchen was improvised in the <i>laopan's</i> cramped
- quarters, aft; and Miss Carmichael, quite intent about her business,
- coolly cheerful about it, indeed, began to prove her capacity. And she
- knew, then, that she was winning. They would soon be respecting her, even
- liking her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Even so she would keep her distance; then they would have to keep theirs.
- That was all she needed.
- </p>
- <p>
- To Rocky, the most elusive memory of all this eventful night was the
- conversation with Miss Hui Fei. For she returned in a moment—so he
- remembered it—and sank wearily into the steamer chair. The picture
- of that scene was to vary bafflingly in his mind. At times he saw himself,
- torn with an emotion now so great that it seemed the end of life, standing
- over her, saying, passionately:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know how it looked—you're finding us here like that! And you'd
- have reason. I did flirt with her. I'm ashamed now. I hadn't seen you—felt
- you—like this. But that's all over. I was telling her—Please!
- You've got to know!—that I love you. Or telling her enough. She
- understood. And she was awfully decent. She took my hand, wished me luck.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There must have been a brief time then when the poor girl was endeavoring
- pleasantly to turn aside this torrent of heavily freighted words.
- Certainly he was talking feverishly on. He could remember pulling down a
- coil of rope from the steersman's deck and sitting moodily beside her; and
- there was a sensation in their minds, his and hers, of being at
- cross-purposes. There was something about her, back of the weary smile—a
- smile that was long to haunt him, dim in the moonlight, exquisite in its
- sensitive beauty—that eluded his pressing desire until it seemed
- near to driving him mad. Kipling's <i>East is East, and West is West</i>,
- slipped in among his thoughts; kept coming and coming until it became a
- nerve-wracking singsong in his brain.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was one period, fortunately very short, when he seemed to be almost
- forcing a quarrel. Why, he couldn't afterward imagine. That part of it was
- dreadful in the retrospect. He had reached the point, apparently, when he
- couldn't longer endure the failure to reach her. There was simply no
- response. It was almost as if he were frightening her away. Perhaps it was
- just that.
- </p>
- <p>
- But the most vivid memory was of the unaccountable force that suddenly
- rose in him, seizing on his tongue, his brain, his very nerves. The power
- of the Kanes was abruptly his, and it brought its own skill with it. It
- was, distinctly, a possession. It simply came, at this very top of his
- emotional pitch. There must have been preliminaries. He must have said
- things that she must have answered. But these lesser moments dropped out.
- Even a day later, he could see, could almost feel, himself on one knee
- beside the steamer chair, saying those amazing things, without a shred of
- memory as to how he got there. Never had he so spoken, to girl or woman;
- for in the escapades of the younger Rocky there had always been a
- reticence if seldom a restraint. It was precocity; the blood that was in
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You beautiful, wonderful girl!” he was breathing, close to her ear. (He
- was never to forget this.) “How can you hide your feelings from me? Can't
- you see it's just driving me mad?.... You're adorable! You're exquisite!
- You thrill me so—just your voice; the way you walk—your hands—your
- hair!.... Can't you understand, dear, it isn't what they call 'love.'”
- (This with a divine contempt.) “It's the cry of my whole being. I want to
- give you my life. I want to know <i>your</i> life—study it—come
- to understand the wonderful people that has made you possible! I'm going
- to study it—history, art, everything!.... I worship you! I dream so
- of you—all the time—daytimes! I just half-close my eyes and
- then, right away, I can see you, walking. And I see you as you were at the
- dance on the boat.” He choked a little; then rushed on. “And in those
- dreams I always take you in my arms—No, let me say it! The angels
- are singing it, the wonderful truth!—I take you in my arms and kiss
- your hair and your eyes. You always close your eyes—oh, so slowly—and
- I press my lips on the lids. And your arms are around my neck. I can feel
- your hands. But I never kiss your lips—not in those dreams. Because
- that will mean that you have given me your soul, and I always know I must
- wait for that....
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please! You must listen! Can't you see I'm just tearing my heart out and
- putting it in your hands—under your feet? There isn't any other life
- for me. I can't live without you. I could give up my friends, my home, my
- country, and be happy just serving you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He had captured her hand; had it tight in his two hands and was kissing it
- tenderly. The thrill was unbelievable now. It was ecstasy. He could hear
- himself murmuring over and over, “You're so exquisite! So thrilling! I
- love the way your hair lies over your forehead. I love your eyes,
- especially when you smile”.... On and on.
- </p>
- <p>
- The tired sad girl in the steamer chair could not fail to respond in some
- measure, in every sensitive nerve, to so ardent a wooing. Even when she
- rose, and struggled a little to withdraw her hand, she couldn't be angry.
- He was surprising; in his very boyishness, compelling.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then, a little later, he was sitting moodily on the extension front of the
- chair, face in hands, plunged into a wordless abyss; she sat on the edge
- of the steersman's deck, leaning against the rail, her face close to a
- lotus plant, with one flower that looked a ghostly blue in the fading
- moonlight, and just later, shaded through pink to deep red with the first
- quick-spreading color of the dawn. His emotional outburst had passed, for
- the moment, like a gust. He seemed to himself, already, to have failed.
- His thoughts were turned, behind the gray half-covered face, on death. For
- so swung the pendulum. He couldn't, in these depths, draw significance
- from the remarkable fact that she had risen only to drop down again and
- carry forward the talk that he let fall, and that he had, for the time at
- least, swept away those mental obstacles. Certainly Miss Hui Fei was not
- elusive now.
- </p>
- <p>
- The things she was saying, in a deliberate, matter-of-fact way, bewildered
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don' want you to make love to me like tha'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But how can I help it? You're so wonderful. You thrill me so. I tell you
- it's my whole life. I can never live on without you—not any more.
- It's got to be with you, or—or nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was strange. This impulsive affection had grown very, very rapidly
- within him; yet, even a day earlier he couldn't have pictured this scene.
- Not a phrase of these burning sentences he was so fervently uttering had
- been consciously framed in his mind. A part of the thrill of the situation
- lay in the very fact that he was so wildly committing himself. Now that it
- was being said, he felt no desire to take a word back. He meant it all;
- and more—more.
- </p>
- <p>
- But she—still, even in the telltale morning light, quaint, charming,
- adorable—was growing so practical about it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're a ver' romantic boy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm not! This is real! Can't you understand that it's love—forever?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please!.... I don' want you to think I don' un'erstan'. It's ver' sweet
- an' generous of you—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm not generous! I want you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do apprecia' all it woul' mean. You offer me so much—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You dear girl, I offer you everything—everything I have or am! I
- don't want to live at all unless it's with you always at my side.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I don't think—Please! I woui'n' hurt you for anything. You've
- helped so—helped saving my father's life an' mine. It's won'erful—but
- I don' think life is like that. People mus' have so much in common to
- marry in the Western way. They mus' love each other, yes. But in their
- min's an' feelings they mus' share so much—their backgroun's....”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was out of the chair now; was beside her on the deck.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen!” he was huskily saying. “We'll get married right away in Shanghai.
- We've got to! I won't let you say no! And then we won't go back. Well stay
- out here. There'll be money enough, in spite of the pater. We'll study
- this East together. I'm going to devote all the rest of my life to it.
- We'll build our common interest. I shall never want anything else!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you knew that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can you doubt me?” He had both her hands now. He seemed so young, so
- eager. He would fight for what he greatly desired, as his father had
- fought before him. However crudely, boyishly, he would fight.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No”—her own voice was, surprisingly, a little unsteady—“of
- course I don' doubt you. But how can you know what you're going to wan'—years
- from now. I don' un'erstan' that. It does seem pretty romantic to me. I
- don't know for myself. I coul'n' tell.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This, or perhaps it was her failure to rise to his ecstasy, plunged him
- again into the depths.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's you or nothing now,” he repeated. “You or nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wha' do you mean by that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've got to have you. If I can't, I'll—oh, I guess I'll just drop
- quietly overboard. What's the use?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you think it's fair to talk li' that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps not, but—I guess I'm beside myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen!” said she now: with a friendly, even sympathetic pressure of his
- trembling hands, “I'll tell you what I think. I think the thing for you to
- do is to go back to college.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This stung him. “How can you talk like that,” he cried, “when—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don' wan' to hurt you. But please try to think this as I wan' you to.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Haven't you <i>any</i> feeling for me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course, an' I'm ver' grateful.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For God's sake, don't talk like that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a pause. He withdrew his hands; plunged his feverish face into
- them.
- </p>
- <p>
- She rose, wearily. Said: “I'm going to try to sleep.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you could go? Leaving it like this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please! I can't help—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I understand—” he was on his feet before her; caught her arms
- in his hands that now were firm and young—“I haven't moved you yet,
- that's all. But I will. We Kanes aren't quitters. We don't give up. And
- I'm not going to give you up. I'm going to win you. Can't you see that
- I've got to? That I can't live.... Listen! You're the loveliest, daintiest
- little girl in the world. You're exquisite. Your voice is music to me.
- I've got to live my life to that music. It'll be beautiful! Can't you see
- that? I don't care how much time it takes. I'll settle down to it. But
- I'll win you. And we'll be married at Shanghai?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was very nearly irresistible now. The power in him was real. She broke
- away; then, a surprise to herself, lingered. Strangely to her, this
- ardent, still somewhat impossible boy, with his vital, Western force, had
- actually created an atmosphere of romance in which she was, for the
- moment, and in a degree, enveloped. She knew, clearly enough, that she
- must exert herself to escape from it: but lingered.
- </p>
- <p>
- He caught her hands again; covered them with kisses; held them firmly
- while his eyes, suddenly radiant, sought hers and, during a moving
- instant, held them. She went below then. And Rocky dropped into the
- steamer chair and smiled exultantly as he drifted into slumber.
- </p>
- <p>
- When they met again, away from the others, after an excellent luncheon of
- fowl and vegetables prepared by the surprising Miss Carmichael, his mood
- was wholly changed. He had charm; consciously or unconsciously, he made it
- felt.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wasn't fair to you,” he began.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you don' min',” said she, “we jus' won' talk abou' that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can't help it.” He smiled a little. “There's no use pretending I can
- think about another thing. I'm madly in love with you—hopelessly
- gone. It'll probably simplify things if you'll just accept that as a fact.
- But last night—this morning—whenever it was!—after all
- we'd been through—you know, it wasn't so unnatural that I got all
- fired up that way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As this half-smiling, half-serious youth was plainly going to be even more
- difficult to manage than the ardent boy of the glowing dawn, she was
- silent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here's the thing,” he went on. “I was too worn out myself to be
- considerate of you. I meant every word, of course. You'll never know how
- wonderful you seem to me.” This rather wistfully. They were leaning on the
- rail, gazing at the rocky hills along the southern bank. “It's all wrong
- for me to be so impatient. I know I've got to make good. I've got to earn
- you. That won't come all at once. But I am going to try not to get stirred
- up like that again. God knows you've got enough to bother you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm ver' uncertain abou' my father,” said she. “How do you mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—he stays in his room. He doesn' come out with us. An' he's
- always working.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—does that mean anything? Wouldn't he naturally be busy?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don' think so. No, like this.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I don't understand what—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It isn' easy to say. When a man like father—what you call a
- mandarin—feels that he mus'”—her voice wavered—“that he
- mus' go, there is a grea' deal that he must wri' to his frien's an' to the
- governmen'. He doesn' wan' to be disturb'. I can' tell wha' he's doing. It
- worries me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane, during the sunny dreamy afternoon, heard them, now and again. They
- were quite monopolizing the pleasant after gallery. And they were drifting
- on into their love story. He could not restrain himself from watching and
- listening. Despite the fact that his own dream was over, Doane felt about
- it, in his heart, like a boy. The sight of her quickened his pulse.
- Thoughts of her—mental pictures—came irresistibly. And these,
- at times, puzzled his heart if never his reason; the moment on the top
- deck of the steamer, when she climbed the after ladder and first confided
- her tragic difficulty; the dance she “sat out” with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- .... He called himself, often enough, a fool. But his spirit refused to
- accept the words that formed in his mind. He was simply at war with
- himself.... The sort of thing happened often enough in life, of course.
- Every man lived through such periods. Men of middle age in particular....
- Thus he fell back, over and again, on reason. It was all he could do.
- Plainly the experience would take a lot of living through.
- </p>
- <p>
- To hope that her quick youth could altogether resist Rocky's ardent youth
- was asking too much, of course. The young people were almost certain to
- find themselves helpless—their emotions stirred by what they had
- been living through; thrown together here, romantically, on the junk.
- Whatever small difficulties they might encounter in exploring each other's
- nascent feelings would be softened by the very air they were breathing.
- The young are often, usually, helpless when nature so works upon them....
- But Doane wasn't bitter. At times he nearly convinced himself that he felt
- only concern lest they rush along too fast; surrender their hearts, only
- to find too late that the necessary affinity was not growing into flower.
- The boy must have some proving, of course. That lovely girl mustn't be
- sacrificed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Late in the afternoon they were singing, softly, even humorously. Doane
- caught snatches of <i>Mandalay</i>, and the college songs. That would seem
- to them a fine bond, of course—the mere casual fact that both knew
- the songs. For youth is quite as simple as that.... So they were rushing
- on with it, while an older man pondered. Rocky hung unashamed on her every
- word, every movement; waited forlornly about whenever she went below;
- starting at sounds, sinking into moods, and shining with radiance when she
- reappeared. He even had gentle moments.... What girl could be insensible
- to all that? He himself was avoiding them, of course. There was no helping
- that; certainly in this stage of the romance.
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency appeared on deck during the second afternoon; greeted Doane
- in friendly fashion—looking oddly simple in his servant costume;
- blue gown, plain cloth slippers, skull-cap with a knot of vermilion silk.
- They walked the deck together; later, they sat on a coil of rope. In
- manner he was very nearly his old self; smiling a thought less, perhaps,
- but as humanly direct in his talk as a Chinese.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We shall soon be parting, Grigsby Doane,” he remarked, “and I shall think
- much of you. Do you know yet where you shall go and what you shall do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” Doane replied. “All I can do now is the next thing, whatever that
- may prove to be.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will help China?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall hope for an opportunity.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are, first and last, a Westerner.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose that is true.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I did think you a philosopher, Griggsby Doane. So you seemed to me. Like
- our humble great, almost like Chuang Tzü himself. But in the moment of
- crisis your nature found expression wholly in action. At such times we of
- the East are likely to be negative. We are a static people. But you, like
- your own, are dynamic.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This shrewd bit of observation struck Doane sharply. Come to think, it was
- true.
- </p>
- <p>
- “At the critical moment you wasted not one thought in reflection. You
- weighed none of the difficulties; you ignored consequences. You took
- command. You acted. As a result—here we are.... I suppose you were
- right. At any rate, I yielded to your active judgment. It has saved my
- daughter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you, as well, Your Excellency, if I may say so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well—myself too.... I shall always think of you now as I have
- twice seen you—once in that curious boxing match on the steamer; and
- again as you took command of me and my own house. I regret that in my
- position as a Manchu, however progressive, I can not be of any
- considerable service to you with the republicans. It is in their camp that
- your advice will help. Only there. Shall you go to them?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane found it impossible to mention the invitation of Sun-Shi-pi. That
- would be a sacred confidence. So he replied in merely general terms:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should like to sit in their councils. They seem to represent, at this
- time, China's only material hope. Though I am not strongly an optimist
- regarding the revolution. China is so vast, so sunken in tradition, that
- the real revolution must be distressingly slow. Still, I have some
- familiarity with the constitutional history of my own country, and, I
- think, some acquaintance with yours. And I love China. Yes, I should like
- to help.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are a great man, Griggsby Doane. You have known sorrow and poverty.
- To the merely successful American I do not look for much real guidance.
- But China needs you. I hope she will find you out in time.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They talked on, of many things. His excellency was gently, at times even
- whimsically, reflective. At length he touched, lightly at first, on the
- subject of Rocky Kane. A little later, more openly, he asked what the
- boy's standing would be in New York.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane thought this over very carefully. It was curious how that confusing
- element of mere feeling reappeared promptly in his mind. But he explained,
- finally, that while the boy was young, and had been passing through a
- phase of rather adventurous wildness, still his father was a man of
- enormous prestige in society as in the financial world. The boy had nice
- qualities. Given the right influences he might, with the wealth that would
- one day be his, become like his father, a powerful factor in American
- life.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I find myself somewhat puzzled,” remarked his excellency then. “He seems
- devoted to my daughter. I can not easily read her mind. And I would not
- attempt to direct her life as would be necessary had she been merely a
- Manchu girl reared in a Manchu environment. Is she, do you think, and as
- your people understand the term, in love with him? I find their present
- relationship somewhat alarming.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would be difficult to say, Your Excellency—” thus Doane, simply
- and gravely. “The young man is, of course, in love with her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah,” breathed his excellency. “You are sure of that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. She is undoubtedly accustomed to play about pleasantly with young
- men as do the young women of America.” Sudden, poignant memories came of
- his own lovely daughter, as she had been; and of the puzzling romance that
- had seemed for a time to injure her young life—a romance in which
- he, her father, had played a strange part. But that was, after all, but an
- echo from another life; a closed book.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your daughter, I am sure,” Doane continued, “can be trusted to form her
- own attachments. She is a noble as well as a beautiful girl.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed—you find her so, Griggsby Doane? That is pleasant to my
- ears. For into the directing of her life have gone my dreams of the new
- China and the new world. I would not have her choose wrongly now. But I do
- not understand her. It is difficult for me to talk freely with her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am sure,” said Doane slowly, “that if you could bring yourself to do
- so”—as once or twice before, in moments of deep feeling, he forgot
- to use the indirect Oriental form of address—“it would make her very
- happy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You think that, Griggsby Doane?” His excellency considered this. Then
- added: “I will make the effort.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I may suggest—talk with her not as father with daughter, but on
- an equality, as friend with friend.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency slowly rose; and Doane, also rising, felt for the first
- time that the fine old statesman fully looked his age. He was, standing
- there, smiling a thought wistfully, an old man, little short of a broken
- man. And then his dry thin hand found Doane's huge one and gripped it in
- the Western manner. This was a surprise, evidently as moving to Kang as to
- Doane himself; for they stood thus a moment in silence.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dearest hope, of late,” said the great Manchu—the smoothest of
- etiquette giving way, for once, before the pressure of emotion—“has
- been that my daughter's heart might be entrusted to you, Griggsby Doane.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Again a silence. Then Doane:
- </p>
- <p>
- “That was my hope, as well.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. It is plainly impossible. All life is before her. The thought has not
- come to her. It never will. I see now that she could not be happy with me.
- And I think she ought to be happy. I must ask you not to speak of this
- again. Let youth call unto youth. And let me be her friend.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency went below after this. Miss Hui Fei was also below,
- sleeping. Rocky Kane had been playing with the little princess, out on the
- gallery; but now, evidently watching his chance, he came forward to the
- informal seat the mandarin had vacated.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was to be difficult—always difficult. The boy, plainly, couldn't
- live through these tense days without a confidant. Doane steeled himself
- to bear it, and to respond as a friend. There was no way out; would be
- none short of Shanghai; just an exquisite torture. It was even to grow,
- with each fresh contact, harder to bear. The boy was so curiously
- unsophisticated, so earnest and honest an egotist.
- </p>
- <p>
- “—I've asked her,” he said now.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane could only wait.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She hasn't said yes. That would be absurd, of course—so soon.” He
- was so pitifully putting up a brave front. “But she does like me. And it's
- something that she hasn't said no. Isn't it something?”
- </p>
- <p>
- That was hardly a question; it was nearer assertion—what he had to
- think. Doane managed to incline his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But never mind that. God knows why I should bother you with it. You've
- been so kind—such a friend. We—are friends, aren't we?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane felt himself obliged to turn and meet his eyes. And such eyes!
- Ablaze with nervous light. And then he had to grip another hand—this
- one young, moist, strong. But he managed that, too.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen! I do bother you awfully, but—I've been thinking—here
- we are, you know. God knows when I'll find a man who could help me as you
- can. And we brought all those wonderful old paintings aboard here. I've
- been thinking—well, since I've got so much to learn of Chinese
- culture, why not begin? Couldn't I—would they mind if I looked at
- some of the pictures? And—if it isn't asking too much—you
- could tell me why they're good. Just begin to give me something to go by.
- Isn't it as good a way to make the break as any?”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a most acceptable diversion. Doane, though several boxes of the
- paintings were in his own rooms, sent a servant to ask a permission that
- was cordially granted. And as there was a wind blowing, they went below,
- and talked there in low voices in order not to disturb the sleeping girl,
- while the elder man carefully opened a box and got out a number of the
- long scrolls that were wound on rods of ivory, handling them with reverent
- fingers.
- </p>
- <p>
- He chose one from the brush of that Chao Meng-fu who flourished under the
- earliest Mongol or Yuan rulers, a roll perhaps fourteen or fifteen inches
- in width, and in length, judging from the thickness, as many feet, tied
- around with silk cords and fastened with tags of carven jade. The painting
- itself, naturally, was on silk, which in turn was pasted on thick,
- dark-toned paper, made of bamboo pulp, with borders of brocade. The
- projecting ends of the ivory rollers, like the tags, were carved.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the edge of the scroll were, besides the seal signature of the artist,
- and the date—in our chronology, A. D. 1308—many other
- signatures in the conventional square seal characters of royal and other
- collectors who had possessed the painting, with also, a few pithy,
- appreciative epigrams from eminent critics of various periods. On that one
- margin was stamped the authentic history of the particular bit of silk,
- paper and pigment during its life of six full centuries; for no hand could
- have forged those seals.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was no likelihood that the boy—lacking, as he was, in cultural
- background—would exhibit any sensitive responsiveness to the
- exquisite brush-work of the fine old painter or to his consciously
- subjective attitude toward his art. But there is a way in which the simple
- Western mind that is not preoccupied with fixed concepts of art may be led
- into enjoyment of such a landscape scroll; this is to exhibit it as do the
- Chinese themselves, unrolling it, very slowly, a little at a time,
- deliberately absorbing the detail and the finely suggested atmosphere,
- until a sensation is experienced not unlike that of making a journey
- through a strange and delightful country. Doane employed this method—it
- was surely what that old painter intended—and led the boy slowly
- from a pastoral home, so small beneath its towering overhanging mountain
- crags, that lost themselves finally in soft cloud-masses, as to appear
- insignificant, out along a river where lines of reeds swayed in the winds
- and boats moved patiently, across a lake that was dotted with pavilions
- and pleasure craft—on and on, through varied scenes that yet were
- blended with amazing craftsmanship into a continuous, harmonious whole.
- </p>
- <p>
- The time crept by and by. When Doane finally explained the seal characters
- at the end and retied the old silk cords with their hanging rectangles of
- unclouded green jade, the sun was low over the western hills.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky's face was flushed, his eyes nervously bright. “I don't get it all,
- of course,” he said; “but it makes you feel somehow as if you'd been
- reading <i>The Pilgrim's Progress!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane gravely nodded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shall we look at another?” said Rocky.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. That is enough. The Chinese knew better than to crowd the mind with
- confused impressions of many paintings. A good picture is an experience to
- be lived through, not a trophy to be glanced at.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder,” said the boy, “if that's why I used to hate it so when my
- tutor dragged me through the Metropolitan Museum?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Doubtless.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And this picture has a great value, I suppose?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is virtually priceless—in East as well as West,” replied Doane
- as he replaced it among its fellows in the box.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus began, late but perhaps not too late, what may be regarded as the
- education of young Rockingham Kane.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XII—AT THE HOUR OF THE TIGER
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HEY passed, that
- evening, the region of Peng-tze where Tao Yuan-ming, after a scant three
- months as district magistrate, surrendered his honors and retired to his
- humble farm near Kiu Kiang, there to write in peace the verse and prose
- that have endured during sixteen crowded centuries; and on, then, moving
- slowly through the precipitous Gateway of Anking and, later, around the
- bend that bounds that city on the west, south and east. Those on deck
- could see, indistinctly in the deepening twilight, the vast area of houses
- and ruins—for Anking had not yet recovered from the devastations of
- the T'ai-ping rebels in the eighteen-sixties—where half a million
- yellow folk swarm like ants; and very indistinctly indeed, farther to the
- north, they could see: the blue mountains. Slowly, quietly, then, Anking,
- with its ruins and its memories fell away astern.
- </p>
- <p>
- Half an hour later the sweeps were lashed along the rail. The great dark
- sails, with their scalloped edges between the battens of bamboo, seeming
- more than ever, in the dusk, like the wings of an enormous bat, were
- lowered; and with many shouts and rhythmic cries the tracking ropes were
- run out to mooring poles on the bank. Forward the mattings were adjusted
- for the night. The smells of tobacco and frying fish drifted aft. A youth,
- sipping tea by the rail, put down his cup and sang softly in falsetto a
- long narrative of friendship and the mighty river and (incidentally) the
- love of a maiden who slipped away from her mother's side at night to meet
- a handsome student only to be slain, as was just, by the hand of an elder
- brother.... From the cabin aft drifted a faint odor of incense. A
- flageolet mingled its plaintive oboe-like note with the song of the youth
- by the rail.... From a near-by village came soft evening sounds, and the
- occasional barking of dogs, and the beat of a watchman's gong.... The
- greatest of rivers—greatest in traffic and in rich memories of the
- endless human drama—was settling quietly for the night.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the first rays of dawn the forward deck would be again astir. Sails
- would be hoisted, ropes hauled aboard and coiled; and the shining yellow
- craft would resume her journey down-stream, with carven and brightly
- painted eyes peering fixedly out at the bow, with carefully tended flowers
- perfuming the air about the after gallery, a thing of rich and lovely
- color even on the rich and lovely river; slipping by busy ports, each with
- its vast tangle of small shipping and its innumerable families of beggars
- in slipper-boats or tubs awaiting miserably the steamers and their
- strangely prodigal white passengers. T'ai-ping itself, of bloody memory,
- lay still ahead; and farther yet Nanking the glorious, and Chin-kiang, and
- the great estuary. Slowly the huge craft would drift and sail and tie,
- moving patiently on toward the Shanghai of the ever-prospering white
- merchants, the Shanghai that somewhat vaingloriously had dubbed itself
- “the Paris of the East.” And no one of the thousands, here and there, that
- idly watched the golden junk as it moved, not without a degree of
- magnificence, down the tireless current, was to know that a Manchu
- viceroy, a prince hunted to the death by his own blood, a statesman known
- to the courts of great new lands, was in hiding within those timbers of
- polished cypress. Nor would they know that a princess, his daughter yet
- strangely of the new order, voyaged with him clad in the simple costume of
- a young Chinese woman. Nor would they dream of certain inexplicable
- whites. Nor would they have cared; for the voyage of the yellow junk was
- but a tiny incident in the crowded endless drama of the river; to the
- millions of struggling, breeding, dying souls along the banks and on the
- water, merely living was and would be burden enough. So China merely lives—dreaming
- a little but hoping hardly at all—with every eye on the furrow or
- the till; lives, and dies, and—lives again and on.
- </p>
- <p>
- Late in the third afternoon, Rocky Kane, sitting, head forlornly in hands,
- in his narrow room, heard a light step—heard it with every sensitive
- nerve-tip—and, springing up, softly drew his curtain. But the quick
- eagerness faded from his eyes; for it was Dixie Carmichael.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her thin lips curved in the faintest of smiles as she moved along the
- corridor toward her own curtained door. But then, as she passed and
- glanced back, her skirt, in swinging about, caught on a nail; caught
- firmly; and as she stooped to release it, a string of pearls swung down,
- broke, and rolled, a score of little opalescent spheres, along the deck, a
- few of them nearly to Rocky's feet. He stooped—without a thought at
- first—picked them up and turned them over in his fingers; then,
- stepping forward to return them, observed with an odd thrill of somewhat
- unpleasant excitement, that the girl had gone an ashen color and was
- staring at him with something the look of a wild and hostile animal. She
- turned then; glanced with furtive eyes up and down the corridor; and
- swiftly gathering up the remaining pearls clutched them tightly in one
- hand, extending the other and saying, in a quick half-whisper: “Give me
- those.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He hesitated, confused, unequal to the quick clear thinking he felt, even
- then, was demanded of him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you doing with them?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not so loud! Come here!” She was indicating her own doorway; even drawing
- the curtain; while her head moved just perceptibly toward the room
- immediately beyond her own where Miss Hui Fei, he knew, would be resting
- at this time.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where did you get them?” he asked, huskily, doggedly.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a long pause. Again her subtle gaze swept the corridor. “You'd
- better step in here,” said she, very quiet. “I've something to say to
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Sensing, still confusedly, that he ought to see the thing through,
- struggling to think, he yielded to her stronger will.
- </p>
- <p>
- She followed him into the room and let the curtain fall. “Give me those
- pearls,” she commanded again.
- </p>
- <p>
- He shook his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- During a tense moment she studied him. She moved over by the translucent
- window of ground oyster shells, itself, in the mellow afternoon light, as
- opalescent as the pearls in her hand and his. Her gaze, for an instant,
- sought the wide stain on the floor where the Manila Kid had, so recently,
- wretchedly died; and her instant imagination considered the
- incomprehensible mental attitude of these quiet Chinese who had, without a
- word, disposed of the body and painstakingly cleansed the spot. No one,
- observing them day by day, now, as they calmly pursued their tasks, could
- suspect that the slanting quiet eyes had so lately seen murder.... As for
- the youth before her she was, now that her moment of fright had passed,
- supremely confident in her skill and mental strength. He was, still,
- little more than an undeveloped boy. And his position, now that he had set
- up his flag of reform, would be absurdly vulnerable.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Once more”—her low voice was cool and soft as river ice—“give
- them to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He shook his head. “Tell me first where you got them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you're determined to make a scene,” said she, “I advise you to be
- quiet about it. You wouldn't want—her—to know you're in here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I—I”—this was the merest boyishness—“I've told her
- about—well, that I tried to make love to you. I'm not afraid of
- that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Still—you wouldn't want her to hear you now.” This was awkwardly
- true. And his hesitation as he tried to consider it, to work out an
- attitude, ran a second too long.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The pearls are mine,” she pressed calmly on. “The best advice I can give
- you is to return them and go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you think I want the people aboard this junk—anybody—to
- know that I have them?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I believe you stole them from the viceroy's place.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That, of course—Well, never mind! What you may believe is nothing
- to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you tell Mr. Doane about them?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly not. And you won't.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why shouldn't I?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's none of your business.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps it's my duty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen”—he felt himself wholly in the right, yet found difficulty
- in meeting her cold pale eyes—“it's my impression that I've been
- acting rather decently toward you. Of course, I could have—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What could you have done?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For you own good, keep your voice down. I will tell you just this—you
- were pretty wild in Shanghai for a week or two.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well?” This was hurting him; but he met it. “And there's no likelihood
- that you've told her all of it. Were you such a fool as to think you could
- keep it all secret? Out here on the coast—and from a woman with as
- many underground connections as I have?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's nothing that!—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen! I'm not through with you. You've been a very, very rough
- proposition. I know all about it. No—wait! There's something else. I
- knew all about you when you were making up to me on the steamer. I could
- have trapped you then—tangled your life so with mine that you could
- never have got away from me, never in the world. But I didn't. I liked
- you, and I didn't want to hurt you—then.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do want to hurt me now?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It may be necessary.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Since you're taking this position”—he was finding difficulty in
- making his voice heard; there seemed to be danger of explosive sounds—“probably
- I'd better just go to Mr. Doane myself with these things.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you do that I'll wreck your life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You don't mean that you'd—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You seem to be forgetting a good deal.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will defend myself to the limit. I've really been easy with you. You
- see, you don't know anything about me. Least of all what harm I can do.
- You'd be a child in my hands. Turn against me and I'll get you if it takes
- me ten years. You'll never be safe from me. Never for a minute.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked irresolutely down at the lustrous jewels in his hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You had these sewed in your skirt. There must be more there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you proposing to search me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—but”.... His black youth was stabbing now, viciously, at his
- boyishly sensitive heart; but still, in a degree, he met it. “I'm going to
- Mr. Doane. I don't care what happens to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He even moved a soft step toward the door; but paused, lingered, watching
- her. For she was rummaging among the covers of her bed. He caught a brief
- glimpse of a hand-bag that she meant him not to see. She took from a
- bottle two green tablets. Then she faced him.
- </p>
- <p>
- To the startled question of his eyes she replied: “They're corrosive sub
- mate. I shall take them now unless you—give me the pearls. If you
- want to have my death on your hands, take them to Mr. Doane. But it's only
- fair to tell you that if you do it—if you mix in this business—your
- own life won't be worth a nickel. They'll get you, and they'll get the
- pearls. You're caught in a bigger game than you can play.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Get out, while you can”—as the low swift words came she reached out
- and took the pearls from his nerveless hand—“and I'll protect you.
- You can have your pretty Manchu girl. You can ride around in a rickshaw
- and look at old temples and buy embroideries. Just don't mix in affairs
- that don't concern you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I”—he was pressing a hand to a white forehead—“I've got to
- think it over.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Remember this, too”—she laid a hand on his arm—“you could
- never fasten anything on me. The proof doesn't exist. Nobody can identify
- unmounted pearls. As a matter of fact I got these”... during a brief but
- to her perverse imagination an intensely pleasing moment she closed her
- eyes and lived again through that strange scene on the steps of the
- pavilion; again in vivid fancy rolled over the inert body that had been
- Tex Connor, took the amazing cape of pearls from his shirt and rolled the
- body heavily back...."I got these from a man I knew—an old friend.
- Just mind your own business and no one will harm you. But remember, you're
- walking among dangers. Step carefully. Keep quiet. Better go now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He found himself in the corridor; walked slowly, uncertainly, up to the
- deck; sat by the rail and, head on hand, moodily watched the river and the
- hills. He asked himself if he had, by his very silence, struck a bargain
- with the girl; but could find no answer to the question, only
- bewilderment. Could it be that she was only a daring thief? It could, of
- course, but how to get at the truth? Abruptly, then his thoughts turned
- inward. His wild days had seemed, since his change of heart, of the remote
- past; but they were not, they had still been the stuff of his life within
- about a week. It was unnerving. He thought, something morbidly, as the
- sensitive young will, about habits.... The day had gone awry, too, in the
- matter of his love. A reaction had set in. Hui Fei was keeping much to
- herself. It had become difficult to talk with her at all. And that had
- bewildered him.... He was all adrift, with neither sound training nor a
- mature philosophy to steady him, life had turned unreal on his hands;
- nothing was real—not Hui or her father, certainly not himself, not
- even Mr. Doane. His background, even, was slipping away, and with it his
- sense of the white race. This, it seemed, was a yellow world—swarming,
- heedless, queerly tragic. His soul was adrift, and nobody cared. Toward
- his father and mother he felt only bitterness. There were, it appeared, no
- friends.
- </p>
- <p>
- He thought, it seemed, confusedly, excitedly, of everything; of everything
- except the important fact that he was very young.
- </p>
- <p>
- Early on the following morning Doane found the little princess playing
- about the deck, and with a smile seated himself beside her. She settled at
- once on his knee, chattering brightly in the Mandarin tongue of her play
- world.
- </p>
- <p>
- He responded with a note of good-humored whimsy not out of key with her
- alert clear imagination. It was pleasant to fall again into the little
- intimacies of the language that had become, during these twenty years and
- more, almost his own. He pointed out to her the trained cormorants diving
- for fish, and the irrigating wheels along the banks; and then told quaint
- stories—of the first water buffalo, and of the magic rice-field.
- </p>
- <p>
- Soon she, too, was telling stories—of the simpleton who bought
- herons for ducks, of the toad in the lotus pool, of the child that was
- born in a conch shell and finally crawled with it into the sea, of the
- youngest daughter who to save the life of her father married a snake, of
- the magic melon that grew full of gold and the other melon that contained
- hungry beggars, of the two small boys and the moon cake, and of the
- curious beginning of the ant species.
- </p>
- <p>
- She scolded him for his failure, at the first, to laugh with her. Her
- happy child quality stirred memories of old-time days in T'ainan-fu, when
- his own daughter had been a child of six, playing happily about the
- mission compound. They were poignant memories. His eyes were misty even as
- he smiled over the bright merriment of this child, and in his heart was a
- growing wistful tenderness. To be again a father would be a great
- privilege. He was ripe for it now, tempered by poverty and sorrow, yet
- strong, with a great emotional capacity on which the world about him had,
- apparently, no claim to make. He was simply cast aside, left carelessly in
- an eddy with the great stream of life flowing, bankful, by. The experience
- was common enough, of course. In the great scheme of life the fate of an
- individual here and there could hardly matter. He could tell himself that,
- very simply, quite honestly; and yet the strength within him would rise
- and rise again to assert the opposite. The end, for himself, lay beyond
- the range of conscious thought; but at least, he felt, it could not be
- bitterness. He seemed to have passed that danger.... The little princess
- was soberly telling the old story of the father-in-law, the father, and
- the crabs that were eaten by the pig. At the conclusion she laughed
- merrily; and then Ending his response somewhat unsatisfactory, scowled
- fiercely and with her plump fingers bent up the corers of his mouth.
- </p>
- <p>
- He laughed then; and rolled her up in his arms and tossed her high in the
- air.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Hui Fei came upon them they were gazing out over the rail. Mr. Doane
- seemed to be telling a long story, to which the child listened intently.
- She moved quietly near, smiling; and after listening for a few moments
- seated herself on the deck behind them.
- </p>
- <p>
- The story puzzled her. She leaned forward, a charming picture in her
- simple costume, black hair parted smoothly, oval face untouched with
- powder or paint. She smiled again, then, for his story was nothing other
- than a free rendering into Chinese of Stevenson's:=
- </p>
- <p>
- "In Winter I get up at night
- </p>
- <p>
- And dress by yellow candle-light..."=
- </p>
- <p>
- He went on, when that was finished, with a version of:=
- </p>
- <p>
- "Dark brown is the river,
- </p>
- <p>
- Golden is the sand...."=
- </p>
- <p>
- —and other poems from <i>The Child's Garden of Verses.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Hui Fei's eyes lighted, as she listened. Mr. Doane, it appeared, knew
- nearly all of these exquisite verse-stories of happy childhood and
- exhibited surprising skill in finding the Chinese equivalents for certain
- elusive words. What a mind he had.... rich in reading as in experience,
- ripe in wisdom, yet curiously fresh and elastic! It seemed to her a young
- mind.
- </p>
- <p>
- The little princess was especially pleased with <i>My Bed Is a Boat</i>,
- and made him repeat it. At the conclusion she clapped her hands. And then
- Hui Fei joined in the applause, and laughed softly when they turned in
- surprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Won't you do <i>The Land of Counterpane?</i>” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was later, when the child had run off to play among the flowers, that
- he and she fell to talking as they had not talked during these recent
- crowded days. There were silences, at first. Despite his effort to seem
- merely friendly and kind, he felt a restraint that had to be fought
- through. In this time, so difficult for her at every point, he felt deeply
- that he must not fail her. Her greatest need, surely, was for friendship.
- The excited youth who dogged her steps and hung on her most trivial glance
- could not offer that. And melancholy had touched her bright spirit; he
- sensitively felt that when the little princess ran away and her smile
- faded. Sorrow dwelt not far behind those dark thoughtful eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Early in the conversation she spoke of her father. Her thoughts, clearly,
- were always with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wan' to ask you,” said she simply and gravely, “if you know what he is
- doing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane moved his head in the negative.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He has been in his room for more than a day. When I go to his door he is
- kin' but he doesn' ask me to come in. And he doesn' tell me anything.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is not confiding in me,” said Doane.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don' like that, either, Mis'er Doane. For I know he thinks of you now
- as his closes' frien'. There is no other frien' who knows what you know.
- An' you have save' his life an' mine. My father is not a man to fail in
- frien'ship or in gratitu'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane's eyes, despite his nearly successful inner struggles, grew misty
- again. Impulsively he took her hand gently in his. At once, simply, her
- slender fingers closed about his own. It seemed not unlike the trusting
- affection of a child; he sensed this as a new pain. Yet there was strong
- emotional quality in her; he felt it in her dark beauty, in the curve of
- her cheek and the lustrous troubled splendor in her eyes, in the slender
- curves of her strong young body. She was, after all, a woman grown;
- aroused, doubtless, to the puzzling facts of life; a woman, with an ardent
- lover close at hand, who was—this as his wholly adult mind now saw
- her—already at her mating time. And feeling this he gripped her hand
- more tightly than he knew. But even so, he was not unaware of his own
- danger. It wouldn't do; once to release his own tightly chained emotions
- would be to render himself of no greater value to her in her bewilderment
- than any merely pursuing male. He set his teeth on that thought, and
- abruptly withdrew his hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- She did not look up—her gaze was fixed on the surface of the river.
- The only indication she gave that she was so much as aware of this odd
- little act of his was that she started to speak, then paused for a brief
- instant before going on.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I ask—ask myself all the time if there is anything we coul' be
- doing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane's head moved again in the negative.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If not even his gratitu'—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gratitude,” said Doane gently, “becomes less than nothing when it is
- demanded.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “True, it can no' be ask', but it can be given.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sometimes”—he was thinking aloud, dangerously—“I wonder if
- any healthy human act is free from the motive of self-interest. Generosity
- is so often self-indulgence. Self-sacrifice, even in cases where it may be
- regarded as wholly sane, may be only a culmination or a confusion of
- little understood desires.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked up at this; considered it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly,” he went on, “your father owes me nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her hand moved a little way toward his, only to hesitate and draw back.
- She looked away, saying in a clouded voice: “He—and I—owe you
- everything.” It wouldn't do. Doane waited a long moment, then spoke in
- what seemed more nearly his own proper character—quietly, kindly,
- with hardly an outward sign of the intensely personal feeling of which his
- heart was so full.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your father has spoken to me of you as an experiment.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mean my life—my education.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. He feels, too, that the experiment has not yet been fully worked
- out. I often think of that—your future. It is interesting, you know.
- You have responded amazingly to the spirit of the West. And of course
- you'll have to do something about it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes,” said she, musing, “of course.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Whatever personal interests may for a time—or at times—absorb
- your life”.... this was as close as he dared trust himself to the topic of
- marriage__"I feel about you that your life will seek and find some strong
- outward expression.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes—I have often fel' that too. Of course, at college I like' to
- speak. I went in a good 'eal for the debates, an' for class politics.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have an active mind. And you have a fine heritage. Knowing—even
- feeling—both East and West as you do, your life is bound to find
- some public outlet. Something.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know.” She seemed moody now, in a gentle way. Her fingers picked at a
- rope. “But I don' know what. I don' think I woul' like teaching. Writing,
- perhaps. Even speaking. That is so easy for me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is a service that you are peculiarly fitted to perform.” She
- glanced up quickly, waited. “It is a thought that keeps coming to my mind.
- Perhaps because it will probably become the final expression of my own
- life. For my life is curiously like yours in one way. You remember, that—that
- night when we first talked—on the steamer—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I climb' the ladder,” she murmured, picking again at the rope.
- </p>
- <p>
- “—And we agreed that we were both, you and I”—his voice grew
- momentarily unsteady—“between the worlds.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. I remember.” He could barely hear her, “It is true, of course.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is true. And for myself, I feel more and more strongly every day that
- I must pitch into the tremendous task of helping to make the East known to
- the West.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tha' woul' be won'erful!” she breathed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have come to feel that it is the one great want in Western
- civilization, that the philosophy, the art, the culture, indeed, of China
- has never been woven into our heritage. It is strange, in a way—we
- derived our religion from certain primitive tribes in Syria. But they had
- little culture. The Christian religion teaches conduct but very nearly
- ignores beauty. And then there is our insistent pushing forth of the
- Individual. I have come to believe that our West will seem less crass,
- less materialistic, when the individual is somewhat subdued.” He smiled.
- “We need patience—sheer quality of thought—the fine art of
- reflection. We shall not find these qualities at their best, even in
- Europe. They exist, in full flower, only in China. And America doesn't
- know that. Not now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A little later he said: “That work has been begun, of course, in a small
- way. A slight sense of Chinese culture is creeping into our colleges, here
- and there. Some of the poetry is bring translated. The art museums are
- reaching out for the old paintings. The Freer collection of paintings will
- some day be thrown open to the public. But traditions grow very slowly. It
- will take a hundred years to make America aware of China as it is now
- aware of Italy, Egypt, Greece, even old Assyria.... and the thing must be
- freed from Japanese influence—we can't much longer afford to look at
- wonderful, rich old China through the Japanese lens.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “An' you're going to make tha' your work,” observed Hui Fei.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must. I begin to feel that it is to be the only final explanation of my
- life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a silence. Then, abruptly, in a tone he did not understand, she
- asked: “Are you going to work for the Revolution?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is the immediate thing—yes. I shall offer my services.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Coul' I do anything, you think? At Shanghai, I mean? Of course, I'm a
- Manchu girl, but I can no' stand with the Manchu Gover'ment. I am not even
- with my—my father there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is possible. I don't know. We shall soon be there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you tell me then—at Shanghai?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He inclined his head. Suddenly he couldn't speak. She was holding to him,
- as if it were a matter of course; yet he dared not read into her attitude
- a personal meaning of the only sort that could satisfy his hungry heart.
- The difficulty lay in his active imagination. Like that of an eager boy it
- kept racing ahead of any possible set of facts. All he could do, of
- course, was to go on curbing it, from hour to hour. It would be harder
- seeing her at Shanghai than running away, as he had half-consciously been
- planning. But it was something that she clung to him as a friend. He
- mustn't, couldn't, really, fail her there.
- </p>
- <p>
- All of the last day they sailed the wide and steadily widening estuary.
- The lead-colored water was roughened by the following wind that drove the
- junk rapidly on toward her journey's end. But toward sunset wind and sea
- died down, and under sweeps, late in the evening-, the craft moved into
- the Wusung River and moored for the night within sight of a line of
- war-ships.
- </p>
- <p>
- A feeling of companionship grew strongly among those fugitives, yellow and
- white, as the evening advanced. They had passed together through dangerous
- and dramatic scenes. Now that danger and drama were alike, it seemed,
- over, with the peaceable shipping of all the world lying just ahead up the
- narrow channel, with, in the morning to come, a fresh view of the bund at
- Shanghai, where hotels, banks and European clubs elbowed the great trading
- hongs, with motor-cars and Sikh police and the bright flags of the home
- land so soon to be spread before their weary eyes, they gathered on the
- after gallery to chat and watch the flashing signal lights of the cruisers
- and the trains on the river bank, and dream each his separate dream. Even
- Dixie Carmichael, though herself untouched by sentiment, joined, for
- reasons of policy, the little party. Hui Fei was there, between Doane and
- the moodily silent Rocky Kane. The Chinese servants smilingly grouped
- themselves on the deck just above. And finally—though it is custom
- among these Easterners to sleep during the dark hours and rise with the
- morning light—his excellency appeared, walking alone over the deck,
- smiling in the friendliest fashion and greeting them with hands clasped
- before his breast.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane felt a little hand steal for a moment into his with a nervous
- pressure. His own relief was great.
- </p>
- <p>
- For this smiling gentleman could hardly be regarded as one about to die.
- They placed him in the steamer chair of woven rushes from Canton. And
- pleasantly, then, their last evening together passed in quiet talk.
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency was in reminiscent mood. He had been a young officer, it
- transpired, in the T'aiping Rebellion, and had fought during the last
- three years of that frightful thirteen-year struggle up and down the great
- river, taking part in the final assault on Su-chau as a captain in the
- “Ever Victorious” army of General Gordon. Regarding that brilliant English
- officer he spoke freely; Doane translating a sentence, here and there, for
- young Kane.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gordon never forgave Li Hung Chang,” he said, “for the murder of the
- T'ai-ping Wangs, during the peace banquet. It was on Prince Li's own
- barge, in the canal by the Eastern Gate of the city. Gordon claimed that
- Li procured the murder. He was a hot-blooded man, Gordon, often too quick
- and rough in speech. Li told me, years later, that the attack was directed
- as much against himself as against the Wangs, and regarded himself as
- fortunate to escape. He never forgave Gordon for his insulting speech. But
- Gordon was a vigorous brave man. It was a privilege to observe him
- tirelessly at work, planning by night, fighting by day—organizing,
- demanding money, money, money—with great energy moving troops and
- supplies. He could not be beaten. He was indeed the 'Ever Victorious.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was, later, his excellency who asked Hui Fei and young Kane to sing the
- American songs that had floated on one or two occasions through his window
- below. They complied; and Dixie Carmichael, in an agreeable light voice,
- joined in. At the last Duane was singing bass.
- </p>
- <p>
- The party was breaking up—his excellency had already gone below—when
- Rocky, moved to the point of exquisite pain, caught the hand of Hui Fei.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please!” he whispered. “Just a word!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not now. I mus' go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—it's our last evening—I've tried to be patient—it'll
- be all different at Shanghai—I can't let you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But she slipped away, leaving the youth whispering brokenly after her. He
- leaned for a long time on the rail then, looking heavily at the winking
- lights of the cruisers. It was a relief to see Mr. Doane coming over the
- deck. Certainly he couldn't sleep. Not now. His heart was full to
- breaking.... The fighting impulse rose. During this past day or so he had
- seemed to be losing ground in his struggle with self. The startling
- incident in Miss Carmichael's room had turned out, he felt, still
- confusedly, as a defeat. It had left him unhappy. This night, out there in
- the blossom-scented gallery, he had sensed the strange girl, close at
- hand, cool as a child, singing the old college songs with apparent quiet
- enjoyment, as an uncanny thing, a sinister force. Even when speaking to
- Hui Fei, her influence had enveloped him.... This would be just one more
- little battle. And it must be won.
- </p>
- <p>
- Accordingly he told Mr. Doane the story. The older man considered it,
- slowly nodding.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is probably the fact,” he said, at length, “that she stole the pearls
- at Huang Chau. She was with Connor and Watson. But it is also a fact that
- she might have pearls of her own. And in traveling alone through a
- revolution it would be her right to conceal them as she chose. It is true,
- too, that unset pearls couldn't be identified easily, if at all. And she
- is clever—she wouldn't weaken under charges.... No, I don't see what
- we can do, beyond watching the thing closely. As for her threats against
- you, they are partly rubbish.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But Rocky cared little, now, what they might be. Once again he had cleaned
- the black slate of his youth. His head was high again. He could speak to
- Hui Fei convincingly in the morning.
- </p>
- <p>
- His excellency, alone in his cabin, took from his hand-bag the book of
- precepts of Chuang Tzü; and seated on his pallet, by the small table on
- which burned a floating wick in its vessel of oil, read thoughtfully as
- follows:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Chuang Tzü one day saw an empty skull, bleached but intact, lying on the
- ground. Striking it with his riding whip, he cried, 'Wert thou once some
- ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought him to this pass?—some
- statesman who plunged his country into ruin and perished in the fray?—some
- wretch who left behind him a legacy of shame?—some beggar who died
- in the pangs of hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach this state by the
- natural course of old age?'
- </p>
- <p>
- “When he had finished speaking, he took the skull and, placing it under
- his head as a pillow, went to sleep. In the night he dreamt that the skull
- appeared to him and said: 'You speak well, sir; but all you say has
- reference to the life of mortals and to mortal troubles. In death there
- are none of these.... In death there is no sovereign above, and no subject
- below. The workings of the four seasons are unknown. Our existences are
- bounded only by eternity. The happiness of a king among men can not exceed
- that which we enjoy.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “Chuang Tzü, however, was not convinced, and said: 'Were I to prevail upon
- God to allow your body to be born again, and your bones and flesh to be
- renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife and to the
- friends of your youth, would you be willing?'
- </p>
- <p>
- “At this the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and said:
- 'How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king, and mingle
- once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?'”
- </p>
- <p>
- He closed the book; laid on the table his European watch; and sat for a
- long time in meditation. As the hands of the watch neared the hour of
- three in the morning, he took from the bag a box of writing materials, a
- small red book and a bottle of white pills.
- </p>
- <p>
- The leaves of the book were the thinnest gold. On one of these he
- inscribed, with delicate brush, the Chinese characters meaning
- “Everlasting happiness.” Tearing out the leaf, then, he wrapped loosely in
- it one of the pills—these were morphine, of the familiar sort
- manufactured in Japan and sold extensively in China since the decline of
- the opium traffic—and swallowed them together. He inscribed and took
- another, and another, and another.
- </p>
- <p>
- Gradually a sense of drowsy comfort, of utter physical well-being, came
- over him. The pupils of his eyes shrunk down to the merest pin-points. His
- head drooped forward. His frail old body fell on the bed and lay
- peacefully there as his spirit sought its destiny in the unchanging,
- everlasting Tao.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIII—HIS EXCELLENCY SPEAKS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was daybreak.
- Doane, standing in his cabin by the opened window, looked out with
- melancholy in his deep-set eyes over the muddy low reaches that border the
- Wusung. It was a familiar scene; indeed he knew it better than any spot in
- his native land—the railroad along the bank, the brick warehouses,
- the native village of Wusung, the inevitable humble families in the fields
- gathering in the last crops of the season.
- </p>
- <p>
- Overhead the <i>laopan</i> was shouting, tackle creaked, the crew half
- sang, half grunted their chanties. From the cruisers, one after another,
- floating musically on the still air, came the call of bugles—the <i>reveille</i>
- of the American navy. So these were ships from home. The stars and stripes
- would soon, at “colors,” be rippling from each gray stem.... There was an
- ache in his heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then other noises came—a little confusion of them, somewhere here on
- the junk—excited whispers, a sound that might have been sobbing, and
- then—yes!—the low wailing of women.
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned; listened closely. Light feet came running along the corridor. A
- familiar, lovely voice called his name, brokenly. Then Hui Fei drew aside
- his curtain. Her cheeks were stained with tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- Quickly, his arm about her shoulders as she swayed unsteadily, but without
- a word, he walked beside her along the corridor to the cabin of his
- excellency.... There were the few servants, kneeling by the inert body and
- bowing their heads to the floor as they mourned. Doane straightened the
- body and closed the eyes.... It was Hui Fei who found the roll of
- documents on the table and placed them in Doane's hands. He saw then,
- through the mist that clouded his own eyes, that they were addressed to
- himself: “To my dear friend, Griggsby Doane, I entrust these my last
- papers.” The name alone was in English; written in a clear hand, not
- unlike that of a painstaking schoolboy, each letter carefully and roundly
- formed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hui Fei sent the servants to another cabin, but remained herself, seated
- on the floor by the side of the huge strong man who was now without
- question the head of the strangely assorted family. She was calmer. Doane
- did not again hear her sob; he did not even see tears. During that
- difficult moment when Rocky Kane appeared in the doorway and asked
- huskily, sadly, if he could help, she even smiled, very faintly, very
- gently, as she moved her head in the negative. And the youth, after a
- hesitant moment, left them.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane spread out the documents on the floor. The first, addressed directly
- to himself, he laid aside for the moment. To the second, addressed to the
- throne—“by the hand of His Imperial Highness, Prince Ch'un, Regent,
- as soon as it may be possible to convey to him in this hour of China's
- sorrow this inadequate expression of my last thoughts”—was attached
- a paper requesting that “my closest friend, Griggsby Doane” read it
- thoughtfully, “in order that he may understand fully the circumstances in
- which I find myself at this the end of my long life.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I, your unworthy servant,”—it read—“have learned with sorrow
- and tears of the decree permitting me to withdraw from this troubled life
- in solitude and peace without the painful consequences of a death by the
- headsman's sword. And in bowing humbly to your will I, your unworthy
- servant, recognize that my life lies wholly in your hands to be disposed
- of as seems best to the imperial wisdom. But in thus proving my never
- weakening loyalty to the imperial will I also must express the sober
- thoughts of one who has pondered long over the evils that beset our land
- and who has ventured at times, weakly, to hope that China might pay heed
- to certain lessons of recent history and find a way to oppose successfully
- the pressure of other powerful nations upon us. For it has been my
- privilege, as a long-time servant of the throne, to observe certain of
- these other nations at first hand and to learn a little of their power,
- which is very great.
- </p>
- <p>
- “On another occasion I, your unworthy servant, wittingly incurred danger
- of death or imprisonment, because, in the eagerness of my convictions, I
- dared to suggest certain reforms to the throne. There is a saying that the
- tree which bends before the gale will never be broken off but will grow to
- a ripe old age, and my hope has always been for a great and growing China.
- At that time princes and ministers about the throne asked permission to
- subject me to a criminal investigation, but his late majesty was pleased
- to spare me. Therefore my last years have been a boon at the hand of his
- late majesty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There followed a clear, dignified statement of the urgent need for vast
- reforms. His excellency recalled in detail his long years of service and
- his decorations and honors. Quietly he called attention to the fact that
- all, or nearly all, China was in revolt, that the throne tottered, that to
- permit the government longer to be dominated by corrupt eunuchs was an
- affront to modern as to ancient thought and morality. It was clear to
- himself, he stated, that without a skilfully organized system of gradual,
- perhaps rapid, modernization, China would soon crumble to pieces under the
- heel of the greedy foreigners. And there was profound pathos in the
- passing remark that perhaps his suicide, far from home, his vast estate
- seized by government agents or despoiled by robbers, his person, alone,
- beyond the reach of harm—safe, in fact, with the hated foreigners—might
- stand as a final proof of his loyalty to the throne in serving which his
- long life had been spent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But at the moment of leaving this world I feel that my mind is not so
- clear as I could wish. The text of this my memorial is ill-written and
- lacking in clarity of thought. I am no such scholar as the men of olden
- times; how, then, could I face the end with the calm which they showed?
- But there is a saying, 'The words of a dying man are good.' Though I am
- about to die, it is possible that my words are not good. I can only hope
- that the empress and the emperor will pity my last sad utterance,
- regarding it neither as wanton babbling nor the careless complaint of a
- trifling mind. Thus shall I die without regret. I wish, indeed, that my
- words may prove overwrought, in order that those who come after, perhaps
- more happily, may laugh at my foolishness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I pray the empress and the emperor to remember the example of our great
- rulers of the past in tempering peace with mercy; that they may choose
- only the worthy for public service; that they may refrain from striving
- for those things desired by the foreigners, which would only plunge China
- into deeper woe, but that by a careful study of what is good in foreign
- lands they may help China to hold up her head among the nations and bring
- us finally to prosperity and happiness. This is my last prayer, the end
- and crown of my life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The junk was moving up the river as Doane finished reading, passing one of
- the war-ships. The bugles were blowing again. A beam of warm sunlight
- slanted in through the window of stained glass and threw a kaleidoscope of
- color on the wall.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hui Fei sat motionless, her hands folded humbly in her lap, gazing at the
- floor. Her face was expressionless. She seemed wholly Oriental.
- </p>
- <p>
- With a sigh, Deane rolled the memorial and tied it with the ribbon. The
- one beneath it, he saw now, was addressed to Hui Fei. Without a word he
- handed it to her and then settled to read his own. Hers was the shorter.
- When she had finished she lowered it to her lap and sat motionless, as
- before.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane now took up the paper addressed to himself and read as follows:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My friend, Griggsby Doane, grieve not for me, and be sure that in the
- manner of my end I have had no wish to bring evil upon you. It is in a
- measure sad that this end should come upon a hired junk instead of on a
- plot of hallowed ground, as I would have chosen. But there was no choice.
- I have waited until assured of my daughter's safety.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Inform the magistrate at Shanghai of my death, and see that my Memorial
- to the Throne is forwarded promptly. Give to my daughter Hui Fei the
- letter addressed to her. It my wish that you also should read that letter,
- and I have so instructed her. It is also my wish that she should read this
- letter to you. Buy for me a cheap coffin, and have it painted black
- inside. The poor clothes I wear must serve, but I wish that the soiled
- soles of my shoes be cut off. Twenty or thirty taels will be ample for the
- coffin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do not believe it will be necessary for the magistrate to hold an
- inquest. Please have a coating of lacquer put on the coffin, to fill up
- any cracks, and have the cover nailed down pending the throne's decision
- as to my remains. Then buy a small plot of ground near the Taoist temple
- outside of Shanghai and have me buried as soon as possible. There is no
- need to consider waiting for an opportunity to bury me at my ancestral
- home; any place is good enough for a loyal and honest man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will find about a thousand taels in my bag, also the few jewels we
- found at my home. Sell the jewels and keep for yourself the balance that
- will remain after my burial expenses are paid. The <i>laopan</i> of this
- junk has his money. This he will deny, and will cry for more; but do not
- heed him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Remember there is nothing strange or abnormal in my passing; death has
- become my duty. It may be true that the historic throne of the Manchus is
- rocking, is falling, but despite the understanding that has been given to
- me of what is good in Western civilization I have never swayed in my heart
- from loyalty to that throne and steadfast devotion to its best interests
- as I can see them, and I do no less than obey the mandate of my empress
- and my emperor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do not grieve unduly for me. It is my wish that all of you, my friends
- and family, should live happily in the life that lies before you. To you,
- Griggsby Doane, out of the gratitude and admiration of my proud heart, I
- give and bequeath all the little that may be left of my worldly goods,
- including the money, the pitiful handful of jewels, the historic paintings
- and my daughter Hui Fei. It is my wish that you will marry her at once,
- and that in your best judgment you sell any or all of the paintings to
- provide what money you and she may need, and also that you and she care
- lovingly for the younger child. It may be better to educate her in the
- Western manner, but that will be as you may decide. In the matter of this
- marriage with my daughter, Hui Fei, I have sought the opinion of each of
- you regarding the other. I have your assurance that it has been your own
- wish. And Hui Fei informs me that she respects and admires no man more
- than yourself. You will see, therefore, that I have approached this matter
- in the Western spirit, and as a result I see no reason why the marriage
- should be delayed or that my beloved daughter should be left alone at the
- mercy of an unscrupulous world. I have informed her, also, of my decision.
- My gifts to you make a most inadequate dowry, but they are all I have. I
- wish for you both great happiness and many descendants.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And now, Griggsby Doane, my dear friend, I take my leave of you. I, at
- seventy-four years of age, can claim an unsullied record. My family tree
- goes back more than seven hundred years; for three centuries there have
- been members of my clan in the Imperial Household or in the Government
- Bureaus, and for four hundred years we have devoted ourselves to husbandry
- and scholarship. For twenty-four generations my family has borne a good
- name. I die now in order that a lifetime of devotion to duty and loyalty
- to the throne may be consummated.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly Doane lowered the document. He could not speak; he could hardly
- think. There beside him, still motionless, sat the young woman who was
- now, by all the traditions of her people, abruptly his.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dutifully, observing that he had finished reading, she gave him her own
- letter; and he, in exchange, handed her his. Thus they read on. And then,
- again quietly exchanging the documents, they sat without a word by the
- peaceful body.
- </p>
- <p>
- Little by little Doane's brain cleared. It was a time, he felt—<i>the</i>
- time, indeed—when all his experience, all his character and skill,
- must come into use. Now, it ever, he must be wise and steady and kind.
- Very gently he took her hand; it lay softly in his; she did not lift her
- eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We will not think of this matter now,” he said. “Our only thought must be
- to carry out his plans regarding the funeral. If it shouldn't seem best,
- later, to fulfill quite all his last wishes, perhaps he, from the other
- side of the barrier, will understand what he couldn't wholly understand
- while on this earth. But this I must say now—-whatever direction
- your life may take, try to think of me as filling, the best I can, your
- father's place. I shall hope to be your dearest friend. Lean on me. Use
- me. And be sure I will understand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her slim fingers tightened once again about his.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He was a won'erful father,” she began, and choked a little.
- </p>
- <p>
- He left her there; sent in her maid to her; himself mounted to the deck.
- </p>
- <p>
- The sun was well up. Other junks sailed up and down the tide. A
- bluff-bowed freighter, flying the Dutch flag, lay at anchor near one of
- the Chinese torpedo boats that had gone over to the chaotic new republic.
- The American steamers were far astern, but a motor launch flying an
- officer's flag and with blue uniforms visible under the awning, plowed by
- on her way up to the city. In the distance, up ahead, beyond the crowding
- masts and funnels of the steamers that came from all the world, could be
- seen the buildings and spires and the smoke-haze of European Shanghai....
- The bund there, within a few hours now, would be crowded with
- pony-carriages and motor-cars and over-fed tourists riding in rickshaws
- drawn by ragged coolies. The hotels would be thronging with talkative
- young women and drink-flushed men, all eagerly retailing confused and
- inaccurate news of “the revolution”; out at the British country club on
- Bubbling Well Road blond men would be playing tennis in flannels: and the
- gambling houses would be brightly illuminated until late at night, and the
- Chinese shopkeepers in Nanking Road would be selling their souvenir
- trinkets, their useless little boxes of coinsilver and cloisonne and
- damascene work and their painted snuff-bottles and green soapstone
- necklaces and blue-and-white pottery quite as if no troubles could ever
- arise to disturb the destiny of nations.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane sighed again. The last letter of his excellency was in his hand,
- held tightly; though he was not at this time aware of it. He glanced aft,
- and saw Rocky Kane standing on the gallery, among the flowers, gazing not
- forward toward the jangling, money-seeking, pleasure-mad city that is the
- principal point of contact between the culture of the West and that of the
- East, but off astern, as if endeavoring to see again the lost Yangtze
- Kiang of his glowing romance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane went to him; aware, then, of the paper rolled so tightly in his
- hand, said—a huge figure, towering over the boy, his face sad and
- more than ever deeply lined, but with a grave kindliness about the eyes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My boy, it is important that you and I have a talk. Suppose we sit down.”
- He indicated the steamer chair; but Rocky insisted that he take it,
- himself dropping heavily down on the step of the deck.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How—how is she standing it?” he asked, his troubled eyes searching
- that strong face before him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “As well as we could ask. It is bound to be very hard for her—especially
- during these next few days. But she has courage. And she knows he would
- wish her not to mourn.... A matter has come up that concerns you, Rocky”—it
- was the first time he had used that familiar name; the boy's moody eyes
- brightened momentarily, and a touch of color rose in his cheeks—“and
- I don't feel I can delay telling you about it. First, you had better let
- me read you this.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He had not thought, before this moment, of the necessity that he himself
- make the translation for the boy. It had to be difficult; he would have
- given much if the thing could have been managed in some less directly
- personal way; but for that matter, difficulties lay so thickly about him
- now that there was no good in so much as giving them a thought. And so—deliberately,
- with great care to find the nearly precise English equivalent of every
- obscure phrase—he read the letter through.
- </p>
- <p>
- He dared not look at the boy's face, but could not but become aware of the
- hands that twitched, clasping and unclasping, in his lap, and of the feet
- that at times nervously tapped the deck. When the task was done he quietly
- folded the paper and slipped it into a pocket.
- </p>
- <p>
- The silence grew long and trying. Doane searched and searched his own
- still confused mind for the right, the clear word; but could not, during
- these earlier moments, find it. The boy, plainly, was crushed; but behind
- the clouded eyes and the knit brows an emotional storm was gathering.
- Doane felt that. It had to come, of course. And it would have to be
- handled.
- </p>
- <p>
- But the first words were almost calm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So that”—thus the brooding youth—“so that's how it is!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane waited. After a little the boy sprang up. “But in God's name, why
- didn't you tell me!” he cried. “You've let me come and talk to you! You—This
- isn't fair! You've made a fool of me! You—” Doane rose too. They
- stood side by side among the heavily scented blossoms. Doane felt moved to
- put a kindly hand on the slender shoulder beside him; but a following
- thought cautioned him that even a touch would be resented at this moment.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I didn't tell you,” he said, “because until I read this paper I didn't
- know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you must have known! You told—him. Told him you loved her!
- Probably you've been telling her, too—here under my eyes. Oh, God,
- what a fool I've been.... If you'd only been square with me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is not fair,” said Doane, still very quiet. “We must talk this out,
- but not now—not while you are angry.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Angry! What in heaven's name is the sense of talking it out! It's
- settled, isn't it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm not sure.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's not so!” The boy seemed to be recovering somewhat now from the
- first shock of unreason. He turned away to hide the tears in his eyes.
- “You've admitted to her father, if not to her, that you love her.... Oh,
- why didn't I see it! Why did I have to be such an awful fool!... She knows
- it now. And you know as well as I what she'll do. She'll never go against
- her father's last wish—never. You know that!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I recognize that she must be seeing it in that light now, but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, what's the use of talk. You <i>know!</i> For God's sake, let me
- alone, can't you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane's brows drew slowly together; but this and a note of something near
- command in his voice, were the only outward indications of the storm
- within his breast.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is not a time for either you or me to be thinking of ourselves. You
- may be sure that Hui Fei will not be thinking so. And it may help you to
- realize that this situation is difficult for me, as it is for you. It is
- true that Hui Fei's only thought, now, under the stress of this sorrow,
- will be to submit to her father's every wish. But this stress will pass.
- There is only one course to take—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen to me! And try to meet the thing like a man. We will wait until
- this sad business is over. We will at least try to give up thinking of
- ourselves. I will see that Hui Fei and her sister are cared for by
- friends.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But all the time you'll be seeing her, and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must still ask you to listen and try to think clearly. As soon as it
- seems wise I will lay the situation before Hui Fei. I will try to persuade
- her that her own life is, in the last analysis, more important than even
- her father's dying wish. I believe that she—would—be happier
- with a young man like yourself than with an—older man. It is
- possible that she can be led to see that her own happiness must be a
- factor in her choice. Have you the patience and the courage to wait for
- that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He extended his hand. The boy looked at it, then up at the stern, but still
- kindly face; hesitated; then, with a quivering of the lip and an explosive—“Oh
- God!”—rushed away; walked very fast, almost ran, the length of the
- deck; made his way through the crowded waist and around the cook's well;
- and stood, his bare head thrown proudly back, in the prow, beside the
- quietly wondering <i>tai-kung</i>, staring toward the long curving sweep
- of the tree-shaded bund of Shanghai as it came gradually into view around
- the bend just below the city.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIV—THE WORLD OF FACT
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE yellow junk was
- now abreast the landing hulks of the great international shipping
- companies just below the city. Rocky left the bow and made his way to the
- after cabins without once lifting his somber gaze to the silent figures on
- the poop. Slowly—his eyes wild, his thoughts beyond control,
- bitterness in his heart—he moved along the dim corridor.
- </p>
- <p>
- A puff of wind found its way through an open window; a blue curtain swung
- out, discovering, through a doorway, Miss Carmichael, seated in a chair
- beneath the window. It was lighter in her cabin. She had laid aside the
- familiar middy blouse and skirt, and appeared to be sewing something on
- her petticoat. For an instant she looked up, her eyes meeting those of the
- pale youth who stood motionless in the corridor. The curtain swung back
- then; but as it swung the youth stepped through the doorway and stood
- within the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know that I asked you in,” said she coolly.
- </p>
- <p>
- His eyes were intent on the amazing, glistening strings of pearls that
- were looped everywhere about her clothing.
- </p>
- <p>
- Through narrowed lids she watched him, sitting very still, needle poised
- just as she had drawn it through. On his young face was an expression of
- firm decision that she had not before seen there. He looked oddly, now,
- like his father. There was, apparently, a trace of the Kane iron in him.
- The situation was of wholly accidental origin; he couldn't have planned
- it; his first expression, out in the corridor, had been of startled
- surprise; the decision to step within must have been instant; yet now,
- suddenly, he meant business. She caught all that.... Here, after all, was
- a young man who presented difficulties.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take off those pearls,” said he quietly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are in my room,” said she as quietly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall take the pearls when I go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll have my life to answer for.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your life is nothing to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your own life is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never mind about that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've warned you fairly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stand up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You propose to take them from me by force?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. Unless you choose to give them to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you expect me to trust you with them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a silence.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course you are stronger than I,” she observed musingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- He offered no reply to this.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her thin mouth curved into the faint smile that was as cold as her
- calculating brain. “So”—said she “we're enemies, then?”
- </p>
- <p>
- This evidently did not interest him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think,” she went on, quietly desperate, “that I'll try crying and
- screaming. I'm something of an actress.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Scream your head off,” said he, the slang phrase sounding almost
- courteous in this new quiet voice of his.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's not a person—alive—that could prove these pearls
- aren't my own.” Her voice dwelt on that one telling word, “alive,” with an
- almost caressing note of satisfaction.
- </p>
- <p>
- He shook his head with a touch of impatience. And she was studying him,
- her quick thoughts darting sharply about—-darting in every
- conceivable direction—for an avenue of escape. She knew, however, as
- the moments passed and the pale youth stood his ground that there was only
- one. She had supposed him weak. It hardly seemed that her judgment could
- have gone so far wrong.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're cruel to me,” she said softly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stand up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Now she obeyed. He drew near.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I didn't think you'd turn out this sort, Rocky. You liked me at first.”
- She moved a hand, hesitatingly, within reach of his own. But he ignored
- it. “Aren't we going to see each other at Shanghai? Are you just going to
- be brutal with me—like this?.... I'd like to see you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you take them off,” said he, “or must I?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She turned to him, with curiously mixed passions coming to life in her
- face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, my God, Rocky!” she cried very low, “haven't you any human feelings?
- Can you just come in here—into my own room—and rob me, without
- a decent word?.... Haven't I played fair with you? Haven't I kept out of
- your way? Haven't I?....” She moved close against him, slid her
- sensitively thin hands over his shoulders; looked straight up into his
- eyes, almost honestly. “Rocky, don't tell me you're this kind!”.... She
- was clinging to him now.
- </p>
- <p>
- He caught her hands, and, without roughness but with his young strength,
- removed them. She let them fall at her side.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm not going to wait much longer on you,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're hard as nails, Rocky.” Her underlip was quivering; her pale eyes
- were a little darker, and seemed full of feeling. She turned suddenly to
- the rough bed, and reached under the cover for her shopping bag. Hiding it
- from him with her body, she opened it and took out the triangular bottle;
- then lingered an instant to look at the clasps of the pearl cape that were
- set with large, perfectly cut diamonds. There were five of the clasps, and
- perhaps fifty of the sparkling, glittering stones. In value they would
- vary somewhat-: but in themselves, even without the pearls, they
- represented a fortune. She quietly closed the bag and replaced it under
- the covers.
- </p>
- <p>
- With the rough-edged little bottle in her hand she faced him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I knew a girl,” she said, with a far-away look in her eyes, “who took
- five of these tablets and then lived two days. She suffered terribly,
- of....”
- </p>
- <p>
- He caught the bottle from her hand and threw it against the wall, where it
- broke. The green pills rolled about the floor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, well,” she remarked—“I can take them after you've gone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “After I've gone you can do as you think best.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But something will have to be done about me. Rocky. You'll have to get me
- ashore. And see about burying me.... And you'll have to explain me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This moved him not at all. Apparently he <i>was</i> to be one of the Kanes—strong,
- pitiless, destined for success and power. There would be weak moments; but
- all that her uncannily shrewd eyes saw in him. For that matter, Miss
- Carmichael had known many men of the sort that in America are termed “big”—certain
- of them with an unpleasant secret intimacy—and each had possessed
- and (at moments) been possessed by strong passions. It had never been
- wholly a matter of what is called brain; always there had been emotional
- force, with a dark side as well as a bright.
- </p>
- <p>
- Overhead the great clumsy sails creaked. Soft feet pattered about the
- deck. The nasal voices of the crew broke into a chantey. A chain rattled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We must be there,” said she. “We're anchoring, I think.” And she glanced
- out the window at one of the roofed-over opium hulks that lay in those
- days directly opposite the bund. Finally she looked again at him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well,” she said then; and raised her arms above her head. Swiftly,
- at once, he began stripping off the festoons of pearls. The only other
- thing said was her remark, in a casual tone: “It's understood that you're
- using force. And you'll hear from it, of course.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As soon as he had gone she slipped into her blouse and skirt. Once again
- she looked thoughtfully at the radiant gems that were left to her; then
- went, coolly swinging the little bag, up on deck, where certain of the
- crew were already drawing around to the ladder at the side the sampan that
- had been towing astern.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky had gone directly, on tiptoe, to Doane's cabin. The huge sad-faced
- man was there; quick, however, with a kindly smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky said—“I beg your pardon, sir?”—stiffly, not unlike a
- proud young Briton—and from a tied-up handkerchief and bulging
- pockets—even from his shirt above his tightly drawn belt—produced
- enormous quantities of perfectly matched large pearls; laid them on the
- bed in a heap; helped Mr. Doane make a bundle of them in a square of blue
- cloth.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They are yours, sir,” he explained.
- </p>
- <p>
- He withdrew then, with a coldness of manner that to the older man was
- moving; and went out on deck to await his turn in the sampan.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane found a temporary home for Hui Fei and her sister at the mission
- compound of his friend, Doctor Henry Withery, in the Chinese city; himself
- lodging with other friends. Rocky went to the Astor House, across Soochow
- Creek, which was still, in 1911, a famous stopping place for the tourists,
- diplomats, military and commercial men, and all the other more prosperous
- among the white travelers that pour into Shanghai from everywhere else in
- the world by the great ships that plow unceasingly the Pacific and Indian
- Oceans and the Yellow and China Seas; to pour out again (in peaceful
- times) from Shanghai by rail and by lesser craft of the river and the
- coast to Hong Kong and Manila to Hankow, to Tientsin and Peking, to
- Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohoma and Tokio.... and Shanghai had never been so
- crowded as now, with its thousands of travelers detained, awaiting news
- from this or that revolutionary center; with the American Marines and the
- British and German sailors; with Manchu refugees swarming into the foreign
- settlements; with revolutionists, queueless, wearing unaccustomed European
- dress, parading everywhere.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane found time to call at the hotel and leave word regarding the burial
- of his excellency; but was not to know that Rocky, himself, immured in his
- room, gave the word that he was out and there awaited the friendly chit
- that Doane sent up by the blue-robed servant. Nor was he to know that the
- boy dressed carefully for the ceremony, only to find the ordeal too great
- for his overstrung emotions. It was as an afterthought, a day or two later
- that Doane sent him Hui Fei's address.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was after this sad experience that Doane, in accordance with his
- promise to the late Sun Shi-pi, called on Doctor Wu Ting Fang and offered
- his services to the revolutionary party. Another day and he was hard at
- work, bending his strong, finely trained and experienced mind to the great
- task of presenting the dreams and the activities of Young China fairly and
- sympathetically to the press and the governments of the Western World....
- And so Griggsbv Doane, concealing—at moments almost from his own
- inner eye—the ache in his heart, the unutterable loneliness of his
- solitary existence, found himself once more fitting into the scheme of
- organized human life. A grave man, with sad eyes but with a slow kindly
- smile, always courteously attentive to the person and problem of the
- moment, thinking always clearly and objectively out of a comprehensively
- tolerant background that seemed to include all nations and all men; a
- gently tactful man; a tireless, powerful figure of a man, who could work
- twenty hours on end without a trace of fatigue, going through masses of
- minor detail without for a moment losing his broad view of the major
- problems—such was the Griggsby Doane one saw at revolutionary
- headquarters during that late autumn of 1911.... Life had caught him up.
- Whatever his private sorrow, the world needed him now. Rapidly, in all
- that confusion, he was formulating policies, helping to direct the current
- of one stream of destiny. In past years Griggsby Doane had been discussed
- and forgotten. He had even been laughed at as an unfrocked missionary by
- ribald, dominant, not infrequently drunken whites along the coast. It
- occurred to no one to laugh at him now.
- </p>
- <p>
- These were the days when in half the provincial capitals of China the
- Manchus that had ruled during nearly three centuries were hunted to their
- death, men and women alike, like vermin. Bloody heads decorated the lamp
- posts that had been erected in the Western fashion beside freshly
- macadamized streets. Slaughter, as in other dramatic moments in Oriental
- history, had become a pastime. Palaces and wealthy homes in a hundred
- cities were looted and burned, and a vast new traffic started up in the
- silks and paintings and pottery and objects of art suddenly thrown into
- the market.... Hankow had been taken by the imperial troops, but was to be
- recaptured as a charred, gutted ruin. General Li Yuan-hung was now
- “president of the Republic of China,” up at Wu Chang, by right of military
- organization and popular acclaim. Admiral Sah, of the Imperial Navy, was
- about to witness the unanimous mutiny of his fleet. The great Yuan
- Shi-K'ai, himself a Chinese born, was in command of the imperial troops
- while negotiating on either hand with the frantic throne and the upsurging
- revolutionists. At Peking heads were falling and great princes were
- fleeing or hiding pitifully within the walls of the legations.... Within a
- few weeks Sun Yat Sen was to leave London on his long journey eastward by
- way of Suez and Singapore, but without the enormous golden treasure so
- confidently expected by the revolutionists. Before his arrival, even, he
- was to be elected president of the new China, in the recently captured
- Nanking—where a National Assembly in cropped heads and frock coats
- already would be grinding out fresh tangles of legislation.... The event
- was outrunning the mental capacity of man. What was now tragic confusion
- would grow through the swift-following years into tragic chaos, as the
- most numerous and most nearly inert of peoples struggled out of the
- sluggish habit of centuries toward the dubious light of modernity.
- </p>
- <p>
- But through the chaos Griggsby Doane was never for a moment to lose the
- new vision that had finally cleared his long troubled mind. Behind the
- crumbling of the empire, underlying the torn and bleeding surface of
- Chinese life, lay a tradition finer, he was to believe until his dying
- day, than any so far developed in the truculent West—a delicate
- responsiveness to beauty in nature and art, a reflective quality, an
- instinct for peace—it was all these at once, and more; a blend of
- art in living and living in art; a finish that was exquisite in concept, a
- sensitiveness that lifted the soul of man above the ugly fact. Even the
- brittle perfection of Chinese etiquette—regulating every passing
- human contact, clothing in silken manner the naked thought—was like
- a fine lacquer over the knotted wood of life... America, he felt, with all
- its earnestly insistent young virtues, worshiped the fact. To the
- Americans must be preached the gospel of sensitive thought, of reflective
- enjoyment of the beautiful. Those old master painters of Tang and Sung
- breathed beauty; it was sweet air in their lungs; whereas in America
- beauty was too often like a garment to be bought in a shop and worn for
- show.... Yes, this revolutionary work was a gratifying opportunity for
- service, of great momentary importance because the Chinese people must be
- rescued from Manchu conquerors and their eunuchs, from disease and famine,
- and from ignorance of the new world that had come amazingly, brutally,
- into being while the old Middle Kingdom slumbered; but it was not the main
- work. The aggressively greedy West, now, with its merchants and war-ships
- and armies, was destroying the soul of China even while teaching her a
- smattering of the materialistic new faith. There must be a
- counter-influence; as the East now so strongly felt the West, so must be
- the West made sensitively aware of the East. It was fair give and take. It
- might yet help the world to find a stable balance.... This was what the
- difficult life of Griggsby Doane was coming to mean. The East had crept
- into his heart. So he must turn back to the West.
- </p>
- <p>
- For three days Mr. Doane's brief chit—with the address of Hui Fei in
- the native city—burned in Rocky Kane's pocket; then, early in the
- third afternoon, he went down to the Japanese steamship offices (for the
- keen little brown people had already captured the Pacific traffic from the
- Americans) and bought the second officer's room on a crowded liner leaving
- at the end of the week for San Francisco.... On the fourth afternoon he
- called a rickshaw and rode out beyond the American post-office to the
- address the older man had given him.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Mr. Doane, it appeared, was not in; already he was established at
- Doctor Wu's revolutionary headquarters. Rocky considered driving there;
- even took the address and rode part of the way: but reconsidered, returned
- to the hotel, and sent a messenger to Hui Fei with this chit:
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>I'm sailing Saturday. Do you feel that you could see me for a few
- moments?</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reply, within the hour, bade him come. He found her in Western dress—-a
- tailored suit, very simple; her glistening black hair parted smoothly—as
- he would always most vividly remember it—gently sad in manner, yet
- able to smile. She would be like that, come to think of it; not crushed by
- the tragedy, not sunken in the grief that, among Westerners, is so often a
- sort of histrionic egotism.... They sat in a tiled courtyard among
- dahlias. More than ever like a proud young Briton was Rocky.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is good of you to see me.” Thus he began.... “I couldn't go without a
- word.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She murmured then: “Of course not.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want you to know, too, that I am coming to see”—he had to pause;
- in this new phase of sober young manhood he had not yet achieved steady
- self-control.
- </p>
- <p>
- She broke the silence with a question about the revolution. It is to his
- credit that he talked, stumbling only at first, clearly. And as the strain
- of the meeting gradually relaxed, he became aware of her sobered but still
- intense absorption in the struggle; aware, too, increasingly, of her
- strong gift of what is called personality. Her mind was quick, bright,
- eager—better, it seemed (he had to fight bitterness here) than his
- own. And she was impersonal to a degree that he couldn't yet attain—couldn't,
- in fact, quite understand. He had to speak slowly and carefully; feeling
- his way with a dogged determination among uprushing emotions, moved as
- never before by the charm of appearance and manner and speech of which she
- was so prettily unconscious.... He had come—perhaps with more than a
- touch in him of (again) that Western histrionism, the intense
- overstressing of the individual and his feelings—as a man who was
- effacing himself that the woman he loved might be happy with another man.
- Confused with this wholly unconscious call upon the sympathies,
- undoubtedly, was an unphrased incredulity that she—so strongly a
- person, fine and courageous and outstanding as he knew her to be—could
- accept this being almost casually left as part of a legacy to that other
- man. It was incredible. Unless she loved the other man.... So he came
- around again to the personal; unaware, of course, that he was feeling
- inevitably with his strongly individualistic race. Even when she dwelt on
- race, a little later in their talk, he found no light. He couldn't have;
- for the American seldom can see what lies outside himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don' know yet what I can do,” she was saying, very honestly and simply
- (they hadn't yet mentioned Mr. Doane). “Of course I'm a Manchu, after all.
- An' blood does coun'. I feel that. A good many people to-day talk
- differen'ly, I know. We saw a good 'eal of Socialism at college. The
- idealists to-day—the Jews an' Russians an' even some of our Chinese
- students—the younger men—talk as if race doesn' matter. But of
- course it does. It will ta' thousan's of years, I suppose, to bring the
- races together. An' maybe it's impossible. Maybe it can' be done at all. I
- think tha's the tragedy of so much of this beautiful dreaming.... An' here
- you see I'm a Manchu, an' yet I wan' the Manchus put out of China. Because
- they won' let China grow. An' China mus' grow, or die.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was moodily watching her; head bowed a little, gazing out under knit
- brows. “Do you know,” he said, “it's a queer thing to say, of course, but
- sometimes you make me feel terribly young.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She smiled faintly. “You are—rather young, Rocky.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He closed his eyes and compressed his lips; his name, on her lips, was
- dangerously thrilling music to him. After a moment he went doggedly on.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The crowds I've gone with at home haven't talked about these things. They
- wouldn't think it good form.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know,” said she. “They woul'n'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm beginning to wonder if we're—well, intelligent, exactly. You
- know—just motors and horses and girls and bridge and 'killings' in
- Wall Street.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Killings?” Her brows were lifted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—picking up a lot of money, quick.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That,” she mused, “is what I sometimes worry about. You know, I love
- America. I have foun' happiness there. I love the books an' the colleges
- and the freedom an' all the goo' times. But it is true, I think—money
- is God in America. Pipple don' like to have you say it, of course. But I'm
- afraid it is true. Ever'-thing has to come to money—the gover'men',
- the churches, ever'thing. I have seen that. That is the hard side of
- America. I don' like that so well.” Finally—coming down, helplessly,
- on the personal, yet with a courageous light in his eyes—he said: “I
- do want you to know this—Hui. You won't mind my speaking of my love
- for you—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her hand moved a very little way upward. “Please! I can't help that. It's
- my life now. I'm full of you. And it has changed me. I'm—I'm going
- back.... I'm going at things differently. I want you to know that. Because
- if I hadn't met you it couldn't possibly have happened. And if I hadn't—well,
- learned what it means to love a wonderful girl like you. I want you to
- know how big the change is that you've made.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rocky,” she said gently—“will you do something for me?” He
- waited...."I wan' you to go back to college.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've already made up my mind to that,” he replied, more quietly. “It's
- the job for me now. It's the next thing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm glad,” said she. “An' I'd love it if you'd write to me sometimes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He inclined his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then, for a moment, his old turbulent inner self unexpectedly (even to
- himself), lifted its head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I tried to see Mr. Doane—that is, I thought perhaps I ought to tell
- him that I was coming out here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She seemed slightly puzzled at this. Her lips framed questioningly the
- words: “Tell him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I—I perhaps can't say much—but I'm sure you and he will be
- happy. I—oh, he's a big man. He's terribly busy now, of course—you
- know what he's doing—at Wu Ting Fang's headquarters?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She inclined her head rather wearily, saying: “He wrote me a ver' kin note—jus'
- to say that he was busy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They talk about him some at the hotel. All of a sudden he seems to be a
- power here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She went without a further word into the house, returning with a slip of
- paper. Into her manner had crept at the mention of Doane's name, a
- gentler, more wistful quality that she seemed not to think of concealing;
- it was even a confiding quality, intimately friendly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don' quite un'erstand it,” she said. “A gen'leman called from the Hong
- Kong Bank an' lef' this.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky read the paper; a receipt for a sealed parcel of pearls and for
- other separate jewels and a sum of money.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—he put it all there in your name,” said he, while a sudden new
- hope rose into his drying throat and throbbed in his temples.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. It puzzle' me—a little.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned the paper over and over in his fingers, once again struggling to
- think.... She sat motionless, gazing at the dahlias.
- </p>
- <p>
- Blindly then he groped for her hands, found them and impulsively gripped
- them.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hui”—he whispered huskily—“tell me—if it's like this—if
- you—if he.... All this time I've supposed you and he were.... I want
- you to come with me to America. We both do love it there. I'll give up my
- life to making you happy. I'll slave for you. I'll make of my life what
- you say. just let us try it together....”
- </p>
- <p>
- She silently heard him out—through this and much more, leaving her
- hands quietly in his. Finally then, when the emotional gust seemed in some
- measure to have spent itself, she said, gently:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rocky, I wan' you to listen to what I'm going to tell you. You said I
- make you feel young. Well—can' you see why? Can' you see that I'm
- quite an ol' lady?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But that's nonsense! You—” His eyes were feasting on her soft skin
- and on the exquisite curve of her cheek.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—you mus' listen! First tel me how old you are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Unexpectedly on the defensive, Rocky had to compose himself, arrange his
- dignity, before he could reply. “I was twenty-one in the summer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ver' good. An' I was twenty-five in the spring.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please! I don' know what you coul' have thought—how young you
- thought I was when I wen' to college. But tha's the way it is. I'm an ol'
- lady. I have learn' to like you ver' much. I'm fond of you. I wan' to feel
- always tha' we're frien's. But we coul'n' be happy together. Our interes'
- aren' the same—they coul'n' be. Can' you see, Rocky? If there is
- something abou' me tha' stirs you—that is ver' won'erful. But we
- mus'n' let it hurt you. An' that isn' the same as marriage. Marriage is
- differen'—there mus' be so much in common—if a man an' woman
- are to live together an' work together, they mus' think an' hope an'....”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her voice died out. She was gazing again, mournfully at the dahlias. When
- he released her hands they lay limp in her lap.
- </p>
- <p>
- With a great effort of will he wished her every happiness, promised to
- write, and got himself away.
- </p>
- <p>
- This was on Thursday. Rocky walked at a feverish pace from the native city
- to the European settlement that was so quaintly not Chinese—more,
- with its Western-style buildings that were decorated with ornamental iron
- balconies and richly colored Chinese signs, like a “China-town” in an
- American city—and wandered for a time along Nanking Road; then out
- to Bubbling Well Road; away out, past the Country Club to the almost
- absurdly suburban quarter with its comfortably British villas; seeing,
- however, little of the busy life that moved about him, threading his way
- over cross-streets without a conscious glance at the motorcars and
- pony-drawn victorias (with turbanned mafoos cracking their whips) and
- bicycles and the creaking passenger wheelbarrow's on which fat native
- women with tiny stumps of feet rode precariously. For those few hours were
- to be recalled in later years as the quietly darkest in the young man's
- life. There was no question now of dissipation; he knew with the
- decisiveness of the Kanes that he had turned definitely away from the
- morbid oblivion of alcohol and opium, as from the unhealthy if exciting
- diversion of loveless women. But the bitterness would not down all at
- once. Indeed it was savagely powerful, still, to cloud his reason. The
- only evidence of victory over self of which he was aware was the fact that
- he could now look almost objectively at himself, and could fight.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was back at the hotel between seven and eight, but couldn't eat. For an
- hour he walked his room, locked in. Then, in sheer loneliness, a little
- afraid of himself, he went down to the spacious lounge and sat in a
- corner, behind a palm, staring at a copy of the <i>China Press</i> and
- listening, all overstrung nerves, to the cackle and laughter of the
- self-centered tourists and the curiously bold and loud commercial men from
- across the Pacific. He heard this, in his younger way, as Doane would have
- heard it, even as Hui; it was all heedless, light-brained; careless....
- Confused with the bitterness (in a bewildering degree) was a sense of the
- finely reflective atmosphere that had lately enveloped him and that he was
- not to lose easily. He felt—sitting, all nerves, in this babel—the
- fine old Chinese gentleman who had gone serenely to the death that was his
- destiny. He felt—constantly, intensely—the princess who had
- brought to her American college an instinct for culture the like of which
- neither he nor any of his friends at home had brought or found there. And
- he felt Mr. Doane—felt a spaciousness of mind in the man, a
- patience, a tolerance—felt him as a gentleman—felt him while
- still, in his heart, he was bitterly fighting him.... The thing had closed
- over his head—the sheer quality of these remarkable folk. He was
- simply out of a cruder world. He hadn't the right to stand with them—the
- simple right of character and breeding. And no amount of determination, no
- amount of storming at it could alter the fact. It would take years of
- patient work. Ever, then he might miss it; for his environment soon again
- would be that of the cackling tourists he now hated. Even at college it
- would be all the dominant athletics, the parties and the motors and girls
- and drinking, the association with those sons of prosperous families who
- were all consciously cementing alliances with the financial upper class
- that quietly ruled America while hired politicians prated and performed
- without in the smallest measure controlling or even altering the blatant
- facts.... He and his kind, at college, despised the “grind.” And you had
- to be a grind if you weren't the other thing. Yet Hui Pei had managed it
- differently. She was neither and both. It seemed to be a difference of
- mental texture....
- </p>
- <p>
- A slim girl, richly dressed, with a sable wrap about her shoulders and a
- pretty little hat, was threading her way among the crowding chairs and
- tables and the talkative groups in the lounge. He glanced up: then looked
- closely. It was Dixie Carmichael. She stood before him, wearing her icy,
- faintly mocking smile. He rose.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How are you?” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- He could only incline his head with a sort of courtesy, and contrive an
- artificial smile. He seemed to have been dreaming, outrageously. Life had
- begun now'.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm running down to Singapore,” said she. “Friends there. And a
- look-see?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” he murmured, “indeed.” She looked out-and-out rich; and she was
- surprisingly pretty, without a sign that she had ever known danger or even
- care.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Staying here?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. I start back home Saturday.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So?.... Well, that'll be pleasant.” With a final glance of what seemed
- almost like triumph she sailed away. And he knew that in taking the pearls
- he had not taken all from her. Apparently, too, she meant him to know it.
- That would be her moment of triumph. And that was all; not a word was
- spoken regarding his violence or her threats.... He saw the yellow porters
- carrying out her luggage of bright new leather.
- </p>
- <p>
- He resumed his seat; twitched for a time with increasing nervousness; got
- up and went aimlessly over to the desk; asked the Malay clerk for mail.
- </p>
- <p>
- A smiling little Japanese appeared, rather officious about a great lot of
- bags and a trunk or two that were coming in. He had a familiar look; even
- raised his hat and stepped forward with outstretched hand. It was Kato....
- And then Dawley Kane came in—tall, quiet, neatly dressed, his nearly
- white mustache newly cropped.
- </p>
- <p>
- To his pale son Dawley Kane said merely—“Well!”—as he took his
- hand; and then was busy registering. That done, he asked: “Had dinner?”
- Rocky shook his head. “I don't care for any.” Daw ley Kane's quietly keen
- eyes surveyed his son. “What's the matter? Not well.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm well enough.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sit down with me, can't you?” And turning to the attending Japanese he
- said: “You'll excuse me Kato. I'll be dining with my son. And tell Mr.
- Braker, please.... Just a minute Rocky, till I wash my hands.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They were shown to a table in the great diningroom, where the cackling was
- louder than in the lounge (they dine late on the coast)—where
- blue-gowned waiters moved softly about as if there had never been a
- revolution and wine glasses glistened and prettily bared shoulders gleamed
- roundly under the electric lights.
- </p>
- <p>
- And Rocky, seated gloomily opposite this powerful quiet man—who took
- him unerringly in of course; dishearteningly, Rocky felt—found
- himself in a depression deeper than any he had known before. His father
- was so strong and he brought back with him the enveloping atmosphere of
- the mighty, splendidly successful white world in which they both belonged—a
- world that crushed the heart out of weaker peoples while it blandly talked
- the moralities. He felt it as a Juggernaut. It had the amazingly
- successful racial blend of character and plausibility. That would be the
- British quality; and, more roughly and confusedly, the American.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Getting rather interesting up the river.” remarked Dawley Kane, over his
- soup. “How'd you get down?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “On a junk.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Any trouble?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—some.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Been here long?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Several days. I'm sailing Saturday.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sailing?” Mr. Kane raised his eyebrows. “Where?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Home.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You decided not to consult me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh.... Don't ride me, father! It's the next thing. I'm going back to
- college.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—I see.” Mr. Kane looked over the menu, ordered his roast, and
- selected a red wine, cautioning the waiter to set it near the stove for
- five minutes. “It's wicked to heat Burgundy,” he said, when the waiter had
- gone, “but it's the only way you can get it served at the right
- temperature. I discovered that when we were here before.... I gather, my
- boy, that you've come to your senses in the matter of that little yellow
- girl.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky did not wince outwardly; he merely sat still. But his mind, at last,
- was active. And he knew—saw it in a flash—that no explanation
- he could possibly make, would be intelligible. You can not—yet—talk
- across the gulf between the worlds. It was his first intelligent glimpse
- of the tremendous fact that Doane had so long and so clearly felt and
- seen. So he merely—at last, when his father looked closely at him—inclined
- his head and said, huskily:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm going to work out this college business'. That's my job clear
- enough.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This new attitude was to bring, later in the evening, confidences from the
- father.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's been an interesting journey for me, Rocky.” Thoughtfully Dawley Kane
- smoked his Manila cigar.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's enabled me to understand somewhat the delicate international
- situation out here. I couldn't see why our agents weren't accomplishing
- more. The trouble is, of course, that every square foot of China's staked
- out by the European nations. If you don't believe that, just get a
- concession from the Chinese Government—for a big job—water
- power development, mining, railway building, or an industrial monopoly—that
- part of it isn't so hard—and then try to carry it through. You'd
- find out fast enough who are the real owners of China. And those owners
- would never let you start. Great Britain controls this great empire of the
- Yangtze Valley as completely as she controls India. France owns the south—Russia
- the northwest and the north—Japan, from Korea and Lower Manchuria is
- penetrating the northwest, too; they're bound, the Japanese, to tip Russia
- out one of these days, and they're very clever and patient about slipping
- into the British regions. They've got the Germans to contend with, too, in
- the Kiochow region. But someday—either in the event of the final
- break-up of China or in the event of the European nations coming to an
- out-and-out squabble (which is almost a certainty, at that) Japan will be
- found to have pulled off most of the big prizes for herself. We'll have to
- fight Japan someday, I suppose—over the control of the Pacific—but
- in the meantime, those little people are the best bet. They know the East
- as the rest of us don't, they're clever, and their diplomats aren't
- hampered by the sort of half-enlightened public opinion that's always
- tripping us up in the West—sentimental idealism, that sort of thing—and
- they control their press infinitely better than we do. They've got
- everything, the Japanese, except money. And we've got the money. It'll be
- just a question of security, that's all; and watching them pretty closely.
- I've made up my mind to play it that way.... A survey of the actual
- conditions out here makes our American diplomacy look pretty naive. We
- talk idealism—open door and all—while all the rest of them are
- moving in and setting up shop and getting the money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Later, in Dawley Kane's spacious suite overlooking the park-like street
- where the colored lanterns of the rickshaws glowed pleasantly under the
- trees, the father said, laying a hand affectionately on the boy's
- shoulder:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can't tell you how happy you've made me, Rocky. It looks as if you'd
- turned your corner. Just don't go in for too much thinking about what
- you've been through. There's nothing in remorse. As a matter of fact, a
- little rough experience is a good thing for a boy. After you get your
- balance you'll be all the closer to life for it.... Go ahead with your
- college plans, get your degree, and then after a year or two in the New
- York office I'll bring you out here. We shall be playing for big stakes.
- And we shall need good men.... That's the whole problem, really—the
- men. I had my eyes on this man Doane, but he turned out to be only a
- sentimentalist after all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was the hopelessness of it that drove Rocky out—after a
- respectful good night—and over to the revolutionary headquarters. He
- knew that Mr. Doane worked most of the night; and took what sleep he got
- on a cot there.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XV—IN A COURTYARD
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>E sent in his
- name, and waited for an hour in an outer office. For even at this late
- hour in the evening headquarters was a busy place. Chinese gentlemen
- crowded in and out, dressed, to a man, in the frock coats and the flapping
- black trousers they didn't know how to wear. High officers slipped quietly
- in and out—in khaki, with the white brassard of the Revolution on
- their left arms; sometimes with merely a handkerchief tied there Orderlies
- and messengers came and went. And clerks of untiring patience sat at
- desks.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a difficult hour. Rocky had only his confused emotions to guide
- him, and his hurt heart. There were moments, even, when he didn't know why
- he had come. But he never thought of giving up. Whatever their curious
- relations, he had to see Mr. Doane, who was now the only stable figure in
- the rocking world about him. The man had been fine—square. That he
- knew now. And his nervous young imagination was veering toward
- hero-worship. He was utterly humble.
- </p>
- <p>
- Naturally he was boyish about it, when they finally led him into that
- inner office. He said, flushing a little:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know you're busy, Mr. Doane—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not too busy for you. I kept you waiting to clear up a lot of things.”
- The man's great size and calmness of manner—the question rose; had
- he ever in his life known weariness?—were comforting.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm—sailing Saturday.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This, for a brief moment, brought the kindly though strong and sober face
- to immobility.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You see, sir, I've come to feel that the best thing for me is to go back
- and—-start clean.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A slight mist came over Doane's eyes. What a struggle the boy had had of
- it! And how splendidly he was working through!.... Thought came about the
- children of the rich in America... the problem of it....
- </p>
- <p>
- “I—couldn't go without seeing you. You see, sir, it's you, I guess,
- that've put me on my feet. I sort of—well, I want you to know that I
- <i>am</i> on them. It's been a strange experience, all round. A terrible
- experience, of course. It shakes you....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It has shaken me, too,” Doane observed simply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know. That is, I see all that more clearly now. I was going to speak of
- it—it's one of the things, but first.... Mr. Doane, will you write
- to me? Once in a while? I mean, will you—could you find time to
- answer if I write to you? You see, it isn't going to be easy, over there.
- I've got to go clean outside my own crowd. And outside my family. They
- won't one of them understand what I'm up to. Not one. And—when you
- come right down to it, I suppose it's a question whether the thing licks
- me or not. But”—his shoulders squared; he looked directly into that
- kind, deeply shadowed face—“I don't believe it will lick me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” said Doane, “it won't lick you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall never be able to shake China off now. It's got me. And I don't
- know a thing about it yet. Of course I shall be reading and studying it
- up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll send you a book once in a while.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I know I'm coming back out here someday. But it won't be as my father
- wants me to come. You see, I'll have money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A great responsibility, Rocky.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know. I'm beginning to see that. But—I know all this must sound
- pretty young to you!—but I'm afraid I shall be leaning on you
- sometimes—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Write to me at those times.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All right. I will.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is an amazing health in the American people.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes—that's so, of course.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's a curiously blundering people, of course. And there's a hard, really
- a Teutonic strain—that blend of practical hard-headedness, even of
- cruelty, with sentimentality—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky's brows came together. Mr. Doane and his father plainly didn't use
- that word “sentimental” in the same sense, “—it comes down to a
- strain of—well, something between the old Anglo-Saxonism and the
- modern Prussianism. It's in us—in our driving business tactics, our
- narrow moral intolerance, our insistence on standardizing vulgar ideas—forcing
- every individual into a mold—in our extraordinary glorification of
- the salesman. We seem to have a good deal both of the British complacency
- and the rough aggressiveness of the German. But the health is there—wonderfully.
- What America needs is beauty—not the self-conscious swarming after
- it of earnest and misguided suburban ladies—but a quiet sense of the
- thing itself. Beauty—and simplicity—and patience—and
- tolerance—and faith. Prosperity has for the moment wrecked faith
- there. Simply too much money. But you'll find health growing up
- everywhere. Just let yourself grow with it. You've been deeply impressed
- by China. But if I were you, I'd let all that take care of itself. Never
- mind what you may come to feel next year or ten years from now. It may be
- mainly China or mainly America. Just work, and let yourself grow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At the door they clasped hands warmly. And then, finally, Rocky got to the
- point:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Doane—this is what I wanted to say—I saw Hui Fei this
- afternoon, and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doane was silent; but still gripped his hand, “—and we talked things
- all out. She knows I'm—knows I'm going back. And—this is
- it.... You don't mind my.... I think you ought to find time to go over
- there and see her. She seems puzzled about—I don't know quite how to
- say all this. You know how I've felt—feel.... Of course, the thing
- is to look the facts in the face. I hope I'm man enough to do that.” His
- voice was unsteady now. “I'm not the one. I never was. She was clear about
- it, to-day, but... I think you ought to see her. Oh, I'm sure it isn't
- just her father's will....”
- </p>
- <p>
- Rocky found himself, without the slightest sense of ungentleness on the
- part of Mr. Doane, through the door and confusedly saying his good-by
- before the patient clerks and the waiting crowd in the anteroom. He walked
- back to the hotel with a warm glow of admiration and friendship in his
- heart. There would be—he knew, even then—sad hours, probably
- bitter hours, in the long struggle to come. But this talk was going to
- help.
- </p>
- <p>
- On Doane the boy's announcement had an almost crushing effect. His spirit
- was not adjusted to happiness. The terrific strain of the work was a
- blessing. He framed, that night and during the following day, innumerable
- little chits to Hui Fei—pretexts, all, for a visit that needed no
- pretext. And the day passed. Self-consciousness was upon him; and a
- constant mental difficulty in making the situation credible. And there was
- the pressure of time; an awareness that to Hui Fei—perhaps even to
- the Witherys—his silence would soon demand a stronger explanation
- than the mere pressure of business. He had to keep reminding himself that
- the girl was helpless, that he himself was the only guardian whose
- authority she could recognize; his reason whispering from moment to moment
- that she would not touch the money he had so promptly put at her disposal.
- No, she would wait.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was his old friend Henry Withery who brought him to it; appearing late
- on the Saturday afternoon, determined to drag him off for dinner....
- Withery, looking every one of his forty-eight years, patient resignation
- in the dusty blue eyes, and a fine net of wrinkles about them. His slight
- limp was the only reminder of tortures inflicted by the Boxers in 1900,
- out in Kansuh. He had taken over the T'ainan-fu mission for a year after
- Doane left the church in 1907; and during two years now had been here in
- Shanghai.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's no good killing yourself here, Grig,” he said. “We've not had ten
- minutes with you yet, remember. And we must talk over that girl's affairs.
- She's very sweet about it, but it's plain that she's waiting on you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His tone was genial; quite the tone of their earlier friendship, with
- nothing left of the constraint that had come into their relationship
- during Doane's difficult years on the river—the years that couldn't
- be explained, even to old friends.... And Withery knew nothing of the
- curious personal problem of his and Hui Fei's lives. His manner made that
- clear.... It remained to be seen whether Mrs. Withery knew.
- </p>
- <p>
- .... Doane, it will be noted, was still struggling, as of settled habit,
- with the thought of freeing the girl from the obligation laid upon her.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Mrs. Withery didn't know, didn't dream. She was quite her whole-souled
- self. He might have been Hui Fei's father, from anything in her manner. He
- felt a conspirator.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her father's tragic end accounted altogether for the girl's silence. She
- met him naturally, though, with a frank grip of the hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a pleasant enough family dinner. They talked the revolution, of
- course. No one in Shanghai at the beginning of that November talked
- anything else. Hui Fei quietly listened; her face very sober in repose.
- She seemed—she had always seemed—more delicately feminine in
- Western costume. She was more slender now; her face a perfect oval under
- the smooth, deep-shadowed hair. Her dark eyes, deep with stoically
- controlled feeling, rested on this or that speaker. Doane found them once
- or twice resting thoughtfully on himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- After dinner Mrs. Withery, with a glance at her husband, laid a
- sympathetic hand on Hui's shoulder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear,” she said, all friendly sympathy, “Mr. Doane's time is precious,
- these days and nights. I know that you should take this opportunity to
- talk over your problems with him. I shall be bustling about here—suppose
- you take him out into the courtyard.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Without a word they walked out there; stood by a gnarled tree whose
- twisted limbs extended over the low tiled roofs. There was a little light
- from the windows. The long silence that followed was the most difficult
- moment yet. Doane found himself breathing rather hard. In Hui Fei he felt
- the calm Oriental patience that underlay all her Western experiences. She
- simply waited for him to speak.
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked down at her, quite holding his breath. She seemed almost frail
- out here, in the half light. He was fighting, with all his strength and
- experience, the warm sweet feelings that drugged his brain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear—” he began; then, when she looked frankly up at him,
- hesitated. He hadn't known he was going to begin with any such phrase as
- that. He got on with it...."I'm wondering how I can best help you. If I
- were a younger man there would be no question as to what I would have to
- say to you.” Utterly clumsy, of course; with little light ahead; just a
- dogged determination to serve her without hurting her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think a good 'eal of wha' they tell me you're doing”—thus Hui
- Fei, in a low but clear voice; not looking up now. “I've almos' envied
- you. Helping li' that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It must be hard for you—with all your mental interests—to sit
- quietly here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My min' goes on, of course,” she said. “Yes, it isn' ver' easy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This was getting them nowhere. Doane, after a deep breath, took command of
- the situation. Sooner or later he would have to do that.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hui, dear,” he said now—very quietly, but directly, “this is a
- difficult situation for both of us. The only thing, of course, is to meet
- it as frankly as we can. I learned to love your father—”
- </p>
- <p>
- She glanced up at this; her eyes glistened as the light caught them.
- </p>
- <p>
- “—but we can not blindly follow his wishes. He had seen and felt the
- West, but he died a Manchu.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her soft lips framed the one word, “Yes.” The softness of her whole face,
- indeed, was disconcerting; it was all sober emotion, that she plainly
- didn't think of trying to hide.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I'm sure you'll understand me when I tell you that I can not accept
- his legacy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She startled him now with the low but direct question: “Why not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear....” He found difficulty in going on.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don' know what I ought 'o say.” He barely heard this; stopped a little.
- “I don' know wha' to do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can't you, dear—isn't there some clear vision in your heart—don't
- you see your way ahead? Remember, you will always have me to help—if
- I can help. It will mean everything to me to be your dearest friend.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want 'o work with you,” she murmured.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I haven't dared believe that possible,” he said thoughtfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you wan' me to?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. But it has to be clearer than that.” He was stupid again; he sensed
- it himself. “There is so much of life ahead of you. It's got to be clear
- that wherever your heart may lead you, child—that you shall have my
- steady friendship. The rest of it can grow as it may.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wan'....” He couldn't make out the words; he bent down close to her
- lovely face. “I want 'o marry you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They both stood breathless then. Timidly her hand crept into his and
- nestled there.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tha's the trouble”—her voice was a very little stronger—“there
- isn' anything else. It's ever'thing you think an' do—ever'thing you
- believe. We're both between the worl's, so....”
- </p>
- <p>
- The noise in his brain was like the pealing of cathedral bells at
- Christmas time. Yet in this rush of ecstatic feeling he suddenly saw
- clearly. The fabric of their companionship had hardly begun weaving. All
- his experience, his delicacy, his fine human skill, must be employed here.
- Ahead lay happiness! It was still nearly incredible.... And there lay—extending
- before them in a long vista—their intense common interest. The thing
- was to make a fine success of it. Build through the years.
- </p>
- <p>
- And happiness was greatly important. He had so nearly missed it....
- Looking up through the branches of the old tree, he smiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he led her into the house.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you had your talk already?” asked Mrs. Withery pleasantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We've settled everything,” said Doane. “We're going to be married.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very soon,” said Hui Fei.
- </p>
- <h3>
- THE END
- </h3>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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