Mr Waldron appreciated the journey up the West River even more than the
sights of Canton. Stretched comfortably upon his deck-chair, he
surveyed through his binoculars the rich, prosperous landscape of
Southern China. He interested himself in the straw-hatted peasants at
work in the tea-gardens and the ricefields. As the launch steamed upon
its way, he inspected river-side villages, temples, gateways and
pagodas.
The party arrived at Wu-chau, spent two or three days seeing the sights,
and then proceeded up-river. A few days later, the launch arrived at
the town of Pinglo--three days after Men-Ching, seated astride his
little Mongolian pony, had ridden in from the East.
Since there was little or nothing to see in Pinglo, Sir Thomas Armitage,
Frank and Mr Hennessy K. Waldron, accompanied by Yung How and one other
personal servant, set out on a journey across country towards the north.
They carried knapsacks upon their backs, and proceeded by way of the
narrow paths separating the ricefields. The heat was excessive, but as
they progressed, and reached higher altitudes, it became cooler, and at
the end of three days' march the Nan-ling Mountains stood out before
them like a great wall.
They found the Taoist temple, surrounded by trees, tucked away in the
corner of a picturesque valley, where there were great numbers of birds
of brilliant plumage.
Mr Waldron was delighted. The temple was deserted, and appeared to have
been neglected for centuries. The plaster had crumbled from the walls
and lay in heaps upon the floor. The place consisted of one huge hall,
with several smaller rooms on either side. Everything of value had been
stolen; but the architecture remained, solid and fantastic, and of the
greatest antiquity.
Ranged around the walls were the figures of scores of gods and
goddesses, chief amongst whom was Buddha. Sir Thomas was able to
identify several of the images, one of whom he recognised as Mohammed,
another as St Paul, and a third as Marco Polo. That Marco Polo should
have risen in China to the dignity of a deity is conceivable, since this
dauntless adventurer was the first European to reside in the ancient
Tartar kingdom of Kublai Khan. But it was indeed remarkable that the
fame of such great preachers as St Paul and the founder of the
Mohammedan religion should have reached--across the whole of Asia--the
heart of the Chinese Empire. This is no treatise on Chinese theology,
else we could write much concerning the Taoist temple on the southern
slopes of the Nan-ling Mountains, at the very back of the beyond. It is
sufficient to say that the judge took copious notes, and Mr Hennessy K.
Waldron was delighted. As a memento of the expedition he knocked off a
stone gargoyle from above the porchway of the temple.
In many ways the expedition resembled a delightful picnic, in a country
that was charming and romantic. The ruined temple was surrounded by
flowering shrubs and queer-shaped deciduous trees, and there were
moss-grown banks upon which one could lie at ease during the heat of the
day or sleep tranquilly by night, when thousands of frogs were croaking
in the valley below, and crickets were singing in the long _kiao-liang_
that grew upon the mountain-side.
The place was a natural garden, scented with almond and mimosa. During
the heat of the day there was shade in plenty; after sunset the
temperature was cool and refreshing. Yung How and his assistant
attended to their wants; gave them four-course luncheons and dinners,
produced from a saucepan and a frying-pan by means of a small wood fire
laid between two bricks. Neither Mr Waldron nor the judge himself
showed the slightest inclination to return to the steaming valley of the
river. As for Frank, he was happy all day long, exploring the
neighbourhood, climbing to the crest-line of the hills, whence he could
survey a vast panorama of terraced paddy-fields, winding rivers,
scattered villages and towns, each with its joss-houses and its temples
and its great horseshoe graveyards.
On the second day of their visit, whilst his uncle and the American were
occupied in inspecting the temple, Frank Armitage ascended a steep
bridle-path which crossed the mountains at a narrow pass. To the north
he found his view obstructed by another and even more rugged range of
mountains. Anxious to gain a more commanding position, the boy left the
bridle-path and climbed, on hands and knees, the steep face of the
adjacent peak.
It took him the greater part of an hour to gain the top, but there he
found his efforts rewarded by a view that reminded him of many scenes
pictured by Gustave Dore, illustrating _Don Quixote_ or _Paradise
Lost_--pictures that had fascinated and frightened him as a child.
Immediately before him was a second valley, at right angles to the one
dividing the parallel ranges, resembling a huge, deep sword-cut in the
barren, savage hills. This valley narrowed as it rose to a higher
altitude, and finally became lost in mountain mist. There were few
trees upon the steep, glistening slopes, and such as were to be seen
were stunted and deformed. There were no roads or paths; no sign of
life or civilisation. The sun itself appeared to have been shut out for
ever from this stretch of desolation.
Frank turned and looked towards the south. In this direction were green
trees, green fields--a plain, rich, fertile, well-watered and thickly
populated. It was almost impossible to believe that a narrow watershed
could divide landscapes so different that they might have been scenes
from different planets. He glanced again at the dark sinister valley;
and as he did so he caught a glimpse of something red, moving slowly
across the spur that formed the angle of the two valleys immediately
below.
He could not at first make out what this could be, for the moving object
almost at once disappeared behind a hillock. When it appeared again,
however, it was in mid-valley; and he recognised a party of men dressed
in scarlet coats, who were marching in close formation, making in the
direction of the pass across the range.
Frank knelt down behind a boulder and watched with interest, and not
without apprehension, the approaching figures. A natural instinct
warned him that it would not be wise to show himself. There was
something in the forbidding nature of the valley itself that warned him
that its sole occupants were not likely to be men whom one could trust.
They climbed the bridle-path, gaining at last the pass whence Frank
himself had ascended to the hill-top. They were now easy to
distinguish. The party numbered about thirty. They were brown-skinned
Chinese, evidently mountain-born; all were armed with scythe-like spears
or long, curved knives, and one or two carried pistols in their belts.
All wore scarlet coats, some of which were bright and new, others being
so faded that they were a kind of dirty pink. At the head of the party
marched a little shrivelled man, whose scarlet coat was trimmed with
gold. Frank Armitage did not know it--though within eight hours he was
to learn the truth--but this was the redoubtable Cheong-Chau
himself--the brigand chief who plundered the southern provinces from the
Nan-ling Mountains to the sea.
As they passed, swinging on their way, these men sang a low, wailing
chant that might have been a funeral dirge, but which was, in fact, a
pirate song of blood and lust and murder. At the rear of the party was
an old man, seated upon the back of a short-necked Mongolian pony. This
was Men-Ching, who had ridden post-haste from the city of Canton,
bringing greetings to Cheong-Chau from Ah Wu, who kept an opium den in
the vicinity of the Mohammedan mosque.
Men-Ching had seen Yung How in the city of Wu-chau, and had there heard
news of the ancient Taoist temple upon the southern slopes of the
mountains. And Cheong-Chau had shaken off the sleep of opium and,
gathering his men, had issued from the town of Pinglo, and had marched
by night into the mountains, the sovereignty of which he shared with the
eagles and the kites.