IN A TORTURE CHAMBER.
Alice felt that her situation was bad enough as she passed through the
"door of death" without Dr. Garshaski adding to it by clap-trap.
This she was sure he had done, for while the Chinese characters on the
other doors were painted directly on the woodwork, in this case it was a
piece of red paper, upon which the character had been written with a
Chinese pen.
That it had been put there for her special benefit Alice did not doubt.
It was just like Dr. Garshaski, who was forever doing something dramatic
in the old days.
He hurried Alice along the empty corridor and down a short flight of
stairs.
Coming to a door, he let go his hold and knocked.
It was instantly opened by a very Chinese-looking Chinaman wearing a
rich native dress.
The room was rather small, but well fitted up as a bed chamber, partly
in Chinese and partly in American style. In the middle of the floor
stood the box which was supposed to contain the Chinese princess.
"So you have come at last!" exclaimed the Chinaman in his own language.
"I thought you never would."
"Patience, Wang Foo," replied the doctor. "We can't get there all in a
moment."
"But the princess may die. She may be dead now. I believe it. She ought
to have been released long ago."
"Patience, I tell you. I know my business. She is in no danger of death
whatever."
"And the woman you were to bring to look after her. She must have an
attendant. She is not to be ill treated. She is of my own blood."
"The woman is here."
"What, a white woman?"
"Yes."
"Of what use can she be?"
"I know her of old. She is an excellent nurse. None better."
"But she cannot talk to the princess."
"There you are quite mistaken. Better be careful what you say to her.
She speaks Chinese as well as you do."
Wang Foo stared at Alice and asked her name.
He managed to grasp the Alice part, but the rest was quite beyond him.
"Hurry! Hurry," he cried.
"Alice," said the doctor, "I am going to resurrect the princess now. Sit
down in that easy-chair and make yourself at home."
Alice silently obeyed. Thus far there seemed nothing so terrible coming
out of the passage through the door of death.
The doctor asked for a screw-driver, and Wang Foo produced one, with
which he made short work of opening the box.
There, apparently, in a deep sleep, lay a little doll of a Chinese woman
upon blankets carefully fitted into the box.
She was in plain native dress, and her feet were not bigger than those
of a good-sized doll.
This alone proved that she belonged to a good family.
The ordinary Chinese women do not compress their feet.
The doctor bent over the box and listened at her heart.
"She's all right," he said. "I'll have her out of this in no time."
He produced a leather medicine case, and, taking a tumbler from the
washstand, proceeded to mix small portions of the contents of two
different vials.
The result was a reddish liquid, of which he administered a few drops to
the princess.
"Now, Alice," he said, "we can talk freely before this man, who is just
from China and can't speak a word of English. Our love affairs can hang
over a few days. Just now I am going to explain about this woman. She is
the daughter of a rich Pekin Mandarin, who has sold her to an equally
rich merchant here in Chinatown. They are really in love with each
other, and the woman came to California of her own accord, although not
in just the way she set out to do. She is also the granddaughter of a
rich old Chink on her mother's side, who died in San Francisco at the
time of the great fire. He left a pile of ready cash behind him, but no
one knows where he hid it. That he did hide it somewhere on the night of
the fire is certain. Just before his death, as I have the best of reason
for believing, old Gong Schow wrote out this secret of the buried money
and sent it to a man in China with instructions for him to deliver the
letter containing the secret to his granddaughter on her twentieth
birthday. It was done. This funny little midget alone knows where Gong
Schow's wealth is buried. She has kept her secret well. She promised her
lover to reveal it to him on their marriage day. Wang Foo knows all
this. He is my partner in certain business transactions. He is her
cousin. He started to escort her to Shanghai from her home in Pekin.
There she was to sail on the Manchuria for San Francisco. But Wang Foo
deceived her and took her aboard an English tramp steamer, the Dover
Castle. He has delivered her to me. She must be made to give up her
secret, fair Alice. That was another reason why I kidnaped you. I want
you to do the detective act. Get the secret out of the princess as best
you can, only get it. Make her understand that if she don't give it up
she will surely die. You have followed me in all this, I hope?"
"I certainly have," replied Alice, adding: "At your old tricks, doctor.
Forever plotting and scheming. Am I to be kept alone with this Chinese
princess then?"
"That's what you are, and it's up to you to work my schemes out to
success, for it is I and not Wang Foo who must have this hidden
treasure----But she is waking; my drug has done it's work."
It was so. Inside of a few minutes the Chinese princess had fully
revived.
She was little, but she made it hot for those around her.
Such a temper Alice never saw displayed in any Chinawoman.
She began by screaming, demanding to know where she was and why she was
there.
She turned on Wang Foo with all the fury of a tigress, accused him of
drugging her, of kidnaping her, and then began yelling to be taken to Ah
Lung.
As for Dr. Garshaski, she did not appear to know him. She seemed to feel
an instinctive hatred for him, however. She clawed at his face and tried
to hit him when he started to help her out of the box.
She got out herself, however, and promptly tumbled over on her little
feet. Like many another Chinawoman of her class, she could scarcely
walk.
Wang Foo did not attempt to reply.
At last he and Dr. Garshaski left the room, taking the box away with
them.
After a while they returned with two trunks containing the belongings
of the princess, whom they found crying in Alice's arms.
"That's right, Alice, that's right," said the doctor, delightedly. "I
see you know your business as well as ever. Keep it up, my dear, and see
here, I have determined to make you a promise. If you succeed in worming
the secret out of that horrid little fright, you shan't marry me unless
you really want to--so there!"
"That's certainly kind of you," said Alice with a half sneer. "All
right, doctor, I'll see what I can do."
She did nothing of the sort, of course.
During the days of her unexplained absence, Alice remained shut in that
room with Skeep Hup, the Chinese princess, an old Chinawoman serving
them with their meals and otherwise attending to their wants.
Two Chinamen with drawn revolvers stood outside the door every time it
was opened. There was no possibility of escape.
During this time Alice got very close to the princess.
Little Skeep Hup seemed to take a great liking to her from the first,
which increased as the days dragged by.
She told Alice about everything she knew except the secret of the
hiding-place of her grandfather's buried treasure, which she claimed she
knew. She confirmed Dr. Garshaski's story in every particular, and
upbraided herself bitterly for having been foolish enough to listen to
the lies of Wang Foo.
But where was Wang Foo?
They saw no more of him.
Dr. Garshaski came every day towards night asking as to Alice's success.
She put him off as best she could.
"The princess will not reveal her secret," she said at last, "and who
can blame her? The best thing you can do, doctor, is to go and blackmail
Ah Lung out of a few thousand and set her free."
This was on the night the Bradys had the call from Ah Lung.
The doctor's face grew dark as Alice said it.
"Do you say so?" he exclaimed. "Well, we shall see!"
He turned on the princess and said:
"Now look here, little woman, to-night you have to tell your secret or
take the consequences. Understand?"
Then Skeep Hup flew into one of her rages, and the doctor was getting it
good and plenty when he abruptly left the room, saying in English to
Alice as he went out:
"This is played out. She shall be made to tell, and you, who I believe
have put her up to this, shall see the job done. You will find out that
it is no joke to have passed through the door of death."
And this Alice translated for the benefit of Skeep Hup, asking her what
she supposed it meant.
"It means torture, that's what it means," replied the princess,
promptly. "No matter. They will never get the secret out of me. I will
never reveal it to any one but Ah Lung."
And here is what followed:
No supper came that night.
Alice and the princess waited until they were tired, and were just
preparing to go to bed when the door was suddenly thrown open and two
men wearing hideous paste-board masks after the Chinese style entered
the room.
Dr. Garshaski and another followed them, an old Chinaman with a long,
drooping mustache. A person Alice had never seen.
"Young women," said the doctor, "you are to follow us to the torture
room, unless you, Princess Skeep Hup, instantly reveal what I wish to
know, or, rather, give me your promise to do so, for it must be revealed
to me alone."
The princess set her lips together, and, throwing intense scorn into her
speech, defied him.
They were then led along the passage, through a door at its end, up
steps and through another passage, winding up in a room all draped in
black, which was dimly lighted by a solitary candle placed within a
human skull resting on an old-fashioned coffin, which looked as if it
may have been made to fit the princess, judging from its size.
Beyond this was a low table provided with an arrangement of ropes
attached at one end to a post at the other to a large wooden jackscrew.
It was a wicked-looking engine.
Alice shuddered.
"We have fallen into the hands of a bunch of yellow fiends," she
thought. "I wonder if there is anything too wicked for Dr. Garshaski to
do?"
The two masks now seized the princess and laid her down upon the table
on her back.
They then proceeded to tie her hands to the ropes attached to the post,
while her feet were made fast to those attached to the screw.
The brave little woman never let out a whimper--never said one word.
"You see, Alice," said the doctor, taking his place beside her. "Don't
you think of interfering, or you shall get your dose."
"You yellow fiend!" breathed Alice, feeling that such cruelty was beyond
endurance. "Wouldn't I like to have the turning of that screw with you
on the table! How dare you resort to such barbarous methods as this?"
"Have a care!" hissed the doctor. "That's the rack--the old-fashioned
rack, such as your white holy men used to resort to when they wanted to
make a man holy in some other way than his own. It is still in use in
China for extorting confessions from thieves. Nice contrivance, isn't
it? But its use has been by no means confined to the Chinese."
"What you allude to happened two hundred years ago, and you know it,"
retorted Alice. "It takes yellow fiends like you and your friends here
to torture a woman in these days!"
"Bah! They would rack people to death for religion's sake to-day if they
dared," answered the doctor.
"But you have your warning, so heed it," he added, and advancing to the
princess, he again asked her if she was ready to reveal the secret.
"Never!" she cried. "You can torture me all you will, but you will never
learn from me that which will place in your hands what I choose shall
belong to my husband, Ah Lung."
"Ah Lung is not your husband nor will he ever be unless you yield to my
request," declared the doctor.
She gave him one look and turned her head away.
"Give the screw a twist!" cried the doctor, and the old Chinaman obeyed,
the two masks standing on each side reciting something in old Chinese
which Alice could make nothing of.
Skeep Hup bore the pain thus inflicted unflinchingly.
She shut her eyes, set her lips, and never uttered a sound.
"Will you tell?" demanded the doctor.
No answer.
"Give it another turn!" he thundered.
The screw was turned again.
The masks chanted louder than ever.
The Chinese princess groaned in her misery. Alice was forced to turn her
head away.
They let her lie so for a few minutes before the doctor again put the
question.
This time she answered, declaring that never would she tell.
"You fool!" cried the doctor. "Do you realize that I mean to continue to
order that screw turned until your limbs are wrenched off?"
"I believe you," replied the princess, "but I shall never tell."
He let her lie there in agony for a few minutes, and then put the
request again.
This time there was no answer.
The victim of this yellow fiend was almost past speech.
"Go it again!" thundered the doctor.
"You fiend!" cried Alice. "Release that woman or I'll do something
desperate. In the name of humanity! In the name of your mother! Dr.
Garshaski, forbear!"
"Interfere at your peril!" thundered the doctor, and as he spoke the
screw was turned once again.
If Alice had been in possession of her revolver she surely would have
shot the fiend, but that had long ago been taken from her.
Helplessly she turned her head away, stopping her ears that she might
not hear the cries which the wretched Chinese woman could no longer keep
back.
But the cries suddenly _ceased_.
"She has fainted," said the torturer.
"You have killed her, poor soul!" moaned Alice. "Oh, you yellow fiends!"