There was no time for brewing. Outraged nature demanded instant relief.
He dropped them into a bowl, covered them with water, and stirred
swiftly. When the stems and leaves were broken up and well mixed, he
strained brown liquid from them and put it to the other's lips.
"Drink," he commanded, steadying the shaking head.
Barrett drank, unquestioningly.
Instantly the potion worked. Calmed as if by a miracle, made drowsy to a
point where speech was impossible, the white man, tortured but a moment
before, tipped sleepily into Fong Wu's arms. The Chinese waited until a
full effect was secured, when he lifted his limp patient to the
blanket-covered ironing-table. Then he went out for fuel, built a fire,
and, humming softly--with no fear of waking the other--sat down to watch
the steeping of more herbs.
* * * * *
What happened next at the square-fronted house was the unexpected. Again
there was a sound of approaching footsteps, again some one gained the
porch. But this time there was no pausing to ask for admission, there
were no weak requests for aid. A swift hand felt for the knob and found
it; a strong arm pushed at the unlocked door. And through it,
bare-headed, with burning eyes and blanched cheeks, her heavy
riding-whip dangling by a thong from her wrist, came the wife of Anthony
Barrett.
Just across the sill she halted and swept the dim room. A moment, and
the burning eyes fell upon the freighted ironing-table. She gave a
piercing cry.
Fong Wu neither spoke nor moved.
After the first outburst, she was quiet--the quiet that is deliberative,
threatening. Then she slowly closed her fingers about the whip butt.
Fixing her gaze in passionate anger upon him, she advanced a few steps.
_"So it was you,"_ she said, and her voice was hollow.
To that he made no sign, and even his colorless face told nothing.
She came forward a little farther, and sucked in a long, deep breath.
"You _dog_ of a Chinaman!" she said at last, and struck her
riding-skirt.
Fong Wu answered silently. With an imperative gesture, he pointed out
the figure on the ironing-table.
She sprang to her husband's side and bent over him. Presently she began
to murmur to herself. When, finally, she turned, there were tears on her
lashes, she was trembling visibly, and she spoke in whispers.
"Was I wrong?" she demanded brokenly. "I _must_ have been. He's not had
it; I can tell by his quick, easy breathing. And his ear has a faint
color. You are trying to help him! I know! I know!"
A gleaming white line showed between the yellow of Fong Wu's lips. He
picked up a rude stool and set it by the table. She sank weakly upon it,
letting the whip fall.
"Thank God! thank God!" she sobbed prayerfully, and buried her face in
her arms.
[Illustration: "THE PETAL OF A PLUM BLOSSOM."
FROM A PAINTING BY ALBERTINE RANDALL, WHEELAN.]
Throughout the long hours that followed, Fong Wu, from the room's
shadowy rear, sat watching. He knew sleep did not come to her. For now
and then he saw her shake from head to heel convulsively, as he had seen
men in his own country quiver
beneath the scourge of bamboos. Now and then, too, he heard her give a
stifled moan, like the protest of a dumb creature. But in no other ways
did she bare her suffering. Quietly, lest she wake her husband, she
fought out the night.
Only once did Fong Wu look away from her. Then, in anger and disgust his
eyes shifted to the figure on the table. "The petal of a plum
blossom"--he muttered in Chinese--"the petal of a plum blossom beneath
the hoofs of a pig!" And again his eyes dwelt upon the grief-bowed wife.
But when the dawn came stealing up from behind the purple Sierras, and
Mrs. Barrett raised her wan face, he was studiously reviewing his rows
of bottles, outwardly unaware of her presence.
"Fong Wu," she said, in a low voice, "when will he wake?"
"When he is rested; at sunrise, maybe, or at noon."
"And then?"
"He will be feeble. I shall give him more medicine, and he will sleep
again."
He rose and busied himself at the fire. Soon he approached her, bringing
the gold-encrusted teapot and a small, handleless cup.
She drank thirstily, filling and emptying the cup many times. When she
was done, she made as if to go. "I shall see that everything is all
right at home," she told him. "After that, I shall come back." She
stooped and kissed her husband tenderly.
Fong Wu opened the door for her, and she passed out. In the road,
unhitched, but waiting, stood the mustang. She mounted and rode away.
When she returned, not long afterward, she was a new woman. She had
bathed her face and donned a fresh waist. Her eyes were alight, and the
scarlet was again flaming in her cheeks. Almost cheerfully, and
altogether hopefully, she resumed her post at the ironing-table.
It was late in the afternoon before Barrett woke. But he made no attempt
to get up, and would not eat. Fong Wu administered another dose of
herbs, and without heeding his patient's expostulations. The latter,
after seeking his wife's hand, once more sank into sleep.
Just before sunset, Fong Wu, who scorned to rest, prepared supper.
Gratefully Mrs. Barrett partook of some tender chicken and rice cakes.
When darkness shut down, they took up their second long vigil.
But it was not the vigil of the previous night. She was able to think of
other things than her husband's condition and the doom that, of a
sudden, had menaced her happiness. Her spirits having risen, she was
correspondingly impatient of a protracted, oppressive stillness, and
looked about for an interruption, and for diversion. Across from her, a
celestial patrician in his blouse of purple silk and his red-buttoned
cap, sat Fong Wu. Consumed with curiosity--now that she had time to
observe him closely--she longed to lift the yellow, expressionless mask
from his face--a face which might have patterned that of an oriental
sphinx. At midnight, when he approached the table to satisfy himself of
Barrett's progress, and to assure her of it, she essayed a conversation.
Glancing up at his laden shelves, she said, "I have been noticing your
medicines, and how many kinds there seem to be."
"For each ailment that is visited upon man, earth offers a cure," he
answered. "Life would be a mock could Death, unchallenged, take it."
"True. Have you found in the earth, then, the cure for each ailment of
man?"
"For most, yes. They seek yet, where I learned the art of healing, an
antidote for the cobra's bite. I know of no other they lack."
"Where you were taught they must know more than we of this country
know."
Fong Wu gave his shoulders a characteristic shrug.
"But," she continued, "you speak English so perfectly. Perhaps you were
taught that in this country."
"No--in England. But the other, I was not."
"In England! Well!"
"I went there as a young man."
"But these herbs, these medicines you have--they did not come from
England, did they?"
He smiled. "Some came from the hills at our back." Then, crossing to his
shelves and reaching up, "This"--he touched a silk-covered package--"is
from Sumbawa in the Indian Sea; and this"--his finger was upon the cork
of a phial--"is from Feng-shan, Formosa; and other roots are taken in
winter from the lake of Ting-ting-hu, which is then dry; and still
others come from the far mountains of Chamur."
"Do you know," Mrs. Barrett said tentatively, "I have always heard that
Chinese doctors give horrid things for medicine--sharks' teeth, frogs'
feet, lizards' tails, and--and all sorts of dreadful things."
Fong Wu proffered no enlightenment.
"I am glad," she went on, "that I have learned better."
After a while she began again: "Doubtless there is other wonderful
knowledge, besides that about doctoring, which Chinese gentlemen
possess."
Fong Wu gave her a swift glance. "The followers of Laou-Tsze know many
things," he replied, and moved into the shadows as if to close their
talk.
Toward morning, when he again gave her some tea, she spoke of something
that she had been turning over in her mind for hours.
"You would not take money for helping me when I was hurt," she said,
"and I presume you will refuse to take it for what you are doing now.
But I should like you to know that Mr. Barrett and I will always, always
be your friends. If"--she looked across at him, no more a part of his
rude surroundings than was she--"if ever there comes a time when we
could be of use to you, you have only to tell us. Please remember that."
"I will remember."
"I cannot help but feel," she went on, and with a sincere desire to
prove her gratitude, rather than to pry out any secret of his, "that you
do not belong here--that you are in more trouble than I am. For what can
a man of your rank have to do in a little town like this!"
He was not displeased with her. "The ancient sage," he said slowly,
"mounted himself upon a black ox and disappeared into the western
wilderness of Thibet. Doubtless others, too, seek seclusion for much
thinking."
"But you are not the hermit kind," she declared boldly. "You belong to
those who stay and fight. Yet here you are, separated from your people
and your people's graves--alone and sorrowful."
"As for my living people, they are best without me; as for my people
dead, I neither worship their dust nor propitiate devils. The wise one
said, 'Why talk forever on of men who are long gone?'"
"Yet----" she persisted.
He left the stove and came near her. "You are a woman, but you know
much. You are right. My heart is heavy for a thing I cannot do--for the
shattered dreams of the men of Hukwang." He beat his palms together
noiselessly, and moved to and fro on soft sandals. "Those dreams were of
a young China that was to take the place of the old--but that died
unborn."
She followed his words with growing interest. "I have heard of those
dreams," she answered; "they were called 'reform.'"
"Yes. And now all the dreamers are gone. They had voyaged to glean at
Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and in the halls of Oxford. There were 'five
loyal and six learned,' and they shed their blood at the Chen Chih Gate.
One there was who died the death that is meted a slave at the court of
the Son of Heaven. And one there was"--his face shrank up, as if swiftly
aging; his eyes became dark, upturning slits; as one who fears pursuit,
he cast a look behind him--"and one there was who escaped beyond the
blood-bathed walls of the Hidden City and gained the Sumatra Coast.
Then, leaving Perak, in the Straits Settlements, he finally set foot
upon a shore where men, without terror, may reach toward higher things."
"And was he followed?" she whispered, comprehending.
"He fled quietly. For long are the claws of the she-panther crouched on
the throne of the Mings."
Both fell silent. The Chinese went back to the stove, where the fire was
dying. The white woman, wide awake, and lost in the myriad of scenes his
tale had conjured, sat by the table, for once almost forgetful of her
charge.
The dragging hours of darkness past, Anthony Barrett found sane
consciousness. He was pale, yet strengthened by his long sleep, and he
was hungry. Relieved and overjoyed, Mrs. Barrett ministered to him. When
he had eaten and drunk, she helped him from the table to the stool, and
thence to his feet. Her arm about him, she led him to the door. Fong Wu
had felt his pulse and it had ticked back the desired message, so he was
going home.
"Each night you are to come," Fong Wu said, as he bade them good-by.
"And soon, very soon, you may go from here to the place from which you
came."
Mrs. Barrett turned at the door. A plea for pardon in misjudging him,
thankfulness for his help, sympathy for his exile--all these shone from
her eyes. But words failed her. She held out her hand.
He seemed not to see it; he kept his arms at his sides. A "dog of a
Chinaman" had best not take a woman's hand.
She went out, guiding her husband's footsteps, and helped him climb upon
the mustang from the height of the narrow porch. Then, taking the horse
by the bridle, she moved away down the slope to the road.
Fong Wu did not follow, but closed the door gently and went back to the
ironing-table. A handkerchief lay beside it--a dainty linen square that
she had left. He picked it up and held it before him by two corners.
From it there wafted a faint, sweet breath.
Fong Wu let it flutter to the floor. "The perfume of a plum petal," he
said softly, in English; "the perfume of a plum petal."
THE JUDGMENT OF MAN
BY
JAMES HOPPER
_Copyright_, 1906, by McClure, Phillips and Company
Reprinted from _Caybigan_ by permission
WE WERE sitting around the big center table in the _sala_ of the "House
of Guests" in Ilo-Ilo. We were teachers from Occidental Negros. It was
near Christmas; we had left our stations for the holidays--the cholera
had just swept them and the aftermath was not pleasant to
contemplate--and so we were leaning over the polished _narra_ table,
sipping a sweet, false Spanish wine from which we drew, not a convivial
spirit, but rather a quiet, reflective gloom. All the shell shutters
were drawn back; we could see the tin-roofed city gleam and crackle with
the heat, and beyond the lithe line of cocoanuts, the iridescent sea,
tugging the heart with offer of coolness. But, all of us, we knew the
promise to be Fake, monumental Fake, knew the alluring depths to be hot
as corruption, and full of sharks.
Somebody in a monotonous voice was cataloguing the dead, enumerating
those of us who had been conquered by the climate, by the work, or
through their own inward flaws. He mentioned Miller with some sort of
disparaging gesture, and then Carter of Balangilang, who had been very
silent, suddenly burst into speech with singular fury.
"Who are you, to judge him?" he shouted. "Who are you, eh? Who are we,
anyway, to judge him?"
Headlong outbursts from Carter were nothing new to us, so we took no
offense. Finally some one said, "Well, he's dead," with that tone that
signifies final judgment, the last, best, most charitable thing which
can be said of the man being weighed.
But Carter did not stop there. "You didn't know him, did you?" he asked.
"You didn't know him; tell me now, _did_ you know him?" He was still
extraordinarily angry.
We did not answer. Really, we knew little of the dead man--excepting
that he was mean and small, and not worth knowing. He was mean, and he
was a coward; and to us in our uncompromising youth these were just the
unpardonable sins. Because of that we had left him alone; yes, come to
think of it, very much alone. And we knew little about him.
"Here, I'll tell you what I know," Carter began again, in a more
conciliatory tone; "I'll tell you everything I know of him." He lit a
cheroot.
"I first met him right here in Ilo-Ilo. I had crossed over for supplies;
he was fresh from Manila and wanted to get over to Bacolod to report to
the Sup. and be assigned to his station. When I saw him he was on the
_muelle_, surrounded by an army of bluffing _cargadores_. About twelve
of them had managed to get a finger upon his lone carpet-bag while it
was being carried down the gang-plank, and each and all of them wanted
to get paid for the job. He was in a horrible pickle; couldn't speak a
word of Spanish or Visayan. And the first thing he said when I had
extricated him, thanks to my vituperative knowledge of these sweet
tongues, was: 'If them niggahs, seh, think Ah'm a-goin' to learn their
cussed lingo, they're mahtily mistaken, seh!'
"After that remark, coming straight from the heart, I hardly needed to
be told that he was from the South. He was from Mississippi. He was
gaunt, yellow, malarial, and slovenly. He had 'teached' for twenty
years, he said, but in spite of this there was about him something
indescribably rural, something of the sod--not the dignity, the
sturdiness of it, but rather of the pettiness, the sordidness of it. It
showed in his dirty, flapping garments, his unlaced shoes, his stubble
beard, in his indecent carelessness in expectorating the tobacco he was
ceaselessly chewing. But these, after all, were some of his minor
traits. I was soon to get an inkling of one of his major ones--his
prodigious meanness. For when I rushed about and finally found a lorcha
that was to sail for Bacolod and asked him to chip in with me on
provisions, he demurred.
"'Ah'd like to git my own, seh,' he said in that decisive drawl of his.
"'All right,' I said cheerfully, and went off and stocked up for two. My
instinct served me well. When, that evening, Miller walked up the
gang-plank, he carried only his carpet-bag, and that was flat and
hungry-looking as before. The next morning he shared my provisions
calmly and resolutely, with an air, almost, of conscious duty. Well, let
that go; before another day I was face to face with his other flaming
characteristic.
"Out of Ilo-Ilo we had contrary winds at first; all night the lorcha--an
old grandmother of a craft, full of dry-rot spots as big as
woodpeckers' nests--flapped heavily about on impotent tacks, and when
the sun rose we found ourselves on the same spot from which we had
watched its setting. Toward ten o'clock, however, the monsoon veered,
and, wing-and-wing, the old boat, creaking in every joint as if she had
the dengue, grunted her way over flashing combers with a speed that
seemed almost indecent. Then, just as we were getting near enough to
catch the heated glitter of the Bacolod church-dome, to see the golden
thread of beach at the foot of the waving cocoanuts, the wind fell,
slap-bang, as suddenly as if God had said hush--and we stuck there,
motionless, upon a petrified sea.
"I didn't stamp about and foam at the mouth; I'd been in these climes
too long. As for Miller, he was from Mississippi. We picked out a
comparatively clean spot on the deck, near the bow; we lay down on our
backs and relaxed our beings into infinite patience. We had been thus
for perhaps an hour; I was looking up at a little white cloud that
seemed receding, receding into the blue immensity behind it. Suddenly a
noise like thunder roared in my ears. The little cloud gave a great leap
back into its place; the roar dwindled into the voice of Miller, in
plaintive, disturbed drawl. 'What the deuce are the niggahs doing?' he
was saying.
"And certainly the behavior of that Visayan crew was worthy of question.
Huddled quietly at the stern, one after another they were springing over
the rail into the small boat that was dragging behind, and even as I
looked the last man disappeared with the painter in his hand. At the
same moment I became aware of a strange noise. Down in the bowels of
the lorcha a weird, gentle commotion was going on, a multitudinous
'gluck-gluck' as of many bottles being emptied. A breath of hot, musty
air was sighing out of the hatch. Then the sea about the poop began to
rise,--to rise slowly, calmly, steadily, like milk in a heated pot.
"'By the powers,' I shouted, 'the old tub is going down!'
"It was true. There, upon the sunlit sea, beneath the serene sky,
silently, weirdly, unprovoked, the old boat, as if weary, was sinking in
one long sigh of lassitude. And we, of course, were going with it. A few
yards away from the stern-post was the jolly-boat with the crew. I
looked at them, and in my heart I could not condemn them for their sly
departure; they were all there, _arraiz_, wife, children, and crew, so
heaped together that they seemed only a meaningless tangle of arms and
legs and heads; the water was half an inch from the gunwale, and the one
man at the oars, hampered, paralyzed on all sides, was splashing
helplessly while the craft pivoted like a top. There was no anger in my
heart, yet I was not absolutely reconciled to the situation. I searched
the deck with my eyes, then from the jolly-boat the _arraiz_ obligingly
yelled, '_El biroto, el biroto_!'
"And I remembered the rotten little canoe lashed amidships. It didn't
take us long to get it into the water (the water by that time was very
close at hand). I went carefully into it first so as to steady it for
Miller, and then, both of us at once, we saw that it would hold only
one. The bottom, a hollowed log, was stanch enough, but the sides, made
of pitched bamboo lattice, were sagging and torn. It would hold only
one.
"'Well, who is it?' I asked. In my heart there was no craven panic, but
neither was there sacrifice. Some vague idea was in my mind, of deciding
who should get the place by some game of chance, tossing up a coin, for
instance.
"But Miller said, 'Ah cain't affawd to take chances, seh; you must git
out.'
"He spoke calmly, with great seriousness, but without undue emphasis--as
one enunciating an uncontrovertible natural law. I glanced up into his
face, and it was in harmony with his voice. He didn't seem particularly
scared; he was serious, that's all; his eyes were set in that peculiar,
wide-pupiled stare of the man contemplating his own fixed idea.
"'No, seh; Ah cain't affawd it,' he repeated.
"The absurdity of the thing suddenly tingled in me like wine. 'All
right!' I shouted, in a contagion of insanity; 'all right, take the
darned thing!'
"And I got out. I got out and let him step stiffly into the boat, which
I obligingly sent spinning from the lorcha with one long, strong kick.
Then I was alone on the deck, which suddenly looked immense, stretched
on all sides, limitless as loneliness itself. A heavy torpor fell from
the skies and amid this general silence, this immobility, the cabin door
alone seemed to live, live in weird manifestation. It had been left
open, and now it was swinging and slamming to and fro jerkily, and
shuddering from top to bottom. Half in plan, half in mere irritation at
this senseless, incessant jigging, I sprang toward it and with one
nervous pull tore it, hinge and all, from the rotten woodwork. I heaved
it over the side, went in head first after it, took a few strokes and
lay, belly down, upon it. Just then the lorcha began to rise by the
head; the bowsprit went up slowly like a finger pointing solemnly to
heaven; then, without a sound, almost instantaneously, the whole fabric
disappeared. Across the now unoccupied space Miller and I rushed
smoothly toward each other, as if drawn by some gigantic magnet; our
crafts bumped gently, like two savages caressingly rubbing noses; they
swung apart a little and lay side by side, undulating slightly.
"And we remained there, little black specks upon the flashing sea. Two
hundred yards away was the lorcha's boat; they had reshuffled themselves
more advantageously and were pulling slowly toward land. Not twenty feet
from me Miller sat upright in his canoe as if petrified. I was not so
badly off. The door floated me half out of water, and that was lukewarm,
so I knew that I could stand it a long time. What bothered me, though,
was that the blamed raft was not long enough; that is, the upper part of
my body being heavier, it took more door to support it, so that my feet
were projecting beyond the lower edge, and every second or so the
nibbling of some imaginary shark sent them flying up into the air in
undignified gymnastics. The consoling part of it was that Miller was
paying no notice. He still sat up, rigid, in his canoe, clutching the
sides stiffly and looking neither to right nor left. From where I lay I
could see the cords of his neck drawn taut, and his knuckles showing
white.
"'Why the deuce don't you paddle to shore?' I shouted at length, taking
a sudden disgust of the situation.
"He did not turn his head as he answered, 'Ah--Ah,' he stammered, the
words coming hard as hiccoughs out of his throat, 'Ah don't know haow.'
"'Drop the sides of your boat and try,' I suggested.
"He seemed to ponder carefully over this for a while. 'Ah think it's
safer to stay this-a-way,' he decided finally.
"'But, good Lord, man,' I cried, angry at this calm stupidity, 'if
that's what you're going to do, you'd better get on this door here and
let me take the boat. I'll paddle ashore and come back for you.'
"He turned his head slowly. He contemplated my raft long, carefully,
critically.
"'Ah think Ah'll be safer heyah, seh,' he decided. 'It's a little bit o'
old door, and Ah reckon they's a heap of sharks around.'