"What do you want? Our money of course. What else?"
The fellow did not reply at once. These opium fiends have no bowels of
compassion. He was doubtless chuckling to himself at his own guile.
When he did speak, the malice behind his words lent them point.
"Your money? The five you gave me'll keep me a week, and after that
I'll come for more."
With that the voice died away, and Ajax muttered: "It looks to me as
if this were a case of putting up the shutters."
We had forgotten all about The Babe, which is not surprising under the
circumstances.
"Putting _up_ the shutters? Pulling them down, you mean! there
must be a window of sorts in this room."
But after careful search we came to the conclusion that we were
directly under the road-bed, and that the only opening of any kind was
the door through which we had passed. I thought of that door and the
face of the man behind it. For what purpose save robbery and murder
was such a room designed? I could not confront the certainty of
violence with a jest, as Ajax did, but I was of his opinion otherwise
expressed: we had been trapped like rats in a blind drain, and would
be knocked on the head--presently.
The uncertainty began to gnaw at our vitals. We did not speak, for
darkness is the twin of silence, but our thoughts ran riot. I remember
that I almost screamed when Ajax laid his hand on my shoulder, and yet
I knew that he was standing by my side.
"I shall try the heathen Chinee," he whispered. So we felt our way to
the door and tapped three times, very softly, on the centre panel. To
the Oriental mind those taps spell bribery, but the door remained
shut.
"What have you been thinking about?" said Ajax, after another silence.
"My God--don't ask me."
"Brace up!" said my brother. I confess that he has steadier nerves
than mine, but then, you see, he has not my imagination. I put my hand
into his, and the grip he gave me was reassuring. I reflected that men
built upon the lines of Ajax are not easily knocked on the head.
"It's a tight place," he continued. "But we've been in tight places
before, although none that smells as close as this infernal hole. Now
listen: I'm prepared to lay odds that The Babe is not an opium fiend
at all, and has never been near this den. He wrote that letter at the
saloon, didn't he? And ten to one he borrowed the paper from the bar-
tender. That's why it smelled of opium. The handwriting was very
shaky. Why? because The Babe was only half alive after a prolonged
spree. That accounted for the tone of the letter. The Babe was
thinking of the parsonage, and his mother's knee, and all that. You
follow me--eh? Now then, I think it barely possible that instead of
our rescuing The Babe, he will rescue us. We got in late last night,
but our names were chronicled in the morning papers, for I saw them
there. If The Babe sees a paper he will go to our hotel, and----"
"If we're hanging by that thread to eternity, God help us," I replied
bitterly, for the grim humour of my brother's speech chilled my
marrow.
"It _is_ a slim chance, but--hang it--a slim chance is better
than none."
So we hugged that sorry comfort to our hearts and fell again into
silence.
* * * * *
I remember that the folly, the fatuity of what we had done, oppressed
me like an iron band around the skull. Common sense told me that the
man who had decoyed us into Chinatown would not be satisfied with
robbery. And what were the lives of two "white devils" to the owner of
this den? Suffered to escape, we might inform the police. The logical
conclusion of my reflections is not worth recording.
"When that scoundrel emptied the till into his pocket he made up his
mind there and then never to come back," said Ajax in my ear. His
thoughts had been travelling along the same lines as mine, and at
about the same pace. I was convinced of this when he added slowly:
"Starvation may be their game. It would be the safest to play."
Then the mad, riotous desire to fight got hold of both of us. We began
to search for a weapon: anything--a stick, a stone, a bit of iron. But
we found nothing.
We had never carried pistols, and our pocket knives were hardly keen
or strong enough to sharpen a pencil.
Despair was again gripping me when Ajax touched my arm. We had
examined the filthy floor of the room very systematically, kneeling
side by side in the darkness and groping with eager fingers in the
dirty sand, for there was no floor.
"I have something," he murmured. Then he seized my right hand in his
left and guided it to some solid object lying deep in the sand.
The object proved to be a log. San Francisco is built on sand dunes,
and in early days the houses were log-cabins for the most part,
constructed of logs that two stout men could handle. After many
minutes of silent but most vigorous excavation we joyfully decided
that one of these very logs had come into our possession.
We worked steadily for about half an hour, pausing now and again to
listen. We were practically certain that the opium fiend had gone to
his pipe, and it was more than probable that the fat Mongol was no
longer on guard, knowing that we were safe in a strong-box to which he
alone held the key. Events proved we were wrong in both conjectures.
When the log was ready for use as a battering-ram we held a council of
war, which lasted about half a minute. If there is obviously only one
thing to be done, the sooner it is done the better. I grasped the
forward end of our weapon, Ajax, being the heavier, took the other,
and we charged that door with such hearty goodwill that at the first
assault it yielded, lock and hinges being torn from the woodwork, and
the door itself falling flat with a crash like the crack o' doom.
Ajax, the log, and I rolled into the next room, and as we were
grovelling on the floor I saw that the room was full of Chinamen, and
that our late guide was in the middle of them. The light was so bad
that I was unable to see more than this. It was plain that we had to
deal with an organised gang of criminals. Thugs who practised their
trade as a fine art. Despite all proverbs the foreseen is what
generally happens; and our amazing advent in their midst created a
sort of panic whereby we took advantage. The Celestials carried
knives, but they dared not use them, because the light was so dim and
the room so crowded. The first thing that I saw when I scrambled to my
feet was the fat dull face of the guard shining like a harvest moon,
and presenting a mark for my fist as round and big as a punching-bag.
I hit him once--and that was enough. Then I began to hear the measured
thud of my brother's blows, the blows of a workman who knows how to
strike and where to strike.
At first they took their medicine without a whimper. Then they began
to squeal and chatter as the fear of the "white devils" got hold of
them. Very soon I saw "red," as our Tommies say, and remembered
nothing till I came to myself in the passage at the foot of the rotten
stairs. We scurried up these and through the warren above like rabbits
when the pole-cat pursueth, and finally found ourselves in the alley,
where we called a halt.
"By Jove!" said Ajax, "that was a ruction."
I looked at him and burst out laughing: then he looked at me and
laughed louder than I. Our clothes were in rags; our faces were red
and black with blood and grime; every bone and sinew and muscle in our
bodies ached and ached from the strain of strife.
"It is not time to laugh yet," said my brother; and we ran on down the
alley, out into a small by-street, and straight into the arms of a
policeman, who promptly arrested us.
* * * * *
The rest of the story was in the newspapers next day, although there
was no mention of our names. When the police reached the battlefield
they found one dead man--the opium-eating and smoking bar-tender. He
had died--so said the doctor--of heart failure. Few whites can smoke
the "pipe" with impunity, and he was not of their number. The wounded
had been carried away, and, despite the strenuous endeavours of the
police, not one was arrested, which proves that there is honour
amongst these yellow-faced thieves, for a handful of gold-pieces and
"no questions asked" was well known in Chinatown to be the price
offered for any information that would lead to the capture of one or
more of the gang.
When we reached our hotel we found The Babe patiently awaiting us. His
complexion was slightly the worse for wear, but his eyes were as blue
as ever and almost as guileless. How wide they opened when he listened
to our story! How indignant he waxed when he learned that we had
condemned him, the son of an archdeacon, as an opium fiend. However,
he was very penitent, and returned with us to the ranch, where he dug
post-holes for a couple of months, and behaved like a model babe. Ajax
wrote to the archdeacon, and in due season The Babe returned to
England, where he wisely enlisted as a trooper in a smart cavalry
regiment, a corps that his grandfather had commanded. The pipeclay was
in his marrow, and he became in time rough-riding sergeant of the
regiment. I am told that soon he will be offered a commission.
This story contains two morals: both so obvious that they need not be
recorded.