Some two or three years back--that is, shortly before the great
Boxer rising in China--the careless Parisians were amused to hear of
the existence in their midst of an association styling itself the
_Company of the Joyous Peach Blossom_.
This body professed to be a literary guild or brotherhood formed
for the purpose of studying the Chinese poets, and transplanting
some of the poetical flowers of the East into the garden of Western
literature. All this sounded a trifle fantastic, and Paris,
accustomed to the caprices of its youthful literary coteries,
shrugged its shoulders and asked with a smile whether the guild
possessed more than two members in all, or whether it were not a pure
myth, and the _Company of the Joyous Peach Blossom_ a device of some
budding poet, anxious to seek notoriety.
The announcement of the guild’s existence struck me in a different
light. Having made a profound study for many years of secret
societies, past and present, I had grasped the fact that China is
the one land in which such societies are truly formidable, all the
most famous secret societies of Europe being mere trifles compared
with the terrible conspiracies which honeycomb the Heavenly Kingdom.
I had learned, moreover, that the most powerful and reckless of these
Chinese societies assumed the most innocent and poetical names,
as, for example, the dreaded brotherhood of the _Waterlily_, which
deluged Southern China in blood forty years ago.
Therefore, while the French police, usually so shrewd in dealing with
secret political organisations, did not deem the _Company of the
Joyous Peach Blossom_ worth a moment’s consideration, I set to work
to find out all I could about it.
I was not long in discovering that the guild was more than the
eccentric imagination of a Quartier Latin poet. To begin with, I
found that similar societies, bearing names of an equally fantastic
nature, had simultaneously come into existence in London, Berlin, New
York, and Chicago, and that all these bodies were in correspondence
with one another.
I found, further, that the members of the Parisian society were
in communication with a retired French diplomatist of singular
character, a man who had returned from a ten years’ sojourn in Pekin,
steeped to the lips in Chinese ideas, and a professed follower of
Khung the Master, or Confucius, as he is called in the West.
I ascertained that the guild had its headquarters in the studio of
a rising artist of the Mystic school, that it held meetings from
time to time, of which minutes were kept, and in the record of its
proceedings there appeared references to certain Chinese spirits of
the underworld, and entries which, in veiled language, hinted at
rites having been practised of a nature which could only be described
as sorcery.
I had no very definite object in acquiring this information, but I
was led on by a vague idea that it might be useful to me at some
future time. During the storm of indignation aroused in Europe by the
Boxer massacres, nothing more was heard of the _Company of the Joyous
Peach Blossom_, which seemed to have sunk out of existence. I had
ceased to think about it, when one day, shortly after the conclusion
of the peace negotiations, my secretary came in to ask me if I would
receive a gentleman whose card he handed to me.
I took the card, and read on it the name of M. Caramel-Bignaud.
M. Bignaud was a young poet of distinction, whose verses, stamped
with a delicate aloofness of their own, had attracted the attention
of connoisseurs in the columns of _Gil Blas_. To me he possessed
an interest of a different kind, for I had last read his name as
president at the meetings of the _Company of the Joyous Peach
Blossom_.
‘I will see this gentleman,’ I told my assistant.
Partly surprised, partly gratified, by this proof that I had rightly
gauged the importance of the guild, I waited with keen curiosity to
hear what M. Bignaud had come to say to me.
The poet entered and took the chair I pointed out to him without a
word. Then, leaning back negligently and fixing his dark, sleepy eyes
on mine, he began--
‘I have come to ask you, M. V----, if you are willing to undertake a
long journey--a very long journey--without receiving any information
as to the business which awaits you at the end.’
‘But that is easily answered,’ I said. ‘Provided I am sufficiently
well paid for my time and trouble, it makes no difference to me where
I go, or whether there is anything for me to do when I get there.
It must be always understood that I am at liberty to refuse this
business, if I choose, without assigning any reason, and that my
refusal will make no difference to my charge for the journey itself.’
‘Your conditions are perfectly satisfactory,’ M. Bignaud declared.
‘Whatever sum you require shall be paid to you in advance. How soon
will you be able to start?’