Here I was at last, passed into the Forbidden City with the greatest
ease.
"We will walk slowly towards tower number three, which is the one we
shall ascend," said my companion, "and I will explain the situation to
you. On the tower top I have supreme authority, except for one man, and
that's the Irish-American, Boss Mulligan. This worthy is much addicted
to the use of hot and rebellious liquors, and is generally more or less
intoxicated about this time, though he is more alert and ferocious than
when sober. To-night I have taken the opportunity to put a little
something in his bottle, a little something from China, which will not
be detected, and which will by now have sent him into a profound,
drugged slumber. I then telephoned all down the tower to the lift men on
the various stages, and also to Kwang there, that a doctor was to be
expected and that I would come down to meet him and conduct him to Mr.
Morse."
"Excellent!" I said, "and now--?"
"Now we are going straight up to the very top. Every one will see us but
no one will think anything strange. Moreover, and this is a fact in our
favor, when Mulligan awakes no one will be able to tell him of the
incident even if they suspected anything, for few, if any, of the tower
men speak more than a few rudimentary words of English, and I am the
intermediary between them and their master. This was specially arranged
by Mr. Morse so that none of them could get into communication with
Europeans. The fact is greatly in our favor."
I pressed my hand to a pocket over my heart, where lay a little note
which had been mysteriously conveyed to me early in the evening--a
little agitated note bidding me come at all costs--and passed on in
silence until we came under the gloomy shadows of the mighty girders
and columns which sprang up from an expanse of smooth concrete which
seemed to stretch as far as eye could reach.
We changed our lift at each stage; and I could have wished that it was
day or the night was finer, for the experience is wonderful when one
undergoes it for the first time.
"We shall ascend by one of the small rapid lifts built for four or five
persons only, and not the large and more cumbrous machines. Even so, you
must remember, Doctor"--he chuckled as he called me that--"we have
nearly half a mile to go."
On and on we went, amid this lifeless forest of steel with its smooth
concrete and shining electric-lamps, until at last we approached a
small, illuminated pavilion, where two silent celestials awaited us. We
stepped into the lift, the door was closed, a bell rang and we began to
move upwards. I sat down on a plush-covered seat and didn't attempt to
look out of the frosted windows on either side until at length, after
what seemed an interminable time, we stopped with a little jerk. Pu-Yi
opened the door and led me down on to a platform.
"We are now," he said, "on the first stage--just fifty feet higher than
the golden cross on the top of Saint Paul's. If you will come up this
slant--see! here's the next lift."
I followed him along a steel platform for some twenty or thirty yards,
the wind whistling all around. On looking to the right I saw nothing but
a black void, at the bottom of which, far, far below, was the yellow
glow of Richmond town. On looking to the left I stopped for a moment
and stared, unable to believe my eyes. As I live, there was an immense
lake there, surrounded by rushes that sang and swished in the wind, with
a boat-house, and a little landing-stage!
Then, with a clang of wings and a chorus of shrill quacks, a gaggle of
wild duck got up and sped away into the dark.
"Yes," said Pu-Yi, "that's the lake. There are many variety of water
fowl fed there, who make it their home. On a quiet afternoon, walking
round the margin, or in a canoe, one can feel ten thousand miles away
from London. But that's nothing to what you will see if circumstances
permit."
I have but a dim recollection of the second stage, which was only a
stage in the particular tower we were mounting, and did not extend
between the three as the lower and two upper ones did, forming the
immense plateaus of which the lake was one and the City in the clouds
itself another.
It was when we had slowed down, and even in the dark lift, that I began
to have a curious sensation of an immense immeasurable height, and Pu-Yi
gave me a warning look as who would say, "Now, get ready, the adventure
really begins."
We stopped, the door slid back and immediately we were in a blaze of
light. We were no longer out of doors. The lift had come up through the
floor of a large room. It was divided into two portions by polished
steel bars extending from ceiling to floor. A cat could not have
squeezed through. On our side, the lift side, the floor was covered
with matting but there was no furniture at all. Beyond the bars were a
Turkey carpet, several armchairs, a mahogany table with bottles,
siphons, newspapers, and a large, automatic pistol. An electric fire
burned cheerily in one corner and at right angles to it was a couch.
Upon this couch, purple-faced and snoring like a bull, lay Mulligan,
huge, relaxed, helpless.
"Good heavens!" I whispered. "Gideon Morse is safe enough here."
"In ten seconds," Pu-Yi whispered, "by pressing that bell button,
Mulligan could have the room full of armed guards, and as you see, this
steel fence is impassable without the key. There are only three keys, of
which I have one."
He produced it as he spoke, inserting it in a gleaming, complicated
lock, slid back a portion of the steel-work, and we stepped into the
guard-room.
"We are now," said my guide, "on the platform immediately under that on
which the City rests, and about a hundred feet below it. This platform
is entirely occupied by this guard-room, a range of store and dwelling
houses, the elaborate electric installation, power for which is supplied
from below, Turkish baths, a swimming bath, and so forth. Please follow
me."
With a glance of repulsion at the drugged giant on the couch I went
after Pu-Yi, through a door on the opposite side of the room, and down a
long corridor with windows on one side and arched recesses on the other.
At the end of this we came out again into the open air, that is to say
that we were shielded by walls and buildings, walking as it were in a
sleeping town upon streets paved with wood blocks, while instead of the
vault of heaven above, about the height of a tallish church tower were
the great beams and girders which supported the City itself, and from
which, at regular intervals, hung arc lamps which threw a blue and
stilly radiance upon the streets and roofs of the buildings.
It was colossal, amazing, this great colony in the sky. Now and then we
heard voices, the rattle of dice thrown upon a board, and the wailing
music of Chinese violins. Two or three times silent figures passed us
with a low bow, and without a glimmer of curiosity in their impassive
faces, until at length we came to a long row of lift doors, with an
inscription above each one, and in the center, dividing them into
sections, a large, vaulted stairway mounting upwards till it was lost to
sight. It was lined with white tiles like a subway in some great railway
terminus.
Pu-Yi unlocked the door of a small lift. We got into it, it rushed up
for a few seconds and then we came out of a small white kiosk upon a
scene so wonderful, so enchanted that I forgot all else for a second,
caught hold of my conductor's thin arm and gave a cry of admiration and
wonder. A mass of clouds had just raced before the moon, leaving it free
to shed its light until another should envelop it.
The pure radiance, unspoiled by smoke, mist, or the miasma which hangs
above the roofs of earthly cities, poured down in floods of light upon a
vast quadrangle of buildings, white as snow and with roofs that seemed
of gold.
I had the impression of immensity, though magnified a dozen times, that
the great quadrangle of Christ Church, Oxford, or the court of Trinity,
Cambridge, give to one who sees them for the first time. But that
impression was only fleeting. These buildings seemed to obey no
architectural law. They were tossed up like foam in the upper air,
marvelous, fantastic, beautiful beyond words.
We hurried along by the side of a great green lawn which might have been
a century growing, past bronze dragons supporting fountain basins, down
an arcade, where the broad leaves of palms clicked together and there
was a scent of roses, until we hurried through a little postern door and
up some steps and came out in what Pu-Yi whispered was the library.
Wonder upon wonders! My brain reeled as we stepped out of the door in
the wall into a great Gothic room with groined roof of stone, an oriel
window at one end, and thousands upon thousands of books in the embayed
shelves of ancient oak. It was exactly like the library of some great
college or castle; one expected to see learned men in gowns and hoods
moving slowly from shelf to shelf, or writing at this or that table.
"But, but," I stammered, "this might have been here for seven hundred
years!" and indeed there was all the deep scholastic charm and dignity
of one of the great libraries of the past.
For answer he turned to me, and I saw that his thin hand clutched at his
heart.
"It's all illusion," he whispered, "all cunning and wonderful illusion.
The walls of this place are not of ancient stone. They are plates of
toughened steel. The old oak was made yesterday at great expense. 'Tis
all a picture in a dream."
I saw that he was powerfully affected for a moment, but for just that
moment I did not understand why.
"But the books!" I cried, looking round me in amazement--"surely the
books--?"
"Ah, yes," he sighed, "they are the collection of Mr. Gideon Morse,
which is second to very few in the world. They were all brought over
from Rio nearly two years ago. We cannot compete with the British
Museum, or some of the great American collectors in certain ways, but
there are treasures here--"
We had by now walked half-way up the great hall. He stopped, went to
part of the wall covered with books, withdrew one, turned a little
handle which its absence revealed, and a whole section of the shelves
swung outwards.
"In here, please," said Pu-Yi, "this is a little room where I sometimes
do secretarial work. At any rate it is hidden, and you will be quite
safe here while I go to the Senorita and tell her that you await her."
The door clicked. I sat down on a low couch and waited.
The experiences of the night had been so strange, the intense longing of
months seemed now so near fruition, that every artery in my body pulsed
and drummed, and it was only by a tremendous effort of will that I sat
down and forced myself to think.
Here I was, at her own invitation, to rescue my love. As my mind began
to work I saw that I must be guided in my course of action by what she
told me. Juanita obviously thought that her father's aberration was a
form of madness without foundation. She did not know what I had
discovered. If she did she might realize that her father was possibly
not so mad as she imagined. For myself, after this space of time, I can
say that I was very seriously disturbed by Arthur Winstanley's
revelations in regard to the unspeakable Midwinter and the news that he
was now in England. Perhaps you will remember that in Bill Rolston's
telegram to me he hinted at some suspicious strangers having been seen
in the private bar of the "Golden Swan." One of them, I had ascertained,
answered to the description of Midwinter in every detail, and the two
men were seen by Sliddim to drive away through Richmond Park in a large,
private car.
Certainly I must tell Juanita something of this and help her to warn her
father, perhaps....
And then I remembered the elaborate precautions of my ascent, the
literal impossibility of any stranger or strangers ever getting to where
I was, and I breathed again.
The place--one couldn't call it a room--in which I sat, was simply a
little sexagonal nook or retreat, masked from the great library by its
great door of books. Three of the panels which went from the floor to
the vaulted ceiling were of dead black silk. The other three were of
Chinese embroidery, stiff, with raised gold, and gems, which I realized
must be from the choicest examples of their kind in the world. Still, I
wasn't interested in dragons of tarnished gold, with opal eyes, ivory
teeth, and scales of lapislazuli. I was getting restive when the black
panel, which was the back of the entrance door, swung towards me, and I
saw Juanita.
She was dressed in black, a sort of tea-gown I suppose you'd call it,
though round her shoulders and falling on each side of her slim form was
a cloak of heavy sable.
In her blue-black hair--oh, my dear, how true you were then to the
fashions of the south, and how true you are to-day--there was a glowing,
crimson rose.
We stood and looked at each other, in this tiny room, for I suppose two
or three seconds.
What Juanita felt she told me afterwards, and it isn't part of this
narrative.
What I felt was awe, sheer, impersonal awe, as I realized that I had
surmounted incredible difficulties, endured ages of longing, plotting,
planning, and now stood alone in front of the most Beautiful Girl in the
World.
I saw her as that. I remembered the night at Lady Brentford's when the
league was formed.
And then, thank Heaven, for in another second everything might have been
quite spoiled, I remembered that she was just my Juanita, who had sent
for me, and I took her in my arms and, and....
* * * * *
We sat hand in hand upon the odd little Chinese couch.
"Now look here, darling," I said, "you've told me all about your
Governor. How he says that you must live up here in this extraordinary
place and never go into the world again. You think him mad, and yet,
d'you know, I don't."
"But, my heart--?"
"I've got to tell you, dearest, that he has more reason than you think."
She shrugged her shoulders--it was about the most graceful thing I had
ever seen in my life.
"But to tell me that I am to be a nun because, if I were to go back into
the world, my life wouldn't be worth a moment's purchase. _Caro!_ It is
madness! It cannot be anything else."
I didn't quite know how to tell her, and I was considering, when she
went on:
"It is getting dreadful. Father cannot sleep, he prowls about this
nightmare of a place all the night long."
"Sweetheart," I said, "I've been making all sorts of inquiries and I've
found out that your Governor is really in serious danger of
assassination--or was until he built this place, to which I think the
devil could hardly penetrate without an invitation. Don't think your
father a coward. Remember what we saw that night in the Ritz Hotel, when
I was just about to tell you that I adored you. No, I'd lay long odds,
Juanita darling, that Mr. Morse is more afraid for you than for himself.
And there I'll back him up every time."
She laughed, and her laughter was like water falling into water in
paradise!
"I have you," she said; "I have father--what do I care?"
"Quite so," I replied. "I think you take a very sensible view of it. The
obvious thing to do is to relieve your father by coming with me
to-night, while the coast is clear. Lady Brentford is in town. She will
be delighted to receive you. Once out of the place, we can be free
within an hour. To-morrow morning I can get a special license from the
Archbishop of Canterbury and we can be married.
"Once that happens, I'll defy all the Santa Hermandads, and all the Mark
Antony Midwinters in the world, to hurt you. And as for Mr. Morse, we'll
protect him too, in a far more sensible way than--"
I suppose I had been holding her rather tightly. At any rate she broke
away and stood up in the center of the little room. The brightness of
her face was clouded with thought.