THREE PORTALS
Not till after dinner, that evening, did Rudolph rouse from his stupor.
With the clerk, he lay wearily in the upper chamber of Heywood's house.
The host, with both his long legs out at window, sat watching the smoky
lights along the river, and now and then cursing the heat.
"After all," he broke silence, "those cocoanuts came time enough."
"Didn't they just?" said Nesbit, jauntily; and fingering the plaster
cross on his wounded forehead, drawled: "You might think I'd done a bit
o' dueling myself, by the looks.--But I had _some_ part. Now, that
accident trick. Rather neat, what? But for me, you might never have
thought o' that--"
"Idiot!" snapped Heywood, and pulling in his legs, rose and stamped
across the room.
A glass of ice and tansan smashed on the floor. Rudolph was on foot,
clutching his bandaged arm as though the hurt were new.
"You!" he stammered. "You did that!" He stood gaping, thunderstruck.
Felt soles scuffed in the darkness, and through the door, his yellow
face wearing a placid and lofty grin, entered Ah Pat, the compradore.
"One coolie-man hab-got chit."
He handed a note to his master, who snatched it as though glad of the
interruption, bent under the lamp, and scowled.
The writing was in a crabbed, antique German character:--
"Please to see bearer, in bad clothes but urgent. We are all in danger.
_Um Gottes willen_--" It straggled off, illegible. The signature, "Otto
Wutzler," ran frantically into a blot.
"Can do," said Heywood. "You talkee he, come topside."
The messenger must have been waiting, however, at the stairhead; for no
sooner had the compradore withdrawn, than a singular little coolie
shuffled into the room. Lean and shriveled as an opium-smoker, he wore
loose clothes of dirty blue,--one trousers-leg rolled up. The brown
face, thin and comically small, wore a mask of inky shadow under a
wicker bowl hat. His eyes were cast down in a strange fashion, unlike
the bold, inquisitive peering of his countrymen,--the more strange, in
that he spoke harshly and abruptly, like a racer catching breath.
"I bring news." His dialect was the vilest and surliest form of the
colloquial "Clear Speech."--"One pair of ears, enough."
"You can speak and act more civilly," retorted Heywood, "or taste the
bamboo."
The man did not answer, or look up, or remove his varnished hat. Still
downcast and hang-dog, he sidled along the verge of the shadow, snatched
from the table the paper and a pencil, and choosing the darkest part of
the wall, began to write. The lamp stood between him and the company:
Heywood alone saw--and with a shock of amazement--that he did not print
vertically as with a brush, but scrawled horizontally. He tossed back
the paper, and dodged once more into the gloom.
The postscript ran in the same shaky hand:--
"Send way the others both."
"What!" cried the young master of the house; and then over his shoulder,
"Excuse us a moment--me, I should say."
He led the dwarfish coolie across the landing, to the deserted
dinner-table. The creature darted past him, blew out one candle, and
thrust the other behind a bottle, so that he stood in a wedge of shadow.
"Eng-lish speak I ver' badt," he whispered; and then with something
between gasp and chuckle, "but der _pak-wa_ goot, no? When der live
dependt, zo can mann--" He caught his breath, and trembled in a
strong seizure.
"Good?" whispered Heywood, staring. "Why, man, it's wonderful! You
_are_ a coolie"--Wutzler's conical wicker-hat ducked as from a blow. "I
beg your pardon. I mean, you're--"
The shrunken figure pulled itself together.
"You are right," he whispered, in the vernacular. "To-night I am a
coolie--all but the eyes. Therefore this hat."
Heywood stepped back to the door, and popped his head out. The dim hall
was empty.
"Go on," he said, returning. "What is your news?"
"Riots. They are coming. We are all marked for massacre. All day I ran
about the town, finding out. The trial of Chok Chung, your--_our_
Christian merchant--I saw him 'cross the hall.' They kept asking, 'Do
you follow the foreign dogs and goats?' But he would only answer, 'I
follow the Lord Jesus.' So then they beat out his teeth with a heavy
shoe, and cast him into prison. Now they wait, to see if his padre will
interfere with the law. It is a trap. The suit is certainly brought by
Fang the scholar, whom they call the Sword-Pen."
"That much," said Heywood, "I could have told you."
Wutzler glanced behind him fearfully, as though the flickering shadows
might hear.
"But there is more. Since dark I ran everywhere, watching, listening to
gossip. I painted my skin with mangrove-bark water. You know this
sign?" He patted his right leg, where the roll of trousers bound his
thigh. "It is for protection in the streets. It says, 'I am a
Heaven-and-Earth man.'"
"The Triad!" Heywood whistled. "You?"
The other faltered, and hung his head.
"Yes," he whispered at last. "My--my wife's cousin, he is a Grass
Sandal. He taught her the verses at home, for safety.--We mean no harm,
now, we of the Triad. But there is another secret band, having many of
our signs. It is said they ape our ritual. Fang the scholar heads their
lodge. They are the White Lotus."
"White Lotus?" Heywood snapped his fingers. "Nonsense. Extinct, this
hundred years."
"Extinct? They meet to-night," said the outcast, in sudden grief and
passion. "They drink blood--plan blood. Extinct? Are _you_ married to
these people? Does the knowledge come so cheap, or at a price? All these
years--darkness--sunken--alone"--He trembled violently, but regained his
voice. "O my friend! This very night they swear in recruits, and set the
day. I know their lodge-room. For any sake, believe me! I know!"
"Right," said Heywood, curtly. "I believe you. But why come here? Why
not stay, and learn more?"
Wutzler's head dropped on his breast again. The varnished hat gleamed
softly in the darkness.
"I--I dare not stay," he sobbed.
"Oh, exactly!" Heywood flung out an impatient arm. "The date, man! The
day they set. You came away without it!--We sit tight, then, and wait in
ignorance."
The droll, withered face, suddenly raised, shone with great tears that
streaked the mangrove stain.
"My head sits loosely already, with what I have done to-night. I found a
listening place--next door: a long roof. You can hear and see them--But
I could not stay. Yes, I am a coward."
"There, there!" Heywood patted his shoulder. "I didn't mean--Here, have
a drink."
The man drained the tumbler at a gulp; stood without a word, sniffing
miserably; then of a sudden, as though the draught had worked, looked up
bold and shrewd.
"Do you?" he whispered. "Do _you_ dare go to the place I show you, and
hide? You would learn."
Heywood started visibly, paused, then laughed.
"Excellent," he said. "_Tu quoque_ is good argument. Can you smuggle
me?--Then come on." He stepped lightly across the landing, and called
out, "You chaps make yourselves at home, will you? Business, you know.
What a bore! I'll not be back till late." And as he followed the
slinking form downstairs, he grumbled, "If at all, perhaps."
The moon still lurked behind the ocean, making an aqueous pallor above
the crouching roofs. The two men hurried along a "goat" path, skirted
the town wall, and stole through a dark gate into a darker maze of
lonely streets. Drawing nearer to a faint clash of cymbals in some
joss-house, they halted before a blind wall.
"In the first room," whispered the guide, "a circle is drawn on the
floor. Put your right foot there, and say, 'We are all in-the-circle
men,' If they ask, remember: you go to pluck the White Lotus. These men
hate it, they are Triad brothers, they will let you pass. You come from
the East, where the Fusang cocks spit orient pearls; you studied in the
Red Flower Pavilion; your eyes are bloodshot because"--He lectured
earnestly, repeating desperate nonsense, over and over. "No: not so. Say
it exactly, after me."
They held a hurried catechism in the dark.
"There," sighed Wutzler, at last, "that is as much as we can hope. Do
not forget. They will pass you through hidden ways.--But you are very
rash. It is not too late to go home."
Receiving no answer, he sighed more heavily, and gave a complicated
knock. Bars clattered within, and a strip of dim light widened. "Who
comes?" said a harsh but guarded voice, with a strong Hakka brogue.
"A brother," answered the outcast, "to pluck the White Lotus. Aid,
brothers.--Go in, I can help no further. If you are caught, slide down,
and run westward to the gate which is called the Meeting of
the Dragons."
Heywood nodded, and slipped in. Beside a leaf-point flame of peanut-oil,
a broad, squat giant sat stiff and still against the opposite wall, and
stared with cruel, unblinking eyes. If the stranger were the first white
man to enter, this motionless grim janitor gave no sign. On the earthen
floor lay a small circle of white lime. Heywood placed his right foot
inside it.
"We are all in-the-circle men."
"Pass," said the guard.
Out from shadow glided a tall native with a halberd, who opened a door
in the far corner.
In the second room, dim as the first, burned the same smoky orange light
on the same table. But here a twisted cripple, his nose long and
pendulous with elephantiasis, presided over three cups of tea set in a
row. Heywood lifted the central cup, and drank.
"Will you bite the clouds?" asked the second guard, in a soft and husky
bass. As he spoke, the great nose trembled slightly.
"No, I will bite ginger," replied the white man.
"Why is your face so green?"
"It is a melon-face--a green face with a red heart."
"Pass," said the cripple, gently. He pulled a cord--the nose quaking
with this exertion--and opened the third door.
Again the chamber was dim. A venerable man in gleaming silks--a
grandfather, by his drooping rat-tail moustaches--sat fanning himself.
In the breath of his black fan, the lamplight tossed queer shadows
leaping, and danced on the table of polished camagon. Except for this
unrest, the aged face might have been carved from yellow soapstone. But
his slant eyes were the sharpest yet.
"You have come far," he said, with sinister and warning courtesy.
Too far, thought Heywood, in a sinking heart; but answered:--
"From the East, where the Fusang cocks spit orient pearls."
"And where did you study?" The black fan stopped fluttering.
"In the Red Flower Pavilion."
"What book did you read?"
"The book," said Heywood, holding his wits by his will, "the book was
Ten Thousand Thousand Pages."
"And the theme?"
"The waters of the deluge crosswise flow." "And what"--the aged voice
rose briskly--"what saw you on the waters?"
"The Eight Abbots, floating," answered Heywood, negligently.--"But," ran
his thought, "he'll pump me dry."
"Why," continued the examiner, "do you look so happy?"
"Because Heaven has sent the Unicorn."
The black fan began fluttering once more. It seemed a hopeful sign; but
the keen old eyes were far from satisfied.
"Why have you such a sensual face?"
"I was born under a peach tree."
"Pass," said the old man, regretfully. And Heywood, glancing back from
the mouth of a dark corridor, saw him, beside the table of camagon,
wagging his head like a judge doubtful of his judgment.
The narrow passage, hot, fetid, and blacker than the wholesome night
without, crooked about sharp corners, that bruised the wanderer's hands
and arms. Suddenly he fell down a short flight of slimy steps, landing
in noisome mud at the bottom of some crypt. A trap, a suffocating well,
he thought; and rose filthy, choked with bitterness and disgust. Only
the taunting justice of Wutzler's argument, the retort _ad hominem_, had
sent him headlong into this dangerous folly. He had scolded a coward
with hasty words, and been forced to follow where they led. To this
loathsome hole. Behind him, a door closed, a bar scraped softly into
place. Before him, as he groped in rage and self-reproach, rose a vault
of solid plaster, narrow as a chimney.
But presently, glancing upward, he saw a small cluster of stars
blinking, voluptuous, immeasurably overhead. Their pittance of light, as
his eyesight cleared, showed a ladder rising flat against the wall. He
reached up, grasped the bamboo rungs, hoisted with an acrobatic wrench,
and began to climb cautiously.
Above, faint and muffled, sounded a murmur of voices.