As Niu Tsang sat with his head bowed upon his breast, lost in painful
thoughts, and the woman closed her eyes and leaned against the temple
wall that she might better rest, a shadow darkened the entrance, and
caused them to spring hastily to their feet. In place of fierce
soldiers, however, intent upon pillage or even murder, Niu to his
surprise saw a solitary stranger, without weapon of any kind, eyeing
them curiously. The newcomer even smiled at their evident dismay, and
coming forward saluted them after the fashion of the country, bowing and
gravely shaking his own hands.
"Be not alarmed, my friend," he said reassuringly to Niu. "I am like
yourself, a belated traveller, and even now my boat waits for me at the
river bank. But as I had never passed this way before, though often had
I heard of the splendid temple of many gods, I seized this opportunity
to visit it."
As he spoke he looked around him, while a peculiar, half-quizzical
expression lurked at the corners of his mouth.
"Behold it," Niu Tsang answered, making an expressive gesture. Then he
went on passionately, his anger increasing at every word:
"The barbarians from beyond the sea could not have been more wicked than
these rebels who have dared the vengeance of the gods. Traitors that
they are! May none be left to bury them, no, not one to offer incense to
their spirits. May they perish miserably, their graves forever unknown,
their ghosts forever homeless."
"The ruin is indeed great," the stranger said calmly. "Were the gods
deaf to their prayers, that they should thus destroy them?"
"I know not," Niu said shortly, seating himself.
Seeing that his companion did not intend to speak further, but was
eyeing him suspiciously, the newcomer continued:
"You seem travel-stained and weary, honored sir, as one who had
journeyed from afar. May I ask whither you are bound, that you traverse
this bleak plain?"
"To Lu Chang, foreign brother," was the courteous though terse reply.
At the title "foreign brother" the stranger started perceptibly, but he
looked fearlessly at Niu from behind the great blue goggles that
concealed his eyes, and went on in the same even tone:
"You have a long and tiresome pilgrimage, and the way is dangerous, for
robbers and stray soldiers lurk around after the army has passed. It
will therefore behoove you to be careful, lest you and yours fall by
the wayside," and he glanced toward the woman, who stood apart, her back
turned to them.
"When Ten Wang[1] has decreed a man to die at the third watch, no power
will detain him until the fifth," Niu quoted, sagely.
"You have spoken wisely, my brother," the stranger answered, "yet it
were better not to tempt destiny. And now, the night comes on, and I
must hasten lest I run into the very dangers of which I warn you."
Then, as if attracted by a certain pinched look on the face of the child
that slept on the ground near where he stood, he said, quickly:
"I have provisions, and to spare, in this hamper," pointing to a large
basket that he had set down when he first saw Niu, "and in the morning I
will reach my destination. Will you not accept it, and thereby lighten
a traveller's load?"
At his words the woman turned toward him with an exclamation of delight,
and her husband's face lost the look it had worn during the interview,
as he now attempted to speak. The stranger did not wait for the grateful
thanks that rushed to their lips, but went hastily into the temple, and
there he found a girl with patient, solemn eyes, seated among the ruins
of her gods. As he entered, he saw that with her ragged dress she was
wiping the dirt from the scarred and grimacing goddess of mercy, and he
stopped to watch her. Frightened at his appearance, she arose and stood
waiting for him to pass, but he said sadly:
"Your gods, my child, are but wood and stone, and cannot hear your
prayers. The one true God lives in Heaven, watching over you, and loving
you, and there is no other God but Him."
Awed by his strange words, yet understanding them not, she gazed at him
in silence, and, moved by a sudden impulse, he laid his hand tenderly on
her head.
"May the God of love and peace bring you at last to His kingdom," he
murmured, and was gone.
Perhaps, had he known that this quiet girl was destined to be one of the
great women of the world, at whose slightest word, millions, even
hundreds of millions, of loyal subjects would bow the knee, he would
have spoken longer with her, but this he never knew.
It was not until they had eaten with all the zest that hunger gives of
the provisions left them by the stranger, that the girl raised her eyes
to the calm blue heavens above her, now dotted with countless glowing
stars, and said, abruptly:
"Father, the stranger told me, in the temple, about one true God, who is
alive, and who lives up there. What did he mean? I never heard before
of Him, and I have worshipped many gods."
Niu Tsang nodded quickly at this confirmation of his suspicions.
"It is as I thought," he said. "Although that traveller wore the
honorable costume of our country, and spoke to us in our own tongue, yet
methinks he was not one of us, but a barbarian from beyond the sea."
The girl shuddered.
"And he talked to me!" she cried in horror. "I never dreamed that he was
a foreign devil."
"Be he what he may, he was most kind to us," her father reminded her,
"for his food was not polluted."
"But what god is this that he worships?" she asked.
"He spoke of the Jesus doctrine, of which, perhaps, he is a teacher,"
her father answered in the tone of one who had finished the
conversation.
"But who is Jesus?" the curious child persisted.
"He is the god of barbarians and devils, Tuen," her father said sternly.
"He is not so wise as Confucius, nor so great as Buddha, else you would
have heard of him long ago."
"And yet he called him a God of Love," she went on musingly, not heeding
her father's frown. "Is there a God of Love?"
"No," Niu Tsang said shortly. "All the gods hate the children of men,
but because we offer prayers and incense they sometimes listen to us."
Tuen said nothing more, but that night from her bed in the open court
she looked up at the silver river[2] winding among the golden stars, and
wondered what god it was who lived so far away you could only dimly see
his lamps shining through the blue, and she felt she would like to know
if all the gods really hated her, and if so, what she had done to make
them angry. Thus musing she fell asleep, and in the many strange events
that soon crowded into her little life and filled it to overflowing, she
forgot all about the stranger and his God.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The god of fate.
[2] Chinese name for Milky Way.