AN ADVENTURE IN A JOSS HOUSE
“Trapped, as sure as fate!”
Such were the words which came to Gilbert’s lips as he found himself in
darkness, with the heavy door of the joss house locked behind him. He
felt that he had been badly duped, and that his life was in grave peril.
His first movement was to feel for his pistol, which so far had rested
in his belt. Drawing the weapon, he cocked it, and then backed up
against the stout door, feeling that an attack could not come from that
direction so long as the iron barrier was bolted.
He strained his ears, but all remained silent in the house of idol
worship. From a distance came the hum of voices; for the sacking of
Tien-Tsin still continued, although those in authority were now making
some efforts to stop it. Less than a block from the joss house was a
pawnbroker’s establishment; and into this soldiers and Chinese beggars
had broken, and were wrangling over the possession of everything
brought to light.
The gummy joss sticks gave forth a strong odor, which in the confined
space was sickening; and presently Gilbert began to cough. The sound
echoed dismally throughout the joss house proper, showing that the
edifice was almost empty.
“I suppose that old Buddhist is somewhere about,” thought the young
lieutenant. “I’ll venture to say he’s none too good to run me through
with a sword, if he gets the chance.”
He began to speculate upon how to move, feeling that he could not
remain in the narrow entry forever, when a faint sound reached his
ears, as of somebody approaching in bare feet. He immediately raised
his pistol, and tried harder than ever to pierce the gloom which
confronted him. But the darkness was absolute, for the windows of the
house of worship had been boarded up just before the fall of the city.
The footsteps came closer and closer, until Gilbert judged that the
on-comer was less than ten feet away. Then he heard the faint swish of
a robe, as it brushed one end of the table upon which the meal to the
dead was spread.
“Stop, or I’ll fire!” cried Gilbert, in a determined voice. Instantly
the sounds ceased directly in front of him. But from a distance came a
low voice, asking some question in Chinese. What this was, Gilbert did
not know; nor did he hear any answer to it.
The young lieutenant felt that he was now face to face with a deadly
enemy, and it must be confessed that the cold perspiration stood out
on his forehead. It is one thing to face an enemy in the open: it is
quite another to face the same enemy in the dark. Gilbert had heard of
bad Western men sometimes fighting a duel to the death with knives in
a pitch-dark room, and he felt now that he wanted nothing to do with
anything so terrible.
Suddenly he heard a slight noise close to his left side. He was about
to turn in the direction, when several grains of rice fell upon his
extended hand.
He did not know what to make of this. Had the rice been thrown by some
one? and, if so, for what purpose? He knew that to touch the food of
the dead is considered by many Chinamen a bad thing to do.
Soon, however, he concluded that the rice had been thrown merely to
detract his attention from the person in front of him. The sounds from
those bare feet reached him again, but now they were going away instead
of approaching.
The enemy was perhaps calculating to attack him in another way, and he
could not help but wonder what the next movement would be. Bitterly he
regretted having come to the spot without a companion or two. “If I am
killed in here, nobody will ever know what became of me,” he reasoned,
soberly.
His nerves were at the topmost tension, and his ears strained as never
before. Consequently, when there came a faint noise from under the
table before him, he noted it at once, although it was so slight that
an ordinary ear would never have detected it.
Gilbert now remained silent. He had given the enemy fair warning; and
he was resolved from now on to “shoot first and talk afterward.” He was
in the enemy’s territory, and he must consider every stranger an enemy
until he proved himself a friend.
The table was moving, and so was a portion of the floor. At first
the table was shifted but the fraction of an inch. Then of a sudden
it appeared to drop into space, as a trap-door opened to let it down.
The disappearance of the feast table is a common thing in many Chinese
houses of worship. So to have this trap-door there was nothing out of
the ordinary.
Had Gilbert been leaning on the table, as his unseen enemy had likely
thought was the case, he must have been pitched headlong into the hole.
But, as the table moved, the young lieutenant leaped back, and then to
one side. So he still remained on the flooring above, although standing
on a space scarcely a foot in width.
As the table shot downward, Gilbert glanced into the hole, and by a
faint light coming from a blue lantern, made out the ghost-like form of
the Buddhist priest dressed in a combination of yellow and black, and
carrying in one hand a long, curved sword. The face was not a crafty
one, but, on the contrary, rather holy-looking; and this look kept the
young officer from firing. The next instant the trap-door closed again,
and all became as dark and silent as before.
The look on the Buddhist’s face haunted Gilbert, and he could not get
it out of his mind. Why should such a man wish to take his life?
Surely, nature could not make a villain with such a countenance as that.
“He must be a religious fanatic, and imagine that the sacrifice of my
life is necessary,” he thought. And this was the exact truth. The old
priest had been attached to the joss house for sixty years; and he
believed that, if he could only mark the walls of the edifice with the
blood of a military enemy slain in the building, before the idol of the
god of construction, the building would be saved.
Gilbert now resolved upon a bold movement, which was none other than to
feel his way into the joss house proper. He felt that his position in
the entry was known, and that a bullet from some unknown source might
finish his life at any moment. He knew he was running a risk; but, on
the whole, it looked safer to move than to remain where he was.
With pistol in one hand and sword in the other, Gilbert passed from the
entry to a wide archway, leading to a broad stone flooring. Here he
came upon a series of seven steps, and his arm touched a large stone
idol. There was something on the floor in front of the idol; and, as
his foot pressed upon this, a tiny bell at a distance commenced to
ring.
The ringing of the bell was followed by a cry of alarm, and then a yell
of rage. He heard the footsteps of the old Buddhist priest approaching.
“Let lem alone, dog!” was the cry, in very bad English. “Do not tlouch
lem, dog!” The cries continued, and the priest came closer. But,
instead of falling directly upon Gilbert, he came up on the opposite
side of the idol. He tried to reach the young lieutenant from behind,
and his curved sword nipped Gilbert in the back.
Without hesitation the young lieutenant let drive with his pistol. The
report and the echo were followed by the falling of a piece of the idol
to the floor, and a mad yell from the priest, who now flung himself
bodily upon Gilbert. Sword met sword in the darkness; and then the pair
clinched and rolled over, down the steps to a cleared space below. The
priest was a heavy man, fully six feet tall; and it was he who came
down on top.
“Get off!” gasped Gilbert. “Get off, or I will fire!” And he brought
around his pistol; but, as it was discharged, his wrist was twisted
around, and the bullet crashed into the roof far above, bringing down
dust and splinters upon their heads.
The priest continued to call out; and soon a light appeared, and with
it two men, one being the messenger who had come for Gilbert. Both were
armed with daggers of the Malay pattern. In a trice Gilbert had the
pair at his side, both trying to drag him away, and thus save the old
priest from harm.
“Capture him alive! Do not kill him!” screamed the Buddhist priest, in
Chinese. “I must have him for a sacrifice.”
“We will do our best,” answered one of his followers. “But he looks
like a mighty fighter.”
“So much the better. It is what our good god needs,” returned the old
Buddhist.
He leaped up, and reached for the lantern, to place it where it would
be more to his followers’ advantage. Meanwhile the two new-comers were
hauling away at Gilbert, one at one arm and the other at the other.
Gilbert could not use his sword, but the pistol was available; and,
watching his opportunity, he blazed away, and brought one of the men
down with a serious wound in the abdomen. Then he turned upon the
second fellow, and fired once more. But the man dropped his hold and
fell flat, and the bullet passed over his head.
The second shot had scarcely left the pistol when Gilbert struggled to
his feet. The lantern was a fairly bright one; and by its rays he made
out a door at the far end of the joss house, and started to run for it.
“Stop him!” roared the priest, in Chinese; and then, as he saw Gilbert
nearing the door, he leaped toward an idol standing to one side of the
building. Behind the idol was a knob, attached to a long iron chain.
The Buddhist waited until Gilbert had reached a certain spot in the
floor, then he pulled upon the huge knob with all his might.
A scraping and a creaking followed; and, of a sudden, the floor beneath
the young lieutenant’s feet gave way, and he shot down into space. He
tried to save himself, but his descent was too sudden. He struck upon a
muddy surface, and his head came into contact with a brick wall. Then,
for the time being, he knew no more.