A SUPPER OF SACRED EELS
The great plain of northern China is composed of alluvial matter
extending to an unknown depth, reddish-yellow in color, and possessed
of wonderful fertility. When wet it packs closely; and later, under the
influence of a hot sun, it bakes like clay. During seasons of drought it
pulverizes to an almost impalpable dust that is blown by fierce winds
into ridges and heaps like snow-drifts. These are piled high against
obstructing walls, so that sometimes buildings standing in exposed
situations are completely buried beneath them. Such a drift of fine sand
had formed in an angle of the city wall, along which our lads fled; and
Chinese Jo, knowing of it, had selected this as a point for escape.
Thus, when Rob, with many misgivings, leaped into unknown blackness, he
had not dropped more than twenty feet when he struck a steep slope of
soft material down which he slid with great velocity amid a smother of
choking dust. The next thing he knew, Jo was pulling him to his feet,
and bidding him make haste to get away before their mode of escape
should be discovered by the torch-bearers, who now swarmed on the wall
above them. So the lads ran, with Jo acting as guide, across cropless
fields, climbing over useless dikes, and stumbling through dry ditches,
until a black mass, dimly outlined against the sky, rose before them. As
they drew near, this resolved itself into a clump of trees, which, from
experience already gained in China, Rob knew must be a sacred grove.
It was, in fact, the very grove from which the frantic rain-dancers
had streamed in pursuit of him a few hours earlier. Now it was silent
and deserted, even the ancient temple of the rain-god, standing in its
centre, being empty of priests or worshippers.
Finding the door of this temple open, and hearing no sound within, the
fugitives made a cautious entry into the sacred precincts. Here their
attention was attracted by a faint glow coming from a heap of embers on
an altar that stood before a gigantic image of the rain-god himself.
[Illustration: "THE FUGITIVES MADE A CAUTIOUS ENTRY INTO THE SACRED
PRECINCTS"]
While endeavoring to get a closer view of the idol, Rob stumbled and
pitched forward, thrusting his outstretched hands into an invisible but
shallow tank of water. He uttered a yell of affright as he withdrew them
and sprang back. "It's a nest of snakes!" he cried--"slimy, wriggling
snakes!"
"Hush!" admonished Jo, listening intently; but there was no sound, save
of a slight splashing in the as yet unseen water.
"If there were any priests here your racket certainly would have roused
them," he said. "But, as nobody seems to be stirring, I expect we've got
the place to ourselves. Close the door while I make a light, so that
we can see where we are."
From the floor the speaker gathered a few bits of unburned joss-paper
that he laid on the faintly glowing altar embers and blew into a blaze.
Though this lasted but a moment, it served to show some half-burned
candles standing behind the altar, one of which Jo lighted from the
expiring flame.
By this faint light the lads discovered a number of crude figures of men
and beasts ranged on either side of the rain-god, while a pool of water
glittered at their feet. In it squirmed a score or more of eels, emblems
of the god, among which Rob had thrust his arms.
"There are your snakes," laughed the young Chinese, "and with them
plenty of water to drink, if you are thirsty."
"Goodness knows! I'm thirsty enough, and stuffed full of dust besides,
but I wouldn't drink that water, with those things in it, not if I was
dying of thirst."
"I would, then," replied Jo, who was too thoroughly Chinese to be
fastidious; and, to prove his words, he scooped a handful of the water
to his lips.
"It isn't very good water," he acknowledged; "but perhaps we can find
some that is better where this came from."
A short search revealed a well just back of the temple, and from it,
by means of a section of hollow bamboo attached to a long cord, they
drew a plentiful supply of water that was much purer than that in the
tank, and was not visibly contaminated by eels, snakes, or any other
unpleasant creatures.
"My! what a blessed thing water is!" exclaimed Rob, after a long pull
at the bamboo bucket. "I don't wonder that the people of a burned-up
country like this pray to a rain-god. Now, if only we had something to
eat we'd be well fixed to move on."
"That's easy," replied Jo, reaching into the tank and drawing forth a
large, squirming eel as he spoke.
"Eat a snake!" cried Rob, in a disgusted tone. "Not much! I won't!"
Jo smiled as he cut off the eel's head and proceeded to skin its still
wriggling body, which he divided into short sections. Wrapping each of
these in green bamboo leaves that he procured from a clump of the giant
grass growing beside the well, he buried them in the hot sand of the
altar, and raked over them a lot of glowing coals.
While he did this, Rob, with the aid of a lighted candle was examining
the strange figures that occupied the interior of the temple. All at
once, from somewhere behind the great idol, he called out, "Look here,
Jo! He's hollow!"
Going to see what was meant, the young Chinese found his friend holding
the candle above his head and pointing to a small door, standing
slightly ajar, in the back of the image. It was so perfectly fitted
that, had it been closed, no trace of an opening could have been
discovered.
Climbing to the place, they easily opened the door, and through the
aperture thus disclosed crawled into the very body of the rain-god.
They found themselves in a space large enough for them to stand up or to
lie in at full length, but filled with a confused litter of garments,
masks, banners, and other paraphernalia of the priestly trade.
"It's the biggest kind of a find," said Jo, evidently much excited
over this discovery, "and it gives me an idea; but I must eat before
explaining, so let us go to tiffin."
The cooked eel, which Rob still insisted was nothing more nor less than
a snake, looked and smelled so good that the latter's desperate hunger
finally persuaded him to taste a morsel. Then he took another, and a
few minutes later, gazing thoughtfully at a small heap of well-cleaned
bones, he asked Jo if he didn't think they might cook a few more eels
while they were about it. An hour later he declared that he had eaten
one of the best meals of his life, and was altogether too well content
with their present situation to think of travelling any farther that
night.
Jo readily agreed that they should spend a few hours where they were,
as he wanted time to think out a plan of escape, and believed that for
the present this temple was as safe a place as they were likely to find.
So, while they removed all traces of their presence, Rob arranged the
priestly vestments they had found inside the rain-god into a sort of
a bed, and a little later, lying on this, each of the lads gave the
other an account of his adventures since they had parted in far-away
America. Rob's story we know, as we do that of Jo up to the time of
his commitment to prison in New York, charged with being a Chinese
laundry-worker who had illegally entered the United States.
"I was kept there two weeks," he now said, "and treated worse than a dog
all the time. They would not allow me to write or telegraph to you or
any of my friends, and finally carried me off at night in a prison-van,
together with a dozen coolies gathered from different parts of the
country, who hated me because I had cut off my queue. After that we
travelled handcuffed together, two and two, in a crowded immigrant-car,
to San Francisco, where we were locked up in a filthy shed until a
steamer was ready to sail. On our journey to that point we got very
little to eat, but what we had was fairly good. The food given us in the
shed was bad, but what we got on the steamer, where we were put in the
hold, without being allowed to go on deck during the whole voyage, was
simply rotten.
"The ship was under contract to deliver us at Shanghai; but when she
anchored off Woo-Sung and they began to transfer us into a launch that
would take us to the city, fourteen miles farther up the river, we were
in such a horrible condition that the other passengers objected to
having us on board. So we were set ashore at Woo-Sung and told we might
walk the rest of the way.
"I was so sick and weak that, after we had walked a few miles, I gave
out and laid down by the road-side. There, I suppose, I should have
frozen to death, for it was bitter cold, winter weather, if a farmer
had not found me and taken me to his house. My father afterwards made
him a rich man for it. He fed, clothed, and kept me until I could get
word to some friends in Shanghai, after which, of course, I was all
right.
"Finding that my father had been transferred to Pao-Ting-Fu--between
here and Pekin, you know--I went there; and when he heard how I had
been treated, he was so angry that he swore he'd do everything in his
power to drive foreigners out of China. He did drive a good many from
his own district, especially railroad people; but when the Great Swords
began killing them, he drew the line and said that that was going too
far. One day a Boxer army came along with a lot of missionaries, whom
they proposed to burn to death in the city temple. My father told them
they must give up their prisoners to him, and when they refused he
ordered out his own soldiers, killed a lot of the Boxers, rescued the
missionaries, and sent them under guard to the coast. For that he was
recalled to Pekin, and Mandarin Ting Yuan was put in his place. Last
week that man turned over fifteen missionary people, some of them women
and little children, to be tortured and put to death by the Boxers of
Pao-Ting-Fu."
"But what were you doing all this time?" asked Rob, his face paling at
thought of these horrors.
"I had obtained a commission as captain of imperial troops, and was sent
down here, where I have been ever since."
"You haven't seen any missionaries killed, have you?" demanded Rob,
anxiously.
"No, and I don't think I should have, without trying to save them, in
spite of the way I was treated in America. But I received orders from
Pekin only yesterday not to oppose the Boxers in anyway, no matter what
they did. I was up in that watch-tower wondering what I ought to do
if any missionaries should come this way, when I saw the rain-dancers
chasing you. Of course, I didn't recognize you; but the moment I
discovered you were a foreigner I knew that I couldn't stand by and see
you killed without making an effort to prevent it."
"Didn't you know who I was until we stood together on the watch-tower?"
asked Rob, curiously.
"No. I had not time for a good look at you until that moment. Even then
I couldn't at first believe it really was you; it seemed so utterly
impossible that you could be in China."
"What do you propose to do now?"
"Stay with you until I get you to a place of safety."
"But you will lose your position in the army if you leave your post."
"Yes."
"And perhaps be shot as a deserter."
"Quite so."
"Aren't you almost certain to be killed if you are found in company with
a foreigner whom you are aiding to escape?"
"Yes."
"And you are willing to risk your life, besides throwing away your
career, for the sake of one of the very people who treated you so
shamefully when you were in America?"
"It is a saying of the ancients," replied Jo, "that friendship shines
among the brightest jewels in the ring of life; also, that life without
friendship is as a barren fruit tree, and that for a true friendship
life itself is not too high a price to pay. Therefore, may I not risk,
and gladly, a life of little value, to save that of one who, though he
is of a people who ill-treated me, is also the best friend I have in all
the world? Did he not, even when we were strangers, fight to save me
from abuse? and can I do less for him now that we are friends? So it is
foolish for you to ask questions, since it is assured that until I can
leave you in a place of safety your enemies are my enemies, your friends
are my friends, and wherever you go there go I also."
"Then," said Rob, who was greatly affected by these words, "let us stay
right where we are until morning, for I want to think over all you have
told me."
After this the lads did not talk any more, but a few minutes later were
sound asleep inside the very rain-god to which one of them would have
been sacrificed had he been caught in that vicinity a few hours earlier.