and Anthony? What had become of that dashing British lieutenant,
Milton Raynard?
Peter arose hastily from bed, and examined a pale and gaunt countenance
in the small mirror above the wash-stand. Dark lines had come under
his eyes, and the deep-blue pupils seemed to kindle with a peculiar
brilliancy. He had seen that look in other eyes, and another fragment
of the dream came back to him. He licked his dry lips, tasting a
flavor not unlike that of opium fresh from the poppy, and of almonds.
He filled the wash-basin with cold water, took a long breath, and
immersed his face for a half minute. Gasping, he came out of it with
pink starting into his cheeks, and his mental faculties somewhat better
organized.
When he emerged from his stateroom, attired in a fresh white uniform,
with his gold-and-white cap set at a jaunty angle on his head, he
looked like a different man. His skin was glowing, and a youthful
heart was sending recuperative tingles all over his body.
Peter took a turn about the promenade deck in search of Anthony, and
was hailed by his room-boy, who had some mail for him.
He dropped these missives absently into his pocket, made further
inquiries, and learned that Anthony and the Misses Whipple had come to
the steamer shortly before sunrise in the launch belonging to the river
gunboat _Madrusa_.
Then he knocked at Anthony's door. A tired snore, emanating from the
transom, broke into a sleepy complaint.
The door opened; Anthony stared at him as if in the presence of a
ghost. "Great Scott! I thought you were dead!" He rubbed his eyes to
accelerate wakefulness.
Peter chuckled. "What happened? Both girls safe?"
"How did you get here alive?"
"I came down by sampan. The princess detained me."
Anthony shivered. "We thought you were with us. Somebody put out all
the lights!" He shivered again. "Raynard wanted to go back--so did I.
We didn't dare! The girls, you know." He dropped his head, as if
ashamed.
"How is Peggy?"
Anthony frowned, hesitated. "Peter, she--she thinks you're a quitter!
She thinks you ran away at the big moment!"
Peter grinned. "That can be cleared up. Did you enjoy--the game? Did
you succeed? That's all I'm worrying about."
Anthony looked at him suspiciously. "That was not a put-up job.
Why--I shot a man!" He became anxious. "Will there be a row?"
"Not a bit--if you keep your mouth shut."
"Oh, I'll do that! But that dead Chink! Ugh!"
"Forget him," advised Peter cheerfully. "I still don't know what Peggy
had to say."
"What do you mean?" Anthony gave him a blank stare.
"Does she think----"
A light of understanding came into Anthony's clear gray eyes. "Oh, I
made a little mistake," he confessed weakly. "It--it isn't Peggy; it's
Helen! We're engaged! You see, Helen is such a--a quiet and reserved
sort of girl. Just my kind! Peggy--well, you know, I decided she was
a little too--too wild!"
A long, low gray launch was chugging alongside when Peter made his way
back to the promenade-deck. At the upper extremity of the
companion-ladder which reached down to the river's surface was standing
a slim and youthful figure in blue, with wisps of golden hair flying
about in the soft spring breeze.
She leaned anxiously and expectantly over the rail as a tall and
commanding young man in the white uniform of his majesty's naval
service climbed up eagerly toward her. The young officer leaped
gracefully over the rail, seized both hands of the girl, and his eyes
were shining.
Peter's deep-blue eyes unaccountably took on an expression of moist
sadness; yet he was grinning.
He climbed up to the boat-deck, unlocked the wireless room, and for the
first time recalled the mail in his hip-pocket. Leisurely he scanned
the post-cards first, highly colored ones, which had been forwarded
from the San Francisco Marconi office, emanating from friends scattered
in many parts of the world. One was from Alaska; another from
Calcutta, India, from that splendid fellow, Captain Bobbie MacLaurin.
He opened the letter, and his eyes fell upon familiar handwriting. He
suddenly felt shocked; the sentences began swimming. The letter was
from Eileen, dated Nanking. Words stood out whimsically, like thoughts
assailing a tired brain, clamoring for recognition.
... You are the stubbornest man! ... Do you imagine I ever cared for
that puppy? Why, Peter--why didn't you wait? I'd have scratched his
eyes out! Of course, he kissed me! But the point is, my dear, I
didn't realize until it was all over.... I suppose I should have
jumped into the ocean when you left me so angrily. But I didn't. I
came to China on the _Empress of Japan_. I am now at the Bridge Hotel,
in Nanking, on my way to Ching-Fu, where you may find me. Just to show
you that I can have adventures, too!
"Great guns!" said Peter. He wondered if he could catch the Nanking
express; there was a Chinese steamer leaving Nanking for up-river
to-morrow noon.
There was a humble voice at his elbow. A deck-boy was grinning
dreamily at him; a queer flicker darted across his green eyes, vanished.
"Jen!" exclaimed Peter, glimpsing an abbreviated pigtail.
"Aie!" said the deck-boy.
"The man from the Jen Kee Road place!"
The deck-steward seemed puzzled. "My no savvy," he said. His look
became dreamy again, reminiscent.
"But you can speak English as well as 'pidgin,'" declared Peter,
frowning. "You did last night!"
"My savvy 'pidgin,'" said Jen brightly. "China allatime funny place!
China no can savvy allatime funny people! Funny!"
"What's that?" snapped Peter. He was baffled and angry. Had Jen
played the leading part in the mysterious and grim comedy of last
night, or was he only a work coolie, a deck-steward, harmless,
innocuous, babbling happily in his limited knowledge of a strange
language?
The deck-boy was pointing up-river with a long, yellow finger.
Peter stared. And he saw nothing, nothing but a great red sun with its
lower half enveloped in a glowing pool of green and red smoke into
which arose the black spars of ships from all over the world.
CHAPTER IX
The sky was clearing. Rain had ceased dripping from the bulging black
clouds, and a slender rod of golden sunlight pierced through and marked
a path upon the red bricks of the inn courtyard. Hazy in the
green-and-purple distance could be glimpsed the yellow withers of the
western range. Cooking smells, the sour odor of fish-and-rice chow,
were wafted from the braziers of village housewives.
Peter loafed against a spruce post, and moodily contemplated the
stamping animals in the enclosure. His hat was in his hand, and the
mountain breeze assailed his blond hair, which, rumpled and curly, gave
him something of the appearance of a satyr at ease. He was worried.
He had, an hour before, come to Ching-Fu from the boat; and Eileen had
left Ching-Fu for a trip to Kialang-Hien, a village of the third order
some fifty _li_ distant, the morning before. Whether to follow or wait
was the question.
Somewhere afield a valiant bronze gong called infidels to the feet of
an insufferable clay god.
Peter's flow of thought was interrupted. Unnoticed a girl--at first
glance the virtuous daughter of a mandarin--was approaching. Her
abruptness and her appearance caught him so completely off guard that
he held his breath and stared at her rather wildly. And she in turn,
as if fascinated, stared back as wildly at him.
His first guess was inaccurate. She was no mandarin's daughter, this
one. She was young and exquisitely slim, with wisdom and sadness
written upon her colorless face, and he was informed by a single glance
at her exploring bright eyes and the straightness of her fine black
brows, that she was half-breed, Eurasian.
Those shining eyes, not unlike twin jade beads, were sparkling. Her
lips were thin and as red as betel. Her garb was satin, bright with
gold filigree and flashing gems; and her dainty feet were disfigured
rather than adorned by bright-red sandals. Her feet, however, were not
the "feet of the lily," for the lithe grace of her stride was ample
proof that they had not been bound.
The dying sun outlined through the folds of her bizarre garment ankles
straight, slender, and probably naked.
Rosy color moved swiftly into her satiny complexion while, with a
pretty, inquisitive frown, she scrutinized him; and then, with a flick
of her black eyelashes, she ran toward the arched doorway, leaving
Peter to ponder, and scratch his blond head, and demand amazing
explanations of himself.
It was a dominating trait in Peter never to lose time securing
information that was interesting to him; but the old proprietor, with
his wise and varnished smile, could vouchsafe very little of
consequence.
The young woman, he admitted, was named Naradia. She was accompanied
by her husband, a young Chinese of high birth, who manifested no more
signs of activity to an outward world than a baffling secretness.
The two of them had arrived from down-river on a sailing junk the week
before. The husband's name was Meng, he believed, and since he had
come, the old man declared, many strange and warlike faces had
mysteriously appeared in Ching-Fu.
Such visitors were not uncommon in the villages which bordered the
merchants' trail, from the Yangtze to the Irriwaddi, but Peter's
interest was kindled. As he made off in the direction of the most
reliable village mule-seller, he decided that the secretive young
bridegroom, Meng, might be worth cultivating.
From a soft-tongued and hardened swindler Peter procured a mule, and
arranged to have the animal in the caravansary at daybreak. It was his
intention to start for Kialang in search of Eileen with the first
tender glow of dawn.
After dining he waited in the compound for a glimpse of the mysterious
Meng, or his ravishing bride, Naradia. Unsuccessful, he returned to
his room. His Chinese valet was brewing jasmin-tea when Peter opened
and shut the bedroom door. His pajamas were neatly laid out upon his
couch, and the rugs were neatly furled back. He detected the acrid and
pleasing odor of incense as he crossed the room.
The boy glanced up meekly from the charcoal brazier. "Wanchee tea now?"
"Yes." Peter slipped out of his tunic.
The boy dropped on his knees to unlace Peter's boots.
Peter lighted a cigarette, stretched himself out upon the rugs, and the
boy brought him a steaming cup.
"Wake me--daylight--sure," cautioned Peter, lifting the cup.
"_Tsao_," murmured the boy.
When the boy was gone Peter removed the automatic from his raincoat
pocket. The metal glittered pleasantly in the yellow light from the
suspended lamp. The cup of tea had served to waken him. He released
the cartridge clip from the automatic's handle and stared thoughtfully
at the glowing lead balls.
He became conscious of a sound, alien and untimely. The door was
rattling softly. He studied it with interest; the wooden handle was
turning slowly, first to the right, then to the left.
The phenomenon puzzled him. His eyes were sparkling a little as he
quietly restored the clip of cartridges.
Creeping to the hinged side of the door, he waited, breathing silently.
With a squeak the door swung in quickly. A lean, yellow hand, gripping
a nickel-plated pistol, was thrust inside.
Peter shot three times directly through the wood panel.
The white pistol thudded to the planks, while the yellow hand seemed to
be jerked backward by an electric force. Soft footsteps retreated.
Peter jerked open the door and stepped out.
The corridor was empty. Some few feet toward the stairway an oiled
wick, jutting from a tiny bronze cup which was bracketed to a
scantling, burned and sputtered.
Under the door across the way a thin streak of yellow light indicated
that the mysterious young Chinese and his bride had not yet retired.
As Peter was examining the floor for blood stains the door budged
inward sufficiently to panel the terrified face of the Eurasian girl he
had seen earlier in the evening. At sight of him she shut the door
hastily.
Perplexed, he went to the stairway and peered into the stark blankness
which swam up to the third step below him. He was at a loss to account
for the air of serenity which still dwelt in the inn. Surely the three
revolver shots had been overheard; yet the place was as silent as the
grave, and quite as ominous. Where were the servants, the caravan
boys, the muleteers, the traders and merchants? He dismissed as absurd
the theory that the walls of his room were stout enough to muffle the
short-barreled blasts.
An isolated sound, a swish of discreet garments, a prudent grating
sound, as of a window lifted or a chair moved, then came to him, and
unquestionably it came from his own room.
Peter left the staircase to its gloomy shadows.
The room was unoccupied. Basing his next action upon sound and tried
experience, Peter put out the lamp and hazarded a glimpse out of the
window.
A sharp, round moon was perched high in a star-studded heaven, fairly
illuminating a muddy street and the low-thatched roofs of nearby
dwellings. A horse whinnied and stamped in the enclosure, and from a
distance rose the moody growl of the rapids.
Irritated and nervous, Peter felt for the couch and sank down in the
blackness, with the revolver dangling idly across one knee.
At that instant he was thrilled to the roots of his hair by a scream,
strangely muffled.
Peter indulged in a shiver as he stole to the door on tiptoe, opened it
quietly, and looked out. There was terror in that scream; it was the
outcry of a human in the clutch of real horror.
The door across the way was slightly ajar, letting out an orange
effulgence which lighted the boards, the opposite wall, and the grimy
ceiling. Indistinctly he discerned a motionless clump, and, catching
the white flicker of steel he sprang across, wrapping his fingers about
a struggling wrist.
Immediately the orange light was broadened, then darkened by a tall
figure, but Peter's back was turned.
An eager sigh, as if heartfelt relief, was given out by the second
shadow.
The knife, under Peter's pressure, dropped to his feet, and, quite sure
that the time was now past to ask polite questions, Peter brought down
the butt of the revolver with a smart slap where the long black pigtail
joined a fat little head. With a throaty gurgle his victim joined the
shadows of the floor.
A soft, white hand was laid upon Peter's right arm, and he found
himself glaring into the blanched face of the girl Naradia. Her small
fingers hardened upon the flesh of his hand, and he was aware that she
was staring imploringly across his shoulder.
Peter spun about and for the first time was aware of the presence of
the indolent figure in the doorway. The glow of a cigarette was at the
man's lips, but the darkness prevented scrutiny.
The rapid procession of mysterious events had unnerved Peter. The
silent and indolent presence of the stranger in the doorway put the
spark to his long-withheld indignation. He lifted the revolver's nose
menacingly.
The cigarette glowed a bright red, as if in amazement.
"You," he snapped, "whoever you are--pick this man up. Carry him into
my room. And you," he added sharply to the girl, "follow him!"
The cigarette fell to the planks, and the tall man put his heel upon
it. The careless movement gave Peter his first glimpse of the man's
profile. The man smiled faintly. He took the unconscious assailant of
Naradia by the heels and dragged him into Peter's room.
CHAPTER X
A match hissed; the flame of the lamp rose up slowly.
With a flutter of skirts the girl followed, her head inclined, as
though she was humiliated or greatly embarrassed. She went to the
couch and faced him, while an attempt at calmness and a determined fear
struggled to control her expression. Her attire was negligee, of pink
Japanese silk, open at the throat, and revealing a neck and shoulders
as white and smooth as bleached ivory.
Peter closed the door and shot the bolt.
The man who smiled so confidently had rolled the knife carrier with his
face to the wall. Then he crossed to the couch and took a stand beside
the girl, seemingly at ease under Peter's sharp and thorough inspection.
As Peter examined the slender, colorless face he imagined for an
instant that the man, also, was Eurasian. But that impression he
quickly realized was incorrect. The man simply was of a high order of
Chinese intelligence, with smooth, dusky skin, thin, stubborn lips, a
straight forehead, and eyes which were dark, watchful and sad.
Yet these eyes seemed to twinkle now, shifting without a trace of fear
from the unwavering gun-barrel in Peter's hand to the unwavering glint
in Peter's blue eyes.
And there was something undeniably imperial in the young Oriental's
bearing. Perhaps this was caused by his attitude, or the Oriental
richness of his garb. He might have been an Asiatic prince, or a sheik
fresh from the desert, or a maharaja, from a jungle throne. A
glittering cluster of gems--diamonds and rubies--hung from a fine gold
chain which encircled his bronzed neck. His tunic was of satin, the
color of the tropical sea; his breeches were spotlessly white, and his
slippers were Arabian, with up-curled toes.
"Well?" asked the young Asiatic, when Peter's gaze finally descended to
the scarlet slippers.
"I am waiting," said Peter, impatiently.
Black eyebrows went up inquiringly. "I am a merchant--from Shanghai."
"What you are or who you are is of no importance," returned Peter in a
voice of cordial doubt. "Perhaps you've aroused my idle curiosity; at
all events, I want you to tell me why you were late in coming to your
wife's assistance."
"His life is more precious," she interceded, hastily.
The Oriental waved his hand, as if the answer were absurd. "You
anticipated me by three seconds," he replied. "I was drowsing. I
thought I had dreamed the scream. May I say--I am very grateful?"
Peter's expression was dubious, but he nodded at length as though
partly satisfied. "Perhaps you can tell me what became of the man who
opened my door?"
The man's face was frankly bewildered. "I am at a loss to account for
any man entering your room--unless by mistake," he said with genuine
concern. "I think you are crediting me with an interest in an affair
that I know nothing of. Unless--unless----" He hesitated and paused,
searching Peter's eyes with a glance suddenly startled. "Can it be
possible----?" he muttered. "I judge by your accent that you are an
American. I have spent the past four years myself in America--at
Harvard. Somehow----" He paused again, and smiled faintly.
Suddenly the smile departed, was displaced by the most murderous of
grimaces. He was looking beyond Peter. His right hand flashed into
his blue tunic. And before Peter could turn or dodge, he sprang past
him, colliding with an object which grunted and instantly cried out in
agony.
Peter turned in time to see a thin knife plunge into the throat of a
swarthy Chinese, whose face was round as the Mongolian moon, and as
yellow.
The Chinese wiped his knife coolly on the fallen man's black jacket.
"Why, my good friend, should he attack you, unless----" He paused
again, and searched Peter's face with those keen brown eyes, no longer
sad.
"Unless what?" he asked, bluntly. "This man is from Len Yang."
He heard the girl utter a sharp gasp, and a queer light was dawning in
the other's face.
"Unless you are"--he hesitated--"unless you are the one man in the
world I wish you might be." He laughed. "Are you--Peter Moore, known
in some parts of China as--Peter the Brazen?"
Peter nodded slowly.
With a delighted cry the young Oriental sprang to him and seized his
hand. "Do you hear, Naradia?" he exclaimed. "This is _Peter Moore_!"
And Peter permitted his suspicions to drift, as he thought of the dead
man on the floor, and of the reason why he died. He was compelled to
admit that the stranger had saved his life.
"We must talk this over," the young Chinese was muttering. "Why, I
could not have arranged it more suitably!" He seemed to collect
himself then. "Before we talk, let us get rid of this man."
He picked up the dead coolie by the waist, lifted him easily to the
window, and dropped him, as if he were a sack of rice, into the mud.
He whistled twice. Immediately three shadows were given up by the
caravansary. These gathered up the dead man and vanished.
"They will dispose of him," said the stranger, helping himself to a
cigarette. He paused with the flaring match in his fingers and looked
at Peter quizzically. "My name is Kahn Meng. And I am _not_ from
Shanghai."
Peter nodded agreeably, although the explanation explained nothing.
"I have returned to China to attack and capture the city of Len Yang.
I came from there originally. Exactly five years ago I galloped over
the great drawbridge to study the classics in Peking. Fortunately I
met a man. He was an American missionary. He said to me: 'Kahn Meng,
the classics are dead. Betake yourself to America, where you will find
the fountain of modern knowledge.' Of course, the missionary was a
Harvard man."
Peter frowned slightly.
"What you don't understand probably, Mr. Moore, is why I can leave Len
Yang and return at will. I can't. I escaped from Len Yang at night.
I am returning with a thousand men at my back. Those men have occupied
this village. My conscience forbids my confessing to you how many of
the spies of Len Yang have been fed to the hungry river since my
arrival.
"You understand, the monster of Len Yang, as I affectionately call him,
must not know of my return. Otherwise he would make me prisoner. This
fat-faced one slipped through the guard lines. There may be others."
He grunted. "They do not dare kill me. For I----" He threw up his
handsome head proudly.
"For you----" encouraged Peter.
"Must hide my identity," finished Kahn Meng with a little laugh. "But
Naradia--they object to her. They have attempted to kill her, so many
times. Naradia, how many?"
"A score of times," she said darkly. "To-night they nearly succeeded.
I am not wanted. I am a half-caste--a Chinese father, a poor French
mother. They desired him to marry of the----"
"Hush!" cautioned her husband, for Naradia was almost hysterical and
was willing to prattle on. Kahn Meng smiled tenderly. "Naradia," he
continued, lowering his voice gently, "now that Peter Moore and I are
at last together, will you excuse us? You must be exhausted, my
dear--after this unpleasant affair. Will you retire? Remember, little
Chaya, in another week this terror will be at an end. Mr. Moore and I
will begin planning instantly."
Naradia laid her hands upon his and smiled sweetly. "Good-night!" she
said, obediently. "Good-night,"--she lifted her brows archly--"Peter
the Brazen! I do hope that you are not a dream!"
They watched the pink silk of her gown flit into the corridor,
whereupon Kahn Meng took Peter's arm companionably and guided him to
the window.
A keen, soft wind, tempered with the fragrance of ripening pepper
trees, came in to them in delicate puffs. A mysterious light twinkled
distantly upon the river. The moon was sinking into a void, and the
night was becoming black.
Kahn Meng was extracting from his satin blouse a gold-and-black
cigarette case. Peter accepted one of the white cylinders and struck a
match. In the flare he found that Kahn Meng was studying him shrewdly,
dispassionately.
"In the first place," began Kahn Meng, "let us settle the important
matter of price. I will promise you whatever you desire. I want you."
He spat into the darkness. "Why are you in Ching-Fu? I believed you
to be in America, but I could not find you. What brings you here?
Surely you were not planning to enter Len Yang again alone?"
Peter shook his head. "I came on another errand, which has nothing to
do with Len Yang. But"--he threw away the half consumed
cigarette--"you have made a mistake, Kahn Meng. The first matter to
settle is the more important one of identity."
"Take me just as I am," pleaded Kahn Meng earnestly. "We have one
desire, I know, in common--to clean up that horrible city! You have
visited Len Yang. You know the wretched condition of the
miners--slaves, poor devils. Perhaps you have seen them at nightfall
coming from the shaft, dripping with the blood-red of the cinnabar,
starving--blind!"
"I have seen all that," agreed Peter, grimly.
"Ah! But are you acquainted with that man's methods? Do you know that
his corrupt influence has extended into every nation of Asia? His
organization is more perfect than any eastern government. His system
of espionage puts those of Japan and Germany to shame! You must know!
You have encountered his underlings. Oh, I have heard of the Romola
Borria affair. Your escape was masterly! I believe you astounded him."
Kahn Meng paused and puffed long at his cigarette.
"Think, Kahn Meng, what might be accomplished," said Peter fervently,
"if the power he wields, that tremendous human machine--hundreds and
thousands of men--were devoted to the proper ends! Think what could be
done for China!"
Kahn Meng turned quickly. His eyes seemed to shine above the ruby glow
of his cigarette.
"I wanted you to say that!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically. "The thing
has been in my mind for years--ever since I was a child! We can do it!
We can!"
"Yet one thousand men cannot enter Len Yang. It is a fortress."
"There is another way into Len Yang--by the mines. It cuts off three
days of the journey. I remember it as a child. Tremendous black
ravines lead to the entrance from the merchants' trail, and the opening
is so small that you could pass it a thousand times without suspecting.
Will you accompany us, Peter Moore--Naradia and I and our followers?
We leave at dawn." He waited anxiously.
Peter shook his head regretfully. The song of adventure was musical to
his ears, but he could not leave with Kahn Meng in the morning. There
was Miss Lorimer--in Kialang.
"I cannot leave Ching-Fu until to-morrow night."
"That will be as well, perhaps," assented Kahn Meng after a moment's
thought. "We will rest for the night in the Lenchuen Pass. It is to
the right of the black road. My sentries will be watching for you."
CHAPTER XI
Peter shot the bolt and listened to the sad grumble of the river as he
endeavored to adjust this strange incident to the stranger events of
the very full evening.
Not until the mysterious Kahn Meng had said his good-night did Peter
realize how exhausted he was.
He looked at his watch, a thin gold affair, which had ticked faithfully
during all of his adventures, and was exceedingly astonished that the
night had already flown to the hour of four-thirty.
Dawn would come very soon, and with the first peep of the sun he was to
start for Kialang and Eileen.
The lamp smoked sleepily overhead; far away the great river sang its
bass song.
He must be up at dawn. What a question-mark was Kahn Meng! A Harvard
graduate--and a native of the red city! And what an adorable creature
was the girl Naradia! Her eyes were like jade, her lips like poppy
petals....
A crash of sound, a blaze of golden light, aroused him. He sat up,
dodging a sunbeam which had flicked his eyelids. Shrill voices came
from a distance. The odor of manure exhaled by the caravan sheds
floated into the room, and Peter jumped up front the couch with an
angry grunt. His heart was heavy with the guilt of the man who has
overslept.
The watch ticked, and the neat, black hands had covered an amazing
amount of ground; it was nearly tiffin-time.
The shrill, distant voices continued. Curiously, Peter looked out.
It was a beautiful sunlit morning, as clear as spring water. Miles
away the sun shone on the yellow haunches of the range, altering them
to a range of heavy gold; and gleamed tenderly on the paddy fields,
black and ripely green.
Peter lowered his eyes to the square formed by the intersection of a
number of alleys some distance beyond the caravansary. A sizable mob
was collected in this enclosure; he estimated that there were at least
a thousand pagan-Chinese assembled, in ring formation--a giant ring,
dozens deep, and centered upon a small focussing spot of white.
The spot of white occupied the precise center of the square, and Peter
studied it for some moments out of idle curiosity. Crowning the white
object was a smaller spot of chestnut-brown. He dashed out of his room
and down the stairs without even pausing for his hat.
Peter gained the edge of the crowd, and he bored into it, scattering
protesting old ladies and chattering old men as ruthlessly as if they
had been unfruitful stalks of rice.
It was a desperate fight to the center of that mob, for others were as
curious as Peter. Then, over the swaying shoulders he caught a second
glimpse of the chestnut-brown. It was a woman's hair, and it was
familiar in arrangement.
He broke into an arena not more than nine feet in diameter in which
were three objects: a wooden cask, upturned, a leather hand-bag, and a
small and exceedingly pretty young woman. Her cheeks were flushed, her
eyes were gray and sweet, and her mouth was like an opening rosebud.
"Eileen----" he cried.
"Why, Peter Moore!" she gasped.
He rushed to take her, but she held up her palms, retreating.
He laughed. "What under the seven suns are you doing in Ching-Fu--and
Kialang--and China? What's the meaning?"
He observed that a snow-white apron extended from her dimpled chin to
her small ankles.
"This is my office hour," she said severely.
"But what does this mean--this?" he exploded, gesturing wildly toward
the circle of attentive onlookers.
"My clinic!" She smiled.
"You're not practising medicine out here--in this street!" he
ejaculated.
"Indeed I am," she replied. "Some of these people have been waiting
their turns since daylight. I returned from Kialang an hour ago. And
I'll work until I collapse. I must. I wish I could multiply myself by
a thousand. There's not another doctor within miles. You can watch,
if you'd like," she added, then called shrilly.
An old woman appeared, and went scurrying, returning immediately with a
clean, wooden bucket filled with hot water.
Eileen removed from the hand-bag what appeared to be a wallet.
Stripping a rubber band from this she revealed a row of shining
surgical knives. Then she produced from the black bag several bottles
and a roll of absorbent cotton.
"Eyes," she told him as her hand was swallowed again by the black bag.
A child, a river boy, was pushed forward by a squinting mother.
Quaking fearfully, he sat down on the cask at the girl's feet.
She turned to Peter. "This child has been without sight for a month.
Without this operation he would remain blind forever. To-morrow he
will see again."
"You're wonderful!" Peter exclaimed.
At the gentle touch the child's loud whining ceased. She lifted one of
the swollen lids. The boy did not flinch.
"Filth caused this," she explained. "The Chinese are the dirtiest race
on earth, anyway," she added, dipping a clump of cotton into an
antiseptic wash and rinsing the patient's eyes. "Where there is too
much dirt, there is blindness. One-fourth of the population in this
section of China are blind. They go to 'fortune tellers,' and they
remain blind. In nine cases out of ten the simplest of operations
followed by care will cure this type of blindness."
"Good enough; but will they be careful afterward?" Peter was curious to
know.
"Once their sight is given back to them, they follow directions to a T.
I'm leaving behind me a trail of the cleanest Chinamen you ever laid
eyes on!"
She became silent, and so did Peter, who watched, hardly daring to
breathe, the swift, sure dartings of the tiny knife in her white
fingers. It was done in a jiffy; and there seemed to be on pain.
"Shouldn't you have an operating-room?" inquired Peter, as she bound up
the child's eyes in gauze.
She gave him a bright, professional smile. "Peter, I've learned to
operate with a thousand hooting infidels crowding closer than this. In
Nanking I was nearly mobbed."
Peter looked concerned. "Did they harm you?"
"Oh, no! They wanted their children, their wives, and their virtuous
mothers to see the light of day again."
"Eileen, you're an angel!"
"Be careful, Peter, or I'll kiss you in front of all these people."
She blushed and smiled. "I think I was very bold to come up here all
alone. Don't you?"
Peter grumbled something which escaped her.
She sat down wearily on the cask and looked up at him forlornly. "I
thought it would be a lark; but it isn't. It's the hardest kind of
work. There seem to be so many blind people--and I get tired--furious!"
"Can't we break away from this mob and have a little chin-chin by
ourselves?"
"You're not anxious, Peter?"
"This is not Shanghai," he rejoined sententiously. "Ching-Fu is not a
healthy spot for me--or for you. I've been watched. Perhaps, this
very minute----" He stopped and looked at the dour faces pressed about
them.
She shrugged. "Are you going on to Len Yang this time, Peter?"
He nodded slightly. "Perhaps."
"With me?"
"Without you," he stated firmly, dimly conscious of a stir on the
fringe of their audience.
"It isn't fair," she murmured; "I've come all this way----" She
touched her lips with the tip of a pink tongue. What she might have
added was forestalled by rising confusion on the edge of the crowd.
There were harsh voices, shrill voices; then these sounds were dwarfed
by the thunder of furious hoofs.
White with the dust of the lower trail a troop of Mongolian horsemen,
riding high in their jeweled saddles, swept into the square, shouting.
Lashing their horses, they drove into the gathering with the fury of
Cossacks.
Peter was thrown to one side by a tall man whom he had taken for a
peasant. He tugged at his pocket, but the coolie was fighting his way
toward the horsemen.
Indifferent to her struggles and screams, this giant carried Eileen in
naked, brawny arms.
Peter leaped after, shouting and cursing at those who stood in his way.
Some one tripped him. He regained his footing, shot his fist into the
jaw of an argumentative youth, and struggled on.
The onlookers were scattering with loud and frightened squeals, running
into one another, gathering in bewildered groups, darting for doorways,
like sheep attacked by a wolf pack.
Then a black horse swept so close to Peter that the stirrup stripped
the buttons from his tunic. A heavy whip stung him across the
shoulders.
When he recovered from this blow the struggling girl was yards away,
still struggling, but no longer screaming. She had been transferred to
the arms of a giant Mongol, who evidently was the leader of this pack.
Peter whipped out the automatic and let go a burst at the horseman who
now blocked his way; and the Mongolian, in the act of lifting a knife
from its holster-scabbard, dipped across the animal's flank, with his
eyes rolling toward heaven, his foot caught in one stirrup.
The horse, frightened, leaped up and spun about, twisting the fallen
rider about his heels. And Peter had clear way for another few feet.
Another horseman swept down upon him. Peter brought the gun up and
brought it down with fury. Twice he shot, and then this interference
was removed.
The troops were gathering into crude formation, evidently for another
charge. Eileen had disappeared.
Peter, knowing that she was somewhere in that quadrangle of rearing
horses, struck forward, stumbling over fallen bodies, slipping in mud.
His lungs burned, and he choked in a consuming rage. And suddenly he
heard her scream his name.
The leader of the desert pack held her across his saddle, with his
mighty arms pinioning her. He saw Peter, shouted, jabbed down with his
spurs, and his mount fairly leaped. The others wheeled gracefully, and
they vanished in thunder toward the plain.
Peter discovered the horse of one of the fallen warriors and leaped to
capture him.
And in the next moment he was groping in blindness.
CHAPTER XII
Lingering in his vision was a leering face.
Mud had been thrown into his eyes, and the filth was plastered from
eyebrows to nose. In a flash he recognized the face. Months ago he
had thrown that Chinese from the deck of a steamer into the
shark-infested waters of Tandjong Priok, the harbor of Batavia, Java.
Such amusing spectacles as the struggling unbeliever with rich mud
plastered in his eyes have a tendency to evoke keen appreciation from
the yellow races, who are supposed to be devoid of a sense of humor.
Shrill and explosive laughter was arising on all sides of him.
Light came slowly to his tortured eyes through a thick, yellow film.
All of his muscles were tensed; any instant he expected to experience
the long anticipated thrill of cold steel between ribs--or at his
throat.
Some kindly Samaritan had taken him by the hand. Mucous breath
assailed him. He distinctly heard a thud, a grunt, a screamed order.
No words were spoken, yet the mysterious hand tugged urgently at his
wrist. Peter knelt down and raised handfuls of water to his eyes from
a tub. He looked about for his benefactor and met only the leering
countenance of a highly amused group of urchins, men and women,
diverted as they had probably never been diverted before.
And in the meanwhile he realized with a torn heart that the thundering
hoofs were receding farther with each flitting instant.
Peter knocked down one man as he struck out through the amused circle.
The square was now all but deserted. Two bodies lay in the mud,
unattended. Examination proved these to be the earthly remains of the
two Mongolian horsemen--the two he had shot down. The two horses were
unattended. Peter mounted the nearest.
The air was growing cold. A keen, ice-edged wind was moving northward
from the range, and the sky was graying with storm clouds.
His horse was moving like the wind, perspiring not at all, a
thoroughbred, a mount for a prince! At his present rate he should
catch up with the Mongolian rear by nightfall; otherwise the pursuit
was certainly lost. And then Peter fell to wondering what tactics he
would pursue when he reached the band. How could he, alone, armed only
with an automatic revolver, hope to overpower professional riflemen who
numbered at the least forty? It was a nice problem; yet he could
reason out no simpler solution. He was bent on a task that might have
won applause from a _Don Quixote_.
The sun was settling upon the golden roof of the range, sending out
monstrous blue shadows across the valley.
Mountain darkness soon enveloped the world. A dazzling star appeared
with the brilliant suddenness of a coast-light. The wind was winy with
the flavor of high snows.
And suddenly the horse stumbled. Peter jerked on the reins. The horse
whinnied, dancing awkwardly on three legs.
Peter dismounted. A foreleg was crippled. He groaned. Fate, long his
ally, was laughing at him. The chase was ended.
Suddenly hoofs thudded on the firm dirt; a shadow darted by, nearly
colliding with him. There was a trampling. A lantern frame clicked,
and a lance of yellow light rippled upon his face, broadened.
He glared into the anxious brown eyes of Kahn Meng.
CHAPTER XIII
"You are in time!" He gripped Peter by the shoulder.
"Have you stopped them?" gasped Peter.
Kahn Meng indulged in a bitter laugh. "Only the wind could overtake
them." He shrugged. "They came--they broke through our lines--and
again they broke through! If they had stopped for battle," he added
grimly, "there would have been a different tale to tell."
"And they have taken her to Len Yang?" Peter suddenly recalled that
Kahn Meng probably knew nothing of Eileen.
"The doctor? Yes," assented Kahn Meng sadly. "One of my men was in
Ching-Fu when the troop drove through. He was looking out for you. He
arrived only a few moments ago. By Buddha, how you have traveled!"
"I intend to go on."
Kahn Meng sighed. "It means only death."
"I am willing."
"But you cannot catch them with any horse. You would be killed. We
can arrive in Len Yang sooner," Kahn Meng pleaded. "Everything is
ready."
"I'll follow," Peter stated grimly, "on the condition that you answer
two questions. What is your relation to the man at Len Yang----"
"On my word of honor," Kahn Meng interrupted him with emotion, "I am a
friend. Won't that suffice until the morning? If I were an enemy, if
I were on his side----"
"I realize that," Peter stopped him. "Very well. I'll wait. My other
question is this: Why does that beast search the world for beautiful
women--and consign them to the mines?"
Kahn Meng was silent. Reluctantly Peter was allowing himself to be led
through the darkness over broken ground. A pale dot of light emerged
from the night.
"I do not know," said Kahn Meng finally. "It is hideous. I have seen
them. That will be stopped!" he added tensely.
Under the lantern they paused, and Peter found his strange companion to
be examining his features intently.
"I can add nothing to what has been said," Kahn Meng went on. "I have
much to attend to now. We are starting immediately. At present will
you trust me as I trust you?" He extended his right hand, and Peter
clasped it silently.
The ripe old moon of Tibet was creeping from its bed, tipping the
pointed tents with a soft glow.
On such another night as this Peter had first dared to enter the City
of Stolen Lives, and the faint, mysterious sounds of a caravan at rest
stirred up old memories.
The probable treatment of Eileen at the hands of Len Yang's king was
too terrible for him to contemplate. And he was as helpless at this
instant as though he were on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
A hot flood of anger welled up in his breast. His palms began to
sweat. Each minute was drawing her closer to the moldy walls.
He could picture her struggling in the arms of the giant Mongolian. He
could see the great drawbridge swinging down to the white road in the
moonlight or the blistering heat of noonday. And on the hill, like a
greedy, white vulture, he could see that solemn palace with minarets
stretching like claws to the sky, crouching upon the red slime vomited
forth by the mines.
A cool voice startled him. Kahn Meng came out of the darkness.
"Two hundred men will accompany us. The others will remain here in
case an attack is made on our rear. There may be trouble. Of course,
I could go, unharmed, into Len Yang by the mountain road; but as soon
as I entered I would be helpless--a prisoner forever. He knows I am
returning. He is expecting me. But he does not know that half his
garrison are loyal to me. The yellow-whiskered one will not be glad to
see me," he added with a malicious grin.
The night seemed to be filled with silent, wakeful coolies, armed with
rifles. The grim and watchful silence of the procession, the black
mystery of the night with the sinking, cold moon aloft, and the
uncertainty of the whole affair, set Peter's nerves to tingling; and
his heart was beginning to react to the high excitement of it.
He was elated, yet anxious. To-night's business was no quest of the
golden fleece. The size of his undertaking, now that he stood, with
only a few miles between, at the threshold of achievement, was
overwhelming. He had pledged himself.
How he would proceed if the present venture succeeded was another
matter. Fate or opportunity would have to shape his next steps.
Perhaps in Kahn Meng, the mysterious, might rest the solution. Peter
was an adventurer by choice, and an engineer by profession. Under
given conditions he knew what to expect of men and machines. Before he
had taken to the seas as a wireless operator he had had some experience
as a railroad builder. He had laid rails in California, and Mexico. A
successful career in that profession had been foregone when the warm
hand of Romance laid hold of him.
He wondered how he could adjust himself to the routine of his old
profession again, if that was the opportunity awaiting him in Len Yang.
Governmental problems, he knew, would have to be given to more
specialized men, such perhaps as Kahn Meng.
He looked behind him, at the long line of men stretched down the narrow
ravine like the tail of a colossal serpent. Occasionally a stone,
dislodged, clattered down into the crevices. Above them the rock
stretched and lost itself in the cold purple of the night. The moon
carved out vast shadows, black and threatening.
They emerged at length into a broader valley, jagged with spires
flashing with gleams of the moon on frequent mirror-like surfaces. Ten
thousand men could have been concealed in this desolate cavern. Yet it
rang with emptiness as, far arear, a steel prod struck powdery fire
from the flinty path.
Hours seemed to pass as they advanced, descending constantly. At times
the granite walls nearly met above them, and then a shaft of moonlight
would cast freakish shapes across their vision.
Once they paused for rest near a torrential stream. Some lingered to
drink. The blackness in the sky was yielding itself to the spectral
glow of the new day when Kahn Meng gave the order to halt.
He took Peter aside and explained his procedure. His plan was to send
fifty men through the tunnel to the main shaft to subdue the guards;
the remainder of the armed coolies, numbering about one hundred and
fifty, would follow, forming a protective chain to the black door, an
underground entrance.
"There should be no trouble, no confusion--a bloodless revolution," he
added with a nervous, elated laugh. "I will occupy the place--you will
follow. Wait ten minutes."
Peter nodded.
"A tunnel, fairly straight, leads from here directly to the black door.
Have your revolver in readiness. My men may not make a clean job. The
mine guards carry clubs. Each of my coolies has a rifle." Kahn Meng's
eyes in the light of a torch were glittering excitedly. He grasped
Peter's nearest hand in his enthusiasm.
"We are so near! Only a step!" He laughed wildly, lifted his voice
ecstatically to a sing-song and chanted from Ouan-Oui: "Then----
"'Let us rejoice together.
and fill our porcelain goblets
with cool wine!'"
CHAPTER XIV
Now Peter was an emotional young man. And wrathful notions were
kindled in him before he encountered the only guard Kahn Meng's men had
overlooked--may the bones of that one rest gently!
He saw little children clawing in red muck; he saw young girls with
sunken breasts, their former beauty a wretched caricature, carrying
dying babes upon their backs. He saw tired old men, and women,
crippled, blind, with red fingers and wrists, as if they had been
dipped in blood. He saw plenty to enrage him.
Kahn Meng's guards bowed gravely as he passed them at tunnel passages.
He had walked perhaps three-quarters of an hour generally in a single
direction, bearing a torch, when he collided with a smooth, flat
obstruction.
Somewhere in the earth distantly behind him occurred a metallic rumble,
followed by a gust of soft wind, fragrant with the outdoors.
He was staring at blackness, the varnished blackness of a great wooden
door. He was at the threshold! somewhere on the other side of that
enormous wooden barrier was the man of Len Yang! Chalked boldly upon
the surface was the legend:
P. M.--straight on--K. M.
Pulling with his fingers and bracing his feet in the rough floor, the
mass moved monumentally toward him. It swung wide, on great, concealed
hinges.
Peter's adventurous heart was beating an excited battle call. His
burning eyes strained beyond the ruddy luminance of the torch, and
examined--white marble! He was at his journey's end--somewhere in the
palace of the Gray Dragon!
Peter dragged the great door softly shut behind him, and found himself
in a chamber of vast proportions, built of what had at one time been
purest white marble, discolored entirely now by the red taint of the
bloody ore. The floor was perspiring redly.
Going on tiptoe to the center of the space, he searched the blank
walls, listening breathlessly.
He heard nothing but the faint patter of the dripping slime, and he
went swiftly to the end of the musty antechamber and discovered at the
distant end the fourth wall, hitherto unseen. Reaching from the left
corner of the scarlet tomb was a narrow staircase built also of marble.
Dropping his hand nervously into his right-hand tunic pocket, he went
up and pushed open another door. He found himself now in a snow-white
corridor, faintly lighted by grilles overhead. The hall reached
gloomily into gray distance, and it was quite vacant. An unseen
fountain was playing near by. At his left was another door, closed.
The closed door attracted him. Certainly there was no other course now
than a detailed exploration.
Bracing himself for a surprise in this palace of hideous surprises, he
flung open the door, and entered black darkness.
Carelessly he closed the door behind him, listening and sniffing. At
first he heard nothing, but he smelled altar-incense faintly.
A deep-voiced gong suddenly reverberated while Peter tensed himself.
The sonorous melody lifted and crashed, subsiding into countless
unmusical overtones. Lighter metal rang upon wood.
Then lights--electric lights--by the dozens,
hundreds--thousands--blazed with a violent suddenness, a suddenness
that Peter could compare only with that of a tropical sun leaping out
of the ocean; and Peter blinked upon green. It was a hideous green, a
green of diabolical intensity. He shivered. It seemed to creep, to
writhe, this green.
At first he could not absorb this insane color idea; and he stood
there, with his heart sinking.
He discovered that he was occupying an oblong green rug of satin. He
was dazzled by the green glare of a cluster of quartz lights in front
of him, and he stared, first at a monstrous green Buddha, squatting on
a thighless rump between flashing green pillars, and finally at the
most hideous individual he had ever gazed upon, a human, who occupied a
throne carved solidly from green jade.
The glimpse was like stepping from a dark dream into the center of an
aquamarine nightmare. And in the instant following his partial
digestion of the viridescent scheme he was possessed with the notion
that the occupant of such a chamber of horror must certainly be insane.
That was the first idea to possess Peter. He was not surprised to find
that he was unafraid. Anticipation is much more fearful than
realization. He had experienced many panicky moments in looking
forward to this meeting; and yet in the presence of him he was cool.
The Gray Dragon of Len Yang?
From the tail of his eye he detected a man with folded arms backed
against the door. At either side of the green throne stood Mongolian
guards, armed with rifles. They struck the only dissonant note of the
picture, for they were garbed in desert brown.
Evidently all ways of escape were closed. For two years he had
contrived to elude the tracers, the killers, sent out by this creature,
and now he had deliberately walked upon his swords. Death? Where was
Kahn Meng?
Possessed with a feeling akin to cat-like curiosity, Peter walked
slowly to the beryl throne steps, where he paused, with his fists
gripped tightly in his pockets, his chin up, and his shoulders back.
Close scrutiny did not soften the bestial cruelty of the face of Len
Yang's ruler. It was a startling face, as gray as fresh clay, sharply
wrinkled. The nose was exceedingly long and sharp, with a crooked
joint. Dirty-yellow mandarin mustaches drooped like wet sea-weed from
the sides of a curling, sneering mouth.
And it was dominated by a pair of very small, very bright green eyes,
set deep and exceedingly close together.
But the tenor of the face was gray, the gray of living death, and from
this emblem, Peter suddenly decided, the man had been given his
descriptive name.
Long, gray talons reached out from the folds of a mandarin jacket and
toyed nervously with a strand of gray hair which jutted from the
pigtail winding over the slanting shoulder.
The green eyes blinked as they completed the survey of Peter Moore.
The curling lips were moving.
"Peter Moore!" he rasped. "The most daring foreigner who has yet
visited my city! Peter the Brazen, with a reputation of breaking the
hearts of beautiful women! You are late. I have been waiting upon
this visit for two years!"
He leaned forward, and Peter retreated a step.
"What have you done with her?" Peter snapped.
The Gray Dragon sank back with a sigh. "Ah! Would you like to gaze
upon that which can never be yours?"
"May I see her--once--before I die?"
"That is a wise statement. You are altogether wise--astonishingly so!
Wisdom is a rare gem in one so young." He chuckled in an irritating
treble. "Look about you again, youth. This is known as the room of
the green death. Few men leave the room of the green death alive. My
hounds bay when they enter.
"The young woman is here--safe. If you will answer my questions, I may
permit you to gaze upon her just once before you die! Perhaps I may be
so lenient as to allow you to die together. Does not that appeal to
you?" he demanded, as if anxious. "You--who are so thirsty for the
gold of romance?"
Peter glared at him silently, and his fingers were twitching.
His host tapped the resonant gong. Some one stepped behind Peter, for
he distinctly heard the seep of silken garments.
The man on the green throne muttered, adding to Peter: "I am granting
your wish. You may gaze upon her before you die. I, too, will gaze,
for I prize her highly, as you know."
He sank back meditatively, and in that moment the gray face became
oddly sane.
"Peter Moore, seldom do I permit men who have troubled me so sorely to
escape alive. Perhaps, in face of what has happened, you are foolishly
taking unto yourself credit. And still, for a reason unknown to me, I
hesitate.
"Listen to me closely, youth! For these two years I have watched you
with my thousands of hired eyes--you cannot realize how closely!
Because I was deeply interested. You are a riddle to me. You have the
emotions of a woman, and the cunning of a _hu-li_.
"Times without count word has gone forth from this green room that your
death must take place. Childish curiosity to stare just once upon the
foolish adventurer has caused that word to be revoked! Do not assume
credit for bravery that was not yours, Peter Moore! You are not
heroic; you have been a plaything. The gods are through with you.
"Harken to me, Peter the foolish. Within these green walls daily are
inscribed the names of men and women who must die. Your name has been
spoken, yet never once has it been written. When it is written----"
He paused with a portentous hush.
"To-day, when I realized you were at last coming to me, when spy after
spy ran to my feet to say that at last--at last--Peter Moore, the
unconquerable, was coming to pay his long-overdue call--I hastened with
that daily quota of names of those who are doomed, so that I could
attend you with undivided attention.
"Can it interest you? Nine men are doomed. Within two weeks from this
hour a mandarin will die by the knife, an ambassador at the court of
Peking will expire by poison, an indiscreet Javanese merchant----" He
waved his skinny arms impatiently.
"Those whose names are written must inevitably die. If the name of
Peter Moore had but once appeared on the green silk--I could have
forgotten you--and rested. But I was restrained by a most curious
impulse." He looked at Peter eagerly.
"You have perplexed, almost fascinated me. Tell me first, what was
your power over Romola Borria?"
Peter only grunted, angrily astonished.
"Wait!" cautioned the curling lips. "I am not ridiculing you. I am
keenly desirous of knowing." He frowned, pondering. "I will tell you
about that woman. Romola Borria was sent to me, and I employed her.
For certain difficult tasks she was all that I desired--more beautiful
than sunset on the Tibetan snow--a glorious woman, yet as cold, as
unfriendly as that same snow. Her spirit was one of ice, yet fire.
"And her heart was stone--or snow also. I sent her directly to
communicate a certain thing to you--to kill you in the event that you
declined. Shall I tell you how many men she has put out of the way at
my bidding before and after she met you? No matter.
"Romola Borria was proof against love. No man was created for her to
love. Yet that snowy heart melted, that precious coldness vanished,
when she met--Peter Moore!"
The Gray Dragon paused, and the cessation of his metallic voice, the
quick relinquishing of the evil glint in his small, green eyes, left
Peter with a deeper feeling of revulsion than previously. It had been
his imaginative belief that the Gray Dragon was utterly without human
traits; yet he possessed that lowest of them all, a bestial curiosity.
"I can all but read your thoughts," he went on, lidding his green eyes
a number of times. "You are saying what my victims invariably say when
I grant them these rare audiences before they die. Over and over you
are repeating--'Beast! Beast! Beast!' Is that not true?"
"That is absolutely true!"
Malice seemed to hover about the glittering green eyes, and was gone at
once. "Peter Moore, to gaze at you is like gazing into a crystal. In
you I witness that supreme quality which was denied me in my youth. I
can have anything in the world but that supreme, that sublime quality.
I can buy anything in the world but that." The voice stopped.
Peter shifted his glance momentarily to the armed attendants who
guarded this evil life. An inner whisper counseled him: "Not yet! Not
yet! There is time!"
"Yet there is a chance that I may reconsider; that I may permit you to
continue to live--perhaps in the mines. But certainly, Peter the
foolish, you must not yield to that present impulse. Of course, you
are armed. But do not move! Two feet behind you stands an excellent
shot with a pistol aimed at your backbone. Men with cracked spines do
not live long!" He chuckled.
"What was I about to say? Ah, yes! If I could purchase from you that
quality--if I could, I say, anything in my kingdom would be
yours--everything! It is the one thing I have been denied. Holy
wheel! It is strange, this way I am talking! I have rarely had such
an interested audience. Most of my captives at this stage are
cringing, are kissing my feet."
The snarling grin left his lips again, and his mood became strangely
soft, like dead flesh, so Peter thought, as he waited--with that pistol
at his backbone!
"I intend telling you an amazing story, which you may or may not
credit. I am telling it--this confession--partly because I dislike the
look in your blue eyes. Like everyone else, you loathe me. But I will
erase that look. I intend to show you I am even more human than you!
"By Buddha, I will tell that story to you--you, Peter Moore, the most
fortunate man in all China this hour. Think, before I begin, of that
mandarin, that bungling Javanese merchant, who, also, are about to die.
Then forget all else--and listen.
"This took place many years ago, when I was a young man, like yourself.
I, too, loved a woman. Can you understand me? I, too, once loved a
woman, a maiden of the Punjab. I can conceive her in the veil of my
memory still. Eyes like dusty stars, skin the color of the Tibetan
dawn, the dawn that you may never again look upon.
"Her heart was gold, so I thought. Yet it was dross. On a night in
springtime, in the bazaar at Mangalore, we two first met. I have not
forgotten. That night I fell in love with the white orchid from the
Punjab. She was more beautiful to me than life or death, a feast of
beauty.
"Len Yang was mine then, and I was a rich prince, but not so rich as
now. Drunkenly I was casting my gold about the bazaar when we met.
She saw me--and she smiled! It was the first time any woman had smiled
upon me, and I was alarmed and troubled. I was no more handsome than
now. I was the man that no one loved. _Chuh-seng_--the beast--was my
name even then, among those who tolerated my friendship because of my
fluent gold.
"And when the Punjab maiden smiled upon me, I thought to myself:
'_Chuh-seng_, love has come at last to sweeten your bitter heart.'
What should a young lover have done? I--I bought the bazaar and
presented it to her--on bended knees!
"She confessed that she could love me, despite my ugliness, this white
orchid of the plains. Peter Moore, do not look at me. You can
believe--if you do not look. She kissed me--on my lips! Again she
said she loved me. Had I been a thousand times uglier, she would have
loved me a thousand times more passionately! Heaven had joined us.
And I forgave my enemies, renewed my vows at the wheel, and blessed
every virgin star!
"Love had come to me at last! Me--the most hideous in all of Asia.
And I believed her. What would you have done, Peter Moore--you who
know so well the heart of woman? Never mind. I believed everything.
"We lingered in Mangalore. But I did not know then of the Singhalese
merchant--the trader who owned three miserable camels. He possessed
not handsomeness, but the romantic glamour which you possess, Peter the
Brazen! Reveling in my love, I was as blind as these imbeciles in my
mines. Our child was born.
"She could have taken more, had she not been so lovestruck. She could
have had my all--my gems, my pearls, and rubies, and diamonds, more
colossal than the treasure of any raja--my mines which dripped with the
precious mercury!
"Yet she stole only my gold which was convenient, and went out into the
starlit night with the Singhalese trader, to share the romance of the
blinding desert--the Singhalese trader, a man of no caste at all!
Love? That was my love!"
The hideous, gray face retreated behind talons as though to blot out
the thought of that ancient betrayal. When the talons again dropped
down, the dead softness of the face was replaced by the former sneer.
This change was quite shocking.
The beast was laughing harshly. "If I could not have love, I could at
least have hate! I have hated more passionately than any man has ever
loved!"
Peter said nothing to this, although the gray lips closed and the green
eyes looked at him expectantly, almost demanding comment. Surely this
creature was insane, with his room of the green death, his wild tales
of love of a Punjab maiden, of wholesale hate.
The Gray Dragon seemed irritated. "What have you to say now?"
"I was only wondering," said Peter, as if suddenly tired, "when that
pistol is to explode at my back."
"There is yet time," muttered his host. "No man has yet left this room
in contempt of me! Can you believe I have lied?" he snarled. "Why,
you fool!" he croaked. "I will teach you! What do you suppose has
become of that other one whom you met at the _weng_ into the hills? Do
you imagine my men were not in his camp? Every inch of the way you two
were watched.
"And what has become of your prudence? You who defied me, who escaped
me--undone by a woman! She is why you are here. Because you are such
a fool you shall die. I might have relented. I thought you were proof
against love. Is any one? Is any one proof against it but me? Ah----"
He looked eagerly beyond Peter, and Peter heard a frightened sob, then
a little cry, as the door closed heavily.
CHAPTER XV
She flew across the room to him, and pressed her hands to his cheeks.
Her eyes were sparkling with tears, and her face was very pale. Only
her lips, which were everlastingly bright, gave color to that
distressed young face.
"Peter!" she moaned. "Oh, I was so afraid!" She lowered her voice.
"What is to become of us?"
He looked down at her and forced a smile to his lips.
"We who are about to die----" he began grimly.
She gave him a twisted smile as his arms tightened about her. He loved
her for that courage.
With his arm at her waist he turned. He had observed that the Gray
Dragon had spoken truly as regarded the armed coolie at his back.
Their captor bent forward and fixed upon them the most curious of
glances. His merciless, green eyes ran from Eileen's tumbled chestnut
hair to her small, tan boots--then he regarded Peter with the same
intensity, and thereupon he seemed to be weighing the doomed lovers as
a unit, or as an idea.
A devilish smile cracked his lips.
"So this is love?" he cackled. "This is the young woman to whom you
have thrown your life away--after most splendid resistance--you, Peter
the Brazen! Do you still love her?" He pointed a crooked forefinger
at Eileen. "Tell me, would you desert him, in this first flush of your
maiden love, for a handsomer man--and steal his gold, after he laid the
earth at your feet? Would you do that?"
Methodically the talons stroked the sea-weed mustache.
"You are too anxious for death. You are romantic. Youth does have
such ideas. Even I, _Chuh-seng_, have such notions. Death? Why does
your little mind single out such simple punishment--you--lovers?
Romantically you long for death, because in the next world you would
come together again--in the lover's eternity of heaven.
"But I have a far more imaginative scheme. Separation! How does that
appeal to you?" He leaned forward and watched them. "I have an
excellent plan. One of you shall work until the end of his life in
this mine, as beautiful captives in the past quarter century have
slaved and died; the other shall labor until the end of life in my
quarries, not more than one hundred miles from Len Yang.
"Then you will not speak of death. You will struggle and you will grow
old long before your time, as the others have done, hoping that vain
hope of again meeting. And I shall grant your wish! Years from now,
when youth and the divine passion of youth have flown--when only the
bitter dregs of that rapturous love remain--then you shall be
reunited." He cackled humorously in his treble.
"O Buddha! How long have I waited for such an opportunity? How long?
How long? Is it twenty years--or forty--or a thousand--since that
night in the bazaar at Mangalore?" His green eyes rolled to the green
ceiling. And his mood underwent another vast change, this creature of
monster moods.
"Are you grateful to me, you two? You should be! It was I who brought
you together--I, the cruelest man in all Asia! It must have been a
divine night, that night on the great river, Peter Moore, when she came
into your arms. Love blazed in your hearts that night; and this
gray-eyed witch said, with downcast eyes: 'I like you, Peter Moore!'
What difference what she said? Any words would have dripped as much
with love!"
He sprang to his feet, groaning, his evil countenance undergoing
convulsions, as of terrific inner spasms.
"You shall not have that!" he shouted. "You shall not have love! What
I have done, I shall undo! You shall live apart. Love has been
refused me; love is refused all who come within my reach! That is my
decision. Nor shall you have death. One of you to the quarry--the
other to the mines. I shall be generous. You may make your choice.
And _that_ is my decision!"
The lovers stared at him. The vicious plan had gripped Peter's
imagination. Gone was all thought of the pistol, which lay even now in
the palm of his hand. One shot would have silenced the beast forever;
but he had forgotten such things as bullets and pistols.
He could realize only that, even before their first kiss had been
exchanged, they would be torn apart.
The color had receded from Peter's skin and eyes; he looked very much
nearer forty than thirty. And Eileen was reflecting that despairing
attitude. She could think only of him toiling wretchedly in the mines
or quarries, striving against a fate as unfriendly, as unyielding, as a
wall of cold granite.
The Gray Dragon sank back, with his chest heaving. His features were
working. The spasm had exhausted him; and the green brilliance gave
his gray skin a ghastly pallor. He lifted a small silver hammer and
brought it down upon the belly of a large bronze gong.
There was a stir behind them.
With the same cold hate in his expression as he addressed himself again
to the lovers, who clung together like small children, pitiful objects
indeed in this hall of pitiless green.
"The others are coming; their fate will be yours--you lovers!"
He turned to address words in dialect to the Mongolian on his right,
and in the space Eileen's breath came warmly upon Peter's ear.
"Are you armed?" she whispered.
His nod was hardly perceptible. He dropped his hand into his pocket,
and at that instant his arms were pinioned. The revolver was snatched
from his fingers.
The malicious green eyes were staring beyond them.
Peter heard a low sob, instantly stifled. Naradia, with bloodshot
eyes, was searching his face in distress. Her black hair had been
arranged in a heavy braid, which ran down her back in a glistening rope.
Kahn Meng's sad eyes lingered on Peter's for a moment, sparkling with
guilt, and his face was crestfallen. Plainer than any words could have
said, his expression cried out: "I have failed! I am sorry."
Then he advanced to the throne, taking his stand at the Gray Dragon's
side, a maneuver which was thoroughly mystifying to Peter.
The Gray Dragon seemed to ignore his presence. To Peter he said: "You
recognize your companion of last night? The man with a legion of a
thousand loyal men at his back?"
Peter nodded, muttering.
The Gray Dragon waved Kahn Meng to one side. "He is my son. He is my
son by my faithful wife! Do you understand that, Peter Moore?"
"Your son? And he will carry on your work?"
"Precisely that! You have expressed it neatly, Peter Moore. The Gray
Dragon will carry on the work of the Gray Dragon!"
The mystery of Kahn Meng was cleared aside. Fury directed at his
treachery swelled in Peter's breast and burst. It was as though a
torch had been applied. The flame of an ancient ancestral fire, when
men fought for their lives and their loves with clubs, and nails, and
teeth, burst into his brain and into his breast. The muscles under his
tunic-sleeve, which clung to his arm from the moisture of perspiration,
rippled and flexed and hardened.
His face--the clean, handsome face of well-lived youth--was quite
dreadful to look upon--flushed to a fiery red and distorted. His lips
were skinned back over his white teeth.
The thunder of his roar fairly shook the green quartz pillars, between
which the smug, green Buddha smiled complacently, impervious to the
rages of foolish mankind.
Peter sprang upon the heels of that roar like a mass of wonderfully
controlled steel at the crouching figure, a figure whose countenance
was suddenly wet and white.
He tore the carbine from the fingers of the nearest guard before that
one could collect his wits.
The Mongolian sprawled over backward, and in the second instant the
heavy butt of the carbine came down with a shuddering crash upon the
skull-cap of the man who would no longer rule Len Yang!
With such tremendous vigor was that blow delivered that the walnut
stock, as tough as iron, shivered into splinters, which swam in the
bursting brains of the victim.
Screaming, Peter swung the stock again, and again, as if he would beat
his wretched victim to a pulp. Nothing but the barrel and breech
mechanism remained.
His murderous intention seemed to be to remove, to obliterate for all
time, the hideous face, to wipe out by means of his brute strength the
gray countenance.
Suddenly he sprang away from him with the elastic stride of a panther.
Kahn Meng, the traitor, was next.
And as he leaped Kahn Meng slipped from his own pocket a revolver and
dodged Peter's blow.
Peter staggered backward, reaching the center of the room, dragging the
bloody and bent carbine barrel in a red trail. There he stopped,
swaying, toppling.
Darkness was assailing him. He was sinking into a pit. And the heart
was fluttering, laboring treacherously under the poison created in his
blood by fury.
The green lights spun.
He threw the carbine barrel at the complacent Buddha, where it clanked
to the marble flags. And he withered like the lotus, sprawling upon
his back with his eyes tightly shut, the color fast disappearing from
his complexion.
And his head was reclining upon the small, tan boots of Eileen.
CHAPTER XVI
Somewhere in the distance a sweet-voiced temple bell resounded
dreamily. Vague odors of sandalwood and wistaria swam in the soft,
cool air. A ray of warm sunlight fell upon Peter's inert hand, and he
opened his eyes.
Memory came slowly back to him. He remembered that he had killed. The
last thing he distinctly recalled from that moment of ungovernable fury
which had taken hold of him was that Kahn Meng, the traitor, had drawn
a pistol. As a natural consequence he should be dead. Perhaps he was.
Slowly his brain became clear, although queer vapors arose in it.
Soft footsteps crossed the stone flagging with a clicking of dainty
heels. Small fingers, exquisite to the touch, brushed the tousled hair
from his forehead. These were cool and pleasant.
"Old Sweetheart!" said a happy voice.
The cool fingers crept underneath his chin and lingered there. Others
crept under his neck. A warm, satiny cheek floated down to rest upon
his forehead.
Dozens of questions swarmed out of the wreckage of his waking
consciousness.
"You are safe? Where are we? What happened to that scoundrel, Kahn
Meng? Why did they bring you here? Did they harm you? Who hit----"
A silvery laugh interrupted him. "Yes, yes--yes!" said the voice that
was sweeter to him than all of the music in Christendom with heathendom
thrown in for good measure.
"I am safe. I was kidnapped and treated with all respect due a famous
doctor--because a dead monster was suffering from neuritis. We are
alone, in a tiny glass house on the roof of the ivory palace, and dawn
has this very moment come. Such a glorious dawn, Peter!
"Are you rested? I never saw any one so completely burned out. Such
fury! Gracious, what a man! But why, Peter, did you attack poor Kahn
Meng? He's the best friend you have in the world!"
"The Gray Dragon!" muttered Peter, clenching his fists.
"Peter, Kahn Meng would lay down his life for you. Of course, he is
the Gray Dragon; but that is only a name now. He is the Gray Dragon,
and he has you, and you only, to thank for it.
"The title is hereditary, and he is the last of his line. He knew what
that monstrous father of his was doing, and he has been helpless--until
you freed him. And the dreadful secret, Peter, is that that beast was
not Kahn Meng's father. A Singhalese trader, murdered years ago, was
his father, and his mother, a beautiful woman of the Punjab, was for a
time the wife of the beast!
"The entire organization has now come under Kahn Meng's control. He is
the Gray Dragon of Len Yang, and it is a title that from now on will be
a power for good, for construction!
"You can't imagine what wonderful plans he has. He's a genius--that
young man is, Peter! And you--you--are to be his chief executive, the
viceroy of Len Yang! The chief of mines, of transportation, of labor!
He told me that millions of dollars of capital are at your disposal.
"Last night we planned a great railroad line, running from the mines to
Chosen and Peking and Tientsin! Think of it, Peter! What opportunity!
"While I," Eileen went on blithely, "am to start a hospital. No more
blindness, no more sickness, in Len Yang. And shorter working hours.
And an age limit. And schools. And good food, and lots of it!
"From now on our work is to assume a world-wide importance. Word came
over the wireless late last night that Germany has finally started the
long-expected European war. Kahn Meng believes every nation will be
drawn into it. So there is another menace for you to help stamp
out--the Dragon of Europe. Kahn Meng says these mines, and the copper
and iron mines, nearer the coast, can help--wonderfully!"
Peter felt vastly happy, too enthralled to believe that the state could
endure. He stood up from the cot and looked down into the bright face
of the one woman in the world. It was radiant, very pink, now, and her
round eyes were tender and meek. Perhaps she was a little frightened
by the fierceness which had developed in his expression.
She opened her arms with a little laugh. He crushed her close. Their
lips met and clung.
He pushed her away, and his blue eyes were impassioned.
Eileen smiled. "Look!"
The white snow on the high peaks across the valley glowed with the
heavy gold of sunrise. Far below them, midway to the green wall, he
saw a great mass of people. There were hundreds packed about the mouth
of the shaft. He wondered why they were waiting; then the shrill voice
of a crier penetrated the cool morning air. The thousands waited in
silence.
Peter wondered at their dumbness in the face of the news that the man
who had ridden them into blindness, into starvation and death, was no
longer to tyrannize over them.
The crier continued to shout his singsong.
How would the spirit of that mob react to the announcement?
The singsong halted, and for a breathless moment the miners, too, were
silent.
Then a great volume of sound disturbed the morning hush. It swelled in
volume, rose in key--a great thunder, the thunder of laughing voices,
the hysterical joy of a people made free! It filled the valley and
overflowed into the hills, a prolonged wave of happy tumult.