1
MOST of the day, advised by Brachey. Betty kept closed the swinging
litter doors. The little caravan settled into the routine of the
highway, the muleteers trudging beside their animals. The gait was a
steady three miles an hour. John rode his pack-saddle hour after hour,
until six' o'clock in the evening, without a word. Just behind him,
the cook, a thin young man with dreamy eyes, sang quietly a continuous
narrative in a wailing, yodling minor key.
Before the end of the first hour they had lost sight of T'ainan-fu and
buried themselves in the hills; buried themselves in a double sense, for
wherever water runs in Northwestern China the roads are narrow canyons.
At times, however, the way mounted high along the hillsides, on narrow
footways of which the mules all instinctively trod the outer edge.
Brachey found it alarming to watch the litter as it swayed over some
nearly perpendicular precipice. For neither up here on the hillsides nor
along the path nor in the depths below was there a sign of solid rock;
it was all the red-brown earth known as loess, which is so fine that it
may be ribbed into the pores like talc or flour and that packs down
as firmly as chalk. Along the sunken ways were frequent caves, the
dwelling-places of crippled, loathsome beggars, with rooms cut out
square and symmetrical doors and windows.
In the high places one might look across a narrow chasm and see,
decorating the opposite wall, strata of the loess in delicately varied
tints of brown, red, Indian red and crimson, with blurred soft streaks
of buff and yellow at times marking the divisions.
The hills themselves were steep and crowded in, as if a careless
Oriental deity had scooped together great handfuls of brown dice and
thrown them haphazard into heaps. Trees were so few--here and there one
might be seen clinging desperately to a terrace-wall where the narrow
fields of sprouting millet and early shoots of vegetables mounted tier
on tier to the very summits of the hills--that the general effect was of
utter barrenness, a tumbling red desert.
Much cf the time they were winding through the canyons or twisting about
the hillsides with only an occasional outlook wider than a few hundred
yards or perhaps a half-mile, but at intervals the crowded little peaks
would separate, giving them a sweeping view over miles of shadowy red
valleys.... At such times Betty would open one of her windows a little
and lean forward; riding close behind, Brachey could see her face,
usually so brightly alert, now sad, peeping out at the richly colored
scene.
Frequently they passed trains of camels or asses or carts, often on
a precipice where one caravan hugged the loess wall while the other
flirted with death along the earthen edge. But though the Hansean or
Chihlean muleteers shouted and screamed in an exciting confusion of
voices and the Mongol camel drivers growled and the ponies plunged, no
animal or man was lost.
Nearly always the air was heavy with fine red dust. It enveloped
them like a fog, penetrating clothing, finding its way into packs and
hand-bags. At times it softened and exquisitely tinted the view.
At long intervals the little caravan wound its slow way through villages
that were usually built along a single narrow street. In the broader
valleys the villages, gray brown and faintly red like the soil of which
their bricks had once been moulded, clung compactly to hill-slopes
safely above the torrents of spring and autumn, each little settlement
with its brick or stone wall and its ornamental pagoda gates, and each
with its cluster of trees about some consequential tomb rising above the
low roofs in plumes of pale green April foliage.
Nowhere was there a sign of the disorder that was ravaging the province
like a virulent disease. Brachey was aware of no glances of more
than the usual passing curiosity from slanting eyes. He saw only the
traditional peaceful countryside of the Chinese interior.
This sense of peace and calm had an effect on his moody self that
increased as the day wore on. Life was turning unreal on his hands.
His judgment wavered and played tricks with memory. Had it been so
dangerous back there in T'ainan? Could it have been? He had to look
steadily at the ragged, trudging figure of the erstwhile elegant Mr. Po
to recapture a small degree of mental balance.... He had brought Betty
away. He saw this now with a nervous, vivid clarity for what it was,
an irrevocable act. It had come about naturally and simply; it had felt
inevitable; yet now at moments, unable to visualize again the danger
that had seemed terribly real in T'ainan he felt it only as the logical
end of the emotional drift that had carried the two of them far
out beyond the confines of reason. It was even possible that Mrs.
Boatwright's judgment was the better.
But Betty couldn't go back now; they had turned her off; not unless
her father should yet prove to be alive, and that was hardly thinkable.
Anxiously during the day, he asked Mr. Po about that. But Mr. Po's
confidence in the accuracy of his information was unshakable. So here he
was, with a life on his hands, a life so dear to him that he could
not control his mind in merely thinking of her there in the litter,
traveling along without a question, for better or worse, with himself;
a life that perhaps, despite this new spirit of consecration that was
rising in his breast, he might succeed only in injuring. Brooding thus,
he became grave and remote from her.
In his distant way he was very considerate, very kind. During the
afternoon, as they moved up a long valley, skirting a broad watercourse
where peach and pear trees foamed with blossoms against the lower slopes
of the opposite hills, he persuaded her to descend from the litter
and walk for a mile or two with him. He felt then her struggle to keep
cheerful and make conversation, but himself lacked the experience with
women that would have made it possible for him to overcome his own
depression and brighten her, Once, when the caravan stopped to repack
a slipping saddle, he asked her to sketch the view for him. It was his
idea that she should be kept occupied when possible. He always corrected
his own moods in that disciplinary manner. But just then his feelings
were running so high, his tenderness toward her was so sensitively deep,
that he spoke bruskly.
They rode on through the sunset into the dusk. The red hills turned
slowly purple under the glowing western sky, swam mistily in a
world-wide sea of soft dame.
Betty opened her windows wide now; gazed out at this scene of unearthly
beauty with a sad deep light in her eyes.
2
They rode into another village. A soldier galloped on ahead to inspect
the less objectionable inn. He reappeared soon, and the caravan jingled
and creaked into a courtyard and stopped for the night. John dismounted
and plunged into argument with the innkeeper. The cook set to work
removing a pack-saddle. Coolies appeared. The mules were beaten to their
knees. Brachey threw his bridle to a soldier and helped Betty out of
the litter. Then they stood, he and she, amid the confusion, her hand
resting lightly on his arm, her eyes on him.
Here they were! He felt now her loneliness, her sadness, her--the word
rose--her helpless dependence upon himself. She was so helpless! His
heart throbbed with feeling. He couldn't look down at her, standing
there so close. He couldn't have spoken; not just then. He was
struggling with the impractical thought that he might yet protect her
from the savage tongues of the coast; from himself, even, when you came
to it. The depression that had been pulling him down all day was turning
now, rushing up and flooding his fired brain like a bitter tide. He
shouldn't have let her come. It had been a beautiful impulse; her quiet
determination to give her life into his hands had thrilled him beyond
his deepest dreams of happiness, had lifted him to a plane of devotion
that he remembered now, felt again, even in his bitterness, as utter
beauty, intensified rather than darkened by the tragic quality of the
hour. But he shouldn't have let her come. Mightn't she, after all, have
been as safe hack there in the mission compound? What was the
matter?... He hadn't thought of her coming on with him alone. That had
simply happened. It was bewildering. Life had swept them out of
commonplace safety, and now here they were! And nothing to do but go on,
go through!
“Oh, I left my bag in there,” he heard her saying, and himself got it
quickly from the litter.
Then John came. The “number one” rooms were to be theirs, it seemed;
Betty's and his.... If only he could talk to her! She needed him so !
Never, perhaps, again, would she need him as now, and he, it seemed, was
failing her. Silently he led her up the steps of the little building at
the end of the courtyard and into the corridor; peered into one dim room
and then into the other; then curtly, roughly ordered John to spread for
her his own square of new matting.
Her hand was still on his arm, resting there, oh, so lightly. She seemed
very slim and small.
“It's a dreadful place,” he made himself say. “But we'll have to make
the best of it.”
“I don't mind,” he thought she replied.
“Perhaps we'd better have dinner in here, It's a little cleaner than my
room.”
She glanced up at him, then down: “I don't believe I can eat anything.”
“But you must.”
“I--I'll try.”
“I'll ask Mr. Po to come in with us. He is a gentleman. And perhaps it
would be better.”
“Oh, yes,” said she, “of course.”
“Here's John with hot water. I'll leave you now.”
“You'll--come back?”
“For dinner, yes.”
With this he gently withdrew his arm. As she watched him go her eyes
filled Then she closed her door.
Brachey found Mr. Po curled on the ground against a pack-saddle, smoking
a Chinese pipe.
He rose at once, all smiles, and bowed half-way to the ground. But he
thought it inadvisable to accept the invitation.
“I hate to be fly in ointments,” he said, with his curiously
dispassionate quickness and ease of speech, “but it's really no go. Our
own men would play game of thick and thin blood brother, but to village
gossip monger I must remain muleteer and down and out person of no
account. It's a dam' sight safer for each and every one of us.”
3
Betty tried to set the dingy room to rights. John had laid a white
cloth over the table, and put out Brachey's tin plate and cup, his
knife, fork and spoon, an English biscuit tin and a bright little
porcelain jar of Scotch jam that was decorated with a red-and-green
plaid. These things helped a little. She tidied herself as best she
could; and then waited.
For a time she sat by the table, very still, hands folded in her lap;
but this was difficult, for thoughts came--thoughts that spun around
and around and bewildered her--and tears. The tears she would not
permit. She got up; rearranged the things on the table; moved over to
the window, and through a hole in one of the paper squares watched with
half-seeing eyes the coolies and soldiers and animals in the courtyard.
Her head ached. And that wheel of patchwork thoughts spun uncontrollably
around.
For a little time then the tears came unhindered. That her father, that
strong splendid man, could have been casually slain by vagabonds in a
Chinese city seemed now, as it had seemed all day, incredible. His loss
was only in part personal to her, so much of her life had been lived
on the other side of the world; but childhood memories of him rose, and
pictures of him as she had lately seen him, grave and kind and (since
that moving little talk about beauty and its importance in the struggle
of life) lovable. Her mother, too, had to-day become again a vivid
memory. And then the sheer mystery of death twisted and tortured her
sensitive Pagination, led her thoughts out into regions so grimly, darkly
beautiful, so unbearably poignant, that her slender frame shook with
sobs.
The sensation of rootlessness, too, was upon her. But now it was
complete. There was no tie to hold her to life. Only this man on whom,
moved by sheer emotion, without a thought of self, yet (she thought now)
with utter unreasoning selfishness, she had fastened herself.
Mrs. Boatwright had called her bad. That couldn't be true. She couldn't
picture herself as that. Even now, in this bitter crisis, she wasn't
hard, wasn't even reckless; simply bewildered and terribly alone.
Emotion had caught her. It _was_ like a net. It had carried her finally
out of herself. There was no way back; she was caught. Yet now the only
thing that had justified this step--and how simple, how easy it had
appeared in the morning!--the beautiful sober passion that had drawn
her to the one mate, was clouded. For he had changed! He had drawn
away. They were talking no more of love. She couldn't reach him; her
desperately seeking heart groped in a dim wilderness and found no one,
nothing. His formal kindness hurt her. Nothing could help her but love;
and love, perhaps, was gone.
So the wheel spun on and on.
She saw him talking with the indomitably courteous Mr. Po. He came
back then to the building they were to share that night. She heard him
working at his door across the narrow corridor, trying to close it.
He succeeded; then stirred about his room for a long time; a very long
time, she thought.
Then John came across the court from the innkeeper's kitchen with
covered dishes, steaming hot. She let him in; then, while he was setting
out the meal, turned away and once more fought back the tears. Brachey
must not see them. She was helped in this by a sudden mentally blinding
excitement that came, an inexplicable nervous tension. He was coming;
and alone, for she had seen Mr. Po shake his head and settle back
contentedly with his pipe against the pack-saddle.... That was the
strange fact about love; it kept rushing unexpectedly back whenever her
unstable reason had for a little while disposed of it; an unexpected
glimpse of him, a bit of his handwriting, a mere thought was often
enough. Sorrow could not check it; at this moment her heart seemed
broken by the weight of the tragic world, yet it thrilled at the
sound of his step. And it couldn't be wholly selfish, for the quite
overwhelming uprush of emotion brought with it a deeper tenderness
toward her brave father, toward that pretty, happy mother of the long
ago; she thought even of her school friends. She was suddenly stirred
with the desire to face this strange struggle called living and
conquer it. Her heart leaped. He was coming!
His door opened. He stepped across the corridor and tapped at hers. She
hurried to open it. All impulse, she reached out a hand; then, chilled,
caught again in the dishearteringly formal mood of the day, drew it
back.
For he stood stiffly there, clad in black with smooth white shirt-front
and collar and little black tie. He had dressed for dinner.
She turned quickly toward the table.
“John has everything ready,” she said, now quite as formal as he. “We
may as well sit right down.”
4
For a time they barely spoke. John had lighted the native lamp, and it
flickered gloomily in the swiftly gathering darkness, throwing a huge
shadow of him on the walls, and even on the ceiling, as he moved softly
in his padded shoes about the table and in and out at the door.
Betty's mood had sunk, now at last, into the unreal. She seemed to be
living through a dream of nightmare quality--something she had--it
was elusive, haunting--lived through before. She saw Jonathan Brachey
distantly, as she had seen him at first, so bewilderingly long ago on
a ship in the Inland Sea of Japan. She saw again his long bony nose,
coldly reflective eyes, firmly modeled head.... And he was talking,
when he spoke at all, as he had talked on the occasion of their first
meeting, slowly, in somewhat stilted language, pausing interminably
while he hunted about in his amazing mind for the word or phrase that
would precisely express his meaning.
“There is a village a short distance this side of Ping Yang, Mr. Po
tells me”... here a pause... “not an important place. Ordinarily we
should pass through it about noon of the day after to-morrow. But he
has picked up word that a Looker band has been organized there, and
he thinks it may be best for us to...” and here a pause so long as to
become nearly unbearable to Betty. For a time she moved her fork idly
about her plate, waiting for that next word. At length she gave up,
folded her hands in her lap, tried to compose her nerves. After that she
glanced timidly at him, then looked up at the waveing shadows on the
dim veils. It was almost as if he had forgotten she was there. He was
interested, apparently, in nothing in life except those words he sought:
“... to make a detour to the south.”
Betty drew in a deep breath. She felt her color coming slowly back. The
'best thing to do, she decided, was to go on trying to eat. He had been
right enough about that. She must try. It was, in a way, her part of it;
to keep strong. Or she would be more hopelessly than ever fastened on
him.... It seemed to her as never before a dreadful thing to be a woman.
Tears came again, and she fought them back, even managed actually to
eat a little. “It will mean still another....”
“Another what?” She waited and waited.
“Another night on the road, after tomorrow. I am sorry.”
[Illustration: 0273]
She had lately forgotten the slightly rasping quality in his voice,
though it had been what she had first heard there. Now it seemed to her
that she could hear nothing else.... What blind force was it that had
thrust them so wide apart; after those ardent, tender, heart-breaking
hours together at T'ainan; wonderful stolen hours, stirring her to a
happiness so wildly beautiful that it touched creative springs in her
sensitive young soul and released the strong eager woman there. This,
the present situation, carried her so far beyond her experience, beyond
her mental grasp, that, she could only sit very quiet and try to weather
it. She could do that, of course, somehow. One did. It came down simply
to the gift of character. And that, however undeveloped, she had.
Now and then, of course, clear thoughts flashed out for a moment; but
only for a moment at a time. She sensed clearly enough that his whole
being was centered on the need of protecting her. It was the fineness in
him that made him hold himself so rigidly to the task. But it was a task
to him; that was the thing. And his reticence! It was his attitude--or
was it hers?--that had made frank talk impossible all day, ever since
their moment of perfect silent understanding facing Mrs. Boatwright. He
had felt then, with her, that she had to come, that it was their only
way out; but now he, and therefore she, was clouded with afterthoughts.
They had come to be frank enough about their dilemma, back there at
T'ainan. But from the moment of leaving the city gate and striking tiff
into the hills, they had lost something vital. And with every hour of
this reticence, this talking about nothing, the situation was going to
grow worse. She felt that, even now; struggled against it; but tound
herself moving deeper, minute by minute, into the gloom that had settled
on them.... And back of her groping thoughts, giving them a puzzling
sort of life, was excitement, energy, the sense of being borne swiftly
along on a mighty wave of feeling--swiftly, swiftly, to a tragic, dim
place where the withered shadows of youth and joy and careless laughter
caught at one in hopeless weakness and slipped off unheeded into the
unknown.
They came down at last to politeness. They even spoke of the food;
and he reproved John for not keeping the curried mutton hot. And then,
without one personal word, he rose to go. She rose, too, and stood
beside her chair; she couldn't raise her eyes. She heard his voice
saying, coldly she thought:
“I shall leave you now. You must...”
She waited, holding her breath.
“... you must get what sleep you can. I think we shall have no trouble
here.”
After this he stood for a long moment. She couldn't think why. Then he
went out, softly closing the door after him. Then his door opened, and,
with some creaking of rusty hinges and scraping on the tiles, closed.
And then Betty dropped down by the table and let the tears come.