1
WHEN Griggsby Doane moved, pain shot through his lame muscle. A vaguely
heavy anxiety clouded his brain, engaged as it still was with the
specters of confusedly ugly dreams.
The speckled area overhead was gradually coming clear; it appeared to
be a plastered ceiling, very small; a little cell of a place... oh, yes,
Elmer Boatwright's room!
Faintly through the open window at the foot of the bed came the sound
of a distant, shot; another; a rattle of them. And other, nearer shots.
Then a slow whistling shriek and a crash. Then the rattle of a machine
gun, quite clear. Then a lull.
He sensed a presence; felt rather than heard low breathing; with an
effort that was as much of the will as of the body he turned his head.
Betty was sitting there, close by the bed, gently smiling. Almost
painfully his slow eyes took her in. She bent over and kissed him, then
her little hand nestled in his big one. They talked a little; he in a
natural enough manner, if very grave, spoke of his joy in finding her
safe. But as he spoke his mind, not yet wholly awake, took on a morbid
activity. Did she know what he had done in the night? Had they told her?
Anxiously, as she answered him, he searched her delicately pretty face.
How young she was! Dwelling amid tragedy, in a degree sobered by it, the
buoyancy of youth glowed in her brown eyes, in the texture of her skin,
in the waving masses of fine hair, in the soft vividness of her
voice; the touch of tragedy would, after all, rest lightly on her slim
shoulders. To her the world was young; of the bitter _impasse_ of middle
age she knew no hint. Men loved her, of course. Men had died for less
than she.... He pondered, swiftly, gloormly, the problem her very
existence presented. And he looked on her and spoke with a finer
tenderness than any he had before felt toward any living creature, even
toward the wife who had left her soul on earth in the breast of this
girl.
He decided that they hadn't told her. After all, they wouldn't. They
were, when all was said, adult folk. He couldn't himself tell her. But
his predicament was pitiful. He knew now, from the honest love in her
eyes, that not the least black of his sins had been the doubting her.
Never again could he do that. But this realization brought him to the
verge of an attitude toward Jonathan Braehey that it was impossible for
him to entertain; the mere thought of that man roused emotions that
he could not control. But emotions, all sorts, must be controlled, of
course; on no other understanding can life be lived. If direct effort of
will is insufficient, then counter-activity must be set up.
Betty protested when he told her he meant to get up at once. But it was
afternoon. He assured her that his wound was not serious; Dr. Cassin had
admitted that, and he had slept deeply. H is muscles were lame; but that
was an added reason for exercise.
They had brought in some of the clothing of the large Australian. As he
pieced out a costume, he shaped a policy He couldn't, at once, fit into
the life of the compound. He couldn't face Brachey. Not yet. The only
hope of getting through these days of his passion lay in keeping himself
desperately active. He weighed a number of plans, finally discarding all
but one. Then he rang for a servant; and sent, while he ate a solitary
breakfast, a chit to M. Pourmont.
2
The engineer received him at three. Neither spoke of the incident that
had brought them together in the night. To Doane, indeed, it was now, in
broad daylight and during most of the time, but a nightmare, unreal and
impossible. During the moments when it did come real, he could only set
his strong face and wait out the turbulence and bewilderment it stirred
in him.
M. Pourmont found him very nearly himself; which was good. He seemed,
despite the bandaged shoulder and the thinner face, the Griggsby Doane
of old. But his proposal---he was grimly bent on it--was nothing less
than to make the effort, that night, to get through to the telegraph
station at Shau T'ing.
M. Fourmunt took the position that the thing couldn't be done. After
losing two natives in the attempt, he had decided to conserve his
meager manpower and fall back on the certain fact that the legations
knew of the siege and were doubtless moving toward action of some sort.
Besides, he added, Duane with his courage and his extensive knowledge
of the local situation was the man above all others he could least well
spare.
Doane, however, pressed his point. “Getting through the lines will be
difficult, but not impossible,” he said. “Remember I did get through
last night. I believe I can do it again to-night. Even if I should be
captured they may hesitate to kill me. I would ask nothing better than
to be taken before Kang. He would have to listen to me, I think. And if
I do succeed in establishing communication with Peking I may be able to
stir them to action. The Imperial Government can hardly admit that
they are backing Kang. It may even be possible to force them, through
diplomatic pressure alone, to repudiate him and use their own troops to
overthrow him. But first Peking must have the facts.”
M. Pourmont smiled.
“If you vill step wiz me,” he said, and led the way down a corridor
to his spacious dining-room. There on the table, stood a large basket
heaped with apples and pears. “Vat you t'ink, Monsieur Doane! But
yesterday comes _un drapeau bianc_ to ze gate viz a let-tair from zis
ol' Kang. He regret vair' much zat ve suffair _ici ze derangement_, an'
he hope zat vair' soon ve are again _confortable_. In Heaven, perhaps he
mean! _Chose donnante!_ An' he sen' _des fruits_ viz ze _compliments
of Son Excellence_ Kang Hsu to Monsieur Pourmont. _Et je vous demande,
qu'est-ce que cela fait?_”
Doane considered this puzzle; finally shook his head over it. It was
very Chinese. Kang doubtless believed that through it he was deluding
the stupid foreigners and escaping responsibility for his savage course.
Finally Doane won M. Pourmont's approval for his forlorn sally. He was,
in a wild way, glad.
During the few hours left to him he must work rapidly, think hard. That,
too, was good. He decided to write a will. If he had little money to
leave Betty, at least there were things of his and her mother's. Elmer
Boatwright would help him. And he must tell Betty he was going. It was
curiously hard to face her, hard to meet the eye of his own daughter. He
winced at the thought.
She had returned to the residence before him. He asked for her now.
M. Pourmont, giving a moment more to considering this man, whom he
had long regarded with a respect he did not feel toward all the
missionaries, wondered, as he sent word to the young lady, what might
underlie that strange quarrel of the early morning. The only explanation
that occurred to him he promptly dismissed, for it involved the
little Mademoiselle's name in a manner which he could not permit to
be considered. M. Pourmont was a shrewd man; and he knew that the
Mademoiselle was ashamed of nothing. Nothing was wrong there. Like his
wife he had already learned to love the busy earnest girl. And then,
leaving M. Doane in the reception-room waiting for her, he returned to
his study and dismissed the whole matter from his mind. For the siege
was cruel business. One by one, some one every day, men and women and
children, were dying. The living had to subsist on diminishing rations,
for he had never foreseen housing and feeding so large a number. There
were problems--of discipline and morale, of tactics, of sanitation, of
burying the dead--that must be met and solved from hour to hour.
On the whole, as he settled again into his endless, urgent task, M.
Pourmont was not sorry that M. Doane had won his consent to this last
desperate effort to reach those inhumanly deliberate white folk up at
Peking; men whose minds dwelt with precedents and policies while
their fellows, down here at Ping Yang, on a hillside, held off with
diminishing strength the destruction that seemed, at moments, certain to
fall.
3
Doane, watching Betty as she entered the room attired in a long white
apron over her simple dress, knew that he must again beg the question
that lay between them. He could no more listen to the burden of her
heart than to the agony of his own. Sooner or later, if he lived, he
would have to work it out, decide about his life. If he lived....
“My dear,” he said, quickly for him, holding her hand more tightly than
he knew, “I have some news which I know you will take bravely.”
He could feel her steady eyes on him. He hurried on. “I am going out
again to-night. There seems a good chance that I may get through to Shau
T'ing, with messages. I'm going to try.”
His desire was to speak rapidly on, and then go. But he had to pause
at this. He heard her exclaim softly--“Oh, Dad!” And then after a
silence--“I'm not going to make it hard for you. Of course I understand.
Any of us may come to the end, of course, any moment. We've just got to
take it as it comes. But--I--it does seem as if--after all you've been
through, Dad--as if--”
He felt himself shaking his head.
“No,” he said. “No. It's my job, dear.”
“Very well, Dad. Then you must do it. I know. But I do wish you could
have a day or two more to rest. If you could”--this wistfully--“perhaps
they'd let me off part of the time to take care of you. You know, I'm
nursing. I'd be stern. You'd have to sleep a lot, and eat just \vhat I
gave you.” She patted his arm as she spoke; then added this: “Of course
it's not the time to think of personal things. But there's one thing
I've got to tell you pretty soon, Dad. A strange experience has come
to me. It's puzzling. I can't see the way very clearly. But it's very
wonderful. I believe it's right--really right. It's a man.”
She rushed on with it. “I wanted you to meet him to-night. He's--out
in the trenches, all day, up the hill. We're expecting word--a
cablegram--when they get through to us. And when that comes, I'd have
to tell you all about it. He'll come to you then. But I--well, I had to
tell you this much. It's been a pretty big experience, and I don't like
to think of going through it like this without your even knowing about
it from me, and knowing, too, no matter what they may say”--her voice
wavered--“that it's--it's--all right.” Her hands reached suddenly up
toward his shoulders; she clung to him, like the child she still, in his
heart, seemed.
He could trust himself only to speak the little words of comfort he
would have used with a child. He felt that he was not helping her;
merely standing there, helpless in the grip of a fate that seemed bent
on racking his soul to the final Emit of his spiritual endurance.
“This won't do,” she said. “I have no right to give way. They need me in
the hospital. I shall think of you every minute, Dad. I'm very proud of
you.”
She kissed him and rushed away. He walked back to Elmer Boatwright's
room fighting off a sense of unreality that had grown so strong as to
be alarming. It was all a nightmare now--the manly dogged faces in the
compound, the wailing sounds from the native quarter, the intermittent
shots, the smells, the very sun that blazed down on the tiling. Nothing
seemed really to matter. He knew well enough, in a corner of his mind,
that this mood was the most dangerous of all. It lay but a step from
apathy; and apathy, to such a nature as his, would mean the end.
So he busied himself desperately. The simple will he left for Boatwright
with instructions that it was to be given to Betty in the event of his
death. It seemed that the little man was one of a machine-gun crew
and could not be reached until well on in the evening; he had turned
fighter, like the others.
He sewed up his tattered knapsack and filled it with a sort of iron
ration. He wrote letters, including a long one to Henry Withery,
addressed in care of Dr. Hidderleigh's office at Shanghai. He framed
with care the messages that were to go over the wires to Peking. He ate
alone, and sparingly. And early, as soon as darkness settled over the
scene of petty but bitter warfare, he clipped out of the compound and
disappeared, carrying no weapon but his walking stick.