"COWARDLY BRUTES!"
Stan had the stout old tea-farmer who owned the place to thank for the
rescue from his extremely awkward position. For, making tremendous use
of his tongue, in words which, if interpreted, undoubtedly would have
proved to mean, "Let the lad get up, you brutes; can't you see that you
are nearly stifling him?" the farmer supplemented his fierce verbal
abuse with blows and thrusts which, in spite of being armed, the
invaders made no attempt to resist. They gave way good-humouredly
enough, evidently being quite satisfied with their capture; and after
taking the precaution to station a spearman at each door and window,
they allowed Stan to rise, and then bound him hand and foot to the
framework of a cane chair, which they planted full in sight in the
middle of the room, before crowding to the well-spread table and making
a raid upon the food.
This evoked another torrent of abuse, in which the farmer was stoutly
aided by two sturdy young fellows--apparently his sons--his fat wife,
and a couple of men.
The farmer seemed to be blessed with a grand vocabulary, and to be well
skilled in giving volleys of abuse; but he might have spared his breath
for all the effect his words had upon Stan's captors. They listened
calmly enough, and as the boy looked on it seemed to him that all the
bullying did was to give the rough party of soldiers an excellent
appetite. In fact, the more the farmer raved the more they ate and gave
orders for the big teapot to be filled; while, when the farmer ceased
shouting, the visitors ceased eating and took out their pipes to a man.
A few minutes later the table had been cleared by the tea-farmer's
people, and a couple of the biggest soldiers rose at an order from their
leader, seized the chair by its two sides, and then heaved together,
lifting it on high and dropping it upon the table, where Stan had the
misery of finding himself the observed of all observers; being treated
as a newly captured foreign devil planted there for inspection, every
man staring hard after precisely the stupid, open-mouthed fashion of
some of our own country louts.
Now and then a remark would be passed by some smoker which brought the
angry blood to the lad's cheeks; for, though not to be exactly
interpreted, its meaning was evidently derisive, and afforded amusement
to the lookers-on at Stan's expense.
"Cowardly brutes!" he muttered; and that was the only satisfaction he
could get, save that of indulging in hopes that Wing was well on his way
to the big city, where he would be sure to get into communication with
some one or other of the principal traders, and from them obtain an
audience with the chief mandarin, who, as a Government official, would
feel himself bound to interfere on behalf of the young Englishman who
had been seized.
And so a couple of hours dragged slowly along, at the end of which time
the prisoner began to come to the conclusion that he had allowed Wing
time to get to the river city, and that when he had patiently waited
another two hours Wing would have fulfilled his mission and be on his
way back with some of the mandarin's guards.
But, to his dismay, Stan found that he was not to wait there till Wing
returned; for all at once the man in command of the rough soldiery
growled out an order, which resulted in a clumsy tumbling together of
the party and the production of two very large, thick bamboo poles.
These were laid right in front of the farmhouse, and then the chair was
seized and lifted down, to be carried out to where the bamboos lay,
these being passed between the legs and there lashed.
"Am I to be turned into a Guy Fawkes?" muttered Stan angrily, as he gave
himself a wrench in his seat to try and loosen his bandages.
But the result was vile. The captain of the party uttered a furious
growl and made-believe to draw his sword, while a couple of his men
seized the prisoner, holding him down fast, and a third dropped upon his
knees and proceeded to tighten the thongs with such savage violence that
the pain turned the lad faint, making him hang back quite lax, with the
great drops of perspiration gathering on his forehead.
It was while everything seemed to be sailing round him that he became
conscious of a peculiar, shaking motion which sharpened the pain he
suffered. But the sickening sensation passed off, and he became fully
conscious, to his great disgust, that he was being made the principal
figure--carried shoulder-high as he was--in a triumphal procession on
its way, so far as he could judge, back towards the great gate, which he
could dimly see towering up in the distance.
They were right out in the country, with rice-fields and plantations in
all directions, so that the inhabitants were scarce; but the people of
the farm closed up as near as his captors would allow, and as they
tramped slowly along, Stan from his elevated, swaying perch could see
men at a distance throwing down the tools with which they were working,
and trotting along with their tails bobbing between their shoulders,
some to overtake, others to meet, and all to join in the procession.
"Why, they treat it as if it were some show--the wretches!" said Stan to
himself. "Ugh! How I should like to give it to some of them! Grinning
at me! Yes, actually grinning at me! Why, I believe they look upon me
as a newly caught foreign devil, and they're following to see me
executed, or--Oh, surely they won't do that!"
A sudden thought had flashed across his brain--an echo or reflection of
something he had read or seen in connection with some poor wretch being
kept as a captive by the Chinese and exhibited in a great bamboo cage.
The first effect of the thought was to send a shiver through him,
chilling him to the bone; the following minute a sensation of heat made
him flush to the temples, and he ground his teeth.
"Yes," he said to himself, "they'd better! No, they daren't. They're
pig-headed enough, but they must know that I'm an Englishman--well, an
English boy, then," he added correctively. "Oh, they daren't! I'm only
my father's son--plain Stanley Lynn--but as soon as they knew at
headquarters they'd send a gunboat to demand me; and--of course--yes,
it's a fine thing to be a British subject, for even if I am only a boy,
our English Minister wouldn't have a hair of my head injured--if he
could help it."
Stan thought this addition to his musings in a very different spirit to
that which had preceded it. One minute he was proud and elated at the
idea that he was an Englishman, with a general touch-me-if-you-dare sort
of sensation making his eyes flash and sparkle and his cheeks glow; the
next he was fully awake to the fact that he was a tightly bound
prisoner, having a most abominable ride to some cage, alone and helpless
among an inimical race of ignorant people who were delighted to see the
predicament he was in--so much alone that, failing Wing, not one would
raise a hand in his behalf. He was quite right about Consul and
Minister and the stupendous machinery that would be set in motion to
rescue his insignificant self, but there was the setting it in motion.
All depended upon Wing.
"But where is Wing?" he said half-aloud, and he wrenched his head round
to look back along the procession, half-expecting to see the poor fellow
aloft in another chair, a prisoner, bound as well.
There was a savage growl at his movement, which made the chair sway, and
_bang_! one of the soldiers brought the spear he shouldered heavily
against the cane frame, making Stan start and then dart an angry glance
at the man.
_Bang_! came the shaft again, and Stan winced once more, but bit his
lips with annoyance, for his captors yelled with laughter, and others
struck at the chair.
They struck in vain now.
"Its to make me squirm--to make the foreign devil squirm," muttered
Stan; "but I'm not going to now. I'd die first."
Whether Stan would have gone as far as he mentally asserted is open to
question, but he was able to maintain sufficient control over himself to
sit fast; not even flinching when, after several heavy blows had been
given, without result, to the chair, one of the most facetious of the
guards--a big, broad-faced, smooth-headed fellow--lowered his spear and
gave the young prisoner a prog with it in the back.
It hurt, for Stan's white flannels were thin; but the poke was not given
with sufficient force to go through the material, and further
manifestations of the kind were put a stop to by a fierce shout from the
captain, though the men all joined in a hearty laugh.
"Brutes!" muttered Stan; and he sat forward, sweeping the country before
him, as he devoted himself to wondering what had become of Wing.
It was evident that he had not been made a prisoner, for he was nowhere
to be seen; and now, as the chair went on, jig, jog--jig, jog, Stan's
brain was agitated by the terrible thought that his poor attendant might
have been struck down badly wounded, if not killed, in the sharp
struggle, for he had no reason to hope that he had escaped.
"If I could only ask!" thought Stan. But he could not. He had picked
up a few words and sentences since he had been in the country, but felt
very doubtful about making himself understood; while, when he did at
last make up his mind for the effort, and leant forward to venture a
question to one of his bearers, all he elicited was a derisive burst of
laughter, interspersed with mocking imitations of his attempts at the
Chinese tongue.
"Brutes!" he muttered again; and he rode on in silence for some time,
till his anxiety to know more of Wing's fate proved too much for him,
and this time he appealed to the soldier who had used his spear.
But the only reply was a menacing gesture, accompanied by a scowl, for
the man had not forgiven him for being the cause of a sharp reproof from
the captain, though it is doubtful whether Stan could have made himself
understood.
Fortunately for the prisoner, the pain he suffered from his blows and
bonds grew more bearable as the procession jogged slowly on; for the sun
was hot, pauses had to be made from time to time to exchange bearers,
and nobody seemed to be in the slightest hurry. The result was that
after a couple of hours' tramp the great gate-tower seemed to be nearly
as far off as ever, and Stan had sunk into a gloomy state of thinking,
in which he divided his time between determining to make the best of
things and forcing himself to take as much notice as he could of the
devious track they followed through the rice-fields, whose beautiful,
tender green seemed to refresh the poor fellow's weary eyes.
"Yes," he said to himself, "I may be able to escape, and I might do
worse than make straight for the farmhouse. The people there are
friendly, and I could reckon upon their helping me to the river and some
boat. Once in a boat with some provisions, I could float down to the
_hong_ easily enough, even if it took days or a week or two because of
my being forced to hide in the reeds by day and only go on by night.
But why go to the farm first when, if I could get to the river from the
town, I could start on at once? I shall see," he muttered; "and there
can be no harm in noticing the country along here. It might be useful
to know. But I wonder what has become of poor old Wing."
He sat on all through the heat of the day, drooping as well as
wondering, but growing more low-spirited as he swayed forward, jog, jog,
jog, jog, in wearisome fashion, and having hard work at times to sit
erect. And but for a couple of halts that were made for the men to rest
and smoke as they lay about in the thick grass at the edge of some
paddy-field, he would have sunk forward as far as his bonds allowed and
fallen into the stupor of exhaustion.
After the last halt, which was greatly prolonged, the way led along a
much more beaten road; and now the great gate seemed to have loomed up
with wonderful suddenness through the hot haze of the Asiatic afternoon.
The sight of the huge building and the walls seemed to give the
prisoner more energy, making him gaze excitedly at what he could see of
the dwarf buildings beyond the encompassing walls, and wonder where the
prison would be situated that was to be his halting-place.
He now recalled, too, the tramp through the darkness of the early
morning with Wing, the way up to the sleeping guards from inside, and
the narrow escape from being taken when the great gate was approached.
It now seemed certain to the lad that they must, after all, have been
seen by some one of the guards, and quietly pursued and trapped at the
farm; and after settling this in his own mind, he turned once more as he
swayed along on his bearers' shoulders to wonder where he would be
imprisoned, questioning himself as to what sort of a place it would be--
whether very strong, high up in a tower, or low down in a dungeon.
Where?
"If poor old Wing were only here!" he groaned to himself as they
approached and passed under the gate. "We could perhaps escape
together. But he must have been killed.--Oh, if I only knew where they
are going to put me!"
His head was feverish from his hot and weary ride, which was fast
bringing on a strange delirium which made him feel as if it were only a
dream after all.
Then it was no dream. Everything was wakeful and a fact, for he knew
where he was to be imprisoned, the bearers halting and setting down his
chair at the beetle-browed entrance of what proved to be the great
guard-room of the gateway tower.