THE YELLOW CORD.
"Excellent youth," said the Chinaman, "you pronounce my name. How is
this?"
"I'm Motor Matt," answered the king of the motor boys, "and this is my
chum, Joe McGlory. You asked us to come, and here we are. There's your
letter to me."
Matt opened the written sheet and held it in front of Tsan Ti's face.
The Celestial's face underwent a change. A flicker of hope ran through
the fear and consternation.
"_Omito fuh!_" he muttered, rising slowly to his feet. "The five
hundred gods have covered me with much disgrace, this last hour, but
now they bring me a gleam of hope from the clouds of despair. By the
plumes of the sacred peacock, I bow before you with much gratefulness."
He bowed--or tried to. His ponderous stomach interfered with the
manoeuvre, and he caught a crick in his back--the direct result,
probably, of his recent spill.
"You are here to be of aid to the unfortunate mandarin, are you not,
illustrious sirs?" went on Tsan Ti, leaning against a tree, and
rubbing his right sandal up and down his left shin. Quite likely the
left shin was barked, and the right sandal was affording it consolation.
"First aid to the injured, Tsan," grinned McGlory, getting a good deal
of fun out of this novel encounter.
The cowboy had met many Chinamen, but never before one of this sort.
The experience was mildly exciting.
"Wit," chanted Tsan Ti, "is the weapon of the wise, the idol of the
fool; a runaway knock at laughter's door; arrows from the quiver of
genius; intellectual lightning from the thunder clouds of talent; the
lever of----"
"Sufferin' cats!" exploded McGlory. "What is he talking about? In that
letter, Tsan, you speak about insulting us with a thousand plunks and
expenses. Was that a rhinecaboo or the real thing?"
Without changing his countenance by so much as a line, Tsan Ti lifted
the bottom of his blouse, and unbuttoned the pocket of a leather belt
around his huge girth. From the pocket he took five gold double eagles
in good American money.
"Have I the understanding," he asked, "that you will be of help to my
distress?"
"Tell us, first," answered Matt, a little bewildered by the mandarin's
queer talk and actions, "what it is you want."
"What I want, notable friend, is the Eye of Buddha, the great
ruby which was stolen from the forehead of the idol in temple of
Hai-chwang-sze, in the city named Canton. I, even I, now the most
miserable of creatures, was guardian of the temple when this theft
occurred. I fled to find the thief, and Kien Lung, by order of the Son
of the Morning, our imperial regent, fled after me with that invitation
to death, the yellow cord."
Tsan Ti pointed to the ground where the cord was lying. His flabby
cheeks grew hueless, and he caught his breath.
"An invitation to death?" repeated Matt, staring at the yellow cord.
"It is so, gracious youth," explained Tsan Ti. "When our regent wishes
one of his officials to efface himself, he sends the yellow cord. It is
the death warrant. The card tells me that I have two weeks before it is
necessary that I should strangle myself. This happy dispatch must be
performed unless, through you, I can recover the Eye of Buddha. So runs
the scroll."
"Speak to me about this!" muttered McGlory. "But look here, old man,
you don't have to strangle yourself because some High Mucky Muck, a few
thousand miles off, sends you the thing to do it with, do you?"
"Unless it is done," was the calm response, "I shall be disgraced for
all time, and my memory reviled."
"Oh, blazes! I'd rather be a live Chinaman in disgrace, than a dead one
with a monument a mile high."
"You converse without knowledge," said Tsan Ti.
"That's horse sense, anyhow."
"Let's get at the nub of this thing, Tsan Ti," said Matt, feeling a
deep interest in the strange Chinaman in spite of himself. "You were
in charge of a Canton temple in which was an image of Buddha. That
image had a ruby set in the forehead. The ruby was stolen. You ran
away from China to find the thief, and this Kien Lung, as you call
him, trailed after you with the yellow cord from the regent. The cord
was accompanied by a written order to the effect that, if you did
not succeed in recovering the ruby in two weeks, you must strangle
yourself. Before the cord was delivered to you, you sent that letter to
me."
"What you say is true," answered Tsan Ti. "I have been for a long
period endeavoring to keep away from Kien Lung. I knew what he had
to give me, and I did not want it. Now that I have the cord, you can
understand, out of courtesy I must slay myself--unless, through you, I
regain the Eye of Buddha."
"How did you come to pick _me_ out for an assistant?" went on Matt.
"What you ought to have is a detective. This part of the country is
full of detectives."
"I cannot trust the detectives. The ruby is valuable, and I am a
discredited mandarin in a far country. The detectives would keep the
ruby, and then there would be for me only death by the cord. I read in
the public prints generous and never-to-be-forgotten things about Motor
Matt, and my heart assures me that you are the one, and the only one,
to come to my aid."
"You tune up like a professor," remarked McGlory. "Where'd you corral
so much good pidgin, Tsan?"
"I was educated in one of your institutions of learning," was the
reply. "But, illustrious sirs, shall we return to the hotel on the
mountain top? I have this go-devil machine to pay for. It did not
belong to me. A dozen of the machines were near the porch of the hotel,
where I was drinking tea. I saw Kien Lung coming toward me along the
porch, and I left my tea and sprang to one of the machines. I learned
to ride while I was educating myself in this country. Kien Lung was
also able to ride, but that I did not know until I saw him later. Shall
we go on to the hotel? I am bruised and in much distress."
"We might just as well find out all you can tell us about the Eye of
Buddha before we go to the hotel," returned Matt. "We are by ourselves,
here, and I'd like to get all the information possible."
Tsan Ti picked up the card and the yellow cord. Thoughtfully he twisted
the cord around and around his fat palm and tucked it into the black
box. On the cord he placed the card, and over all closed the box lid.
With a rumbling sigh, he dropped the black box into the breast of his
blouse.
"Foreign devils," said he, once more bracing himself against the tree
trunk, "call the temple of Hai-chwang-sze the Honam Joss House. It is
by the beautiful river, in the suburb named Honam. Around the temple
there is a wall. The avenue of a thousand delights leads from the great
gate to the temple courts, and noble banyan trees shade the avenue. At
vespers, some weeks ago, two foreign devils were present. The hour was
five in the afternoon. One of the foreign devils was English, and wore
a tourist hat with a pugree; the other had but a single eye. Lob Loo, a
priest, told me what happened.
"The Englishman threw a shimmering ball upon the temple floor. Odors
came from it, quick as an eyeflash. Quick as another eyeflash, the
priests reeled where they stood, their senses leaving them. Lob Loo
tells me the foreign devils had covered their faces suddenly with white
masks. Then, after seeing that much, Lob Loo lost his five senses, and
wandered in fields of darkness.
"When Lob Loo opened his eyes, he saw glass fragments on the floor, and
a ladder of silk swinging from the neck of the god. The image, renowned
sirs, is twenty feet in height, and to reach the ruby eye the foreign
devils had to climb. The eye was gone. When Lob Loo told me these
things, I was seized of a mighty fear, and fled to Hongkong. There the
five hundred gods favored me, and I learned that a man in a tourist
hat with a pugree, and another with a single eye, had sailed for San
Francisco. Quickly I caught the next steamer, after sending cable
messages to the leaders of a San Francisco _tong_ who are Cantonese,
and friends of mine. When the ship brought the thieves through the
Golden Gate, some of the _tong_ watched the landing. The thieves were
in San Francisco three days, and Sam Wing followed them when they
left for Chicago, then for New York, and then for these Catskill
Mountains. When I reached San Francisco, the leading men of the _tong_
had telegrams from Sam Wing. By use of the telegrams, I followed, and
arrived here. Wing had left a writing for me at the hotel, telling me
to wait. I waited, but Wing had disappeared. I kept on waiting, and
out of my discouragement, remarkable sir, I wrote to you. That is all,
until this morning, when Kien Lung came with the yellow cord. Two weeks
are left me. If the Eye of Buddha is not found in that time, then"--and
Tsan Ti tapped the breast of his sagging blouse--"all that remains is
the quick dispatch."
Both Matt and McGlory had listened with intense interest to this odd
yarn. Although a heathen, and lately keeper of a heathen temple, the
mandarin was nevertheless a person of culture and of considerable
importance. The sending of the yellow cord was a custom of his country,
and it was evident that he intended to abide by the custom in case the
Eye of Buddha was not recovered within two weeks.
"Shall we turn the trick for him, pard?" asked McGlory. "This palaver
of his makes a bit of a hit with me. I'd hate like Sam Hill to have him
shut off his breath with that yellow cord. If----"
The hum of an approaching automobile reached the ears of those at the
roadside. The machine was coming from above, and Matt pulled the broken
bicycle out of the road.
The boys and the mandarin stood in a group while waiting for the car
to pass. Tsan Ti, seemingly wrapped up in his own miseries, gave no
attention to the car, at first.
There were two passengers in the car--the driver, and another in the
tonneau.
The car, on the down grade, was coming at a terrific clip, and the man
in the tonneau was hanging on for dear life and yelling at the top of
his voice:
"Avast there, mate, or you'll have me overboard! By the seven holy
spritsails----"
The voice broke off and gave vent to a frantic yell. Although the
driver had shut off the power and applied a brake, the car had leaped
into the air when it struck the root.
The man in the tonneau shot straight up into the air for two or three
feet, and Matt and McGlory had a glimpse of a grizzled red face with
a patch over one eye, a fringe of "mutton-chop" whiskers, and a blue
sailor cap.
"The mariner!" came in a clamoring wheeze, from Tsan Ti.
As the automobile whirled past, the mandarin flung himself crazily at
the rear of the tonneau, only to be knocked head over heels for his
pains.
As he floundered in the dust, Matt rushed for his motor cycle.
"Is that one of the two men who stole the ruby?" cried Matt.
"What fortune!" puffed Tsan Ti. "Pursue and capture the villain! If he
has the Eye of Buddha----"
But the rest of it was lost. Matt, followed by McGlory, was tearing
away on the track of the automobile.