So two winters passed and the boy grew. He was wandering about one of
the market-places when he caught his first glimpse of the thing which
brought the great crisis in his life and fulfilled his destiny. A crowd
had gathered in one corner, and was increasing with such rapidity that
it was impossible even to guess what they were looking at. By dint of
wriggling and pushing, he finally managed to work his way through and
see what was causing the excitement.
In a small open space, a youth of about his age and size, stripped to
the waist, was standing in the rigid posture adopted by native athletes
before they do some feat of skill. But it was not this which attracted
the crowd: it was the fact that he had grasped in his hands a naked
sword which he held within two inches of his eyes. Staring at the
glittering edge with savage intentness he muttered a stream of
unintelligible words, which fell from his lips rhythmically as in an
incantation.
In the midst of the deepest silence the people watched with awe-struck
looks, no man moving. Gradually the boy's face was assuming an ashen
hue. The intensity of his stare was such that the glittering sword
hypnotized him. Now he began to sway rhythmically; his lips gradually
ceased moving, and the heavy sword trembled and swung in his hands.
Sheer will-power held him to the ordeal. Then the appointed end came
with dramatic suddenness. With a lurch he fell stiff and rigid to the
ground. There he lay insensible, his mouth wide open as if uttering a
soundless scream.
"What is it?" whispered Wang the Ninth under his breath to his nearest
neighbour, a butcher with the leather apron of his trade still attached
to him.
The man looked down at him in a troubled way.
"_I-ho-ch'uan_, the Sword Society," he said abruptly.
A confederate of the boy, who had been standing to one side, now
approached. Quickly picking up the fallen sword, he stabbed the boy in
the muscles of the arm as he lay there. There was no blood.
"Bear witness," he exclaimed in a thick voice, waving the sword
defiantly. "All who embrace the belief need fear no guns or swords."
He swung round to show his red girdle and the amulet on his chest. Necks
were craned; no eye missed these details. These were the insignia which
soon were to cause an ancient dynasty to totter to its grave.
On the ground the neophyte lay steeped in the deepest unconsciousness.
The crowd had reached the greatest proportions. Packed suffocatingly
together, they watched every gesture and every development, chained to
the spot by a subtle hysterical impulse. A keen observer might have said
that they had long been waiting for this message. Wang the Ninth stood
like the rest consumed with curiosity, until suddenly the neophyte on
the ground slightly stirred. Now his eyes opened; he raised himself with
a start; and then suddenly sprang to his feet as if possessed. He made a
number of dramatic athletic gestures, as his leader touched him on the
arm.
"I am born anew," he exclaimed loudly. "My body has received a spirit. I
go to the Temple to receive my new name." Then, before most of them
could see what had happened, the men with the blood-girdles, had forced
a passage through the crowd, taking the neophyte with them to the Temple
to receive his baptism.
That night in the stables Wang the Ninth sat up very late telling his
mates what he had seen, and indulging in pantomime to demonstrate
exactly what had taken place. The rites had strangely impressed him.
"The sword is held close to the eyes like that," he said, showing them
with a stick. "Certain powers are given: otherwise how comes it that the
sword draws no blood?"
The others had nothing to say. They were like children confronted by the
unknown. They were mystified, and attracted as well. Yet all sensed
danger; in their rough way they declared it "was not a good business,"
particularly for those in foreign employ.
The next day, at the first idle moment, they all sallied out to see if
there would be any repetition of the demonstration. All in the foreign
quarter were talking of the matter; for many foreigners' servants had
witnessed what had taken place the previous day and were also dimly
disturbed. But to their relief they learnt that the matter had been
reported to the authorities, and that fearing disturbances the new
brotherhood had been warned to keep outside the city limits. They were
now practising, it was said, on the sands outside the city walls.
For some days nothing happened and the idle talk began to die down. Then
one afternoon all the stable-hands were requisitioned to ride with their
master; and Wang the Ninth went to riding a white pony.
They sallied out of the city after their wont in a compact body. That
day it was the master's whim to ride far and wide--into the country
where a whole valley is given up to the walled burial-places of princes
and other great dead. It was evening ere they turned back, the master
leading the way home on his big black horse.
Just outside one of the city gates they came on a group of men standing
in a little knot. They had a banner with them stuck in the ground. Wang
the Ninth instantly recognized what it was.
"The new Brotherhood," he called so excitedly that the master heard him
and reined in.
"Where?" he began in the vernacular, although the question was
unnecessary. For the men had caught sight of him, and were roundly and
bitterly cursing him as a foreign devil who merited death.
Without a word he rode slowly up to them. A youth with a sword in his
hand had just commenced the posturing and the incantations, but
something made him stop and watch the oncoming horseman as the others
were doing. Without a word or an indication of his proposed action, the
red-bearded master rode slowly towards the group who no longer dared to
curse. When he was a few yards away, he suddenly drove his heels into
his horse and was down on them before they knew what had happened. The
lash of his mighty hunting-crop whistled through the air and caught the
boy stripped to the waist, leaving a blood-red weal which made him
shriek. Now as they fled he pursued them, lashing until he was
exhausted. Then, slowly he rejoined his own people, who had not stirred
or uttered a word.
"It will come," he said, breathing heavily from his exertions. "It will
come; it will come everywhere--it will infect the whole city. I who have
lived here long know." Then without further ado he resumed his way home
as if nothing had happened.
This episode was more exciting to Wang the Ninth than his first
initiation had been.
"The master is a man," he said that evening gleefully again and again.
"He will not be afraid. And I who serve him am not afraid either."
Still fear came into the city gates very soon after that. It slipped in
mysteriously just as the first practisers of the strange rites had come.
A vague and curious blanket of apprehension settled visibly on every
one, and made men afraid to look their fellows in the face. For once in
their lives their garrulous tongues were stilled, and they sat waiting
in silence. It was one of the most curious phenomena which has ever
been seen--quite inexplicable save on the ground that certain processes
of the human mind, which are common to us all, are sometimes induced in
such powerful waves that none are capable of resisting them. The
development of the drama was taking place as it were behind the scenes,
yet understood by everybody. A million people in the capital waited
obediently like hostages to learn their fate.
One morning it was reported that carts full of swords had passed in
through the city gates with inscriptions boldly displayed on banners in
blood-red characters. The city guards had not dared to interfere, the
scattered crowd following the carts full of awe as though they were
tumbrils bearing condemned men to the gallows. It was generally seen and
noted how this curious convoy made its way to a big Temple, disappearing
inside and giving no clue as to what was to follow.
The sight of those great stacks of swords redoubled all fears. But who
was to do anything? There was the emperor and all his ministers inside
the great Palace to govern the land; for the common people there was
nothing to do but to tremble and submit.
Yet even these developments were distant and irrelevant compared with
what Wang the Ninth saw going on around him. He was filled with surprise
and suspicion. For his fellow-servants no longer wore anything
foreign--they had carefully removed everything that might indicate that
they were in foreign service. With his quick eyes he noticed not only
what they did openly, but what they wished to conceal. Being wise beyond
his years he said nothing but watched everybody and everything in the
compound with the eyes of a hawk.
Just as this critical moment, a development took place which shook even
his great self-confidence. Being sent on an errand far beyond the
foreign quarter, he deliberately dressed himself up in his foreign boots
and gaiters, and put on his head an old felt hat which was the common
property of the stable. He was not a quarter of a mile away from his
master's house when without notice his hat was struck off his head and
he was hustled out of the way. Then a cry arose which was repeated from
mouth to mouth in a parrot-like way, and which so strangely affected him
that his wits deserted him. He was called a _san-mao-tzu_, a third
category foreigner--_i.e._, one who eats foreign rice. He felt he was
surrounded by something worse than anger--something too big to be swept
aside by retorts. When he made his way home, his spirit of bravado had
utterly disappeared.
He asked at once to be admitted to the master's presence, saying that he
had an important story to tell. The old steward consented without
discussion--a thing he would never have done if the world had not been
so upside down. The boy went in breathless and standing there told the
master exactly what had taken place so that the warning should be
understood.
His red-bearded master leaned back in his chair and watched him
reflectively. The boy was surprised to see that his master's bright red
hair was shot with grey.
"And were you afraid?" he asked slowly and deliberately.
The boy hesitated and then shook his head.
"It was not fear that I felt," he said in his frank, rough vernacular.
"Yet it is troubling, to come so suddenly and for no reason. The others
had removed everything that might give cause for offence. Even watches,
it is said, are considered dangerous. But I had not believed it. It is a
new thing--and some say that it will be necessary for all of us to go--"
His master sat immersed in thought. Then he asked:
"And you, will you follow the example of the others?"
Wang the Ninth felt that his reputation was at stake. Still there was no
doubt or hesitation in his reply:
"How can I forget that Your Honour's house gave me employment and food
when I was in want? Whither should I flee even if there were the great
danger since I am without parents?"
The master looked at him with approval.
"Show caution," he remarked. "It is wise to show caution now--"
Outside the house Wang the Ninth found all the servants already gathered
together discussing what had happened.
"_San-mao-tzu_--third-class barbarians," they repeated sullenly. "This
is a nice business for us who only earn a bare living."
They were plainly frightened. Those who had wives and children in
distant parts of the city spoke of the necessity of going. If this
suspense continued, the majority would certainly flee. Only the men from
the South would not move. For they were strangers, too, that is
quasi-foreigners, who feared the mob because of their different speech.
Presently, in a day or two, some foreign soldiers arrived. But there
were not many. It was said that thousands might soon come. That night,
however, a secret exodus began from all native households scattered
throughout the foreign quarter. In carts and on foot the people hastened
silently away, abandoning their homes because of their location. The
foreigner was becoming accursed--it was not good to continue living near
him. The sombre depression grew as before a great disaster. A sudden
noise would make every one cease work to see what had happened.
Discipline was so relaxed that Wang the Ninth was permitted to go and
come as he chose, even the head-groom never chiding him. So the thing
developed, slowly yet rather fast, the elements of evil gathering from
afar under cover of the dark.