Deep calm followed that night. It was so calm the next morning that it
seemed unnatural. Hardly a soul was abroad in the foreign quarter; and
apart from some dozing foreign sentries at the street-corners, the whole
neighbourhood seemed deserted--particularly that broad leafy
thoroughfare called in the vernacular "The People's Communication,"
along which were grouped the foreigners' houses.
A great exodus of the inhabitants had indeed taken place during the
hours after dawn; and even now it was possible in the side-lanes to see
the last little groups of blue-coated people slinking away--determined
to seek safety no matter how far they had to go. The foreigner was all
very well in times of peace. He was a good paymaster and worth
cultivating. But in the face of murder and outrage, money lost its
value, and safety was the only consideration.
Wang the Ninth, after a short troubled sleep, had gone out and picked
up these facts for himself. By his system of gossiping with all and
sundry, he knew in a few minutes everything that had taken place.
Marvellous tales were recounted to him, gross and palpable exaggerations
all cast in the same mould of fear.... And yet these are the things
people believe in times of excitement, and he believed them too. At last
having exhausted the subject he returned home, only to find that all his
mates, excepting one, had deserted the stables during his absence.
He stood dumbfounded for quite a minute by this development.
"Here's a nice business," he remarked aloud, scratching his ugly face
thoughtfully and coiling up his little queue tightly round his head as a
sign that he was going to set to work. "We have nine ponies and there
are two of us left. Where have these eaters of foreign rice gone?"
The remaining man said nothing. He went on morosely sweeping the
cobblestones. It was only the fact that he came from a distant province
that had prevented him from running at once. But he was meditating
flight as he worked--that was plain.
The boy, reading these things in his sullenness, eyed him distastefully.
"Tomorrow, if not before, I shall be alone," he announced, "Well, I
shall be the senior then, with no small-hearted fellows to show how much
fear there is about."
The man took a step in his direction.
"What do you mean?" he blurted out, making a threatening gesture.
For reply the boy coolly picked up a pitchfork, and assumed a defiant
attitude. He was nearly sixteen now, and although small was muscular and
as quick as lightning.
"What is your Honourable intention?" he inquired mockingly, making a
thrust or two in the air in the manner of native gymnasts as if he
proposed to impale his adversary. "Do you wish to fight?"
The man eyed him for a few seconds. Then, in the face of this determined
attitude, he retreated, cursing his opponent under his breath. Wang the
Ninth threw down his pitchfork and went on with his work.
"A dog like the rest," he remarked, now thoroughly aroused. "He will
disappear too. Who cares! Look here--you fellow--come near me again and
I will hurl a brick in your face. Such as you are not required--your
places will be filled when the appointed hour comes."
He began mixing the feed in basket after basket with the skill of long
practice. The ponies, tied to a long rope stretched across the
stable-yard, eyed this process anxiously with much whinnying and
stamping of hoofs.
When he had finished he was tired and sweating profusely, but pride kept
him from confessing that the work was too much. He seated himself on a
watering-trough, and stripping off his well-worn coat, pinched the brown
skin on his arms and chest in a mechanical way. Presently he sighed as
he realized that the last man had also disappeared.
"It's a bad business," he remarked aloud.
"What's a bad business?" said his master, appearing a little
unexpectedly, and making him scramble to his feet. For the steward
having been informed by the gatekeeper that the others had left, had
communicated the information to the master in the non-committal form
that there was "trouble in the stables."
"The others have fled," announced the boy in his democratic manner. "I
was just thinking aloud that it would be no easy matter to attend to my
work, Your Honour."
His master reflected a bit and then said:
"It is unimportant. All these ponies will be taken away soon. They will
be wanted as food."
"As food!" echoed this child of the Chinese ghetto, his eyes round with
astonishment and his squat, flat nose pointing upwards.
"We will all be hungry soon enough," was the master's grim rejoinder.
Then he was silent for a long while as he looked at the ponies and
patted one or two, saying at last:
"Stay here until our soldiers come this evening to lead the ponies away.
When that is over, come and find me."
In the evening the foreign soldiers came--a small party who spoke not a
word of the language of the country. But they consulted a paper, and
then held up nine fingers and slapped Wang the Ninth on the back and
pointed into the stables, all of which was very intelligible to him.
"_Li-t'ou_ (in there)," he said, nodding vigourously and laughing at
them. Three men detached themselves from the others and each came out in
a minute leading three animals.
When the party had gone and the stables were completely empty, the boy
felt depressed--he was no longer "high-hearted" as he expressed it. Not
that he was lonely. No Chinese is ever really lonely although,
paradoxically, they are the most gregarious race on earth. But this
dropping away of everybody impressed him unfavourably. It had the
flavour of ruin about it--it was like the loss of much money. He
remembered his master's injunction to seek him as soon as the ponies
were gone; but somehow he had no desire to move.
He went into his tiny sleeping place, and fetched out from under the
coverlet a little bamboo flute; and seating himself on the
watering-trough, with his knees drawn up under him and his elbows
resting on them, began playing fragments of plaintive tunes picked up
in days gone by. He kept this up for a long time repeating little trills
and mournful notes because they gave him odd pleasure. In the growing
dusk the sparrows hopped nearer and nearer, stealing grain that had
fallen on the cobblestones from the last feed he had mixed, and never
paying any attention to him and his music. They fitted into the evening
as a shadow fits under a tree, and were there because the tree was
there.
At last he tired of it, and desisted. Quickly he cooked his evening meal
of millet and cabbage, and boiled some tea. When he had finished he
changed his tunic and put on his foreign hat and his riding-gaiters.
"It is time," he announced to himself.
He went off slowly, stopping whenever anything attracted his attention,
and playing for a few minutes with a dog. But presently, in spite of
these delays, he reached the house and slowly walked round to the back.
He peered into the kitchen and the pantry, but everybody was busy. The
master was already having dinner and there were guests. In the most
indifferent manner he marched to the front of the house; then on to the
verandah outside the dining-room.
The master was sitting at the head of the table; with him were five or
six foreign gentlemen, all eating and drinking and talking and waving
their hands.
He coughed and moved forward into the light.
"Who is that?" called the master.
"It is I," he said, stepping into the room and standing there without
awkwardness. "The foreign soldiers have taken away the ponies as ordered
and now I await fresh commands."
He noted without surprise that the guests had firearms with them and
that the dinner was being served not by the steward and his assistants,
but by two coolies who were working awkwardly and noisily. He had the
feeling that the natural order of things had come to an end.
The master was explaining to the others something about him; but his
foreign talk was unintelligible to the boy. He guessed, however, that it
was not to his discredit from the glances cast at him. He fidgetted a
bit, more because he was unaccustomed to standing still than from any
other feeling.
"I have just been telling these gentlemen," said his master at length,
"that you are worthy of confidence because you have not run off. From
today you will be paid a man's full wages."
The boy flushed:
"Money is unimportant. I am content to remain because it would be
foolish for me to go away."
The master shook his head:
"Nevertheless you shall be paid as a man. These are your duties for the
time being. To watch and report all you can find out. Find me and tell
me everything you can learn. Do you understand?"
"Yes, your honour," said the boy very gravely. "That is all?"
When he was safe by himself in the darkness of the compound the boy gave
a hop, skip, and a jump, and then rushed madly round as if he were a
four-footed animal.
He was to get man's pay and to do as he pleased. This meant at least
eight dollars a month--eight dollars when he had been only getting
three.
It was almost greater than he could bear.