What happened subsequently came to the boy in a succession of odd
surprises which he did not attempt to correlate. Camps sprang up in the
night round the foreign quarter like crops of mushrooms. The soldiers,
their black turbans loosely tied round their heads and their gaily
coloured tunics open on their chests, were of a different breed from any
he had seen before. Sun-blackened, rough and defiant, they brought fear
to every one and no one dared to venture near.
"It is curious," remarked the boy to a chance acquaintance, "that these
should be our own people."
In his eyes they had become a symbol of disaster--something he had never
reckoned with--particularly the small cannon ranged threateningly at two
or three points with a stack of solid shot piled behind. He did not
understand why the world should be turned so topsy-turvy.
One day, when he was out watching one of these camps, there was a
general stir, and the men streamed off in hundreds in one direction. In
his eagerness to learn what it was he went as close as he dared. At
length the crowd parted and then quite distinctly he saw two men of the
Sword Society in their blood-red regalia carrying a human head by the
queue. They swung it about as they walked so that every one could see
it.
He stared as if hypnotized. The two ruffians strutted boastfully along
followed by the soldiery. He guessed that they were visiting the camp in
order to infect the men with their own anarchy. He was not educated
enough to wonder how it came to pass that in the middle of a great
capital, with a vast Palace in the centre, and with Emperor and the
Empresses seated within, assassins should hold such sway. So he remained
just watching and wondering. And when the ruffians with their hideous
trophy had disappeared and there was nothing more to observe, very
slowly and very gravely, he rose to his feet (for he had been lying
down), and made his way back through a deserted alley-way.
At the end of the alley-way there was a foreign sentry, and as he had
seen him only an hour before, there was no occasion for him to be
identified. Nevertheless he drew from his belt his pass--a bit of paper
in a foreign language with a seal on it which always gave him a sense of
importance.
"_T'ai-to ping_ (there are many troops)," he repeated several times,
pointing to the spot he had come from; and then he explained by signs
that there were guns as well. Then with a wave of the hand he was off to
find his master and report what he had seen.
He ran him down in a few minutes since all white men are as easily
traceable in the East as treasure-chests lying on a sea-shore. He was
superintending the building of a long barricade, and labouring there
were all sorts and conditions of men--foreigners in their shirt-sleeves,
servants and respectable people who worked together in silence.
The master listened in silence to his tale, stroking his red beard.
"Good," he said at length, "now go off in another direction, and see if
it is the same thing."
Once beyond this scene of activity the boy's easy manners fled, and he
displayed caution; for all the time be it confessed he was thinking of
that ghastly human head. He hugged the compound-walls of every deserted
house and never failed to peer round each turning. And just as he was
congratulating himself on his methods, he became vaguely aware that some
one was looking at him down a rifle-barrel.
He scurried into a doorway, a little frightened in spite of his natural
courage. But after an interval his curiosity got the better of him and
he determined to try a new line of advance and see who this person was.
This was certainly a new development, he thought. So far the terrorist
methods used had been employed under cover of the dark, and the
decencies of everyday life had been more or less preserved. But now the
soldiery were evidently getting out of hand; and it seemed that at any
moment they might open an attack.
By this time he had worked round to another vantage-point. Very quietly
and carefully he climbed a tree and looked over. There was the man not
fifty feet away. He was lying on his stomach with some loose bricks
piled in front of his head, and he had on the blood-red sash. He was a
marauder evidently waiting to secure a foreigners head, not a regular
soldier.
He remained motionless in the tree observing this ominous figure for
quite five minutes. Then silently and swiftly he dropped to the ground.
Now doggedly, with his head down and his fists tightly clenched he made
his way onward. He threaded his way through a maze of little deserted
lanes until he came out on the vast open street running round the
Imperial Palaces.
He gave a sigh of relief. Here there were people moving--not many but
still some--and towards them he walked quickly as though he craved their
company.
Two men had stopped and were exchanging comments as he approached. He
judged from the blue cloth bundles they carried that they were official
servants from some yamen, and that their conical hats and high boots of
office had just been exchanged for a more plebeian attire.
"Where do you come from?" said one of them, suddenly catching him by the
shoulder, and looking angrily at his feet which were still shod in a
pair of foreign shoes.
"From the East city," he rejoined easily and fluently, pointing behind
him and finding his tongue at once. "I have been sent to find my uncle
who keeps a lantern-shop near the Western Four Arches, as we are all
intimidated by the signs of the approaching battle."
The man looked at him suspiciously.
"And those shoes?"
"My brother robbed them from one of the cursed foreigners, and as my own
were broken I put them on."
"Take them off!" exclaimed the two together.
The boy hesitated. Then with a muttered word he stooped down and flung
them one by one far into the roadway.
"That is good," grunted one of the men, "it is lucky you met us instead
of a member of the Sword Society. He would have given you short shrift.
Everything foreign must indeed be blotted out."
The second man, however, commented on this in the following manner:
"But there is said to be a foreign army only thirty miles away. If they
get into the city it will not go well with us."
The boy picked up this morsel of information ravenously and stored it in
his mind.
"Our people will never allow them to advance," objected the first man.
"There has been continuous fighting for several days, and they will
doubtlessly soon be driven back," agreed the second speaker, unwilling
to be identified with any pessimism.
"Enough," said his companion. "Let us hasten on. It will soon be dark."
Once again the boy was left to his own devices. As soon as they had
turned a corner he went and picked up his shoes and seated himself with
his back to the Palace wall waiting for darkness.
Here was the whole problem made clear at last. The cat was only playing
with the mouse. Until it had been made certain that the mouse could not
escape--that is until the foreign army had been driven away, nothing
would be done against the foreigners in the capital. The relieving army
must be dealt with first.
The boy threw a stone angrily at some crows. Why shouldn't he run away,
too? He played with the thought, and though he rejected it, it came
back again and again. If they were all to be killed, he should go whilst
there was yet time.
He struck his foot sharply down on the ground. No--he would not do it.
He would go back. He had been trusted and he would not fail his trust.
So when it was safe and quiet he crept back and reported what he had
learnt.
After that days went by silently, days resembling one another as do peas
from the same pod. They were beleaguered and yet not beleaguered;
surrounded and yet not surrounded; imprisoned and still free. People
cautiously slipped in and out, and kept in touch with the great city,
and brought in food and news. Yet in spite of this, a heavy and
depressing pall hung over the foreign quarter as though it contained
only condemned persons. Men talked to one another in low voices as if
they were afraid of being overheard. The slightest uncustomary sound
made them start up and strain their ears, so that they might have the
earliest inkling of disaster.
Sometimes Wang the Ninth was infinitely depressed by this paralyzed
life. He would sit idly in a hidden corner with his knees drawn sharply
up and his head between his hands, silently commiserating with himself
as he thought over the myriad rumours, and wondering if he had not been
an arrant fool not to run away as his mates had done. After all he had
only been in foreign service less than two years. He did not owe so
much. He was not like those who had lived half a lifetime among
foreigners and been converted to their faith. He did not want to be
killed and have his head carried around. His compatriots, who had not
run away, were continually using that gloomy and resigned expression:
_fei-tei-ssu_--"we shall surely die." That passivity always brought him
excitedly to his feet like a shot fired in his ear.
"_Wo-pu-ssu_ (I shall not die)," he used to rejoin defiantly. "I shall
find a way--you see."
Then he would march off with his fists energetically clenched and his
ugly features drawn-up in a frown, walking with long, unnatural strides
like the foreigners walked; and the strangers would ask who was this boy
who did not hesitate to express his opinions so rudely in contradiction
to his seniors.
After a number of days something did happen. There was a terrible
commotion, and the boy stood literally with his mouth open because
certain foreigners--a race he thought above common human emotions--ran
from house to house as if possessed and cried out words which seemed to
him like the words of fear.
The news leaked out soon enough so that every one knew it. Twenty-four
hours had been given the foreigners to leave--they were summarily
ordered away, men, women and children irrespective of rank and
occupation. Failing compliance they would be driven away by gunfire.
That was the Imperial pleasure.
Wang the Ninth went blankly among his compatriots trying to find out
whether it was flight or not. He heard it said that carts were being
requisitioned by some foreigners for great sums of money; then almost
immediately he heard the story denied. Some one had ruled that it would
be more dangerous to flee than to stay. They must stay, it was said. He
had the feeling that the mystery was beyond solution. It was evidently
quite impossible to know what was going to happen. Even his master
shook his head. Nobody knew anything worth knowing.
That night passed in confusion.
They were half-way through the next morning when everybody cried that
one of the important foreigners had gone out and been summarily killed.
After that for several hours there was a great tide of weeping and
running about, and the boy felt lost. Nobody paid the slightest
attention to him: every one seemed dazed. In the afternoon, when things
were quieter, the sharp crack of rifles sounded and for the first time
in his life he heard the hard vicious flight of bullets. After some
momentary fear, his natural audacity slowly returned, and he stole near
the barricades trying to find out who was firing and at whom. Stray
shots had hit two of the foreign soldiers at the barricades and also two
of his fellow-countrymen, who sat nursing their hurts like men
infinitely surprised.
He was sent for water for one of the wounded soldiers; and when he came
back he was just in time to see a foreign doctor make a neat cut in the
wounded man's arm, and to the sound of tremendous foreign curses pull
out a thin slip of a bullet with a pair of forceps--a bullet which was
passed from hand to hand and examined as closely as though it were a
jewel.
This facility of curing a wound delighted him. He went round telling his
compatriots that so long as they did not go through your head, these
vaunted bullets were not so terrible after all, as the foreign doctors
could pull them out at will.
But about midnight a big gun started booming and woke him up instantly.
He was too frightened by the noise to do more than to lie listening. He
wondered whether the shells when they fell were more terrible than the
bullets.
It continued in this way until he lost all his earlier sensations. He
even managed to summon up a certain contempt for the cannon which were
old-fashioned and could do little more than frighten people, he was
told. He almost enjoyed the strange life since there were many exciting
moments and many people to talk to. He was constantly used to carry
messages from point to point and whenever any of his compatriots asked
for information he would boldly answer: "I will tell you exactly how
things are. Many thousands are engaged in firing their rifles at us, but
my master says it cannot get any worse and presently a foreign army will
certainly arrive."
The sound of rifle-fire ceased to attract any attention even among the
women and children, save when it rose to a great roar at night. Once
there was great alarm about a fire. As the wind was blowing and it was
very dry and hot, some thought the whole area might be consumed. But the
fire burnt out and that also was forgotten.
Wang the Ninth was no longer allowed any longer to go to the
barricades--in spite of his privileged position, because it was too
dangerous. Once being anxious to see the outer aspect of things he crept
up the towering city wall where there were many foreign soldiers; but
one gave him a cuff over the ear and told him to get down. But he
managed to get back in a few minutes by the simple method of
volunteering to carry up a sack of provisions for some other soldiers.
The soldier who had cuffed him was greatly amused to see him back in
such a capacity. This time, instead of hitting at him, he slapped him
on the shoulder as if he were a friend and gave him a black cigarette to
smoke. When his cigarette was finished, as repayment he commenced
singing in a shrill falsetto a singing girl's song which made him the
hero of the hour as he pretended to be a small-footed woman who was
bashful and who tottered in shame at the mere presence of so many men.
These amenities were suddenly arrested by a succession of sharp sounds
in the air which he knew too well. All the soldiers ran for their rifles
and lay down behind the barricade. Presently they began firing; and the
boy, crawling right up to them on his stomach, asked permission in the
sign language to look through a loophole. This was duly given him; and
rapidly he thrust a sharp eye up to a crack, with a loose brick in his
hand to mask his face as he saw the soldiers do.
For a long time he could see very little and he wondered at whom so many
shots had been fired. Then, slowly, he became aware that just as they
had barricades so had the others. Only the enemy had made his very low,
and had taken such advantage of the shrubbery that only at rare
intervals was it possible to see some vague movement or the flash of a
firearm.
After an hour or so this ceased to be exciting and he abandoned his
loophole. The soldiers were all lying on their backs again and talking
to one another, save for a look-out who knelt unmoving, peering fixedly
for signs of further activity. The bullets hissing over-head sped over
so far away. Sometimes they raised little powder-puffs as they struck
brickwork or soil hundreds of yards beyond their mark, but more often
they disappeared into the unknown. Nevertheless the soldiers would not
let him go down from the city wall. He gathered from their signs that if
he did so he might be seen and draw the enemy's fire. He would have to
wait until dark, they said, pointing to the sun.
That night, however, he never moved either. For after he had assisted
the men lighting little fires on which they boiled their kettles, one
soldier took him aside, and drew out a big black bottle from his pack
and poured out a cup-full of strong spirits. He had one drink himself
and then offered the next to the boy, who to show his familiarity with
foreign things swigged it down quickly although it nearly choked him.
After that he became so sleepy that he lay down.
When he woke he found that a lot of foreigners who were not soldiers had
come up on the wall. They were scanning the southern horizon with
telescopes and field-glasses. When they could see no signals in the
night they drifted away and gradually it became silent and peaceful and
he was left to himself.