CHAPTER ONE
THE WANDERER
With thoughtful, tireless touch, the Unknown nursed the Breton through
the fever that had fastened upon him the night he had cast aside the
wife of Tai Lin and had brutally left her lying unconscious on the floor
in the dusk of that evening when she had so trustingly laid upon his
bosom and had given over to him her love and her life and her honour.
Sleepless, the Unknown had nursed him as he struggled to hurl himself
into the river that still flowed coaxingly at his feet. Sleepless he had
knelt beside him when he lay in a stupor, his face pallid and covered
with a cold sweat; sleepless he had listened to him muttering in slow,
indistinct utterance, insistent as the dripping of the Water Clock, “I
have sinned; I have sinned; I have sinned.”
The Unknown had roughly driven the other priests from the Breton’s
chamber on the day they had brought him from the river’s bank, even
after he became convalescent and was moved out into the shadowy
cloisters, the Unknown still watched sternly and silently over him, so
that during those reluctant days of the Breton’s recovery, neither the
priests nor the communicants, continually coming and going, heard this
silence broken nor knew the cause of the Breton’s sickness. They glanced
compassionately at his fever-worn figure, motionless other than his
fingers, which were ever nervously creasing, smoothing, caressing a fold
in his robe. They noticed that his eyes looked endlessly somewhere, and
that a stony calmness, like a veil, clung to his face. But their
glances, as they passed and repassed, were ever as thoughtless as they
were momentary. It was not for them to conjecture the struggle waging in
the still form before them; that unseen volcanic combat was hidden by
illimitable distance.
When the Breton was able to leave the Mission he accompanied the Unknown
once more on his visitations through the city. These visits took them to
that part of Yingching lying north of the Examination Grounds, and when
they returned to the Mission they made a short cut through these ancient
tourney grounds where multitudes have, during these thousand years
contended and lost and won as Fate has willed. Going out by the South
Gate they turn westward into the short Street of the Martial Dragon, at
the end of which stands the Tower of the Water Clock, where this
time-gnawed clepsydra of Yingching drips, drips, drips, the minutes of
unnumbered years.
How often the Breton had come to this comforting tower to dream in the
shadows of its imperturbable calm, happier than any in the bottomless
pool of millions, that swirled around him, the Unknown did not know. But
as he passed the winding stairs, the Breton stopped, looked up, and drew
his hand across his eyes.
“Come, my son, we must go on,” said the Unknown, gently taking him by
the arm.
The Breton looked dully at him for a moment, then seizing his hand
pressed it convulsively to his heart.
“No, no, my father,” he cried, bursting into sobs. “I cannot go.”
So it came about in this manner that each day the Unknown left the
Breton at the Stairs of the Water Clock and hastened on his way alone to
the Great Peace Gate, and it was never until night that the Breton came
silently to his chamber.
Once when they came to the Tower of the Water Clock, they stopped as
usual but the Unknown stood for a long time gazing intently,
questioningly at the Breton, then suddenly he put his arms around him,
pressed him fervently to his heart, kissing him repeatedly on both
cheeks, while tears streamed down the seams in his face.
“My son,” he cried brokenly, “my son,” and he wept as only an old man
can.
“Yes,” he said finally, his voice again calm, “I leave you, my son, to
God.”
He kissed the Breton again and hastened toward the Great Peace Gate.
For some moments the Breton stood by the winding stairs of the Water
Tower, then walked hastily south, winding, turning, doubling, twisting
through a maze of narrow alleys until he came to the Street of Pearls.
Once on this thoroughfare he hastened on until he came near to where the
street ended at the granite Gate of Tai Lin’s park. Without hesitation
he turned into an open guardhouse recessed on the right of the street
and leaning against one of the pillars fixed his gaze upon the gateway,
as immovable as the pillar itself—which was of stone.
The hour of dusk was falling. Shopkeepers came out of their stores and
looked in vain for a customer. Reluctantly they took in their wares and
put up their shutters. The itinerant booths were gotten ready and were
being taken home on the backs of their owners.
On the side of the street opposite the guardhouse and nearer the Gateway
a fortune-teller stopped suddenly in his packing and beckoned
mysteriously to his neighbour, a cook.
“Again!” he whispered hoarsely in the cook’s ear.
“Again? Again? What again? Rice——”
“Did I not prognosticate?”
“Pork——”
“Look! Again he is there!” and the fortune-teller whirled the cook
around and, half crouching, pointed cautiously to the guardhouse.
“So he is! So he is!” cried the cook.
“Did I not foretell it? Master cook, did I not prognosticate?”
“Yes, that is a fact,” answered the cook doubtfully.
“Cook,” continued the fortune-teller in mystic-triumphant tones, “I see
everything, hear everything, know everything. Now, master cook, let me
do you a good turn; it will only cost——”
“But,” suddenly exclaimed the cook, brightening, “he has been there in
that fashion toward night-cooking for nearly two full moons.”
“Certainly, certainly, but would he have been there if it had not been
for my prognostications?”
“That may be, that may be,” answered the cook, scratching his head.
“Master cook, let me prognosticate you. It will only cost——”
“No,” interrupted the cook abruptly. “But,” he hesitated, “I don’t like
that influence every day just at my night-cooking.”
“It is very bad,” interjected the fortune-teller, shaking his head
ruefully. “I would not be you for all the cash of Ho.”
“What is it?” demanded the cook hastily. “Tell me, master, tell me.”
The fortune-teller jumped back dramatically and threw up his hands. “I
am overwhelmed,” he cried in lofty injured tones, “dumb, speechless, a
dying phœnix.”
The cook scratched his head and looked sheepishly at him.
“Master cook,” the fortune-teller continued in the same severe voice,
“you pretend to be a merchant, and yet you are unable to distinguish
great profits from a fly’s head. Is it not known among honourable
merchants that just scales and full measures injure no man? I am pained!
Goodbye, master cook.” The fortune-teller began to wrap up his
paraphernalia.
The cook scratched his head.
“Master cook, I leave you with a pitying heart—farewell.”
“What have I done? What have I done?” cried the cook, coming hastily to
his side.
“What have you done!” repeated the fortune-teller scornfully. “What have
you done but throw out the refuse, the burnt scraps, the very swill of
your inquisitiveness to lure from me the peculiar gems of my
knowledge—my pearly prognostications!”
“But what have I done?” exclaimed the cook perplexedly.
“Can you get rice without planting? Chickens without eggs? Heat without
fire? Fire without fuel? Prognostications without incentives?” demanded
the fortune-teller haughtily.
“But what threatens me? What threatens me?” cried the cook impatiently.
“Master cook,” said the fortune-teller, solemnly though relentingly, “I
should be lenient with you; that you do not understand the
incomprehensible is not your fault. You are a cook, I alone am the
scholar. Cook, I pity you; to me only is apparent the disaster
over-pending. I will aid you.”
“Do, master, do.”
“Before prognosticating, cook, I must have four rice-cakes, cooked well
in oil, and two pieces of pork——”
“Too much! master fortune-teller, too much!” cried the cook, backing off
in amazement.
“Cook, I salute thee! To-night empty your oil into the street; scatter
your flour upon the night-winds—you will need them no more. Farewell,
there comes a day when every tumour must be punctured. Listen now to my
last prognostication: Do not waste your wife’s cash in mock-money. It
will not avail you.” The fortune-teller moved slowly away.
“Master fortune-teller! Master fortune-teller!”
“What is it, unfortunate man?”
“I will give you one rice-cake and one piece of fat pork.”
“Does one grain of planted rice produce as much as four?”
“I am a poor man.”
“Must not the poor avert their fate as well as the rich?”
“I will give you two rice-cakes and one piece of lean pork.”
“You are indeed a poor man,” commented the fortune-teller sadly, “and
unfortunate. Yes, my compassion pleads for you. I will prognosticate.
Yes, for two cakes, two fat pieces of pork, and a bowl of kale.”
“Too much! Too much!” cried the cook desperately. “I will give you the
cakes and the pork, no more! no more!”
For some moments the fortune-teller looked seriously up at the heavens.
“Let it be,” he finally mumbled with compassion, “but mark you, master
cook, the depth of my benevolence!”
When the cook had provided him with rice-cakes and two squares of fat
pork he squatted down upon his heels and munched contentedly, while the
cook crouched by his side and waited. Now and then the fortune-teller
would stretch his neck and peer mysteriously through the gathering
twilight at the tall figure standing so still beside the stone pillar of
the guardhouse, and the cook at the same time stretched his neck and
peered fearfully through the shadows.
After the fortune-teller finished his cakes and pork he drew from his
paraphernalia a small-bowled pipe. When he had taken a few puffs, he
asked in a low voice:
“What do you see, cook?”
“He is still there,” answered the cook in a whisper.
“What else do you see?”
“He stares like a big-eyed owl.”
“What is an owl?”
“A bird of bad omen.”
“What else do you know?”
“That he never turns his round eyes away from the gate of Tai Lin.”
“What is a gateway?”
“It is the coming in and going out.”
“How do you write the characters Yen Wang?”
The cook moved closer to the fortune-teller. “Is it that?” he asked
hoarsely.
“Did you not see him when he commenced to come many moons ago?”
“Yes, master, yes.”
“Was he not as stalwart as the young bullock of Heungshan?”
“Yes, master——”
“And now he is like a spectre, a troubled ghost whose Fêng Shui has been
ruined.”
“It is true, master, it is true!”
“Have you not noticed,” continued the fortune-teller in tones that made
the cook huddle closer to him, “that since he came you have drowsed and
drowsed and been careless of your business?”
“It is true! It is true!”
“Have you not noticed that when his fingers twitch, men shun you?”
“Many men have passed me by, master, many have passed me by!”
“Have you not noticed when his bosom heaves out you have a sadness in
your chest?”
“Yes, yes.”
“He has the appearance of a Western-sea man!”
“What!”
“A foreign devil. Have you seen his eyes? They are blue!”
“Blue? master, blue?”
“If he should look into your boiling oil, it would go up in flame; if he
should look into your flour, it would frisk with weevils; if he should
look into your meat, lo! there would be nothing but maggots, and if he
should peer into your heart—I tremble.”
The cook crouched closer to him.
“Cook, how is the Idol of Yang Ssü made?”
“By three swings of the axe, master.”
“How is the Idol of Yen Wang made?”
“I know not, I know not.”
“It is carved by tears, cook, as rocks are cut by mountain’s rain. Its
visage is of the terriblest sorrow; the height of heaven, the depth of
the sea cannot encompass it.”
The fortune-teller leaned closer to the cook and whispered hoarsely in
his ear: “He has the face of Yen Wang.”
“I feel that sadness! I feel that sadness!” cried the cook, pulling open
the neck of his blouse.
The fortune-teller looked at him pityingly, then up at the darkening sky
and remained contemplative for some time.
“Cook,” he said thoughtfully, “there are some things that are known and
some things that are not. From the things that are known we learn
concerning the things that are not, but this is the task of the wise.
Now it is known that heaven is round and the earth square; that the
stars are shining characters in the Book of Fate, and eclipses are
dragon feasts. Moreover, it is known that when tigers plunge into the
sea they become sharks, and sparrows falling into the water are changed
into oysters. It is also known to those that are learned that it is the
nature of water to run downward; the nature of fire to flame upward; the
nature of wood to be either crooked or straight; the nature of metals to
be pliable and subject to change. In addition to this, cook, it is known
to scholars that there are five elements, five planets, five great
mountain ranges on the earth, five seas, five senses, five musical
tones, five kinds of coffins, five kinds of torture, five ways to die
in, and five times in the last five minutes has the spectre in the
guardhouse clenched his hands.
“Now, cook, what is known to us, especially wise, is that the clouds are
dragons and the winds tigers; mind is the mother, matter the child. If
the mother summons the child, will it dare disobey? Those that, like
myself, can expel the spirit of death, must summon the spirits of the
five elements, and who would conquer death must obtain the influence of
the five planets. When this is done, Ying and Yang can be controlled;
winds and clouds are gathered into the palm of the hand; mountains and
hills torn up by the roots, while seas and rivers can be made to spring
out of the ground.
“But, cook, to save you from Yen Wang, whose image now looks down upon
you, who has been in your very presence for nearly two rounded moons,
exceeds all of these things in wisdom and difficulty. There is only one
thing, and it is by no means easy, even for me, to obtain—a golden
elixir! Ordinarily the moon and planets and all the powerful lights in
heaven must seven times seven repeat their footsteps; and the four
seasons nine times complete their circuit. Then must this elixir be
chastened in molten silver and burnt red with molten gold. But, cook,
one draught will save you; three draughts will give you ten myriad of
ages, and eight draughts will waft you beyond the sphere of sublunary
things.”
“Do it, master,” muttered the cook huskily.
“It is well,” responded the fortune-teller solemnly. “And I shall see to
it that this shall not cost you more than ten taels sycee——”
The cook sprang tragically to his feet, and forgetful of the image of
Yen Wang the wrangling of cash began.
* * * * *
The Breton in the guardhouse awoke from his stupor. Reluctantly,
silently, he went away and night came down upon the Street of Pearls.
CHAPTER TWO
WORD FROM THE UNKNOWN
What to man is the warring of a whole world of nations when his heart
and soul wage their more terrible combat within him? What to him are the
destruction of Empires and the annihilation of whole kingdoms of men
when his own bosom resounds with mutilated cries? So it is that a
monarch in his temporal power is subject more to this internal warring
and brawling than to the sufferings of millions, and the spiritual
pontiff is likewise forgetful of the penitential throngs and waxes gay
or melancholy as this combat ebbs or surges tumultuously within him.
This battling between the heart and soul, flesh and spirit, conscience
and desire, or what not, is the primæval combat of man. It is Cosmic.
And while blood-letting is purely human, this other struggle has
something of God in it—hence its terribleness.
For two months such a combat had been going on in the Breton and the
terribleness of it had left its traces upon him. He was but the withered
semblance of his former self. Feeble and meagre, he appeared to have but
little of life left in him. Only when the alluring mind—the heart’s
fickle ally—would come to his relief with pleasing, enticing thoughts
did he betray any energy or affect interest in the affairs about him.
Then he hastened to the guardhouse on the Street of Pearls, where he
stood motionless until dusk, his hollow eyes staring through the portals
into Tai Lin’s park. There he waited day after day to see those that
lived where she lived, as if they could bring away with them some
message from her unknown to themselves, but which he could decipher as
soon as they came through the gateway.
Such are the strange conceits of hidden love, and such are the
stratagems them employ. A familiar odour, sight, or sound are
inexhaustible quarries out of which are hewn and polished with exquisite
care blocks that go to build up endless palaces and castles of revery,
wherein, in due time, are crowded a thousand airy happenings. There the
unsubstantial mind brings to broken hearts echoed laughter, false
mirrored scenes, and a myriad of fairy fantasies woven out of the
unknown.
Down by his crucifix all night, or on the overhanging bank of the river
the Breton fought against his heart and its desires, against the love
that had come to him unknown and had taken him suddenly body and soul
into its keeping, and which even in midst of his appeals to God burned
and surged in every vein. So he struggled night after night, little
dreaming that the combat was drawing to a close, and was to
end—fortunate or otherwise—as each must determine for himself—in a
manner that showed him that the hand of God was in it and it was done
under His eye.
Dusk had already merged into darkness when the Breton, as usual, entered
the cloisters on this night. The faint glimmer of stars that crept
through the one high-barred window was lost in the shadows that lay
within. He lit a candle, and folding his arms on the table buried his
head in them. It was in this manner and at this hour that the dreams of
the day began to forsake him. Sometimes his body quivered, and it may
have been the trembling of a sob, but it was unuttered. Sometimes he
raised his head and with dry, questioning eyes gazed long and intently
at the crucifix hanging with its wounded Christ beside his pallet.
Midnight or after a person listening would have heard a smothered moan
and might have seen a glimmer of tears in his eyes as they again sought
beseechingly the crucifix on the wall. It was then that the day-dreams
had utterly vanished, and only the pain of his sin lay hold of him. It
was then that he left the table and threw himself down before the Christ
in whose compassion sins are forgiven and the memory of them washed
away.
So, on this night when he raised his eyes to the crucifix he discovered
before him two sealed envelopes. On the larger was written, “Do not open
for one year.” He broke the seal of the other and drew out a letter in
the handwriting of the Unknown.
As the Breton read the first few lines a look of startled wonder came
into his eyes, then pain mingled with anguish. He stopped reading and
for some time sat gazing emptily before him into those dim places where
truth is sought.
Presently he resumed reading the Unknown’s last words, and varying
emotions of amazement and fear shot across his face. He looked
wonderingly over to the crucifix as if to ask: “Do you know all this?”
But as he continued reading his credulity vanished, and the lines of his
lips drew hard and straight. Sometimes his fist involuntarily clenched,
a flush burned in his pale, sunken cheeks; sparks of a hidden fire
flashed from his blue-black eyes, blazed, died out, then burned with a
steadier flame. Sometimes the veins in his forehead and over his temples
stood out like whipcords. His breath came in even heavy pulsations.
The letter of the Unknown was drawing to an end. The Breton rose from
his chair and bent over against the candle flame, as if with brighter
light to fathom out the terror and the truth of those unread pages.
The last sheet fluttered from his hand.
Standing by the table his head gradually sank forward; his eyes closed,
and into his face came a stony uncertain tension. Presently, like one
awakening, he pressed his hand across his eyes, as if to arouse himself
more surely to the scene before him. Then mechanically he gathered up
the sheets of the Unknown’s letter and put them back in the envelope—all
but the last sheet, which was afterwards found on the floor under the
table, and on which were written these enigmatic words:
“My son, I cannot continue this category of sin. Day now breaks and I
must be on my way—a way from which there is no returning at all,
forever. You will look into what I have written, then—go away.
“What will come of all this I do not know, but these people will not
submit forever. Why they have done so this long I do not understand, nor
do I know what is going to happen except that in the chronology of such
acts comes inevitably the century end of wrong and that awful number
‘Ninety-three.’ I see already the rim of a reign of terror, I hear
noises that are the clamour of vengeance, I discover signs in the
heavens and it is the judgment of God.
“To-night is the end! What melancholy forebodings this may bring to you,
my son, will remain forever unknown to me. But I leave you, as is my
duty—that you may grapple with this double-headed dragon that now
assails you. Alone you must conquer or alone succumb. In the battles of
the heart and soul there can be no allies.
“I have left you in the other envelope certain secrets, which you are
not to discover until you have left this place, to return no more.”
The Breton continued standing by the table, staring emptily into those
shadows out of which so often come forms real and terrible.
The candle burned low and flickered.
Into the dull eyes of the Breton a faint light was creeping, a light
that was not a reflection, but itself a fire such as lurks in that
inflammable tinder—a man’s passions.
The candle, like the Breton’s faith, was sputtering, and presently this
candle flickered and went out.
Night was ebbing away. Monotonously the watchman passed and repassed,
his gong grumbling out the hours of night.
A grey ray stole in from the east; the hum of a new day grew great, and
the breaking dawn with its echoes came into the silent room.
The Breton was kneeling before the crucifix that hung near his pallet.
Daylight did not arouse him, nor the clamour of day. He was not praying,
nor moving, nor dreaming. He was waiting, as men before him and since
have waited, for the Christ to lift up his bowed head and speak to him
from the pain of the crucifix. The Breton waited, and the solemn melody
of chanting voices rose and fell, then—silence.
A sunbeam edged shyly through the window, lingered uncertain and—went
away. Someone knocked at his door, but he did not turn from the cross,
for he heard no sounds nor knew that it was midday.
Daylight grew dim, and the melancholy shadows of twilight hovered a few
moments around his window, then it was again dark and the watchman’s
gong measured out the hours of the night.
Once more dawn crept up from under the skirts of night and ushered in a
new and memorable day for the Breton priest. He still knelt before the
crucifix, but the deep lines of pain had vanished from his face; a calm,
gentle serenity rested there, and when at last the sunbeam edged coyly,
doubtfully, across the casement, he opened his eyes and they shone with
a new, great joy.
When the sunbeam began to go he rose from the crucifix and put the
envelopes into his robe. For some moments they lingered, then went
away—this sunbeam and the Breton.
CHAPTER THREE
DAWN AGAIN
Without hesitation the Breton once again entered the Palace of Tai Lin,
and went quickly through its halls and courts until he came to the
apartments of his Excellency’s wife. For a moment he hesitated at the
oval silken-draped doorway, then putting the curtains aside he stepped
softly in.
By the screen, as if it had never been moved, stood his chair, beside it
the high ebony table with its roseleaf marble top, and in front of it
with her face toward the screen sat the wife, as she had sat many months
before.
For a moment the Breton pressed back against the curved lintel, then
went softly over and stood beside her. She did not move nor give any
sign of recognition as the Breton approached, only her little hands
folded in her lap pressed together more tightly, until her finger tips
became darkly red. It is not known how long this silence lasted, for,
though time may never cease, there are moments in the horologue of love,
which are not counted.
“I have come back,” said the Breton finally in soft monotonous tones.
At the sound of his voice, the wife’s hands trembled and relaxed; a
slight feverish flush diffused her face, but she gave no sign that she
heard him.
“I have come back to you,” he repeated.
A tremor shot through her, and a faint flush darkened and spread to brow
and to neck.
“I understand it all now,” he continued vaguely. “You remember when your
hand touched my robe? At first I thought it was the hand of God, for it
seemed as though I were in heaven. Then came another thought and I cast
you aside. For this I have suffered. In every soft sound of night have I
heard you fall again and again, without a cry, just a silken crash. Even
God would not heed my prayers to drown that sound. In the day I beggared
time before the Gateway. By night I prayed, did penance, and sleeplessly
watched for the reluctant shadows of dawn, a dawn that punished me with
a thousand memories; with the larks’ song a-fluttering from their bamboo
cages; with flowers whose fragrance choked and whose colours burned my
eyes; with laughter and the dreadful crinkling of silk. Again at night
it was prayer and penance or pain, for the river murmured with the tones
of your voice, and the stars stole their lights from your eyes and
looked in reproachful pain down upon me.”
Presently the Breton took from the bosom of his robe the manuscripts
left by the Unknown.
“Three days ago I found these secretly beside my crucifix”; and he
looked dumbly at the envelopes he half extended toward her.
“He is gone,” he continued, a resigned softness creeping into the
monotony of his voice, “and it was in this letter that he asked me to go
away, for it was sin to remain. Of this I took counsel of God, and for
two nights I prayed to our Christ on His crucifix, and to-day at dawn,
God bade me go.”
“Did you know,” he asked with singular simplicity, “that I have come
back to you?”
The wife moved slightly, and the light in her great eyes deepened.
“You have no husband, for husbands are searched out by God, as wives are
sent by Him from heaven. On the second night before my crucifix all
things became clear to me, and doubts were brushed aside. We will go to
another country; to America, where all are free; to Australia, where all
are forgotten, or to other lands where men are lost. We will be always
together; I can look at you and you can put your hand upon my shoulder,
and it will be as in heaven. We will live together forever, for whom God
marries He never parts. I have planned how we shall leave the city,” he
continued, his voice vibrant with eagerness. “You know no one can leave
this city by night, but on the eve of the Propitiation of the Gods of
the Waters all of the city gates and ward gates will be open. You can
leave the park by the western postern and I will meet you there the
second hour after darkness. We will not go to Hongkong, for they would
send ships and bring us back. We cannot remain in Yingching, for they
would find us. We cannot go to another town in the Empire, for all of
the magistrates in the Middle Kingdom will search for you. I have
thought carefully of all this and have planned that when you come to the
postern, I will meet you with a sedan; I will take you to the river,
where I will have a river boat waiting, then we will go up the river to
the Grotto of the Sleepless Dragon. Men fear this Cavern of Yu Ngao, but
there is no danger. I will go there first with Tsang and prepare it for
you, and when you go we will take Tsang’s wife. We can stay there until
people forget, then we will take a boat and go down the river by night
until we come to the sea. At Pakhoi we will take a sea junk and go to
Singapore, for there all the ships of the world meet.
“Will you go?”
The wife did not reply, so they remained motionless in silence, and time
passed as it had passed with them before.
The sun slid slowly down the cloudless September heavens; the shadow of
the feathery bamboo crept again into the chamber and gently slunk away;
but when the rose-saffron of the afterglow flushed upward the western
sky and diffused its soft light through the court, the wife left her
stool and crossed over to the shell-latticed window, and as when the
summer storm is past and the burdened lily tilts its gathered diamonds
to the sun, so her tears, trembling on her cheeks, sparkled joyously in
the amber light.
When the melancholy “coo-ee, coo-ee” of the argus-eyed pheasant sounded
softly through the twilight, she came back from the window, her little
hands clasped together, her eyes downcast. For several moments she stood
shyly beside him, then looking up, said:
“I will go.”
For some time the Breton stood as if he had not heard, then kneeling,
leaned forward until his head touched her robe. The wife lay her hand
lightly upon his head, and for the first time there fell upon him that
blessing, which, like mercy, has a double sanctity, and though its voice
is unheard among the fretful noises of the world, yet its reverberations
passing from a woman’s heart go on and on through vast distances and
depths until its echoes cease in that uncertain chasm—a man’s breast.
“I knew you would come back,” she said presently, her voice quivering
between laughter and sobs. “When I touched your robes and felt you
tremble I knew that you loved me, and when you took hold of my wrists
you do not know what happiness came over me. I felt as if you were going
to pick me up and fly away forever to that heaven you have spoken of so
often. Then—then you threw me to the floor.”
She felt the Breton shudder, and she reached down and took hold of his
ears and tilted his head back. For a moment she looked into his eyes,
then for the first time in many months the room echoed softly with her
laughter.
“You must not look that way,” she cried roguishly as she twitched his
ears. “Don’t you know that that was a most happy parting compared to the
first time you went away, when you left me without a word, chained by
torturing doubt? But this time you threw me to the floor, and then I
knew that you loved me. I have not been unhappy, nor have I been joyful
these many weeks, but I have been contented, and in the airy tapestry of
my dreams have I embroidered ten thousand times just such a scene as
this. Each day at that time, when you were accustomed to come, I sought
my stool here beside the screen, waited, and now you have come as I knew
you would.”
Impulsively she knelt down beside him and in the gathering dusk soon one
figure could not be distinguished from the other.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE GROTTO OF THE SLEEPLESS DRAGON
Few spectacles are ever given for man to witness more melancholy than
the dissolution of an ancient dynasty; an end inevitably tragic and
often leaving its solemn sign, as did the dissipation of the Mings,
forever upon the people.
For two centuries and a half had this family of the acolyte ruled over a
wide portion of earth and then did it go out, tragically, but in a
manner befitting a dynasty whose past had been so filled with greatness.
When Tongshing—the last of his race to rule from the Dragon Throne—found
that the east gate of his capital was invested by besieging armies, he
retraced his steps to the Palace and sounded the gong to summon his
courtiers. None appeared. Then alone with the eunuch, Wen Chenan, the
old monarch sought his favourite spot on Wansui Hill, and there beneath
its solitary tree wrote this, his final protest:
“For seventeen years I have reigned from the Dragon Throne and now even
rebels come to insult me in my capital. Evidently this is a punishment
sent by Heaven. But I am not alone guilty. My ministers are worse than
myself. They have ruined me by concealing the true condition of affairs.
“With what countenance shall I after death be able to appear before my
forefathers? You, who have brought me to this unhappy end, take my body
and hack it to pieces. I shall not protest. But spare my people and
refrain from doing them injury.”
Then this old man, who was a monarch, hung himself on the solitary
juniper tree.
After the Emperor’s death the Ming officials in the south of China
crowned one kinsman after another as his successor, but each, oppressed
by the curse of his race, died in a manner not less tragic than the
melancholy end of Tongshing. In the course of this Imperial extinction
the choice at last fell upon the Prince Yu Ngao, who was proclaimed
Emperor in the old city of Yingching.
Shortly after Yu Ngao had been crowned the city was besieged by the
Manchus and captured on the 26th of November, 1650, more than one-half
million of its inhabitants perishing in the assault. It was supposed
that upon this day the young Emperor also died, but such was not the
case, for on the night before the final attack, the Emperor and three
hundred of his most devoted followers, taking with them the Imperial
treasure, escaped from the city by means of a water-gate situated
between the Gate of Eternal Rest and the southwest corner of the city
walls, through which a large canal runs from the river into the city.
It was the intention of the fugitives to make their way into Kwangsi and
join the Ming forces in that Province; their flight being up the Chu
Kiang to the North River, thence to the Lien Chau River and across the
mountains into Kwangsi. But after the capture of the city, their escape
being discovered, a large force set out in pursuit, the fugitives having
but one day and two nights’ start. On arriving at the gorge of the Blind
Boy, less than one-third the distance of their journey, they found
themselves but a half day’s march ahead of their pursuers and feeling
that the end had come they selected for their last stand a high shelf of
rock in the mouth of the gorge.
From this point, looking up the cañon, there is seen with great
distinctness on a perpendicular wall of rock about two hundred feet
above the water, the “Blind Boy,” which gives the gorge its name.
Looking at the image from this angle, the form, features and sad blind
expression of the eyes is vividly seen. The Emperor with his little army
standing upon this high shelf peering through the purple shadows of this
great gorge perceived the image of the Blind Boy and as they looked—it
is so related—the eyes opened and gazed benignly, Buddha-like, down upon
them. Then as the eyes closed slowly and reluctantly a peasant appeared
upon the shelf and prostrating himself before the Emperor begged to lead
him to a place of safety. Receiving imperial sanction he took the force
by a circuitous route above the gorge to a cavern whose secret recesses
were apparently alone known to him.
Yu Ngao’s small regiment had scarcely arrived in the vicinity of the
cavern when their tireless foe appeared. It was with difficulty that
part of the men defended the approach until the Emperor and the
remainder of his force, carrying the imperial treasure, retired in
safety. Again and again the enemy attempted to capture the cavern but
owing to the ease of its defence they were repulsed. After a number of
months’ close watch they attacked again. This time there was no combat
and they entered—entered to be seen no more.
Years passed and other forces went into the cavern, to return never.
After this, during long intervals of time, adventurous persons have gone
in to search for the great treasure, but none of them by man were ever
seen again.
Thus the people call this the Grotto of the Sleepless Dragon and—avoid
it. They have surrounded it with a halo of mysticism and a
semi-sacredness clings to it. The country around abounds with marvellous
tales told of its dragon, which guards, sleepless and relentless, its
treasure of gold and jade, of pearls and priceless rubies, until again
the Mings shall come to their own.
The word holds no more wonderful scene than when after having ascended a
fjord that opens into the North River, and upon whose jade-green waters
the sun shines but a moment each day, a turn is made and this marvellous
white precipice rises overhead sheer out of the water. Four caves are to
be seen half-veiled with vines and from out of a great fissure a third
way up the cliff falls a cataract in a broad, heavy sheet of glittering
silver. When it strikes against the rocks, it then comes down like snow
or is blown upward a veiling mist. These falls are broken four times by
projecting shelves, the last drop being the longest. Just below the
second shelf to the right of the falls and almost invisible from the
stream are stone steps cut diagonally across the face of the cliff,
beginning in some shrubs and disappearing under the falling waters,
while above them hangs a rusted chain suspended in two long folds. Under
this projecting shelf, hid by the veil of waters, entered by these stone
steps and rusted chain, is the Grotto of the Sleepless Dragon.
The formation of the cliff is a calciferous, conglomerate mass of
fantastic beauty. The upper right hand side has the appearance of the
façade of some vast age-eroded cathedral; serrated pinnacles and slender
spires point skyward in irregular rising series. Here complete a flying
buttress; there one half hid in ruins. In one place arches, in another
cavernous recesses, that might have been windows; pillars, gargoyles and
angels are scattered from top to bottom; while around each spire and
buttress, arch and pillar, gargoyle and angel, twine crepe myrtle and
festoons of vinnig, whose clusters of blossoms sweeten the air of the
shadowed cañon.
These vines and cavities have become the homes of innumerable birds:
doves, thrushes, cormorants and francolins, mimahs, kingfishers, owls,
ospreys and eagles, while at dusk the hundred-footed fox and spirit-cat
creep about its broken face, in and out of its columns and creepers.
One day these birds fluttered and screamed, the fox and spirit-cat
peeped out of their dens for a boat had crept into their solitude and
lingered in the emerald lake.
Presently two men got out of it, followed with difficulty the narrow,
vine-covered path, crossed the stones and disappeared under the falling
waters. All day the birds watched them go back and forth, bearing their
loads into the cavern whence no man ever returns.
So the day passed and along toward the latter part of the afternoon one
of the men went down to the boat and remained there, smoking peacefully.
The other climbed up the face of the cliff until he reached a narrow
shelf near the far end of the fissure from which the cataract burst.
Bright little birds with blue wings and brown breasts, a-tilting on the
vines, francolins perched on the crags or fluttering in circles, looked
wonderingly at this man standing silently upon that perilous projection
and gazing contentedly over the lower cliffs to the westward.
With the setting of the sun came the gorgeous afterglow of this
latitude, burning the cloud banks above the purple-misted mountains with
gold, alternating with amethyst and lilac and shafting over this
solitude their exquisite hues and lavishing them unseen upon the man
pressed against the cliff. At last a purple veil rose from the gorge:
eagles and companies of ospreys soaring majestically above and below him
now began to wheel, scream, poise, and dart. The spirit-cat and
hundred-footed fox came to look at him, meditatively, fearlessly,
knowingly, for it was dusk.
When the man clinging to the vines and the crags descended the birds
returned to their accustomed roosts and night brooded gently over all.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PROPITIATION OF THE GODS OF THE WATERS
Among the festivals of Southern China none is more popular than the
Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters, which takes place during the
spring and autumn in villages and cities bordering on the Chu Kiang
estuary and the wild ocean banks of the Southern Sea; for these cities
and towns have their boats with fathers, husbands and sons scattered
over many waters and depend for their sustenance as well as life upon
the mercy of the Gods of the Deep.
Contrary to most festivals, this is a festivity of the night. Besides
calls, feasting, and the usual merriment of such occasions, it is marked
by the procession of the Dragon and an illumination of lanterns.
The Dragon, which is taken through the streets on this night, symbolises
the Monarch of the Deep, and is from fifty to a hundred and fifty feet
long. This monster, made of silk and covered with glittering scales of
gilt is carried by men concealed within it. During the procession it
goes through all of the evolutions of its kind; coiling, wriggling,
creeping, gliding; every so often darting out its monstrous glaring head
after a huge sea-pearl frisked teasingly in front of it. It draws up in
rolls, moves in long silken undulations, squirms, twists, lolls,
sometimes springing at the spectators. Preceding and following the
Dragon are carried enormous models of fish: sharks, perch, whales,
pompano, sea-eels, an endless number; gorgeous, gleaming, shaking in the
sea of the night their fins and tails of fire.
But what is best in this Feast of the Night are its lanterns; nowhere
are people so skilful in making these dainty ornaments of darkness as
are the men of this land. Their variety of form, colouring, elegant
carving and gilding exceed description; while the strange but delightful
taste, the infinite pains and ingenuity that are exercised in their
construction are beyond comparison. They are made from paper, silk,
horn, glass, cloth, bamboo, and raffia. Their variety of shapes and
decorations are without end; round, square, melon-shaped, gourd-shaped,
melons squared, gourds squared, pentagoned, hexagoned, octagoned and all
the other goneds; birds, beasts, official fans and umbrellas, flowers,
fish, miniature pagodas, phœnixes, unicorns, and turtles; all the
creatures of heaven and earth, of mythology and man’s creation,
coloured, blazoned, gilded, tasselled, charactered, swaying and
quivering. Such are the lights that swing in the night winds of the
spring and autumn.
Some lanterns are no larger than goose eggs; some are like magnificent
chandeliers, twenty feet in diameter, while others, as the Tsao-ma Kong,
are even more elaborate.
The ingenuity exercised in the construction of this latter kind is
almost incomprehensible. The inanimate lives. Currents of hot air
generated by lights set innumerable figures in motion; vessels spread
their sails and move slowly or rapidly over undulating seas; fields are
ploughed by water-oxen and rice-planted; great concourses of people move
by and horses race along with chariots; armies manœuvre and retreat;
kings and princes with their retinues come and go; there are dances and
theatrical performances, comedies and tragedies, while innumerable other
scenes of life pass before the bewildered sight as transient and
fleeting as life itself—vanishing when the candle sputters and goes out.
The day of the Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters came at last,
though youths, jugglers, thieves, gamins, a priest, a wife, and in fact
a whole city had waited impatiently, almost angrily, for its coming. The
morning of this autumn day dragged tediously along; noon came and the
hours succeeding grew more expectant and breathless. Other than the
occasional firing of a cracker and the whoop of urchins, the afternoon
had remained silent. But as evening progressed merry sounds increased;
jugglers, mountebanks and actors amused the crowds in every available
space; gongs were beaten, music played and as darkness settled over the
city lanterns began to glimmer from every projection, from ridge-poles,
balconies and carved fantastic eaves. Windows oval, square, and oblong
glowed with brilliancy, while fronts of houses, whimsically carved and
emblazoned with signs of lacquer and gold, were ablaze with profusion of
lanterns. In the throngs moving hither and thither each possessed some
kind of a light; a silken, tasselled, emblazoned lantern, a shimmer of
horn or flare of torch.
During the first hours of darkness the uproar of music, gongs,
brat-whoops and crackers was incessant, but eventually, as the lanterns
began to flicker and go out, the roar grew less and less.
The park of Tai Lin rested in this sea of light and storm-din an island
of solitude; dark, peaceful, lit only by the stars and the glimmer of
surrounding lights, noised only by the roar without, and by the music of
waters gurgling in their pools and rivulets, tumbling over rocks and
tiny precipices; murmuring, soothing, slumbering.
Out into this solitude the wife crept during the second hour after
darkness. She left the palace from a western court, known as the Court
of Sunset. Turning to her right she skirted along the west granite
terrace that overhung the lotus pond. Along this she hastened until she
came to the steps leading down upon the lawn. Then she stopped, turned
back and with her little hands clasped upon her bosom, gazed intently at
the home she intended leaving forever. Trembling she went down from the
terrace and crossed the lawn overspread with great banians and wutung
trees. As she moved cautiously, hesitatingly along under their shadows
every voice of night conspired to startle her; deer coming from out of
their covert, a bird-sigh, the night-wind’s swish or a leaf falling at
her feet caused her to shrink back or brought a smothered cry from her
lips. It was a stealth full of fear to her, but she went bravely on
though trembling, shuddering, sometimes ceasing to breathe. She came to
the miniature hills on the west and hastened through them, past pagodas
scattered on all sides; pagodas that clung to the edge of precipices and
overhung her path like impending traps; others loomed up suddenly before
her in the darkness of little gorges, while some as gigantic beasts
watched her from clumps of trees. When she passed through the bamboo
groves beyond the fluttering of startled birds caused her to fly with
fear over their gravelled paths. From the bamboo groves she followed a
little rivulet agurgle under an avenue of swishing willows and whenever
a fish splashed in the waters she clung to the willows, trembling and
uncertain. At the source of the stream in the miniature mountains of
rock she turned to her left across a grassy starlit meadow, where the
noise of revelry sounded plainly upon the night air. West of this meadow
rose blackly before her the forest hiding the western wall. Peering into
the forbidding shadows of its pines she hesitated, looked over the
meadow so bright under the starlight and glimmer of surrounding sea of
lanterns, then breathless, with an heavy hand upon her shoulder, she
entered its gloomy precincts.
The wall surrounding the park on all sides was some twelve feet high,
the top strewn with splintered glass imbedded in cement. The bottom
being about three feet in thickness, caused the small iron-postern
recessed close to the ground to be hardly noticeable even in daytime. So
when the wife reached the wall and not coming directly upon the postern
she did not know which way to turn. Groping along toward the southern
end she went away from it, and when she crept back to where she left the
wood, her breath came in little gasps. When she stopped she trembled so
that she could scarcely stand.
Suddenly her hand went into a recess—it was the postern—not far from the
wall’s north end. Taking a key from a purse hanging to her girdle she
inserted it and then—sank down upon the ground and cried. She sobbed,
shuddered and laughed; she smiled and cried at the same time. One
listening could not have told whether it was laughter crying, or sobs
laughing. There was no bitterness in her tears, no joy in her mirth. If
asked, she could not have told whether she were gay or sad; whether she
thought of the man waiting, waiting, restlessly just beyond the wall or
an old man slumbering happily in the palace behind her. Finally she got
up, turned the key, shoved open the postern, then sat down upon the
threshold and should have cried again had not the Breton, waiting since
the beginning of darkness nearby the gate, came and touched her shyly
upon the shoulder. She looked up and in an instant her face was
illumined with radiant smiles; the world around her with all of its
terrors and dangers was now unseen, unheard. Reaching up her hand she
rested it timidly upon his arm; looking up into his face she laughed,
gently, doubtfully, yet reassuringly.
A short way down the street a sedan waited, and thither the Breton led
her. The bearers, lifting the chair lightly on their shoulders, started
off, the Breton on one side, the man Tsang on the other. They moved
uncertainly through the narrow tortuous streets, some black and empty
and along these they hastened. Others ablaze with lights were filled
with slow-moving crowds and deafened by all the noises of this night and
along these they moved with difficulty. Not far from the Magistracy of
Kwanghoi they came to a street half-dim with flickering lanterns and in
which were but few pedestrians. Being half-lighted and yet deserted gave
the bearers an opportunity to increase their speed to the utmost, and
even in passing right-angled streets they did not alter their gait.
Suddenly an official green-sedan followed by a retinue turned the
corner. The men that should have preceded and announced its approach
had, owing to the density of the crowds in an adjoining street, been
forced back to its side. And in the collision, which was unavoidable,
owing to the speed of the wife’s bearers, the green-sedan was
overthrown, the head of its occupant striking the pavement through the
side window.
Hardly a moment elapsed before the two sedans, their bearers and
retinues were surrounded by a crowd of men and of boys. This crowd,
deciphering the official name on the tablets borne by members of his
retinue, at once began their abuse.
It was a wild scene. Around the sedan and official, who sat dazed on the
pavement—a bundle of red satin and gold—huddled his frightened retinue
with torches and trembling lanterns, while about them laughed and yelped
and glowered this crowd of the night.
“Is it a man or a woman?” chirped an imp.
“It is a general!”
“What! He looks like a midwife.”
Everybody now began, heeding no one, listening to no one, but pouring
forth that abuse that is heaped by all people upon masters cowed before
the terror of numbers.
A Chinese mob is peculiar, though they are innocent of the fact. Just
what it is going to do is uncertain; like sea-waves, it depends upon the
way some little gust blows. Truculent, docile, smiling, sombre, gay, and
destructive—such are they in almost as many minutes. At once childishly
curious, peering, chattering, laughing; then taciturn, gloomy, defiant
and over whom broods a scowl that is terrible. They never know just what
is coming, whether it will be laughter or annihilation. They delight in
this uncertainty and their victims cringe before it.
“I don’t believe it is a he.”
“What! don’t you see the Golden Lion on his breast?”
“Beasts often mount the breasts of women.”
“Do you know,” howled a voice authoritatively, “that more generals are
killed by falling from sedans than in battle?”
“They are so fat.”
“And so soft.”
“Whoever noticed what things follow them?”
“Leeches!”
“Lice!”
“Sores!”
“Vermin!”
“Toads!”
“Offal!”
“Somebody help the woman-general up.”
“Dust his skirts.”
“Wipe off the spit.”
The officer rose with difficulty, purple, speechless. His retinue fell
back terror-stricken, and the bearers of the wife’s sedan skipped nimbly
away. His rage, however, only gave new impetus to the crowd’s joy. They
yelped, groaned, sighed and begged piteously for someone to help the
officer get mad.
“It is a known fact,” rose a howl above the rest, “that a general can
never get in a rage.”
“Poke him!”
“Punch him!”
The crowd was getting dangerous. A silence fell upon it.
“Get the general his fan; he is going now.”
The danger passed and once more the crowd was full of amused wonder as
the official glaring around, suddenly pounces upon the wife’s sedan.
Encouraged and jeered on by the crowd’s boisterous hoots, he reached in
and grabbed the wife by the arm, but as she rose out of her sedan his
hand fell.
The crowd became as still as solitude itself—a silence of swaying
lanterns and glare of torch. For a long time in this perfect stillness
the mob looked breathlessly upon her, then there went over them a soft
whispering sound that might have been a sigh. At this sound the officer,
who had fallen back astonished, muttered so that those around him heard:
“Tai Lin’s wife.”
As he spoke she tossed her head disdainfully, reaching out her hand to
the Breton, who stood bewildered beside her, taking hold of his arm and
with calm, scornful hauteur shining in her eyes, she walked slowly past
the officer. The mob fell back as she approached, leaving a lane through
their centre, and at the end of this terrible passage of lights and
faces Tsang joined them. Seizing the arm of the Breton he whispered:
“Hurry!”
A short distance down the street he led them into a doorway, passed up
some steps along a black corridor; down other steps, into a court,
across this through another passage, thence out into a street. As they
gained this thoroughfare they heard a dull cry:
“A priest has stolen Tai Lin’s wife!”
“Kill him!”
“Close the gates!”
“We must run,” cried Tsang.
The Breton looked down at the wife and said, softly:
“I will carry you.”
Smilingly as a child she lifted her hands to him and he picked her up in
his arms.
The two men ran with all their speed along this black alley of a street
until Tsang suddenly disappeared through a doorway. The flight now lay
through corridors like tunnels and courts like abysses. In the
neighbouring streets they could hear dully the wild cries of their
pursuers, mingled with crash of gongs, cymbals, blare of music and
explosion of crackers. In leaving one labyrinth of corridors, tunnels,
stairs, and pits they crossed narrow streets or continued along them for
a short distance only again to disappear into depths, which would have
been appalling had they not been welcome.
These by-streets that they crossed were mostly dark; even in those where
lanterns swayed most of the lights had flickered or gone out. So that
their flight was as through some strange and terrible cavern; strange
because it consisted of doorways, passages, courts, cellars, stairs, and
streets; brick, stone, mud, and sky; terrible because all of this had
been dug out and piled up by man, the same wild ferocious beast who now
hunted and bayed in the distance.
Fortunately the man Tsang had also spent his gamin days in this same
monstrous labyrinth and he knew all of its intricacies, its short cuts
and secrets, its pits, stinks, and tunnels.
“We may reach the Gate of Virtue before it closes—if Fate wills it,” he
mumbled nonchalantly. “If not——” He did not finish. As they started to
emerge from a doorway he stopped them.
“The Gate is near here. I will see if it is closed.”
The Breton did not reply nor move out of the doorway. The wife snuggled
happily on his shoulder. Neither seemed to know that they were out in
the night, pursued with hardly a chance to escape; to-night darkness and
joy; to-morrow light and death.
The wild echoes of the chase drew nearer.
Sometimes the wife lifted her head slightly, only to nestle more tightly
upon his shoulder, more closely against his neck. Had someone said,
“Where are you?” the Breton could not have answered. And had Tsang not
returned they would have remained under the doorway until awakened by
the elbowing mobs of day.
“The Gate is closed. Such is Fate,” said a voice coming unconcernedly
out of the darkness. “They are all closed,” the voice continues
serenely. “Thus Fate lights. Who can escape? Who can escape? In a little
while it will all be over. Hiyah!” and Tsang sat down on the threshold.
The smile did not go away from the Breton’s lips: the wife did not cease
to nestle contentedly upon his shoulder.
Suddenly Tsang sprang to his feet, gave a few dramatic cavorts, and then
shaking the Breton vigorously by the arm, cries:
“They will never think of the Water-gate. Such is Fate—come!”
Unhesitatingly the Breton followed, carrying his precious burden. Again
their flight skirted a maze of lanterns still glowing in the principal
streets, then stumbled along through bewildering labyrinths of
blackness; beholding for an instant a starry thread of sky, then
plunging underground.
They emerged upon a canal, which at their feet looked like an abyss,
while in other parts it reflected charmingly the gay lanterns swaying
from slipper boats; swinging, dangling rhythmically to the sinuous
movements of the gondoliers.
“Sampan!” called Tsang in a matter-of-fact voice.
“Hi! Hi!” shouted several simultaneously.
“Three people to the Gardens.”
“That is a long way,” they commented.
“I could walk there in twenty minutes if it were land.”
“But it isn’t land,” they joyfully responded.
“How much?” he continued unconcernedly.
“I am busy and ought not to stop and waste my time talking,” answered
one.
“I have an all night engagement,” added another.
“I was just going to moor my boat,” interjected a third, “but since you
are in difficulty, I will stop and give you some advice.”
“How much?” repeated Tsang.
“This is our Great Feast night,” remarked one.
“That is so,” chimed in the other two.
From the distance came the inarticulate baying of men.
“How much?” reiterated Tsang wearily.
“Do you hear him ask how much?” cried one turning surprisedly to the
others.
“How strange!” they commented.
“It was eight mace, but having a knowledge of benevolence, we have
reduced it to seven mace three candareens,” added the first speaker.
“Do you think I am a fool or a hill-man?” demanded Tsang with scorn.
“How will you go to the Gardens?” they chorused derisively.
“We will not go,” he answered, moving back from the bank.
“I will be benevolent,” cried one, suddenly moving his boat past the
others, “and take you for six mace, four——”
“Six mace, three candareens.”
“Six mace, two——” bellowed the third, trying to get his boat nearer.
Tsang paid no attention to them and the price was howled lower and
lower.
“Five mace,” yelped the first, and without a word Tsang jumped into his
boat. The Breton and the wife sat down in the middle of the sampan and
drew over them the curved bamboo roof. As the boat shot out into the
canal it was followed by a vituperative volley from the others.
Tsang stood by the boatman urging him on.
“There is a riot,” he whispered, “and all the gates have been closed
except the Water-gate. But don’t think we are going to pay just to go
there. Only when we——”
From distant streets came cries:
“Down with the Water-gate! Down with the Water-gate!”
The Breton and the wife sat in the darkness under the bamboo canopy.
Neither had spoken nor ceased to smile. Never in their lives had they
thought of anything so happy as this night journey.
The Water-gate loomed up before Tsang and the boatman; they could see
the lanterns swaying on the eaves of its guardhouse. Plainly now came
the cries:
“Down with the Water-gate!”
The pursuers were gaining.
Strenuously the boatman bent to his long oar; his breath came in hoarse
gasps and the perspiration running from his face shone in the lantern’s
light. The sinews in his arms and bared back swelled, knotted, quivered,
strained. Tsang stood by reiterating that if he did not get through the
gate he would not get to the Gardens, and how then would it be possible
to get the five mace? So the boatman swayed back and forth the great oar
with all his strength, and the sampan, trembling, shot sinuously
forward.
The baying of men drew nearer, and as they darted under the bridge which
spanned the canal in front of the Water-gate, they saw the guards
running out of neighbouring towers and mount the ramparts.
The cavernous exit loomed before them. And as the quivering boat darted
under the tower, they heard above them commands, cries, and the creaking
of chains.
From a boat by night this exit of the Water-gate looks like a monstrous
maw, and the portcullis outlined by the lights of the suburbs appear as
its jagged, gigantic teeth. And these teeth Tsang and the boatman saw
move above them and heard their grind. But under the bamboo canopy there
were still smiles, smiles by no means lost in the blackness. These two
were blissful under the very crunch of Fate’s teeth. As the boat glided
forward under the impulse of its own momentum they were unconscious of a
great splash just behind them and cries that the gate was down.
The boatman, panting, rested momentarily on his oar, then without a word
continued along the dark, winding course until the river was reached.
Here was a mass of boats, which seemed limitless, an interminable tangle
and barrier. But as the sampan approached the gondolier shouted out his
strange cries and a narrow lane parted to let his boat creep through,
while unconcernedly he accepted the railing and scolding of the old
boatwomen.
The sampan pushed out into the current of the great river and the
gondolier turned its bow upstream.
“Cross over to the south bank,” commanded Tsang.
“The Gardens are on the north bank.”
“I have changed my mind. I wish to go to a friend’s boat.”
So they crossed the river, and the boatman, following Tsang’s
directions, brought up beside a fair-sized river craft anchored in the
outer ring of boats that lined the bank.
No sooner has the Breton and the wife seated themselves under the bamboo
in their new boat, still smiling and silent, than Tsang raised the
mat-sail and under the impetus of the river wind, their vessel moved
along the westward against the Chu Kiang’s rolling, gloomy flood.
The river upon this night presented an appearance fantastic yet
beautiful. Its population seemed greater than that of the city, for its
whole surface was covered by a myriad of boats; some built as birds,
some as fishes; others as houses richly ornamented and resplendent with
carved and gilded work. On all of these strange craft moving restlessly
about were hung unnumbered lanterns. As they passed in and out amongst
each other these brilliant lights of every colour, fancy and shape,
swaying, quivering, dancing, turned night’s gloom—which broods so
cumbrously upon this river—into a fluttering, iridescent day, while from
flower-boats, bazaars, and gondolas came incessant strains of music, the
song and laughter of women.
Suddenly over the laughter of this night there fell upon the ears of
Tsang, as he sat on the high poop with the tiller in his hand, a dull
roar, a baying of multitudes that came from the city.
“Fate alone knows,” he muttered.
A turn southward and the lights vanished: in a short time the sounds of
revelry and that growl from the city were heard no more. About, all was
darkness other than here and there a light on the banks and stars
shining kindly overhead. No voice was heard but the monologue of the
river and occasionally the nasal song of a river-man whose wild and
melancholy tones echoed from bank to bank.
Thus they journeyed on to the Grotto of the Sleepless Dragon.
CHAPTER SIX
THE PROPITIATION OF THE GODS OF THE WATERS—CONTINUED
In the southern suburbs, almost under the shadow of the city walls and
midway between the Dragon Gate on the right and the Great Bamboo Gate on
the left, once stood a Lodge of the Tien Tu Hin, generally known as the
Guild Hall of the Merchants of Kiang, since it is the custom of
merchants from the same locality to have their guilds where they meet
for business and pleasure. So this custom, beneficial in more ways than
one, was made to serve as an excuse—a protection to the children of the
Deluge Family.
The buildings of the Lodge—or Guild Hall—were surrounded by an high wall
having a granite gateway on the street parallel with the city walls
connected the two thoroughfares that extended through the Gates of the
Dragon and the Great Bamboo. Between the entrances and the buildings was
a wide court paved with granite slabs, while a number of banian trees
half hid in their foliage the many buildings of granite, glazed brick,
and curved dragon eaves, separated by a series of courts and connected
with corridors. The main entrance opposite the gateway was reached by a
broad flight of steps flanked by two bronze lions. In the first
buildings of this Guild Hall were reception and smoking rooms,
libraries, offices, and other apartments necessary to such an
association. But back of these, beyond another court, stood other
buildings, windowless and forbidding, where unknown chambers held in
their darkened recesses the secrets and terrors of the Tien Tu Hin.
As it happened the night of the Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters
fell on the night of initiation in this secret lodge on the street of
Changsha. So just about the same hour when the wife was creeping
fearfully through the still, dark park, others of mankind were slinking
along through the shadows of the city walls and vanishing under the
granite gate.
It was a strange gathering that slunk under the portals of that gloomy
entrance: men in long silken robes, men in rags; merchants, thieves,
sailors, scholars, artisans, soldiers, pirates. Men with soft white
hands, pale faces and delicate in their courtesies, mingled brotherly
with others almost black from storms and exposure; brawny, brusque,
sombre, ferocious.
After the second hour of darkness had passed the outer gates were
closed; and when the ponderous doors at the top of the Lion steps had
been bolted, a gong sounded hoarsely from some unknown depths and before
its deep echoes had ended this motley congregation of men standing about
talking, smoking, disappeared, utterly vanished, so that there was not
to be seen in all the Guild Hall man, rag, nor robe.
Presently the gong mumbled again; slowly, measuredly, five times this
gong sounded, and as suddenly as they had vanished there sprang out of
recesses, crevices and walls fecundate, a new race of men. When they
disappeared they had had queues and shaven heads, now they came forth
without them and about their crowns were turbans of red silk. A wild
medley of satins and tatters had gone into the hidden places, but there
came out an assembly all gorgeous in the antique robes of the Mings, so
that it could not now be known who had come in rags, who in silks.
Again cymbals crashed, and the assembly arranged itself by twos other
than at the head, and there one man marched alone, preceded by guards
carrying upright heavy double-edged swords. This man, who walked alone,
was the Great Elder Brother—the Grand Master of the Lodge. Behind him
followed the Incense Master and Instructor; then the Third Elder Brother
and Champion, after whom came the General of the Van and the Red Club;
these were followed by the Five Generals, the Tiger Generals, the Eight
Guards, the Iron Soles and members.
Slowly, solemnly, in time with the dirge-like booming of gongs and crash
of cymbals the procession moved out of the first buildings, along the
corridors flanking the court and disappeared through an opening beyond.
After passing through a number of chambers and corridors they came to an
entrance before which stood guards with drawn swords. The Guards
preceding the Great Elder Brother stood face to face before them and
then silently exchanged swords. They now entered the first anteroom, at
the far end of which was another guarded door. Again the same solemn
transfer of swords was gone through with, and the procession passed on
into the second anteroom where, as before, swords were passed and the
Great Elder Brother led the way into the third anteroom, at the far end
of which were two iron doors. As the guards pulled these back there
opened before them a huge Hall of Shadows.
The appearance of this Hall was such as to inspire terror. Just beyond
the doors, extending their whole width, stretched a fiery moat, out of
which flames leaped and crackled; in its depths the heat glowed white
and green. Across this burning ditch, through the middle of the doorway,
was a bridge of two planks, one copper, the other iron—symbolic of the
bridge thrown down by the Immortal Tahtsunye and by which the Five
Patriarchs escaped from Shaolintze. Over this bridge hung an arch of
pendent swords glowing and quivering with the heat that rose from the
furnace below. The only lights in the Hall—unless the stars are
numbered—were the ditch of fire and in the centre two iron racks, where
blazed bundles of fagots and which gave an uncertain enormity to the
shadows within. On the sides were cavernous openings, in the floor
abysses. The ceiling other than over the fiery ditch and fagots, was
also full of uncertain shadows. In the far left-hand corner, hardly
perceptible in this glaring dust, glowed like a blinking eye a taper on
the Shrine of the God of War. Opposite in the darkness of the right-hand
corner beamed another eye on the Altar of the Goddess of Mercy. Then
there was the taper of the God of Earth and five tapers on the Shrines
of the Five Patriarchs.
In the centre of the hall but beyond the braziers of fagots stood the
Great Shrine, flanked on the left by a representation of Kaochi
Temple—where the Five Patriarchs met the founder of the Deluge Family,
Chen Chinan, and on the right by a miniature nine-story pagoda. In front
of the Great Shrine was a lesser altar on which were placed the symbols
of the Tien Tu Hin: symbols that have been revered by countless millions
for nearly two centuries and a half—symbols the world may dread. On the
smaller altar lay a stone incense vessel engraved with four large
characters, Fuh Tsing, Fa Ming. In the centre was a Peck of Rice known
as Muyangfu, in which were stuck the flags of the Five Grand Sections of
the Deluge Family and the banner of the Commander-in-chief. On one side
was placed a Red Club, having a phœnix engraved on one end and a dragon
on the other.
On each corner of the altar stood a dwarf Cedar and Pine tree,
symbolical of fidelity in oaths. Between them, ranged alternately on
each side of the Muyangfu, was a red lamp to discern the True from the
False; a seven-starred broadsword indicating that by the sword the
Manchus will succumb and the Mings be restored; a Rule by which men can
measure their conduct; a Pair of Scales to weigh Ming against Tsing, the
True against the Traitors; an Abacus to reckon the time for their
destruction; a Mirror, as was handed down by Nu Wo, to show who are good
and who are evil; a White Fan for calling together the members of the
Deluge Family; a Pair of Scissors for ripping open the black clouds that
obscure the Ming sky; and finally a huge double-edged sword by which the
disobedient and traitorous are put to death. The roof in front of the
shrine and between the braziers was open and the stars shone down into
shadows filled with terror; into that silence where man broods.
Silently the procession entered this vast hall, which at one time had
appeared to them all as a colossal deep of doom. The Great Elder
Brother, the Incense Master and Instructor took their places before the
Great Shrine, the other officers ranging themselves in order to the
rear.
Solemnly the Grand Master lifted up the Peck of Rice called Muyangfu,
and as he placed it on the Greater Shrine the officers behind him
chanted their mystic verses. Then in the same manner he raised the
Tripod, the Abacus, the Mirror, the Pine and Cedar trees, the Scales and
Discerning Lamp, the White Fan and Cloud-Ripping Scissors. After all the
symbols had been placed on the Great Altar, and the Incense Master had
lighted the incense in the Stone Tripod and before each tablet of the
Five Patriarchs, the whole assembly fell on their knees, chanting a
requiem mysterious, known to none but them.
The Great Elder Brother now took his seat under the open space in the
roof, so that the Eyes of Heaven could look down upon him and see that
his acts were just. The Incense Master sat on his left; the Instructor
on his right; then the Third Elder Brother on the left of the Incense
Master; the Champion on the right of the Instructor; thus they arranged
themselves: the General of the Van, the Red Club, the Five Generals and
Tiger Generals, the Eight Guards and the Iron Soles, while at the end of
the iron and copper bridge, under the arch of pendant swords, stood
other guards. The whole assembly was arranged in the form of a crescent,
the Great Elder Brother being in the centre, behind him the Great
Shrine, on his right and left the braziers of fagots, before him the
fiery moat; above—the stars of Heaven.
In the first anteroom waited the uninitiated, dressed in rough clothing,
their queues unplaited and their shoes removed. The Guards stationed at
the entrance of the second anteroom demanded of them why they came, and
they replied that they understood soldiers were wanted and they came to
enlist.
The Guards demanded who asked them to come, and they replied that they
came on their own accord.
The sponsors of the candidates now led them into the second anteroom,
where the guards demanded whence they came, and to which they replied:
“From the East.” The names of their sponsors were taken and the Guards
warned them that they would have dangers and hardships to endure; that
the food they were to eat would be three parts rice and seven parts
sand, to which they replied:
“Yu sha, king sha, wu sha king kiang”—“if there is sand we will farm it;
if there is no sand, we will farm waves.”
In the third anteroom the Guards asked them this terrible conundrum:
“Which is harder, the sword or your necks?”
They answered: “Our necks.”
The jackets of the candidates were unbuttoned, their right arms and
shoulders bared and five lighted tapers of incense placed in their
hands.
The General of the Van advanced and conducted them, walking on their
knees, to the inner door, where he addressed the Guards:
“Guards of the Inner Portal, inform the Incense Master that the General
of the Van conducts recruits to join our army and swear brotherhood.
They desire to take Deluge for their family name, and may it please the
Incense Master to pray before the Shrine of the Five Patriarchs that
they may gaze down upon us and approve.”
The Guards replied that the Five Patriarchs commanded Tien Yu Hung to
enter.
The General of the Van passed through the Inner Portal, across the fiery
moat and addressed the Incense Master, upon which ensued an endless,
mystic dialogue, sometimes sounding like the chatter of children;
sometimes like the ominous muttering of thunder. It was occult, inane,
full of wonderful and dreadful meaning, cabalistic, ridiculous,
terrifying—all depending upon who listened. The sizzling of a fuse is
amusing to a child; to an old soldier—death.
The long mysterious debate was at last brought to a close by the Incense
Master ordering the General of the Van to bring the candidates upon the
bridge.
The doors were thrown open and the recruits led—still walking on their
knees—through the entrance.
At the sight of the burning moat they drew back, cringing one upon
another, but as the General of the Van advanced they shuffled after him,
the tapers trembling in their hands. When their guide reached the other
end of the bridge he stopped and they were obliged to remain crouching
on the planks of copper and iron; below them a furnace, above an arch of
swords shuddering in the heat waves, scintillating, threatening.
The Incense Master advanced toward them and, crossing his arms on his
breast, uttered this prayer:
“O Imperial Heaven, O Sovereign Earth, Ye Spirits of Fire; Ye Spirits of
Hills and Streams, and Land and Veins of the Earth: Ye Five Dragon
Spirits of the Five Regions: Lin Ting, Lui Chia, Spirits Attendant, and
all Ye Holy Spirits that wander through endless space, draw near to us,
we entreat!
“Since Fuh created this Earth all has prospered, and what the Ancients
knew they have given down to succeeding ages. This knowledge we have
received, we are about to impart.
“Patriots now hang on the Bridge over Fires. They have come to swear to
Ye, O Imperial Heaven, that they will live and die together. That they
pledge brotherhood forever, considering sincerity the basis; kindness
and righteousness the Ruling Principles; filial love and obedience above
all.
“O Ye Five Spirits, throw down into the fire those that would to-night
bring discord or treason into our midst. Let those that hang on the
bridge know that no distinction of mine or thine can be allowed here.
“To-night we will kneel in front of the Incense Tripod and cleanse our
hearts, mix our blood, swallow the mingled blood-drinking oath, and
swear to live and die for our brotherhood—immutable as the hills and
seas.
“Those that obey shall prosper; those that are disobedient shall perish.
Those that assist their country in establishing Universal Peace shall be
ennobled for a thousand ages; but those that are traitors shall die
beneath the sword and their race become extinct.
“O Fuh Teh, Protector of the people and famed eternally for thy divine
benevolence; and Ye, O Chung I, the ten thousand ages hero, the
Recruiter and Commander of the valiant, we are now by order of the Five
Patriarchs about to swear brotherhood in the blood-testing oath of our
society. May Ye Gods in your wisdom and power make clear to these
newcomers that it matters not what is their human relationship, all are
born anew in the Deluge.
“Again, O Fuh Teh and Chung I, and all ye Intelligent and Discerning
Gods, we humbly beseech you to look down upon us while we take the
Thirty-six Oaths to manifest the truthfulness of our hearts.”
The candidates on the bridge, swaying back and forth, crouched and clung
to one another. Panting for breath, great streams of perspiration ran
from their faces and shoulders, their eyes bulged and rolled. Almost
overcome by the heat and fumes that rose around them, each appeared
about to topple off into the furnace.
The delay was not yet ended.
When the Incense Master ceased his prayer two Iron Soles stepped forward
and received from him a scroll of yellow paper about six feet long by
two broad, on which were written the Thirty-six Oaths. One of the Iron
Soles knelt on his right knee and held one corner in his right hand,
while the other knelt on his left knee and held the other corner with
his left hand.
The Incense Master and members knelt.
During the silence that followed there penetrated into this chamber of
fire and shadows a roar, rumbling, subsiding. Only the men on the bridge
did not hear this ominous growl.
Slowly, sombrely, the Incense Master read off the Thirty-six Oaths—and
their thirty-six sentences of death. This finished, came a period of
silence, then the members rose and the Iron Soles stepped forward and
helped the candidates from the bridge. Some were almost unconscious,
others glared stupidly about them.
The Iron Soles, leading, supporting, dragged them to the Incense Vessel
before the Shrine of the Five Patriarchs, where each, as soon as able,
inserted an incense taper into the vessel and repeated as best he could
five verses. Removing their tapers from the Incense Vessel they dipped
them into a bowl of water standing next to the tripod and as they were
being extinguished repeated:
“May my life go out like the fire of these incense tapers if I prove a
traitor to my oath!”
The Thirty-six Oaths were then placed in the Incense Vessel; the Incense
Master took the basin and, repeating a ritual, dashed it upon the floor,
whereupon all of the members repeated in unison, sonorous, ominous:
“May such be the fate of traitors.”
The Incense Master set fire to the Oaths and as the flames crept up the
scroll there came again, nearer, louder, that distant growl.
The Guards led the candidates beneath the opening through which shone
the stars; a cock was brought, the head cut off, and its blood poured
into the bowl in which the incense tapers had been extinguished. The Red
Club now advanced, holding in one hand his huge weapon, in the other a
flared, black blade. The two guards that preceded him seized one of the
candidates and tore off his upper garments, leaving him naked to the
waist.
The roar, now nearer, grumbled, muttered, then fell silent. But as the
Red Club lifted his blade there came a terrific crash, followed by an
overflow of wild noises such as man makes in his rage.
The knife hesitated.
The pent-up floods of the riot that had swollen to vast proportions
after the cry had resounded over the city that Tai Lin’s wife had been
stolen by priests, burst almost simultaneously through the three
southern gates and dashing, seeping through the suburban streets,
converged toward the Mission. These dark streams, with flaming wave
crests, gurgling with snarls, yelps and threats; frothing, eddying,
scowling, soon filled the street of Changsha. One stream had burst out
of the Dragon Gate, another out of the gate of the Great Bamboo, and the
overflow of these two torrents came together in front of Lodge of the
Tien Tu Hin. The noise that rose when they came together was
indescribable. It was a frightful splash of snarls and curses; a
splatter of taunts and growls, while above all, distinguished by its
persistency and vigour, rose a common howl:
“Kill the priests.”
When this uproar with its rage and strange silences fell upon the
Children of the Deluge in their Chamber of Shadows, there was a general
movement. Merchants became uneasy, fearful for their stores; thieves
became desirous for plunder; soldiers to return to their posts; beggars
to join the rabble; officials to their Yamens; pirates to their junks;
silk robes to their mansions, but the rags would not return that night
to their cellars.
The Great Elder Brother rose from his seat; Guards placed themselves in
front of him; the Incense Master, the Instructor, followed by all
others, took their places and the procession filed out over the bridge
into the anteroom as solemnly and silently as it had entered.
The vast hall was empty. The fagots in the iron racks flamed, flickered,
and went out. The fiery moat glowed white, green, lurid, then dark spots
began to creep into it. After a while only the stars shone down into the
Chamber of the World’s Dread.
The overflow from the Dragon Gate, being less than that from the Great
Bamboo, was pushed back until there was a general commingling, then the
whole rushed unresistingly downward toward the river and westward toward
the Mission. Other torrents, chafing, foaming, hurled themselves against
the walls of their narrow channels in mad endeavour to reach the river’s
edge through the labyrinthine writhings of the suburban streets. Like
floods restrained, it sometimes appeared as if they would overflow and
surge straight down across the roof tops.
It was the rumble of these torrents just after they had burst through
the city gates that the man Tsang had heard as he sat at the tiller. And
had the wind not been strong or had there been no bend in the river, he
would soon have heard a roar more ominous, more dreadful, as these
torrents of howls poured into the basin surrounding the Mission.
The streets north and east of the Mission Compound were first filled,
then on the west. And when all were overflowing, so that stragglers,
trickling, seeping in, were being pushed back in the direction whence
they came; these torrents churned, swirled, then surged out into the
open space between the Mission and the river.
The Compound was surrounded, and the mob, as a sea, billowed and
splashed against its walls. Like a great rock the Mission remained
silent, with a gloomy hauteur, a scornful taciturnity, so that these
waves only dashed against it to fall back upon themselves.
There were many similarities between this encircling flood of man with
wave crests of flame and roar of tongues to a sea of waters. For this
sea, girdling, eddying around the granite base of that gloomy
parallelogram, ocean-like, broke and spattered. It had its froth and its
depths, its calms and murmurs; its terrors; its tides and ebbs and
billows. Sometimes its fire-crests, like those in the Bay of Tai Wan,
moved forward in uneven undulations, then hurled against the granite
barriers, flowed back and merged with another tide. Again these waves
met in such a manner as to form whirlpools or a single force like a
waterspout, only here a howl and flame-spout would drive its way
ruthlessly through the waves and, lashing itself momentarily against the
walls, subside and mingle with the rest. This sea had its evaporations
and its residue; it accumulated, eroded and dissipated. But it howled
where the ocean rumbled, snarled where it roared, and where the sea of
waters murmured this flood talked to itself—a childish, terrible
monologue.
Said one wave to another:
“What are you here for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you kill?”
“Yes.”
“What is the trouble?” asked another.
“That is what we are going to find out.”
“Isn’t it enough to know that this place must be destroyed?”
“That is true.”
“What else is there to do when these priests have stolen Tai Lin’s
wife?”
“Neighbour, I tell you they have vanished. Is it in accordance with
reason to believe that they would wait?”
Where this sea eddied around the southwest corner of the Mission, the
tumult of one wave rose sonorously above the rest.
“O Ye Men of the Middle Kingdom,” roared this wave. “Ye who have trod
its soil, breathed the air of its Imperial Heavens; ye who have eaten
the herb of its fields and for a myriad ages have drunk the dew of its
benevolence, how long are you going to let these sea-imps devour your
women and children? How long are you going to let these Western devils
who pretend to be priests deceive you? Skin them of their robes and you
will find that they are bats and snakes, who smile but to devour.
“Did they not sneak into our Kingdom like night monsters—these proud
priests of the Hungry God? Answer, ye doubters; ye women-men; ye
disgraceful progeny of the Ancients. Whoever trembled before priests or
gods until these pallid demons came? Did not then the peace-flower bloom
in our gardens; the song of the phœnix make men’s hearts harmonious? Who
now does not fear the breath of these priests? Do they not get fat on
destruction? Do they not steal the wives of our Great Men? Destroy towns
and cities? O ye black-haired men of Han! O ye——”
“Why doesn’t someone climb the wall?” demanded one wave of another.
“They have cauldrons inside and when one mounts the walls they take off
the lids and the fumes cause——”
“How do you know?”
“Bah! It is easy to reason with a wise man, but to convince——”
“Throw stink-pots over the walls!”
“Get the pung-dongs!”
These cries were taken up and echoed on all sides.
In the middle of the open space between the Mission and the river—now
filled by the mob—a band of Taoist monks had congregated, mingling their
weird cries and clash of their cymbals with noises about them, and there
rose above all the rest a plaintive falsetto shriek:
“Disasters come upon the Middle Kingdom.
Foreign devils disturb the country.
They urge the people to join their religion.
No Gods they venerate.
Their backs they turn on Heaven.
They teach men to debase their ancestors.
Human obligations they hate.
They force women to adultery.
These sea-imps are not the produce of mankind.
If you doubt this look at them carefully.
Their eyes are blue, like those of devils.
They look into the depths of the earth.
Their hair is red, which is the colour of hell.
They dry up the earth.
No rain falls.
The sky is parched.
This is because their blood-God is in the heavens.”
At regular intervals the other monks joined in, in high falsetto wail:
“Burn the yellow written prayers.
Light the incense tapers.
Invite the Gods and Genii from all the Grottoes.
The Gods will come forth from their caverns.
The Genii will come out of the mountains——”
Thus this sea surged, rolled, grumbled, tossed, debated. All howled at
once, all talked at once, and at intervals silence came simultaneously
over them all. This still stillness resembled that strange quiet that
often comes in the midst of battle or storm; it might be called the
scowl of decision, ominous, portentous.
Fortunately for the Mission, this mob-thought, this contemplation of
that turbulent flood, never lasted long enough to decide; some noise
would disturb it, a whisper perhaps, but something, and tumultuous it
wasted its force in surfy din.
Suddenly there burst above all its noise a deep boom from the river,
followed by another and another. Like rockets or even meteors the
cannon’s spittle traced its fire over the waters.
The French gunboats had opened fire.
The man-flood that filled the open field and that murmured and howled or
was silent, whose wave-crests of flame surged and eddied around the
Mission walls, suddenly became a maelstrom of darkness and wild cries.
Shell after shell fell into this maelstrom, which, contrary to other
whirlpools, was not concentric, but might be called multiple; wherever a
shell exploded a minor whirlpool was formed, the outer circles of which
were made up of the living, the inner of the wounded, the centre of the
dead, the torn. Thus the whole open space was filled with frightful
eddies; eddies that bumped into one another, contended, merged.
Medusa-like they scattered themselves into a dozen whirlpools, then
devouring one another formed a huge indistinguishable mass; struggling,
shrinking, climbing, crawling, wriggling. Here and there blown asunder;
torn, mutilated, sighing.
The mass of wrigglers grew less and less.
Several houses on the western side of the open space were set on fire by
shells exploding in them, and as the flames shot skyward they cast a
lurid light over all.
The firing ceased. There was nothing to shoot at other than when a
wounded man would jump up, run a little way, then fall. Some of these
men ran to the river and jumped in; some ran to the Mission Gates and
knocked entreatingly; others ran toward the buildings in flame.
Several boats loaded with marines now put off from the warships and
rowed heavily across the lighted waters. No one opposed their landing,
but as they started across the open space they involuntarily drew back
at the frightful spectacle that lay before them. Lit by the red glare of
burning buildings the place was as one vast slaughter pen. The dead lay
strewn about in bunches; headless, legless, gutless, soulless. Here one
with muscles twitching in death’s agony, there one asleep. The eyes of
some were glazed, others looked resignedly at the stars. Some sat erect,
and as the marines approached laughed and—died.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE WHITE LAMB AND YELLOW WOLF
A month after the night-flight and night-riot, which the Propitiation of
the Gods of the Waters had brought about, a defensive calm pervaded the
Mission of Yingching and its immediate environs, although to the
westward the noise of hammer and saw filled the air.