Hurrying up from the shore he made up his mind what to do. Fortunately

he was in the Chinese quarter of the town; it was the part of prudence

to avoid the Russian settlement on the hill. He remembered a Chinese

horse-dealer with whom Mr. Brown had done business when he lived in the

town years before. The Chinese had altered less than the official city,

and he thought he could find his way to the merchant's house. Taking

his bearings, he walked rapidly through several streets, and found to

his delight that his recollection had not failed him. The horse-dealer

was at home; he did not recognize Jack, who was a boy of eleven when his

transactions with Mr. Brown had taken place; but he well remembered the

English merchant. And when he learnt that Jack wished to purchase a

pony he rubbed his hands together and led him at once to the stables to

view the stock. They were a weedy lot, like most of the native animals.

Jack was careful to show no haste or eagerness; he looked them over

critically, rejected one after another in spite of all the flowery

things the Chinaman found to say in their favour, and finally refused to

buy. As he expected, the merchant then managed to find a better

beast--a beautiful little Transbaikal pony, sturdy, well-made, and

evidently full of mettle. Jack could not have wished for a better

animal; but, experienced in the ways of Chinese business men, he gave no

sign of his approval. The merchant quoted a price; Jack hemmed,

hesitated--he knew better than to close at once; and then offered half.

Eager as he was to get away, he patiently chaffered for nearly an hour;

then, when the Chinaman was beginning to think he had lost his customer,

Jack suddenly closed with the last offer, and the pony became his at

two-thirds of the price first asked. The purchase of a saddle did not

take so long; and when he rode off, both dealer and customer were

equally pleased.

In the street Jack stopped a young Chinese boy and sent him to a

purveyor's shop for a small supply of portable food. The messenger

returned with some dried fish and stale cakes of potato-rice, all he

could procure. With this tied behind his saddle Jack set off. It was

an anxious moment when he passed a brown-coated Cossack policeman, and a

little farther on he gave a jump when a squadron of Cossacks swung round

the corner of the street. But they rode on without giving him more than

a casual glance. Not daring to hasten, he slowly made his way through

the city and out into the country. It was still only eleven o'clock; he

had nine or ten hours of daylight before him, and though the pony was

somewhat soft for want of exercise, it was no doubt good for thirty

miles at a pinch.

Vladivostok stands at the end of a narrow peninsula, with the Amur Bay

running for several miles into the land on the west, and the Ussuri Bay

on the east. To gain the Manchurian frontier Jack would have to ride

northwards, cross the railway at the head of the Amur Bay or beyond, and

then turn to the south-west. It was obviously unsafe for him to ride

parallel with the railway line, for his escape, if discovered, would no

doubt be telegraphed ahead, and the road would be watched, especially in

the neighbourhood of the stations. His best course, therefore, would be

to strike up eastwards towards the head of the Ussuri Bay, away from his

ultimate destination, and trust to luck to find a hill-path leading back

that would enable him to cross the line somewhere between the head of

the Amur Bay and the garrison town of Nikolskoye. His way led through

the plantation where he had made his toilet early that morning, then to

the right towards the hills.

Though Vladivostok itself has sprung up with marvellous rapidity, the

country is as yet sparsely peopled. At one time the town was closely

surrounded by magnificent woods; but the axe of the lumberman has been

busy, and the same work of deforesting that has robbed the town of

picturesqueness is now being pursued inland. One of the few people Jack

met along the unfrequented road he had chosen was a Russian colonist

riding behind a cart laden with pine logs and driven by a coolie. Jack

threw him a friendly "Good morning!" as he passed, and received a

feeling "Very hot, barin" in return. It was indeed hot; the almost

naked Korean labourers in the fields were streaming with sweat; and Jack

was glad to halt at a little brook to refresh himself and his beast.

After riding for some three hours, and covering, as he guessed, about

eighteen miles, almost entirely uphill, he saw the sea below him on the

right, and the far coast-line running to all appearance due south. This

must be Ussuri Bay. He had evidently come far enough east; it was time

to change his course to the north-west. Swinging round, he had not

ridden far before he came to a small farm, the house surrounded, like

all Chinese isolated country buildings, with a mud wall. His pony

required food, and though he felt some misgivings he thought this too

good an opportunity to be neglected. He rode up. The owner, he found,

was a Korean; Jack did not speak Korean; but by the help of Chinese and

pidgin Russian he succeeded in making the man understand what he wanted.

He then asked how far it was to Nikolskoye, and learning that it was

thirty versts, roughly twenty miles, he decided to give his pony a good

rest and start again about six o'clock, so that darkness would have

fallen by the time he came to the neighbourhood of the railway. Having

seen that the animal was rubbed down and provided with a good feed of

hay, he joined the farmer in a game of _wei-ch'i_, a difficult variant

of chess, and with this and a slow laborious conversation, in the course

of which his host expounded his hazy ideas of the war, he managed to get

through the hot afternoon.

Soon after six he set off again. The way was mainly downhill now, and

easier riding. About nine o'clock he saw in the gloaming a little

settlement ahead, and beyond it the hexagonal water-tower and timbered

store-house of the typical Siberian railway-station, but on a small

scale. The path he was following led direct to the hamlet, and the sight

of several small knots of people at that hour of the evening showed that

a train would shortly be passing; the peasants have not yet lost their

curiosity about the iron horse. He thought it well to avoid observation

by leaving the track--road it could not be called--and striking across a

bean-field. Making a wide sweep he came to the railway some three

versts north of the station. He rode very cautiously as he approached

the line, tied his pony to a tree, and scouted ahead to make sure that

the line rifle guard, whose hut might be expected a few versts beyond,

was not in sight. Suddenly he heard the distant rumble of a train--the

night train for Harbin. In a moment he saw that the passage of the

train would give him an opportunity of crossing the line unobserved. He

went back to his pony, led it as near as he dared to the embankment, and

waited.

The engine came snorting along at a fair pace, the fire throwing a glow

upon the darkling sky. The train clattered by. Immediately after the

last carriage had passed, Jack mounted the embankment, dragging his

pony, crossed the single line, and descended on the other side.

With a lighter heart he got into the saddle again, and rode his

excellent little steed across the fields in the hope of ere long

striking a road. Pursuit would be difficult in the darkness; the

greatest danger was to be expected with daylight, and it was very

necessary that he should put as many miles as possible between himself

and the railway before dawn. His course must be mainly south-west; the

nearest town of any size was Hun-chun, some sixty miles in that

direction; but having a vague idea that the Russians had erected a fort

there, he had already made up his mind to avoid that town itself. Four

or five hundred miles and countless perils lay between him and Moukden;

but with the hopefulness of youth he rode confidently on. Danger and

difficulty were only incentives to caution; if he anticipated them, it

was merely that, being prepared, he might be the more ready to grapple

with and overcome them. Ever present in his mind was the belief that

his father's fate hung upon the success of his enterprise.

Coming by and by to a rough track between the fields, he followed it

until past midnight. Then, feeling that his pony could do no more, and

being unable in the darkness to guide himself by the little compass he

wore on his watch-chain, he left the track, rode into a plantation to

the right, off-saddled, and, hitching the bridle to a tree, threw

himself on the ground and fell asleep.

During the short hours of darkness his slumbers were disturbed by

dreams. Sowinski, Orloff, Monsieur Brin, the Chinese horse-dealer--all

figured in a strange phantasmagoria. Monsieur Brin had lost his pass,

and was shedding tears because he could not tear the red brassard from

his arm, when Jack awoke with a start. Looking at his watch he found it

was five o'clock. He must be up and away. He ate the last of his food;

the pony had already made a meal of the shoots of creeping plants; then,

with the instinct born of his fugitive condition, Jack approached the

edge of the plantation to spy out the country. Before him, not many

yards away, was a narrow river; behind--he gave a great start, for

little more than half a mile distant he saw a troop of Russian horsemen

trotting smartly along the road towards him. They might be going, of

course, to Possiet Bay, or Novo Kiewsk, or the Korean frontier. But he

noticed at a second glance that the leading man was bending low in his

saddle, as though following a trail. He distinguished their uniform now;

they were Buriats, Mongols by race and Buddhists by religion, hard

riders, excellent scouts, the most reckless and daring of the Russian

cavalry. Without a moment's hesitation he went back to his pony,

snatched from the ground the saddle that had formed his pillow, threw it

over the animal's back, and, tightening the girths with hands that shook

in spite of himself, he plunged with the pony into the thickest part of

the plantation.

At seven o'clock that morning, in a neatly-thatched, white-washed brick

cottage, surrounded by a luxuriant and well-kept garden, in the

hill-country above the Chuan, a little group sat at breakfast. The room

was plain but spotlessly clean. The wooden floors shone; the white

plastered walls were covered with coloured lithographs representing the

seven stations of the Cross; the little windows were hung with curtains

of Chinese muslin. A narrow shelf of books occupied one corner, a stove

another; and the table in the centre was spread with a snow-white cloth,

dishes of fruit, and home-made bread.

At the table three persons were seated. One was a tall man of fine

presence, with clear-cut features, soft brown eyes, long white hair and

beard. He wore the loose white tunic and pantaloons of a Chinaman, but

the cross that hung by a cord round his neck was not Chinese. Jean

Mayenobe was a Frenchman, a priest, one of those devoted missionaries

who cut themselves off from home and kindred to live a life of

self-denial, peril, and humble Christian service in remote unfriendly

corners of the globe.

His companions were a woman and a girl. The former was plain-featured

and plainly dressed, with placid expression and humble mien. The latter

seemed strangely out of place in her surroundings. She was young,

apparently of some seventeen years. Her features were beautiful, with a

dignity and a look of self-command rare in one of her age. Her

complexion was ruddy brown; her bright hair, gathered in a knot behind,

rebelled against the black riband that bound it, and fell behind her

ears in crispy waves. Before her on the table was a samovar, and she

had just handed a cup of tea to the missionary.

"Father," she said in French, "I am so tired of waiting. I am beginning

to think that permission will never come. But why should it be refused?

It is not as if I were seeking some benefit. In appearance I lose, not

gain."

"True, my child, you have nothing personally to gain. I have said

before, it is not every daughter who would come thousands of miles and

suffer hardship in order to bear her father company in exile and

imprisonment. And such exile! The little I know of Sakhalin is

frightful. It gives me pain to think of your knowing even so much."

"I am not afraid. And if the treatment of prisoners in Sakhalin is so

bad, that is all the more reason why I should be at my father's side, to

help and comfort him a little. Why do they refuse to let me go?"

"Probably they have forgotten all about you. The war occupies them

completely. And I repeat, if you have patience your father may come to

you. I have no belief that the Russians will win in this terrible war.

I heard but a little while ago from a brother priest near the scene of

operations at Hai-cheng, who has studied the combatants, that he is

convinced of the ultimate success of the Japanese. If they are

victorious they will probably demand that Sakhalin shall be restored to

them, and it will no longer be a place for Russian prisoners. Rest in

the Lord, my child; wait patiently for Him, and He will give thee thy

heart's desire."

Gabriele Walewska was silent. Father Mayenobe sank into a reverie. The

elderly woman looked sympathetically at her mistress, laid her hand on

hers, and murmured a few words in Polish, to which the girl responded

with a grateful smile. The sound of a distant shot coming through the

open window shook the missionary from his musing.

"Russian officers out snipe-shooting again, I suppose," he said. "It

reminds me I must go, my child. That poor Korean convert of mine is at

the point of death, I fear. I must go to him. I may be absent all

day."

"We shall be quite happy, father. I shall pick the last of your

strawberries to-day, and make some of your favourite tartlets for

supper."

"You will spoil me," said the priest with a smile. "Dominus vobiscum."

When the missionary had gone, Gabriele left the Korean servants to clear

the table, and, accompanied by her old nurse, went out into the garden

with a light wicker basket. As she did so she scanned the surrounding

country for signs of the shooting party. The mission station was at the

summit of a low hill, and below it, towards the east, stretched a tract

of sparse woodland, alternating with cultivated fields. A stream bathed

the foot of the hill, and wound away to join the Hun-Chuan, its course

traceable by the thickness of the wooded belt and the more vivid green

of the fields.

While the girl was still picking the ripe red berries she heard another

shot, this time closer at hand. She rose, and out of pure curiosity

searching the landscape she saw, about two miles away, a band of

horsemen galloping through a field of kowliang, already so well grown

that the stalks rose almost to the horses' heads. There were some

thirty or forty of the riders, at present little more than specks in the

distance. It struck her as rather a large hunting party, and she

wondered what they were chasing, big game being unknown in the

neighbourhood, and the time of year unusual for such sport. As she

stood looking, the horsemen left the field and disappeared into the

wooded belt bordering the stream.

Expecting them to come again into sight a little higher up, Gabriele

remained at the same spot. It occurred to her that one of them might be

bringing the written permission she desired, and had taken advantage of

his errand to organize a hunt. Suddenly she was startled to see a

figure on horseback emerge from the copse but a few yards below her. It

was a young man, a European; he was swaying in his saddle; and she

noticed with feminine quickness that one arm was supported in a sling--a

handkerchief looped round his neck. The next moment the rider caught

sight of her; his eyes seemed to her to speak the language of despair.

He swayed still more heavily, and was on the point of falling from his

horse when Gabriele sprang down the slope and caught him. Calling to her

nurse and a Korean man-servant near at hand, with their help she lifted

him from the saddle and loosened his shirt-collar, then sent the Korean

for water.

Jack was dazed at first, all but swooning.

"Thank you!" he said in Russian. "I was almost done, I think. But

please help me to mount again. I must ride on."

"Impossible, gospodin!" she said. "You are hurt, I see; the injury must

be seen to."

"It is good of you, but my arm must wait. Please help me to mount my

pony."

His wounded arm, his urgent manner, recalled to Gabriele the shots she

had heard, the band of horsemen she had seen galloping in the distance.

"You are in danger?" she said quickly. "Is it not so?"

"Yes. There are Buriats behind me; they are close on my heels.

Indeed"--he smiled wanly--"it is your duty, as a Russian, I suppose, to

give me up."

"I am not a Russian," she exclaimed. "And if I were, I should not

lightly give up a fugitive to the Russian police. You can go no farther;

what can I do? There is so little time."

For a few seconds she appeared to be considering. Her brow was knit;

she looked at him anxiously. Fully trusting her, he made no further

effort to continue his flight, for which, indeed, he was manifestly

unfit. Half-reclining on his pony's neck, he waited, panting.

Then she spoke rapidly to the Korean.

"Take the pony, unsaddle him, and turn him loose in the kowliang yonder.

Saddle the Father's pony, ride a few yards in the stream, then gallop

past the edge of the copse, through the hemp field, up to Boulder Hill.

If you are followed by horsemen, throw them off the scent. Don't let

them see you closely. Return after dark, but make sure the Buriats are

not here before you come in."

An unregenerate Korean would probably have hesitated, but this man had

been for some time under Father Mayenobe's training, and in a few

minutes he had brought out the pony and cantered away. Meanwhile

Gabriele, asking Jack to lean upon her arm, had led him into the copse

to a large beech, the lowest branch of which sprang from the trunk about

twelve feet from the ground. Asking him to remain there, she ran off

with the fleetness of a doe, and soon returned with a light ladder.

Setting this against the tree, she assisted Jack to mount; when he

reached the fork he saw that the interior of the trunk was hollow. Then

she pulled up the ladder, lowered it into the hollow space, and helped

Jack to descend. Drawing up the ladder again, she let it down outside,

ran down, and carried it swiftly back to the house, leaving Jack inside

the trunk, where he stood upright, supporting himself with his uninjured

arm.

Scarcely five minutes had passed since his first appearance. The

Buriats had not yet come in sight; they had clearly been checked by the

fugitive's sudden divergence from his previous line of flight, and

nonplussed by his precaution in riding for some distance through the

stream. But in another five minutes half a dozen horsemen, with a

handsome young Russian lieutenant at their head, drew rein in front of

the house. Gabriele was unconcernedly shelling peas at the window of

the little dining-room.

The officer was evidently surprised to see a young European lady. With

heightened colour he bent over his saddle and addressed her in Russian.

"Have you seen a man on horseback in (he neighbourhood, Mademoiselle?"

Gabriele looked up, with a puzzled expression.

"Monsieur parle-t-il francais?" she said.

"Oui, Mademoiselle," returned the officer, then repeating his question

in French.

"Yes," she replied. "A few minutes ago a man galloped from the stream,

past the copse, and rode auay along the side of the hill."

"Merci bien, Mademoiselle," said the lieutenant, translating the

information for his men.

They at once began to hunt for the tracks, and in a few moments spied

the hoof-marks of a galloping horse. One of them discharged his rifle

to bring up the rest of the troop, who had scattered over the face of

the country, endeavouring to pick up the trail of the fugitive. Some

were already galloping off in the direction indicated by Gabriele. Soon

the rest of the Buriats came riding by in twos and threes, until the

whole band was in full cry up the hillside.

Gabriele remained at the window shelling peas until she was sure that

the last horseman had passed. Then she took a bottle of home-grown wine

from the missionary's store, filled a cup and gave it to her old nurse

to carry, and returned with the ladder to the tree.

"It is I," she said as she approached. "I am bringing you wine."

Mounting into the tree, she handed down the cup. Jack drained it at a

draught.

"You are suffering?" said the girl.

"Not much. It is a flesh wound; I have lost some blood, and was faint.

I am better now."

"You must remain in the tree. The danger is not yet past; but have

patience. I dare not stay longer; they will come back soon. Hope on."

*CHAPTER VII*

*A Daughter of Poland*

Suppressio Veri--The Keys--At Fault--A Polish Patriot--A Daughter's

Love--A Common Sorrow--A French Mission--A Council of War--From

Canton--A Surprise Visit--Hide and Seek--Ladislas Streleszki

All was silent for nearly an hour. Slowly the minutes passed. Jack

felt he had never been so wretchedly uncomfortable. His legs ached; his

arm throbbed with pain; there was not room in his hiding-place to sit;

the stuffiness of his prison and the attentions of innumerable insects

so tortured him that he could hardly refrain from crying out to be

released. Eagerly he listened for the return of the tall strong girl

whose quick wit had thrown the Buriats off his track. When would she

come again? At last, after a period of waiting that seemed ten times as

long as it really was, he fancied he heard her footsteps. He listened;

yes, it was certainly someone approaching; his long imprisonment was

ended. But just as the footsteps, now distinctly audible, neared the

tree, his ears caught the heavy thud of horses galloping, and a few

moments afterwards an angry voice saying in French:

"The man you saw, Mademoiselle, is not the man we are searching for. My

sergeant, who is following him up, sends me word that he got a clear

view of him as he breasted the hill. The dress is different, the horse

is different----"

He broke off as if expecting an explanation.

"How unfortunate, Monsieur!" exclaimed Gabriele in a tone of concern.

"I fear you must have come a long distance out of your way."

"That is as it may be, Mademoiselle," replied the lieutenant, somewhat

nettled. "Perhaps not so far either, for we tracked our man to within a

few hundred yards of your house." He paused a moment, then added

suspiciously: "What was he like, the man you saw galloping?"

"What was he like?" she repeated reflectively. "I think he was about

your height; but then you are mounted, and so was he, and it is so

difficult to judge when a man is mounted, is it not, Monsieur? And then

he was going so fast; in a flash he was by; there was his back

disappearing into the copse. It was a broad back; yes, certainly a

broad back; and he was hitting his pony; yes, I remember that clearly,

poor thing! and it was going so fast, too."

All this was said with the most artless simplicity, and Jack was amused,

though his heart was beating hard with apprehension.

"But, Mademoiselle, what was he like?" repeated the officer, finding

some difficulty in repressing his anger.

"The man I saw, Monsieur, or the man you saw, or the man your sergeant

saw? There are so many--they confuse me."

"The man you saw. Come, Mademoiselle, we are wasting time. Was he a

white man, or a Chinaman, or what?"

"Oh, his colour! Really, I cannot say. You see, Monsieur, the sun was

in my eyes. I saw his back plainly, a broad back; but he was riding

fast, and hitting his pony; yes, poor thing! he was hitting it very

hard."

The lieutenant hesitated; Jack held his breath.

"You will pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I ask you to let me search your

house."

"Not my house, Monsieur. It belongs to Father Mayenobe."

"Peste!" he exclaimed as he dismounted. "This house, whosesoever it is.

The man gave us the slip in this neighbourhood, and my orders are to

capture him."

"Certainly search, Monsieur. Father Mayenobe is away from home, or I am

sure he would receive you as the occasion demands. The house is open to

you. Perhaps a few of you would enter at a time?"

The frowning officer glanced at her, unable to decide whether she was

mocking him. But her face was perfectly grave.

"Certainly, Mademoiselle," he replied a little uneasily. "Two will be

sufficient; and with your permission I will accompany them. Doubtless,"

he added, as by an afterthought, "it will prove a mere form."

"I suppose it is quite right, Monsieur. I know nothing about these

things. Perhaps I ought to say no until Father Mayenobe returns. But

then I couldn't prevent you, could I? So you had better go in and do

your duty. Let me see, you will want the keys." She took a bunch from

her pocket. "There are very few. This is the key of the larder."

She innocently handed him the bunch, indicating the one she had

mentioned.

"Only the larder is locked," she added. "The natives, you are aware,

Monsieur, will overeat if one is not careful."

The young officer, looking very much ashamed of himself, took the bunch,

and having no answer ready, moved towards the house.

"Will you show us the house, Mademoiselle?"

"Oh no, Monsieur! that would be to countenance your intrusion. I cannot

be expected to do that."

The conversation had been carried on throughout within a few feet of

Jack. In spite of his wound, his uncomfortable position, and the danger

of discovery, he found himself shaking with silent laughter, imagining

the play of expression on the faces of Gabriele and her victim.

The lieutenant with two of his men went into the house. There was

silence for a while, broken only by the champing of the Buriats' ponies

and the rattle of accoutrements, the men sitting their steeds mute and

motionless. Then the voice of the officer could be heard interrogating

the old nurse, who merely shook her head to every question. She knew

nothing but Polish, and the officer's Russian was as incomprehensible to

her as his French. After a few minutes he returned.

"Accept my apologies and my thanks, Mademoiselle," he said, as he handed

her the keys. "We must pursue our chase elsewhere. Bonjour!"

"Bonjour, Monsieur!"

The troop rode away, taking a different course. Gabriele's lips curved

in a smile as she watched them. The officer glanced back just before

riding out of sight. She was walking slowly towards the house.

Half an hour afterwards the missionary returned.

"Father," said Gabriele, "I have played the good Samaritan since you

have been away."

She explained to him rapidly what had occurred.

"My daughter," he said gently, "I cannot blame you, but you acted

rashly, very rashly indeed."

"What would you have done, Father?" she asked archly.

"Just what you did, my dear," he replied with twinkling eyes. "But we

must be careful. The Russians look askance at our missions as it is;

they only want a pretext to expel us."

"And the poor young man is all the time in the tree! He must be nearly

dead with fatigue."

"But we cannot release him yet. Some of the Russians may return this

way from their chase of Min-chin. I hope they will not shoot the poor

fellow by mistake."

Jack waited, feeling more and more exhausted, and wondering how long his

irksome durance was to last. By and by he again heard horses galloping.

The Buriat sergeant and one of his men had returned from their fruitless

chase. Min-chin, the Korean servant, had outridden them, and they had

lost trace of him. They pulled up at the missionary's house to ask the

whereabouts of the remainder of the troop, then they rode on. Watching

them out of sight, and waiting for some time to assure himself that

danger was past, Father Mayenobe carried the ladder to the tree, and

soon Jack, pale, worn, and hungry, lay in the priest's own bed. The

father, like most of the French missionaries in China, knew something of

medicine and surgery; he examined Jack's wound, dressed and bound up his

arm, and said that he was not to think of getting up for several days.

It was in fact nearly a week before he was allowed to leave the bed, and

the missionary saw that watch was kept night and day to guard against a

surprise visit from the Russians.

During this period of enforced seclusion Father Mayenobe learnt Jack's

story. Though it made him feel more than ever the gravity of his

position if his guest should be discovered, it did not abate by a jot

his determination to do what he could for him. Indeed, his sympathy for

Jack was enhanced by a certain similarity between his circumstances and

Gabriele's. He told Jack her story. Her father was a large land-owner,

the descendant of a great Polish family, a man of noble character,

greatly beloved of his tenants and respected by his peers. Like every

true Pole he was a strong patriot, and had been a member of one of the

secret associations that have for their object the restoration of Polish

liberties. Some six years before, the society had been betrayed by one

of its members; Count Walewski, with several of his compatriots, was

arrested and sent without trial into exile; and as a deterrent to other

Poles who might contemplate revolt, the place selected for his

punishment was the bleak barren island of Sakhalin, the farthest eastern

limit of the Russian empire. There was special cruelty and indignity

involved in this choice, for the island was reserved as a rule for

murderers and the lowest class of criminals; and his friends in Poland

were aghast when they heard to what a living death he had been

condemned.

At the time of the count's arrest and banishment, his daughter Gabriele

was only eleven years of age. Her father's estates being confiscated,

and she a motherless child, she was adopted by her paternal aunt, an

unmarried lady of ample means, who took her to her home in Paris,

educated her, and treated her with a mother's care. But as the girl

grew older and learned to understand more fully the hopelessness of her

father's fate, she resolved at all costs to share his exile, and to do

what lay in her power to alleviate and sweeten his terrible lot. Her

aunt, fearful of allowing a young girl to undertake a mission so

terrible, and being too infirm to accompany her, did all that she could

to turn her from her purpose. But with increasing years the girl's

determination became ever stronger. She grew up quickly into a

thoughtful strong-willed maiden, full of patriotic ardour, of passionate

resentment against the Russian government, and of an overflowing love

for the father whose affection she remembered so well, and whose noble

qualities she had not been too young to appreciate. While grateful for

all the kindness her aunt had showered upon her, she was possessed by an

overmastering sense of duty to her father. At last, when she was nearly

seventeen, but in looks and mind older than her years, she threatened to

set forth without assistance if her aunt refused her assent and help.

Having no alternative the poor lady yielded, only stipulating that

Gabriele's old nurse should accompany her. For some months they vainly

tried to get permission from St. Petersburg for the girl to join her

father. In the case of ordinary criminals no difficulty was usually

made; it was clear that, as happens so often in Russia, the political

offence was to be visited more heavily than the worst of crimes. Then

she started without permission, hoping to obtain the necessary

authorization at Vladivostok. She was provided with letters of

introduction to a Polish family in Siberia, and one to Father Mayenobe,

whose sister had been a teacher at the pension Gabriele had attended in

Paris. But the outbreak of the war had so much disorganized things that

the Polish friends were not to be found. She arrived in Vladivostok;

there her request for permission to go to Sakhalin had been referred by

one official to another, shelved, and finally ignored. Then, friendless

and despairing, she had written to the missionary asking his advice. He

had already heard of her from his sister. Riding at once into

Vladivostok he endeavoured to get the required permission; but the

governor and officials had something more important to consider than the

romantic impulses of a Polish school-girl, and they politely shunted all

his representations. At his suggestion Gabriele and her nurse had

returned with him to his little mission station in the hills, where they

had since remained, hoping that in course of time they would gain their

object.

When Jack was well enough to leave his bedroom and share the simple life

of the missionary and his household, it was apparent that the two young

people were drawn together by the common circumstances of their fate.

From the first moment Jack had felt a strong admiration for the girl

whose resourcefulness had saved him from capture; while Gabriele

regarded his position as even worse than her own, for she knew at any

rate where her father was. They had many long conversations together;

the girl put her own sorrows into the background, and entered heartily

into Jack's perplexities and plans. Father Mayenobe often joined them

in talking things over, and soon won Jack's admiration for his

character, and respect for his wise counsel.

Jack had opportunities of seeing something and learning more of his new

friend's mission work. Jean Mayenobe had been a favourite pupil of

Monsieur Venault, the young nobleman who gave up his career as a

courtier of Louis XVIII, and devoted his whole fortune and forty-two

years of his life to his labour of love in Manchuria. A great part of a

French missionary's work consists in relieving the poor and sick and

caring for orphans. He does little actual preaching of the Gospel; he

conducts service in a small church or oratory attached to his house, but

converts are made chiefly through the agency of native Christians, and

through the training of orphan children from tender years. The priest

dresses and fares little better than the poorest of his flock, and is

never absent from his charge, fulfilling with absolute literalness the

Divine command.

One day a Korean youth in training for the priesthood came in with a

message from the Sister in charge of the orphanage at Almazovsk. He

remained for several days in the house. Observing his manly open

countenance and his air of energy and enthusiasm, so much in contrast to

the average Korean's flabby effeminacy, Jack understood what an

influence for good the Christian missionary can wield.

The talk in the little mission-house turned again and again upon the

mystery of Mr. Brown's fate.

Father Mayenobe confessed that he was unable to make a likely guess as

to the merchant's whereabouts.

"There are so many places in Siberia to which he may have been sent.

Sakhalin, you suggest? Sakhalin is little used now for political

prisoners, although, as in Count Walewski's case, some few are still

sent there."

"How am I to find out? It is the uncertainty that is so terrible."

"I can think of no safe means. If the Russians are determined to keep

his whereabouts secret----"

"That is itself an admission that they are in the wrong," interrupted

Gabriele.

"It may be. I was going to say that if that is their determination it

will be very difficult to trace him, and the only likely course would be

to follow up enquiries along the railway."

"That is almost hopeless in present circumstances. The war has

disorganized everything. Besides, how am I to get into Moukden again?"

"Why attempt it? Why not try to gain the coast and make for home, and

trust to diplomatic representations at St. Petersburg?"

"No, no, father, I certainly disagree with you," cried Gabriele. "You

know how slowly diplomacy works. Think of it; Monsieur Brown may pass

months, perhaps years, in the most terrible uncertainty and suspense.

No; if I were in his place I would do as he means to do. Oh, I wish I

were a man!"

"But think of the danger! If he were to go as a European, he would be

set upon by Chinese in the out-of-the-way parts through which he must

pass. In the towns the English and the French are respected when other

Europeans are not, but in the country parts all alike are foreign

devils, of less account than pigs. If he got safely within the Russian

lines he would probably be arrested as a spy and shot. His only chance

is to go as a Chinaman."

"As a Chinaman?"

"Yes, disguised to the best of our ability."

Gabriele looked dubiously at Jack, as though questioning whether any

disguise would serve.

"What do you say yourself, Monsieur Brown?" asked the missionary.

"I must risk it, father. I have been long enough in China to know the

difficulties and dangers in my way; I don't underrate them, I assure

you. But anything is better than this harrowing uncertainty. I could

not remain idle; I feel I must do something to clear up the mystery,

even though I should be venturing on a forlorn hope."

"Well, my son, I will not dissuade you. Fortune favours the brave, they

say. You are determined to go; God go with you! But we must think of

how it is to be done."

"I must go as a Chinaman, that is certain. It had better be as a

southern Chinaman. Mademoiselle perhaps does not know that the spoken

language of the north and south are so unlike that natives of the one

can only communicate with the other by written characters or by pidgin

English. I can't write Chinese, and if I pretend to be quite illiterate

(as indeed I am from the Chinese point of view) I may hope to pass

muster. I can speak pidgin English. We had a Canton servant in

Shanghai with whom I spoke nothing else, and we use it still with the

servants in Moukden."

"But there is a greater difficulty--the difficulty of feature. You would

pass better in Canton as a Manchu, than as a Cantonese in Manchuria."

"I can only risk it. A little saffron and henna----"

"And a pigtail, Monsieur Brown?--will you have to wear a pigtail?" said

Gabriele.

"Yes, unluckily," said Jack with a rueful smile. "My own hair won't

suffice. But false pigtails are common enough in China. I shall ask

your help with that, Mademoiselle."

"It would amuse me--if it were not so terribly serious."

"You will go as a Chinaman, then," said the priest. "But you must have a

story to tell on the way if you are questioned: have you thought of

that?"

"Yes. Suppose I give out that I am the servant of a Moukden mandarin,

returning from a special mission to Hun-chun, hinting perhaps at

anti-Russian intrigue?"

Father Mayenobe stroked his beard.

"It is inevitable," he said. "For you this is a state of war, and in

war the first principle is to deceive the enemy. Still, I do not like

your venture. The more I think of it, the more heavy do the odds appear

against success."

"Father, do not let us go into that again," pleaded Gabriele. "Can you

suggest any better plan for Monsieur Brown?"

"I confess I cannot. Well, let it be so, then. I will do all in my

power to help you, my son."

A fortnight passed away. The wet season had begun, and though the

rainfall was not so continuous as is commonly the case, the streams were

swelled to overflowing and the rough tracks rendered impassable. The

mission station, being on a hillside, suffered less than huts on the

lower ground. During the unfavourable weather much anxious care was

given to Jack's preparations. The costume was got ready in every

detail; Gabriele with her own hands plaited the pigtail and wadded the

loose tunic and pantaloons. At last all was in readiness, and Jack only

awaited a fine day to set off.

One afternoon, when the sun was hot, raising a thick vapour from the

sodden fields, Min-chin came running into the house with the news that a

party of Buriats were riding up the hill. It happened that Father

Mayenobe had taken advantage of the change of weather to visit some of

his little flock a few miles off. Without a moment's delay Jack

hastened to the hollow tree, and was safe inside by the time the

horsemen rode up. They surrounded the house, and the officer, an older

man than the lieutenant whom Gabriele had discomfited, alighted at the

door and called for the priest. Gabriele appeared. It was evident from

the officer's manner that he had heard of her.

"Mademoiselle," he said in French, "you will please give me a plain

answer. A stranger has been seen in and about this house. Who is he?"

"Oh! you mean the catechumen from Almazovsk?"

The captain looked hard at her.

"Come, Mademoiselle, where is the man?"

"The catechumen? He is gone. He went three days ago, all through the

rain. He would not remain, though Father Mayenobe pressed him to wait

in hope of finer weather. You seem to doubt me," added the girl. "The

house has been already searched once, in Father Mayenobe's absence; I

assure you there is nobody in it but our servants; if you will not

accept my assurance you had better search again."

She moved away, and began to occupy herself with simple household

matters, completely ignoring the Russians. The captain did not go

shamefacedly about his work as the lieutenant had done; he searched the

little house thoroughly, ransacking every hole and corner. The task did

not take him long; he found nothing. Coming out again, he beckoned to a

man in civilian costume whom Gabriele had not previously noticed. As he

rode forward, she started; but in an instant recovered herself. He

spoke a few words to the captain; then the latter, with a curt word of

farewell to the girl, gave his men the order to ride away. Gabriele did

not like his look; he had seemed too easily satisfied, and consulted

with the civilian; and she sent two of the servants to keep watch at the

only convenient approaches to the settlement. Her precaution was

justified. Two or three hours later the party rode back at a gallop.

The alarm was given by one of the sentinels, and Jack had time to get

back into the serviceable beech before they arrived. A second search

was made, this also fruitless; then the horsemen finally departed,

convinced against their will that they had come once more on a false

scent.

When Jack left his hiding-place he saw by the expression of Gabriele's

face that she had something to tell him. A red spot burned on each

cheek, and her eyes were blazing.

"How dare he! How dare he!" she exclaimed. "Oh, if I could have killed

him! It was Ladislas Streleszki, the traitor, the villain, the man who

betrayed my father. He was our steward; we did not know for a long time

who had done that foul deed; but when my father was arrested Streleszki

disappeared, and it was many months before we understood."

"Do you mean, Mademoiselle, that he is now a Russian officer?"

"No, no; but when they came the second time he was with them."

"Did he not recognize you?"

"No; it is six years since he saw me, and I have changed very much. I

was afraid he might; I thought perhaps a chance word from one of the

officers in Vladivostok through whom my applications have passed, had

brought him here to persecute me. But it cannot be so; he hardly looked

at me. I knew him at once; he has altered little; his hair is turning

grey; but I could never mistake him; one eyelid droops and----"

"Indeed!" cried Jack with a start. "Is it his left eyelid?"

"Yes. Oh, why do you ask?"

"Sowinski, my father's enemy, has the same defect. Did you hear him

speak, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes; his voice is gruff and coarse."

"Then Streleszki and Sowinski are the same man. Good heavens, we have

indeed had a narrow escape! It would have been all up with me if I had

been found, and I fear your fate would have been sealed too. I am to

blame for staying here so long. I must not bring you into danger again.

I will go to-day."

*CHAPTER VIII*

*A Custom of Cathay*

The Forbidden Mountain--Two from Canton--Clutching at Straws--Ipsos

Custodes--A Question of Dollars--The Yamen--The Majesty of the

Law--Judge and Jury--The Cage--Torture--Mr. Wang--Benevolence and Aid

"Hai-yah!"

"Ph'ho!"

"Fan-yun!"

"Fan-kwei!"

"Look at his eyes! How big! Round as the moon. See how they goggle and

glare!"

"Yah! Ugly beast! His nose! Look at it! Like the beak of a hawk."

"And his hair! Ch'hoy! Like the fleece of a sheep."

"And his clothes! Ragged as a quail's tail."

"No doubt of it, he is a foreign devil, ugly pig."

"Why still alive? Kill him at once, say I. Foreign devils are

dangerous to keep. One come, thousands follow. Kill at once; if we had

done that with the Russians, no more trouble. He will bring ill-luck on

the village. What luck have we had since the Russians came digging into

the Hill of a Thousand Perfumes? Who can say how many demons they let

loose?"

"Yah! Who has found ginseng since then, who? Nothing but ill-luck now.

An Pow dead, strong as he was; Sun Soo drowned in the river; all our

oxen carried off by Ah Lum and his Chunchuses. Hai! hai! And this

foreign devil will make things worse. Why did they not chop off his

head at once?"

To this conversation, carried on within a few feet of him, Jack listened

in a somewhat apathetic spirit. He was utterly dejected, worn out,

humiliated. He lay in a large wooden cage near the headman's house in

the village of Tang-ho-kou in the Long White Mountains. It was a

secluded spot, in a district supposed to be sacred to the emperor's

ancestors, where it was sacrilege even for a Chinaman to tread. The

inhabitants were an exclusive community, ruled by a guild, owning only

nominal allegiance to the emperor, and essentially a self-governed

republic. They were unmolested, for government is lax in Manchuria, and

the Long White Mountains are far from the capital and difficult ground

to police; theoretically the guildsmen went in danger of their heads,

practically they were monarch of all they surveyed.

A group of the villagers was collected on this July evening about the

cage, discussing the foreign prisoner, interrupting their conversation

to snarl at him.

"It is true; his head ought to be chopped off, but they were afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of what might be done to them. The illustrious viceroy at Moukden is

very strict. Even a foreign devil may not be killed without leave.

Why? Because if one is killed, there is trouble. The kings of the

foreign devils are angry, and many good Chinese heads have to fall. They

have sent to ask leave to behead the barbarian: better still, to slice

him. He fought like a hill tiger when they caught him, and two men even

now lie wounded."

"How did they catch him?"

"A Canton man, mafoo to his excellency General Ping at Moukden, overtook

him riding in the hills. He was making a bird's noise with his lips;

that was suspicious. But the Canton man was wary. He spoke to him as a

friend, and rode alongside. Where did he come from? Thus asked the

Canton man. The barbarian shook his head and answered in pidgin, the

tongue of the foreign devil in the south. Yah! That was his ruin. Our

Canton friend also speaks pidgin. 'You come from Canton?' says he.

'Yes.' 'What part? Where did you live? Do you know this place or

that? What is your business?' Those were his questions; a shrewd

fellow, the Canton man. He left him at the next village; then followed

with six strong men. They got ahead of him, hid in a copse by the

roadside, and when the foreign devil came up, rushed out upon him. They

were seven; but it was a hard fight. Ch'hoy! These barbarians are in

league with a thousand demons; that is why they are so fierce and

strong. But they got him at last, and brought him here; worse luck! he

shall suffer for it yet."

The crowd drew nearer to their helpless prisoner, stared at him, jeered,

cast stones and offal, and, worked up by the teller of the story, were

only kept from tearing him to pieces by the guard and the bars of the

cage. Exposed without shelter to the broiling sun, Jack was dizzy and

faint. His clothes had been torn to tatters in the struggle, his

pigtail wrenched from his head. He had had no food for many hours, and,

what was worse, no water.

He had been able to catch the gist of what the chief speaker in the

crowd had said. How stupid of him to whistle--a thing a Chinaman never

does! How unlucky that he had met a man from Canton! The dialects of

the north and south differ so much that by professing to be a Southerner

he had come so far on his journey undetected; but in conversation with a

Cantonese his accent had inevitably betrayed him. And now he knew that

he could expect no mercy. A European carries his life in his hands in

China whenever he ventures alone out of the beaten track. In Manchuria

just then, with the natives embittered by the wanton destruction of

their towns and villages, the chances of a captive being spared were

infinitesimal. Only fear of the mandarins had apparently caused them to

hold their hands in his case; but Jack had little reason to suppose that

the mandarins would interfere to protect him. No order would be issued;

but the villagers would receive a hint to do as they pleased; and Jack

well knew what their pleasure would be. In the unlikely event of

diplomatic pressure being afterwards brought to bear, the mandarins

could still repudiate responsibility, and the villagers would suffer;

several, probably the most innocent, would lose their heads. But Jack

knew that he had placed himself outside the protection of the British

flag. Neither the mandarins nor the villagers had anything to fear.

The sun went down; the village watchman beat his wooden gong; and the

group gradually dispersed. Only the guard was left. Parched with

thirst, Jack ventured to address him, asking for a cup of water. The

man, with more humanity than the most, after some hesitation acceded.

He was generous, and brought also a mess of rice. Greatly refreshed by

the meal, scanty though it was, Jack felt his spirits rising; with more

of hope he began to canvass the possibilities in his favour. But he had

to admit that they were slight. There was just one ray of light, dim

indeed; but a pin-point glimmer is precious in the dark. He had heard

the villagers mention the brigand Ah Lum, the chief of the Chunchuses,

who had levied upon their oxen. This was the chief whom Wang Shih had

left Moukden to join. If Jack could only communicate with Wang Shih

there might still be a chance for him.

He began a whispered conversation with his guard, and learnt that, a few

days before, Ah Lum's band was known to be encamped in the hills some

twenty miles to the south-west. It was resting and recruiting its

strength after a severe brush with a force of Cossacks, who had almost

succeeded in cutting it to pieces during a raid on the railway.

"Do you know Wang Shih?"

"No; Ah Lum has several lieutenants. His band numbers nearly eight

hundred; there were more than a thousand before the fight with the

Russians."

"You know what a dollar is?"

"It is worth many strings of cash."

"Well, if you will take word to Mr. Wang about me, I will give you fifty

dollars."

"Where will you get them from?" asked the man suspiciously. "Were you

not searched, and everything taken from you?"

"True, I was searched; but the foreign devil has ways of getting money

that the Chinaman does not understand. It is a small thing I ask you to

do. The reward is great; fifty dollars, hundreds of strings of cash.

You will never get such a chance again."

True to the oriental instinct for haggling, the man argued and discussed

for some time before he at last agreed to Jack's proposition.

"You must make haste," said Jack. "If the messenger to the mandarin

returns before you, I shall be killed and you will get no money."

The man at once explained that it was impossible for him to leave the

village; he must find a messenger.

"Very well. He is to find Wang Shih and say that Jack Brown from

Moukden is in peril of death. You can say the name?"

"Chack Blown," said the man.

"That will do. Now, when can you send your man?"

The guard said that he would be shortly relieved; then he would lose no

time. In a few minutes a man came to take his place, and Jack, with

mingled hopes and fears, settled himself in a corner of the cage, to

sleep if possible. Half an hour later the guard returned with the

welcome news that a messenger had started, after bargaining for twenty

of the fifty dollars, and would travel all night on foot, for he had no

horse, and to hire one would awaken suspicion.

"But," added the guard, "he is a trusty man, much respected, and a great

hater of foreign devils, like all good Chinamen. If he had had his way

the honourable foreign devil would have been executed this afternoon."

"Then how comes it," asked Jack, "that he is willing to go as

messenger?"

The guide looked puzzled.

"Surely the honourable barbarian understands? Did I not explain that I

promised Mr. Fu twenty dollars?"

Even in his misery Jack could not forbear a smile. His messenger was

doubtless the man who had led the chorus of threats and insults a few

hours before. The man's convictions were no doubt still the same; but

the prospect of a few dollars had completely divorced precept from

practice.

Then Jack reflected that the enterprise was a poor chance at the best.

There was little likelihood of the man finding Wang Shih in time, and if

he found him, it was uncertain whether his sense of gratitude was

sufficiently keen to bring him to the rescue. Yet, in spite of all,

Jack's impatient eager thought followed the messenger, as though hope

could give him winged feet.

He spent a miserable night. In that hill country even the summer nights

are cold; and his clothes having been well-nigh torn from his back, he

had scant protection. He slept but little, lying awake for hours

listening to the mice and rats scampering around the cage, and to the

long-drawn melancholy howls of the village dogs.

Soon after dawn he heard a great commotion in the village. His pulse

beat high; he hoped that Wang Shih had arrived. But when his friendly

guardian came to resume duty, his heart sank, for he learnt that the

headman's messenger to the local mandarin had returned, bringing word

that the barbarian should be suitably dealt with by the guild. The

mandarin had evidently washed his hands of the matter; the guard had no

doubt that when the headman was ready Jack would be taken before him,

and he must expect no mercy. The people had never ceased to grumble at

the delay in executing him; and nothing could be hoped of the headman,

for he was a native of Harbin, and bore a bitter grudge against the

Russians, who in constructing their railway had cut through his family

graveyard, and in defiling the bones of his ancestors had done him the

worst injury a Chinaman can suffer. Jack was to have no breakfast; his

captors were so sure of his fate that they thought it would be a mere

waste to feed him.

An hour passed--a terrible hour of suspense. The villagers began to

gather round the cage, and their looks of gleeful and malicious

satisfaction struck Jack cold. All at once they broke into loud shouting

as a posse of armed yamen-runners forced their way through. Jack was

taken out of the cage, and, surrounded by the runners and followed by

the jabbering crowd, was marched to the headman's house. He there found

himself in the presence of a dignified Chinaman, a glossy black

moustache encircling his mouth and chin, his long finger-nails denoting

that he did not condescend to menial work. He was in fact a prosperous

farmer, who, besides possessing large estates (to which he had no title)

in the Forbidden Country, carried on an extensive trade in ginseng, a

plant to which extraordinary medicinal virtues are attributed by the

Chinese, and so valuable that a single root will sometimes fetch as much

as L15 in the Peking market. The headman, feeling the importance of the

occasion, had got himself up in imitation of a magistrate, wearing a

round silk buttoned cap and a blue tunic.

He had evidently made a study of the procedure in a mandarin's yamen.

He was the only man seated at a long table; at each end stood a scribe

with a dirty book, which might or might not have been a book of law,

outspread before him; at his right hand stood a man with a lighted pipe,

from which during the proceedings the headman took occasional whiffs; in

front stood a group of runners in weird costumes, wearing black cloth

caps with red tassels. From the sour expression on the Chinaman's face

Jack knew that he was already judged and condemned; but he held his head

high, and gazed unflinchingly on the stern-visaged Chinaman.

It is proper for a prisoner to take his trial on his knees, and one of

the runners approached Jack and sharply bade him kneel. He refused.

Two other men came up with threatening gestures, and laid hands on him

to force him down. He resisted; he had the rooted European objection to

kowtow to an Asiatic. With too much good sense to indulge himself in

heroics, he yet recalled at this moment by a freak of memory the lines

written on the heroic Private Moyse of the Buffs. His back stiffened;

there was the making of a pretty wrestling match; but the headman,

mindful of the stout fight when the prisoner was arrested, and desiring

that the proceedings should be conducted with decorum, ordered his men

to desist. Then he began his interrogatory.

"You are an Russian?"

"No, an Englishman."

"Where have you been living?"

"In Moukden."

"What have you been doing there?"

"I lived with my father."

"Who is he?"

"He is a merchant."

"What is his name?"

"He is known as Mr. Brown of Moukden."

"What did he trade in?"

"In many things. He supplied stores of all kinds."

"To the Russians?"

"Yes."

"Assisting them to build the iron road that is the ruin of Manchuria?"

"I believe your august emperor gave the Russians permission."

"Do not dare to mention the Son of Heaven. Do not dare, I say, you

foreign devil! Where is your father now?"

"I do not know. He was arrested by the Russians."

"Why?"

"They accused him of giving information to the Japanese."

"Did he give information?"

"No."

"Ch'hoy! Then clearly he was in league with the Russians. He, too, is

worthy of death. What brought you into the Shan-yan-alin mountains?"

"I am trying to find my father. I was on my way to Moukden."

"Do you know that the Ch'ang-pai-shan is sacred to the emperor? Nobody

is allowed to tread these hills, on pain of death."

"I am in your honour's august company."

The headman winced and blinked. That was a home-thrust. He grew angry.

"Enough! You are a foreign devil. By your own confession you have been

in league with the Russians, assisting them in their impious work,

disturbing the feng-shui in the most sacred city of the virtuous Son of

Heaven. You are found in insolent disguise within the limits of the

Forbidden Mountains; you resisted lawful arrest, to the severe injury of

two of my officers. It is clear that you are a vile example of the

outer barbarians who are scheming to drive the Manchu from his

immemorial lands, defiling the graves of our fathers, and bringing our

sons to shame. You are not fit to live; every one of your offences is

punishable with death; in their sum you are lightly touched by my

sentence upon you, that you suffer the ling-ch'ih, and then be beheaded.

Confess your crimes."

Jack had answered the man's questions briefly and calmly, and listened

with unmoved countenance to his speech. The decision was only what he

had expected. The worst was to come. He knew that by the laws and

customs of China he could not be executed until he had acknowledged the

justice of the sentence and made open confession of his crime; he knew

also that, failing to confess voluntarily, he would be tortured by all

the most fiendish methods devised by Chinese ingenuity until confession

was extorted from his lacerated, half-inanimate frame. The end would be

the same; for a moment, in his helplessness and despair, he thought it

would perhaps be better to acquiesce at once and get it over. But then

pride of race stepped in. Could he, innocent as he felt himself to be,

act a lie by even formally acquiescing in the sentence? He did not know

how far his fortitude would enable him to bear the tortures in store;

but he would not allow the mere prospect to cow him. He had paused but

a moment.

"I have nothing to confess," he said.

The headman gave a grunt of satisfaction.

"Put him in the cage," he said.

Jack's blood ran cold in spite of himself. The word used by his judge

was not the name of the cage in which he had already been confined, but

meant an instrument of torture. Amid the exultant hoots of the crowd of

natives, who spat on the ground as he passed, he was hauled from the

presence and taken to a yard near by. In the centre of it stood a

bamboo cage somewhat more than five feet high. Its top consisted of two

movable slabs of wood which, when brought together, left a hole large

enough to encircle a man's neck, but too small for his head to pass

through. The height of the cage was so adjusted, that when the prisoner

was inside with his head protruding from the top he could only avoid

being hung by the neck so long as his feet rested on a brick. By and by

that would be removed; he might defer strangulation for a short time by

standing on tiptoe, but that would soon become too painful. Jack had

never seen the instrument in use, but he had heard of it, and he quailed

at the imagination of the torture he was to endure.

His arms were bound together; he was locked into the cage; his head was

enclosed; and the mob jeered and yelled as, the brick being knocked away

after a few minutes, he instinctively raised himself on his toes to ease

the pressure on his neck. How long could he endure it? he wondered.

Had the messenger failed to find Wang Shih? Had some perverse fate

removed the Chunchuse band at this moment of dire peril? Humanly

speaking, his salvation depended on Wang Shih, and on him alone: was his

last hope to prove vain? Should he now yield, confess, and spare

himself further torture? Already he was suffering intense pain; he

gained momentary relief for his feet by drawing up his legs, a movement

which brought his whole weight upon his neck; but that was endurable

only for a few seconds. He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of the

yelling mob; pressed his lips together lest a moan should escape him: "I

will never give in, never give in." he said to himself; "pray God it

may not be long."

The pain became excruciating; he no longer saw or heard the yelling

fiends gloating over every spasm of his tortured body; he was fast

sinking into unconsciousness, and the headman, fearful of losing his

victim, was about to give the order for his temporary release, when

suddenly his ears caught the sound of galloping horses. The noise

around him lulled; he heard loud shouts in the distance, and drawing

ever nearer. Then the crowd scattered like chaff, and through their

midst rode a brawny figure brandishing a riding-whip of bamboo. Dashing

through the amazed throng at the head of thirty shouting bandits he

leapt from his horse, sprang to the cage, tore away the catch holding

the two panels together, and Jack fell, an unconscious heap, to the

bottom of the cage.

The first alarm being now passed, the villagers raised a hubbub. They

clustered about the new-comers, protesting with all their might that the

prisoner was merely a foreign devil, an impious pig. But Wang Shih

cleared a space with his whip; then, springing to the saddle again, he

raised his voice in a shout that dominated and silenced the clamour of

the mob.

"Hai-yah! What are you doing, men of Tang-ho-kou? Is this foreigner a

Russian that you treat him thus? A fine thing truly! You skulk in your

fangtzes, afraid to come out with the honourable Ah Lum and me and fight

the Russians, and yet you are bold enough to catch a solitary man, a

friend of the Chinaman, and to misuse him thus because he is alone!

Know you not that he is an enemy of the Russians? They have imprisoned

his father; it is reverence for his father that brings him here. Is

filial piety so little esteemed in Tang-ho-kou to-day? Ch'hoy! I see

your headman aping a lordly mandarin; let him listen. I say you are

lucky I do not burn your village and execute a dozen of you as you were

about to execute the stranger. But I will be merciful. I will take

from you a contribution of five thousand taels for my chief; and your

headman--ch'hoy! he shall stand for half an hour in the cage. That

shall suffice. But beware how you offend again. Learn to distinguish

your friends from your enemies--an Englishman from the Russians whom the

dwarfs of Japan are helping us to drive back to the frozen north. Take

heed of what I say--I, Wang Shih, the worthless servant of his

excellency Ah Lum, the virtuous commander of many honourable brigands."

This speech made an impression upon the crowd. The headman was

beginning to slink away, but Wang Shih noticed the movement and sent one

of his men after him. In spite of his protests he was dragged to the

cage, from which Jack, now fully conscious, had been removed; he was

fastened in it, and compelled to tiptoe as his erstwhile prisoner had

done. But after some minutes Jack, with a vivid remembrance of his own

sufferings, interceded for the wretched man, and Wang Shih released him,

bidding him collect from the villagers the tribute he had demanded. The

presence of the thirty well-armed Chunchuses was a powerful spur to

haste, and within half an hour the amount was raised. Meanwhile Jack's

neck had been bathed, and his muscles were beginning to recover from the

strain to which they had been put. He declared that he was well enough

to ride away with his deliverers. He had first to pay the guard the

fifty dollars agreed upon. Not wishing to disclose the hiding-place in

the soles of his boots where he kept his notes, he borrowed from Wang

Shih the necessary sum in bar silver. Then, mounted upon a horse

borrowed from the headman's own stables, he rode with the brigands from

the village.

*CHAPTER IX*

*Ah Lum*

Ishmaels--The Chief--Fair Words--Wise Saws--Ah Fu's Tutors--An Honorary

Appointment--Chopping Maxims--A Deputation--Hunting the Boar--A Forest

Monarch--Charging Home--The Knife--A Close Call

The Chunchuse camp, Jack learnt as he rode, was some thirty miles

distant in the hills. It had been shifted; it was always shifting; that

was why the intervention of Wang Shih had been so nearly too late.

Jack was somewhat amused when he reflected on the strange company in

which he found himself. He had heard a good deal about these

redoubtable bandits, but never till this day had he seen any of them.

Their bands were, he knew, very miscellaneous in their composition.

Escaped prisoners, whether guilty, or innocent like Wang Shih,

frequently sought refuge with one or other of the brigand chiefs. Men

who had been ruined in business, or were too indolent for regular work;

men possessed of grievances against the mandarins, or by a sheer lust of

adventure and lawlessness; helped to swell their numbers; and Mr. Brown

had once remarked that they reminded him of the motley band that

gathered about David in the cave Adullam: "Every one that was in

distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was

discontented".

The name Chunchuse means "red beard", and was originally applied by the

natives to any foreigner. Since the bandits were almost all

clean-shaven, like the majority of Chinamen, Jack could only conjecture

that they were styled "red beards" from some fancied resemblance of

their predatory ways to the methods of the hated foreigners. They were

held in terror by all the law-abiding inhabitants, and the machinery of

the Chinese government was totally unable to keep them down. Since the

coming of the Russians they had grown in numbers and in power. Knowing

every inch of the country they were able to wage an effective guerrilla

warfare against the invaders, often surprising scouting parties of

Siberian riflemen or Cossacks, raiding isolated camps, damaging the

railways, and capturing convoys.

Jack was interested in taking stock of his strange companions. They

were tall strapping fellows, powerfully built, with muscular and

athletic frames, and they included men of every race known in Manchuria.

Their costumes differed as greatly as the men themselves. Some were

clad in the usual garb of Chinamen; others had black cloth jackets with

brass buttons, tight-fitting trousers, and long riding-boots reaching to

the knees. Their heads were covered with knotted handkerchiefs of red,

black, or yellow cotton, beneath which their pigtails were coiled up out

of sight. Each carried a rifle and a revolver stuck in his leather

belt.

On the way to the camp Wang Shih gave Jack a few particulars about the

band, in which he had already risen to a high position. Ah Lum, the

chief, had been for many years notorious for the daring with which he

would swoop with a few men on rich merchants travelling through the

country, even though they might be escorted by Chinese soldiers. But

since the outbreak of the war such sources of gain had ceased, and he

had gradually collected a very large following for the purpose of

conducting irregular operations against his country's despoilers. All

were magnificent horsemen; the Russians had in vain endeavoured to hunt

them down; and the very rifles they carried were the spoil of successful

raids.

After a ride of about five hours through the hills, Wang Shih's party

reached the Chunchuse camp. It was a strange mixture of shelters, many

of them huts built of the stalks of kowliang, yet arranged, as Jack

noticed, in a certain order. Conspicuous in the middle of the camp was

a large tent, in which, as they approached, Jack recognized the Russian

service pattern. This too was evidently part of the spoil of a raid.

At the outskirts of the camp Wang Shih dismissed his men, proceeding

alone with Jack to the tent. It was the head-quarters of the chief.

There was no sign of state, no sentinel at the entrance; Wang Shih rode

up unquestioned, and unceremoniously shouted into the tent for Mr. Ah.

If Jack had expected to see the typical brigand of romance he must have

been disappointed. Ah Lum was the shortest member of the band, a wiry

figure with a slight stoop. His appearance was that of a university

professor rather than a warrior. He was apparently between forty and

fifty years of age, with an intelligent and thoughtful cast of

countenance, enhanced by a pair of horn spectacles over which he looked

searchingly when Jack was introduced to him. Ah Lum was, in fact, a man

of considerable education and even learning. He had taken the highest

honours in the examinations for the successive degrees of Cultivated

Talent, Uplifted Literary Man, and Exalted Bookworm; and the poems he

composed when competing for a place in the Board of Civil Office were

acknowledged as superior to anything recently written in the Mandarin

language. But his success on this occasion awoke a bitter jealousy in

the breast of a "same-year-man" who had kept pace with him throughout

his career until this last promotion. The disappointed candidate

adopted a characteristically Chinese mode of wreaking vengeance. He

committed suicide on Ah Lum's door-step. According to Chinese belief Ah

Lum would not only be haunted ever after by his rival's spirit, but

would also have to clear himself before the mandarin's court of a charge

of murder. Unluckily the mandarin was an enemy of Ah Lum; his price for

a favourable judgment was more than the Exalted Bookworm could offer;

and the latter, seeing that his condemnation was certain, discreetly

vacated his desk at the Board of Civil Office and betook himself to the

mountains.

Jack only learnt all this gradually. His first impression of Ah Lum as

a spectacled, courteous, polished savant left him wondering how such a

man had succeeded in imposing his authority on the hard-living,

hard-faring, reckless set of outlaws who composed his band. That he had

some personal force of character was a foregone conclusion, for his

position could depend on nothing else. He received Jack very kindly,

and, having Heard his story from Wang Shih, promised to do all he could

to help him.

"Mr. Wang," he said, bowing to his lieutenant, "does me the honour to be

my friend. Has he not rendered me great services? Surely it becomes me

to serve his friends when my insignificant capabilities permit.

Meanwhile deign, sir, to regard all our contemptible possessions as your

own, and excuse our numberless shortcomings. Where good-will is the

cook, the dish is already seasoned."

He paused, as though expecting a comment on the proverb.

"Quite so," said Jack, feeling that he ought to say something.

The chief proceeded at once to warn him of the danger of pursuing

further his attempt to enter Moukden in disguise. If he tried to pass

as a Canton man he might at any moment meet a real Cantonese, as had

already happened to his cost; and, besides, the Cantonese were not loved

in Manchuria. As a Manchu, on the other hand, he would be apt to betray

himself in endless little ways. However, if he were bent on it, Ah Lum

would do what he could to secure him good treatment. Meanwhile, after

what he had gone through, a few days' rest in camp would do him no harm.

"Haste is the parent of delay," he said; "whereas if one has a mind to

beat a stone, the stone will in due time have a hole in it."

Again he paused, like an actor waiting for the gallery's applause to his

tag.

"A very sound maxim," said Jack, thinking it well to humour this

singular moralist.

The chief concluded with an offer of hospitality so cordial, that Jack,

anxious as he was to pursue his mission, could not well decline it.

Wang Shih, Jack found, was third in command. His enormous strength,

allied to a bull-dog courage, had enabled him to force his way to the

front in a community where those qualities were esteemed above all

others. That they were not the only titles to respect was proved by the

position of the chief; and the longer Jack stayed in the camp the more

he was impressed by the ease and firmness with which Ah Lum swayed his

band.

The chief had a son, a boy of twelve, who from the first took a great

liking to Jack. Ah Fu was a bright boy, vivacious for a Chinese; and Ah

Lum loved him with even more than the usual Chinaman's devotion. He

doted on the child. He never tired of talking about him to Jack.

"If," he said, "a man has much money, but no child, he cannot be

reckoned rich: if he has children, but no money, he cannot be reckoned

poor. And I am blessed in my son: he is dutiful, respectful, voracious

of knowledge. 'A bad son', says the Sage, 'is as a dunning creditor; but

a good son as the repayment of a long-standing debt'."

At great pains he had kidnapped two graduates for the express purpose of

having Ah Fu carefully trained in the elements of Chinese culture.

Himself a man of education, he set the highest value on learning.

"Weeds are the only harvest of an untilled field," he would say.

"Though your sons be well disposed, yet if they be not duly instructed,

what can you expect of them but ignorance?" In addition to his daily

instruction in the philosophers and poets, the boy went through all

kinds of physical exercises--practising with the bow and the rifle,

riding a spirited little pony, learning fearless horsemanship from the

best rider in the band; and the Chunchuses rival the Cossacks in the

superb management of their steeds. Before Jack had been a day in the

camp he was requested by the chief to teach his son English. He agreed,

though he thought that in the short time he was to spend with them not

much could be done. Ah Lum was very pressing in the matter. Jack, he

was sure, had all the learning of the west (this tickled Jack; how the

fourth-form master at Sherborne would have roared!). The learning of

the east Ah Lum himself could get for the boy. In addition to the

kidnapped graduates he had his eye on an astronomer of distinction at

Kirin, and at Tieling there lived a very learned man, skilled in the

casting of horoscopes. But he had naturally few opportunities of

providing European instruction. "True doctrine cannot injure the true

scholar," he said. "An ounce of wisdom is worth a world of gold." He

was particularly anxious that Ah Fu should lack nothing in education

through his father's outlawed condition. Himself a poet, he set much

store by poetry; and having learnt from Jack that the most popular

English poet was Tennyson, he made it a special point that the boy

should from the first learn some of his poems. Jack was amused; he did

not tell the chief that poetry was not so highly esteemed in England as

in China; but happening to know a few odds and ends of Tennyson's verse,

he got Ah Fu to repeat them after him until the boy could recite them

faultlessly. Jack had his doubts whether the poems thus recited would

have been recognized by an Englishman, but that was nothing to the

point.

After a week, when he felt his strength thoroughly recruited, Jack spoke

of continuing his journey. But Ah Lum, in his politest manner, urged

excellent reasons why he should remain a little longer. It had been

raining almost continuously since his arrival; the streams were in

flood; the rivers were not fordable. Moreover, a large body of Russian

troops was moving between the camp and Moukden; and Chinamen were being

narrowly questioned and examined under suspicion of being Japanese spies

in disguise. Day after day passed; every hint of Jack's that he wished

to be off was met by some new excuse enforced by maxims, and turned by a

question as to how Ah Fu was getting on with his poetry. At last Jack

grew uneasy and suspicious; it appeared as if Ah Lum intended to keep

him as an additional tutor, unpaid. He began to think of taking French

leave, but was restrained by several considerations: the fact that he

owed his life to the brigands; the danger lest his disappearance should

cause a quarrel between Wang Shih and the chief; the hope that he might

find the Chunchuses useful in prosecuting his search; and the risk of

recapture, for he knew that the country people would certainly give him

up to the chief if they caught him.

He abandoned therefore the idea of flight, resolving to stay on with

what patience he could muster, and hoping to obtain his end by mild

persistence. But his courteous and repeated applications were met by

still more courteous and equally firm refusals--not direct refusals, but

regrets that on one pretext or another the "Ingoua superior man" could

not safely leave the camp. Ah Lum's stock of proverbs and maxims was

again drawn upon. "Though powerful drugs be nauseous to the taste, they

are beneficial to the stomach. So, candid advice may be unpleasant to

the ear, but it is profitable for the conduct. The carpenter makes the

cangue that he himself may be doomed to wear."

"Exactly."

There was a want of conviction in Jack's stereotyped reply. He was

growing tired of these eternal copy-book headings, which seemed to him

often the merest platitudes--tired of expressing the assent which his

sententious host always looked for. He asked Wang Shih to expostulate

with the chief; but when the Chinaman ventured to suggest that the young

Englishman's dutiful regard for his father ought to be respected and his

errand furthered, he got a good snubbing for his pains.

"It is easy to convince a wise man," said Ah Lum with a snap; "but to

reason with fools, that is a difficult undertaking. You cannot turn a

somersault in an oyster-shell."

Greatly daring, Wang Shih cited a maxim very pertinent, he thought, to

the case.

"True, honourable sir; but is it not written: 'Of a hundred virtues,

filial piety is the best'?"

"No doubt," retorted Ah Lum, still more snappishly. "But remember that

if a man has good desires, heaven will assuredly grant them."

And Jack had to kick his heels, and drum poetry into Ah Fu, thinking

disrespectfully of proverbial philosophy.

Thus three weeks passed. During this period the band grew steadily

stronger. Jack reckoned that it now numbered at least eleven hundred.

The rains having ceased, the camp was moved some twenty miles to the

north-west, not in a direct line to Moukden, but nearer to that city. To

Jack this was a crumb of comfort; but there were disadvantages in the

change, for with the finer weather and the removal to somewhat lower

ground, the midges and mosquitoes became more lively and troublesome,

and he spent many a hot hour of pain and smart.

Another fortnight went by. The Chunchuses had been inactive so far as

brigandage was concerned, and, except that they did no work, they might

have been nothing but a peaceful mountain tribe. But one day a

deputation came to the chief from a village lying in the midst of a

woody and well-cultivated valley a few miles from the camp. They

announced that their plantations of young bamboos were being devastated

by a herd of wild boars with which they were unable to cope, and they

had been deputed to beg the Chunchuse chief to come to their assistance.

Ah Lum was never unwilling to please the country people when he saw a

chance of gaining a substantial advantage. "Let no man," he would say,

"despise the snake that has no horns, for who can say that it may not

become a dragon?" Food was running short, and but for the deputation it

was probable that some fine night the village would have been raided and

plundered. But the request for assistance opened the way for a deal; Ah

Lum consented to organize a battue in return for a large supply of food

and fodder; and after half a day had been spent in haggling, the

deputation returned, promising to send in the quantity first demanded.

The chief was exceedingly pleased.

"Do not rashly provoke quarrels, but let concord and good understanding

prevail among neighbours. Seeing an opportunity to make a bargain, one

should think of righteousness."

Jack welcomed the impending hunt as a pleasant change, and appeared to

gratify the chief when he asked to be allowed to join in it. As a

diversion from the sugared sweetness of Tennyson, he bethought himself

to teach Ah Fu Fielding's fine song "A-hunting we will go"; and when the

boy learnt the meaning of the words, he was all afire to share in the

chase. Ah Lum was pleased with his spirit; but being unwilling that his

only son should run any risk, he at first declined his request. The boy

persisted, pointing out that he was already a good shot, and asking what

was the good of his learning poems of hunting if he was not allowed to

express in action the ardour thus fostered. This argument appealed to

the chief's sense of the fitness of things; he would have agreed with

Socrates that action was the end of heroic poetry; he yielded,

stipulating, however, that throughout the hunt the boy should remain at

his side.

Jack soon found that the hunt was not to be conducted on the lines of

pig-sticking in India. He remembered the vivid account of such an

adventure given him by a Behar planter whom he had once met on board a

steamer between Shanghai and Newchang. Nor were the animals to be

caught in artfully-contrived pits, as is the custom in Manchuria. The

chief was ignorant of the Indian method, and was possessed of too strong

a sporting instinct to be content with the work of a trapper; it was to

be a real hunt, as he understood it. The cover in which the boars were

known to lurk was about a square mile in extent. Ah Lum intended to take

advantage of the large force at his disposal and arrange for beaters to

drive the animals to a comparatively open space, at the end of which he

and a select few would take up their positions and shoot down the boars

as they emerged from cover. This seemed likely to be a safe way of

effecting the desired object; and though not sport in the British sense,

it would at any rate make some demand on their nerve and their

marksmanship.

The important day came. On a bright fresh morning, soon after the sun

had gilded the hilltops, when the air was clear and a cool breeze

tempered the summer heat, Ah Lum, accompanied by seven of his best

marksmen and by Ah Fu and Jack, rode down to skirt the base of the hill

and gain the northern side of the clearing to which the boars were to be

driven. Jack had been provided with a rifle and a long knife; his pupil

rode at his side, armed with a carbine; and very proudly the boy bore

himself. At the foot of the hill the party were met by some of the

villagers, come to guide them to their destination. When they reached

the spot they found that the clearing was about a furlong across, with

thin plantations behind them and on either side, and in front a mass of

dense, almost impenetrable scrub interspersed with trees.

The party of ten took up their position in line facing the scrub,

standing a few feet apart; Ah Lum was in the centre, with the boy on his

left, and Jack one place farther in the same direction. Jack felt that

if the Manchurian boar was anything like the Indian specimen of which

his planter friend had told him, the party might have a lively time

should two or three of the beasts break cover at the same moment,

especially if they should charge down through the plantations on left

and right. The Chunchuses, however, were evidently secure in their

numbers and the stopping power of their military rifles.

The beaters, nearly a thousand strong, had been sent to their allotted

positions earlier in the morning. They formed a rough semicircle more

than two miles in length. When all was ready, the chief sent a horseman

to the farthest point with orders to begin the beat. The clang of a

gong soon rang out in the still morning air; immediately the sound was

taken up all along the arc; drums, gongs, rattles, shrill yells combined

to form a pandemonium of noise. Flocks of birds clattered out of the

tree-tops and flew in consternation over the country; hares and rabbits

darted out of the underwood as the beaters closed in; a fox or two, even

a wolf, came padding out, stopped at the edge, gave a glance at the line

of men, and disappeared on either side. All these passed unmolested;

the ten stood in silent expectation, ready to bring their weapons to the

shoulder.

Suddenly from the centre of the scrub pounded with lowered tusks a large

boar. He had advanced some yards into the open before he was aware of

the ten human figures ranged opposite to him. Then, swerving heavily to

the left, he trotted towards the plantation. At the same moment two

shots rang out as one; the chief and his son had fired together, the

others waiting in courtesy. Ah Lum, for all his spectacles, his poetry,

and his sentences, was an excellent shot; the boar fell within a yard of

the trees; the chief's bullet had penetrated his brain.

Hardly had the smoke cleared away when two other boars appeared at

different parts of the scrub. Eight rifles flashed; the boar to the

right fell; but the other, unhurt, instead of making towards safety in

the plantation, dashed straight across the open. As by a miracle it

survived a volley from the whole party of ten, and had come within

twenty yards of them before it was struck mortally and rolled over. The

hunters, their attention fixed on the gallant beast that had just

succumbed, did not notice that he was followed at a few yards by a huge

tusker, the glare of whose red eyes sent a thrill through one at least

of the party. Dashing at headlong speed through the plantation almost

in a line with the hunters, the boar came on unswervingly, heedless of a

scattering fire. The hunters impeded each other; Ah Lum and the men on

his right could hardly fire as they stood without hitting their

companions. There was a moment's hesitation; then the chief, with a cry

to his boy to run, stepped calmly to the front, preparing to fire at a

range of only a few yards. But one of his men on the left, in a nervous

anxiety born of the emergency, rushed forward, and, stumbling against

his leader, spoilt his aim. The shot flew wide. The unfortunate man

paid dearly for his clumsiness. In another moment the boar was among the

party, making frantic rushes, ripping and tearing with his formidable

tusks, his bloodshot eyes glaring with the concentrated fury which only

a wounded boar can express. Several shots were fired, but the beast's

movements were so rapid that they either missed him, or, hitting him at

a non-fatal spot, served only still further to infuriate him. The

inexperienced hunters, indeed, were in greater danger than the boar from

each other's firearms. They hesitated in confusion, moving this way and

that to avoid each other; then, in a sudden panic, several of them took

to their heels and made for the shelter of the trees.

But Ah Fu stood his ground, as though fascinated. His father and Jack

perceived at the same moment that the boar in desperate and vengeful

rage was heading straight for the boy, who held his carbine at the

slant, looking on as at some fearful thrilling spectacle. Ah Lum and

Jack, separated from the boy in their movements for securing good aim,

sprang to his assistance. But before they could reach his side the

beast was upon him. Awake to his danger, the little fellow raised his

carbine to his shoulder and fired almost point-blank; but the Russian

service bullet has no stopping power to check a wild boar in full

career; the boy was toppled over, receiving a gash in the leg from the

mighty tusk. Then the animal wheeled in his tracks to pursue his

vengeance. Jack's rifle was empty; even if it had been loaded he could

hardly have fired without running the risk of hitting the boy. The

chief was still a few yards away, he, too, rendered helpless by the same

appalling danger. Jack saw that in an instant his little pupil, now

gamely struggling to his feet, must be gored to death. Dropping his

rifle, he drew his knife, and flung himself upon the blinded, maddened

brute, driving the weapon between its shoulders. So great was his

impetus that he stumbled full across the boar, which, intent upon its

purpose, struggled on a foot or two, staggering under the blow, but

making light of Jack's weight. Even as Jack was wondering whether his

stroke had failed, the beast uttered a long squealing grunt, fell on its

knees, then rolled over stone-dead within a few inches of Ah Fu.

[Illustration: Jack saves Ah Fu]

The chief caught the boy in his arms and held him in a warm embrace; the

runaway Chunchuses, no more boars being visible, came dropping back from

the plantations; and Jack, his coat covered with blood, rose panting

from the back of the victim.

*CHAPTER X*

*The Hired Man*

Gratitude--On Humanity--A Broken Thread--The Hill Country--Nearing

Moukden--The Compradore--News at Last--Sowinski's Address--Burnt

Offerings--A Little Black Box--Toitshe!--Pidgin--Excellence--Herr

Schwab--Photographabbaratus

After the rescue of Ah Fu, Jack stood in a new relationship to Ah Lum.

The boy was the apple of the chief's eye; nothing was too good for his

deliverer. When the party reached camp after the memorable adventure,

Ah Lum paraded his whole band, and, his voice broken by unwonted

emotion, proclaimed the Englishman his friend. In all such moments of

ceremony the literary man, the university graduate, appeared through the

brigand chief. After reciting the heroic deed in the flowery language a

scholarly Chinaman always has at command, he continued:

"Forgetfulness of a favour received is a sure sign of a bad heart. Let

me speak in a similitude. A man is on a long journey; his money is all

spent; he is destitute, far from home, without friends, and perishing

from want. To him comes a stranger whose goodness of heart leads him to

present the wanderer with a few hundred cash, thereby preserving his

life. Should he afterwards see this man, his benefactor, ought he not

to make some expression of gratitude? It is a common saying, if we

receive from others a favour like a drop of water, the return should be

as an overflowing fountain. How much more when a man snatches from

death a male child! Does not the Sage say: 'The three greatest

misfortunes in life are: in youth to bury one's father; at the middle

age to lose one's wife; and, being old, to have no son'? Heaven has

already afflicted me with the first and the second of these

tribulations; the honourable foreigner by his magnanimous courage has

spared me the last. It is a true saying, 'The brave act like tigers,

not like mice'. Some of you, to the shame of your ancestors, acted like

mice; the Ingoua leapt forth like a tiger and saved my pearl from the

snout. He is my friend; whosoever does him a service does a greater

service to me. As the Poet says:

"'The Spring that feeds the Mountain Rill

Helps the great River to grow greater still'."

Making allowances for the chief's surcharged emotion, Jack felt that

there could be no longer any obstacle to his departure. Ah Lum, indeed,

was torn between two impulses. He wished to keep by his side the youth

who had shown that he could not only teach English poetry, but display

courage and readiness in a moment of danger. He wished also to show his

gratitude practically, and knew that he could do so in no more

acceptable way than by furthering Jack's search for his father. After a

night of indecision his generosity prevailed; he called Jack into his

tent, and promised, if he still wished to go, to do all that he could to

help him. But he pointed out that it would be very dangerous for him to

venture into Moukden. There were both the Chinese and the Russians to

reckon with. As for the former, he could furnish Jack with a pass which

would probably secure him from molestation; but if it were found upon

him by the Russians, it would in itself be sufficient to hang him.

Jack, however, felt that there was little chance of tracing his father

except by beginning at Moukden and working along the railway, and he

once more expressed his unalterable determination to face whatever risks

this course might involve.

Ah Lum then settled down to a serious discussion of ways and means. He

agreed that Jack's best plan would be to try his luck again as a

Chinaman; but not this time as a Cantonese; there were too many

Cantonese about. It would be better to pass as a native of one of the

interior provinces, such as Sz-chuen. The dialect was not likely to be

known to anyone in Moukden, so that the matter of speech would not be a

difficulty. He might be supposed to have come down the Yang-tse-kiang

on river boats, and to have drifted to Manchuria with an Ingoua; the

Ingoua, as every Chinaman knew, were great travellers; this would

explain his knowledge of pidgin English.

The chief spoke with great simplicity and earnestness; evidently he was

sincerely anxious on Jack's behalf. It was only at the end of the

conversation that he reverted to his academic manner.

"Prudence," he reminded Jack, "is what is most necessary to be

cultivated by the young. Your path will be beset with perils; a chance

word may be your undoing. When you converse in the road, remember there

are men in the grass. For myself, I am old enough to be your father;

this and my affection must be my excuse for offering words of advice.

What says the proverb? 'In a melon-patch, do not stoop down to arrange

your shoes; under a plum-tree, do not lift your hand to adjust your

cap.'"

Jack knew from experience that, being fairly mounted on his hobby, the

chief could not easily be stopped, and settled himself to listen in

patience.

"There are three things mainly to strive for: filial piety, that is the

most important; integrity; and humanity. Let us take the last first.

Humanity is among the greatest of the virtues. If a man wish to attain

the excellence of superior beings, let him cultivate the attributes of

humanity. They include benevolence, charity, clemency----"

At this moment a voice was heard at the entrance: "The august decree is

fulfilled."

The curtain was parted, and there entered the chief's second in command,

a big ferocious-looking fellow, holding up to Jack's horrified gaze two

ghastly blood-stained human heads. Ah Lum looked at the hideous objects

with unmoved countenance.

"That is well," he said. "Affix them on poles, and set them in the

centre of the camp, with this scroll in large characters from the poet

P'an T'ang-she'n:

"'Virtue is best; hold Knavery in dread;

A Thief gains nothing if he lose his Head.'"

The incident interrupted the chief's homily before his first heading was

developed. The flow of his ideas seemed broken, for on the departure of

his lieutenant he turned the conversation into another channel.

Jack afterwards learnt that the unfortunate wretches decapitated were

two members of the band who had stolen fowls from a farmer. Since

robbery was a principal reason of the Chunchuses' existence, Jack was

amazed at such an offence meeting with so terrible a punishment, until

he heard that the farmer thus robbed had purchased immunity from Ah Lum

by a gift of fodder, and the chief was inexorably merciless to any who

were guilty, or who made him appear guilty, of a breach of faith. Jack

was now convinced, if he had not been before, that Ah Lum was no mere

spectacled pedant.

One fine morning Jack set off on his long journey to Moukden. His

appearance was indistinguishable from that of a well-to-do Manchu.

Every detail of his costume was correct, from the round black hat and

glossy pigtail to the cloth boots with white felt soles. He was mounted

on a good pony, and accompanied by a trusty Chunchuse. Ah Fu shed tears

at parting; Ah Lum and Wang Shih were undisguisedly sorry to lose him,

and the former indeed declared his willingness at any time to welcome

him back, and even to give him a command in his band. Jack thanked him

warmly, pressed his closed fists to his breast in Chinese salutation,

and rode away.

It was nearly a thousand li--more than 300 miles--from the camp to

Moukden; not as the crow flies, for in that country of forest, mountain,

and river a straight course is impossible. The traveller has to proceed

by pack roads, to ford streams deep and swift, to ascend and descend

rugged forest-clad slopes; and if his journey is timed in the rainy

season he suffers inconveniences and perils without number. It was

fortunate for Jack that the rains were not so persistent and continuous

this year as is sometimes the case. He was delayed at one or two stages

of his journey by thunder-storms and swollen rivers; but, thanks to his

guide, who knew the country perfectly, he was able to cover an average

of about twenty-five miles a day. At another time nothing would have

delighted him more than to take things easily, for he passed through

some of the most magnificent scenery in the world, a country teeming

with game of all kinds, and dotted at out-of-the-way spots with

interesting monuments. But, determined to reach Moukden as soon as

possible, he was not to be allured by the cry of pheasants or the trails

of the tiger and the deer.

Furthermore, unequipped for such travelling as attracts the

globe-trotter, he found the inevitable discomforts of the route somewhat

trying to his patience. On fine days he was plagued for hours at a time

by myriads of midges, which swarmed about his head, biting with fiendish

ferocity. But his own sufferings were slight in comparison with his

pony's. From sunrise to sunset huge gadflies infested the poor animal,

settling upon its tough hide, and piercing it till the beast was

streaming with blood. Jack spent the greater part of the day in

smashing the terrible insects with his whip, slaying hundreds and still

leaving hundreds unslain. The nights also were times of torment.

Putting up at some inn, he had to pass the hours in a crowded room,

sealed up to prevent the ingress of midges, filled with smoke and the

sickening odours of stewed pork and rancid vegetables. He slept on the

k'ang, sometimes wedged in among a crowd of natives by no means too

clean, never knowing but that he might have the dangerous company of an

adder before the morning. He had to put up with such food as the inn

afforded, mostly Chinese pork and salted eggs, with an occasional bonne

bouche in the way of a trout when there happened to be Korean fishermen

in the neighbourhood. But night by night he rejoiced in the completion

of another good stage of his journey; and, thanks to his prudence and

the clever management of his guide, he aroused no suspicions, and was

accepted as a native, morose and uncompanionable indeed, but excused as

being a wanderer from a distant province.

At length, on the fourteenth day after leaving the Chunchuse camp, the

two travellers reached a village some twelve miles from Moukden. They

were squatting at dinner in an inn when a detachment of Cossacks rode

up, in the course of a foraging expedition. Jack felt a little anxious

as they entered, but to them he was a mere Chinaman like the rest; he

escaped notice, yet was relieved when they rode off in the direction of

Moukden. When they were well on their way he suggested to his guide

that it would be good policy to follow hard on their heels; entering the

city in their wake he might hope to pass without attracting special

attention.

It was late in the day, near the time for the closing of the gates, when

the Cossacks approached the city. To Jack's disappointment, instead of

entering they rode off to the north-west, in the direction of the

railway. He thought it advisable to put up in a little hamlet some two

miles from the walls and wait till morning. There was sure to be a

considerable crowd of country people awaiting the opening of the gates,

and in the crush he was likely to pass unrecognized. Early in the

morning, therefore, he took leave of the Chunchuse and turned his pony's

head towards Moukden. Though outwardly calm, he had many an inward

tremor as he joined the crowd of people--labourers, farmers with carts

loaded with beans, drovers with black pigs, women with fowls and geese

slung round their necks--a miscellaneous throng, all too intent on their

business, however, to give more than a passing glance to a rider hardly

distinguishable from themselves.

The gates were thrown open, and Jack passed through with the rest,

feeling tolerably secure now that he was at last within the walls.

Turning off from the main road, he made his way by narrow and tortuous

alleys to the street where the compradore lived in his cottage at the

foot of Mr. Brown's garden. The man was smoking at the door, and his

son Hi Lo was playing at knuckle-stones on the ground near him. Jack

reined up and dismounted, saying nothing at first in order to test the

efficacy of his disguise. The compradore looked up, but did not

recognize him. The boy was quicker. At the first glance he jumped up,

ran to his father, and whispered in his ear. The man started, kowtowed,

then, looking hurriedly and anxiously around and up and down the street,

invited Jack to enter. When the door was shut he expressed his delight

at seeing his young master once more. He had heard from his brother at

Harbin of the successful stratagem by which Jack had managed to start

for Vladivostok, but, knowing what risks the journey involved, he had

ever since been fearful lest some harm should have befallen him.

"I have had some narrow escapes," said Jack, "but here I am, you see,

safe and sound. I'll tell you all about it by and by; but first tell

me, Mr. Hi, have you discovered anything about my father?"

The compradore's face fell as he related the result of his enquiries. A

Chinaman once in Mr. Brown's employment had been working at the

railway-station at Shuang-miao-tzue, about half-way between Moukden and

Harbin, when, on a siding in an open truck, among a crowd of malefactors

in chains, he had been amazed to recognize his former master. The truck

had remained there for two days; the man had tried to get speech with

Mr. Brown, but in vain. By questioning and comparing notes Jack came to

the conclusion that this was the very truck he had seen from the window

of the train on his way to Harbin. His blood boiled at the recollection

of the miserable wretches and the thought that his father was among

them; he felt an insane desire to rush off at once and confront General

Bekovitch with the discovery; but he knew how fatal such a step would

be; and after an explosion of wrath which he could not control, and at

which Hi An looked on with every mark of sympathy, he regained his

composure, and, recognizing that there was no hope save in patience,

settled down to discuss his future course of action. He knew full well

that an unlucky accident might at any time put an end to his quest and

perhaps his life, and resolved that so far as in him lay he would not

fail through lack of caution.

After the first moment of relief and happiness at seeing Jack again, the

compradore showed himself seriously concerned for his young master's

safety. If he were detected by the Russians he ran the risk of being

shot as a spy. His disguise was perfect; Moukden was probably the last

place where his enemies would expect to find him; but while the Russians

were in possession there would always be found Chinamen ready to curry

favour with them, and earn a little cash. After some discussion it was

arranged that the compradore should give out that Jack was a distant

relative from Sz-chuen, and Hi An himself suggested that he should feign

illness for a time until his future movements could be carefully thought

out.

"I shall want a name," said Jack with a smile. "What can you call me?"

"Sin Foo, master. I had a nephew of that name; he is dead, poor boy; it

is a good name."

"Very well. Now we must make further enquiries along the line to see

what has become of that truck. I have plenty of money; the flour we

expected came safely to Vladivostok, and I sold it. You have friends

you can employ?"

"Yes. But it will take a long time."

"Of course. I wish I could go up the line myself. Is it impossible?"

"You must not think of it, master. If it were known that questions were

being asked about an Englishman arrested by the Russians, suspicion

would be awakened, and what could you say if you were caught? No, leave

it to my countrymen; they will know exactly how to enquire, without

seeming too curious. As for you, it is best to remain in Moukden, and

wait until we get more news."

"I'm afraid you are right. Well, let it be so for the present. Tell

me, is Sowinski in the city?"

"Yes, he is living in your father's house."

At that Jack fired up again. Red with anger he strode up and down the

room, itching to do something, yet feeling all the time his

helplessness. Then he checked himself with a laugh.

"I'll never do for a Chinaman," he said, "if I show temper so easily.

You must teach me to fix my face, Mr. Hi."

"Yes, master," said the compradore seriously. "I will buy a little

image of Buddha, and put it in a corner of the room. If you look at it

for two hours every day your face will be as calm as a still pool."

The compradore's house was very small, and before a week was out Jack

was terribly sick of being cooped up in it from morning till night.

Only after dark, when the quarter was quiet--and that was at a very late

hour, for when Chinamen start playing fan-tan it becomes a trial of

endurance--only then did the compradore think it safe for his guest to

issue forth for a breath of air. The proximity of Sowinski was itself a

danger. Moreover, his acquaintances, among them Sowinski's Chinese

servants, were becoming curious. It was impossible to harbour a

stranger long in secret; for a couple of days the story of a sick cousin

passed muster, but the compradore had omitted to state the nature of the

illness, and his friends began to enquire whether they might not be

allowed to see the sick man and join Hi An himself in the charms and

exorcisms proper to cure him. Thus pushed into a corner, the worthy man

drank in their sight the ashes of burnt yellow paper, and whispered that

he feared his relative was sickening for a fever; it would not be safe

to admit visitors. He was about to sacrifice to the divinities on the

sick man's behalf; and, taking his courage in both hands, he invited a

number of his friends to accompany him.

Jack rolled with laughter when he afterwards learnt what had happened.

His amusement was all the greater because the compradore was so

obviously ill at ease lest he should have incurred the displeasure of

the divinities by sacrificing for a man who was not ill. Professing to

be not quite sure of the disease, he had gone first to the roadside

shrine of his Excellency the Small-Pox and burnt incense there; then to

the Honourable Divinity the Plague; finally, to make short work of it

and cover all imaginable complaints, he had proceeded to the deity known

as Mr. Imperfect-In-Every-Part-Of-His-Body, a hideous idol with sore

eyes, hare-lip, and ulcerated legs. Convinced now that the travelled

relative must be in a desperately bad state, the inquisitive neighbours

gave a wide berth to Hi An, and no longer desired to cross his

threshold.

But when a week had passed, Jack, finding his inactivity intolerable,

came to the conclusion that it would really be safer if he moved about a

little. The neighbourhood would expect to be invited either to his

funeral or to a feast in celebration of his recovery, and the talk that

would ensue when neither event happened might develop danger both for

himself and for his host. One evening the compradore, on returning

home, chanced to mention that during the day he had been asked by a

foreign war-correspondent if he could recommend a servant. The stranger

already had a capable mafoo, or groom, but this man had absolutely

refused to carry or have anything to do with a little black box on which

his master set great store, and the foreigner had met with the same

refusal from every native to whom he applied. Hi An himself was

somewhat amused at the situation. Having served Mr. Brown for so many

years, and in so many different places, including the southern treaty

ports, he was well aware that the black box was a harmless photographic

camera: had not Master Jack himself possessed one in Shanghai? But the

Moukden natives, not yet accustomed to the kodak of the globe-trotter,

were convinced that the mysterious box was choke-full of little black

devils impatiently waiting for any confiding Chinaman simple enough to

be lured within their influence. The correspondent, being somewhat

stout and far from active, was loth to carry the camera himself, and had

almost resigned himself to the dead-lock.

"Poor fellow!" said Jack, laughing. "How did you come across him, Mr.

Hi?"

The compradore explained that the correspondent appeared to be a

business connection of Mr. Brown's, for he had tried to find the

merchant when he arrived in Moukden some weeks before, and was greatly

disappointed and distressed when he learnt what had happened.

"How should I suit?" said Jack, as an idea struck him.

"Ch'hoy!" exclaimed the compradore. "Master a servant?"

"Why not? I should be able to move about then; as the servant of a

European I should run less risk of being suspected either by Russians or

Chinese than if I were a masterless man; and I might--the chance is

small, but still it is a chance--I might come upon some trace of my

father if attached to a foreign correspondent, whose duties will surely

take him from place to place."

"But, master, a servant! And to a foreigner; not even a Yinkelis or a

Melican man, but a Toitsche! Ch'hoy!"

There was a world of contempt in the Chinaman's tone. To the average

Chinaman all "foreign devils" are alike; only those whose business

brings them into relations with Europeans recognize degrees.

"I know you don't like the Germans; but what does it matter, Mr. Hi? A

German is less likely to see through my disguise than an Englishman.

Besides, of a hundred virtues, filial piety is the best. You know the

maxim?"

The compradore scratched his head. He found these ideas difficult to

reconcile. But after some further talk he yielded, and promised to go

to the correspondent early next morning and offer the services of Sin

Foo, a young man whose honesty and industry he could guarantee.

A little before noon next day he returned. The correspondent was

delighted with the prospect of engaging a suitable man, but must see the

candidate first. He was living with a number of other correspondents at

the Green Dragon Hotel, and wished to see Sin Foo at once.

"Is Monsieur Brin there?" asked Jack instantly.

"No, master. He went to Harbin a week ago. He was very sad."

"Lucky for me! Then we'll go at once, Mr. Hi."

The neighbours had already been prepared to see Hi An's relative

out-of-doors at last; the application to Mr.

Imperfect-In-Every-Part-Of-His-Body had been abundantly successful.

Most of them were engaged in their usual occupations at that time of

day, and Jack attracted little notice as he walked through the streets

at Hi An's side. At the hotel he was presented to a short, corpulent

German, wearing gold spectacles and a battered wide-awake, and smoking a

huge pipe.

"He belongey Sin Foo," said Hi An.

Jack made the kowtow in the most approved style. The German looked him

up and down.

"So!" he said. "You been servant before?"

"Suttingly," replied Jack, remembering his fagging days at school.

"So! You strong?"

"My plenty stlong, masta!"

"Not afraid of little box?"

"No fea'! My cally littee box this-side, that-side, allo-side,

all-same."

"Goot! You are shust ze man I seek. Now to fix ze so imbortant

business of vages. Business are business. Vat you say to ten yen--ach!

I zink still I am in Japan: vat say you to ten dollar per mensem--ze

monce?"

"Allo-lightee--" began Jack, but the compradore interposed.

"Ch'hoy! Ten piecee dollar! Ph'ho! My hab catchee Sin Foo--one piecee

first-chop man; he numpa one boy; my fetchee he this-side; no can makee

pidgin so-fashion for littee bittee cash. Sin Foo, come wailo

chop-chop; folin genelum no savvy pidgin China-side fashion."

The compradore's intervention showed Jack that he must needs exercise

every care if he was to play his part properly. To have accepted the

German's first offer without bargaining would have betrayed him to any

travelled man. After an hour's discussion an arrangement was concluded

between the stranger and Hi An. Sin Foo was to have nothing else to do

but to take charge of the photographic apparatus. The terms agreed upon

were so high that the German declared that he must dismiss his mafoo and

engage a cheaper man. Whereupon the compradore suggested Hi Lo to fill

the place, and Jack regarded the opportunity as almost a special

providence, for he had been dreading the discomforts and dangers that

might arise from enforced companionship with a Chinese mafoo. With Hi

Lo for a fellow-servant, however, he need fear neither danger nor

discomfort, and he was pleased when the German accepted the boy, but at

ridiculously low wages.

Jack was to enter upon his duties at once. As soon as the compradore

had gone to fetch Hi Lo, the German took the opportunity to explain who

and what he was.

"I cannot shpeak your bidgin talk," he said. "You understan' blain

English, boy?"

"My savvy littee bit Yinkelis; my tly understan' masta--he talkee

Yinkelis first-chop."

"Ver' vell. Now you call me Excellenz; you can say zat?"

"No, not a bit of it."

The phrase slipped out before Jack could check it. Luckily the German

was not aware of the _lapsus linguae_.

"Zat is not bolite English; you should say, 'No, sir, I am sorry, or I

regret, zat I cannot say Excellenz.' Vell, can you call me 'mein

Herr-r-r'?"

"He no belongey lightee China-side. My no can talkee so-fashion. China

boy tly; he say 'mine hell'."

"Ach!" grunted the German. "Zat vill nefer do, not at all. But I

cannot vaste ze time to egsblain. You must zen call me--master. Ver'

vell. Now, my name is Schwab--Hildebrand Schwab." Jack suddenly

remembered the letter his father had shown him on the day before the

arrest; this, then, was the representative of Schlagintwert & Co. and

correspondent of the _Illustrirte Vaterland und Colonien_. "And

remember zis," continued Schwab. "If you meet any man vat vant

Birmingham screw, Manchester soft goots, Viltshire bacon, or hair-oil,

superfine, you vill let me know at vunce--at vunce. Ven ze var is ofer

I shall do goot business in all zose zinks--ja, and many more. It is

only in var zat I am gorresbondent; in beace I rebresent ze solid firma

Schlagintwert Gombany of Duesseldorf. You understan'?"

"Allo lightee, Herr."

"Ver' goot, ver' goot inteed. You say it not so bad. Now I tell you

ozer zink. I haf come at great egsbense from San Francisco to take

photographs of ze scenes of var. I am already some veeks here, vaiting,

vaiting, for bermission to go to ze front. You understan'? At last it

come. I haf it now in my pockett. How do I get it? Ach! it vas qvite

simble. Ven I am tired of vaiting, I go to Herr Oberst Pesteech,

bresscensor, and I say: 'Your servant, noble sir; Hildebrand Schwab.

Entweder you give me ze bermission to see zis var business, or I vire to

our Kaiser who is in Berlin. At Berlin, and viz ze Kaiser, business are

business.' Zat is ze vay I shpeak. So I return to my hotel: siehe da!

ze bermission is already zere. Zat vere business. Ver' vell. Now I

tell you vat ve do. To-morrow ve go to ze front, vere ze var is. You

vill haf ze camera; you vill assist me to make my photographs. I vill

learn you how. And give notice, boy, zat I am not bermitted to

photograph ze bositions of ze Russian army; nor Russian troops on ze

march; nor Russian troops in action, egzept I get anozer bermission from

ze Russian general. Vat is zat for a kind of bermission I do not say.

Zerefore you vill take photographs ven I tell you, and no ozer time.

You understan'?"

"Savvy allo masta talkee; my tinkey velly nice."

"So; come zen viz me; I vill learn you ze--ze--ze control of ze

photographabbaratus."

*CHAPTER XI*

*War-Look-See*

Schwab is Shocked--Snapshots--The Coming Battle--To Liao-yang--Schwab's

Opportunity--Carpe Diem--Suobensius--Shimose--Last

Wishes--Stackelberg--Something Accomplished--Rhapsody--Two-Piece Pony

That night Jack shared a tiny room with Hi Lo. The boy had become

accustomed to see his master in Chinese dress, but the situation was

entirely changed now that he had to regard him as an equal and address

him as Sin Foo. Jack impressed on the little fellow that everything

depended on his caution--Jack's own safety, and the prosecution of his

quest; and Hi Lo showed a quite painful anxiety to behave with

discretion and yet with naturalness.

Next day Schwab spent several hours in explaining to Jack, not too

lucidly, the working of the camera; the development of the negatives he

reserved for himself. Then he prepared to sally forth to make a few

experiments. An American correspondent, standing with his hands in his

pockets at the door of the little Chinese hotel, observed Jack as he

passed.

"Hello, Schwab!" he shouted. "Caught a Tartar at last, eh?"

"Yes, Mr. Vanzant--if zat is not a shoke. Zis man is not afraid--he gif

sign of modicum of intelligence; I zink he vill do."

"I guess he will do for your camera; well, so long!"

Walking out of the city, Schwab set Jack to take photographs of a few

prominent objects--the Temple of Earth beyond the eastern gate, the Tomb

of Wen-Hsiang, the statesman who rose from being a table-boy to the

highest official appointments, Dr. Christie's Hospital, where the little

Scots doctor had dispensed the blessings of Western surgery and medicine

to thousands of grateful patients. Schwab was delighted with Sin Foo's

rapid progress; it amazed him.

"Truly I zink ze Manchu is not such a fool as he look," he said.

"My plenty muchee glad masta likee Sin Fool," said Jack gravely.

"Ach! You do so vell zat to-morrow ve go to take var pictures. Zere

vill soon be a great battle; ze Russians shall at last do goot

business."