Chris and Amos lay belly down in a low clump of pine scrub at the top of a
precipitous rocky pinnacle. Below them in the blistering noon lay the
palace walls of the Lord of the Seven Seas, Descendant of the Sun and the
Moon, Overlord of the Mountains and the Plains, Prince of all the Isles,
Father of Plenty, and Brilliance-Before-Which-All-Cast-Down-Their-Eyes, the
Emperor of China.
The two boys were uninterested in titles. Somewhere within that
city-within-a-city, inside the enormous spread of the palace walls
that were surrounded in their turn by the city of Peking, lay the goal
they had come so far to seek, the Jewel Tree of the Princess of China.
Now, like a general planning his campaign, Chris lay looking down at
the high angular walls, thinking of how he would gain entry.
On regaining the _Mirabelle_ in a boat made from the magic rope, Chris
had reappeared among his friends, "recovered" from his fever. He had
given much thought to what he considered would be the last dangerous
section of the journey, and after listening to what his master said
through the shell, was permitted to take Amos on this stage of the
voyage. It was reasoned if something happened to Chris, Amos might be
able to carry out their mission by himself.
The boys had come to Peking on camel-back, a camel made from the magic
rope. As Amos had never seen a real camel, he thought the rope animal
quite natural, and as remarkable a creature as a real one. Chris took
care to make it or disentangle it out of Amos's sight, and so many
were the strange and wonderful things to be seen, that Amos had no
time to concern himself over the reality of a camel.
The arid countryside was blanched by the excessive heat. Flies droned
over the dates and figs that the boys pulled from their pockets to
eat. Amos wriggled with excitement as he pointed out details to Chris.
"Chris! Look at that procession going in the big gate! All those
pigtailed gentlemen dressed in embroidered coats. I like that blue one
with butterflies on it. No, I'd sooner have the black satin one with
the dragon in red and yellow!" He looked again more closely. "Or the
one with the peacock in green and purple. Which would you sooner
have?"
Chris paid little attention to Amos's exclamations. Leaning on his
elbows and looking at the scene below, his mind worked busily on these
last vital problems. But Amos was not waiting for an answer. His mind
was on the present moment and the present scene, forgetful of what lay
ahead of them, a few hours away. He chattered on.
"I like their funny black hats and droopy mustaches. Why don't they
look like us, Chris?" he asked. And then, "Who-all's in the curtained
stretcher they're carrying?"
[Illustration]
"It's a palanquin, Amos. They carry dignitaries in them."
"Hate to be a dignitary in all this heat," Amos said, unenviously.
"What are they doing now?" he enquired, and both boys parted the
prickly pine needles to look out and down.
The leader of the procession rapped three times on the great gate with
a gold staff. Sentinels and guards came forward, walking on the broad
gate top, and after talking with the members of the procession, turned
to give an order.
[Illustration]
Gaily dressed trumpeters with dragon masks on the visors of their
helmets raised long brass trumpets. A prolonged throbbing "Wai! Wo!"
shuddered out, and the great outer gates of the palace, studded with
pronged spikes of carved metal, swung slowly outward. Sixteen men came
into sight, eight on either side, pushing wide the gates.
"Gee! Imagine the weight of those doors!" Chris murmured, and taking
out his spyglass looked through it. "Golly Moses!" he exclaimed. "Take
a look, Amos. Those gates are made of bronze, nearly three feet
thick! And now they have the gates open, look at the depth of the
walls. They're as deep through as a room!"
The waiting procession, the richly dressed courtiers and curtained
palanquin, moved inside and the gates were slowly pulled close by
lines of men dragging at ropes and chains to shut them. From within
the main gate drifted out the sound, becoming fainter and fainter, of
other trumpets sounding the order for the opening of other gates. Ten
times, the boys counted, the trumpets blew, and the same "Wai! Wo!"
throbbed against the sultry air.
"Lawsy me!" Amos sighed, when no more trumpets were to be heard. "Ten
walls and ten gates--at the very least! 'Course we don't know--" He
rolled his worried eyes toward Chris, "We don't know whether those
folks got to the Emperor or not. Likely he's in behind a couple more
walls, just to be on the safe side." He searched his friend's face.
"How are we going past all that many guards and trumpets, Chris? Even
if we could tie up a guard or two, how in the world we going to push
open gates that heavy?"
Amos need not have been so concerned, for Chris had a good plan. But
just at that moment the heat overcame Chris. Putting his head down on
his arms, he slept.
Amos slept too, and it must have been several hours later that the
rising sound of a crowd talking and laughing with excitement
penetrated their sleep and brought them to consciousness. For a moment
they both lay rubbing their eyes and peering out. Then they realized,
by the growing crowd on either side of the palace gate and along the
narrow street leading away from it, that someone of importance was
about to come from the palace and parade through the streets of
Peking.
"Wonder what goes on?" Chris muttered, as the crowds below swelled and
grew. Boys climbed upon one another's shoulders, teakwood stools were
brought for the richer people to stand on, and along the street that
led away to the right around the palace walls, Chris and Amos could
see embroidered silks hung from all the windows, and Chinese people in
their best holiday clothes laughing excitedly. All were looking toward
the gates, and at last, from far within, even more distantly than
before, came the first sound of trumpets. These had a sweeter, clearer
sound than those the boys had heard at noon.
"Never heard a sweeter note," Amos said. "Might be made of silver,
'way they sound."
The boys counted, and twelve times the low, lovely notes swung out on
the air.
"Twelve gates!" Chris said to Amos, "And look, you were right, they
_are_ silver trumpets!"
The trumpeters atop the great outer gates were now differently
dressed, and there were not two but a dozen lined along the deep
palace walls. The trumpets, ten feet long, were curved, and of silver
that in the sunlight dazzled the eye. As they were blown, the final
gates were pushed aside.
A long procession emerged of such fantasy and variety of color that
the two boys were spellbound. Elephants and camels, llamas and horses,
all richly caparisoned in Eastern silks, passed along with their
riders. Guards with curved swords and many-thonged whips formed a
double hedge between those in the procession and the bystanders. Still
others led leopards and black panthers on chains as an added
protection to those they guarded. Palanquin after palanquin passed by,
but still the crowd seemed to be waiting for something.
[Illustration]
Then, as the silver trumpets continued their sweet lingering notes, a
murmur arose from the crowd. Four lines of youths preceded a palanquin
more finely decked than the rest, and the murmur rose. After it came
four lines of Chinese girls, fanning the air with peacock fans on long
staves, fans of white egret feathers, and ostrich plumes dyed a yellow
gold.
[Illustration]
"Amos!" Chris breathed, "That color! Yellow is the royal color of
China!"
He did not have to elaborate his thought, for the palanquin that
finally came in sight showed by its richness that it could belong only
to royalty, and by its beauty and grace, only to a woman. Made of
silver and rock crystal, studded with diamonds and pearls, and hung
about with sheer curtains of embroidered yellow silk, the palanquin
belonged without doubt to a young girl of the royal house. As it
appeared under the high arch of the outer gate, a roar of joy and
greeting arose from the waiting crowd and with one accord every man
bowed low, covering his eyes with the wide sleeve of his left arm. The
women and girls in the crowd, and those leaning from the upper stories
of the houses, threw down before the palanquin objects that flashed
and twinkled in the sun.
Remembering in time, for he had been so much absorbed he had
momentarily forgotten it, Chris whipped out his spyglass and looked at
the curtains of the palanquin. The thin silk was transparent enough
under the strong focus of the glass, and behind it Chris could
perceive, leaning delicately against silk cushions, a Chinese girl as
beautiful as a dream. Her slightly uptilted eyes were large and dark,
her skin put a magnolia flower to shame, her mouth was lifted in a
charming smile, and her long exquisite fingers held a spray of jeweled
flowers. All about the palanquin rained a shower of jeweled buds and
petals, for no doubt a real flower was thought too inferior for the
only child of the Descendant of the Sun and the Moon, Prince of all
the Isles, and Lord of the Seven Seas, the Princess of China.