|DOANE knew nothing of the dignified figure he presented as he took
the viceroy's hand, a profoundly sobered giant, his huge frame outlined
beneath his wet garments like a Greek statue of an athlete.
“You have helped to save the life of my child, Griggsby Doane”--thus his
excellency, in what proved to be a little set speech--“and with all my
heart I thank you. I am old. Little time is left to me. But life follows
upon death. Death is the beginning of life. It has been said by Chuang
Tzü that the personal existence of man results from convergence of the
vital fluid, and with its dispersion comes what we term death. Therefore
all things are one. All vitality exists in continuing life. And I, when
what I have thought of as my self arrives at dispersion, shall live on
in my children. My words are inadequate. My debt to you is beyond my
power to repay. Command me. I am your servant.”
Doane bowed, hearing the words, catching something of the warm gratitude
in the heart of the old man, yet at the same moment flogged on to action
by the sense of passing time and present opportunity. It was no simple
matter, it seemed, to approach this seasoned, calmly determined mind
regarding the final personal matter of life and death. But he plunged
at it; stating simply that he had heard the gossip of the impending
tragedy, and that in conversing with the lovely Hui Fei, who was in
obvious difficulty in existing between the two greatest civilizations
without a solid footing in either, he could not bear to think of her
possible fate.
Rang Yu listened attentively.
“Your Excellency,” Doane pressed on, “it is not right that you should
listen to the command of a decadent throne. Forgive my frankness, my
presumption, but I must say this! True, you are a Manchu. While this
revolution continues it will be difficult for you. But before
another year shall have gone by there will be a new China. The bitter
animosities of to-day will pass. Though a Manchu, your wise counsel
will be needed. Your knowledge of the Western World will temper the
over-emphatic policies of the young hot-heads from the universities of
Japan.”
The viceroy considered this appeal during a long moment; then, soberly,
he looked up into the massive, strongly lined face of the white man and
asked, simply: “But what would you have me do, Griggsby Doane?”
“Your Excellency knows of the plan to seize your property?”
Kang inclined his head.
“If you go on to your home, it may be that everything will be taken,
even the money on your person.”
Kang bowed again.
“Then, Your Excellency, why not now--while you yet have the means to
do so--escape down the river with your daughter and myself? Can you
not trust yourself and her in my hands? I will find means to convey you
safely to Shanghai--perhaps to Japan or Hong Kong--where you will be
secure until further plans may be laid.”
“Griggsby Doane,” replied the viceroy with simple candor, “you speak
indeed as a friend. And I would be false to the blood that flows in my
veins did I not prize the friendship of man for man, second only to
the love of a son for a parent, above every other quality in life.
Friendship is most properly the theme of many of the noblest poems in
our language. It is to us more than your people, who place so strong
an emphasis on love between the sexes, can perhaps bring themselves to
understand. And therefore, Griggsby Doane, your feeling toward myself
and my daughter moves my heart more deeply than I can express to you.
“It is not surprising that news of my sorrow--of this sad ending that
is set upon my long life--should have reached you. But since you know so
much, I will tell you, as friend to friend, more. Do you know why this
sentence has been passed upon me? It is because I could not bring myself
to obey the order of the throne that the republican agitator, Sun
Shi-pi who had sought sanctuary at my yamen in Nanking should be at once
beheaded. Instead I sent for Sun Shi-pi to counsel him. I permitted him
to go to Japan on condition that he engage in no conspiracies and that
he remain away. Instead of complying with my condition he hastened to
organize revolutionary propaganda. He returned to China, appeared in
disguise on the steamer that is burning out yonder, and is now dead,
there, in his republican uniform.”
So his information was complete! A picture rose in Doane's mind of the
headless trunk of Sun Shi-pi amid the horrors of the lower deck.
His excellency continued: “I was denounced at the Forbidden City as a
traitor. The sentence of death followed, in the form of an edict from
the empress dowager in the name of the young emperor. Were I now to
follow Sun Shi-pi into exile in a foreign land I would mark myself for
all time as a traitor indeed; as one who, while sharing as an honored
viceroy the prosperity and dignity of the reigning dynasty, conspired
toward its downfall.”
“But, Your Excellency, the empress dowager and the young emperor no
longer speak with the voice of the Chinese people.”
“That could make no difference, Griggsby Doane. By edict of the Yellow
Dragon Throne of Imperial China I have been instructed to go to my
ancestors. My allegiance is only to that throne. I will obey....
Already, Griggsby Doane, you have done for me more than one can ever
demand of a friend. And yet one more demand I must make upon you. There
is no other to whom I can turn. I have no other friend to-night. Within
a short time my secretaries will secure a launch or a junk to convey us
to my home near Huang Chau. Will you come with us there?”
Doane, surprised, bowed in assent.
“Thank you. The gratitude of myself and all my family and friends will
remain with you. You are a princely man.... Until later, then, good
night, Griggsby Doane.”
He was gone.
Doane walked farther along the bank; stood for a time absorbed in
thought that led, at length, to what seemed a new ray of light in the
darkness that was his mind. And he strode back, hunting in this group
and that for Dawley Kane. That man had offered help. Now he could give
it.
Dawley Kane, fully dressed, unruffled, quietly smoking a cigar and
looking through a pocket notebook by the light from the river, seemed
a note of sanity in an unbelievably confused world. To him, apparently,
the nightmare of fighting and slaughter on the steamer, like the fire,
were but incidents. The only evidence the man gave out of quickened
nerves was that he talked a little more freely than usual. To Doane he
presented a surface as clear and hard as polished crystal, impenetrable,
in a sense repelling, yet, as we say, a gentleman.
They even chatted casually, as men will, standing there looking out at
the fire (which now had reached the stem and eaten down to the lower
decks, incinerating alike the bodies of men who had died for faith and
for lust) and at the wide circle of light on the rim of which floated
the vulture-the boats of the rivermen. Doane forced himself into the
vein of the man's interest; riding roughshod over a desperate sense
of unreality. For he knew that the great masters of capital were often
proud and even finicky men who must be approached with skill. They were
kings; must be dealt with as kings.
Kane was interested to learn what relation the fight below decks might
have to the rebellion up the river. That, clearly, was characteristic
of the man--the impersonal gathering in and relating of observable data.
His interest was deeper in the agriculture and commerce of the immense
Yangtze basin, to which subject he easily passed. His questions came
out of a present fund of knowledge--questions as to the speed,
cargo-capacity and operation-cost of the large junks that plied the
river by thousands, as to the cost of employing Chinese labor and the
average capacity of the coolie. He knew all about the slowly developing
railroads of North and Central China; commented in passing on the
surprising profits of the young Hankow-Peking line.... He seemed to
Doane to have in his mind a map or diagram of a huge, profitmaking
industrial world, to which he added such bits of line or color
as occurred in the answers to his questions. But he gave out no
conclusions, only questions. Famines, other wide-spread suffering so
tragically common in the Orient, interested him only as an impairment of
trade and industrial man power. The opium habit he viewed as an economic
problem.
Doane, settling doggedly to his purpose, found himself analyzing the
power of this quiet man. It lay of course, in the control of money. And
money would be only a token of human energy. The religion of his own
ardent years had taken no account of earthly energy or its tokens; it
had directed the eyes of the bewildered seeker toward a mystical other
world. Yet human life, in the terms of this earth, must go on. To this
point he always came around, of late years, in his thinking, just as
the church had always come around to it. Money was vital. The church was
endlessly begging for it; in no other way could it survive to continue
turning away the puzzled eyes of the seekers.
And the immense energy created in the human struggle to live and prosper
must continually be gathering up, here and there, into visible power
that shrewd human hands would surely seize. He felt this now as a law.
Religion had not left him. He felt more strongly than ever before that
this miraculously continuing energy implied a sublime orderly force that
transcended the outermost bounds of human intelligence. Religion was
surely there: it only wanted discovering. It had, as surely, to do with
primitive energy, with the heat of the sun and the disciplined rush of
the planets, with the tragic struggle of human business, with work and
war and sex and money.... And then he indulged in a half-smile. For this
primitive undying energy could be no other than the Tao of Lao-tzu and
Chuang Tzü. And so, after all these groping years of his errant faith,
he had fetched up, simply in Taoism.
But that law seemed to stand. The human struggle created power that
tended to gather at convenient centers. And here beside him, smoking a
cigar, stood a man whose uncommon genius fitted him to seize that power
as it gathered and administer it; a man to whom money came--the very
winds of chance heaped it about him. And to Doane, just now, money--even
in quantity that would be to Kane hardly the income of a day or
so--meant so much that the grotesque want of it (the word “grotesque”
came) stopped his brain.
For it was coming clear to him how completely the throne could at will,
obliterate the worldly establishment of Kang Yu. That throne, however
politically weak, yet held the savage instruments of despotic power.
Kang's sad end would come within the twenty-four hours, perhaps;
certainly he would wait only to prepare himself and to write his final
papers. The eunuch's men would be everywhere about the household;
nothing could be hidden from them, or from the spies among the
servants.... With money--a little money--Hui Fei might be saved from an
end as tragic as her father's.... The thing, surely, could be managed.
For the moment it seemed almost simple. She could be spirted away.
There might he missionaries to escort her down the river on one of the
steamers.
It was then, while Doane's thoughts still raced hither and thither, that
Kane himself broached the vital topic.
“This viceroy”--thus Kane--“seems to be quite a personage. He's been a
diplomat, I believe. And Kato tells me has an excellent collection of
paintings.”
Doane felt himself turning into a trader. “You are interested in Chinese
paintings, are you not, Mr. Kane?” he asked guardedly.
“Oh, yes. I have something of a collection. And now and then Kato picks
up something for me.”
“I don't know, of course, how far you would care to go with it Mr.
Kane”--Doane was measuring every word as it passed his lips--“but there
is a possibility that a bargain could be struck with his excellency at
this time.”
“Indeed?”
“It would be advisable to act pretty quickly, I should say.”
“Well! This is interesting. You are informed about his collection?”
“In a general way. It is very well known out here. His collection of
landscapes of the Tang and Sung periods is supposed to be the most
complete in existence, with fine works of Ching Hao, Kuan Tung, Tung
Yuan and Chu-jan. The best known paintings of Li Chang are his. He
has several by Kao Ke-ming, and, I know, an original sixfold landscape
screen by Kuo Hsi. Then there are works of the four masters of southern
Sung--Li Tang, Lui Sungnian, Ma Yuen and Hsia Kuai. You would find
nearly all the great men of the Academy represented.”
Doane stopped; waited to see if this list of names impressed the great
American. If he knew, in his own person, anything whatever about Chinese
painting he must exhibit at least a little feeling. But Dawley Kane said
nothing; merely lighted, with provoking deliberation, a fresh cigar.
“It is commonly understood, too”--Doane could not resist pressing him a
little further--“that he has authentic paintings by Wu Tao-tzu, and Li
Lung-mien.” Surely these two names would stir this man who seemed at
moments no more than a calculating machine with manners. But Kane smoked
on.... “And I understand that he has a fairly complete collection of
portraits by the men of the Brush-strokes-reducing Method.”
He finished rather lamely; fell silent, and looked out over the still
brilliantly lighted river; the river of a hundred thousand dramatic
scenes--battles and romances and struggles for trade--the great river
with its endless memories of gold and bloodshed--the river that for a
brief day was running red again. The fire out there, though red flame
and rolling smoke and whirling sparks still roared upward, was consuming
now the lower deck and the hull. Within the hour the _Yen Hsin_ would be
no more than a curving double row of charred ribs; one more casual
memory of the river.
Still Dawley Kane smoked on. He clearly knew no enthusiasm. He was an
analyst, an appraiser, a trader to the core. He felt no discomfort, even
in friendly talk, in letting the other man wait. But Doane would say
no more. And finally, knocking the ash off his cigar with a reflective
finger, Kane remarked; “You really think that this collection would be a
good buy?”
“Unquestionably.”
“Have you any idea what he would ask?”
“I don't even know that he would consider selling it.”
“But if he were properly approached.... there are reasons____”
“You know of his predicament?”
“I gather that there is a predicament.”
“Oh.... well, yes, there is. But I don't know how even to guess at the
value. Many of the paintings are priceless. In New York, at collector's
prices, and without hurrying the sale....”
“A hundred thousand dollars?”
“Many times more.”
“But if he is anxious to sell--must sell”
“There is that, of course.”
“A hundred thousand is a good deal of money. If I were to place that
sum to his credit to-morrow, for instance, by wire, at a Shanghai bank,
don't you suppose it would tempt him?”
“It might. Though Kang knows the value of every piece.” Doane was
finding difficulty in keeping pace with the situation. Kane would shave
every penny, as a matter of principle. That, of course, explained him;
was the secret of his wealth and power. Paintings, after all, mattered
to him only in a remote sense; you could always buy them if you chose,
if people would, as apparently they did, think better of you for buying
them. It came down to the desirability of building up and solidifying
one's name, of what Doane had heard spoken of everywhere in America
during his last visit as “publicity.” The word irritated him.
It suggested that other word, also heard everywhere in America,
“salesmanship.” These words, to the sensitively observant Doane, had
connoted an unpleasant blend of aggressive enterprise with an equally
aggressive plausibility.
But his wits were sharpening fast. If this man was a buyer, he would be
a seller.
“His excellency has another collection that might or might not interest
you--the value of it would be only slightly artistic--his precious
stones.” Doane threw this cut carelessly. “There is no estimating the
value of those. It might run into the millions....” He saw Kane's eyes
come to a sudden hard focus behind the veil of smoke. He was really
interested at last. And Doane, with mounting pulse, quietly added,
“He has historical jewels from many parts of Asia--head ornaments,
bracelets, ropes of matched pearls from Ceylon, old careen jade from
Khotan, quantities of the jewelry taken from Khorassan and Persia by
Genghis Khan and his sons, including a number of famous royal pieces,
and some of the jeweled ornaments brought from the temples of India by
Kublai Khan.”
This, Doane knew, was enough. He waited, now, himself. Waited and
waited.
“Mr. Doane”--Kane, at last, was speaking--“I would be glad to have you
approach the viceroy for me. To-night, if you think best. I will be
glad, of course, to pay you a commission.”
“Shall I make a definite offer--for the paintings and the jewels?”
“No.” Kane considered. “Let him set a price. Then we will make our
offer.”
“It is safe to say, Mr. Kane”--Doane was remembering experiences of
men in church and educational work who had had to approach the great
capitalists for gifts of money--“that you could sell half the paintings
for what you might pay for the two collections at this time. That would
enable you to give the other half, as a collection bearing your own
name, to one of the art museums at home, at no cost to yourself.”
Kane smoked thoughtfully. “I presume, Mr. Doane,” he said, “that the
predicament you spoke of can not interfere in any way with the safe
delivery of the collections.”
Doane considered. How much did this man know? That Japanese, behind his
mask of a smile, would be deep, of course. With a sudden sinking of the
heart, Doane perceived that Kane might easily know the whole story. But
even if he did he would admit nothing. He trusted no one; that was his
calm cynical strength. He would trade to the last.... Another swift, if
random, perception of this tense moment was that much of the common talk
regarding the “inscrutable” East was utter nonsense. Read in the
light of history and habit the Oriental mind was anything but deeply
mysterious; it was, indeed, very nearly an open book. Whereas the
Western mind, with its miraculous religion, its sentimentality and
materialism and (at the same time) its cynically unscrupulous financial
power, could be baffling indeed.
Desperate now, seeing no other way through, Doane spoke out from his
tortured heart. “Mr. Kane, the simple fact is that his excellency has
been condemned to death, and his daughter to a fate that will
almost certainly end in death for her as well. They are seizing his
property....”
“Who are they?”
“The Imperial Government--the empress dowager and her crew. They are
sending the chief eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, to take his paintings and
jewels, and his daughter, to Peking. Frankly, it may be necessary to
hurry matters--smuggle the things out. But the fan paintings can be
packed in parcels, the scrolls rolled small on their ivory sticks, the
jewels gathered in a few boxes. Once in white hands they would be safe.
I think. I believe I can arrange it. The porcelains and carvings you
would probably have to leave behind.”
His voice died out. Dawley Kane was coolly appraising him. Their minds
were not meeting.
“As you are stating it now, it is a different situation altogether,”
said Kane, the ring of tempered metal in his voice. “Obviously the man
to deal with is the eunuch, What's-his-name.”
“But--really--”
“He would have the collections complete including the porcelains and the
carvings. I should want them all. He would be ignorant and corrupt, of
course; we could buy him for a song. And there would be no risk. Yes,
let him get possession. Then if you would like to approach him for me I
will be glad to see that you make something for yourself.”
Doane drew in his breath. Slowly he said: “But that, Mr. Kane, seems a
good deal like taking a profit out of the viceroy's misfortune.”
But he caught himself. To Kane, who had made enormous profits out of
wrecked railways, who had cornered stocks and produce and mercilessly
squeezed the short sellers, this would be sentimentality.
Doane heard himself saying: “I'm sorry. I could hardly undertake it, Mr.
Kane.” And walked away. His failure was complete. Worse, if there had
been any gaps in the information supplied by the ubiquitous little
Kato, they were filled now. The finely balanced machine that served so
smoothly as a brain in the head of the great American, would be working
on and on. Through the Japanese he could easily enough reach Chang
Yuan-fu from Hankow after the tragedy that now hovered so close over the
old viceroy and all that was his. He could make what he and his suave
kind would doubtless regard--the slang word came grimly--as a killing.
The white men had made a small fire of dry rushes and thwarts from the
boats. There sat Hui Fei, the sleeping little princess in her arms; and,
beside her, Rocky Kane. Near by, where the men had spread coats on the
ground, Miss Means and Miss Andrews slept side by side.
Doane walking toward the group--stopping, moving away only to turn
irresolutely back--saw young Kane reach over and take the child into his
own arms, and saw Hui Fei smile at him. He strode away then, struggling
to believe that she could do that. But she had.... After all, she knew
only that he had acted outrageously toward her, had then apologized
publicly, boyishly, and now had brought her little sister ashore,
himself falling exhausted on the bank. With those few facts, out of her
impulsively young judgment she could strike a balance in his favor. Even
at his worst he had bluntly admired her; for that she might, in the end,
forgive him. And his youth would call to her.
Deane, indeed, forced himself to consider the boy dispassionately. The
wild oats of any spoiled youth with too much money at his disposal,
if brought together, and closely scrutinized, would make an appalling
showing. Wild young men did, of course, recover. There was in this boy a
note of intensity--passionate, eager--that was by no means all egotism.
And there was in the father a hard sort of character that had proved
itself indomitable, and that must be taken into account. Yes, it was a
simple fact, that many a young fellow had gone farther wrong than had
Rocky Kane without wrecking his adult life. You couldn't tell. And
there they were, the eager moody boy and the lovely girl, who was oddly,
quaintly conspicuous in her opera wrap, sitting very close, talking
in low tones while he walked alone. It was torture.... yet it wras an
awakening. He told himself that it was better so... Pacing back and
forth, dwelling on the quick changeableness of youth, its ardor and
sensitive hopefulness, he thought--reaching out for fellowship as
will always the hurt soul--of other lonely lives, of Abelard and Jean
Valjean, of St. Francis, even of Christ. It was odd--from his present
philosophical position of something near Taoism he felt the legendary
Christ as a profoundly human and friendly spirit, immeasurably more
tender, finer, gentler than the theological structure of thought and
conduct that had been erected in His name. He had thought himself very
nearly around the circle, back to essential good.... This process could
bring only humility. Life began to matter less. Love was a tormenting
problem of self; the mature soul must in some measure attain
selflessness if it were not to go down in the trampled dust of life.
Worldly success was an accident. It was hardly desirable; hardly
mattered. That he had within the hour pinned his hope to money, fairly
fought for it, began to seem incredible.
The viceroy found him standing quietly by the river, turning from the
slowly dying fire out there to the slowly spreading glow in the eastern
sky.
“I like to think,” remarked his excellency, smiling in friendly fashion,
“that when the first Buddhist patriarch, Bodhidharma, miraculously
crossed the river on a reed plucked from the southern bank, it was not
far from here, near my home.”
“Was not your city of Huang Chau the home of Li To?” asked Doane.
“Indeed, yes!” cried his excellency. “In some of his excursions on the
river he undoubtedly passed the site of my home.”
Doane quoted from that most famous of rhapsodists in musical Chinese:
“'One who has hearkened to the waters roaring down from the heights of
Lung, and faint voices from the land of Ch'in; one who has listened to
the cries of monkeys on the shores of the Yangtze Kiang and the songs
of the land of Pa'.... That”--he was musing aloud, reflectively as the
Chinese do--“was written three full centuries before William of Normandy
first set foot on British soil.... Li Po so described himself.”
They talked on, of life and philosophy, in, language interwoven with
classical allusions. Friendship, the finest relationship in Chinese
civilization, as it stood, had come to them.... It brought a kind of
peace. Doane failed to recognize this sensation as in some degree but
a phase of his painful exaltation. It seemed to him then that his
struggle, no matter what atonement might lie before, was over. He forgot
again the Western vigor that was, and to the last would be, driving his
spirit.
Meanwhile the swiftly growing acquaintanceship of Huj Fei and Rocky Kane
was weaving its bright-tinted weft in and out through the dark warp of
Rocky's ill-spent youth. His eyes followed the slightest movement of her
slim hands and rested dog-like on her finely modeled head about which
the shining wet black hair lay close. To his quick youth she was an
exquisite fairy. He felt her as perfume in the air he breathed. Her
voice, when she drowsily, prettily spoke, fell on his ear like music
in an enchanted land. He could say little; he had never before so lost
himself.
She tried daintily to conceal a yawn. And he, clasping the child in both
arms, turned away to hide its brother. Then, very softly, she laughed
and he laughed.
“You must try to sleep,” he said gently.
“I can no' let you keep my sister. You, too, are ver' tire'.”
“It's nothing. I love to hold her. Really! You see, my life hasn't been
this way. Maybe, if I'd had a sister...” He stopped; suddenly, vividly
sensing what he had been; a hot flush flooded his sensitive face. He
could only add then: “I want you to sleep. It may be hours before
the boat comes for you. It's been such a horrible night--such a
nightmare....”
“But you mus' res', too. One of the servan's will take my sister.”
“No!” he cried, low, fiercely, “I won't let any one else have her!”
Sensing crudely that the child was a chord between them, he tightened
his hold. The little head rolled back on his arm; he bent over, tenderly
kissed the soft cheek, then looked over it at Hui Fei, staring. During
one brief moment their eyes met full in the flickering yellow light.
She turned away; in lieu of speech looked about for a spot to lay her
head.
“Here!” He laid the child on the ground; and, surprised to find himself
collarless and coatless, took off his waistcoat, rolled it up and placed
it for a pillow. “It's really pretty well dried out,” he added, with an
embarrassed little laugh.... Then, as she still said nothing, went
on, “Do just lie down there. I'll keep awake. We can't count on the
servants; they're all scared to death.”
Still she hesitated. “I'm afraid I am ver' tire',” she finally remarked
unsteadily. “I can't think ver' clearly.”
“Listen!” said he, hardly hearing. “I've got to tell you something. I'm
not good enough so much as to speak to you.”
“Please!” she murmured. “I don' wan' you to talk abou'--”
“I don't mean that. It's other things too.” His voice broke, but after a
moment he pressed on, a determined look on his curiously youthful face.
“I've done every rotten thing I could think of. I'm--well, I guess I'm
just a criminal. No, listen--please! It's true. I'm to blame for this
awful fire--smoking opium in my cabin. It was my lamp--it must have
been. I fell asleep. But I knew better, of course.... Oh, God, it's
terrible! All those lives, all this suffering! And you--I've nearly
killed you--when it was you....” Here, creditably, he caught himself.
“Don't think I'm talking wildly. I'm getting at something. Seeing you,
meeting you--and now, this--well, I've never seen anybody like you. It's
bowled me off my feet. I know what love is, now--Oh, please! I've got
to get this out. I love you. I'm crazy about you. I can say that because
pretty soon that boat'll come and you'll go and I'll never see you
again. It's right, too! I've got to start again--alone and prove that
there's good stuff in me somewhere...”
“I'm ver' tire',” she murmured wistfully; and resting her head on the
rolled-up waistcoat she lay still.
If she had only let him finish! There had been something--some point--he
was getting at. He hadn't meant to tire her or hurt her.... When the tall
eunuch came for the little princess he angrily drove the fellow away.
For Hui Fei was sleeping now, peacefully, like the warm little child in
his arms.
An English gunboat was the first relief craft to arrive; in the cool
dawn; a tiny craft, built for the river, with a white freeboard low as
a monitor's and bridge structure forward of the thin high funnel. The
small boat that came ashore made a number of trips, taking off the
passengers and the surviving white officers of the _Yen Hsin_.
His excellency refused, with calm courtesy, to set foot on the English
gunboat that was built for the river; he would wait for the junk that
had been sent for.
Dawley Kane found his son, nodding, with the picturesquely-clad child
in his arms. The boy, glancing at the sleeping Hui Fei whose head
rested comfortably on the rolled-up waistcoat, gave the child now to the
patiently waiting eunuch, then fairly dragged his father to the boat.
With the Japanese, Kato, and oddly distant to the big mate and the
suddenly exotic-appearing viceroy in his richly embroidered satins who
had been after all only casually, for a few days, in their lives, they
embarked.
They had nearly reached the gunboat when those on the bank heard young
Kane's voice raised in hot protest. There was a moment of argument; then
a splash. The boy could be seen then swimming back to shore. And Dawley
Kane, turning his back, went on to the gunboat, stepped aboard, and
disappeared. Rocky clambered, dripping, up the bank; came straight to
Duane, a staring, exhausted youth, very white.
“I can't do it.” he panted. “They've just told me--Kato and the
pater--about this terrible trouble of the viceroy's and--and Miss
Hui Fei's.... The pater said it was time I--got clear of any new
entanglement. I quit him. Oh, I suppose you'll think me a--damn fool,
but”--at this point he nearly broke into tears--“but I love that
girl, Mr. Doane! If I can't be of some use to her--now, in this awful
trouble--I don't want to live. Will you--help me? And let me help?”....
And, all blind confidence, he offered his hand to the big mate; who took
it.
The gunboat hoisted anchor and swung about, heading down-stream. Passing
her, upward bound, came a large junk, with the rig of a trader from
Szechuen, her single huge rectangular sail, brown-umber 'n tint and
closely ribbed with battens of bamboo, flat against the one mast that
towered clumsily amidships. The eight long sweeps, in the low waist and
forward, moved rhythmically in time with the syncopated, wailing chant
of nearly a hundred oarsmen. The _tai-kung_ crouched, bamboo pole in
hand, just within the prow.
The hull was of cypress, stained from stem to stern with yellow orpiment
and rubbed to a polish with oil. The high after-deck structure, all of
fifty feet in length, terminating in a projecting gallery-twenty feet or
higher above the water, was carved everywhere in intricately decorative
designs; as were, also, the roof over the tillerman's stand on the
deck house and the gallery railing (just within which stood a row of
flowering plants in yellow and green pots). The many small windows along
the sides were glazed with opalescent squares of ground oyster shells
and glue; those across the stern (under the gallery) with stained glass.
To no one aboard the gunboat or among the still waiting groups on the
bank did the thought occur that this craft might be engaged in other
than peaceable business. Her like were not an uncommon sight along the
always crowded river. The passing attention she drew was merely that
aroused by a richly decorative object moving beautifully (with a
remarkably detailed reflection) through the flat water, that itself
glowed under the red and gold of the early morning sky like a great
sheet of burnished old copper. It was not observed that three white
faces peered warily out of the shadow, behind as many opened windows;
nor could it easily be seen that the figure in blue, sitting, knees
drawn up, on the deck house just behind the _laopan_ who mercilessly
urged on the sweat-shining oarsmen, was none other than the redoubtable
Tom Sung.