Dragon's blood Part 15

"The book," said Heywood, holding his wits by his will, "the book was Ten Thousand Thousand Pages."

"And the theme?"

"The waters of the deluge crosswise flow." "And what"--the aged voice rose briskly--"what saw you on the waters?"

"The Eight Abbots, floating," answered Heywood, negligently.--"But," ran his thought, "he'll pump me dry."

"Why," continued the examiner, "do you look so happy?"

"Because Heaven has sent the Unicorn."

The black fan began fluttering once more. It seemed a hopeful sign; but the keen old eyes were far from satisfied.

"Why have you such a sensual face?"

"I was born under a peach tree."

"Pa.s.s," said the old man, regretfully. And Heywood, glancing back from the mouth of a dark corridor, saw him, beside the table of camagon, wagging his head like a judge doubtful of his judgment.

The narrow pa.s.sage, hot, fetid, and blacker than the wholesome night without, crooked about sharp corners, that bruised the wanderer's hands and arms. Suddenly he fell down a short flight of slimy steps, landing in noisome mud at the bottom of some crypt. A trap, a suffocating well, he thought; and rose filthy, choked with bitterness and disgust. Only the taunting justice of Wutzler's argument, the retort _ad hominem_, had sent him headlong into this dangerous folly. He had scolded a coward with hasty words, and been forced to follow where they led. To this loathsome hole. Behind him, a door closed, a bar sc.r.a.ped softly into place. Before him, as he groped in rage and self-reproach, rose a vault of solid plaster, narrow as a chimney.

But presently, glancing upward, he saw a small cl.u.s.ter of stars blinking, voluptuous, immeasurably overhead. Their pittance of light, as his eyesight cleared, showed a ladder rising flat against the wall. He reached up, grasped the bamboo rungs, hoisted with an acrobatic wrench, and began to climb cautiously.

Above, faint and m.u.f.fled, sounded a murmur of voices.

CHAPTER XI

WHITE LOTUS

He was swarming up, quiet as a thief, when his fingers clawed the bare plaster. The ladder hung from the square end of a protruding beam, above which there were no more rungs. He hung in doubt.

Then, to his great relief, something blacker than the starlight gathered into form over his head,--a slanting bulk, which gradually took on a familiar meaning. He chuckled, reached for it, and fingering the rough edge to avoid loose tiles, hauled himself up to a foothold on the beam, and so, flinging out his arms and hooking one knee, scrambled over and lay on a ribbed and mossy surface, under the friendly stars. The outcast and his strange brethren had played fair: this was the long roof, and close ahead rose the wall of some higher building, an upright blackness from which escaped two bits of light,--a right angle of hairbreadth lines, and below this a brighter patch, small and ragged. Here, louder, but confused with a gentle scuffing of feet, sounded the voices of the rival lodge.

Toward these he crawled, stopping at every creak of the tiles. Once a broken roll snapped off, and slid rattling down the roof. He sat up, every muscle ready for the sudden leap and shove that would send him sliding after it into the lower darkness. It fell but a short distance, into something soft. Gradually he relaxed, but lay very still. Nothing followed; no one had heard.

He tried again, crawled forward his own length, and brought up snug and safe in the angle where roof met wall. The voices and shuffling feet were dangerously close. He sat up, caught a shaft of light full in his face, and peered in through the ragged c.h.i.n.k. Two legs in bright, wrinkled hose, and a pair of black shoes with thick white soles, blocked the view. For a long time they shifted, uneasy and tantalizing. He could hear only a hubbub of talk,--random phrases without meaning. The legs moved away, and left a clear s.p.a.ce.

But at the same instant, a grating noise startled him, directly overhead, out of doors. The thin right angle of light spread instantly into a brilliant square. With a bang, a wooden shutter slid open.

Heywood lay back swiftly, just as a long, fat bamboo pipe, two sleeves, and the head of a man in a red silk cap were thrust out into the night air.

"_Ai-yah!"_ sighed the man, and puffed at his bamboo. "It is hot."

Heywood tried to blot himself against the wall. The lounger, propped on elbows, finished his smoke, spat upon the tiles, and remained, a pensive silhouette.

"_Ai-yah!"_ he sighed again; then knocking out the bamboo, drew in his head. Not until the shutter slammed, did Heywood shake the burning sparks from his wrist.

In the same movement, however, he raised head and shoulders to spy through the c.h.i.n.k. This time the bright-hosed legs were gone. He saw clear down a brilliant lane of robes and banners, multicolored, and shining with embroidery and tinsel,--a lane between two ranks of crowded men, who, splendid with green and blue and yellow robes of ceremony, faced each other in a strong lamplight, that glistened on their oily cheeks. The chatter had ceased. Under the crowded rows of shaven foreheads, their eyes blinked, deep-set and expectant. At the far end of the loft, through two circular arches or giant hoops of rattan, Heywood at last descried a third arch, of swords; beyond this, a tall incense jar smouldering gray wisps of smoke, beside a transverse table twinkling with candles like an altar; and over these, a black image with a pale, carved face, seated bolt upright before a lofty, intricate, gilded shrine of the Patriot War-G.o.d.

A tall man in dove-gray silk with a high scarlet turban moved athwart the altar, chanting as he solemnly lifted one by one a row of symbols: a round wooden measure, heaped with something white, like rice, in which stuck a gay cl.u.s.ter of paper flags; a brown, polished abacus; a mace carved with a dragon, another carved with a phoenix; a rainbow robe, gleaming with the plumage of Siamese kingfishers. All these, and more, he displayed aloft and replaced among the candles.

When his chant ended, a brisk little man in yellow stepped forward into the lane.

"O Fragrant Ones," he shrilled, "I bring ten thousand recruits, to join our army and swear brotherhood. Attend, O Master of Incense."

Behind him, a squad of some dozen barefoot wretches, in coolie clothes, with queues un-plaited, crawled on all fours through the first arch.

They crouched abject, while the tall Master of Incense in the dove-gray silk sternly examined their sponsor.

In the outer darkness, Heywood craned and listened till neck and shoulders ached. He could make nothing of the florid verbiage.

With endless ritual, the crawling novices reached the arch of swords.

They knelt, each holding above his head a lighted bundle of incense-sticks,--red sparks that quivered like angry fireflies. Above them the tall Master of Incense thundered:--

"O Spirits of the Hills and Brooks, the Land, the swollen seeds of the ground, and all the Veins of Earth; O Thou, young Bearer of the Axe that cleared the Hills; O Imperial Heaven, and ye, Five Dragons of the Five Regions, with all the Holy Influences who pa.s.s and instantly re-pa.s.s through unutterable s.p.a.ce:--draw near, record our oath, accept the draught of blood."

He raised at arm's length a heavy baton, which, with a flowing movement, unrolled to the floor a bright yellow scroll thickly inscribed. From this he read, slowly, an interminable catalogue of oaths. Heywood could catch only the scolding sing-song of the responses:--

"If any brother shall break this, let him die beneath ten thousand knives."

"--Who violates this, shall be hurled down into the great sky."

"--Let thunder from the Five Regions annihilate him."

Silence followed, broken suddenly by the frenzied squawking of a fowl, as suddenly cut short. Near the c.h.i.n.k, Heywood heard a quick struggling and beating. Next instant he lay flattened against the wall.

The shutter grated open, a flood of light poured out.

Within reach, in that radiance, a pair of sinewy yellow hands gripped the neck of a white c.o.c.k. The wretched bird squawked once more, feebly, flapped its wings, and clawed the air, just as a second pair of arms reached out and sliced with a knife. The c.o.c.k's head flew off upon the tiles. Hot blood spattered on Heywood's cheek. Half blinded, but not daring to move, he saw the knife withdrawn, and a huge goblet held out to catch the flow. Then arms, goblet, and convulsive wings jerked out of sight, and the shutter slid home.

"Twice they've not seen me," thought Heywood. It was darker, here, than he had hoped. He rose more boldly to the peep-hole.

Under the arch of swords, the new recruits, now standing upright, stretched one by one their wrists over the goblet. The Incense Master p.r.i.c.ked each yellow arm, to mingle human blood with the blood of the white c.o.c.k; then, from a brazen vessel, filled the goblet to the brim.

It pa.s.sed from hand to hand, like a loving-cup. Each novice raised it, chanted some formula, and drank. Then all dispersed. There fell a silence.

Suddenly, in the pale face of the black image seated before the shrine, the eyes turned, scanning the company with a cold contempt. The lips moved. The voice, level and ironic, was that of Fang, the Sword-Pen:--

"O Fragrant Ones, when shall the foreign monsters perish like this c.o.c.k?"

A man in black, with a red wand, bowed and answered harshly:--

"The time, Great Elder Brother, draws at hand."

"How shall we know the hour?"

"The hour," replied the Red Wand, "shall be when the Black Dog barks."