Mr. Wicker's Window Part 23

The two boys were uninterested in t.i.tles. 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 sh.e.l.l, 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 b.u.t.terflies 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 peac.o.c.k 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?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"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 p.r.i.c.kly 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Gaily dressed trumpeters with dragon masks on the visors of their helmets raised long bra.s.s trumpets. A prolonged throbbing "Wai! Wo!"

shuddered out, and the great outer gates of the palace, studded with p.r.o.nged 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 spygla.s.s 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, pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed by, but still the crowd seemed to be waiting for something.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 peac.o.c.k fans on long staves, fans of white egret feathers, and ostrich plumes dyed a yellow gold.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"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 spygla.s.s and looked at the curtains of the palanquin. The thin silk was transparent enough under the strong focus of the gla.s.s, 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.

CHAPTER 29

Chris put down his spygla.s.s and the two boys, hidden on the piny knoll, watched the procession out of sight.

"I'm supposed to take something from her," Chris said with his eyes sparkling, "but I know now what I'm going to give her back in return.

I feel sort of sorry for that girl," he added thoughtfully.

"What're we going to do, Chris?" Amos wanted to know. "What-all comes next, and have we some more of those dates?"

Chris pa.s.sed him some. "We have to wait until dusk anyway," he said, his voice abstracted, "and by the look of the light that won't be long."

The piny knoll was steep and rocky and only two adventurous boys would ever have reached the top. Too precipitous on which to build houses, it rose far above the surrounding roofs of Peking. The green and scarlet of curved tiles spread under the boys' sight like a curling sea. Before them, stretched out in long angular wings to right and left, swept the palace walls.

Listening and watching, the boys gathered by the silver trumpet notes that the Princess and her retinue had re-entered the palace walls by another gate.

Thinking about it Chris mused: I wonder if that first palanquin held someone she's to marry? It could be. And if so, this may be her last appearance to the people of the city before leaving for a new domain.

She would probably take the Jewel Tree with her. I can't imagine a woman leaving a thing like that behind. He paused, remembering. She held a spray of jeweled flowers in her hand, maybe off the Tree, and I never saw anything like it. Well, can't do a thing until dusk comes down.

The evening was not long in coming, and Chris, who had been sitting cross-legged under the little crooked pines, looked across with great concern to where Amos lay on his back, dozing.

I can't take him along, Chris thought, and I can't leave him alone, if I should get caught. What in the world do I do?

Then, remembering the bag of magic "odds and ends," Chris put his hand inside it and drew out a small folded piece of silk and netting. On it a piece of paper, like a label, showed Mr. Wicker's fine script. Chris looked closer and read: "Strike 3."

"Strike 3."

Chris held the folded object in his hand, and then glanced at Amos.

Amos slept. Going softly out of the pine grove to a narrow ledge of rock where he was out of sight, Chris put the object down and said: "Strike three."

Nothing happened. The object remained an object. Then, suddenly understanding, Chris struck the stone ledge three times.