The Spinners' Book of Fiction Part 10

When darkness shut down, they took up their second long vigil.

But it was not the vigil of the previous night. She was able to think of other things than her husband's condition and the doom that, of a sudden, had menaced her happiness. Her spirits having risen, she was correspondingly impatient of a protracted, oppressive stillness, and looked about for an interruption, and for diversion. Across from her, a celestial patrician in his blouse of purple silk and his red-b.u.t.toned cap, sat Fong Wu. Consumed with curiosity--now that she had time to observe him closely--she longed to lift the yellow, expressionless mask from his face--a face which might have patterned that of an oriental sphinx. At midnight, when he approached the table to satisfy himself of Barrett's progress, and to a.s.sure her of it, she essayed a conversation.

Glancing up at his laden shelves, she said, "I have been noticing your medicines, and how many kinds there seem to be."

"For each ailment that is visited upon man, earth offers a cure," he answered. "Life would be a mock could Death, unchallenged, take it."

"True. Have you found in the earth, then, the cure for each ailment of man?"

"For most, yes. They seek yet, where I learned the art of healing, an antidote for the cobra's bite. I know of no other they lack."

"Where you were taught they must know more than we of this country know."

Fong Wu gave his shoulders a characteristic shrug.

"But," she continued, "you speak English so perfectly. Perhaps you were taught that in this country."

"No--in England. But the other, I was not."

"In England! Well!"

"I went there as a young man."

"But these herbs, these medicines you have--they did not come from England, did they?"

He smiled. "Some came from the hills at our back." Then, crossing to his shelves and reaching up, "This"--he touched a silk-covered package--"is from Sumbawa in the Indian Sea; and this"--his finger was upon the cork of a phial--"is from Feng-shan, Formosa; and other roots are taken in winter from the lake of Ting-ting-hu, which is then dry; and still others come from the far mountains of Chamur."

"Do you know," Mrs. Barrett said tentatively, "I have always heard that Chinese doctors give horrid things for medicine--sharks' teeth, frogs'

feet, lizards' tails, and--and all sorts of dreadful things."

Fong Wu proffered no enlightenment.

"I am glad," she went on, "that I have learned better."

After a while she began again: "Doubtless there is other wonderful knowledge, besides that about doctoring, which Chinese gentlemen possess."

Fong Wu gave her a swift glance. "The followers of Laou-Tsze know many things," he replied, and moved into the shadows as if to close their talk.

Toward morning, when he again gave her some tea, she spoke of something that she had been turning over in her mind for hours.

"You would not take money for helping me when I was hurt," she said, "and I presume you will refuse to take it for what you are doing now.

But I should like you to know that Mr. Barrett and I will always, always be your friends. If"--she looked across at him, no more a part of his rude surroundings than was she--"if ever there comes a time when we could be of use to you, you have only to tell us. Please remember that."

"I will remember."

"I cannot help but feel," she went on, and with a sincere desire to prove her grat.i.tude, rather than to pry out any secret of his, "that you do not belong here--that you are in more trouble than I am. For what can a man of your rank have to do in a little town like this!"

He was not displeased with her. "The ancient sage," he said slowly, "mounted himself upon a black ox and disappeared into the western wilderness of Thibet. Doubtless others, too, seek seclusion for much thinking."

"But you are not the hermit kind," she declared boldly. "You belong to those who stay and fight. Yet here you are, separated from your people and your people's graves--alone and sorrowful."

"As for my living people, they are best without me; as for my people dead, I neither worship their dust nor propitiate devils. The wise one said, 'Why talk forever on of men who are long gone?'"

"Yet----" she persisted.

He left the stove and came near her. "You are a woman, but you know much. You are right. My heart is heavy for a thing I cannot do--for the shattered dreams of the men of Hukw.a.n.g." He beat his palms together noiselessly, and moved to and fro on soft sandals. "Those dreams were of a young China that was to take the place of the old--but that died unborn."

She followed his words with growing interest. "I have heard of those dreams," she answered; "they were called 'reform.'"

"Yes. And now all the dreamers are gone. They had voyaged to glean at Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and in the halls of Oxford. There were 'five loyal and six learned,' and they shed their blood at the Chen Chih Gate.

One there was who died the death that is meted a slave at the court of the Son of Heaven. And one there was"--his face shrank up, as if swiftly aging; his eyes became dark, upturning slits; as one who fears pursuit, he cast a look behind him--"and one there was who escaped beyond the blood-bathed walls of the Hidden City and gained the Sumatra Coast.

Then, leaving Perak, in the Straits Settlements, he finally set foot upon a sh.o.r.e where men, without terror, may reach toward higher things."

"And was he followed?" she whispered, comprehending.

"He fled quietly. For long are the claws of the she-panther crouched on the throne of the Mings."

Both fell silent. The Chinese went back to the stove, where the fire was dying. The white woman, wide awake, and lost in the myriad of scenes his tale had conjured, sat by the table, for once almost forgetful of her charge.

The dragging hours of darkness past, Anthony Barrett found sane consciousness. He was pale, yet strengthened by his long sleep, and he was hungry. Relieved and overjoyed, Mrs. Barrett ministered to him. When he had eaten and drunk, she helped him from the table to the stool, and thence to his feet. Her arm about him, she led him to the door. Fong Wu had felt his pulse and it had ticked back the desired message, so he was going home.

"Each night you are to come," Fong Wu said, as he bade them good-by.

"And soon, very soon, you may go from here to the place from which you came."

Mrs. Barrett turned at the door. A plea for pardon in misjudging him, thankfulness for his help, sympathy for his exile--all these shone from her eyes. But words failed her. She held out her hand.

He seemed not to see it; he kept his arms at his sides. A "dog of a Chinaman" had best not take a woman's hand.

She went out, guiding her husband's footsteps, and helped him climb upon the mustang from the height of the narrow porch. Then, taking the horse by the bridle, she moved away down the slope to the road.

Fong Wu did not follow, but closed the door gently and went back to the ironing-table. A handkerchief lay beside it--a dainty linen square that she had left. He picked it up and held it before him by two corners.

From it there wafted a faint, sweet breath.

Fong Wu let it flutter to the floor. "The perfume of a plum petal," he said softly, in English; "the perfume of a plum petal."

THE JUDGMENT OF MAN

BY

JAMES HOPPER

_Copyright_, 1906, by McClure, Phillips and Company

Reprinted from _Caybigan_ by permission