The War Tiger Part 20

"Had I been taken, it would have been a just punishment for missing my mark; but by what fortunate chance did that savage beast escape from his cage, O Chow?" replied Nicholas, descending the tree.

"That chance, O my master was the foresight of thy servant, who unfastened the door of the cage of that four-footed brother of Yen-Vang, neither knowing nor caring whether he might not himself be the first meal, so that the n.o.ble Nicholas escaped."

"It was well done, my brave Chow; yet surely that rebel rogue must be protected by some demon to have escaped so narrowly both arrow and lion; but let us haste to the cavern, or they may return."

Now, although the whole of this adventure had not occupied more than an hour, Nicholas was greatly in fear for what might have happened to the princess, an anxiety reciprocated by the princess, who, as soon as she saw them again, exclaimed, "Thank heaven, the n.o.ble youth is saved;"

then added reproachfully, "But he has not performed his promise, for he brings not the sacred remains of his royal master;" when, however, Nicholas related the adventure, although in great anguish of mind at being denied the sacred right of paying the last office of respect to the corpse of her parent, she was overjoyed at their escape.

"Escape, O great princess; thy small servant is not clever and gifted, like the mole, or he would eat a hole through the end of this rat-trap; for to attempt it by the entrance would be to submissively ask the traitor Li-Kong to cut us all into ten thousand pieces," said Chow.

"The words of the brave Chow are reasonable, for truly this cavern is but a trap," said Nicholas.

"It is not so; push thou against the end of the cavern," said the princess.

"Truly we are fortunate," said Nicholas with astonishment, as he found the end giving way, and disclosing to his vision a long narrow pa.s.sage.

"It was made by the great Tait-sou, and leads to an unfrequented suburb of the city; by this means he could leave the palace alone, and by mixing among the people judge for himself how the mandarins were respected by them," said the princess.

"Surely they will follow us here," said Nicholas.

"Not so, n.o.ble youth; for the secret is known but to few. It was the sole vile act of the great Tait-sou's reign that he caused this pa.s.sage to be made by condemned prisoners, whom he afterward slew, that they might not divulge the secret," said the princess, adding, "Let us trace its course."

Then, helping the wounded girl to walk, they proceeded down the pa.s.sage for a considerable distance, till their progress was arrested by a door; pushing this, however, they found themselves in a small cavern, lighted, like the one at which they had entered, by a small grating from above.

"How is it possible, O n.o.ble Nicholas, that we can pa.s.s through the roaring rebels, who are, doubtless, without?" said Chow.

"It is a reasonable question, O n.o.ble youth; truly we had better remain here till night," said the princess.

But, having considered for a minute, Nicholas said, "Not so, great princess; remain thou here with Chow, and thy servant will find some means of deliverance;" whereupon he borrowed from Chow his less conspicuous cap, robe, and boots, then felt his way up a flight of narrow steps, till his head struck against a trap-door; lifting this gently, he found himself in a small stone room, the door of which stood open; pa.s.sing this, he came into an oblong court, and saw at once that the place had been erected as a tomb, and, moreover, that he was at the most remote end of a valley of tombs. So far he believed the princess to be in a place of safety, for none, even in those rebellious days, would dare to enter the ancestral tomb of another.

Crossing this valley of sepulchres with inverted face, as if in deep contemplation after visiting the tomb of his ancestors, he came into the open road, where a vast crowd were floating onward into the city, mad with excitement, and shouting, "Many years' life to the heaven-sent Emperor!" he mixed with them, and so, safely pa.s.sed onward to the house of the merchant Yang, who no sooner saw him than he ordered an incense table, and returned thanks to Fo for his safety. "For," said he, "thy servant made but little doubt that the son of the great Chin-Chi-Loong had been slain."

"The son of the merchant of the south lives to avenge the death of his Emperor," said Nicholas.

"Hist! hist!" said the merchant, pale with fear, lest some servant might hear the words; adding, "Truly Wey-t-song but merited his fate."

"Art thou also a traitor, O Yang?" exclaimed Nicholas, indignantly.

"The rich need be cautious, for is it not a maxim, that a successful rebel is more to be feared than a dead Emperor, O n.o.ble Nicholas?"

Indignant as he was at this disloyalty, Nicholas, remembering the necessity of the princess, dissembled his anger, and said, "Is the worthy Yang under sufficient obligation to Chin-Chi-Loong to serve his son?"

"Even to the extent of his life and fortune."

"Then I will trust thee," said Nicholas, dropping the usual formality of speech, and telling him the whole of his adventure of the morning.

"Truly, O youth, this is a dangerous affair; but Yang dares not break faith with the great chief who may some day be master of us all," said the merchant, trembling with fear.

"This, then, is just; I would have the head-dress and mourning garb of a widow, and the coa.r.s.e robes of two Coolies."

"This is a cautious method of proceeding, and shall be done," said Yang, who left the room, leaving the impatient youth walking to and fro with great anxiety. The articles, however, not being very difficult to obtain in that part of the city, the merchant soon returned with them packed up in a small bale; then, hastily thanking Yang, Nicholas took the bale with him some little distance from the house, and paid two Coolies to carry him in their sedan to the gate of the valley of tombs; having arrived there, he jumped out of the chair, and paid the Coolies handsomely, telling them to leave it near the gate, and to fetch him again in two hours' time; when, not in the least doubting the honesty of so generous a customer, the Coolies went off to spend their earnings at a wine-shop, and Nicholas proceeded cautiously to the cavern.

Having explained his scheme to the princess, he left her in the cavern to attire herself in the widow's weeds, while he and Chow proceeded to the tomb above, to a.s.sume the garbs of Coolies.

This being done, he gave Chow some silver and sent him off to the wine-shop, after which he a.s.sisted the princess up the steps, and, supporting her, they slowly walked through the valley, till they came within a short distance of the gate, when, to the delight of Nicholas, Chow came up to them and said:--

"I found the two sots drinking like fishes, and when I told them a merchant wished to hire them, they laughed heartily, saying, that they had already been engaged by too good a pa.s.senger to stir for the next two hours."

Then, a.s.sisting the princess into the chair, Nicholas and Chow took the place of the Coolies, and so carried it to the house of Yang.

As Yang had prepared the ladies of his family to receive a young girl, who, he said, was about to be taken into a distant province by her brother, as soon as the troubles had subsided, the princess was warmly received in the Hall of Ancestors, and immediately conducted to the inner apartments of the house. Cleverly as this was managed, Nicholas now trembled for the safety of the princess; indeed, she could be safe no where, but with the Lady Candida, or the Prince Yong-Li, both of whom he believed to have fled to Woo-san-Kwei, in Leao-tong, therefore, difficult as was the task, he determined to take her to that province.

As for Yang, whose loyalty was stronger toward the family of Nicholas than to the imperial line, and who really wished a person likely to prove so dangerous as the princess out of his house, he offered his advice and a.s.sistance; and as a small junk belonging to him was about to proceed to Tien-sin, on the banks of the Pei-ho (or white river) with a cargo of goods in exchange for salt, he offered to place it at the command of Nicholas, who, when at the mouth of the river, would find it no difficult matter to make a voyage through the gulf of Pe-tche-Lee, and of Leao-tong, to some town upon the coast.

This being arranged, they determined that the junk should start as soon as she was laden, and that the princess should embark as a young widow, whose husband having been killed in the rebellion, was returning to see her friends in Leao-tong. But then the princess could not travel without a female attendant,--and whom could they trust? that seemed their greatest difficulty. It was surmounted, however as you will see in the next chapter.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

A LARGE STOCK OF LADIES, TWO TAELS PER SACK.

Previously to his successful march upon Pekin, Li-Kong had besieged the capital of the great province of Honan, which, after a few days' hard fighting, he succeeded in taking; when by way of punishing the inhabitants for their brave resistance, he ordered a slaughter so large and indiscriminate that for many after years his name was used as a bugbear to frighten children; so insatiable was his appet.i.te for decapitation, that, like Nero, he longed that the millions had but one neck, that he might strike the whole of their heads at a blow.

The mightiest rivers, however, can but run their course, and so at length, in the event of his making himself Emperor, he might have some subjects left, he commenced to banish and to pardon, and by way of rewarding his soldiers, one day when he was in a good humor, he commanded them to sell the whole of the remaining women prisoners in the public market-place, and keep the money; but as the soldiers asked such high prices, and the fathers, husbands, and brothers, of Honan, had been robbed of their property, after a two days' sale a large stock of ladies remained on hand, which they were obliged to take with them to Pekin, where, after the conquest, they hoped to obtain better prices.

Tyrants are, however, capricious; and so, being offended with his soldiers for not discovering the princess, with hideous humor Li-Kong ordered the women to be placed in sacks, and sold with other plunder at two taels each.

Now it so happened that on the morning of the sale, Chow was pa.s.sing through the market-place, and seeing a crowd of people examining the sacks, which were arranged in rows and tied at the necks, with small breathing holes near the top, he stopped to watch the progress of the cruel comedy. Anxious fathers, brothers, and husbands, who had followed the army from Honan, for the purpose of rescuing their female relatives, bought sack after sack at the reduced price, each, when the purchase was completed, tearing them open; the greater number, however, giving vent to fearful cries, when they discovered that their chance in the lottery proved a blank; others, recognizing a wife, daughter, or sister, would become almost frantic with joy. Many, before purchasing, would slip behind a sack, rip it with a knife, to have a peep, and get rewarded with a sound caning for their artfulness.

Well there were only half a ton, or at least five sacks of ladies left for disposal, when a great lout of a countryman drew up in his cart, jumped out, and after looking at his almanac, said, "Truly this is a fortunate day, and I am likely to get a good wife cheap; so, although two taels is all I have obtained for my last crop of rice, I will trust to Fo; for young or old, handsome or ugly, I must have a wife to help me till my grounds." Just then a shrill scream issued from one of the sacks. "Who knows," continued the countryman, "but the G.o.ds may have sent that scream to direct my choice, for if the woman is neither young nor pretty she may be well dressed, and, consequently the wife or daughter of some wealthy mandarin, who will purchase her of me, and so make my fortune?"

"Let the n.o.ble paddy bird make his choice quickly," said a soldier.

"There are the two taels, most ill.u.s.trious war tiger," said the countryman, giving the money and taking his choice.

"We will see thy choice," said one of the soldiers, about to open the sack.

"Nay, ill.u.s.trious soldier, it would offend the G.o.ds if other eyes but mine saw my prize." So saying, the man took the sack up in his huge arms, lifted it into the cart, and drove slowly away, followed by Chow, who was curious to discover the kind of prize the wise-acre had drawn.

Unable to restrain his curiosity, the man no sooner reached an unfrequented part of the suburbs than he stopped by the bank of a ca.n.a.l, pulled a knife from his pocket, ripped open the sack; but then a change came o'er his dream, for with his body bent double, his two hands upon his knees, and his bullet head thrown to the extreme stretching of his neck, he stared with disgust for at least a minute, then in a paroxysm of rage, the disappointed ruffian placed his hands upon the woman's shoulders, screaming, "Thou vile old bamboo stick!"

The trembling woman fell upon her knees and prayed for mercy.

"Has the wretched woman no friend who will purchase her?"

"Truly the friends and relations of thy servant have been slain by the soldiers; she has no friend in the world."