Under the Chinese Dragon Part 21

Give the Tartar soldier his due, he is one of the best soldiers China possesses, but he is as ignorant and as bigoted as any of the people.

Moreover, he is just as ready to run from the cry of plague as he is ready to discover in a European the cause of his misfortune. Growls of anger came from the men, disturbed, however, a moment later by a loud challenge from the sentry. He was calling for men to help him to shut the gates--for the hour for closing the city had arrived--and as he did so espied a figure creeping in through the archway. He brought the man to a stop with his bayonet within an inch of his breast.

'Move not,' he commanded, 'else will I plunge the blade home and send you to converse with your ancestors. Son of a dog, what do you here at this time?'

Another shout brought the Tartar officer running out with his men, while one carried the native lantern, a huge affair of oiled paper. They held it up close to the stranger's face, while the officer approached closely.

'Who are you?' he asked suspiciously. 'A follower of those foreign devils?'

'In their service, no,' came the emphatic answer. 'Take this; let us talk.'

The man pulled a handful of money from a bag suspended to his girdle, and gave it to the under-officer. 'Let us talk,' he repeated. 'I follow these foreign devils it is true, but not as their servant. I come to bring a warning.'

'There! did I not say so?' declared the officer instantly, his sallow face flushing. 'I have but just told these comrades that Hatsu would be well without such visitors. I have warned them of the plague.'

Chang, for he it was--the rascal paid to proceed to China in search of David, paid by Mr. Ebenezer Clayhill--beamed on the soldiers, and followed them into the guard-house eagerly. To speak the truth, the artful scoundrel knew something of the history of Hatsu, and recollected that certain of her people had received punishment for an attack on Europeans. He had come to the city with the intention of stirring up popular hatred of the foreigners, if that were possible, and of setting the people on them. If not here, then elsewhere. And here, there was already a beginning with an excellent excuse for further action; for the faces of the Tartar guard showed that even the mention of foreign devils caused them to grunt with anger.

'Then you have been speaking to them, friend,' said Chang, when he was comfortably seated. 'Tell me their story.'

'There is little in it I was suspicious of them on the instant my eyes fell upon them, in spite of the dusk. Mark you, these foreign devils came in the gloaming, in disguise, and told of letters to Tw.a.n.g Chun, the Excellency who commands the province.'

Chang's crafty features twisted at the mention of the high official, for he recollected that it was he who would have executed him. But he told himself that absence and his change of name, to say nothing of the fact that it was supposed that he had been drowned, made him safe from detection. He laughed loudly at the story.

'And you believed all this?' he asked, feigning incredulity.

'I knew they lied. I was but just telling my comrades that they came to bring plague to us, no doubt to increase the punishment already suffered by our people for the justifiable attack made on others of the same race.'

'Then you told them the truth. The foreign devils will scatter the plague in this city of a certainty if they be not removed. Listen, friends. Who knows of their arrival, who but you?'

'None, none save the deputy-commander,' came the answer. 'They have gone to him to seek a lodging. Their letter to his Excellency Tw.a.n.g Chun will command attention. They will be handsomely lodged.'

'And this deputy-commander; tell me of him.'

Chang's eyes gleamed maliciously as he listened to the reply. He tucked his hands into his baggy sleeves and hugged himself with unrestrained delight. Already he began to feel the weight of that thousand pounds which his rascally employer had promised.

As for the Tartar officer, he at once allied himself with this stranger who had come so opportunely to warn the people of Hatsu. Not only because in his ignorance he was genuinely a believer in the fable that David and his friend, or any other Europeans for the matter of that, could at will bring a plague to the city. No, that was not the only reason for his instant decision to help this Chang. It was because he himself, this Tartar under-officer, had suffered for the death of that European attacked some while before. Cunning alone had saved him his head. He had been degraded and soundly thrashed, for in China punishments are by no means half-hearted. People are still put to the torture, wretched criminals still suffer penalties that have long since disappeared from the penal codes of other nations. The man had been degraded and soundly thrashed, and the indignity and the sting of the lash were still fresh with him.

'Listen,' he whispered hoa.r.s.ely, his eyes glinting dangerously. 'This deputy-commandant is no lover of the foreign devil. It is well known, though it is denied, mark you, that he it was who led the soldiery in that affair when certain people of the west were attacked. He would have been governor here, but the suspicion that he was one of the attackers caused him to lose the high post. Of a surety he is with us.'

'And would dare to hang these wretches on the report we bring him?'

asked Chang, his wicked face lit up with eagerness. 'He is bold enough for that?'

The cunning smile on the face of his listener told its own tale. What need had such a man as Chang to question further? For had he not arranged such little matters himself many a time? To a Chinaman was there any difficulty in such an affair, demanding cunning and intrigue?

Let it be remembered that in all our dealings with the Celestial race craft has been always met with. In business circles amongst the large commercial firms of which China can now boast, it has come to be well understood and believed in that a Celestial's word is as good as his bond; that he does not depart dishonourably from an undertaking; but amongst the high officials such trust has not been gained. China's word has too often been broken. And here was this deputy-governor of Hatsu at that very moment receiving David and d.i.c.k with every sign of deference, though, to speak the truth, the man's ugly face was heavy with scowls when his guests were not observing. Would he dare to attack the foreigners who were about to eat his salt and partake of his hospitality?

'My brother,' declared the Tartar officer, becoming wonderfully friendly with the stranger, 'his Excellency Tsu-Hi will defend his guests if need be with his life. But----'

'But, Yes----'

'But he has other duties. He goes the rounds two hours after sundown, and repeats the visit once more before he goes to his repose. In his absence----'

Chang grinned an expansive grin. This little Tartar was a man after his own heart, and was proving a wonderful ally. He sat as immovable as a statue for some few minutes, his eyes shut, reviewing every side of the situation.

'No one knows of their arrival save these guards here,' he told himself, 'and, of course, the servants employed by his Excellency. Now if a mob in the quarter of the city where his house is situated rises when he is absent on the walls, and captures these foreign devils, how can his Excellency be blamed? How can I be made to appear in the matter, when there is this l.u.s.ty Tartar to do the work for me. It shall be done. I will proceed without delay.'

Meanwhile David and d.i.c.k had been received by the deputy-governor of the city, and had been shown to their rooms, which were plainly but beautifully furnished. Then, as the governor excused his immediate absence on the plea of duty, the two lads called upon Jong to supply them with refreshment 'Not like dis,' said the faithful fellow, as he came into David's room bearing a steaming dish with him. 'Dis not receiving guests as a mandarin or high officer should do. Not at all.

Not light. Him should stay and give a feast dat takes much time eating.

He should put allee de best dat he have before de foleigners. He should bow allee de time, and ask what next he can do. Not go off as if he hate de sight of white men.'

'Can't say I took a violent fancy to the fellow myself,' laughed d.i.c.k, who ate as if he were as hungry as a hunter. 'Can't say the beggar was over handsome either. Seemed to wear a scowl on his face most of the time, as if he particularly disliked foreign devils. But that don't make any difference to a fellow's appet.i.te, do it? Pa.s.s along that dish again, David. My! Jong's a cook in a hundred.'

The Chinaman grinned appreciatively, while David scarcely seemed to have heard his friend. His brow was furrowed; he paused long and often between the mouthfuls.

'Bothering again. Letting trouble come along and trouble you before it's time to trouble?' laughed d.i.c.k. 'Here, David, I give you fair warning.

This is my second go. If you're not pretty slippy the dish'll be empty.

You'll be hungry when you go to your bed.'

'I shall sit up to-night.'

'What! sit up! Watch in the house of the governor of Hatsu? David, you're a bit mad I'm beginning to think,' cried d.i.c.k, still eating heartily and quizzing his comrade. 'But, seriously,' he went on, 'where's the need? The jolly old fellow didn't wear the most handsome of faces, as I've admitted; but then he's our host. Tw.a.n.g Chun--beg his pardon, his Excellency--seems to be the kind of boy it would be bad practice to fall foul of. Supposing this governor fellow, what's his name?----'

'Tsu-Hi, deputy-governor, I understand.'

'Don't mind what sort o' governor he is any way,' laughed d.i.c.k, who was feeling wonderfully jolly and facetious. 'Let's call him Hi for short.

This Hi, we'll suppose, hates foreign devils like poison; but there's always Tw.a.n.g Chun, ain't there? There's always this jolly old boy Tw.a.n.g, who, we're told, is ready to wring the neck of any fellow who doesn't offer us hospitality. _Bien!_ as Alphonse says. There we are, safe as houses.'

'Just so,' agreed David, curtly. 'All the same, I shall watch to-night.

I've got a kind of feeling that something may happen.'

'Indigestion!' cried d.i.c.k. 'Better let me dose you, my boy. One of those pills of the Professor's'll make you feel as right as a hay-stack--A1, in fact. A good sleep'll put you right by morning.'

But though David enjoyed his friend's chaff, and indeed laughed heartily at his last suggestion, he shook his head when invited to turn in. Why, he could not explain. But the fact remained, indigestion or no indigestion, the lad was filled with a sense of insecurity. Perhaps it was the roughness of the Tartar under-officer, perhaps it was the sounds of brawling which had come lately to his ear--who knows? It may have been a genuine premonition. He saw d.i.c.k plump himself on the narrow _kang_ in his room, and bade him good-night. Then he lay down on his own, his eyes wide open and staring.

'Suppose it must be indigestion,' he said after a while, 'or is it the face of this Tsu-Hi? I didn't like him. I swear I caught him scowling and muttering.'

As is so often the case with those who lie awake in the silence, David's busy brain was occupied with a vast number of things--matters some of little moment, pa.s.sed and done with, others of greater interest, his own aims and ambitions in this country of China. He wondered what his stepmother was doing, and sighed when he thought of how things might have been had she been a different woman. Then his mind branched off to the st.u.r.dy sergeant of police who had lodged him, to his pleasant little wife, and to Mr. Jones, staunchest of friends and solicitors. Then he gave his thoughts to the matter always uppermost in his mind, the finding of his father's papers; perhaps the discovery of some evidence which would prove or disprove his death. Perhaps even an agreeable surprise was awaiting him. Stranger things had occurred before. It might be even that Edward Harbor was still living. Ah! there was a noise of shouting out in the street. David rose and went to the window. Gently pushing back the wooden frame, with its oiled-paper covering in lieu of gla.s.s, he stood in the moonlight listening.

'Nothing,' he told himself. 'Some brawlers, perhaps. I suppose even in this country of placid people, there are men who return late to their houses, and who make a noise in doing so. I'll leave 'em to it.'

He lay down once more, his head on his hands, and gave himself again to thinking. It seemed but a minute later when he awoke with a start, for he had been sleeping. There were men in the room, though none of them uttered so much as a syllable. Four or more gripped his hands and feet, while another thrust something between his teeth with decided roughness.

Then David pulled himself together; he strained every muscle to throw off his silent attackers. He struggled, kicking one man to the end of the room, and causing the _kang_ to topple over; but, in spite of his strength and the rage which added to it, he was helpless. The men held him as if he were in a vice. In a trice he felt ropes being tied about his hands and feet, while one of the attackers secured the gag in its place with a strip of linen, thereby almost smothering our hero. A minute later he was being carried from the room, and before he could realise what was happening, was tossed like a bundle into what was evidently a basket. And then how he kicked! He made the basket roll on its side with his efforts, while he himself was pitched half out of it; but a moment later he was hustled into the depths again, while something p.r.i.c.ked his chest, causing him a twinge of pain.

'Lie still, fool,' he heard in English, though the man who spoke was decidedly a foreigner. 'Lie still, else will I plunge the blade home here and now. A dog of an Englishman deserves no mercy.'

Bewildered and utterly confused by all that had happened, and not a little exhausted after his efforts, David lay still as he was ordered, and presently the silent band lifted the basket and bore it between them. A gust of cool air came through the wicker, while David fancied he could see stars overhead. Or was it the light of the moon? He could not be certain, for a length of cotton matting had been thrown over the basket. He found himself counting the almost noiseless footfalls of his bearers, then he eagerly strained his ears to catch the sound of rescuers; but none came. The street was silent, silent but for the slither of the padded soles of the attackers, silent save for that and the almost soundless tread of others following bearing a similar burden.

'That fellow Tsu-Hi is responsible for this, I suppose,' groaned David, breathing as deeply as he could. 'But what is his object, and how is it that they took us unawares?'

Bitterly did he blame himself for his carelessness in falling asleep; for he realised now with a pang of remorse that that was what had happened.