Wang the Ninth Part 12

CHAPTER XVI

What happened subsequently came to the boy in a succession of odd surprises which he did not attempt to correlate. Camps sprang up in the night round the foreign quarter like crops of mushrooms. The soldiers, their black turbans loosely tied round their heads and their gaily coloured tunics open on their chests, were of a different breed from any he had seen before. Sun-blackened, rough and defiant, they brought fear to every one and no one dared to venture near.

"It is curious," remarked the boy to a chance acquaintance, "that these should be our own people."

In his eyes they had become a symbol of disaster--something he had never reckoned with--particularly the small cannon ranged threateningly at two or three points with a stack of solid shot piled behind. He did not understand why the world should be turned so topsy-turvy.

One day, when he was out watching one of these camps, there was a general stir, and the men streamed off in hundreds in one direction. In his eagerness to learn what it was he went as close as he dared. At length the crowd parted and then quite distinctly he saw two men of the Sword Society in their blood-red regalia carrying a human head by the queue. They swung it about as they walked so that every one could see it.

He stared as if hypnotized. The two ruffians strutted boastfully along followed by the soldiery. He guessed that they were visiting the camp in order to infect the men with their own anarchy. He was not educated enough to wonder how it came to pa.s.s that in the middle of a great capital, with a vast Palace in the centre, and with Emperor and the Empresses seated within, a.s.sa.s.sins should hold such sway. So he remained just watching and wondering. And when the ruffians with their hideous trophy had disappeared and there was nothing more to observe, very slowly and very gravely, he rose to his feet (for he had been lying down), and made his way back through a deserted alley-way.

At the end of the alley-way there was a foreign sentry, and as he had seen him only an hour before, there was no occasion for him to be identified. Nevertheless he drew from his belt his pa.s.s--a bit of paper in a foreign language with a seal on it which always gave him a sense of importance.

"_T'ai-to ping_ (there are many troops)," he repeated several times, pointing to the spot he had come from; and then he explained by signs that there were guns as well. Then with a wave of the hand he was off to find his master and report what he had seen.

He ran him down in a few minutes since all white men are as easily traceable in the East as treasure-chests lying on a sea-sh.o.r.e. He was superintending the building of a long barricade, and labouring there were all sorts and conditions of men--foreigners in their shirt-sleeves, servants and respectable people who worked together in silence.

The master listened in silence to his tale, stroking his red beard.

"Good," he said at length, "now go off in another direction, and see if it is the same thing."

Once beyond this scene of activity the boy's easy manners fled, and he displayed caution; for all the time be it confessed he was thinking of that ghastly human head. He hugged the compound-walls of every deserted house and never failed to peer round each turning. And just as he was congratulating himself on his methods, he became vaguely aware that some one was looking at him down a rifle-barrel.

He scurried into a doorway, a little frightened in spite of his natural courage. But after an interval his curiosity got the better of him and he determined to try a new line of advance and see who this person was.

This was certainly a new development, he thought. So far the terrorist methods used had been employed under cover of the dark, and the decencies of everyday life had been more or less preserved. But now the soldiery were evidently getting out of hand; and it seemed that at any moment they might open an attack.

By this time he had worked round to another vantage-point. Very quietly and carefully he climbed a tree and looked over. There was the man not fifty feet away. He was lying on his stomach with some loose bricks piled in front of his head, and he had on the blood-red sash. He was a marauder evidently waiting to secure a foreigners head, not a regular soldier.

He remained motionless in the tree observing this ominous figure for quite five minutes. Then silently and swiftly he dropped to the ground.

Now doggedly, with his head down and his fists tightly clenched he made his way onward. He threaded his way through a maze of little deserted lanes until he came out on the vast open street running round the Imperial Palaces.

He gave a sigh of relief. Here there were people moving--not many but still some--and towards them he walked quickly as though he craved their company.

Two men had stopped and were exchanging comments as he approached. He judged from the blue cloth bundles they carried that they were official servants from some yamen, and that their conical hats and high boots of office had just been exchanged for a more plebeian attire.

"Where do you come from?" said one of them, suddenly catching him by the shoulder, and looking angrily at his feet which were still shod in a pair of foreign shoes.

"From the East city," he rejoined easily and fluently, pointing behind him and finding his tongue at once. "I have been sent to find my uncle who keeps a lantern-shop near the Western Four Arches, as we are all intimidated by the signs of the approaching battle."

The man looked at him suspiciously.

"And those shoes?"

"My brother robbed them from one of the cursed foreigners, and as my own were broken I put them on."

"Take them off!" exclaimed the two together.

The boy hesitated. Then with a muttered word he stooped down and flung them one by one far into the roadway.

"That is good," grunted one of the men, "it is lucky you met us instead of a member of the Sword Society. He would have given you short shrift.

Everything foreign must indeed be blotted out."

The second man, however, commented on this in the following manner:

"But there is said to be a foreign army only thirty miles away. If they get into the city it will not go well with us."

The boy picked up this morsel of information ravenously and stored it in his mind.

"Our people will never allow them to advance," objected the first man.

"There has been continuous fighting for several days, and they will doubtlessly soon be driven back," agreed the second speaker, unwilling to be identified with any pessimism.

"Enough," said his companion. "Let us hasten on. It will soon be dark."

Once again the boy was left to his own devices. As soon as they had turned a corner he went and picked up his shoes and seated himself with his back to the Palace wall waiting for darkness.

Here was the whole problem made clear at last. The cat was only playing with the mouse. Until it had been made certain that the mouse could not escape--that is until the foreign army had been driven away, nothing would be done against the foreigners in the capital. The relieving army must be dealt with first.

The boy threw a stone angrily at some crows. Why shouldn't he run away, too? He played with the thought, and though he rejected it, it came back again and again. If they were all to be killed, he should go whilst there was yet time.

He struck his foot sharply down on the ground. No--he would not do it.

He would go back. He had been trusted and he would not fail his trust.

So when it was safe and quiet he crept back and reported what he had learnt.

After that days went by silently, days resembling one another as do peas from the same pod. They were beleaguered and yet not beleaguered; surrounded and yet not surrounded; imprisoned and still free. People cautiously slipped in and out, and kept in touch with the great city, and brought in food and news. Yet in spite of this, a heavy and depressing pall hung over the foreign quarter as though it contained only condemned persons. Men talked to one another in low voices as if they were afraid of being overheard. The slightest uncustomary sound made them start up and strain their ears, so that they might have the earliest inkling of disaster.

Sometimes w.a.n.g the Ninth was infinitely depressed by this paralyzed life. He would sit idly in a hidden corner with his knees drawn sharply up and his head between his hands, silently commiserating with himself as he thought over the myriad rumours, and wondering if he had not been an arrant fool not to run away as his mates had done. After all he had only been in foreign service less than two years. He did not owe so much. He was not like those who had lived half a lifetime among foreigners and been converted to their faith. He did not want to be killed and have his head carried around. His compatriots, who had not run away, were continually using that gloomy and resigned expression: _fei-tei-ssu_--"we shall surely die." That pa.s.sivity always brought him excitedly to his feet like a shot fired in his ear.

"_Wo-pu-ssu_ (I shall not die)," he used to rejoin defiantly. "I shall find a way--you see."

Then he would march off with his fists energetically clenched and his ugly features drawn-up in a frown, walking with long, unnatural strides like the foreigners walked; and the strangers would ask who was this boy who did not hesitate to express his opinions so rudely in contradiction to his seniors.

After a number of days something did happen. There was a terrible commotion, and the boy stood literally with his mouth open because certain foreigners--a race he thought above common human emotions--ran from house to house as if possessed and cried out words which seemed to him like the words of fear.

The news leaked out soon enough so that every one knew it. Twenty-four hours had been given the foreigners to leave--they were summarily ordered away, men, women and children irrespective of rank and occupation. Failing compliance they would be driven away by gunfire.

That was the Imperial pleasure.

w.a.n.g the Ninth went blankly among his compatriots trying to find out whether it was flight or not. He heard it said that carts were being requisitioned by some foreigners for great sums of money; then almost immediately he heard the story denied. Some one had ruled that it would be more dangerous to flee than to stay. They must stay, it was said. He had the feeling that the mystery was beyond solution. It was evidently quite impossible to know what was going to happen. Even his master shook his head. n.o.body knew anything worth knowing.

That night pa.s.sed in confusion.

They were half-way through the next morning when everybody cried that one of the important foreigners had gone out and been summarily killed.

After that for several hours there was a great tide of weeping and running about, and the boy felt lost. n.o.body paid the slightest attention to him: every one seemed dazed. In the afternoon, when things were quieter, the sharp crack of rifles sounded and for the first time in his life he heard the hard vicious flight of bullets. After some momentary fear, his natural audacity slowly returned, and he stole near the barricades trying to find out who was firing and at whom. Stray shots had hit two of the foreign soldiers at the barricades and also two of his fellow-countrymen, who sat nursing their hurts like men infinitely surprised.