Wang the Ninth Part 3

Lights were moving about on them and he hugged himself for joy. There was no doubt that the start would soon be made. Still the most difficult part of the business remained to be done: he had to conceal himself in the most complete manner conceivable.

He waited patiently, gnawing at a piece of stale flour-cake he had carried with him, and glancing repeatedly towards the East for the first glimmer of dawn. Like every Chinese peasant he could locate the points of the compa.s.s even in the dark, and he never lost his sense of direction.

Presenty there was a little light--not much, but enough to mark clearly the dim outlines of the trees. He found the one he wanted. Ten feet from the water was a half-rotted tree trunk with a hole big enough for his head. He gathered some of the reeds and rank gra.s.s and put them in a handy pile near by. Then he dug up a clot of earth with a plant growing in it, and rounded it off so that he could clap it right on his head.

Having completed these preparations he rehea.r.s.ed his part, thrusting his head through the hole in the tree-trunk and putting the plant and the clot of earth on his head and the reeds on his body so that there should be no mistake. He was absolutely satisfied that if he lay stone-still and peeped through with half-shut eyes not a soul could possibly discover him, even a few yards away.

Dawn had now come and round the barges he could see a growing bustle.

Square marquees of blue cloth had risen like mushrooms, and hors.e.m.e.n were continually arriving. A cavalry patrol unexpectedly galloped down the roadway behind him and forced him to conceal himself like a frightened frog in his rotted tree. With his eyes greedily drinking in every detail, he lay and watched. Twice he was disappointed in his hopes; for twice there had been a mighty bustle but nothing had come of it. But at last when the sun was already high, a great slow procession reached the marquees; and after a long pause one barge commenced moving, then a second, then many smaller boats.

Along the road came cavalry. Now the barges, steadily rowed, began floating towards him rhythmically, cleaving their way through the lotuses and the weeds which hung like s.h.a.green on the gla.s.sy surface.

He drank it all in with awe-struck eyes, his vast curiosity crushing down his fears.

On each barge were numbers of men in red ta.s.selled hats and long official robes, standing motionless. These were the court eunuchs, he was sure. Nearer and nearer floated the barges slowly, rhythmically. Now he saw in through the pale blue silk curtains of the first gla.s.shouse.

There was a lonely figure inside. It must be the emperor. It was impossible to see clearly. But behind, in the second barge, he saw quite distinctly an imperious elderly lady and many young ladies in beautiful silks. That was the old Buddha--the Empress Mother. He had seen her--he had seen her.

Slowly, very slowly, like a mirage, the scene faded. He lay entranced, not daring to move. The blue marquees had been struck and the common people were beginning to pa.s.s freely and still he did not move. That was the _Lao Fo_--the old Buddha, the mighty Empress mother!

When he at last went home, with the mud of the river-bank clinging to him, he told his father in a matter of fact way that he had fallen into a pond, while looking for something he had lost.

CHAPTER VII

Soon after this his father began using him to carry his rudely fashioned iron-ware into the city, where it was handed over to middlemen who scrutinized every place with the eyes of hawks and who paid a mere pittance for this labour of sweat and tears. The boy, however, cared nothing for the business details, although he mechanically cursed the rapacity of the city-bred as his father did. He was conscious, however, that the middlemen, in their long respectable blue coats, were an essential element in the system which held them up. They represented credit. When it was known that he and his father were working on a job of so many hundred iron-nails, or so many f.l.a.n.g.es, the neighbourhood gave them credit for the amount they would earn, and they could eat in peace. Each time he carried a heavily-laden hemp sack with a completed order to the middlemen, his father would partially settle their local debts. Sometimes on the big settlement-days (which came three times a year) there would be trouble and blows because their accounts were in arrears. Then the boy would avoid every one and sit apart hanging his head, for he vaguely knew that his father's respectability was not what it should be.

What enchanted him in the city was the freedom and bustle. Although his errands were within easy reach of the city gate, he so contrived it that he went far afield, running all the way home so as to have ample time to loaf and stare. For a long while the glamour of mingling with the crowds and gazing into the handsome shops, and watching craftsmen at work was enough to keep him interested. He became familiar with the wealth of a city that was mighty in those days because it drained the provinces and because everybody was provided against want. There were princes and princesses abroad accompanied by handsome bands of retainers, who drove the common people off the driving-road as if they were mere carrion crows. He liked the insolence of their manners which was in keeping with his conception of the rules of a nation; and very often he ran alongside a great red-wheeled princely cart to show his esteem--until he was driven off with a crack of the whip. Now that he had seen with his own eyes the emperor and the empress mother, he found it only just and reasonable that those who were of the blood royal should act as though the world were their property. That was how he liked it: at least there should be some who could do as they liked and to whom riches meant nothing at all.

One day a demon possessed him to go to a Temple Fair which was held every tenth day of the month and which attracted great mult.i.tudes of people. He had always wanted to go but his father had refused to give him money. Now he had the opportunity. In the noise and excitement of that closely-packed throng he lost his head, and after a short mental struggle began coolly spending the coins he had received in payment for his father's work. He tasted sweetmeats which brought tears of joy to his eyes, and he bought clever toys of bamboo and coloured paper which enchanted him. The little stock of copper cash was half-spent before he realized what he had done, and, at length, stricken with alarm, he walked home slowly and hesitatingly.

His father was sitting at the door of his hut, smoking and waiting for him after his wont. Directly he saw him his father cursed him for being so slow. The boy frowned hard as he approached; yet in spite of his fear he dealt with the matter with his curious bluntness and directness.

Seating himself on his heels he counted out what was left of the money and then heavily sighed.

"I have spent more than half," he announced with grim resolution. "I wandered to the Fair, and because there were many things to buy and others had money to spend I spent too."

His father rose furiously, with a clumsy threatening gesture.

"Whose money was it you carried?" he asked. "Whose money, I say?"

"Yours," answered his son sullenly because he was offended now. "But I have given you the reason and I will repay in due course from what I earn."

"Come here," commanded the father, sweeping all his excuses aside.

The boy hesitated. His father picked up a heavy tool. The boy was caught between a feeling of filial duty which was intense and deep among the people and a new feeling of independence.

"You would strike me with that?" he asked, frowning hard.

"Come here," shouted his father again, and that shout decided him.

"No," he said, folding his arms. "I shall not come."

"Little son of a toad," shouted the infuriated man, rushing at him. "I will teach you, I will teach you."

He swung up the heavy tool, but the boy dived with amazing dexterity, and then ran backwards. Again and again the father aimed blows that would have murdered him, but always missed. Then the growing crowd that had gathered flung themselves in between the two and held the infuriated man shouting in their arms. The father's hysteria mounted higher and higher: the pent-up wrong of ten years ago surged out from his mouth.

"Son of a harlot, come here, that I may slay you," he shrieked at last, wrestling like a maniac. At that the boy turned to a deathly hue,--under his bronzed face.

"Enough," he cried thickly, "I came here from afar with you and now I go again. Never shall I return."

He turned with a clumsy dramatic gesture; looked round once to see that he was not followed, and then running quickly towards the city gate was lost in the throng.

The crowd released the father. All talked volubly all the time. This was a business which must be amicably settled. But the father never answered. He made a hesitating step or two like a drunken man, then reeled to the door of his hut which he opened and slammed behind him.

The wondering crowd, consumed with curiosity, only slowly dispersed.

This outbreak was of the stuff that made up their daily lives. It was in the air, always lurking half-hidden behind the blue-cotton exterior of their monotonous existence, coming in sudden storms. Swift, well-recognized and very often fatal to the weak, but nevertheless accepted as something which comes directly from Heaven.

CHAPTER VIII

For many days no one in the neighbourhood saw or heard of the boy; he had disappeared as utterly as if the ground had swallowed him up. The neighbourhood gossiped about the incident as they loitered about in the evening watching the father sitting motionless and silent at his door.

And in the Eastern way the tale grew until it was averred that the father had tried to slay his son with his huge smith's hammer and that he was grimly waiting for the truant's return to carry out his threat.

It was said that the boy had fled back to the village whence he had originally come years before in that inconsequential way on a creaking wheelbarrow, and that never would he be seen again.

"Perhaps he has killed himself," suggested the women, always willing to believe the worst. But the men shook their heads, firm in the belief that in this case flight to the ancestral village had been sufficient redress.

Yet could they have only known it, w.a.n.g the Ninth was not far away--in fact, less than two miles as the crow flies. He had gone at his fast jog-trot not in through the city gate as they had all supposed (for that was only a feint), but round the city along those desolate outer stretches which recall the sandy deserts of High Asia. On and on he had gone until at last he had come upon a group of humble dwellings made of reeds and mud and placed strategically just where the mighty stone girdle of the capital sweeps round in a giant curve to form the northern face of the rectangle. There he had slowed down his running to a walk; and, cautiously glancing around to see that he was not observed, he had at length walked into the biggest house as bold as bra.s.s and announced most casually: "I have come for work."

The men gathered there on the brick _k'ang_ had laughed at him at first; for who had ever heard of entrusting the smuggling of wine to a thirteen-year old boy? For this was their peculiar business: smuggling wine into the city so as to avoid the city-dues. It was not majestic or even very dangerous work, but it required a certain tenacity--and great climbing powers. For it was over the wall of the city that they practised their evasion, carrying to the wine-taverns the yellow wine of the country in leather bottles which were packed on their backs much as a soldier carries his knapsack. Often had w.a.n.g the Ninth observed them as they ran crouching to the city wall. He had made inquiries and thoroughly informed himself. So now, in answer to their rough gibes, he said:

"It is true I have never attempted this business, but I have carried concealed bottles very often and I know many tricks. Often have I heard how you climb the wall here at dawn and dusk. I, too, would engage in this enterprise."

Thus had he spoken. Then when they cursed him for his effrontery he had shrugged his shoulders. Presently because he was so persistent they had relented, and declared that if he wanted to risk it, they would try him.

"But would you not show fear?" inquired one in a last doubt.

"Fear!" he retorted. "Who speaks of fear! Give me a day to learn correctly, and I will walk up the wall as a man goes up a rope."

His a.s.surance had completely won the day, as it always does in every affair in life. He was fed and went to sleep on the brick _k'ang_ under the coat of the man who had first spoken in his favour; and on the morrow at grey dawn he went out with three men bearing leather bottles and followed them up the angle of the city wall as easily as if it had been a tree.

"It is nothing," he remarked scornfully as they crouched together on the top of the great rampart to make sure that no guards were about: for the men in the guard-house occasionally made a raid to justify their existence. He spoke thus because he was elated by the giddy sensation of the climb, and he boasted when he should have thanked the generosity of Heaven.

"Wait for the descent," chorussed the others. "That is not so easy even for us who have done it so often. Perhaps you will know fear."