CHAPTER XII
Chang announces his Errand
Never before had David or Dick been within a Chinese city, and from the moment of their arrival at Hatsu they were vastly interested with their surroundings.
'Lidee light through de gate, Misser Davie,' advised Jong. 'Not take no notice of de guards. Dey common fellows. Den Jong lead you to de house of de mandarin; you have fine food and lodgin' dere.'
But as it turned out, there was no easy admission to the city. A dozen quaintly dressed Tartar soldiers barred the way, bearing modern rifles across their shoulders.
'Who are you? Say where you come from!' demanded one, who seemed to be an under-officer. 'Do you come from the country where sickness rages?'
Jong at once came forward as interpreter.
'My masters come from the sea-coast,' he said, with an air of authority, which carried weight at once with the soldiers. 'There is no sickness in the parts where they have been. They bear important letters to Twang Chun, and passports for your governor.'
'Show them,' demanded the Tartar under-officer, who seemed to be bursting with his own importance. 'Perhaps you are telling lies. Show the letters.'
He stepped up to David and seized his pony by the head. Then he closely scrutinised our hero.
'Bring a lamp,' he ordered one of his men. 'It's too plaguey dark to see, particularly under this gateway. Bring a light; we shall then be able to look at these fellows.'
He jerked at the bit, causing the animal to rear, and the man himself to let go his hold. At once David put his heel to the pony's side, and sent him plunging in amongst the soldiers, upsetting the officer with a crash. At the same instant a lamp was brought, and the light showed the Tartar picking himself up, while already he had drawn his sword. Then, fuming with rage, he advanced again and seized the pony.
'Let us look closely at you, you who bear important letters,' he cried. And then he gave vent to a shout of astonishment. 'Mandarins of importance, did you say, rogue?' he shouted, turning on Jong. 'These are foreigners, white men, hated foreigners from the West.'
He gripped at David's clothing and would have torn it from him, had not the young fellow again set his mount plunging. Then Jong pressed his own animal forward; for whatever else he might be, however amusing and garrulous, Jong was not a laggard where blows were being given and received, nor did he hang in the background when there was need for instant action. He gripped the Tartar by the shoulder and shook him as a dog would shake a rat.
'Fool! he growled, angrily. 'Who said that my masters were indeed mandarins? They are people of importance, and bear important letters. Are you so anxious then to incur the anger of Twang Chun, the Excellency who commands the province, that you thus interfere with us? My masters will show the letters, but you shall not read them. Bring the lamp; if you are not careful we will take you with us to His Honour who commands in this city.'
At a sign from the faithful fellow David produced the pouch in which the letters were carried, and showed them to the man, looking askance as he did so at the soldiers, for it was evident that they were fully ready for mischief. Indeed, had he but known it, Hatsu bore none too enviable a reputation. It appeared, indeed, that only some few months before an attack had been made in this city upon some European missionaries, and had resulted in the death of one. As a consequence the commander of the place had been dismissed, while a number of the delinquents had been beheaded; and the common people still smarted under what they imagined was a grievance. However, the magic name of Twang Chun carried the day. The Tartar officer drew back grudgingly, eyeing Jong as if he would dearly have loved to kill him. Nor did he regard the disappearing figures of David and his merry companion with any better favour.
'Foreign devils in disguise!' he growled to his men. 'Why in disguise? Tell me that. Answer me that question. Why do foreign devils come to our city and demand entrance when the dusk has fallen? Why?'
He held the lamp up to each face in turn, and receiving no answer bade them enter the guard-house with him. He caused the doors to be closed, and then spoke with no little show of excitement.
'Why do foreign devils reach us when the evening has come, and attempt to pass us disguised as mandarins? I will tell you now. You who are ignorant and do not gather news have heard only as a rumour, perhaps, the fact that death stalks through the provinces of Manchuria – black death!'
They recoiled from him at the words. Lethargic and eminently fatalists as are the Celestials, their fatalism and their easy resignation to all that is inevitable are not proof against the terrible epidemics that sweep across the country at times. Even small-pox, which makes its ravages in different quarters practically the year through, and being, therefore, no new thing to the natives, scares them wonderfully when it makes its appearance in any particular locality. But small-pox is not to be compared with the black death, not to be mentioned in the same breath with that hideous pneumonic plague, which decimates cities in a week, attacks both young and old, and once it has seized a victim, rarely spares his life. Besides the Tartar officer was right. Pneumonic plague had appeared in Manchuria, and was stalking through the land. Cases had even been reported in the adjacent provinces of Russia, while the disease was spreading in the direction of Pekin. Everywhere in the neighbourhood of the infected area distracted creatures were fleeing, carrying the disease with them, and spreading it across the land. What more natural thing in a country of amazingly simple and ignorant people than that the onset of this black death should here and there be put down to some outside influence? The foreign devil was a target at which to throw all the blame. And this Tartar under-officer, no doubt as bigoted and ignorant as his fellows, found in the coming of David and Dick a subtle scheme to import the plague to Hatsu.
'We have heard that there is great sickness,' said one of his men. 'We have been told that plague assails the people. It has even been reported that soldiers have been called to positions north and east of Pekin to hold the frightened people back.'
'True, comrade, true, every word of these reports. Our commander has himself been called away to receive orders with regard to the placing of the soldiers. But see how the foreign devils manage these things. They come to us in disguise. They enter our city with letters of introduction to his Excellency Twang Chun. With forged letters, you may be certain.'
The gaping mouths of his audience showed how the news affected them. 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 Twang 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 Twang 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 hoarsely, 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 Dick 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 lusty Tartar to do the work for me. It shall be done. I will proceed without delay.'
Meanwhile David and Dick 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 Dick, 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 appetite, do it? Pass 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 Dick. '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 Dick, 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. Twang 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 Dick, 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 Twang Chun, ain't there? There's always this jolly old boy Twang, 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 Dick. '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 Dick 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, passed 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 sturdy 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 glass, 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 pricked 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.
'Made a whole heap of fine resolutions,' he growled beneath his breath, 'and then was weak enough to break them. I deserve to be trapped. But why? What can be the meaning of this sudden attack?'
Well might he ask the question, for there must be some reason. David had no knowledge of that rascal Chang, hired with Mr. Ebenezer Clayhill's money. He had no idea that the sinister individual who had married his stepmother was even then awaiting news from the Chinaman he had engaged to do his bidding, and that, with a cunning which matched that of the Celestial, Ebenezer had arranged that anything might be done if only David Harbor could be silenced and finished – anything at all. Yet, when his wife broached the subject, as she did with great regularity, once at least every day, he would smile and answer her in a manner all his own. It was always his habit to take up a commanding position on the hearth-rug, and there, with a preliminary blast of his gigantic and exceedingly red nasal organ, to hold forth with a pomposity which suited him not at all.
'Violence, my dear! Violence to be offered! Why do you harp so constantly on such a matter? Of course there will be no violence. This man Chang goes in search of the will, not of the young pup you have the misfortune to own as a stepson. Don't be alarmed; no harm will come to him through Chang.'
But, once his wife's back was turned, the ruffian would tell himself with a chuckle that if anything did actually happen to David, why, it would be at the hands of some others hired by the rascal he had sent to China.
'She'll never, know,' he said. 'As for me, I'd rather hear he was dead than have the actual will sent to me; for that young pup is capable of mischief. I'll not be comfortable till he's dead.'
Seeing that David was ignorant of Chang's existence, what else could he put this sudden attack down to? Tsu-Hi's cunning and enmity? Why? Then to what? For in these days of slowly gathering enlightenment a European can travel in China with some degree of safety, particularly when armed with a letter to the powerful governor of a province. True, there are sudden fanatical attacks; but then, he reflected, in such cases there is always a cause. Where was there a cause here? where the smallest excuse for this violence?
However, no amount of wondering helped him. His indignation merely made his breath come faster, and seeing that breathing was already a matter of difficulty, he soon lay quiet at the bottom of the basket, listening dully to the footsteps of his bearers; and then he felt that he was being carried up some stairs. A chilly sensation came to him, while the faint light flickering in through the wicker was cut off entirely. More stairs were mounted, the basket being borne at an angle that sent David into a heap at the lower end. Then the bearers went through a doorway. Of that he was sure, for he heard the creak of the hinges and the rattle of bolts. An instant later the basket was tossed to the ground with as much ceremony, or lack of ceremony, as would have been devoted to a bale of clothes.
'Bring him out,' he heard in guttural Chinese. 'Now cut his bonds; fetch the light hither.'
David was rolled out of the basket, jerked to his feet, and then relieved of his bonds, while the gag was dragged from between his teeth. It was a welcome relief. He breathed easily for the first time for some minutes.
'Now,' said the same voice, but in broken English this time, 'you see me, no doubt. You are David Harbor.'
'Right,' nodded our hero.
'I am Chang; I helped to kill your father.'
'And will probably kill me,' answered David, somewhat bewildered, and inclined to look upon this fellow as a madman.
'You are right. To-morrow evening you will be beheaded. I myself shall carry out the sentence.'
'But why?' asked David, cringing slightly, for the ordeal was trying. Indeed, the man standing over him, with the lamp shining in his face, looked a most heartless villain.
'Why?' he repeated, mocking our hero. 'The answer is simple. David Harbor has become a nuisance. There is a man of the name of Ebenezer Clayhill; he does not love David Harbor.'
So there it was. Even in his lowest estimation of the man who had married his stepmother, David could not imagine such a depth of villainy. But this fellow Chang was in earnest. He was undoubtedly speaking the truth. What answer could our hero give to him? He merely bowed his head, while a shiver of apprehension passed through him. Then he pulled himself together and faced the ruffian.
'I hear you,' he said. 'What then?'
'For you, nothing; for me, reward.'
The Chinaman swung round on his heel, gave a swift order, and strode out of the place. Then one by one the bearers followed. The door was banged to, the bolts shot home, and David was left alone, alone in his prison, with the moon staring in at him through a window high up in a stone wall, staring in inquisitively as if to ask how this young fellow would face the coming ordeal.
'So it is like that? Ebenezer's hatred of me reaches even to Hatsu,' thought our hero. 'He has hired this rascal to kill me, and it looks as if the man would succeed. So he will if I don't move a little. But I'm not dead by a long way yet; I've still got a kick or two left in me.'