CHAPTER XVI
With the coming of noon Peter sat down under a stunted cembra pine treeand contemplated the distant rocky blue ridge with a wistful anddiscouraged air. He removed from his trouser-pocket two yellow loquatsand devoured them.
He was dreadfully hungry. His stomach fathered a dull, persistentache, which forced upon his attention the pains in his muscles andbones. It was their way of complaining against the abuse he had heapedupon them during the past twenty-four hours.
He was beginning to feel weak and dispirited. His was a constitutionthat arose to emergencies in quick, battling trim; but when theemergency was past, his vitality seemed to be drained.
He looked down the muddy brown road as he finished the second loquat(which he had stolen from a roadside farm in passing) and estimatedthat Ching-Fu was all of ten miles behind him. Walking through thepasty blue mud in his bare feet, with the rain streaming through hishair and down his beard and shoulders, had been tedious, trying.Several times he had stopped, with his feet sinking in the clay, andcursed the Yangtze with bitterness.
What had become of Bobbie MacLaurin? Had that noble soul been snatcheddown by the River of Golden Sands?
He cursed the river anew, for Bobbie was a man after God's own heart.Never had there lived such a generous, such a fine and brave comrade.More than once the mule-kick which lurked behind those big, kind, redfists had saved Peter from worse than black eyes.
He would never forget that night on the pier at Salina Cruz, when thegreaser had flashed out a knife, bent on carving a hole in Peter'sheart--and Bobbie had come up from behind and knocked the ravingMexican a dozen feet off the pier into the limpid Pacific!
Those days were ended now. The adventures, the excitement, thesorrows, and the fiery gladness were all well beyond recall.
Peter leaned back against the thorny trunk of the cembra pine, andsniffed the odors of drenched earth, listened to the drip and patter ofthe cold, gray rain, and gazed pessimistically at the blue crest ofrock which lifted its granite shoulders high into the mist miles away.
He stretched himself, groaned, and staggered on through the mire.
The valley was filled with the blue shades of dusk when he espied somedistance beyond him what was evidently a camp, a caravan at rest. Thesetting sun managed at last to burrow its way through a rift of purplebefore sinking down behind the granite range, to leave China to themercies of its long night.
These departing rays, striking through the purple crevice, and settingits edges smolderingly aflame with red and gold, became a narrow,dwindling spotlight, which brought out in black relief the figures ofmen and mules, of drooping tents and curling wisps of cookfire smoke.The sun was swallowed up, and the camp vanished.
Peter plunged on, with one leg dragging more reluctantly than theother. But he had sensed the odor of cooking food in the quiet air.
A sentry whose head was adorned by a dark-red turban presented thepoint of his rifle as Peter approached. He shouted, was joined byothers, both Chinese and Bengalis, and Peter, not adverse even to beingin the hands of enemies as long as food was imminent, was inducted intothe presence of a kingly personage, who sat upon a carved teak stool.
This creature, by all appearances a mandarin, of middle age, was garbedin a stiff, dark satin gown, heavy with gold and jewels which flashedbrightly in the light of a camp-fire. His severe, dark face was long,and stamped with intelligence of a high order. He wore a mustachewhich drooped down to form a hair wisp on either side of his small,firm mouth.
As Peter was whisked into his presence he placed his elbow with a slow,deliberate motion upon his knee, and rested his rounded chin in hispalm, bestowing upon the mud-spattered newcomer a look that searchedinto Peter's soul.
A single enormous diamond blazed upon the knuckle of his forefinger.
He put a question in a tongue that Peter did not understand. It was adeep, resonant voice, with the mellow, rounded tones of certaintemple-bells, such a sound as is diffused long after the harsh strokeof the wooden boom has subsided. Vibrant with authority, it was such avoice as men obey, however much they may hate its owner. He repeatedthe question in Mandarin, and again Peter indicated that that was nothis speech.
A different voice, yet quite as impelling as the other, caused Peter tolook up sharply. The mandarin smiled wisely, but not unkindly.
"The darkness deceived me," he said in English of a strange cast. "Imistook you for a beggar. You are far from the river, my friend. Thebones of your steamer lie fathoms deep by now. Why are you so far fromChing-Fu? You were stunned, perhaps?"
"I am only hungry," said Peter boldly. "My way lies into India. ThereI have friends."
The mandarin studied him dubiously, and clapped his hands, the greatdiamond cutting an oval of many colors. Coolies were given up by thenight, and ran to obey his guttural, musical commands. They returnedwith steaming bowls of rice and meat, and a narrow lacquer table.
"Come and sit beside me. Your feet must be sore--bleeding. You maycall me Chang. So I am known to my British friends on the frontier. Ihave been ill, a mountain fever, perhaps. In Ching-Fu. I had expectedmedicine on the river steamer."
He snapped his fingers, and whispered to a coolie whose face was gauntand stolid in the flickering red glow of the fire.
So while Peter consumed the rice and stew, his bruised feet were bathedin warm water, rubbed with a soothing ointment, and wrapped in a downybandage.
A blue liquor served in cups of shell silver completed the meal. Thearomatic syrup, which exhaled a perfume that was indescribablyoriental, sent an exhilarating fire through his veins. It seemed toclarify his thoughts and vision, to oil his aching joints, and removetheir pain.
From the corner of his eye he detected the silken folds of themandarin's lofty tent, in the murky interior of which a fat, yellowcandle sputtered and dripped. When his eyes came back to the table,the bowls and cups had been removed, and in their place was achess-board inlaid with ivory and pearl.
Inspired by the cordial, and the queerness of this setting, Peter feltthat he was the central figure of a dream. The pungent odor of remoteincense, the distant tinkling of a bell, the stamping and pawing of themules and the brooding figure in silk and gold at his side, took himback across the ages to the days and nights of Scheherezade.
And the mandarin appeared to be hungry for Peter's companionship. Overthe chess-board, between plays, they discoursed lengthily upon thegreatness of the vast empire, once she should awake; upon the menace ofthe wily Japanese; upon the lands across the mountains and beyond theseas, and their peoples, of which Chang had read much but had nevervisited.
Wood was heaped upon the fire, which flared up and leaped after thecrowding shadows.
It was the life that Peter dearly loved.
The mandarin's eyes glowed, and rested upon him for longer spaces. Hiswords and sentences came fewer and more reluctant.
In one of these pauses he seized Peter's hand. And Peter was forthwithgiven the meagre details of a story, neither the beginning nor the endof which he would ever know. It was the cross-section of a tale ofintrigue, of cold-blooded killings that chased the thrills up and downhis spine; a tale of loot, of gems that had vanished, of ingots andkernels of gold that had leaked from iron-bound chests.
The mandarin uttered his woe in a quivering voice, shifting from aBengal patois to Mandarin, and again to reckless English.
Peter was given to understand that in Chang's camp was a traitor, a manwho eluded him, whose identity was shielded, a snake that could not bestamped out unless the lives of every one of his attendants were taken!
In a composed voice Chang, the mandarin, was saying:
"You have walked far. You are weary. Another couch is in my tent.You shall sleep there."
The candle was guttering low in its bronze socket when Peter awoke. Acool breeze stirred the tent flaps. A queer feeling oozed in his veins.
He lay still, breathing regularly, searching the corners with eye
s thatwere brighter than a rat's. The low sleep-mutterings of the mandarincontinued from the couch across from him.
Slowly the tent flaps were being drawn back. Peter strained his eyesuntil they ached. He was impelled to shout, to awaken his companion.Yet the visitor might be bent on legitimate business. He would wait.In the final analysis it was Peter's profound acquaintance with theways of the East which sealed his lips. In the heart of China one doesnot strike at shadows, or shriek at sight of them. Not always.
At his side between the covers lay a strong, naked dagger. Why themandarin had provided him with the weapon he did not know.
A gray shadow entered the tent and backed noiselessly against the frontpole. Indeed, not a sound was created by his entrance, not even therustling whisper of bare feet on dry grass. It seemed very ominous,mysterious, and ghostly.
The gray shadow floated into the candle-light, which waved and quivereda little as the still air was disturbed. Peter was conscious that hewas being acutely examined. Not a muscle of his face twitched. Hecontinued to breathe regularly, with the heaviness of a man steeped insleep. Tentatively he permitted his lids to raise.
The intruder's back was toward him. He was bending with slow stealthover the mandarin's face. What was the fellow doing?
Peter caught the glint of metal, or glass. At the same time apowerful, sickening odor spread through the tent.
Peter groped for the naked dagger, bounded up from the couch with anervous cry, and burled the steel up to its costly jeweled hilt in theforemost shoulder.
Without a sound the man in gray turned part way round, and a shudderran through him, causing the folds of his garment to flap slightly. Hesank down with a sigh like wind stealing through a cavern, and hisfingers clawed feebly in the leaping shadow.
Peter detected a tiny glass vial spilling out its dark, volatile fluidupon the dust. He picked it up, but it was snatched from his hand.The dull pig-eyes of Chang stared very close to his, with thestupefaction of sleep still extending the irises into round dark pools.The vial was in his hand, and he was sampling its odor, waving itslowly back and forth under his wide nostrils. He shouted, andturbaned men filed into the tent, and carried the gray figure away.
The hand of Chang rested upon Peter's shoulder, and in a voice thatthrobbed with the sonorousness of a Buddha temple-gong he said:
"You have rendered me a service for which I can never sufficientlyrepay you--for I value my life highly! In the morning your mind willhave forgotten what has taken place. Try to sleep now. You willobey--promptly!"
The candle sputtered and jumped, as if it were striving mightily tolengthen its golden life if only for another minute; and went out.
From Chow Yang to Lun-Ling-Ting all the land could not provide costlierraiment than Peter found at his bedside when the long, high-keyed criesof the mule men opened his eyes upon another morning.
When camp was broken up, long before the sun became hot, he was given asmall but able mule; and he rode down the valley toward India atChang's side. They moved at the head of a long, slow train, for herebandits were not feared, despite the loneliness of the land throughwhich they were traveling. Farms became more scattered, more widelyseparated by patches of broken, barren rock; and, finally, all tracesof the microscopic cultivation which gave Szechwan Province its leanfruitfulness were left behind them.
The mandarin rode for many miles in silence, occasionally changingreins, looking steadily and gloomily ahead of him, with his attentionriveted, it seemed, upon the sharp and ceaseless clatter of his mule'shoofs and the twisting rock road.
Peter's mind was fixed upon the problem which crept hourly nearer. Hishead was cast between his shoulders as if the weight of a sorrowfulworld rested upon that narrow, well-proportioned skull, with itscovering of shining light hair.
He loved his task as a man might love a selfish and thoughtless woman,who demanded and craftily accepted all that he could give, to the lastounce of his gold and the final drop of his blood. It was a thanklesstask, yet it had grace.
It was well past mid-morning before Chang spoke the first word.
"A grateful dream came into my sleep last night. For years I havefought in the darkness with a man who has the heart of Satan himself.He has robbed me. Time after time he has sent into my camp his spies.Some were more adroit than others. But none so adroit as the cooliefrom Len Yang."
Peter repressed his surprise, and merely winked his eyes thoughtfully anumber of times. Chang went on:
"In this dream last night a young man was given into my keeping whosespirit and manliness have not yet been soiled. His gratitude wasimmediate. In return for the acts which grew out of that gratitude, Iam prepared to give him anything that is mine, or in my power, whetherhe desires wealth, or position, or my friendship."
"The young man," said Peter gravely, "desires neither wealth norposition. If he has been of service to the man who befriended him,that is enough."
"Should he desire a favor of any kind----"
"Then help him to reach his enemy, who is your enemy, who is the GrayDragon of Len Yang!"
"In jest----"
"In all seriousness!" said Peter.
"It is death to enter Len Yang!"
"My mind is made up, mandarin!"
They had entered a narrow ravine, and on both sides of the slendertrail rose up sharp elbows of hard rock. Peter's head was inclined alittle to the right in an attitude he unconsciously assumed whenlistening for important words of man or wireless machine.
"It is the folly of adventurous youth," rang out the melodious andsincere voice of the mandarin. "It is a quest for a grail which willend in a pool of your own blood! Come into India with me!"
"But I decided--long ago--mandarin!"
"Your life is your life," said the mandarin sadly. "The City of StolenLives is beyond the mountain. _Ch'ing_!"
Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China Page 16