But the hands of Clung were once more thrust into his sleeves, and Sampson was suddenly aware that during the entire interview his host had never once sat down.
"Clung had rather," said Clung, and his head went back with that familiar, musing smile, "Clung would rather remain a dog of a Chinaman than be such a gentleman."
The teeth of John Sampson clicked with his anger, and then, grown suddenly hot about the face, he turned and stumbled out of the room and into the street. It was a warm night but the air felt strangely cool to his forehead.
Chapter 40
Something above the door of Yo Chai's house stopped Winifred at the very moment when her hand was on the knocker the next night. She bent her head back and peered anxiously up through the bloom, and then she made out that there were wreaths of flowers overhanging the doorway; the sweet breath of them was sharp and pleasant. Strange flowers such as she had never smelled before, and she wondered how they had been brought to the desolation of Kirby Creek. But then Clung was a man of mysteries, and as such capable of anything.
When the door opened to her she was smiling in anticipation, and her expectations were correct, for in the little hall she found at either side tall vases filled with flowering shrubs, and the scrolls above the table were almost covered with festoons of greenery. A festival occasion, this night of her coming, and guessing at the pretty tribute, a flush went up from her throat to her cheeks and stayed there as she entered the inner room.
But Clung was not there, and she had been on the divan for several moments before he appeared, hastily, and bowed before her. He relaxed on his usual pile of cushions and sat with folded arms staring straight before him; and he made her think of a pleased child which waits to be questioned about the meaning of a surprise. Everywhere about the room were the flowers, the green things which seemed so priceless in the middle of the desert; they must have been conjured into existence; they could not have grown. And the very dress of Clung showed that it was an extraordinary occasion. His robe was a rich brocade rustling so stiffly that it almost crackled when he moved. At length she could keep in her questions no longer.
"What is it, Clung?" she asked impetuously. "Is all this in honor of my coming? Tell me?”
"When one of my fathers took a woman into his house,” said Clung, and for the first time his eyes rose from the floor and rested gravely upon her, "he always made the place pleasant for her coming. Clung, also, has done this."
"Take a woman in your house?" she queried, with sudden alarm, and rising, she noted again that the doors behind her, as usual, were locked. "What do you mean, Clung?"
"Only what Clung says, that tonight he takes a woman into his house."
The eyes were very blank as they rested upon her, but old tales of the treachery of the Oriental swarmed back upon her mind and made her blood cold.
"Clung, have you dared —" she began, until her voice grew weak and she stopped perforce.
Every door was locked behind her. What could she do?
"Have you dared to think of keeping me here?" she asked at length, with as much grief as fear in her voice.
"You?" queried Clung in gentle surprise, and he tapped softly once on the gong beside him.
The answer was a little Chinese girl who came slowly through the doorway — slowly, for her feet were painfully small. Her trousers and all her dress were of the rarest of fine silk, and they, like the robes of Clung, were everywhere broidered with rich threads of gold. A necklace of jade, ear-rings of pearl, bracelets of woven gold set with little emeralds in the design of a tiny dragon — she had never seen so rich a costume. The face was round and the features diminutive, but not unpleasant, and there was about her that air of infinite refinement, millenniums of culture, which the Chinese sometimes bear about them.
And still Winifred could not or would not quite understand.
"Who,” she asked sharply, "is this?”
And Clung made answer carelessly, making the girl sit down beside him in obedience to his gesture: "This is a woman of the house of Clung.”
"A woman?” repeated Winifred slowly. "A woman?”
And then, after a breathing space: "I never dreamed that you were married, Clung!”
"Married?” he repeated, and his eyebrows arched a little. "No no! Why should Clung take a wife, a burden upon his shoulders? This is only a woman, a handmaid for Clung; he has often been lonely."
"A woman!" whispered Winifred, and her eyes dwelt on the face of the girl, pale for one of her race, with a tint like peach-bloom in her cheeks, slanting dark eyes, and little white teeth.
"But let us talk," said Clung. "You may talk very freely before the girl. She will understand no more than the image of the Greatest!"
He rose and bowed to the hideous, grinning idol and sat down again.
Or if you wish," went on Clung amiably, Clung will send the girl away. She is here to come and go at the will of Clung. Is it not true?"
He turned to the girl and spoke sharply to her in Chinese, and she nodded slowly — slowly and very low, and all the while her eyes were fixed in mute submission upon the face of the master.
Winifred rose, and she had to remain standing a moment gripping the back of the divan and squinting her eyes tight while her senses cleared.
The voice of Clung, concerned, eagerly inquiring, broke in upon her.
"There is a sickness upon you,” he said. "You are faint? Is it true? The sight of the girl sickens you? Clung will send her away!"
She forced her eyes open at that, and it seemed to her that the face of Clung had changed, grown grim, and all the features were more sharply defined, as though a pain were etching them more deeply.
"No," she managed to say at length, "keep the girl, keep her by you always, in case you should grow lonely again."
"But," said Clung, stepping beside her as she went feebly towards the door, feeling her way, "but you do not go so soon from Clung? He has many things to say!"
Her strength returned with a sudden outburst; she whirled on him.
"I’ve heard the last of your talk," she said fiercely. "I shall never see you again."
And she walked quickly to the door and out of the house, but as the door slammed it seemed to Clung that he heard something like a sob. Or was it only a natural sound of the night, for the wind was rising?
He remained where he had been standing, his hand stretched out after the girl, but his arm fell almost at once to his side, and his head lifted. He saw the little Chinese girl staring at him with wide eyes.
He drew his purse from the loose sleeve, a purse of wire net worked with the figure of the dragon, and from it he shook gold pieces and placed them in the small palm of the girl.
"You are paid,” said Clung. "Go!"
Still she hesitated, her eyes large and fixed steadily upon him; her lips moved, but no words came. Then she bowed to the floor and, turning, went with her small, painful steps from the room. She stopped at a table of ebony and on it she laid the gold which Clung had given her. When she went on, her head was bowed, and Clung, standing with his head back, and that half smile upon his lips, heard the beginning of a sob as the door whisked to behind her. He laughed softly.
"Clung also," he said, "Clung also; the sound of it is growing big in his throat. But why should he be a woman?"
He gathered himself and pulled the robe tightly about his breast. He rose almost on tiptoe and cast out his hand, palm up, to the mocking face of the idol.
"I am Clung," he said defiantly, "Clung, the son of Li Clung. It is true!"
And he sat down on the divan and produced his long-stemmed pipe, placed a pinch of tobacco in the bowl, lighted it, puffed twice or thrice deeply; knocked out the ashes and refilled the miniature bowl, and so on and on, smoking until a blue haze formed in front of him and rose like heavy incense and drifted across the face of the idol until it obscured the grin and left only the bright, beady eyes staring down through the smoke.
Chapter 41
The voice of William Kirk went b
efore him through the night, a great and ringing voice which the steep sides of the ravine caught and flung down again in sharp echoes, so that it was hard to tell from what direction the singing came; it seemed to be showering out of the sky. He galloped his horse straight through the door of the stable and brought him to a long sliding halt on the boards within, a thunderous proceeding; and when he had torn off the saddle he went on into the house, singing again.
He found John Sampson, in a state of great agitation, walking up and down, up and down the room. There was a cigar in his mouth, unlighted, but chewed to the edge of the wrapper.
Shut up!" commanded Sampson. "I can't think with this infernal minstrel show of yours going on!"
"And why think?" asked Kirk in his big voice. "Why think, Sampson? Do something better."
"Such as what?" said the smaller man, and he halted with his arms aggressively akimbo.
"Why," answered Kirk carelessly. "Eat, and sleep, and eat again. They're both better things than thinking. Thinking, Sampson, has worn the hair off your head. And look at my shock?"
He ran his fingers through it so that it stood up on end, burst into a thunderous laugh, and began a song again:
"Old Thompson, he had an old grey mule, And he drove him around in a cart. He loved that mule and the mule loved him with all his mulish heart!"
"Kirk!" shouted Sampson. "In the name of God, stop that damned racket!"
"What's the matter, man? Winifred still?"
"Winifred always," moaned the miserable millionaire.
And he literally collapsed into a chair and mopped his forehead. Kirk grinned broadly upon him. Sampson sat up with a jerk that threw the purple blood into his forehead and shook his fist at the younger man.
"When,” he thundered, "when are you going to do what you promised — take the girl in hand?"
"When I get tired of Kirby Creek,” answered the other coolly, "and at present I find it interesting — very!"
"Where've you been for the last forty-eight hours?" asked Sampson, warily shrugging away the thought of his last question, and then his eyes sharpened to a rather malicious light.
"I suppose," he said, "you've been off by yourself trying to forget what happened in the house of Yo Chai the other day? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, lad, those who won't take advice have to learn by experience. I knew what would happen when you sat down opposite Yo Chai — the old Oriental magician! A mule load of gold lost — thrown away — ha, ha, ha! I'll tell this when we get north!"
"Don't hurry with your story," said Kirk with twisting lip and a pale face. "Wait till you see what happens with the second load of gold."
"Gad!" breathed Sampson, sitting bolt upright and grasping either arm of his chair.
"Lad, you aren't fool enough to go back and try the same route? The first money you lost was what you'd already won. This next bunch will be your own coin!"
"Perhaps," said Kirk, and smiled mysteriously, for he was thinking again of the boxes of gold and dust which he had taken from the cave of the Night Hawk and poured into his saddle-bags that night. All the readily convertible coin of the bandit was in his load, and it made a less bulky but a richer cargo than that which he had borne into the house of Yo Chai on the back of his mule the day before.
He changed the subject.
"And where is Winifred now?"
"She started from the house an hour ago," said Sampson.
"Then," answered Kirk, "we might as well go to bed now. It'll be close on midnight before she returns."
"Other nights, yes," answered Sampson, "but tonight, I think — God knows how I hope it! — will be her last trip to Yo Chai!"
He rose and resumed his hurried pacing of the floor.
"Talk of something else," he commanded. "I'll go mad if I let my mind dwell on that girl of mine!"
"What shall we chatter about?" said Kirk, and he yawned.
"Anything — what the whole town is talking about."
"What's that?"
"The murder of Charlie Morgan."
"Eh?" queried Kirk sharply, for somehow that brief and brutal word shocked him.
"Murder?" he repeated.
"Murder!" nodded Sampson. "Damnable, cold-blooded murder! The Night Hawk again. Strange how long they let that fellow roam around!"
"Strange indeed," said Kirk, and smiled carelessly.
"Haven't you heard about the murder?"
"Not a word."
"Where have you been? This Morgan seems to have been a harmless old trapper — a good shot, they say, in his younger days. The other day he made some drunken boast about leaving the town with a pack of gold dust and going straight through the Night Hawk's territory. Well, he started, and that devil met him and shot him down in cold blood. Didn't even take the poor devil's money. They found it all in the mule pack, shortly after they located the body today. Think of it, Kirk, think of the cold-souled fiend who would shoot down an old man like that!"
"Rotten,” said Kirk, with dry throat.
"The town is wild about it," said Sampson. "Even the Chinaman — your friend Yo Chai — is up in arms and has offered a reward for the apprehension of the Night Hawk. Seems that Yo Chai had befriended old Morgan and staked him with grub and supplies when he started on his trip the time before last. Now he wants the blood of the Night Hawk, but I suppose even the Chinaman's money can't get that."
"Neither his money nor his luck," said Kirk.
Sampson turned swiftly on him.
"You say that in an odd way," he murmured thoughtfully.
Kirk frowned.
"Don't look at me like that, Sampson," he said coldly.
"In what way?"
"By God, I won't stand for it!" thundered Kirk, with a sudden mad rage. "Sampson, I swear there's an accusation in your eye!"
"Good Gad, Kirk," gasped the old man, starting back from the other. "Are you mad, boy? What do you mean? Accusation of what?"
Kirk set his fists in tight knots and forced the fire out of his eye.
"Nothing," he said in a strangled voice.
"The fact is, Sampson, my nerves haven't been of the best ever since that demon Yo Chai got the money from me yesterday."
"Let it go at that,” muttered Sampson, and then he looked partly with awe and partly with curiosity at Kirk. "Why, man,” he said softly. "There was murder in your eye a minute ago. Murder!"
"Nonsense," said Kirk, and he waved the thought away with a flourish of his ponderous hand. "Utter nonsense, Sampson. But what's that?"
The front door opened, and Winifred stood in the opening. Her expression was so strange that Sampson jumped to his feet and fairly ran to her.
"Why, Winifred," he called, "what's the matter, girl?"
"Nothing — everything!" she answered in a dull voice, and crossed the room to her door. She paused there with her hand on the knob and turned towards them.
"Dad," she said, "we leave here tomorrow. I can't stay another day. I'm tired of the place. Sick of it!"
And she vanished into the room. Sampson caught Kirk by the shoulders and shook him joyously.
"Did you hear, lad?" he cried softly. "Did you hear?"
"What the devil has happened?"
"Tomorrow we start."
"Tomorrow evening, then. I take my last whirl at Yo Chai tomorrow afternoon. But what has happened?"
"Yo Chai —"
"Damn him! I've stood enough from him. I'll —"
"Hush, lad! Neither of us is worthy of kissing the shoes of that — Chinaman!
Chapter 42
There are some places where two make a crowd, in spite of the old saying, and certainly in no place could it have been truer than in those early days in Kirby Creek; for on one day William Kirk rode into town and led a mule load of gold to gamble away in an effort to break the bank of Yo Chai's gambling house, and to see him the whole town turned out and stayed hour by hour watching the historic game. Yet, only two days later, when he went under identical circumstances with a far larger sum to wager, men hardly tu
rned their heads to watch him pass. It was an old, old story. Had it not been seen before? And were they the men to care for a twice-told tale?
To be sure, there were a few who had not seen the proceedings of the day before, and though they had been told of them they would hardly believe. Now they formed a comparatively large crowd watching around the central table at which William Kirk played against Yo Chai. But there was no stentorian announcement following the dealing of every card, and in a deadly silence they played. It was stud poker again, but this time, as though luck itself had wearied of the persistence of William Kirk, it held steadily against him. His gold coin passed across the table, and after that the gold dust was weighed and followed the coin duly, and then the nuggets, and last a considerable stock of jewels and still the river of misfortune caught up the chips of William Kirk and carried them away to the side of Yo Chai.
There was no mental stupor to which Kirk could attribute his defeat this day. He touched no liquor and there was no spell cast over him by the steady eye of the gambler, and still he lost. His wits were sharper than they had ever been before in his life, and in spite of himself there was forced upon his brain the consciousness that he was struggling against a force which in some mysterious way was greater than his own. He laughed at the idea, he sneered it away, but it persisted.
And he commenced to study the face of Yo Chai between hands. He sat, as usual, with his head rather far back, and his shoulders bowed forward in the stoop of middle-age. Yet there was a change somewhere in him from the Yo Chai against whom Kirk had played only a few days before. The features were more sharply drawn. The purple shadows about the eyes, making them seem deeply sunken, were as they always had been, and there was no palpable weakening of the eye. It was as bright and steady as ever. Yet in some manner Kirk gained the impression that the Chinaman was weary, weary to death. It was like playing against a machine. Half the glamour was taken from the cards.
Half the sting was taken from defeat, also. It was not like being beaten by a machine. It was like witnessing the triumph of an automaton. But as the game progressed it exercised a clarifying power over the mind of Kirk. It convinced him gradually that the West was no place for him. This machine-like loss of his money made him yearn to be back again in the north, among his fellows, among men where reason counted, where he would be valued for other reasons than the quickness of his hand or his luck as a gambler.
Brand, Max - 1924 Page 18