What did it mean in the life of Kirk? Was it the end of his descent into the primitive? Was it the beginning of his turn towards culture again? The time came when he had no more money, but he was anxious now to rid himself of every cent he had taken from the Night Hawk. It was like the act of washing his hands of the past. He hunted through his pockets and finally found a small sack of canvas which had been in the largest money box of the Night Hawk, though why it had not been turned in with the other contents of the box he could not tell. Perhaps it had been the last haul of the outlaw and he had kept it still in the small bag for that reason. This canvas bag he drew now from his hip pocket and tossed down upon the table. It was in itself a large stake — fifty twenty-dollar gold pieces, all freshly minted.
"My last stake, Yo Chai," he said carelessly, "the last coin I toss across this table. Tomorrow I leave the town. A quick chance for this thousand, Yo Chai. What say? Flip a coin heads or tails for the stake?"
"It is good," said the mechanical voice of Yo Chai. "Throw your coin."
Kirk pulled out a half dollar and juggled it a moment in the palm of his hand.
"I'm going to lose," he said nonchalantly, "I know it beforehand, perfectly well. But though I've lost a lot of money to you tonight, Yo Chai, I’ve gained something in return that's worth a lot more than any coin. Here goes. Heads for me!"
The half dollar flicked in the air and rang on the table — tails!
"I knew, you see,” smiled Kirk, and he bowed to the proprietor, "and if you want to play with me again, Yo Chai, you will have to follow me. Quite a long way, I hope!"
And laughing, he turned from the dais and walked towards the door. The dull eye of Yo Chai turned after him. He was a rich man from the work of the last three days, but no starving beggar could have looked after the portly form of Kirk with such bitter envy as showed in the face of Clung the moment the back of the big man was turned. He watched it through the door and then he began to gather in the coins mechanically. But as he did so, something stopped him. He turned one of the coins so the light struck full across it.
Then, with greater haste, he picked them up one after another and examined them with painful care, as if he were doubtful of their value. The usual group of five was settling around the table for their session of draw poker and one of them asked: "What is it, Yo Chai, counterfeit? Counterfeit money, Yo Chai?"
Clung stood with a coin held to the bright light. It was like all the others: there was a small line cut with a sharp knife across the tail-side of the twenty-dollar gold piece. He tossed the last coin into the drawer.
Then he laughed a long time, softly, his head back and a marvelously evil light in his eyes.
"Counterfeit money?" he said at last in his gentle voice. "No, but a counterfeit man! A counterfeit man! Ha, ha, ha!"
He broke off and said gravely to the men: "Gentlemen, Yo Chai plays no more."
"Tired, Yo?" asked one of them. "No more play tonight?"
"No more play for ever," said Clung, and turned from the dais.
And from that moment the middle-age stoop was gone from his shoulders, he walked straight with the elastic, quick, soft step which had been his of old. And his lips moved slightly as he said to himself: "If you were a man like William Kirk you could come both day and night. If you were a man like William Kirk!"
Just that phrase repeated over and over again. He went straight to his assistant who sat behind the desk in the little corner office of the house.
"Let the house be closed," he said abruptly at the door of the office.
"But for what reason? The players are just arriving. For what reason? The night is hardly begun!"
"It has to be purified,” said Clung, and with that enigmatic reply he turned on his heel and went straight to his house.
The door-keeper, as usual, bowed to the very floor before the master.
"Call the servants,” said Clung in Chinese, "call them at once and say that Yo Chai will speak with them in his hall."
He went to his divan and sat among the cushions cross-legged.
Almost at once the servants came hurrying, and they were marshalled before him in single line by the door-keeper. Besides him there were four, for the house of Yo Chai was exceedingly well served.
He said: "You have served Yo Chai."
They bowed as if at a given signal, and all equally low. Rising, their pig-tails soared in unison and slapped against their backs.
He said: "Yo Chai has eaten well, he has lived in a clean house, he has slept in a quiet bed."
Once more they bowed and once more, rising, their pig-tails slapped against their backs.
He said: "This is the last day of your service with Yo Chai."
They bowed again, but this time the big door-keeper uttered a little whining cry oddly out of keeping with his bulk.
"If there is one among us,” he said, fixing a vicious little eye upon the smallest, oldest, and most withered of them all. "If there is one among us who has not pleased Yo Chai, if there is one among us like a chattering monkey who talk-talks all day and does nothing, let the master say the word and we will beat him much with sticks. Also, we will throw him afterwards out upon the street. But do not let the master send the rest of us away. He is our father. We are his children. We sleep when he sleeps, we watch when he wakes; if a sorrow should come upon him we would not eat for seven days."
And then the little man said: "It is now clear in my eyes. Word has come to us that the master has played for much money in the gaming house. He has lost his money. He is poor. See! we will serve for nothing for many days."
"It is true," said the chorus.
"Yo Chai is pleased," said Clung gravely.
They grinned in unison and bowed again.
"But nevertheless you must go."
Like automatons that could not do otherwise, they bowed again, but their faces were woeful.
"Not one of you has offended Yo Chai. You are his children. But you must go. Find other masters. Yo Chai shall need no more servants. This is his last day."
A wail rose from them, shrill, whining. The master is about to die!" No," said Clung, and he smiled on them, Yo Chai is about to be purified and to pass into another life. He will lose all that is his, even his name. And therefore his children must leave him. Yo Chai will sit here and wait. His children will hasten and prepare the things that are theirs. Also, if they see other things about the house which they can carry and which they cherish, they are welcome to those also."
They bowed again and were gone like leaves before the wind. Thereafter, for the next few minutes, figures scurried soft-footed into the room and went out again more slowly, and things disappeared as sand melts under a heavy rain. They were taking the word of their "father" at its most extreme value. Finally when he struck his gong at the end of an hour they came with their bundles.
"Yo Chai will pay you."
"We have been paid," they protested, "ten times the value of our wretched lives. We have been many times paid."
"Nevertheless,” said Yo Chai, still smiling, "you shall be paid again."
And he pulled from one of those capacious sleeves his purse of wire-net engraved with the form of the dragon. From this he took out a little handful of gold for each of them, emptying the purse. They bowed; they almost beat their foreheads on the floor at his feet. They called the blessings of a thousand gods upon him, and Clung sat all the time with his head tilted back and that musing smile touching the corners of his lips. Then they were gone.
But before he had a chance to rise the door opened again and the big Mongol stood once more before him. He prostrated himself almost at full length, and Clung knew with a sudden thrill that this was the prostration of a man who knew the ways of the Imperial Court of China.
"Rise, my son," said Clung.
The big Chinaman stood erect.
"These," he said, and his contemptuous thumb indicated the other servants who had already passed through the door, "are not worthy, but Gee Wing has se
en many times and great masters. There is danger coming to his master. Gee Wing will come also.
"Would you follow Yo Chai, Gee Wing? asked Clung softly.
“Around the edge of the world,” said the big Mongol.
"But I go North into a cold country,” said Clung.
"Gee Wing laughs at the cold."
"It cannot be,” said Clung. "Yo Chai is going where no other Chinamen that ever lived could follow."
And he smiled strangely.
Gee Wing prostrated himself again. Then he rose.
"There is only one door at which Gee Wing cannot stand guard for Yo Chai,” he said sadly. "Farewell."
And he also was gone, and the door banged heavily behind his hurrying feet and the long echo went mourning through the house.
Chapter 43
But there was no mourning in the manner of Clung as soon as Gee Wing disappeared. Rather there was something approaching a quiet happiness, and a phrase came over and over again on his soundless lips.
He went directly to his wash room, filled a tub with steaming water, threw off his Chinese robes, and stepped in. The change was almost instantaneous, and when he stepped out his lean, muscular body was a pure white. For the long wearing of the yellow stain and the life indoors day and night had removed the last vestige of the tan from the skin of Clung. He removed the long pig-tail; his black hair was cropped short.
Then from the closet of his own room he brought out hidden clothes, the common wear of a cowpuncher. About his waist he buckled a belt of cartridges with a heavy forty-five swinging low in its holster. He drew the gun and spun the cylinder, and as he did so his head went back once more and the familiar musing smile was again on his lips.
The moment the gun was back in its holster the attitude of Clung changed sharply. He stood with his feet close together and his eyes glancing restlessly about so that he gave the impression of one who had stolen into a house where he had no place. Finally he left the house by the back door and in the stables he saddled a grey horse — a beautiful animal whose slender limbs would scarcely have supported for a single mile the bulk, say, of William Kirk; but the weight of Clung would rest easily even on that delicately-rounded back. This horse Clung saddled with painful care. Then he walked swiftly to the rear of the gaming house. He found some brush and tore it up. Lighting it, he held the flames here and there against the tinder-dry walls of the frame buildings. When the wood started to burn, he went quickly back to the stable for his horse.
Soon a yellow arm was reaching up into the heart of the sky. At that danger signal yells of excitement and alarm sounded and a throng poured into the streets in the space of a few seconds.
Two deputy sheriffs appeared and took command. They divided the crowd into gangs. Part of them formed lines with buckets and began to wash down the roofs and sides of neighboring buildings so that they might not kindle from the heat of the gaming house. Three other bucket lines attacked the gaming house itself by as many doors, battering down partitions with axes to get at the flames more freely. Another bucket line beat in the front part of the flimsy wall of Yo Chai's house and attacked the flames there.
But plainly it was a hopeless struggle to beat down the fires. They were too carefully started, and the frame buildings went up with a puff and a roar like so many piles of tinder. Still the bucket lines persisted in their labors for an obvious reason. Yo Chai's chief clerk was among them, running here and there, wringing his long-nailed fingers and shrieking out directions, pleas, offers of reward to the rescuers. Twenty dollars for every man who helped quench the flames; fifty dollars for every man who put in an hour's work. A hundred dollars for every man on the spot when the flames were quenched. That offer called other bucket lines which were pouring streams of water steadily over the roofs and walls of the near-by houses. Moreover, it was plainly seen that on that windless night there was no danger that the fires would jump from the big gaming hall to the neighboring dwellings.
So peaceful was the air that the four yellow and red stained columns of flame over the gaming house and the dwelling of Yo Chai rose in steady towers, leaping higher now and again as if they were trying to kindle the stars above them.
Inside the gaming house, in spite of the steady streams of water from the buckets, the flames had swept across the floors in yellow tides of fearful heat. The faces of the foremost fire-fighters were blistered and seared raw. They staggered back in groups, blind, reeling, and collapsed on the street. Yet others rushed up against the flames to take the place of the men who were exhausted.
Suddenly Clung saw his five servants. They stood in a line, one behind the other, each with his hands thrust into alternate sleeves, and they looked upon the conflagration with calm, unmoved faces. One of the deputy sheriffs rushed up to them and required them with curses to aid in the rescue work, but they shrugged their shoulders and remained impassive witnesses. Clung worked his horse a little closer to them, curiously. The flames belched more wildly above the buildings and cast a bright light over the group of Chinese. Something was wet and gleaming on the face of the big Mongol who had kept the door of Yo Chai. And as if inspired by the coming of Clung, the others lifted their heads together and gave voice to a wild, discordant wail, repeated monotonously over and over again, a lament for the dead. This, then, was their understanding of how Yo Chai, their father, had purified himself for another life into which no Chinese that had ever lived could follow him.
There was a roar of descending timbers, ending in a boom and crash, and a vast shower of sparks darted up into the night and went out. That flare of light picked the whole town out of the heart of the night and gave it back to the day for an instant.
Women screamed, and began shouting encouragement to the workers; but obviously the end was near. The house of Yo Chai was now a roaring bonfire, and the flames swept up the outside of the walls, vomiting through the windows in steady columns. The two deputy sheriffs ran to the chief clerk of Yo Chai.
He spoke to them, shaking his head, and when they turned away he flung the edge of his mantle over his face and turned away into the crowd. Then the deputies went among the crowd and ordered that the useless fight be given over. The majority obeyed willingly enough, but a few, either too strongly tempted by the offers of reward, or else carried away by the hysteria of excitement, had to be torn from their places and carried forcibly back beyond reach of the flames.
Then a horror caught the minds of men away from the actual fire for a moment. A horseman who had recently ridden into the crowd was observed to be fighting with his horse. The brute was pitching madly in an effort to shake the rider off and get closer to the flames. Half a dozen leaped forward to catch the reins of the frantic animal but at the same instant it worked the bit into its teeth, straightened its head with a jerk that tore the reins from the hands of its rider, and galloped straight for the inferno of fire.
The man tossed up his arms with a yell of despair. The yellow flare of fire framed him, his hat off, his hair blown back, and his cry was drowned by the roar of the men of the crowd and the shriek of the women. At the very edge of the wall of flame the rider flung himself from the saddle and struck the ground; the horse sprang on into the flames.
Striking the wall, everywhere undermined by the fury of the flames, a whole section of it gave way and crashed down before the wild horse. Its neigh of agony rang back; it echoed shrill over the sudden silence of the crowd, and then the poor beast was seen, galloping still further into the heart of the wilderness of flames. Yellow hands of fire reached from every side against the animal, and it swerved here and there like a dodging polo pony through the mass of red and yellow flames. Straight on it held towards one of those three piles of steadier fire from which the conflagration had started, and into this with a great leap the horse flung itself.
Apparently it struck with its whole weight the central pillar of the hall, already mostly eaten through by the fire, and now the pillar of wood buckled before this blow, and the roof directly above came l
unging down with a gigantic flurry and outward puff of flames.
There was a yell, human in its piercing pain, superhuman in its terrible volume; and then only the roar of the fire, and Clung saw men who had witnessed, perhaps, a score of gun-fights cover their eyes with their hands.
He turned his grey horse, which was trembling with excitement, and wove his way through the dense crowd and out on to an open lane. He rode with his face towards the purity of the stars. He stretched up his empty hands.
"Out of fire," said Clung, "and into a new life!"
He urged the grey to a gallop and went swiftly up the ravine.
Chapter 44
Two things drew Kirk back to the cave of the Night Hawk when he left the house of Yo Chai that night. The first was a desire for a final sight of the silver Virgin; but this was not so strong an impulse as the wish to look once more on the strength and wild beauty of the black stallion. His reason convinced him that he must never go near the place again, but the emotion was greater than the reason. He had no wish to take the silver Virgin away with him. The image was in itself a great treasure, no doubt, but it seemed to Kirk that it was the baleful influence of those diamond eyes which had induced him to step out of the lawful path just as it had once tempted Spenser years before.
That whole grim altar and all the jewels of the cave should stay where they were. But he could not bear the thought of leaving the black stallion to die of starvation in the cave. Already the fine animal had gone twenty-four hours without water. It would be a short and simple act of charity to send a bullet through the brain of the horse.
So he urged his horse to a steady canter and arrived quickly at the mouth of the tunnel. While he was still in the passage, and while the sound of his footsteps in the sand surely could not have reached into the main part of the cave, he heard the snort and then the shrill whinny of the stallion; and the sudden sound stopped his heart with a strange misgiving. It seemed to Kirk that there was a note of anger as well as triumph in the neigh. For be it remembered that he was at the end of his third step back into the primitive and his mind was open to more elemental influences and moved in almost childlike veins of superstition now and then.
Brand, Max - 1924 Page 19