Held by Chinese Brigands, Page 3

  CHAPTER III--OF THE TIGER AND THE FOXES

  Ling was a Northerner. He hailed from the province of Honan, a land ofrugged hills and dark, inhospitable valleys, through which flows theunnavigable Hoang-Ho, the turbulent Yellow River that thrashes its wayinto the Gulf of Pe-chili, over cataracts and rocks, through dark,precipitous ravines.

  The Honanese are a warlike race. From this province the viceroys of thenorth were wont to recruit the majority of their soldiers--wild,raw-boned men who, in the old days, guarded the sacred presence of theEmperor.

  The pirates of the West River may be compared to wolf-packs that roamthe southern provinces in search of plunder. But Ling may be likened toa solitary beast of prey, a man-eating tiger, or a rogue elephant--thanwhich there is no more dangerous beast in all the world. He lived by hiswits, his great strength and cunning. He had established such areputation for himself in the provinces of Kwang-si and Kwei-chau thathe was feared alike by peasants, priests, and mandarins. He committedcrime openly and gloried in it; for in China there are no police, andprefects and magistrates can be bought with silver _taels_.

  And Ling was a man of great wealth. He employed bribery when that waslikely to succeed. Otherwise he relied upon his Malay kris, or hisgreat hands, with which he could strangle the life out of an ordinaryman in no more time than it would take to wring the neck of a hen.

  The wonder of this man was that he was a great scholar. He had passedseveral of the public examinations in which the candidates could benumbered by the thousand. He was learned in the classic books: _Springand Autumn_, _The Doctrine of the Mean_, _The Analects of Confucius_,and the books of History, Rites and Music, and the Odes.

  He was in the habit of quoting Confucius and the writings of the sages;and he could always, by twisting the meaning of the proverbs ofantiquity, find excuses for his crimes.

  "To the good I would be good," he would quote, adding: "As there are nogood on this earth, there is no necessity to be other than I am."

  In no other country in the world would such a man have been allowed towalk at large in the streets of a populous city. Everyone knew him, andeveryone feared him; but no one had the courage to step across his path.He came and went at his pleasure, laughing in his loud, boisterousmanner, quoting from the writings of Confucius, Mencius, and the learnedLao Tzu, the founder of the Taoist religion. It must be remembered thatChina is a country in which everyone minds his own affairs. The sageshave taught the Chinese to believe that the destiny of every man is inhis own hands, and that whether he lives foolishly or wisely, whether hedoes evil or good, is a question solely between that man himself and theSpirit of the Universe. No one has the right to interfere.

  In this world there are those who talk and those who act. Ling didboth. He bullied and threatened and stormed; he was childishly vain ofhis learning, and in seven dialects he scattered his knowledgebroadcast. At the same time, he was a man of action; he was resoluteand brave, and without scruples or a sense of pity.

  But neither courage nor brute strength nor wisdom, nor a combination ofthe three, can accomplish all things. And in Ah Wu's opium den, themighty Ling found himself in the presence of three subtle,smooth-tongued Cantonese; and the whole world across, from San Franciscoto Yokohama by way of Port Said, there is no more capable and fluentliar than the lemon-skinned, almond-eyed Chinese who hails from theprovince of Kwang-si. It is difficult to say who could lie mostgracefully, who was the greatest hypocrite--Ah Wu, Yung How, orMen-Ching, the brigand. Each in his own way was a past master in thecraft of falsehood.

  Moreover, they had no intention of taking Ling into their confidence.They may have been frightened of the man, but not even fear could makethem behave like imbeciles. They knew that if Ling gained knowledge ofthe presence of Mr Hennessy K. Waldron upon the upper reaches of one ofthe rivers, there would be but little booty left for themselves. And sothey lied--gracefully, easily, pleasantly, and with admirableconsistency.

  What that lie was is immaterial to the skein and texture of this story.It was a presentable and passable falsehood, you may be sure, but it wasnot good enough to deceive Ling, who, however, professed that hebelieved every word they had told him, whilst he complacently smokedpipe after pipe of opium--at Ah Wu's expense.

  And then he left the opium den, paying for nothing, quoting from Menciusin regard to the virtue of hospitality. In the dark streets of themammoth city his colossal figure became lost in the shadows; but he leftbehind him, in the opium den, in the little room beneath the stairs, anatmosphere of tension--a feeling that a great typhoon has passed, whichby a miracle had caused but little damage. The three conspiratorscontinued to discuss their plot, but they were no longer conscious of asense of security. Once or twice Ah Wu, who was the most nervous of thethree, glanced anxiously over his shoulder, whenever a heavy footstepwas heard in the room beyond.

  They had lied to Ling to the best of their ability--which was sayingmuch. For all that, they had no reason to suppose that the giganticHonanese had believed a single word of what they had told him. Inconsequence, they feared him all the more. The tiger was on the prowl,and the three foxes, their heads close together, whispered in the earsof one another and rolled their little pills.

  They arranged matters to their satisfaction. Yung How was to attempt todiscover the destination of Sir Thomas Armitage and the wealthyAmerican. Men-Ching would lie in wait upon the river bank. Yung Howwould signal to him as the launch went by. If their destination was theNorth River, Yung How was to place his left hand upon the shavenfore-part of his head. If it was the West River, he was to raise hisright hand. In either case, Men-Ching was to take horse and ride toPinglo, where he would inform Cheong-Chau that the fish were swimminginto his net. As for Ah Wu, at a later date, he was to play a certainpart for which--on account of his cunning and secretive nature--he waseminently suited.

  It was an exceedingly well-arranged plot, which will be duly explainedin the appointed place. There was some discussion in regard to what sumit would be possible to obtain; but in the end it was decided thattwenty thousand dollars would be sufficient, allowing that Cheong-Chauwould take the bulk of it himself.

  It was long past midnight when they came to the end of theirdeliberations. By then they were heavy with opium, and their eyesglazed from the drug. They threw themselves down upon the soft mattedcouches in the outer room, and slept and dreamed--as Chinese will--ofthings celestial, transcendental, such as cannot be expressed in words.For all that, the following morning Yung How presented himself at thebreakfast-table of Sir Thomas Armitage in the Shamien Hotel.

  "Well, Yung How," said the judge, "did you see your brother in Canton?"

  "Yes, master," said Yung How, without moving a muscle of his face. "Hemakes bobbery with his wife."

  "You mean," said Sir Thomas, for the edification of Mr Waldron, "that heand his wife have quarrelled?"

  "Yes, master. She does not like that he smokes opium--once a week."

  The judge made a wry face. "A nasty habit," said he.

  "Yes, master," said Yung How; "only bad men smoke opium."

  Sir Thomas looked at Yung How's eyes. The pupils were shrunken to thesize of little beads.

  "Yes," said he. "You are right, Yung How; only bad men smoke opium."

  "Opium does harm," said Yung How, who, five minutes later, appeared inthe hotel kitchen. Several coolies were eating rice upon a doorstep,and one of these was the engineer of Sir Thomas's river-launch. It isnot pleasant to watch lower-class Chinese eat rice. They hold the bowlabout two inches from their mouths, which they open very wide, and thenthey scoop up the rice with their fingers in much the same manner as onemight brush pieces of fluff from the sleeve of a coat.

  "Ah Su," said Yung How, to the engineer, "has the judge told you wherewe are going?"

  "No," said Ah Su.

  "The weather," said Yung How, "is very hot."

  He then departed to the vestibule of the hotel, where he encountered thecomprador. In Ch
ina, the comprador knows everything.

  "Are there any letters for the judge?" asked Yung How, in a lordlymanner.

  "He has them," said the comprador. "He himself took them into thebreakfast-room."

  "We leave to-day," said Yung How casually.

  "So I understand," said the other.

  "I suppose letters will be forwarded?"

  "The judge has given instructions. All letters and parcels are to beforwarded to the British Consulate at Wu-chau."

  "In Wu-chau," said Yung How, "I have a brother."

  He turned away and went upstairs, where he entered the bedroom of MrWaldron. In one of the small drawers of the dressing-table hediscovered the millionaire's cheque-book; and since he could readEnglish tolerably well, he spent a pleasant five minutes studying thecounterfoils. Then quite suddenly Mr Waldron came in.

  "Say," said he, "what are you doing here?"

  "Have cleaned hairbrushes," said Yung How, without a moment'shesitation.

  "Then, git!" cried Mr Waldron. "Guess I can fill my own grip-sack. WhenI want a slit-eyed son of Satan hanging around my boudoir, I'll send forhim. So, git!"

  And Yung How "got." He walked gravely from the room with his head heldproudly in the air, and his eyes fixed upon the ground. He appearedgrossly insulted.

  He knew very well, however, that the great city of Wu-chau lies upon theWest River, and is not so far--as the crow flies--from the town ofPinglo, where Cheong-Chau was in the habit of smoking opium.