Part 24

As Jack had hoped, the suddenness and unexpectedness of the news, and the urgency of his manner, bereft the station-master of all power of independent thought. He hurried along the platform, shoving aside all who stood in his path, every man in the crowd looking on with wonderment. He sprang on to the line, with his own hands uncoupled the engine, signalled for the points to be closed, and ordered the driver to send it ahead at full speed.

"Two minutes saved!" thought Jack, as the engine started. But he could not afford to let the flurried official regain his self-command.

"That is not enough," he said. "They will see the engine, reverse, couple it on, and come at greater speed. I've tried it already. You must empty the passenger train, and then push it along with the goods engine. It would be well to throw a carriage or two off the rails at the points. Anything to block the line."

"Certainly, your nobility," said the station-master. "It is the only way."

They were now on the track between the waiting train and Jack's. Many of the passengers had their heads out of the windows, wondering what was going on. Waving his arms, the station-master summoned them in urgent tones to alight.

"I'll now push on," said Jack. "Do your best, nichalnik; remember how much depends on you."

He walked rapidly along between the trains to reach his engine. Passengers, anxious, wonder-struck, were already leaving the train. One of them, a Russian army doctor, stopped Jack and asked what was the matter.

"Train behind in possession of the enemy," returned Jack laconically.

"Bozhe moi!" ejaculated the doctor, drawing his revolver and making for the platform.

Jack passed on, not venturing to delay even long enough to assist a lady, for whom the jump from carriage to track was somewhat difficult. She sprang down unassisted.

"Monsieur Brown, Monsieur Brown!"

Jack shivered from top to toe, and never in his life felt so much inclined to take to his heels as then. He could hardly believe he had heard aright; yet amid the bustle now filling the station he had caught the whisper of his name. On a sudden impulse he swung round.

"Monsieur Brown," said Gabriele Walewska, running up to him, "I have news for you: I have something to show you."

"Come with me, Mademoiselle," said Jack instantly. "I haven't a minute to lose."

"But Masha is here; I cannot leave her."

"For heaven's sake, Mademoiselle, climb up into this carriage. I will fetch Masha."

With anxiety tearing at his heart Jack hurried back down the train. He saw Gabriele's old nurse at the door of a carriage; she was almost the only passenger who had not yet alighted.

"Spring into my arms," he said, forgetting that she knew no tongue but Polish. But his outstretched arms spoke for him. The woman jumped clumsily; but Jack kept his feet, and, straining his muscles, he carried the burden, as rapidly as he could stagger, to his own train. Gabriele's hands were ready to help the woman; with an unceremonious heave Jack pushed her into the carriage. Then he ran to his engine, swung himself up, and pressed the lever just as the empty passenger train moved off in the other direction. Before he had run a hundred yards he heard a crash behind. Glancing back, he saw that the first carriage had jumped the points, ploughed up the permanent way, and overturned. One after another the other carriages followed; and in a brief minute there was a pile of wrecked trucks and coaches in inextricable confusion across the rails.

Jack had not time to give a second thought to Gabriele. He was again urging Alexander the Second along at full speed. He must run to within a few miles of the next station, and lift enough rails to delay for some hours any train despatched from the direction of Ninguta. Twenty minutes brought him to a likely spot--a high culvert over a brawling hill stream. Employing the whole strength of his detachment in the work, he lifted fifty yards of the track and flung the rails and sleepers into the stream's rocky bed.

"At last!" he exclaimed. The load of anxiety he had borne for over two hours was gone. From the place where he had wrecked the bridge nearly a hundred miles westward to the spot where he now stood, traffic on the Siberian railway was hopelessly blocked.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

*A Double Quest*

Gabriele's Story--A Hasty Word--Lex Talionis--Bribery and Corruption--Cause and Effect--The Natural Man--The Filial Obligation--The Choice of Routes--A Fair Pleader--In the Circumstances--Improving the Occasion

Jack's part was done. The way had been cleared for the passage of the Chunchuses across the railway, and knowing Ah Lum's rapidity of movement he felt tolerably sure that the crossing might easily be made. He could now afford to think of his own safety. He determined to run the train back as near as he dared to Pei-su-ho, then to leave it standing on the line and make off in a northerly or north-westerly direction, trusting to join hands with Ah Lum at some distance north of the line. The railway guards were amazed to see the train running swiftly backwards; but, whatever their suspicions, they were powerless. Jack came to a stop between two of the block-houses; in a few minutes his men alighted with Bekovitch and Sowinski, Gabriele, and her nurse; and then Jack abandoned the noble Alexander the Second that had served him so well, and started on his northward march. Some distance above the line he instinctively turned for a last look. There was the short train, motionless on the rails, a derelict in a vast solitude. But it represented activities that had disorganized the whole traffic of the line for a hundred miles, nullified a military scheme, and saved hundreds of lives. It was not without a certain grim amusement Jack remembered that the final card in that game had been played by the Russians themselves. "I only hope the station-master won't be cashiered," he thought, as he turned his back upon the scene.

Not till now had he an opportunity of learning what strange fate had entrusted Gabriele to his care. Some time after he had left the missionary's house the girl, unable to endure the separation from her father, again ventured into Vladivostok. Acting on the knowledge that Jack had bribed a Russian official, she succeeded in persuading a colonist about to re-embark for Sakhalin to carry a letter from her to Count Walewski. She told him of her intentions, assuring him that in spite of her failure to gain permission to enter the island, she still meant to persevere. Several weeks later she received a reply, brought by the same man, who had crossed the sea in probably the last boat before the ports became ice-bound. It was addressed in a strange handwriting, and as she tore it open she was oppressed by the fear that her father was dead. But the first line of the letter, written in French, dispelled her anxiety. The count was ill in hospital, unable to write; but he had availed himself of the ready help of a fellow-prisoner--a political prisoner who had recently arrived in the island. He thanked his daughter for her affectionate solicitude, but pled with her to abandon her purpose: Sakhalin was no place for a woman; she would only suffer without alleviating his lot. As for himself, until the arrival of his new friend he had despaired of ever regaining his liberty. But the surprising news that the Japanese were winning victory after victory had sown a seed of hope. The prisoners on the island had been fed with lies by the officials, who reported constant victories for Russia. But the new-comer had thrown a fresh light on the war; he could not foresee its end: the Russians had still enormous powers of resistance; it was possible that the great fleet on its way eastward might break through to Vladivostok and change the aspect of things. Yet, if it should be defeated, the Japanese might capture Sakhalin; possibly the political prisoners would then be released if they had not been previously removed to the mainland. It was only a possibility, but sufficient to give new courage to a sorely-tried man.

Jack read all this himself, for Gabriele, immediately after explaining how the letter came into her possession, handed it to him. The writing was his father's. At the first moment he felt unutterable relief in finding that his father was alive; then rage burned within him as he saw before him, marching at some distance apart, each manacled to a Chunchuse, the two men whose villainy had sent Mr. Brown to the bleak "island of the dead". Gabriele noticed his look.

"I understand," she said. "But if your anger is great, how much greater is mine! Your father's persecutor is a Russian, a foreigner; my father was betrayed by one of his own countrymen,--one of his own house. The traitor there recognized me as I entered the saloon carriage; bound as he was, he shrank from me as though expecting that I would kill him."

"But he did not recognize you when he saw you at Father Mayenobe's?"

"No. But something must have put him on my track, for it is through him that I was a passenger on the train. I was arrested in Vladivostok and ordered to go back to Europe. He was with the soldiers who arrested me: in fact, he pointed me out to them. I do not know how he came to recognize me after all."

At the moment no explanation occurred to Jack, who indeed did not give a thought to it. But later he remembered that, on the well-remembered evening in Moukden when he had got the better of Sowinski, he had mentioned the man's true name, Streleszki. This had no doubt set the Pole wondering how Jack could have learnt his name; and the chain of incidents had led him to connect the disclosure with the European girl he had met at the missionary's. So that Jack's almost inadvertent explanation had ultimately led to this meeting with Gabriele at the station, and to the end of his long search for his father's whereabouts.

The party marched as rapidly as possible, rising gradually towards the barren hills. After two hours they stopped for a brief rest, and for the first time since his capture at Mao-shan General Bekovitch was within arm's-length of the Chunchuse leader. Jack wondered whether he would be recognized; but the change of costume, the hardening of his features and the development of his physique due to his active rigorous life, made him a different being from the lad whom Bekovitch had seen for five minutes at the Moukden railway-station. And the general was certainly not in such a calm and collected mood as might quicken his memory. He was indeed in a condition of boiling rage and indignation.

"Here, you--" he cried, seeing Jack so near to him. "Do you understand Russian?"

"Moderately well, sir."

His very voice had become more manly; its deeper tones did not awaken recollection.

"Then what do you mean, confound you! by treating a Russian general officer thus? What do you mean, I say? Do you know what you are doing? Made to tramp over these hills--fettered to a filthy Chinaman--why--why----"

The general could find no further words to express his indignation.

"Is it not the Russian custom to manacle prisoners?" asked Jack quietly.

The Russian's cheeks took a purple hue.

"An officer--a general! Do you know who I am, you--you----"

"You are General Bekovitch."

"Well--well--loose me at once, then; I insist on this indignity being removed; it is monstrous!"

"Possibly; but quite Russian. You are no worse treated than you treat your prisoners. If a Chunchuse, myself for instance, had fallen into your hands, what would have been his fate?"

The mild reasonableness of the Chunchuse's reply, together with his firm attitude, seemed to suggest to the general that he should try another tack.

"Come," he said, with sudden suavity, "I know you gentlemen; I suppose it is a matter of dollars. How much will you take to let me go?"

Jack looked at him.

"Say a thousand dollars--that's a very fair sum, more than you'd get in the ordinary way of your--business. Eh?"

"Yes: our business, as you call it, is certainly not profitable, but we do make a haul at times."

The general looked furious. Jack quietly continued:

"But you are making a mistake--you are treating me as you would a Russian and an official. I am merely a brigand--but we Chunchuses have our code. Dirty though he is, General Bekovitch, the man you are bound to has cleaner hands than you: he at least is an honest man according to his lights. It is he who should complain of contamination."

Bekovitch quivered with rage, but gulping down the indiscreet words his anger prompted he returned to the point.

"I could make you a rich man. I said a thousand dollars; come, I will make it two thousand. It will buy you a pardon, and an official post as well. Batiushki! no brigand ever had such a chance."

Jack laughed.

"We have our code, General Bekovitch, I repeat. There are some things bribery cannot effect. Your release just now is one of them. But for bribery you would not be here."

The general stared.

"What do you mean?"

"It is all very simple. If the Pole Sowinski yonder had not bribed you, General Bekovitch, you would not have conspired against Mr. Brown at Moukden, and you would not have needed to deport his son. If you had not deported his son, his son would not still be in Manchuria; and if he had not been in Manchuria he could not have captured you, General Bekovitch, and you need not have attempted to bribe him."

The general stared incredulously at the speaker. Then it was as though the Cossack uniform dropped away; as though the young man before him became again the lad he had been nine months before. The Russian recognized him at last, and his jaw fell.

"You see now," pursued Jack, "the double uselessness of offering bribes to me--as the son of Mr. Brown, and as an Englishman."

"What are you going to do with me?"

All the bluster, all the silkiness, was now gone; the general was anxious, almost suppliant.

"That I cannot say. You will be delivered to my chief, Mr. Ah. It is likely that you will be detained until my father is released. But I cannot answer for Mr. Ah. He is a Chinaman, with Chinese ideas. Much may depend on how my father has been treated."

Bekovitch became pale; his eyes looked anxiously around. Jack left him to his meditation. Passing the spot where Sowinski sat, manacled like Bekovitch, Jack noticed that the Pole's eyes met his with a hunted, terrified look. He had recognized his captor at once, and having also seen Gabriele he felt that he had to reckon with her as well; and his imagination of what he himself might do, were he in their place, shook him like the ague.

The march was resumed, and late in the day the party came in touch with Ah Lum's scouts. The meeting between Ah Lum and Jack was very warm.

"Never was captain so nobly served," said the grateful chief. "I was at my wits' end to escape the meshes of the net; and now not only have I escaped, but I hold in my power the man who was to ensnare me. Truly the poet Li T'ai-poh was right when he said, in his _Apology for Friendship_--

"'Never despair: the darkest Lot may mend; Call no Man lost that hath one faithful Friend'.

You will find the works of Li T'ai-poh worthy of perusal, my honoured friend. They have been to me as a bright star to a wanderer in a dark night."

Jack thanked him for the recommendation; then changed the topic, and asked how the crossing of the line had been effected. He learnt that a slight skirmish had taken place at the line between the Chunchuses and the energetic pursuers of the train; but the Russians, being hopelessly outnumbered, had been compelled to retire with loss. Ah Lum in his turn was informed of the discovery of Mr. Brown's whereabouts.

"Nothing proceeds from the machinations of men," he said, "but the whole of our lives is planned by destiny."

"Yes, Mr. Ah, and destiny has willed that my father's persecutor and your hunter are the same man--the Russian general there."

"Ch'hoy! May his posterity be cut off! May the five thunders strike him dead! May the village constable attend to his remains! May he be born again as a hog! When we pitch our camp, I will cut out his tongue, fry him in a caldron of oil, rip----"

"Stay, stay, Mr. Ah!" cried Jack, aghast at this unwonted fury in his scholarly friend. "You forget that he is a European, and I am an Englishman; we don't do such things in my country."

"But it is an imperative duty. Your duty to your father demands that you should heap on the villain the direst curses, and inflict on him the most terrible torture."

"No, Mr. Ah, the books of our sages teach us differently. Besides, my father would not approve: he would most strongly disapprove."

This was a new aspect, and one that Ah Lum took time to consider.

"That alters the case," he at length reluctantly admitted. "A son may not act contrary to his father's wishes. What does the poet Tu Fu so beautifully say?--

"'Happy the Father, yea, and doubly blest, Whose Son, though absent, doeth his Behest'.

Yes, it is a pity; but when inclination and the counsel of sages agree, there is but one course."

Considering that there would be plenty of time to levy a contribution on the settlement at Shih-tou-ho-tzue, Ah Lum sent back 200 men for the purpose of collecting supplies, and pushed on with the main body. A few hours later the detachment rejoined, with a number of carts containing useful stores of all kinds, and the march northward was resumed with all speed. One of the carts was appropriated to the use of Gabriele and her servant; but the former soon declared that she preferred to walk; the springless cart made riding anything but comfortable. The march was continued throughout the day. In the evening Ah Lum reached a spot far in the hills, where he might safely encamp.

Next morning Jack took the earliest opportunity of holding a consultation with the chief. It was his fixed intention to get if possible to Sakhalin; he knew his father was there: to rescue him ought not to be difficult. As a Chinaman Ah Lum confessed that he could not oppose an enterprise of such piety; but as a practical man he thought it his duty to mention the objections. He had never been to Sakhalin, but he understood that it was a terrible place, visited by fierce storms, buried for the greater part of the year under snow and ice, covered with thick forests, infested by wild beasts, wilder men, and even hideous dragons. By the many forms of exorcism employed for generations past in China, dragons had been driven out of the Celestial Kingdom; but they had crossed the sea and taken refuge, so Ah Lum had been informed, in the dreary wastes of Sakhalin.

Jack brushed all these objections aside. Seeing that he was firm, the chief carefully considered the best means of helping him. The strait between Siberia and Sakhalin was at this time of the year frozen over; the ice would not begin to break up for several weeks. The nearest point at which it could be crossed was at least 1500 li from the Chunchuses' present encampment, and not only would so long a journey be attended by many hardships, but Jack would be liable to arrest as soon as he came to any considerable Russian settlement. Jack at once said that he did not propose to make the long overland journey; his best plan would be to sail by junk from one of the Manchurian ports as soon as the coast was clear of ice. To go to Vladivostok was too risky; Possiet Bay was the nearest point, and the most promising in all respects. It was some hundreds of li distant, and there were high hills to be crossed; but Ah Lum offered to send with Jack a man who knew the country, and to issue orders to the headman of every important village, instructing him under pain of his severest displeasure and drastic penalties to do all in his power to forward the journey.

This having been settled, the question of the disposal of the prisoners arose.

"I am not one to mistake a village headman for the emperor," said the chief; "but fishes, though deep in the water, may be hooked, and I know I have a valuable fish in the Russian general. How many men think you a general is worth in exchanges?"

"That's a hard question, Mr. Ah. Some less than nothing: others an infinite amount."

"Then it will be a matter of long bargaining. As for the other man, he is of little account. The mule is always attended by a flea. The two men are companions: what does that prove? When the rat and the cat sleep together, be sure that the larder will be empty in the morning. As the fishmonger throws a sprat into the scale to make the salmon appear cheap, so will I deal with the Pole when I dispose of the Russian. But there is another point, my honoured friend; what is to become of these women whom Destiny has sent to trouble me?"

"Yes, that has troubled me, too. I must go and hear what they say."

Jack found Gabriele listening gravely to Ah Fu's recitation of the "May Queen".

"Mademoiselle, may I have a little serious talk with you? The chief is sadly perturbed about your presence here."

"Well, Monsieur Brown, it was your train that brought me. Seriously, I suppose I must go back to Father Mayenobe _en route_ to Sakhalin, for sooner or later I will get there--on that I am determined. They may deport me, but I shall always return.--What will you do yourself?--not remain a Chunchuse?"

"No, indeed. I am going to find my father."

"To Sakhalin?"

"Yes."

"Oh! Monsieur Brown, cannot I come too? I may never get such a chance again. My poor father! he has been there six years. Take me with you."

"But, Mademoiselle----"

"I am very strong, really I am. Did I not walk for six hours yesterday? I will not delay your march."

"But think of the difficulties--a long mountain journey to begin with, a voyage in a junk at one of the worst seasons of the year, the danger of being discovered and arrested at any moment, exposure, perhaps hunger----"

"I am not afraid. And surely it will be better for me to face these hardships in your company than alone!"

"Alone?"

"Yes, alone! I have as strong a motive as you; my father--oh! I cannot bear to think of him ill and wretched. I shall go to Sakhalin. If you will not take me, and do not give me up to the Russians, I shall tramp to the coast and cross on the ice--alone."

Jack hardly knew whether to be amused at the absurdity of such a venture, or to be impressed with the girl's determination. That she meant what she said he had not the slightest doubt.

"But what about Masha?"

"Poor old thing! She declares she will never leave me. And she is quite strong--stronger than I am, though she is getting on in years. We shall get through somehow; the Lord God will protect us."

In face of this spirit Jack felt helpless. It was arranged that Gabriele and the nurse should accompany him. Their destination was kept secret from the band, lest by any mischance it should leak out. A week afterwards, Jack took a cordial farewell of Ah Lum, asking him, if he had any news to communicate, to write to him at the care of the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank at Shanghai. The leave-taking was conducted with due solemnity. There was no question as to Ah Lum's sincerity of feeling. He was unfeignedly sorry to lose the lieutenant who had done him such yeoman service. When he had exhausted the resources of his language to express his gratitude, he spent a few minutes in bestowing fatherly counsel on Jack, drawing lavishly from his well of proverbial wisdom. Jack found the draught a trifle turgid, but otherwise the quality was excellent.