Part 9

At the outskirts of the camp Wang Shih dismissed his men, proceeding alone with Jack to the tent. It was the head-quarters of the chief. There was no sign of state, no sentinel at the entrance; Wang Shih rode up unquestioned, and unceremoniously shouted into the tent for Mr. Ah. If Jack had expected to see the typical brigand of romance he must have been disappointed. Ah Lum was the shortest member of the band, a wiry figure with a slight stoop. His appearance was that of a university professor rather than a warrior. He was apparently between forty and fifty years of age, with an intelligent and thoughtful cast of countenance, enhanced by a pair of horn spectacles over which he looked searchingly when Jack was introduced to him. Ah Lum was, in fact, a man of considerable education and even learning. He had taken the highest honours in the examinations for the successive degrees of Cultivated Talent, Uplifted Literary Man, and Exalted Bookworm; and the poems he composed when competing for a place in the Board of Civil Office were acknowledged as superior to anything recently written in the Mandarin language. But his success on this occasion awoke a bitter jealousy in the breast of a "same-year-man" who had kept pace with him throughout his career until this last promotion. The disappointed candidate adopted a characteristically Chinese mode of wreaking vengeance. He committed suicide on Ah Lum's door-step. According to Chinese belief Ah Lum would not only be haunted ever after by his rival's spirit, but would also have to clear himself before the mandarin's court of a charge of murder. Unluckily the mandarin was an enemy of Ah Lum; his price for a favourable judgment was more than the Exalted Bookworm could offer; and the latter, seeing that his condemnation was certain, discreetly vacated his desk at the Board of Civil Office and betook himself to the mountains.

Jack only learnt all this gradually. His first impression of Ah Lum as a spectacled, courteous, polished savant left him wondering how such a man had succeeded in imposing his authority on the hard-living, hard-faring, reckless set of outlaws who composed his band. That he had some personal force of character was a foregone conclusion, for his position could depend on nothing else. He received Jack very kindly, and, having Heard his story from Wang Shih, promised to do all he could to help him.

"Mr. Wang," he said, bowing to his lieutenant, "does me the honour to be my friend. Has he not rendered me great services? Surely it becomes me to serve his friends when my insignificant capabilities permit. Meanwhile deign, sir, to regard all our contemptible possessions as your own, and excuse our numberless shortcomings. Where good-will is the cook, the dish is already seasoned."

He paused, as though expecting a comment on the proverb.

"Quite so," said Jack, feeling that he ought to say something.

The chief proceeded at once to warn him of the danger of pursuing further his attempt to enter Moukden in disguise. If he tried to pass as a Canton man he might at any moment meet a real Cantonese, as had already happened to his cost; and, besides, the Cantonese were not loved in Manchuria. As a Manchu, on the other hand, he would be apt to betray himself in endless little ways. However, if he were bent on it, Ah Lum would do what he could to secure him good treatment. Meanwhile, after what he had gone through, a few days' rest in camp would do him no harm.

"Haste is the parent of delay," he said; "whereas if one has a mind to beat a stone, the stone will in due time have a hole in it."

Again he paused, like an actor waiting for the gallery's applause to his tag.

"A very sound maxim," said Jack, thinking it well to humour this singular moralist.

The chief concluded with an offer of hospitality so cordial, that Jack, anxious as he was to pursue his mission, could not well decline it.

Wang Shih, Jack found, was third in command. His enormous strength, allied to a bull-dog courage, had enabled him to force his way to the front in a community where those qualities were esteemed above all others. That they were not the only titles to respect was proved by the position of the chief; and the longer Jack stayed in the camp the more he was impressed by the ease and firmness with which Ah Lum swayed his band.

The chief had a son, a boy of twelve, who from the first took a great liking to Jack. Ah Fu was a bright boy, vivacious for a Chinese; and Ah Lum loved him with even more than the usual Chinaman's devotion. He doted on the child. He never tired of talking about him to Jack.

"If," he said, "a man has much money, but no child, he cannot be reckoned rich: if he has children, but no money, he cannot be reckoned poor. And I am blessed in my son: he is dutiful, respectful, voracious of knowledge. 'A bad son', says the Sage, 'is as a dunning creditor; but a good son as the repayment of a long-standing debt'."

At great pains he had kidnapped two graduates for the express purpose of having Ah Fu carefully trained in the elements of Chinese culture. Himself a man of education, he set the highest value on learning. "Weeds are the only harvest of an untilled field," he would say. "Though your sons be well disposed, yet if they be not duly instructed, what can you expect of them but ignorance?" In addition to his daily instruction in the philosophers and poets, the boy went through all kinds of physical exercises--practising with the bow and the rifle, riding a spirited little pony, learning fearless horsemanship from the best rider in the band; and the Chunchuses rival the Cossacks in the superb management of their steeds. Before Jack had been a day in the camp he was requested by the chief to teach his son English. He agreed, though he thought that in the short time he was to spend with them not much could be done. Ah Lum was very pressing in the matter. Jack, he was sure, had all the learning of the west (this tickled Jack; how the fourth-form master at Sherborne would have roared!). The learning of the east Ah Lum himself could get for the boy. In addition to the kidnapped graduates he had his eye on an astronomer of distinction at Kirin, and at Tieling there lived a very learned man, skilled in the casting of horoscopes. But he had naturally few opportunities of providing European instruction. "True doctrine cannot injure the true scholar," he said. "An ounce of wisdom is worth a world of gold." He was particularly anxious that Ah Fu should lack nothing in education through his father's outlawed condition. Himself a poet, he set much store by poetry; and having learnt from Jack that the most popular English poet was Tennyson, he made it a special point that the boy should from the first learn some of his poems. Jack was amused; he did not tell the chief that poetry was not so highly esteemed in England as in China; but happening to know a few odds and ends of Tennyson's verse, he got Ah Fu to repeat them after him until the boy could recite them faultlessly. Jack had his doubts whether the poems thus recited would have been recognized by an Englishman, but that was nothing to the point.

After a week, when he felt his strength thoroughly recruited, Jack spoke of continuing his journey. But Ah Lum, in his politest manner, urged excellent reasons why he should remain a little longer. It had been raining almost continuously since his arrival; the streams were in flood; the rivers were not fordable. Moreover, a large body of Russian troops was moving between the camp and Moukden; and Chinamen were being narrowly questioned and examined under suspicion of being Japanese spies in disguise. Day after day passed; every hint of Jack's that he wished to be off was met by some new excuse enforced by maxims, and turned by a question as to how Ah Fu was getting on with his poetry. At last Jack grew uneasy and suspicious; it appeared as if Ah Lum intended to keep him as an additional tutor, unpaid. He began to think of taking French leave, but was restrained by several considerations: the fact that he owed his life to the brigands; the danger lest his disappearance should cause a quarrel between Wang Shih and the chief; the hope that he might find the Chunchuses useful in prosecuting his search; and the risk of recapture, for he knew that the country people would certainly give him up to the chief if they caught him.

He abandoned therefore the idea of flight, resolving to stay on with what patience he could muster, and hoping to obtain his end by mild persistence. But his courteous and repeated applications were met by still more courteous and equally firm refusals--not direct refusals, but regrets that on one pretext or another the "Ingoua superior man" could not safely leave the camp. Ah Lum's stock of proverbs and maxims was again drawn upon. "Though powerful drugs be nauseous to the taste, they are beneficial to the stomach. So, candid advice may be unpleasant to the ear, but it is profitable for the conduct. The carpenter makes the cangue that he himself may be doomed to wear."

"Exactly."

There was a want of conviction in Jack's stereotyped reply. He was growing tired of these eternal copy-book headings, which seemed to him often the merest platitudes--tired of expressing the assent which his sententious host always looked for. He asked Wang Shih to expostulate with the chief; but when the Chinaman ventured to suggest that the young Englishman's dutiful regard for his father ought to be respected and his errand furthered, he got a good snubbing for his pains.

"It is easy to convince a wise man," said Ah Lum with a snap; "but to reason with fools, that is a difficult undertaking. You cannot turn a somersault in an oyster-shell."

Greatly daring, Wang Shih cited a maxim very pertinent, he thought, to the case.

"True, honourable sir; but is it not written: 'Of a hundred virtues, filial piety is the best'?"

"No doubt," retorted Ah Lum, still more snappishly. "But remember that if a man has good desires, heaven will assuredly grant them."

And Jack had to kick his heels, and drum poetry into Ah Fu, thinking disrespectfully of proverbial philosophy.

Thus three weeks passed. During this period the band grew steadily stronger. Jack reckoned that it now numbered at least eleven hundred. The rains having ceased, the camp was moved some twenty miles to the north-west, not in a direct line to Moukden, but nearer to that city. To Jack this was a crumb of comfort; but there were disadvantages in the change, for with the finer weather and the removal to somewhat lower ground, the midges and mosquitoes became more lively and troublesome, and he spent many a hot hour of pain and smart.

Another fortnight went by. The Chunchuses had been inactive so far as brigandage was concerned, and, except that they did no work, they might have been nothing but a peaceful mountain tribe. But one day a deputation came to the chief from a village lying in the midst of a woody and well-cultivated valley a few miles from the camp. They announced that their plantations of young bamboos were being devastated by a herd of wild boars with which they were unable to cope, and they had been deputed to beg the Chunchuse chief to come to their assistance. Ah Lum was never unwilling to please the country people when he saw a chance of gaining a substantial advantage. "Let no man," he would say, "despise the snake that has no horns, for who can say that it may not become a dragon?" Food was running short, and but for the deputation it was probable that some fine night the village would have been raided and plundered. But the request for assistance opened the way for a deal; Ah Lum consented to organize a battue in return for a large supply of food and fodder; and after half a day had been spent in haggling, the deputation returned, promising to send in the quantity first demanded.

The chief was exceedingly pleased.

"Do not rashly provoke quarrels, but let concord and good understanding prevail among neighbours. Seeing an opportunity to make a bargain, one should think of righteousness."

Jack welcomed the impending hunt as a pleasant change, and appeared to gratify the chief when he asked to be allowed to join in it. As a diversion from the sugared sweetness of Tennyson, he bethought himself to teach Ah Fu Fielding's fine song "A-hunting we will go"; and when the boy learnt the meaning of the words, he was all afire to share in the chase. Ah Lum was pleased with his spirit; but being unwilling that his only son should run any risk, he at first declined his request. The boy persisted, pointing out that he was already a good shot, and asking what was the good of his learning poems of hunting if he was not allowed to express in action the ardour thus fostered. This argument appealed to the chief's sense of the fitness of things; he would have agreed with Socrates that action was the end of heroic poetry; he yielded, stipulating, however, that throughout the hunt the boy should remain at his side.

Jack soon found that the hunt was not to be conducted on the lines of pig-sticking in India. He remembered the vivid account of such an adventure given him by a Behar planter whom he had once met on board a steamer between Shanghai and Newchang. Nor were the animals to be caught in artfully-contrived pits, as is the custom in Manchuria. The chief was ignorant of the Indian method, and was possessed of too strong a sporting instinct to be content with the work of a trapper; it was to be a real hunt, as he understood it. The cover in which the boars were known to lurk was about a square mile in extent. Ah Lum intended to take advantage of the large force at his disposal and arrange for beaters to drive the animals to a comparatively open space, at the end of which he and a select few would take up their positions and shoot down the boars as they emerged from cover. This seemed likely to be a safe way of effecting the desired object; and though not sport in the British sense, it would at any rate make some demand on their nerve and their marksmanship.

The important day came. On a bright fresh morning, soon after the sun had gilded the hilltops, when the air was clear and a cool breeze tempered the summer heat, Ah Lum, accompanied by seven of his best marksmen and by Ah Fu and Jack, rode down to skirt the base of the hill and gain the northern side of the clearing to which the boars were to be driven. Jack had been provided with a rifle and a long knife; his pupil rode at his side, armed with a carbine; and very proudly the boy bore himself. At the foot of the hill the party were met by some of the villagers, come to guide them to their destination. When they reached the spot they found that the clearing was about a furlong across, with thin plantations behind them and on either side, and in front a mass of dense, almost impenetrable scrub interspersed with trees.

The party of ten took up their position in line facing the scrub, standing a few feet apart; Ah Lum was in the centre, with the boy on his left, and Jack one place farther in the same direction. Jack felt that if the Manchurian boar was anything like the Indian specimen of which his planter friend had told him, the party might have a lively time should two or three of the beasts break cover at the same moment, especially if they should charge down through the plantations on left and right. The Chunchuses, however, were evidently secure in their numbers and the stopping power of their military rifles.

The beaters, nearly a thousand strong, had been sent to their allotted positions earlier in the morning. They formed a rough semicircle more than two miles in length. When all was ready, the chief sent a horseman to the farthest point with orders to begin the beat. The clang of a gong soon rang out in the still morning air; immediately the sound was taken up all along the arc; drums, gongs, rattles, shrill yells combined to form a pandemonium of noise. Flocks of birds clattered out of the tree-tops and flew in consternation over the country; hares and rabbits darted out of the underwood as the beaters closed in; a fox or two, even a wolf, came padding out, stopped at the edge, gave a glance at the line of men, and disappeared on either side. All these passed unmolested; the ten stood in silent expectation, ready to bring their weapons to the shoulder.

Suddenly from the centre of the scrub pounded with lowered tusks a large boar. He had advanced some yards into the open before he was aware of the ten human figures ranged opposite to him. Then, swerving heavily to the left, he trotted towards the plantation. At the same moment two shots rang out as one; the chief and his son had fired together, the others waiting in courtesy. Ah Lum, for all his spectacles, his poetry, and his sentences, was an excellent shot; the boar fell within a yard of the trees; the chief's bullet had penetrated his brain.

Hardly had the smoke cleared away when two other boars appeared at different parts of the scrub. Eight rifles flashed; the boar to the right fell; but the other, unhurt, instead of making towards safety in the plantation, dashed straight across the open. As by a miracle it survived a volley from the whole party of ten, and had come within twenty yards of them before it was struck mortally and rolled over. The hunters, their attention fixed on the gallant beast that had just succumbed, did not notice that he was followed at a few yards by a huge tusker, the glare of whose red eyes sent a thrill through one at least of the party. Dashing at headlong speed through the plantation almost in a line with the hunters, the boar came on unswervingly, heedless of a scattering fire. The hunters impeded each other; Ah Lum and the men on his right could hardly fire as they stood without hitting their companions. There was a moment's hesitation; then the chief, with a cry to his boy to run, stepped calmly to the front, preparing to fire at a range of only a few yards. But one of his men on the left, in a nervous anxiety born of the emergency, rushed forward, and, stumbling against his leader, spoilt his aim. The shot flew wide. The unfortunate man paid dearly for his clumsiness. In another moment the boar was among the party, making frantic rushes, ripping and tearing with his formidable tusks, his bloodshot eyes glaring with the concentrated fury which only a wounded boar can express. Several shots were fired, but the beast's movements were so rapid that they either missed him, or, hitting him at a non-fatal spot, served only still further to infuriate him. The inexperienced hunters, indeed, were in greater danger than the boar from each other's firearms. They hesitated in confusion, moving this way and that to avoid each other; then, in a sudden panic, several of them took to their heels and made for the shelter of the trees.

But Ah Fu stood his ground, as though fascinated. His father and Jack perceived at the same moment that the boar in desperate and vengeful rage was heading straight for the boy, who held his carbine at the slant, looking on as at some fearful thrilling spectacle. Ah Lum and Jack, separated from the boy in their movements for securing good aim, sprang to his assistance. But before they could reach his side the beast was upon him. Awake to his danger, the little fellow raised his carbine to his shoulder and fired almost point-blank; but the Russian service bullet has no stopping power to check a wild boar in full career; the boy was toppled over, receiving a gash in the leg from the mighty tusk. Then the animal wheeled in his tracks to pursue his vengeance. Jack's rifle was empty; even if it had been loaded he could hardly have fired without running the risk of hitting the boy. The chief was still a few yards away, he, too, rendered helpless by the same appalling danger. Jack saw that in an instant his little pupil, now gamely struggling to his feet, must be gored to death. Dropping his rifle, he drew his knife, and flung himself upon the blinded, maddened brute, driving the weapon between its shoulders. So great was his impetus that he stumbled full across the boar, which, intent upon its purpose, struggled on a foot or two, staggering under the blow, but making light of Jack's weight. Even as Jack was wondering whether his stroke had failed, the beast uttered a long squealing grunt, fell on its knees, then rolled over stone-dead within a few inches of Ah Fu.

The chief caught the boy in his arms and held him in a warm embrace; the runaway Chunchuses, no more boars being visible, came dropping back from the plantations; and Jack, his coat covered with blood, rose panting from the back of the victim.

*CHAPTER X*

*The Hired Man*

Gratitude--On Humanity--A Broken Thread--The Hill Country--Nearing Moukden--The Compradore--News at Last--Sowinski's Address--Burnt Offerings--A Little Black Box--Toitshe!--Pidgin--Excellence--Herr Schwab--Photographabbaratus

After the rescue of Ah Fu, Jack stood in a new relationship to Ah Lum. The boy was the apple of the chief's eye; nothing was too good for his deliverer. When the party reached camp after the memorable adventure, Ah Lum paraded his whole band, and, his voice broken by unwonted emotion, proclaimed the Englishman his friend. In all such moments of ceremony the literary man, the university graduate, appeared through the brigand chief. After reciting the heroic deed in the flowery language a scholarly Chinaman always has at command, he continued:

"Forgetfulness of a favour received is a sure sign of a bad heart. Let me speak in a similitude. A man is on a long journey; his money is all spent; he is destitute, far from home, without friends, and perishing from want. To him comes a stranger whose goodness of heart leads him to present the wanderer with a few hundred cash, thereby preserving his life. Should he afterwards see this man, his benefactor, ought he not to make some expression of gratitude? It is a common saying, if we receive from others a favour like a drop of water, the return should be as an overflowing fountain. How much more when a man snatches from death a male child! Does not the Sage say: 'The three greatest misfortunes in life are: in youth to bury one's father; at the middle age to lose one's wife; and, being old, to have no son'? Heaven has already afflicted me with the first and the second of these tribulations; the honourable foreigner by his magnanimous courage has spared me the last. It is a true saying, 'The brave act like tigers, not like mice'. Some of you, to the shame of your ancestors, acted like mice; the Ingoua leapt forth like a tiger and saved my pearl from the snout. He is my friend; whosoever does him a service does a greater service to me. As the Poet says:

"'The Spring that feeds the Mountain Rill Helps the great River to grow greater still'."