Chapter 3

Amongst the crowd in the courtroom, but practically unnoticed, sat Liu, son of the late Kwong. The proceedings being in English, he was unable to follow them, but he knew enough to realise that the slayer of his father was being tried. Presumably his life was at stake, as was befitting under the circumstances. Therefore his surprise was great when the outcome of the case was explained to him by a Chinese friend who understood English, and his astonishment, if such it may be called, was still more intense upon seeing Rivers walk out of the courtroom receiving congratulatory handshakes as he passed. To the ignorant mind of the young Chinese, Rivers was being felicitated for having committed murder. He was unable to draw any fine distinctions, or to understand that these congratulations were not intended for Rivers personally, but because his acquittal strengthened established precedents. Precedents that rendered unassailable the status of the ruling race. Liu was therefore filled with an overmastering and bitter hatred of Rivers, and had he realised what the acquittal stood for, would probably have been filled with an equally intense hatred for the dominant race in general. Not understanding that, however, he concentrated his feelings upon Rivers, and resolved to bring him to account in accord with simpler, less civilized standards.

Within two months, the Temple Hotel was finished and ready for use. Much foreign furniture had been sent up from Shanghai, and Rivers and his wife also removed themselves to the up-river town and set about their business. Rivers was glad to leave Shanghai; he had had enough of it, since his unlucky episode, and was glad to bury himself in the comparative obscurity of the interior. Life resumed itself smoothly once again, and he prospered exceedingly.

His attitude towards the natives, however, was more domineering than ever, now that he had recovered from the unpleasant two weeks that preceded his trial. These two weeks had been more uncomfortable than he liked to think about, but safely away from the scene of the disturbance, he became more abusive, more brutal than ever in his attitude towards the Chinese. His servants horribly feared him, yet did his bidding with alacrity. The reputation of a man who could kill when he chose, with impunity, stood him in good stead. Liu, the son of Kwong, followed him up-river and obtained a place in his household as pidgeon-cook, assistant to number-one cook. Rivers failed to recognize his new servant, and at such times as he encountered him, was delighted with the servile attitude of the youth, and called him "Son of a Turtle" which is the worst insult in the Chinese language.

Liu bided his time, for time is of no moment in the Orient. His hatred grew from day to day, but he continued to wait. He wished to see Rivers thoroughly successful, at the height of his career, before calling him to account. Since he would have to pay for his revenge with his life--not being a European--he determined that a white man at the top of his pride would be a more fitting victim than one who had not yet climbed the ladder. Such was his simple reasoning. Under his long blue coat there hung a long, thin knife, whetted to razor sharpness on both edges.

Summer came again, and the blazing heat of mid-China, lay over the land. Mrs. Rivers went north to join her children, and the number of guests in the hotel diminished to two or three. Business and tourists came to a standstill during these scorching weeks, and Rivers finally went down to Shanghai for a few days' jollification. He left his affairs in the hands of the shroff, the Chinese accountant, who could be trusted to manage them for a short time.

He returned unexpectedly one night about eleven o'clock, quite drunk. The few guests had retired and the hotel was closed. At the gate, the watchman lay asleep beside his lantern, and when Rivers let himself in with his key, he found Liu in the lounge, also asleep. He cursed Liu, but submitted to the steady, supporting arm which the boy place around his waist, and was led to bed without difficulty. Liu assisted his master to undress, folding up the crumpled, white linen clothes with silver buttons, and laying them neatly across a chair. He was an excellent servant. Then he retired from the room, listening outside the door till he heard sounds of heavy, stertorous breathing. At that moment, the contempt of the Chinese for the dominant race was even greater than Rivers' contempt for the inferior one.

When the proprietor's breathing had assumed reassuring proportions, Liu opened the door cautiously, and stepped lightly into the room. He then locked it with equal caution, slipped quietly across to the verandah, and passed out through the long, wide-open windows. The verandah was a dozen feet from the ground, and the dark passage below, leading to the gate, was deserted. At the other end sat the watchman with his lantern, presumably asleep. Liu had not heard his drum tap for an hour. A shaft of moonlight penetrated the room, and a light wind blowing in from outside gently stirred the mosquito curtains over the bed. Liu tiptoed to the bed, and with infinite care drew the netting aside and stood surveying his victim. Rivers lay quite still with arms outstretched, fat and bloated, breathing with hoarse, blowing sounds, quite repulsive. The moonlight was sufficient to enable Liu to see the dark outline upon the bed, and to gauge where he would strike. He hovered over his victim, exultant, prolonging from minute to minute this strange, new feeling of power and dominance. That was what it meant to be a white man--to feel this feeling always--always--all one's life, not merely for a few brief, exhilarating moments! And with that feeling of power and dominance was the ability to inflict pain, horrible, frightful pain. That also was part of the white man's heritage, this ability to inflict pain and suffering at will. And after that, death. Liu also had the power to inflict death. Leaning over the bed, with the long, keen knife in his steady clutch, he was for those glorious moments the equal of the white man! He prolonged his sensations breathlessly--this sense of superb power, this superb ability to inflict humiliation, pain and death.

A mosquito lit on Rivers' blotched cheek, and he raised a heavy arm to brush it away. Then he relaxed again with a snore. Liu paused, waiting. The glorious exaltation was mounting higher. It occurred to him to sharpen these sensations, to heighten them. After all, he was about to kill a drunken man in a drunken sleep. He wanted something better. He wanted to feel his power over a conscious man, a man conscious and aware of what was to befall him. Even as his father had been conscious and aware of what was befalling him, even as thousands of his countrymen were awake and aware, knowing what was being done to them--by the dominant race. He wished Rivers awake and aware. It involved greater risk, but it was worth it. Therefore, with the point of his sharp, keen knife, he gently prodded the throat of the sleeper, lying supine before him under the moon rays. Gently, very gently, he prodded the exposed throat, placed the point of his knife very gently upon his heaving, corded larynx, which pulsed inward and outward under the heaving, stertorous breaths. Gently he stimulated the corded, puffing throat, gently, with the point of his sharp knife.

The result was as he wished. First Rivers stirred, moved a restless arm, flopped an impotent, heavy arm that fell back upon the pillow, an arm that failed to reach its objective, to quell the tickling, cold point prodded into his throat. Then as he slowly grew conscious, the movements of the arm became more coordinated. Into his drunken mind came the fixed sensation of a disturbance at his throat. He became conscious, opened a heavy eye, and fixed it upon Liu, without at the same time feeling the pressing point at his throat. Liu saw his returning consciousness, and leaning over him, pressed upon his throat, ever so lightly, the point of his long knife. Thus for a moment or two they regarded each other, Liu having the advantage. But so it had always been. Having the advantage was one of the attributes of the dominant race. Thus for those few brief seconds, Liu experienced the whole glory of it. And as little by little Rivers emerged from the drunken to the conscious, to the abjectly, cravenly conscious, so Liu mounted to the heights.

Then he saw that Rivers was about to cry out. To let forth a roaring bellow, a howling bellow. Enough. He had tasted the whole of it. He had felt, for prolonged and glorious moments, the feelings of the superior race. Therefore he drove home, silently, his sharp, keen knife, and stifled the mad bellow that was about to be let forth. After which, he crept very cautiously to the balcony, and peered anxiously up and down the dark alleyway beneath. He lowered himself with infinite caution over the railing. He had become once more the cringing Oriental.

HOMESICK

III

HOMESICK

A Chinese gentleman, with his arms tucked up inside the brocaded sleeves of his satin coat, stood one day with one foot in China and the other upon European soil. From time to time he bore with alternate weight upon the right foot, on Chinese soil, and then upon the left foot, upon European soil, and his mental attitude shifted from right to left accordingly. The foot upon Chinese soil reflected upward to his brain the restriction of Chinese laws, the breaking of which were accompanied by heavy penalties. The foot upon European soil reassured him as to his ability to indulge himself, with no penalties whatsoever. Therefore, after balancing himself for a few moments first upon this foot, then upon that, he gave way to his inclinations and resolved to indulge them. In certain matters, Europeans were more liberal than Chinese.

From this you will see that he had been standing with one foot in China, where opium traffic was prohibited, where heavy fines were attached to opium smoking and to opium buying, where heavy jail sentences were imposed upon those who smoked or bought opium, while the other foot, planted upon the ground of the Foreign Concession, assured him of his absolute freedom to buy opium in any quantity he chose, and to smoke himself to a standstill in an opium den licensed under European auspices. In his saner moments, when not under the influence of the drug, he resented the European occupation of certain parts of Chinese territory, but when his craving for opium occurred--which it did with great frequency--he was delighted to realise that there were certain parts of China not under the authority of the drastic laws of China, which laws prohibited with such drastic and heavy penalties the indulgences he craved. Therefore he swayed himself backwards and forwards for a space, first upon this foot, then upon that, and finally withdrew both feet into the Foreign Concession, and directed his steps to a shop where opium was sold under European influence. The shop was capacious but dark. He stated his requirements and they were measured out to him--a large keg was withdrawn from its place on a shelf, and a gentle Chinese, clad, like himself, in satin brocade, dug into the contents of the keg with a ladle and withdrew from it a black, molasses-like substance, which ran slowly and gummily from the ladle into the small silver box which the customer had produced. The box finally filled, with some of the gummy, black contents running over the edges, our gentleman withdrew himself, having accomplished his purpose. Tucked into the security of his belt, it was impossible to detect the contraband as he again stepped over the boundary line which separated Chinese from European soil.

Half an hour after our Chinese gentleman had stepped across the boundary line into the native city, with a large supply of opium concealed in his belt, part of which he would retail to certain friends who had not time enough to run across into the European concession to buy it for themselves, a young Englishman stood, by curious coincidence, upon the same spot recently occupied by the Chinese. He also stood with one foot upon Chinese soil, with the other upon the soil of the Foreign Concession, and regretted, with considerable vehemence, that at this dividing line his efforts must cease. He had been pursuing, for perhaps a mile, the proprietor of a certain gambling den, whom he wished to apprehend. But at the boundary line, which the Chinese had reached before him, his prey had escaped. He was off somewhere, safe in the devious lanes and burrows of the native city. Therefore he stood baffled, and finally made his way back into the Settlement, along the quais, and finally reached his rooms. He pondered somewhat over the situation. That which was permitted on Chinese territory, was prohibited in the foreign holdings--and the reverse. It just depended whether you were on this side the line or that, as to whether or not you were a lawbreaker. Morality appeared arbitrary, determined by geographical lines--a matter of dollars and cents. Lawson walked slowly along the Bund, turning the matter over in his rather limited mind. Take the opium business, he considered. The Chinese considered it harmful, and wished to abolish it. Very good. Yet the Foreign Concessions made money out of it and insisted upon selling it.

Take another example, he reflected--gambling, his job. Or rather, his job was the suppression of gambling--in the foreign holdings. The Chinese considered it harmless, a matter of individual inclination. Very good. But the foreigners considered it a vice, and he, Lawson, was appointed to run to earth Chinese fan-tan houses, in the Concession, and suppress them. Yet his own people, the foreigners, gambled freely and uproariously in their own establishments--at the races, and at certain houses which they maintained for their pleasure. True, these houses were not in the Concession--for some reason the foreigners had set their face against gambling in the Concession--yet they maintained their establishments, their showy and luxurious establishments, outside the Concession and upon Chinese soil. They must pay a handsome squeeze for the privilege. Yet it was difficult to reconcile. What was right and wrong, anyway? What was moral or immoral, anyway? Lawson, of very limited intelligence, walked along, sorely puzzled. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander--well, two very different kinds of sauces, composed of very different ingredients, as far as he could see. Lawson, being a young man of limited intelligence, was greatly puzzled. He had been greatly bothered over this for a long time. It began to look to him--very vaguely--as if morality was not an abstract but a concrete affair.

Just then he passed an opium shop, and considered again. That surely was a nasty game, yet his Government encouraged it--and made money from it. But the Chinese, on their side of the boundary line, were doing their best to suppress it. It was very difficult for them to make headway, however, since opium shops flourished and were encouraged by the foreign concessions, over which the Chinese had no control. Topsy turvy, anyway. No wonder a person like Lawson was unable to understand it. It all resolved itself into a question of money, after all. For after all, money was the main object of life, whether on the part of an individual or of a government. And since all governments were composed of individuals, and reflected the ideas of individuals, there you were!

By this time, young Lawson had become quite bored with life in the Far East. The romance was gone and it offered so little variety. One day was so like another, and every day, winter and summer, it was the same thing or the same sorts of things, and there was an intense sameness about it all. By day he did his work--that goes without saying--one has to work in the Far East, that is what one comes out to do. Otherwise, why come? Unless one is a tourist or a missionary, or a buyer of Chinese antiques, or has had an overwhelming desire to write a book upon international politics, a desire springing from the depths of gross ignorance. But after all, why not such a book? It reaches, if it reaches at all, a public still less informed, and misinformation is as valuable as no information at all, when we desire to interfere with the destiny of the Chinese. In his leisure moments, Lawson had tried his hand at such a book--until he suddenly realised that he had been in the Orient too long to make it a success. He knew just a trifle too much about affairs, and found himself setting forth facts which would lead to his undoing, as a minor official in the International Settlement--if he gave them publicity. He could not afford to lose his position. And he was by no means sure that the deep, unerring sense of justice, the innate instinct of the masses, would rally to his support. He had his own opinion of the ruling classes, but he trusted the masses still less.

It was a biting cold night, with a high wind from the north howling down the long streets and whipping the waters of the harbour into a fury. Junks strained at their anchors, tossed and heaved, and now and then one broke loose from its moorings and wandered about adrift, spreading infinite terror amongst the owners of other junks, who feared for their safety. A cruiser or two lay in the roads, and the French mail, and two or three Japanese cargo-boats, and half a dozen tramp ships from the China Coast, but none of these were unduly buffeted by the gale, which only created havoc among the junks and sampans. Lawson's lodgings overlooked the harbour, and he laid down his pen and moved from the table to the dark window, trying in vain to see what was going on without. Below, the long line of the quais was outlined by long rows of electric lights, swaying and tossing from their poles, and illuminating the shining, wet asphalt of the Bund. He was very, very tired of it all. So many years he had been out, and the same monotonous round must be gone through with, over and over again, day after day--until he made money enough to return home. And as a salaried clerk, a court runner, whose duty it was to enforce the laws against gambling in the Settlement, that day seemed very far distant indeed. Whenever he heard of a fan-tan place--and he heard of them every day--he must investigate, see that it was closed and the keepers, if he was lucky enough to catch them, duly punished. And the players as well. Now to eradicate gambling from amongst the Chinese is a difficult task, futile and ridiculous, a good waste of time and money. He wondered why his Government should attempt it. Foolish thing for his Government to do--yet what would become of Lawson if the undertaking were abolished? Taste tea, probably--apprentice himself to some tea merchant, and learn all the nasty rôle of tea spitting. From which you will see that Lawson was squeamish about some things, and did not envy those of his friends who had become tea tasters, and who moved all day up and down a long table, filled with rows of stupid little cups, with an attendant China boy forever shoving a cuspidor from one advanced position to another. And if not a tea taster, then some commercial house would absorb his energies, which would be worse still--close at his elbow a spectacled Chinese clicking all day upon a dirty little abacus,--checking him up, keeping tabs on him.

No, the work he had was better. But he was so tired of it. He leaned himself against the dripping, cold pane, and regarded the lights below, shining on the wet asphalt of the quais. He was thirty years old and ten years in the East had about done for him. The East does, for many people. Yes, he reflected bitterly, it had about done for him. It undermines people, in some mysterious manner, and in Lawson's case there had been so little to undermine. He had little imagination, and could never imagine the larger possibilities of life, and what he had missed, therefore the undermining of his character was of small account. He was only conscious of an intense boredom, and to-night the boredom was accentuated, because of the weather. He was too inert to splash about in such a driving rain in quest of a friend more weary than himself.

If he could just get out of it all! By which, understand, he had not the adventurous spirit of the beach-comber, the adventurer who combs pleasure and profits from the ports of the China Coast. He wasn't that sort. He had no desire to take a sampan and row out to the nearest cargo-boat and ship away to the Southern Seas, and sink himself in romance north or south of the Line. No, the mystery of the East, the romance of foreign lands made no appeal to him. And the everlasting monotony of his daily work, of his daily association with his few wearied friends, clerks and suchlike, all minor and unimportant cogs of the big machine overseas, offered him nothing. Very decidedly he was homesick. But his tired mind came upon a blank wall--he had no home to be homesick for. Nothing compelling, nothing to return to--all broken up long ago, such as it was, long before he had come out to the Orient. Yet he was longing for the sight of his native land again. Yes, that was it--just the familiar sight of it. It offered him nothing in the way of tie or kin, yet he was longing to see it again, just his own native land. He was exiled in China--and he was exiled at Home, when you got down to it--but to-night his home land drew him with overwhelming insistence.