Part 21

“Privately, I doubted whether any boatman would venture into the tainted neighbourhood of a ship with yellow fever on board, and I was agreeably surprised to find that my only difficulty was to choose among the swarm that offered themselves. I could only conclude that they did not understand the meaning of the emblem. A moment or two later we were being propelled swiftly across the stream, our eyes fixed upon that fatal flag. The second officer stood at the top of the ladder to greet us as we climbed on board.

“‘All well, sir,’ I heard him report in a perfectly normal voice.

“‘What?’ ejaculated the captain in astonishment above me.

“‘All well, sir,’ he repeated.

“By that time I had joined the captain on the deck and we exchanged a puzzled glance. Then we looked around us. To our utter bewilderment, of the yellow jack there was no sign at all. There was not a rag of bunting about the ship.

“The captain bit his lip and wrinkled his brow. I could comprehend his perplexity. He turned sharply to the second officer.

“‘Svendson! Has any one been monkeying with the signal-flags?’

“‘No, sir!’ The prompt denial was both surprised and emphatic. ‘I have been on deck myself ever since you went ashore, sir.’

“‘H’m! All right!’ The captain shrugged his shoulders and turned to me. ‘You saw it, didn’t you?’ he asked.

“‘Yes, sir,’ I replied, confidently.

“‘A most extraordinary hallucination!’ he said. ‘But don’t let it worry you. Come and have supper with me at six bells.’

“I could see plainly that he was much perturbed, and I myself felt very uneasy as I went below. Following upon the shock of the captain’s narrow escape from the snake in the deserted temple, the strange trick of the conjurer at the café and this hallucination, shared by both of us, of the most dreaded flag a sailor knows, combined to awake a primitive superstitious fear in me. My nerves were in a state of acute tension, and I found myself starting at the most ordinary sounds.

“The captain was normal and cheerful enough, however, when at seven o’clock I joined him in the beautiful saloon which he had had fitted regardless of expense with everything that could minister to his comfort. It was his one luxury. Despite the damp, stifling heat which makes Saigon one of the most uncomfortable places in the East, the cabin was pleasantly cool. Electric fans whirred at the open ports and underneath the large skylight hanging plants provided a refreshing mass of greenery. The Chinese steward stood by the side of the elegantly laid table, ready to serve his master. It was, as I said, the first time I had eaten with Captain Strong and I was rather impressed with the refinement of his private tastes.

“The meal, an excellent one, passed without incident. My host was agreeably conversational, but his talk was confined to those impersonal subjects which he preferred. Not once did he refer to the happenings of the day, and I felt that it would be discretion on my part equally to refrain from mention of them. The silent-footed Chang-Fu cleared the table, pulled the awnings across the open, mosquito-netted skylight, switched on the electric lamps, and left us to our coffee and cigars.

“The centre table folded down so as to leave a clear space which made the saloon appear larger than it really was, and we sat upon a comfortable leather-upholstered settee at one end, with our coffee on a little Chinese table between us.

“A tap on the door interrupted our talk, and Chang-Fu, the steward, glided into the saloon and made a respectful obeisance to the captain.

“‘Master--Chinese conjulor in sampan ’long-side--want speak master. Him number-one top-hole conjulor makee plenty-heap big tlick--me talkee with him--him velly gleat conjulor.’ The steward’s wheedling voice had a note of genuine, awed admiration in it. ‘Master see him?’ he finished, insinuatingly, rubbing his hands together under his cringing, wrath-disarming smile.

“I glanced at the captain.

“‘I wonder if it is the fellow we saw at the café, sir?’ I ventured, and then immediately regretted my words. Like the young fellow that I was, I was eager to see more of the skill of these Oriental magicians, but doubtless the captain would not wish again to come into contact with the man whose strange trick of converting the coin into a jewel had so perturbed him.

“Possibly he read my thoughts and resented the suspicion of moral cowardice. His tone was curt as he replied.

“‘Very likely.--Bring him down, Chang-Fu.’

“Once more the muscle stood out along his jaw and his face set doggedly. It was as though he prepared to confront an adversary. Fascinated by the mystery which I felt underlay all this, I thrilled with a sense of high adventure as I saw the captain go to a drawer in a locker and get out a heavy revolver which he slipped into his coat-pocket. He returned to his seat by my side.

“A moment later, Chang-Fu ushered in the conjurer, and discreetly vanished. It was indeed the man we had seen at the café--more than that, I recognized him suddenly, being now without his hat, as the man hanging round that deserted temple. The ingratiating leer which twisted up his emaciated face did not render it less ugly. With a profound bow he advanced fawningly toward us, bowed again and then withdrew, after a word or two in dialect which I did not understand but to which the captain replied in a monosyllable, to a little distance across the saloon floor.

“He performed one or two clever but not particularly remarkable tricks, all of them harmless enough, and my vague suspicions of mischief were lulled gradually in the interest with which I watched him. Captain Strong remained silent, expressionless. I noticed that it was toward him that the conjurer directed his smiles, and his attention that he endeavoured more especially to hold. His complete immobility made it impossible to guess the effect of the conjurer’s manœuvres; certainly he did not take his eyes from him for a single moment and his right hand remained in the pocket where I knew the revolver to be.

“Presently the conjurer produced a large bronze bowl--apparently from nowhere--and made the usual mystic passes in the air above it. Smoke began to issue from the bowl, a thick dark smoke which filled the saloon with a pervasive and subtly pleasant aromatic scent. The smoke rose from the bowl in ever denser volumes, curling into the air under the saloon roof in such masses as to obscure our vision of the farther walls. The electric lamps glowed redly as through a fog. The sweet, cloying smell of incense permeated the atmosphere, made it oppressive, dulled the brain as I drew it with every breath into my lungs. An insidious paralysis stole over me. I felt that I had no power over my limbs, could not move a muscle. I could only stare fascinated at that grotesquely ugly Oriental half-seen in the dim light amid the wreathing fumes, his skeleton-like hands still sweeping in slow and regular passes over the bowl. I heard the deep breathing of Captain Strong at my side as of a person whose individuality was remote from mine, hardly to be identified. My drugged brain registered only that he was as motionless as I.

“Suddenly the electric lights were extinguished--I did not see how, in that fog of smoke, but the magician must have had the switch explained to him by the steward. The darkness was only momentary. On the instant almost, a dull red glow kindled itself in the depths of the bowl, illumined luridly the dense masses of smoke which still welled up from it. Behind them I caught a glimpse of the conjurer’s face smiling evilly, inscrutably, his eyes glittering in the red glow, his finger-tips sweeping round and round in the fumes. Then--I missed the exact moment--he disappeared. A melancholy, sing-song chant commenced from somewhere, haunting the brain with its barbaric reiteration of meaningless words in a minor key. It was like the dreary lament of savage worshippers before an idol that remains obstinately mute, I remember thinking vaguely as I listened and watched with fascinated eyes that curling, red-tinted smoke rising from the hidden flame of the bowl, expecting I knew not what of marvellous appearance.

“Suddenly the smoke rolled away on either hand. I found myself looking down a vista--not at the darkened cabin walls--but into the bright sunshine of the tropics--at a pagoda-like temple where two huge, carved, staring figures guarded the entrance to an interior where lights glimmered. I recognized it with a peculiar thrill--the temple above Cho-lon!

“Not now was the courtyard deserted and overgrown with weeds. A throng of natives, gesticulating and chattering, though I could not hear them, filled it--pressed back on either side as though to make way for a procession. In that throng was a European in a white suit. He stood out conspicuous in the front rank of the Oriental crowd. What was there so familiar about that figure? My drugged brain puzzled vaguely for a moment or two--and then he turned his face toward me. _Captain Strong!_--a younger, slighter Captain Strong--but undoubtedly he. I saw the flash of his eyes under the heavy brows, the living man! My consciousness checked for a moment at this phenomenon of duplication, and then accepted it. It seemed another part of me that was listening to the deep breathing of the man at my side--I felt myself mingling with what I saw almost as with actual reality--let myself drift as in a dream where the fantastic ceases to be strange.

“The procession filled the open space between the pressed-back ranks of the throng, a procession of priests with shaven heads, and gorgeous robes, filing into the great doorway of the temple. After them came a group of young girls, singing evidently, dancing as they went, and flinging flowers on either hand--the young Annamite girls who are so strikingly more attractive than their male relatives. I saw one of them throw a flower at the foot of the white-clad European--saw her provocative smile--saw him pick up the flower and fling it playfully back into her face--saw him follow the throng and press into the temple with the crowd. What was that peculiar gasp which came from the darkness at my side? A part of me groped with numbed faculties for its connection with the bright scene at which I gazed fascinated.

“The picture changed with the suddenness of a cinematograph film. I found myself staring at the great image of the Buddha, looming up above its prostrate worshippers from amid a blaze of torches. On its breast glowed and sparkled the sacred jewel--_the jewel into which the conjurer had transmuted Captain Strong’s coin upon the marble-topped table of the café!_--the jewel suspended on a snake of gold.

“There, conspicuously erect, stood the white-clad figure among the worshippers, staring up fixedly at the serene immensity of the image. The jewel upon its breast glowed with a throbbing light like a living thing. There was a sudden commotion among the crowd. A group of priests came up to the white-clad man and pushed him gently but firmly out of the temple.

“Again the scene changed. It was night. The moon shone down upon a garden on a hillside. Far below, obliterated and revealed from instant to instant by the foliage moving in the breeze, glittered the clustered points of yellow light of a large town. In the shadow of the trees lurked a vague white figure. Toward it, across the moonlit open space, came another--a native girl. I could see her clearly. She was so daintily beautiful that I could not but suspect foreign blood in her. The best-looking Annamite girl I had seen was gross compared with her delicate charm. For all that, she was genuinely Oriental in type. Her lithe little figure, clad in a simple twisted robe, approached swiftly, her head turning from side to side in bird-like enquiry, peeping behind each bush she passed. It was not difficult to guess for whom she was looking. The white-clad figure stepped from its shadow, and in another moment she was in his arms.

“Then, with a sudden movement, she wriggled out of the impulsive embrace and prostrated herself quaintly in a humble little obeisance. The white-clad figure stooped to lift her up, folded her again in his arms. Their lips met in a long, passionate kiss. From the darkness at my side, but as it were from immeasurable distance, came again the peculiar little gasp, a sound as of teeth clenching upon each other in the enormous silence which seemed not to be of this world.

“My attention was fixed upon the mysterious scene before me, so real that I forgot the ship’s cabin and the conjurer with his volumes of smoke. The vision at which I gazed was to me actuality. What was happening? The man was speaking, gesticulating, pointing away with one hand--the girl was shrinking from him in horror, gesturing a desperate negative, and then letting herself be drawn tightly to his breast again to lavish her caresses upon him--and finally, as he still spoke with the same gesticulation, withdrawing herself once more, her hands up in agonized protest. What was being demanded of her? I held my breath as I watched the little drama. What was the request which was thus convulsing her to the bottom of her soul? Whatever it was, it was despairfully refused. In savage exasperation, the man flung her from him to the ground, turned his back upon her and strode away.

“She raised herself, stared after him crouchingly, agony in her face. She stretched out her arms to him, but he did not turn his head. Then, ceding evidently to an overwhelming impulse, she sprang to her feet, darted after him with the speed of a young deer, and flung both her arms passionately about his neck. Once more I saw him ask her the mysterious question, menace in his face. And now she surrendered, clinging to him desperately, tears coursing down her cheeks, her eyes wild, but every fibre of her obviously ready to do his bidding rather than lose him as she nodded her head in frantic assent.

“Once more he spoke, pointing mysteriously across the garden. She drew away from him, her eyes fixed upon his face, her bosom filling as with the long, deep breath of some tragic resolve. He was inexorable. Hopelessly, she prepared to obey, in her attitude the touching dignity of fate accepted since love imposes it, eternal womanhood fulfilling itself in immolation. I felt the tears start to my eyes, although I could not imagine what was the evidently tremendous sacrifice demanded of her. The white-clad man stepped once more into the shadow of the bushes. With one last passionate, yearning look toward him, she moved away. She went crouched, huddled in to herself like a woman who creeps forth to commit a crime.

“Again the scene changed. I was staring at the exterior of the temple in the moonlight. The two great figures by the portal gazed now over an empty courtyard. Only the moon-cast shadows of the trees moved upon its untenanted space. There was a moment of waiting--for I knew not what, but the air was filled with expectation. Then, slinking along the wall, scarcely visible, with halting, furtive step, I saw the girl emerge from the shadows. Warily she came, close against the wall, stopping occasionally in the awful terror of the silence which brooded over everything, moving on again with evidently a fresh effort of highly strung will. Like a ghost she seemed in the moonlight, as she crept up to the giant figure by the portal, peered cautiously into the interior darkness where two yellow flames glimmered. She slipped into the gloom like a pale shadow that flits across the wall.

“And then, I know not how, I found myself looking as from the doorway into the interior. Between two guttering torches the great image lifted itself up into a smoky obscurity, the glinting jewel still upon its breast--the jewel that was suspended by a flexible snake of reddish gold. With an impressive serenity the great calm face looked straight before it, its hands stretched out from the elbow above the legs crossed for its squatting, ‘earth-touching’ position. Below it, on the steps of the altar, a priest squatted also, his shaven head nodding forward in the sleep of a vigil excessively prolonged. By the portal stood the shrinking figure of the girl, staring in terror at the jewel winking in the uncertain light of the expiring torches.

“For a long, long moment she stood there, unable to move, her face looking as carven in its fixed immobility as the image itself. With a sympathetic thrill, I realized the awful superstitious dread which had her in its grip. Then her human love triumphed. I saw her glide stealthily toward the giant figure, so stealthily that the nodding head of the somnolent priest altered not in the regularity of its drowsy rise and fall, so stealthily that she seemed but a part of the shifting shadows cast by the candelabra of the torches. Nimbly and cautiously she clambered from the altar-steps to the knee of the mighty image, drew herself up to the arm outstretched in benediction. She balanced herself precariously, rose suddenly upright upon it, and snatched at the jewel.

“The clasp of the flexible gold snake broke with the violence of her pull. I saw it slide like a little stream of ruddy fire into her hands, saw the last flash of the jewel as she stuffed it into her bosom. And then, with a start, the priest looked up.

“Ere he could do more than spring to his feet, she had leaped down with the sure-footed agility of a mountain girl. In a quick movement she evaded his clutch, was gone.

“Once more I found myself looking at the garden where the white-clad figure lurked in the shadows. A moment of waiting, then down the moonlit open space came the flitting figure of the girl. Swiftly she approached, panic in her wild flight, in the beautiful features now close enough for distinct view. She was sobbing as she ran. The man stepped out to her. She stopped, stood for a second regarding him with a look of inexpressible reproach, and then, averting her head, thrust into his eager grasp the sacred jewel. He slipped it into his pocket and caught her in his arms. She gazed at him in yearning doubt, her head drawn back, her soul seeming to question him through her eyes, and then suddenly she flung herself toward him, her bare arms round his neck, her mouth on his, kissing him in a passionate paroxysm of caresses. Desperately she yielded herself to him, frenziedly claiming the reward for her crime--his love. I saw the tears rolling down her cheeks as she kissed him eagerly again and again, all else forgotten but absorption in his presence. In a thrill of apprehension, I remembered the priest. Surely the alarm was given--a horde of fanatics searching for her while she lingered so recklessly! Despite the utter silence in which all this passed, I almost fancied I could hear the sonorous booming of a gong.

“My apprehension quickened to a stab of acute alarm. There, slinking toward them in the shadows, as stealthily as a cat, came a crouching figure, nearer and nearer from behind. The steel blade he clutched flashed in the moonlight. His face looked up, illumined in the soft radiance which suffused the garden. I recognized it--the priest who had slumbered at his post!--and then, with a curious little internal shock, but vaguely, as if these later incidents belonged to another existence, the full recognition dawned upon me--the wretched native who had loitered about the deserted pagoda of Cho-lon, the conjurer of the café, the conjurer who--ages since--had filled the saloon of the _Mary Gleeson_ with smoke and incense from the red fire of a bronze bowl! His ugly face contorted with vindictive cunning, he crept now upon the oblivious lovers locked in their passionate embrace. I saw him gather himself for the spring, the long, murderous knife openly in his hand. In a spasm of horror all of me tried frantically to shriek a warning, but I could not utter a sound. I seemed to be only a watching brain, divorced from all the other organs of the body. He leaped.

“There was a glimmer of cold light as the knife descended. I waited, my heart stopping, in doubt as to the victim. The uncertainty lasted but an instant. The girl, struck in the back, turned her face up to the sky and crumpled to her knees like a marionette whose string is cut. For one long moment the grinning evil face of the priest, tugging to release his knife, and the horrified eyes of the white man looked into each other in a silence which was appalling in its complete soundlessness. Then the white man struck savagely downward upon the shaven head--and sprang away into the darkness.

“Again I heard a gasp, a choked-back cry, from the obscurity at the side of me. But now it seemed to be startlingly nearer and, as my bewildered faculties tried to apprehend it, to identify the source which I knew vaguely must be familiar to me and yet could not bring to consciousness, my attention wandered for a moment. When I looked again the vision had disappeared. There was no longer garden or temple. There was only redly illumined smoke rolling upward from a dull red glow and an atmosphere of sweet sickly fumes that held my body in a drugged paralysis.

“Still I gazed, fascinated. Those thick, wreathing masses of smoke were shaping themselves--shaping themselves into something--something columnar. I watched like one in a dream, and as I watched a part of me attained to consciousness of Captain Strong sitting in frozen immobility by the side of me. The wreathing smoke coalesced, formed itself into something whose outlines were not yet clear. A brighter, yellower light emanated from below it, lit it up. A body--a vague female body--collected itself, and then a girl’s head, strangely beautiful for all its almond eyes and scanty brows, smiled upon us, suddenly vivid and real. I recognized it with a shock--the girl of the garden! She and her body were now one complete living organism that moved sinuously from the hips. I held my breath in awe. Whereas the visions I had been watching were like pictures at a distance, this was an actual living woman a few feet from us. The smoke disappeared. I was staring at a beautiful native woman, as real as you or I, mysteriously illumined in yellow light against a background of obscurity, who stood where the fumes had writhed upward from the bowl.

“Conscious as I now was of Captain Strong’s close neighbourhood, I craved to turn to him for astonished comment. But still my body was deprived of function; I could not move a muscle. He made neither move nor sound. Then I almost forgot him in the fascinated interest which this apparition compelled.

“Swaying slightly, with a free, graceful motion of the hips, she moved from her place. Her mouth parted in a pathetic little smile of melancholy, her dark eyes gazing not at me but at something at my side, in soulful yearning appeal, she glided toward us through a hushed silence where I could hear my own heart beat. Slowly she detached her arms from the simple robe which swathed her, stretched them out imploringly, with a wistful smile that seemed to beseech a difficult confidence, to the companion at my side, to Captain Strong. Once more I heard the gasp of his laboured breathing.

“She approached, and it seemed to me that she and I and the panting figure at my side whom I could not turn my head to see were the only things existing in a world that was otherwise dark. She was illumined from head to foot, clearly and definitely detached from her surroundings. I marked the soft, lithe roundness of her form. Did she speak? Her lips moved, but I heard nothing, although it seemed to me that a gently uttered name echoed far away in illimitable space, echoed endlessly as though ringing through the vast, incommensurable soul of things past, present, and to be.