Part 17

The weapons touched. The styles of the antagonists were different, but genius met genius on its own high ground. Each blade was a quiver of arrows, each instant of survival due to devilish cunning or the grace of God. In spite of his warning, Volbars took the attack and forced it tigerishly. Some demon purpose was in his brain, for he shot his volleys high. A marvelous minute passed, and a fountain of crimson welled from Watanabe, where his neck and shoulder met. The heavy breathing of the Russian was heard now back among his fellow prisoners. The Japanese, sheeted with blood from his wound, defended himself silently. He was younger, lighter, superbly conditioned.

The face of Volbars changed hideously. Sweat ran into his eyes, where the desperation of fatigue was plain. His lips were stiff white cords. Patches of grayish white shone in his cheeks and temples.... For a second his shoulders lifted; then an exultant gasp was heard from his dry throat.

That which had been the left eye in the face of Watanabe burst like a bubble and ran down. Yet not for the fraction of a second did the Japanese lose his guard. Though a window of his throne-room was broken, the kingdom of his courage still endured. The Russian second heard his man gasp, “I’m spent. I can’t kill him!”

The grin upon the awful face of the One-eyed became more tense. He seized the aggressive, and the Japanese lines greeted the change with a high-strung, ripping shout. Watanabe bored in, stabbing like a viper, his head twisted to spare his dark side. Volbars’ limbs were stricken of power. He saw the end, as he was backed toward the prisoners. A tuft of grass unsteadied him for a second--and the Japanese lightning struck.

The sword of the Russian quivered to the earth and the master fell upon it, his face against the ground, his naked sword-arm shaking, the hand groping blindly for the faithless hilt. Watanabe bowed to the prisoners, and walked unassisted back to his own roaring lines. His seconds followed closely, one of them wiping the sword of the Samurai with a wisp of grass.... It appears that Volbars had the audacity to attempt to blind his opponent before killing him. It was like the battle of the Yalu. Volbars, as did General Zassulitch, looked too lightly on the foe....

“A. V. Weed”--what blessings fell upon the name that moment!... He was not with the Russians! Not in the Leper Valley! A cable to the _World-News_ that night brought a reply the next day, to the effect that “A. V. Weed” had never been in touch with the office; that he was the freest of free lances, and brought his messages from time to time to one of the free cables outside the war-zone.... The free cable nearest to Liaoyang--already granted to be the next scene of conflict--was at Shanhaikwan, at the end of the Great Wall. Noreen arranged for mail and dispatches to follow her, and went down the Tokaido, overtaking at Nagasaki a ship which had sailed from Yokohama three days before she left.

TWENTIETH CHAPTER

ROUTLEDGE IS SEEN BY NOREEN CARDINEGH, BUT AT AN EXCITING MOMENT IN WHICH SHE DARE NOT CALL HIS NAME

Noreen breathed sweeter with the shores of Japan behind. The Pacific liner, _Manchu_, was crossing the Yellow Sea for Shanghai. An evening in early August, and the tropic breeze came over the moon-flecked water, from the spicy archipelagoes below. It was late, and she was sitting alone, forward on the promenade-deck. The thought thralled, possessed her completely, that she was drawing nearer, nearer her soul’s mate. Might it not be given to her to keep the covenant--to find him, though all others had failed?... There was a high light over Asia for her inner eye, this memorable night of her romance. The crush of Japan was gone, and in the great hour of emancipation her love for Routledge, hardiest of perennials, burst into a delicate glory of blossoming--countless blooms of devotion, pure white; and in all honor she could not deny--rare fragrant flowerings of passional crimson....

At Shanghai she sought the office of the _North China News_, to learn what the war had done during her three days at sea. The Japanese armies were panting--inside the passes which had recently protected Liaoyang. Any day might begin the battle with which Japan intended forever to end Russia’s hold in Liaotung peninsula. The _News_ stated blithely that there was no doubt of the war being over by September.... There was another story in the files of early August, and in the silent office the woman bent long over the sheet, huge as a luncheon-cover. This was an Indian exchange with a Simla mark. An English correspondent, wandering somewhere in the Hills, had run across a white man travelling with an old Hindu lama. A weird mad pair, the story said, half-starving, but they asked no alms. Whither they were going, they would not say, nor from whence they had come. The natives seemed to understand the wanderers, and possibly filled the lama’s bowl. The feet of the white man were bare and travel-bruised, his clothing a motley of Hindu and Chinese garments. The article intimated that he was a “gone-wrong missionary,” but its whole purport and excuse was to point out the menace to British India from unattached white men, mad or apparently mad, moving where they willed, in and out of restless States, especially at such a time as now, when the activity of foreign agents, etc., etc....

The article was rock-tight and bitter with the Dead Sea bitterness. The pressure of the whole senile East was in it. The woman quivered from a pain the prints had given her, and moved out of the darkened office into the strange road, thick and yellow with heat.... Could this be Rawder and his Hindu master?... It occurred to her suddenly that the men of the newspaper might be able to tell her of the Leper Valley. She turned back to the office, was admitted to the editor.... No, he had not heard of the Leper Valley. There were leper colonies scattered variously throughout the interior. It might be one of them.... She thanked him and went away, leaving a problem to mystify many sleepy, sultry days.... That night, Noreen engaged passage in a coasting steamer for Tongu, and on the morning of the third day thereafter boarded the Peking-Shanhaikwan train on the Chinese Eastern.

Alone in a first-class compartment, she watched the snaky furrows of maize throughout seven eternities of daylight, until her eyes stung and her brain revolted at the desolate, fenceless levels of sun-deadened brown. Out of a pent and restless doze, at last she found that a twilight film had cooled the distance; she beheld the sea on her right hand, and before her the Great Wall--that gray welt on the Eastern world, conceived centuries before the Christ, rising into the dim mountains and jutting down into the sea. In an inexplicable moment of mental abstraction, as the train drew up to Shanhaikwan, the soul of the weary woman whispered to her that she had seen it all before.

At the Rest House, Noreen ventured to inquire of a certain agent of a big British trading company if he knew any of the English or American war-correspondents who had come recently to Shanhaikwan to file their work on the uncensored cable. This man was an unlovely Englishman poisoned by China and drink.... Oh, yes, some of the men had come in from the field or from Wangcheng with big stories, but had trouble getting back to their lines, it was said.

“Have you heard--or do you know--if Mr. Routledge has been here?”

His face filled with an added inflammation, and he mumbled something which had to do with Routledge and the treachery in India.

“Do you mean to say,” she demanded hopelessly, “that you--that Shanhaikwan has not heard that Mr. Routledge had nothing to do with the treachery in India--that another, Cardinegh of the _Witness_, confessed the crime on his death-bed?”

The Englishman had not heard. He bent toward her with a quick, aroused look and wanted to know all, but she fled to her room.... It was not strange if Routledge failed to hear of his vindication, when this British agent had not.... By the open window she sat for hours staring at the Great Wall in the moonlight. She saw it climb through the white sheen which lay upon the mountains, and saw it dip into the twinkling sea, like a monster that has crawled down to drink. There were intervals when Shanhaikwan was still as the depths of the ocean. The whole landscape frightened her with its intimate reality. The thought came again that this had once been _her_ country, that she had seen the Mongol builders murdered by the lash and the toil.

The purest substance of tragedy evolved in her brain. There had been something abhorrent in contact with the Englishman below. She had seen a hate for Routledge like that before--at the Army and Navy reception! And then, the sinister narrative of the white man in India, as it had been set down by the English correspondent!... Could this be “their bravest man”? Was he, too, attracting hatred and suspicion in India, as a result of the excitement into which her father’s work had thrown the English? Could not poor Rawder, barefoot, travel-bruised, and wearing a motley of native garments, be free from this world-havoc which was her heritage?... That instant in the supremacy of pain she could not feel in her heart that Routledge wanted her--or that he was in the world!... Could he be dead, or in the Leper Valley? Had his mind gone back to dust--burned out by these terrible currents of hatred?...

The pictured thought drew forth a stifled scream. The lamp in her room was turned low, and the still, windless night was a pitiless oppression. Crossing the room to open the door, in agony for air, she passed the mirror and saw a dim reflection--white arms, white throat, white face. She turned the knob.

The clink of glasses on a tin-tray reached her from below, with the soft tread of a native servant; then from farther, the clink of billiard-balls and a man’s voice, low but insinuating, its very repression an added vileness:

“Dam’ me, but she was a stunning woman, a ripping woman--and out after----”

She crashed the door shut and bolted it against the pestilence.... Had the powers of evil this night consummated a heinous mockery to test her soul, because her soul was strong?... In terror and agony, she knelt by the open window. The Wall was still there, sleeping in the moonlight--the biggest man-made thing in the world, and the quietest. It steadied her, and the stuff of martyrs came back.

* * * * *

The man in charge of the cable-office in Shanhaikwan told her the next morning that a correspondent who signed himself “A. V. Weed” had brought in a long message for New York, just after the Yalu battle, but had not tarried even a night in town. “A tall, haggard stranger with a low voice,” the man described him.... There was little more to be learned, but this was life to her, and the first tangible word, that he lived, since her father’s death. Noreen spent the day walking alone on the beaches and through the foreign concession.

From the top of the Wall in the afternoon, she stared down at the little walled city which grew out of the great masonry. There she could see a bit of living China--all its drones and workers and sections and galleries, as in a glass bee-hive. Big thoughts took the breath from her. Europe seemed young and tawdry beside this. She picked up one of the loose stones--touched the hem of the Wall’s garment, as it were--and again she had but to close her eyes and look back centuries into the youth of time, when the Wall was building, to see the Mongols swarming like ants over the raw, half-done thing.... There was a little French garrison in the town; and the Sikh infantry, at target-practice on the beach, brought India back. The day was not without fascination to her relieved mind.

The evening train from Peking brought a white man who added to the stability of Shanhaikwan--Talliaferro of the _Commonwealth_. The dry little man was greatly disturbed in heart. He had deliberately given up his place with Oku’s second army, choosing to miss the smoky back-thresh of future actions in the field, in order to get what he could out on the free cable. Peter Pellen’s “Excalibur,” credited with acumen, flying and submarine, had broken under the Japanese pressure.

“Have you seen or heard of Mr. Routledge?” she whispered at dinner.

“No,” he replied. “In the field we never got a whisper from him. The Pan-Anglo man in Shanghai told me, however, that he thought Routledge was playing the Chinese end--that is, living just outside the war-zone and making sallies in, from time to time, when things are piping hot. The reason he thought Routledge was working this game was the fact that New York has sprung three or four great stories which London has missed entirely. It’s all a guess, Miss Cardinegh, but somebody is doing it, and it’s his kind of service--the perilous, hard-riding kind. Nobody but a man on the _Inside_ of Asia would attempt it. There was an American, named Butzel, shot by the Chinese on the Liao River ten days ago. He was not an accredited correspondent, as I understand it, but was using the war for a living. Butzel’s death was wired in from the interior somewhere, and they had it back from New York in Shanghai when I was there. Did you hear?”

“No.”

“It appears that Butzel planned to get into Liaoyang for the battle,” Talliaferro went on, “whether the Japanese liked it or not. About the place where the Taitse flows into the Liao, the river-pirates murdered him----”

Talliaferro stopped, startled by the look in the face of the woman. Her eyes were wide, almost electric with suffering, her face colorless. The lamp-light heightened the effects; also her dress, which was of black entire. Talliaferro noted such things. He always remembered her hand that moment, as it was raised to check him, white, fragile, emotional.

“What is it, Miss Cardinegh?” he asked quickly.

“I was thinking,” she replied steadily, “that Mr. Routledge is there in all likelihood--‘playing the Chinese end,’ as you call it. I was thinking that he might not have heard that he is vindicated--that he might be murdered before he learned that my father had confessed.”

She hurried away before the dinner was half through, and Talliaferro was left to dislike himself, for a short period, for bringing up the Butzel murder.... Noreen sat again by the window in her room. The story had frightened her, so that she felt the need of being alone to think. The dreadfulness of the night before did not return, however.... The moon rose high to find the Wall again--every part of it, winding in the mountains.... Was it not possible that Talliaferro was over-conscious of the dangers of the Chinese end? Routledge had been up there, possibly since the Yalu battle, and he had proved a master in these single-handed services of his.... She had heard of Talliaferro’s capacity to command the highest price, heard of him as an editorial dictator and of his fine grasp on international affairs, but her father had once remarked that the Excalibur “did not relish dangling his body in the dirty area between two firing lines.”... There was hope in her heart, and she slept.

“Please don’t apologize, Mr. Talliaferro,” she said the next morning, when he met her sorrowfully. “It is I who should apologize. For a moment you made me see vividly the dangers up yonder, but I put it all away and had a real rest. Tell me about the field and Oku.”

Talliaferro was inclined to talk very little, as a rule, but he had brooded deeply upon his failure in this service, and it was rather a relief to speak--with Noreen Cardinegh to listen.

“At least, we have added to the gaiety of nations with our silence in the field,” he said. “It has been the silence of the Great Wall yonder. We knew nothing even of the main strategy, which was familiar to all outside who cared to follow the war. Japanese officers were assigned to overhear what we said to one another. They even opened our personal mail. The field-telegraph was hot day and night with the war-business, so that our messages were hung up for days, even with the life cut out of them. And then when Oku drove into action we were always back with the reserves--not that I think a correspondent can do a battle classic for his cable-editor, simply because he mingles first hand with shrapnel; but we had only the sun and stars to go by as to which was north and south. Think of it, and the man who writes a war-classic must have a conception of the whole land and sea array, and an inner force of his own, to make his sentences shine----”

She smiled a little and straightened her shoulders to breathe deeply the good sea air. They were walking out toward the Wall.

“But suppose he has the big conception, as you say, and then goes into the heart of the thing”--her voice became tense--“where the poor brave brutes are coming together to die?”

“He’ll unquestionably do it better,” said Talliaferro, regarding her blowing hair with satisfaction to the artistic sense he cultivated. “Physical heroism is cheap--the cheapest utility of the nations--but it is not without inspiration to watch.... We had neither--neither facts nor blood with Oku.”

* * * * *

Long and weary were those August days in Shanhaikwan. Noreen lived for the end of the battle, and with a prayer that it would end the war and bring in--all the correspondents. Over and over she mapped the war-country in her mind, with a lone horseman shutting out her view of armies. There were moments at night in which she felt that Routledge-san was not far away--even Liaoyang was less than three hundred miles away.... Those last days of the month--only a woman can bear such terrors of tension. Each night-train now brought vagrant sentences from the field, bearing upon the unparalleled sacrifices of men by the Japanese. Throughout August thirty-first, Shanhaikwan waited expectantly for a decision from the battle, but when the night-train was in the Russians were still holding. Late in the afternoon of September first, Talliaferro sought Miss Cardinegh bringing an exciting rumor that the Japanese had won the battle and the city.

“There’s another thing,” he added. “The English agent of the trading company here--the man of whom you don’t approve--has heard from Bingley. He will be in from Wangcheng to-night, and something big is up. Bingley has called for a horse to meet him at the train--a fast horse. I’ll wager there’s an American correspondent on the train, Miss Cardinegh, and that the ‘Horse-killer’ plans to beat him to the cable-office in the half-mile from the station. He wouldn’t wire for a horse if he were alone. Another matter. Borden, the American Combined Press man here, looks to have something big under cover. Altogether, I think there’ll be great stuff on the cable to-night. The chief trouble is, there won’t be any core--to Bingley’s apple.... I’ll call for you in a half-hour--if I may--and we’ll walk down to the train together.”

“Thank you. Of course,” she answered.... That half-hour pulled a big tribute of nervous energy. Noreen did not know what to think, but she fought back hope with all the strength which months of self-war had given....

The train appeared at last through the gap in the Great Wall--cleared torturingly slow in the twilight. Talliaferro directed her eyes to two saddle-horses on the platform. Borden, the American, was in touch with a China-boy who held a black stallion of notorious prowess.... She hardly noted. The train held her eyes. Her throat was dry--her heart stormed with emotion.... She did not scream. Routledge hung far out from the platform--searching to locate his mount. She covered her face in her parasol.... This was the end of a race from the field with Bingley.... She choked back her heart’s cry, lest it complicate.

Routledge sped past her--leaped with a laugh into the saddle of the black stallion. His eye swept the crowd--but the yellow silk of the parasol shielded her face. He spurred off toward the cable-office--with Bingley thundering behind on a gray mount.... Not till then did she dare to scream:

“Win! Ride to win, Routledge-san!”

Out of the shouting crowd, she ran after the horsemen--past the Rest House, through the mud-huts of the native quarter.... On she sped, the night filled with glory for her eyes.... Suddenly there was a shot--then four more--from ahead. Fear bound her limbs, and she struggled on--as in the horrid weights of an evil dream.

TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER

ROUTLEDGE, BROODING UPON THE MIGHTY SPECTACLE OF A JAPANESE BIVOUAC, TRACES A WORLD-WAR TO THE LEAK IN ONE MAN’S BRAIN

Parting from Noreen Cardinegh on the Bund at Shanghai, Routledge walked back through the darkness to the German Inn far out on the Hankow road. He was not conscious of the streets, nor of time passed. Not a word he had spoken to the woman could he remember, but all that she had said recurred again and again. He was torn within. The wound was too deep for heavy pain at first--that would come later with the drawing-together--but he was dazed, weakened. He turned into the door of the hostelry and recalled that he had nothing to do there. He had engaged passage on the _Sungkiang_ for Chifu that afternoon. His baggage was aboard, and the ship lying on the water-front which he had left. He turned back, without any particular emotion at his absentmindedness, but he charged himself with an evil recklessness for tarrying on the Bund in the afternoon.... Finacune had seen him, and Noreen....

Jerry Cardinegh was still alive--lost to wars, lost to friends, but still alive. He was close to death, his brain probably already dead to big things, and he had not told! Noreen would never know. Routledge tried to be glad. All his praying, hiding, and suffering had been to save her from knowing. His lips formed a meaningless declarative sentence to the effect that he was glad; meaningless, because there was no sanction in his heart. He was ill and very weary. He wished it were time for the prophesied wound, and for Noreen to come to him. He was not powerful enough that moment, walking back to the Bund, to face the future, and hold the thought that he was to remain an outcast....

“She will come to me when Jerry is dead,” he repeated, and for the time he could not fight it.... He went aboard, forgetting dinner, and dropped upon his berth. The _Sungkiang_ put off, out into the river, and long afterward lifted to the big swell in the offing. These were but faint touches of consciousness. His mind held greater matters--the strength of her hand, the breath, the fragrance, the vehemence, the glory of the woman in the wintry dusk, as she rushed back to her work--the tearing tragedy of parting; again the pitiless mountains of separation....

Loose articles were banging about the floor; the pendent oil-lamp creaked with the pitching of the ship. It was after midnight. Routledge caught up the great frieze coat and went out on the main-deck. It was a cold ruffian of a night, but it restored his strength.

She would keep her promise and come to him, when her father was dead. He faced the thought now that she would never know the truth; that Jerry Cardinegh would have spoken long since, if he could.... In some deep dark place of the earth, she would find him; and some British eye, ever keen, would see them together--the lady and the outcast.... He would send her away--put on a martyrdom of frost and steel--and send her away.... If he lied, saying that he wanted no woman--she would go back.... But Noreen was to find him wounded, fallen. Might he not, in delirium, utter the truth that her father failed to confess? No, the human will could prevent that! He would go down close to the very Gates with his lips locked.