Part 18

"Yes. He got word by the _Hailoong's_ mail. The heir with the one lung died of hemorrhage while crossing the Channel. His father died of shock when he was told of it. Carteret is now Lord Lewesthorpe. With mother the title has blotted out all his sins. She is more insistent than ever."

"Jessie, if Carteret bothers you, I'll wring his neck, and the Lewesthorpe title can go looking for another heir."

"Oh, no, Donald, you mustn't!" she said, in a little alarm, as she felt the big muscles against which she leaned swell with sudden passion. "You mustn't. Leave it to me. Mother is determined. But I can be determined, too. And father will not let me be pushed too far."

"I'll do whatever you want.

"Thank you, Donald. If mother knew now that I had let you speak to me of love, she would never forgive me. But she will change. There is something coming which will change her. I do not know what it is. But I know that it is coming. We are Highland, you know. It is the second sight."

The lovers sat for a while longer. Then she looked at her watch:

"Oh, Donald! Do you know that we have been here nearly two hours?"

"It seemed to me like five minutes," was the reply.

She gave a merry laugh and said:

"If time always passes so quickly, we'll be old before we know."

"I wish that I could be sure that the days after you leave would only pass as quickly," he said, a trifle sadly.

"They'll pass, Donald. I'll be thinking of you, and you'll be thinking of me, and the days will go. But what will Mr. McLeod be thinking of us, that we have stayed here so long? And isn't it strange that none of the Chinese boys ever came into the saloon in those two hours?"

Sinclair laughed his happy, boyish laugh.

"Trust McLeod!" he said. "Probably he could explain the prolonged absence of the boys, as well as his own."

She looked at him archly.

"I am not sure now that I have done wisely in giving you my undivided love, Donald. I am afraid that I am not getting the same in return. I am really jealous of Mr. McLeod."

The method of his reply need not be described. She was satisfied with it. And when they stepped out and met McLeod on the deck he knew without being told.

*XXXI*

*ANCESTORS AND PEDIGREES*

The last night of the stay of the MacAllisters in Tamsui had come. They were to sail for Hong-Kong on the _Hailoong_ the next day. With them were going Mrs. Beauchamp and Constance, Mrs. MacKay and her children, Mr. and Mrs. Thomson, Carteret, Clark, and a number of others of the foreign community. The consul had ordered that all the foreign women and children should leave North Formosa. A number of the men who had no taste for the scenes and chances of war were going with them. Mr. MacAllister feared the possibility of a blockade and so chose to go to Hong-Kong, where he could freely prosecute his search.

As there had been on the evening after their arrival, so there was the evening before their departure a dinner at the consulate. This time the guests left early. Many of them were preparing for a hasty departure. They knew that their hostess had likewise much to occupy her time for the few remaining hours. Sinclair had gone on board the _Hailoong_ to have a farewell talk with McLeod. Sergeant Gorman, who had been dining with the second officer and the second engineer, joined them by their invitation. They were sitting on the after deck, sheltered from the raw wind of the northeast monsoon. The conversation drifted from point to point of recent events. McLeod and Sinclair led Gorman on to tell in his inimitable way incident after incident, while they laughed like a pair of schoolboys out on a frolic.

"You never told me, sergeant, how you got along with Miss MacAllister and Carteret the day you saw them safely home after the charge of the Tamsui Blues."

Gorman cocked an eye at Sinclair, with an expression which was irresistibly comical.

"I knew that it wud come," he said. "You did nobly, docther. You held your whisht for a full week. But I knew it wud come."

"That's all right, Gorman," replied Sinclair, laughing to hide a little confusion. "That's all right. But that's not the subject under discussion. You tell us how you enjoyed your walk."

"How did I enjoy it? How could I do anything else but enjoy it, wid the young lady talkin' to me, and askin' me questions about me experiences in the wars, an' about the camp and the hospital at Keelung; and the two bright eyes of her lookin' at me so friendly loike. Fwhat kind of a man wud I be that wudn't enjoy it?"

"So the young lady talked to you all the way home?" said McLeod.

"Yes," said Gorman with a wink at McLeod, which distorted all one side of his face, "she didn't know that I was a married man."

McLeod laughed gaily at Sinclair. The latter took Gorman's banter good-naturedly. He could afford to be indulgent.

"How did Carteret take your monopolizing her?" he asked.

"He tould me that it wud become me to have less to say in the prisince of me betters. 'Begorra,' sez I, 'barrin' her young ladyship here, there's none of them prisint that I can see,' sez I. 'An' whin it comes to savin' young ladies from General Soon's Tamsui Blues, be the powers I haven't been seein' me betters around here, exceptin' Docther Sinclair, may the angels make his bed in glory,' sez I. Wid that the young lady fires up and sez, 'The divil a bit of it,' sez she. 'We don't want the doctor to go to glory yet,' sez she."

"What! What! What's that, Gorman!" exclaimed McLeod, while Sinclair was fairly shrieking with laughter. "You don't mean to tell us that Miss MacAllister said that--'the divil a bit of it.' Did she say that?"

"Och, Mr. McLeod, now you're spoilin' me story. If she didn't say that in so manny wurrds, she thought it annyway. An' fwhat's the difference? But I'll take me affydavit on it that she did say that she didn't want the docther here to go to glory yet. An' I'm jist tellin' the docther for his comfort, for be that sign, they were very encouragin' wurrds."

"Did Carteret try to sit on you again?" inquired Sinclair when they ceased laughing.

"He did. 'Sergeant,' sez he, 'you're too free with your tongue. Your company is offensive,' sez he. 'You may consider your services dispensed with. And I shall consider it my duty to report you to the consul.' 'Bedad,' sez I, 'if you had been a little freer wid your courage, you wudn't have needed me company. As for me services,' sez I, 'I'm not under your orders. I was sint to see this young lady safely home,' sez I. 'An' I cudn't think of lavin' her in your care, for fear you might chanst to meet a fieldmouse by the way, an' you moight run, an' lave her to be devoured by the feroshus wild beast,' sez I.

"Wid that the young lady tuk to laughin' an' laughed so that I cudn't finish wid the spalpeen for sayin' that he'd report me to the consul. I was jist goin' to be afther tellin' him that afther a consultashun together wid the consul, I had decided to deport him from the island. But the young lady sez, sez she, 'Mr. Carteret, if I wish to talk to Sergeant Gorman, I do not see why you should object. I hope that you will not interfere with him again, and I'm sure that Sergeant Gorman will not say anything more to offend you.'"

"Then the rest of your walk was quite peaceful and agreeable," said Sinclair.

"It was," replied the sergeant. "You see the young lady and I talked all the rest of the way. An' that spalpeen of a Carteret was as paceful as you plase, walkin' on the other side of her, kind of sulky an' hang-dog loike, for niver another wurrd did she say to him."

"You must have enjoyed it, for I never before knew you to take so long a time on so short an expedition."

"Och, docther, I wudn't have thought it of you. But seein' that it's troublin' you, I'll just make your moind aisy by tellin' you that I wasn't wid the young lady all the toime. Part of it I was wid her mother."

"Did Carteret tell her mother what had really happened?" asked McLeod.

"I hadn't the honor of hearin' what he did tell her. But she wasn't jist taken wid it, for she asked me to wait, an' afther the spalpeen was gone, she tould me to step in, for she wanted to have some conversashun wid me. 'Wid pleasure, ma'm,' sez I. 'Sergeant,' sez she, 'are these water-buffaloes dangerous to people?' 'That all depinds on the people,' sez I. 'But are they not very ferocious beasts?' sez she. 'Ag'in that depinds,' sez I. 'If there's a bit of a shillelagh wid a man behind it, they're as p'aceful as lambs in spring-time. But if there's nothin' but a paint-brush, wid a good-for-nothin' omadhaun at the back of it,' sez I, 'thin they bate Bengal tigers.'

"Wid that she got very red. 'Mr. Carteret's a gentleman,' sez she. 'Maybe,' sez I. 'He's well-born,' sez she. 'The divil,' sez I."

"You would say that," interrupted McLeod.

"Och, Mr. McLeod, there you'd be afther spoilin' me story agin. An' now that you call it to me moind, I didn't say that nayther, seein' that it was a lady I was talkin' to. Fwhat I did say was this, that I didn't know that he was anny better born than the rest of us; an' though I did not remember much about the occasion, I always onderstood that me own mother, considerin' her opportunities, had brought me into the wurrld jist about as nately as a duchess could have done.

"Wid that she gave a bit of a laugh, an' sez, 'No doubt, Sergeant Gorman! But I didn't mean it just that way,' sez she. 'I meant that his ancestors have been men of rank and noble birth for generations.' 'As for that,' sez I, 'I don't take much stock in me pedigree,' sez I. 'A man don't go far wid his ancesthors till he foinds wan he'd loike to trade off for some wan else. But seein' that they are both dead an' done wid, he can't do it convaniently. To illustrate, I'll jist tell your ladyship how it happened to mesilf,' sez I.

"'Wanst whin I was in Indy, I tuk it into me moind to go home to Ireland an' hunt up me ancesthors. I came to me birthplace, Sleeahtballymackcurraghalicky in County Cork, an' tould the ouldest man in the place who I was an' what was me business. "Yis," sez he, "yis; I don't know you; but I've hard of you, an' I knowed your fader. Your name is John Gorman. Your fader's was Shon Jay Pay. His fader was Shon Mor. An' his fader was another Shon who was hanged by the English for bein' a Rory of the Hills." 'An', ma'am,' sez I, 'wud you believe me, I didn't pursue me ancesthors anny farder--shure as I'm a livin' man. I didn't pursue me dead an' gone ancesthors anny farder.'

'But,' sez she, wid a little laugh, 'Mr. Carteret's ancestors were not like that. They were noblemen. His father is an earl. His oldest brother is the heir. But his father is an old man, and cannot live long, and the heir has only one lung, and when he dies, Mr. Carteret will succeed to the title and the estates.' 'Well, ma'am,' sez I, 'if it's my opinion you want, it's this. The heir shud trade off his wan lung wid an auctioneer for his two, an' give him L100,000 to boot. For it's little honor will be done to the title, an' little profit to the estates, if that spalpeen of a Carteret gets thim,' sez I, 'beggin' your ladyship's pardon for talkin' so freely in your prisince.'

"Thin she got very red agin. Afther a bit she sez, 'Thank you, Sergeant Gorman, for your opinions,' sez she. 'Here's a guinea for you.' 'Thank you, ma'am,' sez I, 'but I'm nayther a lawyer to be sellin' me gab for money, nor a beggar to be takin' charity,' sez I. 'I'm the son of an Irish gentleman.' Wid that she looked at me kind of curious loike, an' sez, 'Pardon me, Mr. Gorman, for offering it to you. But just the same I want to thank you for your services to my daughter and to me,' an' she reached out her hand an' shook hands wid me rale friendly loike."

When Sinclair, McLeod, and Gorman separated that night, Sinclair saw before him the possibility of a change of attitude on the part of Mrs. MacAllister towards Carteret and himself.

*XXXII*

*A MAN AND A WOMAN.*

The day of departure had come. The _Hailoong_ was floating on a full tide, ready to cast off. Those who were remaining were down to bid farewell to those who were going. Impedimenta had been stored away, and all had gathered in two groups on the promenade deck. Dr. MacKay, his wife and children, Mr. and Mrs. Thomson, and a number of native students and preachers, formed one group. The Beauchamps, the MacAllisters, Commander Gardenier, Boville, Carteret (for the residents still called him by the name by which they had known him all along), and most of the young men of the customs and mercantile staffs, formed the other.

Dr. Sinclair, who had been busy helping in the hasty preparations for departure, walked forward along the side of the deck next the dock. Miss MacAllister disengaged herself from the little group and stepped to the rail, as though to watch the last incidents of the embarkation. They met on the very spot where they had stood that memorable evening on which the _Hailoong_ put out from Amoy to face the capricious seas of the Channel.

What a change had come in their relations! They knew that many eyes were watching them. Their words, if spoken above a whisper, would be audible. There could be no demonstration, scarcely even a sign of understanding or affection. Yet there was the attitude of perfect confidence. And when their eyes met, they spoke a language which both understood.

"This scene must have grown very familiar to you in the last two and a half months," he said.

"Yes," she replied. "For that reason one is apt to pass over many of the features of it without noting them. I want to impress on my memory every detail."

"Isn't it strange," he said in a very low tone, "that this little port in a strange land, should so quickly have become a sacred spot to us?"

"The most sacred spot in all the world," she replied softly.

Some one called to them, and they both turned at once, and stood side by side facing the company.

"What a magnificent-looking pair they make!" exclaimed Mrs. Thomson, in a sudden enthusiasm forgetting that the voice would carry to the ears of all present.

"Was that what you called us to hear?" Miss MacAllister flashed back. "It certainly was worth while. Do you not think so, Dr. Sinclair?" She laughed gaily, a little defiantly, for she had seen the expression on her mother's face.

"I certainly do. And I'm proud to shine with the reflected light of beauty," he replied.

"Oh, you! You are worse than they are."

She turned hastily to the rail again, to hide her blushes. Her mother set her lips very tightly together, lifted her head very high, and sniffed. She was more intent than ever on forcing her daughter to marry Carteret. Whatever doubts of his suitability to be a good husband she may have entertained, had vanished with his actual succession to the title. A peerage can cover a multitude of sins.

"All aboard!" rang out in English and Chinese. Men sprang to the hawsers to cast off. At that instant a sedan chair, with sweating bearers on the run, reached the dock and was dropped at the end of the gang plank. An unusually pretty Chinese girl of seventeen or eighteen years, richly dressed, and bearing in her arms a child of a few months old, stepped hastily out of it, and ran for the gangway as fast as her bound feet would carry her. One look at the child was enough to learn its story. Almost as dark as a Chinese in complexion, the features were distinctly European. It was a Eurasian, the child of a European father and an Asiatic mother.

At the sight of the sedan chair Carteret had turned abruptly from the group on deck, and had run down the ladder. The next instant his voice was heard by those who leaned on the rail, speaking, not loudly, but in tones of restrained fury.

"Put that woman off. Don't let her on board this boat," uttered to the accompaniment of savage oaths.

"Stand back, Mr. Carteret. It is not for you to say who will be a passenger on this boat. This woman has money to pay her passage, and she has the same rights as you have. Make way there."

It was McLeod's voice, clear and cold and hard as steel.

Sinclair and Miss MacAllister did not look at each other for some moments. The others on the deck heard only very imperfectly what was said below. Some of the men talked continuously and loudly, so that the women might not hear. When Miss MacAllister's eyes did meet Sinclair's, they had in them such a look of confidence and content that the memory of it never faded from his mind.

There was no opportunity for them to speak such farewells as their hearts craved. Once she had the chance to whisper,

"I'll be thinking of you, Donald, and you'll be thinking of me."

His answer was,

"And I'll come to you, Jessie, though all the world try to keep us apart."

As the general farewells were said, Constance Beauchamp shook hands with Sinclair gravely, sedately; stood for an instant irresolute, and then with a movement as light as that of a fawn, sprang into his arms, clasped hers around his neck and kissed him again and again, before them all. She had another parting boon to bestow.

"I am going away where I can't see you, Dr. Sinclair. You may get your hair cut whenever you wish. But keep one of the curls for me."

And Miss MacAllister looking on, felt no jealous pang.

Amidst waving hats and handkerchiefs, the _Hailoong_ swung out into the stream, and started on her voyage, with her strangely assorted freight of humanity, going to their various destinies. Among those surely none were more tragic than the destinies of a man, of a woman, and of their child. He was bound for an English earldom, and a seat in the House of Lords. She was to drift into a native brothel, frequented by the degraded of all nationalities, in the great cosmopolitan port of Hong-Kong. Their child was to grow up in the streets of that tropical city, a nameless, mongrel waif, never to know his father's face, till he should stand as his accuser before the judgment seat of God.

*XXXIII*

*MY CHILDREN IN THE LORD*

"Dr. MacKay, you are not well."

"I know that, Dr. Sinclair."

"You have a temperature, I'm sure. Have you taken it?"

"No."

"How's that? I thought that you were careful to watch your health. You told me that you could not afford to be sick."

"So I am, as a rule. But I could not take it this time till my wife left. She would not have gone if she had known."

"You should have gone yourself. The strain has been too much for you. Knowing the shape you are in, why didn't you take a trip to Hong-Kong, or at least to Amoy, and rest a while?"

"That would be to play the part of a hireling shepherd. 'He that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling and careth not for the sheep.'"

Sinclair was silent while he counted the pulse, and awaited the report of the thermometer. When he looked at it, his face was grave.

"What is it?" asked MacKay. "You need not hesitate to tell me. Is it high?"

"Too high for a man to have and be walking about. One hundred and three and four-fifths."

"If it were malaria, I should not mind. I have worked for days on the East Coast with an average of one hundred and three. But this is not malaria. I cannot be deceived in it. I know malaria too well."

"Where is the trouble?"

"In my head."

"So I thought. We must get you to bed. I'll send a chit to Bergmann. He is your doctor."

That was the beginning of the fight for life. MacKay was battling with all the determination of his nature against cerebral meningitis. The battle was not very long, but it was exceedingly sharp. By his bedside all the time sat one or other of the three doctors. This stern, reserved, intensely concentrated man had won their respect and admiration, and no effort was spared to save his life. Native students, trained in the elements of nursing, glided noiselessly in and out of the room. Over at the college, where the native preachers, elders, and students assembled, a continuous prayer-meeting was in progress, these yellow and brown-skinned men who "ain't got no souls," praying with the simple faith of little children that their beloved pastor might be restored to health.

On the white bed in the middle of the room, beneath its drapery of mosquito curtains, MacKay's burning head turned ceaselessly from side to side, day and night, day and night without sleep. And day and night, day and night he talked, talked, talked, sometimes in English, sometimes in Chinese, talked without pause or cessation about his converts, the church which he had brought into being.

"My people! ... My people! ... My children in the Lord! ... Who will take care of them? My sheep! ... My poor sheep! ... Left without a shepherd! ... Who will feed them! ... My little lambs! My little lambs! ... Who will protect them from the wolves? ... O God! I commend them to Thee! ... My children! My children in the Lord!"

One day the raving suddenly ceased. Sinclair, startled by the unwonted silence, stepped to his bedside and threw back the curtains. MacKay was sitting bolt upright in bed. The fire of the fever was still in his face and eye. But his voice was perfectly natural, his manner calm and collected.

"Dr. Sinclair, what shall I do for my people? If I die, there is no one to take care of them. Mr. Thomson is not able now--perhaps never will be able. No person could come from Canada for a year, and when one would come, he would need another year or two for the language. Some of the native preachers are able, but none of them have authority to take the lead of their fellows. What shall I do?"

"Do not worry about that now," replied Sinclair soothingly. "There is the Good Shepherd still to lead His sheep. Leave it to Him. It is for you now to recover your strength."

"I am resolved what to do," MacKay went on, as if without noticing Sinclair's reply. "I shall ordain A Hoa and Tan He,[#] the two ablest of the preachers. That will give them authority to lead their brethren. That will make them pastors, shepherds of the sheep. It's irregular, I know. A presbytery should ordain. I'm not a presbytery. It's unusual. But unusual circumstances demand unusual methods. If I live, the church lawyers at home will crucify me for it. If I die, they'll condone my action, praise me in public, and scarify me in private. But neither their praise nor their blame can touch me then."

[#] Pronounced, Hay.

"The church lawyers be hanged, hanged in their own red tape!" exclaimed Sinclair savagely. "They have never seen anything but their own little parishes, and they think their tuppenny parochial rules can be applied to the whole world."

"I know, Dr. Sinclair, I know. What saith the Scripture? 'Where there is no vision the people perish.' But I am resolved that my people shall not perish.... Leng-a," he said in Chinese to the student nurse, "call A Hoa and Tan He to come here. Call all the other preachers, the students and elders to come at once."

In a few minutes the room was full of native Christians, while others stood in the hall on one side, or out on the verandah on the other. Briefly and impressively MacKay explained to them the need and his resolve, charged the two preachers to accept the holy office, asked them the prescribed questions, and then, when they had knelt beside his bed, he laid a hand upon the head of each and reverently, solemnly said in Chinese,