CHAPTER ONE

THE WANDERER

With thoughtful, tireless touch, the Unknown nursed the Breton through the fever that had fastened upon him the night he had cast aside the wife of Tai Lin and had brutally left her lying unconscious on the floor in the dusk of that evening when she had so trustingly laid upon his bosom and had given over to him her love and her life and her honour. Sleepless, the Unknown had nursed him as he struggled to hurl himself into the river that still flowed coaxingly at his feet. Sleepless he had knelt beside him when he lay in a stupor, his face pallid and covered with a cold sweat; sleepless he had listened to him muttering in slow, indistinct utterance, insistent as the dripping of the Water Clock, “I have sinned; I have sinned; I have sinned.”

The Unknown had roughly driven the other priests from the Breton’s chamber on the day they had brought him from the river’s bank, even after he became convalescent and was moved out into the shadowy cloisters, the Unknown still watched sternly and silently over him, so that during those reluctant days of the Breton’s recovery, neither the priests nor the communicants, continually coming and going, heard this silence broken nor knew the cause of the Breton’s sickness. They glanced compassionately at his fever-worn figure, motionless other than his fingers, which were ever nervously creasing, smoothing, caressing a fold in his robe. They noticed that his eyes looked endlessly somewhere, and that a stony calmness, like a veil, clung to his face. But their glances, as they passed and repassed, were ever as thoughtless as they were momentary. It was not for them to conjecture the struggle waging in the still form before them; that unseen volcanic combat was hidden by illimitable distance.

When the Breton was able to leave the Mission he accompanied the Unknown once more on his visitations through the city. These visits took them to that part of Yingching lying north of the Examination Grounds, and when they returned to the Mission they made a short cut through these ancient tourney grounds where multitudes have, during these thousand years contended and lost and won as Fate has willed. Going out by the South Gate they turn westward into the short Street of the Martial Dragon, at the end of which stands the Tower of the Water Clock, where this time-gnawed clepsydra of Yingching drips, drips, drips, the minutes of unnumbered years.

How often the Breton had come to this comforting tower to dream in the shadows of its imperturbable calm, happier than any in the bottomless pool of millions, that swirled around him, the Unknown did not know. But as he passed the winding stairs, the Breton stopped, looked up, and drew his hand across his eyes.

“Come, my son, we must go on,” said the Unknown, gently taking him by the arm.

The Breton looked dully at him for a moment, then seizing his hand pressed it convulsively to his heart.

“No, no, my father,” he cried, bursting into sobs. “I cannot go.”

So it came about in this manner that each day the Unknown left the Breton at the Stairs of the Water Clock and hastened on his way alone to the Great Peace Gate, and it was never until night that the Breton came silently to his chamber.

Once when they came to the Tower of the Water Clock, they stopped as usual but the Unknown stood for a long time gazing intently, questioningly at the Breton, then suddenly he put his arms around him, pressed him fervently to his heart, kissing him repeatedly on both cheeks, while tears streamed down the seams in his face.

“My son,” he cried brokenly, “my son,” and he wept as only an old man can.

“Yes,” he said finally, his voice again calm, “I leave you, my son, to God.”

He kissed the Breton again and hastened toward the Great Peace Gate.

For some moments the Breton stood by the winding stairs of the Water Tower, then walked hastily south, winding, turning, doubling, twisting through a maze of narrow alleys until he came to the Street of Pearls. Once on this thoroughfare he hastened on until he came near to where the street ended at the granite Gate of Tai Lin’s park. Without hesitation he turned into an open guardhouse recessed on the right of the street and leaning against one of the pillars fixed his gaze upon the gateway, as immovable as the pillar itself—which was of stone.

The hour of dusk was falling. Shopkeepers came out of their stores and looked in vain for a customer. Reluctantly they took in their wares and put up their shutters. The itinerant booths were gotten ready and were being taken home on the backs of their owners.

On the side of the street opposite the guardhouse and nearer the Gateway a fortune-teller stopped suddenly in his packing and beckoned mysteriously to his neighbour, a cook.

“Again!” he whispered hoarsely in the cook’s ear.

“Again? Again? What again? Rice——”

“Did I not prognosticate?”

“Pork——”

“Look! Again he is there!” and the fortune-teller whirled the cook around and, half crouching, pointed cautiously to the guardhouse.

“So he is! So he is!” cried the cook.

“Did I not foretell it? Master cook, did I not prognosticate?”

“Yes, that is a fact,” answered the cook doubtfully.

“Cook,” continued the fortune-teller in mystic-triumphant tones, “I see everything, hear everything, know everything. Now, master cook, let me do you a good turn; it will only cost——”

“But,” suddenly exclaimed the cook, brightening, “he has been there in that fashion toward night-cooking for nearly two full moons.”

“Certainly, certainly, but would he have been there if it had not been for my prognostications?”

“That may be, that may be,” answered the cook, scratching his head.

“Master cook, let me prognosticate you. It will only cost——”

“No,” interrupted the cook abruptly. “But,” he hesitated, “I don’t like that influence every day just at my night-cooking.”

“It is very bad,” interjected the fortune-teller, shaking his head ruefully. “I would not be you for all the cash of Ho.”

“What is it?” demanded the cook hastily. “Tell me, master, tell me.”

The fortune-teller jumped back dramatically and threw up his hands. “I am overwhelmed,” he cried in lofty injured tones, “dumb, speechless, a dying phœnix.”

The cook scratched his head and looked sheepishly at him.

“Master cook,” the fortune-teller continued in the same severe voice, “you pretend to be a merchant, and yet you are unable to distinguish great profits from a fly’s head. Is it not known among honourable merchants that just scales and full measures injure no man? I am pained! Goodbye, master cook.” The fortune-teller began to wrap up his paraphernalia.

The cook scratched his head.

“Master cook, I leave you with a pitying heart—farewell.”

“What have I done? What have I done?” cried the cook, coming hastily to his side.

“What have you done!” repeated the fortune-teller scornfully. “What have you done but throw out the refuse, the burnt scraps, the very swill of your inquisitiveness to lure from me the peculiar gems of my knowledge—my pearly prognostications!”

“But what have I done?” exclaimed the cook perplexedly.

“Can you get rice without planting? Chickens without eggs? Heat without fire? Fire without fuel? Prognostications without incentives?” demanded the fortune-teller haughtily.

“But what threatens me? What threatens me?” cried the cook impatiently.

“Master cook,” said the fortune-teller, solemnly though relentingly, “I should be lenient with you; that you do not understand the incomprehensible is not your fault. You are a cook, I alone am the scholar. Cook, I pity you; to me only is apparent the disaster over-pending. I will aid you.”

“Do, master, do.”

“Before prognosticating, cook, I must have four rice-cakes, cooked well in oil, and two pieces of pork——”

“Too much! master fortune-teller, too much!” cried the cook, backing off in amazement.

“Cook, I salute thee! To-night empty your oil into the street; scatter your flour upon the night-winds—you will need them no more. Farewell, there comes a day when every tumour must be punctured. Listen now to my last prognostication: Do not waste your wife’s cash in mock-money. It will not avail you.” The fortune-teller moved slowly away.

“Master fortune-teller! Master fortune-teller!”

“What is it, unfortunate man?”

“I will give you one rice-cake and one piece of fat pork.”

“Does one grain of planted rice produce as much as four?”

“I am a poor man.”

“Must not the poor avert their fate as well as the rich?”

“I will give you two rice-cakes and one piece of lean pork.”

“You are indeed a poor man,” commented the fortune-teller sadly, “and unfortunate. Yes, my compassion pleads for you. I will prognosticate. Yes, for two cakes, two fat pieces of pork, and a bowl of kale.”

“Too much! Too much!” cried the cook desperately. “I will give you the cakes and the pork, no more! no more!”

For some moments the fortune-teller looked seriously up at the heavens.

“Let it be,” he finally mumbled with compassion, “but mark you, master cook, the depth of my benevolence!”

When the cook had provided him with rice-cakes and two squares of fat pork he squatted down upon his heels and munched contentedly, while the cook crouched by his side and waited. Now and then the fortune-teller would stretch his neck and peer mysteriously through the gathering twilight at the tall figure standing so still beside the stone pillar of the guardhouse, and the cook at the same time stretched his neck and peered fearfully through the shadows.

After the fortune-teller finished his cakes and pork he drew from his paraphernalia a small-bowled pipe. When he had taken a few puffs, he asked in a low voice:

“What do you see, cook?”

“He is still there,” answered the cook in a whisper.

“What else do you see?”

“He stares like a big-eyed owl.”

“What is an owl?”

“A bird of bad omen.”

“What else do you know?”

“That he never turns his round eyes away from the gate of Tai Lin.”

“What is a gateway?”

“It is the coming in and going out.”

“How do you write the characters Yen Wang?”

The cook moved closer to the fortune-teller. “Is it that?” he asked hoarsely.

“Did you not see him when he commenced to come many moons ago?”

“Yes, master, yes.”

“Was he not as stalwart as the young bullock of Heungshan?”

“Yes, master——”

“And now he is like a spectre, a troubled ghost whose Fêng Shui has been ruined.”

“It is true, master, it is true!”

“Have you not noticed,” continued the fortune-teller in tones that made the cook huddle closer to him, “that since he came you have drowsed and drowsed and been careless of your business?”

“It is true! It is true!”

“Have you not noticed that when his fingers twitch, men shun you?”

“Many men have passed me by, master, many have passed me by!”

“Have you not noticed when his bosom heaves out you have a sadness in your chest?”

“Yes, yes.”

“He has the appearance of a Western-sea man!”

“What!”

“A foreign devil. Have you seen his eyes? They are blue!”

“Blue? master, blue?”

“If he should look into your boiling oil, it would go up in flame; if he should look into your flour, it would frisk with weevils; if he should look into your meat, lo! there would be nothing but maggots, and if he should peer into your heart—I tremble.”

The cook crouched closer to him.

“Cook, how is the Idol of Yang Ssü made?”

“By three swings of the axe, master.”

“How is the Idol of Yen Wang made?”

“I know not, I know not.”

“It is carved by tears, cook, as rocks are cut by mountain’s rain. Its visage is of the terriblest sorrow; the height of heaven, the depth of the sea cannot encompass it.”

The fortune-teller leaned closer to the cook and whispered hoarsely in his ear: “He has the face of Yen Wang.”

“I feel that sadness! I feel that sadness!” cried the cook, pulling open the neck of his blouse.

The fortune-teller looked at him pityingly, then up at the darkening sky and remained contemplative for some time.

“Cook,” he said thoughtfully, “there are some things that are known and some things that are not. From the things that are known we learn concerning the things that are not, but this is the task of the wise. Now it is known that heaven is round and the earth square; that the stars are shining characters in the Book of Fate, and eclipses are dragon feasts. Moreover, it is known that when tigers plunge into the sea they become sharks, and sparrows falling into the water are changed into oysters. It is also known to those that are learned that it is the nature of water to run downward; the nature of fire to flame upward; the nature of wood to be either crooked or straight; the nature of metals to be pliable and subject to change. In addition to this, cook, it is known to scholars that there are five elements, five planets, five great mountain ranges on the earth, five seas, five senses, five musical tones, five kinds of coffins, five kinds of torture, five ways to die in, and five times in the last five minutes has the spectre in the guardhouse clenched his hands.

“Now, cook, what is known to us, especially wise, is that the clouds are dragons and the winds tigers; mind is the mother, matter the child. If the mother summons the child, will it dare disobey? Those that, like myself, can expel the spirit of death, must summon the spirits of the five elements, and who would conquer death must obtain the influence of the five planets. When this is done, Ying and Yang can be controlled; winds and clouds are gathered into the palm of the hand; mountains and hills torn up by the roots, while seas and rivers can be made to spring out of the ground.

“But, cook, to save you from Yen Wang, whose image now looks down upon you, who has been in your very presence for nearly two rounded moons, exceeds all of these things in wisdom and difficulty. There is only one thing, and it is by no means easy, even for me, to obtain—a golden elixir! Ordinarily the moon and planets and all the powerful lights in heaven must seven times seven repeat their footsteps; and the four seasons nine times complete their circuit. Then must this elixir be chastened in molten silver and burnt red with molten gold. But, cook, one draught will save you; three draughts will give you ten myriad of ages, and eight draughts will waft you beyond the sphere of sublunary things.”

“Do it, master,” muttered the cook huskily.

“It is well,” responded the fortune-teller solemnly. “And I shall see to it that this shall not cost you more than ten taels sycee——”

The cook sprang tragically to his feet, and forgetful of the image of Yen Wang the wrangling of cash began.

* * * * *

The Breton in the guardhouse awoke from his stupor. Reluctantly, silently, he went away and night came down upon the Street of Pearls.