CHAPTER SIX

THE PROPITIATION OF THE GODS OF THE WATERS—CONTINUED

In the southern suburbs, almost under the shadow of the city walls and midway between the Dragon Gate on the right and the Great Bamboo Gate on the left, once stood a Lodge of the Tien Tu Hin, generally known as the Guild Hall of the Merchants of Kiang, since it is the custom of merchants from the same locality to have their guilds where they meet for business and pleasure. So this custom, beneficial in more ways than one, was made to serve as an excuse—a protection to the children of the Deluge Family.

The buildings of the Lodge—or Guild Hall—were surrounded by an high wall having a granite gateway on the street parallel with the city walls connected the two thoroughfares that extended through the Gates of the Dragon and the Great Bamboo. Between the entrances and the buildings was a wide court paved with granite slabs, while a number of banian trees half hid in their foliage the many buildings of granite, glazed brick, and curved dragon eaves, separated by a series of courts and connected with corridors. The main entrance opposite the gateway was reached by a broad flight of steps flanked by two bronze lions. In the first buildings of this Guild Hall were reception and smoking rooms, libraries, offices, and other apartments necessary to such an association. But back of these, beyond another court, stood other buildings, windowless and forbidding, where unknown chambers held in their darkened recesses the secrets and terrors of the Tien Tu Hin.

As it happened the night of the Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters fell on the night of initiation in this secret lodge on the street of Changsha. So just about the same hour when the wife was creeping fearfully through the still, dark park, others of mankind were slinking along through the shadows of the city walls and vanishing under the granite gate.

It was a strange gathering that slunk under the portals of that gloomy entrance: men in long silken robes, men in rags; merchants, thieves, sailors, scholars, artisans, soldiers, pirates. Men with soft white hands, pale faces and delicate in their courtesies, mingled brotherly with others almost black from storms and exposure; brawny, brusque, sombre, ferocious.

After the second hour of darkness had passed the outer gates were closed; and when the ponderous doors at the top of the Lion steps had been bolted, a gong sounded hoarsely from some unknown depths and before its deep echoes had ended this motley congregation of men standing about talking, smoking, disappeared, utterly vanished, so that there was not to be seen in all the Guild Hall man, rag, nor robe.

Presently the gong mumbled again; slowly, measuredly, five times this gong sounded, and as suddenly as they had vanished there sprang out of recesses, crevices and walls fecundate, a new race of men. When they disappeared they had had queues and shaven heads, now they came forth without them and about their crowns were turbans of red silk. A wild medley of satins and tatters had gone into the hidden places, but there came out an assembly all gorgeous in the antique robes of the Mings, so that it could not now be known who had come in rags, who in silks.

Again cymbals crashed, and the assembly arranged itself by twos other than at the head, and there one man marched alone, preceded by guards carrying upright heavy double-edged swords. This man, who walked alone, was the Great Elder Brother—the Grand Master of the Lodge. Behind him followed the Incense Master and Instructor; then the Third Elder Brother and Champion, after whom came the General of the Van and the Red Club; these were followed by the Five Generals, the Tiger Generals, the Eight Guards, the Iron Soles and members.

Slowly, solemnly, in time with the dirge-like booming of gongs and crash of cymbals the procession moved out of the first buildings, along the corridors flanking the court and disappeared through an opening beyond. After passing through a number of chambers and corridors they came to an entrance before which stood guards with drawn swords. The Guards preceding the Great Elder Brother stood face to face before them and then silently exchanged swords. They now entered the first anteroom, at the far end of which was another guarded door. Again the same solemn transfer of swords was gone through with, and the procession passed on into the second anteroom where, as before, swords were passed and the Great Elder Brother led the way into the third anteroom, at the far end of which were two iron doors. As the guards pulled these back there opened before them a huge Hall of Shadows.

The appearance of this Hall was such as to inspire terror. Just beyond the doors, extending their whole width, stretched a fiery moat, out of which flames leaped and crackled; in its depths the heat glowed white and green. Across this burning ditch, through the middle of the doorway, was a bridge of two planks, one copper, the other iron—symbolic of the bridge thrown down by the Immortal Tahtsunye and by which the Five Patriarchs escaped from Shaolintze. Over this bridge hung an arch of pendent swords glowing and quivering with the heat that rose from the furnace below. The only lights in the Hall—unless the stars are numbered—were the ditch of fire and in the centre two iron racks, where blazed bundles of fagots and which gave an uncertain enormity to the shadows within. On the sides were cavernous openings, in the floor abysses. The ceiling other than over the fiery ditch and fagots, was also full of uncertain shadows. In the far left-hand corner, hardly perceptible in this glaring dust, glowed like a blinking eye a taper on the Shrine of the God of War. Opposite in the darkness of the right-hand corner beamed another eye on the Altar of the Goddess of Mercy. Then there was the taper of the God of Earth and five tapers on the Shrines of the Five Patriarchs.

In the centre of the hall but beyond the braziers of fagots stood the Great Shrine, flanked on the left by a representation of Kaochi Temple—where the Five Patriarchs met the founder of the Deluge Family, Chen Chinan, and on the right by a miniature nine-story pagoda. In front of the Great Shrine was a lesser altar on which were placed the symbols of the Tien Tu Hin: symbols that have been revered by countless millions for nearly two centuries and a half—symbols the world may dread. On the smaller altar lay a stone incense vessel engraved with four large characters, Fuh Tsing, Fa Ming. In the centre was a Peck of Rice known as Muyangfu, in which were stuck the flags of the Five Grand Sections of the Deluge Family and the banner of the Commander-in-chief. On one side was placed a Red Club, having a phœnix engraved on one end and a dragon on the other.

On each corner of the altar stood a dwarf Cedar and Pine tree, symbolical of fidelity in oaths. Between them, ranged alternately on each side of the Muyangfu, was a red lamp to discern the True from the False; a seven-starred broadsword indicating that by the sword the Manchus will succumb and the Mings be restored; a Rule by which men can measure their conduct; a Pair of Scales to weigh Ming against Tsing, the True against the Traitors; an Abacus to reckon the time for their destruction; a Mirror, as was handed down by Nu Wo, to show who are good and who are evil; a White Fan for calling together the members of the Deluge Family; a Pair of Scissors for ripping open the black clouds that obscure the Ming sky; and finally a huge double-edged sword by which the disobedient and traitorous are put to death. The roof in front of the shrine and between the braziers was open and the stars shone down into shadows filled with terror; into that silence where man broods.

Silently the procession entered this vast hall, which at one time had appeared to them all as a colossal deep of doom. The Great Elder Brother, the Incense Master and Instructor took their places before the Great Shrine, the other officers ranging themselves in order to the rear.

Solemnly the Grand Master lifted up the Peck of Rice called Muyangfu, and as he placed it on the Greater Shrine the officers behind him chanted their mystic verses. Then in the same manner he raised the Tripod, the Abacus, the Mirror, the Pine and Cedar trees, the Scales and Discerning Lamp, the White Fan and Cloud-Ripping Scissors. After all the symbols had been placed on the Great Altar, and the Incense Master had lighted the incense in the Stone Tripod and before each tablet of the Five Patriarchs, the whole assembly fell on their knees, chanting a requiem mysterious, known to none but them.

The Great Elder Brother now took his seat under the open space in the roof, so that the Eyes of Heaven could look down upon him and see that his acts were just. The Incense Master sat on his left; the Instructor on his right; then the Third Elder Brother on the left of the Incense Master; the Champion on the right of the Instructor; thus they arranged themselves: the General of the Van, the Red Club, the Five Generals and Tiger Generals, the Eight Guards and the Iron Soles, while at the end of the iron and copper bridge, under the arch of pendant swords, stood other guards. The whole assembly was arranged in the form of a crescent, the Great Elder Brother being in the centre, behind him the Great Shrine, on his right and left the braziers of fagots, before him the fiery moat; above—the stars of Heaven.

In the first anteroom waited the uninitiated, dressed in rough clothing, their queues unplaited and their shoes removed. The Guards stationed at the entrance of the second anteroom demanded of them why they came, and they replied that they understood soldiers were wanted and they came to enlist.

The Guards demanded who asked them to come, and they replied that they came on their own accord.

The sponsors of the candidates now led them into the second anteroom, where the guards demanded whence they came, and to which they replied: “From the East.” The names of their sponsors were taken and the Guards warned them that they would have dangers and hardships to endure; that the food they were to eat would be three parts rice and seven parts sand, to which they replied:

“Yu sha, king sha, wu sha king kiang”—“if there is sand we will farm it; if there is no sand, we will farm waves.”

In the third anteroom the Guards asked them this terrible conundrum:

“Which is harder, the sword or your necks?”

They answered: “Our necks.”

The jackets of the candidates were unbuttoned, their right arms and shoulders bared and five lighted tapers of incense placed in their hands.

The General of the Van advanced and conducted them, walking on their knees, to the inner door, where he addressed the Guards:

“Guards of the Inner Portal, inform the Incense Master that the General of the Van conducts recruits to join our army and swear brotherhood. They desire to take Deluge for their family name, and may it please the Incense Master to pray before the Shrine of the Five Patriarchs that they may gaze down upon us and approve.”

The Guards replied that the Five Patriarchs commanded Tien Yu Hung to enter.

The General of the Van passed through the Inner Portal, across the fiery moat and addressed the Incense Master, upon which ensued an endless, mystic dialogue, sometimes sounding like the chatter of children; sometimes like the ominous muttering of thunder. It was occult, inane, full of wonderful and dreadful meaning, cabalistic, ridiculous, terrifying—all depending upon who listened. The sizzling of a fuse is amusing to a child; to an old soldier—death.

The long mysterious debate was at last brought to a close by the Incense Master ordering the General of the Van to bring the candidates upon the bridge.

The doors were thrown open and the recruits led—still walking on their knees—through the entrance.

At the sight of the burning moat they drew back, cringing one upon another, but as the General of the Van advanced they shuffled after him, the tapers trembling in their hands. When their guide reached the other end of the bridge he stopped and they were obliged to remain crouching on the planks of copper and iron; below them a furnace, above an arch of swords shuddering in the heat waves, scintillating, threatening.

The Incense Master advanced toward them and, crossing his arms on his breast, uttered this prayer:

“O Imperial Heaven, O Sovereign Earth, Ye Spirits of Fire; Ye Spirits of Hills and Streams, and Land and Veins of the Earth: Ye Five Dragon Spirits of the Five Regions: Lin Ting, Lui Chia, Spirits Attendant, and all Ye Holy Spirits that wander through endless space, draw near to us, we entreat!

“Since Fuh created this Earth all has prospered, and what the Ancients knew they have given down to succeeding ages. This knowledge we have received, we are about to impart.

“Patriots now hang on the Bridge over Fires. They have come to swear to Ye, O Imperial Heaven, that they will live and die together. That they pledge brotherhood forever, considering sincerity the basis; kindness and righteousness the Ruling Principles; filial love and obedience above all.

“O Ye Five Spirits, throw down into the fire those that would to-night bring discord or treason into our midst. Let those that hang on the bridge know that no distinction of mine or thine can be allowed here.

“To-night we will kneel in front of the Incense Tripod and cleanse our hearts, mix our blood, swallow the mingled blood-drinking oath, and swear to live and die for our brotherhood—immutable as the hills and seas.

“Those that obey shall prosper; those that are disobedient shall perish. Those that assist their country in establishing Universal Peace shall be ennobled for a thousand ages; but those that are traitors shall die beneath the sword and their race become extinct.

“O Fuh Teh, Protector of the people and famed eternally for thy divine benevolence; and Ye, O Chung I, the ten thousand ages hero, the Recruiter and Commander of the valiant, we are now by order of the Five Patriarchs about to swear brotherhood in the blood-testing oath of our society. May Ye Gods in your wisdom and power make clear to these newcomers that it matters not what is their human relationship, all are born anew in the Deluge.

“Again, O Fuh Teh and Chung I, and all ye Intelligent and Discerning Gods, we humbly beseech you to look down upon us while we take the Thirty-six Oaths to manifest the truthfulness of our hearts.”

The candidates on the bridge, swaying back and forth, crouched and clung to one another. Panting for breath, great streams of perspiration ran from their faces and shoulders, their eyes bulged and rolled. Almost overcome by the heat and fumes that rose around them, each appeared about to topple off into the furnace.

The delay was not yet ended.

When the Incense Master ceased his prayer two Iron Soles stepped forward and received from him a scroll of yellow paper about six feet long by two broad, on which were written the Thirty-six Oaths. One of the Iron Soles knelt on his right knee and held one corner in his right hand, while the other knelt on his left knee and held the other corner with his left hand.

The Incense Master and members knelt.

During the silence that followed there penetrated into this chamber of fire and shadows a roar, rumbling, subsiding. Only the men on the bridge did not hear this ominous growl.

Slowly, sombrely, the Incense Master read off the Thirty-six Oaths—and their thirty-six sentences of death. This finished, came a period of silence, then the members rose and the Iron Soles stepped forward and helped the candidates from the bridge. Some were almost unconscious, others glared stupidly about them.

The Iron Soles, leading, supporting, dragged them to the Incense Vessel before the Shrine of the Five Patriarchs, where each, as soon as able, inserted an incense taper into the vessel and repeated as best he could five verses. Removing their tapers from the Incense Vessel they dipped them into a bowl of water standing next to the tripod and as they were being extinguished repeated:

“May my life go out like the fire of these incense tapers if I prove a traitor to my oath!”

The Thirty-six Oaths were then placed in the Incense Vessel; the Incense Master took the basin and, repeating a ritual, dashed it upon the floor, whereupon all of the members repeated in unison, sonorous, ominous:

“May such be the fate of traitors.”

The Incense Master set fire to the Oaths and as the flames crept up the scroll there came again, nearer, louder, that distant growl.

The Guards led the candidates beneath the opening through which shone the stars; a cock was brought, the head cut off, and its blood poured into the bowl in which the incense tapers had been extinguished. The Red Club now advanced, holding in one hand his huge weapon, in the other a flared, black blade. The two guards that preceded him seized one of the candidates and tore off his upper garments, leaving him naked to the waist.

The roar, now nearer, grumbled, muttered, then fell silent. But as the Red Club lifted his blade there came a terrific crash, followed by an overflow of wild noises such as man makes in his rage.

The knife hesitated.

The pent-up floods of the riot that had swollen to vast proportions after the cry had resounded over the city that Tai Lin’s wife had been stolen by priests, burst almost simultaneously through the three southern gates and dashing, seeping through the suburban streets, converged toward the Mission. These dark streams, with flaming wave crests, gurgling with snarls, yelps and threats; frothing, eddying, scowling, soon filled the street of Changsha. One stream had burst out of the Dragon Gate, another out of the gate of the Great Bamboo, and the overflow of these two torrents came together in front of Lodge of the Tien Tu Hin. The noise that rose when they came together was indescribable. It was a frightful splash of snarls and curses; a splatter of taunts and growls, while above all, distinguished by its persistency and vigour, rose a common howl:

“Kill the priests.”

When this uproar with its rage and strange silences fell upon the Children of the Deluge in their Chamber of Shadows, there was a general movement. Merchants became uneasy, fearful for their stores; thieves became desirous for plunder; soldiers to return to their posts; beggars to join the rabble; officials to their Yamens; pirates to their junks; silk robes to their mansions, but the rags would not return that night to their cellars.

The Great Elder Brother rose from his seat; Guards placed themselves in front of him; the Incense Master, the Instructor, followed by all others, took their places and the procession filed out over the bridge into the anteroom as solemnly and silently as it had entered.

The vast hall was empty. The fagots in the iron racks flamed, flickered, and went out. The fiery moat glowed white, green, lurid, then dark spots began to creep into it. After a while only the stars shone down into the Chamber of the World’s Dread.

The overflow from the Dragon Gate, being less than that from the Great Bamboo, was pushed back until there was a general commingling, then the whole rushed unresistingly downward toward the river and westward toward the Mission. Other torrents, chafing, foaming, hurled themselves against the walls of their narrow channels in mad endeavour to reach the river’s edge through the labyrinthine writhings of the suburban streets. Like floods restrained, it sometimes appeared as if they would overflow and surge straight down across the roof tops.

It was the rumble of these torrents just after they had burst through the city gates that the man Tsang had heard as he sat at the tiller. And had the wind not been strong or had there been no bend in the river, he would soon have heard a roar more ominous, more dreadful, as these torrents of howls poured into the basin surrounding the Mission.

The streets north and east of the Mission Compound were first filled, then on the west. And when all were overflowing, so that stragglers, trickling, seeping in, were being pushed back in the direction whence they came; these torrents churned, swirled, then surged out into the open space between the Mission and the river.

The Compound was surrounded, and the mob, as a sea, billowed and splashed against its walls. Like a great rock the Mission remained silent, with a gloomy hauteur, a scornful taciturnity, so that these waves only dashed against it to fall back upon themselves.

There were many similarities between this encircling flood of man with wave crests of flame and roar of tongues to a sea of waters. For this sea, girdling, eddying around the granite base of that gloomy parallelogram, ocean-like, broke and spattered. It had its froth and its depths, its calms and murmurs; its terrors; its tides and ebbs and billows. Sometimes its fire-crests, like those in the Bay of Tai Wan, moved forward in uneven undulations, then hurled against the granite barriers, flowed back and merged with another tide. Again these waves met in such a manner as to form whirlpools or a single force like a waterspout, only here a howl and flame-spout would drive its way ruthlessly through the waves and, lashing itself momentarily against the walls, subside and mingle with the rest. This sea had its evaporations and its residue; it accumulated, eroded and dissipated. But it howled where the ocean rumbled, snarled where it roared, and where the sea of waters murmured this flood talked to itself—a childish, terrible monologue.

Said one wave to another:

“What are you here for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you kill?”

“Yes.”

“What is the trouble?” asked another.

“That is what we are going to find out.”

“Isn’t it enough to know that this place must be destroyed?”

“That is true.”

“What else is there to do when these priests have stolen Tai Lin’s wife?”

“Neighbour, I tell you they have vanished. Is it in accordance with reason to believe that they would wait?”

Where this sea eddied around the southwest corner of the Mission, the tumult of one wave rose sonorously above the rest.

“O Ye Men of the Middle Kingdom,” roared this wave. “Ye who have trod its soil, breathed the air of its Imperial Heavens; ye who have eaten the herb of its fields and for a myriad ages have drunk the dew of its benevolence, how long are you going to let these sea-imps devour your women and children? How long are you going to let these Western devils who pretend to be priests deceive you? Skin them of their robes and you will find that they are bats and snakes, who smile but to devour.

“Did they not sneak into our Kingdom like night monsters—these proud priests of the Hungry God? Answer, ye doubters; ye women-men; ye disgraceful progeny of the Ancients. Whoever trembled before priests or gods until these pallid demons came? Did not then the peace-flower bloom in our gardens; the song of the phœnix make men’s hearts harmonious? Who now does not fear the breath of these priests? Do they not get fat on destruction? Do they not steal the wives of our Great Men? Destroy towns and cities? O ye black-haired men of Han! O ye——”

“Why doesn’t someone climb the wall?” demanded one wave of another.

“They have cauldrons inside and when one mounts the walls they take off the lids and the fumes cause——”

“How do you know?”

“Bah! It is easy to reason with a wise man, but to convince——”

“Throw stink-pots over the walls!”

“Get the pung-dongs!”

These cries were taken up and echoed on all sides.

In the middle of the open space between the Mission and the river—now filled by the mob—a band of Taoist monks had congregated, mingling their weird cries and clash of their cymbals with noises about them, and there rose above all the rest a plaintive falsetto shriek:

“Disasters come upon the Middle Kingdom. Foreign devils disturb the country. They urge the people to join their religion. No Gods they venerate. Their backs they turn on Heaven. They teach men to debase their ancestors. Human obligations they hate.

They force women to adultery. These sea-imps are not the produce of mankind. If you doubt this look at them carefully. Their eyes are blue, like those of devils. They look into the depths of the earth. Their hair is red, which is the colour of hell. They dry up the earth. No rain falls. The sky is parched. This is because their blood-God is in the heavens.”

At regular intervals the other monks joined in, in high falsetto wail:

“Burn the yellow written prayers. Light the incense tapers. Invite the Gods and Genii from all the Grottoes. The Gods will come forth from their caverns. The Genii will come out of the mountains——”

Thus this sea surged, rolled, grumbled, tossed, debated. All howled at once, all talked at once, and at intervals silence came simultaneously over them all. This still stillness resembled that strange quiet that often comes in the midst of battle or storm; it might be called the scowl of decision, ominous, portentous.

Fortunately for the Mission, this mob-thought, this contemplation of that turbulent flood, never lasted long enough to decide; some noise would disturb it, a whisper perhaps, but something, and tumultuous it wasted its force in surfy din.

Suddenly there burst above all its noise a deep boom from the river, followed by another and another. Like rockets or even meteors the cannon’s spittle traced its fire over the waters.

The French gunboats had opened fire.

The man-flood that filled the open field and that murmured and howled or was silent, whose wave-crests of flame surged and eddied around the Mission walls, suddenly became a maelstrom of darkness and wild cries. Shell after shell fell into this maelstrom, which, contrary to other whirlpools, was not concentric, but might be called multiple; wherever a shell exploded a minor whirlpool was formed, the outer circles of which were made up of the living, the inner of the wounded, the centre of the dead, the torn. Thus the whole open space was filled with frightful eddies; eddies that bumped into one another, contended, merged. Medusa-like they scattered themselves into a dozen whirlpools, then devouring one another formed a huge indistinguishable mass; struggling, shrinking, climbing, crawling, wriggling. Here and there blown asunder; torn, mutilated, sighing.

The mass of wrigglers grew less and less.

Several houses on the western side of the open space were set on fire by shells exploding in them, and as the flames shot skyward they cast a lurid light over all.

The firing ceased. There was nothing to shoot at other than when a wounded man would jump up, run a little way, then fall. Some of these men ran to the river and jumped in; some ran to the Mission Gates and knocked entreatingly; others ran toward the buildings in flame.

Several boats loaded with marines now put off from the warships and rowed heavily across the lighted waters. No one opposed their landing, but as they started across the open space they involuntarily drew back at the frightful spectacle that lay before them. Lit by the red glare of burning buildings the place was as one vast slaughter pen. The dead lay strewn about in bunches; headless, legless, gutless, soulless. Here one with muscles twitching in death’s agony, there one asleep. The eyes of some were glazed, others looked resignedly at the stars. Some sat erect, and as the marines approached laughed and—died.