CHAPTER TEN

A FRIEND

The law does not procrastinate in China; and the execution of the wife was fixed on the following afternoon. When the sun rose that day out of a fogless sea it proved to be one of those gentle winter mornings of the semi-tropics. In northern latitudes such mornings are often called the smile of spring, but in this land they are more than the birth from winter’s womb—they are an awakening on the bosom of summer and there pervades abroad an inexpressible atmosphere of compassion. On such mornings it is said that the tiger comes forth from his lair and in the sunned jungle glade lounges heedless of his quarry, so that neither men nor the most timid of jungle deer have fear of him, for the peace of the day has gone into his terrible heart and he purrs and purrs and purrs like a kitten on a woman’s lap.

In other lands, upon this same twenty-fourth day of winter, whole nations were meeting together around their Christmas hearths; their spirits also gentled by those feelings of domestic love and attachment, which they regard as hallowed; songs and laughter burst from their lips and happy with remembrance of months past, joyous with anticipation of those future, their carols were rising upon all sides, while with kindnesses and benevolence they sought to lift their hearts above earth and with the shepherds from their sheepfold, cry peace and good will unto all.

But the sunlight of this day as well as its spirit seemed to have shunned the Catholic Mission of Yingching. Within its Compound were neither songs nor laughter—only a brooding silence, while around the stern Visigothic Chapel ranged patrols of soldiers. Whether it had been a matter of policy with the bishop or whether it had been included in the agreement between Tai Lin and himself, is not known, but from the time the Breton was brought from the Grotto of the Sleepless Dragon he had been confined in this gloomy chapel and surrounded by a battalion of Chinese troops.

About the fourth hour after the sun had passed the zenith and light rifts of fog were beginning to drift in from the sea, a man passed hastily through the south gate of the Mission Compound and emerged from the cloisters of the bishop’s dwelling. After searching with quick but penetrative glances the court surrounding the Chapel, he let his chin rest upon his bosom and, putting his hands behind his back walked slowly, thoughtfully, toward the Chapel.

At the circle of troops he was stopped.

“What!” he cried indignantly, with piping sternness.

The soldiers did not move and an officer came up.

“Command these men to stand aside. I am the bishop.”

The soldiers drew to one side and the officers bowed. In front of the Chapel door a sentry barred his passage, but at the command of the officer who had followed, the door was unbolted and the stranger passed within.

“Ha, ha, diplomacy! diplomacy!” he chuckled to himself as he stood blinking in the gloom of the low, vaulted vestibule. “Ha, ha,” and he pattered down the aisle toward the altar, crying in a shrill, gleeful voice:

“Well, well, let me coax you when they asked me to get off the bund; they never knew what I would do. To obey is to conquer; to smile is to be supreme as Mrs. Hook——”

The Breton rose from his seat on the altar steps, and resting his two hands on the shoulder of his visitor, looked down into his eyes.

The Reverend Hook wriggled, smiled furtively, and squirmed from under the Breton’s gaze.

“Well, here I am; diplomacy, mind you, diplomacy. Made up my mind to see you; see you I would—knew it would not be for long. I suppose you are next? But you know all about those caves and your knowledge must not be lost. That would never do. Heard you were more than a mile inside—my—my—— Now the first thing I want you to tell me——”

The Breton turned wearily away and sat down again on the steps of the altar.

“Am I hurting his feelings? Poor diplomacy, poor diplomacy,” muttered the Reverend Hook to himself.

“Well, I went down on the bund this morning,” he resumed cheerily, keeping his eye on the Breton. “It is all fenced except the waterside, and in the very spot—neither a foot more nor less—exactly where you used to stand—the very place where I gave you the maps to the Grotto—they have put up the crucifix. At the bottom are two black stones and a tub, but not a very big one. On the left, under a red silk canopy, are three chairs—don’t understand why there should be three. Just then a priest came along and said I had not been invited—think of that! French soldiers strutting up and down—French gunboats anchored along the waterfront. Now, I want to know who is doing this execution—Frenchmen or Chinese? You know I am a good friend of yours—or I would never have given you those secrets of the Dragon Grotto,—but I want to say that these Catholic priests are trying to run this country. I went over to our Consul. He just swore. He said if he were God—he is a blasphemous wretch—he would invent something new in hell for these priests. Kept getting madder and madder, then he grabbed me by the collar and threw me out of the door. That crazy Consul has the Mission-phobia—but he won’t last. He can’t mistreat an American Methodist missionary with impunity; let me coax you. What have I got to do with this business on the bund? I gave you the secrets of the Grotto, but how did I know that all this was going to happen?”

For some moments the Reverend Hook became contemplative, then he began to shake his head.

“Terrible, terrible, so young, so beautiful, so beautiful, so beautiful—and I will never see her, and all those others will. And they will take off her clothes. Oh, oh, oh.”

His breath and words failed him. He pattered back and forth before the altar in little restless strides.

The Breton sat bowed upon the altar steps.

“Why don’t those countries with gunboats stop it! Why don’t they stop it!” he cried shrilly, never ceasing his nervous patter, and casting hurried glances at the priest as he repassed the altar steps.

Suddenly he stopped.

“Why don’t you do something?”

The Breton raised his head.

“Why don’t you do something?” repeated the Reverend Hook in shriller tones.

“Do what?” asked the Breton wearily.

“Do what? Stop it! Stop it!”

The Breton looked at him.

“The execution!”

“I have nothing to do with it,” replied the Breton.

“What?” screeched the Reverend Hook, jumping back and throwing up his hands. “You have nothing to do with it?”

The Breton with a sigh bowed his head, while his visitor stood looking at him appalled.

Presently he began to walk back and forth, muttering aloud.

“I did not think it—how can he do it? Gave up everything for him—so beautiful, so beautiful. Thus they throw themselves away; always have done it, always will, all except Mrs. Hook. Now they are going to take off her clothes—before those Frenchmen—cut the skin of her beautiful brow and let it hang down over her eyes—eyes that made men tremble. Then they will cut off her little ears and pieces from her cheeks. Then her lips—and to think he has kissed them. Then her white arms—then her beautiful—beautiful—Oh! oh! oh! And he sleeps here, doubled up like a ground-hog!”

The Reverend Hook’s excitement overcame him, and weeping copiously he pattered over and stood in front of the priest. After several efforts he mumbled lugubriously.

“I am going, but I want to say that I didn’t think it.”

The Breton looked up.

“You are going?”

“And I want to say that I didn’t think it,” he sobbed.

“What?” asked the Breton drearily.

“That you would let them kill her.”

The Breton sat erect, his eyes searching. Then springing to his feet he seized his visitor and thrust him back to where the last glimmer of narrow sunlight fell upon his face.

“Don’t, don’t—at sunset they lyngchee——”

Sometimes there comes from the lips of men a cry that no one can describe, unless it be compared to that abandoned cry that is said to have come from a Crucifix some centuries ago, but which echoes yet at times from hearts of other men; so now there came such a cry from the lips of the Breton. He staggered back, and his hands clutching at his throat, tore open the bosom of his long black robe; he tottered against the altar and bent over it. Then it was that the Great Symbol of the Tien Tu Hin fell from his bared bosom and lay gleaming upon the outer folds of his robes, its terrible green jewel glistering in the dun shadows of the Chapel as the tiger’s eye glitters in the jungle’s dusk.

Suddenly the Breton drew himself up, and shaking his head and shoulders as a wounded animal, threw open the Chapel door; for a moment he stood under the vaulted entrance and the slanting rays of the sun fell on the Great Symbol.

The sentry looked up, hesitated, looked again at the glittering Eye, and dropped upon his knees. A patrol of soldiers started to rush forward, then stopped; awe and reverence overcast their features, for there, under the gloomy vestibule, in the red sunlight, calm and yet awful, stood their prisoner—upon his bosom the Eye of the Age’s Wrath.

As the Breton advanced toward them many fell upon their knees and struck their foreheads thrice upon the ground. An officer from one of the buildings in the rear shouted for the soldiers to seize him, but this command was no sooner heard than those kneeling rose, and marshalled themselves behind him. Other soldiers came with their guns and formed another line, and those that did not follow saw upon the faces of this guard, which constituted more than half of the battalion, the sternness of death. As the Breton moved toward the north gate, apparently oblivious to those that followed him, the soldiers dropped their queues over their right shoulders in a loop, then bringing the end around the neck, tied it in two loose slipknots to the loop—all of which is called the Sign of Shou. Carrying their guns in the left hand they held their right hands over their heads with the thumb pointing upward, and as they went out of the Mission gate there went up that terrible cry:

“Hung Shun Tien!”