Hills of Han 18

Hills of Han 18

A young Chinese joined him, announcing himself as a helper at the

station. Jen Ling Pu had sent him out over the rear wall, he said, with

the telegram to Mr. Doa ne.

 

Together they carried the body of the white man to a clear space near

the wall and buried him in a shallow grave. Duane repeated the burial

service in brief form.

 

The boy, whose name was Wen, explained that on his return from the

telegraph station he had found it impossible to get into the compound,

as it was then surrounded, and accordingly hid in the neighborhood. By

that time, he said, Jen, with the three or four helpers and servants who

had not perished in the other buildings, one or two native Bible-women,

a few children of native Christians and the white man were all in

the main house, and were firing through the windows. They had all

undoubtedly been burned to death, as only the white man had come out. He

himself could not get close enough to see much of what happened,

though he slipped in among the curious crowd outside and picked up what

information he could. The attacking parlies were by no means of one

mind or of settled purpose. The Lookers among them were for a quick

and complete massacre, as were the young rowdies who had joined in the

attack for the fun of it. But there were more moderate councils. And so

many were injured or killed by the accurate marksmanship of the young

foreign devil, that for a time they all seemed to lose heart. The

Lookers were subjected to ridicule by the crowd because by their

incantations they were supposed to render themselves invisible to

foreign eyes, and it was difficult to explain the high percentage of

casualties among them on the grounds of accidental contact with flying

bullets. Finally a ruse was decided on. The white man was to come out

for a parley. A student, recently attached to the yamen of the

local magistrate as an interpreter volunteered--in good faith, Wen

believed--to act in that capacity on this occasion.

 

The meeting took place by one of the breaches in the wall. The engineer

demanded that the three principal leaders of the Lookers Le surrendered

to him on the spot, and held until the arrival of troops from T’ainan.

While they were pretending to listen, a party crept around behind the

wall. He heard them, stepped back in time to avoid being clubbed to

death, in a moment shot two of them dead, and shot also the captain of

the Lookers, who had been conducting the parley. Then, evidently, he

had backed tow ard the main house and had nearly reached it when his

cartridges gave out.

 

Doane was busy, what with the improvised burial and with noting down

Wen’s narrative, until nearly noon. By this time he was very sleepy.

There was nothing more he could do. The ruins of the main house would

not be cool before morning. Nor would the soldiers arrive. He decided

to call at once on the magistrate and arrange for a guard to be left in

charge of the compound; then to set up his cot in a cell in one of the

local caravansaries. He had brought a little food, and the magistrate

would give him what else he needed. The innkeeper would brew him tea....

Before two o’clock he was asleep.

 

3

 

He was awakened by a persistent light tapping at the door. Lying there

in the dusky room, fully clad, gazing out under heavy lids at the dingy

wall with its dingier banners hung about lettered with the Chinese

characters for happiness and prosperity, and at the tattered gray

paper squares through which came soft evening sounds of mules and asses

munching their fodder at the long open manger, of children talking, of

a carter singing to himself in quavering falsetto, it seemed to him

that the knocking had been going on for a very long time. His thoughts,

slowly coming awake, were of tragic stuff. Death stalked again the hills

of Hansi. Friends had been butchered. The blood of his race had been

spilled again. Life was a grim thing....

 

A voice called, in pidgin-English.

 

He replied gruffly; sat up; struck a match and lighted the rush-light on

the table. It was just after eight.

 

He went to the door; opened it. A small, soft, yellow Chinaman stood

there.

 

“What do you want?” Doane asked in Chinese.

 

The yellow man looked blank.

 

“My no savvy,” he said.

 

“What side you belong?” The familiar pidgin-English phrases sounded

grotesquely in Doane’s ears, even as they fell from his own lips.

 

“My belong Shanghai side,” explained the man. He was apparently a

servant. Some one would have brought him out here. Though to what end

it would be hard to guess, for a servant who can not make himself

understood has small value. And no Shanghai man can do that in Hansi.

 

“What pidgin belong you this side?”

 

“My missy wanchee chin-chin.”

 

Thus the man. His mistress wished a word. It was odd. Who, what, would

his mistress be!

 

Doane always made it a rule, in these caravansaries, to engage the

“number one” room if it was to be had. A countryside inn, in China, is

usually a walled rectangle of something less or more than a halfacre in

extent. Across the front stands the innkeeper’s house, and the immense,

roofed, swinging gates, built of strong timbers and planks. Along one

side wall extend the stables, where the animals stand a row, looking

over the manger into the courtyard. Along the other side are cell-like

rooms, usually on the same level as the ground, with floors of dirt or

worn old tile, with a table, a narrow chair or two of bent wood, and

the inevitable brick _kang_, or platform bed with a tiny charcoal stove

built into it and a thickness or two of matting thrown over the dirt and

insect life of the crumbling surface. At the end of the court opposite’

the gate stands, nearly always, a small separate building, the floor

raised two or three steps from the ground. This is, in the pidgin

vernacular, the “number one” room. Usually, however, it is large enough

for division into two or three rooms. In the present instance there were

two rather large rooms on either side of an entrance hall. Doane had

been ushered into one of these rooms with no thought for the possible

occupant of the other, beyond sleepily noting that the door was closed.

 

Hastily brushing his hair and smoothing the wrinkles out of his coat he

stepped across the hall. That other door was ajar now. He tapped; and

a woman’s voice, a voice not unpleasing in quality, cried, in English,

“Come in!”

 

4

 

She rose, as he pushed open the door, from the chair. She was

young--certainly in the twenties--and unexpectedly, curiously beautiful.

Her voice was Western American. Her abundant hair wras a vivid yellow.

She was clad in a rather elaborate negligee robe that looked odd in the

dingy room. Her cot stood by the paper windows, on a square of new white

matting. Two suit-cases stood on bricks nearer the _kang._ And a garment

was tacked up across the broken paper squares.

 

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” she said breathlessly. “But it’s getting

unbearable. I’ve waited here ever since yesterday for some word. I know

there was trouble. I heard so much shooting. And they made such a racket

yelling. They got into the compound here. I had to cover my windows,

you see. It was awful. All night I thought they’d murder me. And this

morning I slept a little in the chair. And then you came in... I saw

you... and I was wild to ask you the news. I thought perhaps you’d help

me. I’ve sat here for hours, trying to keep from disturbing you. I knew

you were sleeping.”

 

She ran on in an ungoverned, oddly intimate way.

 

“I’m glad to be of what service I--” He found himself saying something

or other; wondering with a strangely cold mind what he could possibly do

and why on earth she was here. His own long pent-up emotional nature was

answering hers with profoundly disturbing force.

 

“I ought to ask you to sit down,” she was saying. She caught his arm

and almost forced him into the chair. She even stroked his shoulder,

nervously yet casually. He coldly told himself that he must keep steady,

impersonal; it was the unexpectedness of this queer situation, the shock

of it...

 

“It’s all right,” said she. “I’ll sit on the cot. It’s a pig-sty here.

But sometimes you can’t help these things.... please tell me what

dreadful thing has happened!”

 

She had large brown eyes... odd, with that hair!... and they met his,

hung on them.

 

In a low measured voice he explained:

 

“The natives attacked a mission station here--”

 

“Oh, just a mission!”

 

“They burned it down, and killed all but one of the workers there.”

 

“Were they white?”

 

“The workers were Chinese, Christian Chinese. But--”

 

“Oh, I see! I couldn’t imagine what it was all about. It’s been

frightful. Sitting here, without a word. But if it was just among the

Chinese, then where’s--I’ve got to tell you part of it--where’s Harley

Beggins? He brought me out here. He isn’t the kind that skips out

without a word. I’ve known him two years. He’s a good fellow. You see,

this thing--whatever it is--leaves me in a hole. I can’t just sit here.”

 

“I am trying to tell you. Please listen as calmly as you can. First tell

me something about this Harley Beggins.”

 

“He’s with the Ho Shan Company. An engineer. But say--you don’t

mean--you’re not going to--”

 

“He was a young man?”

 

“Yes. Tall. Curly hair. A fine-looking young man. And very refined. His

family... but, my God, you--”

 

“You must keep quiet!”

 

“Keep quiet! I’d like to know how, when you keep me in suspense like

this!” She was on her feet now.

 

“I am going to tell you. But you must control yourself. Mr. Beggins must