Hills of Han 22

Hills of Han 22

Over this bridge rode Brachey, in his humble cart, sitting fiat under a

span of tattered matting, surrounded and backed by his boxes and bales

of food and water and his personal baggage. John and the cook rode

behind on mules. The muleteers walked.

 

Under the gate were lounging soldiers, coolies, beggars, and a

money-changer or two with their bags of silver lumps, their strings

of copper cash and their balanced scales. Two of the soldiers sprang

forward and stopped the cart. Despite their ragged uniforms (of a dingy

blue, of course, like all China, and capped with blue turbans) these

were tall, alert men. Brachey was rapidly coming to recognize the

Northern Chinese as a larger, browner, more vigorous type of being

than the soft little yellow men of the South with whom he had long been

familiar in the United States as well as in the East. A mure dangerous

man, really, this northerner.

 

Brachey leaned back on his baggage and watched the little encounter

between his John and the two soldiers. Any such conversation in China

is likely to take up a good deal of time, with many gestures, much

vehemence of speech and an ‘ncreasing volume of interference from the

inevitable curious crowd. The cook and the two muleteers joined the

argument, Brachey had learned before the first evening that this

interpreter of his had no English beyond the few pidgin phrases common

to all speech along the coast. And since leaving Shau T’ing it had

transpired that the man’s Tientsin-Peking dialect sounded strange in the

ears of Hansi John was now in the position of an interpreter who could

make headway in neither of the languages in which he was supposed to

deal. Brachey didn’t mind. It kept the man still. And he had learned

years earlier that the small affairs of routine traveling can be managed

with but few spoken words. But just now, idly watching the little scene,

he would have liked to know what it meant.

 

Finally John came to the cart, followed by shouts from the soldiers and

the crowd.

 

“Card wanchee,” he managed to say.

 

“Card? No savvy,” said Brachey.

 

“Card,” John nodded earnestly.

 

Brachey produced his personal card, bearing his name in English and the

address of a New York club.

 

John studied it anxiously, and then passed it to one of the soldiers.

That official fingered it; turned it over; discussed it with his fellow.

Another discussion followed.

 

Brachey now lost interest. He filled and lighted his pipe; then drew

from a pocket a small leather-bound copy of _The Bible in Spain_, opened

at a bookmark, and began reading.

 

There was a wanderer after his own heart--George Borrow! An eager

adventurer, at home in any city of any clime, at ease in any company,

a fellow with gipsies, bandits, Arabs, Jews of Gibraltar and Greeks of

Madrid, known from Mogadore to Moscow. Bor-row’s missionary employment

puzzled him as a curious inconsistency; his skill at making much of

every human contact was, to the misanthropic Brachey, enviable; his

genius for solitude, his self-sufficiency in every state, whether

confined in prison at Madrid or traversing alone the dangerous

wilderness of Galicia, were to Brachey points of fine fellowship. This

man needed no wife, no friend. His enthusiasm for the new type of human

creature or the unfamiliar tongue never weakened.

 

The cart jolted, creaking, forward, into the low tunnel that served as

a gateway through the massive wall. A soldier walked on either hand. Two

other soldiers walked in the rear. The crowd, increasing every moment,

trailed off behind. Small boys jeered, even threw bits of dirt and

stones, one of which struck a soldier and caused a brief diversion.

 

They creaked on through the narrow, crowded streets of the city. A

murmur ran ahead from shop to shop and corner to corner. Porters,

swaying under bending bamboo, shuffled along at a surprising pace and

crowded past. Merchants stood in doorways and puffed at lung pipes with

tiny nickel bowls as the strange parade went by.

 

Finally it stopped. Two great studded gates swung inward, and the cart

lurched into the courtyard of an inn.

 

Brachey appropriated a room, sent John for hot water, and coolly shaved.

Then he stretched out on the folding cot above its square of matting,

refilled his pipe and resumed his Borrow.

 

2

 

Within half an hour fresh soldiers appeared, armed with carbines and

revolvers, and settled themselves comfortably, two of them, by his door;

two others taking up a position at the compound gate.

 

They brought a letter, in Chinese characters, on red paper in a buff and

red envelope, which Brachey examined with curiosity.

 

“No savvy,” he said.

 

But the faithful John, inarticulate from confusion and fright could not

translate.

 

Between this hour in mid-afternoon and early evening, six of these

documents were passed in through Brachey’s door. With the last one, John

appeared to see a little light.

 

“Number one policeman wanchee know pidgin belong you,” he explained

laboriously.

 

That would doubtless mean the police minister. So they wanted to

know his business! But as matters stood, with no other medium of

communication than John’s patient but bewildered brain, explanation

would be difficult. Brachey reached for his book and read on. Something

would have to happen, of course. It really hardly mattered what. He even

felt a little relief. The authorities might settle his business for him.

Pack him off. It would be better. M. Pourmont’s letter to Griggsby Doane

had burned in his pocket for two days. It had seemed to press him, like

the hand of fate, to Betty’s very roof. Now, since he had become--the

simile rose--a passive shuttlecock, a counterplay of fate might prove a

way out of his dilemma.

 

He had chicken fried in oil for his dinner. And John ransacked the boxes

for dainties; as if the occasion demanded indulgence.

 

At eight John knocked with shaking hands at his door. It was dark in the

courtyard, and a soft April rain was falling. Two fresh soldiers stood

there, each with carbine on back and a lighted paper lantern in band. A

boy from the inn held two closed umbrellas of oiled paper.

 

“Go now,” said John, out of a dry throat.

 

“Go what side?” asked Brachey, surveying the little group.

 

John could not answer.

 

Brachey compressed his lips; stood there, knocking his pipe against the

door-post. Then, finally, he put on overcoat and rubber overshoes, took

one of the umbrellas, and set forth.

 

3

 

They walked a long way through twisting, shadowy streets, first a

soldier with the boy from the inn, then Brachey under his umbrella, then

John under another, then the second soldier. Dim figures finished past

them. Once the quaint waihng of stringed instruments floated out over a

compound wall. They passed through a dark tunnel that must have been one

of the city gates; then on through other streets.

 

They stopped at a gate house. A door opened, and yellow lamplight

fell warmly across the way. Brachey found himself stepping up into a

structure that was and yet was not Chinese. A smiling old gate-keeper

received him with striking courtesy, and, to his surprise, in English.

 

“Will you come with me, sir?”

 

John and the soldiers waited in the gate house.

 

Brachey followed the old man across a paved court. His pulse quickened.

Where were they bringing him?

 

Through a window he saw a white woman sitting at a desk, under an

American lamp.

 

He mounted stone steps, left his coat and hat in a homelike front hall.

The servant led the way up a flight of carpeted stairs.

 

On the top step, Brachey paused. At the end of the corridor, where a

chair or two, a table, bookcase, and lamp made a pleasant little lounge,

a young woman sat quietly reading. She looked up; sat very still, gazing

straight at him out of a white face. It was Betty. His heart seemed to

stop.

 

Then a man stood before him. A little, dusty blond man. They were

clasping hands. He was ushered rather abruptly into a study. The door

closed.

 

The little man said something twice. It proved to be, “I am Mr.

Boatwright,” and he was looking down at the much-thumbed card; Brachey’s

own card.

 

Brachey was fighting to gather his wits. Why hadn’t he spoken to Betty,

or she to him? Would she wait there to see him? If not, how could he

reach her?... He must reach her, of course. He knew now that through all

his confusion of mind and spirit he had come straight to her.

 

4

 

The little man was nervous, Brachey observed; even jumpy. He hurried

about, drawing down the window-shades. Then he sat at a desk and with

twitching fingers rolled a pencil about. He cleared his throat.

 

“You’ve come in from the railroad?” he asked.... “Yes? Do you bring

news?”

 

“No,” said Brachey coldly.

 

“What gossip have your boys picked up along the road, may I ask?”

 

Back and forth, back and forth, his fingers twitched the pencil.

Bradley’s eyes narrowly followed the movement. After a little, he replied: