Hills of Han 34

Hills of Han 34

“This may not be true,” said Mrs. Boatwright abruptly.

 

“It is from Pao’s yamen,” said Miss Hemphill.

 

“But it may be no more than a rumor. Our first duty is to telegraph Mrs.

Nacy at Hung Chan and ask for full particulars.”

 

“Is”--this was Mr. Boatwright; he cleared his throat--“is there time?”

 

Mrs. Boatwright’s mouth had clamped shut. No one had ever succeeded in

stampeding or even hurrying her mind. She had, for the moment, dismissed

the special problem of Betty and this man Brachey from that mind and was

considering the general problem. That settled, she would again take up

the Brachey matter.

 

“There is time,” she said, after a moment. “There must be. Mr. Doane

left positive instructions that we were to await his return. He will be

here to-night or to-morrow morning, if he is alive.”

 

“But--my dear”--it was her husband again--“Po is careful to explain that

by to-morrow escape will be cut off.”

 

“That,” replied his wife, still intently thinking, “is only a rumor,

after all. China is always full of rumors. Even if it is true, these

soldiers are not likely to act so promptly, whatever Po may think. If

they should, we shall be no safer on the highway than here in our own

compound.... And how about our natives? How about our girls--all of

them? Shall we leave them?... No!” She was thinking, tanking. “No,

I shall not go. I am going to stay here. I shall keep my word to Mr.

Doane.”

 

Then she rose and approached the little group by the window. Her eyes,

resting on the firmly clasped hands of the lovers, snapped fire. Her

face, again, was granite. To Dr. Cassiri, very quietly, she remarked,

“Take Betty up-stairs, please.”

 

The physician, obeying, made a gentle effort to draw the girl away; but

met with no success.

 

Mrs. Boatwright addressed herself to Brachey: “Will you please leave

this compound at once!”

 

He said nothing. Betty’s fingers were twisting within his.

 

“I can hardly make use of force,” continued Mrs. Boatwright, “but I ask

you to leave us. And we do not wish to see you again.”

 

Brachey drew in a slow long breath: looked about the room, from one to

another. Miss Hemphill and Boatwright had risen; both were watching him;

the little man seemed to have found his courage, for his chin was up

now.

 

And Brachey felt, knew, that they were a unit against him. The

fellow-feeling, the community of faith and habit that had drawn them

together through long, lonely years of service, was stronger now than

any mere threat of danger, even of death. They felt with the indomitable

woman who had grown into the leadership, and would stay with her.

 

Brachey surveyed them. These were the missionaries he had despised as

weak, narrow little souls. Narrow they might be, but hardly weak. No,

not weak. Even this curious little Boatwright; something that looked

like strength had come to life in him. He wouldn’t desert. He would

stay. To certain and horrible death, apparently. The very certainty of

the danger seemed to be clearing that wavering little mind of his. A

thought that made it all the more puzzling was that these people knew,

so much better, so much more deeply, than he, all that had happened

in 1900. Their own friends and pupils--white and yellow--had been

slaughtered. The heart-breaking task of reconstruction had been theirs.

 

And at the same time, seeming like a thought-strand in his brain, was

the heart-breaking pressure of that soft, honest little hand in his....

Very likely it was the end for all of them.

 

“Very well,” he said icily. “I am sorry I can’t be of use. However, if

any of you care to go I shall esteem it a privilege to share my caravan

with you.”

 

No one spoke, or moved. The iron face of Mrs. Boatwright confronted his.

 

Very gently, fighting his deepest desire, fighting, it seemed, life

itself, he tried to disentangle his fingers from Betty’s.

 

But hers gripped the more tightly. There was a silence.

 

Then Betty whispered--faintly, yet not caring who might hear:

 

“I can’t let you go.”

 

“You must, dear.”

 

“Then I can’t stay here. Will you take me with you?”

 

He found this impossible to answer.

 

“It won’t take me long. Just a few things in a bag.” And she started

away.

 

Mrs. Boatwright made an effort to block her, but Betty, without another

sound, slipped by and out of the room and ran up the stairs.

 

Then Mrs. Boatwright turned on the man.

 

“You will do this?” she said, in firm stinging tunes. “You will take

this girl away?”

 

He looked at her out of an __EXPRESSION__less face. Behind that mask, his

mind was swiftly surveying the situation from every angle. He knew that

he couldn’t, as it stood, leave Betty here. And they wouldn’t let him

stay. He must at least try to save her. Nothing else mattered.

 

“Yes,” he replied.

 

Mrs. Boatwright turned away. Brachey moved out into the hall and stood

there. To her “At least you will step outside this house?” he replied,

simply, “No.” Dr. Cassin, with a remark about the waiting queue at the

dispensary, went quietly back to her routine work, as if there were no

danger in the world. Mr Boatwright had turned to his wife’s desk, and

was making a show of looking over some papers there. Miss Hemphill sank

into a chair and stared at the wall with the memory of horror in her

eyes. Mrs. Boatwright stood within the doorway, waiting.

 

A little time passed. Then Betty came running down the stairs, in

traveling suit, carrying a hand-bag.

 

Mrs. Boatwright stepped forward.

 

“You really mean to tell me that you will go--alone--with this man?”

 

Betty’s lips slowlyy formed the word, “Yes.”

 

“Then never come again to me. I can not help you. You are simply bad.”

 

Betty turned to Brachey; gave him her bag.

 

Outside the gate house the little caravan waited.

 

The mules were brought to their knees. Betty stepped, without a word,

into the litter. Brachey closed the side door, and mounted his pony.

The mules were kicked and flogged to their feet. The two soldiers in

the lead set off around the city wall to the corner by the eastern gate,

whence the main highway mounted slowly into the hills toward Ping Yang.

As they turned eastward, a fourth muleteer, ragged and dirty, bearing a

small pack, as the others, joined the party; a fact not observed by the

white man, who rode close beside the litter.

 

But when they had passed the last houses and were out where the road

began to sink below the terraced grain-fields, the new muleteer stepped

forward. For a little space he walked beside the white man’s pony.

 

Brachey, at last aware of him, glanced down at the ragged figure.

 

“It’s a deuce of a note,” said the new muleteer, looking up and smiling,

“that your courtesy should return like confounded boomerang on your

head. I make thousands of apologies.”

 

Brachey started; then said, merely:

 

“Oh!... You!”

 

“Indeed I have in my own canoe take French leave. That it is funny as

the devil and intruding presumption I know full well. But I have thought

to be of service and pay my shot if you offer second helping of courtesy

and glad hand.”

 

Brachey nodded. “Come along,” said he.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XV--THE HILLS

 

 

1

 

MOST of the day, advised by Brachey. Betty kept closed the swinging

litter doors. The little caravan settled into the routine of the

highway, the muleteers trudging beside their animals. The gait was a

steady three miles an hour. John rode his pack-saddle hour after hour,

until six’ o’clock in the evening, without a word. Just behind him,

the cook, a thin young man with dreamy eyes, sang quietly a continuous

narrative in a wailing, yodling minor key.

 

Before the end of the first hour they had lost sight of T’ainan-fu and

buried themselves in the hills; buried themselves in a double sense, for

wherever water runs in Northwestern China the roads are narrow canyons.

At times, however, the way mounted high along the hillsides, on narrow

footways of which the mules all instinctively trod the outer edge.

Brachey found it alarming to watch the litter as it swayed over some

nearly perpendicular precipice. For neither up here on the hillsides nor

along the path nor in the depths below was there a sign of solid rock;

it was all the red-brown earth known as loess, which is so fine that it

may be ribbed into the pores like talc or flour and that packs down

as firmly as chalk. Along the sunken ways were frequent caves, the

dwelling-places of crippled, loathsome beggars, with rooms cut out

square and symmetrical doors and windows.

 

In the high places one might look across a narrow chasm and see,

decorating the opposite wall, strata of the loess in delicately varied

tints of brown, red, Indian red and crimson, with blurred soft streaks

of buff and yellow at times marking the divisions.

 

The hills themselves were steep and crowded in, as if a careless

Oriental deity had scooped together great handfuls of brown dice and