Hills of Han 46

Hills of Han 46

The door slowly opened, and a drab little man came in, walking with a

slight limp, and stood looking at him out of dusty blue eyes. He carried

a packet of papers.

 

“Grigg!” he exclaimed softly.

 

“Henry Withery!” cried Doane, “What on earth are you doing here?”

 

Withery smiled, and laid hat and packet on the table.

 

“I’ve arranged to dine with you,” he explained. “You won’t mind?”

 

“Of course not, Henry. But why are you here?”

 

“My plans were changed.”

 

“Evidently. Do sit down.”

 

“I came back to find you. I’ve been waiting here for a chance to get

through. We’ve worried greatly, of course. A rumor came from the Chinese

that you were killed.”

 

“I nearly was,” said Doane quietly. A cloud had crossed his face as he

listened. At every point, apparently, at each fresh contact with life,

he was to be brought face to face with his predicament. It would be

pitiless business, of course, all the way through, for the severest

judge of all he had yet to face dwelt within his own breast; long after

the world had forgotten, that judge would be pronouncing sentence upon

him.

 

“You got through to Shanghai?” he asked abruptly.

 

Withery, touched by his appearance, a little disturbed by his nervously

abrupt manner, inclined his head.

 

“Well, it’s out, I suppose. What are they saying about me, Henry?

Really, you’d better tell me. I’ve got to live through this thing, you

know. I may as well have the truth at once.”

 

Withery lowered his eyes; fingered the chopsticks that lay by his plate.

 

“No,” he said slowly. “No, Grigg, it’s not out.”

 

“But you know of it. Surely others do, then. And they’ll talk. It’s the

worst way. It’ll run wild. I’d rather face a church trial than that.”

He was himself unaware that he had been constantly brooding upon this

aspect of his trouble, yet the words came snapping out as if he had

thought of nothing else.

 

“Now, Grigg,” said Withery, in the same deliberately thoughtful way,

“I want you to let me talk. I’ve come way back here just to do that.

Hidderleigh showed me your letter. Then in my presence, he destroyed it.

I have promised him I would speak of it to no one but you. ... Neither

you nor I could have foreseen just how Hidderleigh would take this.

He is, of course, as he has always been, a dogmatic thinker. But like

others of us, he has grown some with the years. He’s less narrow, Grigg.

He knows you pretty well--your ability, your influence. He respects

you.”

 

“Respects me?” Doane nearly laughed.

 

“Yes. He sees as clearly as you or I could that any human creature may

slip. And he knows that no single slip is fatal. Grigg, he wants you to

go back and take up your work.”

 

Doane could not at once comprehend this astonishing statement. He was

deeply moved. Withery by his simple friendliness had already done much

to restore in his mind, for the moment, a normal feeling for life.

 

“But he feels, Grigg, that you ought to marry again.”

 

Doane shook his head abruptly.

 

“No,” he cried, “I can’t consider that. Not now.”

 

“As he said to me, Grigg, ‘It is not good for man to be alone!’”

 

Withery let the subject rest here, and asked about the fighting. The

whole outside world was watching these Hansi hills, it appeared. The

Imperial Government was already disclaiming responsibility. Troops were

on their way, from Hong Kong, from the Philippines, from Indo-China.

 

“It will be a month or so before they can get out here,” mused Doane.

 

“Oh, yes! At best.”

 

“Meantime, the compound will fall at the first really determined attack.

They’ve been afraid of Pour-mont’s machine guns--I heard some of their

talk last night, and the night before--but let Kang come to a decision

to drive them in and they’ll go. That will settle it in a day.”

 

“Will they have the courage?”

 

“I think so. You and I know these people, Henry. They’re brave enough.

All they lack is leadership, and organization. And this crowd have a

strong fanaticism to hold them up. Once let Kang appeal to their spirit

and they’ll have to go in to save face. For if they can’t be seen the

only danger is of an accident here and there. And, for that matter, Kang

may simply be waiting for Pourmont to use up his ammunition. It can’t

last a great while, not in a real siege, which this is.”

 

“By the way,” said Withery a little later, “here is a lot of mail for

Pourmont’s people. It’s been accumulating. There was no way to get it to

them.”

 

“I’ll take it in,” said Doane.

 

“You? You don’t mean that you’re going to ran that gauntlet again,

Grigg?”

 

“Yes.” He untied the packet, and looked through the little heap of

envelopes. One was a cablegram addressed to Jonathan Brachey. He held

it in tense fingers; gazed at it long while the pulse mounted in his

temples. “Oh, yes,” he said, almost casually then, “I’m going hack in.

They’ll be looking for me.” But his thoughts were running wild again.

 

Withery said, before he left, “I’m going to ask you not to answer

Hidderleigh’s request until you’ve thought it over carefully. My own

feeling is that he is right.”

 

“Suppose,” said Doane, “my final decision should be--as I think it

will--that I can’t go back. What will they do?”

 

“Then I’ve promised him, I’ll go in and take up your work. As soon as

this trouble is over.”

 

“That knocks out your year at home, Henry.”

 

“Yes, but what matters it? Very likely I shall find more happiness in

working, after all. That isn’t what disturbs me.... Grigg, if you leave

the church it will be, I think, the severest blow of my life. I--I’m

going to tell you this--for years I’ve leaned on you. You didn’t know,

but I’ve made a better job of my life for knowing that you too were hard

at it, just beyond the mountains. We haven’t seen much of each other, of

late years, but I’ve felt you there.”

 

Doane’s stern face softened as he looked at his old friend.

 

“And I’ve felt you, Henry,” he replied gently.

 

“Your blunders are those of strength, not of weakness, Grigg. Perhaps

your greatest mistake has been in leaning a little too strongly on

yourself. What I want you to consider now is giving self up, in every

way.”

 

But Duane shook his great head.

 

“No, Henry--no! I’ve given to the uttermost for years. And it has

wrecked my life--”

 

“No, Grigg! Don’t say that!”

 

“Well--put it as you will. The trouble has been that I was doing wrong

all the time--for years--as I told you back in Tiaman, I was doing the

wrong thing. It led, all of it, to sin. For that sin, of course, I’ve

suffered, and must suffer more. The best reason I could think of for

going back would be to keep this added burden off your shoulders. But

that would be wrong too. It’s getting a little clearer to me. I know

now that I’ve got to face my doubts and my sins, take them honestly for

whatever they may be. Each life must function in its own way. In the

eagerness of youth I chose wrong. I must now take the consequences.

Good-by, now! There’s barely time to slip through the lines before

dawn.”

 

Withery rose. “I’ll go with you,” he said.

 

“No. I won’t allow that. You haven’t the strength. You’re not an

outdoor man We should have to separate anyway; together we should almost

certainly be caught. No. You stay here and get word through to them

from day to day if you can find any one to undertake it. It will mean

everything to them to hear from the outside world. Good luck!”

 

He took the packet and went out.

 

3

 

Again it was dawn Griggsby Doane stood on the crest of a terraced hi’!

looking off into the purple west. But a few miles farther on lay Ping

Yang.

 

Beneath him, near the foot of the slope, four coolies were already at

the radiating windlasses of a well, and tiny streams of yellow water

were trickling along troughs in the loess toward this and that field,

where bent silent farmers waited clod in hand to guide the precious

fluid from furrow to furrow. Still farther down, along the sunken

highway, a few venturesome muleteers led their trains. No outposts in

the Looker uniform were to be seen. And he heard no shots. It would be a

lull, then, in the fighting.

 

He descended the hill, dropped into the road, and walked, head high,

toward Ping Yang. As he swung along he heard, far off, the shots his

ears had strained for on the hill; one, another, then a spattering

volley; but he walked straight on. The Mongols and Chihleans on the road

gave him no more than the usual glance of curiosity. He passed through

a village; Ping Yang would be the next. The railway grade--here

an earthen rampart, there a cutting, yonder a temporary wooden

trestle--paralleled the highway, cutting into the heart of old China

like a surgeon’s knife, letting out superstition and festering poverty,

letting n the strong fluids of commerce and education. He felt the

health of it profoundly, striding on alone through the cool, dear

morning air. It was imperfect, of course, this Western civilization that