Hills of Han 47

Hills of Han 47

He felt this, which could not have been less than the beginning of a new

focus of his misdirected, scattered powers, and yet he walked straight

on toward the red army that was sworn to kill all the whites. And

though his brain still told him, coolly, without the slightest sense of

personal concern, that he would probably be slain within the hour, his

heart, or his rising spirit, as calmly dismissed the report.

 

It might come, of course. He literally didn’t care. Death might come at

any moment to any man. The present moment was his; and the next, and the

next, until the last whenever it should come. He walked with a thrilling

sense of power, above the world. For the world, life itself, was

suddenly coming back to him. He had been ill--for years, he knew now--of

a sick faith. Now he was well. If the old dogmatic religion was gone, he

was sensing a new personal religion of work, of healthy functioning,

of unquestioning service in the busy instinctive life of the world. He

would turn, not away from life to a mystical Heaven, but straight

into life at its busiest, head up, as now on the old highway of Hansi,

trusting his instinct as a human creature. No matter how difficult the

start he would plunge in and live his life out honestly. Betty remained

the problem; he knit his brows at the thought; but the new flame in

his heart blazed steadily higher. Whatever the problems, he couldn’t he

headed now.

 

“What a morbid, sick fool I’ve been!” It was the cry of a heart new born

to health. It occurred to him, then, as he heard his own voice, that

this new sense of light had come to him as suddenly as that other light

that smote Paul on the Damascus road. It had the force, as he considered

it now, of a miracle....

 

4

 

The road was blocked ahead. Drawing near, he saw beyond the mules and

horses and men of the highway and the curious, pressing country folk a

considerable number of yellow turbans crowding the road canyon. There

must have been a hundred or more, with many rifle muzzles slanting

crazily above them. After a moment the rabble broke toward him.

 

Doane did not wait for them to discover him, but raising his stick and

calling for room to pass he walked in among them. He stood head and

shoulders above them, a suddenly appearing white giant whom a few

resisted at first, but more gave way to as he pushed firmly through.

Emerging on the farther side he walked on his way without so much as

looking back. And not a shot had been fired.

 

The road wound its way between steep walls of loess, so that ii was

impossible at any point to see far ahead. He came upon other, smaller

groups of the Lookers. Only one man, the largest of them, threatened

him, but as the man raised the butt of his rifle Doane snatched the

weapon from him and knocked him down with it; then tossed it aside and

strode on as before.

 

He came at length to a scenic arch in a notch. Through the arch Ping

Yang could be seen in its valley.

 

He stopped and looked. Near at hand were the tents of some of the Looker

soldiery; beyond lay the village; and beyond that on the hillside, the

compound of the company, lying as still as if it were deserted. There

were no puffs of smoke, no sounds along the village street; between the

outlying houses small figures appeared to Le bustling about, but they

made no noise that could be heard up here. The scene was uncanny.

 

Doane, however, went on down the hill. None of the Lookers were in

evidence now on the winding street, but only the silent, curious

villagers; this until two soldiers in blue came abruptly out of a house;

and then two others firmly holding by the arms a man in red and yellow

with an embroidered square on the breast of his tunic that marked him as

an officer of rank. Other soldiers followed, one bearing a large curved

sword.

 

Doane stopped to watch.

 

Without ceremony the officer’s wrists were tied behind his back. He was

kicked to his knees. A blue soldier seized his queue and with it jerked

his head forward. The swordsman, promptly, with one clean blow’, severed

the neck; then wiped his sword on the dead man’s clothing and marched

away with the others, carrying the head.

 

Duane shivered slightly, compressed his lips, and, paler, walked on.

He passed other blue soldiers in the heart of the village, and a row of

Lookers standing without arms. Emerging from the straggling groups of

houses beyond the village wall he took the road up the hill. Away up the

slope he could see the men of the outposts standing and sitting on the

parapets of the rifle pits. At the gate of the compound he called out.

 

The gate opened, and closed behind him. Within stood men of the

garrison, and women, and behind them the Chinese. All looked puzzled.

Many tongues greeted him at once, eagerly questioning.

 

He looked about from one to another of the thin weary faces with burning

eyes that hung on his slightest gesture, and slowly shook his head. He

could answer none of their questions. He was searching for one face that

meant more to him than all the others. It was not there. He walked on

toward the house occupied by the Boatwrights. Just as he was turning in

there he saw Betty. She was tunning across from the residence.

 

“On, Dad!” she cried. “You’re back!” Her arms were around his neck. “How

wonderful! And you’re well--like your old self.”

 

[Illustration: 0357]

 

“Better than my old self, dear,” he said, with a tender smile, and

kissed her forehead.

 

“I can’t stay, Dad. I just ran out. Wasn’t it strange--I saw you from

the window! But what’s happened? What is it? Everybody’s so puzzled.

Have the troops come?”.

 

He shook his head.

 

“But it’s something. Everybody’s terribly excited.”

 

“I don’t understand it myself, dear. Though I walked through it,

apparently.”

 

“Oh, look! They’re opening the gate! What is it?” She hopped with

impatience, like a child, and clapped her hands. “Oh, I mustn’t stay!

But tell m, do you think this dreadful business is over?”

 

“I believe it is, Betty.”

 

She ran back to her post. And he returned to the gate.

 

An odd little cavalcade was moving deliberately up the hill. In front

marched a soldier in blue bearing a large white flag (an obviously

Western touch, this). Behind him came a squad in column of fours, on

foot and unarmed; then a green sedan chair with four pole-men; behind

this three pavilions with carved wooden tops, of the sort carried in

wedding processions, each with four bearers; and last another squad of

foot soldiers.

 

Just outside the gate they came to a halt. The soldiers formed in line

on either side of the road. An officer advanced and asked permission to

enter. This was granted. At once the chairmen set down their burden. The

carved door opened, and a young Chinese gentleman stepped out. He was

tall, slim, with large spectacles; and moved with a quiet dignity that

amounted to a distinction of bearing. His long robe was of shimmering

blue silk embroidered in rose and gold; and the embroidered emblem on

his breast exhibited the silver pheasant of a mandarin of the fifth

class. On his head, the official, bowl-shaped straw hat with red tassel

was surmounted with a ball or button of crystal an inch in diameter set

in a mount of exquisitely worked gold. His girdle clasp also was of

worked gold with a plain silver button. The shoes that appeared beneath

the hem of his robe were richly embroidered and had thick white soles.

 

Calmly, deliberately, he entered the compound. One of the engineers, an

American, addressed him in the Mandarin tongue. He replied, in a deep

musical voice, with a pronounced intonation that gave this mellow

language, to a casual ear, something the sound of French.

 

The engineer bowed, and together they moved toward the residence, where

a somewhat mystified M. Pourmont awaited them. But first the mandarin

turned and signaled to the pavilion bearers, who still waited outside

the gate. These came in now, and it became evident that the ornate

structures were laden with gifts. There were platters of fruits and

of sweetmeats, bottles of wine, cooked dishes, and small caskets, some

carved, others lacquered, that might have contained jewels.

 

Doane, quietly observing the scene, found something familiar in the

appearance of the envoy. Something vaguely associated with the judge’s

yamen at T’ainan-fu. Certainly, on some occasion, he had seen the man.

He stood for a brief time watching the two figures, a white man in

stained brown clothing, unkempt of appearance but vigorous in person,

walking beside the elegant young mandarin, appearing oddly crude beside

him, curiously lacking in the grace that marked every slightest movement

of the silk-clad Oriental; and the picture dwelt for a time among his

thoughts--the oldest civilization in the world, and the youngest.

Crude vigor, honest health, contrasted with a decadence that clung

meticulously to every slightest subtlety of etiquette. And behind the

two, towering above the heads of the ragged bearers, the curving pointed

roofs of the three pavilions, still gaily bizarre in form and color

despite the weatherbeaten condition of the paint; a childish touch,

suggestive of circus day in an American village. Suggestive, too,

whimsically, of the second childhood of the oldest race.

 

Doane, reflecting thus, slowly followed them to the residence.

 

5

 

Jonathan Brachey sat moodily on the parapet. Down below, the compound

(a crowded mass of roofs within a rectangle of red-gray wail) and below

that the straggling village, stood out as blocked-in masses of light and

shadow under the slanting rays of the morning sun.

 

A French youth, beside him, polishing his rifle with a greasy rag,

looked up with a question.

 

Brachey shook his head; he had no information. He looked over toward the

other pit. The Australian in command there (three nights earlier they

had buried Swain) waved a carelessly jocular hand and went on nibbling a

biscuit.

 

The thing might be over; it might not. Brachey found himself almost

perversely disturbed, however, at the prospect of peace. He had supposed

that he hated this dirty, bloody business. He saw no glory in fighting,