There was a long silence.
“Very well, if you won't answer.”... Doane's voice rasped.
Brachey raised his hand. “I was considering your question,” he broke in coldly. “While it is not the whole truth, it will probably save time to say that I came to see your daughter.”
He would have liked to express in his voice some thing of the desperate tenderness that he felt. The experiences of the preceding evening and of the afternoon just past—the glimpses he had had into the heart of a girl, his little storms of anger against Mrs. Boatwright and all her kind, followed in each instance by other little storms of anger against himself—had finally swept him from the last rational mooring place out into the bottomless, boundless sea of emotion. He had found himself, already to-night, a storm-tossed soul without compass or bearings or rudder. He burned to see Betty again. It had taken all that was left of his will to keep from charging out once more across the city, out through the wall, to the mission compound. He was shaken, humbled, frightened. To such a nature as Brachey's—stubbornly aloof from human contacts, sensitively self-sufficient—this was really a terrible experience. It was the worst storm of his life. He felt—had felt at times during the evening, as he tried to brace himself for this scene that he knew had to come within the twenty-four hours—something near tenderness for the man who was Betty's father. There were even moments when he looked forward to the meeting with the hope that through the father's feelings he might be helped in finding his lost self.
He had tried, sitting among the shadows, to build up a picture of the man. Several of these he had constructed, to meet each of which he felt he could hold himself in a mental attitude of frankness and even sympathy. But each of these pictures was but an elaboration of familiar missionary types. All were what he considered—or once had considered—weak, or over-earnest to the borders of fanaticism, or cautious little men, or narrow formalists... men like Boatwright And without realizing, it, too, he had counted on either real or counterfeited Christian forbearance. The only thing he had feared might come up to disturb him was intolerance, like that of Boatwright's wife.
With that, of course, you couldn't reason, couldn't talk at all.... What he really wanted to do, burned to do, was to tell the exact truth. He had passed the point where he could give Betty up; he would have to fight for her now, whatever happened. His one great fear had been that Betty's father would be incapable of entertaining the truth dispassionately, fairly.
But the actual Doane cleared his over-charged brain as a mountain storm will clear murky air. Here was a giant of a man who meant business. Back of that strong face, back of the deep voice, Brachey felt a pressure of anger. It was not Christian forbearance; it was vigor and something more; something that perhaps, probably, would come out before they were through with each other. There was a restless power in the man, a wild animal pacing there behind the slightly clouded eyes. Even in the blinding fire of his own love for Betty he could look out momentarily and see or feel that this giant was burning too. And what he saw or felt, turned his heart to ice and his brain to tempered metal. Sympathy would have reached Brachey this night; weakness, blundering, might have reached him. But now, of all occasions, he would not be intimidated.. .. He felt the change coming over him, dreaded it, even resisted it; but was powerless to check it. The man proposed to beat him down. No one had ever yet done that to Jonathan Brachey. And so, though he tried to speak with simple frankness in saying, “I came to see your daughter,” the words came out coldly, tinged with defiance, between set lips.
It might easily mean a fight of some sort, Brachey reflected. This mountain of a man could crush him, of course. Primitive emotion charged the air as each deliberately stud'ed the other.... It would hardly matter if he should be crushed. There were no police in T'airan to protect white men from each other. His wife would be relieved; a queer, bitter sob rose part way in his throat at the thought. There was no one else... save Betty. Betty would care! And this man was her father! It was terrible.... He was struggling now to attain a humility his austere life had never known; if only he could trample down his savage pride, hear the man out, swallow every insult! But in this struggle, at first, he failed. Like a soldier he faced the huge fighting man with a pack on his back.
“You knew my daughter on the steamer?”
“Yes.”
“Before that—in America?”
“No.”
“There is something between you?”
“Yes.”
“You are a married man?”
“Yes.”
Doane, his face working a very little, his arms stiff and straight at his sides, came a step nearer. Brachey lifted his chin and stared up the more directly at him. “You seem to have a little honesty, at least.”
“I am honest.”
“How far has this gone?”
Brachey was silent.
Doane took another step.
“Why don't I kill you?” he breathed.
It was then that Brachey first caught the full force of Doane's emotional torment. To say that he did not flinch, inwardly, would be untrue; but all that Doane saw was a slight hesitation before the cold reply came: “I can not answer that question.”
“You can answer the other. How far has this gone?”
Brachey again clamped his lips shut. The situation, to him, had become inexplicable.
“Will you answer?”
“No.”
Doane's eyes blazed down wildly. And Doane's voice broke through the restraint he had put upon it as he cried:
“Have you harmed my little girl?”
Brachey was still.
“Answer me!” Doane's great hand came down on his shoulder. “Have you harmed her?”
Brachey's body trembled under that hand; he was fighting himself, fighting the impulse to strike with his fists, to seize the lamp, a chair, his walking stick; he held his breath; he could have tossed a coin for his life; but then, wandering like a little lost breeze among his bitter thoughts, came a beginning perception of the anguish in this father's heart. It confused him, softened him. His own voice was unsteady as he replied: “Not in the sense you mean.”
“In what sense, then?”
Brachey broke away. Doane moved heavily after him, but stopped short when the slighter man dropped wearily into a chair.
“I'm not going to attack you,” said Brachey, “but for God's sake sit down!”
“What did you mean by that?”
“Simply this.” Brachey's head dropped on his hand; he stared at the floor of rough tiles. “I love her. She knows it. She even seems to return it. I have roused deep feelings in her. Perhaps in doing that I have harmed her. I can't say.”
“Is that all? You are telling me everything?”
“Everything.”
Doane walked across the room; came back; looked down at Brachey.
“You know how such men as you are regarded, of course?”
“No.... Oh, perhaps!”
“You will leave T'ainan, of course.”
“Well...”
“There is no question about that. You will leave.”
“There's one question—a man dislikes to leave the woman he loves in actual danger.”
An expression of bewilderment passed across Duane's face.
“You admit that you are married?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Yet you speak as my daughter's lover. Does the fact of your marriage mean nothing to you?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“Oh, you are planning to fall back on the divorce court, perhaps?”
“Yes.” Brachey's head came up then. “Does love mean nothing to you?” he cried. “In your narrow, hard missionary heart is there no sympathy for the emotions that seize on a man and a woman and break their wills and shake them into submission?”
Looking up, he saw the color surge into Doane's face. Anger rose there again. The man seemed desperate, bitter. There was no way, apparently, to handle him; he was a new sort.
Doane crossed the room again; came back to the middle. He seemed to be biting his lip.
“I'll have no more words from you,” he suddenly cried out. “You'll go in the morning! I'll have to take your word that you won't communicate with Betty.”
“But, my God, I can't just save myself—”
“It may not be so safe for you or any of us. Will you go?”
“Oh... yes!”
“You will not try to see Betty?”
“Not to-morrow.”
“Nor after.”
Brachey sprang up; leaned against the table; pushed the lamp away.
“How do I know what I shall do?”
“I know.”
“Oh, you do!”
“Yes. You will do as I say. You are never to communicate with her again.”
Brachey thought. “I'll say this: I'll undertake not to. If I can't endure it, I'll tell you first.”
“You can endure it.”
“But you don't understand! It's a terrible thing! Do you think I wanted to come out here? I meant not to. But I couldn't stand it. I came. Is it nothing that I told her of my marriage with the deliberate purpose of frightening her away? But she is afraid of nothing.”
“No—she is not afraid.”
“I tell you, I've been torn all to pieces. Good God, if I hadn't been, and if you weren't her father, do you think I'd have stood here to-night and let you say these things to me! Oh, you would beat me; likely enough you'd kill me; but that's nothing. That would be easy—except for Betty.”
“I have no time for heroics,” said Doane. “Have I your promise that you will leave in the morning, without a word to her?”
“Yes.”
“I am going to Hung Chan. There are more important issues now than your life or mine. I shall be back to-morrow night and shall know then if you have failed to keep your word.”
“I shan't fail.”
“Very well! A word more. You are not to stop at Ping Yang on your way cut.”
“Oh?”
“For a night only. Then go on. Go out of the province. Go back to the coast. Is that understood?”
Brachey inclined his head.
“I have your promise?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Good night, sir.”
“Good night.”
Doane turned to the door. But then he hesitated, turned, hesitated again, finally came straight over and thrust out his hand.
Brachey, to his own amazement, took it.
CHAPTER XIV—DILEMMA
1
WHEN DOANE had gone Brachey called John and ordered a mule litter for eight n the morning. John found ont of the soldiers among the lounging group by the gate. The soldier slipped out.
Brachey busied himself until midnight in packing his bags. He felt that he couldn't sleep; most of the later night was spent in alternately walking the floor and trying to read. Before dawn the lamp burned out; and he lay down in his clothes and for a few hours dreamed wildly.
At eight the spike-studded gates swung open and an Oriental cavalcade filed into the court. There was the litter, like a sedan chair but much larger, swung on poles between two mules; the sides covered with red cloth, the small swinging doors in blue; bells jingling about the necks of the mules. There were five or six other mules and asses, each hearing a wooden pack-saddle. There was a shaggy Manchurian pony for Brachey to ride in clear weather. Three muleteers, two men and a boy, marched beside the animals; hardy ragged fellows, already, or perhaps always, caked with dirt.
At once the usual confusion and noise began. Men of the inn crowded about to help pack the boxes and bags of food and water and clothing on the saddles. The mules plunged and kicked. A rope broke and had to be elaborately repaired. The four soldiers brought out their white ponies, saddled them, slung their carbines over their shoulders; they were handsome men, not so ragged, in faded blue uniforms of baggy Chinese cut, blue half-leggings, blue turbans. Into the litter went Brachey's mattress and pillow. He tossed in after them camera, note-book, and The Bible in Spain; then mounted his savage little pony, which for a moment plunged about among the pack animals, starting the confusion anew.
The cook mounted one of the pack-saddles, perching himself high on a bale, his feet on the neck of the mule. John was about to mount another, when the leading soldier handed him a letter which he brought at once to his master.
Brachey with bounding pulse looked at the envelope. But the address, “Mister J. Brachey, Esquire,” was not in Betty's brisk little hand.
He tore it open, and read as follows:
“My Dear Sir—Taking Time touch and go by the forelock it becomes privileged duty to advise you to wit:
“So-called Lookers and Western soldiers of that ilk have attacked mission college Hung Chan with crop up outcome that these unpleasant fellow's go the limit in violence. By telegraph officer of devotion to His Excellency this morning very early passes the tip that that mission college stands longer not a whit upon earth.
“Looker soldiers acting under thumb of man mentioned during our little chin-chin of yesterday forenoon plan within twenty-four hours advance on T'ain-an-fu cutting off city from Eastern access and then resting on oars, jolly well taking their time to destroy mission here and secondary Christians, making clean job of it.
“Officer of devotion reports further of old reprobate plan that larger army has become nearly ready to march full tilt and devil take the hindmost on Ping Yang engineer compound fort and lay axe to root of it. Railroad and bridges and all works of white hands will go way of wrack and ruin except telegraph, that being offspring of Imperial Government.
“And now, my dear sir, as Ping Yang is place of some strength and come on if you dare, I would respectfully recommend that you engage at once in forlorn hope and make journey post haste to Ping Yang, as we sit on kegs of gun powder with ground slipping out from under us as hour-glass runs.
“Regretting in great heaviness and sadness of heart that civilization sees no longer light of day in Hansi Province, I beg to remain, my Dear Sir,
“Yours most respectfully,
“Po Sui-an.
“P. S. In my busy as bee excitement I have neglected to kill two birds with one stone, and inform you that Rev. Doane of this city met death bravely at 3 a.m. to-day at Hung Chan Northern Gate.
“Po.”
The cavalcade was ready now in line. At the head two soldiers sat their ponies. The gay litter came next, bells jingling as the mules stirred. Behind the litter stood the pack animals, with John and the cook mounted precariously on the first two. The other two soldiers brought up the rear. The muleteers stood lazily by, waiting.... Brachey slipped Mr. Po's letter into a pocket and gazed up at the smoke that curled lazily from the chimney of the innkeeper's house. The pony, restless to be off, plunged a little; Brachey quieted him without so much as looking down.... After a brief time he lowered his eyes. A little girl with normal feet was trudging round and round the millstones, laboriously grinding out a double handful of flour; a skinny old woman, in trousers, her feet mere stumps, hobbled across the court with a stew pan, not so much as looking up at the caravan or at the haughty white stranger; ragged men moved about among the animals behind the manger. The huge gates had been swung open by coolies, who stood against them; outside was the narrow, deep-rutted roadway, with shops beyond.... Finally, brows knit as if he were at once hurt and puzzled, face white, Brachey took in the caravan—the calmly waiting soldiers, the muleteers, the grotesquely mounted cook and interpreter, the large, boxlike vehicle suspended in its richly dingy colors between two mules—and then, with tightly compressed lips and a settling frown, he rode out into the street ahead of the soldiers.
With a lively jingle of bells and creakings from the litter as it swayed into motion, the others followed. One of the soldiers promptly came up alongside Brachey; their two ponies nearly filled the street, crowding passers-by into doorways.
Brachey led the way out through the Northern Gate to the mission compound. Here he dismounted, handed his reins to a muleteer, and entered the gate house.
2
Old Sun Shao-i hurried from his chair and barred the inner door. Regarding this white man he had orders from Mrs. Boatwright. Brachey, however, brushed him carelessly aside and went on into the court.
It was the sort of thing, this walking coolly in, where he was not wanted, that he did well. He really cared nothing what they thought. He distrusted profoundly Mrs. Boatwright's judgment, and did not even consider sending in his name or a note. The hour had come for meeting her face to fare and by force of will defeating her. There was no time now for indulgence in personal eccentricities on the part of any of these few white persons set off in a vast, threatening world of yellow folk.
Within the spacious courtyard the sunlight lay in glowing patches on the red tile. Through open windows came the fresh school-room voices of girls. At the steps of a small building at his right stood or lounged a group of Chinese men and old women and children—Brachey had learned that only by occasional chance is a personable young or even middle-aged.
He led the way out through the northern gate aged woman visible to masculine eyes in China—each apparently with some ailment; one man had eczema; one boy a goitre that puffed out upon his breast, others with traces of the diseases that rage over China unchecked except to a tiny degree here and there in the immediate neighborhood of a medical mission.... It was a scene of peace and apparent security. The mission organization was functioning normally. Clearly they hadn't the news.
A thin thoughtful woman came out of a school building, and confronted him.
“I am Mr. Brachey,” said he coldly; “Jonathan Brachey.”
The woman drew herself up stiffly.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
She was stern; hostile.... How little it mattered!
“I must see you all together, at once,” he said in the same coldly direct manner—“Mr. and Mrs. Boatwright, if you please, and any others.”
“Can't you say what you have to say to me now? I am Miss Hemphill, the head teacher.”
“No,” he replied, not a muscle of his face relaxing. “May I ask why not?”
“It is not a matter of individual judgment.”
“But Mrs. Boatwright will refuse to see you.”
“I am sony, but Mrs. Boatwright will have to see me and at once. And not alone, if you please. I don't care to allow her to dismiss what I have to say without consideration.”
Miss Hemphill considered; finally went up into the dispensary, past the waiting unfortunates on the steps. Brachev stood erect, motionless, like a military man. After a moment, Miss Hemphill came out, followed by another woman.
“This is Dr. Cassin,” she said; adding with a slight hesitation as if she found the word unpalatable—“Mr. Brachey.”
The physician at once took the matter in hand.
“You will please tell us what you have to say, Mr. Brachey. It will be better not to trouble Mrs. Boatwright.”
Brachey made no reply to this speech; merely stood as if thinking the matter over. Then his eye caught' a glimpse of something pink and white that fluttered past an up-stairs window. Then, still without a word, he went on to the residence, mounted the steps and rang the bell.
The two women promptly followed.
“You will please not enter this house,” said Dr. Cassin severely.
A Chinese servant opened the door.
“I wish to see Mr. and Mrs. Boatwright at once,” said Brachey; then, as the servant was about to close the door, stepped within.
The two women pressed in after him.
“You are acting in a very high-handed manner,” remarked Dr. Cassin with heat—“an insolent manner.”
“I regret that it is necessary.”
“It is not necessary!” This from Miss Hemphill.
He merely looked at her, then away; stood waiting.
Mrs. Boatwright appeared in a doorway.
“What does this mean?” was all she seemed able to say at the moment.
“Will you kindly send for the others”—thus Brachey—“Mr. Boatwright, any other whites who may be here, and—Miss Doane.”
“Certainly not.”
“It is necessary.”
“It is not. Why are you here?”
“It is not a matter for you to decide. I must have everybody present.”
There was a rustle from the stairs. Betty, very pale, her slim young person clad in a lacy négligée gown of Japanese workmanship, very quick and light and nervously alert, came down.
“Will you please go back to your room?” cried Mrs. Boatwright.
But the girl, coming on as far as the newel post, stopped there and replied, regretfully, even gently, but firmly:
“No, Mrs. Boatwright.”
“Will you at least do us the courtesy to dress yourself properly?”
This, Betty, her eyes straining anxiously toward Brachey, ignored.
3
Dr. Casein then abruptly, speaking in Chinese, sent the servant for Mr. Boatwright, and deliberately led the way into the front room. The others followed, without a word, and stood about silently until the appearance of Mr. Boatwright, who came in rather breathless, mopping his small features.
“How do you do?” he said to Brachey; and for an instant seemed to be considering extending his hand; but after a brief survey of the grimly silent figures in the room, catching the general depression in the social atmosphere, he let the hand fall by his side.
“Now, Mr. Braehey,” remarked Dr. Cassin, with an air of professional briskness, “every one is present. We are ready for the business that brought you here.” Brachey looked about the room; his eyes rested longest on the physician. To her he handed the letter, saying simply:
“This was written within the hour, by Po Sui-an, secretary to His Excellency Pao Ting Chuan. Will you please read it aloud, Dr. Cassin?”
Then, as if through with the others, he went straight over to Betty, who stood by the windows. Quickly and softly he said:
“Brace up, little girl! It is bad news.”
“Oh!” she breathed, “is it—is it—father?”
He bowed. She saw his tightened lips and the shine in his eyes; then she wavered, fought for breath, caught at his hand.
Mrs. Boatwright was calling out, apparently to Betty, something about taking a chair on the farther side of the room. There was a stir of confusion; but above it Brachey's voice rose sharply:
“Read, please, Dr. Cassin!”
Soberly they listened. After beginning the postscript, Dr. Cassin stopped short; then, slowly, with considerable effort, read the announcement of Griggsby Duane's death.
Then the room was still.
Mrs. Boatwright was the first to speak; gently for her, and unsteadily, though the strong will that never failed this vigorous woman carried her along without a sign of hesitation.
“Mary,” she said, addressing Miss Hemphill, “you had better go up-stairs with Betty.”
Dr. Cassin, ignoring this, or perhaps only half-hearing it (her eyes were brimming) broke in with:
“Mr. Brachey, you must have come here with some definite plan or purpose. Will you please tell us what it is?”
“No!” cried Mrs. Boatwright—“no! If you please, Mary, this man must not stay here. Betty!... Betty, dear!”
Betty did not even turn. She was staring out the window into the peaceful sunflecked courtyard, the tears running unheeded down her cheeks, her hand twisted tightly in Brachey's. He spoke now, in the cold voice, very stiff and constrained, that masked his feelings.
“The death of Mr. Doane makes it clear that there is no safety here. There is a chance, to-day, for us all to get safely away. I have, at the gate, a litter and one riding horse, also a few pack animals. Most of my goods can be thrown aside—clothing, all that. The food I have, used sparingly, would serve for a number of us. We should be able to pick up a few carts. I suggest that we do so at once, and that we get away within an hour, if possible. We must keep together, of course. I suggest further, that any differences between us be set aside for the present.”
They looked at one another. Miss Hemphill pursed her lips and knit her brows, as if unable to think with the speed required. Dr. Cassin, sad of face, soberly thinking, moved absently over to the silent girl by the window; gently put an arm about her shoulders. Mr. Boatwright, sunk deeply in his chair, was pulling with limp aimless fingers at the fringe on the chair-arm; once he glanced up at his wife.
“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 expressionless 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 thrown them haphazard into heaps. Trees were so few—here and there one might be seen clinging desperately to a terrace-wall where the narrow fields of sprouting millet and early shoots of vegetables mounted tier on tier to the very summits of the hills—that the general effect was of utter barrenness, a tumbling red desert.
Much cf the time they were winding through the canyons or twisting about the hillsides with only an occasional outlook wider than a few hundred yards or perhaps a half-mile, but at intervals the crowded little peaks would separate, giving them a sweeping view over miles of shadowy red valleys.... At such times Betty would open one of her windows a little and lean forward; riding close behind, Brachey could see her face, usually so brightly alert, now sad, peeping out at the richly colored scene.
Frequently they passed trains of camels or asses or carts, often on a precipice where one caravan hugged the loess wall while the other flirted with death along the earthen edge. But though the Hansean or Chihlean muleteers shouted and screamed in an exciting confusion of voices and the Mongol camel drivers growled and the ponies plunged, no animal or man was lost.
Nearly always the air was heavy with fine red dust. It enveloped them like a fog, penetrating clothing, finding its way into packs and hand-bags. At times it softened and exquisitely tinted the view.
At long intervals the little caravan wound its slow way through villages that were usually built along a single narrow street. In the broader valleys the villages, gray brown and faintly red like the soil of which their bricks had once been moulded, clung compactly to hill-slopes safely above the torrents of spring and autumn, each little settlement with its brick or stone wall and its ornamental pagoda gates, and each with its cluster of trees about some consequential tomb rising above the low roofs in plumes of pale green April foliage.
Nowhere was there a sign of the disorder that was ravaging the province like a virulent disease. Brachey was aware of no glances of more than the usual passing curiosity from slanting eyes. He saw only the traditional peaceful countryside of the Chinese interior.
This sense of peace and calm had an effect on his moody self that increased as the day wore on. Life was turning unreal on his hands. His judgment wavered and played tricks with memory. Had it been so dangerous back there in T'ainan? Could it have been? He had to look steadily at the ragged, trudging figure of the erstwhile elegant Mr. Po to recapture a small degree of mental balance.... He had brought Betty away. He saw this now with a nervous, vivid clarity for what it was, an irrevocable act. It had come about naturally and simply; it had felt inevitable; yet now at moments, unable to visualize again the danger that had seemed terribly real in T'ainan he felt it only as the logical end of the emotional drift that had carried the two of them far out beyond the confines of reason. It was even possible that Mrs. Boatwright's judgment was the better.
But Betty couldn't go back now; they had turned her off; not unless her father should yet prove to be alive, and that was hardly thinkable. Anxiously during the day, he asked Mr. Po about that. But Mr. Po's confidence in the accuracy of his information was unshakable. So here he was, with a life on his hands, a life so dear to him that he could not control his mind in merely thinking of her there in the litter, traveling along without a question, for better or worse, with himself; a life that perhaps, despite this new spirit of consecration that was rising in his breast, he might succeed only in injuring. Brooding thus, he became grave and remote from her.
In his distant way he was very considerate, very kind. During the afternoon, as they moved up a long valley, skirting a broad watercourse where peach and pear trees foamed with blossoms against the lower slopes of the opposite hills, he persuaded her to descend from the litter and walk for a mile or two with him. He felt then her struggle to keep cheerful and make conversation, but himself lacked the experience with women that would have made it possible for him to overcome his own depression and brighten her, Once, when the caravan stopped to repack a slipping saddle, he asked her to sketch the view for him. It was his idea that she should be kept occupied when possible. He always corrected his own moods in that disciplinary manner. But just then his feelings were running so high, his tenderness toward her was so sensitively deep, that he spoke bruskly.
They rode on through the sunset into the dusk. The red hills turned slowly purple under the glowing western sky, swam mistily in a world-wide sea of soft dame.
Betty opened her windows wide now; gazed out at this scene of unearthly beauty with a sad deep light in her eyes.
2
They rode into another village. A soldier galloped on ahead to inspect the less objectionable inn. He reappeared soon, and the caravan jingled and creaked into a courtyard and stopped for the night. John dismounted and plunged into argument with the innkeeper. The cook set to work removing a pack-saddle. Coolies appeared. The mules were beaten to their knees. Brachey threw his bridle to a soldier and helped Betty out of the litter. Then they stood, he and she, amid the confusion, her hand resting lightly on his arm, her eyes on him.
Here they were! He felt now her loneliness, her sadness, her—the word rose—her helpless dependence upon himself. She was so helpless! His heart throbbed with feeling. He couldn't look down at her, standing there so close. He couldn't have spoken; not just then. He was struggling with the impractical thought that he might yet protect her from the savage tongues of the coast; from himself, even, when you came to it. The depression that had been pulling him down all day was turning now, rushing up and flooding his fired brain like a bitter tide. He shouldn't have let her come. It had been a beautiful impulse; her quiet determination to give her life into his hands had thrilled him beyond his deepest dreams of happiness, had lifted him to a plane of devotion that he remembered now, felt again, even in his bitterness, as utter beauty, intensified rather than darkened by the tragic quality of the hour. But he shouldn't have let her come. Mightn't she, after all, have been as safe hack there in the mission compound? What was the matter?... He hadn't thought of her coming on with him alone. That had simply happened. It was bewildering. Life had swept them out of commonplace safety, and now here they were! And nothing to do but go on, go through!
“Oh, I left my bag in there,” he heard her saying, and himself got it quickly from the litter.
Then John came. The “number one” rooms were to be theirs, it seemed; Betty's and his.... If only he could talk to her! She needed him so ! Never, perhaps, again, would she need him as now, and he, it seemed, was failing her. Silently he led her up the steps of the little building at the end of the courtyard and into the corridor; peered into one dim room and then into the other; then curtly, roughly ordered John to spread for her his own square of new matting.
Her hand was still on his arm, resting there, oh, so lightly. She seemed very slim and small.
“It's a dreadful place,” he made himself say. “But we'll have to make the best of it.”
“I don't mind,” he thought she replied.
“Perhaps we'd better have dinner in here, It's a little cleaner than my room.”
She glanced up at him, then down: “I don't believe I can eat anything.”
“But you must.”
“I—I'll try.”
“I'll ask Mr. Po to come in with us. He is a gentleman. And perhaps it would be better.”
“Oh, yes,” said she, “of course.”
“Here's John with hot water. I'll leave you now.”
“You'll—come back?”
“For dinner, yes.”
With this he gently withdrew his arm. As she watched him go her eyes filled Then she closed her door.
Brachey found Mr. Po curled on the ground against a pack-saddle, smoking a Chinese pipe.
He rose at once, all smiles, and bowed half-way to the ground. But he thought it inadvisable to accept the invitation.
“I hate to be fly in ointments,” he said, with his curiously dispassionate quickness and ease of speech, “but it's really no go. Our own men would play game of thick and thin blood brother, but to village gossip monger I must remain muleteer and down and out person of no account. It's a dam' sight safer for each and every one of us.”
3
Betty tried to set the dingy room to rights. John had laid a white cloth over the table, and put out Brachey's tin plate and cup, his knife, fork and spoon, an English biscuit tin and a bright little porcelain jar of Scotch jam that was decorated with a red-and-green plaid. These things helped a little. She tidied herself as best she could; and then waited.
For a time she sat by the table, very still, hands folded in her lap; but this was difficult, for thoughts came—thoughts that spun around and around and bewildered her—and tears. The tears she would not permit. She got up; rearranged the things on the table; moved over to the window, and through a hole in one of the paper squares watched with half-seeing eyes the coolies and soldiers and animals in the courtyard. Her head ached. And that wheel of patchwork thoughts spun uncontrollably around.
For a little time then the tears came unhindered. That her father, that strong splendid man, could have been casually slain by vagabonds in a Chinese city seemed now, as it had seemed all day, incredible. His loss was only in part personal to her, so much of her life had been lived on the other side of the world; but childhood memories of him rose, and pictures of him as she had lately seen him, grave and kind and (since that moving little talk about beauty and its importance in the struggle of life) lovable. Her mother, too, had to-day become again a vivid memory. And then the sheer mystery of death twisted and tortured her sensitive Pagination, led her thoughts out into regions so grimly, darkly beautiful, so unbearably poignant, that her slender frame shook with sobs.
The sensation of rootlessness, too, was upon her. But now it was complete. There was no tie to hold her to life. Only this man on whom, moved by sheer emotion, without a thought of self, yet (she thought now) with utter unreasoning selfishness, she had fastened herself.
Mrs. Boatwright had called her bad. That couldn't be true. She couldn't picture herself as that. Even now, in this bitter crisis, she wasn't hard, wasn't even reckless; simply bewildered and terribly alone. Emotion had caught her. It was like a net. It had carried her finally out of herself. There was no way back; she was caught. Yet now the only thing that had justified this step—and how simple, how easy it had appeared in the morning!—the beautiful sober passion that had drawn her to the one mate, was clouded. For he had changed! He had drawn away. They were talking no more of love. She couldn't reach him; her desperately seeking heart groped in a dim wilderness and found no one, nothing. His formal kindness hurt her. Nothing could help her but love; and love, perhaps, was gone.
So the wheel spun on and on.
She saw him talking with the indomitably courteous Mr. Po. He came back then to the building they were to share that night. She heard him working at his door across the narrow corridor, trying to close it. He succeeded; then stirred about his room for a long time; a very long time, she thought.
Then John came across the court from the innkeeper's kitchen with covered dishes, steaming hot. She let him in; then, while he was setting out the meal, turned away and once more fought back the tears. Brachey must not see them. She was helped in this by a sudden mentally blinding excitement that came, an inexplicable nervous tension. He was coming; and alone, for she had seen Mr. Po shake his head and settle back contentedly with his pipe against the pack-saddle.... That was the strange fact about love; it kept rushing unexpectedly back whenever her unstable reason had for a little while disposed of it; an unexpected glimpse of him, a bit of his handwriting, a mere thought was often enough. Sorrow could not check it; at this moment her heart seemed broken by the weight of the tragic world, yet it thrilled at the sound of his step. And it couldn't be wholly selfish, for the quite overwhelming uprush of emotion brought with it a deeper tenderness toward her brave father, toward that pretty, happy mother of the long ago; she thought even of her school friends. She was suddenly stirred with the desire to face this strange struggle called living and conquer it. Her heart leaped. He was coming!
His door opened. He stepped across the corridor and tapped at hers. She hurried to open it. All impulse, she reached out a hand; then, chilled, caught again in the dishearteringly formal mood of the day, drew it back.
For he stood stiffly there, clad in black with smooth white shirt-front and collar and little black tie. He had dressed for dinner.
She turned quickly toward the table.
“John has everything ready,” she said, now quite as formal as he. “We may as well sit right down.”
4
For a time they barely spoke. John had lighted the native lamp, and it flickered gloomily in the swiftly gathering darkness, throwing a huge shadow of him on the walls, and even on the ceiling, as he moved softly in his padded shoes about the table and in and out at the door.
Betty's mood had sunk, now at last, into the unreal. She seemed to be living through a dream of nightmare quality—something she had—it was elusive, haunting—lived through before. She saw Jonathan Brachey distantly, as she had seen him at first, so bewilderingly long ago on a ship in the Inland Sea of Japan. She saw again his long bony nose, coldly reflective eyes, firmly modeled head.... And he was talking, when he spoke at all, as he had talked on the occasion of their first meeting, slowly, in somewhat stilted language, pausing interminably while he hunted about in his amazing mind for the word or phrase that would precisely express his meaning.
“There is a village a short distance this side of Ping Yang, Mr. Po tells me”... here a pause... “not an important place. Ordinarily we should pass through it about noon of the day after to-morrow. But he has picked up word that a Looker band has been organized there, and he thinks it may be best for us to...” and here a pause so long as to become nearly unbearable to Betty. For a time she moved her fork idly about her plate, waiting for that next word. At length she gave up, folded her hands in her lap, tried to compose her nerves. After that she glanced timidly at him, then looked up at the waveing shadows on the dim veils. It was almost as if he had forgotten she was there. He was interested, apparently, in nothing in life except those words he sought: “... to make a detour to the south.”
Betty drew in a deep breath. She felt her color coming slowly back. The 'best thing to do, she decided, was to go on trying to eat. He had been right enough about that. She must try. It was, in a way, her part of it; to keep strong. Or she would be more hopelessly than ever fastened on him.... It seemed to her as never before a dreadful thing to be a woman. Tears came again, and she fought them back, even managed actually to eat a little. “It will mean still another....”
“Another what?” She waited and waited.
“Another night on the road, after tomorrow. I am sorry.”