She had lately forgotten the slightly rasping quality in his voice, though it had been what she had first heard there. Now it seemed to her that she could hear nothing else.... What blind force was it that had thrust them so wide apart; after those ardent, tender, heart-breaking hours together at T'ainan; wonderful stolen hours, stirring her to a happiness so wildly beautiful that it touched creative springs in her sensitive young soul and released the strong eager woman there. This, the present situation, carried her so far beyond her experience, beyond her mental grasp, that, she could only sit very quiet and try to weather it. She could do that, of course, somehow. One did. It came down simply to the gift of character. And that, however undeveloped, she had.
Now and then, of course, clear thoughts flashed out for a moment; but only for a moment at a time. She sensed clearly enough that his whole being was centered on the need of protecting her. It was the fineness in him that made him hold himself so rigidly to the task. But it was a task to him; that was the thing. And his reticence! It was his attitude—or was it hers?—that had made frank talk impossible all day, ever since their moment of perfect silent understanding facing Mrs. Boatwright. He had felt then, with her, that she had to come, that it was their only way out; but now he, and therefore she, was clouded with afterthoughts. They had come to be frank enough about their dilemma, back there at T'ainan. But from the moment of leaving the city gate and striking tiff into the hills, they had lost something vital. And with every hour of this reticence, this talking about nothing, the situation was going to grow worse. She felt that, even now; struggled against it; but tound herself moving deeper, minute by minute, into the gloom that had settled on them.... And back of her groping thoughts, giving them a puzzling sort of life, was excitement, energy, the sense of being borne swiftly along on a mighty wave of feeling—swiftly, swiftly, to a tragic, dim place where the withered shadows of youth and joy and careless laughter caught at one in hopeless weakness and slipped off unheeded into the unknown.
They came down at last to politeness. They even spoke of the food; and he reproved John for not keeping the curried mutton hot. And then, without one personal word, he rose to go. She rose, too, and stood beside her chair; she couldn't raise her eyes. She heard his voice saying, coldly she thought:
“I shall leave you now. You must...”
She waited, holding her breath.
“... you must get what sleep you can. I think we shall have no trouble here.”
After this he stood for a long moment. She couldn't think why. Then he went out, softly closing the door after him. Then his door opened, and, with some creaking of rusty hinges and scraping on the tiles, closed. And then Betty dropped down by the table and let the tears come.
CHAPTER XVI—DESTINY
1
SHE heard little more for several hours; merely a muffled stirring about, at long intervals, as if he were walking the floor or trying to move a chair very quietly. The cot on which she now so restlessly lay was his. She couldn't sleep; he might as well have it, but would, of course, refuse.... She listened for a long time to the movements of the animals in the stable. Much later—the gong-clanging watchman had passed on his rounds twice at fewest; it must have been midnight—she heard him working very softly at his door. He was occupied some little time at this. She lay breathless. At length he got it open, and seemed to stand quietly in the corridor. Then, after a long silence, he opened as carefully the outer door, that had on it, she knew, a spring of bent steel, like a bow. After this he was still; standing outside, perhaps, or sitting on the top step.
For a moment she indulged herself in the wish that she might ha\e courage to call to him; to call him by name; to call him by the name, “John,” she had no more than begun, that last day in the tennis court, timidly to utter. Her whole being yearned toward him She asked herself, lying there, why honesty should be impossible to a girl. Why shouldn't she call to him? She needed him so; not the strange stilted man of the day and evening, but the other, deeply tender lover that breathed still, she was almost sure, somewhere within the crust that encased him. And they had been honest, he and she; that had turned out to be the wonderful fact in their swift courtship.
But this was only a vivid moment. She made no sound. The warm tears lay on her cheeks.
After a little—it rose out of a jumble of wild thoughts, and then slowly came clear; she must have been dozing lightly—she heard his voice, very low; then another voice, a man's, that ran easily on in a soft nervelessness, doubtless the voice of Mr. Po. She thought of making a sound, even of lighting the little iron lamp; they must not be left thinking her safely asleep; but she did nothing; and the voices faded into dreams as a fitful sleep came to her. Nature is merciful to the young.
2
During those evening hours, Brachey sat for the most part staring at his wall. Finally, at the very edge of despair—for life, all that night, and the next day and the next night, offered Brachey nothing but a blank, black precipice over which he and Betty were apparently plunging—he gave up hope of falling asleep in his chair (important though he knew sleep to he, in the grisly light of what might yet have to be faced) and went out and sat on the steps; still in the grotesquely inappropriate dinner costume.
A shape detached itself from the shadows of the stable door and moved silently toward him.
Brachey welcomed the opportunity for a little man talk, if only because it might, for the time, take his mind in some degree out of the emotional whirlpool in which it was helplessly revolving.
“You've heard no more news?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” replied Mr. Po, with his soft little laugh. “There is no more oil on fire of province discontent.”
“From your letter I gathered that you are not so sure of Pao.”
Mr. Po did not at once reply to this; seemed to be considering it, gazing out on the moonlit courtyard.
“It is no longer a case of cat and mouse,” Brachey pressed on. “Something happened last night at the yamen. Am I right?”
“Oh, yes.”
Brachey waited. After a long pause Mr. Po shifted his position, laughed a little, then spoke as follows:
“In afternoon yesterday old reprobate, Kang, sent to His Excellency letter which passed between my hands as secretary. He said that in days like these of great sorrow and humiliation agony of China it is best that those of responsible care and devotion to her welfare should draw together in friendship, and therefore he would in evening make call on His Excellency to express friendship and speak of measures that might lay dust of misunderstanding and what-not.”
“Hmm!” Thus Brachey. “And what did that mean?”
“Oh, the devil to pay and all! It was insult of blackest nature.”
“I don't quite see that.”
“Oh, yes. He should not have written in arrogant put-in-your-place way. His Excellency most graciously gave orders to prepare ceremonial banquet and presents of highest value, but in his calm eye flashed light of battle to death. You see, sir, it was thought of Kang to show all T'ainan and near-by province who was who, taking bull by horns.”
“Hmm! I don't know as I... well, go on.”
“In particular His Excellency made prepare great bowl of sweet lotus soup, for in past years Kang had great weakness for such soup made by old cook of far-away Canton who attach to His Excellency a devil of a while ago.”
“And so they had the banquet?”
“Oh, yes, and I was privileged to be in midst.”
“You were there?”
“Oh, yes. Banquet was of great dignity and courteous good fellowship.”
“I don't altogether understand the good fellowship.”
“China custom habit differs no end from Western custom habit.”
“Naturally. Yes. But what was Kang really up to?”
“I'm driving at that. After banquet all attendant retinue mandarins withdraw out of rooms except secretaries.”
“Why didn't they go too?”
“Oh, well, it was felt by Kang that His Excellency might put it all over him with knives of armed men. And His Excellency had not forgotten tricky thought of Kang in eighteen-ninety-eight in Shantung when he asks disagreement but very strong mandarins to banquet and then sends out soldiers to remove heads in a wink while mandarins ride out to their homes when all good nights are said.”
“You mean that Kang's men beheaded all his dinner guests, because they disagreed with him?”
“Oh, yes.” Here Mr. Po grew reflective. “Kang is very queer old son of a gun—very tall, very thin, very old, with face all lines that come down so”—he drew down his smooth young face in excellent mimicry of an old man—“and he stoops so, and squints little sharp eyes like river rat, so. A mighty smart man, the reprobate! Regular old devil!” Mr. Po laughed a little. “My bosom friend Chih T'ang slipped himself in to me and explained in whisper talk that yamen of His Excellency was surrounded by Western soldiers of that old Manchu devil. And within yamen, up to third gate itself, swarmed a hell of a crowd of Manchu guard of Kang. It was no joke, by thunder!”
“I should say not,” observed Brachey dryly. “You were going to tell me what Kang was really up to.”
“Oh, yes! I will tell that post haste. When all had gone except four—”
“That is, Kang, and His Excellency, and two secretaries?”
“Yes, of whom it was my honor to be absurdly small part. Then Kang explained with utmost etiquette courtesy to His Excellency that letter had but yesterday come to him of most hellish import and very front rank. And his secretary handed cool as you please letter to me and I to Kis Excellency. It was letter of Prince Tuan to old Kang giving him power to have beheaded at once His Excellency.”
“To behead Pao?”
“Oh, yes! And Kang said in neat speech then that no one could imagine his heartsick distress that one in power should wish great headless injury to dear old friend of long years and association government. To him he said it meant hell to pay. And he asked that His Excellency pass over from own hand infamous letter to be destroyed on spot by own hand of himself with firm resolve. But His Excellency smiled—a dam' big man!—and said for letter of Prince Tuan he felt only worshipful respect and obedience spirit, and he gave letter to me, and I delivered it to secretary of Kang, and secretary of Kang delivered it; to old Manchu himself. Then Kang, with own hands tore letter to bits and dropped bits in bowl, and his secretary asked me to have servant burn them, but I put on courteous look of attention to slightest wish of His Excellency and do not hear low word of secretary to old devil. And then Manchu reprobate with great courtesy makes farewell ceremony and goes out to his chair and altogether it's a hell of a note.”
Bradley, in his deliberately reflective way, put the curious story together in his mind.
“Kang, of course, sent to Peking for that letter.” he said.
“Oh, yes.”
“It was, in a way, fair warning to Pao that the time had come for action and that Pao had better not try to meddle.”
“Oh, yes—all of that. When he had gone Pao was sad. For he knew now that Kang had on his side heavy hand of Imperial Court at Peking. And then, late in night we have word from yamen of Kang and other word from observing officers of His Excellency that Western soldiers make attack at Hung Chan and that Reverend Doane is killed at city gate. Old Kang express great regret consideration and shed tears of many crocodiles, but they don't go.”
“And Pao found himself powerless to interfere.”
“Oh, yes! And so then I had audience of His Excellency and with permission of his mouth sent letter to you. His Excellency formed opinion right off the reel that it is not wise to send warning to mission compound, and that if I ever send word to you my head would not longer be of much use to me in T'ainan.”
“Need they know of it at Kang's yamen?”
“There can not be secrets 'n yamen of great mandarin from observation eyes of other mandarin. Nothing doing!''
“Oh, I see. Spying goes on all the time, of course.”
“Oh, yes! So I say farewell with tears to His Excellency, and in these old clothes of great disrepute, I”—he chuckled—“I make my skiddoo.” From within the rags about his body he drew a soiled roll of paper “It has occurred to me that at Ping Yang time might roll around heavily on your hands and then, if you don't care what fool thing you do, you might bring me great honor by reading this silly little thing. It is lecture of which I spoke lightly once too often.”
Absently Brachey took it. “But why can't old Kang see,” he asked—“and Prince Tuan, for that matter—that if they are to start in again slaughtering white people, they will simply be piling up fresh trouble for China? Pao, I gather, does see it.”
“Oh. yes, His Excellency sees very far, but now he must sit on fence and wait a bit. Kang, like Prince Tuan, is of the old.”
“Didn't the outcome of the Boxer trouble teach these men anything?”
“Not these men. Old China mind is not same as Western progress mind—”
“I quite understand that, but...”
Mr. Po was slowly shaking his head. “No, old China minds dwell in different proposition. It is hard to say.”
3
Toward morning, before his lamp burned out, Brachey read the lecture to which Mr. Po was pinning such great hopes. It seemed rather hopeless. There was humor, of course, in the curious arrangement of English words; but this soon wore off.
Later, sitting in the dark, waiting for the first faint glow of dawn, and partly as an exercise of will, he pondered the problems clustering about the little, hopeful, always aggressive settlements of white in Chinese Asia. Mr. Po's phrases came repeatedly to mind. That one—“Old China mind dwell in different proposition.” Mr. Po was touching there, consciously or not, on the heart of the many-tinted race problems which this bafflingly complex old world must one day either settle or give up. The inertia of a numerous, really civilized and ancient race like the Chinese was in itself a mighty force, one of the mightiest in the world.... Men like Prince Tuan and this Kang despised the West, of course. And with some reason, when you came down to it. For along Legation Street the whites dwelt in a confusion of motives. They had exhibited a firm purpose only when Legation Street itself was attacked. By no means all the stray casualties among the whites in China were avenged by their governments. In the present little crisis out here in Hansi, it might be a long time—a very long time indeed—before the lumbering machinery of government could be stirred to act in an unaccustomed direction. At the present time there were not enough American troops in China to make possible a military expedition to Ping Yang; merely a company of marines at the legation. To penetrate so far inland and maintain communication an army corps would be needed; troops might even have to be assembled and trained in America. It might take a year. And first the diplomats would have to investigate; then the State Department would have to be brought by heavy and complicated public pressures to the point of actually functioning; a sentimental element back home might question the facts... Meantime, he hadn't yet so much as got Betty safely to Ping Yang.
It was “hard to say.” But he found objective thought helpful. Emotion seemed, this night, not unlike a consuming fire. Emotion was, in its nature, desire. It led toward destruction.
He even made himself sleep a little, in a chair; until John knocked, at seven. Then he changed from evening dress to knickerbockers. His spirit had now sunk so low that he had John serve them separately with breakfast.
When the caravan was ready he went out to the courtyard and busied himself preparing the litter for her. She came out with John, very white, glancing at him with a timid question in her eyes. In his stiffest manner he handed her into the litter.
Then, accompanied by three soldiers, they swung out on the highway. The fourth soldier joined them outside the wall; him Brachey had sent to the telegraph station with a message to his Shanghai bankers advising them that his address would be in care of M. Pourmont, the Ho Shan Company, Ping Yang, Hansi, and further that cablegrams from America were to be forwarded immediately by wire.
4
Only at intervals during the forenoon did Betty and Brachey speak; for the most part he rode ahead of the litter. The luncheon hour was awkward; the dinner hour, when they had settled at their second inn, was even more difficult. They sat over their tin plates and cups in gloomy silence.
Finally Betty pushed her plate away, and rose; went over to the papered window and stared out.
Brachey got slowly to his feet; stood by the table. He couldn't raise his eyes; he could only study the outline of his plate and move it a little, this way and that, and pick up crumbs from the table-cloth. His mind was leaden; the sense of unreality that had come to him on the preceding day was now at a grotesque climax. He literally could not think. This, he felt, was the final severe test of his character, and it exhibited him as a failure. He was then, after all, a lone wolf; his instinct had been sound at the start, his nature lacked the quality, the warmth and richness of feeling, that the man who would claim a woman's love must offer her. He could suffer—the pain that even now, as he stood listless there, downcast, heavily fingering a tin plate, was torturing him to the limits of his capacity to endure, told him that— out suffering seemed a poor gift to bring the woman he loved. ... And here they were, unable to turn back. It was unthinkable; yet it was true. His reason kept thundering at his ear the perhaps tragic fact that his spirit was unable to grasp.... Braehey, during this hour—with a bitterness so deep as to border on despair—told himself that his lack amounted to abnormality. His case seemed quite hopeless. Yet here he was; and here, irrevocably, was she. The harm, whatever it might prove to be, and in spite of his sensitive, fire conquest of them emotional problem (at such a price, this!) was done. And there were no compensations. Here they were, lost, groping helplessly toward each other through a dark labyrinth.
Even when she turned (he heard her, and felt her eyes) he could not look up.
Then he heard her voice; an unsteady voice, very low; and he felt again the simple honesty, the naively child-like quality, that had seemed her finest gift. It was the artist strain in her, of course. She was not ashamed of her feeling, of her tears; there had never been pretense or self-consciousness in her. And while she now, at first, uttered merely his name—'"John!”—his inner ear heard her saying again, as she had said during their first talk in the tennis court—“I wonder if it is like a net.”... Yes, she seemed to be saying that again.
But he was speaking; out of a thick throat:
“Yes?”
“What are we to do?”
He met this with a sort of mental dishonesty that he found himself unable to avoid. “Well—if all goes well, we shall be safe at Ping Yang within forty-eight hours.”
“I don't mean that.”
“Well...”
“I shouldn't have come.”
“I couldn't leave you there, dear. Not there at T'ainan.”
“It wasn't you who made the decision.”
“Oh, yes—”
“No, I did it. It seemed the thing to do.”
He managed to look up now, but could not knowhow coolly impenetrable he appeared to be. “It was the thing.”
She slowly shook her head. “No... no, I shouldn't have come.”
“I can't let you say that.”
“It's true. Can't we be honest?”
The question stung him. He dropped again into his chair and sat for a brief time, thinking, thinking, in that, to her, terribly deliberate way of his.
“You're right,” he finally came out. “We've got to be honest. It's the only thing left to us, apparently... The mistake lay back there in T'ainan. Our first talk in the tennis court. I knew then that the thing for me to do was to go.”
“I didn't let you.”
“But I should have. That situation was the same as this, only then we hadn't crossed our Rubicon. Now w e have. Don't you see? This situation has followed that, inevitably. And now we no longer have the power to choose. We've got to go on, at least as far as Ping Yang. But we mustn't be together...”
She glanced at him, then away.
“—no, not even like this. We have no right to indulge our moods. I'm going to be really honest now. We're in danger from these natives, yes. But that's a small thing.”
She moved a hand. “Of course...” she murmured.
“The real danger is to you. And from me. Oh, my God, child, you're in danger from me!” He covered his face with his hands; then, after a moment, steadied himself, and rose. “I can't stay here and talk with you like this. I can't even help you. Already I've injured your name beyond repair.”
She broke in here with a low-voiced remark the mature character of which he did not, in his self-absorption, catch. “I don't believe you know modern girls very well.”
He went on: “So you see, I've hurt you, and now, when you need me most—oh, I know that!—I'm fading you. It's been a terrible mistake. But it's my job to get you to Ping Yang. That's all. No good talking. I'll go now'.”
“I wish you wouldn't.”
“I must. I—there we are! I'm failing you, that's all.”
“I wonder if we're talking—or thinking—about the same things.”
“Child, you're young! You don't understand! You don't seem to see how I've hurt you!”
“I think I see what you mean. But that—it might be difficult, of course, for a while, but it isn't what I've been thinking of. No, please let me say this! It wouldn't be fair not to give me my chance to be honest too. As for that—hurting me—I came with my eyes open.”
“Oh, Betty—”
“Please! I did. I deliberately decided to come with you. I knew they'd talk, but I didn't care—much. You see I had already made up my mind that we were to be married. We'd have to be, once you were free. The way we've felt. You came way out here, and then you didn't go.”
“That was weakness.”
“You can call it weakness, or something else. But I'm in the same boat. And if we couldn't let each other go then, it was bound to grow harder every day. I had to recognize that. That was where I crossed my Rubicon. Nothing else mattered very much after that. I came with you because I was all alone, and miserable, and—oh, I may as well say it...”
“Oh, yes, honesty's the only thing now.”
“Well, I simply had to. I couldn't face life any other way. I've been thinking it over and over and over. I see it now. I was just selfish. Love is selfishness, apparently. I fastened myself on you. I knew you had to have solitude, but I didn't seem to care. Perhaps you've hurt me. I don't know. But I am beginning to see that I've wrecked your life. I'm your job, now, just as you said. All those things you said on the ship have been coming up in my mind yesterday and to-day. Don't you suppose I can see it? My whole life right now is a demand on you.” Her tone was not bitter, but sad, unutterably sad. “You said, 'Strength is better.' I'm running up with you now a 'spiritual' debt greater than I can ever pay. You said, 'If any friend of mine—man or woman—-can't win his own battles, he or she had better go. To hell, if it comes to that.'”
She was looking full at him now, wide-eyed, standing rigid, her hands extended a little way.
There was a long silence; then, abruptly, without a word, without even a change of expression on his gloomy face, he left the room.
5
That night was Betty's Gethsemane. Again and again she lived through their strange quarrel over the half-eaten dinner here in her room. Her mind phrased and rephrased the wild strong things she had said to him. And these phrases now stung her, hurt her, as had none of his.
But once again, after hours of tossing on the narrow folding cot—his cot—sleep of a sort came to her. She did not wake until half a hundred beams of sunshine were streaming in through the dilapidated paper squares.
She rose and peeped out into the courtyard. They were packing one of the saddles; John, and cook, and a soldier. Brachey was not in sight. He would be in his room then, across the corridor. She wondered if he had slept at all, then glanced guiltily at the cot. He would hardly lie on the unclean kang; very likely he had been forced to doze in a chair these two nights, while she found some real rest. There, again, she was using him, taking from him; and all he had asked of life was solitude, peace. For that he had foregone friends, a home, his country.
Then her eyes rested on a bit of white paper under the door. She quickly drew it in, and read as follows:
“My Dear, Dear Little Girl—
“As you of course saw this evening, it is simply impossible for me to speak rationally in matters of the affections. It is equally clear that by indulging my feelings toward you I have brought you nothing but unhappiness. This was inevitable. As I wrote you before I am not a social being. This fact was never so clear as now. I must be alone.
“As regards the statements you have just made, indicating that you attach the blame for the present predicament to yourself, these are, of course, absurd. I'm sure you will come in time to see that. It will be a question then whether you will be able to bring yourself to forgive me for permitting matters to go so far as they have. That has been my weakness. I allowed my admiration for you and my desire for you to overcome my reason.
“As for the course you must pursue, it will be, of course, to go on as far as Ping Yang. There I will leave you. It may even prove possible, despite the malignant enmity of Mrs. Boatwright, to convince M. Pourmont and the others that we are guilty of nothing more than an error of judgment in an extremely difficult situation. Certainly I shall demand the utmost respect for you.
“I shall make it a point to avoid you in the morning; and it will undoubtedly be best that we refrain so far as possible from speech during the remainder of our journey. I shall go on alone, as soon as you are safe at Ping Yang. I can not forgive myself for thus disturbing your life.
“I can not trust myself to write further. It is my experience that words are dangerous things and not to be trifled with. I will merely add, in conclusion, and in wishing that you may at some later time find a mate who can bring into your life the qualities which you must have in order to attain happiness, and which I unquestionably lack, that I shall hope, in time, for your forgiveness.. Without that I should hardly care to live on.
“Jonathan Brachey.”
Soberly Betty read and reread this curious letter. Then for a moment her eyes rested on the cool signature, without so much as a “sincerely yours,” and then she looked at that first phrase, “My Dear, Dear Little Girl”; and then her eyes grew misty and she smiled, faintly, tenderly. Suddenly, this morning, life had changed color; the black mood was gone, like an illness that had passed its climax. The curious antagonism in their talk the evening before had, it seemed, cleared the air—at least for her. And now, all at once—she was beginning to feel quietly but glowingly exultant about it—nothing mattered.
She ate all the breakfast that John brought; then hurried out. It gave her pleasure to stand aside and watch the packing, and particularly to watch Brachey as he moved sternly about. He was a strong man, as her father had been strong. He hadn't a glimmer of humor, but she loved him for that. He had all at once become so transparent. In his lonely way he had expended so much energy fighting the illusions of happiness, that now when real happiness was offered him he fought harder than ever. Her thoughtful eyes followed his every motion; he was tall, strong, clean.
His heart and mind, in their very austerity, were like a child's.
So deep ran this sober new happiness, as she stood by the litter waiting until he came—austerely—and helped her in (she was waiting for the touch of his hand, averting her face to hide the smile that she couldn't altogether control) that only a warmly up-rushing little thought of her father that came just then could restore her poise. She cared now about nothing else, about only this man whom she now knew she loved with her whole being and the father she had so suddenly, shockingly lost. If only, in the different ways, she might have brought happiness to each of these strong men. If only she could have brought them together, her father and her lover; for each, she felt, had fine deep qualities that the other would be quick to perceive.
All during the morning, feeling through every sensitive nerve-tip the nearness of this man who loved her and whom she loved, she rode through a land of rosy dreams. She felt again the power over life that she had felt during their first talk at T'ainan. Love had come; it absorbed her thoughts; it was right.... She exulted in the misty red hills with their deep purple shadows. She smiled at the absurd camels with the rings in their noses and the ragged, shaggy coats.
After a time, as the morning wore along, she became aware that he, too, was changing. Once, when he rode for a moment beside her Inter, he caught sight of her quietly radiant face and flushed and turned away. At lunch, by a roadside temple, under a tree, they talked about nothing with surprising ease. He was eager that she should draw and paint these beautiful hills of Hansi.
Late in the afternoon—they were riding down an open valley—he appeared again beside the litter. Impulsively she reached out her hand. He guided his pony close; leaned over and gripped it warmly. For a little while they rode thus; then, happening out of a confusion of impulses that, with whichever it began, was instantly communicated to the other, he bent down and she leaned out the little side door and their lips met.
The cook, from his insecure seat on the pack-saddle, carolled his endless musical narrative. John rode in stolid silence; the merely human emotions were ages old and quite commonplace. Mr. Po merely glanced up as he trudged along in the dust, taking the little incident calmly for granted.
So it was that, unaccountably to themselves, the spin of these two lovers rebounded from acute depression to an exaltation that, however sobered by circumstance, touched the skirts of ecstasy. They rode on silently as on the other days> but now their hearts beat in happy unison. No longer was the situation of their relationship unreal to them; the unreality lay with the white world from which they had come and to which they must shortly return. The mission compound was but an immaterial memory, like an unpleasant moment in a long, beautiful journey.
In the evening after dinner, they sat for a long time with her head on his shoulder dreamily talking of the mystery, their mystery, of love.
“It had to be,” she said.
He could only incline his head and compress his lips as he gazed out over her head down a long vista of years, during which he would, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, protect and cherish her. The old phrases from the marriage service rang in his thoughts like cathedral bells.
“1 don't believe we'll ever have those dreadful moods again,” she murmured, later. “At least, we won't misunderstand each other again. Not like that.”
“Never,” he breathed.
“Only one thing is wrong, dear,” she added. “I wish father could have known you. He'd have understood you. That's the only sad thing.”
He was silent. At last, after midnight, in a spirit of deepest consecration, he held her gently in his arms, kissed her good night, and went to his own room.
CHAPTER XVII—APPARITION
1
MEANTIME, M. Pourmont, at Ping Yang, was calling in his white assistants and sifting out the trustworthy among his native employees in preparation for withstanding a siege. He had swiftly carried out his plan of destroying the native huts that stood within a hundred yards of his compound. Such lumber and bricks as were of any value he had brought into the compound, using them to build two small redoubts at opposite comers of the walled-in rectangle and to increase the number of firing positions along the walls. From the redoubts the faces of the four walls and all of the hillside were commanded by the two machine guns. A wall of bricks and sand-bags was built up just within the compound gate so that the gate could be opened without exposing the interior to outside eyes or weapons. On all the roofs of the low stables and storehouses that bordered the walls were parapets of sand-bags.
These elaborate preparations were meant as much to impress and intimidate the natives of the region as for actual defense. In the main, and in so far as they could be understood, the natives seemed friendly. Several thousand of the young men among them had been at various times on M. Pourmont's pay-roll. The trade in food supplies, brick and other necessary articles was locally profitable. And the shen magistrate was keenly aware of the commercial and military strength represented by the foreigners.
There were—engineers, instrument men, stake-boys, supply agents, clerks, timekeepers, foremen and others—fourteen Frenchmen, eight Australians, three Belgians, six Englishmen, two Scotch engineers, four Americans, two Russians. Three of the Chinese had served as non-commissioned officers in the British Wei Hai Wei regiment in 1900. There were a few native foremen who had been trained in the modern Chinese army of Yuan Shi K'ai. The total force, including M. Pourmont himself and his immediate office force, came to forty-six white and about eighty able-bodied Chinese. These latter were now being put through hours of military drill every day in conspicuous places about the hillside.
A number of men acted as intelligence runners, and the activity of these, supplemented by occasional word from the yamen of the shen magistrate, kept M. Pourmont informed of the march of events in the province. Thus it could not have been twelve hours after Brachey bore the news of Griggsby Doane's death to the mission at T'ainan-fu before M. Pourmont as well knew of it, the word coming hy wire to the local yamen and thence passing in whispers to the compound on the hill.
Then, late one afternoon, Doane's pretty little daughter came in, escorted by the American journalist, Jonathan Brachey, and a young secretary from the yamen of the provincial judge disguised as a muleteer. Brachey at once volunteered to help and was put in charge of preparing two small lookout posts on the upper hill. He was uncommunicative and dryly self-sufficient in manner, but proved a real addition to the establishment, contributing the great Anglo-Saxon quality of confidence and tone. Though M. Pour-mont would have preferred a more sociable man. His was a lonely life. He loved talk—even in broken English—for its own sake. He had, himself, vivacity and humor. And it was a disappointment that this Brachey didn't know Çhambertin from vin ordinaire, and cared little for either.
Little Miss Doane touched his heart, she was so pretty, so quick in her bright graceful way, yet so white and sad. But always brave, as if sustained by inner faith. She asked at once to be put to work, and quickly adapted herself to the atmosphere of Mme. Pourmont's workroom in the residence, where Madarhe's two daughters and the English trained nurse were busy directing the Chinese sewing women.... It transpired that the Mrs. Boatwright who was in charge at the mission had refused to save herself and those in her charge, so the Mademoiselle had come on independently. This, thought M. Pourmont, showed a courage and enterprise suggestive of her father.
2
That night M. Pourmont telegraphed Elmer Boatwright confirming the news of Doane's death, and urging an immediate attempt to get through to Ping Yang.
On the preceding day he had sent a party of twelve men, white and Chinese, in command of an Australian engineer, to Shau T'ing, on the Eastern Border, to get the supplies that had been shipped down from Peking. These men returned on the following day; and among the cases and bales of supplies borne on the long train of carts they guarded were the bodies of two dead Chinese and a Russian youth with a bullet in his throat.
News came then that a large force of Lookers had started in an easterly direction from Hung Chan. And Boatwright wired that the mission party was at last under way, seven whites and fifty natives.
M. Pourmont at once sent a party of forty mounted men westward along the highway, commanded by an Englishman named Swain. This small force fought a pitched battle with the Looker band that had been evaded by Brachey, suffering several casualties. A native was sent on ahead, riding all night, with a note to Boatwright advising great haste. But it was difficult for the mission party to travel with any speed, as it had been found impossible to secure horses or carts for many of the Chinese converts, and not one of the missionaries would consent to leave these charges behind. It became necessary therefore for Swain to move a half-day's march farther west than had been intended. He joined the missionaries shortly after the advance guard of the Western Lookers had begun an attack on the inn compound. Already six or seven of the secondary Christians had been dragged out and shot or burned to death when Swain led his white and yellow troopers in among them, shooting right and left. There must have been several hundred of the Lookers; but they amounted to little more than a disorganized mob, and as soon as they found their comrades falling around them, screaming in agony and fright, they threw away their rifles and fled.
Swain at once ordered out the entire mission company, mounted as many as possible of the frightened fugitives on the horses of his troop, and with such extra carts as he could commandeer in the village for his wounded, himself and his uninjured men on foot, he pushed rapidly hack toward Ping Yang. The few Chinese who lagged were left in native houses. The horses that fell were dragged off the road and shot.
This man Swain, though he concerns us in this narrative only incidentally, was one of a not unfamiliar type on the China coast. He was hardly thirty years of age, a blond Briton, handsome, athletic, evidently a man of some education and breeding. He had once spoken of serving as a subaltern in the Boer War. A slightly elusive reputation as a Shanghai gambler had floated after him to Ping Yang. He was at times a hard drinker, as his lined face indicated, faint, purplish markings already forming a fine network under the skin of his nose. His blue eyes were always slightly bloodshot. He never spoke of his own people. And it had been noted that after a few drinks he was fond of quoting Kipling's The Lost Legion. Yet on this little expedition, unknown to the archives of any war department, Swain proved himself a hero. He brought all but twelve of the fifty-seven mission folk and eight of his own wounded safely to Ping Yang, leaving three of his Chinese buried back there. And himself sustained a bullet wound through the flesh of his left forearm and a severe knife cut on the left hand.... The drift of opinion among respectable people along Bubbling Well Road in Shanghai, as here in Ping Yang, was that Swain would hardly do. Certain of these mission folk, in particular Miss Hemphill, whose philosophy of life could hardly be termed comprehensive, were later to find their mental attitude toward their rescuer somewhat perplexing.
3
Though she evidently tried to be quiet about it, Mrs. Boatwright's first act was troublesome. She had been taken in, of course, with the other white women, by the Pourmonts; in the big house. Here the principal three of them—Dr. Cassin on her one hand and Miss Hemphill on the other—were put down at the dinner table on that first evening directly opposite Betty. Miss Hemphill flushed a little, bit her lip, then inclined her head with what was clearly enough meant to be distant courtesy. Dr. Cassin, already too deeply occupied with her wounded to waste thought on merely personal matters, bowed coolly. But Mrs. Boatwright stared firmly past the girl at the screen of carved wood that stood behind her.
Betty bent her head over her plate. She had of course dreaded this first encounter; all of her courage had been called on to bring her into the dining-room; but her own sense of personal loss and injury had lately been so overshadowed by the growing tragedy in which they were dwelling that she had forgotten with what complete cruelty and consistency this woman's stern sense of character could function. She had lost, too, in the mounting sober beauty of her love for Brachey, any lingering sense of wrong-doing. Here at Ping Yang Brachey commanded, she knew triumphantly, the respect of the little community.
They were thinking, he and she, only at moments of themselves. Indeed, days passed without a stolen half-hour together. She gloried in her knowledge that he would neglect no smallest duty to indulge his emotions in companionship with her; nor would she neglect duty for him........And the people here were all so kind to her, so friendly! The presence of this grim personally was an intrusion.
After dinner Mrs. Boatwright went directly to M. Pourmont in his study and told him that it would be necessary for her to sleep and eat in another building. She would give no reasons, nor would she in any pleasant way soften her demand. Accordingly, the Pourmonts, always courteous, always cheerful, made at once a new arrangement in the crowded compound. Some of the Australian young men were turned out into a tent; and the Boatwrights, accompanied by their assistants, were settled by midnight in the smaller building immediately adjoining the residence. Mr. Boatwright protested a little to his wife, but was silenced. All he could do was to make some extreme effort to treat the Pourmonts with courtesy.
And so Betty, when in the morning she again mustered her courage to enter the dining-room, found them gone. And instantly she knew why... . She couldn't eat. All day forlorn, her mind a cavern of shadows, she put herself in the way of meeting Brachey, but did not find him until late in the afternoon. He was coming in then from the outworks up the hill. She stood waiting just within the gate.
They had been thinking constantly, since the one misunderstanding, of the cablegram that would announce his freedom. In his eagerness he had expected to find it waiting at Ping Yang. Day after day native runners got through to the telegraph station and brought messages for others... To Betty now it seemed the one thing that could arm her against the stern judgment in Mrs. Boatwright's eyes.
Brachey's knickerbockers and stockings were red with mud. He wore a canvas shooting coat of M. Pourmont. He was lean, strong, quick of tread.
They drew aside, into a corner of the wall of sandbags. She saw the momentary light in his tired eyes when they rested on her; gravely beautiful eyes she thought them. Her fingers caught his sleeve; her eyes timidly searched his face, and read an answer there to the question in her heart.
“You haven't heard?”
He slowly shook his head. “No, dear, not yet.”
Her gaze wavered away from him “It's got to come,” he added. “It isn't as if there weren't a positive understanding.”
“I know,” she murmured, but without conviction. “Of course. It's got to come.”
They were silent a moment.
“I—I'll go back to the house,” she breathed, then. “Keep strong, dear,” said he very gently.
“I know. I will. It's helped, just seeing you.”
Then she was gone.
As he looked after her, his heart full of a gloomy beauty, he longed to call her back and in some way restore her confidence. But the appearance of the mission folk had shaken him, as well, this day. The mere presence of Mrs. Boatwright in the compound was suddenly again a living force. Up there on the hillside, driving his native workmen through the long hot hours, he had faced unnerving thoughts. For Mrs. Boatwright had brought him out of the glamour of his love; she, that sense of her, if merely by stirring his mind to resentment and resistance, restored for the time his keen logical faculty. He saw again clearly the mission compound at T'ainan-fu. And he saw Griggsby Doane—huge, strong, the face that might so easily be tender, working with passion in the softly flickering light from a Chinese lamp.
He had given Griggsby Doane a pledge as solemn as one man can give another. He had, because Doane was so suddenly dead, broken that pledge. But now he knew, coldly, clearly, that of material proof that Doane was dead neither he nor M. Pourmont nor these difficult folk from T'ainan held a shred.
4
Early on the following morning—at about three o'clock—a small shell exploded in the compound. Within five minutes two others fell outside the walls.
At once the open spaces within the walls were filled with Chinese, none fully dressed, talking, shouting, wailing. Among them, a moment later, moved white men, cartridge pouches and revolvers hastily slung on, rifles in hand, quietly ordering them back to their quarters and themselves taking positions along the walls. The crews of the two machine guns promptly joined the sentries in the redoubts. M. Pourmont went about calmly, pleasantly, supervising the final preparations. Two small parties, one led by Swain, the other by Brachey, went up the hillside to the men in the rifle pits there. A few trusted natives slipped out on scouting expeditions.
As the first faint color appeared in the eastern sky, and the darkness slowly gave way through the morning twilight to the young day, the walls were lined with anxious faces. Strained eyes peered up and down the hillside for the first glimpse of the enemy. Surmises and conjectures flew from lip to lip—the attackers were thousands strong; American, French and English troops were already on the way down from Peking; no troops could be spared; such a relieving party had already been intercepted and driven back as McCalla had been driven back in 1900; the Shau T'ing bridge was down, the telegraph lines were broken, old Kang had beheaded Pao and seized the entire provincial government, was, indeed, in personal command here at Ping Yang. So the rumors ran.
Daylight spread slowly over the hillside. Far up among the native houses and down near the village groups of strange figures could be seen moving about. They wore a uniform much like that the Boxers had worn, except that coat and trousers were alike red and only the turban yellow. At intervals shells fell here and there about the walls.
Back in his study in the residence M. Pourmont, by breakfast time, had reports from several of his scouts and was able to sift the rumors down to a basis of fact. Several thousand Lookers were already in the neighborhood and others were on the way. The Shau T'ing bridge was gone, and it was true that the local shen magistrate had been cut off from telegraphic communication with the outside world. And Kang was at the moment establishing headquarters five li to the westward.
The entrenched parties up the hillside lay unseen and unheard in their trenches, awaiting the signal to fire. The compound was still now. Breakfast was carried about to the men on duty.
Toward nine o'clock considerable activity was noted up the hill, beyond the outposts. Several squads of the red and yellow figures appeared in the open apparently digging out a level emplacement on the steep hillside. Then a small field gun was dragged into view from behind a native compound wall and set in position. The distance was hardly more than two hundred yards; they meant to fire point-blank.
M. Pourmont went out to the upper redoubt and studied the scene through field-glasses. The men begged permission to fire, but the bearded French engineer ordered them to wait.
The little red and yellow men were a long time at their preparations. They moved about as if confident that no white man's eyes could discern them. Finally they gathered back of the gun. There was some further delay. Then the gun was fired, and a shell whirred over the compound and on across the valley, exploding against the opposite hillside, near a temple, in a cloud of smoke and red dust.
There was still another wait. Then a shell carried away part of a chimney of the residence. The sound of distant cheers floated down-hill on the soft breeze. The little men clustered about the gun.
M. Puurmont lowered his glasses and nodded. The machine gun opened fire, spraying its stream of bullets directly on the crowded figures.
To the men standing and kneeling in the redoubt the scene, despite the rattle of the gun and the wisps of smoke curling about them and the choking smell, was one of impersonal calm. The Australian working the gun was quietly methodical about it. The crowded figures up the hill seemed to sit or lie down deliberately enough. Others appeared to be moving away slowly toward the houses, though when M. Pourmont gave them a look through his glasses it became evident that their legs were moving rapidly. Soon all who could get away were gone, leaving several heaped-up mounds of red near the gun and smaller dots of red scattered along the path of the retreat. With a few scattering shots the Australian sat back on his heels and glanced up at M. Pourmont. “Heats up pretty fast,” he remarked casually, indicating the machine gun.
5
A shout, sounded up the hill. All turned. Swain had mounted to the parapet of his rifle pit and was waving his rifle. His half dozen men, white and Chinese, followed, all shouting now. Over to the right, from the other pit, the lean figure of Jonathan Brachey appeared, followed by others. Then they started up the hillside. Like the retreating Lookers they seemed to move very slowly; but the glasses made it clear that they were running and scrambling feverishly up the slope, fourteen of them, pausing only at intervals to fire toward the houses, where a few puffs of white smoke appeared.
They reached the Chinese sun, turned it around and, five or six of them, began running it down-hill. The others lingered, clustering together. A shot from one of the red heaps was met by a blow of a clubbed rifle; that was seen by the Australian through the glasses. There were more shots from the compound walls beyond.
The Australian quietly returned the glasses to his chief, sighted along his machine gun, and sprayed bullets along those walls, first to the left of the raiding party, then, very carefully, to the right.
M. Pourmont descended to the compound and ordered a party of coolies out with wheelbarrows. These began mounting the slope, obediently, painfully. The raiders dropped behind the little heaps of dead and waited. To the many watching eyes along the wall it seemed as if those deliberate coolies would never end their climb; inch by inch they seemed to move. Even the more rapidly moving gun, descending the slope, seemed to crawl. When it did at length draw near, the eager observers noted that the men handling it were all Chinese; the whites had stayed up there. Swain was there, and Brachey, and the others.
Betty witnessed the scene from an upper window of the residence with Mme. Pourmont and her daughters. She heard the rat-tat-tat of the machine gun; through a pair of glasses she saw the red-clad Lookers fall, all without clearly realizing that this was battle and death. It seemed a calm enough picture. But when Brachey started up the hill her heart stopped.
More and more slowly, as the climb told on the porters, the barrows moved up the slope; but at last they reached their destination. Then all worked like ants about them. Within ten minutes all were back in the compound creaking and squealing, each on its high center wheel, under the loads of shells.
Betty watched Brachey through the glasses. Naively she assumed that he would return to her after passing through such danger. And when she saw him drop casually into the little pit on the hillside it seemed to her that she couldn't wait out the day. Now that she had watched him leading his men straight into mortal danger—had so nearly, in her own heart, lost him—she began to sense the terrible power of love. All that had gone before in this strange relationship of theirs seemed like the play of children beside her present sense of him as her other self. Indeed the danger seemed now to be—she thought of it, in lucid moments, as a danger—that she should cease to care about outside opinion. Her heart throbbed with pride in him.
At dusk the outposts were relieved. When Brachey entered the gate, Betty was there, waiting, a tremulous smile hovering about her tender little mouth and about her misty eyes.
He paused, in surprise and pleasure. She gave him a hand, hesitantly, then the other; then, impulsively, her arms went around his neck.... His men straggled wearily past, their day's work done. Not one looked back. She was almost sorry, for that and for the dusk. Arm in arm they entered the compound and walked to the steps of the residence.
That night, three shells struck within the compound. One wrecked a corner of Mme. Pourmont's kitchen. Another carried away a section of galvanized iron roof and killed a horse. The third destroyed a tent, killing a Chinese woman and wounding a man and two girls. Thus, before morning, Dr. Cassam and her helpers were at the grim business of patching and restoring the piteous debris of war.
By daylight the red and yellow' lines were closed about the compound. Shells roared by at intervals all day, and bullets rattled against the walls. The upper windows of the residence were barricaded now with sand-bags. Five more were wounded during the day, two of them white. Enemy trenches appeared, above and below the compound. During the following night M. Pourmont set a considerable force of men at work running a sap out to the rifle pits, and digging in other outposts on the lower slope. His night runners moved with difficulty, but brought in reports of feasts and orgies at Kang's headquarters down the valley, where, surrounded by his full retinue, the old Manchu was preparing to revel in slaughter. As the days passed, the sense of danger grew deeper; the faces one saw about the compound wore a dogged expression. An armed guard stood over the storehouses, men were killed and wounded, and women and children. They talked, heavily where the casual was intended, of settling down to a siege. They spoke of other, larger sieges; of Mafeking and Ladysmith of recent memory. But no one, now, mentioned the prospects of early relief. One night Mr. Po went out with a Chinese soldier on a scouting trip; and neither returned. On the following night, one of the Wei Hai Wei men was sent. At daybreak they found his head, wrapped in a cloth, just inside the gate. The enemy had crept close enough, despite the outposts, to toss it over the wall... After this, for a time, no word went out or came in.
6
Elmer Boatwright slept alone in a small room; his wife, Miss Hemphill and Dr. Cassin occupied a large room in the same building. One night, tossing on his cot, the prey of nightmares, Boatwright started up, cold with sweat, and sat shivering in the dark room. Outside sounded the pop—pop, pop—of the snipers. But there was another sound that had crashed in among the familiar noises of his dreams.
It came again—a light tapping at his door. He tried to get his breath; then tried to call out, “Who is it?” But his voice came only in a whisper.
It wasn't his wife; she wouldn't have knocked. He had not before been disturbed at night; it would mean something serious, nothing good. It could mean nothing good.
Elmer Boatwright was by no means a simple coward. He rose, shivering with this strange sense of cold; struck a light; and candle in hand advanced to the door. Here, for a moment he waited.
Again the tapping sounded.
He opened the door; and beheld, dimly outlined in the shadowy hall, clad in rags, face seamed and haggard, eyes staring out of deep hollows, the gigantic frame of Griggsby Doane, leaning on his old walking stick. He was hatless, and his hair was matted. A stubble of beard covered the lower half of his face. His left shoulder, under the torn coat, was bandaged with the caked, bloodstained remnant of his shirt.