CHAPTER XL
And Sênland was emptied when C’hi Yamei’s litter was carried through the homestead’s great gate. The litter’s silken curtains were close drawn but they stirred a little in the crisp September air as the white mules that carried it plodded out towards the hill path that led to the rushing river Wei. This they must ford or ferry before they reached the directer route that led at last to the nunnery of An Mu-ti where C’hi and C’hi Yamei were to tarry a time before they journeyed on to their ancestral home in Shan-si.
Less than a moon later Sên Ruben took his leave of the Sêns, almost as eager to be in England again as he had been to reach China; for C’hi Ng Yelü and C’hi Yamei were going to London in March. He would see them there; and Sên Ruben could not approach C’hi Ng Yelü uncredentialed by his mother’s consent and approval.
She would give it, he knew; and he was not without hope that broad-minded, easy-going C’hi Ng Yelü, nomad citizen of the world, would forgive a colorless face and half-blood in a suitor in so many other ways desirable.
It was a wrench to leave China while C’hi Yamei still was there. But he had neither excuse nor hope to see her again in China, unless, after acceptance by her father, the red day of flowers came when he might lift her from her bride chair, carry her over his threshold, and after they had worshiped his ancestors’ tablet, alone at last he might lift the crimson bride-veil from her face. In England he could see her freely—as freely as though she were an English girl; and he was going to England to prepare their way of happiness, their path to bridal; prepare his mother’s welcome of C’hi Yamei.
Sên Yamei!
Sên C’hi Yamei!
Two days only remained of his stay in Sênland.
It was quiet now in China. Even talk of war was done.
He had made his last obeisance at the grave of Sên King-lo, the grave in which Sên Ya Tin had placed an empty coffin when she had given her grandson’s spirit the elaborate ceremonious funeral and burial to which a great lord-one of the Sêns was entitled—or would have been entitled had he not erred and strayed in barbaric sojourn and cross-racial marriage. He had made his last obeisance at the grave of Sên Ya Tin. Again he had kept vigil in the lovely painted temple that Sên Ya Tin had builded in love and honor of Sên King-lo—the temple painted by the yellow roses that clustered in its courtyard and overran its walls of ivory and marbles here and there; by the purple wistaria that clambered across its portal pai-fang and flung its sumptuous tassels and its leaves of jade across a jutting edge of its burnished roof; painted by the many-colored dogs and lions and weird-shaped symbolic birds that kept watch and ward on its twisted roofs’ long ledges; painted by the yellow sun of China that poured its gold across its bronze, its marbles and its ivories; painted by its brilliant lacquer floor, its cloisonnés, its hanging lotus-shaped lamps, its inlayings of coral and gold and its votive furnishings of flower-holders, incense burners, and jeweled wine-cups on the long prayer-table of malachite.
Sên Ruben had said good-by to the graves, the pai-fang and the temple; good-by—“The gods of China be with you”—good-by until he came again.
Now he was saying good-by to the lovely laughing orchards still jeweled by the reckless profusion of China, although harvest-come was almost done; saying good-by to a dozen rushing rivulets, a dozen tiny bubbling brooks, the placid dozing woodland pools, the waterfall his boy father had swum, the river Sên King-lo had fished; good-by to withering clover and fading violets, to the acres of wild-rose vines of tiny hips and haws, to forest trees and garden-paths; saying good-by to the great day-star above—which would be but the everyday “sun” in England—to the fragrant grass that perfumed his padded embroidered shoes; good-by to the birds that whirred above him, hills, valleys and gorges; saying good-by—till he came again—to all this gracious homeland of his that had so welcomed and warmed him, and that he had wandered in almost hand-in-hand with C’hi Yamei, no longer a painted lady, but the maid of breathing flesh he longed to touch.
He sat a long time leaning against the bamboos that walled the path where first he had seen her. He lay with his face on the searing ferns her foot had pressed in their summertime of green. He dreamed—and his dream was ecstasy; he prayed—and his prayer was hope and betrothal.
The water-clocks were dripping the Hour of the Dog when he came to the house and passed through the long t’ing-tzu-lang and across the ch’ih to the kuei to say good-by to the ladies of his kinsmen’s harem, the gentle Chinese Sên ladies who had been so Chinese-kind to him, and good-by to their pretty host of dimpled babies.
A sound of sobbing checked him at the edge of the harem courtyard.
No Fee lay face down beside the flower-wall, and the women gathered about her were weeping too.
Often he had seen Sên No Fee in a temper, assumed for ulterior purpose usually, though jolly little Sên No Fee now and then flew, for anything or for nothing, into rage as real as it was vixenish and memorable. But this was grief—the grief of a child whose heart was breaking.
“Hush, pretty maid-one,” a serving-woman pleaded, whose own sobs disfigured her words. “The lady Yamei went on-High from a holy place—”
The broken voice went on, but Sên Ruben heard no more it said.
Sên Ruben stiffened, and leaned against the courtyard wall; his ears were shut. Sên Ruben’s spirit had swooned; his heart was cloistered in pain.
But it passed, for his flesh was strong with the health of youth, and his ears did again their office, and part they heard got through to the wounded mind of Sên Ruben.
“The dear-one of all friendships,” No Fee wailed, “warmth of my heart, twin of my soul! Try not to comfort me, So Sing! There is no comfort for my thought of her passing—my pearl-one, flower of all the gardens. Think of it! Picture it! Caught and torn in relentless bandit hands, murdered for the jewels she wore, the gold in her girdle’s wallet. They tore her ears aslit, tearing the circlets of gold away. They snapped her tender fingers as they wrenched from her the rings! I see them do it! See! See the blood of Yamei pouring down her face! See her hands bleed! Hear her fingers crack!”
Sên Ruben heard no more.
When he heard again it was this: “May all the foul gods wrack the soul of C’hi Ng Yelü, scorch his flesh to its bones, burn his eyes to their sockets till his skull cracks! Foul, inconsiderate, unworthy, that he prevented not that she went alone beyond the nunnery gate, went unattended into the bandit-infested forest.”
Heavily, unsteadily, a stricken man turned and went. He could hear no more!
Sên C’hian Fan, coming from the wax sheds, saw Sên Ruben dragging himself drunkenly across the temple courtyard, watched Ruben’s staggering gait as he went up the temple steps and passed into the temple.
All the night hours Sên Ruben lay in the temple Sên Ya Tin had builded.
Night was chill in Ho-nan now. Sên Ruben felt not cold, nor felt the hardness of the temple floor.
They of the household questioned, “Where is Sên Ruben that he comes not to evening rice? Why keeps he him from his kindred to-night, when to-morrow he goes from our gates, perchance forever?” But C’hian the headman bade them, “Let be! He keeps again a vigil in the temple of his father, worshiping alone at the tablet of Sên King-lo.”
And they ate their rice in silence, approving the filial devotion of Sên Ruben. They ate but scantily and drank no wine, for all the household of Sên C’hian Fan was stricken by what had befallen in the forest beyond the nunnery to which C’hi Ng Yelü had taken from here but now C’hi Yamei.
All night long the women wailed. But the men were mute.