The Vermilion Pencil: A Romance of China

Among the festivals of Southern China none is more popular than the Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters, which takes place during the spring and autumn in villages and cities bordering on the Chu Kiang estuary and the wild ocean banks of the Southern Sea; for these cities and towns have their boats with fathers, husbands and sons scattered over many waters and depend for their sustenance as well as life upon the mercy of the Gods of the Deep.

Contrary to most festivals, this is a festivity of the night. Besides calls, feasting, and the usual merriment of such occasions, it is marked by the procession of the Dragon and an illumination of lanterns.

The Dragon, which is taken through the streets on this night, symbolises the Monarch of the Deep, and is from fifty to a hundred and fifty feet long. This monster, made of silk and covered with glittering scales of gilt is carried by men concealed within it. During the procession it goes through all of the evolutions of its kind; coiling, wriggling, creeping, gliding; every so often darting out its monstrous glaring head after a huge sea-pearl frisked teasingly in front of it. It draws up in rolls, moves in long silken undulations, squirms, twists, lolls, sometimes springing at the spectators. Preceding and following the Dragon are carried enormous models of fish: sharks, perch, whales, pompano, sea-eels, an endless number; gorgeous, gleaming, shaking in the sea of the night their fins and tails of fire.

But what is best in this Feast of the Night are its lanterns; nowhere are people so skilful in making these dainty ornaments of darkness as are the men of this land. Their variety of form, colouring, elegant carving and gilding exceed description; while the strange but delightful taste, the infinite pains and ingenuity that are exercised in their construction are beyond comparison. They are made from paper, silk, horn, glass, cloth, bamboo, and raffia. Their variety of shapes and decorations are without end; round, square, melon-shaped, gourd-shaped, melons squared, gourds squared, pentagoned, hexagoned, octagoned and all the other goneds; birds, beasts, official fans and umbrellas, flowers, fish, miniature pagodas, phœnixes, unicorns, and turtles; all the creatures of heaven and earth, of mythology and man’s creation, coloured, blazoned, gilded, tasselled, charactered, swaying and quivering. Such are the lights that swing in the night winds of the spring and autumn.

Some lanterns are no larger than goose eggs; some are like magnificent chandeliers, twenty feet in diameter, while others, as the Tsao-ma Kong, are even more elaborate.

The ingenuity exercised in the construction of this latter kind is almost incomprehensible. The inanimate lives. Currents of hot air generated by lights set innumerable figures in motion; vessels spread their sails and move slowly or rapidly over undulating seas; fields are ploughed by water-oxen and rice-planted; great concourses of people move by and horses race along with chariots; armies manœuvre and retreat; kings and princes with their retinues come and go; there are dances and theatrical performances, comedies and tragedies, while innumerable other scenes of life pass before the bewildered sight as transient and fleeting as life itself—vanishing when the candle sputters and goes out.

The day of the Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters came at last, though youths, jugglers, thieves, gamins, a priest, a wife, and in fact a whole city had waited impatiently, almost angrily, for its coming. The morning of this autumn day dragged tediously along; noon came and the hours succeeding grew more expectant and breathless. Other than the occasional firing of a cracker and the whoop of urchins, the afternoon had remained silent. But as evening progressed merry sounds increased; jugglers, mountebanks and actors amused the crowds in every available space; gongs were beaten, music played and as darkness settled over the city lanterns began to glimmer from every projection, from ridge-poles, balconies and carved fantastic eaves. Windows oval, square, and oblong glowed with brilliancy, while fronts of houses, whimsically carved and emblazoned with signs of lacquer and gold, were ablaze with profusion of lanterns. In the throngs moving hither and thither each possessed some kind of a light; a silken, tasselled, emblazoned lantern, a shimmer of horn or flare of torch.

During the first hours of darkness the uproar of music, gongs, brat-whoops and crackers was incessant, but eventually, as the lanterns began to flicker and go out, the roar grew less and less.

The park of Tai Lin rested in this sea of light and storm-din an island of solitude; dark, peaceful, lit only by the stars and the glimmer of surrounding lights, noised only by the roar without, and by the music of waters gurgling in their pools and rivulets, tumbling over rocks and tiny precipices; murmuring, soothing, slumbering.

Out into this solitude the wife crept during the second hour after darkness. She left the palace from a western court, known as the Court of Sunset. Turning to her right she skirted along the west granite terrace that overhung the lotus pond. Along this she hastened until she came to the steps leading down upon the lawn. Then she stopped, turned back and with her little hands clasped upon her bosom, gazed intently at the home she intended leaving forever. Trembling she went down from the terrace and crossed the lawn overspread with great banians and wutung trees. As she moved cautiously, hesitatingly along under their shadows every voice of night conspired to startle her; deer coming from out of their covert, a bird-sigh, the night-wind’s swish or a leaf falling at her feet caused her to shrink back or brought a smothered cry from her lips. It was a stealth full of fear to her, but she went bravely on though trembling, shuddering, sometimes ceasing to breathe. She came to the miniature hills on the west and hastened through them, past pagodas scattered on all sides; pagodas that clung to the edge of precipices and overhung her path like impending traps; others loomed up suddenly before her in the darkness of little gorges, while some as gigantic beasts watched her from clumps of trees. When she passed through the bamboo groves beyond the fluttering of startled birds caused her to fly with fear over their gravelled paths. From the bamboo groves she followed a little rivulet agurgle under an avenue of swishing willows and whenever a fish splashed in the waters she clung to the willows, trembling and uncertain. At the source of the stream in the miniature mountains of rock she turned to her left across a grassy starlit meadow, where the noise of revelry sounded plainly upon the night air. West of this meadow rose blackly before her the forest hiding the western wall. Peering into the forbidding shadows of its pines she hesitated, looked over the meadow so bright under the starlight and glimmer of surrounding sea of lanterns, then breathless, with an heavy hand upon her shoulder, she entered its gloomy precincts.

The wall surrounding the park on all sides was some twelve feet high, the top strewn with splintered glass imbedded in cement. The bottom being about three feet in thickness, caused the small iron-postern recessed close to the ground to be hardly noticeable even in daytime. So when the wife reached the wall and not coming directly upon the postern she did not know which way to turn. Groping along toward the southern end she went away from it, and when she crept back to where she left the wood, her breath came in little gasps. When she stopped she trembled so that she could scarcely stand.

Suddenly her hand went into a recess—it was the postern—not far from the wall’s north end. Taking a key from a purse hanging to her girdle she inserted it and then—sank down upon the ground and cried. She sobbed, shuddered and laughed; she smiled and cried at the same time. One listening could not have told whether it was laughter crying, or sobs laughing. There was no bitterness in her tears, no joy in her mirth. If asked, she could not have told whether she were gay or sad; whether she thought of the man waiting, waiting, restlessly just beyond the wall or an old man slumbering happily in the palace behind her. Finally she got up, turned the key, shoved open the postern, then sat down upon the threshold and should have cried again had not the Breton, waiting since the beginning of darkness nearby the gate, came and touched her shyly upon the shoulder. She looked up and in an instant her face was illumined with radiant smiles; the world around her with all of its terrors and dangers was now unseen, unheard. Reaching up her hand she rested it timidly upon his arm; looking up into his face she laughed, gently, doubtfully, yet reassuringly.

A short way down the street a sedan waited, and thither the Breton led her. The bearers, lifting the chair lightly on their shoulders, started off, the Breton on one side, the man Tsang on the other. They moved uncertainly through the narrow tortuous streets, some black and empty and along these they hastened. Others ablaze with lights were filled with slow-moving crowds and deafened by all the noises of this night and along these they moved with difficulty. Not far from the Magistracy of Kwanghoi they came to a street half-dim with flickering lanterns and in which were but few pedestrians. Being half-lighted and yet deserted gave the bearers an opportunity to increase their speed to the utmost, and even in passing right-angled streets they did not alter their gait.

Suddenly an official green-sedan followed by a retinue turned the corner. The men that should have preceded and announced its approach had, owing to the density of the crowds in an adjoining street, been forced back to its side. And in the collision, which was unavoidable, owing to the speed of the wife’s bearers, the green-sedan was overthrown, the head of its occupant striking the pavement through the side window.

Hardly a moment elapsed before the two sedans, their bearers and retinues were surrounded by a crowd of men and of boys. This crowd, deciphering the official name on the tablets borne by members of his retinue, at once began their abuse.

It was a wild scene. Around the sedan and official, who sat dazed on the pavement—a bundle of red satin and gold—huddled his frightened retinue with torches and trembling lanterns, while about them laughed and yelped and glowered this crowd of the night.

“Is it a man or a woman?” chirped an imp.

“It is a general!”

“What! He looks like a midwife.”

Everybody now began, heeding no one, listening to no one, but pouring forth that abuse that is heaped by all people upon masters cowed before the terror of numbers.

A Chinese mob is peculiar, though they are innocent of the fact. Just what it is going to do is uncertain; like sea-waves, it depends upon the way some little gust blows. Truculent, docile, smiling, sombre, gay, and destructive—such are they in almost as many minutes. At once childishly curious, peering, chattering, laughing; then taciturn, gloomy, defiant and over whom broods a scowl that is terrible. They never know just what is coming, whether it will be laughter or annihilation. They delight in this uncertainty and their victims cringe before it.

“I don’t believe it is a he.”

“What! don’t you see the Golden Lion on his breast?”

“Beasts often mount the breasts of women.”

“Do you know,” howled a voice authoritatively, “that more generals are killed by falling from sedans than in battle?”

“They are so fat.”

“And so soft.”

“Whoever noticed what things follow them?”

“Leeches!”

“Lice!”

“Sores!”

“Vermin!”

“Toads!”

“Offal!”

“Somebody help the woman-general up.”

“Dust his skirts.”

“Wipe off the spit.”

The officer rose with difficulty, purple, speechless. His retinue fell back terror-stricken, and the bearers of the wife’s sedan skipped nimbly away. His rage, however, only gave new impetus to the crowd’s joy. They yelped, groaned, sighed and begged piteously for someone to help the officer get mad.

“It is a known fact,” rose a howl above the rest, “that a general can never get in a rage.”

“Poke him!”

“Punch him!”

The crowd was getting dangerous. A silence fell upon it.

“Get the general his fan; he is going now.”

The danger passed and once more the crowd was full of amused wonder as the official glaring around, suddenly pounces upon the wife’s sedan. Encouraged and jeered on by the crowd’s boisterous hoots, he reached in and grabbed the wife by the arm, but as she rose out of her sedan his hand fell.

The crowd became as still as solitude itself—a silence of swaying lanterns and glare of torch. For a long time in this perfect stillness the mob looked breathlessly upon her, then there went over them a soft whispering sound that might have been a sigh. At this sound the officer, who had fallen back astonished, muttered so that those around him heard:

“Tai Lin’s wife.”

As he spoke she tossed her head disdainfully, reaching out her hand to the Breton, who stood bewildered beside her, taking hold of his arm and with calm, scornful hauteur shining in her eyes, she walked slowly past the officer. The mob fell back as she approached, leaving a lane through their centre, and at the end of this terrible passage of lights and faces Tsang joined them. Seizing the arm of the Breton he whispered:

“Hurry!”

A short distance down the street he led them into a doorway, passed up some steps along a black corridor; down other steps, into a court, across this through another passage, thence out into a street. As they gained this thoroughfare they heard a dull cry:

“A priest has stolen Tai Lin’s wife!”

“Kill him!”

“Close the gates!”

“We must run,” cried Tsang.

The Breton looked down at the wife and said, softly:

“I will carry you.”

Smilingly as a child she lifted her hands to him and he picked her up in his arms.

The two men ran with all their speed along this black alley of a street until Tsang suddenly disappeared through a doorway. The flight now lay through corridors like tunnels and courts like abysses. In the neighbouring streets they could hear dully the wild cries of their pursuers, mingled with crash of gongs, cymbals, blare of music and explosion of crackers. In leaving one labyrinth of corridors, tunnels, stairs, and pits they crossed narrow streets or continued along them for a short distance only again to disappear into depths, which would have been appalling had they not been welcome.

These by-streets that they crossed were mostly dark; even in those where lanterns swayed most of the lights had flickered or gone out. So that their flight was as through some strange and terrible cavern; strange because it consisted of doorways, passages, courts, cellars, stairs, and streets; brick, stone, mud, and sky; terrible because all of this had been dug out and piled up by man, the same wild ferocious beast who now hunted and bayed in the distance.

Fortunately the man Tsang had also spent his gamin days in this same monstrous labyrinth and he knew all of its intricacies, its short cuts and secrets, its pits, stinks, and tunnels.

“We may reach the Gate of Virtue before it closes—if Fate wills it,” he mumbled nonchalantly. “If not——” He did not finish. As they started to emerge from a doorway he stopped them.

“The Gate is near here. I will see if it is closed.”

The Breton did not reply nor move out of the doorway. The wife snuggled happily on his shoulder. Neither seemed to know that they were out in the night, pursued with hardly a chance to escape; to-night darkness and joy; to-morrow light and death.

The wild echoes of the chase drew nearer.

Sometimes the wife lifted her head slightly, only to nestle more tightly upon his shoulder, more closely against his neck. Had someone said, “Where are you?” the Breton could not have answered. And had Tsang not returned they would have remained under the doorway until awakened by the elbowing mobs of day.

“The Gate is closed. Such is Fate,” said a voice coming unconcernedly out of the darkness. “They are all closed,” the voice continues serenely. “Thus Fate lights. Who can escape? Who can escape? In a little while it will all be over. Hiyah!” and Tsang sat down on the threshold.

The smile did not go away from the Breton’s lips: the wife did not cease to nestle contentedly upon his shoulder.

Suddenly Tsang sprang to his feet, gave a few dramatic cavorts, and then shaking the Breton vigorously by the arm, cries:

“They will never think of the Water-gate. Such is Fate—come!”

Unhesitatingly the Breton followed, carrying his precious burden. Again their flight skirted a maze of lanterns still glowing in the principal streets, then stumbled along through bewildering labyrinths of blackness; beholding for an instant a starry thread of sky, then plunging underground.

They emerged upon a canal, which at their feet looked like an abyss, while in other parts it reflected charmingly the gay lanterns swaying from slipper boats; swinging, dangling rhythmically to the sinuous movements of the gondoliers.

“Sampan!” called Tsang in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Hi! Hi!” shouted several simultaneously.

“Three people to the Gardens.”

“That is a long way,” they commented.

“I could walk there in twenty minutes if it were land.”

“But it isn’t land,” they joyfully responded.

“How much?” he continued unconcernedly.

“I am busy and ought not to stop and waste my time talking,” answered one.

“I have an all night engagement,” added another.

“I was just going to moor my boat,” interjected a third, “but since you are in difficulty, I will stop and give you some advice.”

“How much?” repeated Tsang.

“This is our Great Feast night,” remarked one.

“That is so,” chimed in the other two.

From the distance came the inarticulate baying of men.

“How much?” reiterated Tsang wearily.

“Do you hear him ask how much?” cried one turning surprisedly to the others.

“How strange!” they commented.

“It was eight mace, but having a knowledge of benevolence, we have reduced it to seven mace three candareens,” added the first speaker.

“Do you think I am a fool or a hill-man?” demanded Tsang with scorn.

“How will you go to the Gardens?” they chorused derisively.

“We will not go,” he answered, moving back from the bank.

“I will be benevolent,” cried one, suddenly moving his boat past the others, “and take you for six mace, four——”

“Six mace, three candareens.”

“Six mace, two——” bellowed the third, trying to get his boat nearer.

Tsang paid no attention to them and the price was howled lower and lower.

“Five mace,” yelped the first, and without a word Tsang jumped into his boat. The Breton and the wife sat down in the middle of the sampan and drew over them the curved bamboo roof. As the boat shot out into the canal it was followed by a vituperative volley from the others.

Tsang stood by the boatman urging him on.

“There is a riot,” he whispered, “and all the gates have been closed except the Water-gate. But don’t think we are going to pay just to go there. Only when we——”

From distant streets came cries:

“Down with the Water-gate! Down with the Water-gate!”

The Breton and the wife sat in the darkness under the bamboo canopy. Neither had spoken nor ceased to smile. Never in their lives had they thought of anything so happy as this night journey.

The Water-gate loomed up before Tsang and the boatman; they could see the lanterns swaying on the eaves of its guardhouse. Plainly now came the cries:

“Down with the Water-gate!”

The pursuers were gaining.

Strenuously the boatman bent to his long oar; his breath came in hoarse gasps and the perspiration running from his face shone in the lantern’s light. The sinews in his arms and bared back swelled, knotted, quivered, strained. Tsang stood by reiterating that if he did not get through the gate he would not get to the Gardens, and how then would it be possible to get the five mace? So the boatman swayed back and forth the great oar with all his strength, and the sampan, trembling, shot sinuously forward.

The baying of men drew nearer, and as they darted under the bridge which spanned the canal in front of the Water-gate, they saw the guards running out of neighbouring towers and mount the ramparts.

The cavernous exit loomed before them. And as the quivering boat darted under the tower, they heard above them commands, cries, and the creaking of chains.

From a boat by night this exit of the Water-gate looks like a monstrous maw, and the portcullis outlined by the lights of the suburbs appear as its jagged, gigantic teeth. And these teeth Tsang and the boatman saw move above them and heard their grind. But under the bamboo canopy there were still smiles, smiles by no means lost in the blackness. These two were blissful under the very crunch of Fate’s teeth. As the boat glided forward under the impulse of its own momentum they were unconscious of a great splash just behind them and cries that the gate was down.

The boatman, panting, rested momentarily on his oar, then without a word continued along the dark, winding course until the river was reached. Here was a mass of boats, which seemed limitless, an interminable tangle and barrier. But as the sampan approached the gondolier shouted out his strange cries and a narrow lane parted to let his boat creep through, while unconcernedly he accepted the railing and scolding of the old boatwomen.

The sampan pushed out into the current of the great river and the gondolier turned its bow upstream.

“Cross over to the south bank,” commanded Tsang.

“The Gardens are on the north bank.”

“I have changed my mind. I wish to go to a friend’s boat.”

So they crossed the river, and the boatman, following Tsang’s directions, brought up beside a fair-sized river craft anchored in the outer ring of boats that lined the bank.

No sooner has the Breton and the wife seated themselves under the bamboo in their new boat, still smiling and silent, than Tsang raised the mat-sail and under the impetus of the river wind, their vessel moved along the westward against the Chu Kiang’s rolling, gloomy flood.

The river upon this night presented an appearance fantastic yet beautiful. Its population seemed greater than that of the city, for its whole surface was covered by a myriad of boats; some built as birds, some as fishes; others as houses richly ornamented and resplendent with carved and gilded work. On all of these strange craft moving restlessly about were hung unnumbered lanterns. As they passed in and out amongst each other these brilliant lights of every colour, fancy and shape, swaying, quivering, dancing, turned night’s gloom—which broods so cumbrously upon this river—into a fluttering, iridescent day, while from flower-boats, bazaars, and gondolas came incessant strains of music, the song and laughter of women.

Suddenly over the laughter of this night there fell upon the ears of Tsang, as he sat on the high poop with the tiller in his hand, a dull roar, a baying of multitudes that came from the city.

“Fate alone knows,” he muttered.

A turn southward and the lights vanished: in a short time the sounds of revelry and that growl from the city were heard no more. About, all was darkness other than here and there a light on the banks and stars shining kindly overhead. No voice was heard but the monologue of the river and occasionally the nasal song of a river-man whose wild and melancholy tones echoed from bank to bank.

Thus they journeyed on to the Grotto of the Sleepless Dragon.

In the southern suburbs, almost under the shadow of the city walls and midway between the Dragon Gate on the right and the Great Bamboo Gate on the left, once stood a Lodge of the Tien Tu Hin, generally known as the Guild Hall of the Merchants of Kiang, since it is the custom of merchants from the same locality to have their guilds where they meet for business and pleasure. So this custom, beneficial in more ways than one, was made to serve as an excuse—a protection to the children of the Deluge Family.

The buildings of the Lodge—or Guild Hall—were surrounded by an high wall having a granite gateway on the street parallel with the city walls connected the two thoroughfares that extended through the Gates of the Dragon and the Great Bamboo. Between the entrances and the buildings was a wide court paved with granite slabs, while a number of banian trees half hid in their foliage the many buildings of granite, glazed brick, and curved dragon eaves, separated by a series of courts and connected with corridors. The main entrance opposite the gateway was reached by a broad flight of steps flanked by two bronze lions. In the first buildings of this Guild Hall were reception and smoking rooms, libraries, offices, and other apartments necessary to such an association. But back of these, beyond another court, stood other buildings, windowless and forbidding, where unknown chambers held in their darkened recesses the secrets and terrors of the Tien Tu Hin.

As it happened the night of the Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters fell on the night of initiation in this secret lodge on the street of Changsha. So just about the same hour when the wife was creeping fearfully through the still, dark park, others of mankind were slinking along through the shadows of the city walls and vanishing under the granite gate.

It was a strange gathering that slunk under the portals of that gloomy entrance: men in long silken robes, men in rags; merchants, thieves, sailors, scholars, artisans, soldiers, pirates. Men with soft white hands, pale faces and delicate in their courtesies, mingled brotherly with others almost black from storms and exposure; brawny, brusque, sombre, ferocious.

After the second hour of darkness had passed the outer gates were closed; and when the ponderous doors at the top of the Lion steps had been bolted, a gong sounded hoarsely from some unknown depths and before its deep echoes had ended this motley congregation of men standing about talking, smoking, disappeared, utterly vanished, so that there was not to be seen in all the Guild Hall man, rag, nor robe.

Presently the gong mumbled again; slowly, measuredly, five times this gong sounded, and as suddenly as they had vanished there sprang out of recesses, crevices and walls fecundate, a new race of men. When they disappeared they had had queues and shaven heads, now they came forth without them and about their crowns were turbans of red silk. A wild medley of satins and tatters had gone into the hidden places, but there came out an assembly all gorgeous in the antique robes of the Mings, so that it could not now be known who had come in rags, who in silks.

Again cymbals crashed, and the assembly arranged itself by twos other than at the head, and there one man marched alone, preceded by guards carrying upright heavy double-edged swords. This man, who walked alone, was the Great Elder Brother—the Grand Master of the Lodge. Behind him followed the Incense Master and Instructor; then the Third Elder Brother and Champion, after whom came the General of the Van and the Red Club; these were followed by the Five Generals, the Tiger Generals, the Eight Guards, the Iron Soles and members.

Slowly, solemnly, in time with the dirge-like booming of gongs and crash of cymbals the procession moved out of the first buildings, along the corridors flanking the court and disappeared through an opening beyond. After passing through a number of chambers and corridors they came to an entrance before which stood guards with drawn swords. The Guards preceding the Great Elder Brother stood face to face before them and then silently exchanged swords. They now entered the first anteroom, at the far end of which was another guarded door. Again the same solemn transfer of swords was gone through with, and the procession passed on into the second anteroom where, as before, swords were passed and the Great Elder Brother led the way into the third anteroom, at the far end of which were two iron doors. As the guards pulled these back there opened before them a huge Hall of Shadows.

The appearance of this Hall was such as to inspire terror. Just beyond the doors, extending their whole width, stretched a fiery moat, out of which flames leaped and crackled; in its depths the heat glowed white and green. Across this burning ditch, through the middle of the doorway, was a bridge of two planks, one copper, the other iron—symbolic of the bridge thrown down by the Immortal Tahtsunye and by which the Five Patriarchs escaped from Shaolintze. Over this bridge hung an arch of pendent swords glowing and quivering with the heat that rose from the furnace below. The only lights in the Hall—unless the stars are numbered—were the ditch of fire and in the centre two iron racks, where blazed bundles of fagots and which gave an uncertain enormity to the shadows within. On the sides were cavernous openings, in the floor abysses. The ceiling other than over the fiery ditch and fagots, was also full of uncertain shadows. In the far left-hand corner, hardly perceptible in this glaring dust, glowed like a blinking eye a taper on the Shrine of the God of War. Opposite in the darkness of the right-hand corner beamed another eye on the Altar of the Goddess of Mercy. Then there was the taper of the God of Earth and five tapers on the Shrines of the Five Patriarchs.

In the centre of the hall but beyond the braziers of fagots stood the Great Shrine, flanked on the left by a representation of Kaochi Temple—where the Five Patriarchs met the founder of the Deluge Family, Chen Chinan, and on the right by a miniature nine-story pagoda. In front of the Great Shrine was a lesser altar on which were placed the symbols of the Tien Tu Hin: symbols that have been revered by countless millions for nearly two centuries and a half—symbols the world may dread. On the smaller altar lay a stone incense vessel engraved with four large characters, Fuh Tsing, Fa Ming. In the centre was a Peck of Rice known as Muyangfu, in which were stuck the flags of the Five Grand Sections of the Deluge Family and the banner of the Commander-in-chief. On one side was placed a Red Club, having a phœnix engraved on one end and a dragon on the other.

On each corner of the altar stood a dwarf Cedar and Pine tree, symbolical of fidelity in oaths. Between them, ranged alternately on each side of the Muyangfu, was a red lamp to discern the True from the False; a seven-starred broadsword indicating that by the sword the Manchus will succumb and the Mings be restored; a Rule by which men can measure their conduct; a Pair of Scales to weigh Ming against Tsing, the True against the Traitors; an Abacus to reckon the time for their destruction; a Mirror, as was handed down by Nu Wo, to show who are good and who are evil; a White Fan for calling together the members of the Deluge Family; a Pair of Scissors for ripping open the black clouds that obscure the Ming sky; and finally a huge double-edged sword by which the disobedient and traitorous are put to death. The roof in front of the shrine and between the braziers was open and the stars shone down into shadows filled with terror; into that silence where man broods.

Silently the procession entered this vast hall, which at one time had appeared to them all as a colossal deep of doom. The Great Elder Brother, the Incense Master and Instructor took their places before the Great Shrine, the other officers ranging themselves in order to the rear.

Solemnly the Grand Master lifted up the Peck of Rice called Muyangfu, and as he placed it on the Greater Shrine the officers behind him chanted their mystic verses. Then in the same manner he raised the Tripod, the Abacus, the Mirror, the Pine and Cedar trees, the Scales and Discerning Lamp, the White Fan and Cloud-Ripping Scissors. After all the symbols had been placed on the Great Altar, and the Incense Master had lighted the incense in the Stone Tripod and before each tablet of the Five Patriarchs, the whole assembly fell on their knees, chanting a requiem mysterious, known to none but them.

The Great Elder Brother now took his seat under the open space in the roof, so that the Eyes of Heaven could look down upon him and see that his acts were just. The Incense Master sat on his left; the Instructor on his right; then the Third Elder Brother on the left of the Incense Master; the Champion on the right of the Instructor; thus they arranged themselves: the General of the Van, the Red Club, the Five Generals and Tiger Generals, the Eight Guards and the Iron Soles, while at the end of the iron and copper bridge, under the arch of pendant swords, stood other guards. The whole assembly was arranged in the form of a crescent, the Great Elder Brother being in the centre, behind him the Great Shrine, on his right and left the braziers of fagots, before him the fiery moat; above—the stars of Heaven.

In the first anteroom waited the uninitiated, dressed in rough clothing, their queues unplaited and their shoes removed. The Guards stationed at the entrance of the second anteroom demanded of them why they came, and they replied that they understood soldiers were wanted and they came to enlist.

The Guards demanded who asked them to come, and they replied that they came on their own accord.

The sponsors of the candidates now led them into the second anteroom, where the guards demanded whence they came, and to which they replied: “From the East.” The names of their sponsors were taken and the Guards warned them that they would have dangers and hardships to endure; that the food they were to eat would be three parts rice and seven parts sand, to which they replied:

“Yu sha, king sha, wu sha king kiang”—“if there is sand we will farm it; if there is no sand, we will farm waves.”

In the third anteroom the Guards asked them this terrible conundrum:

“Which is harder, the sword or your necks?”

They answered: “Our necks.”

The jackets of the candidates were unbuttoned, their right arms and shoulders bared and five lighted tapers of incense placed in their hands.

The General of the Van advanced and conducted them, walking on their knees, to the inner door, where he addressed the Guards:

“Guards of the Inner Portal, inform the Incense Master that the General of the Van conducts recruits to join our army and swear brotherhood. They desire to take Deluge for their family name, and may it please the Incense Master to pray before the Shrine of the Five Patriarchs that they may gaze down upon us and approve.”

The Guards replied that the Five Patriarchs commanded Tien Yu Hung to enter.

The General of the Van passed through the Inner Portal, across the fiery moat and addressed the Incense Master, upon which ensued an endless, mystic dialogue, sometimes sounding like the chatter of children; sometimes like the ominous muttering of thunder. It was occult, inane, full of wonderful and dreadful meaning, cabalistic, ridiculous, terrifying—all depending upon who listened. The sizzling of a fuse is amusing to a child; to an old soldier—death.

The long mysterious debate was at last brought to a close by the Incense Master ordering the General of the Van to bring the candidates upon the bridge.

The doors were thrown open and the recruits led—still walking on their knees—through the entrance.

At the sight of the burning moat they drew back, cringing one upon another, but as the General of the Van advanced they shuffled after him, the tapers trembling in their hands. When their guide reached the other end of the bridge he stopped and they were obliged to remain crouching on the planks of copper and iron; below them a furnace, above an arch of swords shuddering in the heat waves, scintillating, threatening.

The Incense Master advanced toward them and, crossing his arms on his breast, uttered this prayer:

“O Imperial Heaven, O Sovereign Earth, Ye Spirits of Fire; Ye Spirits of Hills and Streams, and Land and Veins of the Earth: Ye Five Dragon Spirits of the Five Regions: Lin Ting, Lui Chia, Spirits Attendant, and all Ye Holy Spirits that wander through endless space, draw near to us, we entreat!

“Since Fuh created this Earth all has prospered, and what the Ancients knew they have given down to succeeding ages. This knowledge we have received, we are about to impart.

“Patriots now hang on the Bridge over Fires. They have come to swear to Ye, O Imperial Heaven, that they will live and die together. That they pledge brotherhood forever, considering sincerity the basis; kindness and righteousness the Ruling Principles; filial love and obedience above all.

“O Ye Five Spirits, throw down into the fire those that would to-night bring discord or treason into our midst. Let those that hang on the bridge know that no distinction of mine or thine can be allowed here.

“To-night we will kneel in front of the Incense Tripod and cleanse our hearts, mix our blood, swallow the mingled blood-drinking oath, and swear to live and die for our brotherhood—immutable as the hills and seas.

“Those that obey shall prosper; those that are disobedient shall perish. Those that assist their country in establishing Universal Peace shall be ennobled for a thousand ages; but those that are traitors shall die beneath the sword and their race become extinct.

“O Fuh Teh, Protector of the people and famed eternally for thy divine benevolence; and Ye, O Chung I, the ten thousand ages hero, the Recruiter and Commander of the valiant, we are now by order of the Five Patriarchs about to swear brotherhood in the blood-testing oath of our society. May Ye Gods in your wisdom and power make clear to these newcomers that it matters not what is their human relationship, all are born anew in the Deluge.

“Again, O Fuh Teh and Chung I, and all ye Intelligent and Discerning Gods, we humbly beseech you to look down upon us while we take the Thirty-six Oaths to manifest the truthfulness of our hearts.”

The candidates on the bridge, swaying back and forth, crouched and clung to one another. Panting for breath, great streams of perspiration ran from their faces and shoulders, their eyes bulged and rolled. Almost overcome by the heat and fumes that rose around them, each appeared about to topple off into the furnace.

The delay was not yet ended.

When the Incense Master ceased his prayer two Iron Soles stepped forward and received from him a scroll of yellow paper about six feet long by two broad, on which were written the Thirty-six Oaths. One of the Iron Soles knelt on his right knee and held one corner in his right hand, while the other knelt on his left knee and held the other corner with his left hand.

The Incense Master and members knelt.

During the silence that followed there penetrated into this chamber of fire and shadows a roar, rumbling, subsiding. Only the men on the bridge did not hear this ominous growl.

Slowly, sombrely, the Incense Master read off the Thirty-six Oaths—and their thirty-six sentences of death. This finished, came a period of silence, then the members rose and the Iron Soles stepped forward and helped the candidates from the bridge. Some were almost unconscious, others glared stupidly about them.

The Iron Soles, leading, supporting, dragged them to the Incense Vessel before the Shrine of the Five Patriarchs, where each, as soon as able, inserted an incense taper into the vessel and repeated as best he could five verses. Removing their tapers from the Incense Vessel they dipped them into a bowl of water standing next to the tripod and as they were being extinguished repeated:

“May my life go out like the fire of these incense tapers if I prove a traitor to my oath!”

The Thirty-six Oaths were then placed in the Incense Vessel; the Incense Master took the basin and, repeating a ritual, dashed it upon the floor, whereupon all of the members repeated in unison, sonorous, ominous:

“May such be the fate of traitors.”

The Incense Master set fire to the Oaths and as the flames crept up the scroll there came again, nearer, louder, that distant growl.

The Guards led the candidates beneath the opening through which shone the stars; a cock was brought, the head cut off, and its blood poured into the bowl in which the incense tapers had been extinguished. The Red Club now advanced, holding in one hand his huge weapon, in the other a flared, black blade. The two guards that preceded him seized one of the candidates and tore off his upper garments, leaving him naked to the waist.

The roar, now nearer, grumbled, muttered, then fell silent. But as the Red Club lifted his blade there came a terrific crash, followed by an overflow of wild noises such as man makes in his rage.

The knife hesitated.

The pent-up floods of the riot that had swollen to vast proportions after the cry had resounded over the city that Tai Lin’s wife had been stolen by priests, burst almost simultaneously through the three southern gates and dashing, seeping through the suburban streets, converged toward the Mission. These dark streams, with flaming wave crests, gurgling with snarls, yelps and threats; frothing, eddying, scowling, soon filled the street of Changsha. One stream had burst out of the Dragon Gate, another out of the gate of the Great Bamboo, and the overflow of these two torrents came together in front of Lodge of the Tien Tu Hin. The noise that rose when they came together was indescribable. It was a frightful splash of snarls and curses; a splatter of taunts and growls, while above all, distinguished by its persistency and vigour, rose a common howl:

“Kill the priests.”

When this uproar with its rage and strange silences fell upon the Children of the Deluge in their Chamber of Shadows, there was a general movement. Merchants became uneasy, fearful for their stores; thieves became desirous for plunder; soldiers to return to their posts; beggars to join the rabble; officials to their Yamens; pirates to their junks; silk robes to their mansions, but the rags would not return that night to their cellars.

The Great Elder Brother rose from his seat; Guards placed themselves in front of him; the Incense Master, the Instructor, followed by all others, took their places and the procession filed out over the bridge into the anteroom as solemnly and silently as it had entered.

The vast hall was empty. The fagots in the iron racks flamed, flickered, and went out. The fiery moat glowed white, green, lurid, then dark spots began to creep into it. After a while only the stars shone down into the Chamber of the World’s Dread.

The overflow from the Dragon Gate, being less than that from the Great Bamboo, was pushed back until there was a general commingling, then the whole rushed unresistingly downward toward the river and westward toward the Mission. Other torrents, chafing, foaming, hurled themselves against the walls of their narrow channels in mad endeavour to reach the river’s edge through the labyrinthine writhings of the suburban streets. Like floods restrained, it sometimes appeared as if they would overflow and surge straight down across the roof tops.

It was the rumble of these torrents just after they had burst through the city gates that the man Tsang had heard as he sat at the tiller. And had the wind not been strong or had there been no bend in the river, he would soon have heard a roar more ominous, more dreadful, as these torrents of howls poured into the basin surrounding the Mission.

The streets north and east of the Mission Compound were first filled, then on the west. And when all were overflowing, so that stragglers, trickling, seeping in, were being pushed back in the direction whence they came; these torrents churned, swirled, then surged out into the open space between the Mission and the river.

The Compound was surrounded, and the mob, as a sea, billowed and splashed against its walls. Like a great rock the Mission remained silent, with a gloomy hauteur, a scornful taciturnity, so that these waves only dashed against it to fall back upon themselves.

There were many similarities between this encircling flood of man with wave crests of flame and roar of tongues to a sea of waters. For this sea, girdling, eddying around the granite base of that gloomy parallelogram, ocean-like, broke and spattered. It had its froth and its depths, its calms and murmurs; its terrors; its tides and ebbs and billows. Sometimes its fire-crests, like those in the Bay of Tai Wan, moved forward in uneven undulations, then hurled against the granite barriers, flowed back and merged with another tide. Again these waves met in such a manner as to form whirlpools or a single force like a waterspout, only here a howl and flame-spout would drive its way ruthlessly through the waves and, lashing itself momentarily against the walls, subside and mingle with the rest. This sea had its evaporations and its residue; it accumulated, eroded and dissipated. But it howled where the ocean rumbled, snarled where it roared, and where the sea of waters murmured this flood talked to itself—a childish, terrible monologue.

Said one wave to another:

“What are you here for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you kill?”

“Yes.”

“What is the trouble?” asked another.

“That is what we are going to find out.”

“Isn’t it enough to know that this place must be destroyed?”

“That is true.”

“What else is there to do when these priests have stolen Tai Lin’s wife?”

“Neighbour, I tell you they have vanished. Is it in accordance with reason to believe that they would wait?”

Where this sea eddied around the southwest corner of the Mission, the tumult of one wave rose sonorously above the rest.

“O Ye Men of the Middle Kingdom,” roared this wave. “Ye who have trod its soil, breathed the air of its Imperial Heavens; ye who have eaten the herb of its fields and for a myriad ages have drunk the dew of its benevolence, how long are you going to let these sea-imps devour your women and children? How long are you going to let these Western devils who pretend to be priests deceive you? Skin them of their robes and you will find that they are bats and snakes, who smile but to devour.

“Did they not sneak into our Kingdom like night monsters—these proud priests of the Hungry God? Answer, ye doubters; ye women-men; ye disgraceful progeny of the Ancients. Whoever trembled before priests or gods until these pallid demons came? Did not then the peace-flower bloom in our gardens; the song of the phœnix make men’s hearts harmonious? Who now does not fear the breath of these priests? Do they not get fat on destruction? Do they not steal the wives of our Great Men? Destroy towns and cities? O ye black-haired men of Han! O ye——”

“Why doesn’t someone climb the wall?” demanded one wave of another.

“They have cauldrons inside and when one mounts the walls they take off the lids and the fumes cause——”

“How do you know?”

“Bah! It is easy to reason with a wise man, but to convince——”

“Throw stink-pots over the walls!”

“Get the pung-dongs!”

These cries were taken up and echoed on all sides.

In the middle of the open space between the Mission and the river—now filled by the mob—a band of Taoist monks had congregated, mingling their weird cries and clash of their cymbals with noises about them, and there rose above all the rest a plaintive falsetto shriek: