The Vermilion Pencil: A Romance of China

At regular intervals the other monks joined in, in high falsetto wail:

Thus this sea surged, rolled, grumbled, tossed, debated. All howled at once, all talked at once, and at intervals silence came simultaneously over them all. This still stillness resembled that strange quiet that often comes in the midst of battle or storm; it might be called the scowl of decision, ominous, portentous.

Fortunately for the Mission, this mob-thought, this contemplation of that turbulent flood, never lasted long enough to decide; some noise would disturb it, a whisper perhaps, but something, and tumultuous it wasted its force in surfy din.

Suddenly there burst above all its noise a deep boom from the river, followed by another and another. Like rockets or even meteors the cannon’s spittle traced its fire over the waters.

The French gunboats had opened fire.

The man-flood that filled the open field and that murmured and howled or was silent, whose wave-crests of flame surged and eddied around the Mission walls, suddenly became a maelstrom of darkness and wild cries. Shell after shell fell into this maelstrom, which, contrary to other whirlpools, was not concentric, but might be called multiple; wherever a shell exploded a minor whirlpool was formed, the outer circles of which were made up of the living, the inner of the wounded, the centre of the dead, the torn. Thus the whole open space was filled with frightful eddies; eddies that bumped into one another, contended, merged. Medusa-like they scattered themselves into a dozen whirlpools, then devouring one another formed a huge indistinguishable mass; struggling, shrinking, climbing, crawling, wriggling. Here and there blown asunder; torn, mutilated, sighing.

The mass of wrigglers grew less and less.

Several houses on the western side of the open space were set on fire by shells exploding in them, and as the flames shot skyward they cast a lurid light over all.

The firing ceased. There was nothing to shoot at other than when a wounded man would jump up, run a little way, then fall. Some of these men ran to the river and jumped in; some ran to the Mission Gates and knocked entreatingly; others ran toward the buildings in flame.

Several boats loaded with marines now put off from the warships and rowed heavily across the lighted waters. No one opposed their landing, but as they started across the open space they involuntarily drew back at the frightful spectacle that lay before them. Lit by the red glare of burning buildings the place was as one vast slaughter pen. The dead lay strewn about in bunches; headless, legless, gutless, soulless. Here one with muscles twitching in death’s agony, there one asleep. The eyes of some were glazed, others looked resignedly at the stars. Some sat erect, and as the marines approached laughed and—died.

A month after the night-flight and night-riot, which the Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters had brought about, a defensive calm pervaded the Mission of Yingching and its immediate environs, although to the westward the noise of hammer and saw filled the air.

The fires that started from the bursting shells had swept westward to the street of the Golden Flower and north to Old River Street, where, owing to the greater width of these thoroughfares, as well as to the strenuous exertions on the part of the fire-fighters, the flames had been stopped, but only after an area almost an half-mile long and about an eighth of a mile in width had been completely gutted.

In a few days after that dreadful night, when the dead and mutilated had been removed from the open space and order had been restored throughout the suburbs, these people, as industrious ants, began to rebuild on the embers, amid ashes, their homes and stores and temples. Abroad over the black blot rose the garrulous noise of their labour; and over the debris, ash, and dead, creative life in its various phases hummed persistently. Men were coming and going, some carrying bricks, others chiselling granite blocks; some were whipsawing logs into floors, joists, beams, and doors, while others were putting together the piles of wood, brick and stone.

A kind of bitter happiness pervaded those building this new suburb in the midst of the old, and they chattered, cursed, railed. Hucksters with viands and sweetmeats passed and repassed; children played among the logs; soldiers moved back and forth; silent groups stood scowling along the waterfront, and among the brick-heaps and half-completed buildings troops of spectators came and went. Sometimes a lone being slunk along, looking vainly for some spot; if found—weep; if not—vanish.

At the northwest and northeast corners of the Mission Compound the marines had thrown barricades across the Old River Street and had mounted ordnance on each. Sentries patrolled these barricades as well as the whole circuit of the Mission Walls. On the river opposite the open space a French cruiser and gunboats still anchored; their cannon covering all approaches and even holding the city at their mercy.

One day about a month after the night-feast of the Gods and toward the third hour after sunrise, the sentries on the east barricade noticed a movement among the Chinese patrols stationed farther down Old River Street.

Presently a single sedan with four bearers and one attendant came swiftly toward the barricade. Near the redoubt the sedan stopped and the attendant cautiously advanced toward a sentry, holding before him an open card. The marine reached down his gun and the attendant stuck the card on the bayonet.

After some delay a squad of marines marched out of the north gate to the east barricade and, with these sailors acting as an escort, the sedan entered the redoubt and disappeared within the walls of the Mission. At the entrance it passed through double ranks of marines standing at present arms and was carried into the building to the rear of the sombre Visigothic chapel. When it was set down in the bishop’s own study, an old man, trembling, withered, tottered out of it.

The bishop came up to him and bowed.

“Your Excellency does me great honour. How will I ever be able to repay such kindness?”

Tai Lin made no reply. Aged and shrunk, without the strength of self-support, he sank into a chair beside a table and, leaning forward, buried his head in his arms.

The bishop sat down on the other side of the table and, lolling back in his chair, caressed his pallid hands, now and then cracking his knuckles.

Sometimes a tremor passed through the body of Tai Lin.

Sometimes the bishop bit his lips.

Tai Lin raised his head and looked piteously at him.

“I cannot find her.” Then the old man’s head sank again upon the table.

“It is very unfortunate,” communed the bishop in soft, sad tones. “Human frailty, alas, human frailty! When I sent the priest to be instructor to your wife, I thought him a noble, a virtuous man. It has broken my heart to find out that by being tempted he has lost his soul. What could be worse! I would rather the Mission be wholly destroyed than one soul lost. We came here to save souls, not to lose them. And now, in the opinion of your countrymen, all our benevolence, all our good deeds, our self-sacrifice, our prayers and labours are gone, utterly forgotten on account of this one evil act. You complain bitterly. You have lost a wife—God a soul.”

Silence again ensued. Several times the bishop cleared his throat as if to speak.

Tai Lin remained motionless.

“Did you ever think that—that—perhaps the priest was not wholly to blame?” asked the bishop with mild concern.

Tai Lin looked at him dully.

“Yes; you are right. She was not to blame.” He answered mechanically. “She could do no wrong.

“Once I gave her a little stool. She always sat on that at my feet. You do not know, but that is the way it was. She patted my hand—now, she is gone—all is gone.”

The old quavering head fell forward upon the table. Sometimes a tremor passed through his body, but no sound broke the silence.

The bishop picked his teeth, white, narrow teeth, set far apart. This was a sign of meditation.

“Did you ever see this ring?” he asked gently, as he placed on the table the pearl that the wife had given to the Breton.

Tai Lin raised his head, looked at the pearl and shuddered.

“I noticed,” continued the bishop sympathetically, “that he had this ring the very first day after his return from your wife. She made him promise not to part with it. I thought it might show a little—a very sudden—I may be wrong—but a woman’s passion.”

“My ring.” Tai Lin’s voice was almost inaudible in its calmness.

“Have you ever noticed any eagerness on her part for his coming?” asked the bishop with compassionate reluctance.

Tai Lin continued looking mutely at the ring.

“I did not know, but—I suspected it,” went on the bishop in the same pitying tones. “I noticed that when he was prevented from going to your palace she would send long letters to him—as bishop I read them. They were filled with tender endearments, the most passionate riotous words. It is difficult for me to speak of this. I hope I have not offended Your Excellency, for there is only one desire in my heart—the truth. To seek the truth and to live uprightly have been the two master wishes of my life. But, alas, how hard it is to discover truth! To do this one must pray to God. There is no other way. And since this terrible affair I have been continually on my knees. God has smiled. His smile has penetrated the darkness surrounding this mystery and all is now clear, but to understand, one must first understand women.

“It is strange the attributes men clothe women in: Some deceive themselves into looking upon her as an angel, when they ought to close their eyes and cry, Scat! Others make her a tantalising riddle, and spend their lives trying to solve it; a sweet enigma, which they do not try seriously to know, lest knowing they find out what they do not wish.

“Woman is not a riddle, she is not an angel, she is not an enigma. She is an animal—that is all.

“To understand a woman, study a feline. She has all their attributes. Like them she only ceases to want when satiated; when she desires, she does nothing else—like an animal she follows the scent of her wishes. A woman never rests except when asleep; she never sleeps unless her hungers have been satiated. Nothing is more alarming than a woman with one eye open; like animals, when they doze they think of to-morrow’s hunt. Women, as felines, have only three hungers: When these are allayed they are at peace; when not, they prowl—they cannot help it. Hunger and reason are always in conflict, but when reason is lacking there is no contention, no delay, and they hasten on the warm trail of their desires. There are no difficulties they will not surmount if the scent of the game is strong. Feline-like they are velvety-heeled, and we hear not their comings nor goings. One never suspects they have claws until they lacerate. They are not satisfied with one victim; they suck the heart’s blood, then sniff for another. Old age has not much blood—no, not very much.”

For some moments the bishop cracked his knuckles in silence; his cavitous eyes fixed keenly on the old, withered man before him, who still looked dumbly at the pearl on the table.

“Yes; they are best caged,” resumed the bishop in soft, meditative tones. “And yet those closely confined are most dangerous when given a little liberty. The breath of freedom—that insane folly—soon heats the blood and leads them to wild excesses. Had I not felt so sure of the priest’s virtue, I would not have permitted him to teach her and lay himself open to temptation. I did not think he would submit. But no risk is so great as to be lenient or careless with the caged. Open the bars and animals will go forth. Play with their claws and they will scratch. Tantalise their hungers and uncaged they will gorge. The wisest way is to teach them a few tricks—a very few, and when not performing keep them behind bars. Man’s greatest self-deception is to believe that they are tamed. No animal has ever yet been so gentled that it could be left to its own instincts. Nothing is more dangerous. How many keepers have been lacerated to death by this one act of careless confidence!

“But I do not know how she could have managed it,” the bishop’s tones became filled with deep concern. “Surely she was not so bold and immodest as to come from behind the screen?”

Tai Lin raised his eyes from the ring and looked startled, mutely about him.

The bishop wiped his lips, and behind the handkerchief a smile flickered.

“Yet there are worse things than her coming from behind the screen,” he continued compassionately. “If it had only stopped there, for the pride of beauty may have moved her unconsciously; impelled by nature she may have crept unseen to his side.

“This manner of movement is peculiar to women and—snakes.

“Did Your Excellency know that during the first month of the world’s birth these two met—a snake and a woman? Being unable to swallow each other, they made perpetual compact—to devour man.

“Since then they have possessed many attributes in common. Their tongues have the same forked rapidity; poison lurks in their kisses; death in their embraces. One-half of them is allurement, the other half desire. In gorgeous bedeckment they resemble flowers—men often mistake them for such. Their backs are beautiful with radiant colours, their bellies pallid. One coaxes what the other devours. Nothing can equal the subtlety of their movement! One never feels them until bitten; one never knows them until the heart has been clogged by their poison. Thinking them an innocent flower on account of their hues and beauty, one reaches out after them and finds—what Your Excellency has discovered.”

A shudder passed through the old man.

The bishop picked his teeth.

Time passed.

Tai Lin sat up; never taking his eyes away from the ring, he spoke, but as much to himself as to the bishop, feebly, piteously calm:

“I do not know why she did this.”

There are some silences that men hesitate to break; the silence of a tempest, the silence of an abyss, the silence of a broken heart.

The bishop made no attempt to answer or break the oppressive stillness that followed Tai Lin’s simple statement.

It was a long time before he spoke again, then his voice was quiet, but in his tardy speech lay decision not less terrible than it was calm.

“Yes; it is all over. I am glad you told me. She shall suffer. When you said they were animals you told the truth. I always believed that, but thought her different. I was not mistaken. She has been more a snake than beast. Your words have been learned, only there is no such poison in a snake’s mouth as in a woman’s heart.

“No; I do not ask you why you did not stop this crime when you saw its beginning, because I know you have made roguery holy to escape its responsibility and to enjoy its profits. You have your own protection, but she shall die.”

The bishop, who had been picking his teeth, leaned forward.

“She shall be lyngcheed,” added Tai Lin softly.

“But she may be a Christian,” interposed the bishop.

“Lyngcheed,” reiterated Tai Lin meditatively.

“She may be a Christian,” said the bishop again.

“Yes,” continued Tai Lin, heedless of the bishop’s words. “Yes, that is her punishment by the laws of the Empire.”

“But she may have become a Christian.”

“Yes; it is necessary that she shall die.”

“She is undoubtedly a Christian by this time,” interrupted the bishop decisively.

“What do I care if she is a Christian!” and Tai Lin rose up savagely, quaveringly before him.

“Well—you know,” and the bishop wrung caressingly his bony, bloodless hands, “Christians are entitled to our protection. Yes, yes, we could not permit you to——”

“She is my wife and by the law shall be punished.”

“Christians are not subject to your laws. They are under the protection of the Church. The Church does not recognise your pagan marriage. By becoming a Christian she is free and entitled to our protection——”

“I will hammer this Mission into dust!” and Tai Lin brought his trembling fist weakly down upon the table.

“There are three warships in the river,” commented the bishop softly.

“I will sink them!”

“There are battleships at Hong Kong; ten thousand troops at Saigon. A word from me and this city will be bombarded. A cable from me and ten thousand French troops will be landed. You know I speak the truth. Do you want to be held responsible for the death of a myriad multitude? Responsible for the loss of three kingdoms——

“How posterity would revile your name! How contemptuous will be held your descendants! Even then you cannot regain her.

“Beware! Beware!

“Disaster surely falls on him that opposes the Church, for it is God’s world-child; mankind and kingdoms its servants. Do not think that this child sleeps, curled up in a lotus-bud, or is drifting to a Nirvana. It is moving onward to Universal Power.”

The bishop leaned farther over the table; turning his head he looked up into the face of Tai Lin and, flushing from the intensity of his feelings, became ashen. His lips were parted, showing the long, narrow gleam of his teeth, while his jet eyes, set so deep in their sockets, glittered and had a speech of their own.

“You think, in this country,” he continued in a voice intense with feeling, “that the Church is the cat’s-paw of European nations; that they get missionaries killed to have an excuse for conquest? Bah! What are these nations? The Church’s hammer and tongs. The Church commands, they obey. You cannot injure a servant of God with impunity. You cannot oppose the Church without ruin. The Church of God must be the Spiritual Ruler of the world. It cares not who holds the few hours of temporal sway. Accept our Spiritual Dominance in peace and be your own rulers; attempt to destroy and you shall become the Servant of the World.

“You know that no army ever landed in this country that did not come at our wish and command. Why are all of these gunboats creeping up and down your rivers? Who are they to obey? Dare you punish a Christian without our leave? Has not the church placed them above your laws? And yet you come to me and threaten to destroy this Mission; kill this priest and lyngchee a Christian woman! What could be more ridiculous? How would you do it? Where would you begin and where would you end?”

After a moment of silence the bishop drew back in his chair. Gradually his ashen flush faded and he again became pallid.

Tai Lin stood motionless. Presently his head sank upon his bosom, but the frown on his withered face did not go away.

The silence was broken by the bishop, speaking compassionately.

“I am sorry for Your Excellency. You are a wronged man. When one is cast out by a father one can forget; when one is scorned by a son one can grieve and forgive, but when a man’s wife discards him he cannot forget, nor grieve nor forgive. He has been injured internally and abroad. His heart has been splintered; his name befouled; his thoughts and hopes, like green scum, are cast adrift; his children and children’s children are bastardised; he is alone in the profundity of his sorrow and yet conspicuous because of her sin.

“Most of our sins die with us, but the sins of such a woman live on. Like abhorrent weeds they have seeds, which by Time’s winds, are scattered abroad to tare the fields of men. Quick should be her cut-off. There is no law in this land wiser than the one that makes death the penalty of her crime. It is the same law that God himself gave to Moses, our Great Elder. I can understand the threefold reason why you should have her lyngcheed and sympathise with you.

“A man should be known before the world as just; the laws of the Empire should not be deceived; the stigma should be removed from your descendants, for if not, men will ever say there was baseness in your household and your whole progeny will be heralded as bastards. How can the wick of one’s memory be tended by those whom the world repudiates?”

The bishop leaned close to Tai Lin and lowering his voice spoke with greater intensity.

“Would you have me aid you?”

Tai Lin looked at him dully, incredulously.

The bishop tapped the table with his finger-tips.

“You called her Christian,” mumbled Tai Lin.

“Yes, yes; but you don’t understand. You were going to act against the Church, not with it.”

The bishop caressed his hands.

“Now if you and I could come to some agreement.”

“You?”

“Yes; whereby the Church withdraws its protection——”

“I agree,” cried Tai Lin. “Where is she! Where is she!”

“What will you agree to?”

“Anything,” cried Tai Lin hoarsely, groping feebly the table’s edge.

One by one the bishop pulled his fingers until the knuckles cracked in each, which he did only in moments of great pleasure.

“Will Your Excellency agree to deed your park to the Church if it withdraws its protection and sanctions her punishment?”

“No!” answered Tai Lin decisively.

“But if she is found and given over to you?” interposed the bishop eagerly.

Tai Lin did not answer for some time.

“No,” he said finally. “You will take my park and then squeal Christian! Christian! Christian! I know you rogues.”

The bishop picked his teeth. Once in a while he clacked his tongue, which was a sign of perplexity. Presently he smiled.

“We will draw up a contingent bond signed and attested to the effect that the park shall not become the property of the Church until the last stroke of the lyngchee.”

A purple pallor overspread the seams and wrinkles of Tai Lin’s face; his glowing eyes became vacuous.

The bishop moved uneasily.

Tai Lin fumbled at the throat of his robe.

Suddenly he bent over the table toward the bishop.

“The priest?”

The bishop rose and whispered for some time in his ear.

“Make the bond!” commanded Tai Lin huskily.

The bishop hastened from the room and when he returned he brought with him the commandant of the marines.

The bonds were drawn and signed.

Tai Lin rose. For a moment he stood looking thoughtfully at the ring on the table, then, without noticing the bows of the bishop, got into his sedan.

As he was being carried out of the Gateway he caused his bearers to stop, and, lifting the blind, looked back long and fixedly at the House of God.

After passing under the waterfall curtaining the doorway of the Grotto of the Sleepless Dragon, one apparently stands upon the edge of an abyss out of which come blasts of cold moist air and a stillness, which, in contrast to the splashing roar of the cataract, is appalling. The floor of the cavern slopes downward some ten degrees, and in the subdued rays filtered through the prisms of falling waters the nearby walls with their columns and pilasters cleave imperceptibly out of the dim light, white as the clearest marble. The floor is covered with a dust piled about like drifted snow and swept by the cave winds into hollows, ridges and crescents. Water dripping from stalactites trickles over corrugated pilasters, and farther down the incline runs in greater volume from their bases. This crystalline seepage has formed colossal cups, which in their endless overflow have made saucers, then platters and these, running out from each side of the cavern, overlap toward the centre. These accretions of calcareous ooze form more and more, as one advances, a series of overlaying crusts which, in the lower incline, become the roofs of abysses, resounding with an hollow rumble when stepped upon. Sometimes, like the covering of a tiger’s trap, they support one man, sometimes an hundred. These covered abysses—no other than the maw of the Sleepless Dragon—probably hold the bones and accoutrements of the Manchu regiments that pursued so relentlessly the youthful Emperor. In them also are the bones of treasure hunters, robbers, and nameless, numberless others for whom the Sleepless Dragon accounts not.

However, there came a day when the danger of the abysses was averted to those that entered and stopped long enough on the threshold to become accustomed to the soft, shadowless light that lay about them; or to those that impatiently lit their resinous torches, for there had been made in the snow-like drifts a distinct trail of footsteps which, passing and repassing, had trodden down the dust; and along this new path were marks such as one sees in winter where boughs have been dragged through the snow. This trail made of feet and boughs began where the mist from the waterfall floated and continued down the incline until it almost reached the edge of the first plate-like formation of calcareous deposits, then turned to the right and ran straight into the wall between two huge corrugated stalagmites. In a jagged recess almost behind the left-hand stalagmite was a narrow opening, the lower part of which was ragged, the upper chiselled and smooth. This exit, heading away from the concealed abysses, had in some ages past been made by man into a doorway.

Passing through this secret portal the passage is confined for some distance by narrow walls, and the low roof makes it necessary in places to crawl upon the knees. The tunnel ends by opening into a vast cavern similar to the one first entered; but on advancing the walls and ceilings grow invisible to the light of torches and it becomes like a vast field. Here and there brooks of crystal water gurgle dully as they trickle into a circular lake that fills the lower basin. When torches are held over the edge of this lake there streams upward out of the abysmal depths shoals of pallid, eyeless fishes.

From this subterranean field caverns, like highways, diverged in several directions. And one of them—fortunately or otherwise—led into what was once a little corner of Paradise, cast like a gleaming pearl into this damp cellar of earth. In the centre a fire of pine branches had once blazed and crackled cheerily, giving the shadows of the chamber the soft whiteness of a snow-drift, but where the light of the pine blaze fell it sparkled and glistened as though incrusted with jewels. In the sides of the cavern were numerous openings; at one end curved a half arch, in the other a hole that led to the underground field. From the dome jewelled stalactites ten to twenty feet in length hung pendant, while here and there rose great stalagmites like fluted pillars. The walls were hung with draperies falling in unbroken, graceful folds, now softly white as a swan’s breast, now a curtain sown thick with precious stone. Around the wall’s base cups had formed similar to those in the first cave, and were filled with transparent water. Pearly, diamonded furniture was crowded about. Thrones, pedestals, dais and couches draped lightly in gleaming folds, coruscating as though studded with all the jewels of Yu Ngao. In this cavern joyousness and laughter echoed.

The wife, like an uncaged lark of an hundred spirits, was Happiness itself; and when laughter was not on her lips her song found its way through the columned depths. To her birdlike notes, numberless echoes blended in perfect harmony as though some subterranean chorus had taken up her song and was sending it through the uttermost caverns as she had sent it into the hearts of men. Sometimes, after she had ceased, her words could be heard, echoing, echoing, echoing. These caverns and grottoes were reluctant to yield up their music, and slowly smothered or rather caressed their tones into silence as much as to dumbly signify that it was the first time an echo from heaven had drifted thither.

One day not long after they had taken up their abode in this pearl-shell, Tsang’s wife, smiling and chattering, bustled about the fire. Tsang sat on his heels and smoked contentedly by her side. While on a high couch of marble, the wife directed, commenting, sometimes with laughter, sometimes with the gayest mockery. The Breton sat at her feet, smiling at last and at all times, for since the night of the Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters he had at no time ceased to do this.

Suddenly the wife’s laughter stopped and she knelt down beside him.

“What is the matter?” she demanded fearfully.

The Breton had laughed.

“Did you ever do that before?” Her demure anxiety and troubled looks brought another uncertain, low laugh from his lips.

“Tsi, did you hear him?” she demanded, turning to Tsang’s wife.

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Tsang, did you hear him?”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

Then she turned to him and said beseechingly.

“Do it again.”

In gayest hours, however, it seems that moments of sadness or foreboding must inevitably intrude, as sea-fogs slink in and envelop sunlit meadows. In such a manner one day there came into the song and laughter of the wife this uneasy unrest. She appeared trying to escape from something, but it overtook her and her song-laughter stopped.

She moved closely to the Breton.

“Why were you and Tsang gone so long to-day?”

“We were looking for the treasure of Yu N——”

“Treasure!” she interrupted indignantly, drawing away from him. “And I thought you different.” She drew farther away.

“I do not know why men care for nothing else,” she complained, half sorrowfully, half angrily. “From children to old age they think of nothing else. They go into war for it, and temples and jails and yamens; no mud can cover it, nor filth stick so closely but what they fondle it more than—than——”

The Breton reached out his hand toward her, but she drew back.

“You would rather——” Tears were creeping into her complaint.

“But, Your Excellency,” commented Tsang opportunely, “what can you do without money? Fate is the only thing on earth that cannot be marketed for it.”

She turned on him scornfully.

“Oyah! This whole Ming treasure cannot coax one lark to sing.”

“It could persuade kingdoms.”

“It cannot open a single night-closed lotus bud.”

“It could turn night into day.”

“It cannot stop a tear.”

“Some it could.”

“It cannot add one hour to life.”

“Life is spanned by its pleasures; the rich have three lives to the poor man’s one.”

“It cannot buy——” She hesitated and nervously picked the hem of her jacket.

“Why don’t you answer me?” she pleaded, turning to the Breton.

“Yes.”

“Will you never learn to talk?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I would interrupt you.”

She leaned close to him and looked up forgivingly.

“I was not angry, but I don’t want you to go away and leave me for so long. I—I——”

“What is it?”

She turned her head away, then answered guiltily.

“I dreamed something that I cannot forget. If I only had not dreamed it,” she cried as she snuggled closer to him.

“It is nothing,” he added reassuringly.

“Yes; I know,” she answered, “that you will call this dream just some airy tapestry of sleep, strangely woven, perhaps, and hued, but still the gauzy slumber-work of my foolish mind, which in waking hours I should see plainly through; and yet—I cannot—won’t you let me tell it to you?”

She put her little hand in his and looked up imploringly, then nestling closer, she continued with naïve intentness:

“I know this dream came late in the night, because it was for hours and hours that I could not sleep. Fear’s tugging finger many times caused me to rise and peer into the shadow where you and Tsang were sleeping. It must have been after the third watch, when he builded the fire, that I dreamed. I know you will think this a very foolish dream.”

For a long time he looked into her upturned eyes; then putting her hand against his cheek, she turned his face away.

For some moments there was an hushed, uncertain silence, then suddenly she burst into tears, and throwing her arms about the neck of the Breton she clung passionately to him.

“Do not let dreams disturb Your Excellency,” commented Tsang. “What are they? Reflections in the Great River whereon we float. Now how can reflections stem the river or check the course of our craft?”

“Tsang!”

“Tsang!” said his wife, leading him aside, “do you know that was a very bad dream?”

“Boil your rice, Tsi, boil your rice! How can dreams affect the stringed puppets of Fate, squawking and crowing, thising and thating, squeaking out our long or short verse until Fate gets weary and snaps the string. Bah! What have we to do with this inane performance? Go pluck your fowl.”

“I know, Tsang, but I tell you that was a bad dream, a very bad dream, and nothing good will come of it.”

“You are always dreaming.”

“Yes, and——”

“What! those lice-familiar bonzes.”

“They told——”

“Bah!”

“Women’s tears are peculiarly like rain from heaven. Every so often in the strange azure of their being are gathered fleeting rifts of storm clouds, and when these are full swoln and all rays of sunshine hid, it takes but a small clap of thunder to bring on a storm, while a world of prayer and beseechment cannot stop its flood or drizzle—as the storm may be—until self-exhausted, then one word and, like the formula of God, there is light.”

“To-morrow,” said the Breton, “I will send Tsang to see if we can go away.”

“Will you?” Again her lips, upturned, quivered with joy, and her eyes, smiling through tears, shone like stars through mists.

“Tsi,” she cried, rising and clapping her hands, “we are going away from this dreadful place.”

“That dream may turn out all right after all,” answered Tsi, “but——”

“Oh, dreams are nothing,” interrupted the wife with merriment, “unless”—looking mockingly at the Breton—“they are mist clouds of yesterday blown across to-night’s darkened dome, or as Tsang says, ‘contorted images reflected in the river of Life.’ No, Tsi, we should not worry when scholars so wise have spoken,” and she bowed roguishly to the Breton as her laughter, charming and tender, fell gratefully upon their ears. So again happiness reigned within the Tomb of Yu Ngao.

The wife, the Breton, and the two peasants were gathered about the fire; the wife was helping Tsi prepare the meal, moving in rhythm to the song she was singing, while the Breton watched her with eyes round and bright.

“Come, rice is ready.” She beckoned imperiously to him, holding out her hand, but as he came to her side she drew up, tossing her head haughtily.

“Sit down!” Then seating herself beside him, she slipped for a fleeting moment one little hand into his.

“No, Tsang,” commented the wife mockingly, “I do not think you will make a good farmer, unless you do as I say. You are too wean-less from Fate. If your rice failed to grow, you would at once allot it to Fate, and on your doorstep smoke your pipe. Now, Tsang, you should inquire into the many reasons that prevent your rice from growing. On this river of yours, you drift and do not try to row.”

“Yes, Your Excellency, that is true. But to contend against Fate or to make rice grow would be to seek disaster. We cannot hasten what Fate has decreed must go slow, or retard that that by Fate is moved speedily. Fast or slow the River moves on, and whether we row with it or against it this boat of ours makes the same landing.”

“Why don’t you change boats, fateful man?”

“How can we, Your Excellency, when we are but luggage to be tossed hither and thither at the will of the Great Boatmaster? Sometimes he throws us into a junk, sometimes into a flower-boat; again we cling to a bit of wood.”

“How ridiculous!” she interrupted gaily. “Life is no such muddy stream; rather it is the expanse of heaven wherein we are birds of passage, and all that great width from horizon to horizon have we to flit in. All the heavens, Tsang, are ours, and we may mingle as we please with exuberant flights or, solitary, seek the reedy marsh. There is no restraint; eastward, westward, upward, or downward, whither we will so we may go. We may rise, singing like a lark to the very floor of heaven, or crouch in a hollow—an owl, but of the plumage of Fate, Tsang, we have our choice. Haven’t we?” and taking hold of the Breton’s ear she pulled his head toward her, looking fondly up into his eyes.

“But I am a good farmer,” said Tsi, gazing compassionately at her husband, “for I was raised in the paddy-fields of Hungshan.”

“On our farm, Tsi, we will not plant any rice, only tea-shrubs or mulberry trees, and among them azaleas and bushy camelias, where the chickens can hide their nests. How I love to hunt eggs and tend those little fuzzy chickens when they go peek, peek——”

“Listen!” said Tsi, springing to her feet.

They listened, and presently from some distant cave came a murmuring rumble.

“Tsang!”

“Sit down! What comes, comes, and that is the end of it.”

The Breton, on hearing these sounds, looked at the wife, paled, but did not move. Presently the rumble grew more distinct, and the Breton, without a word, left the chamber by the small hole in the end.

It was some time before he returned, and when he came into the circle of light a cry rang from the lips of the wife and, throwing herself on his breast, she clasped her arms about his neck.

Those few moments had altered the Breton. His face was stony and life seemed to have gone from him. When he spoke his tones were less speech than gloomy reverberations.

“They have found us.”

Tsang came up to him, holding in his hands a huge, double-edged sword of the Mings.

“Fate has overtaken me at last,” he commented contentedly. “Thus it ever is. It hauls men out of bed as well as devouring them on fields of battle. Who can hope to escape by panting up into lofty towers or sneaking into the earth’s rumbling guts? Bah! But I can save you and get vengeance for their stealing my house. This is a Ming sword. As they come through that narrow hole I will cut their heads off one by one. You can get out. I will give myself up to the magistrate and tell him that more than fourteen days ago you went down the Si Kiang into Tong King; you can go to Pakhoi then get a junk for Singapore. Let my wife get the babies and take them all with you.”

The Breton made no reply.

“Her Excellency?” the voice of Tsang pleaded.

He hesitated.

The wife unclasped her arms and, turning to Tsang, pointed into the darkened recesses.

“Go!” she faltered.

Stumbling, reluctant, the two peasants went into the darkness, then looking up into the Breton’s face she again put her little hands upon his breast. For a moment she wavered, then her eyes closed and softly as a flower whose stem is severed, she sank to the floor.

The Breton fell on his knees beside her and lifting her head to his breast brokenly endeavoured to coax back that consciousness which had left him alone in the depths of earth and dismay.

In the outer caverns the rumbling noises grew louder.

The fire smouldered though, and the red glow of the dying embers still lighted the two still forms.

One by one the embers darkened.

Suddenly a priest, followed by others, burst into the cavern and in a moment it was filled with their red-glaring torches.

The Breton did not move nor raise his head.

Holding their flaming knots overhead, the priests surrounded the two motionless figures on the cavern’s floor, but as they looked their clangour and jibes grew still, for that silencer, Grief, was amongst them.

Presently one of them stepped from out of the circle and rested his hand on the Breton’s shoulder.

“Come.”