The Mandarin’s face was a study. Between fear of consequence, the sure reprisal which would come to him from the Government if his visitors were harmed, and the fear of the greater and more immediate danger from a cause unknown to the visitors, but very accurately guessed, he was in a very painful quandary.
“If the honourable strangers will accept the hospitality of my miserable pigsty,” he said sullenly, “for a few days, at least, I will ensure them safety from the disorderly characters who populate my unsavoury town.”
He reached out for the cup, and the two men followed suit, for they were dismissed.
They made their way to the house to whither Talham had already directed his muleteers. The two men rode back through the bazaar by themselves. There was nothing in the attitude of the people to suggest that they had organised opposition to fear. The scowls and half-muttered implications which greeted them was the usual lot of the Western traveller in that part of the world.
Talham’s keen eyes surveyed the crowd as the horses made their way slowly through the street leading to the western end of the city. He was looking for a familiar face, and presently he found it. Over the heads of the throng he saw a man standing quietly with his back to the entrance of a fruit shop.
Talham tilted his chin ever so slightly, and the man, though seemingly unobservant of his action, repeated the motion.
So far so good. Some of his men were in the city. He had never depended upon the escort. He knew that they would fly at the first hint of danger.
But they were armed with modern weapons, and since it was necessary for his purpose that the various members of his old regiment should be effectively equipped, what easier way of bringing arms into this territory than in the hands of Imperial troops?
He had this in his mind when they reached the little caravanserai which was to be the headquarters of the expedition.
It was a one-roofed dwelling set in the middle of a yard and surrounded by a high wall. The building proper was divided into two parts, the smaller of which Talham directed to be cleaned out (for it was indescribably filthy) and prepared for the lodging of himself and his friend.
He handed the other to the captain of the escort.
It seemed to Tillizinni hardly large enough to accommodate forty men, but then Tillizinni was not so well acquainted with the habits and customs of the Chinese soldiery as was his companion.
“It would take a hundred and forty,” was the cool reply when Tillizinni cast doubt upon its capacity.
They made the little room—it was no more than a stable from their point of view—as comfortable as possible, spreading a carpet unpacked from one of the mules and fixing up a little much-needed ventilation.
The walls were thick, and an inspection of the outer wall which surrounded the courtyard was satisfactory. The place could withhold a siege given a few improvements, and these improvements Talham set himself out to make without further delay.
He sent into the town for workmen, and as soon as day broke he had them knocking out bricks from the wall at regular intervals.
Some news of this must have come to the Mandarin, for he sent a hurried message demanding Talham’s presence.
The tall man rode out along to the Yamen and saw his unwilling host.
“News has come to me,” said the Mandarin without preliminary, “that your honourable self and your honourable friend are engaged in making alterations to the outer wall of the King-Li. Now, such conduct,” he wagged his finger at Talham, “is against my faith. I cannot save-face if it is known that my protection is so unworthy to the honourable foreigners that he must fortify himself against the citizens of this town.”
“Lao-ae,” said Talham earnestly, and he employed his full knowledge of Mandarin Chinese to further his eloquence, “though I am but as the mud under the wheels of your cart, though I am not fitted even to prostrate myself in your presence, yet the Daughter of Heaven thinks so well of me that it would not please me if I caused the great and beautiful lady sorrow by my death. Moreover,” he added, “my love and esteem for you, who are known from one end of the Empire to the other as a just and wise ruler, and one marked out for special promotion to the Governorship of Shu Shung——”
A little gleam came into the Mandarin’s eye at this broad hint, though he might have known that Talham could lie as well as any other man.
“Yet,” the big man went on, “because I have this affection for you, I am terrified lest trouble come upon your nobility through some mischance to my miserable carcase.”
The Mandarin was silent.
The reference to a governorship, the dreams of his life, set him thinking. Presently he said mildly:
“I have talked with your Excellency, and my duty is finished—puh p’a! You have nothing to fear.”
With that he allowed Talham to return to his work of putting the inn into a condition of defence.
Talham had posted two sentries at the gate, and people were only allowed in two at a time.
That there should be a big crowd before the foreigner’s quarters—a crowd of curious, peering, tip-toeing, interested Celestials, goes without saying, for the Chinese are tremendously curious.
Every now and again the officer of the guard would come to Talham, busy with Tillizinni, working out calculations as to distances and depths, with the information that a stranger wished to see him. Talham would walk patiently to the gate, exchange a few words with the man who desired an audience, and, at a nod, the stranger would be allowed to pass.
By the evening of the first day there were occupying the little compound some forty soldiers and some forty-five nondescript Chinamen who had turned up from nowhere in particular, and Talham’s estimate as to the sleeping capacity of the improvised barrack-room proved to be no exaggeration.
He had made one wise provision, and that was that the arms of the escort, including even the sword and revolver of the officer commanding when he was not on duty, should be stacked in a smaller room. In addition, he had all the ammunition which he had brought with him similarly stored. It cramped the small apartment considerably and filled up every available piece of space, but Talham was insistent upon this, though the officer demurred.
In the morning, when the new guard mounted, they took over the rifles of the men who had been on duty on the previous day.
On the third day Talham went out to make an inspection of the problematic Mount Li. He left before daybreak and only halted at the city gates because they were not open at that hour.
He did not return until near sunset, and when he did he was immensely hungry, not having, as he said, eaten since he set forth, save a couple of dubious eggs which he secured at a village en route.
“I am satisfied we are on the right track,” he said, “and I am more satisfied because a farmer in the neighbourhood tells me that some men have been over from Tai-San quite recently exploring the mountain.
“It isn’t a mountain really,” he went on. “As a matter of fact I have a theory that previous to the Emperor’s death, it had no existence at all.”
He described the place.
It lay in the neck or dip of two hills, and, apparently, had been filled up so that the top of the hill should offer an unbroken sky-line to the traveller in the valley beneath.
“There is no doubt at all in my mind,” said Talham emphatically, “that this is the tomb. We have now to find the guarded entrance. You can see the slope of the hills before they were earthed up quite distinctly, and I think I have found the ruins of an old temple half buried near the crest of one of these.”
He read again the Second Emperor’s description.
“That’s it,” he said. “He caused trees and grass to be planted so that it might appear a part of the mountain.”
“But why should he have been brought so far away from the capital?” asked Tillizinni.
“That is a question which we have never satisfactorily settled. You might as well ask,” said the other, “why the Ming Emperors wanted huge stone elephants to indicate the way to their tombs. There is no reason for anything in China, except that if you see a thing for which there is absolutely no excuse, you may be satisfied that that is the excuse!”
“You are almost lucid,” said Tillizinni with a smile.
He himself was enjoying the trip immensely; he found the relaxation which he needed so badly. There was no telephone; nobody brought him tangles of mystery to unravel. He was living amidst actualities, amongst primitive forces, in a land where murder was a commonplace everyday incident, and where the murderers seldom troubled to hide their tracks. He recognised that there was considerable danger to himself and to his companion if the real object of the visit was ever discovered.
Soo would be very active just now; his spies would long since have carried news of the arrival of the “foreign devils.”
It needed no spy, as it happened, for the Mandarin himself, with a keen desire to “save-face” all round, had sent a private courier with many apologies to his powerful rival, and Soo’s agents were active.
The first indication of trouble that Talham had seen, took the shape of a jagged stone which was thrown at him as he passed through the bazaar on an afternoon on his return from one of his expeditions.
That evening he found the soldiers sullen, and he was interviewed by the officer of the guard.
“My insignificant men,” said the officer, “have petitioned me, asking that your Noble Beneficence will restore to them their arms, because they feel afraid and ashamed also, since the common people of the bazaar laugh at them.”
“You may tell your men to go to the devil,” said Talham without finesse.
But an hour later the officer had returned, this time with a fresh grievance.
“My men,” he said boldly, “do not like these strangers sleeping in the same room with them, for they come from another province, and are members of another society.”
“Captain,” said Talham patiently, “if you come to me again with such stories, I will have you beaten on the feet.”
Later, he was to receive private advice from one of these same strangers, that the men had had a meeting and were discussing the advisability of leaving the compound in a body.
This threat took definite shape the next morning, when the officer came yet again in some fear to announce the intention of his men.
“These pigs,” he said humbly, “will leave your Excellency unless their arms are returned.”
“Tell them they may leave,” said Talham cheerfully, “and they will get no arms from me.”
The situation outside the gates was even more serious. A rumour had broken through the bazaar that the foreigners had come to mark out the land for a railway.
The people in this province were fanatics on the question of “fire-horses,” and every hour the feeling grew against the intruders.
Talham suspected the Mandarin of fostering this feeling. Twice when he had called at the Yamen His Excellency had been indisposed and only his “men-shang” was visible. On the occasion of the second visit (he had called in on his way back from one of his trips of exploration) a hostile crowd surrounded his horse, and somebody from the outskirts of the crowd had thrown a stone which narrowly missed his face.
Instantly the big man turned his horse, scattering the people left and right. He had seen the face of the thrower, and reaching down he caught him by the collar of his jacket and galloped with him at full speed through the streets, his prisoner alternately running and stumbling in the powerful grip of his captor.
Talham reached the compound and the gates closed behind him; then he turned his attention to his captive.
“Seize that man,” he said in Chinese, and the guard obeyed the order reluctantly.
Talham dismounted and came to where the man stood.
“Why did you throw stones?” he asked.
“Because you are a ‘foreign devil’ and are going to bring the ‘fire-horses’ across the graves of our ancestors,” said the Chinaman.
“Who told you this?”
“Everybody knows it,” answered the prisoner, emboldened by the fact that he had escaped immediate punishment.
“You are not of this town. Where do you come from?”
The man hesitated.
“I come from Tang Ti,” he said suddenly.
“Oh, liar, and son of a liar!” said Talham. “You come from Tai-pau.”
The man shifted uneasily on his feet.
“Who sent you?” asked Talham. “Let me see his shoulder.”
Again the guard showed some reluctance to obey, and Talham himself stepped forward and tore the blouse of the man from his neck and scrutinised the yellow flesh for the sign of the tell-tale tattoo.
It was there.
“Go back to Lao-ae Soo T’si,” he said, “and tell him that I know who is at the bottom of all this hostility. I speak to you fairly,” he added, “because I see you are a student, and perhaps you are the son of great parents.”
The young man nodded.
“I am the son of a son of a Mandarin,” he said with pride.
Your Chinaman will never deny his parentage if it be sufficiently illustrious.
“Well, then, son of a son of a Mandarin, or son of a son of a gun, whichever you are,” said Talham, “go quickly from this place and take with you as many of your friends as you can find.”
With that he turned the man loose.
That night Talham’s escort deserted in a body, and the big man was jubilant.
“It couldn’t have happened better,” he said. “I was wondering how I could get rid of the beggars.”
Instantly he assembled his own men and armed them. He was satisfied of their loyalty, and distributed ammunition that same night. For some reason the hostility in the bazaar had ceased after that one act of stone-throwing. The escort disappeared from the town as if by magic.
It was not a healthy sign as Talham knew, because armed or disarmed, they were men who carried the Imperial badge upon their breast, and their hurried departure was ominous.
He rode out now to Mount Li with an escort of four of his own men. He thought he had detected the entrance to the tomb.
Half-way down the hill two straight ledges of the rock jutted out. They ran parallel to one another for about twenty yards, and then curved downward into the earth. From a distance they had every appearance of being placed there by nature, but something induced Talham to take a closer view. He made the ascent over the loose rubble and through the stunted bushes which covered the hillside.
He examined them carefully, and in the end he had no doubt whatever that they were placed there by the hand of man.
This would be the entrance, if entrance there were.
He had looked for an opening to the tomb at the foot of the hill. Apparently, it was half-way up that he must seek it.
“I am perfectly sure,” he told Tillizinni that night, “that if we can dig between those two pieces of sculpture, for pieces of sculpture they are, ingeniously carved to represent natural rock, and at the same time to afford some interested person a clue as to the whereabouts of the hill, we shall come upon the famous bronze door which hides the secret of the Emperor’s artificers.
“We shall have to do our digging by night,” he went on; “but I don’t anticipate digging very far. From what I have seen of the entrance to the tomb, it looks as though a few more showers of rain would wash the bronze door into view.”
Preparations were far advanced towards the final examination of the hill, and it was in the afternoon previous to the day on which the attempt was to be made, that a courier came hot-foot from the Yamen summoning Talham to the Mandarin’s presence.
He had not seen the great man for some days, and wondering what was new, and somewhat apprehensive, since it was quite on the cards that Pekin may have sent an Imperial edict prohibiting any further research, he hurried to the Yamen, and was instantly admitted to the presence of the Mandarin, who received him with great geniality.
“A courier has brought a letter for your honourable self from Pekin,” and he picked it up from a little ebony table.
The letter, whatever it was, was enclosed in a large envelope covered with Chinese characters.
Talham opened the outer envelope slowly, dreading the contents. They proved to be two letters, and the first of these was startling enough, for it was addressed to Miss Yvonne Yale, c/o the British Consul, Hoo Sin.
Talham stared. There was no British Consul in Hoo Sin.
With a start he recognised the handwriting as that of Mrs. Yale.
The second was addressed to himself, and was from the same lady. He tore it open quickly and read its contents with a sinking heart. It ran:
“Dear Captain Talham,—
“Yvonne left London yesterday for China to join you. She is travelling by the overland route.
“Naturally, I felt very chary of allowing her to go by herself, but your telegram was so emphatic that I could not deny the dear girl the pleasure which I know she will feel in meeting you.
“I am sure you will telegraph her arrival the moment she gets to Hoo Sin, and that the ladies who have so kindly offered her their hospitality will not be disappointed in my gem! I should be glad if you will thank them for me.”
“My God!” muttered Talham, for he had sent no cablegram to the girl or to her mother.
“The honourable stranger has received bad news,” said the Mandarin.
Talham looked at him thoughtfully. Could he help?
“I have received very bad news,” he said, “with which I will not assail your magnificent ear. Yet I would ask you this. Where is the nearest telegraph town?”
The Mandarin considered.
“There is one at Tai Pan,” he said, looking straightly at the other. “That is the nearest. Otherwise you would have to go to Cho Sin, which is a hundred and fifty li from here.”
“I shall send to Tai Pan,” said Talham, and took his leave with a little ceremony.
All messages that went through Tai Pan would, of course, be seen by Soo. It was Cho Sin or nothing.
He got back to the compound, and found Tillizinni making an inspection of the walls.
“I’ve bad news,” he said, and with remarkable brevity told the contents of the letter.
“The girl has been lured here by Soo,” said Tillizinni; “that’s evident.”
“My God, she may be in Tai Pan now!” said Talham.
“He would have met her at one of the wayside stations on the Trans-Siberian. It’s horrible, Tillizinni, horrible!”
Tillizinni considered.
“One thing is evident,” he said after a while. “Once you have penetrated the tomb of the Emperor you must clear out quick. Why not make the attempt to-night and leave China by way of Tai Pan? You have fifty men. Make a dash upon Soo’s stronghold and take your chance of finding Yvonne there.”
Talham thought for awhile.
“That is one scheme,” he said; “but I think I know a better. I will leave twenty men to defend this place and use this as my base. We’ll go to the tomb to-night.”
Talham could have let the tomb go—but there was nothing to be gained by this. Mount Li was on the way to Tai Pan—the two expeditions could be accomplished in one night. He could reach Tai Pan before the dawn.
Soo would not be prepared for an early morning rush upon his city.
Prudence and interest dictated parallel courses.
Talham had committed to memory the instructions which the dead builders had left, some of which apparently conflicted with those upon the jade bracelet.
He had written down the words engraved upon the bracelet, and now he read them again.
“I am Shun, the son of the great mechanic, Shoo Shun, upon whom the door fell when the Emperor passed. This my father told me before the day, fearing the treachery of the Eunuchs.
“Behold the pelican on the left wall with the bronze neck. Afterwards the spirit steps, afterwards rivers of silver, afterwards door of bronze. Here Emperor… behind a great room filled with most precious treasures.”
“I guess he’s a little wrong in the bronze door part of it,” said Tillizinni. “It’s possible that there were two sets of disloyal mechanics planning to secure the Emperor’s treasure, and made provisions for entering and retiring at the proper moment.”
That afternoon his men left singly and in two’s and three’s, making for the rendezvous, and when night fell, Tillizinni and Talham, both men heavily armed, rode out into the dark streets, and the door of the compound closed behind them.
They had left twenty-three men under a trusted old officer who had been with Talham in the Northern wars, and the remainder of the party were picked up beyond the city walls.
They rode along the mud track which led to Mount Li.
It was eleven o’clock before they debouched from the road and picked a way across the rough, uncultivated land which sloped up to the Emperor’s tomb.
The party dismounted at the foot of the hill and took shelter in a little gully, and six men only accompanied the two Europeans in their climb. These carried spades and picks, a spare one each for Talham and Tillizinni, and the eight men attacked the soft earth with feverish haste.
It was easier work than even Talham had anticipated, and after an hour’s work Tillizinni’s spade struck something hard and metalled.
“It’s the door,” he said exultantly.
He cleared away a space and examined his find with the aid of a pocket lamp.
Here the hill fell sheerly, and it was at the foot of a sharp slope that the top of the door was discovered.
Although the hill fell steeply there seemed to be no place from whence a door might slide down in its grooves to block the entrance of the cave.
This was the only doubt that had been in Talham’s mind, but the explanation suddenly occurred to him.
“I see now,” he said excitedly. “It opens inward on hinges at the top.”
This probably was the case.
They continued digging for half an hour before they reached the foot of the bronze door.
Contrary to his expectations, there was no engraving upon the panel. It was of solid bronze, green with age.
The men scraped carefully away at its foot, and then Talham on one side and Tillizinni on the other, groped for the image between the two stones. It was a long time before Talham discovered his, but Tillizinni’s was soon revealed. It had deteriorated until it was little more than the thickness of a curtain ring.
Tillizinni looked at it closely. It had been shaped crudely by these old dishonest artisans, and even now its extemporised character was revealed in the imperfection of the circle.
“Got it!” he heard Talham grunt.
“Does it give at all?”
“Yes,” said the other, “but, gently! It is any odds on the connection being rotten with age.”
“Now!” said Tillizinni. “Are you ready? Now!”
He put a gentle strain upon the ring, and it gave, ever so little.
He was afraid to put his full strength upon it for fear it broke away in his hand.
“Again,” said Talham’s voice.
Tillizinni pulled gently. Suddenly, without a warning, there was a horrible squeak, which it seemed could be heard for miles, and the great door sunk as if the earth had swallowed it up, and the big black entrance of the cave was revealed.
From here on, they must depend upon their own exertions. The Chinamen declined civilly enough to assist any further. So far they had acted in accordance with their tenets. Beyond that they might not go.
Talham understood and dismissed them, telling them to wait at the bottom of the hill.
He flashed an electric torch about the entrance of the cave. It was a large spacious place carved out of a solid rock. At intervals around its grim walls were placed huge statues in fantastic shapes, extending from the dim roof to its polished floor.
Talham looked at them without awe.
He felt something about his feet, and flashed the light down. He was treading on a little heap of bones. Further examination revealed a dozen more such pitiful relics of the long-dead artisans who had perished that they might not reveal the secret of the Emperor’s tomb.
For two thousand years they had laid thus, through all the centuries pregnant with progress and with world-shaking events; as they had fallen in death so they remained.
Talham was a curious mixture of the sentimental and the practical.
The practical side of him brushed the relics aside with his foot as he walked forward sending the gleam of his light flashing up to the roof.
Yes, there were the two silver lamps; they were black under the tarnish, but the delicacy of the workmanship was apparent.
Reaching up his hand, Talham could just clutch the dangle tassel beneath the first lamp.
“Watch that entrance,” he said, and put his lamp upon the black door at the further end of the vault.
He pulled and a chain gave slowly. Then, with a swift rush, the door before him opened in the middle and parted. As it did, from the interior of the inner chamber came a loud crash, something whizzed between the two men, passed through the opening where the bronze door had been, and buried itself in the hillside without.
“Phew!” said Talham, “that crossbow did work after all.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“I trust nothing else unpleasant happens,” he said.
He looked round for the pelican which had been referred to on the bracelet, but could see no sign of any such ornament.
The steps leading down into the inner room were clean and smooth. They were of white marble, save in the centre was what appeared to be a carpet. On closer inspection this proved to be “treads” of jade, two feet wide and exactly in the centre of the stairway.
“Those are the spirit steps,” said Talham. “You had better keep to them.”
“What are spirit steps?” asked Tillizinni in astonishment.
“It’s an old Chinese idea, and you’ll find it in a good many temples,” replied Talham briefly. “It is popularly supposed to be the steps up and down which the spirits of the departed pass to their devotions, and is never under any circumstances used by mortals.”
“For a moment,” he said with a facetiousness which seemed to Tillizinni to be entirely out of place, “we will regard ourselves as disembodied and keep to the spirit steps.”
He walked down gingerly. Half way to the bottom were two little niches on which stood carved representations of two of the earlier Chinese deities. He stopped and looked at them thoughtfully. Then, leaning over, he lifted one down. It was a tremendous weight, and he staggered under it, but Talham was curious to see the result of his experiment.
He placed the statue upon one of the white marble steps which ran down at either side of him. For a moment nothing happened, and then the stairs opened under it and it disappeared.
In a second came the tinkle of smashing steel.
“I thought so,” said Talham. “If we had departed from the spirit steps, we should have fallen into a most unpleasant mess.”
He watched the yawning hole where the steps had been. Three had disappeared.
In a few seconds they came slowly back and jarred themselves back into their place.
“They are balanced on an arm below,” explained Tillizinni. “I saw something of that sort in Burma years ago.”
He led the way down, and so they came to the inner chamber.
“Look!” gasped Talham, and well might he be astonished, for as they put their foot upon the lower stairs the whole of the inner chamber was flooded with soft light.
It came from the cornices in the roof and was reflected down from the glittering blue firmament of an artificial heaven.
“It’s electric!” said Talham in a whisper. “I never dreamt of this.”
Whilst they stood upon the steps the light continued. When they took a step forward it went out. They returned to the lower step and the room was again illuminated.
“It was from this step, you may be sure, that the Second Emperor took his last view of his father,” said Tillizinni. “There is your river.”
They looked down in silent wonderment. There at their feet was China—China as it was known to the ancients, with little townships cunningly modelled, and the ever-moving river flowed from hill to sea. So it had been flowing for two thousand years.
“Stand on the step,” said Talham, “and let me see.”
He stepped down quickly and leant over one of the tiny streams that wandered tortuously through an artificial garden.
“It’s quicksilver all right,” he said.
At the far end of the room was a great block of polished black stone, and upon this rested a stone coffin. The pedestal was reached by three steps, but the steps were indistinguishable. They were covered with rags, and, as it seemed, little pieces of white, glittering wood.
Talham surveyed them reverently. These, then, were the unfortunate creatures of joy, who had gone down to death with their lord.
He made a rapid survey of the great stone room. At either side he saw a square pit, and flashed a light down upon the white gems that still glittered and sparkled in the light.
He was seeking something else, and presently he found it—a little box of jade, upon the roof of which was the faded remnants of an inscription. More to the point, there had been carved on its side, and was as fresh to-day as when it left the carver’s hands, two thousand years before, the words:
“This is the secret of the philosopher.”
He lifted the box and put it under his arm and made his way back to Tillizinni.
“We can’t leave yet,” said the detective, all a-quiver with excitement. He felt he was on the verge of a great discovery. “We must find by what means this room is lighted.”
Then he remembered the urgent business that waited in Tai Pan.
“Perhaps we can come back,” he said regretfully, for he knew that when they had once passed through the portals they would never again visit the last home of the First Emperor.
Talham led the way upward, and was within twenty feet of the silver door when somebody laughed, and the laugh rang hollowly through the vaulted chamber. He looked up. Before he was conscious of what was happening and before his hand could drop to the pistol at his side, a voice called mockingly:
“You have ample time to complete your investigations, Captain Talham.”
It was the voice of Soo, and it came from the head of the stairs.
Talham and Tillizinni whipped out their revolvers and fired together, and again came the laugh and something more ominous—the rumble of a moving door.
They sprang up the stairs together, but before Talham could swing himself through, the door had closed with a clang and a crash. They were trapped in the house of the dead!
Yvonne Yale was in the little room which overlooked the courtyard of the Governor’s yamen. She sat on the edge of the kang, her hands clasped on her knees, her face tense and pale.
So this was the meaning of it—the meaning of that telegram which had sent her flying across Europe into the barbaric regions of Asia, that had set her down at a little wayside station, where a polite and tidy escort waited to convey her to her lover.
With no knowledge of the language, she had hesitated before accompanying them, and had stood on the platform for half an hour before she at last yielded to the agitated entreaties of the officer in charge of the escort—a man with little English, and who knew that his life depended upon his persuading the beautiful Westerner to accompany him.
Why had not Talham come himself to receive her? The officer-escort had been full of apologies and explanations in his pidgin English. Captain Talham was honourably engaged, also he had honourably hurt his foot digging and could not ride.
He had not sent her a line of welcome, which was strange, but she had come so far, and it was absurd to shrink from the thirty miles journey which she was promised.
A luxurious palanquin, borne upon mules and lined with rose silk, was a tempting conveyance. The bottom of the shaky vehicle was covered with down cushions. That novelty of the silken nest pleased her.
An impassive bystander, watching the departure of the caravan, sidled up on some pretext to where she sat and muttered under his breath “Ko’lien,” shaking his head the while.
She repeated it, “Ko’lien.”
“What does it mean?”
The officer rode by her side and chatted with her in such English as he could master.
It occurred to her, after they had gone some ten li on the road, to ask carelessly the meaning of the words which the strange Chinaman had employed.
“Ko’lien,” repeated the escort with a beaming smile. “He mean makee piecee solly.”
“Makee piecee solly,” she repeated. “So it meant ‘I am sorry for you!’ Why should he be sorry?”
Later she understood, and was sorry enough for herself.
Her destination was farther than thirty miles. They halted that night at a village where rough but reasonable accommodation was provided for her, and Hoo Sin was promised in the morning.
But it was not until the evening of the next day, after hard going, that they passed through the deserted streets of a big city, and turned into a walled courtyard and came to a halt before a handsome building.
She got out of the palanquin, stiff and aching. She was feeling depressed and untidy, and in no mood to meet the man of her choice.
They made it clear to her that she might go to her room, and for this she was grateful.
Again there was no Talham, but the commander of the escort was at pains to explain that possibly her lover would not be in till later, and that he had not expected her arrival so soon.
She was shown to the room which she now occupied, a curious little room filled with Western knick-knacks, and evidently prepared for her. She had made her hurried toilet, and was wondering exactly how she could summon the attendant, when the door opened and a Chinaman walked into the room.
She saw at once that he was of a different class to the men who had escorted her. His garments were of silk and beautifully embroidered; his face was almost aesthetic, his mien lofty and commanding.
“I hope you have everything you want,” he said in perfect English.
She gave a gasp of horror, for she recognised the voice of the man in whose power she had been before.
He smiled genially, reading her thoughts.
“Yes,” he said, smoothing the breast of his silk jacket delicately. “I am Soo T’si, whom your friends ‘bottled up.’ ”
There was something in that expression which had been particularly hateful to the man. His weakness lay in his vanity, perhaps, and the implied reflection upon his inability to evade the English police had rankled.
“Bottled up,” he repeated, as with relish; “and now I think I have you ‘bottled up’ also.”
“You must let me leave here at once,” she said.
“I am sorry that cannot be done,” he replied coolly. “You see, you are not in Hoo Sin. You are in Tai Pan, which is my particular stronghold, and where I hold certain rights which you would describe as feudal. I owe you an apology,” he went on, “for telegraphing to you.”
“Then it was you?” she said.
He nodded.
“I thought you would have guessed that. Hoo Sin is some distance,” he went on, “and I am afraid your lover is pursuing his warlike preparations in blissful ignorance of the fact that some forty li away the lady of his heart is a prisoner in the hands of his worst enemy.”
She made no reply.
What use was there in arguing with this man? Whatever was to happen, no word of hers could move him to pity or to compassion. She must face whatever had to be faced with all the courage which God would give her in her extremity.
Fortunately, Soo did not prolong his visit. He made a few enquiries as to whether she was comfortable, and left her, having first brought into the room a Chinese girl who was to act as her servant.
“I have decided what I shall do with you,” was his parting speech, “and you may be sure it will be something highly entertaining.”
For two long days, where every minute seemed an hour and every hour a year, she was kept prisoner in the little room under the roof of the Yamen. No indignity was offered to her. Her commands, such as did not procure greater freedom of movement, were instantly obeyed. Even her food was cooked in Western style by Soo’s own chef.
They called him Ho-Lao-Ae, “the river Mandarin,” and the name of Soo T’si seemed to be unknown to them. That he was a person of the greatest importance she realised from the fear in which his servants held him.
He had returned from Europe in time to quell a rebellion against his father, a rebellion which had brought about the death of his distinguished parent, and a multiplication of deaths amongst other parents not so distinguished, for Soo punished swiftly and terribly, and the execution ground outside the city walls ran red with blood as the executioner wielded his long, heavy sword.
On the third night of her arrival she was awakened by the Chinese maid, who signalled to her to rise. The girl would have dressed, but the servant snatched the clothes away.
“Puh p’a!” she said. (“You have nothing to fear”.)
It was a conventional assurance, and the girl attached greater significance to the phrase than it deserved.
She was allowed to put on her dressing-gown, and thrust her feet into her slippers, and she followed the beckoning finger through the door.
There was nothing to be gained by resistance as she saw, for in the corridor outside were six men of the Yamen Guard.
With terror in her heart, but with her head erect, she followed the serving-maid through what seemed innumerable corridors until she came to a door before which hung a heavy curtain of orange velvet.
She had no idea as to what was the time. Her own watch had stopped, but from the glimpse of sky she caught as she passed a window, she thought it must be nearly three o’clock in the morning.
The servant pulled aside the portière and knocked timidly on the door, and a voice bade her enter.
Yvonne followed the girl. She was in a larger room than that to which she was accustomed. It was hung around with Chinese embroideries, the floor was of polished wood, and divans, cushions, and little stools formed the only furniture in the place, save for a few carved Buddhas and a huge hanging lamp suspended from the ceiling. It was unlit, the only light in the room being a small lamp placed on the floor within reach of Soo.
He was there alone, but what caught her eye and held her was something which stood in the very centre of the apartment.
It was a huge glass bottle, ten feet in height, and modelled in the shape of a medicine bottle. That, in fact, was the design which Soo had given to his artificers to cast.
The servant left her. The door closed with a click behind the girl, and she was left alone confronting this man with his cruel, smiling lips and his sly eyes.
He was smoking a Chinese pipe and was a model of comfort and self-satisfaction.
“I have sent for you,” he said, “because you represent the last fragment of opposition offered to me in Europe, and I desire that you shall be disposed of with the ceremony which the occasion demands.”
Planted against the bottle’s neck was a light bamboo ladder; inside, dangling from the top, and secured from the outside by a ring fastened to the wall, was another ladder, a ladder of silk.
He saw her wondering eyes surveying this, and smiled.
“When I was in Europe,” he said cheerfully, “there was a phrase employed which interested me more than ordinarily. It was the phrase of ‘bottled up.’ Now, I have never seen any human being so circumstanced.”
He spoke slowly, choosing his words with great deliberation. “And I am particularly anxious that this reproach should be removed. You will mount those steps,” he pointed to the ladder, “and lower yourself gently to the bottom of the bottle. You will notice that there is a down cushion upon which you may sit, and you will probably find it most comfortable.”
“Suppose I refuse?” she said.
He smiled again.
“I think you will not refuse,”—he was very urbane, almost gentle of speech—“but if you do refuse, I will promise you that you shall be glad to have that bottle as a place of refuge.”
He uttered two words sharply. The doors at the farther end of the apartment opened and four men came in naked to the waist—great muscular coolies with scarcely any humanity in their brutalised faces.
“Suppose,” suggested Soo, “suppose, instead of putting you into the bottle and disposing of you as I shall in an especially novel fashion, I find a quicker death for you by handing you to these cattle?”
Her hands went to her face.
“No, no, no!” she shuddered.
At a nod from Soo the men departed.
“Montez!” said Soo mockingly, and she went up the creaking ladder without hesitation.
It said much for the immense size and solidity of the bottle that it did not budge under the strain of her weight. She sat for a moment on the edge of the neck with her feet dangling in the cavity where, in a bottle of ordinary dimensions, the cork would be fixed.
“Go on,” said Soo, and glanced at the door.
She lowered herself with hands that shook down the swaying rope ladder, and came to rest on a cushion below.
She was in the room, but not of it. She saw Soo speaking but did not hear his voice till quite a second later, when it had travelled over the neck of the bottle and down to her. He came across and gave a pull upon the silk ladder and withdrew it flinging it down on the ground, and kicked the bamboo steps away. He spoke again, and his servants removed the only means by which she could escape.
She had to attune her ear to her strange position, and after a while, when she had learnt to ignore the movements of his lips and wait for the words to float down to her, she knew as well as though no solid wall of glass was between them.
He was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, still smoking his pipe. By and by he knocked the pipe out on to a little porcelain tray and devoted the whole of his attention to her.
“You may wonder,” he said, “why I have awakened you at this inconvenient hour to begin a process which is to end your earthly career.”
She made no reply.
“I do not doubt,” he said, “that you expected sooner or later that your lover would learn of your unhappy plight and come hastening across China like a modern knight-errant to your rescue.”
He spread out his hands in deprecation.
“Alas,” he mocked, “your lover is not in a position to assist you, and far less is he in a position to assist himself.”
“What do you mean?” she was startled into asking, and her voice sounded strange in that confined place.
“Alas!” repeated Soo. “He sits in the house of the dead, waiting for death.”
She stared at him in horror.
He picked up another pipe and lit it from the tiny flame in the smoke-box by his side.
“He discovered the secret of the Emperor’s tomb, you will be pleased to learn, and even penetrated its interior. I watched his interesting operations for close on an hour and a half without learning much, for the Emperor’s tomb was known to me, and I might have forestalled him.”
He thought awhile.
“It was better that he should do the work,” he said, “and that I should have no more to do than to take the reward of his industry. I watched him enter, he and his Italian friend, and closed the door behind them. It was very simple, and was a matter of inductive reasoning, for the pulling on one silver lamp would open the door as the pulling on the second silver lamp would close it, since the robbers must find some way of veiling from the outside world the fact that they had been guilty of sacrilege. So it proved. Waiting there in the darkness whilst your friends were exploring the chamber below, I tested the second lamp and found that the door moved slowly. A dozen steps lay between them and liberty and life when I pulled with greater strength, and the door closed upon those inquisitive foreigners—that is all.”
Something in his tone told her that he was speaking the truth. What hope was there now? In her heart of hearts she had depended upon Talham discovering her capture. If he were dead, nothing mattered. If all this man said was true, death could not come too quickly on her.
She sat crouched at the bottom of the bottle, her hands clasping her knees, her face fixed on his.
The end must come slowly if he spoke the truth. Soo was looking above the bottle thoughtfully: his gaze was fixed. She followed the direction of his eyes. From a round hole recently cut in the ceiling suspended a thick silken rope which hung directly over the mouth and came down to within a foot of the neck.
She had seen it before, and thought that it had been placed there to afford her assistance in making her entry into the bottle, whilst the ladder was removed, and still remained.
Soo’s voice came to her soothingly.
“I see you have noticed it. That cord will give you some moments of interesting thought. Above this room is a smaller one, and in that small chamber is a large cage,” he said, “and in that cage is a python. I presume you know what a python is. It is a snake of unusual size, and, in this particular case, unusually hungry. As to the habits of the python I am not well acquainted, but I hope to discover much interesting data from a closer observance than hitherto I have been able to secure.”
He smiled.
She saw the smile almost before she had heard the last words.
“At your leisure”—he inclined his head—“you will clap your hands three times, and my servants, who will be on duty day and night, will release the reptile.”
What did he mean?
She was soon to learn.
“I do not know what are the effects such confinement as yours will have upon you,” he said, “but I rather think that after the end of twenty-four hours you may easily welcome the happy release, even though it be in so unpleasant a form.”
He sat watching her with the drowsy eyes of a man under the influence of some narcotic. The sight of her fascinated him. All that was Oriental in him, all that loved suffering for suffering’s sake, was alive to the possibilities which the situation offered. He had planned this end for her with such elaboration; and now found something wanting—something dramatic, something sudden.
Twenty-four hours was a long time, he might be sleeping when she gave the signal. She might die of fright or of exhaustion—these Western women were particularly fragile. Through the glass walls of her prison she watched the man, saw the curious look in his face, and knew instinctively that the respite he had given her he had already taken away. Something froze within her, her heart almost stopped beating as he raised his hand.
“I do not think I can afford to wait,” he said apologetically.
He did not clap, for there came a slight knock at the door through which she had entered. He turned his frowning face to the portal.
“Come in!” he said quickly in Chinese.
It might be a message from the Mandarin of Hoo Sin. It might even be an Imperial rescript. The summons was not obeyed, and then he remembered that he had dropped the bar across the entrance. He rose slowly and walked across the room and slipped the lacquered bolt aside.
The sliding doors slipped apart, and Captain Talham stepped into the room, a revolver in each hand.
This the girl saw, and fainted.
Left alone in the darkness of the tomb the two men stood motionless. Tillizinni was the first to realise the awfulness of their position. None knew the secret of the door save themselves.
The men at the foot of the hill, if they were not already destroyed by Soo’s soldiers, would wait til the morning, and then with true Chinese philosophy would report the occurrence to the Mandarin of Hoo Sin.
By that time the two pioneers would be dead.
There was very little air in the chasm, and apparently no inlet. The door itself was almost hermetically sealed; they would exhaust the supply which they had unconsciously brought in with them in less than an hour. Talham was the first to recover himself. He ran up the remainder of the steps until he came to the blank wall of the silver door and carefully examined its face with his lamp. The two edges of the door fitted in a flange, and there was no place where a lever, even if they had possessed one, could have found a purchase. As it happened, they had left all their tools at the bronze door.
“Keep to the spirit steps,” said Talham, “and go down below again. We may find something there. I think you will have plenty of opportunity, at any rate,” he added grimly, “to discover the lighting secret of this place.”
Back they went again to the chamber of the dead. The little quicksilver rivers were running merrily, as they had for two thousand years, and they might run for all eternity until through countless thousands of years the quicksilver became volatised.
There were stacks of ancient arms placed near the stone door, but none of these would be of any use to the men.
They made a diligent search for some other means of exit, but in vain. There was no time to waste in purely scientific exploration.
They had obviated the necessity for one of them standing on the lower step, by lifting thereon one of the heavy irons which stood at the four corners of the pedestal, and this weight was apparently sufficient to keep the light going.
“I’m afraid we’re caught,” said Talham at last, and Tillizinni nodded.
It was a curious end to all his extraordinary adventures, yet if an end could be attractive, surely this was one, to go down in this treasure-house of the past—to go out in the shadow of the great Emperor’s tomb.
A romancer to the finger-tips, Tillizinni found some consolation in the prospect, but Talham was devoid of sentiment.
“It isn’t the death I mind,” he said quietly; “but we ought not to have come, we should have made straight for Yvonne. We know she is in that fiend’s power; how could I have been so mad as to have neglected her for one moment—all the treasures in the world were not worth it.”
On one of the steps he had placed the jade box. He lifted it up and looked at it resentfully, and raising it above his head he sent it crashing down amongst the artificial landscape which covered one half of the floor. The box burst and a roll of parchment fell out.
“Leave it alone,” said Talham roughly, “there is only one thing in the world that counts.”
He did not say what that one thing was, but Tillizinni guessed. Another examination of the chamber offered no better result. At the foot of the bier Tillizinni found a square box, which he prised open without any difficulty. It was filled to the brim with pearls of varying sizes from that of the average pea to pearls as large as pigeons’ eggs.
If only they could make their escape from here the box would represent an enormous fortune.
If Talham despised the secret of the philosopher, here might be some compensation for all his trouble if they made their escape. The chances were very slight, but——
Tillizinni took a handful of the gems, and put them in the loose pocket of his coat. He took another and another, until the pocket bulged.
He made his way back with difficulty to where Talham stood by the lower step. The air was getting foul, and he found a difficulty in breathing; the end would come very soon—the scientist in him told him that.
“Have you found anything?”
Talham did not answer.
He was looking stupidly at one of the two ornaments which flanked the lower steps leading into the death chamber.
“What is it?” asked Tillizinni.
Talham nodded sleepily.
Tillizinni examined the object of his interest a little closer.
It was one of the two huge birds of bronze. It seemed alive as it stood there, balanced on one leg.
“I didn’t notice those before,” said Talham. Neither had the other, a fact easily explained as they stood in the shadow cast by the two great War Gods which towered left and right of the tomb’s entrance.
“I think this is where we go out,” muttered Talham. His heart was beating at a terrific rate; his head was swimming. He was affected sooner than the smaller man, and staggered, and would have fallen but for Tillizinni’s arm.
“You had better sit down,” said Tillizinni quietly.
He would take his own advice later; seated with his back to the wall he would wait for death.
But Talham shook his head; he took a step and swayed, reached out his hand to steady himself, and caught the bronze bird by the neck.
He threw his head back suddenly.
“A pelican,” he said thickly. “A pelican! my God! I didn’t see a pelican——”
There was no other word. He threw all his weight upon the neck of the bronze bird, and it bent down towards him as if working upon an invisible pivot.
There was a rumble at the head of the stairs; a draught of sweet, fresh air rushed down to the men, and Talham fell on his hands and knees and breathed it in greedily.
“So that was it,” he gasped. “Now, Soo, look out for me!” and he went reeling up the stairs like a drunken man, Tillizinni following.
They went out into the starlit night to find their patient men still sitting in the gulley waiting for orders.
Whilst the men were mounting, Talham went back to the tomb alone. He was absent for five minutes.
“Oughtn’t we do something to hide the door?” asked Tillizinni. “There will be an awful row when it is found open.”
Talham turned on his saddle.
“It will be hidden in a minute,” he said.
At that moment there was a dull, muffled roar which set the horses prancing.
“I dynamited the first chamber,” said Talham “That’s the end of the Emperor’s tomb.”
* * * * *
Soo stared blankly at the intruder, but he did not lose his presence of mind.
“Captain Talham, I believe,” he said. “How very interesting!”
He smiled at the stern-faced man before him.
“I had intended coming to-morrow to find your unhappy bodies”—he saw Tillizinni at the entrance and nodded in a friendly way—“and incidentally to help myself to such of the treasures of the great Emperor’s. May he dwell in the seventeenth heaven for a million years”—he bowed his head in mock reverence; “but that one pleasure, at least, is deferred.”
“All your pleasures are deferred,” said Talham sternly. “You will never again discover the tomb of the dead Emperor—neither you nor any other man. The outer chamber has ceased to be.”
Soo lifted his eyebrows.
“Indeed!” he said incredulously.
“I have dynamited the entrance,” said Talham in his thorough way. “That ends the business of the Emperor’s tomb, and——”
Then it was that he saw the bottle. The room was in half darkness as he had entered; only one faint light showed, and this was beside the place where Soo had sat.
The reflection of the light upon the polished face of the glass prevented him from seeing its interior. He took a step forward.
“My God!” he said. “Yvonne!”
He turned and pointed the revolver at the other’s head. His face was white and drawn.
“Damn you!” he said.
“She is not dead—she is alive,” said Soo quickly.
“Alive!” Talham dropped his revolver.
“For the moment, yes,” said Soo, and clasped his hands.
Talham heard the shriek of the girl, saw the wild agony in her face, and realised that this was a signal for some act of treachery. But it was Tillizinni who saw the dangling rope, and heard the rustle of a heavy body moving on the floor above. It was Tillizinni who saw the wedge-shaped head with the cruel, cold eyes peep down through the hole and stretch out its sinuous body towards the rope.
He knew instantly the significance of that dangling cord.
“Quick!” he cried, and threw the whole of his weight against the bottle. It slid over the polished floor a dozen paces.
“Stop him!” said Tillizinni.
Soo was making for the door. He turned when the revolvers were levelled, and lifted his hands.
“There will be no trouble,” he said.
Even in that moment of his deadly peril he did not lose his nerve. He seemed to take a delight in recalling the suavities of his Western veneer.
“I am quite prepared to stand my trial before the Imperial Court for anything I have done,” he said. “In the meantime, will you allow me to summon my men to assist your friend from her distressing position?”
“We will do without the servants,” said Tillizinni. “Get some of those cushions, quick!”
They laid three thicknesses of down cushions before the bottle, the way it would fall.
Then Tillizinni deftly wedged the front and the two men threw their weight on it. It fell over unbroken, and the girl dragged her way out.
“Take her outside,” said Tillizinni, and Talham lifted the half-fainting figure and bore her from the room along the deserted corridors to the little courtyard behind, where his men were waiting.
The Yamen was wrapped in slumber; Soo had given orders that he was not to be disturbed that night, and beyond a watchman who had been at the gate, but who was now no longer in a position to hinder the party, there was none to say them nay.
Tillizinni confronted Soo T’si, and if ever there were two men in the world competent to deal with one another in that extreme crisis, they were those two, who now stood face to face.
Ever and anon, Tillizinni’s eyes would go up to the little round hole in the roof. He had recognised the head the moment he had seen it, and knew that the python was searching for food in the room above, until, in his desperation, he took the more desperate step of descending the rope.
“Soo T’si,” said Tillizinni gently, “you will find it much easier to get into the bottle than, I gather, did Miss Yale.”
“It is possible,” said the Chinaman coolly; “but it is not an experiment that I care to make.”
“It is an experiment,” said Tillizinni in the same tone, “which I shall ask you to make, for if you do not do as I tell you, I shall most certainly shoot you.”
Soo shrugged his shoulders.
“You should have been a Chinaman,” he said.
“I am of the race,” said Tillizinni carefully, “which produced the Borgias, and some of the most refined torturers of the Holy Inquisition. Enter your bottle, my friend!” he said. “I wish to see you bottled up in reality. You will find the place cramped, but you will probably be able to bear the indignity of it much easier than the delicate and refined English lady whom we have just released.”
“I will do anything,” said Soo, “save sacrifice my dignity.”
His eyes followed the other to a little aperture in the roof. The head of the python was hanging down now; his hateful eyes surveyed them.
“I see your idea,” said Soo pleasantly. “I think I know a better way. A Chinaman must ‘save face,’ you know!”
His hands were concealed under his silken jacket. Tillizinni could not see the man searching for the razor-like knife which he carried at his waistband, nor the firm fingers of the suicide feeling for the little place under the heart which, skilfully pierced, brings an easy death. Only he saw the face go suddenly grey.
“Au ’voir,” said Soo in French. “I like this way better.”
He fell in a heap on the ground, and looked up with a smile.
“Pardon—me!” he said, smiling faintly—and died.
So Tillizinni left him, with the head of the python looking hungrily down on the quiet figure below. So Tillizinni thinks of this man now, and often sees him at night—a smiling, fearless figure of a villain.
And when all the lights are lit upon the Embankment, and Tillizinni leans out of his window watching the dark river and the flaming lamps of London, he looks westward and tries to picture Captain Talham a happy, domesticated man in his Surbiton home, with his motor-cars and his race horses and all the good things of life which the Emperor’s pearls had brought to him.
Somehow Tillizinni fails to reconcile those two men. The Talham who held the fort of Hoo Sin against the armed soldiery of Tai Pan come to avenge their lord; the Talham who made the wild flight across China to the link of civilisation which the Siberian railway afforded, with the Talham who now discusses poultry and pigs with such earnestness and volubility.
“For my part,” wrote Tillizinni in his diary, “I would as lief be buried alive in the tomb under Mount Li, as be buried alive in a suburb of London.”
It is, of course, a matter of opinion.
THE END.