Wang the Ninth Part 15

He knew that there was nothing to fear from the driver of the last string. He was at least twenty yards ahead with seven swaying animals in between; and with his heart certainly quaking from fear of the soldiers.

It was only these he had to fear. With his eyes feigning sleep he squinted out beneath his eyelashes rocking himself to and fro. Here they were in numbers, in their parti-coloured tunics and their rifles held menacingly, ready for any sort of violence, delighting in violence. The boy thought of the white-bearded beggar lying dead on the sands with the ants beginning already to crawl over him, and closed his eyes completely, as if he were really sleeping.

He heard their rough talk. He heard one man call attention to the last tortoise-egg on the last camel; but no one actually molested him.

Clankety-clank went the camels. The stone-bridge was far behind before he dared move even so much as an eyelash. Then at last he boldly looked behind. They were turning a corner--safe. Here the narrow street was absolutely deserted. No soldiers. He slipped to the ground like a flash and disappeared into a twisting lane.

CHAPTER XIX

He knew this part of the outer city very accurately; for the great grain markets were here, and the farriers and the horse-doctors cl.u.s.tered thick where thousands of draft animals were daily at work in times of peace. In days gone by he had often come to have his master's ponies cupped or otherwise medicated by these men whose science was mainly a h.o.a.ry tradition handed down from father to son, and who yet had a wonderful if empirical knowledge of all animals and their ailments.

He had greatly loved these excursions which had sometimes consumed the best part of a day. Violent discussions always accompanied every case which called for treatment; for the grooms considered that their reputations would be imperilled if they did not cavil at every diagnosis. Although they treated the aged horse-doctors with respect, they wished to show that they, too, had knowledge. Sallies of wit, which attracted half the idlers in the street, made these disputations memorable things: every one gave tongue to what was in them and the talk was endless.

How changed it had all become! There was not a soul abroad and of all the thousands of animals there was not a single team to be seen. Every door was closed, every caravanserai shuttered. Commerce had been frightened away, killed by the fear of bullets. On went the boy yawning and feeling hungry and tired and thirsty, and increasingly alarmed by the dead silence. There was not even a drop of water to drink--nothing.

The very street watering-troughs were dry; all the buckets had been removed from the common wells. Not a drop of water for man or beast.

What a condition!

The more he thought of it the more consumed he was by thirst. But as a horse in the desert infallibly makes for water, so now he made his made his way towards certain fields. He had often noted how melons grew in patches almost alongside the trading city, cut off from the roadway by low mud walls. A longing for the big, luscious water-melons, which he had not tasted that year, became so overwhelming that he could hardly wait. He ran on, thinking only of this one thing, no longer caring whether he was seen or not. At last he saw green ahead. There were the fields and the fruit gardens.

A dog ran and barked furiously at him as he boldly jumped over a low mud boundary wall, but he threw a clod of earth at it and drove it off. He ran through some buckwheat standing almost man-high, crus.h.i.+ng down the growing grain and wondering whether this year they had forgotten to plant the melons. No--here were the melon-patches, great quant.i.ties of the succulent gourds lying ripe on the ground, each on its own little bed of straw. With the skill of the country-boy he picked out the biggest and ripest one there was; broke it open with two or three savage stamps of his foot; and then sat down indifferent to everything so as to enjoy it.

Oh, the good red fruit! He completely devoured the whole melon in less than fifteen minutes, eating right down to the rind and not wasting a particle. Then as he sat with his face and bared chest bathed in the juice, he wondered whether he could attempt another. Lazily reclining on the ground among the fragments of his feast, he debated the problem idly as he looked at his swollen paunch. But finally he made up his mind that he had eaten to the uttermost limit of man. Now reluctantly he rose to his feet and determined to resume his journey.

As he scrambled over the mud wall he suddenly remembered that he might have been seen by a watcher of crops; and for a full five minutes he studied every inch of the ground within eye-sight. Crouching down beside the mud wall he picked out each little watch-tower unerringly.

Communities living wholly by agriculture, and knowing nothing else, invariably look upon their fields as something sacred. So it happened here that all over the land, as the grain and fruit ripen, watch-towers of matting and poles are run up by the agricultural population. With ancient matchlocks in their hands, which they sometimes discharge to warn off trespa.s.sers, men sit in these watching day and night. The boy knew these things as well as he knew the shape of his hands; for they were as much a part of his world as street lighting and railways and other manifold inventions are in the West. Where now were the watchers of crops?

There were apparently none. Overcome with curiosity, very deliberately he made his way to the nearest tower; walked right under it, and peered up. Empty! He pa.s.sed a second; it was the same thing. When he found that all were deserted and that the standing grain and ripe fruit was looking after itself he shook his head dolefully. There was on his face the pessimism only possible in a race of cultivators four thousand years old.

"This is a bad business," he murmured aloud. "The end has indeed come--"

Nothing that had occurred since he had been lowered down the city wall so depressed him. He felt completely abandoned. All the guarantees of life and order were gone. For if it were like this within the limits of the city administration, what must it not be in the open country.... He thought of the many miles he had to traverse and his heart sank.

Still he walked on as quickly as he could. He had a certain goal to attain. He meant to attain it. Frowning to himself he went quicker and quicker.

A low broken gateway at last announced the end of the outer city and the spot where he would pa.s.s into the open country. But the splotch of colour he saw in the shadow of the gate halted him instantly and changed the currents of his thoughts. He forgot all about the fear which had driven a whole population into hiding. His own business had become urgent again.

He stood casting about for a plan to enable him to pa.s.s this last egress safely. He could think of nothing. He had indeed forgotten all about the outer city gate. It had not occurred to him that there would be soldiers here just as there were soldiers at every other vital point.

The low brick wall ahead of him was so eroded by wind and rain that he thought how easy it would be for him to climb it. Still in the broad daylight he dare not make the attempt with guards on the alert.

Walking very slowly, he approached the gateway until he could see who were the men there. They were cavalry. A number of saddled ponies were cropping the scanty gra.s.s whilst their riders lay asleep beside them.

Still some men were awake, for there were the figures in the gateway.

For a long time he watched. n.o.body was pa.s.sing either in or out of the gateway: he did not know what subterfuge to adopt. Then, as he stood there, Heaven sent him a.s.sistance. He suddenly caught sight of a small country-boy, about his own size, with a basket of manure and a manure-rake beside him, asleep behind some bushes. It was instantly plain to him that the boy had followed the troopers for the droppings of their horses. Now he made up his mind, and he approached the boy on the point of his toes. The basket was easy enough to pick up; but the rake was placed securely under the sleeping boy's legs--to prevent just such a catastrophe as was about to occur. w.a.n.g the Ninth, with a skill which a long apprentices.h.i.+p had given him, very gently and insinuatingly braced up the legs inch by inch, and then deftly and swiftly pulled away the rake from under the luckless sleeper who stirred uneasily but did not awake. Now with the stealth of the Indian Scout he tip-toed away. He knew that he was fully armed with a pa.s.sport--that is if the other boy did not awake and give the alarm.

For a hundred yards or so he moved torn with anxiety. Then as no shouts came from behind, he gained confidence. With amazing effrontery as he approached the gateway he commenced singing l.u.s.tily the "Song of the Wine-jug," as if the fresh morning had put music into his heart.

Nonchalantly and easily, he walked up to the hobbled ponies, and manoeuvred round their tails with his rake. Carefully he garnered up all their droppings, singing all the time. Now with the filled basket slung across his shoulder, he made his way into the gateway, searching for more manure as he walked, and even stopping to speak to a soldier.

"These horses are so poorly fed that they are hardly worth my trouble,"

he remarked coa.r.s.ely enough, swinging the laden basket from one shoulder to the other.

The man cursed him for his insolence but he did not molest him. On he went quicker now. He scrambled up a high bank and made his way into the fields. Once hidden from sight he threw the basket and the rake where they could not be found. Then without a thought of the wretched youth he had robbed, and with nothing to enc.u.mber him, he began running as hard as he could.

He was free--utterly free.

CHAPTER XX

Noon found him asleep in the fields of _kaoliang_, that giant millet growing twelve feet high which is so dense that one may become lost in its golden tangle. Utterly worn out, he had crept into this safe hiding-place, and amidst the drone of the countless insects he had dropped on his back, and lost consciousness--a small, un.o.bserved creature on the face of a troubled earth.

Yet in spite of his fatigue his sleep was disturbed. Uneasy dreams made him thrash around and babble confused talk. He again lived through all his experiences of the night before and found no comfort in the success which had crowned his efforts. To escape from the great city in the manner he had done was a feat which should have brought him peace.

Nevertheless as he slept he constantly heard his master's voice chiding him for not showing more haste. The voice was so clear that he understood perfectly everything that was said; and--strangest of all--the three mysterious words which every one had spoken at the last fateful interview, when he had been committed to this enterprise, sounded unendingly in his ears in a great undertone.

Perhaps it was the harsh grinding of the cicadas which brought back the message so insistently as he lay semi-conscious; for the cicadas were singing with all the might which is theirs in the summer months.

Well--he had travelled far and braved many risks--was that not enough?

No--for now his master stood immediately over him, a huge figure full of awe. His red beard bristled as he spoke with the force of his superior judgment; and as the boy watched thunderstruck, the red beard came nearer and nearer in a menacing way until at length he could feel the bristles sticking into his face....

With a startled cry he awoke and threw off some millet stalks which had fallen across him. Now he yawned and shook himself like a dog. He was fully awake but still a little frightened. The vividness of the apparition slowly disappeared like clouds driven along the skies by a high wind. As he sat up and tightened his belt he was suddenly overwhelmed by the great emptiness which oppressed his stomach.

"I haven't eaten for a whole day,--that is apart from the melon," he grumbled, looking down at his thin body, and scratching his arms and hands morosely. "It is possible to die of starvation even with food growing around you."

Now he jumped up, and went rustling through the grain. In a land of poverty--where the struggle for existence is bitter and keen--not to eat is a confession of failure.

There were acres and acres of the same field; and as he threaded his way forward he cursed the owners for their greed in tilling so much land.

But at length the great field ceased; and he came out suddenly on to a rutted roadway and saw in the distance a tumble-down little red building. It was a country shrine. He studied it critically for a long while, and then remembered, from the manner in which three trees grew beside it, having seen it before. It was about twenty _li_--seven miles counted in English--to the southeast of the capital. He had come twenty _li_ since he had left the last city gate.

Rea.s.sured, he went up to the closed doors without further hesitation.

"_Lao-ho-shang_ (old harmonious and esteemed one)," he loudly called, hammering with his fists on the rotting woodwork, "a foodless man is at your gateway. Distribute your goodness. _Lao-ho-shang, lao-ho-shang_, come to your door!"

He repeated his call more and more vigorously; and presently there was the sound of slow footsteps and the gate was cautiously unbarred. But it was only opened an inch or so by a priest who was neither old nor young, and who was clad in a garment of faded saffron edged with black.

The priest eyed him suspiciously for a long time and at last commenced this interrogatory:

"How far have you journeyed?"

"Many miles from the South, many miles indeed."

"And what is your purpose in journeying when all is unsettled?"

"I seek my relatives because my father is dead."

"Where are your relatives?"