Wang the Ninth Part 17

The next time when he awoke it was broad daylight. Full of consternation he jumped up. The sun was well over the horizon line, and hot beams were striking him on the face. Hastily he kicked on his shoes, picked up his bundle and his branch, and started off.

The village of barking dogs grew up on his left, and as he saw a long country-cart draw out of it he was sorely tempted to go into it and buy a cup of tea. But with admirable resolution he resisted the temptation, and trudged steadily on licking his parched lips. At all costs he must not be stopped here--when he had covered just one quarter of the way.

Presently providence willed that he should come to a little stream. He lay on his stomach and drank deep gulps of the refres.h.i.+ng water with thankfulness in his heart. Then, when his thirst was satisfied, he ducked his face in it two or three times, leaving it to dry in the warm air as he walked quickly on.

Twice during the morning he robbed orchards of their fruit, once having to run hard because he was chased by women and boys who cursed him bitterly. But by midday all his Indian corn was gone and he was hungry again. A little disconsolately he lay down to rest, taking off his shoes and his cloth socks, and examining his feet which were chafed, in spite of their hardness, by his steady march.

Now he calculated anew. He was sure he had added forty-five _li_ to the sum total; that made a hundred and five in all. By night he should pa.s.s the half-way point if he hastened. Then with luck two days more should see his journey over. Very seriously, he picked up a tiny twig and felt in his ear to see if the message was still packed tight. Yes.

At three o'clock in spite of the sun's heat he started again. Soon his face was streaming with perspiration and though he stripped off his tunic and walked naked to the waist the water ran down his little brown body in streams. It was so hot that he looked suspiciously at the skies, picking out the signs with a frown; for this was a complication he had not reckoned with. There would be a thunderous downpour within a few hours--a downpour such as only tropical lands know, which puts the water on the roads many feet deep....

In his anxiety he broke suddenly into a jog-trot: it would be quite impossible for him to pa.s.s the night in the open in such circ.u.mstances.

He must somehow seek a safe place.

The sun was sinking fast and the black cloud-ma.s.ses were piling thick when to his surprise to the west, with the sun throwing it into bold relief--a long earth embankment grew up.

"_T'u ch'eng_(a walled city)," he exclaimed, wondering where he had got to. Very slowly and suspiciously he went on, watching for people and trying to make out some indication of a gateway. But there was no one about, and no gateway to be discerned. Moreover, the long earth embankment was covered with gra.s.s.

As he came right under it, he paused to listen like a hunter in the desert. Not a sound. He stopped and picked up pebbles at which he looked with amazement. All the ground under the rampart was littered with them.

What did this mean? Very carefully he scrambled up the incline and peered over with his mouth open. There were fields on the other side just as there were fields on this side. Then a pile of half-burnt timber struck his eyes, and he burst into a laugh at his foolishness.

"The railway!" he exclaimed.

It was even so--he had swerved farther to the North than he had allowed for. This was the destroyed railway--along which the foreign army had advanced. It had been completely destroyed so that there could be no possibility of its ever being used again.

This evidence of the ruthless war which had come and gone made him stand there mute. He was so absorbed that for a number of minutes he did not move, searching with his eyes in every direction for friend or foe. A terrific peal of thunder brought him to, however; and since there was nothing for it, he broke into a jog-trot along the embankment.

A big drop of rain smote him in the face and he went still faster. It would not take long now before the rain came in streams. Vivid blinding flashes of lightning now lit up the piling clouds, and the thunder commenced. There would be ropes of water soon--enough to drown a man.

The embankment was rough under his feet and covered with debris, but he feared to leave it. One foot was bleeding from a sharp piece of iron that had gone clean through his cloth shoe; but he scarcely felt the pain and soon the rain washed it clean. On he ran, bedraggled and beginning to feel cold, but with his indomitable pluck still strong in him. Through the mist of water he saw a thing rise up: it was a tiny brick-house. He was too ignorant of railways to know that it was a linesman's house--or all that remained of.... For him it represented a haven of refuge--if the roof were still intact. He ran on falling several times in his haste and almost blinded by the rain which came down in sheets of water, and deafened by the roar of thunder which was now unending....

At last!

He tumbled through the doorway exhausted and panting. Here was a roof to shelter him. Two men who had taken refuge there, called loudly in their alarm at his sudden apparition. But all he could do was to gasp that he, too, had been surprised by the storm and had come for refuge. Then he flung himself on the ground and lay like an exhausted dog, panting as if his heart would break.

CHAPTER XXII

Presently he felt better and began to take stock of the two other intruders. Though he was as bedraggled and as tired as if he had been ducked in a stream, his wits did not desert him, nor was his caution relaxed.

So far as he could see, they were mere villagers surprised by the storm.

He looked keenly to see some trace of the red girdle, or any of the dread insignia which had brought convulsions to the land--but there was nothing more menacing in each man's belt than a sickle.

"_Ai-ya_," he exclaimed, purposely pretending to s.h.i.+ver from the cold and wet, and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his ugly intelligent face as he studied them.

"Certainly it is a piece of ill-luck to be caught by such weather. What an amount of water! If I had only shown caution I should have stopped an hour ago. Still fortune favoured me when I caught sight of this roof.

Without it, it would be hard to say what would have happened."

The two men grunted but made no other audible response.

Conversation was indeed difficult. Peals of thunder rang out incessantly and the blinding lightning only served to show the torrential downpour which was fast converting the country into a lake. In the oncoming darkness the narrow brick hut seemed gloomy and uninviting; and the sullenness of the two men, crouching as far from the gaping doorway as possible, added to the disheartening nature of the hour.

"I am on my way to rejoin my uncle," resumed the boy still plucky as ever, and determined to profit by this opportunity to acquire information. "I have travelled nearly a hundred _li_ but I lost my way when the storm came on. What is the nearest village?"

"Langfang," said one of the two abruptly.

"Langfang," he echoed, starting up in his excitement in spite of his fatigue. Then, fearful that he had acted his part badly by betraying unaccountable emotion, he sank back again in his semi-rec.u.mbent position against the wall.

Langfang....

He had reached the very spot where the foreign army had been a month before--where a great battle had taken place. His master had described to him how urgent messages had come from here--four in the s.p.a.ce of two days--declaring that the army was advancing as fast as possible--fighting as it advanced and repairing the railway which was being attacked and destroyed by countless levies. But after those messages, there had been a great silence which had lasted so long that a consuming fear had come. Had all been ma.s.sacred? No one knew, no one had been able to discover the slightest hint as to what had happened. That was why he was here; that was why he had been sent out as a folorn hope.

As he thought these thoughts he stole nearer the gaping doorway in spite of the splas.h.i.+ng rain which blew in in great gusts. Now he pretended to be closely studying the prospect. He must find out something further.

"It is lifting a bit to the west," he exclaimed, pointing with a hand to a spot where the inky blackness was indeed giving way to light. "If the wind comes there will be a chance of its ceasing. I estimate the worst is over--the lightning and thunder are certainly less."--He turned.

"Tell me: was there not fighting here last month? It was so rumoured in our locality?"

The man nearest him answered. He seemed to speak reluctantly as of matters which he wished to forget.

"It is so. The foreign devils came along the railway as far as the station which is six _li_ from here. For two days in our village we heard the firing which continued without ceasing even during the night.

Some of our people saw the foreign soldiers on this embankment extending many _li_, with big guns on the trains. It was said that they were sailors from s.h.i.+ps. But great numbers of our regiments surrounded them, and in the end all were killed."

"All were killed--none were left?" cried the boy.

"Who knows!" rejoined the man sullenly as if this talk was increasingly distasteful to him. "So we were told. It was not our business. Some, who ventured near afterwards, picked up weapons in the fields and many cartridges. There were cartridges scattered for many _li_,--baskets and baskets of them were gathered."

"But the dead--what of the dead?"

The man made an angry gesture.

"How could we know? Men armed with swords were camped everywhere and we were afraid. There were men without number. They destroyed the railway; and in the end every piece of iron and timber was carried away so that it could never be restored."

The boy's eyes never moved from the man's face. It was difficult to say whether he believed him or not.

"And now--where is the fighting now--have all the devils been driven into the sea?"

"We have no knowledge," rejoined the other gloomily. "Only we know that everywhere there is still danger. Men in our village were taken forcibly to drive wagons for our soldiers. At any moment it is said the soldiers may return."

The boy pretended to whimper:

"_Ai-ya_," he exclaimed again. "I must travel sixty _li_ further to find my uncle. It is doubly dangerous for me since I do not even know the road to Yangtsun." (He named a point twenty miles farther on.)

"Yangtsun--that was safe yesterday. Two of our men returned, having made their escape from the transport service. They declared that all the soldiers had gone."

"But where--in what direction?"

"It is not known," said the man curtly because the question revived his fears. "It was enough for our fellows to be set free--they did not stop to inquire what their captors might be doing."